Natal Field Artillery


Built-in inflation

Built-in inflation is a type of inflation that results from past events and persists in the present.
Built-in inflation is one of three major determinants of the current inflation rate. In Robert J. Gordon's triangle model of inflation, the current inflation rate equals the sum of demand-pull inflation, cost-push inflation, and built-in inflation. "Demand-pull inflation" refers to the effects of falling unemployment rates (rising real gross domestic product) in the Phillips curve model, while the other two factors lead to "shifts" in the Phillips curve.
The built-in inflation originates from either persistent demand-pull or large cost-push (supply-shock) inflation in the past. It then becomes a "normal" aspect of the economy, via inflationary expectations and the price/wage spiral.
In the end, built-in inflation involves a vicious circle of both subjective and objective elements, so that inflation encourages inflation to persist. It means that the standard methods of fighting inflation using monetary policy or fiscal policy to induce a recession are extremely expensive, i.e. they can cause large rises in unemployment and large falls in real gross domestic product. This suggests that alternative methods such as wage and price controls (incomes policies) may also be needed in the fight against inflation.


Johann Hirter

Johann Daniel Hirter (5 May 1855, Bern – 4 October 1926) was a Swiss politician and President of the Swiss National Council (1905/06). From 1906 to 1923, he presided over the Bank Council of the Swiss National Bank.


Independent Radicals

The Independent Radicals () were a right-of-centre French political current during the French Third Republic. It was slightly to the right of the more famous Radical-Socialist Party, and shared many doctrinal features in common. The prominent political scientist André Siegfried described them as "Social [that is, economic] conservatives who did not want to break with the Left, and who therefore voted with the Right on [economic] interests, and with the Left on political issues".
Parliamentary origins and influence.
Originally in the 1900s French political parties were extraparliamentary organisations focussed entirely on campaigning, separate from the associated parliamentary group. Two 'Radical' parliamentary groups existed, sharing a certain overlap in ideology: the Radical-Socialist group and the Radical Left group. In 1914 the Radical-Socialist Party ordered all candidates elected on its ticket to sit exclusively in the Radical-Socialist group, creating a clearer boundary between the two parties: the Radical Left group was now the parliamentary party of 'Independent' Radicals who quit the Radical-Socialist Party as well as those who refused to join it, normally out of disagreement with the Radical-Socialists' preference for allying with the Socialist Party.
From 1914 to 1940, Radical Republicans in parliament were therefore mostly split into two distinct groups, on the one hand the Radical-Socialist Party and on the other the Independent Radicals some of whom sat unaffiliated but most sitting in the Radical Left group. This largely came down less to ideology and rather their preference in coalition partner: the Socialist Party to their left or the secular conservative-liberals of the centre-right Democratic Alliance. This made the Radical Left a pivotal party, and regardless of whether the government was centre-left or centre-right there was usually one or more Independent Radical in cabinet. Several of France's most powerful political figures were Independent Radicals, including Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau and President Gaston Doumergue.
Developments during the interwar period.
At various moments during the interwar the Radical-Socialist Party was subject to small schisms over its attitude to the government of the day. Whenever the more conservative Radical-Socialists quit their caucus, they would either join the Radical Left group directly, or form a small splinter Radical group that eventually merged into the Radical Left. In 1938 an Independent Radical Party was formed from the merger of two groups that had at different points split off from the Radical-Socialist Party in protest at its choice of allies: Henry Franklin-Bouillon's anti-socialist Social and Unionist Radicals (formed in 1927), and André Grisoni's anti-communist 'French Radical Party' (formed in 1936).
The tendency was described by André Siegfried (Tableau des Partis en France) for the case of Franklin-Bouillon's dissidents: "a group largely of former Radical-Socialists who from a sense of National Unity, preferred to side with Poincaré [the liberal centre-right] over the Cartel [Socialist Party], and who ended up turning vaguely into nationalists. Radicalism has always contained this kind of temperament, but has always ended up expelling them. Are they really a party of the Centre[-right]? In any case they have taken refuge there, without fully sharing the mindset, and in any case the pure Radical[-Socialist]s would not forgive their dissidency and welcome them back."
It is worth noting, however, that the Radical-Socialists did welcome some of them back, and on the margins of the two parties there was much overlap and back-and-forth. The most noteworthy rogue Radical-Socialist to be reinstated was Albert Sarraut, leader of the party's right-wing, who during his expulsion from the party between 1924-5 continued to sit as an independent Radical. Others include the Breton deputy Pierre Michel, who in 1932 initially chose to sit among the Radical Left group before, a year later, moving permanently to sit with the Radical-Socialist group.
Over time the boundaries between the Independent Radicals and the Left Republicans group (caucus of the Democratic Alliance) grew less clear. In 1936 an attempt was made by the liberal former-premier Pierre-Étienne Flandin to merge the two groups under the label Alliance of Left Republicans and Independent Radicals (ARGRI). It ultimately failed: while some Independent Radicals joined, others refused and continued the old caucus under the name "Independent Radical and Democratic Left" group. While today the distinction between conservative Radicals and conservative Liberals appears arcane (these two tendencies had already merged, or would later merge, in most European countries), at the time there was a genuine difference in temperament.
In 1930, the Independent Radical Raoul Péret became Minister of Justice in André Tardieu's cabinet. He was incidentally the cause of his fall because of his personal links with the banker Albert Oustric.
In the Senate, the Independent Radicals sat in the Democratic and Radical Union ("Union démocratique et radicale") parliamentary group.
After the Liberation of France, several deputies, including the mayor of Nice, Jean Médecin, formed an Independent Radical Party (PRI), which was a founding member of the Rally of Left Republicans umbrella party.


Digby (provincial electoral district)

Digby was a provincial electoral district in Nova Scotia, Canada, that elected one member of the Nova Scotia House of Assembly. It existed from 1867 to 1993.
From 1867 to 1949, the district included all of Digby County. After 1949, the Municipality of Clare received its own electoral district. From 1949 to 1993, the district included the town of Digby and the Municipality of Digby.
Members of the Legislative Assembly.
This riding has elected the following Members of the Legislative Assembly:


Democratic Movement (MoDem) and affiliated democrats group

The Democratic Movement (MoDem) and affiliated democrats group () is a parliamentary group in the National Assembly including representatives of the Democratic Movement (MoDem) after the 2017 legislative elections.
History.
After the rallying of MoDem president François Bayrou to the candidacy of Emmanuel Macron, the party was reserved dozens of constituencies in the subsequent legislative elections, hoping to secure at least 15 deputies, the number required to form a parliamentary group. The party ultimately won 42 seats in the National Assembly.
On 25 June, Marc Fesneau was unanimously elected president of the MoDem group by its 42 members.
At the time of its formation on 27 June, the parliamentary group had 47 deputies, including 4 associated members.


Commonwealth Parliamentary Association

The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA), previously known as the Empire Parliamentary Association, is an organisation which works to support good governance, democracy and human rights.
As of 1989, the CPA acknowledges as Patron – the Head of the Commonwealth, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II – and as Vice-Patron, by rotation Heads of State or Heads of Government of the Commonwealth national government hosting its upcoming annual Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference. The Association's supreme authority is the General Assembly, constituted by delegates to the annual Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference. The business and activities of the CPA are managed by an Executive Committee, which reports to the General Assembly. The CPA's funds are derived from membership fees paid by its branches, as well as from two trust funds and benefactors.
The official publication of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association is "The Parliamentarian", the Journal of Commonwealth Parliaments which was first published in January 1920. The organisation administers the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians (CWP), a network across the Commonwealth which promotes greater representation for women in Parliament; the CPA Small Branches network, representing parliaments and legislatures with populations below 500,000 people; the Commonwealth Parliamentarians with Disabilities (CPwD) network; and the Commonwealth Youth Parliament, an annual gathering of young people hosted by a Commonwealth Parliament.
The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) currently has approximately 180 branches and is divided into nine regions – Africa; Asia; Australia; British Islands and Mediterranean; Canada; Caribbean, Americas and Atlantic; India; Pacific, and South-East Asia. The CPA Headquarters Secretariat is based in London.
History.
The CPA was founded as the Empire Parliamentary Association in 1911, with its first branches being Australia, Canada, Newfoundland, New Zealand, South Africa and the United Kingdom, the latter branch administering the Association as a whole. In 1948 the Association changed its name to the current Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, and invited all branches to participate in the organisation's administration.
Officers.
The office of Chairperson of the CPA Executive Committee is vacant. Previous CPA Chairpersons have included: Hon. Emilia Monjowa Lifaka MP, Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly of Cameroon (2017-2021); Hon. Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury, Speaker of Jatiyo Sangsad Bhaban of Bangladesh (2014–2017), who succeeded Rt Hon. Sir Alan Haselhurst MP (2011–2014), formerly Chairman of Ways and Means of the UK Parliament.
The current Acting Vice-Chairperson is Hon. Ian Liddell-Grainger MP of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
The current Treasurer is Hon. Shamsul Iskandar Md. Akin, MP of the Parliament of Malaysia.
The current Chairperson of the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians is Hon. Shandana Gulzar Khan, MNA from the National Assembly of Pakistan.
The current Acting Chairperson for CPA Small Branches is Hon. Joy Burch, MLA, Speaker of the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly.
In addition, the current Chairperson of the Commonwealth Parliamentarians with Disabilities (CPwD) is Hon. Kevin Murphy (Canadian politician), MLA, Speaker of the House of Assembly of Nova Scotia.
Secretaries-General.
The CPA's 8th Secretary-General is Stephen Twigg. He was appointed in August 2020 for a four-year term. Twigg was elected to the Parliament of the United Kingdom as a Member of Parliament from 1997 to 2005 (Enfield Southgate) and from 2010 to 2019 (Liverpool West Derby). During his parliamentary career, he held several senior positions including chairing the International Development Select Committee, Minister for Schools and a range of Shadow Front Bench roles.
Previous Secretaries-General have been:
Mr Karimulla Akbar Khan, UK/Guyanese Lawyer (2016-2019); Dr. William F. Shija, former Minister Tanzania Parliament (2007–2014); Hon. Denis Marshall, former Minister New Zealand Parliament (2002–2006); Hon. Arthur Donahoe, former Speaker Nova Scotia House of Assembly (1993–2001); Hon. Dr. David Tonkin, former Premier South Australia (1986–1992); Sir Robin Vandervelt from South Africa (1961–1985); Sir Howard d’Egville (1949–1960).
Members.
Members of the CPA are listed below. Both national and subnational parliaments are included.


