Leslie Delatour

Leslie Delatour (1950–2001) was a Haitian economist who served as governor of the Bank of the Republic of Haiti from 1994 to 1998, and as Haiti's finance minister.
Background.
Born in 1950, he studied at Johns Hopkins University and at the University of Chicago. Notable as Haiti's Minister of Finance and Governor of the Bank of the Republic of Haiti, he also served as consultant at the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and USAID. He was dubbed as "all-powerful" in "Le Monde Diplomatique". He died of cancer on 24 March 2001 in Miami, Florida, United States. His widow has since married Haiti's President René Préval and his family maintains influence in Haiti.
Power in Haiti.
His first notable job in Haiti was working in 1982 for Finance Minister Marc Bazin under the administration of Jean-Claude Duvalier. Bazin became favoured in international circles for an anti-corruption drive that he held as Finance Minister but was removed from his post after five months. After Jean-Claude Duvalier was ousted on 7 February 1986, Delatour was chosen to be Minister of Finance starting in April 1986 under the dictatorship of General Henri Namphy. There, he subjected Haiti to neoliberal reforms and argued that as Haiti would always be dependent on someone so it might as well be dependent on the United States.
This was not popular in Haiti. Popular leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide dubbed this the "death plan". In June 1986 five days of major protests took place throughout Haiti, the protesters demanding Delatour's resignation. Henri Namphy said that this led to "almost a civil war" and promised to hold elections as a result. A November 1986 general strike followed, again with Delatour's dismissal demanded. Namphy had believed that as he led a provisional government, that it had no business carrying out sweeping reforms. Delatour believed otherwise. These reforms damaged a peasantry that had already suffered the 1982 destruction of their Creole pigs by U.S. orders as a response to an outbreak of African Swine Fever. There was an account that, at one point, Delatour became part of a hit list of Aristide's Interior Minister, Brigadier General Mondesir Beaubrun due to his position of taxing the elite. The minister has been accused of carrying out assassinations of Aristide's political opponents.
In the 1960s François Duvalier closed all Haiti's ports except that of Port-au-Prince; Delatour had them reopened and contraband poured into the country. He reduced tariffs on imported rice and reduced the budget of the government agricultural agency in the rice-producing Artibonite by 30%. He reasoned that Haitians were wasting their time with inefficient agriculture, that the law of comparative advantage dictated that Haiti move much of its rural population to the cities where they could serve as cheap labour for industrial assembly plants as part of the global supply chain. He thus accelerated the neoliberalism introduced under Jean-Claude Duvalier whilst weakening the Haitian state, arguing that he was removing the means through which corrupt officials could steal development aid and sabotage profitable planning. He argued further that his reforms were reducing prices for food and other essentials.
Haiti's sugar industry was hit hard by his policies as Haiti's sugar company Hasco was shut down in April 1987 days after the Usine Sucrière des Cayes announced it was closing; these two events cost over 40,000 jobs. Delatour had shut down both state-owned sugar mills; the Usine Sucrière Nationale de Darbonne in the Léogâne area in the autumn of 1986 and also the Usine Sucrière Citadelle in Cap-Haïtien. The flooding of contraband Dominican sugar into the Haitian market promoted by Delatour's policies helped seal the fate of Haiti's sugar industry. Delatour explained that these sugar companies were not productive, citing that those owned by the government such as the Darbonne Sugar Refinery and Edible Oils producing plant ENAOL were running inefficiently and swallowed an unnecessarily large amount of government funds. These two corporations were partly funded by the Telephone Company.
His decision to open the country up to subsidised American rice helped drive domestic producers out of business and to the capital, Port-au-Prince, and most notably in the rapidly expanding shantytown of Cité Soleil. They could not all be absorbed into the cheap labour industrial sector so many ended up working in the informal sector, most notably in the charcoal trade helping to denude the hills further. The new imports of U.S. subsidised rice were protected by military convoys to protect it from peasants who tried to stop its transportation, part of the unrest his policies were causing. For this, the "New York Times" described him in 1987 as "reviled" in Haiti but celebrated by the U.S. government and by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
As such, after he left his post in February 1988 upon the end of the provisional military government, his presence as an advisor to governments became an important consideration for international aid and loans to be made available. To appease these forces who distrusted him based on his left wing reputation, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who had previously denounced Delatour's "death plan", was compelled to make him part of his team in 1991 after he won the Haitian presidency.
In September 1991, Delatour openly condemned the coup d'état that deposed Aristide and brought Raoul Cédras and Michel François into power. His support for the deposed president was a very important factor in permitting Aristide to be restored to office in 1994. Shortly before Aristide's restoration, Delatour and Leslie Voltaire had presented to the powers a plan titled the "Strategy of Social and Economic Reconstruction", a set of neoliberal reforms, dubbed in Haiti "The American Plan", which helped convince the U.S. to proceed with Aristide's restoration.
In October 1994, after Aristide was restored to the presidency, Delatour threatened to not be involved in the government in order to force the neoliberal Smarck Michel, whose businesses included the rice importation that was damaging the Haitian peasantry, into the premiership. After Aristide capitulated to this demand, Delatour accepted the post of Governor of the Bank of the Republic of Haiti where he raised the interest rates consistent with his Chicago School ideological position. The reform programme he started in the mid-1980s was deepened under President René Préval, elected in December 1995, with the rice tariff slashed to 3%. With his help, Haiti became the most open country to trade in the whole Caribbean area. The cement factory and the flour mill were privatised in 1997 under the terms of his plan; both were since shut down, leaving Haiti without a flour mill nor with a cement factory. He left midway through President René Préval's first term in 1998. He died in 2001. His widow is now René Préval's wife and his brothers Lionel Delatour and Patrick Delatour occupy important roles in the Haitian economy.
Legacy.
In 2007, Haiti's most valuable state-owned asset, Teleco, was privatised for a mere $59 million and 2,800 lost their jobs. Haiti is now described as "the most privatised country in the world". The collapse of Haitian agriculture and the expansion of Port-au-Prince's population is one of his most lasting legacies, and the mass casualties in the 2010 earthquake and the enfeebled government's inability to cope with it thus were brought about with his help. Haiti no longer produces cement so it is forced to pay to import cement from abroad for its reconstruction. The new plans for rebuilding Haiti are all drawn up according to Delatour's own frameworks and his brothers have key roles in executing these plans. Delatour's pro-globalization anti-nationalism and Haiti's economic decline under his influence also helped in promoting nostalgia for both Duvaliers and their respective regimes. As a result of his policies, in 2000, Haiti's per capita income had declined to $329 from $600 in 1980 during the height of Jean-Claude Duvalier's dictatorship. Haiti also lost its self-sufficiency in rice under his influence and it became increasingly vulnerable to international food price fluctuations as it was required to import its food. The 2008 food riots caused by international speculators too is part of Delatour's legacy.


Abhijit Mukherjee

Abhijit Mukherjee (born 2 January 1960) is an Indian politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) from the Jangipur Lok Sabha constituency in the Indian state of West Bengal. He is a member of the Indian National Congress (INC) .
Mukherjee won the 2012 Jangipur Lok Sabha constituency by-election by 2,536 votes defeating his nearest CPI(M) rival Muzaffar Hussain after a tough fight. The seat was vacated by his father President Pranab Mukherjee after he was elected as the President.
Mukherjee was re elected to Lok Sabha from Jangipur in 2014. He lost the 2019 election to TMC candidate Khalilur Rahaman.
Early years.
Abhijit Mukherjee was born on 2 January 1960 in Hoogly in West Bengal. He is the son of late Pranab Mukherjee (the former President of India) and late Suvra Mukherjee. His grandfather, Kamada Kinkar Mukherjee, was active in the Indian independence movement and was a member of West Bengal Legislative Council between 1952 and 1964 as a representative of the Indian National Congress. Mukherjee graduated with a B.E in Mechanical Engineering from the Jadavpur University in 1984.
Professional career.
Mukherjee has worked as a corporate executive for firms like the Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited, Maruti Udyog Limited and the Steel Authority of India Limited. He was General Manager in charge of Corporate Social Responsibility [CSR] in the Steel Authority of India Limited.
Political career.
Mukherjee began his political career as a state legislator in West Bengal. Following his father's election to the presidency, he contested the by-election for the Jangipur Seat in the Lok Sabha and won. He was re-elected in the 2014 Indian general election in a four cornered contest and retained his seat in Jangiur Constituency of Dist : Murshidabad, West Bengal. He is one of the four Members of Parliament in the Lok Sabha from West Bengal who are members of the Indian National Congress. In the 2019 General elections to the Lok Sabha, he lost to his rival as the ruling TMC & its Party Chief unleashed a series of false campaigns backed with money & muscle power to defeat him. The TMC had falsely accused him of sitting hand-in gloves with the RSS to sail through the elections as previously his father had accepted an invitation to RSS Headquarter in Nagpur.


In re Debs

In re Debs, 158 U.S. 564 (1895), was a US labor law case of the United States Supreme Court decision handed down concerning Eugene V. Debs and labor unions.
Background.
Eugene V. Debs, president of the American Railway Union, had been involved in the Pullman Strike earlier in 1894 and challenged the federal injunction ordering the strikers back to work where they would face being fired. The injunction had been issued because of the violent nature of the strike. However, Debs refused to end the strike and was subsequently cited for contempt of court; he appealed the decision to the courts.
The main question being debated was whether the federal government had a right to issue the injunction, which dealt with both interstate and intrastate commerce and shipping on rail cars.
Judgment.
Justice David Josiah Brewer for a unanimous court held that the U.S. government had a right to regulate interstate commerce and ensure the operations of the Postal Service, along with a responsibility to "ensure the general welfare of the public." Justice Brewer said the following in summing up the judgment:
Significance.
In "Loewe v. Lawlor" the Supreme Court stated that unions were in fact potentially liable for antitrust violations. In response Congress passed the Clayton Act of 1914 to take unions out of antitrust law. Debs would go on to lose another Supreme Court case in "Debs v. United States".


