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Sberbank

PJSC Sberbank (Сбербанк, initially a contraction of сберегательный банк) is a Russian majority state-owned banking and financial services company headquartered in Moscow. As the Russian successor entity of the State Labor Savings Banks System of the USSR, it was called Sberbank of Russia until 2015, and in 2020 further shortened its brand to Sber. Following the termination of its operations in the European Union in the immediate aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, its international footprint is primarily in the Commonwealth of Independent States.

By 2022, the bank accounted for about a third of all bank assets in Russia. The bank's rise since 1990s is in part due to its close connections to the Russian government. Sberbank has 87 branches and 1 representative office in 79 regions of Russia and 2 foreign countries. it was the largest bank in Russia and Eastern Europe, and the third largest in Europe, ranked 60th in the world and first in central and Eastern Europe in The Banker's Top 1000 World Banks ranking. In the world ranking of public companies Forbes "Global 2000" Sberbank takes 51st place.

1991–2013
In 1991, the operations of the State Labor Savings Banks System of the USSR in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic were reorganised into the Joint-Stock Commercial Savings Bank of the Russian Federation (Sberbank of Russia).

In post-Soviet Russia, Sberbank is the largest universal bank despite growing competition from private and other state-owned commercial banks. The bank has gradually expanded its international presence.

Since 2007, Sberbank is led by former economy minister Herman Gref who is a very close friend of Vladimir Putin.

In 2011, Sberbank acquired Volksbank International AG from its shareholders Österreichische Volksbanken AG, BPCE, DZ Bank and WGZ Bank. The deal included all Volksbank assets – banks in Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Ukraine, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, except for Volksbank Romania. The agreed price was €585 to €645 million, depending on Volksbank business performance in 2011. Volksbank's total assets excluding Romania was €9.4 billion in June 2011. On 16 December 2013, Volksbank (Ukraine), which was a wholly owned subsidiary of Sberbank, changed its name to VS Bank (ВіЕс Банк).
 * 2011 Volksbank International acquisition

In June 2012 Sberbank bought the Turkish DenizBank for Turkish lira 6,469 billion (about EUR 2,821 billion or US$3.504 billion) from the lender Dexia, which in 2011 was "partly nationalized by the governments of France, Belgium and Luxembourg". The deal included DenizBank subsidiaries in Turkey, Austria and Russia.
 * 2012 Denizbank acquisition

2014–2017 sanctions
After the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula by Russia in 2014, the Obama administration imposed targeted sanctions on 12 September 2014, through the US Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) by adding Sberbank and other entities to the Sectoral Sanctions Identifications (SSI) List. This was done in concert with 31 July 2014 addition of Sberbank to the European Union sanctions list. Sanctions consist of access restriction to the EU and US capital markets. After announcement of the sanctions, and by the end of July, Sberbank's market value had dropped the most market value among the world's major lenders plus investors moved $22 billion from Sberbank's market capitalization. Still, during the following year Sberbank's share price grew back 89%. Sberbank together with other Russian banks filed claims with the highest EU court to lift the punitive economic measures.

On 27 August 2014, Switzerland imposed sanctions on Sberbank and other Russian financial institutions.

On 22 December 2015, the United States imposed additional sanctions on Sberbank and its subsidiaries.

On 17 October 2016, Ukraine imposed sanctions against Sberbank Russia, Sberbank Leasing, and their payment systems Kolibri (Hummingbird), formerly Blitz («Колибри» стара назва – «Блиц»).

On 15 March 2017, the president of Ukraine imposed sanctions on Sberbank (and other Russian state-owned banks operating in Ukraine: VTB Bank, BM Bank, Prominvestbank, and VS Bank (ВіЕс Банк)) as part of its continued sanctions on Russia for its annexation of Crimea and involvement in the war in Donbas.

2016–2021
As of May 2016, Sberbank dominated the card payments business in Russia with over 61% of the market. Sberbank's competitors in the card business are VTB Bank, Alfa-Bank, Tinkoff Bank, and Gazprombank which combined only had a 29% of the card business market.
 * Credit cards – both issuer and payment

In December 2017, due to sanctions, Sberbank sold its Ukrainian subsidiary, VS Bank (ВіЕс Банк) to Ukrainian businessman Serhiy Tihipko.
 * 2017 sale of VS Bank to Tihipko

2022–2023 sanctions
On 24 February 2022, as a result of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, US president Joe Biden announced sanctions against additional Russian individuals and companies, including new restrictions on Sberbank's operations, after which Sberbank's stock lost more than half of its value.

