Nauru Rehabilitation Corporation

The Nauru Rehabilitation Corporation is a state-owned enterprise established by the Republic of Nauru in May 1999, following the passing of the Nauru Rehabilitation Corporation Act in July 1997. Its primary mission is to rehabilitate land destroyed by the phosphate industry, both before and after its independence, making them once again economically useful to the small island-nation.
History.
Work on the lands began in early 2008 with the help of Australian funding. Australia, during its trusteeship over the island until 1968, had mined and profited from the rich phosphate deposits of the island. Once independent, however, Nauru took Australia to the courts demanding financial reparations for the environmental and agricultural damages caused by the mining operations. The Australian government under Prime Minister Paul Keating agreed to assist Nauru in an out-of-court settlement in the 1990s, signing a treaty to that effect with the then President de Nauru, Bernard Dowiyogo. The Nauru Rehabilitation Corporation (NRC) was set up to put the necessary work into effect.
Work.
The work currently involves breaking and crushing the jagged rock formations left behind by phosphate mining. The crushed rock contains some proportion of mineable phosphate and some parts of the rock is also sold to the construction industry, but the main aim of activity is to clear the holes dug by the phosphate industry. Subsequently, a layer of arable soil is supposed to cover the land, allowing for the growth of vegetation.
Between 2007 and 2018, the NRC was in charge of the extraction of phosphate from remaining unmined areas. However, slow progress meant that the responsibility was given back to RONPHOS in July 2018.
CEO.
The NRC's CEO is Vinci Clodumar. In addition, its operations are the responsibility of the Department of State. The minister responsible for the NRC at its foundation was Frederick Pitcher. Since mid-November 2011, following a change in government, it is David Adeang.


Oregon Waste Systems, Inc. v. Department of Environmental Quality of Oregon

Oregon Waste Systems, Inc. v. Department of Environmental Quality of Oregon, 511 U.S. 93 (1994), is a United States Supreme Court decision focused on the aspect of state power and the interpretation of the Commerce Clause as a limitation on states' regulatory power. In this particular case, the Supreme Court considered whether the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality's alleged cost-based surcharge on the disposal of out-of-state waste violated the dormant commerce clause.
Opinion of the Court.
The Court voted 7–2 in favor of Oregon Waste Systems, holding that Oregon's surcharge was invalid under the negative commerce clause. This meant that the surcharge favored in-state economic interests over out-of-state counterparts. The surcharge was discriminatory to outside states because it imposed a fee three times greater than that imposed on in-state waste.
In order for such a surcharge to be valid, it would have to be justified as compensatory, in that it makes out-of-state shippers pay their fair share of the disposal costs. This would have to be equivalent to a measurable standard that would be the same for in-state shipping. However, Oregon's surcharge of $2.25 for out-of-state waste compared with a surcharge of $0.85 on in-state waste was determined facially discriminatory. Citing a previous case, the Supreme Court indicated that such surcharges may be acceptable if they were based on increased costs specifically associated with out-of-state waste.


Beaver Lake (Texas)

Beaver Lake was a small lake or beaver pond formerly found on the Devils River in what is now Val Verde County, Texas. It was located about 19 miles north of second crossing of Devil's River and 44 miles from Howard Springs.
History.
Beaver Lake was first encountered upstream of the head of Devil's River by the 1849 U. S. Army military expedition that established the San Antonio-El Paso Road. It was described by Robert A. Eccleston, one of a party of forty-niners traveling with the expedition. In Eccleston's diary of that trip he writes about the lake they camped near from July 23–26, 1849, as:
a pretty little lake. There was however no path down to the water & the bank was very steep. My brother and I went fishing in the lake... He caught two catfish... There is a beaver dam on the lake close to our camp. No beavers have yet been seen.
It was 213 miles from San Antonio on the road, according to the topographical engineers with the expedition.
The Beaver Lake Ranch, located nearby to the north.


Dora Bakoyannis

Theodora "Dora" Bakoyanni (; ; "née" Mitsotakis; ; born May 6, 1954) is a Greek politician. From 2006 to 2009 she was Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece, the highest position ever to have been held by a woman in the Cabinet of Greece at the time; she was also Chairperson-in-Office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in 2009. Previously she was the Mayor of Athens from 2003 to 2006, the first female mayor in the city's history, and the first woman to serve as mayor of a city hosting the Olympic Games. She also served as Minister for Culture of Greece from 1992 to 1993.
Bakoyannis has been serving as an independent member of the Hellenic Parliament representing unofficially Democratic Alliance, the political party she founded in 2010, having been expelled from the opposition New Democracy party due to voting against the party line. In May 2012, due to the critical situation in Greece before the elections and given the established electoral law, Democratic Alliance decided to cooperate with New Democracy, based on a specific framework of values and to suspend its activities. Dora Bakoyanni rejoined New Democracy on 21 May 2012, ahead of the parliamentary election in June, where she headed the state deputies' ballot.
Early life and education.
Bakoyannis was born in Athens in 1954 to a prominent Greek family in the field of politics. She is the eldest of four children of the veteran Greek politician Konstantinos Mitsotakis, former Prime Minister of Greece and former leader of country's main centre-right political party New Democracy, and Marika Mitsotakis (née Giannoukou). Her family originates from Chania, Crete, and has a long tradition in the politics of Greece. Besides her father and herself, other members of the family include prominent politicians such as her grandfather, Kyriakos, and his brother Aristomenis, while her younger brother Kyriakos, is the current Prime Minister of Greece. She is also a great-granddaughter of Eleftherios Venizelos' sister. This decade-long involvement has been reprehended as attestation for family-rule in Greek political life.
During her early school years, she attended the German School of Athens. Her family was exiled to Paris by the Greek military junta in 1968, thus she completed her secondary schooling at the German School of Paris. She then studied political science and communication at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich without graduating. After the collapse of the junta, she returned to Greece and continued her academic studies in public law at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. In addition to Greek, Bakoyannis is fluent in English, French and German.
Political career.
Minister for Culture, 1992-1993.
In the November 1989 election, Bakoyannis successfully contested her late husband's seat in the Evrytania constituency and was re-elected a member of the Hellenic Parliament in the 1990 election and served as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, following the election of her father as Prime Minister of Greece. From September 1991 to August 1992, she served in the General Secretariat of International Affairs for New Democracy and represented the party at the European Democrat Union and the International Democrat Union. Since December 1992, she served as Minister for Culture of Greece until the 1993 election, when she was re-elected a member of Parliament for New Democracy as the main opposition party.
Years in opposition.
On 29 April 1994, Bakoyannis was elected in the Central Committee of New Democracy by the party's Third Congress. In the 1996 election Bakoyannis was a candidate for a first time in the Athens A' electoral district and was elected again as member of Parliament, coming first of all the candidates in it, something that was repeated in the 2000 election. Meanwhile, on 22 March 1997, she was elected again to the Central Committee of New Democracy by the party's Fourth Congress. She also served for two terms as the chairperson of the party's Executive Committee later. In September 1997 she was appointed by New Democracy leader Kostas Karamanlis in the party's Department for Development and as Shadow Minister of Foreign Affairs and Defence in May 2000.
Mayor of Athens, 2002-2006.
On 29 March 2002, Bakoyannis was picked to run for Mayor of Athens in the 2002 local elections, both a choice of Kostas Karamanlis who was looking for a way to demonstrate New Democracy's growing strength against the ruling Panhellenic Socialist Movement and a chance for Bakoyannis to earn prestige by this office in advance of the city hosting the Olympic games. She was elected what was aired as Athens' first female mayor in the city's 3,500-year history, defeating her socialist opponent Christos Papoutsis and receiving a percentage of 60.6% in the runoff. As mayor, she was heavily involved in the preparation of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, the first woman to serve as mayor of a city hosting the Olympic Games, and passed the Olympic flag to the mayor of Beijing, Wang Qishan. In 2005 she was awarded the World Mayor Prize.
In 2003, upon the invitation of Romano Prodi, then President of the European Commission, Bakoyannis joined a group of 12 high-level independent figures from Europe, as a member of a prestigious round-table conference, contributing proposals on the social character, cultural identity and economic future of new Europe.
Minister of Foreign Affairs, 2006-2009.
Bakoyannis left the office of Mayor before the end of her term, replaced by acting mayor Fotini Pipili, to become Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece on 15 February 2006 and thus the highest-ranking woman in the history of the Cabinet of Greece. She also retained the position after the 2007 election, managing to be elected as a member of the Hellenic Parliament first among all the candidates in the Athens A' constituency once more. As Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bakoyannis assumed the rotating Greek presidency of the United Nations Security Council in September 2006, while at a time of international tensions over nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea and amidst a fragile United Nations brokered cease-fire in Lebanon.
During her incumbency, she promoted the cooperation in the Balkans, where Greek companies are heavily investing, traveled through the Middle East to help outline solutions to problems and attended meetings of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to discuss developments in the region. She also promoted the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon by the Hellenic Parliament and supported Nicolas Sarkozy's plan about the Union for the Mediterranean, but did not reach a conciliation with Turkey and the Republic of Macedonia over the Cyprus dispute and the Macedonia naming dispute respectively.
OSCE Chairperson-in-Office.
Bakoyannis served as the Chairperson-in-Office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe from January 2009 to 6 October 2009. As the political leader of the OSCE, she was responsible for the external representation and the appointments of the Organization. She also oversaw the activities of the OSCE in conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict rehabilitation. During her chairmanship, she was assisted by her staff and Marc Perrin de Brichambaut, the Secretary General of the OSCE, as well as by her predecessor Alexander Stubb and successor Marat Tazhin, who both formed along with Bakoyannis the OSCE Troika.
Later political role.
Bakoyannis was expelled from New Democracy on May 7, 2010, on the grounds of having defied New Democracy's line and voting "in favor" of a salient piece of legislation introducing the harsh austerity measures that were required for European Union-International Monetary Fund backed lending. She continued to hold her parliamentary seat, originally secured by New Democracy, as an independent. On November 21, 2010, she founded her own political party called the Democratic Alliance.
A member of the Greek delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe since 2012, Bakoyannis serves as chairwoman of the Sub-Committee on relations with the OECD and the EBRD. She is also a member of the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy, which she chaired from 2014 to 2016; a member of the Committee on the Honouring of Obligations and Commitments by Member States of the Council of Europe (Monitoring Committee); co-rapporteur for the monitoring of Russia (alongside Liliane Maury Pasquier); and rapporteur on the Syrian Civil War. In 2019, she announced her candidacy to succeed Thorbjørn Jagland as Secretary General of the Council of Europe. The position was ultimately won by Croatia's Foreign Minister Marija Pejčinović Burić.
In 2015, Bakoyannis was named a member of the OSCE Panel of Eminent Persons on European Security as a Common Project, chaired by Wolfgang Ischinger.
Recognition.
In March 1992, the International Centre for Women awarded Bakoyannis the International Leadership Award, and in June 1993, she was recognised by the 14th International Symposium Fontana di Roma for her valuable contribution to culture.
Bakoyannis received the honor of being elected World Mayor in 2005, an annual internet-based project organized by City Mayors in order to honor the mayors who have served their communities well. Her efforts to get Athens ready to host the 2004 Summer Olympics successfully, her actions to transform the city for the benefit of its residents and her fight against terrorism helped Bakoyannis win the award. During the contest she was strongly supported by the Greek community and also received thousands of votes from several countries around Europe, North America and Australia. She had also been continuously included in the Forbes Magazine's List of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women from 2006 to 2008. In 2008, she was awarded the Emperor Maximilian Award-European Award for Regional Policy and Local Government by the State of Tyrol and the city of Innsbruck. In 2009, she was named as the first female foreign associate of the French Academy in Humanities and Political Sciences. The same year, she was also awarded the title of Honorary Senator by the European Academy of Sciences and Arts in Salzburg. In 2010, Dora Bakoyannis has been awarded the National Order of the Chevalry of the Legion of Honour of the French Republic (Ordre Nationale de Chevalier de la Legion d' Honneur).
Remarkable incidents.
On December 13, 2002, two months after taking office as mayor of Athens, an assassination attempt was made on her by a perpetrator who was considered mentally disturbed.
In March 2021, the driver of her guard team killed a 23 year old man outside the Hellenic Parliament and the driver fled so as not to be found. The police drove the eyewitnesses away from the scene of the accident.
Personal life.
In December 1974, she was married to journalist Pavlos Bakoyannis and later gave birth to their two children, Alexia and Kostas. In 1977, she took examinations at the Ministry of Economic Coordination and was appointed in the Department of European Economic Community Affairs. When her father was elected leader of New Democracy in 1984, she served as chief of staff until 1989. On 26 September 1989, her husband, who had been elected a member of the Hellenic Parliament in the June 1989 election, was assassinated by members of the terrorist group Revolutionary Organization 17 November, as he entered his office building. She was married to businessman Isidoros Kouvelos in 1998, but she retains her late husband's surname.