E. Allen Smith

Ernest Allen Smith CBE was the 28th Auditor General of Ceylon. He was appointed on 16 February 1946, succeeding Oliver Ernest Goonetilleke, and held the office until 2 March 1953. He was succeeded by L. A. Weerasinghe.
He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1946 Birthday Honours.


Rudolf Querner

Rudolf Querner (10 June 1893 – 27 May 1945) was a German SS functionary during the Nazi era. He served as the Higher SS and Police Leader in Austria and Germany and was responsible for the evacuations and death marches from concentration camps at the end of the war. Arrested by the Allied authorities, he committed suicide in prison.
Early life.
Querner, the son of a manor owner, was born in Lehnsdorf near Kamenz. He served as an officer in the First World War and finished the war as a prisoner of the French. He was married in 1919 following his release and had four children during the course of the marriage. The same year he also enrolled in the police.
SS career.
Querner joined the Nazi Party in 1933 with the membership number of 2,385,386. From 1936-37 he served as Generalmajor of the Ordnungspolizei and from September 1939 was the inspector of commanders in Hamburg. He joined the SS in 1938 as member number 308,240. He also served as Ordnungspolizei commander in Prague in 1939 and from 1940-41 as inspector general of county constabulary.
From 1 May 1941 to at the end of January 1943 Querner was SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) Nordsee in Military district X, based in Hamburg. Working closely with Gauleiter Karl Kaufmann Querners had responsibility over all police matters and was also involved in the deportation of the Portuguese Jewish community in Hamburg, which began at the end of October 1941. Whilst based in Hamburg Querner ordered large quantities of Zyklon-B from Tesch & Stabenow pest control company.
From January 1943 to October 1944 he was HSSPF for district XVII, based at Vienna. On 21 June 1943 he was promoted to SS-Obergruppenführer and on 1 July 1944 to General of the Waffen-SS. Following the 20 July plot Querner's district undertook harsh measures against any possible revolution, although Querner had delegated authority in this instance to his subordinate Heinrich Kodré.
He resumed his career as HSSPF in district XI, based in Braunschweig, from October 1944 to 8 May 1945. Here he was largely responsible for the evacuation of the concentration and POW camps in the district. Arrested at the end of the war, Querner committed suicide at Magdeburg in captivity.


Vasily Avenarius

Vasily Petrovich Avenarius (, 10 October 1839 - 9 November 1923) was a Russian writer and memoirist.
Born in Tsarskoye Selo to a Lutheran pastor, he graduated from the Saint Petersburg University to join first the Russian Interior Ministry and later the Office of the Institutions of Empress Maria. His first two novels, the anti-nihilist "The Modern Idyll" (Современная идиллия, 1865), and "The Passing Craze" (Поветрие, 1867), were deemed and 'reactionary' by the influential democratic press. Shocked by the almost unanimous negative response, Avenarius turned away from political issues and from then on have been publishing only books for children, as well as biographies (also adapted for the young readership), notably of Pushkin and Gogol. Several of his books (including "The Book of the Kiev Bogatyrs", 1875, "The Tale of a Bumble-Bee", 1879, "What the Room Tells", 1880, and "Fairytales for Children", 1885), enjoyed steady success and numerous re-issues. Avenarius also published several historical novels and, later in his life, memoirs ("Bits of Memories from Childhood", "Before Dawn", "For Thirty Years"). He died in Petrograd in 1923 and is interred in the Smolensky Lutheran Cemetery.


Outline of Seychelles

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Seychelles:
Seychelles – sovereign island nation located in the Indian Ocean and comprising 115 islands of the Seychelles Archipelago, some east of mainland Africa and northeast of the Island of Madagascar. Other nearby island countries and territories include Zanzibar to the west, Mauritius and Réunion to the south, Comoros and Mayotte to the southwest, and the Suvadives of the Maldives to the northeast. Seychelles has the smallest population of any sovereign state of Africa.
Geography of Seychelles.
Geography of Seychelles
Regions of Seychelles.
Regions of Seychelles
Ecoregions of Seychelles.
List of ecoregions in Seychelles
Administrative divisions of Seychelles.
Administrative divisions of Seychelles
Districts of Seychelles.
Districts of Seychelles
Demography of Seychelles.
Demographics of Seychelles
Government and politics of Seychelles.
Politics of Seychelles
Branches of the government of Seychelles.
Government of Seychelles
Judicial branch of the government of Seychelles.
Court system of Seychelles
Foreign relations of Seychelles.
Foreign relations of Seychelles
International organization membership.
The Republic of Seychelles is a member of:
Law and order in Seychelles.
Law of Seychelles
Military of Seychelles.
Military of Seychelles
Local government in Seychelles.
Local government in Seychelles
History of Seychelles.
History of Seychelles
Culture of Seychelles.
Culture of Seychelles
Sports in Seychelles.
Sports in Seychelles
Economy and infrastructure of Seychelles.
Economy of Seychelles
Education in Seychelles.
Education in Seychelles
See also.
Seychelles


Lu Tien-lin

Lu Tien-lin (; born 9 November 1959) is a Taiwanese politician. He was the Minister of Council of Labor Affairs in 2007-2008.
Education.
Lu obtained his master's degree in engineering science from National Taiwan Ocean University.


Kjell Storvik

Kjell Storvik (born 20 November 1930) is a Norwegian economist and former Governor of the Central Bank of Norway.
He is a cand.oecon. by education. From 1977 to 1981 he was the vice president of the Norwegian Shipowners' Association. He was then State Secretary in the Ministry of Finance for four years. He was appointed Vice Governor of the Central Bank of Norway. When Governor Torstein Moland was forced to resign, Storvik became acting Governor, only to get the job on a permanent basis the next year.


Stephen Praska

Stephen Praska (Croatian: "Stjepan Praska") was Ban of Croatia under King Stephen I. According to the chronicle of Archdeacon Goricensis John, he was established by king Stephen I around 1035 (after his military expeditions to the east), thus succeeding Božeteh as Croatian ban.
He eventually attained an imperial title of "protospatharios" somewhere between 1035 and 1042, which governed his influence over the Byzantine Dalmatian theme. Prasca is known to have granted land to the monastery of Crisogni with his wife, Mary, which is attested in a 1042 document. He resided in Zadar.