On 25 February 2022 the banking licence of Sberbank in Ukraine was revoked.

On 28 February 2022, Sberbank Europe was facing bankruptcy as a consequence of the sanctions. Deutsche Börse suspended trading of Sberbank stock. Two days later, Sberbank Europe declared that it was leaving the European market.

Visa and Mastercard suspended their activities in Russia at the beginning of March 2022. Cards of these systems issued by Russian banks no longer worked outside of Russia, and all Visa cards issued outside of Russia no longer work within Russia.

In April 2022, Apple and Google removed Sberbank mobile apps from their stores. The Android application can be downloaded from the bank's website, but iPhone users did not have this option. In August, the SBOL application appeared in the App Store. It does not formally belong to Sber, but it fully reproduces the functionality of the removed application. A week later, this app was also removed from App Store. Deputy Chairman of the Board of Sberbank Stanislav Kuznetsov, speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum, spoke about new applications allegedly distributed on behalf of Sberbank. According to him, all new applications on the AppStore hosted by Sberbank have nothing in common with it. Kuznetsov noted that these are programs for fraudsters to remotely access a smartphone to steal passwords and bank card numbers.

In July 2022 the EU imposed sanctions on Sberbank in relation to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Sberbank was also sanctioned by New Zealand in 2022.

During 2022 and 2023 many overseas subsidiaries lost their licences, closed, were sold, or went into receivership.

Rebranding 2020 and "ecosystem"
In 2020, Sberbank undertook a rebranding. In addition to changing the logo and legalizing the reduction "Sber", the company announced the transformation of the bank into an "ecosystem". Sberbank decided to become "more than a bank" and began to develop various services, mainly digital: online cinema (Okko), music (SberSound), food delivery (SberMarket), cloud storage (SberDisk), taxi (Citymobil).

Initially, the "ecosystem" was built in partnership with the large Internet holding Mail.ru Group, for which a joint venture O2O (online-to-offline) Holding was created with a capital of about 100 billion rubles. However, in the spring of 2021, the parties decided to end cooperation due to disagreements over management methods and corporate culture.

Another component of the "ecosystem" is pharmacies. Having launched an online service, Sber Eapteka (e-drugstore), Sber soon decided to expand the business and open pharmacies in its own branches. It is assumed that purchases there will be more profitable due to targeted packaging of drugs, as well as the production of its own generics.

In the summer of 2021, Sberbank announced the implementation of the sabbatical practice. Employees are allowed to take unpaid leave of up to a year—with the retention of their jobs (although this required the consent of the immediate supervisor). They are also allowed to work remotely for three months a year.

Deposits of USSR citizens in the bank
After price liberalization in the early 1990s, the state and Sberbank effectively abandoned guarantees to secure citizens' deposits, as a result of their depreciation, which, according to sociological surveys, caused a sharp dissatisfaction of the population. Since 1996 there has been a phased compensation of depositors' losses. Since February 16, 2008 Sberbank branches have started to pay compensation on Soviet deposits to certain categories of population.

The law on full compensation of deposits taking into account changes in the real value of the ruble was adopted in 1995, but since 2003 the start of payments has been regularly postponed. In 2019, a law was adopted to postpone the start of payments to 2023 once again. As of 2022, repayment of the entire debt of RUB 345.54 billion in 2023 would require RUB 62.7 trillion (including indexation). In the fall of 2022, the government sent a bill to the State Duma to move the deadline to early 2026.

Ownership
The majority shareholder of Sberbank is the Russian National Wealth Fund managed by the Government of Russia (until 2020 the Central Bank of the Russian Federation), owning 50%+1 voting share of Sberbank's voting shares. The rest of the shares are dispersed among portfolio, private and other investors.

Russia's central bank cannot sell its stake without a change in Russia's laws.

Management
The president and chief executive officer is Herman Gref, confirmed by the board of directors on 16 October 2007.

Sergei Gorkov joined Sberbank in November 2008 eventually becoming the head of the international operations and the senior vice chairman of the board from 10 October 2010, until 26 February 2016, when he left Sberbank to become the Chairman of Vnesheconombank. He greatly expanded Sberbank from operations in only two foreign countries, Kazakhstan (2006) and Ukraine (December 2007), to over twenty countries including Belarus (2009), Germany (2009), China (2010), India (September 2010), Switzerland (31 December 2011), Austria (acquisition of Volksbank International AG on 15 February 2012; changed name to Sberbank Europe AG on 1 November 2012, with locations in Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Serbia, Ukraine, and Germany), Bosnia-Herzegovina (20 February 2013), Hungary (31 December 2011; 1 November 2013, as Sberbank Hungary Ltd), Croatia (February 2012), Czech Republic (20 February 2013), Slovenia (28 January 2013), Serbia (24 December 2012), Slovakia (15 February 2013), and Turkey (acquisition of DenizBank in September 2012). Following Gorkov's departure, Svetlana Alekseyevna Sagaydak (Светлана Алексеевна Cагайдак) became the new Senior Vice Chairman of the Board.