Asuransi Jasindo

Asuransi Jasindo, the marketing brand for PT Asuransi Jasa Indonesia (Persero) is the second largest general insurance company in Indonesia and is wholly owned by the Government of Republic of Indonesia, administrated under the Ministry of State-Owned Enterprises. Its assets worth more than 2 billion Rupiahs with gross written premium more than 2.5 billion Rupiahs, approximately 11% of Indonesian market share among other 95 general insurance companies in the archipelago.
History.
Asuransi Jasindo was established on 2 June 1973. The company itself begun long before the independence of Republic of Indonesia. Asuransi Jasindo came into existence following a very long struggle dating back as early as 1845, as a result of the nationalization of a number of colonial Dutch insurance companies in 1845 such as NV Assurantie Maatshsppij de Nederlander and Bloom Vander, both of which domiciled in Jakarta. Exactly 100 years after the nationalization, Indonesia proclaimed its independence in 1945, leading to the nationalization of Dutch and British insurance companies which then became PT. Asuransi Bendasraya as general insurance operating in rupiah currency and PT. Umum International Underwriters (PT. UIU) a general insurance company operating in foreign currency.
Management.
The current management of Asuransi Jasindo is:
Asuransi Jasindo now employs more than 1,000 staff at more than 88 branches over the nation, including an overseas branch in Labuan, Malaysia.
Jasindo Labuan.
The Labuan Branch Office is a business unit within the company which handles the inward reinsurance business from non-Indonesian clients. It is a licensed offshore insurer and regulated by Labuan Offshore Financial Statutory Authority (LOFSA) under Offshore Insurance Act 1990, with Company no. LF02494 and license no. IS200039.


Prince Mirian of Georgia

Mirian (; , "Mirian Irakliyevich Gruzinsky") (19 August 1767 – 15 October 1834) was a Georgian prince ("batonishvili") of the Bagrationi dynasty, born to King Heraclius II and Queen Darejan Dadiani. After Heraclius placed his kingdom under the Russian protectorate in 1783, Mirian entered the Russian army, attaining to the rank of major general. He reconciled with the Russian annexation of Georgia in 1801, departing to St. Petersburg, where he ended his days as a senator of the Empire. Of some literary talent, Mirian translated from Russian and himself composed poetry.
Early life and military career in Russia.
Mirian was born in 1767 into the family of Heraclius II, King of Kartli and Kakheti and his third wife Darejan née Princess Dadiani. He was the fifth son and the ninth child born of this union. Upon signing of the Treaty of Georgievsk between Heraclius II and Catherine II of Russia in 1783, Mirian and his brother, the hierodeacon Anton, journeyed to St. Petersburg and were attached to the Imperial court. On this occasion, Mirian was commissioned into the Russian service as a colonel of the Iziumsky Light Cavalry Regiment. During the Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792), he served at Kuban. Promoted to major general in 1793, Mirian was the chief of the Kabardinsky Musketeer Regiment from 3 December 1796 to 27 January 1798. He saw service under the command of Count Ivan Gudovich on the Caucasus Line. During these years, he had a regular correspondence with his father and the Georgian court.
Return to Georgia.
In January 1798, as his father lay dying, Mirian hurried to Telavi, bringing with him a doctor from Astrakhan, Girtzius. Arriving at home, he found Heraclius dead and his family descending into a dynastic crisis as his mother, Queen Dowager Darejan, insisted that Heraclius's successor and her step-son, George XII, remained pursuant to the late ruler's 1791 testament, requiring the king's successor to pass the throne not to his offspring, but to his eldest brother. This new rule would have made Mirian the fourth in the line of succession, behind George and his brothers, Iulon and Vakhtang. George XII reneged on the testament and obtained from Tsar Paul I of Russia recognition of his son, David, as heir-apparent on 18 April 1799. These developments threw the country in a state of more confusion following George’s death in December 1800 as Darejan and her party, of which Prince Mirian, having retired from the Russian service, was a member, attempted to secure the succession for Prince Iulon. Eventually, the Tsar confirmed none of the pretenders and proceeded to make the annexation of Georgia to the Russian Empire in September 1801.
Later life in Russia.
In contrast to his brothers—Iulon, Parnaoz, Alexander, and Vakhtang—Mirian did not take up arms or try to resist the deportation of the Georgian royal family effected by the Russian administration. On 15 March 1801 Mirian acceded to the Tsar's request and departed for Russia. Later in 1801, he was awarded the Russian Order of St. Anna 1st Class. In 1803 he permanently settled in St. Petersburg, where he served as an Actual Privy Councilor and senator.
During his years in St. Petersburg, Mirian translated from Russian the sermons of the Greek religious author Ilias Miniatis and "Der Freigeist", a tragedy by the German playwright Joachim Wilhelm von Brawe. Himself a poet of some talent, Mirian composed love-poetry influenced by his contemporaries, David Guramishvili and Besiki, the finest pre-Romanticist Georgian poets. Better known is Mirian's poetic address to his fellow Georgian exiles, "Come, young men, gather, valiant warriors" (მოვედით, მოყმენო, შეკრებით, ჯომარდნო). Mirian helped preserve and transmit the poetry of Guramishvili, who, a seasoned veteran of the Russian army, lived in obscurity at his provincial estate in Ukraine. He met Mirian at Kremenchuk in 1787 and through him sent his writings to Georgia.
Mirian died in St. Petersburg in 1834, at age 67. He was interred at the necropolis of the Georgian nobility at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.
Family.
Mirian married in St. Petersburg on 22 April 1814 Princess Maria (17 June 1788 – 31 May 1815), daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Prince Alexander Yakovlevitch Khilkov. She died a year after the marriage and was buried at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. Mirian had no children.


Ardo

Ardo (or "Ardonus", possibly short for "Ardabastus"; died 720/721) is attested as the last of all Visigothic kings of Hispania, reigning from 713 or likely 714 until his death. The Visigothic Kingdom was already severely reduced in power and area at the time he succeeded Achila II, and his dominions probably did not extend beyond Septimania and present-day Catalonia, due to the Arab conquests of the previous three years.
Ardo is only recorded in one Visigothic regnal list as reigning for seven years. As of 716 the Arabs crossed over the Pyrenees and invaded Narbonensis, the last province under Gothic control. Over the next three years Ardo probably defended what remained of the Visigothic kingdom and he "may have gone down fighting like his predecessor" after the Arabs took Narbonne and before they conquered all that remained of the old kingdom.
If Ardo is to be identified with Ardobastus, then he survived the invasion and negotiated a treaty, wherein he represented Christians as the Count of the Christians of al-Andalus. This title would pass to a number of individuals until the tenth century at least. Other counts included: Rabî’ ibn Theodulph, Abû Sa’îd al-Qûmis, (a descendant of Ardabastus) and Mu’âwiya ibn Lubb.


Duchy of Ulek


Hannibal E. Hamlin

Hannibal Emery Hamlin (August 22, 1858 – March 6, 1938) was an American lawyer and politician from Maine. His father, Hannibal Hamlin, served as Vice President of the United States from 1861 to 1865.
Clason[to whom does this bio pertain?] grew up in Bangor, Maine and graduated from Colby College in 1879 and Boston University School of Law in 1882.
Residing in Ellsworth, Maine, he served in the Maine House of Representatives from 1893–94 to 1895-96 and in the Maine Senate from 1899 to 1902. During his second term, he was elected President of the Maine Senate (1901–02). He later served as the president of the Maine State Bar Association from 1923 to 1924.


Claude de Baissac

Claude Marie Marc Boucherville de Baissac, DSO and bar, CdeG, known as Claude de Baissac or by his codename "David" (born 28 February 1907, Curepipe, Mauritius; died 22 December 1974) was a Mauritian of French descent who was an agent of the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) organization in France during World War II. The purpose of SOE was to conduct espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance in countries occupied by the Axis powers, especially Nazi Germany. SOE agents allied themselves with resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from England.
De Baissac was the leader of an important SOE network called Scientist. He worked in the city of Bordeaux and southwestern France from July 1942 to August 1943, organizing and supplying the French Resistance with arms and gathering intelligence on blockade-running ships entering and leaving Bordeaux harbor. He flew back to England when his network was betrayed, but returned to action in Normandy from February to August 1944, carrying out sabotage missions against the Germans after the D-Day invasion of France by the allies. His elder sister Lise was also an SOE agent and worked with him.
Early life.
Claude de Baissac was born in Mauritius. His father was Marie Louis Marc de Boucherville Baissac (1878-1945) and his mother was Marie Louise Jeanette Dupont. He was the youngest of the couple's three children. His family were large landowners in Mauritius, but British subjects as all Mauritians then were. The family moved to Paris in 1919.
Prior to World War II, de Baissac was employed by a mica mining company on Madagascar and at an advertising agency in Paris. In 1940, Paris was occupied by the Germans. His eldest brother, Jean de Baissac, joined the British Army. With his sister Lise, de Baissac travelled to the Dordogne region in southern France in an attempt to reach England. He obtained help with travel arrangements to England from the American Consulate and crossed into Spain and went to Lisbon, where he and his sister waited for five months for permission to travel to Gibraltar and on to the UK. The pair arrived in Scotland in 1941. Claude was recruited by the Special Operations Executive (SOE). Because of their proficiency in both English and French, Mauritians were often recruited as agents in France by the SOE. Fourteen would serve with the SOE during World War II.
World War II.
In March 1942, de Baissac joined SOE in the same class of trainees as Francis Suttill, Harry Peulevé, and Roger Landes. His leadership qualities were recognized, but he was also regarded as "volatile" and "stubborn." F Section leader Maurice Buckmaster would later call him "the most difficult of my officers without any exception. De Baissac and his sister, Lise, shared the family characteristic of being "difficult but determined." In the words of SOE's official historian, M.R.D. Foot, de Baissac was of "exceptional character" but "suffered no fool gladly." He was "an imposing man with the air of someone who expected to be obeyed."
First mission.
De Baissac's first mission began the night of 29/30 July 1942, when he and his wireless operator Harry Peulevé were parachuted blind (no welcoming party) from a Halifax near Nîmes, However, they were dropped from too low an altitude and landed badly. De Baissac sprained his ankle and Peulevé broke a leg. De Baissac left Peulevé (and his wireless) behind. After recovering from his injury, he continued on to Bordeaux in late August to establish the Scientist network. His duties were defined as to prepare for sabotage operations against the blockade runners entering the port of Bordeaux carrying vital products such as rubber from Southeast Asia for the use of Nazi Germany.
In the following months, de Baissac received additional personnel: Roger Landes, (codenamed "Stanislas"), a wireless operator, parachuted into France on the night of 31 Oct/1 November), and Mary Herbert (codenamed "Marie-Louise"), a courier, landed by boat on 3/4 November, and , an explosives expert, arrived by parachute on 18/19 November 1942. A second wireless operator, Marcel Défense, arrived on 13 May 1943. with three new and better radios enabled Landes to locate radios at different locations and move from place to transmit and receive messages and thus run less risk of capture. De Baissac's sister Lise, stationed in Poitiers, was a liaison of Scientist with other networks. De Baissac's Scientist network and the Prosper network of Francis Suttill, based in Paris, were the two most promising SOE networks in France.
In Bordeaux, de Baissac quickly found success, building up two groups of resistors, potential saboteurs among the left-wing workers in the port of Bordeaux, and a larger group of rural resistors led by right-wing former French army officers. He also had contacts in Paris for liaison with Prosper. Each SOE network was supposed to operate independently with little contact between networks, an unrealized objective because of a shortage of wireless operators
In December 1942 a commando raid, Operation Frankton, carried out by Royal Marines was launched against ships in Bordeaux port. Baissac was unaware of the plans for the raid and was poised to launch a similar mission to sink ships in the harbor. The commando raid was only partially successful and de Baissac was angry about the raid and had to cancel his plans for sabotaging the port because of increased German security. On 1 November 2011, a BBC "Timewatch" television documentary called "The Most Courageous Raid of WWII" was narrated by Paddy Ashdown, a former SBS officer. Ashdown described the lack of coordination among government agencies as "a Whitehall cock-up of major proportions." The loss of the opportunity for the commandos and de Baissac to work together to strike a harder blow against the Germans in a combined operation led to the setting up of an office in London with responsibility for avoiding inter-departmental rivalry and duplication. De Baissac continued to gather information about the coming and going of ships from Bordeaux and by fall 1943 blockade-running had largely been prevented.
De Baissac returned to London on the night of 17/18 March 1943 in a Lysander and parachuted back into France on 14 April. During his visit to London, de Baissac told SOE headquarters that he had a force of 3,000 to 4,000 men, mostly in Gascony, to resist the German occupation. With widespread anticipation of an allied invasion of France in 1943, SOE began delivering by air drop large quantities of arms and supplies to the resistors. By fall, the Scientist network reported that nearly 20,000 men scattered around southwestern France had been recruited by the resistance. In the words of the SOE's official historian, M.R.D. Foot, the expansion was too rapid for the security of the network -- and the Germans noticed.
Disaster.
On 23 June 1943, de Baissac had scheduled a meeting with Prosper leader Francis Suttill in Paris. Suttill didn't show up; he had been arrested by the Gestapo. What followed was the arrest of hundreds of French resisters and SOE agents and the destruction of most of SOE's activities in northern France. De Baissac requested or was ordered to return to England to avoid arrest and he and his sister, Lise, flew back by Lysander on the night of 16/17 August. Roger Landes, Vic Hayes, Marcel Défense, and Mary Herbert (pregnant with de Baissac's child) remained in Bordeaux to continue working. Landes was furious that de Baissac had taken his sister Lise with him to England and left Mary Herbert behind.
De Baissac's most important French colleague, André Grandclément, was a retired army colonel and a leader of the right-wing resistance organization, the Organisation civile et militaire. In September 1943, Grandclément was arrested by the Germans and to protect his wife and secure his release was persuaded by the Germans to become a double agent. He betrayed the Scientist network, resulting in the capture of many of its people and the confiscation of most of the arms which had been parachuted in from England. Scientist was destroyed as an operating network. Landes fled France, crossing into Spain and eventually making it to England. Mary Herbert went into hiding, living in Lise de Baissac's former apartment in Poitiers and giving birth to a daughter, Claudine, in December 1943. Hayes was arrested on 14 October and later died in German custody or was executed. Défense escaped to England, but later returned to France and was captured and executed.
Second mission.
De Baissac parachuted back into France the night of 10/11 February 1944 with the objective of reconstituting the Scientist network in southern Normandy. (Unknown to De Baissac and the French Resistance, Normandy would be the landing site of allied forces in the D-Day invasion of France on 6 June 1944.) De Baissac's area of operations was south of a line reaching from Avranches in the southwest to Caen in the northeast. Recognizing that the area was too large to be supervised by a single person, he put in charge of the north along with Mauritian , a wireless operator. (Renaud-Dandicolle and Larcher were killed in a gun battle with the Germans in July.) De Baissac focused on more southerly areas and he was joined in early May by his sister Lise and wireless operator Phyllis Latour.
When he arrived in Normandy, de Baissac commented wryly about the resistance that "the secret army is so secret, I can't find it." Over the next three months he concentrated on building up resistance groups in various areas and supplying them with arms, identifying landing grounds for the arrival of supplies and, after D-Day, to be used by paratroopers and commandos. He forbade sabotage by the resistance groups he supplied and advised until D-Day by which time he had created an "efficient sabotage and small-scale guerilla organization."
De Baissac reported that his resistance groups put more than 500 German vehicles out of action. His groups cut railway and telephone lines, and gathered intelligence on German troop dispositions and movements. On several occasions he was said to have participated in armed combat against German soldiers, notably on one occasion when he and a small group of men held off a German patrol attempting to capture parachuted arms destined for the resistance. De Baissac's operations were carried out in an environment in which German soldiers were present in large numbers as they attempted to repel the invading allied forces. For example, one of de Baissac's headquarters was a schoolhouse in Orne where he stored equipment and radios. The Germans commandeered the ground floor of the school, but de Baissac's people continued to operate out of a back room of the same building. For his personal security and to manage his network, de Baissac slept in a different place nearly every night, often in a farmer's hayloft.
On 25 July, the American army launched Operation Cobra which forced the German army to retreat rapidly from the Scientist area of operation. On 13 August, Claude and Lise de Baissac linked up with a lead unit of U.S. soldiers. Dressed in long-unworn British military uniforms, they stood in front of the mayor's office in a provincial town and greeted the American soldiers arriving in the town.
De Baissac's second mission was not without controversy. Never reluctant to express his political views, de Baissac opposed the operations of Charles de Gaulle's Free French forces encroaching on the Scientist area of operations. After he linked up with the American army on 13 August, SOE quickly removed him and his sister from France by flying them to England.
Hunting for Mary Herbert.
In September 1944, Claude and Lise de Baissac were back in France, now liberated from German control, as part of the Judex mission which aimed to locate lost and captured SOE agents and the French people who had helped them. They had lost contact with Mary Katherine Herbert, the mother of de Baissac's child. They traced Herbert from Bordeaux to Poitiers and found her and her daughter living in a farm house near Poitiers. The de Baissacs then returned to England with Herbert and the child, named Claudine. Claude married Herbert, but it was apparently a marriage only of propriety as the couple did not live together. While in France, de Baissac tied up loose ends and recommended compensation for his French associates.
Later life.
After the war, de Baissac worked for the Allied Control Commission in Germany and became a director for a mining company in west Africa. De Baissac divorced Mary Herbert in 1959 and married a woman from Cameroon, Colette Avril, in 1964. The couple later moved to Aix-en-Provence where he headed security for a bank. He died in 1974


Depletion (accounting)

Depletion is an accounting and tax concept used most often in the mining, timber, and petroleum industries. It is similar to depreciation in that it is a cost recovery system for accounting and tax reporting: "The depletion deduction" allows an owner or operator to account for the reduction of a product's reserves.
Types of depletion.
For tax purposes, the two types of depletion are percentage depletion and cost depletion.
For mineral property, the method leading to the largest deduction is generally used. For standing timber, use of the cost depletion method is required.
Depletion, for both accounting purposes and United States tax purposes, is a method of recording the gradual expense or use of natural resources over time. Depletion is the using up of natural resources by mining, quarrying, drilling, or felling.
According to the IRS Newswire, over 50 percent of oil and gas extraction businesses use cost depletion to figure their depletion deduction. Mineral property includes oil and gas wells, mines, and other natural resource deposits (including geothermal deposits). For that purpose, property is each separate interest businesses own in each mineral deposit in each separate tract or parcel of land. Businesses can treat two or more separate interests as one property or as separate properties.
Percentage depletion.
To figure percentage depletion, a certain percentage, specified for each mineral, is multiplied by gross income from the property during the tax year. The rates to be used and other conditions and qualifications for oil and gas wells are discussed below under "Independent Producers and Royalty Owners" and under "Natural Gas Wells". Rates and other rules for percentage depletion of other specific minerals are found later in "Mines and Geothermal Deposits".
Cost depletion.
Cost depletion is an accounting method by which costs of natural resources are allocated to depletion over the period that make up the life of the asset. Cost depletion is computed by estimating the total quantity of mineral or other resources acquired and assigning a proportionate amount of the total resource cost to the quantity extracted in the period. For example, assume Big Texas Oil, Co. had discovered a large reserve of oil and estimates that the oil well will produce 200,000 barrels of oil. If the company invests $100,000 to extract the oil and extracts 10,000 barrels the first year, the depletion deduction is $5,000 ($100,000 X 10,000/200,000).
Cost depletion for tax purposes may be completely different from cost depletion for accounting purposes:
Accounting.
Adjusted basis is the basis at end of year adjusted for prior years depletion in cost or percentage. It automatically allows for adjustments to the basis during the taxable year.
By using the units remaining at the end of the year, the adjustment allows for revised estimates of the reserves.
Depletion is based upon sales and not production. Units are considered sold in the year the proceeds are taxable under the taxpayer's accounting method.
Reserves.
Reserves generally include proven developed reserves and "probable" or "prospective" reserves if there is reasonable evidence to have believed that such quantities existed at that time.
Example.
If producer X has capitalized costs on property A of $40,000, originally consisting of the lease bonus, capitalized exploration costs, and some capitalized carrying costs, and the lease has been producing for several years and during this time, X has claimed $10,000 of allowable depletion. In 2009, X's share of production sold was 40,000 barrels and an engineer's report indicated that 160,000 barrels could be recovered after December 31, 2009.
The calculation of cost depletion for this lease would be as follows:


Kutxabank

Kutxabank is a Spanish bank founded and based in Bilbao. It was officially created on 1 January 2012 out of the merger of three Basque financial institutions operating in their respective provinces: Bilbao Bizkaia Kutxa (BBK), based in Bilbao; Gipuzkoa Donostia Kutxa (Kutxa), based in San Sebastián; and Caja Vital Kutxa (Vital) based in Vitoria.
Required by the Spanish Government's bank merger deadline, all three institutions ceased to exist as savings banks after a long period of internal deliberation and integration.
Kutxabank operates in Andalusia and Extremadura with the brand CajaSur.
History.
The European stress test measuring solvency in periods of credit crisis showed that Kutxabank ranked first in Spain, standing out as the soundest financial institution (data published in October 2014).


Reed (company)

REED is an employment agency based in the United Kingdom. The company was founded in 1960 by Sir Alec Reed CBE. Reed's son, James Reed is the current CEO and Chairman. REED also offers training, outsourcing and HR consultancy services. The company's website, reed.co.uk, was established in 1995 was the UK's first employment website. In 2014 Alexa ranked reed.co.uk as the UK's largest employment agency website. Reed Specialist Recruitment is listed in "The Sunday Times Fast Track 100" league of Britain's largest private companies.
REED Group companies.
REED Group has 3400 employees across 350 business units and 116 locations worldwide, in 30 recruitment specialisms. Its headquarters and the majority of its operations are in the UK, alongside offices in the Middle East, Asia and continental Europe.
The company has three main divisions:
In 2018 the firm repatriated its HQ from Malta to the UK.
History.
1960–1971.
 Aged 26, Reed opened the first branch of Reed Employment on 7 May 1960 with £75 taken from his Gillette pension fund. The firm then expanded to a second branch in Feltham and ten more branches over the next three years. In the early 1960s, most employment agencies were located in first or second floor offices. Copying the example of rival Alfred Marks, Reed began moving his offices to ground floor locations on main shopping streets.
1971 flotation.
The end of the 1960s saw a bull market in UK share prices, prompting stock market flotations by a number of rival employment agencies, including Brook Street Bureau and Alfred Marks.
By 1969 Reed Employment had opened 75 branches. Although profitable, financing the expansion caused cash flow difficulties. These were compounded when the firm's bank began to reduce its overdraft facility, which the firm had been using as working capital. Faced with a shortage of capital, Reed decided to float the business. Reed Employment floated on the London Stock Exchange on 13 January 1971, at an offer price of 12s 6d, a price/earnings ratio of 13.1 and a yield of 4.4%. Alec Reed retained a third of the company, having given a further third to his three children and floated the remaining third (1.3 million shares, for just over £10.97m in 2014 terms). At their 1980s peak, the shares increased to 150 times their offer value; they averaged 80 times offer value for most of the 1990s. The Reed Family retained effective control of the company post-flotation, through the combination of Alec Reed's shareholdings and that of his children. Alec Reed used part of his flotation windfall to found Reed Business School in 1972. The school's original remit was to train accountants, later extended to include training for Reed staff.
Alec Reed later described the flotation of Reed Employment as his greatest mistake in business, citing the administrative and financial burdens of running a public company, claiming: "...you become a metaphorical unpaid greyhound on a racetrack called the stock market." Reed has said that he started his Medicare retail pharmacy business partly to help maintain Reed Employment's stock price during slumps in the wider economy. Medicare was founded in 1973 and sold to Dee Corporation in 1985 for £20 million; Reed used his £5m windfall from the sale to start the Reed Foundation, which owns 18% of the Group's shares.
1972–1983.
In 1972 turnover doubled to £10m, with profits just under £1m, helped by rising demand for temporary workers and by inflation. Profits halved by 1975, partly due to the 1974 oil crisis. Reed expanded into new divisions and set up specialist recruitment firms, including what became known as Reed Health, Reed Finance and Reed Computing, among others. All were established under a holding company (Reed Executive). By 1979 the company had returned to profitability, achieving £3.1m on a turnover of £32m. During the 1970s and 1980s, Reed donated 1% of its pretax profits to the Charities Aid Foundation.
Reed also experimented with publishing during this time, including "Roundabout" magazine, designed to be given away free to young women at Tube stations.
1983–1995.
The recession of the early 1980s prompted Reed's first trading loss (£1.64m in 1983) and the closure of agency branches, from 130 to 87. By March 1984 profitability returned, to £1.2m. Reed shares hit their all-time peak in early 1987, reaching £1.80; during this period The Reed Foundation bought back shares, with the Reed family's holding rising to 70% of the company. In 1988 profits increased to £10.54m.
In 1986 Alec Reed was diagnosed with colon cancer and given a 40% chance of survival. He went on to completely recover. In 1992 Reed's son James joined as a non-executive director, becoming operations director in 1994 and chief operations officer in 1995.
1995–2005.
In 1995 pre-tax profits reached £8m on a turnover of £150m, up 30% on 1994. Reed launched further specialist divisions in the year, including Reed Learning, Reed Graduate and Reed Managed Services. The firm also began Reed Restart, a not-for-profit enterprise to provide ex-prisoners with rehabilitation and training. In 1999 the firm announced a 40% rise in interim profits.
James Reed became chief executive in 1997. During this period the firm became one of the first two private sector companies implementing the Blair government's Welfare-to-Work programme, christened by Labour as "The New Deal".
Paymaster General Geoffrey Robinson contacted Alec Reed in 1997 with a proposal to outsource some of the work of traditional job centres. The project eventually became Reed in Partnership.
2005–present.
In 2005 James Reed took the company back into family ownership. In 2008 the company cut 25% of its workforce in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
In 2019 Reed reported annual revenue of £1.1 billion and £17.7 million pre-tax profit.
Reed.co.uk.
Reed.co.uk was the UK's first online recruitment site. The launch version of the site contained few job listings, functioning more as a brochure. A second iteration, launched in 1997, featured job vacancies typed in by Reed's office receptionist in between her other duties.
The first person to obtain a job through Reed.co.uk lived 60 miles away from the hiring company. As Alec Reed later wrote: "That would not have happened had he walked into the local branch, so it opened my eyes to the internet’s potential". Reed extended its investment but, with online recruitment still in its infancy, few companies were interested. In response, Reed employee Paul Rapacioli suggested the company open up the website so that any company - including Reed customers and Reed's direct competitors - could advertise jobs free of charge, converting the site from a walled garden into an aggregator. Alec Reed later cited the move as the company's "breakthrough" online. The new site was launched in 2000 and by the end of that year had attracted 42,000 vacancies. Rapacioli received a £100,000 bonus for his suggestion. In 2007 the site moved to a fee-paying model. Reed sites collectively received 199 million visits in 2017; as of 2019 it hosts approximately 250,000 job applications per day.
Advertising and sponsorship.
Short Film Competition.
In September 2009, reed.co.uk launched its annual Short Film Competition with a top prize of £10,000. The competition, run via YouTube, invites film makers to submit a short film of no more than three minutes in length based on a specific theme. Partners include BAFTA, Channel Four, the British Council, Total Film and Creative England. The judging panel has included Jaime Winstone, Eugene Simon, Stuart Cosgrove, Roger Chapman, Paul Weiland and Nicola Reed.
Love Mondays campaign.
From 2008 to 2018 the company ran a nationwide advertising campaign fronted by actor and comedian Rufus Jones, who played James Reed as a caricature of a comic book superhero.
Covid-19 response and "Keep Britain Working".
During the COVID-19 pandemic Reed re-launched the "Keep Britain Working" campaign, originally launched after the 2008 financial crisis. Alongside 26 other businesses and industry figures, such as Sir Alan Sugar, Lord Bamford, Luke Johnson and James Timpson, Reed called upon CEOs to protect jobs by sacrificing management salaries and company profits; Reed declined his own salary from the family business during the pandemic. For its various Covid relief efforts, the company received "Management Today's" "2021 Special Recognition Award."
Controversy.
In 2002, shares in the Reed Health Group (which had been demerged from the parent company in 2001) fell 25% after the surprise firing of the Chief Executive and Finance Director of Reed Health, a company demerged from the wider Reed Group in 2001.
Reed Health was initially well received by investors, with the value of its shares briefly surpassing that of its former parent company. Shortly after demerger, the firm began a programme of expansion by acquisition led by Chief Executive Christa Echtle and finance director Desmond Doyle.
In May 2002, Reed Health used cash and shares to acquire medical employment agency Locum Group, following which Echtle and Doyle tabled a proposal at Reed Health's AGM to permit them to buy further companies without shareholder approval. Had the motion been passed, Reed Health would have the power to dilute the Reed family's shareholding to the point where the family risked losing control of the company. The proposal was voted down. The Reed family then opposed the reelection of Echtle and Doyle as directors, effectively firing them during the AGM. News of the pair's departure took the City by surprise. Some financial commentators, such as Patience Wheatcroft of Management Today, criticised the firings and called for better corporate governance from Reed's board.
Reed later cited the incident as shaping the Reed family's decision to take the company private. In April 2003 the family launched an offer to buy back shares in Reed Executive for 140p per share, an 18% premium on the pre-announcement closing price; in 2005 the family regained control of Reed Health after a premium bid. Reed companies are now privately owned and family-controlled.
Founder succession.
In 2000 Alec Reed stepped down from the position of chairman to become non-executive chairman, before relinquishing all executive responsibilities in 2004 and assuming the title of founder-at-large. James Reed became chairman in 2004. The company is now run by a triumvirate of directors, consisting of Reed and two non-family directors making decisions on a majority-voting basis.
Charities.
The Reed Foundation is a charitable foundation set up by Reed. The Foundation owns an 18% share of the Reed group of companies. Donations include a one million Rand grant to the Nelson Mandela Foundation to support education in South Africa, and two million pounds to the West London Academy in Ealing, later renamed the Alec Reed Academy.
The Big Give is a Reed Foundation initiative to introduce donors to charitable projects in their field of interest. Launched in 2007, the website holds details of over 7,500 charities. It reports raising £156m to date, distributed to approximately 2800 different charities. As of April 2021, it has raised over £5.5m for Covid-19 relief initiatives.
In 1989 Alec Reed founded Ethiopiaid, a charity that works in Ethiopia to mitigate poverty, ill health and poor education.
Awards.
Reed was ranked #28 in Glassdoor's "Top 50 Best Places to Work 2019," the highest placement for a recruitment company in the list.


Fateh Singh of Udaipur and Mewar

Maharana Sir Fateh Singh (16 December 1849 – 24 May 1930), ruled Mewar for 46 years from 1884 to 1930, with Udaipur as capital, and resided in the City Palace, Udaipur.
Biography.
He was born on 16 December 1849 at Shivrati, son of Maharaj Dal Singh of the Shivrati branch of Mewar dynasty – A descendant of the fourth son, Arjun Singh, of the Rana Sangram Singh II (AD 1710–1734). First he was adopted by his elder brother, Gaj Singh who had no heir, subsequently Maharana Sajjan Singh of Udaipur, who too had no heir, adopted him, he eventually became the Maharaja of Udaipur in 1884. In 1887, he received G.C.S.I.
In 1889, he built the "Connaught Dam" on Lake Dewali to mark the visit of Duke of Connaught, son of Queen Victoria, this enlarged the lake, and it was later renamed, Fateh Sagar Lake.
He also built Fateh Prakash Palace in Chittorgarh fort, which is an edifice with a tower on each of its four corners crowned by domed chhattris. This palace is a grand specimen of modern Indian architecture and at present houses a museum.
The Shiv Niwas Palace at Udaipur was also built by him. The palace was reserved exclusively by the House of Mewar for visiting dignitaries and guests during British Raj. It now has been turned into a luxury hotel.
He was the only Maharaja to not attend the Delhi Durbar, both of 1903 and 1911. Then in 1921, when Edward, Prince of Wales, son of King George V and Queen Mary, visited Udaipur, he refused to receive him, citing illness and instead sent his son. This left him at odds with the British, thereafter, under the garb of ignoring a social unrest in Mewar, on 28 July 1921, his powers were curtailed and he was formally deposed, he was however allowed to retain his title, the effective power was handed to his son and heir, Bhupal Singh.
Personal life.
He was first married in 1867, to Rani Phool Kumari, daughter of the Thakur of Khod in Marwar, who died in 1877. Subsequently, he was married in 1878, a daughter of Thakur Chanda Kol Singh of Varsoda, and had son, Bhupal Singh, and daughters, Ankaran Bai, married in 1904 to Madan Singh of Kishangarh, and Kishor Kunwar, married 1908 to Sardar Singh of Jodhpur.
He died on May 24, 1930 at Udaipur.


Thomas Robinson, 2nd Baron Grantham

Thomas Robinson, 2nd Baron Grantham PC (30 November 173820 July 1786) was a British statesman. He notably served as Foreign Secretary between 1782 and 1783.
Background and education.
Grantham was born in Vienna, Austria, the son of Thomas Robinson, 1st Baron Grantham, British Ambassador to Austria at the time, by his wife Frances, daughter of Thomas Worsley. He was educated at Westminster School and at Christ's College, Cambridge.
Political career.
Grantham entered parliament as member for Christchurch in 1761, and succeeded to the peerage, because of his father's death, in 1770. That year he was appointed to the Privy Council. In 1771 he was sent as British Ambassador to Spain and retained this post until war broke out between Great Britain and Spain in 1779. In 1772, while at the Summer Spanish Court in Aranjuez, he received correspondence from Richard Wall, the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs. From 1780 to 1782 Grantham was President of the Board of Trade, and from July 1782 to April 1783 Foreign Secretary under Lord Shelburne.
Marriage and progeny.
In 1780 Lord Grantham married Lady Mary Yorke (1757–1830), younger daughter of Philip Yorke, 2nd Earl of Hardwicke by his wife Lady Jemima Campbell (1723–1797), "suo jure" 2nd Marchioness Grey, a daughter of John Campbell, 3rd Earl of Breadalbane and Holland by his wife Lady Amabel Grey, a daughter of Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Kent (1671–1740).
In 1740 Lord Grantham's mother-in-law Lady Jemima Campbell (1723–1797) succeeded as 2nd Marchioness Grey by a special remainder upon the death of her maternal grandfather Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Kent, 1st Marquess Grey, 3rd Baron Lucas. As she had no male heirs, the title later became extinct upon her own death in 1797, but in 1816 her elder daughter Lady Amabel Yorke (1750–1833) (wife of Alexander Hume-Campbell, Lord Polwarth) was created Countess de Grey in her own right.
Lord Grantham and his wife lived at Grantham House in Whitehall Yard, Westminster. By his wife had two sons:
Death.
He died on 20 July 1786, aged only 46, and was succeeded in the barony by his eldest son, Thomas de Grey, 2nd Earl de Grey. His widow continued to live at Grantham House until her own death in January 1830, aged 72 years.


Cape May Seashore Lines

Cape May Seashore Lines is a short line railroad in southern New Jersey. It offers two excursion services; a round trip between Richland and Tuckahoe, and a round trip between Rio Grande, Cold Spring Village, and Cape May City. The track is owned by NJ Transit and leased to the Seashore Lines. Connections are provided with Conrail's Beesley's Point Secondary, owned jointly by CSX and Norfolk Southern, at the north end in Tuckahoe. Tony Macrie has been president of the Seashore Lines since he formed the railroad in 1984.
CMSL operates both freight trains and excursion trains.
History.
Predecessor lines.
The line to Cape May was built in 1863 by the Tuckahoe and Cape May Railroad, and operated by the Philadelphia and Reading Railway's Atlantic City Railroad and later Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines (PRSL). At one time, the rail line was known as "The Steel Speedway To The Shore”. Eventually it became part of Conrail, which ended passenger service on the line in 1981, ended freight service on October 10, 1983 and sold the line to New Jersey Transit as their Cape May Branch.
Establishment of CMSL.
The Seashore Lines was founded by Tony Macrie (CEO) in January 1984. Regular train service between Cape May Court House and Cold Spring Village began in 1996. Service was extended in Cape May City in 1999 after repairs to the swing bridge crossing the Cape May Canal were completed.
In 2005, mechanical issues with the Cape May Canal swing bridge prevented trains from entering the city of Cape May. Although the bridge was repaired a year later, a severe storm in April 2007 damaged the tracks and left locomotives stranded in Tuckahoe. Passenger train service between Rio Grande and Cape May City resumed on October 12, 2009.
New Jersey Seashore Lines.
New Jersey Seashore Lines (NJSL) is a subsidiary of Cape May Seashore Lines. New Jersey Seashore Lines was created by Cape May Seashore Lines in conjunction with the Clayton Sand Co. in Chatsworth. Using state and federal grants New Jersey Seashore Lines has rehabilitated of track between Lakehurst and the Woodmansie section of Chatsworth (which itself is part of Woodland Township), where Clayton operates a sand mine. New Jersey Seashore Lines had originally planned to operate rail service to transport sand and gravel from Clayton and serve the needs of any other customers that might need rail service along the line. The line was originally owned by the Central Railroad of New Jersey and was once part of the route of the famed Blue Comet. South of Woodmansie the tracks are abandoned leaving no connection from the south. Neither CMSL, their subsidiary NJSL or Clayton Sand Co. have released any information on the current or future plans for the line and if or when operation may begin.
Current Service.
The Seashore Lines currently operates excursion trains on 15 miles of Conrail's Beesley's Point Secondary between Tuckahoe and Richland. Current passenger train operations include the "Valentine’s Express", "St. Patrick’s Express", "Easter Bunny Express", "Fall Foliage Express", and the "Santa Express" service. Train sets primarily consist of the railroad's two GP38 diesel locomotives and two to four coach cars. The Seashore Lines also operates occasional passenger excursions for the Buena Vista Township / Richland Village Festival.
2012 vandalism.
On March 1, 2012, the Seashore Lines received a telephone call from the New Jersey State Police, advising them that theft of track material had occurred on their Cape May Branch in Dennisville. This is the Seashore Lines’ main line between Tuckahoe and Cape May City. The investigating trooper informed them that several individuals associated with the theft had been arrested and charged with indictable offenses. Arrested on Monday, March 5, were a father and son team from the Villas section of Lower Township, New Jersey, along with a third individual from Rio Grande.
Several days later, Macrie and two Seashore Lines employees conducted a detailed track inspection of the entire area of the theft, which consisted primarily of the removal of tie plates and spikes. This inspection concluded that the area of the theft encompassed approximately 6,800 feet (1 1/4 miles), or 75 percent of the total number of tie plates and spikes in that particular section of track. In their actions to remove the tie plates and spikes, the perpetrators also damaged and destroyed numerous cross ties.
Excursion trains did not run during the summer of 2012 due to the damage from the vandalism. The company occasionally offered rides to the public on railroad speeder vehicles along several miles of undamaged track on the Cape May Branch. As of early 2021 Rio Grande-Cape May service remains suspended.
Beginning in 2020 Seashore Lines partnered with a railbiking company. The railbike trail uses approximately 4 miles of track between the welcome center near Cape May Station to just before the bridge at Cape May Channel.
Roster.
The Seashore Lines owns and leases a large roster of equipment:


Sanford E. Church

Sanford Elias Church (April 18, 1815 – May 13, 1880) was an American lawyer and Democratic politician. He served as Lieutenant Governor of the state of New York and chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals for a decade.
Early life.
Born in Milford, Otsego County, New York, Church moved from Otsego to Monroe County, New York, with his parents when he was still a child, and his education was obtained in the common schools of that county and at the Monroe Academy. From 1835 on he resided in Albion, New York, with the exception of a brief residence in Rochester, New York.
Career.
Church studied law with Benjamin L. Bessac, and was admitted to the bar in 1842 and became Bessac's law partner until 1843. Then he associated himself with Noah Davis. This firm continued for a period of thirteen years. On its dissolution the firm of Church & Sawyer was established at Albion. About 1862, he took Judge Selden's place in the firm of Selden, Munger & Thompson, at Rochester; in 1865 the firm became Church, Munger & Cooke, and so continued until Church's elevation to the bench of the New York Court of Appeals.
Church was a member from Orleans County of the New York State Assembly in 1842. Three years later he was appointed District Attorney of Orleans County, and after the New York State Constitution of 1846 became effective, was elected by the people to the same office, serving until the end of 1850.
In 1850 Church was nominated by the Democrats for lieutenant governor with Horatio Seymour for governor. Seymour was defeated by Washington Hunt, the Whig candidate, by about two hundred majority, but Church ran ahead of his ticket and was elected. In 1852, he was re-elected to the same office, and this time Seymour was elected governor.
In 1857 Church was elected New York State Comptroller, but was defeated in 1859 and 1863 when a candidate for re-election. In 1867 he was a delegate to the New York State Constitutional Convention, and was chairman of its finance committee. During the Civil War, Church "vilified the Lincoln administration for seeking to 'absorb, centralize and consolidate the rights and powers of the loyal States in the general government.
A delegate to the 1844, 1860, 1864 and 1868 Democratic National Conventions, Church, in 1860, advocated the nomination of Stephen A. Douglas. At the Democratic National Convention, held in New York City in July 1868, he was named by the delegation from New York State as its choice for the nomination for the presidency, and his name was presented to the convention by Samuel J. Tilden, the chairman of the delegation, who cast the vote of the State for him for the first seven ballots. New York then switched to Thomas A. Hendricks from the eighth to the twenty-second ballots until a break was made by other states to Horatio Seymour, the chairman of the convention, who was then nominated.
In the spring of 1870, Church was nominated by the Democratic convention for chief judge of the Court of Appeals. The opposing candidate in the convention was George F. Comstock, and the opposing candidate in the election was Henry R. Selden. Church was elected by nearly ninety thousand majority.
Death.
On May 30, 1880 during a three-week vacation at his home in Albion, Orleans County, New York, Church left for his office after dinner and visited the National Bank in Albion. Upon his arrival, he complained of chest pain and was quickly driven home. Dr. Samuel Cochrane, his son-in-law, was sent for and Church ventured unassisted to his room. The doctor arrived at the home to find Church in terrible pain. He turned a shade of purple, fell over on his side and expired, his death the result of apoplexy. He was 65 years, 25 days of age and is interred at the Mt. Albion Cemetery in Albion, New York.
Family life.
Church's parents, Ozias and Permelia (Palmer) Church, were of English and Scotch descent. He married Ann Wild in 1840 in Barre Center, New York. They had a daughter, Nellie Church, and a son, George B. Church.


Lonely Accordion

Lonely Accordion () is a song by the composer Boris Mokrousov. The song is written in a poem by Mikhail Isakovsky.
Text of the song, the poet Mikhail Isakovsky wrote in 1945, soon after the war. The first song for these verses was written by composer Vladimir Zakharov and was called Harmonist. It was performed by the Pyatnitsky Choir, but did not receive significant fame.
The Song was performed by Georg Ots, Sergey Lemeshev, Efrem Flaks, Georgy Abramov, Victor Vuyachich, Gleb Romanov, Lyudmila Lyadova and Nina Panteleyeva, Vera Vasilyeva and Nikolai Rybnikov, Yury Okhochinsky, Nikolai Nikitsky, Dmitry Khvorostovsky, Valentina Tolkunova, Eduard Khil, Vladimir Troshin, Lyudmila Gurchenko and others. In the performance of Alexander Krivik, the song sounded in the 1956 film The Rumyantsev Case.
The song has been translated into many languages (German, French, English). Under the name fr. Joli mai (Beautiful May) with other words it was performed by Yves Montand.


Vistula Land

Vistula Land or Vistula Country (, "Privislinsky krai"; ) was the name applied to the lands of Congress Poland from 1867, following the defeats of the November Uprising (1830–31) and January Uprising (1863–1864) as it was increasingly stripped of autonomy and incorporated into Imperial Russia. It also continued to be formally known as Congress Poland and Russian Poland during the Russian partition.
Russia lost control of the region in 1915, during the course of the First World War. Following the 1917 October Revolution, it was officially ceded it to the Central Powers by signing the 1918 treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
History.
In 1831, in the aftermath of the November Uprising, the Polish Army, the Constitution of the Kingdom of Poland, its parliament (Sejm) and local self-administration were disbanded. The constitution was replaced by the much less liberal and never fully implemented Organic Statute of the Kingdom of Poland. Also all universities were closed, and replaced several years later by purely Russian-language high schools.
For a short time the territory maintained certain degree of autonomy. The former Kingdom of Poland continued to use the Polish currency (złoty) and the Administrative Council retained some of its privileges (although it was directly controlled by the Russian governor Field Marshal Ivan Paskevich). However, by 1832 the currency and the customs border were abolished, as was the metric system and the Polish penal code (which was replaced by the Russian penal code, "de facto" in use since the Uprising began). Also the Catholic Church was persecuted and most monasteries were closed and nationalized. In 1839, following the Synod of Polotsk, the Greek Catholic Church disbanded itself and united with the Russian Orthodox Church.
After 1837 all voivodeships that constituted the Kingdom of Poland were turned into gubernias and became an integral part of Russian administrative division, ruled directly by the Russian tsars.
After the January Uprising in 1863, the coat of arms of the Congress Kingdom was abandoned, the Polish language was banned from office and education and the process of incorporation of the Polish gubernias and Russification of its administration was completed.
The 1867 reform, initiated after the failure of the January Uprising, was designed to tie the Kingdom of Poland more tightly to the administration structure of the Russian Empire. It divided larger governorates into smaller ones and introduced a new lower-level entity, gminas. There were 10 "Governorates": five on the right bank of the Vistula River—Сувалкская (Suvalkskaya), Ломжинская (Lomzhinskaya), Плоцкая (Plotskaya), Седлецкая (Sedletskaya) and Люблинская (Lublinskaya)—and the remaining five on the left bank: Калишская (Kalishskaya), Варшавская (Varshavskaya), Петроковская (Petrokovskaya), Радомская (Radomskaya) and Келецкая (Keletskaya).
The coat of arms of the Kingdom of Poland was abolished at this time.
Despite the abolition of the Kingdom of Poland, the tsars of Russia retained the title "Tsar of Poland".
The territory was a "namestnichestvo" until 1875 and later Governorate General, ruled by the Namestniks and Governor Generals of Poland.
In the 1880s, the official language was changed to Russian, and Polish was banned both from official use and education.
The name Vistula Land first appeared in official documents in 1888 although more recent scholarship traced it back to 1883.
A minor reform of 1893 transferred some territory from the Płock and Łomża Governorates to Warsaw Governorate. A more extensive 1912 reform created a new governorate—Chełm Governorate (Kholmskaya "Guberniya" in Russian)—from parts of the Siedlce and Lublin Governorates. However this was split off from the Privislinsky Krai and made part of the Southwestern Krai of the Russian Empire, in order to facilitate its russification.
World War I.
In 1915 during World War I the retreating Russian army looted and abandoned the Kingdom of Poland, trying to emulate the scorched-earth policy adopted during the 1812 invasion. The Russians also evicted and deported hundreds of thousands of the area's inhabitants whom they suspected of collaborating with the enemy.
As the Russians retreated, the Central Powers occupied the area (1915); subsequently they proposed the establishment of the Kingdom of Poland (1916–1918). In the March 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Russia (by then embroiled in a civil war), effectively ceded all Polish territories it had formerly possessed to the German Empire and Austria-Hungary.
Notes.
a Sources agree that after the fall of the January Uprising in 1864, the autonomy of Congress Poland was drastically reduced. However, they disagree on whether the state of the Kingdom of Poland (colloquially known as Congress Poland) was officially replaced by the Vistula land as a province of the Russian Empire, as many sources still use the term Congress Poland for the post-1864 period. The sources are also unclear as to when the Kingdom of Poland (or Vistula land) officially ceased to exist; some argue it ended with the assumption of control by the German and Austro-Hungarian occupying authorities; others, that it ended with the proclamation of the Regency Kingdom of Poland in 1916; finally, some argue that it occurred only with the creation of the independent Second Polish Republic in 1918. Examples:


Maurice Laing

Sir John Maurice Laing (1 February 1918 – 22 February 2008) was a senior executive of British construction company John Laing plc. He was the first president of the Confederation of British Industry in 1965–66.
Early life.
Laing was born in Carlisle, Cumberland, the younger son of Sir John Laing. The family were strict Christian Brethren. Laing's father had been running the family construction firm, John Laing & Son, since 1910, and Laing worked for the firm in his school holidays. The headquarters of the business moved from Carlisle to Mill Hill in 1926, and Laing was educated at St Lawrence College, Ramsgate. In 1935, aged 17, he began to work full-time with his father at the family firm. Meanwhile, his elder brother, Sir William Kirby Laing, studied engineering at Cambridge University. After working as a trainee, he began managing the construction of new airfields and barrage balloon stations in 1938.
World War II.
Despite his reserved occupation, and against his father's wishes, he joined the RAF during the Second World War. He initially served in the ranks, and was a Leading Aircraftman when he was commissioned as a Pilot Officer, RAFVR on 30 October 1943; he was promoted Flying Officer in April 1944. His wife's poor health due to tuberculosis delayed his training, but he qualified as a pilot in South Africa, and flew the second British glider across the Rhine.
Business career.
Laing returned to construction in 1945. The company was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1953, and John Laing retired in 1957. Having climbed up the management structure of the firm, Maurice took the number 2 position in 1966, supporting his brother Kirby as chairman. The buildings and structures built by the firm ranged from the first 52 miles of the M1 – the first motorway in the UK – built in 1958 and 1959 to connect Watford and Rugby; through nuclear power stations; to the new Coventry Cathedral and London Central Mosque. Laing swapped positions with his brother in 1976, becoming chairman of the Laing Group. He separated the company's property division from its construction division, creating a separate company, Laing Properties, which was floated in 1978. He became the group's life president when he retired in 1982. Despite his opposition, the property company was taken over by P&O in 1992.
He was a member of the National Economic Development Council from 1962 until 1966, and was a director of the Bank of England from 1963 to 1980. He was the last president of the British Employers' Federation in 1964. Following its merger with the Federation of British Industries and National Association of British Manufacturers, Laing was the first president of their successor, the CBI, in 1965. He was knighted in the 1965 Queen's Birthday Honours. He was also a governor of the Administrative Staff College and of the National Institute of Social and Economic Research, and president of the Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors. He was also president of the London Bible College. He enjoyed sailing in later life, regularly competing in the Fastnet race. He was rear-commodore and a trustee of the Royal Yacht Squadron, president of the Royal Yachting Association, and admiral of the Royal Ocean Racing Club and of the Island Sailing Club based in Cowes. Because of this love of sailing and yachting, Maurice Laing donated a sum of money to the Ocean Youth Club (later the Ocean Youth Trust) in 1990 to build a boat to help educate young people and disabled members of society in the fine art of yacht sailing. The subsequent boat was named John Laing after his father and is still taking on young people to teach, while also participating in many Tall Ship's Races, a two-year round the world voyage and a 5-month British Army expedition to the Antarctic.
Personal life.
Laing married Hilda Richards in March 1940. He was survived by his wife and their son, John, who runs the Rufford Foundation, a private grant-making organisation.


Gerhard de Kock

Dr. Gerhardus Petrus Christiaan de Kock better known as Gerhard de Kock (14 February 1926 – 7 August 1989) was the sixth Governor of the South African Reserve Bank. He was the son of Dr. M.H. de Kock, who was the third Governor of the South African Reserve Bank. South Africa's constitutional arrangements were changed during his term in office. The 1st Republic was superseded by the 2nd Republic in late 1984. Dr. de Kock was the first (and only) Governor of the South African Reserve Bank to die in office. His term was from 1 January 1981 until his death on 7 August 1989. He was succeeded by Dr. Chris Stals.
As early as 1951 Dr Gerhardus de Kock was engaged by the Reserve Bank to do specialised research on a part-time basis. At the end of 1955 he joined the Bank as an economist. Shortly after his appointment at the Bank he was chosen to represent the Bank at the first course presented by the Bank of England for foreign bank officials in London. As from 1 July 1962 the position held by Dr De Kock was changed to Economic Adviser and on 1 January 1964 he was appointed Head: Economics Department. In 1967 the status of his post was upgraded and he started to attend the meetings of the Board of Directors. In May 1966 he was seconded to the Treasury as a Special Economic Adviser for 14 months. He finally left the Economics Department towards the middle of 1968 when he was appointed Alternate Executive Director of the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC, as the representative of South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Lesotho and Swaziland, a position which he held with distinction up to the middle of 1971.
On his return to South Africa, Dr. de Kock was appointed as a Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank with effect from 1 July 1971 and then to Senior Deputy Governor on 1 July 1976. In 1977 Dr. De Kock was seconded to the Ministry of Finance as a Special Economic Adviser. He was also appointed during this period as the Chairman of the Commission of Inquiry into the Monetary System and Monetary Policy in South Africa. This commission eventually became known as the De Kock Commission. The final phase in Dr. De Kock’s career began when he succeeded Dr. T. W. de Jongh as Reserve Bank Governor, a position he held until his death in August 1989.
Dr. de Kock also served as a Director and later as Chairman of the National Finance Corporation and its “successor” the Corporation for Public Deposits. Other positions occupied by him included that of Alternate Governor (later Governor) for South Africa on the Board of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank), Governor for South Africa on the Board of the Development Bank for Southern Africa, member of the Committee of Twenty and member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council. Dr De Kock played an important role in professional bodies through active participation and delivering lectures. In 1980 and 1981 he was the President of the Economic Society of South Africa and also served one term as President of the Institute of Bankers in South Africa.
Honorary doctorates and awards received / bestowed on Dr de Kock included the following:
Other distinctions included his election as an honorary Fellow of the Institute of Bankers in South Africa in 1984 and his election by Euromoney magazine as “Central Banker of the Year" in 1988. After his death the University of Pretoria instituted the Gerhard de Kock Memorial Lecture, which was delivered annually by a prominent personality in the field of central banking.
A bronze bust of Dr de Kock by the sculptor Jo Roos remains to this day, to the entrance of the Gerhard de Kock Auditorium in the Head Office Building of the Reserve Bank.


Hermann von Ramberg

Hermann von Ramberg (24 November 1820, in Vienna – 26 December 1899, in Graz) was an Austrian statesman who served as acting Ban of Croatia-Slavonia in 1883.