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Shibboleth

A shibboleth is any custom or tradition, usually a choice of phrasing or even a single word, that distinguishes one group of people from another. Shibboleths have been used throughout history in many societies as passwords, simple ways of self-identification, signaling loyalty and affinity, maintaining traditional segregation, or protecting from real or perceived threats.

Origin
The term originates from the Hebrew word (שִׁבֹּלֶת), which means the part of a plant containing grain, such as the ear of a stalk of wheat or rye;  or less commonly (but arguably more appropriately) "flood, torrent".

The modern use derives from an account in the Hebrew Bible, in which pronunciation of this word was used to distinguish Ephraimites, whose dialect used a different first consonant. The difference concerns the Hebrew letter shin, which is now pronounced as (as in shoe). In the Book of Judges, chapter 12, after the inhabitants of Gilead under the command of Jephthah inflicted a military defeat upon the invading tribe of Ephraim (around 1370–1070 BC), the surviving Ephraimites tried to cross the River Jordan back into their home territory, but the Gileadites secured the river's fords to stop them. To identify and kill these Ephraimites, the Gileadites told each suspected survivor to say the word shibboleth. The Ephraimite dialect resulted in a pronunciation that, to Gileadites, sounded like sibboleth. In Judges 12:5–6 in the King James Bible, the anecdote appears thus (with the word already in its current English spelling): "And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay;

Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand."

Modern use
In modern English, a shibboleth can have a sociological meaning, referring to any in-group word or phrase that can distinguish members from outsiders. It is also sometimes used in a broader sense to mean jargon, the proper use of which identifies speakers as members of a particular group or subculture.

In information technology, a shibboleth is a community-wide password that enables members of that community to access an online resource without revealing their individual identities. The origin server can vouch for the identity of the individual user without giving the target server any further identifying information. Hence the individual user does not know the password that is actually employed – it is generated internally by the origin server – and so cannot betray it to outsiders.

The term can also be used pejoratively, suggesting that the original meaning of a symbol has in effect been lost and that the symbol now serves merely to identify allegiance, being described as "nothing more than a shibboleth". In 1956, Nobel Prize-laureate economist Paul Samuelson applied the term "shibboleth" in works including Foundations of Economic Analysis to an idea for which "the means becomes the end, and the letter of the law takes precedence over the spirit." Samuelson admitted that "shibboleth" is an imperfect term for this phenomenon.

Examples

Shibboleths have been used by different subcultures throughout the world at different times. Regional differences, level of expertise, and computer coding techniques are several forms that shibboleths have taken.

The legend goes that before the Battle of the Golden Spurs in May 1302, the Flemish slaughtered every Frenchman they could find in the city of Bruges, an act known as the Matins of Bruges. They identified Frenchmen based on their inability to pronounce the Flemish phrase schild en vriend "shield and friend", or possibly gilden vriend "friend of the Guilds". However, many Medieval Flemish dialects did not contain the cluster sch- either (even today's Kortrijk dialect has sk-), and Medieval French rolled the r just as Flemish did.

There is an anecdote in Sicily that, during the rebellion of the Sicilian Vespers in 1282, the inhabitants of the island killed the French occupiers who, when questioned, could not correctly pronounce the Sicilian word cìciri "chickpeas".

Following Mayor Albert's Rebellion in 1312 Kraków, Poles used the Polish language shibboleth Soczewica, koło, miele, młyn ("Lentil, wheel, grinds (verb), mill) to distinguish the German-speaking burghers. Those who could not properly pronounce this phrase were executed.

"Bûter, brea, en griene tsiis; wa't dat net sizze kin, is gjin oprjochte Fries" ("Butter, rye bread and green cheese, whoever cannot say that is not a genuine Frisian") was a phrase used by the Frisian Pier Gerlofs Donia during a Frisian rebellion (1515–1523). Ships whose crew could not pronounce this properly were usually plundered and soldiers who could not were beheaded by Donia himself.

In Japan during the 1923 Kantō Massacre, vigilantes attempted to identify ethnic Koreans by making them say "five yen and 50 sen" (which they felt was hard for Koreans to pronounce). People who failed to recite the shibboleth to their satisfaction were killed; among those were ethnic Japanese people who spoke dialects and Chinese people.

In October 1937, the Spanish word for parsley, perejil, was used as a shibboleth to identify Haitian immigrants living along the border in the Dominican Republic. The Dominican dictator, Rafael Trujillo, ordered the execution of these people. It is alleged that between 20,000 and 30,000 individuals were murdered within a few days in the Parsley Massacre, although more recent scholarship and the lack of evidence such as mass graves puts the actual estimate closer to between 1,000 and 12,168.

During the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II, the Dutch used the name of the seaside town of Scheveningen as a shibboleth to tell Germans from Dutch ("Sch" in Dutch is analyzed as the letter "s" combined with the digraph "ch", producing the consonant cluster, while in German "Sch" is read as the trigraph "sch", pronounced , closer to "sh" sound in English).

Some American soldiers in the Pacific theater in World War II used the word lollapalooza as a shibboleth to challenge unidentified persons, on the premise that Japanese people would often pronounce both letters L and R as rolled Rs. In Oliver Gramling's Free Men Are Fighting: The Story of World War II (1942) the author notes that, in the war, Japanese spies would often approach checkpoints posing as American or Filipino military personnel. A shibboleth such as "lollapalooza" would be used by the sentry, who, if the first two syllables come back as rorra, would "open fire without waiting to hear the remainder". Another sign/countersign used by the Allied forces: the challenge/sign was "flash", the password "thunder", and the countersign "Welcome". This was used during D-Day during World War II due to the rarity of the voiceless dental fricative (th-sound) and voiced labial–velar approximant (w-sound) in German.

During The Troubles in Northern Ireland, use of the name Derry or Londonderry for the province's second-largest city was often taken as an indication of the speaker's political stance, and as such frequently implied more than simply naming the location. The pronunciation of the name of the letter H is a related shibboleth, with Catholics pronouncing it as "haitch" and Protestants often pronouncing the letter differently.

During the Black July riots of Sri Lanka in 1983, many Tamils were massacred by Sinhalese youths. In many cases these massacres took the form of boarding buses and getting the passengers to pronounce words that had at the beginning (like  'bucket') and executing the people who found it difficult.

In Australia and New Zealand, the words "fish and chips" are often used to highlight the difference in each country's short-i vowel sound [ɪ] and asking someone to say the phrase can identify which country they are from. Australian English has a higher forward sound [i], close to the y in happy and city, while New Zealand English has a lower backward sound [ɘ], a slightly higher version of the a in about and comma. Thus, New Zealanders hear Australians say "feesh and cheeps", while Australians hear New Zealanders say "fush and chups". A long drawn out pronunciation of the names of the cities Brisbane and Melbourne rather than the typically Australian rapid "bun" ending is a common way for someone to be exposed as new to the country. Within Australia, what someone calls "devon", or how they name the size of beer they order can often pinpoint what state they are from, as both of these have varied names across the country.

In Canada, the name of Canada's second largest city, Montreal, is pronounced by English-speaking locals. This contrasts with the typical American pronunciation of the city as.

In the United States, the name of the state "Nevada" comes from the Spanish nevada, meaning "snow-covered". Nevadans pronounce the second syllable with the "a" as in "trap" while some people from outside of the state can pronounce it with the "a" as in "palm". Although many Americans interpret the latter back vowel as being closer to the Spanish pronunciation, it is not the pronunciation used by Nevadans. Likewise, the same test can be used to identify someone unfamiliar with southwest Missouri, as the city of Nevada, Missouri is pronounced with the "a" as in "cape".

During the Russo-Ukrainian War (2014–present), Ukrainians have used the word (a type of Ukrainian bread) to distinguish between Ukrainians and Russians.

In New York City, how one pronounces the name of Houston Street in Manhattan is a common differentiatior between tourists and those who live in the city. Tourists tend to pronounce it similarly to the name of the city in Texas, while the New York pronunciation is HOW-stun.

Furtive shibboleths
A "furtive shibboleth" is a type of a shibboleth that identifies individuals as being part of a group, not based on their ability to pronounce one or more words, but on their ability to recognize a seemingly innocuous phrase as a secret message. For example, members of Alcoholics Anonymous sometimes refer to themselves as "a friend of Bill W.", which is a reference to AA's founder, William Griffith Wilson. To the uninitiated, this would seem like a casual – if off-topic – remark, but other AA members would understand its meaning.

Similarly, during World War II, a homosexual US sailor might call himself a "friend of Dorothy", a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgment of a stereotypical affinity for Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz. This code was so effective that the Naval Investigative Service, upon learning that the phrase was a way for gay sailors to identify each other, undertook a search for this "Dorothy", whom they believed to be an actual woman with connections to homosexual servicemen in the Chicago area.

Likewise, homosexuals in Britain might use the cant language Polari.

Mark Twain used an explicit shibboleth to conceal a furtive shibboleth. In The Innocents Abroad he told the Shibboleth story in seemingly "inept and uninteresting" detail. To the initiated, however, the wording revealed that Twain was a freemason.

"Fourteen Words", "14", or "14/88" are furtive shibboleths used among white supremacists in the Anglosphere.

In art
Colombian conceptual artist Doris Salcedo created a work titled Shibboleth at Tate Modern, London, in 2007–2008. The piece consisted of a 548-foot-long crack that bisected the floor of the Tate's lobby space.

Salcedo said of the work: "It represents borders, the experience of immigrants, the experience of segregation, the experience of racial hatred. It is the experience of a Third World person coming into the heart of Europe. For example, the space which illegal immigrants occupy is a negative space. And so this piece is a negative space."

title: Shibboleth


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Hojōjutsu

Hojōjutsu (捕縄術, lit. "Restraining Rope Technique") or Torinawajutsu (捕縄術, lit. "Restraining Rope Technique") or just Nawajutsu (縄術, lit. "Rope Technique"), is the traditional Japanese martial art of restraining a person using cord or rope (called Nawa (縄, lit. "Rope") in Japanese), as a precursor to modern-day handcuffs. Encompassing many different materials, techniques and methods from many different schools, Hojōjutsu is a quintessentially Japanese art that is a unique product of Japanese history and culture.

