The 2012 Queensland state election was held on 24 March 2012 to elect all 89 members of the Legislative Assembly, a unicameral parliament.

The Labor Party (ALP), led by Premier Anna Bligh, was defeated by the opposition Liberal National Party (LNP), led by Campbell Newman in a landslide victory. It is only the sixth time that Queenslanders have ousted a sitting government since 1915. The ALP was attempting to win a ninth consecutive election victory, having won every general election since 1989, despite being out of office between 1996 and 1998. Katter's Australian Party contested its first election. Before the election, it held two seats whose members had been elected as LNP candidates.

Labor suffered one of the worst defeats of a state government since Federation, and the worst defeat of a sitting government in Queensland history. From 51 seats in 2009, it was reduced to only seven seats, suffering a swing of 15.6 percentage points.  The LNP won a majority for the first time in its history, jumping from 34 to 78 seats to win the largest majority government in Queensland history. It was the first outright non-Labor majority since the Queensland Nationals won their last victory in 1986. Katter's Australian Party won two seats, though leader Aidan McLindon lost his own seat.  The remaining two seats were taken by independents.  Newman took office two days after the election.

Historically, Queenslanders have given their governments long tenures in office. The 2012 election marked only the sixth change of government in the state since 1915.

Results

The estimated two-party preferred result was 37.2% for Labor and 62.8% for the LNP, a swing of 13.7% from Labor's result of 2009.

The LNP had been unbackable favourites to win the election.  By the time the writs were issued, they had led opinion polling for over a year, and had been ahead of Labor on all but one Newspoll since 2010.

The LNP swept Labor from power in a massive landslide, taking 78 seats to Labor's seven on a two-party-preferred swing of 13.7 points away from Labor.  The 44-seat loss is double the 22-seat loss suffered by the Nationals in the 1989 election, the previous record for the worst defeat of a sitting government in Queensland history.  The 13.7-percent swing is one of the largest against a sitting state government in Australia since World War II.

In the process, the LNP won many seats considered Labor heartland. It broke Labor's longstanding grip on Brisbane, taking all but three of the city's 40 seats, some on swings of 10 points or more.  By comparison, Labor went into the election holding all but six seats in the capital, which had been its power base for over 20 years. In every election since the "one vote, one value" reforms of the Goss government, Labor had won at least 30 seats in Brisbane. The LNP also won every seat on the Gold Coast while strengthening its hold on its traditional heartlands in provincial and rural Queensland. Ten members of Bligh's cabinet were defeated. Newman won Ashgrove handily, defeating Labor's Kate Jones on a 13-point swing, almost double the 7-point swing he needed to take the seat off Labor.

ABC News called the election for the LNP at 6:48 pm Queensland time, less than an hour after counting began.  Bligh conceded defeat at 8:25 pm, and Newman publicly claimed victory 20 minutes later.

The day after the election, Bligh resigned as premier and Queensland Labor leader.  She also announced she was resigning from parliament on 30 March and retiring from politics, triggering a by-election in her seat of South Brisbane. An hour later, Newman, who at the time did not know that Bligh had resigned, announced that he would be sworn in as premier on 26 March, heading an interim three-man cabinet composed of himself, Seeney and Tim Nicholls.  Although Newman's victory was beyond doubt, counting was still under way in some seats. Bligh handed in her resignation later on the afternoon of 25 March, but remained as caretaker until Newman was sworn in the next day.

Labor was reduced to its smallest presence in the legislature on record, outdoing its previous low in 1974, when it was cut down to a "cricket team" of only 11 members at the height of Joh Bjelke-Petersen's power. Indeed, Michael Madigan of The Courier-Mail wrote that Labor had been reduced to a "water polo squad."

Although Labor came up two seats short of official party status in the legislature, Newman promised that Labor would be "properly resourced as an opposition".

| colspan=7 |* The two-party preferred summary is an estimate by Antony Green using a methodology by Malcolm Mackerras.
|}

Seats changing hands
Labor lost 44 seats, all but one to the LNP. Katter's Australian Party took the other, but lost its leader's seat to the LNP, which also gained three seats formerly held by independents.

Candidates listed in italics did not contest their seat at this election.

1 Aidan McLindon was elected as a member of the LNP in 2009, but he quit the party to form the Queensland Party in 2010, then merged his party with Katter's Australian Party in 2011.
2 Rob Messenger was elected as a member of the LNP in 2009, but quit the party to become an independent in 2010.

Post-election pendulum

Voting method
At the time, Queensland used optional preferential version of the instant-runoff system in single-member electorates. The election was conducted by the Electoral Commission of Queensland, an independent body answerable to Parliament.

Leadership of the Liberal National Party
Campbell Newman was elected leader of the LNP in early 2011 while he was the Lord Mayor of Brisbane. Standard practice calls for an MP from a safe seat to resign so that a newly elected leader can get into parliament via a by-election, though this is not universally followed. However, when Newman won the leadership in 2011, a by-election could not be arranged. For this reason, Jeff Seeney was elected as interim parliamentary leader of the LNP and Leader of the Opposition. Newman led the LNP election team from outside of parliament, often sitting at the galleries, and simultaneously contested the seat of Ashgrove as the LNP candidate.

Date
At the time in Queensland, a parliamentary term was a maximum of three years, measured from the day set for the return of the electoral writs. The previous state election was held on 21 March 2009 to elect the 89 members of the Legislative Assembly.

Section 80 of the Queensland Electoral Act 1992 states that an election must be held on a Saturday; and that the election campaign must run for a minimum of 26 or a maximum of 56 days following the issue of the writs. Five to seven days following the issue of the writs, the electoral roll is closed, which gives voters a final opportunity to enrol or to notify the Electoral Commission of Queensland of any changes in their place of residence.

The Constitution Act Amendment Act 1890 provides that the Legislative Assembly continues for (up to) three years from the day set for the return of writs for the previous election, after which time the Legislative Assembly lapses. The day set for the return of writs for the 2009 election was 20 April 2009. The Electoral Act requires the Governor to issue writs for a general election "not later than 4 days after the day on which the Legislative Assembly is dissolved or expires by the passage of time" (section 78(2)). The last possible day for the next election was therefore a Saturday not more than 56 days beyond four days after the expiry of the Legislative Assembly on 24 April 2012, namely, 16 June 2012.

In choosing 24 March, Bligh made the unusual step of announcing the election date two months prior. Bligh was criticised for selecting a date which required the postponement of local government elections. Bligh has said that date allowed Queenslanders to view the final report of the Commission of Inquiry into the 2010–11 Queensland floods before they vote. Normal practice in Australia is for parliament to be dissolved at the time of the election announcement.  However, Bligh did not formally ask Governor Penelope Wensley to dissolve Parliament until 19 February.  Wensley granted the request, formally beginning the 35-day campaign. By not asking for a dissolution in January, Bligh avoided placing the government in caretaker mode for 25 days.

Key dates

Retiring MPs
The following Members of Parliament stood down at the election:

Labor
 Julie Attwood (Mount Ommaney) – announced 16 January 2012
 Desley Boyle (Cairns) – announced 17 February 2011
 Paul Lucas (Lytton) – announced 15 September 2011
 Carolyn Male (Pine Rivers) – announced 3 February 2012
 John Mickel (Logan) – announced 10 August 2011
 Lindy Nelson-Carr (Mundingburra) – announced 28 March 2011
 Neil Roberts (Nudgee) – announced 12 December 2011
 Stephen Robertson (Stretton) – announced 27 March 2011
 Robert Schwarten (Rockhampton) – announced 17 February 2011
 Judy Spence (Sunnybank) – announced 15 December 2010

LNP
 Mike Horan (Toowoomba South) – announced 26 March 2011

Independent
 Dorothy Pratt (Nanango) – announced 15 April 2011

Contesting parties
A total of six Queensland registered political parties contested the election. The two major parties, the ALP and LNP (each contesting all 89 seats), The Greens (89 seats), Katter's Australian Party (76 seats), Family First (38 seats) and One Nation (6 seats). In addition to the above parties, 43 Independent or non-aligned candidates contested the election. Of the 43 candidates, several contested on behalf of unregistered parties, namely: Socialist Alliance (3 seats), North Queensland Party (3 seats), Queensland Party (2 seats), Democratic Labor Party (1 seat) and Middle Australian Party (1 seat).

Disendorsed candidates
The Liberal National Party disendorsed two candidates for the Gold Coast seat of Broadwater. Richard Townson was caught drink driving with a blood alcohol content of 0.07 when he was in a police random breath test. Cameron Caldwell was disendorsed when he confirmed he had attended a Gold Coast swingers' club.

The Australian Labor Party disendorsed candidate Peter Watson for the seat of Southern Downs and expelled him from the party for making racist and homophobic remarks online.

Katter appeal on ballot papers
On 2 March 2012, Katter's Australian Party sought an injunction in the Supreme Court of Queensland to have more than 2 million ballot papers shredded and reprinted. The party said the Queensland Electoral Commission used the party's abbreviated name, "The Australian Party", instead of its registered name, "Katter's Australian Party (Qld Division)", which the party claimed could confuse voters. Bligh said that her lawyers had advised her to reschedule the election if Katter's challenge succeeded.

On 7 March, Supreme Court Justice Roslyn Atkinson referred the matter to the Queensland Court of Appeal as matters of constitutional law in the case were outside her jurisdiction. The Court of Appeal rejected the constitutional arguments and dismissed the appeal the following day.

Polling

Newspaper endorsements

See also

 Candidates of the 2012 Queensland state election
 Politics of Queensland

References

External links
 Electoral Commission Queensland
 2012 Queensland election – Antony Green ABC
 A map of state electoral divisions in Queensland, courtesy of Courier Mail
 Post-election pendulum: Antony Green ABC
 Queensland State and Local Election Photographs 2012, State Library of Queensland

Elections in Queensland
2012 elections in Australia
2010s in Queensland
March 2012 events in Australia
Landslide victories


Conrad Cichorius (25 May 1863 in Leipzig – 20 January 1932 in Bonn) was a German historian and classical philologist. He is known for publishing a complete survey of the reliefs of Trajan's Column, which still forms the basis of modern scholarship.

From 1882 to 1886 he studied at the universities of Freiburg, Leipzig and Berlin, and in 1895 became an associate professor at Leipzig. Later on, he was a full professor of ancient history at the universities of Breslau (1900–16) and Bonn (1916–28). In 1923/24 he served as university rector. His doctoral students included Vasile Pârvan.

Selected works
 Rom und Mytilene, Teubner, Leipzig 1888

 Die Reliefs des Denkmals von Adamklissi, Leipzig 1897
 Untersuchungen zu Lucilius, Berlin 1908
 Römische Studien. Historisches, Epigraphisches, Literaturgeschichtliches aus vier Jahrhunderten Roms, Leipzig/Berlin 1922

References

Further reading

External links

1863 births
1932 deaths
Writers from Leipzig
20th-century German historians
Academic staff of Leipzig University
Academic staff of the University of Breslau
Academic staff of the University of Bonn
German male non-fiction writers
19th-century German historians


Kai Fischer (born 18 March 1934) is a German film actress. She appeared in more than 50 films between 1955 and 1999.