Brigid Lyons Thornton

Brigid Lyons Thornton (1896 – 15 November 1987) was a member of Cumann na mBan, an officer in the Irish Free State Army and a physician. Thornton was a rebellious character whom from a young age was involved in a Nationalist movement. Her first small involvement was selling badges and flags at the O'Donovan Rossa funeral.
Personal life.
Brigid Lyons Thornton was born in Northyard Scramogue, County Roscommon in 1896. She was the daughter of farmer and Fenian Patrick Lyons.
At a young age, Brigid moved to Longford to live with her uncle Frank McGuinness and his wife Kate, who paid for her secondary school education. McGuinness is credited for Thornton's keen interest in politics and Irish history. In November 1934 Frank McGuinness died, having been a senator for five years and a renowned figure for his involvement in Irish history. Brigid Lyons Thornton was a medical student and a member of Cumman na mBan who was involved with the Irish Volunteers during 1916. She was arrested during the Easter Rising and interned in Kilmainham Gaol along with other members of the Irish Volunteers.
Revolutionary.
She graduated from medical school, Galway in 1922 being the youngest medical student there. She became the only commissioned female officer ever in the new Irish Free State Army. She and Edward Thornton met when Brigid became ill with tuberculosis and was sent to Switzerland with other officers who had a similar condition. During this time Thornton learned how to treat Tuberculosis while she was a patient. This would be a significant advantage in later years. She took her diploma in public health in 1927 and then entered the public health service. She began in the public health service, County Kildare, later moving to County Cork until she finally ended up in Dublin where she worked until retirement. Brigid Thornton helped to treat many infectious diseases.
Marriage.
Thornton married captain Edward Thornton on 10 October 1925, in Dublin, at the Chapel of St Kevin in the Pro Cathedral. The ceremony was a quiet reunion of family and friends. Her husband returned to Switzerland to heal from TB and was later released and cured. He became a lawyer. Thornton attended the National University in 1947 and finished a postgraduate degree in Public Health. Thornton was very passionate about her work in the public health system in Ireland, she resided permanently on home ground; meanwhile her husband resided in Switzerland for most of the winter months, he worked as a lawyer and their relationship was maintained through letter writing and yearly visits form Captain Thornton to Ireland. They are buried alongside each other in Toomore Cemetery.
1916 Easter Rising.
Brigid returns to Longford when she hears the news of The 1916 Easter Rising. Her uncle Joe McGuinness was serving in the Four Courts along with Patrick Pearse, James Connolly and Michael Collins. Brigid decides to join with Uncle Frank and the volunteers he had gathered in Dublin for the week. Their car was believed to be rejected to enter the Four Courts and by some means the crew was able to pass the barricade, and Brigid along with Cumann na mBan provided food and took care of the wounded rebels. She acted as a nurse to the First Battalion of volunteers who had taken possession of the Four Courts and adjoining streets.
After the surrender, she was put in jail in Kilmainham with her comrades and during the imprisonment, she heard that 14 of her idols were shot. After her release from the jail, she returned to continue studying medicine in Galway.
Revolutionary activities.
The involvement of Thornton in female activist activities in the late ninetieth century was a feat in itself as politics, religion and education were a conservative male-dominated preserve. Patriotism found her involved in Sinn Féin and Cumann na mBan. Women were limited by their male counterparts in the scope of their revolutionary activities. In spite of this Thornton contributed as a rebel, soldier and commissioned medical officer. In 1917 she set up a group of Cumann na mBan in Galway. Despite her revolutionary activities as a dispatch carrier and involvement in the Easter Rising in 1916, which subsequently saw her imprisonment, Thornton qualified in 1922 at the rank of First Officer. Later she was commissioned by Michael Collins to become the first and only woman to be accepted as a female officer in the Free State Army. She was part of the medical services that formed the corps, when it was time to establish a permanent, new all Irish Medical Service in 1922.
Medical career.
Thornton dedicated her life to both revolutionary activities and the medical sector; she was a practitioner, lecturer and researcher. Her involvement as a doctor was not only hospital work, but also as a volunteer. She was an avid educator of women on the importance of hygiene in the development of children and factors of disease that flourished in the impoverished slums of the inner city and surrounding suburbs. This work was marginalised by the lack of funds for a public health service to help ordinary people. Clean water was a commodity at this time and a strain of gastroenteritis was the cause of death of many babies. In her youth Thornton had expressed the passion to become a teacher but as women's role in society changed, society's constraints became less stringent, she could study medicine and pursue greater participation in this area. This devotion and patriotism to her country established her name in history. This involvement matched her commitment to revolution.
Lyons acquired a county scholarship to study an undergraduate degree in Medicine in University College Galway in 1917, where she graduated in 1922. She also received a Postgraduate Diploma in public health from The National University of Ireland in 1927, known as University College Dublin (UCD). In the 1950s when vaccines were developed and distributed to the general public, Thornton helped combat the Tuberculosis epidemic in Ireland and became involved in the pioneering of the BGG vaccination as she herself had been plagued by the illness alongside her husband Edward. A team of fifteen members were dispersed throughout Ireland setting out to accomplish what would become a massive feat in medical history. She dedicated her life to working in the public sector; in a number of areas including the Kildare and Cork Boards of Health as a medical officer, and she was an assistant medical officer for the Dublin Health Authority. Her other work titles included medical inspector at the Carnegie Centre in Dublin.
Later life.
During her life, Thornton as in her youth was a passionate contributed to the welfare of the people. She was a librarian in the Rotunda Hospital, where she was an advisor to the new doctors and was always up to date on new medical practices which were necessary in an age of medical discovery. Thornton was heavily involved in the Medical Benevolent Fund. Thornton's retirement days were spent as a researcher in Trinity College Dublin.
Death.
Thornton lived a long life, surviving her husband Captain Edward Thornton who died in 1946, the couple had no children. She had suffered ill health in her late seventies and retired, nevertheless, she continued to work as a volunteer in The Rotunda Maternity Hospital. Lyons died of cardiac-respiratory arrest, as stated on her death certificate, on 15 November 1987 at the age of 91.
Thornton was buried on the 71st anniversary of the Easter Rising in Toomore Cemetery, Foxford, County Mayo. Members of the Western Command rendered her military honours at her burial and her coffin was draped in the tricolour.


North Leitrim (UK Parliament constituency)

North Leitrim was a parliamentary constituency in Ireland. From 1885 to 1918 it returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
Prior to the 1885 United Kingdom general election and after the dissolution of Parliament in 1918 the area was part of the Leitrim constituency.
Boundaries.
This constituency comprised the northern part of County Leitrim.
1885–1918: The baronies of Dromahair and Rosclogher, and that part of the barony of Leitrim contained within the parish of Kiltubbrid and the townlands of Acres, Aghagrania, Aghnagollop, Ardcolum, Barnameenagh, Barnameenagh West, Blackrock, Carrickbaun, Carricknabrack, Corlough, Corloughlin, Cormeeltan, Cormongan, Cornamuddagh, Cornashamsoge, Corrachuill, Corryard, Creenagh, Crey, Derrintober, Derrintonagh, Derryhallagh, Derrynaseer, Derryteigeroe, Dorrusawillin, Dristernaun, Drumcoora, Drumcroman, Drumderg, Drumhalwy, Drumduff, Drumshanbo, Greaghfarnagh, Greaghnaguillaun, Largan, Largan Mountain, Lavaur, Mahanagh, Moneynure, Murhaun, Roscunnish, Shancurry and Sheskinacurry in the parish of Kiltoghert.
Elections.
Elections in the 1900s.
McHugh is unseated after being adjudicated bankrupt, but then wins the seat again at a by-election.
McHugh is also elected MP for Sligo North and opts to sit there, causing a by-election.
Dolan resigns, causing a by-election, in which he stood again as a Sinn Féin candidate.


Burin-Grand Bank

Burin-Grand Bank is a provincial electoral district in Newfoundland and Labrador, which is represented by one member in the Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly. It was contested for the first time in the 2015 provincial election. The district was created out of all of Grand Bank and parts of Burin-Placentia West and Bellevue.
The district contains a ferry serving St. Pierre and Miquelon, which is part of France, via a port in Fortune. The district also contains an intra-provincial ferry serving Rencontre East.
Members of the House of Assembly.
The district has elected the following Members of the House of Assembly:


Ulrich Meister

Ulrich Meister (4 January 1838 – 3 February 1917) was a Swiss politician and President of the Swiss National Council (1902).