North River Tunnels

The North River Tunnels are a pair of tunnels that carry Amtrak and New Jersey Transit rail lines under the Hudson River between Weehawken, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan, New York City, New York. Built between 1904 and 1908 by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) to allow its trains to reach Manhattan, they opened for passenger service in late 1910.
The tunnels allow a maximum of 24 crossings per hour each way and operate near capacity during peak hours. The tunnels were damaged by flooding in 2012, causing frequent delays in train operations. In May 2014 Amtrak stated that within 20 years one or both of the tunnels would have to be shut down.
History.
Context.
The PRR had consolidated its control of railroads in New Jersey with the lease of United New Jersey Railroad and Canal Company in 1871, extending its network from Philadelphia northward to Jersey City. Crossing the Hudson River remained an obstacle; to the east, the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) ended at the East River. In both situations, passengers had to transfer to ferries to Manhattan. This put the PRR at a disadvantage relative to its arch competitor, the New York Central Railroad, which already served Manhattan.
After unsuccessfully trying to create a bridge over the Hudson River, the PRR and the LIRR developed several proposals for improved regional rail access in 1892 as part of the New York Tunnel Extension project. The proposals included new tunnels between Jersey City and Manhattan, and possibly one to Brooklyn; a new terminal in midtown Manhattan for both the PRR and LIRR, completion of the Hudson Tubes (later called PATH), and a bridge proposal. These proposals finally came to fruition at the turn of the century, when the PRR created subsidiaries to manage the project. The Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York Railroad, incorporated on February 13, 1902, was to oversee construction of the North River Tunnels. The PNJ&NY would also be in charge of the Meadows Division, which would handle the construction of the North River Tunnel approaches on the New Jersey side.
The original proposal for the PRR and LIRR terminal in Midtown, published in June 1901, called for the construction of a bridge across Hudson River between 45th and 50th Streets in Manhattan, and two closely spaced terminals for the LIRR and PRR. This would allow passengers to travel between Long Island and New Jersey without changing trains. In December 1901, the plans were modified so that the PRR would construct the North River Tunnels under the Hudson River, instead of a bridge over it. The PRR cited costs and land value as a reason for constructing a tunnel rather than a bridge, since the cost of a tunnel would be one-third that of a bridge. The North River Tunnels themselves would consist of between two and four steel tubes with the diameter of . The New York Tunnel Extension quickly gained opposition from the New York City Board of Rapid Transit Commissioners, who objected that they would not have jurisdiction over the new tunnels, as well as from the Interborough Rapid Transit Company, which saw the New York Tunnel Extension as a potential competitor to its as-yet-incomplete rapid transit service. The project was approved by the New York City Board of Aldermen in December 1902, on a 41–36 vote. The North and East River Tunnels were to be built under the riverbed of their respective rivers. The PRR and LIRR lines would converge at New York Penn Station, an expansive Beaux-Arts edifice between 31st and 33rd Streets in Manhattan. The entire project was expected to cost over $100 million.
Design and construction.
Led by Chief Engineer Charles M. Jacobs, the tunnel design team began work in 1902. The contract for building the North River Tunnels was awarded to O'Rourke Engineering Construction Company in 1904. Originally, the tunnel would have comprised three tubes, but this was later downsized to two tubes. The first construction work comprised the digging of two shafts: one just east of 11th Avenue a few hundred yards east of the river's eastern shore; and a larger one in Weehawken, a few hundred yards west of the river's western shore. Construction on the Weehawken Shaft started in June 1903. It was completed in September 1904 as a concrete-walled rectangular pit, at the bottom and deep.
When the shafts were complete, O'Rourke began work on the tunnels proper. The project was divided into three parts, each managed by a resident engineer: the "Terminal Station" in Manhattan; the "River Tunnels", east from the Weehawken Shaft and under the Hudson River; and the Bergen Hill tunnels, west from the Weehawken Shaft to the tunnel portals on the west side of the Palisades. The tunnels were built with drilling and blasting techniques and tunnelling shields, which were placed at three locations and driven towards each other. The shields proceeded west from Manhattan, east and west from Weehawken, and east from the Bergen portals.
Under the river itself, the tunnels started in rock, using drill and blast, but the strata under the river was pure mud for a considerable depth. As a result, this part was driven under compressed air, using 194-ton shields that met about from the Weehawken and Manhattan portals. The mud was such that the shield was shoved forward without taking any ground; however, it was found that the shield was easier to steer if some mud was taken in through holes at the front, since the mud had the consistency of toothpaste. After the tubes had been excavated, they were lined with segmental cast-iron rings, each weighing 22 tons. The segments were bolted together and lined with of concrete. The two ends of the northern tube under the river met in September 1906; at that time it was the longest underwater tunnel in the world.
Meanwhile, the John Shields Construction Company had begun in 1905 to bore through Bergen Hill, the lower Hudson Palisades; William Bradley took over in 1906 and the tunnels to the Hackensack Meadows were completed in April 1908.
Opening and use.
The tunnels opened November 27, 1910, when the New York Tunnel Extension to New York Penn Station opened. Until then, PRR trains used the PRR main line to Exchange Place in Jersey City, New Jersey. The New York Tunnel Extension branched off from the original line two miles northeast of Newark, then ran northeast across the Jersey Meadows to the North River Tunnels and New York Penn. The tunnel project included the Portal Bridge over the Hackensack River and the Manhattan Transfer interchange with the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad (now PATH). The opening of the North River Tunnels and Penn Station made the PRR the only railroad with direct access to New York City from the south.
In 1967 the Aldene Plan was implemented, allowing trains of the floundering Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ) and Reading (RDG) to run to Newark Penn Station, connecting to PRR and PATH trains to New York. The PRR merged into Penn Central Transportation in 1968. Penn Central went bankrupt in 1970 and in 1976 its suburban trains were taken over by Conrail, then by NJ Transit in 1983. Penn Central long-distance service (including part of today's Northeast Corridor and Empire Corridor) had been taken over by Amtrak in 1971. Amtrak took control of the North River Tunnels in 1976, and NJ Transit started running trains through the tunnels under contract with Amtrak.
Portals.
The west portals are in North Bergen, at the west edge of the New Jersey Palisades near the east end of Route 3 at U.S. Route 1/9 (). They run beneath North Bergen, Union City, and Weehawken, to the east portals at the east edge of 10th Avenue at 32nd Street in Manhattan. When the top of the Weehawken Shaft was covered is a mystery; the two tracks may have remained open to the sky until catenary was added circa 1932. The two portals on the Manhattan side fanned out into 21 tracks just east of 10th Avenue, serving the platforms at Penn Station. 450 West 33rd Street (now Five Manhattan West), on the east side of 10th Avenue, was built above the east portals in 1969.
Except for a curve west of the west end of Pier 72 that totals just under a degree, the two tracks are straight (in plan view). They are apart from west of 11th Avenue to the Bergen Hill portals. The third rail now ends just west of the Bergen Hill portals.
Operation and useful life.
The North River Tunnels allow a maximum of 24 crossings per hour each way. Since 2003, the tunnels have operated near capacity during peak hours. The number of NJ Transit weekday trains through the North River Tunnels increased from 147 in 1976 to 438 in 2010.
Trains ordinarily travel west (to New Jersey) through the north tube and east through the south. During the busiest hour of morning rush, about 24 trains are scheduled through the south tube, and the same through the north tube in the afternoon.
The tubes run parallel to each other underneath the river; their centers are separated by . The two tracks fan out to 21 tracks just west of Penn Station.
Expansion and restoration proposals.
Beginning in the 1990s several proposals were developed to build additional tunnels under the Hudson, both to add capacity for Northeast Corridor traffic and to allow repairs to be made to the existing deteriorated tunnels. As of early 2021 no new construction has been funded or approved.
Access to the Region's Core.
Access to the Region's Core (ARC), launched in 1995 by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ), NJ Transit, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, was a Major Investment Study that looked at public transportation ideas for the New York metropolitan area. It found that long-term goals would best be met by better connections to and in-between the region's major rail stations in Midtown Manhattan, Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal. The East Side Access project, including tunnels under the East River and the East Side of Manhattan, which would divert some LIRR traffic to Grand Central, is expected to be completed in December 2022.
The Trans-Hudson Express Tunnel or THE Tunnel, which later took on the name of the study itself, was meant to address the western, or Hudson River, crossing. Engineering studies determined that structural interferences made a new terminal connected to Grand Central or the current Penn Station unfeasible and its final design involved boring under the current rail yard to a new deep cavern terminal station under 34th Street. Amtrak had acknowledged that the region represented a bottleneck in the national system and had originally planned to complete work by 2040.
The ARC project, which did not include direct Amtrak participation, was cancelled in October 2010 by New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who cited potential cost overruns. Amtrak briefly engaged the governor in attempt to revive the ARC Tunnel and use preliminary work done for it, but those negotiations soon broke down. Amtrak said it was not interested in purchasing any of the work. New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez later said some preparatory work done for ARC may be used for the new project. Costs for the project were $117 million for preliminary engineering, $126 million for final design, $15 million for construction and $178 million real estate property rights ($28 million in New Jersey and $150 million in New York City). Additionally, a $161 million partially refundable pre-payment of insurance premiums was also made. Subsequently, Amtrak's timetable for beginning its trans-Hudson project was advanced. This was in part due to the cancellation of ARC, a project similar in scope, but with differences in design.
Gateway Program and Hurricane Sandy.
Amtrak's plan for a new Trans-Hudson tunnel, the Gateway Program was unveiled on February 7, 2011, by Amtrak CEO Joseph Boardman and New Jersey Senators Menendez and Frank Lautenberg. The announcement also included endorsements from New York Senator Charles Schumer and Amtrak's Board of Directors. Officials said Amtrak would take the lead in seeking financing; a list of potential sources included the states of New York and New Jersey, the City of New York, the PANYNJ, and the MTA as well as private investors. As of 2017, the Gateway Program is expected to cost $12.9 billion.
In October 2012, a year after the Gateway Program was announced, the North River Tubes were inundated by seawater from Hurricane Sandy, marking the first time in the tunnel's history that both tubes had been completely flooded. The surge damaged overhead wires, electrical systems, concrete bench walls, and drainage systems. As a result of the storm damage and the tunnels' age, component failures within the tubes increased, resulting in frequent delays. One report in 2019 estimated that the North River Tubes and the Portal Bridge, two components the Gateway Program seeks to replace, contributed to 2,000 hours of delays between 2014 and 2018. After the North River Tunnels were flooded, the Gateway Program was prioritized. In May 2014, Boardman told the Regional Plan Association that there was less than 20 years before one or both of the tunnels would have to be shut down.
If and when the new Gateway Program tunnels are built, the two North River Tunnels would close for repairs, one at a time, with the existing level of service maintained. The North River Tubes and the Gateway Program tunnels would both be able to carry a maximum of 24 trains per hour. Once the new North River tunnels reopen in 2030, capacity on the line would be doubled. The Hudson Tunnel Project would also allow for resiliency on the Northeast Corridor to be increased, making service along the line more reliable with redundant capacity. In July 2017, the draft Environmental Impact Study for the project was issued.
Funding for the Gateway Project had been unclear for several years due to a lack of funding commitments from New Jersey officials and the federal government. In 2015, a Gateway Development Corporation, consisting of members from Amtrak, the Port Authority, the United States Department of Transportation, was created to oversee construction of the Gateway Project. The federal government and the states agreed to split the cost of funding the project. The administration of President Donald Trump has cast doubts about funding for the project, and in December 2017, a Federal Transit Administration official called the previous funding agreement "nonexistent". In March 2018, up to $541 million for the project was provided in the Consolidated Appropriations Act. On June 24, 2019, the state governments of New York and New Jersey passed legislation to create the bi-state Gateway Development Commission, whose job it is to oversee the planning, funding and construction of the rail tunnels and bridges of Gateway Program. In February 2020, Amtrak indicated that it would go forward with the renovation of the North River Tunnels regardless of the Gateway Program's status.
The existing North River Tunnels can carry a maximum of 24 trains per hour in each direction. If the new Hudson Tunnel is not built, the North River Tunnels will have to be closed one at a time, reducing weekday service below the existing level of 24 trains per hour. Due to the need to provide two-way service on a single track, service would be reduced by over 50 percent. In the best-case scenario, with perfect operating conditions, 9 trains per hour could be provided through the existing North River Tunnels, or a 63% reduction in service. During the duration of construction, passengers would have to use overcrowded PATH trains, buses, and ferries to get between New Jersey and New York. On the other hand, if the new Gateway tunnel is built, it would allow an additional 24 trains per hour to travel under the Hudson River, supplementing the 24 trains per hour that could use the existing North River tubes.


Ministers Deputies

The Ministers’ Deputies are the representatives of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers at Strasbourg.
While the Committee of Ministers is the executive organ of the Council of Europe, it actually only meets once year in Strasbourg, in what are known as the ministerial sessions. Its day-to-day work is carried out by the deputies, who are the permanent representatives, mostly of ambassadorial rank, the heads of their countries’ diplomatic missions in Strasbourg. So most of the time that the Committee of Ministers is quoted as having done something, it is actually the deputies who have taken the decision. Their decisions have the same weight and effect as the Committee of Ministers.
The Deputies currently meet at least once a week in plenary, usually on a Wednesday, in the great Committee of Ministers meeting room at the front of the Palace of Europe, and several times a week in committee, as one of their rapporteur groups, or "ad hoc" working groups. The frequency of meetings has increased considerably since 1989. They have regular special human rights meetings in their capacity of supervising the execution of the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights.
The chairmanship of the deputies changes every six months, at each session of the Committee of Ministers, following the English alphabetical order of member states. The current chair (November 2017 - May 2018) is Denmark.
There is also a Bureau, set up in 1975 to assist the Chairmanship, which consists of the current chair, the two previous and the three future chairpersons.
History.
The system of permanent representatives was set up by the Committee of Ministers in May 1951. It was the following year that they took a separate decision to appoint a deputy to whom they delegated most of the work. Legally, therefore, the deputies and the permanent representatives are distinct, although for practical purposes they are almost always the same person. While they currently all reside in Strasbourg, this is not obligatory, and Ireland and Iceland only opened missions there in the 1990s.