Selected filmography

 Operation Sleeping Bag (1955)
 The Bath in the Barn (1956)
 Sand, Love and Salt (1957)
 Für zwei Groschen Zärtlichkeit (Call Girls) (1957)
 The Spessart Inn (1958)
 Heart Without Mercy  (1958)
 I Was All His (1958)
 Girls of the Night (1958)
  (1958)
  (1958)
  (1958)
 Girls for the Mambo-Bar (1959)
 Uncle Was a Vampire (1959)
 Freddy and the Melody of the Night (1960)
 The Hellfire Club (1960)
 Too Hot to Handle (1960)
 The Bashful Elephant (1961)
 Escape from East Berlin (1962)
 Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color :  (1963)
 Room 13 (1964)
 Bullets Don't Argue (1964)
  (1966, TV miniseries)
 The Strangler of the Tower (1966)
 Man on the Spying Trapeze (Anónima de asesinos) (1966)
 Maneater of Hydra (1967)
  (1968)
  (1968, TV miniseries)
 Salto Mortale (1969-1972, TV series)
 The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty (1972)
 The Serpent's Egg (1977)
  (1977)
 Derrick - Season 5, Episode 10: "Der Spitzel" (1978)
  (1979)
  (1983)

References

External links

1934 births
Living people
German film actresses
German television actresses
Actresses from Prague
20th-century German actresses


Niuksenitia is an extinct genus of biarmosuchian therapsids from the Late Permian of Russia. It is only known from a partial skull including part of the posterior half of the skull and the palate. Because so little of it is known, it is difficult to determine the closest relatives of this species.

References

Burnetiamorphs
Prehistoric therapsid genera
Lopingian synapsids of Europe
Permian Russia
Fossils of Russia
Fossil taxa described in 1977
Taxa named by Leonid Petrovich Tatarinov


Slater Building may refer to:

 Slater Building (Worcester, Massachusetts), listed on the NRHP in Massachusetts
 Slater Building (La Grande, Oregon), listed on the NRHP in Oregon


Rice production in Vietnam in the Mekong and Red River deltas is important to the food supply in the country and national economy. Vietnam is one of the world's richest agricultural regions and is the second-largest (after Thailand) exporter worldwide and the world's seventh-largest consumer of rice. The Mekong Delta is the heart of the rice-producing region of the country where water, boats, houses and markets coexist to produce a generous harvest of rice. Vietnam's land area of 33 million ha, has three ecosystems that dictate rice culture. These are the southern delta (with its Mekong Delta dominating rice coverage), the northern delta (the tropical monsoon area with cold winters) and the highlands of the north (with upland rice varieties). The most prominent irrigated rice system is the Mekong Delta. Rice is a staple of the national diet and is seen as a "gift from God".

The Mekong River and its tributaries are crucial to rice production in Vietnam. A total of 12 provinces constitute the Mekong Delta, popularly known as the "Rice Bowl" of Vietnam, which contain some 17 million people and 80% of them are engaged in rice cultivation. The delta produced bountiful harvest of about 20 million tons in 2008, about a half of the country's total production. The rice bowl has assured food security to its population whose 75% of daily calories are met by rice, which is also the staple diet of nearly 50% of world's population of 7.4-billion people.

Within the delta system dominated by rice, now the farming system also includes activities related to aquaculture, rearing of animals, cash crops and fruit trees. Under aquaculture fresh and saline water shrimp are raised within the paddy rice fields. As a further environmental zoning of the delta, mangrove forests are also developed.

Geographical setting

In the geographical region of Vietnam which has a total land area of 33 million ha, there are three ecosystems that dictate rice-growing culture. These are: the southern delta that dominates rice coverage which has a warm and humid climate throughout the year with sunshine, the northern delta with tropical monsoon area with cold winters with rainfed and flood prone rice varieties; and highlands of the north which has upland rice varieties; and the percentage distribution of area grown in the three ecosystems are 60, 32 and 8 respectively.

The Mekong Delta formed by the Mekong River, which is Vietnam's rice bowl, is the delta region situated to the south of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). It outfalls into the sea in southern Vietnam and constitutes 12 provinces of the Mekong Delta. Delta is formed by the huge amount of rich and beneficial silt brought in by the Mekong River; this deposit is so large that the shore line is said to extend by  annually. Deltas are formed when a river joins the sea or a lake. The formation is subject to the amount of sediments that are carried by the rivers. As the deltas build up over the years, they get formed in the shape of a triangle and the deposits in this formation are of rich alluvium, which are ideally suited for growing wet rice, as is done now extensively in the Mekong Delta where farmers and fishermen live to pursue their vocation of farming and aqua culture.

The Mekong River rises in the Tibetan plateau. In its total river course of  it encompasses six countries of Southeast Asia. The river initially traverses through Myanmar and then forms the border between Laos and Thailand, then flows through Cambodia (Phnom Penh), enters Vietnam and forms the third largest delta in the world – the Mekong Delta – before debouching into the South China Sea. While flowing through Cambodia, the river splits into two branches, namely the Hậu Giang (meaning: the lower river) and the Tiền Giang (meaning: the upper river); the Hậu Giang River is also known as the Bassac River, which flows to the sea after passing through Châu Đốc (near the river border at Vĩnh Xương and land border at Xa Xia near Hà Tiên), Long Xuyên and Cần Thơ; the Tien Giang, the upper river, meanders through several branches, which gives Mekong the Vietnamese name of "Song Cuu Long", meaning "River of Nine Dragons". Tonlé Sap lake from Cambodia also drains into the river at Phnom Penh – the lake which fills up during high flood stages due to back up flow in the Mekong River during the flood season (hence acts as a flood storage reservoir) and drains down only when the flood recedes. The Deltaic formation with an elevation range of  is a flat landscape of "emerald green, it looks as if it were carpeted in AstroTurf."

The flow in the river varies from a low of /sec in the lean season to a high of /sec, usually during September at the fag end of the flood season. Flood disasters have been frequent in the river causing losses in rice paddy cultivation and also coffee crops apart from other losses to infrastructure and property. Because of the flood conditions in the flat low terrain of the delta, houses are built on stilts and roads are taken over embankments. More frequently, canal systems flowing through the delta are used for transportation and for this purpose they are regularly dredged and made navigable. The Mekong Delta is least prone to catastrophic storms as compared to similar rice growing delta regions such as the Irrawaddy River in Myanmar.

Apart from rice, the delta is also used for commercial fishing (giant catfish is the most popular, known as ‘Mekong catfish’ could grow up to ). Irrawaddy dolphins are found in the higher reaches of the river in Cambodia and Laos. Other aqua fauna found in the river delta are many species of: turtles, water snakes, and insects. The delta is also the source of animal products of pigs, ducks, chickens, and cattle.

Important places of interest in the Mekong Delta are: Vĩnh Long homesteads, Mỹ Tho (gateway to the Mekong Delta, a town founded in 1680 originally by the Chinese refugees, now inhabited by locals practicing vocations of fishing and rice cultivation), and Bến Tre town and canals, Khmer pagodas, Trà Vinh – Mekong's first inhabitants, floating fish farms, Cham villages near the town of Châu Đốc, Phú Quốc island and many more sights.

Legend
Rice is called ‘white gold’ in Vietnam and has a link to the Sanskrit name ‘Dhanya’ (meaning: "the sustainer of the human race"), the name given to Rice in India. In Vietnam, there is a folklore that is narrated on rice. According to the folk legend, in ancient times, rice was not produced but was summoned by fervent prayers by people. Rice would appear from the heaven in the form of a large ball in every house. On one occasion, a lady was sweeping the floor of her house as ordered by her husband to welcome the rice ball. The large rice ball landed in the house when the lady was still sweeping and it hit the broom and then broke into many pieces. Since then people of Vietnam had to work hard with their hands to grow rice.

Rice cultivation probably happened as a creation event between fifteen and eight thousand years ago. During this window rice has been prosperously grown in Vietnam, China, Madagascar, India, East Africa, South Carolina and many other locales. Unknown merchants and sailors likely made this into the rice commodity as it is known today.

History

It is not known exactly when rice growing tribes in Vietnam appeared, but it can be guessed in the middle of the Neolithic period, about 7,000-6,000 years ago. Because at that time there were no livestock or good agricultural tools, prehistoric people had to use human strength and grinding stone tools to overcome nature for production.

Rice growing in Mekong Delta has an ancient history traced to the Khmer regime of the 18th century. It was taken over by the Vietnamese. However, the Cambodians still consider this area as "KamPuchea Krom or Lower Cambodia" not able to forget that they owned this area in the past. Cambodia even attacked Vietnam in 1978 to take control of the Mekong Delta. However, they were decisively defeated. This delta was the last part of the present day Vietnam that was annexed from Cambodia.

Its present status under the Vietnamese is, however, as a very large swathe of green carpet of rice paddy. This development is attributed to the French who colonized Vietnam in the middle of the 19th century with the basic objective of exporting rice grown in the delta to meet its large costs of colonisation. They developed a maze of canal system in the delta to grow three rice crops in a year.

During the World War II when the Japanese occupied Vietnam and exploited the rich delta by exporting rice to their country, it denied nearly several million Vietnamese of their basic staple. While Vietnam was occupied by Japan, the Allies, especially the United States, often bombed roads, making the transport of rice from the south to the north extremely hard. Both France and Japan forcibly hoarded food from farmers to feed their troops, while the French administration was broken and unable to supply and distribute the food. The inadequate food supply caused the famine in Vietnam; starting with 1943, peaking in March–May 1945 and continuing till the end of Pacific war there was unprecedented starvation. Two million Vietnamese people were reported to have died of starvation which was attributed to the Japanese rule which was further compounded by unprecedented floods. In March 1945, Japan overthrew the French colonial administration and sponsored a semi-independent Vietnamese government, the Empire of Vietnam, headed by Trần Trọng Kim. While this government tried to alleviate the suffering, they were unable to make drastic changes because Japan maintained its wartime agricultural policies that reserved rice for military needs.

Rice production stalled in both parts of the divided Vietnam in the 1960s with Vietnam War inflicting great disruptions in acreage. South Vietnam in particular became an importer by 1965 but output did rise in the 1970s.

At the end of the Vietnamese war in 1975, the country faced acute hardships, as under the Communist regime, cooperative farming through communes was established. Communist Party members of the national party, who were at a low rung, were entrusted managerial responsibility for the development of the Mekong delta in South Vietnam. The government also supplied to the farmers seed, fertilizer and other essentials. As this helped the poor farmers, it was popularly called "the iron rice bowl" – this allegory was meant to convey that " no one would get rich by this system, there was a promise that every person would be cared for by the government...a system where no one would fall through the cracks" Thus, all rice growing fields of the delta became the state property; even a ration of  was forced on the people wanting to buy and carry rice from the delta, which was strictly monitored at police check posts. This condition was further aggravated by devastating floods and insect infestation of large fields.