Bermudian pound

The pound was the currency of Bermuda until 1970. It was equivalent to the pound sterling, alongside which it circulated, and was similarly divided into 20 shillings each of 12 pence. Bermuda decimalised in 1970, replacing the pound with the Bermudian dollar at a rate of 1 dollar = 8 shillings 4 pence (i.e., 100 pence), equal to the U.S. dollar.
Coins.
The first Bermudian currency issue was the so-called "hogge money", 2, 3 and 6 pence, and 1 shilling coins issued between 1612 and 1624. Their name derives from the appearance of a pig on the obverse. At this time, Bermuda was known as Somers Island (which is still an official name) and this name appears on the coins. The next coins to be issued were copper pennies in 1793. When Bermuda adopted the sterling currency system in the first half of the nineteenth century, the coinage that circulated was exactly the same coinage that circulated in the United Kingdom. No special varieties of the sterling coinage were ever issued for general use in Bermuda. However, special silver 1 crown (five shillings) coins were issued in 1959 and again in 1964. These commemoratives were similar in appearance to the British crown coins, but featured Bermudian designs on their reverses. The first issue has a map of the islands to mark their 350th anniversary of settlement. The second coin shows the islands' coat of arms. Because of the rising price of precious metals, the diameter of the 1964 issue was reduced from 38 to 36 millimeters and the silver content dropped from 92.5% to 50%. Their respective mintages were 100,000 and 500,000 (30,000 of the latter being issued in proof). Both coins remain readily available to collectors.
Banknotes.
In 1914, the government introduced 1 pound notes. In 1920, 5 shilling notes were introduced, followed by 10 shillings in 1927 and 5 pounds in 1941. The 5 shilling note ceased production in 1957, with 10 pound notes introduced in 1964.
History.
For nearly four hundred years Spanish dollars, known as pieces of eight, were in widespread use on the world's trading routes, including the Caribbean Sea region. However, following the revolutionary wars in Latin America, the source of these silver trade coins dried up. The last Spanish dollar was minted at the Potosi mint in 1825.
The United Kingdom had adopted a very successful gold standard in 1821, and so the year 1825 was an opportune time to introduce the British sterling coinage into all the British colonies. An imperial order-in-council was passed in that year for the purposes of facilitating this aim by making sterling coinage legal tender in the colonies at the specified rating of $1 = 4s 4d (One Spanish dollar to four shillings and four pence sterling). As the sterling silver coins were attached to a gold standard, this exchange rate did not realistically represent the value of the silver in the Spanish dollars as compared to the value of the gold in the British gold sovereign, and as such, the order-in-council had the reverse effect in many colonies. It had the effect of actually driving sterling coinage out, rather than encouraging its circulation.
Remedial legislation had to be introduced in 1838 so as to change over to the more realistic rating of $1 = 4s 2d. However, in Jamaica, British Honduras, Bermuda, and later in the Bahamas also, the official rating was set aside in favour of what was known as the 'Maccaroni' tradition in which a British shilling, referred to as a 'Maccaroni', was treated as one quarter of a dollar. The common link between these four territories was the Bank of Nova Scotia which brought in the 'Maccaroni' tradition, resulting in the successful introduction of both sterling coinage and sterling accounts.
It wasn't until 1 January 1842 that the authorities in Bermuda formally decided to make sterling the official currency of the colony to circulate concurrently with Doubloons (64 shillings) at the rate of $1 = 4s 2d. Contrary to expectations, and unlike in the Bahamas where US dollars circulated concurrently with sterling, the Bermudas did not allow themselves to be drawn into the U.S. currency area. The Spanish dollars fell away in the 1850s but returned again in the 1870s following the international silver crisis of 1873. In 1874, the Bermuda merchants agreed unanimously to decline to accept the heavy imports of U.S. currency except at a heavy discount, and it was then exported again. And in 1876, legislation was passed to demonetize the silver dollars.
In 1882, the local 'legal tender act' demonetized the gold doubloon, which had in effect been the real standard in Bermuda, and this left pounds, shillings, and pence as the sole legal tender. The British pound sterling then remained the official currency of Bermuda until 1970.
It was finally decided to take the action that British Honduras had already done 85 years earlier. In line with the international trend towards decimalization, Bermuda introduced a new currency in the form of a dollar that was fixed at an equal value to the US dollar. The new Bermuda dollars operated in conjunction with decimal fractional coinage, hence ending the pounds, shillings, and pence system in that colony in the year before it was ended in the United Kingdom itself. The decision to finally align with the US dollar was at least in part influenced by the devaluation of sterling in 1967 and Bermuda's increasing tendency to keep its reserves in US dollars. Although Bermuda changed to a U.S. based currency and changed the bulk of its reserves from sterling to U.S. dollars in 1970, it still nevertheless remained a member of the sterling area since at that time, the pound sterling and the US dollar had a fixed exchange rate of £1 = $2.40.
Following the US dollar crisis of 1971 which ended the international Bretton Woods agreement of 1944, the US dollar devalued, but the Bermuda dollar maintained its link to sterling. On 22 June 1972, the United Kingdom unilaterally ended its sterling area based exchange control laws, hence excluding Bermuda from its sterling area membership privileges. Bermuda responded on 30 June 1972 by amending its own exchange control laws accordingly, such as to impose exchange control restrictions in relation to Bermuda only. At the same time, Bermuda realigned its dollar back to one-to-one with the US dollar and formally pegged it to the US dollar at that rate. As far as United Kingdom law was concerned, Bermuda still remained a member of the overseas sterling area until exchange controls were abolished altogether in 1979.
For a history of currency in the British West Indies in general, see Currencies of the British West Indies.


Te Tai Tokerau

Te Tai Tokerau is a New Zealand parliamentary Māori electorate that was created out of the Northern Maori electorate ahead of the first Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) election in 1996. It was held first by Tau Henare representing New Zealand First for one term, and then Dover Samuels of the Labour Party for two terms. From 2005 to 2014, it was held by MP Hone Harawira. Initially a member of the Māori Party, Harawira resigned from both the party and then Parliament, causing the 2011 by-election. He was returned under the Mana Party banner in July 2011 and confirmed at the November 2011 general election. In the , he was beaten by Labour's Kelvin Davis, ending the representation of the Mana Party in Parliament.
Population centres.
Te Tai Tokerau's boundaries are similar to those of the pre-Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) Northern Maori electorate. Te Tai Tokerau was created ahead of the first MMP election in 1996. In the 2002 boundary redistribution, the size of the electorate shrank to make room for an increase in the number of Māori electorates from six to seven. The boundaries were not further altered in the 2007 or 2013/14 redistributions.
Te Tai Tokerau is the northernmost Māori electorate, and covers an area between Cape Reinga in the Far North of the North Island to a boundary cutting through West Auckland. The major population centres are Whangarei, the Bay of Islands and north and west Auckland. The electorate contains all of the Ngāpuhi, Te Aupōuri, Ngāti Kuri, Te Rarawa and Ngāti Kahu tribal areas, and part of Ngāti Whātua's territory ("rohe").
Its analogous general electorates are , , , , , , , , most of , part of and some of the islands located within .
History.
Northern Maori had been held by the Labour Party since the 1938 election, when longstanding Reform MP Taurekareka Henare was beaten by Labour's Paraire Karaka Paikea. In 1993, after 55 years of his party holding the seat, Labour MP Bruce Gregory was beaten by Henare's great grandson, Tau Henare, standing for New Zealand First, ending Labour's unbroken hold on the four Māori seats. Henare went on to win Te Tai Tokerau after the switch to MMP, and New Zealand First won all five of the newly-drawn Māori electorates.
After a tumultuous parliamentary term which saw all but one of the five New Zealand First Māori MPs defect to other parties, (including Henare himself, who went on to found Mauri Pacific), Labour won all six Māori electorates contested at the 1999 election. In Te Tai Tokerau, Tau Henare was beaten into third place behind the New Zealand First candidate and Dover Samuels, who Henare had beaten three years previous.
However, Labour's losing the five Māori electorates in 1996 showed that the Māori vote was contestable for the first time in five decades, as the new electoral system coupled with the rise of small parties meant that non-Labour candidacy in these seats was more feasible than under First Past the Post.
The New Zealand foreshore and seabed controversy of 2004–05 proved to be the catalyst for the second challenge to Labour party domination of the Māori electorates, this time from the Māori Party. At the 2005 election, Samuels and three other Labour Māori MPs lost their seats to Māori Party challengers. In Te Tai Tokerau, the winner was Hone Harawira.
Harawira resigned from the Māori Party in early 2011 and became an independent MP. On 11 May 2011, he resigned from Parliament effective 20 May, seeking a mandate for his new party, the Mana Party. This caused the 25 June 2011 by-election, which was contested by five parties, with the main contenders Harawira, Kelvin Davis (Labour Party) and Solomon Tipene (Māori Party). Harawira retained the electorate with a majority of 1,117, his previous majority being over 6,000. In the 2011 general election some months later, Harawira had a similar majority to Davis.
The Mana Party formed a coalition with the Internet Party just prior to the 2014 New Zealand general election. The coalition was registered with the Electoral Commission as the Internet Party and Mana Movement in July 2014, allowing it to contest the party vote. The Internet Party was founded by controversial online millionaire Kim Dotcom, and this strategic coalition resulted in Harawira's main opponent, Labour's Kelvin Davis, getting endorsements from Winston Peters of New Zealand First and the Prime Minister, John Key of the National Party. Even the electorate's candidate for the Māori Party, Te Hira Paenga, reminded voters of the importance of strategic voting. In his fourth challenge in the Te Tai Tokerau electorate, Davis ousted the incumbent Harawira, which ended the representation of the Mana Party in Parliament.
Members of Parliament.
Key
List MPs.
Members of Parliament elected from party lists in elections where that person also unsuccessfully contested Te Tai Tokerau. Unless otherwise stated, all MPs terms began and ended at general elections.
1Kelvin Davis also contested the , and re-entered Parliament on 23 May 2014 following Shane Jones' resignation.
Election results.
2011 election.
1Swings against both Harawira (Mana Party) and Shortland (Māori Party) are calculated against Harawira's Māori Party vote in
Electorate (as at 26 November 2011): 33,797
2002 election.

1999 election.


Lumsden-Morse

Lumsden-Morse is a provincial electoral district for the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan, Canada. It was created from parts of Thunder Creek and was first contested in the 2016 election.