SWEB Energy

SWEB Energy, formerly South Western Electricity Board (SWEB) was a British state-owned regional electricity company operating in South West England which was privatised by the Thatcher government. Although sold many times, the 'SWEB' brandname survived until 2006.
The Distribution Network Operator for the former SWEB area is now Western Power Distribution. The incumbent electricity retail company is EDF Energy.
South Western Electricity Board (SWEB).
The Board was responsible for the purchase of electricity from the electricity generator (the Central Electricity Generating Board from 1958) and its distribution and sale of electricity to customers. The key people on the Board were: Chairman A.N. Irens (1964, 1967), Deputy Chairman S.F.C. Whitmore (1964, 1967), Full time member C.E. Knight (1964, 1967).
The total number of customers supplied by the Board over its operational life was:
The amount of electricity, in GWh, sold by South Western Electricity Board was:<graph>{
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 "y": 7755
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 "y": 8325
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 "y": 9030
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 "y": 9441
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 "y": 9816
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 "y": 10206
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 "y": 10280
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 "y": 10100
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 "y": 10817
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 "y": 11508
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 "y": 11703
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Company timeline.
In 1990 SWEB Energy was formed from the privatisation of the South Western Electricity Board.
In 1995 SWEB Energy was bought by the American utility Southern Company.
In 1999 the company was bought by the American-owned distribution company Western Power Distribution and was split into two. Western Power itself (officially as WPD South West) dealt with the local distribution, metering and substations, and the 'SWEB' brandname was continued as a retail energy utility.
In Jun.1999, SWEB was sold to French-owned EDF Energy. The acquisition was authorised by the European Commission in Jul.1999. EDF discontinued the 'SWEB' brandname on 5 June 2006.


Norodom Sihamoni

Norodom Sihamoni (, ; born 14 May 1953) is the King of Cambodia. He became King on 14 October 2004, a week after the abdication of his father, Norodom Sihanouk. He is the eldest son of King Sihanouk and Queen Norodom Monineath. He was Cambodia's ambassador to UNESCO and was named by a nine-member throne council to become the next king after his father Norodom Sihanouk abdicated in 2004. Before ascending the throne, Sihamoni was educated in Czechoslovakia and was best known for his work as a cultural ambassador in Europe and as a classical dance instructor.
Early life.
Sihamoni was born in 1953. His given name, Sihamoni, comprises two morphemes from his parents' given names, Sihanouk and Monineath. At the time of his birth and that of his younger brother, his mother Monique Izzi, a Khmer citizen of French, Corsican and Khmer ancestry, had been one of King Norodom Sihanouk's consorts after being a constant companion since the day they met in 1951, when she won first prize in a national beauty contest. She was granted the title of Neak Moneang and the name of Monineath at the time of her marriage to King Norodom Sihanouk in 1952. Furthermore, Queen Monineath is a step-granddaughter of the late Prince Norodom Duongchak of Cambodia, and the daughter of Pomme Peang and of her second husband, Jean-François Izzi, a Corsican banker. The Royal Ark website entry about the genealogy of the Cambodian royal family states that Sihanouk and Monineath were married twice, once on 12 April 1952, when she was 15, and again ("more formally", according to the website) on 5 March 1955. She is described as Sihanouk's seventh wife.
Sihamoni has 14 half-brothers and half-sisters by his father; his only full sibling, a younger brother, Samdech Norodom Narindrapong, was born in 1954 and died in 2003.
Studies and life abroad.
He has spent most of his life outside Cambodia. In 1962 the young Sihamoni was sent to Prague, in then Czechoslovakia, by his father. During the 1970 coup d'état by Lon Nol, Sihamoni remained in Czechoslovakia. He completed elementary and secondary education in the country and studies in classical dance and music at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague in 1975. As he spent almost his entire childhood and youth in Prague, the king is fluent in the Czech language. A movie directed by was shot about the prince in Prague in 1967, under the name "The Other Little Prince (Jiný malý princ).
After graduation in 1975 he left Prague and began to study filmmaking in North Korea, and in 1977 returned to Cambodia. Immediately, the ruling Khmer Rouge government turned against the monarchy, and put the royal family including Sihamoni under house arrest until the 1979 Vietnamese invasion, due to the invasion of the Khmer Rouge into Vietnamese territories and killing innocent Vietnamese civilians.
In 1981 he moved to France to teach ballet, and was later president of the Khmer Dance Association. He lived in France for nearly 20 years, regularly visiting Prague, where he had spent his childhood and youth.
In 1993 the prince was appointed Cambodia's delegate to UNESCO in Paris, where he became known for his hard work and his devotion to Cambodian culture. He had previously refused an appointment as Cambodia's ambassador to France.
Languages.
Besides his native Khmer, Norodom Sihamoni speaks Czech fluently, the only ruling monarch in the world to do so. The king is also fluent in French and is a conversational speaker of English and Russian.
Reign.
On 14 October 2004 he was selected by a special nine-member council, part of a selection process that was quickly put in place after the surprise abdication of King Norodom Sihanouk a week before. Sihamoni's selection was endorsed by Prime Minister Hun Sen and National Assembly Speaker Prince Norodom Ranariddh (the new king's half-brother), both members of the privy council. He was inaugurated and formally appointed as King on 29 October 2004. King Sihamoni and his parents, King Father Norodom Sihanouk and Queen Mother Norodom Monineath, specifically requested that the ceremonies not be lavish because they did not wish the impoverished country to spend too much money on the event. On 29 October 2014, there were celebrations to mark the 10th anniversary of his coronation.
Sihamoni remains unmarried and has no children. His father Norodom Sihanouk stated that Sihamoni "loves women as his sisters".
Title.
Before he was crowned king, his royal title was: "Sdech Krom Khun" (), equating him to the rank of "Great Prince". As king, his title is: "Preah Karuna Preah Bat Sâmdach Preah Bâromneath Norodom Sihamoni Saman Bhumichat Sasana Rakkhata Khattiya Khmeraratrat Putthintra Mohaksat Khemareacheana Samuhobhas Kampuchea Ekareacharath Bureanasanti Subheamagala Sirivibunla Khmera Sri Bireat Preah Chao Krung Kampuchea Dhibodi" (in romanized Khmer); roughly translating to: "His Merciful Excellent Majesty Protector, King Norodom Sihamoni, who unites the nation, religion, realms, and people of Khmer state, the great king who is supported by Buddha and Indra, the protector of independence, unification, and peace, the Great King of the Kingdom of Cambodia".
Advisory court.
On 12 December 2008, Sihamoni selected twenty-six members of the Cambodian royal family to his advisory court, among them his half-brother Prince Norodom Ranariddh as chief advisor. Other choices included Prince Sisowath Sirirath, Princess Norodom Marie (estranged wife of Prince Ranariddh) and Prince Sisowath Thomico.
Criticism.
Cambodia had no lèse-majesté laws until recently. In February 2018, Cambodia's National Assembly passed new legislation making it an offence to insult the king.
Some Cambodian opposition figures have criticized the acquiescence of the king, describing him as too lenient towards Hun Sen's decades-long authoritarian rule in the kingdom.


Hartford Line (Amtrak)