Realising the folly of State Control, the Government of Vietnam, in 1986, allowed the farmers "to grow and sell their rice". Sure enough there was an incentive to the farmers to grow rice in the delta and Vietnam became one of the leading exporters of Rice. Since then many Legal Constructs have been enacted in Vietnam as a part of Wetland Development, of which the most significant is the Land Law (1994) that gave rights to the farmers, which resulted in an accelerated growth of the Mekong Delta and increase in income to the people. Consequently, the delta is intensely populated. The inhabitants of the delta are mostly constituted by the ethnic Vietnamese with Chinese, Khmers and Chams forming the minority groups. The government gave a lease of 50 years to the farmers to own the land and farmers were also allowed to sub-let their land to others. This helped in transferring the lands from the cooperatives to the individual families, and this act of the government has "created a land market."

During 2008, the Vietnam Food Association, had set a target of record production of 36.5 million tonnes of rice. However, during 2010 rice industry is under serious threat due to a heat wave of above  for at least three consecutive months as of March, 2010 indicating a likely drop in rice production.

The Mekong Delta, also categorized as a wetland, has now attracted large investments from both government and private sectors to develop and maintain not only the canal system but also expand the ambit of agricultural development to include aquaculture in conjunction with wetland rice. The delta also "nourishes the cultivation of sugar cane, fruit and coconut."

Production

Rice production in the Mekong delta has seen phenomenal increase in recent years, though in some years drought conditions have impeded this growth. This increase is attributed to planting of modern early maturing rice varieties, better management, appropriate Legal Constructs by the Government. Forty two IRRI researched varieties of rice were released for adoption in the Mekong Delta and according to IRRI sources these varieties cover 60% of the irrigated rice-growing area in the delta.
Area brought under Rice paddy, which was at 4.744 million ha in 1961 increased to 7.305 million ha in 2007. Correspondingly, Rice production in Vietnam which was 8.997 million tonnes in 1961 and 10.29 million tonnes in 1975, gradually increased the next over two decades to 35.567 million tonnes in 2007 – an almost fourfold increase in a period of 46 years from 1961 to 2007.

International cooperation
The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), which is headquartered in the Philippines, has played a very significant role in enhancing the knowledge base of rice farming in Vietnam. Their research efforts have been continually aimed at growing rice faster with higher yields. This has boosted the confidence level of the Vietnamese scientists who hope that their country would one day be the rice producer to feed the world. The IRRI has trained and worked with Vietnamese scientists since 1970. The scientists trained by IRRI now hold key positions in rice research institutions and universities and government organizations; some of the key institutions involved in rice research specific to Vietnam under the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry, Vietnam are: The Cuu Long Delta Rice Research Institute, Institute for Food Crop Research, Institute for Soils and Fertilizers, Institute for Science and Technology, Vietnam Agricultural Sciences and Technology Institute, Southern Institute for Food Crops, Vietnam Agricultural Sciences and Technology Institute and the University of Agriculture and Forestry.
In May 1994, the contribution of the IRRI to Rice development in Vietnam was recognized by the President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam with a Friendship Order of the Vietnam Government with the citation, "in recognition of the Institute's "very efficient contribution".

Apart from introducing several rice varieties of IRR in Vietnam, other assistance provided by the Institute relate to the involvement in the irrigated rice ecosystem to increase their production and income through several measures such as; creating a communication among farmers through a network of pest management on concepts such as "no early insecticide spray" policy as a standard practice in rice production, integrated nutrient management measures, improved water management and financial support from the Australian Government, strengthening the Cuu Long Delta Rice Research Institute with UNDP assistance, and also several research projects undertaken jointly by the IRRI with institutions in Vietnam on hybrid rice, insect infestation, potassium deficiencies in soils affecting yields and rice based farm research.

Research studies have indicated that reclamation of coastal wetlands for growing rice in the tidal zones need to be taken up carefully after assessing the suitability of the soil conditions for levels of salinity and sulfate acids.

Rice varieties

Modern mechanized farming methods and new strains of rice are becoming popular. There are more than 1600 varieties grown in the Mekong Delta.

As rice farming becomes more mechanized, traditional wooden farm tools as well as older strains of rice are also preserved. Among the 1,600-plus varieties of rice grown in the delta, a unique variety is the "floating" rice — its several-foot-long stems keep it above rising floodwaters. However, old rice varieties have their special place. According to an expert of Vietnamese rice-growing region:

Cuisine

Rice is the staple diet of Vietnam. It is often said that all their three meals in a day consists of "rice and something else." If rice is not eaten then anything else eaten is not a meal but a snack. Vietnamese cuisine was influenced by several centuries of foreign rule, starting with the Chinese for over 1000 years from 111 BC followed by the Mongol invasions of Vietnam in the 10th century AD, when the Vietnamese national dish the phở (rice noodle soup) was concocted. This was followed by the Cambodian influence when Indian dishes made inroads into their cuisine and they learnt to blend spices with their dishes. Then the French brought their culinary specialties (particularly, salads and sautéing). In a dining table, in Vietnamese houses, rice is the main dish that is placed at the centre with other dishes arranged around it. The breakfast usually starts with a noodle soup, a rice gruel- the national dish pho – or it could be a "rice cake wrapped in a banana leaf", lunch is normally with rice vermicelli with something else (grilled meat or sea food) and dinner is also generally a repeat of the lunch dishes with rice as the central dish.

There are many types of rice in Vietnam. However the most popular varieties are the usual white rice (eaten during every meal), jasmine rice (moist rice commonly used by the upper class), sweet or sticky rice known as xôi or glutinous rice (steamed rice sweetened and mixed with condiments eaten for breakfast or as a dessert dish) and broken rice, converted to Com Tam by steaming (common in restaurants); each has its own uniqueness.

2010 drought
According to the United Nations Development Programme in Vietnam and Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (Vietnam) the industry was under serious threat in 2010 due to a heat wave of above 35 °C for at least three consecutive months as of March, 2010. This weather phenomenon is attributed to the El Niño effect. The Yunnar region in China which forms the upper region of the river basin has also experienced drought conditions and the reservoirs do not have storages to release even though they are used for non consumptive use of generating hydropower. River levels are extremely low and at least 100,000 hectares of land is under threat, with as high as 500,000–800,000 hectares of rice-producing areas expected, if the drought continues.

Vietnam's rice exports in January and February fell 24.9% in 2010 to an estimated 781,000 tonnes and revenues also dropped 6.8% to $437 million. Rice exports in the first quarter are forecast to fall by between 33–41% to 1.15–1.2 million tonnes. The situation is grim and as Mekong Region Commission, a regional inter-government agency, states "that countries of the region are not as familiar with drought management as with flood preparedness."

References

Bibliography

Agriculture in Vietnam
Vietnam


Helene Glykatzi-Ahrweiler FBA (; ; born 29 August 1926) is a Greek-French academic Byzantinologist. She is also a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for Greece. In the 2008 show Great Greeks, she was named amongst the 100 greatest Greeks of all time.

Biography
She was born in Athens in 1926, to a family of refugees from Asia Minor. She graduated from high school in Athens, and studied "History and Archaeology" in the School of Philosophy in the University of Athens. After working in the Center for Asia Minor Studies, she moved to Paris in 1953 to continue her studies in the École pratique des hautes études where she obtained her doctorates in History and Classics. In 1955, she started working as a researcher in the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), and on 7 November 1958, she married the French Army officer Jacques Ahrweiler. In 1960, she completed her PhD in History from the University of Sorbonne. In 1964, she became the director of CNRS, and two years later, in 1966, she completed her second PhD in Philology. She has been a professor at the Sorbonne, Faculty of Arts in Paris, since 1967.

Helene Glykatzi-Ahrweiler by becoming Deputy Principal between 1970-1973 and Principal of the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne between 1976 and 1981, she did not only became the first woman to hold this post in the 700-year history of Sorbonne but, most importantly, became the first woman in the world to hold the post of a Principal in a world-renowned University. In 1982, French President François Mitterrand named her as Rector of the Academy of Paris and Chancellor of the Universities of Paris, a post she held until 1989. From February 1989 to August 1991, she was president of the Centre Georges Pompidou. She is also the Principal at the University of Europe in Paris, President of the Ethics Committee of the National Centre of Scientific Research in France, President of the European Cultural Centre of Delphi in Greece and Honorary President of the International Committee of Byzantine Studies. French president Jacques Chirac offered her the Medal of the Battalion Commander of the Legion of Honor (one of the highest awards of the French Republic), thus honoring her scientific work and directorship in various French universities as well as at the Cultural Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Throughout her academic career, she also became an Honorary Doctor of various universities in the world, including the ones of London, Belgrade, New York, Nouveau Brunswick, Lima, American University of Paris, Harvard and Haifa. She is also a member of various Academies in Europe as shown in the next section. In 2007, she received the title of Honorary Doctor of the Media Studies Department of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

In 2008 she was named amongst the 100 greatest Greeks of all time.

Honours
She is a corresponding member of the British Academy, the Academy of Athens, the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, and an associated member of the Royal Academy of Belgium. She holds a number of honorary doctorates, and has received numerous decorations from the French government:
 Commander of the Légion d'honneur
 Commander of the Ordre national du Mérite
 Commander of the Ordre des Palmes académiques
 Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres

Some of the titles she has received include: Brigadier of the Legion of Honor in Greece, Golden Cross of the Legion and Brigade of Honor, Golden Cross of the National Brigade of Values, Brigadier of Arts and Education, Golden Cross of the Brigade of the Academic Phoenix, Citizen Medal (France), Highest Brigadier (Mexico), Brigadier of the Brigade of Eagle (Iceland), Brigadier of the National Brigade (Luxemburg), Higher Brigadier of the Brigade of Values (Austria), Brigadier of the Royal Brigade Dannerog (Denmark), Brigadier of Science, Education and Art (Portugal), Brigadier of the Brigade of Values (Italy), honorary medal of the Polish Science Academy and Member of the Order of the International Olympic Committee.

Publications
 Byzance et la mer, 1966
 Études sur les structures administratives et sociales de Byzance, 1971
 L'Idéologie politique de l'empire byzantin, 1975
 Byzance : les pays et les territoires, 1976
 The Making of Europe, 1999
 Les Européens, 2000
 Le Roman d'Athènes, 2004

References

External Links

Sources
 Short Biography at Strabon.org

1926 births
Commandeurs of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques
Fellows of the British Academy
Greek Byzantinists
Greek emigrants to France
Living people
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens alumni
Writers from Athens
Recipients of the Olympic Order
UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors
Academic staff of the University of Paris
Members of the German Academy of Sciences at Berlin
East German women
Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy
Scholars of Byzantine history
Women Byzantinists
Women medievalists
Corresponding Members of the Academy of Athens (modern)
Research directors of the French National Centre for Scientific Research


Giuseppe Bellusci (born 21 August 1989) is an Italian professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for  club Ascoli.