As a martial arts practice, Hojōjutsu is seldom if ever taught on its own but as part of a curriculum under the aegis of the body of study encompassed by a larger school of bugei or budō, often as an advanced study in jujutsu. Regardless of the source, Hojōjutsu techniques and methods are seldom demonstrated outside Japan.

Techniques and methods
Generally speaking, Hojōjutsu can be divided into two broad categories. The first is the capture and restraint of a prisoner that was effected with strong, thin cord (usually 3–4 millimeters in diameter) called a hayanawa (早縄, lit. "Fast Rope"), and sometimes the sageo carried by samurai on the sword-sheaths was used. In law-enforcement, this cord was carried by constables who secreted the rope in a small bundle that fed cord from one end. This torinawa ("capture-rope") was coiled so that the cord would pay out from one end as the bundled cord was passed around the prisoner's body, neck and arms as he or she was tied. This was usually accomplished by one constable in the course of performing an arrest while the prisoner was actively resisting and had to be accomplished quickly.

Even at this stage, attention was still paid to visual and aesthetic concerns in the tying method as well as to the cultural needs of Japanese society. According to experts, an accused but not convicted prisoner would be tied using methods which allowed the prisoner to be securely restrained but which contained no knots to save the prisoner the shame of being publicly bound. Instead of securing the tie with knots, the constable held on to the free end of the rope and walked behind the prisoner to keep him or her under control as the prisoner was taken for an interrogation which could involve the application of one or more forms of judicial torture to elicit a confession.

The second category utilized with one or occasionally two “main ropes” or “honnawa” which, like the hayanawa, could be any one of many different lengths, but was usually hemp in material. The thickness of this rope averaged at six or more millimeters in diameter, while the length could be as much as 25 meters long. This was used to provide a more secure, long-term binding than is possible with the hayanawa for transportation to a place of incarceration, restraint at legal proceedings, and—in the case of particularly severe crimes—for the public display of the prisoner prior to execution by such methods as beheading, crucifixion (i.e., the prisoner was displayed tied to a cross before spears were driven through the body), or, in arson convictions, death by fire.

Honnawa ties were applied by a group of people, usually not less than four, whose presence allowed the use of more intricate and ornate patterns than was the case with the hayanawa. Both forms combined effective restraint with a distinct visual aesthetic.

In either form, the Hojōjutsu ties known today display a shrewd understanding of human anatomy through several recurrent themes. This can include leverage-removal (tying limbs in positions that decrease the force they can generate), rope-placement to discourage struggling or to make it less effective by placing one or more loops of rope around the neck and constricting restraint around points on the upper arms where determined struggle put pressure on blood vessels and nerves numbing the extremities.

Persistence in modern times
Hojōjutsu shows limited survival in the modern world, both in Japan and elsewhere. Torinawa techniques are taught as part of the curriculum learned by modern Japanese police officers and it remains an advanced topic within schools of jujutsu, following it and other Japanese traditional martial arts as they make their way around the world from Brazil to Eastern Europe. Yoshida ha Shidare Yanagi ryu, art of the late Don Angier, contains an extensive hojōjutsu curriculum.

Although the Honnawa techniques have long been supplanted by handcuffs and leg-irons, some teachers of traditional martial arts in Japan work to continue to maintain the art form. The Soke (head of, and heir to the style) of Masaki-ryu Bujutsu, Nawa Yumio, has written several books on the subject and has worked as an historical consultant on matters dealing with law-enforcement and Mizukoshi Hiro's recently reprinted book Torinawajutsu offers historical background followed by thorough, practical instruction in more than 25 traditional ties including some recreated from rare and very old texts. The Koryu cited are Seigo Ryu Jujutsu, Seishin Ryu Jujutsu, Koden Enshin Ryu Iaijutsu, Nanbu Handen Hojo Jutsu, Kurokawa Ryu Ninjutsu, Kurama Yoshin Ryu Jujutsu, Nagano Ryu Heihou, Mitsuo (Mippa) Muteki Ryu, Bo Ryu and Tenfu Muso Ryu.

That is the late Seiko Fujita’s monumental work, Zukai Torinawajutsu, which could be considered as the encyclopedia of this art, by showing hundreds of ties from many different schools.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Hojōjutsu


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Segeberg

Segeberg (Segebärj) is a district in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is bounded by (from the southwest and clockwise) the districts of Pinneberg, Steinburg and Rendsburg-Eckernförde, the city of Neumünster, the districts of Plön, Ostholstein and Stormarn, and the city state of Hamburg.

History
The history of the district is connected to the history of Holstein. In 1134, the castle of Segeberg was erected as a regional centre from where the reeve of Segeberg ruled. When Schleswig-Holstein became a Prussian province in 1865, the Prussian administration established the district of Segeberg.

Since then, the district has grown considerably twice: In 1932 parts of the dissolved district of Bordesholm joined the district; in 1970 the city of Norderstedt became part of the district.

Geography
The district of Segeberg consists of the agricultural plains between the cities of Neumünster and Hamburg. A southwestern portion of the hilly lakeland called "Holsteinische Schweiz" (Holsatian Switzerland) belongs to the district, as well as some northern suburbs of Hamburg.

Coat of arms
The coat of arms displays:
 * four steeples forming a cross, commemorating the missionary activities of bishop Vizelin of Segeberg who Christianised Holstein in the early Middle Ages
 * the heraldic nettle leaf of Holstein in the middle of the cross
 * four green water lily leaves from the arms of Segeberg's reeves

title: Segeberg


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Oss

Oss is a municipality and a city in the southern Netherlands, in the province of North Brabant, situated between Nijmegen and 's-Hertogenbosch.

Topography

Dutch Topographic map of Oss (municipality), June 2015

City center of Oss
Oss has a shopping center with many squares, however, the only real shopping streets (also the best known) are the Heuvelstraat, Walstraat and the Peperstraat. The squares are connected with these shopping streets and passages that contain shops. One of the passages (The Passage, Dutch: de Passage, Local Dialect: 't Gengske) had an overhauling renovation in 2014. It now resembles an old Dutch street.

The city of Oss
There is archaeological evidence that humans have lived in and around Oss for 4,000 years. Major archaeological finds were the Vorstengraf burial sites and the indigenous-Roman burial fields of Oss-Ussen.

Oss was first mentioned in a letter by Pope Alexander II on 6 May 1069. Oss was granted city rights in 1399 by Hertogin (Duchess) Johanna van Brabant. Present-day Oss has several chemical and pharmaceutical industries like Merck & Co. (previously Schering-Plough, Organon and Diosynth). Oss is also host to the professional football team TOP Oss, and is the birthplace of former Manchester United and Real Madrid star Ruud van Nistelrooy, although he did not play for the local side, but for rivals FC Den Bosch.

The gothic metal/alternative rock band The Gathering, formed in 1989, originally hails from Oss.

Berghem
Berghem is a small town east of Oss (population: 6,900). Berghem is currently being expanded with many new houses in the Piekenhoef.

Megen
Megen is a small city (population: 1,686) close to the river Maas.

Megen used to be the 'capital' of the county Megen (including Haren, Macharen and Teeffelen) that was founded around 1145. City rights were obtained in 1357. In 1810, the County Megen became a municipality to which Haren and Macharen also belonged. It became part of the municipality of Oss in 1994.

Currently, there are two monasteries in Megen. One is inhabited by the Clarissas (also called the Poor Clares), followers of St. Clare of Assisi. The other is occupied by the Franciscans, followers of St. Francis of Assisi. Of the two castles Megen used to have, only one tower remains.

Ravenstein
Ravenstein (population: 3,728) is a city and was a municipality until 2003, when it was added to the Oss municipality. The municipality covered an area of 42.68 km² and also included villages: Demen, Dennenburg, Deursen, Dieden, Herpen, Huisseling, Keent, Koolwijk, Neerlangel, Neerloon, Overlangel.

Ravenstein received city rights in 1380.

Transportation

 * Railway stations: Oss, Oss West, Ravenstein

The arts

 * John Slotanus (died 1560) a Dutch Roman Catholic polemical writer, born in Geffen.
 * Walter Pompe (1703 in Lith – 1777) a Flemish master-sculptor of religious works in wood
 * Maria Versfelt (1776–1845) a Dutch writer and stage actress, known for her adventurous life
 * Joop Falke (1933-2016) a Dutch artist, goldsmith and sculptor
 * Pieter Nooten (born 1961), musician and composer best known for his work with Clan of Xymox
 * Joep van Lieshout (born 1963 in Ravenstein) a Dutch artist and sculptor
 * C. C. Catch (born 1964), pop singer
 * Michel van der Aa (born 1970) a Dutch composer of contemporary classical music
 * Frank Boeijen (born 1973) songwriter and keyboardist with Dutch metal band The Gathering
 * Niels Duffhuës (born 1973) a Dutch multi-instrumentalist, composer and writer
 * Chris Berens (born 1976) a Dutch painter, in the realms of surrealism and visionary art
 * Marjolein Kooijman (born 1980) bass player with Dutch metal band The Gathering since 2004

Public thinking & public service

 * Antoon Jurgens (1805-1880), Dutch merchant and industrialist; he founded a butter company
 * Samuel van den Bergh (1864-1941), European margarine and soap manufacturer
 * Saal van Zwanenberg (1889-1974), founder of pharmaceutical company Organon & Co.
 * Jacques de Kadt (1897-1988), political thinker, politician and writer
 * Jan Marijnissen (born 1952), Dutch politician, belongs to the Socialist Party
 * Lambert van Nistelrooij (born 1953), Dutch politician and MEP, 2004 to 2019

Sport

 * Cor Euser (born 1957) a Dutch racing driver
 * Marc van Hintum (born 1967) a Dutch former footballer with over 400 club caps
 * John van den Berk (born 1967) a Dutch former two-time motocross world champion
 * Marc Lammers (born 1969), field hockey player and coach
 * brothers Bas (born 1971) and Mike van de Goor (born 1973) volleyball players, team gold medallists at the 1996 Summer Olympics
 * Bart Griemink (born 1972) a Dutch former professional football goalkeeper
 * Ruud van Nistelrooy (born 1976) a Dutch retired footballer with 449 club caps and 70 caps with the Netherlands national football team
 * Albert Kraus (born 1980) a Dutch welterweight kickboxer, K-1 World MAX Champion, 2002
 * Bas Verwijlen (born 1983) a fencer, competed at the 2012 Summer Olympics
 * Loek van Mil (1984-2019) a Dutch professional baseball pitcher
 * Rens van Eijden (born 1988) a Dutch footballer with over 250 club caps
 * Gino Vos (born 1990) a Dutch professional darts player
 * Rick van der Ven (born 1991) a Dutch archer, competed in Archery at the 2012 Summer Olympics
 * Richard van der Venne (born 1992) a Dutch professional footballer
 * Cihat Çelik (born 1996) a Dutch professional footballer
 * Batuhan Bozkurt (born 2001) a Dutch-Turkish professional padel player
 * Julian Savi (born 2002) a Dutch professional curler, was captain of the National Dutch team from 2019-now.
 * Clemens de Wit (born 2002), Dutch professional athlete, holds the city record for the Bench press (250 kg) and it still regarded as one of the main influential figures of Powerlifting in the region.

title: Oss


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Helmond

Helmond (called Héllemond in the local dialect) is a city and municipality in the Metropoolregio Eindhoven of the province of North Brabant in the Southern Netherlands.

Helmond is home to several textile and metal companies. The Vlisco factory is located next to the Zuid-Willemsvaart canal, which runs through the city.

The spoken language is Helmonds (an East Brabantian dialect).

Etymology and coat of arms
Helmond's coat of arms, first appearing in 1241, displays a helmet, and is a canting arms for the city's name, as helm means helmet in Dutch. However, the actual etymology of Helmond's name is probably derived from the combination of Hel, which means "low-lying" (from Proto-Germanic *haljæ / Hel), and Mond, which referred to higher ground or a secure place.

The helmet on the coat of arms originally was depicted as a medieval great helm, however, the design eventually came to depict a jousting helmet. The oak sprigs symbolize freedom, while the bird perched on them is thought to be purely decorative.

Medieval and early modern periods
During the Merovingian period, the site of what is now Helmond was an only partially habitable convergence of streams. As the streams began to silt over, settlement was made possible, and by the year 1000, a settlement arose west of what is the current city center. Additionally, a precursor to the current Helmond Castle, named  't Oude Huys ("the old house"), was built around this time. Documents from 1108 mention Lord Hazelo von Helmond, the first feudal lord of the allodium of Helmond.

In 1179, a bull of Pope Alexander III mentions Helmond being donated to the Abbey of Floreffe. At this point, the local feudal administration was probably moved to t' Oude Huys. In 1220, Helmond came under the control of Henry I of Brabant. In 1225, the town was founded by Henry, it received its Town Privileges in 1232. Following his death in 1235, it was passed down to his daughter, Maria of Brabant, Holy Roman Empress, who spent much time at t' Oude Huys and whose founding of Binderen Abbey benefited the growth of the city. Upon her death in 1260, the town passed back to the Dukes of Brabant, who, in 1315, leased it to the van Berlaer family. In 1325, Jan II Berthout van Berlaer started the construction of a stone keep on the site of the current Helmond Castle, supplanting t' Oude Huys. By 1400, the city ramparts were built.

Having gained market rights in 1376, Helmond's textile industry began to develop, and in 1389, seven guilds were authorized to operate in the town. Merchants from Helmond sold wool and textiles throughout Brabant. Despite the commercial growth, the town's population remained small. Helmond's prosperity soon ended due to war and instability in the Duchy of Guelders, and following Charles V's ascension to the Duchy of Brabant, Helmond was put under siege and sacked by the army of Maarten van Rossum in 1543.

Under the Dutch Republic and the Revolutionary era
Helmond was also embroiled in the Eighty Years War. Since it remained loyal to Philip II of Spain, the army of the Dutch Republic twice captured and lost the city, with only the castle remaining uncaptured. The effects of the war and a plague outbreak in 1636 decimated the textile industry in Helmond, and many weavers fled to Haarlem. Only with the peace of 1648 could the city start to recover. The weavers of Helmond gained a fruitful partnership with merchants in Haarlem, and the city could rebuild from the war. Catholics were pushed underground. Although the city recovered its prosperity, it was once again plunged into instability during the Patriottentijd of the late 18th century. Following several skirmishes and political maneuvers in the city, the Patriots were crushed through the intervention of Prussia in 1787, but only five years later in 1793, the French Republic invaded. The liberal French administration allowed the Patriots to re-assert themselves in the city, and in 1795, universal male suffrage came to Helmond. By 1798, the vestiges of the Dutch Republic were abolished, and Catholics were once again allowed to take part in city governance.

19th and 20th centuries
By the late 18th and early 19th century, local entrepreneurs also started to grow the textile business unassisted by the Haarlem merchants, facilitating industrial production. It became a city with a seat in the Estates of Brabant in 1814. The 1826 opening of the Zuid-Willemsvaart canal, which runs through the city, brought more prosperity to the city. In addition to the weaving mills and the associated yarn dyeing and bleaching plants, other branches of the textile industry also developed, such as cotton printing.

The introduction of steam power and construction of a railway station in 1866 greatly accelerated the development of Helmond, and its population greatly increased. By the early 20th century, industry in Helmond started to branch out from textiles: metal products, such as machines and wires, were produced in the city, along with a cocoa factory, a margarine factory, and the grocery chain EDAH.

In 1940, Helmond was captured by the Wehrmacht, and its city administration was taken over by NSB collaborators. The city was liberated by the British Army on 24 and 25 September 1944.

After the war, industry once again flourished, with new companies establishing themselves in the city while old industries continued. Pursuing a modern image, prominent projects such as the Cube Houses were built. Helmond gained its 80,000th resident in 1999, and continues to grow.

Geography
Helmond is subdivided into quarters and neighbourhoods:

 * Quarter 11 Inner City
 * Neighbourhood 0	Centrum
 * Neighbourhood 2	Leonardus
 * Neighbourhood 3	Heipoort
 * Neighbourhood 4	Stationsgebied
 * Neighbourhood 5	Vossenberg
 * Neighbourhood 6	Annabuurt en Suytkade
 * Neighbourhood 7	Steenweg en omgeving
 * Quarter 11 Helmond-East
 * Neighbourhood 0	Beisterveld
 * Neighbourhood 1	Beisterveldse Broek
 * Neighbourhood 2	Straakven
 * Quarter 12 Helmond-North
 * Neighbourhood 0	Bloemvelden
 * Neighbourhood 1	Binderen
 * Neighbourhood 2	Eeuwsels
 * Quarter 13 Mierlo-Hout
 * Neighbourhood 0	't Hout-Centrum
 * Neighbourhood 1	Kroon
 * Neighbourhood 2	Akkers
 * Neighbourhood 3	Gansenwinkel
 * Neighbourhood 9	Groot Goor
 * Quarter 14 Brouwhuis
 * Neighbourhood 0	Brouwhuis-Dorp
 * Neighbourhood 1	Brouwhuis-West
 * Neighbourhood 2	Brouwhuis-Oost
 * Neighbourhood 4	Brouwhorst
 * Neighbourhood 9	Kloostereind
 * Quarter 15 Helmond-West
 * Neighbourhood 0	West
 * Neighbourhood 1	Houtsdonk
 * Quarter 16 Warande
 * Neighbourhood 0	Oranjebuurt
 * Neighbourhood 1	Zwanenbeemd
 * Neighbourhood 9	Overbrug
 * Quarter 17 Stiphout
 * Neighbourhood 0	Stiphout-Dorp
 * Neighbourhood 1	Schooten
 * Neighbourhood 9	Geeneind
 * Quarter 18 Rijpelberg
 * Neighbourhood 1	Rijpelberg-Oost
 * Neighbourhood 2	Rijpelberg-West
 * Neighbourhood 9	Berkendonk
 * Quarter 19 Dierdonk
 * Neighbourhood 0	Kern Dierdonk
 * Neighbourhood 9	Scheepstal
 * Quarter 21 Brandevoort
 * Neighbourhood 1	De Veste
 * Neighbourhood 2	Schutsboom
 * Neighbourhood 3	Stepekolk
 * Neighbourhood 4	Berenbroek
 * Quarter 29 Industrial park-South
 * Neighbourhood 1	Hoogeind
 * Neighbourhood 2	B.Z.O.B.

Transport
Railway stations: Helmond, Helmond Brouwhuis, Helmond Brandevoort, Helmond 't Hout

Local media
Newspapers: Radio: Television: News on the internet:
 * ED - Helmond Plus
 * ZondagNieuws (translated: SundayNews)
 * De Traverse
 * De Loop
 * Omroep Helmond (Radio) (translated: Helmond Broadcasting (Radio))
 * Internetradio Helmond Sport
 * Omroep Helmond (TV) (translated: Helmond Broadcasting (TV))
 * Alles Over Helmond (part of Omroep Helmond) (translated: Everything About Helmond)
 * De Weblog van Helmond (translated: Helmonds´ weblog)

Municipal council
The municipal council consists of 37 seats. Below the council since 1998:
 * The political parties SDH-OH, Helmondse Belangen, and D66 form 1 parliamentary group in the council, but took part in the elections separately. In the elections they received 4, 2 and 2 seats respectively.
 * The party 50Plus was known as senioren until the elections of 2018

Notable residents

 * Lucas Gassel (ca.1490-ca.1570) Flemish Renaissance painter of landscapes
 * Anthonius Konings (1821-1884) a Redemptorist professor and theological writer.
 * Theodorus Willem van Lidth de Jeude (1853–1937) a Dutch zoologist and herpetologist
 * Matthijs Vermeulen (1888–1967) a Dutch composer and music journalist
 * Willem Zeylmans van Emmichoven (1893-1961) a Dutch psychiatrist and anthroposophist
 * Franz Jozef Van Beeck (1930-2011) a Dutch priest, author and Christian theologian
 * Elly Blanksma-van den Heuvel (born 1959), politician and former bank manager, Mayor of Helmond since 2012
 * Harry van Bommel (born 1962) a politician, anti-globalisation activist and former educator
 * Diana van Berlo (born 1966), former member of disco/pop girl group Luv'
 * Stochelo Rosenberg (born 1968) a Gypsy jazz guitarist who leads the Rosenberg Trio
 * M. H. Benders (born 1971) a Dutch poet and philosopher

Sport

 * Willy van der Kuijlen (1946–2021) Dutch football player with 545 club caps
 * Lisette Sevens (born 1949) field hockey player, team gold medallist at the 1984 Summer Olympics
 * René and Willy van de Kerkhof (born 1951), twins, former footballers with 491 & 511 club caps
 * Fieke Boekhorst (born 1957) field hockey player, team gold medallist at the 1984 Summer Olympics
 * Berry van Aerle (born 1962) a Dutch retired footballer with 315 club caps
 * Hans Gillhaus (born 1963) a Dutch retired footballer with 400 club caps
 * Pieter Gruijters (born 1967) is a Paralympic athlete,
 * Wilfred Bouma (born 1978) a Dutch former footballer with 411 club caps
 * Nieky Holzken (born 1983) a Dutch super middleweight kickboxer and professional boxer
 * Bob de Voogd (born 1988) a Dutch field hockey player, team silver medallist at the 2012 Summer Olympics

Twin towns — sister cities
Helmond is twinned with:

title: Helmond


text:
Sweatshop

A sweatshop or sweat factory is a crowded workplace with very poor or illegal working conditions, including little to no breaks, inadequate work space, insufficient lighting and ventilation, or uncomfortably or dangerously high or low temperatures. The work may be difficult, tiresome, dangerous, climatically challenging, or underpaid. Employees in sweatshops may work long hours with unfair wages, regardless of laws mandating overtime pay or a minimum wage; child labor laws may also be violated. Women make up 85 to 90% of sweatshop workers and may be forced by employers to take birth control and routine pregnancy tests to avoid supporting maternity leave or providing health benefits.

The Fair Labor Association's "2006 Annual Public Report" inspected factories for FLA compliance in 18 countries including Bangladesh, El Salvador, Colombia, Guatemala, Malaysia, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, China, India, Vietnam, Honduras, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, and the US. The U.S. Department of Labor's "2015 Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor" found that "18 countries did not meet the International Labour Organization's recommendation for an adequate number of inspectors."

Use of the term
The phrase sweatshop was coined in 1850, meaning a factory or workshop where workers are treated unfairly, for example, by having low wages, working long hours, and living in poor conditions. Since 1850, immigrants have been flocking to work at sweatshops in cities like London, New York, and Paris for over a century. Many of them worked in tiny, stuffy rooms that were prone to fire hazards and rat infestations. The term sweatshop was used in Charles Kingsley's Cheap Clothes and Nasty (1850) describing how such workplaces create a ‘sweating system’ of workers. The idea of minimum wage and labour unions was not developed until the 1890s. This issue appears to be solved by some anti-sweatshop organizations. However, the ongoing development of the issue is showing a different situation. The phrase is still used in current times because it is still used in a variety of countries around the world.

19th and early 20th centuries
Many workplaces through history have been crowded, low-paying, and without job security; but the concept of a sweatshop originated between 1830 and 1850 as a specific type of workshop in which a certain type of middleman, the sweater, directed others in garment making (the process of producing clothing) under arduous conditions. The terms sweater for the middleman and sweat system for the process of subcontracting piecework were used in early critiques like Charles Kingsley's Cheap Clothes and Nasty, written in 1850, which described conditions in London, England. The workplaces created for the sweating system (a system of subcontracting in the tailoring trade) were called sweatshops and might contain only a few workers or as many as 300 or more. All those workers were illegally underpaid in terms of regular time and even overtime.

Between 1832 and 1850, sweatshops attracted individuals with lower incomes to growing cities, and attracted immigrants to locations such as London and New York City's garment district, located near the tenements of New York's Lower East Side. These sweatshops incurred criticism: labor leaders cited them as crowded, poorly ventilated, and prone to fires and rodent infestations: in many cases, there were many workers crowded into small tenement rooms.

In the 1890s, a group calling itself the National Anti-Sweating League was formed in Melbourne and campaigned successfully for a minimum wage via trade boards. A group with the same name campaigned from 1906 in the UK, resulting in the Trade Boards Act 1909.

In 1910, the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union was founded in attempt to improve the condition of these workers.

Criticism of garment sweatshops became a major force behind workplace safety regulations and labor laws. As some journalists strove to change working conditions, the term sweatshop came to refer to a broader set of workplaces whose conditions were considered inferior. In the United States, investigative journalists, known as muckrakers, wrote exposés of business practices, and progressive politicians campaigned for new laws. Notable exposés of sweatshop conditions include Jacob Riis' photo documentary How the Other Half Lives and Upton Sinclair's book, The Jungle, a fictionalized account of the meat packing industry.

In 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire galvanized negative public perceptions of sweatshops in New York City. The pivotal role of this time and place is chronicled at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, part of the Lower East Side Tenement National Historic Site. While trade unions, minimum wage laws, fire safety codes, and labour laws have made sweatshops (in the original sense) rarer in the developed world, they did not eliminate them, and the term is increasingly associated with factories in the developing world.

Late 20th century to present
In a report issued in 1994, the United States Government Accountability Office found that there were still thousands of sweatshops in the United States, using a definition of a sweatshop as any "employer that violates more than one federal or state labor law governing minimum wage and overtime, child labor, industrial homework, occupational safety and health, workers' compensation, or industry registration". This recent definition eliminates any historical distinction about the role of a middleman or the items produced and focuses on the legal standards of developed country workplaces. An area of controversy between supporters of outsourcing production to the Third World and the anti-sweatshop movement is whether such standards can or should be applied to the workplaces of the developing world.

Sweatshops are also sometimes implicated in human trafficking when workers have been tricked into starting work without informed consent, or when workers are kept at work through debt bondage or mental duress, all of which are more likely if the workforce is drawn from children or the uneducated rural poor. Because they often exist in places without effective workplace safety or environmental laws, sweatshops sometimes injure their workers or the environment at greater rates than would be acceptable in developed countries. Penal labor facilities (employing prisoners) may be grouped under the sweatshop label due to underpaid work conditions.

Sweatshop conditions resemble prison labor in many cases, especially from a commonly found Western perspective. In 2014 Apple was caught "failing to protect its workers" in one of its Pegatron factories. Overwhelmed workers were caught falling asleep during their 12-hour shifts and an undercover reporter had to work 18 days in a row. Sweatshops in question carry characteristics such as compulsory pregnancy tests for female laborers and terrorization from supervisors into submission. Workers then go into a state of forced labor, and if even one day of work is not accounted for they could be immediately fired. These working conditions have been the source of suicidal unrest within factories in the past. Chinese sweatshops known to have increased numbers of suicidal employees have suicide nets covering the whole site, in place to stop overworked and stressed employees from leaping to their deaths, such as in the case of the Foxconn suicides.

Recently, Boohoo came under light since auditors uncovered a large chain of factories in Leicester producing clothes for Boohoo that were only paying their workers between £3-4. The conditions of the factories were described as terrible and workers received "illegally low pay".

Child Labor: American History
Cotton is one of the most important and widely produced crops in the world. However, cotton textiles became the major battlefield on which the political, social, and economic war over child labour was fought. According to the book Child Labor: An American History by Hugh D. Hindman, states, "In 1870, when New England dominated textiles, 13,767, or 14.5 percent of its workforce was children under sixteen". By the most conservative estimate, from the Census of Manufacturers, there were 27,538 under sixteen in southern mills. According to the household census in 1900, the number was 60,000. In response to the issue of child labor, The United States enacted the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) to prohibit the employment of minors under the age of sixteen.

Industries using sweatshop labor
World-famous fashion brands such as H&M, Nike, Adidas and Uniqlo have all been criticized for their use of sweatshops. In 2015, anti-sweatshop protesters marched against the Japanese fast-fashion brand Uniqlo in Hong Kong. Along with the Japanese anti-sweatshops organisation Human Rights Now, the Hong Kong labour organisation SACOM (Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour) protested the "harsh and dangerous" working conditions in Uniqlo's value-added factories in China. According to a recent report published by SACOM, Uniqlo’s suppliers were blamed for "systematically underpaying their labour, forcing them to work excessive hours and subjecting them to unsafe working conditions, which included sewage-covered floors, poor ventilation, and sweltering temperatures". According to the 2016 Clean Clothes Campaign, H&M strategic suppliers in Bangladesh were reported for dangerous working environments, which lacked vital equipment for workers and adequate fire exits.

The German sportswear giant Adidas was criticized for its Indonesian sweatshops in 2000, and accused of underpayment, overtime working, physical abuse and child labour. Another sportswear giant, Nike, faced a heavy wave of anti-sweatshop protests, organised by the United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) and held in Boston, Washington D.C., Bangalore, and San Pedro Sula. They claimed that workers in Nike's contract factory in Vietnam were suffering from wage theft, verbal abuse and harsh working conditions with "temperatures over the legal limit of 90 degrees". Since the 1990s, Nike has been reported to employ sweat factories and child labour. Regardless of its effort to turn things around, Nike's image has been affected by the issue during the past two decades. Nike established an independent department which aimed to improve workers’ livelihoods in 1996. It was renamed the Fair Labor Association in 1999, as a non-profit organisation which includes representatives from companies, human rights organizations, and labour unions to work on the monitoring and management of labour rights. To improve its brand image of being immoral, Nike has been publishing annual sustainable business reports since 2001 and annual corporate social responsibility reports continuously since 2005, mentioning its commitments, standards and audits. Similar stories have been common in the fashion industry over the past few decades. Brands such as Shein, Nike, H&M, Zara, Disney, and Victoria's Secret to name a few examples, are still using sweatshops.

In 2016, the United States Department of Labor investigated 77 garment factories in Los Angeles that produced clothing for the aforementioned brands, and found labor violations at 85% of the factories it visited.

Fast fashion
A trend called "fast fashion" is believed to contribute towards the rise of sweatshops. Fast fashion refers to "rapid reorders and new orders that retailers now exert as they discern sales trends in real time" (Ross, 2015) To keep up with the fast-changing trends and demands within the fashion industry, these fast-fashion brands have to react and arrange production accordingly. To lower production and storage costs, these brands outsource labour to other countries with low production costs which can produce orders in a short time. This may result in workers suffering from long working hours without reasonable payment. A documentary, "The True Cost" (2015), claims that sweatshops relieve pressure on retailers by passing it to factory owners and, ultimately, workers.

Government corruption and inadequate labour protection legislation
Government corruption and inadequate labour protection legislation in developing countries have also contributed to the suffering of their employees. Weak law enforcement has attracted outside investment in these developing countries, which is a serious problem generating sweatshops. Without reasonable law restrictions, outside investors can set up fashion manufacturing plants at a lower cost. According to Zamen (2012), governments in developing countries often fail to enforce safety standards in local factories because of corruption and weak law enforcement. These circumstances allow factories to provide dangerous working conditions for workers. According to the Corruption Perception Index 2016 (2017), those countries with a high risk of corruption such as Bangladesh, Vietnam, India, Pakistan and China are reported to have larger numbers of unsafe garment factories operating inside the countries. When Zamen (2012) said "corruption kills", sweatshops in developing countries would be the prime cases.

In some places the government or media do not show the full picture. An example of this may be seen in Dubai where some labour camps do not have proper conditions for workers. If they protest, they can be deported if they are foreigners.

Low education level
It is suggested that these workers should fight back and protect their labour rights, yet a lot of them in developing countries are ignorant about their rights because of their low education levels. According to the UNESCO Institute of Statistics (2016), most of these sweatshops are located in countries that have low education levels. Harrison and Scorse mention that most of them do not know about their rights, such as matters about wages and supposed working conditions, thus they have no skill set to fight for their labour rights through collective bargaining (such as strikes or work to rule). Their lack of knowledge makes it hard for them to improve working conditions on their own.

Child labour
Child labour is one of the most serious impacts that sweatshops have brought. According to the International Labour Office, more than 250 million children are employed in sweatshops, of which 170 million are engaged in the textile industry in developing countries. In hopes of earning a living, many girls in these countries, such as Bangladesh and India, are willing to work at low wages for long working hours, said Sofie Ovaa, an officer of Stop Child Labour. Most fashion manufacturing chains employ low-skilled labour and as child laborers are easier to manage and even more suitable than adult labour for certain jobs such as cotton picking, it becomes a particular problem in sweatshops as they are vulnerable with no backups.

Environmental pollution
Not only workers are impacted by sweatshops, but the neighboring environment as well, through lax environmental laws set up in developing countries to help reduce the production cost of the fashion industry. Clothing manufacturing is still one of the most polluting industries in the world. Nevertheless, the environment of developing countries remained deeply polluted by untreated waste. The Buriganga River in Bangladesh is now black and pronounced biologically dead because neighbouring leather tanneries are discharging more than 150 cubics of liquid waste daily. (Stanko, 2013) The daily life of local people is significantly affected as the Buriganga River is their source of bathing, irrigation and transportation. Many workers in the tanneries suffer from serious skin illnesses since they are exposed to toxic chemicals for a long time. Air is being highly polluted in such areas because the factories do not install proper ventilation facilities. Sweatshops are also an environmental issue as it is not only the human right of labour but also their living environment.

19th and early 20th centuries
Some of the earliest sweatshop critics were found in the 19th-century abolitionist movement that had originally coalesced in opposition to chattel slavery, and many abolitionists saw similarities between slavery and sweatshop work. As slavery was successively outlawed in industrial countries between 1794 (in France) and 1865 (in the United States), some abolitionists sought to broaden the anti-slavery consensus to include other forms of harsh labor, including sweatshops. As it happened, the first significant law to address sweatshops (the Factory Act of 1833) was passed in the United Kingdom several years after the slave trade (1807) and ownership of slaves (1833) was made illegal.

Ultimately, the abolitionist movement split apart. Some advocates focused on working conditions and found common causes with trade unions Marxists and socialist political groups, or progressive movement and the muckrakers. Others focused on the continued slave trade and involuntary servitude in the colonial world. For those groups that remained focused on slavery, sweatshops became one of the primary objects of controversy. Workplaces across multiple sectors of the economy were categorized as sweatshops. However, there were fundamental philosophical disagreements about what constituted slavery. Unable to agree on the status of sweatshops, the abolitionists working with the League of Nations and the United Nations ultimately backed away from efforts to define slavery and focused instead on a common precursor of slavery – human trafficking.

Those focused on working conditions included Friedrich Engels, whose book The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 would inspire the Marxist movement named for his collaborator, Karl Marx. In the United Kingdom, the first effective Factory Act was introduced in 1833 to help improve the condition of workers by limiting work hours and the use of child labor; but this applied only to textile factories. Later Acts extended protection to factories in other industries, but not until 1867 was there any similar protection for employees in small workshops, and not until 1891 was it possible to effectively enforce the legislation where the workplace was a dwelling (as was often the case for sweatshops). The formation of the International Labour Organization in 1919 under the League of Nations and then the United Nations sought to address the plight of workers the world over. Concern over working conditions as described by muckraker journalists during the Progressive Era in the United States saw the passage of new workers' rights laws and ultimately resulted in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, passed during the New Deal.

Late 20th century to present
On February 4, 1997, Mayor Ed Boyle of North Olmsted, in the U.S. state of Ohio, introduced the first piece of legislation prohibiting the government from purchasing, renting, or taking on consignment any goods made under sweatshop conditions and including in the definition those goods made by political prisoners and incarcerated criminals. Similar legislation was subsequently passed in other American cities such as Detroit, New York, and San Francisco. Later Mayor Boyle introduced the legislation to the Mayors and Managers Association where it was immediately endorsed, and he was invited by President Bill Clinton to address a panel studying the subject in Washington, DC.

Clothing and footwear factories overseas have progressively improved working conditions because of the high demand of anti-sweatshop movement labor rights advocates. Sweatshops overseas have been receiving enormous amounts of pressure. The working conditions from college students, and other opponents of sweatshops have led to some of the powerful companies like Nike and the Gap who have agreed to cut back on child labour, restrict the use of dangerous and poisonous chemicals, and drop the average rate of employees working 80-hour weeks, according to groups that monitor such factories. Labour advocates say this could be a major turning point after 4 decades of workers in Asia and Latin American factories being underpaid, underappreciated and working in an unsafe environment.

Recently, there have been strides to eradicate sweatshops through government action, for example by increasing the minimum wage. In China, a developing country that is known to be a hub for sweatshops due to relaxed labor laws, high population and low minimum wage, the minimum wage is set to be raised by approximately 7% in 10 provinces by the end of 2018. As well as these governments also enforced stricter labor laws in 2013 after the collapse of Rana Plaza in Bangladesh, a large 5 storied sweatshop that killed 1135 people due to the building not being up to code, Bangladeshi police shut down many other factories after safety checks were completed and not met. However, no action has been as beneficial to the anti-sweatshop movement as that of the rise of social media. Social media has allowed for the world to see exactly what companies are doing and how they are doing it instantaneously, for free and is distributed to a wide audience. The platforms have allowed for viral videos, hundreds of thousands of retweets of quotes or statistics, millions of liked and shared pictures etc. to be spread to consumers in regards to companies' production methods without any censorship and thus force brands to be more transparent and ethical with their production practices. This is because a brand's reputation can be destroyed by a bystander with a smartphone who records a brand's product being made in a sweatshop where its workers are treated inhumanely.

However, social media isn’t just helping to expose brands who are using sweatshops and unethical production practices but also is allowing companies that are trying to increase awareness of the anti-sweatshop movement to spread their message quickly and efficiently. In some cases, it isn't sure that name-calling and shaming is the most effective strategy. Globalization is a big factor in sweatshops within the firm. These lead firms depend on structural and cultural position. In which many are targeting the leading globalizer and lawmakers. A solution, that is offered is to combine structural and cultural values, to be embedded into policy. The anti-sweatshop activism states how firms lack structural power and cultural vulnerability. For example, in May 2017 Mama Cash and The Clean Clothes Campaign, both organizations that are working towards abolishing sweatshops as well as creating a world of sustainable and ethical apparel practices, worked together to create The Women Power Fashion Pop-up. The event took place in Amsterdam and allowed consumers to sit in a room designed to look and feel like a sweatshop and were forced to create 100 ties in an hour which is synonymous to that of the expectations of women working in sweatshops today. This pop-up allowed consumers to actually experience the life of a sweatshop worker for a limited time and thus made them more sympathetic to the cause. Outside of the pop-up was a petition that consumers could sign to convince brands to be more transparent with their clothing manufacturing processes. The campaign went viral and created a significant buzz for the anti-sweatshop movement as well as the work of Mama Cash and The Clean Clothes Campaign. In recent years, the notion of the ethical consumer has risen. Consumers not only are important to modern markets but also influence the decisions made by companies. These consumers make buying decisions based on how the product was made, by whom and under what conditions, as well as the environmental consequences of production and consumption. This set of criteria means that consumption decisions are not only based on one's satisfaction with a purchase but also other aspects such as the environment and the well-being of workers in clothing factories.

Anti-sweatshop organizations

 * Clean Clothes Campaign – an international alliance of labor unions and non-governmental organizations
 * Free the Children – a Canadian organization that helps raise awareness and put a stop to Child Labour – Also helps other children in need
 * Global Exchange – an international human rights organization founded in 1988 dedicated to promoting social, economic and environmental justice
 * Green America – membership organization based in the United States
 * Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights – founded to combat sweatshop labor and US government policy in El Salvador and Central America
 * International Labor Rights Fund
 * International Labour Organization – a specialized agency of the United Nations
 * Maquila Solidarity Network – a Canadian anti-sweatshop network
 * No Sweat (UK)
 * Rugmark – a carpet labeling program and rehabilitation centers for former child laborers in India, Pakistan and Nepal
 * United Students Against Sweatshops – a student organization in the United States and Canada
 * Unite Here – a labor union based in the United States and Canada dedicated to achieving higher standards for laborers
 * Worker Rights Consortium – a labor rights organization focused on protecting the rights of workers who make apparel in the United States
 * Fair Trade USA - an independent, nonprofit organization that sets standards, certifies, and labels products that promote sustainable livelihoods for farmers and workers and protect the environment.
 * microRevolt - an independent, nonprofit organization that addresses the current crisis of global expansion and the feminization of labor
 * Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights - a non-profit located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the United States whose mission is to promote and defend women's and workers' rights across the globe; formally known as the National Labor Committee

In Asia

 * China Labour Bulletin – reports on labor concerns in China
 * Hong Kong Christian Industrial Committee – empowers workers, acts as a policy watch-dog, and promotes independent trade union movements

Sweatshop-free
Sweatshop-free is a term the fashion brand American Apparel created to mean coercion-free, fair compensation for garment workers who make their products. American Apparel claims its employees earn on average double the federal minimum wage. They receive some employee benefits, from health insurance to subsidized transportation and meals, and have access to an onsite medical clinic. It has been heavily featured in the company's advertisements for nearly a decade and has become a common term in the garment industry.

Criticisms
More recently, the anti-globalization movement has arisen in opposition to corporate globalization, the process by which multinational corporations move their operations overseas to lower costs and increase profits. The anti-sweatshop movement has much in common with the anti-globalization movement. Both consider sweatshops harmful, and both have accused many companies (such as the Walt Disney Company, The Gap, and Nike) of using sweatshops. Some in these movements charge that neoliberal globalization is similar to the sweating system, arguing that there tends to be a "race to the bottom" as multinationals leap from one low-wage country to another searching for lower production costs, in the same way that sweaters would have steered production to the lowest cost sub-contractor. Various groups support or embody the anti-sweatshop movement today. The National Labor Committee brought sweatshops into the mainstream media in the 1990s when it exposed the use of sweatshop and child labor to sew clothing for Kathie Lee Gifford's Wal-Mart label. United Students Against Sweatshops is active on college campuses. The International Labor Rights Fund filed a lawsuit on behalf of workers in China, Nicaragua, Swaziland, Indonesia, and Bangladesh against Wal-Mart charging the company with knowingly developing purchasing policies particularly relating to price and delivery time that are impossible to meet while following the Wal-Mart code of conduct. Labor unions, such as the AFL–CIO, have helped support the anti-sweatshop movement out of concern both for the welfare of workers in the developing world and those in the United States.

Social critics complain that sweatshop workers often do not earn enough money to buy the products that they make, even though such items are often commonplace goods such as T-shirts, shoes, and toys. In 2003, Honduran garment factory workers were paid US$0.24 for each $50 Sean John sweatshirt, $0.15 for each long-sleeved T-shirt, and only five cents for each short-sleeved shirt – less than one-half of one percent of the retail price. Even comparing international costs of living, the $0.15 that a Honduran worker earned for the long-sleeved T-shirt was equal in purchasing power to $0.50 in the United States. In countries where labor costs are low, bras that cost US$5–7 apiece retail for US$50 or more in American stores. , female garment workers in India earned about US$2.20 per day.

Anti-globalization proponents cite high savings, increased capital investment in developing nations, diversification of their exports and their status as trade ports as the reason for their economic success rather than sweatshops  and cite the numerous cases in the East Asian "Tiger Economies" where sweatshops have reduced living standards and wages. They believe that better-paying jobs, increased capital investment and domestic ownership of resources will improve the economies of sub-Saharan Africa rather than sweatshops. They point to good labor standards developing strong manufacturing export sectors in wealthier sub-Saharan countries such as Mauritius.

Anti-globalization organizations argue that the minor gains made by employees of some of these institutions are outweighed by the negative costs such as lowered wages to increase profit margins and that the institutions pay less than the daily expenses of their workers. They also point to the fact that sometimes local jobs offered higher wages before trade liberalization provided tax incentives to allow sweatshops to replace former local unionized jobs. They further contend that sweatshop jobs are not necessarily inevitable. Éric Toussaint claims that quality of life in developing countries was actually higher between 1945 and 1980 before the international debt crisis of 1982 harmed economies in developing countries causing them to turn to IMF and World Bank-organized "structural adjustments" and that unionized jobs pay more than sweatshop ones overall – "several studies of workers producing for US firms in Mexico are instructive: workers at the Aluminum Company of America's Ciudad Acuna plant earn between $21.44 and $24.60 per week, but a weekly basket of basic food items costs $26.87. Mexican GM workers earn enough to buy a pound of apples in 30 minutes of work, while GM workers in the US earn as much in 5 minutes." People critical of sweatshops believe that "free trade agreements" do not truly promote free trade at all but instead seek to protect multinational corporations from competition by local industries (which are sometimes unionized). They believe free trade should only involve reducing tariffs and barriers to entry and that multinational businesses should operate within the laws in the countries they want to do business in rather than seeking immunity from obeying local environmental and labor laws. They believe these conditions are what give rise to sweatshops rather than natural industrialization or economic progression.

In some countries, such as China, it is not uncommon for these institutions to withhold workers' pay. "According to labor organizations in Hong Kong, up to $365 million is withheld by managers who restrict pay in exchange for some service, or don't pay at all."

Furthermore, anti-globalization proponents argue that those in the West who defend sweatshops show double standards by complaining about sweatshop labor conditions in countries considered enemies or hostile by Western governments, while still gladly consuming their exports but complaining about the quality. They contend that multinational jobs should be expected to operate according to international labor and environmental laws and minimum wage standards like businesses in the West do.

Labor historian Erik Loomis claims that the conditions faced by workers in the United States in the Gilded Age have been replicated in developing countries where Western corporations utilize sweatshop labor. In particular, he compares the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911 New York to the collapse of Rana Plaza in 2013 Bangladesh. He argues that the former galvanized the population to political activism that eventually pushed through reforms not only pertaining to workplace safety, but also the minimum wage, the eight-hour day, workers' compensation, Social Security the Clean Air Act, and the Clean Water Act. American corporations responded by shifting production to developing nations where such protections did not exist. Loomis elaborates:

"So in 2013, when over 1100 workers die at Rana Plaza in Bangladesh, it is the same industry as the Triangle Fire, with the same subcontracted system of production that allows apparel companies to avoid responsibility for work as the Triangle Fire, and with the same workforce of young and poor women, the same type of cruel bosses, and the same terrible workplace safety standards as the Triangle Fire. The difference is that most of us can't even find Bangladesh on a map, not to mention know enough about it to express the type of outrage our ancestors did after Triangle. This separation of production from consumption is an intentional move by corporations precisely to avoid being held responsible by consumers for their actions. And it is very effective."

Support
In 1997, economist Jeffrey Sachs said, "My concern is not that there are too many sweatshops, but that there are too few." Sachs and other proponents of free trade and the global movement of capital cite the economic theory of comparative advantage, which states that international trade will, in the long run, make all parties better off. The theory holds that developing countries improve their condition by doing something that they do "better" than industrialized nations (in this case, they charge less but do the same work). Developed countries will also be better off because their workers can shift to jobs that they do better. These are jobs that some economists say usually entail a level of education and training that is exceptionally difficult to obtain in the developing world. Thus, economists like Sachs say, developing countries get factories and jobs that they would not otherwise. Some would say with this situation occurs when developing countries try to increase wages because sweatshops tend to just get moved on to a new state that is more welcoming. This leads to a situation where states often don't try to increase wages for sweatshop workers for fear of losing investment and boosted GDP. However, this only means average wages around the world will increase at a steady rate. A nation only gets left behind if it demands wages higher than the current market price for that labor.

When asked about the working condition in sweatshops, proponents say that although wages and working conditions may appear inferior by the standards of developed nations, they are actually improvements over what the people in developing countries had before. It is said that if jobs in such factories did not improve their workers' standard of living, those workers would not have taken the jobs when they appeared. It is also often pointed out that, unlike in the industrialized world, the sweatshops are not replacing high-paying jobs. Rather, sweatshops offer an improvement over subsistence farming and other back-breaking tasks, or even prostitution, trash picking, or starvation by unemployment.

Sweatshops can mentally and physically affect the workers who work there due to unacceptable conditions which include working long hours. Despite the hardships, sweatshops were a source of income for their workers. The absence of the work opportunities provided by sweatshops can quickly lead to malnourishment or starvation. After the Child Labor Deterrence Act was introduced in the US, an estimated 50,000 children were dismissed from their garment industry jobs in Asia, leaving many to resort to jobs such as "stone-crushing, street hustling, and prostitution". UNICEF's 1997 State of the World's Children study found these alternative jobs "more hazardous and exploitative than garment production". As Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman states in a 1997 article for Slate, "as manufacturing grows in poor countries, it creates a ripple effect that benefits ordinary people: 'The pressure on the land becomes less intense, so rural wages rise; the pool of unemployed urban dwellers always anxious for work shrinks, so factories start to compete with each other for workers, and urban wages also begin to rise.' In time average wages creep up to a level comparable to minimum-wage jobs in the United States."

Writer Johan Norberg, a proponent of market economics, points out an irony: "[Sweatshop critics] say that we shouldn't buy from countries like Vietnam because of its labor standards, they've got it all wrong. They're saying: "Look, you are too poor to trade with us. And that means that we won't trade with you. We won't buy your goods until you're as rich as we are." That's totally backwards. These countries won't get rich without being able to export goods."

Heavy-handed responses to reports of child labor and worker rights abuses such as widespread boycotts can be counterproductive if the net effect is simply to eliminate contracts with suppliers rather than to reform their employment practices. A 2005 article in the Christian Science Monitor states, "For example, in Honduras, the site of the infamous Kathy Lee Gifford sweatshop scandal, the average apparel worker earns $13.10 per day, yet 44 percent of the country's population lives on less than $2 per day... In Cambodia, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Honduras, the average wage paid by a firm accused of being a sweatshop is more than double the average income in that country's economy." On three documented occasions during the 1990s, anti-sweatshop activists in rich countries have apparently caused increases in child prostitution in poor countries. In Bangladesh, the closure of several sweatshops run by a German company put Bangladeshi children out of work, and some ended up working as prostitutes, turning to crime, or starving to death. In Pakistan, several sweatshops closed, including ones run by Nike, Reebok, and other corporations—which caused some of those Pakistani children to turn to prostitution. In Nepal, a carpet manufacturing company closed several sweatshops, resulting in thousands of Nepalese girls turning to prostitution.

A 1996 study of corporate codes of conduct in the apparel industry by the U.S. Department of Labor has concluded that corporate codes of conduct that monitor labor norms in the apparel industry, rather than boycott or eliminate contracts upon the discovery of violations of internationally recognized labor norms, are a more effective way to eliminate child labor and the exploitation of children, provided they provide for effective monitoring that includes the participation of workers and their knowledge of the standards to which their employers are subject.

Arguably, the United States underwent a similar process during its own industrialization where child labor and the suppression of worker organizations were prevalent. According to an article in Gale Opposing Viewpoints in Context, sweatshops became prevalent in the United States during the Industrial Revolution. Although the working conditions and wages in these factories were very poor, as new jobs in factories began to appear, people left the hard life of farming to work in these factories, and the agricultural nature of the economy shifted into a manufacturing one because of this industrialization. However, during this new industrialized economy, the labor movement drove the rise in the average level of income as factory workers began to demand better wages and working conditions. Through much struggle, sufficient wealth was created and a large middle class began to emerge. Workers and advocates were able to achieve basic rights for workers, which included the right to form unions, and negotiate terms such as wages, overtime pay, health insurance, and retirement pensions; and eventually they were also able to attain legal protections such as minimum wage standards, and discrimination and sexual abuse protections. Furthermore, Congress set forth to ensure a minimum set of safety standards were followed in workplaces by passing the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) in 1970. These developments were able to improve working environments for Americans but it was through sweatshops that the economy grew and people were able to accumulate wealth and move out of poverty.

In contrast, similar efforts in developing nations have not produced the same results, because of corruption and lack of democracy in communist nations such as China and Vietnam, worker intimidation and murder in Latin America—and corruption throughout the developing world. These barriers prevent creation of similar legal protections for workers in these countries, as numerous studies by the International Labour Organization show. Nonetheless, a boycott approach to protesting these conditions is likely to hurt workers willing to accept employment even under poor working conditions, as a loss of employment would result in a comparatively worse level of poverty. According to a November 2001 BBC article, in the previous two months, 100,000 sweatshop workers in Bangladesh had been put off work. The workers petitioned their government to lobby the U.S. government to repeal its trade barriers on their behalf to retain their jobs.

Defenders of sweatshops cite Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan as recent examples of countries that benefited from having sweatshops.

In these countries, legislative and regulatory frameworks to protect and promote labor rights and the rights of workers against unsafe and exploitative working conditions exist, and studies have shown no systematic relationship between labor rights, such as collective bargaining and the freedom of association, and national economic growth.

A major issue for the anti-sweatshop movement is the fate of workers displaced by the closing of sweatshops. Even after escaping the sweatshop industry the workers need a job to sustain themselves and their families. For example, in Bangladesh, a country in which has one of the lowest minimum wages in the world, of $68 per month, the Rana Plaza a known sweatshop that hosted garment factories for retailers such as Primark, JC Penney, Joe Fresh and Benetton, collapsed as it was visibly not structurally sound. After the incident many of the workers were displaced as not only did the Rana Plaza close down but the government also called for safety checks of many factories that were then shut down as a result of not being up to code. Although this may seem like a positive consequence many of those workers were then unable to get jobs and support their families. The garment industry in Bangladesh is worth $28 billion.

title: Sweatshop


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Den Helder

Den Helder is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. Den Helder occupies the northernmost point of the North Holland peninsula. It is home to the country's main naval base. From here the Royal TESO ferryboat service operates the transportation link between Den Helder and the nearby Dutch Wadden island of Texel to the north.

Etymology
Before the year 1928 the official name of Den Helder was Helder. The origin of the name Helder is not entirely clear. The name Helder may have come from Helle/Helde, which means "hill" or "hilly grounds", or from Helre, which means a sandy ridge. Another explanation is that the name derived from Helsdeur (Hell's Door), likely because in the water between Den Helder and Texel (called Marsdiep) the current was so strong that many ships were lost.

History
Huisduinen was the original older part of the city, whereas Helder itself was a nearby smaller hamlet. When a harbour was built near Helder the village began to grow and later became the seat of governance instead of Huisduinen. Due to its strategic location at the tip of the North Holland peninsula, multiple fortifications were built in the area.

Den Helder has played an important part in Dutch shipping. During the Dutch Golden Age, ships would be assembled near Den Helder and sail the world's oceans from there.

On 23January 1795, the French captured 14 Dutch ships and 850 guns in the town's deep-frozen harbour. In 1799 the city was the target of the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland.

During the 1820s, the North Holland Canal was dug from Amsterdam to Den Helder. The lighthouse Lange Jaap was built in 1877 and is the tallest cast-iron lighthouse in Europe, at 63.45 m. In the Second World War most of the city was evacuated and the old city center was destroyed.

Climate
Den Helder is on the tip of a lowland peninsula jutting out into the North Sea Because of this, Den Helder's climate is heavily moderated by the maritime environment. Also, Den Helder is one of the sunniest cities in the Netherlands.

Population centres
The municipality of Den Helder consists of the following cities, towns, villages and/or districts: Den Helder, Huisduinen, Julianadorp, and the hamlets Friese Buurt and De Kooy.

The major areas of Den Helder are the Stad binnen de Linie (city within the city's defence line), Nieuw-Den Helder, and De Schooten. Nieuw-Den Helder was built in the 1950s, following World War II, when there was a great need for additional housing. De Schooten was constructed in the 1960s.

Topography

Dutch Topographic map of Den Helder (town), March 2014.

Naval base and fortifications
Den Helder was the site of a naval base as early as the 18th century. An Anglo-Russian invasion force landed at Den Helder in August 1799 and captured the Batavian navy there (see Battle of Castricum). French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, visiting Den Helder in 1811, was impressed with the town's strategic location and ordered the construction of a fort (Kijkduin) and naval dockyards (Willemsoord). The docks were built during the years 1813–1827. In 1947, it officially became the Royal Netherlands Navy's main centre of operations. Den Helder continues to be the navy's main base today. The Royal Netherlands Naval College is also located in the city, as is the Dutch Navy Museum.

The old naval dockyards of Willemsoord, located in the north of the city, now house restaurants, a cinema, and other recreational facilities. The naval docks and administration have been moved to a new location further east.

The Fortifications of Den Helder, which protected the naval base and the entrance to the Noordhollandsch Kanaal significantly altered the landscape around Den Helder. A number of the old fortresses have now been repurposed for tourism and related industries and can be visited.

Transport
The town is served by two railway stations:

 * Den Helder
 * Den Helder Zuid (South Den Helder)

Den Helder can be reached by these main roads:
 * N9
 * N99
 * N250
 * N502

These roads all have only two lanes. There is no highway leading to Den Helder.

Local government
The municipal council of Den Helder consists of 31 seats, which are divided as follows as of the 2022 elections:

 * Behoorlijk Bestuur – 7 seats
 * Beter voor Den Helder – 4 seats
 * VVD – 3 seats
 * CDA – 3 seats
 * D66 – 2 seats
 * GroenLinks – 2 seats
 * PVV – 2 seats
 * Stadspartij Den Helder – 2 seats
 * Seniorenpartij – 2 seats
 * PvdA – 2 seats
 * ChristenUnie – 1 seat
 * Samen Actief Sr – 1 seat

Public thinking & public service

 * Frans van Anraat (born 1942), businessman, sold raw materials to produce chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein
 * Marleen Barth (born 1964), politician, trade union leader and journalist
 * Petrus Johannes Blok (1855–1929) a Dutch historian
 * Edward W. Bok (1863-1930), Dutch-American editor, Pulitzer Prize winner
 * Esther Welmoet Wijnaendts Francken-Dyserinck (1876-1956) a journalist, feminist and cofounder of Dutch Girl Guiding
 * Cornelis Giles (1675-1722), a navigator and cartographer
 * Rijkman Groenink (born 1949), banker, CEO of ABN-Amro
 * Gerard 't Hooft (born 1946), physicist and academic, shared the 1999 Nobel Prize in Physics
 * William Lonsdale (1799-1864), soldier, colonialist, helped found Melbourne, Australia
 * Theo de Meester (1851–1919) politician, Prime Minister of the Netherlands 1905 to 1908
 * Ed Nijpels (born 1950), former minister of Housing (1986–1989) and former mayor of Breda
 * Dorus Rijkers (1847-1928), lifeboat captain and folk hero
 * Paul Rosenmöller (born 1956), a TV presenter and former politician and trade unionist
 * René Schoof (born 1955), mathematician and academic in Rome
 * Aletta Stas-Bax (born 1965) an entrepreneur in Swiss watches and an author

The arts

 * IJf Blokker (born 1930) a Dutch musician, TV actor and presenter
 * Gré Brouwenstijn (1915-1999), opera singer
 * Benjamin Feliksdal (born 1940) a Dutch ballet dancer
 * Dick Ket (1902–1940) a Dutch magic realist painter of still lifes and self-portraits
 * Hanco Kolk (born 1957) a Dutch cartoonist and comics artist
 * Anton Pieck (1895-1987), painter and graphic artist
 * Milly Scott (born 1933) a Dutch singer and actress of Surinamese origin
 * Quintino (born 1985) a Dutch DJ

Sport

 * Jorina Baars (born 1988) a Dutch female kickboxing Thai fighter
 * Edith Bosch (born 1980), Judo world champion and Olympic silver and bronze medalist
 * Anthonij Guépin (1897–1964) a sailor and bronze medallist at the 1924 Summer Olympics
 * Erwin Koen (born 1978) a Dutch former footballer with over 300 club caps
 * Elien Meijer (born 1970) a retired rower, team silver medallist at the 2000 Summer Olympics
 * Swen Nater (born 1950), basketball player
 * Martine Ohr (born 1964), field hockey striker, gold medallist at the 1984 Summer Olympics
 * Chima Onyeike (born 1975), Dutch football coach and former professional player, fitness coach for VfB Stuttgart
 * Hans Smits (born 1956), water polo player, bronze medallist at the 1976 Summer Olympics
 * Mark de Vries (born 1975), Dutch footballer with 370 club caps, plays for ONS Boso Sneek.
 * Sieme Zijm (born 1978) a former Dutch footballer with over 300 club caps

In popular culture
The Frank Boeijen Groep song Haast (rust roest) contains the line " 's avonds in Den Helder". (English- In the evening in Den Helder) The Rob de Nijs song Jan Klaassen de Trompetter contains the line "hij marcheerde van Den Helder tot Den Briel". (English- He marched from Den Helder to Den Briel).

title: Den Helder


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Four on the Floor (Canadian TV series)

Four on the Floor is a sketch comedy series which aired on CBC Television in 1986. Consisting of only 13 episodes, the series was a showcase for The Frantics, a comedy troupe consisting of Paul Chato, Rick Green, Dan Redican and Peter Wildman. In the U.K., it aired in Channel 4's traditional Friday night comedy slot, from 10 June to 2 September 1988.

The introduction was voiced by Dan and Rick alternating each line, with video clips and sound effects interspersed in the opening.

Although the series was quickly cancelled due to CBC budget constraints, it was an important influence on later Canadian sketch comedy, such as The Kids in the Hall.

Character
The show's most famous character was Mr. Canoehead, a quintessentially Canadian superhero: on a canoeing trip in Algonquin Park, he was hit by lightning while portaging his aluminum canoe, which became permanently welded to his head. As a crime fighter, he would capture criminals by turning around so that the canoe knocked them over.

title: Four on the Floor (Canadian TV series)


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Murray-Sunset National Park

The Murray-Sunset National Park is the second largest national park in Victoria, Australia, located in the Mallee district in the northwestern corner of the state, bordering South Australia. The 633000 ha national park is situated approximately 440 km northwest of Melbourne and was proclaimed in 1991. It is in the northwestern corner of the state, bordering South Australia to the west and the Murray River to the north. The Sturt Highway passes through the northern part of the park, but most of the park is in the remote area between the Sturt Highway and the Mallee Highway, west of the Calder Highway.

History
The park was created in 1991, and expanded to encompass Pink Lakes State Park in 1999. The lakes are dubbed "pink" after the beta-carotene pigment that colours it in late summer, caused by the algae Dunaliella salina. This area was the site of a major salt industry from 1916 to 1975. At its peak, ten thousand tons of salt was harvested and railed from Lake Crosbie, Lake Becking and Lake Kenyon to the nearby town of Linga. For management purposes, the Murray-Sunset National Park is managed with the Hattah-Kulkyne National Park, Wyperfeld National Park, Lake Albacutya Park and Murray-Kulkyne Park as part of the Victorian Mallee Parks.

Another defunct railway, the Nowingi line, terminates at the remains of a gypsum mine hopper on the Raak Plain. Other historical relics include Shearer's Quarters and Mopoke Hut, built as grazier accommodation in the 1960s.

Flora and fauna
Over 600 species of plants have been recorded, and 300 species of birds. Notable plants include Murray lily, silvery emu-bush, saltbush, buloke, porcupine grass, blue-leaved mallee and other mallee eucalypts. In spring, wildflowers include spider orchids, azure sun orchids, desert heath-myrtles and poached-egg daisies.

Emus, wedge-tailed eagles, and both western grey and red kangaroos are present.

Important Bird Area
Most of the park lies within the Murray-Sunset, Hattah and Annuello Important Bird Area (IBA), so identified by BirdLife International because it contains mallee habitat supporting a suite of threatened mallee bird species, including the malleefowl, black-eared miner and mallee emu-wren.

Attractions
The park is attractive to bushwalkers as the nearest semi-arid region to Melbourne. Walks include circuits of Lake Crosbie and Lake Kenyon, and the three-day Sunset walking track. Groundwater is scarce, and hikers generally rely on water tanks maintained by rangers.

The Pink Lakes are medium-sized salt lakes. In late summer a red pigment, carotene, is secreted from the alga Dunaliella salina and gives a distinct pink colour to the lakes.

title: Murray-Sunset National Park


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Great Otway National Park

The Great Otway National Park is a national park located in the Barwon South West region of Victoria, Australia. The 103185 ha national park is situated approximately 162 km southwest of Melbourne, in the Otway Ranges, a low coastal mountain range. It contains a diverse range of landscapes and vegetation types.

History
Commercial logging began in the Otway Ranges in the 1880s. After World War One, with improvements to the roads and railways, logging increased massively, peaking in 1961, almost entirely stripping the Otway Ranges of its old-growth forest and causing land degradation issues, but has since been greatly reduced. The forest standing today highlights the lengthy period needed to regrow the giant trees of the past and to reproduce the ecological complexity nearing that of the original wild forest. Historically, several bushfires have burnt through the park's predecessor reserves, shaping its ecology and plant and animal diversity. The last major fire was part of the Ash Wednesday bushfires that swept southeastern Australia in 1983.

The park was declared in 2004 when Otway National Park, Angahook-Lorne State Park, Carlisle State Park, Melba Gully State Park, areas of the Otway State Forest and a number of Crown Land reserves were combined into one park. The parks were combined after a campaign by the local community and the Otway Ranges Environment Network and was officially gazetted on 11 December 2005.

Features
The Great Otway National Park is popular with Victorian, interstate, and international tourists, with a number of companies operating tours in the region. It contains three camping areas at Johanna, Aire River and Blanket Bay. The park is accessed from the east via Apollo Bay, from the north via Forrest or Beech Forest, or from the west via Princetown. The park covers both coastline and hinterland in the Otway Ranges and so includes both beaches and forest, accessible via walking trails. The park and the Aire River campground are home to a significant koala population. The Cape Otway Lighthouse is adjacent to the park and is open to tourists throughout the week. Migrating whales and dolphins such as southern right and southern humpback, and bottlenose dolphins can be observed from the coasts.

Glow worms (Arachnocampa otwayensis), which are the bioluminescent larvae of small flies known as fungus gnats, can be seen at night along the stream banks and walking tracks, particularly at Angahook-Lorne State Park, Beauchamp Falls, Hopetoun Falls, Stevenson Falls and Melba Gully State Park.

Important Bird Area
The park has been identified by BirdLife International as an Important Bird Area (IBA) because it supports populations of rufous bristlebirds, striated fieldwrens and pink robins, as well as numerous other species.

Climate
The area has a very wet temperate oceanic climate

Climate data for the Otway Ranges are sourced from Weeaproinah, at an elevation of 492 m; operating between 1965 and 2012. The Otway Ranges feature a cold rainforest climate with extreme winter rainfall, which owes to the westerly exposure year-round. Heavy, wet snowfalls occur on the higher peaks each year, such as Mount Cowley at 670 m; snow can also fall nearer to sea level on rare occasions. It has the greatest amount of precipitation days in mainland Australia (219), narrowly beating out Mount William's 215 days; although the latter site only has seventeen years of record.

Fungi
The Great Otway National Park is extremely rich in fungal diversity. Although hundreds of species of flora and fauna are listed in the Great Otway National Park Management Plan, there is only a single reference to fungi. The reference is to the fungal pathogen, Chalara australis that affects myrtle beech. However, the great majority of fungi in the Park perform beneficial ecological roles. In fact, most fungi perform positive rather than negative roles. Even parasitic fungi – often regarded only negatively – are a vital part of healthy ecosystems, regulating ecosystem functions.

As primary recyclers of organic matter, saprobic fungi break down fallen branches and leaf litter, making vital nutrients available to other organisms. Other fungi form symbiotic relationships with other organisms. Although rarely acknowledged, the great majority of plants in the Great Otway National Park (indeed in the world) form mutually beneficial mycorrhizal relationships with fungi.

Given the great diversity of plants, specialist habitats and micro-climates in the park, a great diversity of fungi, including lichens, is also expected to occur there. Two hundred and seventy-eight species of fungi are listed in the Atlas of Living Australia. This is likely to be only a fraction of the total number of fungal species that grow in the Park.

Despite their essential roles in underpinning terrestrial ecosystems, fungi are barely recognised as a vital part of Australia's biodiversity. Although Australia has national and state level biodiversity conservation strategies and has ratified international conventions, most overlook fungi. There is currently no statewide biodiversity strategy for managing biodiversity in Victoria and the Colac Otway Shire Environment Strategy makes no reference to fungi. There is however, a great deal of interest in fungi among the local community. The Southern Otways Landcare Network have been actively involved in learning about and surveying the Park's fungi in recent years and produced a guide to one hundred of the more easily recognisable fungal species found in the park.

The Australian citizen-science organisation, Fungimap is also documenting and mapping the distribution of fungi including those that occur in the Great Otway National Park.

One of the tiniest yet conspicuous species found in the wetter parts of the park is the ruby bonnet (Mycena viscidocruenta). The ghost fungus (Omphalotus nidiformis) grows on trees and is another easily recognisable species, especially at night when it glows a pale green. The rosette fungus (Podoscypha petalodes) often appears in funnel-shaped rosettes at the base of trees and among leaf litter and is widespread throughout the park. The flame fungus (Clavaria miniata) grows singly or in groups on soil.

title: Great Otway National Park