The Hartford Line is a train service run by Amtrak primarily between Springfield, Massachusetts, and New Haven, Connecticut, along Amtrak's New Haven–Springfield Line.
Service on the line takes the form of shuttle trains, "Valley Flyer" trains, or "Northeast Regional" through trains. The shuttle trains meet "Acela" and "Northeast Regional" services at New Haven Union Station where passengers can typically make a cross-platform transfer between trains. "Valley Flyer" trains also offer the same connecting service at New Haven, but continue past Springfield north to Greenfield, Massachusetts. At least one "Northeast Regional" round trip operates daily between Washington, D.C. and Springfield, with additional through trains operate on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.
Prior to the addition of the "Valley Flyer" and the "Northeast Regional" thru trains, the service was known as the New Haven–Springfield Shuttle, or simply, the "Shuttle". The line was renamed in September 2019. Today the service is a component of and shares its name with the Hartford Line commuter rail service operated by the Connecticut Department of Transportation.
During fiscal year (FY) 2020, the service carried 271,048 riders, a decrease of 44.8% from FY 2019. The drop in ridership and revenue was primarily due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourism.
The service is financially supported by the Connecticut Department of Transportation and Massachusetts Department of Transportation.
History.
As inherited from Penn Central in 1971, most service on the Springfield Line consisted of unnamed Budd Rail Diesel Car shuttles that connected with Northeast Corridor trains at New Haven, with limited through service to New York City. In 1980, Connecticut invested $12 million to improve service on the line. North Haven station was opened on October 25, 1980, and other stations were renovated. A new fleet of 12 Budd SPV-2000 diesel railcars allowed an increase to 12 daily round trips under the Connecticut Valley Service name (plus two through trips) at that time. However, service was cut in half in 1981 after ridership failed to increase.
On January 12, 1986, Amtrak pulled the unreliable SPVs from the line and replaced them with Amfleet coaches pulled by diesel locomotives. North Haven and Enfield stations were closed on October 25, 1986 due to low ridership. As New Haven was the northern limit of electrification on the Northeast Corridor, New York–Boston trains changed between electric and diesel locomotives at the station. The passenger coaches of Springfield shuttle trains were attached to southbound trains during the engine change, and detached from northbound trains; this eliminated the need for passengers to change trains. The "Connecticut Valley Service" name was soon dropped, and shuttle trains were named in timetables as sections of their connecting trains. The elimination of the second track on the line beginning in 1990 sharply reduced capacity, limiting frequencies to four daily shuttle round trips plus several through trips.
On October 28, 1995, most Northeast Corridor service including the shuttle trains were consolidated under the "NortheastDirect" brand. Electrification was extended to Boston in 2000, and engine changes were eliminated over the next two years. The cumbersome split/merge procedure was abandoned in favor of dedicated shuttle trains with cross-platform connections to through trains. The shuttle trains began to use Former Metroliner cab cars, which had become available when replaced by new equipment on West Coast routes. This allowed them to operate in push–pull format, eliminating the need to wye or loop the trainsets at New Haven and Springfield. The "NortheastDirect" name was dropped in September 2001; Northeast Corridor trains became the "Acela Regional" (later "Regional" then "Northeast Regional"), while the shuttle trains became unnamed. They remained unnamed until 2019 when they received the "Hartford Line" and "Valley Flyer" names
Mail service.
Until Amtrak discontinued all mail-hauling operations in 2005, the postal distribution center in Springfield, MA, was a significant customer. Up until about the year 2000, Springfield was served by a dedicated mail train which would run overnight up the Inland Route to Springfield. After this train was canceled, mail cars were instead added to the early morning Train 190, to make pickups at large cities along the Northeast Corridor. At New Haven these mail cars would be removed from the rear of Train 190 and added to "Shuttle" Train 490, sometimes sandwiching the locomotive in the middle of the train.
Hartford Line expansion.
Until August 2015, daily service in each direction on the Springfield Line consisted of four "Shuttles", the "Vermonter", and one or two "Northeast Regional" trains. Between August 3, 2015 and December 31, 2017, several round trips on weekdays were replaced by buses to accommodate double track construction for the ConnDOT Hartford Line commuter rail service. On June 9, 2018, three additional weekday "Shuttle" round trips were added as part of the startup of Hartford Line service. This change also added connections with some Amtrak "Acela Express" service in New Haven
Hartford Line began on June 16, 2018. Initial Hartford Line service consisted of eight weekday round trips (four New Haven–Hartford and four New Haven–Springfield) and nine weekend round trips (six New Haven–Hartford and three New Haven–Springfield). On September 10, 2018, as part of a schedule change made to Hartford Line trains, all Amtrak "Shuttles" and "Northeast Regionals" started stopping at New Haven's State Street station. (The "Vermonter" makes only limited stops between New Haven and Springfield.)
Amtrak adopted the Hartford Line name for use on the trains it operates on the corridor and retired the Shuttle designation in September 2019.
Valley Flyer pilot program.
On June 12, 2018, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker announced that two daily round trips would be extended to in 2019 as a pilot program. By February 2019, the two-year pilot was expected to begin in June 2019; however, by that May it was delayed to later in the year. On August 30, 2019, the "Valley Flyer" program began. Two round trips are offered on weekdays and one on weekends with southbound trains in the morning and northbound in the evening which complement Amtrak's existing daily service on the Vermonter. Additionally a reverse round trip operates between Springfield and Greenfield on weekends only.
Operation.
The local Hartford Line trains are numbered in the 400 series, usually denoting by the last two digits which "Northeast Regional" train the Hartford Line train is connecting with. Trains terminating in Springfield carry the Hartford Line name, while trains terminating in Greenfield carry the Valley Flyer designation. Typical consists run in push-pull configuration with a General Electric P42DC locomotive pulling an Amfleet coach and a 9600-series ex-Metroliner cab car. Normally the ex-Budd Metroliner leads northbound trains, while the GE Genesis usually leads most southbound trains. Crew bases are at Springfield and New Haven, with diesel locomotive servicing taking place at New Haven.
The Valley Flyer trains account for two weekday round trips and one weekend round trip. Southbound Valley Flyer trains require an equipment move from the crew base and equipment layover yard at Springfield Union Station to the Olver Transit Center in Greenfield prior to the Greenfield departure as Amtrak does not have any crew or turnaround facilities in the area. Likewise, equipment and crews on northbound trips must dead head back to Springfield after unloading all Greenfield passengers. For the weekend Valley Flyer, tickets are available for these moves (trains 400 and 499.) On weekdays, these trips are dead head moves and are not open to passengers. Another unique operational aspect of the Valley Flyer is the need for the push pull trains to reverse directions twice at Springfield during the trip due to the station’s location just to the east of the intersection between the Amtrak Springfield Line, MassDOT Connecticut River Line, and CSX Berkshire Subdivison.
The New Haven–Springfield corridor is served by all "Northeast Regional" trains in the 140 series (except trains 145 and 149) as well as trains 136 and 157. These trains run from Springfield to or Virginia without the need to change trains. The corridor is also served by Amtrak's "Vermonter".
Fares.
The Hartford Line and Valley Flyer service operates as a component of CTDOT's Hartford Line commuter rail program along with CTDOT's own CTrail trains and reduced fixed commuter level fares are offered for local travel on the service between all stations inclusive of and between New Haven Union Station and Springfield Union Station on both the 400 series trains and the Northeast Regional through trains which travel beyond New Haven. CTDOT issued rail passes and CTrail tickets are also accepted on these trains. Intercity rail trips that include travel beyond New Haven are subject to normal Amtrak fares as well as travel along the Valley Flyer extension to Greenfield, MA. Amtrak's Vermonter trains which also travel along the corridor are excluded from the commuter level fares.