A former Italy under-21 international, Bellusci was nicknamed "The Warrior" by Catania fans.

Club career

Leeds United

2014–15 season
On 12 August 2014, Bellusci signed a one-year loan deal with the option of a permanent deal with English club Leeds United. His debut was delayed due to the Italian bank holiday of Ferragosto on 15 August, leading to international clearance not arriving in time for the following day's fixture against Middlesbrough. On 21 August 2014, the player signed a permanent deal with Leeds United until June 2018, for a fee of around £1.6 million.

On 23 August, Bellusci made his Leeds debut against Watford in a 4–1 defeat at Vicarage Road, with Bellusci giving away a penalty and earning a straight red card on his debut. Bellusci made his home debut at Elland Road on his return from suspension on 30 August against Bolton Wanderers. He scored his first goal in England on 16 September 2014 with a free-kick against Bournemouth in a 3–1 win. On 4 October, Bellusci equalised with a left-footed volley in a 1–1 draw against Sheffield Wednesday.

On 22 December, Bellusci was charged by The FA on an allegation of using racist language towards Norwich City striker Cameron Jerome during the teams' 1–1 draw on 21 October; Bellusci and Leeds United denied the allegations. On 7 February 2015, at an FA hearing, Bellusci was found 'not guilty', as he had threatened Jerome in Italian to give him a black eye, with the word nero being misheard.

On 20 January, Bellusci was given a straight red card when he gave away a penalty against Bournemouth, however pictures showed the foul to be outside the box, Bournemouth striker Yann Kermorgant missed the resulting penalty to earn Leeds a 1–0 victory. The red card was Bellusci's second red card of the season which resulted in an automatic two-match ban.

On 18 April 2015, Bellusci was one of six Massimo Cellino signings (alongside Mirco Antenucci, Marco Silvestri, Souleymane Doukara, Dario Del Fabro, Edgar Çani) who controversially pulled out of the squad with an 'injury' the day before a 2–1 loss against Charlton Athletic.

On 2 May 2015, Bellusci's free-kick against Bournemouth was nominated for Leeds United's goal of the season at the official end of 2014–15 season awards ceremony, but lost out to eventual winner Rudy Austin's volleyed goal against Watford.

2015–16 season
On 2 July 2015, Bellusci's agent Silvio Pagliari revealed that Bellusci and Antenucci would be staying at Leeds and that owner Massimo Cellino said both players were going to be important players for the 2015–16 season.

On 27 September 2015, Bellusci scored an own goal for Leeds in a 3–0 defeat to Middlesbrough at the Riverside. On 7 January 2016, Leeds manager Steve Evans revealed that the club had rejected two bids from overseas sides for Bellusci and that he wanted to keep him at the club.

Bellusci's costly error against Rotherham United led to a red card for goalkeeper Marco Silvestri and resulted in Bellusci playing the rest of the match in goal for Leeds, with Evans' side out of substitutions, Bellusci was also unable to save the resulting penalty in a 2–1 defeat. In the following game, Bellusci gave away an injury time penalty which was converted by Queens Park Rangers player Tjaronn Chery.

After a series of high-profile mistakes throughout the season and unrest with the crowd, Bellusci was dropped from the squad by head coach Steve Evans after walking out of the training ground after learning he was due to be a substitute in the match against Hull City on 23 April. Bellusci also took to Twitter to post statistics as to argue the Leeds defence was more solid with him in the team rather than his other teammates.

Bellusci remained absent from the final three Leeds squads of the 2015–16 season named by Steve Evans.

Loan to Empoli
On 1 July 2016, with Bellusci missing the beginning of pre-season for Leeds United for 'personal reasons', he returned to Italy, joining Serie A side Empoli on loan for the 2016/17 season with the option of a permanent deal. He made his Empoli debut against Udinese on 28 August in a 2–0 defeat. On 12 September, Bellusci scored the winner for Empoli in their Serie A game against Crotone in a 2–1 victory. Empoli were relegated to Serie B with Bellusci playing 33 games for the side.

Return to Leeds
On 6 June 2017, with Leeds United beginning pre-season under new head coach Thomas Christiansen, it was announced that Bellusci was seeking a transfer away from Leeds and would not return to the club for the start of pre-season after being granted extra leave to find a new club. On 5 July, after being unable to find a new club, Bellusci returned to the side and played for Leeds in their first pre-season friendly in a 4–2 win against Harrogate Town.

On 8 July 2017, Bellusci was booed by the travelling Leeds fans in their 5–1 pre-season victory over Guiseley, after being substituted at half time, Bellusci was embroiled in an argument when walking past the Leeds support who were chanting him to leave the club. Bellusci later tweeted "Fortunately in this world we have the children to set an example to the adults!"

After new head coach Thomas Christiansen revealed Bellusci would not be part of his plans, on 18 July 2017, Leeds announced the termination of Bellusci's contract by mutual consent.

Palermo
On 30 July 2017, Bellusci signed for Serie B side Palermo signing a 3-year contract with the club.

Monza
Following Palermo's bankruptcy, on 25 July 2019 he signed a 3-year contract with Monza.

Ascoli
On 4 January 2022, Bellusci was loaned out to Ascoli for six months. He joined them on a permanent deal on 10 July.

International career
On 25 March 2009, he made his debut with the Italy U21 team in a friendly match against Austria. Bellusci played with future Italy internationals such as Mario Balotelli and Andrea Ranocchia during his time with the under-21 team.

Career statistics

Club

Honours
Monza
 Serie C Group A: 2019–20

References

1989 births
Living people
People from Trebisacce
Footballers from the Province of Cosenza
Italian men's footballers
Men's association football defenders
Ascoli Calcio 1898 FC players
Catania FC players
Leeds United F.C. players
Empoli FC players
Palermo FC players
AC Monza players
Serie A players
English Football League players
Serie B players
Serie C players
Italian expatriate men's footballers
Italian expatriate sportspeople in England
Expatriate men's footballers in England
Italy men's youth international footballers
Italy men's under-21 international footballers


John Griffiths may refer to:

Politicians and lawyers
John Griffiths (Welsh politician) (born 1956), Welsh Labour Party politician
John Griffiths (Conservative politician) (born 1953), British local government leader
John Griffiths (Liberal politician) (born 1934), British politician and author
John Calvert Griffiths (born 1931), former Attorney General of Hong Kong and lawyer
John L. Griffiths (1855–1914), Consul General of the United States to Britain
John Jones Griffiths (1839–1901), Welsh educationalist and politician

Sportsmen
John Griffiths (cricketer, born 1863) (1863–?), cricketer
John Griffiths (cricketer, born 1931) (1931–1982), cricketer
Jack Griffiths (1909–1975), English footballer
John Griffiths (footballer, born 1876) (1876–1953), English football wing half (Grimsby Town)
John Griffiths (footballer, born 1951) (born 1951), English football midfielder (Aston Villa, Stockport County)

Others
John Griffiths (Medal of Honor) (1835–?), American Civil War soldier and sailor and Medal of Honor recipient
John Griffiths (shipowner) (1801–1881), Australian colonial shipowner and builder
John Griffiths (academic) (1806–1885), English academic and Warden of Wadham College, Oxford
John Griffiths (artist) (1837–1918), artist who worked in India
John Griffiths (curator) (1952–2010), Welsh museum curator
John Griffiths (mathematician) (1837/8–1916), Welsh mathematician
John Griffiths (musician) (born 1952), Australian vihuelist and musicologist
John F. Griffiths (1926–2003), British and American climatologist
John W. Griffiths (1809–1882), American naval architect
SS John W. Griffiths, a Liberty ship
J. Gwyn Griffiths (1911–2004), Welsh poet, Egyptologist and nationalist political activist
John Griffiths (surgeon) (1754–1822), Surgeon to Queen Charlotte's household
John Griffiths (archdeacon of Llandaff) (1820–1897)
John O. Griffiths (1923–2001), British philatelist
John Fraser Griffiths (died 1971), South African who worked as a British colonial official


Peter Carsten (30 April 1928 – 20 April 2012) was a German actor and film producer. He appeared in 90 films between 1953 and 1999, including in supporting roles, Dark of the Sun  (1968), Hannibal Brooks (1969), Madame Bovary (1969), And God Said to Cain (1970) and Zeppelin (1971).

Selected filmography

 The Immortal Vagabond (1953)
 The Beginning Was Sin (1954) - Marko, Knecht
 08/15 (1954) - Stabsgefreiter Kowalski
 The Song of Kaprun (1955) - Bertl
  (1955) - Stabsgefreiter Kowalski
 The Happy Village (1955) - Gerd Bunje, Müller
  (1955) - Stabsgefreiter Kowalski
 Weil du arm bist, mußt du früher sterben (1956) - Erich Klein
 Fruit in the Neighbour's Garden (1956) - Briefträger
 Nina (1956) - Major Tubaljow
 Like Once Lili Marleen (1956) - Toni Knoll
 Love (1956) - Jan Hopper
 The Story of Anastasia (1956) - Soldat Tschaikowski
 Sand, Love and Salt (1957) - Alberto
 Song of Naples (1957) - Ercole Ercurio
 Scherben bringen Glück (1957) - Toni
 The Devil Strikes at Night (1957) - Mollwitz
 The Wide Blue Road (1957) - Riva, 2nd Coast Guard Officer
 Scampolo (1958) - Cesare
 U 47 – Kapitänleutnant Prien (1958)
 Peter Voss, Thief of Millions (1958) - Willy
 Stalingrad: Dogs, Do You Want to Live Forever? (1959) - Gefreiter Krämer
 Freddy, the Guitar and the Sea (1959) - Jan
 Heiße Ware (1959) - Otto Faber
 Heimat, deine Lieder (1959) - Lastwagenfahrer Klemke
 As the Sea Rages (1959) - Panagos
 Triplets on Board (1959) - Fred Larsen
 Freddy and the Melody of the Night (1960) - Karl Bachmann
 Under Ten Flags (1960) - Lt. Mohr
 Crime Tango (1960) - Boxer-Franz
 Headquarters State Secret (1960) - Otto Panzke
 Mal drunter – mal drüber (1960) - Benno Biller
 When the Heath Is in Bloom (1960) - Klaus
  (1960) - Hauptmann Katers
 Girl from Hong Kong (1961) - Volkert
  (1961) - Bastian
  (1961) - Bastian
 Das Geheimnis der schwarzen Koffer (1962) - Ponko, ein Bettler
 The Legion's Last Patrol (1962) - Barbarossa
  (1963) - Obertgefreiter Blättchen
 Wochentags immer (1963) - Kaiser
 Storm Over Ceylon (1963) - Hermann
 Time of the Innocent (1964, producer)
 The Art of Living (1965, producer)
 13 Days to Die (1965) - Hans Warren
 A Study in Terror (1965) - Max Steiner
 Tender Scoundrel (1966) - Otto Hanz
 The Quiller Memorandum (1966) - Hengel
 My Name Is Pecos (Due once di piombo) (1966) - Steve
 All'ombra delle aquile (1966)
 Da Berlino l'apocalisse (1967) - Günther
 The Vengeance of Fu Manchu (1967) - Kurt
 Heubodengeflüster (1967) - Florian Maderer
 Massacre in the Black Forest (1967)
 Dark of the Sun (1968) - Capt. Henlein
 Hannibal Brooks (1969) - Kurt
 Madame Bovary (1969) - Rudolf Boulanger
 11 Uhr 20 (1970, TV miniseries) - Korska
 And God Said to Cain (1970) - Acombar
 Mafia Connection (1970) - Orlando Lo Presti
 When You're With Me (1970) - Joe Falk
 Mr. Superinvisible (1970) - Pomeranz
 Zeppelin (1971) - Major Tauntler
 Web of the Spider (1971) - Dr. Carmus
 Where the Bullets Fly (1972)
 Hell River (1974) - Col. Henke
 Milano: il clan dei calabresi (1974) - Maraschi
 Devojacki most (1976) - Major Kolbe
 Vrhovi Zelengore (1976) - Oberst
  (1977) - Harald Sommer
 Hajka (1977) - Zandar
 Stici pre svitanja (1978) - Major Kramer
 Moment (1978) - The German from Vrsac
 The Rip-Off (1978) - Van Stratten
 Trener (1978) - Knez
 Devil's Island (1979) - commander of German ship
 Partizanska eskadrila (1979) - General general
 Rad na odredjeno vreme (1980) - Stranger in the hotel
 Variola Vera (1982) - Epidemiologist from the UN
 Twilight Time (1982) - Factory Gateman
 Wallenberg: A Hero's Story (1985, TV film) - Von Fremd
 Donator (1989) - Maj. Siegfried Handke
 Ein Schloß am Wörthersee (1990–1993, TV series) - Casino Director
  (1991)
 Kad mrtvi zapjevaju (1998) - Kurt Müller