Ecology Democracy Solidarity

Ecology Democracy Solidarity () was a centre-left parliamentary group in the National Assembly of France. It was formed in May 2020 by members of La République En Marche!, a liberal parliamentary group. After losing three members in the span of two months, the group was forcibly dissolved in October 2020 because it didn’t have enough members. It then became The New Democrats.
History.
On 8 May 2020, Ecology Democracy Solidarity was announced as a new parliamentary group, planned to launch on 1 June 2020. At the time, it was said to have 58 members, but the anticipated number fell to 20 after intense pressure on potential defectors to stay in the La République En Marche group.
The group was officially formed on 19 May 2020 with 17 deputies, seven of which directly defected from La République En Marche! whereas nine had previously left it or been expelled from it. Delphine Batho, president of Ecology Generation and first elected as a Socialist Party deputy, also joined the group. The party's co-presidents were announced as Paula Forteza and Matthieu Orphelin, with Cédric Villani and Delphine Batho serving as vice-presidents.
Although La République En Marche! held a 313 deputies and a majority in the National Assembly after the 2017 French legislative election, previous defections had reduced their numbers and the formation of Ecology Democracy Solidarity left La République En Marche! with 288 seats, one short of a majority, although the governing coalition still held a majority. The group said it would be "independent" and sit "neither in the majority nor in the opposition".
After the departure of Sabine Thillaye to MoDem and Martine Wonner to the Liberties and Territories (LT) group, membership was down to 15 deputies, the minimum number for a National Assembly group. Jennifer de Temmerman announced her departure for LT on 16 October 2020. With insufficient deputies, the group was dissolved on 17 October 2020 and the remaining members were "de facto" independents (French: 'non-inscrits').
The New Democrats was founded in December 2020.
Policy.
The group launched with a 15-point manifesto, covering several green issues and inequality. Policies included a €5bn of funding for local authorities to use on green or social projects, tax reform and the possible restoration of France's wealth tax, a universal basic income, protection of animal rights, a constitutional commitment to climate preservation and biodiversity, compulsory paternity leave and the "reshoring" of industries in France and Europe.
Members.
The group's members were:


European Democratic and Social Rally group

The European Democratic and Social Rally group (, abbreviated RDSE), formerly the Democratic and European Rally group (), is a parliamentary group in the French Senate including representatives of the Radical Party of the Left (PRG) that historically consisted of radicals of both the left and right. Before 1989, the group was known as the Democratic Left group ().
History.
The Democratic Left group in the Senate of the Third Republic was founded on 26 October 1891 in a meeting of some forty senators organized by Émile Combes during which Arthur Ranc was elected its first president. It is often considered "the first effort of unification of the radicals which will end in 1901 with the formation of the Radical Party", which was officially founded as the Republican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party, the group uniting the radicals of the upper chamber even before the establishment of a political party. In 1907, the group adopted the denomination of the Democratic, Radical, and Radical-Socialist Left group ("groupe de la Gauche démocratique radicale et radicale-socialiste"), and rapidly became the majority group in the Senate, with 166 members by 1912. After the formal recognition of parliamentary groups in the Senate in 1921, the group consisted of 158 members following the renewal, and was presided over by Gaston Doumergue.
The group remained dominant through the end of the Third Republic, with 164 members under Jean-Baptiste Bienvenu-Martin following the 1924 renewal, 146 members after the 1927 renewal, 150 members after the 1929 renewal, 167 members after the 1932 renewal, 164 members after the 1935 renewal, and 151 members after the 1938 renewal. The group was highly influential in the politics of the Third Republic, defending the fundamental freedoms – freedom of expression, freedom of the press, and freedom of association – and produced a number of prominent political personalities, including Georges Clémenceau, Léon Bourgeois, Edouard Herriot, Gaston Doumergue, Joseph Caillaux, Albert Sarraut, and Henri Queuille, as well as four of the six senators who went on to become presidents of the Third Republic (Emile Loubet, Armand Fallières, Gaston Doumergue, and Paul Doumer).
In the Council of the Republic of the Fourth Republic, the group was initially reincarnated as the Rally of the Republican Lefts group ("groupe du Rassemblement des gauches républicaines"), with 42 seats following senatorial elections on 8 December 1946, and 86 seats following senatorial elections on 7 November 1948. The group, which envisaged a new rise of radical thought, was however a victim of the decline of radicalism, far from achieving its former heights, was subsequently renamed to the Rally of Republican Lefts and the Democratic Left group ("groupe du Rassemblement des gauches républicaines et de la gauche démocratique") in 1949 and later the Democratic Left and the Rally of Republican Lefts group ("groupe de la Gauche démocratique et du rassemblement des gauches républicaines") in 1952, and held 73 seats following senatorial elections on 18 May 1952, increasing to 77 seats following senatorial elections on 19 June 1955. The group returned to its original appellation of the Democratic Left group ("groupe de la Gauche démocratique") in 1956, controlling 62 seats following the final senatorial elections of the Fourth Republic on 8 June 1958.
Though the group initially controlled 63 seats in the Senate of the Fifth Republic following the 1959 senatorial elections, the strong bipolarization of politics during the Fifth Republic rendered it difficult for the group to maintain its membership, which was gradually eroded over the following decades. Despite its difficulties, however, the group preserved its tradition of openness, accommodating the Algerian Democratic Rally ("Rassemblement démocratique algérien") in 1961 as an associate of the group. In 1971, the Radical Party split into two factions, one centrist and the other favorable to a union with the left; from then on, the latter group sat with the socialists in the National Assembly, the lower chamber. In the Senate, however, the left-wing radicals continued to sit with their radical peers in the Democratic Left. Similarly, the "administrative formation of radicals of the left" ("formation administrative des radicaux de gauche") which existed in the Senate from 1977 to 1986 was attached not to the socialist group but to the Democratic Left, and initially consisted of 14 senators following the 1977 renewal. The administrative formation disappeared from 1986 to 1989, and the radicals of the left resumed sitting within the main Democratic Left group.
In March 1989, the Democratic Left sacrificed its historical name for the sake of the political reality of the moment, taking upon the appellation of the Democratic and European Rally group ("groupe du Rassemblement démocratique et européen"). The group later adopted its current name, the European Democratic and Social Rally group ("groupe du Rassemblement démocratique et social européen"), or RDSE, in 1995, in acknowledgment of the six member senators of Radical, the party of left radicals, and the more "social" dimension of the group, marking the end of an era.
The modern RDSE group is unique in the freedom of its parliamentarians in voting, as a group consisting of members both favorable and opposed to the senatorial majority, and the respect accorded to every senator in their absolute freedom to determine their own vote. The internal political diversity required the group to maintain a system to manage votes in open sessions, with the group recording the votes of every member with a table requesting their intention to vote in the event of a public ballot, allowing the votes of every member to be known with precision. Divergences within the group are frequent, most of the time corresponding to the left/right divide within the group, with the group bound together not by common political parties but by common "political affinities". The group currently consists of 16 senators, with Gilbert Barbier, a member of The Republicans (LR), as its president since 23 May 2017. Though a majority of the group supported Emmanuel Macron in the 2017 presidential election, Jacques Mézard, the previous president of the group (who left the Senate to take up a ministerial post in the government), refused to consider the possibility of merging with the La République En Marche group in the Senate, wishing to preserve oldest group in the Senate and its spirit of independence. Jean-Claude Requier was elected the group's new president on 26 September, replacing Barbier, who chose not to seek to keep his seat in the preceding renewal, which saw the ranks of the group grow, with the rapprochement between the PRG and the Radicals bringing several members of the latter into the group.


Wu Shuqing (revolutionary)

Wu Shuqing (; 1892 – unknown) was a Chinese feminist, nationalist and revolutionary who formed and led one of the first all-female rebel militias of the Xinhai Revolution in 1911. A 19-year-old student at the time, Wu managed to convince Li Yuanhong, the revolutionaries' commander-in-chief, to allow her to raise the "Women's Revolutionary Army" which eventually counted between 100 and several hundred members. Despite having almost no military experience, Wu proved to be a capable commander and personally led her unit into combat during the Battles of Hankou and Nanjing, achieving some fame among the Chinese rebels in the process. Nevertheless, her unit was disbanded after the revolution and Wu's later life is unknown.
Life.
Background.
Wu was born to Han Chinese parents at Hanyang, Hubei, in 1892. Noted for her physical strength, bravery and intelligence by contemporaries, Wu was deeply convinced of gender equality and believed that every citizen, regardless of gender, should support and defend their nation. In her case, that meant fighting for the "Great Han nation" against foreign powers and the ruling Qing dynasty. She regarded the latter as "Manchu bastards" who suppressed the Han Chinese.
Formation of the Women's Revolutionary Army.
When the Wuchang Uprising against the Qing government broke out in October 1911, Wu was 19 and attended Hanyang's Fengtian Normal College. Soon after the uprising's start, she sent a letter to the revolutionaries' commander-in-chief, Li Yuanhong, proposing the formation of an armed female brigade to aid the rebels. Though other women would also take up arms as the revolution spread, Wu was believed to have been the first to suggest the formation of a women's army. Li initially rejected this proposal, believing that it would be difficult to incorporate women into the all-male rebel army. Wu refused to accept this, and sent the general a second letter on 31 October while simultaneously publishing her views in the Minli Newspaper. She stated that her desire to join battle did not stem from desire for "momentary glory". Instead, she considered it her duty to fight for the revolution and, if necessary, die in battle. She reasoned that since men of every societal class and region were joining the rebels, it was not justifiable to exclude women, especially since many of the latter had trained in the gymnasia to prepare themselves for the physical demands of war. Following this second letter and requests by other militant women who wanted to fight for the revolution, Li relented and gave Wu the permission to raise an all-female unit.
Wu then posted notices for her unit in Hanyang, while like-minded women produced propaganda for her militia. For example, Liu Wangli likened Wu to the legendary woman warrior Hua Mulan in order to inspire other women to enlist. The recruitment drive was a success, and hundreds women tried to join Wu's unit. Most of these potential recruits were students with a middle-class background, some of them with bound feet. Historians differ on how many Wu's unit, the so-called "Women's Revolutionary Army", eventually numbered; according to Louise Edwards it was about 100, whereas Ono Kazuko and Fan Hong report that "perhaps as many as several hundred women" fought under Wu's command.
Combat and later life.
Wu personally organized and trained the Women's Revolutionary Army in just ten days, and then led them into combat during the Battle of Hankou. Historian Su Xiao comments that Wu proved to be a capable commander, using her barely trained but highly motivated troops to bypass Qing forces near Hankou and then attack them from behind. She and her unit quickly gained some renown for their good combat performance. The Women's Revolutionary Army then relocated to the east, taking part in the Battle for Nanjing alongside several other female rebel militias. At Nanjing, Wu planned and carried out the attack on the strategically important Shizishen fort.
Following the revolution's end, the Provisional Government of the Republic of China ordered the disbandment of all Chinese women military units on 26 February 1912. It is not known what happened to Wu after her military career.