Natalia Brasova

Natalia Brasova, Countess Brasova (; born Natalia Sergeyevna Sheremetyevskaya, ; 27 June 1880 – 26 January 1952) was a Russian noblewoman who married, as her third husband, Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia.
Early life.
Natalia, or Natasha to her friends, was the youngest of three daughters of a Moscow lawyer, Sergei Alexandrovich Sheremetevsky. She was born at a rented summer "dacha" at Perovo, on the outskirts of Moscow. Sheremetevsky employed 11 other lawyers, and was a member of the minor nobility, but had no title and was essentially a professional middle-class man. He was a sometime deputy in the Moscow City Duma, and a trustee of the Arbat City School. In the first year of her life, Natalia and her family lived in a rented apartment near the Moscow Kremlin on Ilinka. Their landlord, wealthy industrialist Aleksey Khludov, was also Natalia's godfather. From 1881 to 1893, the family lived at 7 Serebriany Lane, a single-storied wooden house owned by Sheremetevsky. From 1893, the family lived in a succession of rented apartments until Natalia left home on her marriage. She was educated at a private school, and by a French governess employed by her father.
First marriage.
In 1902, she married Sergei Mamontov (1 October 1877, Moscow – 30 December 1939, Tallinn), a nephew of Savva Mamontov. Sergei was a rehearsal accompanist for Savva Mamontov's Opera Company, which was renamed Association of Russian Opera after Savva's bankruptcy in 1899, and later at the Bolshoi Theatre. Through her first husband's connections, Natalia became friendly with noted musicians such as Sergei Rachmaninoff and Feodor Chaliapin. The couple moved into 13 Mansurovsky Lane, a new apartment building near the fashionable Prechistenka street, and had a daughter, Natalia or "Tata" to the family, on 2 June 1903. Sergei had a stammer and was of a retiring disposition, but Natalia was keen to socialise. Finding him socially dull, she began to go out unaccompanied by her husband. Russian divorce law followed the teachings of the Orthodox Church, and in practice divorce was only possible in cases of adultery where the husband was the guilty party. In 1905, Sergei agreed to a divorce and to act in the proceedings as if he was the unfaithful partner. Now free from her first husband, Natalia married her lover, cavalry officer Vladimir Vladimirovich Wulfert ().
Second marriage.
Natalia and Wulfert had known each other as children, but only fell in love after re-meeting in Moscow when Wulfert was on leave. He was an army officer serving in The Dowager Empress's Life Guard Cuirassier Regiment, known as the Blue Cuirassiers from the colour of their uniforms, stationed at Gatchina near Saint Petersburg. Natalia and Wulfert set up home at 7 Baggout Street, Gatchina.
In early December 1907, Natalia was introduced to one of her husband's fellow officers in the Blue Cuirassiers: Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia, the brother of Tsar Nicholas II. The following month, they met again at the Regimental Winter Ball. From then on, they began to see each other regularly, though Michael was always careful to include Wulfert in his letters and invitations, at least until October 1908, and use the formal form of "you" ("vy") rather than the familiar one ("ty"). Rumours of their affair spread through the regiment, and Wulfert grew resentful. Michael began sending her secret letters to a separate postal address, now writing to her in familiar terms, and Wulfert grew physically violent, as Natalia refused to share his bed. In July 1909, privately in a letter, she accused her husband of rape. She packed luggage, and with their daughter, an elderly female cousin, and two maids, she left Wulfert for a break abroad in Switzerland. Both Michael and Wulfert turned up at the train station to see her off, and Wulfert created a scene by loudly accusing her of ruining him.
Through Baron Frederiks, the court minister, Michael tried to buy off Wulfert by offering him a post in Moscow as aide-de-camp to Prince Odoevsky-Maslov at the Kremlin. Wulfert threatened to commit suicide if Natalia did not return to him, and then challenged Michael to a duel. Nicholas II intervened, and transferred Michael from the Blue Cuirassiers to the Chernigov Hussars at Orel, from Saint Petersburg. In August 1909, Michael went to Denmark with his mother, and arranged for Natalia to meet him there. They were reunited in a hotel in Copenhagen, unbeknownst to his mother, and consummated their relationship for the first time.
Royal mistress.
Wulfert accepted the Kremlin post, at an enlarged salary, and as Natalia's residence permit was tied to her husband's she also returned to Moscow to live temporarily at a hotel opposite the Kremlin. By November, she was living in an 8-room apartment at 36 Petersburg Road, paid for by Michael, where he visited her about 3 times a month from Orel. Wulfert was still demanding that Natalia return to him, as well as threatening to shoot her. Against the wishes of Michael and Natalia, Nicholas II insisted that she remain in Moscow, and refused to vary the conditions of her residence permit.
By December 1909, Natalia was pregnant. Fearful that her husband would try to claim the child and take it away from her, her desire for a divorce grew stronger. Eventually, after prolonged negotiations and a hefty pay-off, Wulfert agreed to a divorce on the pretence that he had been unfaithful. Natalia's divorce petition was submitted to the Moscow Ecclesiastical Consistory Court on 19 February 1910, but by July 1910 it had not been granted. When she gave birth to a son on 24 July 1910, the child was legally Wulfert's. The boy was named George in honour of Michael's late brother. It was said that Wulfert was bought off with a bribe of 200,000 roubles, and the date of their divorce was back-dated, so that George was recognised as Natalia's illegitimate son, though inheriting her noble status, rather than the legitimate child of Wulfert's.
In May 1911, Nicholas II granted Natalia the surname "Brasova" and the right to live at Michael's estate at Brasovo, from his posting at Orel. Michael, Natalia and her two children moved there immediately. By the end of the year, Michael was posted to a command in Saint Petersburg, and they moved to the capital. He officially lived in regimental quarters while paying for a 28-room apartment at 16 Liteyny Prospekt for her. She felt trapped in the apartment, feared that her letters were opened, and was ostracised by society. After a few months, Michael moved her to a villa at 24 Nikolaevskaya, Gatchina, nearer to his base at the Gatchina Palace.
Third marriage.
Just as they had done for the previous two years, in summer 1912, Michael and Natalia holidayed in Western Europe. After shaking off agents of Nicholas II's secret police, the Okhrana, Michael and Natalia married in Vienna on 16 October 1912 in a Serbian Orthodox Church. They had successfully planned the wedding without either Nicholas II's or the Okhrana's knowledge. On their eventual arrival in Cannes, after a few days travelling through Venice and Milan, Natalia's two children joined them from Russia. The Grand Duke wrote to his brother, the Tsar, to inform him of the marriage, but because Natalia was divorced and not of royal blood the Tsar refused to approve it. Michael was perceived by the court as being "under the hypnotic influence of a malicious vamp". Nicholas II said Natalia was "such a cunning, wicked beast that it's disgusting even to talk about her". Michael was removed from the imperial succession, and exiled from Russia in disgrace. Though members of society felt some sympathy for Michael, thinking his punishment severe, there was little sympathy for Natalia. Despite marrying a Grand Duke, she was not entitled to be known as "Grand Duchess", and instead used the style "Madame" or "Countess Brasova".
Until September 1913, they stayed in hotels throughout Europe, without any decrease in their standard of living. They met Michael's sister Grand Duchess Xenia and cousin Grand Duke Andrew, and in July 1913, they saw Michael's mother in London who told Natalia "a few home truths" according to Xenia's diary. From September 1913, they leased an English country house, Knebworth, north of London. Natalia acted as hostess for any of their guests, which included her friend Chaliapin, the Ballets Russes, and the artist Serge Sudeikin. As a divorcée, however, Natalia was often excluded from invitations to social events elsewhere; the divorced were not received at court and could not enter the Royal Enclosure at Ascot.
War.
Upon the outbreak of World War I, Michael requested Nicholas II's permission to return home and to the army, with the understanding his wife and children could accompany him. Nicholas agreed and the family returned to the house on Nikolaevskaya street; Natalia was still not permitted to live in any of the imperial palaces. Michael was appointed to the rank of major-general, and given command of the "Savage Division" (Дикая Дивизия) formed from Chechens and Daghestani. The post was perceived as a relatively low position in the Army, and was believed to be Nicholas II's punishment for Michael's marriage.
As was expected of women in the imperial family, Natalia founded two hospitals, one at Gatchina and one at Saint Petersburg, in properties owned by Michael. In January 1915, her sister Olga died in Moscow, and she went there for the funeral. In February 1915, her eldest sister Vera also died.
At her hotel in Moscow, Michael's cousin Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia declared that he was in love with her. Natalia referred to Dmitri as "Lily-of-the-Valley". Dmitri had a reputation as a rake, though Natalia was flattered, she turned him down and told her husband of the encounter. Michael was jealous about Natalia's feelings for Dmitri: "What you are writing to me about Lily-of-the-Valley, i.e., how tenderly, tenderly you love him and also that he comes to see you because he likes you and totally succumbed to your charm and besides, you say that conquering such a heart means much to you—I believe that if you just stop to consider the meaning of these several sentences you have written, you will realise what pain you have given me by writing them." Natalia told Michael, "Believe me, my affection for him does not in the least interfere with my love for you."
In March 1915, Nicholas II agreed to legitimise George, and grant him the style of Count Brasov, although George still held no claim to the throne. While George was recognized as a count of the Empire, it appears that no such dignity was accorded Natalia. Natalia's social circle expanded as more people began to accept her. As the war began to go badly for the Russians, Natalia was dismayed by the change in Michael's appearance as he abandoned his smart uniforms and decorations and wore a plain uniform with his muddy boots. Michael was "deeply upset" by Natalia's criticisms of his decision to be in the frontline of the war. He wrote to her, "the present time is so hard for Russia that my conscience could not allow me "not" to join the frontline service – and I am convinced that having done that, I also brought you some good in terms of public opinion, which, unfortunately, we can't totally ignore."
Natalia's social circle widened to include deputies in the Duma, and she was perceived as a liberal who supported a constitutional monarchy rather than the Tsar's autocracy. The Tsarina, Alexandra, even feared that Natalia was conspiring to make Michael Emperor. The Tsarina and Dowager Empress still would not accept Natalia. A portrait of her in a Kiev hospital she had funded with her own money was hidden by hospital staff for a visit by the Dowager Empress, and Alexandra had an exhibition of photographs of Michael and Natalia cleared by the imperial police. Natalia was depressed by the snubs, and by her separation from Michael, who was still at the front. In September 1916, they reunited at Mogilev, and spent time at Brasovo and Gatchina for the next six weeks, until Michael fell ill with stomach ulcers. They moved to the Crimea for Michael's recuperation. Christmas 1916 was spent at Brasovo as a family, where Natalia's daughter was "thrilled to the core" to hear that Dimitri had helped murder Rasputin, Tsarina Alexandra's self-styled spiritual mentor.
Revolution.
After the February Revolution in 1917, Nicholas abdicated in Michael's favour, but Michael refused to accept the throne until ratified by the will of the people. By naming Michael as his successor, Nicholas effectively reversed the long-standing law that morganatically married dynasts forfeited rights of succession, but his actions were ultimately irrelevant. Power lay with the revolutionaries, not with the Tsar, whether it was Nicholas or Michael. Michael and his family were placed under house arrest in Gatchina.
In September 1917, the house arrest was lifted. At the end of the following month the Prime Minister, Alexander Kerensky, was deposed in the October Revolution and the Bolsheviks seized power. With a permit to travel issued by Peter Polotsov, a former army colleague of Michael's who held a command in Saint Petersburg, the family planned to move to the greater safety of Finland. Valuables were packed and the children were moved to an estate south of Gatchina owned by Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov, the brother of one of Natalia's closest friends (Nadine Vonlyarlarskaya) and the father of the famous writer, Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov. The Bolsheviks discovered their plan, however, and their escape was blocked. The children returned to Gatchina, and they were once again under house arrest. Natalia managed to gain access to her safety deposit box, by claiming that she needed to examine some papers at the bank, and thus retrieved as much of her jewellery as she could conceal without arousing suspicion. The house arrest was lifted in November, but on 7 March 1918 Michael and Nicholas Johnson—who had been his secretary since December 1912—were re-arrested on the orders of Moisei Uritsky, the Head of the Petrograd secret police. They were imprisoned at Bolshevik headquarters in the Smolny Institute.
Natalia visited Michael the next two days, 8 and 9 March 1918, with their friend Princess Putyatina. On 9 March, she barged her way into Lenin's office, which was in the same building, to remonstrate with him. In the evening, the Council of the People's Commissars decided to send Michael and Johnson into internal exile. On 11 March, they were sent a thousand miles eastwards to the remote city of Perm.
Concerned for her entire family's safety, Natalia made plans for the children to be taken abroad. With the help of the Danish embassy, which was next-door to Princess Puyatina's apartment, George was smuggled out of the country to Denmark by his nanny, Miss Neame. The Danes extended diplomatic protection to the villa in Gatchina by pretending to rent it and flying the Danish flag over the house. Natalia wanted to join Michael in Perm, and after repeated pleading received a travel permit to join him. They spent about a week together, until an army of disgruntled Czechs advanced on Perm. The Bolsheviks had attempted to ship prisoners-of-war from Austria-Hungary out of Russia, ethnic Czech troops amongst them. The Czechs, however, were not going home to fight once more for the Austrian empire, but to fight for a separate independent homeland. The Germans demanded that the Bolsheviks disarm the Czechs, with the result that the Czech forces joined with the White Army, fighting against the Bolsheviks. With the approach of the Czechs, Michael and Natalia feared that she would become trapped in Perm, possibly in a dangerous situation, and so on 18 May she left for Moscow.
In Moscow, Natalia continued to badger Bolshevik Commissars, including Lenin, Trotsky and Sverdlov, for Michael's release, but to no avail. In June 1918, her husband and Johnson were shot by their captors on the outskirts of Perm. To cover their tracks, the Perm authorities distributed a concocted story that Michael was abducted by unidentified men and had disappeared. Natalia went to Uritsky in a quest for an explanation, but Uritsky ordered her arrest and incarceration. The Soviet disinformation about Michael's disappearance led to unfounded rumours that he had escaped and was leading a successful counter-revolution. Natalia heard the rumours in prison, and chose to believe them. Ten weeks after her imprisonment, in early September, Natalia pretended that she had developed tuberculosis, and was moved to a nursing home. Once there, she escaped and took refuge in the apartment above her brother-in-law's with family friend Princess Vyazemskaya. Uritsky had been murdered in late August, and the Bolsheviks were terrorising Petrograd in what was later called the Red Terror. Natalia's daughter, "Tata", was arrested and imprisoned, but released after a few days when it became apparent she had no knowledge of her mother's whereabouts. With no money or food, "Tata" made her way to her uncle's apartment, and so was fortuitously re-united with her mother.
Exile.
The Germans believed the widespread rumours that Michael was still alive, and plotted to rescue Natalia from Russia in an attempt to gain influence with Michael. Through the German-controlled Ukrainian consulate, Natalia and her daughter were provided with false passports. Natalia's daughter used her own name, while Natalia's passport was in the name of a nun called Frau Tania Klenow. They travelled separately to Kyiv, with Natalia disguised as a nun. They were still in Kyiv when the war ended with Germany's defeat on 11 November 1918. German authority began to collapse. Natalia and her daughter, along with Princess Vyazemskaya and Natalia's widowed brother-in-law Aleksei Matveev, who had both made it to Kyiv as well, fled to Odessa in the hope they could escape by sea. Two British naval vessels at the port, HMS "Nereide" and HMS "Skirmisher", provided them with sanctuary. Aboard HMS "Nereide" they were evacuated to Constantinople.
By way of HMS "Agamemnon" to Malta, merchant ship to Marseilles, and rail to Paris, Natalia arrived in England. Johnson's widowed mother had leased a house, Snape in Wadhurst, Sussex, for Michael's family, and all the furniture and furnishings stored at Paddockhurst were moved in. George arrived from Copenhagen with his nanny in spring 1919, and was sent to an English boarding school. Natalia's daughter, Natalia Mamontova, was enrolled at a convent school in France. For funds, Natalia used money in Michael's bank accounts in Paris and Copenhagen, and started selling her jewellery. She met Michael's mother, the Dowager Empress Marie, who had also escaped Russia, in London, and their meeting this time was courteous. Conflicting rumours about Michael's fate and whereabouts continued without any solid news. In 1920, "Tata" was sent to Cheltenham Ladies' College and George was enrolled at Harrow School. Natalia moved out of Snape as the lease ended, and moved to Percy Lodge near Richmond, Surrey.
On 12 August 1921, 18-year-old Natalia Mamontova married future BBC broadcaster Val Gielgud, against her mother's wishes and without her foreknowledge. Natalia Mamontova was on school break and returned home as if nothing had happened. When Natalia found out, she ordered her daughter out of her house. Natalia left Percy Lodge and moved into an apartment in Kensington. The Gielguds divorced in 1923, and Natalia Mamontova married composer and music critic Cecil Gray.
By 1924, there was still no sign of Michael, and Natalia had him declared legally dead on 5 July 1924. She inherited his estate in Britain, which was valued at a mere £95. The following month, Michael's cousin, Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovich, declared himself Emperor on the basis that he had inherited the throne at the moment of the previous Emperor's death, despite the abolition of the Russian monarchy by the communists. In 1928, he gave Natalia the title of Princess, followed in 1935 by the style "Her Serene Highness Princess Romanovskaya-Brasova". He made George a Prince. Cyril's claim to the throne was met with opposition from within the Romanov family because at his birth his mother was a Lutheran and not a member of the Russian Orthodox Church. Furthermore, Cyril had married Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, who was a divorcée and his first cousin, without the Emperor's consent. The House law that determined the Russian line of succession excluded princes born to non-Orthodox mothers, and princes who married without the Tsar's consent. The Russian Orthodox Church did not recognise Victoria's divorce from her first husband as valid, and did not permit marriage between first cousins. Cyril's title, and by extension Natalia's and George's, were only recognised by Cyril's supporters.
Decline.
To save money, in 1927 Natalia moved to Paris where living costs were less than in London. George joined her in France, but he was killed after a car accident in 1931. She was at his bedside when he died, though he had not regained consciousness after the crash. She was emotionally devastated. Natalia's granddaughter, Pauline Gray, was born in 1929, but the Grays' marriage also ended in divorce. Natalia Mamontova's third and last marriage was to naval officer Michael Majolier, with whom she had a second daughter, Alexandra, born in 1934.
Natalia continued attempts to recover Michael's assets. The Polish government had seized Michael's Polish estate, and Natalia sued them for its return or compensation. By the Peace of Riga, the Poles were entitled to any imperial property in the former Russian Poland, but Natalia pointed out that Michael was already dead before the Peace, and so any of Michael's property in Poland was legally hers, as a commoner. In 1937, the court ruled against her. In 1938, she did receive a pay-out from the German courts, when the Tsar's estate in Germany was shared between all his heirs, but hyper-inflation had reduced its value. She continued to sell anything she could in a desperate attempt to raise cash.
During World War II, Natalia and her daughter were separated as Natalia lived in Paris, and her daughter was in Britain. They were unable to communicate with each other until after the war, by which time Natalia was penniless and lived as a refugee in an attic box-room. On 23 January 1952, she died of cancer at the Laënnec charity hospital in Paris in complete poverty, and was buried in Passy Cemetery (Section 9, near the intersection with the outer wall and Section 8) in Paris beside her son George, Count Brasov.