References

External links

1928 births
2012 deaths
20th-century German male actors
German male film actors
German film producers
People from Weißenburg in Bayern
Film people from Bavaria


The 1988–1990 North American drought ranks among the worst episodes of drought in the United States.  This multi-year drought began in most areas in 1988 and continued into 1989 and 1990 (in certain areas). The drought caused $60 billion in damage ($  USD) in United States dollars, adjusting for inflation. The drought occasioned some of the worst blowing-dust events since 1977 or the 1930s in many locations in the Midwestern United States, including a protracted dust storm, which closed schools in South Dakota in late February 1988.  During the spring, several weather stations set records for the lowest monthly total precipitation and the longest interval between measurable precipitation, for example, 55 days in a row without precipitation in Milwaukee.  During the summer, two record-setting heatwaves developed, similar to those of 1934 and 1936.  The concurrent heat waves killed 4,800 to 17,000 people in the United States.  During the summer of 1988, the drought led to many wildfires in forested western North America, including the Yellowstone fires of 1988.

At its peak, the drought covered 45% of the United States. That was far less area than the Dust Bowl, which covered 70% of the United States, but the drought of 1988–1990 not only ranks as the costliest drought in United States history, it was one of the costliest natural disasters in United States history. In Canada, drought-related losses added to $1.8 billion (1988 Canadian dollars).

Origin

The western United States experienced a lengthy drought in the late 1980s. Much of California experienced one of its longest droughts ever observed from late 1986 through late 1992.  The situation worsened in 1988 as much of the United States also suffered from severe drought. In California, the six-year drought ended in late 1992 as a significant El Niño event in the Pacific Ocean (and the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in June 1991) most likely caused unusually persistent heavy rains.

Cultivation of marginally arable land, as well as pumping groundwater to near depletion contributed to the damage from this event.

Damage
The drought of 1988 ranked as the worst drought since the Dust Bowl, which had occurred more than 50 years earlier. Damages in the United States (as of 2008, adjusted for inflation) were calculated at between $80 billion and almost $120 billion. The state of Minnesota alone saw $1.2 billion in crop losses. The drought caused devastation comparable to that of Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In Canada, drought-related losses totaled $1.8 billion (in 1988 Canadian dollars).

Following a milder drought in the southeastern United States and California the previous year, the 1988–1989 drought affected the Mid-Atlantic states, the southeastern United States, the midwestern United States, the northern Great Plains, and the western United States.  Heatwaves that accompanied the drought are estimated to have killed over 5,000 Americans as well as livestock across the United States. The drought destroyed crops almost nationwide, lawns went brown, and many cities declared water restrictions. More than four inches (100 mm) of helpful rain was brought to parts of the Midwest in September 1988 by Hurricane Gilbert, which crossed Texas and Oklahoma as a tropical depression, weakening as it moved further north into Missouri, and spreading rain as far as the Great Lakes. In some areas Hurricane Gilbert overcame the drought outright, but other locations were at −6 or lower on the Palmer Drought Severity Index by early autumn 1988 and a general change in the pattern which had maintained for the preceding nine-plus months was required to ease the hydrological impacts of the drought.  The agricultural damage was essentially done by this point, resulting in record prices for commodities.

Wildfires in Yellowstone National Park burned  and altered the landscape significantly. The catastrophic drought continued across the Upper Midwest and northern Great Plains states during 1989, not officially ending until 1990. Dry conditions continued during 1989, affecting Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, parts of Nebraska, Minnesota, Kansas and large portions of Colorado. The drought also affected some parts of Canada.

Beginning in the spring, a persistent wind pattern brought hot dry air into the middle of the continent from the desert southwest, whereas in most years advection of warm and humid air from the Gulf of Mexico is the rule; therefore, despite the extremely high temperatures, elevation of apparent temperature was not as severe as would be the case during the 1995 heat wave.

See also
1980 United States heat wave

References

External links
The Drought of 1988 book in PDF form

20th Century Drought  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Crop Production: Outlook for Post-Drought Recovery During 1989, Briefing report to the chairman, Subcommittee on Agricultural Research and General Legislation, Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, United States Senate
Impact of the Drought on Prices and Production: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Economic Stabilization of the Committee on Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs, House of Representatives, One-hundredth Congress, Second Session, July 6, 1988

Heat waves in Canada
Droughts in the United States
North American Drought, 1988
1988 meteorology
1988 natural disasters
20th-century heat waves
1989 meteorology
1989 natural disasters
North American Drought, 1989
20th-century droughts
1988 in Canada
1989 in Canada
1980s droughts
1990s droughts
North American Drought, 1990
1990 meteorology
1990 natural disasters


The 1. Rödelheimer FC is a German association football club from the Rödelheim district in the city of Frankfurt am Main, Hesse.

History
The 1. RFC was formed as a football club on 12 April 1902 by twelve football enthusiasts in a local pub, the Zum Taunus. The club went through several name changes to eventually revert to its original name after the Second World War.

For most of its history, the club did not rise above the local level and stood in the shadow of Frankfurt's bigger clubs, Eintracht and FSV. It played for one season in the tier-one Kreisliga Nordmain in 1921–22. In 1943, the club, then under the name of VfL Rödelheim, won promotion to the tier-one Gauliga Südwest/Mainhessen.

The club's biggest success to date came in 1948, when it managed to win the Landesliga Hessen, then the second tier of the league system in Southern Germany. The team was promoted to the Oberliga Süd, the highest level of play, where it lasted for only one season, finishing last, before being relegated again, back to the Landesliga. While the low point of the season came with a 0–10 defeat to Kickers Offenbach, another local rival, its last Oberliga game was a 4–1 triumph over 1. FC Nürnberg, in front of 8,000 spectators. All four goals were scored by Hubert Schieth. Another player of the Oberliga team that season was Alfred Pfaff, who would later, as an Eintracht Frankfurt player, be part of the German team that won the 1954 FIFA World Cup.

The club soon found itself back to the lower ranks of football, being relegated from what was now the Amateurliga Hessen in 1951. It did not reappear in any of the top-four divisions of German football after 1963.

In 2007–08, a second-place finish in the Bezirksliga Frankfurt (VII) meant, the club was promoted to what was now the Gruppenliga Frankfurt-West, formerly Bezirksoberliga Frankfurt-West. It held this league level for two seasons but was relegated again in 2010 into what had now become the Kreisoberliga (VIII), where it plays today.

Honours
The club's honours:
 Landesliga Hessen (II)
 Champions: 1947, 1948

Recent seasons
The recent season-by-season performance of the club:

 With the introduction of the Regionalligas in 1994 and the 3. Liga in 2008 as the new third tier, below the 2. Bundesliga, all leagues below dropped one tier. Also in 2008, a large number of football leagues in Hesse were renamed, with the Oberliga Hessen becoming the Hessenliga, the Landesliga becoming the Verbandsliga, the Bezirksoberliga becoming the Gruppenliga and the Bezirksliga becoming the Kreisoberliga.

References

External links
Official team site
Das deutsche Fußball-Archiv historical German domestic league tables

Football clubs in Germany
Football clubs in Frankfurt
Association football clubs established in 1902
1902 establishments in Germany


Graziano Boscacci (born 15 November 1969 in Albosaggia) is an Italian ski mountaineer. His son Michele is also competing in ski mountaineering.

Selected results
 1997:
 1st, Trofeo "Rinaldo Maffeis" (together with Ivan Murada)
 1998:
 3rd, Sellaronda Skimarathon (together with Ivan Murada)
 1999:
 1st, Trofeo "Rinaldo Maffeis" (together with Ivan Murada)
 2nd, Sellaronda Skimarathon (together with Ivan Murada)
 2000:
 7th (and 2nd in "seniors II" ranking), Patrouille des Glaciers ("seniors II" ranking), together with Ivan Murada and Camillo Vescovo
 2001:
 1st, Sellaronda Skimarathon (together with Ivan Murada)
 1st, Tour du Rutor (together with Ivan Murada)
 2002:
 1st, World Championship team race (together with Ivan Murada)
 3rd, Sellaronda Skimarathon (together with Ivan Murada)
 4th, World Championship combination ranking
 2003:
 2nd, Sellaronda Skimarathon (together with Claudio Ruffalini)
 7th, European Championship single race
 2004:
 2nd, World Championship relay race (together with Carlo Battel, Martin Riz and Guido Giacomelli)
 2005:
 2nd, European Championship team race (together with Ivan Murada)
 2006:
 3rd, Adamello Ski Raid (together with Guido Giacomelli and Daniele Pedrini)
 2007:
 3rd, Sellaronda Skimarathon (together with Ivan Murada)
 2008:
 1st, Italian Cup
 2nd, Sellaronda Skimarathon (together with Ivan Murada)
 2011:
 2nd, Sellaronda Skimarathon (together with Daniele Pedrini)

Pierra Menta

 1995: 9th, together with Ivan Murada
 1998: 6th, together with Ivan Murada
 1999: 4th, together with Ivan Murada
 2000: 5th, together with Ivan Murada
 2001: 2nd, together with Ivan Murada
 2002: 1st, together with Ivan Murada
 2003: 5th, together with Ivan Murada
 2004: 5th, together with Ivan Murada
 2005: 4th, together with Ivan Murada
 2006: 7th, together with Ivan Murada

Trofeo Mezzalama

 1999: 3rd, together with Ivan Murada and Luca Negroni
 2001: 1st, together with Ivan Murada and Heinz Blatter
 2003: 5th, together with Ivan Murada and Heinz Blatter
 2007: 5th, together with Ivan Murada and Mirco Mezzanotte
 2009: 4th, together with Ivan Murada and Pietro Lanfranchi

References

External links
 Graziano Boscacci at SkiMountaineering.org
 Boscacci & Murada at PlanetMountain.com

1969 births
Living people
Italian male ski mountaineers
World ski mountaineering champions
Sportspeople from the Province of Sondrio
Skiers from Lombardy


Boscacci is an Italian surname. Notable people with the surname include:

 Graziano Boscacci (born 1969), Italian ski mountaineer
 Leticia Boscacci (born 1985), Argentine volleyball player
 Michele Boscacci (born 1990), Italian ski mountaineer, son of Graziano


The Most Wonderful Moment () is a 1957 Italian drama film directed by Luciano Emmer.