Ron Gostick

Ronald A. Gostick (July 18, 1918 – July 16, 2005) was a long-time figure on the Canadian far right and founder of the Canadian League of Rights. Gostick was involved in the Canadian social credit movement and later published far-right and antisemitic material over the course of 50 years, including the "Canadian Intelligence Service" and "On Target!" and numerous books and pamphlets.
Gostick influenced several figures on the Canadian far right. Jim Keegstra got most of his reading material through his membership in Gostick's League. He also collaborated with John Ross Taylor and was a mentor to Paul Fromm and an associate of Patrick Walsh, a fellow traveller who worked as research director at the CLR. He was also associated with former Member of Parliament John A. Gamble, who worked with Gostick as Canadian leader of the World Anti-Communist League in the 1980s.
David Lethbridge, an anti-fascist activist and Communist Party member, described the CLR and Gostick as a "danger" because they soft-pedaled an essentially "fascist" message. Lethbridge told "The Globe and Mail" that "What made them dangerous was that they came across as mainstream."
Biography.
Ron Gostick was born in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales to Canadian parents and moved with them to Canada shortly after the First World War. They established a homestead near Stettler, Alberta and lived there for nine years before moving to Calgary. From 1933 to 1935, he attended Crescent Heights High School and was influenced by the school's principal, William Aberhart, a proponent of the social credit movement in Alberta. Gostick and his family joined the Alberta Social Credit League. His mother, Edith Gostick, was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta in the 1935 provincial election. This election brought her party, the Social Credit, to power and made Aberhart Premier of Alberta. She served as one of the five Member of the Legislative Assembly for Calgary until 1940. Then she took a position as Legislative Librarian.
Ron Gostick entered the Canadian Army in 1941 and fought in the Second World War. After demobilization, he worked as a court reporter in Ontario and served as national secretary of the Social Credit Party of Canada, the less successful federal counterpart of Aberhardt's Alberta Social Credit party. He settled in Flesherton, Ontario where he spent most of the rest of his life. In the 1945 federal election, he ran as the Social Credit candidate in the Ontario riding of Grey North, coming in last place out of four candidates, with 250 votes.
In 1946, Gostick founded the "Union of Electors", a social credit based provincial party that was inspired by the more radical Quebec wing of the Canadian social credit movement, the "Union des electeurs".
He also began his publishing activities at the same time, beginning to issue the periodical "Social Credit" in 1947. The Social Credit Association of Canada disowned the publication in 1950 because of its anti-Semitism. Gostick renamed the periodical "The Canadian Intelligence Service" in 1951.
He wrote (or co-wrote) several books:
Canada's Future - More Debt and Bankruptcy? Or Financial Reform and Prosperity? (2002)
(co-written with Eric D. Butler) The Battle for Canada
The Architects Behind the World Communist Conspiracy (1968)
Canada the Moment of Truth (1978)
Canada - its Glorious Potential and The Things I Didn't Learn in School
A Prophecy? (1980)
Zionism and the Middle Eastern Crisis ("Published as the Supplementary Section of THE CANADIAN INTELLIGENCE SERVICE", August 1958)
In the early 1950s, Gostick was a public speaker at meetings sponsored by the American rightists Gerald Smith and Wesley Swift (who later founded the Christian Identity movement). Gostick founded the Canadian Anti-Communist League with a mandate of exposing the "Communist-Zionist-monopolist-finance enemy of Christian civilization." The CACL became the Canadian affiliate of the World Anti-Communist League once the larger body was formed in the 1960s. The CACL became the Christian Action Movement and later in 1967 became the "Canadian League of Rights" (CLR). B'nai B'rith described the organization as being "long-known to support racist and anti-Semitic positions".
Gostick died of cancer two days before his 87th birthday.


New National Party (Netherlands)

The New National Party (, abbr. NNP) was a Dutch nationalist political party which existed between 1998 and 2005. It succeeded the "Volksnationalisten Nederland" (abbr. "VNN", People's Nationalists Netherlands) party which had been founded in 1997. The NNP was originally named "Nationale Partij Nederland" (National Party Netherlands) but because another party had used a similar name earlier the name was rejected by the Electoral Council (Dutch: "Kiesraad").
The party was first led by Egbert Perée, then by Henk Ruitenberg (ex-CP'86) and after him Florens van der Kooi. The party was considered to be successor of the Centre Party '86 (CP'86), which was banned by a Dutch court in 1998 as a "criminal organization".
The NNP was never charged or convicted under the criminal code. The party was dissolved in 2005 after many members left the party for newer parties, such as the conservative rightist New Right party and the largely national socialist National Alliance party.
The NNP worked with New Right in the "Actiecomité Stop MARTIJN" which campaigned against the pedophiles of the Vereniging Martijn in 2003.
Several former NNP members later became active for Voorpost, including Van der Kooi.


Poorest Areas Civil Society Program

The Poorest Areas Civil Society (PACS) program (which ran from 2001–2008) was designed to help millions of people living in some of India’s poorest districts. Its goal was to cut the poverty rate in India in half by the year 2015. Through a network of 665 civil society organizations, it covered almost 20,000 villages in 94 districts in 6 Indian states. PACS received over $25 million funding from the UK’s Department for Internal Development (DFID). In addition to raising public awareness about the plight of poor Indians, PACS distributed food and ration cards to impoverished families, helped to set up a variety of social welfare programs (such as pension programs for retirees and widows, programs to help the disabled, scholarship programs, etc.) and gave additional funding to existing infrastructure programs so that water, electrical and sanitation systems could be improved in urban areas and could be constructed in rural areas that had been without these services before. PACS was also involved in fostering women’s rights in India–particularly in sending more little girls to school, encouraging more women to vote and educating the population about family planning options. Additionally, a drought and disaster relief fund was created to assist rural farmers. Finally, PACS encouraged more poor people to participate in the political process (through voting, through community action programs, etc.) in the hopes of giving them the tools that they will need to help themselves in the future


Yeaw v. Boy Scouts of America

Yeaw v. Boy Scouts of America was a high-profile case filed in 1997 before the Supreme Court of California to determine whether the Boy Scouts of America is a business establishment within the meaning of the Unruh Civil Rights Act (Civ. Code, § 51) and has the right to exclude girls from membership.
Background.
Katrina Yeaw attempted to join her twin brother Daniel's Boy Scout Troop No. 349 in the Golden Empire Council in her hometown of Rocklin, California. When she was rejected due to the fact she is female, she filed suit against the Boy Scouts of America, accusing them of discrimination.
Case.
In 1995, Katrina Yeaw brought action through James Yeaw, her father and guardian "ad litem", against the Boy Scouts of America and the Golden Empire Council. She was represented by activist attorney Gloria Allred. Katrina alleged (as in the "Curran v. Mount Diablo Council of the Boy Scouts of America", 17 Cal. 4th 670 and "Randall v. Orange County Council", 17 Cal. 4th 736) that the BSA is a business establishment within the meaning of California's Civil Code section 51 and engaged in prohibited discrimination by excluding girls from membership.
BSA moved to have the case dismissed but Allred sought a preliminary injunction stopping BSA from refusing to admit Katrina to membership in her brother's troop. In 1996, the case went to trial before Sacramento Superior Court Judge John Lewis. After hearing arguments, Judge Lewis denied the preliminary injunction. Judge Lewis noted in his ruling that Katrina was denied admission into a troop and therefore the troop is the appropriate entity upon which to focus in addressing plaintiffs arguments under the act. Relying principally on the California Supreme Court decision in "Warfield" ("Warfield v. Peninsula Golf & Country Club" (1995) 10 Cal. 4th 594), Judge Lewis found that a Scout troop is not a business establishment. Judge Lewis maintained that the BSA is a membership organization whose benefits derive primarily from the interpersonal associations among its members.
Allred appealed Judge Lewis' decision to the Third District Court of Appeal. In 1997, the Court of Appeal upheld Judge Lewis' decision. Finally, Allred appealed the decision to the California Supreme Court. In a brief order, the California Supreme Court announced that it would consider Katrina's appeal. However, the Court deferred hearing the appeal until a decision was reached in both the "Curran" and "Randall" cases, both of which were pending before the Court at the time.
In March 1998, the California Supreme Court ruled in the "Curran" and "Randall" cases that the Boy Scouts of America is not a business establishment, as defined in the Unruh Act, and can therefore set its own membership criteria. Katrina's lawsuit was in effect "finished" by the decision, according to Allred. A few months later, Katrina withdrew her appeal. However, she vowed to keep fighting, claiming: "I was born a girl, and no matter what else I do with my life, that’s what it all comes down to–being a girl. Being born a boy or a girl is not something you can change, but maybe we can still change the laws that make it legal to discriminate against girls."


Operation Bruilof

Operation Bruilof () was a planned military operation in 1978 by the South African Defence Force during the South African Border War and Angolan Civil War.
Background.
The operation was planned for May 1978, to be conducted by 61 Mechanised Infantry Battalion Group and paratroops. This was to be the first mechanised force to be deployed by the South African forces during the war and consisted of the then new Ratel Infantry Fighting Vehicles as well as Eland Armoured Cars.
The plan called for the SADF to cross the South-West Africa–Angola border, with the battle group attacking and destroying six South-West Africa People's Organisation bases around Chetequera before withdrawing.
The plan was eventually abandoned and merged into what became Operation Reindeer planned for the 4 May.