European System of Central Banks

The European System of Central Banks (ESCB) consists of the European Central Bank (ECB) and the national central banks (NCBs) of all 27 member states of the European Union (EU).
The ESCB is not the monetary authority of the eurozone, because not all EU member states have joined the euro. That role is performed by the Eurosystem, which includes the national central banks of the 19 member states that have adopted the euro. The ESCB's objective is price stability throughout the European Union. Secondarily, the ESCB's goal is to improve monetary and financial cooperation between the Eurosystem and member states outside the eurozone.
Organization.
The process of decision-making in the Eurosystem is centralized through the decision-making bodies of the ECB, namely the Governing Council and the Executive Board. As long as there are EU member states which have not adopted the euro, a third decision-making body, the General Council, shall also exist. The NCBs of the Member States that do not participate in the euro area are members of the ESCB with a special statuswhile they are allowed to conduct their respective national monetary policies, they do not take part in the decision-making with regard to the single monetary policy for the euro area and the implementation of such decisions.
The Governing Council comprises all the members of the Executive Board and the governors of the national central banks (NCBs) of the member states without a derogation, i.e., those countries which have adopted the euro. The main responsibilities of the Governing Council are:
The Executive Board comprises the President, the Vice-President and four other members, all chosen from among persons of recognized standing and professional experience in monetary or banking matters. They are appointed by common accord of the governments of the Member States at the level of the Heads of State or Government, on a recommendation from the Council of Ministers after it has consulted the European Parliament and the Governing Council of the ECB (i.e., the Council of the European Monetary Institute (EMI) for the first appointments). The main responsibilities of the Executive Board are:
The General Council comprises the President and the Vice-President and the governors of the NCBs of all 27 Member States. The General Council performs the tasks which the ECB took over from the EMI and which, owing to the derogation of one or more Member States, still have to be performed in Stage Three of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). The General Council also contributes to:
The Statute of the ESCB makes provision for the following measures to ensure security of tenure for NCB governors and members of the Executive Board:
Member banks.
The ESCB is composed of the European Central Bank and the national central banks of all 27 member states of the European Union. The first section of the following list lists member states and their central banks that form the Eurosystem (plus the ECB), which set eurozone monetary policy. The second section lists member states and their central banks that maintain separate currencies.


Karenna Gore

Karenna Aitcheson Gore (born August 6, 1973), formerly known as Karenna Schiff, is an American author and journalist. She is the eldest daughter of former U.S. vice president Al Gore and Tipper Gore and the sister of Kristin Gore, Sarah Gore Maiani and Albert Gore III. Gore is the director of the Center for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary.
Background.
Gore was born in Nashville, Tennessee, and grew up there as well as in Washington D.C.. She received her B.A. in history and literature in 1995 from Harvard University, a J.D. from Columbia Law School in 2000, and a Master of Arts degree from Union Theological Seminary in 2013. During college, she interned as a journalist for WREG-TV and "The Times-Picayune". She later wrote for "El Pais" in Spain and "Slate" in Seattle. After law school, she was briefly an associate with the law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in New York City. She left that job to work in the non-profit sector as Director of Community Affairs for the Association to Benefit Children (ABC), and as a volunteer in the legal center of Sanctuary for Families. In 2017, Gore was elected to the Board of Directors of Riverkeeper.
2000 campaign and book.
Gore was the Youth Outreach Chair on her father's 2000 presidential campaign. Together with her father's former Harvard roommate Tommy Lee Jones, she officially nominated Gore as the presidential candidate during the 2000 Democratic Convention in Los Angeles. She also introduced her father during the launching of his campaign.
In 2006, she published "Lighting the Way: Nine Women Who Shaped Modern America", a profile of nine modern and historical American women. Stating that the book was written in reaction to the results of the 2000 campaign, Gore said, "I wanted to turn all that frustration and sadness into something positive."
In June 2016, Gore was among 23 protesters who were arrested for demonstrating at the site of construction of a pipeline in Boston that would carry fracked gas for the Houston-based Spectra company. Previously, she was part of the successful campaign against a fracked gas pipeline (the Constitution pipeline) through New York state.
Personal life.
On July 12, 1997, she married Andrew Newman Schiff, a primary care physician in Washington, D.C., and great-great grandson of Jacob Schiff, at the Washington National Cathedral. Andrew Schiff now works as a biotechnology fund manager. They have three children together: Wyatt Gore Schiff (born July 4, 1999, in New York City), Anna Hunger Schiff, (born August 23, 2001, in New York City), and Oscar Aitcheson Schiff (born in 2006). She and husband Andrew separated in 2010 and later divorced.


Skills for Business

The Skills for Business network is an umbrella organisation for the twenty-five Sector Skills Councils in the United Kingdom.
History.
The whole set of SSCs are funded by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills.