This drama deals with natural childbirth, and was described as "clinically pure, informative, edifying and, on occasion, tenderly dramatic". Pietro is in love with a nurse; they keep their affair secret until she falls pregnant. Worried that marriage will affect his career, she prepares for the upcoming childbirth.

Plot
In the maternity ward of a large Roman hospital, we witness the secret love between the young doctor Pietro Valeri and the nurse Luisa Morelli. Pietro has difficulty in making a career and hesitates to marry Luisa as he does not know what future he could offer her.

The situation seems to get worse when Luisa realizes she is expecting a baby. Pietro, always irresolute, seems to be in favor of a clandestine abortion, a solution that the girl refuses to consider. Luisa leaves the hospital and moves to her former colleague Margherita, who has set up on her own as a midwife. Margherita and Luisa organize pre-baby courses in which a revolutionary method of painless childbirth is developed, a technique learned in the same hospital where they worked.  One of the young women assisted by Margherita is hospitalized in the ward where Pietro works and actually manages to give birth in conditions of relative serenity, transforming what mothers always considered "the worst moment" into the “most beautiful moment”: the episode comforts the doctor, who finally decides to marry Luisa and assist her in her maternity leave.

Cast
 Marcello Mastroianni as Pietro Valeri
 Giovanna Ralli as Luisa Morelli
 Marisa Merlini as Margherita Rosati
 Bice Valori as Carla
 Memmo Carotenuto as Ticket collector
 Ernesto Calindri as Director of clinic
 Riccardo Garrone as Dr. Benvenuti
 Emilio Cigoli as Morelli
 Giuliano Montaldo as Don Grazini
 Sergio Bergonzelli as Mister Mancini
 Vittorio André as Prof. Grimaldi (as Victor André)
 Clara Bindi as Matilde Fontana
 Edda Soligo as Head of home

References

External links

1957 films
1957 drama films
Films scored by Nino Rota
1950s Italian-language films
Italian black-and-white films
Films directed by Luciano Emmer
Films shot in Rome
Films set in Rome
Films with screenplays by Ugo Pirro
Italian drama films
1950s Italian films


{{Infobox person
| name            = Maxine Doyle
| image           = Maxine Doyle NMM1234.jpg
| imagesize       =
| alt             =
| caption         = Maxine Doyle in New Movie Magazine in 1934
| birth_name      =
| birth_date      =
| birth_place     = San Francisco, California, U.S.
| death_date      =
| death_place     = Los Angeles, California, U.S.
| othername       =
| occupation      = Actress
| yearsactive     = 1933-1973
| spouse          = William Witney (m.1938-1973; her death)
| domesticpartner =
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Maxine Doyle (January 1, 1915 — May 7, 1973) was an American film actress who appeared in almost 40 films between 1933 and 1946. Today's audiences may know Maxine Doyle from her appearance in the Leon Errol musical short Service with a Smile (1934), one of the very first films in full Technicolor, recently restored and revived by Warner Bros.

Career
By 1928, the 13-year-old Maxine Doyle was singing on radio station KYA in San Francisco, California. A contemporary newspaper article described her as "the sweetheart of KYA".

She was a featured player at Warner Bros., in such films as Babbitt (1934) with Aline MacMahon and Guy Kibbee, and 6 Day Bike Rider (1934) with Joe E. Brown.

Warners dropped her option after one year, and she began freelancing. She was soon hired to play ingenues at Republic, and met director William Witney while filming the serial film S.O.S. Coast Guard (1937). They married in 1938 and had one child.

She retired from the screen until 1943, when Witney needed an actress to play a minor role in his serial G-Men vs. the Black Dragon. Doyle played a nurse (and received high billing). This reactivated her career, and she continued to play incidental roles in Republic films for the next few years. Her last film was the serial Daughter of Don Q'', released in 1946.

Death
Known privately as Maxine Doyle Witney, she died at age 58 from complications from cancer.

Filmography

References

External links

Maxine Doyle's web page

1915 births
1973 deaths
Actresses from Los Angeles
American film actresses
Deaths from cancer in California
Actresses from San Francisco
Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale)
20th-century American actresses


Soko Grad (, "Falcon Town") is the name of numerous medieval cities and fortresses throughout the Balkan Peninsula.

Serbia
 Soko Grad (Sokobanja), near the spa town of Sokobanja, Serbia
 Soko Grad (Ljubovija), near the town of Ljubovija, Serbia

Bosnia
 Soko Grad (Gračanica), near the town of Gračanica, Bosnia and Herzegovina
 Soko Grad (Šipovo), near the small town of Šipovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
 Soko Grad (Bihać), near the town of Bihać, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Croatia
 Soko fortress (Konavle), above the town of Konavle, Croatia

Моntenegro
 Soko Grad (Piva), near the confluence of rivers Piva and Tara, Montenegro
 Soko Grad (Štitar), above the village of Štitar, Montenegro


Winthrop Smillie Boggs (December 20, 1902 – May 30, 1974) was a philatelist renowned for his expertise and philatelic writing.

Philatelic accomplishments
Boggs wrote a number of the definitive books in philately:

 The Foundations of Philately (1955)
 Ten Decades Ago: 1840-1850, a Study of the Work of Rawdon, Wright, Hatch and Edson of New York City (1949)
 The Postage Stamps and Postal History of Newfoundland (1942)
 The Postage Stamps and Postal History of Canada (1945)

Philatelic leadership
Boggs was a member of the Collectors Club of New York and served the club in a number of capacities. He was the first executive director at the Philatelic Foundation during the period 1945-1961.

Honors
 The Crawford Medal (1947)
 Luff Award for Distinguished Philatelic Research (1952)
 The Lichtenstein Medal (1958)
 Signed the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists (1959)
 Elected to the American Philatelic Society Hall of Fame (1974)

External links
 Profile at the American Philatelic Society Hall of Fame.
 Canada Library and Archives Philatelic Bibliography

1902 births
1974 deaths
American philatelists
Writers from New York City
Philately of Canada
Philatelic authors
American Philatelic Society


Libertas Malta was a political party in Malta set up to contest the 2009 European Parliament elections under a common banner with Libertas.eu. Its only candidate Mary Gauci failed to be elected and the party has been inactive since.

History
Plans of Libertas.eu's leader Declan Ganley to cooperate with the Maltese Azzjoni Nazzjonali (AN) on contesting the 2009 European Parliament elections didn't realize. However, Mary Gauci, AN's former vice-president decided to run under the banner of Libertas.

On 21 March 2009, Ganley announced the establishment of the party Libertas Malta. Mary Gauci, announced as party leader, advanced the issues of democracy, accountability, transparency, subsidiarity, a concise constitution passed by referendums, and illegal immigration.

In the European Parliament election held that year Gauci got only 314 first-preference votes out of 248,169 valid votes cast (i.e. 0.1%).

See also
 Treaty of Lisbon
 List of Libertas list candidates at the 2009 European Parliament elections

References

External links
"Mary Gauci to lead Libertas Malta in EP elections", Malta Independent, 22 March 2009.

Political parties established in 2009
Malta
Defunct political parties in Malta
Eurosceptic parties in Malta
2009 establishments in Malta


The Arboretum de Septmonts, also known as the Parc du Donjon de Septmonts, is a park and arboretum located at the Place de la Mairie, Septmonts, Aisne, Picardy, France. It is open daily without charge.

The arboretum was created in 1998 within the park of a notable medieval keep (donjon), dating from the 14th century, and formerly the country seat of the Bishop of Soissons. It is organized into three areas displaying trees from Europe, America, and Asia; every year new trees are planted by the town's children. The park also contains an apple orchard, vineyard, and herb garden.

See also
 List of botanical gardens in France

References
 Gralon entry (French)
 L'Union article (French)
 CR Picardie description (French)
 L'Echo des Chênaies entry (French)

Septmonts, Arboretum de
Septmonts, Arboretum de


Ernesto Calindri (5 February 1909 – 9 June 1999) was an Italian theater and film actor. He appeared in 40 films between 1938 and 1989. He is often remembered in Italy for a series of TV commercials for a well-known brand of Italian artichoke-based bitter liqueur, Cynar, with the catchphrase "Contro il logorio della vita moderna" ("Assuaging the wear-and-tear of modern life") which showed him sitting at a café table surrounded by traffic drinking and reading the paper in relaxed fashion.

Selected filmography
 Golden Arrow (1935)
 It Always Ends That Way (1939)
 The Children Are Watching Us (1944)
 A Night of Fame (1949)
 Songs in the Streets (1950)
 L'ultimo amante (1955)
 The Most Wonderful Moment (1957)
 Policarpo (1959)

References

External links

1909 births
1999 deaths
Italian male film actors
People from Certaldo
20th-century Italian male actors
Deaths from cerebrovascular disease


CIUR-FM is a Canadian radio station broadcasting at 104.7 FM in Winnipeg, Manitoba with a country format branded as NOW Country 104.7. The station broadcasts from 1507 Inkster Blvd along with sister station CICY-FM, while its transmitter is located on Nassau Avenue in the Roslyn neighbourhood of Winnipeg.

History
In 2008, CIUR-FM was licensed by the CRTC to operate at 104.7 FM.

The station began testing its signal in early 2009, and officially began broadcasting on December 14 of that year. The station launched with a Rhythmic/Urban contemporary format aimed primarily, but not exclusively, at First Nations youth, and was branded as "Streetz 104.7."

On April 7, 2014, CIUR-FM rebranded as Rhythm 104.7, and retained some on-air personalities. The station changed its target demographic from 18–30 to a 25-40 range, with its focus shifting towards a more mainstream rhythmic CHR format. CIUR was the second Rhythmic CHR station in Canada, the other being CFXJ in Toronto.

On July 9, 2016, at midnight, CIUR-FM flipped to country, branded as NOW Country 104.7 FM.

Brands

References

External links
Now Country 104.7 FM
Facebook

Iur
Iur
Radio stations established in 2009
2009 establishments in Manitoba


In mathematics, specifically the area of algebraic number theory, a cubic field is an algebraic number field of degree three.

Definition
If K is a field extension of the rational numbers Q of degree [K:Q] = 3, then K is called a cubic field. Any such field is isomorphic to a field of the form

where f is an irreducible cubic polynomial with coefficients in Q.  If f has three real roots, then K is called a totally real cubic field and it is an example of a totally real field.  If, on the other hand, f has a non-real root, then K is called a complex cubic field.

A cubic field K is called a cyclic cubic field if it contains all three roots of its generating polynomial f. Equivalently, K is a cyclic cubic field if it is a Galois extension of Q, in which case its Galois group over Q is cyclic of order three. This can only happen if K is totally real. It is a rare occurrence in the sense that if the set of cubic fields is ordered by discriminant, then the proportion of cubic fields which are cyclic approaches zero as the bound on the discriminant approaches infinity.

A cubic field is called a pure cubic field if it can be obtained by adjoining the real cube root  of a cube-free positive integer n to the rational number field Q. Such fields are always complex cubic fields since each positive number has two complex non-real cube roots.

Examples
Adjoining the real cube root of 2 to the rational numbers gives the cubic field . This is an example of a pure cubic field, and hence of a complex cubic field. In fact, of all pure cubic fields, it has the smallest discriminant (in absolute value), namely −108.
The complex cubic field obtained by adjoining to Q a root of  is not pure. It has the smallest discriminant (in absolute value) of all cubic fields, namely −23.
Adjoining a root of  to Q yields a cyclic cubic field, and hence a totally real cubic field. It has the smallest discriminant of all totally real cubic fields, namely 49.
The field obtained by adjoining to Q a root of  is an example of a totally real cubic field that is not cyclic. Its discriminant is 148, the smallest discriminant of a non-cyclic totally real cubic field.
No cyclotomic fields are cubic because the degree of a cyclotomic field is equal to φ(n), where φ is Euler's totient function, which only takes on even values except for φ(1) = φ(2) = 1.

Galois closure
A cyclic cubic field K is its own Galois closure with Galois group Gal(K/Q) isomorphic to the cyclic group of order three. However, any other cubic field K is a non-Galois extension of Q and has a field extension N of degree two as its Galois closure. The Galois group Gal(N/Q) is isomorphic to the symmetric group S3 on three letters.

Associated quadratic field
The discriminant of a cubic field K can be written uniquely as df2 where d is a fundamental discriminant. Then, K is cyclic if and only if d = 1, in which case the only subfield of K is Q itself. If d ≠ 1 then the Galois closure N of K contains a unique quadratic field k whose discriminant is d (in the case d = 1, the subfield Q is sometimes considered as the "degenerate" quadratic field of discriminant 1). The conductor of N over k is f, and f2 is the relative discriminant of N over K. The discriminant of N is d3f4.

The field K is a pure cubic field if and only if d = −3. This is the case for which the quadratic field contained in the Galois closure of K is the cyclotomic field of cube roots of unity.

Discriminant

Since the sign of the discriminant of a number field K is (−1)r2, where r2 is the number of conjugate pairs of complex embeddings of K into C, the discriminant of a cubic field will be positive precisely when the field is totally real, and negative if it is a complex cubic field.

Given some real number N > 0 there are only finitely many cubic fields K whose discriminant DK satisfies |DK| ≤ N. Formulae are known which calculate the prime decomposition of DK, and so it can be explicitly calculated.

Unlike quadratic fields, several non-isomorphic cubic fields K1, ..., Km may share the same discriminant D. The number m of these fields is called the multiplicity of the discriminant D. Some small examples are m = 2 for D  = −1836, 3969, m = 3 for D  = −1228, 22356, m  = 4 for D = −3299, 32009, and m = 6 for D = −70956, 3054132.

Any cubic field K will be of the form K = Q(θ) for some number θ that is a root of an irreducible polynomial

where a and b are integers.  The discriminant of f is Δ = 4a3 − 27b2. Denoting the discriminant of K by D, the index i(θ) of θ is then defined by Δ = i(θ)2D.

In the case of a non-cyclic cubic field K this index formula can be combined with the conductor formula D = f2d to obtain a decomposition of the polynomial discriminant Δ = i(θ)2f2d into the square of the product i(θ)f and the discriminant d of the quadratic field k associated with the cubic field K, where d is squarefree up to a possible factor 22 or 23. Georgy Voronoy gave a method for separating i(θ) and f in the square part of Δ.

The study of the number of cubic fields whose discriminant is less than a given bound is a current area of research. Let N+(X) (respectively N−(X)) denote the number of totally real (respectively complex) cubic fields whose discriminant is bounded by X in absolute value. In the early 1970s, Harold Davenport and Hans Heilbronn determined the first term of the asymptotic behaviour of N±(X) (i.e. as X goes to infinity). By means of an analysis of the residue of the Shintani zeta function, combined with a study of the tables of cubic fields compiled by Karim Belabas  and some heuristics, David P. Roberts conjectured a more precise asymptotic formula:

where A± = 1 or 3, B± = 1 or , according to the totally real or complex case, ζ(s) is the Riemann zeta function, and Γ(s) is the Gamma function. Proofs of this formula have been published by  using methods based on Bhargava's earlier work, as well as by  based on the Shintani zeta function.

Unit group
According to Dirichlet's unit theorem, the torsion-free unit rank r of an algebraic number field K with r1 real embeddings and r2 pairs of conjugate complex embeddings is determined by the formula r = r1 + r2 − 1. Hence a totally real cubic field K with r1 = 3, r2 = 0 has two independent units ε1, ε2 and a complex cubic field K with r1 = r2 = 1 has a single fundamental unit ε1. These fundamental systems of units can be calculated by means of generalized continued fraction algorithms by Voronoi, which have been interpreted geometrically by Delone and Faddeev.

Notes

References

Şaban Alaca, Kenneth S. Williams, Introductory algebraic number theory, Cambridge University Press, 2004.

External links

Algebraic number theory
Field (mathematics)


In 2012, coca production in Colombia amounted to 0.2% of Colombia's overall GDP and 3% of Colombia's GDP related to the agricultural sector. The great majority of coca cultivation takes place in the departments of Putumayo, Caquetá, Meta, Guaviare, Nariño, Antioquia, and Vichada.

History
Before the 1990s, harvesting coca leaves had been a relatively small-scale business in Colombia. Though Peru and Bolivia dominated coca-leaf production in the 1980s and early 1990s, manual-eradication campaigns there, the successful rupture of the air bridge that previously facilitated the illegal transport of Bolivian and Peruvian coca leaf to Colombia, and a fungus that wiped out a large percentage of Peru's coca crops made it more difficult for the cartels to obtain coca from these countries.

In response, Colombia's drug cartels purchased land in Colombia to expand local production, pushing coca cultivation into areas of southern Colombia controlled by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Colombia replaced Bolivia and Peru as the primary producer of coca leaf between 1996 and 1997, but fell back behind Peru again in 2012.

With only 14 percent of the global coca-leaf market in 1991, by 2004 Colombia was responsible for 80 percent of the world's cocaine production. One estimate has Colombia's coca cultivation hectarage growing from   in the mid-1980s, to   in 1998, to 99,000 in 2007. The US Department of State estimated in its 2015 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report that the area devoted to coca cultivation remained relatively stable in 2013, increasing only three percent from  in 2012 to   in 2013, with an increase primarily in Norte de Santander, national parks, indigenous reserves, within a 10-kilometer zone along the border with Ecuador where aerial spraying is prohibited, and along the Pacific coast, and it was decreasing in the center of the country. , 2014 production and cultivation estimates were not available.

Another estimate has Colombia's coca cultivation area growing from 40,100 in 1990 to 163,300 in 2000, but dropping to 78,000 in 2007 as a result of government eradication programs.  Overall, any decrease due to eradication has been tempered by an increase in productivity, as estimated coca production grew from 463 metric tons in 2001 to 610 metric tons in 2006. A 2017 UNODC report into the cultivation of illicit crops in Colombia showed that the number of hectares under coca cultivation leapt from 96,000 in 2015 to 146,000 in 2016.

As of 2006, coca production in Colombia employed an estimated 67,000 households. According to U.S. government reports, children are employed in the production of coca in Colombia.

Coca eradication programs

The Colombian government has programs to eradicate coca by mechanical means (burning or cutting) or with herbicides, such as glyphosate sprayed by airplanes and helicopters.
In 2014, Colombia aerially eradicated 55,532 ha and manually eradicated 11,702 ha of coca in 2014, falling short of its goal of 14,000 ha. As obstacles to manual eradication the US Department of State listed local level protests blocking access roads to coca fields, and security concerns on the Ecuador-Colombia border and in the Catatumbo region near the Venezuela-Colombia border. Also, because of Colombia's national elections, 669 members of the Colombian national police’s primary interdiction force, the Anti-Narcotics Directorate's (DIRAN) Jungla commando force, and between 45,000 and 60,000 police officers during the three-month presidential campaign and voting period had been unavailable for manual coca eradication

The aerial spraying of glyphosate herbicide is one of the most controversial methods of coca eradication. It has taken place because of Colombia's willingness to cooperate with the US in the militarized eradication of coca after signing Plan Colombia in 2000. Colombia is the only country in the world that permits aerial-spraying of drug producing crops. In many cases the spraying is carried out by American contractors, such as DynCorp.

Colombia rejects threats and blackmail of the United States of America after the threat of Donald Trump to decertify the country as a partner in counter-narcotics efforts.

Environmental effects

The Colombian landscape is damaged through the constant deforestation caused by clear cutting fields for coca cultivation and by coca eradication. Soil erosion and the chemical pollution caused by aerial spraying of glyphosate herbicide have negative effects on Colombia's environment and people.

Plots denuded of coca plants are abandoned and cause serious problems with erosion during seasonal rains. Because of the continuous high demand for coca, once a plot is destroyed, planters simply move further into the forest, clearing new lands for coca production. This vicious cycle of unsustainable cultivation-eradication has caused the environment in coca producing zones to suffer substantial decline.

Aerial spraying has been repeatedly condemned by human rights and environmental activists, because of its effect on human populations and local soil and water systems. In December 2000, Dutch journalist Marjon van Royen found that "because the chemical is sprayed in Colombia from planes on inhabited areas, there have been consistent health complaints [in humans]. Burning eyes, dizziness and respiratory problems being most frequently reported." In some areas, 80 percent of the children of the indigenous community fell sick with skin rashes, fever, diarrhoea and eye infections. Because the glyphosate is sprayed from the air, there is a much higher chance of human error when spraying suspected illegal coca plantations. In many cases the wrong fields are sprayed, resulting in not only a total loss of the farmer's crop, but the loss of that field altogether as nothing will grow, where the herbicide has been sprayed. Though official documentation of the health effects of glyphosate spraying in Colombia are virtually non-existent, neighbouring Ecuador has conducted studies to determine the cause of mysterious illnesses amongst people living along the border of Colombia and has since demanded that no aerial sprayings occur within 10 km of the border because of the damages caused to people, animals and environment in that area.

References

Agriculture in Colombia
Cocaine
Coca
Illegal drug trade in Colombia


Léon Morin, Priest () is a 1961 French drama film directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. It was adapted by Melville from Béatrix Beck's novel The Passionate Heart (French: Léon Morin, prêtre), which won the Prix Goncourt in 1952. Set during WWII in Occupied France, the film stars Emmanuelle Riva as a jaded, lapsed Catholic mother and widow of a Jewish husband, who finds herself falling in love with a young, altruistic priest, played by Jean-Paul Belmondo.

For his work in the film, Belmondo was nominated for the BAFTA Film Award for Best Foreign Actor.

Plot
Barny is a young mother raising her daughter, named France, in a small town in the French Alps during the Occupation of France. She works correcting assignments for a Parisian correspondence school that has moved to the town. Her Jewish husband was killed in the war, and, sexually-frustrated, she finds herself attracted to Sabine, the administrative secretary at the school.

As a jaded lapsed-Catholic-turned-atheist and militant communist, Barny is cynical about religion, but she and a few of her Jewish and communist friends decide to have their children baptized to try to protect them from the occupying troops. Some time afterward, Barny impulsively enters a church in town to make a fake confession. She decides to talk to Léon Morin, who, being a young curate with a name that does not strike her as bourgeois, seems most likely to take the joke in good humor. In the confessional, she attempts to provoke Léon by questioning and criticizing Catholicism, but, instead of getting offended, he engages her in a calm theological discussion. The altruistic priest offers to lend Barny some books, and they arrange a time to meet. Barny exits the church in a daze.

For France's protection, Barny sends the girl to live on a secluded farm. She begins to visit Léon regularly, finding his moral strength and the steadfastness of his faith impressive as he works to help her on her spiritual journey. Despite her resistance, Barny gradually finds herself drawn in by Léon's musings, philosophies, and interpretations of passages from the Bible.

The circumstances in the town get worse for the residents after the Germans fully push out the Italians, and Barny and Léon both do what they can to help and protect those in need. Barny's feelings for Sabine change after the distress the woman feels after her brother is arrested by the Gestapo and taken to Germany causes her to seem to age several years in just a few weeks.

Reluctantly, but feeling compelled to do so, Barny decides to fully return to the Church. She and Christine, a collaborationist coworker with whom she became friends after they discovered they were both talking with Léon, each refer a friend to Léon. The other women's reactions to him cause Barny to see him in a different light, and, noticing for the first time how handsome he is, she begins to develop romantic feelings.

One night, the Germans abandon the town. France comes back to live with Barny, so she tells Léon she can no longer come to visit him, and he offers to come to her instead. On one visit, Barny asks Léon if he would marry her if he were a Protestant minister. He does not answer, but becomes perturbed and abruptly leaves, and they do not see each other for a while. Eventually, he knocks on Barny's door and proceeds to talk about theology as though nothing happened. She cannot focus and reaches out to touch his arm, causing him to jump out of his chair. Before leaving, he tells her that he will return for more conversation, but she must come to him at the church to confess and receive penance for trying to lead a priest astray.

Léon learns he is being transferred to another parish, and he tells Barny. They catch France eavesdropping and he puts her back to bed, prompting Barny to think about God's irony in finally bringing Léon into her bedroom, not to sleep with her and break his vows, but to comfort her daughter.

The correspondence school announces it is moving back to Paris, which means Barny will be leaving the town around the same time as Léon. On the night before his departure, he asks her to visit him. She thanks him and they have a brief conversation before Barny bids Léon farewell. He tells her they will meet again, in another life. Barny tearfully leaves and stumbles out into the street.

Cast

Gérard Buhr (who had previously been in Melville's Bob le Flambeur) has a small part as a German soldier named Gunther, and Howard Vernon (who starred in Melville's Le Silence de la Mer and had a supporting role in Bob le Flambeur) can briefly be seen as a German colonel.

Release

Critical reception
Roger Ebert added the film to his Great Movies list in 2009.

Home media
The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray by The Criterion Collection in July 2011. In 2019, Kino Lorber released a 4K-restoration of the 128-minute director's cut of the film on DVD and Blu-ray.

References

External links

Leon Morin, Priest at Le Film Guide
Léon Morin, Priest: Life During Wartime an essay by Gary Indiana at the Criterion Collection

1961 drama films
1961 films
Films about Catholic priests
Films about Catholicism
Films based on French novels
Films directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
Films produced by Carlo Ponti
French war drama films
French World War II films
1960s French films


Ancyloxypha is a genus of skipper butterflies in the subfamily Hesperiinae.

List of species
Listed alphabetically.
 Ancyloxypha arene (Edwards, 1871) – tropical least skipper
 Ancyloxypha aurea (Hayward, 1940)
 Ancyloxypha dryas (Hayward, 1942)
 Ancyloxypha melanoneura (C. & R. Felder, 1867)
 Ancyloxypha nitedula (Burmeister, 1878)
 Ancyloxypha numitor (Fabricius, 1793) – least skipper or least skipperling
 Ancyloxypha ramba (Evans, 1955)

References

Butterfly genera
Taxa named by Baron Cajetan von Felder


Campanula poscharskyana, the Serbian bellflower or trailing bellflower, is a semi-evergreen trailing perennial, valued for its lavender-blue star-shaped flowers. It is native to the Dinaric Alps in former Yugoslavia.

Description
The leaves are  long. The shoots grow along the ground, reaching about  long. They then grow upwards, placing the flowers about  above the ground. Flowers are lavender-blue and bloom from mid-spring to early autumn.

Cultivation and uses
This tough rockery plant bears sprays of violet starry flowers in spring and summer. Vigorous and fast growing, it is able to stand drying out once established in a wall. It will self-seed into cracks in walls and paving.

During winter, it survives best at , but can tolerate both colder and warmer temperatures. Although it is considered winter hardy, many growers bring it indoors and keep it in slightly moist soil on a windowsill, or in the basement under a lamp.

It is common to cut the plant down during the fall, so it can conserve energy during the winter, and then replant it in spring. In winter, no fertilizer is needed.

Plants can be grown from stem cuttings or division of the roots.

Numerous varieties and cultivars have been developed for garden use, including 'Blue Gown', 'Blue Waterfall', 'Freya', 'E.H. Frost', 'Glandore', 'Lisduggan Variety', 'Senior', and 'Silberregen'. The cultivar 'Stella' has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.

The leaves are edible year round, and can be put in salads.

Pests
Thrips and aphids feed on the leaves.

References

 Translated from Swedish and Dutch Wikipedia.

poscharskyana
Flora of Croatia
Plants described in 1908


Coventry was a 28-gun ship of the early Royal Navy. She was originally the Spanish ship San Miguel. She was captured in 1658, but was in turn taken by the French in 1666. She was the first of six ships of the Royal Navy to bear the name Coventry.

The Royal Navy frigates  and  set sail from Plymouth on 17 February 1658 and put in at St Mary's, Isles of Scilly for a few days. When the Spanish ship San Miguel was sighted they were quickly disguised as merchant ships, but the Spanish fled. The Royal Navy ships chased the Spanish ship and when the wind changed the Spanish ship fired at the Adventure, which had to give up the chase. Next day the Constant Warwick had caught up and after a five-hour battle captured the Spanish ship. The San Miguel was refitted and renamed Coventry. She served for a further eight years before being captured by the French and renamed Armes d'Angleterre.

Notes

References

Ships of the line of the Royal Navy
Ships of the English navy


The  2009 EA Sports Cup is the 36th staging of the League of Ireland football knockout competition.

Twenty nine clubs participated in this year's competition. The ten Premier Division, twelve First Division and the five non-reserve teams from the A Championship were joined by Kildrum Tigers, the 2008 Ulster Senior League champions, and the Kerry District League representative side. For the Preliminary, First and Second Rounds of the competition, all participating clubs were split into 4 regional pools with the further rounds of the competition having an open draw.

The 2009 EA Sports Cup kicked off on Monday, 30 March 2009 with the preliminary round. The Final was played on Saturday, 26 September 2009, and was won by Bohemians.

Preliminary round
The matches were played on Monday, 30 and Tuesday, 31 March 2009.

Pool 2

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First round
The matches were played on Monday, 13 and Tuesday, 14 April 2009.

Pool 1

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Pool 2

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Pool 3

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Pool 4

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Second round
The matches were played on Monday, 4 and Tuesday, 5 May 2009.

Pool 1

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Pool 2

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Pool 3

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Pool 4

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Quarter finals
The matches were played on Monday, 18 and Tuesday, 19 May 2009.

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Semifinals
The matches were played on Monday, 3 and Tuesday, 4 August 2009.

Final

References

External links
 Official website

League of Ireland Cup seasons
3
Cup


Soko Grad (Serbian Cyrillic: Соко Град), also known as Sokolac, is a medieval city and fortress 2 km east of the spa town of Sokobanja, Serbia. The fortress was declared a Monument of Culture of Great Importance in 1982, and it is protected by Republic of Serbia.

History

The fortress was founded in the 6th century during the reign of Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I, to prevent incursions of Pannonian Avars and Slavs into Balkan peninsula. In 1172, it was occupied by Stefan Nemanja and became part of the medieval Serbian state. During the expulsion of the Bogomils from Serbia, Nemanja had a clash with the administrator of Soko, who was a Bogomil himself. Ottoman Empire occupied it in the year 1398. The town was destroyed in a violent Ottoman attack, and today the only thing visible is the remains of the upper town with a gate, walls, and three towers. Soko Grad translates as "falcon city". It got its name because there were many falconers in the town, who paid taxes with trained falcons.

Characteristics

The original fortification built by Justinian was the citadel built on the tallest part of the rock, rendering it practically unreachable by the enemy. During the subsequent development in Serbian state, the fortress expanded around the citadel and spread lower down the rock. In the middle of the fortification on the top was a citadel with a dominant main tower. From there bulwarks were lowering toward Moravica, forming that way space of Lower town, that was built on more reachable ground. The entire fortification complex had several towers, of which only a few remain today. Only the first entrance tower in Upper town is preserved and in good shape, while other towers and bulwarks are in ruins.

See also
 Monuments of Culture of Great Importance
 Tourism in Serbia

References

External links

Soko Grad article in Politikin Zabavnik
 Section Fortress - Soko Grad
 Sokograd

Forts in Serbia
Ruins in Serbia
Medieval Serbian architecture
Cultural Monuments of Great Importance (Serbia)
Tsardom of Vidin