Isabel Freire de Matos

Isabel Freire de Matos (February 2, 1915 – September 30, 2004) was a writer, educator, journalist, and activist for Puerto Rican independence. Freire de Matos was the author of several children's books and the wife of Francisco Matos Paoli, a high-ranking member of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party.
Early years.
Freire de Matos (birth name: Isabel Freire Meléndez ) was born in the town of Cidra, Puerto Rico. There she received her primary and secondary education. During her years as a child she became interested in juvenile literature and poetry. After graduating from high school she attended the University of Puerto Rico where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in education.
During her years as a student at the university she became interested in the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and an advocate for Puerto Rico's independence. She continued her postgraduate studies in the UPR and moved to Paris, France, for a year to study comparative literature at the Sorbonne. There she met Francisco Matos Paoli, a fellow independence advocate who in 1942 became her husband.
Educator.
After she returned to Puerto Rico, she began to work in the public and private school systems of the island. She co-authored a children's book titled "El libro Isla para niños" ("The island book for children") with her husband.
Nationalist revolts of the 1950s.
On May 21, 1948, a bill was introduced before the Puerto Rican Senate which would restrain the rights of the independence and nationalist movements on the archipelago. The Senate, which at the time was controlled by the "Partido Popular Democrático" (PPD) and presided by Luis Muñoz Marín, approved the bill. This bill, which resembled the anti-communist Smith Act passed in the United States in 1940, became known as the "Ley de la Mordaza" (Gag Law, technically "Law 53 of 1948") when the U.S.-appointed governor of Puerto Rico, Jesús T. Piñero, signed it into law on June 10, 1948. Under this new law it became a crime to print, publish, sell, or exhibit any material intended to paralyze or destroy the insular government; or to organize any society, group or assembly of people with a similar destructive intent. It made it illegal to sing a patriotic song, and reinforced the 1898 law that had made it illegal to display the Flag of Puerto Rico, with anyone found guilty of disobeying the law in any way being subject to a sentence of up to ten years imprisonment, a fine of up to US$10,000 (), or both. According to Dr. Leopoldo Figueroa, a non-PPD member of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives, the law was repressive and was in violation of the First Amendment to the US Constitution which guarantees Freedom of Speech. He pointed out that the law as such was a violation of the civil rights of the people of Puerto Rico. In 1949, the Nationalist Party held an assembly in the town of Arecibo and named Paoli Secretary General of the party. Some of his duties as Secretary General of the party included the presentation of patriotic speeches. Due to Law 53, these duties placed her husband on a collision course with the U.S. government.
In September 1950, her husband traveled to the towns of Cabo Rojo, Santurce, Guánica and Lares, where he participated in Nationalist activities. On October 30, the Nationalists staged uprisings in the towns of Ponce, Mayagüez, Naranjito, Arecibo, Utuado (Utuado Uprising), San Juan (San Juan Nationalist revolt), and Jayuya (Jayuya Uprising). On November 2, 1950, the police arrived at their home in Río Piedras and searched for guns and explosives. The only thing they found was a Puerto Rican flag but, due to Law 53 (the Gag Law), this enabled them to arrest and accuse her husband of treason against the United States. The evidence used against him was the Puerto Rican flag in their home, and four speeches he'd made in favor of Puerto Rican independence.
On the basis of this "evidence" her husband was fired from his professorship at the University of Puerto Rico, and sentenced to a twenty-year prison term, which was later reduced to ten years. In jail, her husband shared his cell with Pedro Albizu Campos. Campos suffered from ulcerations on his legs and body caused by radiation, and her husband tended to his needs.
Her husband wrote patriotic poems on scraps of paper which were smuggled out of the prison by Freire de Matos. She tried to get them published and even though they were inoffensive, the context of the "Gag Law" and its intended effect, to silence all opposition made the poems take on a different meaning.
Her husband was released on probation on January 16, 1952. However, on March 2, 1954, after the Nationalists attack of the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. government ordered the wholesale arrest of Nationalist Party members including her husband, who was not involved in the incident.
In 1954, Freire de Matos founded the "Escuela Maternal Hostoniana" (Maternal Hostonian School) named after Eugenio María de Hostos". On May 26, 1955, after ten months in jail and in poor health, her husband was finally pardoned by Puerto Rican Governor Luis Muñoz Marín.
Author.
Freire de Matos continued to teach and write. In her college she established a creative experimental method in which she explored the balance between freedom and nature among individuals. She hoped that with her methods her students would develop positive attitudes and love for education. She hoped that her students had would fully develop their talents.
Written works.
Among her written works are the following:
Later years.
In 1968, Freire de Matos collaborated as a co-author with Rubén del Rosario, in the publication of Antonio Martorell's "ABC de Puerto Rico". The publication is used in Puerto Rico's elementary schools. On 1971, she also collaborated with the publication of Fe Acosta de González's "Matemáticas modernas en el nivel elementa" (Modern Math at the elementary level.
Francisco Matos Paoli died on July 10, 2000, in their home in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico. Freire de Matos died four years later on September 30, 2004. They were survived by two daughters, Susana Isabel and María Soledad, and four grandchildren.
There is a plaque, located at the monument to the Jayuya Uprising participants in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, honoring the women of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. Freire de Matos' name is on the sixteenth line of the third plate.
See also.
19th Century female leaders of the Puerto Rican Independence Movement
Female members of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party
 Articles related to the Puerto Rican Independence Movement


Gaioz Devdariani

Gaioz Devdariani () (February 2, 1901 – 1938) was a prominent Georgian revolutionary, Soviet politician, member of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences and a victim of the Great Purge of 1937. Devdariani was born in the village of Kharagauli, Western Georgia into a large family. In 1919, Devdariani was arrested by the Menshevik Government of Georgia for plotting and masterminding an insurrection against the democratically elected government. He was imprisoned in Metekhi but managed to escape from the prison in 1920. Between 1921 and 1923, Devdariani worked in various communist ministries of Georgian SSR. From 1929 to 1931 Devdariani became the first Minister of Education of the Georgian SSR. During the same year Devdariani became the honorable member of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences in the department of Economics. After only a year as a Minister, he was promoted to the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Georgian SSR. However, soon after his appointment, Lavrentiy Beria (Communist Party Secretary of Transcaucasia) started agitations and provocations against Gaioz.
Brothers of Devdariani, George Devdariani (commanding officer of Soviet Division in Transcaucasus) and Shalva Devdariani held important positions in the Georgian SSR and the Communist Party. They became the first targets of Beria and Grigoriy Ordzhonikidze. In 1933, George Devdariani was shot by one of the deserters from his division. It has been alleged that Beria plotted the desertion and instructed the soldier to kill his commanding officer. In 1934 Shalva Devdariani was arrested in Tbilisi and was said to have been personally executed by Beria. After learning of his brother’s arrest and execution, Devdariani resigned from his position and moved to Zaporizhia, Ukraine. There he became the head of a military aviation factory. Under pressure from Beria, Joseph Stalin gave an order to arrest Devdariani and indict him with charges of plotting to assassinate Lavrentiy Beria and of having links with exiled Leon Trotsky. Devdariani was declared an "enemy of the people" and was denounced for Trotskyism. While the charges against Devdariani were entirely false, Beria, a master provocateur, persuaded Stalin to grant him an approval for Devdariani's liquidation.
Before the arrest and murder of his brothers, based on his personal letters, Devdariani had lost any belief in communism and confessed to his family members of being intolerant of Stalin, Beria and the Bolsheviks. Before his final days in a Tbilisi prison cell, he hoped for the chance to emigrate to Leuville-sur-Orge, France, where he would join the Menshevik government of Noe Zhordania in exile. However, he was condemned to death by the NKVD troika and executed in 1938. His son, Spartak Devdariani was sent to the Eastern Front in Penal military unit (being charged under Article 58 of counter-revolutionary activities) where he was killed during the Prague Offensive. His second son David Devdariani was imprisoned for being the “son of the enemy of the people” (Russian language: "сын врага народа"). He later became a political dissident and activist for independent Georgia. He was finally released by the order of Nikita Khrushchev.
Devdariani published numerous books and articles about Communism and Georgia, of which the most popular one was "The History of Communism in Georgia", "Narkvevebi sakartvelos komkavshiris istoriidan" (1927, 1931), "Sakartvelos komkavshiris ati tslis tavi" (1927), "Sakartvelos komkavshiris sataveebtan" (1927) and "Imperializmi da proletaruli revolutsia" (1930).