Reactions to the 2005 French riots

The 2005 French riots led to a domestic and international response.
Domestic.
Political.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who has consistently advocated a tough approach to crime and restoring law and order, was a major probable contender for the 2007 presidential election. Success or failure on his part in quelling violence in suburban ghettos may thus have had far-ranging implications. Any action by Sarkozy was likely to be attacked by the political opposition, as well as by members of his Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) political coalition who also expect to run for the presidency. "Le Monde", in a 5 November editorial
reminisced about the "catastrophic" elections of 2002 where right-wing candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen managed to enter the second round of voting, showing concern that a similar situation might arise in the upcoming elections as a backlash to the riots.
After the fourth night of riots, Sarkozy declared a zero tolerance policy towards urban violence and announced that 17 companies of riot police (C.R.S.) and 7 mobile police squadrons ("escadrons de gendarmerie mobile") would be stationed in contentious Paris neighborhoods. Sarkozy has said that he believes that some of the violence may be at the instigation of organized gangs. "... All of this doesn't appear to us to be completely spontaneous", he said . Undercover police officers were sent to identify "gang leaders, drug traffickers and big shots." Sarkozy's approach was criticized by left-wing politicians who called for greater public funding for housing, education, and job creation, and refraining from "dangerous demagoguery" . Sarkozy was further criticized after he referred to the rioters as "racaille" and "voyous" (translating to "scum" , "riff-raff" , "thugs" or "hoodlums" ).
During his visit to Clichy-sous-Bois, the Interior Minister was to meet with the families of the two youths killed, but when a tear gas grenade was thrown into the Clichy mosque, the families pulled out of the meeting. Bouna Traoré's brother Siyakah said, "There is no way we're going to see Sarkozy, who is incompetent. What happened in the mosque is really disrespectful."
The families finally met Prime minister Dominique de Villepin on 3 November.
The left-wing newspaper "Libération" cited the exasperation of suburb youth at the harassment by the police and Interior Minister Sarkozy ("lack of respect") . The declaration of a pupil's parent that "Torching a school is unacceptable, but the one who put on the fire is Sarkozy" was reported throughout the French press, including in the conservative newspaper "Le Figaro" .
Azouz Begag, delegate minister for the promotion of equal opportunity, made several declarations about the recent unrest, opposing himself to Interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy for the latter's use of "imprecise, warlike semantics", which he says cannot help bring back calm in the affected areas .
On November 5, Paris (right-wing) prosecutor Yves Bot told Europe 1 radio that "This is done in a way that gives every appearance of being coordinated."
Some Aulnay-sous-Bois residents, as reported by Reuters, suspect that the riots were linked to the drug trade or even coordination by Islamic fundamentalists . Meanwhile, other Aulnay-sous-Bois residents interviewed considered this unjustified. Jérémie Garrigues, 19, doubted this was the case. "If those kids had been organized, they would have done much worse -- they would have used guns and bombs against the town hall and the prefecture", he argued.
"Those are all politicians' theories", remarked an Algerian woman named Samia, whose main concern was how frightened her children were by the unrest. "We live here in reality."
Jean-Marie Huet, director of criminal affairs and graces, after visiting an artisanal factory of molotov cocktails, said that "this is not really spontaneous trouble anymore"; he further stated "Correlations are made and situations are compared. No one has yet established that there should be any sort of underground organisation" .
Muslim leaders of African and Arab communities in France have also issued a fatwa, or religious order, against the riots, without many effects. "It is strictly forbidden for any Muslim... to take part in any action that strikes blindly at private or public property or that could threaten the lives of others", said the fatwa by the controversial Union of Islamic Organisations of France (UIOF), favored by Nicolas Sarkozy.
The BBC reports that French society's negative perceptions of Islam and of immigrants have alienated some French Muslims and may have been a factor in the causes of the riots; "Islam is seen as the biggest challenge to the country's secular model in the past 100 years". The BBC questioned whether such alarm is justified, citing that France's Muslim ghettos are not hotbeds of separatism and that "the suburbs are full of people desperate to integrate into the wider society."
Upon his nomination as Interior Minister, populist hardliner Nicolas Sarkozy promised to lead both a strict policy of zero tolerance against underground crime, promote law and order, and to promote social integration of the rejected. His actions are often criticised because of his use of television and the media. This, along with the relaxing of rules allowing the deportation of foreign offenders, and his declarations of support for positive discrimination and the participation of legal immigrants in local elections, has angered some suburban residents. However, Nicolas Sarkozy was the one to propose to expel all foreigners involved in the riots, which amounted to reinstate the "double penalty", a decision which has been widely criticized, for example by NGO SOS Racisme.
On Wednesday, October 19, Sarkozy announced a crackdown on urban violence and black marketeers, ordering specially trained police to tackle 25 neighbourhoods across the country . Sarkozy went there and declared he wanted to "clean out the city with a Kärcher" ("nettoyer la cité au Kärcher"). On October 25, as he went to Argenteuil, Nicolas Sarkozy used the word "racaille" ("trash"). Certain people say that inhabitants of these neighbourhoods felt insulted, feeling that all the inhabitants were considered offenders and criminals. Stones and bottles were tossed at him.
Jean-Marie Le Pen, a hardliner right-wing politician and a longtime critic of immigration from poorer countries, declared that the events vindicated what he had long said. He regretted the caution of the government in not sending law enforcement forces straight against the rioters. Another hardliner right-winger, Philippe de Villiers, made similar criticism.
UMP politician Bernard Accoyer called polygamy in France "certainly one of the causes, though not the only one" for the riots. Pierre Cardo of the UMP stated that "products of polygamous families" were among the participants. Historian Hélène Carrère d'Encausse of the Académie française stated that "African children [were] in the streets and not at school" because "in an apartment, there are three or four wives and 25 children". MRAP criticized such statements, stating that they were "playing an extremely dangerous role in feeding our country with the racism that causes the damage we know".
State of emergency.
On 8 November, President Jacques Chirac declared a state of emergency using a 1955 law. On 16 November, the French parliament, dominated by Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP (right-wing) party, approved a three-month extension of the state of emergency, which was to end on 21 February 2006. On 17 November, the French police declared a return to a normal situation throughout France, saying that the 98 vehicles torched the previous night corresponded to the usual average. On December 10, France's highest administrative body, the Council of State, ruled that the three-month state of emergency decreed to guarantee calm following unrest was legal. It rejected a complaint from 74 law professors (led by Frédéric Rolin) and the Green party, declaring that the conditions that led to the unrest, the quick spread of violence and the possibility that it could recur justify the state of emergency. The Council of State argued that "each night, between 40 to 60 cars are torched, and {that} we have to be cautious with New Year's Eve approaching". The complaint challenged the state of emergency's necessity, and said it compromised fundamental liberties .
Left-wing organizations, including SOS Racisme, the CIMADE, "Syndicat de la Magistrature" (magistrate trade-union), have criticized the "state of emergency" and the expulsions of foreigners born in France who didn't have a chance to demand French nationality (even though they are full-time residents). According to the accounts of some police trade-unions, the "state of emergency" wasn't really useful, with the situation seeming to become calmer without having to activate the possibilities allowed by the proclamation of the state of emergency.
Police.
An official of "Action Police CFTC", an "ultra-minority" police trade union , described the riots as a "civil war", and called on the French Army to intervene , . This caused outrage, notably triggering responses from the "UNSA-Police" union, which represents the majority of riot police (CRS), describing the situation in less dramatic terms .
In response to the riots, Sarkozy stated that police officers should be armed with non-lethal weapons to combat urban violence . Other voices in the public sphere have encouraged the use of deadly force as offering a more permanent solution to the problem of rioters. The French government, even prior to these riots, has been equipping law enforcement forces with less-lethal weapons (such as "flash-balls" and Tasers) to better deal with petty delinquency and urban unrest, especially in poor suburban communities. Amnesty International, among others, has criticized the use of these "less-lethal" weapons.
French national police spokesman, Patrick Hamon, was quoted in the "Wall Street Journal" as saying that there appeared to be no coordination among gangs in different areas. But he said youths in individual neighborhoods were communicating by cellphone text messages or email — arranging meetings and warning each other about police operations. According to the Guardian, (November 6, 2005), Hamon said, "what we notice is that the bands of youths are, little by little, getting more organized, arranging attacks through cell phone text messages and learning how to make gasoline bombs." The police have found a gasoline bomb-making workshop in a derelict building; Justice Ministry official Jean-Marie Huet told The Associated Press that gasoline bombs "are not being improvised by kids in their bathrooms." The apparent role of the Internet in helping to coordinate and cause unrest was also noted. It is generally noted, though, that making a Molotov cocktail does not need any special skill.
Firefighters.
The Paris Fire Brigade developed an "Urban Violence Plan", inspired by the experience of firefighters in Northern Ireland ("Libération", Oct. 29). The "hot zone" is identified and the fire engines wait outside this zone. When a fire is reported, a minimal team is engaged (two men outside the fire engine) under cover of the police forces; when the fire does not show any risk of spreading or causing casualties, the firefighters withdraw without attempting to put it out. While in the zone, firefighters stay alert for projectiles. The layout of the area is taken into account so that firefighters may not be trapped in a dead end.
During the current event, fire engines and firefighters from other "départements" were called for reinforcement; they were placed to defend calm areas (i.e. Paris "intra muros"), whereas the Paris Fire Brigade, which is a military unit, dealt with the hot zones.
A few firefighters were injured by broken glass or Molotov cocktails, while there are reports of an attack using fine pellet air guns.
Media coverage.
Jean-Claude Dassier, News director general at TF1 who is one of France's leading TV news executives has admitted self censoring the coverage of the riots in the country for fear of encouraging support for far-right politicians while public television station France 3 has stopped reporting the numbers of torched cars town by town. Media have generally agreed to give only a total national number of torched cars.
French journalists have reported that some American TV shows and politicians (i.e. members of the Republican Party) exaggerated the riots (i.e. Fox News) for making a connection between the Islamic terrorist group Al-Qaeda and the rioters.
International.
Travel warnings.
Travel warnings for France were issued, for citizens of their respective countries, by the governments of: