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Black propaganda

Black propaganda is a form of propaganda intended to create the impression that it was created by those it is supposed to discredit. Black propaganda contrasts with gray propaganda, which does not identify its source, as well as white propaganda, which does not disguise its origins at all. It is typically used to vilify or embarrass the enemy through misrepresentation.

The major characteristic of black propaganda is that the audience are not aware that someone is influencing them, and do not feel that they are being pushed in a certain direction. Black propaganda purports to emanate from a source other than the true source. This type of propaganda is associated with covert psychological operations. Sometimes the source is concealed or credited to a false authority and spreads lies, fabrications, and deceptions. Black propaganda is the "big lie", including all types of creative deceit. Black propaganda relies on the willingness of the receiver to accept the credibility of the source. If the creators or senders of the black propaganda message do not adequately understand their intended audience, the message may be misunderstood, seem suspect, or fail altogether.

Governments conduct black propaganda for a few reasons. By disguising their direct involvement, a government may be more likely to succeed in convincing an otherwise unbelieving target audience. There are also diplomatic reasons behind the use of black propaganda. Black propaganda is necessary to obfuscate a government's involvement in activities that may be detrimental to its foreign policies.

In the American Revolution
Benjamin Franklin created and circulated a fake supplement to a Boston newspaper that included letters on Indian atrocities and the treatment of American prisoners.

British

In the United Kingdom, the Political Warfare Executive operated a number of black propaganda radio stations. Gustav Siegfried Eins (GS1) was one of the first such stations—purporting to be a clandestine German station. The speaker, "Der Chef", purported to be a Nazi extremist, accusing Adolf Hitler and his henchmen of going soft. The station focused on alleged corruption and sexual improprieties of Nazi Party members.

Another example was the British radio station Soldatensender Calais, which purported to be a radio station for the Wehrmacht. Under the direction of Sefton Delmer, a British journalist who spoke perfect Berliner German, Soldatensender Calais and its associated shortwave station, , broadcast music, up-to-date sports scores, speeches of Adolf Hitler for "cover" and subtle propaganda.

Radio Deutschland was another radio station employed by the British during the war aimed and designed to undermine German morale and create tensions that would ultimately disrupt the German war effort. The station was broadcast on a frequency close on the radio dial to an actual German station. During the war most Germans actually believed that this station was in fact a German radio station and it even gained the recognition of Germany's propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels.

There were British black propaganda radio stations in most of the languages of occupied Europe as well as German and Italian. Most of these were based in the area around Bletchley Park and Woburn Abbey in Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire respectively.

Another possible example was a rumour that there had been a German attempt to land on British shores at Shingle Street, but it had been repelled with high German casualties. This was reported in the American press, and in William L. Shirer's Berlin Diary but was officially denied. British papers, declassified in 1993, have suggested this was a successful example of British black propaganda to bolster morale in the UK, US and occupied Europe.

Author James Hayward has proposed that the rumours, which were widely reported in the American press, were a successfully engineered example of black propaganda with an aim of ensuring American co-operation and securing lend lease resources by showing that the United Kingdom was capable of successfully resisting the might of the German Army.

David Hare's play Licking Hitler provides a fictionalised account based on the British black propaganda efforts in World War II.

German
German black propaganda usually took advantage of European racism and anti-Communism. For example, on the night of April 27, 1944, German aircraft under cover of darkness (and possibly carrying fake Royal Air Force markings) dropped propaganda leaflets on occupied Denmark. These leaflets used the title of Frihedsposten, a genuine Danish underground newspaper, and claimed that the "hour of liberation" was approaching. They instructed Danes to accept "occupation by Russian or specially trained American Negro soldiers" until the first disorders resulting from military operations were over.

The German Büro Concordia organisation operated several black propaganda radio stations (many of which pretended to broadcast illegally from within the countries they targeted). One of these stations was Workers' Challenge which purported to be a British communist radio station and encouraged British workers to go on strike against their "capitalist" bosses.

Pacific Theatre
The Tanaka Memorial was a document that described a Japanese plan for world conquest, beginning with the conquest of China. It was widely referenced in official American anti-Japanese propaganda (such as The Battle of China and Know Your Enemy: Japan), but most historians now believe it was a forgery.

The following message was distributed in black propaganda leaflets dropped by the Japanese over the Philippines in World War II. It was designed to turn Filipinos against the United States:

"GUARD AGAINST VENEREAL DISEASES

Lately there has been a great increase in the number of venereal diseases among our officers and men owing to prolific contacts with Filipino women of dubious character.

Due to hard times and stricken conditions brought about by the Japanese occupation of the islands, Filipino women are willing to offer themselves for a small amount of foodstuffs. It is advisable in such cases to take full protective measures by use of condoms, protective medicines, etc.; better still to hold intercourse only with wives, virgins, or women of respective [sic] character.

Furthermore, in view of the increase in pro-American leanings, many Filipino women are more than willing to offer themselves to American soldiers, and due to the fact that Filipinos have no knowledge of hygiene, disease carriers are rampant and due care must be taken."

Soviet Union
Prior to, and during the Cold War, the Soviet Union used disinformation on multiple occasions, employing the KGB's Service A of the First Chief Directorate in order to conduct its covert, or "black", "active measures". It was Service A that was responsible for clandestine campaigns that were targeted at foreign governments, public populations, as well as to influence individuals and specific groups that were hostile towards the Soviet government and its policies. The majority of their operations was actually conducted by other elements and directorates of the KGB.

United Kingdom
Declassified documents have revealed that the British government ran a secret black propaganda campaign for decades, targeting Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia with leaflets and reports from fake sources aimed at destabilising cold war enemies by encouraging racial tensions, sowing chaos, inciting violence and reinforcing anti-communist ideas.

Indonesia
One of the British campaigns played a part in the Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66, one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century. This tragedy was fuelled by black information written by British operatives based in Singapore. Exploiting a failed coup attempt by a palace guard, these operatives falsely blamed the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and the ethnic Chinese. Despite no evidence linking the PKI to the coup, they posed as exiled Indonesian patriots and incited violence by accusing them of involvement and called for their "elimination". Subsequently, mass killings targeting Indonesian people, PKI members, and followers of Sukarno ensued, resulting in an estimated death toll of at least 500,000.

United States
Following the September 11 attacks against the United States, the U.S. Department of Defense organized and implemented the Office of Strategic Influence in an effort to improve public support abroad, mainly in Muslim countries. The head of OSI was USAF General Pete Worden, who maintained a mission described by The New York Times as "circulating classified proposals calling for aggressive campaigns that use[d] not only the foreign media and the Internet, but also covert operations". Worden and then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld planned for what Pentagon officials said was "a broad mission ranging from 'black' campaigns that use[d] disinformation and other covert activities to 'white' public affairs that rely on truthful news releases". The OSI's operations were more than public relations work in that they included contacting and emailing media, journalists, and foreign community leaders with information which would counter foreign governments and organizations hostile to the United States. In doing so, the emails would be masked by using addresses ending with .com as opposed to using the standard Pentagon address of .mil, and hide any involvement of the US government and the Pentagon. The thought of conducting black propaganda operations and utilizing disinformation resulted in harsh criticism for the program that resulted in its closure in 2002.

Australian media

 * In the run-up to the 2007 federal election in Australia, flyers were circulated around Sydney under the name of a fake organisation called the Islamic Australia Federation. The flyers thanked the Australian Labor Party for supporting terrorism, Islamic fundamentalists, and the Bali bombing suspects. A group of Sydney-based Liberal Party members were implicated in the incident.

British media

 * In November 1995, a Sunday Telegraph newspaper article alleged Libya's Saif al-Islam Gaddafi (Muammar Gaddafi's son) was connected to currency counterfeiting. The story's author, Con Coughlin, falsely attributed the claim to a "British banking official", but his information actually came from MI6 agents. This fact, and the fact that Coughlin had no other sources for the story, only came to light when Saif Gaddafi later sued the newspaper for libel. Zinoviev-grigorii.jpg]]
 * The Zinoviev letter was a fake letter published in 1924 in the British newspaper the Daily Mail. It claimed to be a letter from the Comintern president Grigory Zinoviev to the Communist Party of Great Britain. It called on Communists to mobilise "sympathetic forces" in the Labour Party and talked of creating dissent in the British Armed Forces. The Zinoviev letter was instrumental in the Conservative victory in the 1924 general election. The letter seemed authentic at the time, but historians now believe it was a forgery. Historians now agree that the letter had little impact on the Labour vote—which held up in 1924. However, it aided the Conservative Party in hastening the collapse of the Liberal Party that led to the Conservative landslide.

United States media

 * In the "Roorback forgery" of 1844 the Chronicle of Ithaca, New York ran a story, supposedly by a German tourist called Baron von Roorback, that James K. Polk, standing for re-election as a Democrat to the United States House of Representatives, branded his slaves before selling them at auction to distinguish them from the others on sale. Polk actually benefited from the ploy, as it reflected badly on his opponents when the lie was found out. Afterwards the term "Roorback" was coined for political dirty tricks.
 * During the 1972 U.S. presidential election, Donald H. Segretti, a political operative for President Richard Nixon's reelection campaign, released a faked letter, on Senator Edmund Muskie's letterhead, falsely alleging that Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, against whom Muskie was running for the Democratic Party's nomination, had had an illegitimate child with a seventeen-year-old. Muskie, who had been considered the frontrunner, lost the nomination to George McGovern, and Nixon was reelected. The letter was part of a campaign of so-called "dirty tricks", directed by Segretti, and uncovered as part of the Watergate Scandal. Segretti went to prison in 1974 after pleading guilty to three misdemeanor counts of distributing illegal campaign literature. Another of his dirty tricks was the "Canuck letter", although this was libel of Muskie and not a black propaganda piece.

United States Government

 * The Federal Bureau of Investigation's counter-intelligence program COINTELPRO was intended to, according to the FBI, "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities of black nationalists, hate-type organizations and groups, their leadership, membership, and supporters". Black propaganda was used on Communists and the Black Panther Party. It was also used against opposition to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, labor leaders, and Native Americans. The FBI's strategy was captured in a 1968 memo: "Consider the use of cartoons, photographs, and anonymous letters which will have the effect of ridiculing the New Left. Ridicule is one of the most potent weapons which we can use against it."
 * "The Penkovsky Papers" are an example of a black propaganda effort conducted by the United States' Central Intelligence Agency during the 1960s. The "Penkovsky Papers" were alleged to have been written by a Soviet GRU defector, Colonel Oleg Penkovsky, but were in fact produced by the CIA in an effort to diminish the Soviet Union's credibility at a pivotal time during the Cold War.

Religious black propaganda

 * In 1955, the Church of Scientology published the book Brain-Washing, which was allegedly written by the Soviet secret police chief Lavrentiy Beria. In fact, the book describes all of the practices Scientology opposes (brain surgery, psychiatric drugs, psychology, child labor laws, and income tax) as Communist conspiracies directed by Moscow, and it describes the greatest threat to "Communism" as being "The Church of Scientology" (the Catholic Church is barely mentioned as a threat to the Soviet Union, and the Eastern Orthodox Church, the dominant religion of the Soviet Union, is not mentioned at all). Additionally, "Beria" uses precise phrases that L. Ron Hubbard (creator of scientology) has coined, such as "pain-drug hypnosis" and "thinkingness".
 * The Church of Scientology, under the leadership of L. Ron Hubbard, is alleged to have advocated the usage of "black propaganda" to "destroy reputation or public belief in persons, companies or nations" as a practice of "fair game" against suppressive persons. After the author Paulette Cooper wrote The Scandal of Scientology, the Church of Scientology ran a false flag operation that stole stationery from her in order to fabricate bomb threats.

Environmentalist black propaganda

 * The "Let's Go! Shell in the Arctic" website was designed to look like an official website by Royal Dutch Shell, but was in fact a fake produced by Greenpeace.

title: Black propaganda


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1950 British Empire Games

The 1950 British Empire Games was the fourth staging of what is now called the Commonwealth Games. It was held in Auckland, New Zealand between 4 and 11 February 1950, after a 12-year gap from the third edition of the games. A documentary film of the games was made by the New Zealand National Film Unit. The main venue was Eden Park, although the closing ceremonies were held at Western Springs Stadium, see New Zealand at the 1950 British Empire Games. The fourth games were originally awarded to Montreal, Canada and were to be held in 1942 but were cancelled due to World War II.

Participating teams
(Teams participating for the first time in bold).

Games venue
The main stadium was at Eden Park. Other venues were the Auckland Town Hall (boxing and wrestling), the Drill Hall (fencing), Western Springs (cycling and the closing ceremony) Lake Karapiro (rowing), and the Newmarket Olympic Pool (swimming). Accommodation was at the Ardmore Teachers' Training College, 23 mi away at South Auckland. Total attendance was 246,694; higher than the following three Games, 1954 (159,636), 1958 (178,621) and 1962 (224,987).

Medals by country
At the 1950 British Empire Games all the teams won at least one medal.

Rowing
All events were for men only. The events were held at Lake Karapiro, 160 km south of Auckland. Three special trains took 1500 people to Cambridge on 7 February 1950.

Water polo
Water polo was contested by men's teams only, with New Zealand and Australia the only two teams entered. The matches were played at the Olympic Pool in Newmarket.

Weightlifting
All events were for men only.

Wrestling
All events were for men only.

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

title: 1950 British Empire Games


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User talk:MyPasswordIsHELLO

What's the point? Anyone can change the password. -Eloquence 10:29 Feb 3, 2003 (UTC)

 * Well, so? Immediately afterwards, anyone can create a new account named MyPasswordIsYellow.  Besides, wouldn't changing the password on this account (in obvious defiance of the intent of the account) be vandalism of some sort?

 * Yes, but I don't think it does us any good to fill the user database with bogus accounts. Anyone can edit anonymously, creating an account requires three clicks and no email address, and because of the changeable password, a consistent shared user history cannot build up. You may consider changing the password vandalism, but not even sysops can fix it -- only people with admin rights, who have better things to do. If you really want that feature, please subscribe to the wikitech mailing list, and provide a rationale, then we can create an open account with an unchangeable password. --Eloquence 10:44 Feb 3, 2003 (UTC)

 * I guess I have too much time on my hands. I changed Hello's password. -- Uncle Ed

title: User talk:MyPasswordIsHELLO


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Talk:Light-second

The order of magnitude pages is really an excellent idea -- Egil

Dictionary entry
This is a dictionary definition. It should not be an encyclopedia article. It can be defined along with related units of measure in the speed of light article. -Eric talk 12:06, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

The light-year article is the appropriate place to describe the concept of expressing distance in terms of how far light travels in a given time interval, that term being the most widely known one for this approach to distance measurement. Substituting 'year' with other units of time measurement and making a stub on each one is unnecessary clutter. A simple list at the end of the light-year article will suffice. -Eric talk 12:26, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I've merged most of the shorter "light-time" units in here, because the light-second is the one which is actually used in several scientific contexts. Physchim62 (talk) 11:14, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Good idea. Eric talk 14:40, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

nanosecond as a distance
Here's a wierd coincidence,

1 nsec = 300 mm

1 English ft = 305 mm

1 Roman ft = 296 mm

Conclusion: The Roman foot was closer to the nanosecond than the modern English foot for whatever it's worth.

External links modified
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Mars - Earth distance in light-minutes = 4 - 24 minutes.
Light-minute distance from the Earth to the Mars is between around 4 minutes to 24 minutes.

http://blogs.esa.int/mex/2012/08/05/time-delay-between-mars-and-earth/

ESA = European Space Agency.

--ee1518 (talk) 15:25, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

title: Talk:Light-second


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Talk:The Golden Hour (Maiya Williams novel)

Untitled
I'm getting this page started up on the BOOK by this title. I hope others help, I'm a newbie to this Wikipedia thing. Johnny707 21:15, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


text:
Talk:Emergency department

Peer Review
According to the peer review linked above, the article is currently lacking information on the history of the ED (inception, development, etc.) and the media impact on public perception of the ED. Any ideas on these two points? Kerowyn 02:30, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Collaboration to improve article
I have already commenced initial changes to this article. Clearly, it will need a great deal of work before it will be possible to consider it for featured article status. Clearly, a topic of the importance of the emergency department which is critical to preserving the health of so many in our world will require a comprehensive article detailing the different types of ED worldwide. To commence this drive I have started a new category of emergency physician wikipedians. Please come and tell us about EDs in your part of the world and add more detail to the article.--File Éireann 19:14, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I'll try to contribute what I can (exams coming up). I work at a hospital now...but don't have a camera currently for a nice picture of the emergency sign. I"ll probably be most useful for wikification/grammar. --CDN99 05:12, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Regarding ED worldwide, I think the best way to get that information is to search for Wikipedians who are from non-English speaking parts of the world (since that's currently where the article is focused) and who are also nurses, physicians, etc. Kerowyn 02:27, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

If you want a link to stuff about people waiting in the Ed try www.warwick.ac.uk/go/edwaits

Golden hour and trauma center
I have made some comments on the Talk:The Golden Hour page regarding The Golden Hour and how it relates to the emergency room. If anyone is knowledgable in this area then please read and comment. Thank you.

I also think that there is a need to have a seperate entry for trauma center. All trauma centers are emergency rooms but not all emergency rooms are trauma centers. I remember, from my EMT training that there are different levels of trauma centers as well but do not remember them. I also remember that at Denver General (a trauma center that was used as an example in my EMT class and located in Denver, Colorado) that you have something like a 90% survival rate if you still have a pulse after reaching their trauma center from suffering trauma to the heart. In other words: if you were to be stabbed through the heart, something that is almost always fatal, in Denver General's trauma center there would be a 90% chance that they could repair the damage. (My memory of the actual percent comes from a nine year old memory and as such I don't feel comfortable using it in the actual entry.)

I also believe that a trauma center entry should contain the various levels of care that each level of a trauma center is able to provide care for, the needed staff to support that level of trauma center, and the various other hospital services that are required for that care beyond the trauma center. For example: a burn unit is required to further the care that a trauma center starts on a burn victim; a quarantine area is needed to even treat someone infected by a particularly nasty contagious disease like smallpox (as well as a micro-biology lab, flaming air conditionaing exhaust systems (the exhausted air must get hot enough to destroy any possible microbes), etc.), a hazardous materials unit is required to treat exposure to some of the more nasty chemicals (possibly terrorist weapons) as the staff needs to be decontaminated after they treat the patient (hydrofluoric acid is skin soluable and may even permeate latex gloves), etc..

Tres (please email me if you make a comment at class5@pacbell.net)

copied trauma center comments over to Talk:Trauma Center

 * I think the difference lies in that a hospital is designated as a trauma center, and the emergency department is a part of the hospital. But there definately needs to be a section about trauma centers and the difference between them on the ED page. Does anyone have a text source for the defination? Kerowyn 23:42, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
 * After boring through the American College of Surgeons site for longer than should be necessary, I found this PDF document, which gives a quick view in lay terms of the requirements for Level I, II, III, and IV facilities. I think it best, based on personal experience with preparation for an ACS certification visit, to emphasize that ACS certification isn't so much about the ED - it's more about how the ED, the surgical department, and the surgical nursing units all work together and the results they achieve. This particular page doesn't speak directly to the ED requirements; that's going to take some digging through the ACS site. I'm willing to help, but it's definitely going to be a collaborative effort. Take a look at some of the documents on the ACS Trauma page and you'll see what I mean. Thoughts? ddlamb 04:13, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

television
ER (television) links here, should it be linked back? Maybe some fiction where an emergency room figures prominently, like a section ==Emergency rooms in fiction==.

Christopherlin 02:06, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Nomenclature

 * This term did not gain in popularity in the United States until the TV show ER aired, and the heavy marketing of the euphemism "ED" for erectile dysfunction by former Senator/Presidential candidate Bob Dole, as a drug company spokesman.

It seems unclear to me whether "This term" is referring to emergency room or emergency department. Also, it should be made clear that Bob Dole was a spokesman on behalf of Pfizer. This sentence needs a rewrite.

Another issue, is the phrase "the internationally recognized term Emergency Department." Aside from the incorrect capitalization, It should be made clear by which standards body it is so recognized.

--Dforest 12:08, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

I have now offered some justification for the term in the article.--File Éireann 20:33, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Actually, this is the first time I've heard that the term "ED" was losing popularity because of possible confusion with erectile dysfunction. At least in the Boston area, "ED" commonly refers to the emergency department, more so than for erectile dysfunction in fact.  Andrew73 22:16, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
 * As an American RN, I have to agree with Andrew73. All the ED physicians and staff I know, including the professional medical and nursing associations, use 'ED'. It's been that way since I started school back in the day, and nobody's told us to stop. And besides, it's not one room. It's a department that takes up a whole bunch of rooms. :-) ddlamb 04:48, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

I have two things to criticise about the last sentences, or rather, one error that occurs twice:

1) "In some countries, including the United States, Canada and increasingly in countries in Europe, a smaller facility that may provide assistance in medical emergencies is known as a clinic." -- What does "in Europe" mean? The UK and Ireland? Then the article should say so. To say that some facility is known as "clinic" in Denmark, France, or Germany does not make any sense (if the idea is that it is called e.g. "clinique" in France, the article should say so).

2) "The term "urgency" instead of "emergency" is used in some latin american countries." -- Same thing, even if that becomes clear in the next sentence. Latin American countries are not English-speaking countries, and to state that they use "urgency" instead of "emergency" simply does not make sense. (Even if the fact as such may be interesting - etymological relatedness does not make two similar words from two languages the same term. Use the Spanish words!) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.73.184.7 (talk) 09:49, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

 * Historical terminology still exists across the English-speaking world, especially in vernacular usage. The previously accepted formal term 'Accident and Emergency' or 'A&E' is still the accepted term in the United Kingdom[by whom?], Commonwealth countries and the Republic of Ireland, [...]

So the United Kingdom, the Irish and some other use a "previously accepted formal term", that is "vernacular" and "historical terminology"? Also, they "still" accept such a historical term... When will they finally accept the US standard? This sentence sounds condescending toward these countries (and I'm not from there, not even a native English speaker, hence I will not modify the page). Yves Dubugnon 0:39, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Photo
Part of the photo caption reads:
 * Even from a distance, the red-and-white emergency sign is prominent.

I don't think it is prominent at all. IMO, it is barely recognizable as a hospital, especially in the thumbnail. I think we should get a new photo or crop the existing one. Dforest 12:56, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

References, ideas
I think that we need to have references for many of these things which most of us know from experience, including layout, etc. Quick pubmed searches haven't been helpful. If someone has an emergency medicine text or journal which gives some basic stats, that would be nice. We could probably add a history section and discuss the move towards EM residencies, etc. The critical conditions needs to be expanded, but the information on MI seems to be too extensive for this article. Probably could divide into different medical categories with one example in each, i.e. neurology - stroke, surgery - AAA, trauma - MVA/gunshot, etc. Brief discussion of the disease with information as to why the emergency room is important for coordinating care which often actually happens elsewhere in the hospital (ie surgery). Just thoughts, I'm going to have a hard time implementing anything because of the holiday, unfortunately! InvictaHOG 12:46, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Critical conditions handled
I think this section should not have long descriptions of the ED management of every condition. That would bulk the page up pretty badly. Every related article contains (or should contain) a paragraph on the emergency management. Asthma, the cardiac arrhythmias, all sorts of major and minor trauma, etc etc etc can simply be listed with bullets. JFW | T@lk  20:47, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree - Even a bulleted list would probably end up being too long. But the section as is doesn't seem appropriate, since it only lists 4 conditions. Leuko 18:54, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

cropped photo
Would this cropped image of the ED be better? Astrokey44 |talk 05:35, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Picture at the top
What on earth has the current picture at the top of the article got to do with emergency departments in particular? It is simply a picture of a hospital in Germany that doesn't show any signs, definitely not very helpful to the article. We need to show the emergency department interior and the signs, not the wide exterior of a Germany hospital. — Wackymacs 07:50, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Cases handled
I think there should be some recognition of the fact that (In the UK, at least), major trauma accounts for only 1% of the patients seen; even if it is the bit focused on in medical dramas and the press, I think we should adopt a more balanced view here! --John24601 20:25, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

 * I think the same goes for the US. I don't know who would have data on that sort of thing though. Maybe the CDC or the Department of Health? Kerowyn 03:11, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Article removed from Good articles
This article was formerly listed as a good article, but was removed from the listing because fails Good Article Criteria 1, 2 & 4. In particular, many Yankocentric terms are left unexplained, and citations are needed to verify ALL claims; eg the assertion that UK A&E departments are popular, that they must treat patients within four hours. Furthermore, the article gives the impression that A&E departments have every magical aid on hand, and that there are very few problems within any department. Finally, there is a poor use of logic when describing the cause and effect of events.

--die Baumfabrik 08:32, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

--- 4 hour wait ---

here is a reference from the commission for health improvement (UK which talks about the 4 hour wait - including the rational for its implementation - perhaps someone can make use of it and add it to the article.

http://www.chi.nhs.uk/Ratings/Trust/Indicator/IndicatorDescriptionShort.asp?IndicatorId=1624

Ditronet 02:21, 28 November 2006

Non-Emergency Use
Is it just me or is the whole "Non-emergency use" section completely opinionated? None of it is cited, including statements like "no other choice" and mentioning that poor people have no other choice. This whole section needs to be cited, drastically, or deleted. That's not to say there's no ER abuse, but it needs bad repairing. Cs92 03:19, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. It sounds like many people who come to ER are stupid. I worked in hospitals, mostly city ERs, for twenty-three years. Many, (if not most), of my patients came to ER because without insurance, they had no doctor to go to.--W8IMP 03:43, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

The information in the new section seems solid, but the header has become a much poorer fit. Suggesting "Efficiency" or something similar. Phalmy (talk) 14:44, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Decline of Emergency Rooms
I've heard from friends in the medical profession that hospitals are closing their ERs because they are too costly. I know that EMTALA was recently (last year or two) expanded to include hospitals that don't have ERs which seems to indicate that trend. I did a google search, but couldn't find any solid references. Can someone more knowledgeable perhaps address this? Doctorfluffy 22:50, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I am not surprised to see that hospitals are losing money on their ER's. As long as we have our "for-profit, sickness care industry" why would any hospital keep a department open which is losing money. I spent 17 years as an RN in the busiest ER in town. Not a week went by that I didn't hear or say, "This don't make no G*t d*mn sense! We need to shut this m*th*r f*ck*r down!" I was disappointed when I saw "Sicko" that they spent little time in U.S. ERs. I could easily have told them more awful stories than could be told in a mere 2 hours.--W8IMP 02:30, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Casualty in UK
The popular term casualty is no longer considered appropriate by emergency physicians in Australia, the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Stobhill Hospital still calls it Casualty, although it does not receive blue light emergencies. Panthro (talk) 14:54, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Doctors in Training in Emergency Departments
I have just made a small change to clarify that of the UK doctors in training some will be on an F2 rotation and others on emergency medicine of GP training schemes but the earlier wording seemed to suggest that they were the only ones: they aren't from personal experience. I also know that there were people on other types of training schemes in the US but am not up to date on that. --Doctormonkey (talk) 15:08, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

"nadir between 2:00 am and 6:00 am"?
Is that supposed to mean "the lowest point" or the "worst time period", both of which are definitions of "nadir". Honestly don't know the answer, but I'd assume the former. Someone...please...use a more appropriate word that does not find it's most common usage in Astronomy. Wow. 76.24.169.192 (talk) 01:44, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Patient experience
This section is somewhat incoherent, and unlike the rest of the article focuses purely on the economical aspect of emergency healthcare. I think it should be at least rewritten and supplied with links to relevant topics, if not moved or scrapped entirely. I feel that the header "Patient experience" in this context should be about things like emergency protocol and the psychological effect of an ER visit to a patient, not an application of economical principles to medical services.

Phalmy (talk) 14:36, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

 * I found the writing of this section entirely incoherent, bordering on vandalism, and deleted it. Though I agree that such as section is a good idea.
 * Robbins (talk) 00:33, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Capitalization
I notice this article's title still resides at "Emergency department" and disregards the otherwise agreed on proper title "Emergency Department" within the article. I'm pretty sure even MOS:CAPS would have us move the article. It's not just stylization or something. Pixel Eater (talk) 04:17, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

 * I would disagree here, the capitalised version is a style adopted in some places, but a 'Casualty' or 'A&E' operation is an example of an emergency department (sic) and is not an example of an 'Emergency Department'. It should only be capitalised where it is a proper name - "The Cityville Hospital Emergency Department".  The use of 'Emergency Department' is not universal and as noted, there are a number of other naming styles and conventions, meaning that for the purposes of an international encyclopaedia, it should be lower case descriptive.  I would say for consistency, we should lower case the article, and keep the title as is. OwainDavies (about)(talk) edited at 12:57, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

sfss — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.203.177.177 (talk) 09:14, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Can ER refuse treatment if someone has bad credit
I was in default for student loans so I have bad credit but can a ER Refuse treatment because of,bad credit — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.159.150.62 (talk) 18:51, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

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Worldview Tag
I added the Worldview tag as the article is primarily about Emergency Departments in Canada, the US and the UK, with references that appear to support passages about these countries. Rewrites should address emergency services globally and identify what countries a source is discussing, if not all of them. --Airborne84 (talk) 12:59, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

worst waits in the uk
[https://www.bbc.com/news/health-64629144?app=news.health.story.64629144.page 14 Febr. 2023: The golden hour and the worst waits in the uk.] (By Nick Triggle, Libby Rogers and Rob England 4 BBC News) The BBC analysis of data for December and January shows Hull University Hospitals, Wye Valley and Shrewsbury and Telford were worst for A&E waits. The best trust out of the 107 providing data, Northumbria Healthcare, had fewer than 10% waiting more than four hours.

But it is not just the waits in A&E that have proved to be problematic this winter. Outside hospitals, ambulance crews have faced delays handing over patients to A&E staff, while patients who have been seen in A&E and need to be admitted to a ward for further care - by their nature the very frailest - have been forced to endure further long waits to get a bed. HsMstrServ (talk) 20:45, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Photos not showing
I am using an Android tablet to read this article in the app. Virtually none of the pictures are showing. Only the caption shows and changing the theme doesn't help. Rpsenft (talk) 01:59, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Emergency department


text:
Subvertising

Subvertising (a portmanteau of subvert and advertising) is the practice of making spoofs or parodies of corporate and political advertisements. The cultural critic Mark Dery coined the term in 1991. Subvertisements are anti-ads that deflect advertising's attempts to turn the people's attention in a given direction. According to author Naomi Klein, subvertising offers a way of speaking back to advertising, ‘forcing a dialogue where before there was only a declaration.’ They may take the form of a new image or an alteration to an existing image or icon, often in a satirical manner.

A subvertisement can also be referred to as a meme hack and can be a part of social hacking, billboard hacking or culture jamming. According to Adbusters, a Canadian magazine and a proponent of counter-culture and subvertising, "A well-produced 'subvert' mimics the look and feel of the targeted ad, promoting the classic 'double-take' as viewers suddenly realize they have been duped. Subverts create cognitive dissonance, with the apparent aim of cutting through the 'hype and glitz of our mediated reality' to reveal a 'deeper truth within'.

Subvertising is a type of advertising hijacking (détournement publicité), where détournement techniques developed in the 1950s by the French Letterist International and later used by the better-known Situationist International have been used as a contemporary critical form to re-route advertising messages.

Notable instances
In 1972, the logo of Richard Nixon's reelection campaign posters was subverted with two x's in Nixon's name (as in the Exxon logo) to suggest the corporate ownership of the Republican party.

In Sydney, Australia in October 1979, a group of anti-smoking activists formed a group called B.U.G.A.U.P. and began altering the text on tobacco billboards to subvert the messages of tobacco advertisers, although advertisements for other unhealthy products were also targeted.

On November 6, 2008, The Yes Men recruited thousands of social activists to hand out 100,000 copies of a spoof New York Times newspaper set six months in the future. The goal was to utilize a tangible and trusted medium, the New York Times, to argue for a particular future, in that case, one where the Iraq War had ended. Other groups involved with this project included Anti-Advertising Agency, Code Pink, United for Peace and Justice, May First/People Link, and Improv Everywhere.

At the 2015 Paris COP21 climate conference, the collective known as Brandalism installed 600 posters that attacked what they perceived as the hypocrisy of corporate sponsors.

In 2017, Brandalism and other groups of subvertisers founded the collective Subvertisers International. Using billboard hacking and other forms of subvertising, they promote the idea that advertising creates unhealthy body images, impacts democracy negatively, and sustains a culture of consumerism that takes a heavy toll on the planet.

Around 2018, a group in London called Legally Black changed the race of the characters in Harry Potter posters from white to black.

In 2022, billboards in London, Bristol, Manchester, Sheffield, Brighton, and 11 other European cities, were hijacked to highlight the role of airline emissions in the Climate crisis. They highlighted the large carbon footprint of flying, that the majority of flights are taken by a tiny fraction of the total population, and that airlines have missed all but one of the industry’s self-imposed sustainability targets.

title: Subvertising


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Community management

Community management or common-pool resource management is the management of a common resource or issue by a community through the collective action of volunteers and stakeholders. The resource managed can be either material or informational. Examples include the management of common grazing and water rights, fisheries, and open-source software. In the case of physical resources, community management strategies are frequently employed to avoid the tragedy of the commons and to encourage sustainability.

It is expected that community management allows for the management, usually of natural resources, to come from members of the community that these decisions will affect. This should allow for a better way of finding solutions that the community will find most effective since management styles are not always transferable across different regions; and this could be because of cultural, economic, or geographical differences. It is expected that the group members within this setting have the incentive to do the best they can for the community because they live in the community that benefits or suffers from the management they provide. By decentralizing the management of resources, it is also expected that the upkeep that occurs within the services provided is streamlined due to the direct link between the areas that need improvement or regular maintenance and the authority overseeing them. However, these expected benefits of community management are not what we see unfolding within communities that follow this management style.

Common pool problem
Without proper management, a community's material resources may be depleted or rendered unusable. The common pool problem is an economic situation which exists when goods are rival, but non-exclusive (See common-pool resource). Since these resources are owned in common, individuals have no private incentive to preserve them, but rather will seek to exploit them before others can derive benefit. The classic example is of fish in the ocean; anybody can harvest fish, but a fish that has been caught cannot be caught by another fisherman. Therefore, fishermen will seek to maximize their personal profit by catching as many fish as possible, which will ultimately lead to the stock being depleted. It is similar to the free rider problem in that those who do not contribute to the resource may use it without penalty, but the common pool problem is usually considered an economic "problem" since it will eventually lead to the exhausting of a resource. Another example of the common pool problem involves the shared use of limited internet bandwidth, such as in a university network, when the connectivity of all users is slowed by the heavy usage of a few.

Elinor Ostrom and Oliver E. Williamson won the 2009 Nobel prize in economic science for work in this area, where they suggested that with good community management of shared resources, as found in successful firms, the "tragedy of the commons" can be avoided.

Shared information resources
Developing open-source software or other collaborative projects such as Wikipedia generally requires some form of community management, whether it involves leadership or egalitarianism. Unlike as is the case with physical resources, the sharing of information does not necessarily deplete the resource. Nonetheless, proper management may be necessary to encourage a network effect, where collaborative use actually enriches the resource, and to avoid conflict.

More generally, community management designates the activity of maintaining communication, motivation, efficiency, and engagement among a group of remote individuals often only linked together by the Internet. Typically, it will contribute to the success of an open-source initiative by keeping forums alive with information, questions, and challenges, by organizing real-life events for virtual communities, or by organizing contests or hackathons to focus all efforts on a common goal. It may also be used to improve motivation and synergy in a large organization (such as a company or a public organization) by creating a sense of belonging and ensuring that members are aware of each other's work. Community management requires human skills (a community manager) and the use of tools (e.g., social networks, instant messaging, resource sharing, etc.).

Problems with Community Management
Community management has been a popular strategy utilized in African water management, but research has shown that Africans often don't prefer this management style. Main problems of community management, specifically related to water management, consist of potential maintenance issues, population issues, money collecting issues, and a lack of community engagement.

 * Community management can create potential maintenance issues that are resolved with less expediency and with less efficiency. This often stems as a result of having a lack of a qualified person to perform the repair or lacking a reliable way to collect money in order to hire someone to do the repair.
 * Money collecting issues are a main problem in poorer areas. If not, everyone is paying a fee to use the resources in question, then there won't be any money to make repairs when needed. This includes not paying and a lack of an efficient way to pay fees. People will not go out of their way to pay fees so a solid collection strategy is needed.
 * General user fees within community managed water supply systems have been found to be not enough to keep the service operational let alone make repairs when needed. Even if citizens have the capacity to pay fees it has been found that many people simply don't want to. It is suggested that health concerns about clean drinking water are not enough to create a population of users who are willing to pay user fees let alone maintenance fees when needed.
 * Population issues can also cause problems because community management is often more effective on a smaller scale. In other words, communities with smaller populations have an easier time developing effective systems like citizen participation, money collection, or maintenance repairs simply because it is easier to combat the problems that arrive within those areas when there is a smaller group of people affected that need help.
 * A lack of community engagement is a chronic issue that arises within community management, as well. In order for community management to be an effective strategy of management style the community must be engaged within the management system in order to reap the community benefits. Despite this, most citizens are not interested in the issues community management organizations are looking to improve, meaning these organizations are getting less input from the community which negates the point of community management.

Methods of management
A community may itself be actively developed and managed in order to promote communal activity and welfare.

In some cases, the task of managing a physical resource may be delegated to a specialist professional called a community manager. Meaning members of the community are involved in the development and follow through of community development projects, which can involve acquiring the funding for projects as well as deciding what plans would be beneficial for the community and which ones would not.

Malawi is an example of the utilization of community management to provide water access to citizens. Malawi is a poor area that with recent governmental pushes for decentralization has led to water management becoming a community responsibility. Within Malawi boreholes are used to access water and each of these boreholes is under the control of a committee which delegates a manager for each borehole. These managers receive initial training from an official district water officer but are then left to make their own decisions regarding the upkeep of the borehole. This training has been found to be ineffective in many cases so the work of area mechanics, who are more knowledgeable about these boreholes, are often utilized to perform repairs. However, these area mechanics are not accessible everywhere and require additional payments. Payment is also something that is irregularly collected which has created a lack of funds for repairs.

In the case of internet resources, the privileging of certain kinds of data transfer may ensure a better overall quality of service for most users, as opposed to the doctrine of network neutrality.

title: Community management


text:
2006 Commonwealth Games

The 2006 Commonwealth Games, officially the XVIII Commonwealth Games and commonly known as Melbourne 2006, was an international multi-sport event for members of the Commonwealth held in Melbourne, Australia between 15 and 26 March 2006. It was the fourth time Australia had hosted the Commonwealth Games. It was also the largest sporting event to be staged in Melbourne, eclipsing the 1956 Summer Olympics in terms of the number of teams competing, athletes competing, and events being held.

More than 4,000 athletes from 71 Commonwealth Games Associations took part in the event. Zimbabwe withdrew its membership from the Commonwealth of Nations and Commonwealth Games Federation on 8 December 2003 and so did not participate in the event. With 245 sets of medals, the games featured 17 Commonwealth sports. These sporting events took place at 13 venues in the host city, two venues in Bendigo and one venue each in Ballarat, Geelong, Lysterfield Park and Traralgon.

The site for the opening and closing ceremonies was the Melbourne Cricket Ground which was also used during 1956 Summer Olympics. The mascot for the games was Karak, a red-tailed black cockatoo (a threatened species). The official song of the games, "Together We Are One", was composed by the ARIA awardee Australian recording artist Delta Goodrem. During the closing ceremony of the games, President of the Commonwealth Games Federation Mike Fennell declared to the crowd "Melbourne, you are simply the best".

For the first time in the history of the Commonwealth Games, the Queen's Baton visited every single Commonwealth nation and territory taking part in the Games, a journey of 180000 km. The relay ended when the Governor of Victoria, and former Commonwealth Games medallist, John Landy delivered the baton to Her Majesty the Queen at the Melbourne Cricket Ground during the opening ceremony.

The host nation Australia topped the medal table for the fifth time in the past five Commonwealth Games, winning the most golds (84) and most medals overall (221). England and Canada finished second and third respectively.

The 2006 Commonwealth Games have been lauded as “best Commonwealth Games ever”. A KPMG analysis of 2006 Commonwealth Games found the event prompted an increase in gross state product of about A$1.6 billion over a 20-year period and employment of about 13,600 jobs.

Host selection
During the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, two cities initially expressed interest in hosting the event; Melbourne, Australia and Wellington, New Zealand. Wellington withdrew its bid, citing the costs involved with matching the bid plan presented by Melbourne, which became the default host without members of the Federation going to vote.

Venues
The following venues were used at the 2006 Commonwealth Games. The sport(s) that were played at that venue are listed after it.

Melbourne venues

 * Docklands Precinct: Walks and Marathon
 * Melbourne Cricket Ground: Opening and Closing Ceremonies, and Athletics (Track and Field)
 * Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre: Badminton, Boxing and Weightlifting
 * Melbourne Gun Club: Clay Target Shooting
 * Melbourne International Shooting Club: Small Bore and Pistol Shooting
 * Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre: Aquatics, Squash and Table tennis
 * Multi Purpose Venue (Melbourne Park): Basketball Finals, Track Cycling and Netball Finals
 * Rod Laver Arena (Melbourne Park): Gymnastics
 * Royal Botanic Gardens Circuit: Cycling Road Race events
 * State Lawn Bowls Centre: Lawn Bowls
 * State Netball and Hockey Centre: Netball preliminaries and Hockey
 * St Kilda: Triathlon and Cycling Time Trial
 * Docklands Stadium: Rugby 7s

Regional and suburban venues
Wellsford Rifle Range: Full Bore Shooting
 * Ballarat: Ballarat Minerdome: Basketball
 * Bendigo: Bendigo Stadium: Basketball
 * Geelong:Geelong Arena: Basketball
 * Lysterfield Park: State Mountain Bike Course: Mountain Bike Cycling
 * Traralgon: Traralgon Sports Stadium: Basketball

Cost
Early concerns arose about the large cost of staging the event, with projected costs likely to be over AUD 1 billion and a high likelihood the Victorian taxpayer would have to cover the expense. The cost was described in some local media as excessive. National Party leader Peter Ryan said that the Labor government should win "gold (medal) for burning money". However, not all of this money was wasted. The actual costs for hosting the games was AUD 1.144 billion and prior to the Games, accountants at KPMG were estimating that the gross income generated by this event could be as high as AUD 1.5 billion.

Athletes' village
An athlete's village in the inner suburb of Parkville housed approximately 7,000 athletes and support staff during the Games, and has been transformed into commercial housing with a distinctly eco-friendly image. The creation of this village attracted controversy, with critics claiming it was created by alienating public parkland, while proponents maintained that it represented the renewal of an otherwise derelict inner-city area.

Development
The change from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time in Australian states that follow it was delayed from 26 March to 2 April for 2006 to avoid affecting the games. In addition, state and private schools amended their usual term times so as to allow the first term holidays to coincide with the Games.

Melbourne's public transport system – train, tram and bus – ran to altered timetables with some amended or substituted services for the duration of the Games. For the most part, timetabled services were unchanged but suffered due to higher loads.

For the first time ever, the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games appointed a Goodwill Partner, Plan International Australia.

Opening ceremony

Both the Melbourne Cricket Ground and the Yarra River were centrepieces for the ceremony, which included many fireworks, and other spectacle. The Games were opened by Elizabeth II, in her capacity as Head of the Commonwealth. The Queen is also Head of State of a number of Commonwealth countries.

Closing ceremony
Both the Melbourne Cricket Ground and the Yarra River were again centrepieces for the ceremony. Samresh Jung of India was given the David Dixon Award at the closing ceremony. He was the "Best Athlete of the 18th Commonwealth Games". The games were closed by The Earl of Wessex, Prince Edward.

Participating teams
There were 71 countries, territories and bodies competing at the 2006 Commonwealth Games. The only difference is the roster between the 2006 games and the 2002 games was the absence of Zimbabwe, which had withdrawn from the Commonwealth of Nations.

Sports

The 2006 Commonwealth Games included 17 sports, with 12 individual sports and 4 team sports. In total there are 245 events at the Games.

 * Diving pictogram.svg Diving
 * Swimming pictogram.svg Swimming
 * Synchronized swimming pictogram.svg Synchronized swimming
 * Cycling (road) pictogram.svg Road
 * Cycling (track) pictogram.svg Track
 * Cycling (mountain biking) pictogram.svg Mountain biking
 * Gymnastics (artistic) pictogram.svg Artistic gymnastics
 * Gymnastics (rhythmic) pictogram.svg Rhythmic gymnastics
 * Cycling (road) pictogram.svg Road
 * Cycling (track) pictogram.svg Track
 * Cycling (mountain biking) pictogram.svg Mountain biking
 * Gymnastics (artistic) pictogram.svg Artistic gymnastics
 * Gymnastics (rhythmic) pictogram.svg Rhythmic gymnastics
 * Gymnastics (artistic) pictogram.svg Artistic gymnastics
 * Gymnastics (rhythmic) pictogram.svg Rhythmic gymnastics

The athletics, swimming, table tennis and weightlifting sports included fully integrated events for elite athletes with a disability (EAD). These events were included in the official medal tally.

Broadcasting

 * The host broadcaster was Trans World International, while the domestic rights-holding broadcaster was the Nine Network in Australia. They showed rolling coverage, except for a break for the evening news and overnight.
 * In Australia Fox Sports broadcast the Games on eight dedicated digital Pay-TV channels. These were available on the Foxtel, Austar and Optus Vision networks.
 * The BBC covered the Commonwealth Games in the United Kingdom on BBC One and BBC Two. BBCi included a choice of two extra video streams on Freeview and four streams on Digital Satellite and Cable. Users with broadband in the United Kingdom could also view all 5 video streams on bbc.co.uk, and the BBC Sport website.
 * CBC, CBC Newsworld, and CBC Country Canada aired a daily one-hour highlights show of the Commonwealth Games in Canada. Compared to past games, the CBC's coverage was minimally staffed, with commentary from other broadcasting partners. At first, they did not even consider bidding for the broadcasting rights due to scheduling conflicts with events Canadians are more interested in, such as the Tim Hortons Brier, World Figure Skating Championships, and the 2006 Winter Paralympics (which itself had been reduced to five-to-ten-minute daily coverage). None of Canada's metropolitan newspapers sent any journalists to report on the Games, instead relying on news agencies
 * TVNZ covered the games for the residents of New Zealand.
 * In Malaysia, TV1 broadcast live coverage of the Games for three hours starting at 10 am Malaysian time and for two hours starting at 3 pm, with highlights at 12:30 am. Satellite provider Astro included three dedicated channels to broadcast the Games live to its Sports package subscribers, in addition to delayed broadcast 24 hours later.
 * Singapore's MediaCorp TV had supposedly not broadcast the games due to the high cost of telecast rights, satellite charges and the lack of sponsors. However, on 17 March, the MediaCorp found other sponsors which is the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports and the Singapore Sports Council. Broadcast started from 18 March until the end of the games.
 * In India, Prasar Bharati broadcast the games on DD National and DD Sports. All India Radio broadcast the running commentary of the main matches and events.
 * In the United States, selected coverage was carried by Fox College Sports.
 * In the Bahamas, Cable 12 on cable Bahamas broadcast the games.
 * Altogether an estimated 4 billion viewers watched the 2006 Commonwealth Games worldwide.

Logo
The logo of the 2006 Commonwealth Games is an image of 2 figures, which represents sport and culture, achievement and excellence, while the colours green, yellow, and red represents celebratory, fresh and youthfully optimistic character of Melbourne city. The two figures in the logo joined to form a letter M, which is the initial letter of Melbourne, the games host city.

Mascot
Karak was the mascot for the 2006 Commonwealth Games. He was modelled on a red-tailed black cockatoo, a threatened species within the host country, Australia.

Official partners

 * National Australia Bank
 * Visa Inc.
 * Qantas
 * Telstra
 * Tabcorp Holdings
 * Toyota
 * Microsoft
 * BHP

Official sponsors

 * Hudson
 * MLC
 * Holmesglen Institute of TAFE
 * Konica Minolta
 * Coates Hire
 * Nestlé Peters
 * PricewaterhouseCoopers
 * Australia Post
 * De Bortoli Wines
 * Cadbury
 * Woolworths Supermarkets
 * Foster's Group
 * Royal Automobile Club of Victoria
 * Triple M
 * Omega

Official providers

 * Allens
 * TOWER Software
 * Finsbury Green Printing
 * AccorHotels
 * Hard Yakka
 * Royal Australian Mint
 * Tork
 * Mistral
 * DB Schenker
 * Sleepmaker
 * Dell Australia
 * Australian Project & Consulting Services (APCS)
 * Cleanevent
 * Melbourne Docklands
 * Ramler Furniture
 * Rehame
 * CityLink
 * Interflora
 * Rexona
 * City of Ballarat
 * HBA Health Insurance
 * Snowhite Cleaning Services
 * Y&J Timber Flooring
 * Bytecraft
 * Pico Moreton Consortium
 * Philips Medical Systems Australasia
 * Cisco
 * Waterfront City
 * Origin Energy
 * Ticketmaster

Missing athletes
On 20 March 2006 it was reported that two athletes had gone missing from the Commonwealth Games village: Tanzanian boxer Omari Idd Kimweri and Bangladeshi runner Mohammad Tawhidul Islam.

On 22 March 2006 it was reported that seven athletes from Sierra Leone (three women and four men) had also disappeared. A further seven Sierra Leonean athletes also went missing during the course of the Games, bringing the total runaway count to fourteen (two-thirds of the team). Victoria Police believed that they had fled to Sydney where the Sierra Leonean community is much larger than Melbourne's.

Two hours before the Closing Ceremony on 26 March, officials from the Cameroon team reported to police that nine of their members had also vanished.

These incidents were not without precedent: 27 athletes similarly disappeared from the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, England (21 from Sierra Leone, 5 from Bangladesh and one from Pakistan), and over 80 athletes and officials overstayed their visas after the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.

On request of Sierra Leone officials, the Commonwealth Games Federation cancelled those athletes' Games accreditation, allowing the Australian Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (DIMA) to cancel their visas at midnight on 27 March, and begin investigating their disappearance. At 7.20 am on that day, New South Wales Police located six of the Sierra Leonean athletes in a house at Freshwater near Manly Beach in Sydney. All six indicated they wished to seek political asylum in Australia, and were granted bridging visas by DIMA while their refugee applications were arranged. The athletes claimed to have been subjected to violence and torture in their home country; seventeen-year-old Isha Conteh stated she could be forced into female genital cutting if she returned. On Tuesday 28 March, six further Sierra Leoneans turned themselves in to immigration authorities in Sydney and were also granted bridging visas.

Two of the missing Cameroonian athletes were later found in Perth, Western Australia.

The Stolenwealth Games
The Stolenwealth Games were protests at the 1982 and 2006 Commonwealth Games. People were protesting because they believed that the Commonwealth Games led to the erasure of indigenous people. There were also problems with land rights. These protests led to the creation of the Global Indigenous Games.

title: 2006 Commonwealth Games


text:
David Korten

David C. Korten (born 1937) is an American author, former professor of the Harvard Business School, political activist, prominent critic of corporate globalization, and "by training and inclination a student of psychology and behavioral systems". His best-known publication is When Corporations Rule the World (1995 and 2001). In 2011, he was named an Utne Reader visionary.

Early life and career
David Korten was born in Longview, Washington, in 1937 and is a 1955 graduate of its R. A. Long High School. He received a master of business administration and Ph.D. from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. He said: "My early career [after leaving Stanford in 1959] was devoted to setting up business schools in low-income countries—starting with Ethiopia". He served during the Vietnam War as a captain in the United States Air Force, undertaking U.S.-based teaching and organizational duties; and for five and a half years was a visiting professor in the Harvard Business School. While at Stanford in the 1950s, he married Frances Fisher Korten, with whom he lives on Bainbridge Island near Seattle, Washington.

Career and main body of work
Korten served for five and a half years as a visiting associate professor of the Harvard University Graduate School of Business where he taught in Harvard's middle management, M.B.A., and doctoral programs.

He also served as the Harvard Business School adviser to the Nicaragua-based Central American Institute of Business Administration. He subsequently joined the staff of the Harvard Institute for International Development, where he headed a Ford Foundation-funded project to strengthen the organization and management of national family planning programs.

In the late 1970s, Korten moved to Southeast Asia, where he lived for nearly fifteen years, serving as a Ford Foundation project specialist and, later, as Asia regional adviser on development management to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which involved him in regular travels to Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

Korten has written that he became disenchanted with the official aid system and devoted his last five years in Asia to "working with leaders of Asian non-governmental organizations on identifying the root causes of development failure in the region and building the capacity of civil society organizations to function as strategic catalysts of national- and global-level change". He formed the view that the poverty, growing inequality, environmental devastation, and social disintegration he was observing in Asia also was being experienced in nearly every country in the world, including the United States and other "developed" countries. He also concluded that the United States was actively promoting—both at home and abroad—the very policies that were deepening the resulting global crisis.

He returned to the U.S. in 1992 and has assisted in raising public consciousness of the political and institutional consequences of economic globalization and the expansion of corporate power at the expense of democracy, equity, and environmental protection.

Korten is co-founder and board chair of the Positive Futures Network, which publishes the quarterly YES! Magazine. He is also a founding board member, emeritus, of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, a former associate of the International Forum on Globalization, and a member of the Club of Rome.

The Post-Corporate World
Building on the arguments put forward in his 1995 book When Corporations Rule the World, Korten expands on several of the themes. Having made a case for the unworkability of current economic systems on several grounds - the impoverishment of the majority of the population, the need for indefinitely expanding credit leading to the debasement of the currency, and the finite limits of energy and material resources - he provides a context for discussing alternative ways of life, and explores possible courses of action to establish them.

The Great Turning
Korten's 2006 book The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community argues that the development of empires about 5,000 years ago initiated unequal distribution of power and social benefits to the small portion of the population that controlled them. He also argues that corporations are modern versions of empire, both being social organizations based on hierarchies, chauvinism, and domination through violence.

The rise of powerful advanced technology, combined with the control of corporate as well as nation-based empires is described as being increasingly destructive to communities and the environment. Korten postulates that the world is on the verge of a perfect storm of converging crises, including anthropogenic adverse climate change, post-peak oil production decline, and a financial crisis caused by an unbalanced global economy. This will precipitate major changes to the current economic and social structure.

Korten believes that these crises will present an opportunity for significant changes that could replace the paradigm of "Empire" with one of "Earth Community." Although recognizing the potential that the opportunity may not be seized, Korten hopes that this opportunity will result in the emergence of an "Earth Community," based on sustainable, just, and caring communities that incorporate the values of mutual responsibility and accountability, and he advocates toward that.

title: David Korten


text:
Debt relief

Debt relief or debt cancellation is the partial or total forgiveness of debt, or the slowing or stopping of debt growth, owed by individuals, corporations, or nations.

From antiquity through the 19th century, it refers to domestic debts, in particular agricultural debts and freeing of debt slaves. In World War I the United States Treasury made large loans to the allies that were postponed, reduced and finally paid off in 1953. In the late 20th century, it came to refer primarily to Third World debt, which started exploding with the Latin American debt crisis (Mexico 1983, etc.). In the early 21st century, it is of increased applicability to individuals in developed countries, due to credit bubbles and housing bubbles.

First World War reparations
War debt payments by World War I Allies to the U.S. had been suspended in 1931—only Finland paid in full—and American public opinion demanded repayments resume as a condition of U.S. postwar aid. Germany had suspended its reparations payments due under the 1919 Versailles Treaty and payable to Britain, France and others, as well as loans due to the United States. Chancellor Konrad Adenauer decided that permanent good will required their resumption. The 1953 Agreement on German External Debts, which resumed German's war reparations, is a notable example of international debt relief.

Less Developed Country Debt
Debt relief for heavily indebted and underdeveloped developing countries was the subject in the 1990s of a campaign by a broad coalition of development NGOs, Christian organizations and others, under the banner of Jubilee 2000. This campaign, involving, for example, demonstrations at the 1998 G8 meeting in Birmingham, was successful in pushing debt relief onto the agenda of Western governments and international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. The Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative was ultimately launched to provide systematic debt relief for the poorest countries, whilst trying to ensure the money would be spent on poverty reduction.

The HIPC programme has been subject to conditionalities similar to those often attached to International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank loans, requiring structural adjustment reforms, sometimes including the privatisation of public utilities, including water and electricity. To qualify for irrevocable debt relief, countries must also maintain macroeconomic stability and implement a Poverty Reduction Strategy satisfactorily for at least one year. Under the goal of reducing inflation, some countries have been pressured to reduce spending in the health and education sectors. While the World Bank considers the HIPC Initiative a success, some scholars are more critical of it.

The Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI) is an extension of HIPC. The MDRI was agreed following the G8's Gleneagles meeting in July 2005. It offers 100% cancellation of multilateral debts owed by HIPC countries to the World Bank, IMF and African Development Bank.

One of the targets of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, specifically Goal 17, is to "assist developing countries in attaining long-term debt sustainability through coordinated policies aimed at fostering debt financing, debt relief and debt restructuring". This will help poor countries "reduce debt distress".

Origins
Debt relief existed in a number of ancient societies: "If the debtor is in difficulty, grant him time till it is easy for him to repay. But, if ye remit it by way of charity, that is best for you if ye only knew."
 * Debt forgiveness is mentioned in the Book of Leviticus (a Judaeo-Christian scripture), in which God counsels Moses to forgive debts in certain cases every Jubilee year – at the end of Shmita, the last year of the seven-year agricultural cycle or a 49-year cycle, depending on interpretation.
 * This same theme was found in an ancient bilingual Hittite-Hurrian text entitled "The Song of Debt Release".
 * Debt forgiveness was also found in Ancient Athens, where in the 6th century BCE, the lawmaker Solon instituted a set of laws called seisachtheia, which canceled all debts and retroactively canceled previous debts that had caused slavery and serfdom, freeing debt slaves and debt serfs.
 * In addition, the Qur'an (the Muslim scripture) supports debt forgiveness for those who are unable to pay as an act of charity and remission of sins for the creditor. The injunction is as follows:

- Qur'an 2:280

Contemporary
In the United States of America for the years preceding the financial crisis of 2007–2008, non-housing personal debt (auto loans, credit cards, student loans, etc.) rose significantly from approximately $2.05 trillion at the start of 2003 to a peak of $2.71 trillion in Q4 of 2008. It was not until Q3 of 2012 that unsecured personal debt reached this level again. Since that time, unsecured personal debt has risen steadily to $3.76 trillion at the end of the third quarter of 2017. The other large change in unsecured personal debt is that an increasing portion of it is now student loan debt, from 12% in Q1 of 2003 to 53% in Q3 of 2017.

The increasing size of the non-housing personal debt market and ease with which one can obtain personal credit has led to some consumers falling behind on payments. As of Q3 2017, student loans have the highest rates of serious delinquency (90 or more days delinquent) with approximately 9.6% of all student loan debt falling into this bucket. Credit card debt and auto loan debt have serious delinquency rates of 4.6% and 2.4% respectively.

When consumers begin to fall behind on payments, they have several options to discharge the debt, either in full or in part. The first method is declaring bankruptcy, which has the immediate effect of stopping any payments made to creditors. In the United States, the two primary avenues of bankruptcy for an individual are Chapter 13 bankruptcy and Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Another option is to consolidate these debts into a single loan, commonly known as debt consolidation. Debt relief, on an individual level, refers mainly to the negotiation for a reduction of a debt by either the consumer or a debt settlement agency. Through this arrangement, consumers agree to pay the creditor a fixed amount of money (generally a discount on their outstanding debt) either in a lump sum or under a payment plan. The debt settlement industry has had significant regulatory scrutiny since its inception with changes implemented in 2010 by the FTC. As the disposition of personal debt is a highly regulated industry, consumers are urged by the FTC and other trade organizations to do significant research and find an independent credit counselor to guide them through the process.

In 2019, the Texas Legislature forgave an estimated $2.5 billion in debt when it abolished its "Driver Responsibility Surcharge" in all but driving while intoxicated (DWI) cases. This surcharge was an extra three-year civil penalty added onto certain criminal traffic infractions like DWI or driving without a license or insurance. Surcharges were created in 2003 to pay for a roadway network that was never built, and instead half the money was diverted to hospitals, which became reliant on the money, with the rest going into the state treasury. However, the majority of drivers who had surcharges assessed could not pay them. Many people who could not afford either surcharges or insurance continued to drive and racked up huge sums in debt they could never expect to pay. A little-advertised amnesty program and an indigence program that still required partial payment helped some, and were criticized by some who felt it was unfair that they paid and others didn't. But local sheriffs began to complain that the law was causing the jails to fill up with people driving on suspended license, and the judiciary insisted the law was unfair and counterproductive to public safety. Finally, in 2019, the Legislature found different sources to fund hospitals and eliminated the surcharge, along with around $2.5 billion in debt owed by around 1.4 million people. The same year, the Legislature eliminated red-light cameras statewide and effectively canceled those debts, and re-defined "undue hardship" in the Code of Criminal Procedure to allow judges to waive traffic-fine debt for more people.

Tax treatment
In US tax law, debt forgiven is treated as income, as it reduces a liability, increasing the taxpayer's net worth. In the context of the bursting of the United States housing bubble, the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007 provides that debt forgiven on a primary residence is not treated as income, for debts forgiven in the three-year period 2007–2009. The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 extended this by three years to the six-year period 2007–2012.

Bankruptcy and non-recourse loans
The primary mechanism of debt relief in modern societies is bankruptcy, where a debtor who cannot or chooses not to pay their debts files for bankruptcy and renegotiates their debts, or a creditor initiates this. As part of debt restructuring, the terms of the debt are modified, which may involve the debt owed being reduced. In case the debtor chooses bankruptcy despite being able to service the debt, this is called strategic bankruptcy.

Certain debts can be defaulted on without a general bankruptcy; these are non-recourse loans, most notably mortgages in common law jurisdictions such as the United States. Choosing to default on such a loan despite being able to service it is called strategic default.

Historical
If a debt cannot be or is not repaid, alternatives that were common historically but are now rare include debt bondage—including debt peonage: being bound until the debt is repaid; and debt slavery, when the debt is so great (or labor valued so low) that the debt will never be repaid—and debtors' prison.

Debt slavery can persist across generations, future generations being made to work to pay off debts incurred by past generations. Debt bondage is today considered a form of "modern day slavery" in international law, and banned as such, in Article 1(a) of the United Nations 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery. Nevertheless, the practice continues in some nations. In most developed nations, debts cannot be inherited.

Debtors' prison has been largely abolished, but remains in some forms in the US, for example if one fails to make child support payments.

Contemporary
In modern times, the most common alternatives to debt relief in cases where debt cannot be paid are forbearance and debt restructuring. Forbearance meaning that interest payments (possibly including past due ones) are forgiven, so long as payments resume. No reduction of principal occurs, however.

In debt restructuring, an existing debt is replaced with a new debt. This may result in reduction of the principal (debt relief), or may simply change the terms of repayment, for instance by extending the term (replacing a debt repaid over 5 years with one repaid over 10 years), which allows the same principal to be amortized over a longer period, thus allowing smaller payments.

Personal debt that can be repaid from income but is not being repaid may be obtained via garnishment or attachment of earnings, which deduct debt service from wages.

Inflation
Inflation, the reduction in the nominal value of currency, reduces the real value of debts. While lenders take inflation into account when they decide the terms of a loan, unexpected increases in the rate of inflation cause categorical debt relief.

Inflation has been a contentious political issue on this basis, with debasement of currency a form of or alternative to sovereign default, and the free silver in late 19th century America being seen as a conflict between debtor farmers and creditor bankers.

In art
Debt relief plays a significant role in some artworks. In the play The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare, c. 1598, the heroine pleads for debt relief (forgiveness) on grounds of Christian mercy. In the 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, a primary political interpretation is that it treats free silver, which engenders inflation and hence reduces debts. In the 1999 film Fight Club (but not the novel on which it is based), the climactic event is the destruction of credit card records, dramatized as the destruction of skyscrapers, which allows for debt relief. The television series Mr. Robot (2015–2019), follows a group of hackers whose main mission is to cancel all debts by taking down one of the largest corporations in the world, E Corp.

title: Debt relief