Silent Contest

Silent Contest () is a Chinese communist military propaganda film produced by the People's Liberation Army's National Defense University Information Management Center, purporting to expose and explain the secret battle, or conspiracy, the United States is waging against the People's Republic of China. The documentary runs for 92 minutes. According to the Chinese Communist Party-controlled tabloid "Global Times", "The film is an exploration of the belief that the US remains China's enemy and has never stopped its strategies to westernize and divide China." Some analysts have called it a "masterpiece" of political propaganda, while others called it "eerie," "paranoid," "bizarre," or "alarming."
The "Global Times" claimed the film represented the views of nationalistic Chinese military academics; however, Western academics dispute this, arguing that the film accurately represented the Chinese government's party line. The film is interspersed with narration that drives the explanation of the U.S. plot. It first circulated among military enthusiasts and Internet users in China in October 2013.
U.S.-led conspiracy.
The central thesis of the documentary is that the United States is engaged in a global conspiracy to hold China back, hamper its development, and ultimately topple the Chinese Communist Party using the doctrine of "peaceful evolution."
Among the alleged tactics that Washington seeks to use against China are military-to-military exchanges and communications during times of crisis, which the leaders of both countries have publicly advocated.
“We have to take careful precaution and look out for the smallest detail, and build a strong political and ideological line of defense,” says General Wang Xibin, the president of National Defense University, in the documentary.
There are a range of key tools that the United States is said to use to carry out this scheme: Political infiltration, cultural infiltration, change of public opinion, ideological infiltration, organizational infiltration, political interference, and social infiltration.
Western support for leaders of Chinese minorities, such as the Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama, and the Uyghur dissident Rebiya Kadeer, are also singled out as problematic.
Infiltration.
The documentary begins by referring to the idea of transgenes, the process of modifying an organism, or taking a part of one organism and moving it to another.
""Transgene" appears to cause no harm to the targeted species, but just uses modern genetic technology to introduce a small improvement in that species," the narrator says. "However, this tiny genetic change, no matter how small it may look, not only destroys the full features of the original species; it also places the new species under the control of the entity that introduced the change."
The documentary argues that the United States is trying to carry out just such a plot against the People's Republic of China.
"It is clear that in the new era, the U.S. has become smarter and more active in the use of political and cultural infiltration and soft war methods," the documentary says. "Its 'cultural and political infiltration and soft war methods' have not only become a main strategy for the U.S. to maintain its hegemony, but also a stealth weapon of mass destruction that Western politicians use to change the world."
'Westernizing' China.
According to Silent Contest, the United States and other Western nations have never abandoned the idea that they wish to "Westernize" or even split China by spreading pro-Western propaganda under the banner of democracy, freedom, and human rights to try to ultimately have China's political system reform along the lines of Western countries.
Non-governmental organizations are said to be one of the key tools used in this strategy. Groups like the Ford Foundation, the International Republican Institute, the Carter Center, and the Asia Society are all part of the alleged plot and "doing their utmost to access the grassroots elections in our country and provide different forms of support for the reform of local governance." The organizations are said to be part of a project to "brainwash" China.
The film also targets Chinese intellectuals and scholars, including Mao Yushi, a liberal economist who has been awarded the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty, He Weifang, a well-known professor of law at Peking University, and Xia Yeliang, a former college professor who was forced into exile.
The CIA's 'Ten Commandments'.
A number of analysts described the section of the film discussing the "Ten Commandments" as the highlight. These "commandments" were allegedly part of the Central Intelligence Agency's handbook on dealing with China during the Bill Clinton administration. The list of activities that the CIA is said to engage in includes:
Official Provenance.
At the end of the film, several lines of credits in Chinese appear identifying it as a product of the National Defense University's Information Management Center (国防大学信息管理中心). Among the other producers of the film are the General Staff Department of the PLA and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. In a press conference on October 31, 2013, Yang Yujun, spokesperson for the Ministry of National Defense, said "we will not comment". According to the "Global Times", the film was then removed from domestic Chinese websites.
Individuals responsible for the film were the National Defense University's Political Commissar Liu Yazhou, and its president Wang Xibin. "As such, the film appears to offer a remarkably straightforward glimpse into the Cold War mind-set of the Chinese military leadership, as well as the deep suspicions of the United States festering inside one of the most influential institutions in the Chinese political system," wrote the "New York Times".
It was produced in June 2013. The documentary is voiced by Ren Zhihong, a well-known narrator and anchor of China Central Television's "National Treasure Archive" program. It included extensive use of historical footage, interviews with high-level political figures, and scholars inside and outside China. Top-level Chinese military officials were also interviewed.
The documentary but instead explains what has been a longstanding "politically correct view of US-China relations."
Whether the film appeared on the Internet as a matter of deliberate policy or as an actual leak, posted without authorization, was a matter of debate among analysts. Given that Communist Party propaganda authorities can often act immediately to remove content and could easily have discovered the source of a leak, one analyst suggested a leak to have been unlikely.
"If the leak was indeed authorized, it would probably have been at some level of the PLA General Political Department, which appears to be responsible for its production, given the prominence of the NDU Political Commissar as Producer."
Reaction.
According to the anti-communist New Tang Dynasty Television the film stirred up counter-attacks by Chinese Internet users. Some called the content "brain-dead", "ridiculous", "absurd," and a "comedy masterpiece." The idea that social conflict in China—including such phenomena as social unrest, official corruption, protests against human rights abuses, the spread of Christianity, and so on—could be the result of a U.S. conspiracy, was found unconvincing by a number of individuals who saw the documentary.
J. Michael Cole, a commentator on Chinese and Taiwanese affairs—while appearing to acknowledge the official source of the film—wrote that "we must regard the documentary as part of the ongoing dialogue and jockeying for influence that is occurring within the CCP [Chinese Communist Party], and not as a policy statement." He added that if indeed it was the official position, "the ramifications of that shift could be far reaching."
"Not only could exchanges with the U.S. and other major Western powers suffer, but a country like Taiwan, which is often touted as a model for China and whose growing interactions with the Asian giant it is hoped will spark the flame of democratization, could also suffer the consequences," Cole wrote. "If Taiwan’s democracy and open society are regarded as a Western import and part of a U.S.-led plot to undermine China, the CCP could conclude that it is in its best interest to pre-empt Taiwan by destroying its liberal way of life, a process that some argue has already begun."
Geoff Wade, a visiting fellow at the College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University, described the documentary as "controversial" and "highly polemical." "The PLA was intimately involved in the making of the film," he added. For Wade, it appeared to be a reaction to the United States' "pivot" to Asia and America's attempt to increase engagement with the region since 2011. "With such a range of august national institutions being involved in the production of the film, it might be suggested that the rather extreme sentiments expressed therein are not restricted to some hawkish elements in the PLA."
Frank Ching, a newspaper columnist in Hong Kong, called the documentary "alarming," while Lau Nai-keung, a Hong Kong political figure, writing in the Communist Party's own newspaper China Daily, said it "sent an eerie message around the world."
Wade said that many of the claims in the documentary also chime with the broader irredentist, revisionist, and expansionary program being carried out and advocated by the Chinese military and the Communist Party's propaganda organs.
Andrew Chubb, an analyst of Chinese military propaganda, described the video as "really quite a masterpiece."


Ernst Cramer (politician)

Ernst Ariël (Ernst) Cramer (born 26 June 1960 in Amersfoort) is a former Dutch politician. He is a member of the ChristianUnion (ChristenUnie) and a former member of the House of Representatives of the Netherlands.
Cramer was a member of the city council as well as an alderman of Zeewolde for the Reformed Political League (Gereformeerd Politiek Verbond) and later its successor the ChristianUnion. From 2006 until 2010 he was an MP.
Ernst Cramer is a member of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (Liberated) and lives in Woerden.


United Nations Security Council Resolution 546

United Nations Security Council resolution 546, adopted on 6 January 1984, after hearing representations from the People's Republic of Angola, the Council recalled resolutions 387 (1976), 428 (1978), 447 (1979), 454 (1979), 475 (1980) and 545 (1983), and expressed its concern at the continuing attacks on the country by South Africa through occupied South West Africa.
The Council demanded South Africa cease the attacks and respect Angola's sovereignty and territorial integrity, noting that Angola is entitled to the right of self-defense and to compensation for the attacks. It also called upon South Africa to cease the occupation of southern Angola and withdraw its forces. The resolution urged Member States to provide economic assistance to Angola, as well as enforce Resolution 418 (1977) on the arms embargo against South Africa. It also requested the Secretary-General continue to monitor the situation and report back to the Council as appropriate.
The resolution was approved by 13 votes to none against, while the United Kingdom and United States abstained from voting.


Poverty in Peru

Poverty in Peru has rapidly declined since the start of the 21st century, as a result of prosperity from the international market, tourism, low inflation, greater economic opportunities, and neoliberal economic policy, at one of the fastest rates in South America. Poverty decreased from 58.7% in 2004 to 20.5% in 2018, or from 14.9 million people in poverty to fewer than 6.8 million people in 2018, with millions of Peruvians rising out of poverty according to the Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática (INEI).
As of 2018, 20.5% of the population of Peru is at or below the poverty line, constituting around 6,765,000 people. Only 2.8% (~924,000 people) of the Peruvian population find themselves in extreme poverty. According to the INEI, extreme poverty is defined as individuals who earn less than US$80 per month (S./264 PEN), and the minimum living wage is defined as US$415 per month.
Poverty in Peru is especially present in underdeveloped and most inland regions of Peru, particularly Huancavelica and Cajamarca, as a result of little economic opportunity and availability of capital in those regions. Areas with a high development index, such as Lima, Moquegua and Ica, enjoy relatively low poverty as a result of economic opportunity.
Peru is one of the countries in the world that has seen the fastest reduction of poverty, partly due to sound economic policy and growth.
Unemployment and social mobility.
Peru's National Institute of Informational Data (INEI) reported around 686,300 able Peruvians as unemployed.
Other dimensions of poverty.
Basic access to utilities has relatively improved in Peru throughout since 2000, as seen through the percentage of the population lacking basic utilities declining.


Montejurra

Montejurra in Spanish and Jurramendi in Basque are the names of a mountain in Navarre region (Spain). Each year, it hosts a Carlist celebration in remembrance of the 1873 Battle of Montejurra during the Third Carlist War. In 2004, approximately 1,000 persons turned out.
Between 1960 and 1971 the Carlists were publishing a monthly magazine named "Montejurra".
On 9 May 1976 during the Spanish Transition, far right-wing gunmen supported by the Spanish secret services, killed two people at the Carlist Party celebration at a time when it was drifting toward left-leaning positions. This became known as the Montejurra Incidents.


Tim Frey

Timotheos "Tim" Frey (born 19 September 1972) is a Swiss politician and a political consultant. From February 2009 to June 2012, he was the secretary general of the Christian Democratic People's Party (CVP/PDC).
Career.
Since October 2018, Tim Frey is partner and member of the executive board of Farner Ltd., a Swiss PR agency.
From 2013 to 2018 he led the public affairs division of the public relations firm Burson-Marsteller Switzerland. From early 2009 to June 2012, Frey has been secretary general of the CVP/PDC. Prior to taking up that post he was researcher and teaching assistant at the Institute of political science at the University of Zurich.
Education.
Frey earned his degree in political science from the University of Geneva in 2002 and his Ph.D. degree in political science from the University of Zurich in 2008. Prior to his academic career, Frey did an apprenticeship as interior designer.


Bruce Laingen

Lowell Bruce Laingen (August 6, 1922 – July 15, 2019) was an American diplomat who served as the United States Ambassador to Malta from 1977 to 1979. Laingen is best known for having been the most senior American official held hostage during the Iran hostage crisis, while serving as the chargé d'affaires (head of diplomatic mission) at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
Early life, naval service, and education.
Laingen was born on a farm near Butterfield and Odin in Watonwan County, Minnesota. During World War II, Laingen served in the U.S. Navy in the South Pacific as a lieutenant. After the war he graduated from St. Olaf College and obtained an M.A. in International Relations from the University of Minnesota. He also studied at the National War College in 1968.
Diplomatic career.
In 1949 Laingen joined the U.S. Foreign Service. He served at posts in Germany, Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, and was then appointed Ambassador to Malta by President Gerald Ford in 1977.
Laingen was then sent back to Iran as the U.S. chargé d'affaires in June 1979, after ambassador William H. Sullivan and chargé d'affaires Charlie Naas were relieved of their posts by President Jimmy Carter. Laingen had previously served in Iran during the 1950s.
On November 4, 1979, the U.S. embassy was overrun by student protesters following the Iranian Revolution. 63 hostages were taken at the embassy, while Laingen and two others were seized at the Iranian Foreign Ministry Office. Mrs. Laingen tied a yellow ribbon about the oak at their home during the crisis. Laingen and 51 hostages were released on January 20, 1981, following 444 days of captivity. Laingen remains the last American head of mission to Iran, as direct bilateral diplomatic relations between the two governments were severed following the seizure of the embassy and have not been restored since.
After they were released from Iran in January 1981, Laingen and the other hostages arrived in the United States at the. United States Military Academy, West Point, New York. Four months later, on May 26, the West Point Class of 1981 honored him as their graduation banquet speaker during a formal dining event in the Cadet Mess Hall. Laingen was awarded the State Department's Award for Valor along with several other recognitions.
Laingen's next position was that of Vice President of the National Defense University, a post traditionally held by a senior diplomat. He retired from the Foreign Service in 1987 after 38 years of service. Laingen previously served as the President of the American Academy of Diplomacy.
Later life and death.
In 2010 Laingen was presented the Lifetime Contributions to American Diplomacy Award by the American Foreign Service Association.
Laingen died on July 15, 2019, at an assisted living facility in Bethesda, Maryland, at the age of 96 from complications of Parkinson's disease.


Vladimir Semichastny

Vladimir Yefimovich Semichastny (, January 15, 1924 – January 12, 2001) was a Soviet politician, who served as Chairman of the KGB from November 1961 to May 1967. A protégé of Alexander Shelepin, he rose through the ranks of the Communist Youth League (Komsomol).
Early life.
Semichastny was born in January 1924 in the village of Grygorevka, near Grishino (today Krasnoarmiisk), in the Donetsk Oblast (later renamed Stalino Oblast) of Soviet Ukraine, to a working-class Russian family originally from Tula Province. After finishing high school in 1941, he began studying Chemistry at the Institute of Chemical Technology in Kemerovo, but his studies were interrupted by World War II; his family back in Ukraine were evacuated to Astrakhan, due to the Nazi conquest of the region, and Semichastny himself was drafted to the Red Army. After the liberation of the Donbass by the Red Army in 1943, Semichastny returned home. Later, he received a degree in History from Kiev State University.
In the Communist Youth League.
After the end of the war, Semichastny became a full-time employee of the Communist Youth League (Komsomol), working in the fields of propaganda and administration. From 1947 to 1950 he was First Secretary of the Ukrainian Komsomol. In 1950 he was brought to Moscow to work in the central apparatus of the Komsomol, where he met and befriended Alexander Shelepin, forging very close ties with him and eventually succeeding him as First Secretary of the All-Union Komsomol.
In Azerbaijan.
In 1959, after having served as First Secretary of the All-Union Komsomol, Semichastny was sent by the Soviet leadership to the politically sensitive and oil-rich Soviet Socialist Republic of Azerbaijan, as Second Secretary of the ruling Communist Party of Azerbaijan, a position he held for two years, until 1961, serving under the Republic's leader Vali Akhundov.
Chairman of the KGB.
Semichastny was appointed Chairman of the KGB by Nikita Khrushchev in November 1961, again succeeding his friend and mentor Shelepin, who had been KGB Chairman since 1958. Appointed at the age of 37, he was the youngest Soviet security and intelligence chief of the Cold War. As KGB chief, he generally continued his predecessor's policies: support for national liberation movements worldwide, suppression of nationalism, separatism and the dissident movement within the Soviet Union, and recruitment of young university graduates to the KGB. He also put much emphasis on developing the security and intelligence services of the Soviet satellite states, and on assisting the communist forces in the Vietnam War.
Semichastny was surprised when Khrushchev informed him of his appointment as KGB Chairman, commenting that he did not have any experience in intelligence and counterintelligence; Khrushchev, however, told him that the KGB needed, above all, a deft political hand. Semichastny's young age and his lack of professional experience in intelligence and counterintelligence led him to rely heavily on senior department heads within the KGB; he was always respectful towards intelligence veterans, but he was also determined to be in charge and leave his mark on the agency.
Semichastny's first decision as KGB Chairman, on November 22, 1961, (after nine days in office) was to approve the creation of a "sabotage and terrorism" group (as the KGB itself called it) within the Sandinista National Liberation Front in Nicaragua; the Sandinistas would eventually manage to seize power in that country in 1979.
Despite Khrushchev's fondness and esteem, Semichastny never became part of the Soviet leader's inner circle. The two rarely had one-on-one meetings (although there were some instances where they would have breakfast together, or a walk in the Kremlin where Semichastny would brief him on important matters) and Khrushchev was adamant in his belief that the KGB was to be confined to intelligence, counterintelligence and state security, and was not expected to have any policy recommendations of its own ("executor, not formulator of policy"), especially in foreign affairs, where Semichastny usually deferred to Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko.
Undoubtedly, however, the KGB and its chairman retained their relevance and importance; every morning, a large grayish blue file containing intelligence reports and analyses, selected and reviewed by Semichastny, was placed on Khrushchev's personal desk by one of his secretaries, and Khrushchev always read them avidly.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Semichastny was responsible for coordinating all information received from abroad. His chosen crisis team oversaw intelligence from the Foreign Ministry, the GRU (Military Intelligence) and, of course, the KGB. The team met every day in his office at KGB Headquarters in Lubyanka Square.
During his tenure Semichasnty attempted to create a new, more positive public image for the KGB, permitting an article to appear in the newspaper "Izvestia" that included an interview with an unnamed "senior KGB officer" (himself); he stated
many young Communist Party and Communist Youth League workers have joined the KGB, and none of the people who, during the time of Joseph Stalin's cult of personality, took part in the repressions against innocent Soviet people, is now in the Service.
More articles, books and films on the security organs appeared, and Soviet spies became heroes in print and cinema — Rudolf Abel, Gordon Lonsdale, Harold (Kim) Philby, and Richard Sorge.
In October 1963, Semichastny sanctioned the arrest of Professor Frederick Barghoorn of Yale University when he was visiting Moscow. Semichastny hoped that by charging Barghoorn as a spy he could induce the United States to release Igor Ivanov, arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that month for espionage. Barghoorn was a personal friend of President John F. Kennedy, who forcefully stated that Barghoorn was not involved in any illegal activities at a press conference. The Soviets subsequently released Barghoorn. Ivanov was eventually allowed to leave the United States in 1971.
Subsequently, Semichastny and his mentor Shelepin participated in the successful coup against Khrushchev in October 1964, an act that undoubtedly led to his being initially retained as KGB chief by the new, more hard-line Soviet leadership. There are some indications that Leonid Brezhnev, who led the coup against Khrushchev, wanted to assassinate him, but Semichastny, while participating in the ouster of Khrushchev, categorically refused to allow any bloodshed.
Semichastny was in fact the one who informed Khrushchev of his removal from power, "by order of the Politburo"; as Khrushchev was returning to Moscow from a holiday at the Black Sea, Semichastny waited for him at the airport flanked by KGB security guards, informed him of his ouster and told him not to resist. Khrushchev did not resist, and the hardliners' coup went off smoothly; Khrushchev felt betrayed by Semichastny, as he considered him a friend and ally until that very moment, not suspecting that he had joined his enemies within the Party.
Brezhnev finally replaced Semichastny on 18 May 1967, as part of a Kremlin power shuffle, and Yuri Andropov became the new Chairman of the KGB. Semichastny's close friend Shelepin was also removed from any positions of influence.
Later career.
From 1967 until 1981 Semichastny was a Deputy Prime Minister of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, although he did not have any significant influence in the political affairs of the Republic, which was tightly controlled by Brezhnevites. In 1981 he was removed from that position as well, and retired to private life.
Semichastny died in Moscow at the age of 77, on January 12, 2001, after suffering a stroke.
Kennedy assassination.
After U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, Semichastny investigated the background of Lee Harvey Oswald, who was arrested for the murder and was himself shot dead. Oswald had spent some time in the Soviet Union but, according to Semichastny's investigations, had never worked for any Soviet intelligence agency; Semichastny's verdict, that there was definitely "something fishy" in the whole affair, is shared by many.
Assessment.
Markus Wolf, the intelligence chief of East Germany, who worked closely with Semichastny, described him as follows:


Edmundston (electoral district)

Edmundston was a provincial electoral district for the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick, Canada. It has been superseded by the Edmundston-Saint Basile district in 2006.


Johan Brautigam

Johan Brautigam (18 May 1878, Uithoorn - 24 June 1962, Rotterdam) was a Dutch trade unionist and politician.