The chairman of the supervisory board of Sberbank (since April 2021) is Anton Siluanov, Minister of Finance of Russia.

Formerly from 2003 to 2013 the head of RIA Novosti and from 2006 to 2016 its editor in chief, Svetlana Mironyuk is a vice-president and the head of marketing and communications since 1 February 2016.

In February 2022, Sverbank announced foundation of its own e-commerce holding, headed by its former top-manager Lev Khasis but in a week on Feb 22,2022 he left Sberbank.

Operations

As of 2015 the bank had about 16,500 offices with over 250,000 employees. According to own estimates, the bank had over 137 million retail clients and over 1.1 million corporate clients in its 22 countries of presence.

As of August 2015 it accounted for 28.6% of aggregate banking assets, calling itself "the circulatory system of the Russian economy","key lender to the Russian economy and the biggest receiver of deposits".

Within Russia, Sberbank is structured into several regional divisions (territorial banks):

International presence

The 19 August 2021 Supreme Court of Ukraine ruling forbids the daughter of the Russian Sberbank in Ukraine to use the trademark "Sberbank" since it ruled that Oschadbank is the sole legal owner of the trademark "Sberbank" in Ukraine.

2021-2023 closure of international operations
In November 2021, aiming to focus on priority markets, Sberbank Europe AG sold associated banks in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Sberbank a.d. Banja LuKa and Sberbank BH d.d. Sarajevo), in Croatia (Sberbank d.d.), in Hungary (Sberbank Magyarorszag Zrt.), in Serbia (Sberbank Srbija a.d. Beograd) and in Slovenia (Sberbank banka d.d.) to Serbian MK Group for about 500 million Euros.

On 1 April 2022 Sberbank CIB (UK) Limited went into Administration. The affairs of Sberbank CIB USA, Inc were also placed into wound down from April 2022.

On 23 August 2022 Kazakh financial holding Baiterek announced the purchase of the Kazakhstani Sberbank subsidiary.

Sberbank Switzerland was sold in September 2022 to m3 Groupe Holding SA and will trade as TradeXBank AG in future.

On 15 December 2022 Sberbank Europe AG banking licence lapsed and can no longer trade. On 29 December 2022 Sberbank CIB (UK) Ltd and SIB (Cyprus) Limited were removed as member firms of the London Stock Exchange

Sberbank will be closing its office in the UAE in 2023 as a result of sanctions pressure.

On 16 June 2023 Sberbank announced that it had sold the Austrian bank Sber Vermögensverwaltungs AG in Abwicklung (formerly Sberbank Europe AG) to an unnamed Austrian company. It was the last subsidiary of Sberbank in Europe.

Ongoing international operations
In the fall of 2023, Sberbank announced the opening of a branch in China. Also, to work with Chinese clients in the Russian border territories, the bank registered the trademark Сбер银行.

In October 2023, Sberbank launched a line of Islamic finance products: the Adafa interest-free card and the Amana account, which complies with the AAOIFI standard. Products are available in nine regions of Russia, including Moscow, Tatarstan and Chechnya.

Sponsorship

Sberbank sponsors sports and charity events in various regions of Russia,  as well as educational projects  including projects developing financial literacy.

Savings freezing
Sberbank is the successor of Soviet Saving Banks (as it name implies), whose assets belonged to the state. During Russia's transition to a market economy in the 1990s, in which these assets were sold, Sberbank provided no guarantee for citizens' deposits. This resulted in a landslide depreciation, which in turn led to severe discontent among the Russian population. Since 1996, partial compensation for investors' losses has been offered. However, until 2003 this only applied to state-owned banks such as Sberbank, giving them an unfair advantage over fully private banks.

The law of 1995 assumed that in 2003 the repayment of debts to the population would begin, taking into account the real value of the ruble at the current moment. However, for 20 years, the start of payments was regularly postponed. As of 2022, the full repayment of the debt would cost the state almost 200 trillion rubles. In the fall of 2022, the government introduced a bill on a new delay - until 2026.

Low level of service in the early 2000s
In the early 2000s, Sberbank was repeatedly blamed for poor service. In subsequent years, Sberbank introduced new services and improved the quality of some of its existing ones. By the mid-2010s, the bank was reportedly among the market leaders with regards to quality of client services, such as services for retail depositors, premium services and several others.

Laundering stolen money accusations, Prevezon Holdings
Sergei Leonidovich Magnitsky accused numerous persons and entities of laundering stolen money in tax fraud in a Hermitage Capital Management case in Russia. Owned by Denis Katsyv, Prevezon Holdings, represented by Natalia Vladimirovna Veselnitskaya and Louis Freeh, paid $6 million to resolve the claim without admitting any crime which subsequently led to all charges being dropped by the Justice Department in the summer of 2017.

Pavlovgranite case
In United States court, Sergey P. Poymanov (Сергей Пойманов), a Voronezh-based businessman, sued Sberbank, several of its subsidiaries and executives, and a business rival for 750 million rubles, claiming that a valuable granite gravel quarry he owned was illegally bankrupted and seized by the bank in a corporate raid in 2012. Sberbank says it took the quarry as collateral after Mr. Poymanov failed to repay a loan. Sberbank is retaining Marc Kasowitz for this court case.

In January 2017 Herman Gref, a bank chief executive, has personally commented on Poymanov case, referring to the latter as a "fraudster" and accusing him of not paying loands and debts, and that Poymanov is charged with a felony. He said that Poymanov "extracted" a lot of money out of the company and that he was offered with a restructuring of his loans but allegedly refused.

Poymanov was subsequently charged with a bunch of misdemeanors and arrested on May 24, 2017, by Russian police who then subjected him to harsh pretrial detention at a notoriously rough Moscow jail, Matrosskaya Tishina, which is the same jail where Magnitsky died. He was charged with alleged embezzlement of company's money amounting to almost 1 billion rubles (about USD$11 million) as a part of Bankruptcy fraud.

Ukrainian sanctions and vandalism of Sberbank property
In April 2014, several Ukrainian officials accused Sberbank of funding the 2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine, including alleged terrorism. The bank denied any involvement in the financing of illegal activities on Ukrainian territory, which was later confirmed by an examination carried out by the National Bank of Ukraine.

"It is another instance of aggressive nationalism of neo-Nazi dogma that is gathering momentum in Ukraine and obviously enjoys support of official authorities of the country," the Russian foreign ministry stated.

15 March 2017, the president of Ukraine imposed sanctions on Sberbank (and other Russian state-owned banks operating in Ukraine: VTB Bank, BM Bank, Prominvestbank, and VS Bank (ВіЕс Банк)) as part of its continued sanctions on Russia for its annexation of Crimea and involvement in the war in Donbas. Since then, Sberbank's Ukrainian subsidiary, VS Bank (ВіЕс Банк), has been put on sale. But it has been unsuccessfully trying to sell the asset after the National Bank of Ukraine blocked the sale of the bank due to a "failure to provide the necessary and sufficient documents to carry out checks on the investors in compliance with Ukrainian law." In 2017 Sberbank was reported to be waiting for approval from the National Bank of Ukraine to sell its Ukrainian subsidiaries. "Everything is prepared on our side. The question is whether we will be given a permission to sell or not by Ukrainian authorities," Herman Gref who is the chairman of Sberbank said on the World Economic Forum held in Davos in January 2018. On 13 December 2017, Sberbank sold another subsidiary, VS Bank (ВіЕс Банк), to a Ukrainian banker, former PrivatBank chairman Serhiy Tihipko.

Troika Laundromat accusation in Lithuania
In March 2019, the Troika Laundromat was exposed as an international money laundering network involving the Troika Dialog which is an investment bank that has been merged with the Sberbank's subsidiary Sberbank CIB.

2019 data breach
In October 2019, it was revealed that analysts from cybersecurity firm DeviceLock had shared information about a large Sberbank data breach with the newspaper, the Kommersant. The personal information of up to 60 million Sberbank credit cards had been offered for sale on the black market. It was the largest data breach to have taken place in Russian banking.

title: Sberbank


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User talk:Kerdas

Hi there. Welcome to Wikipedia! Drop us a note at New user log to introduce yourself.

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Unverified images
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title: User talk:Kerdas


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User:Florian Pesth

de:Benutzer:Florian Pesth

title: User:Florian Pesth


text:
Saint Andrews, New Brunswick

Saint Andrews is a town in Charlotte County, New Brunswick, Canada. The historic town is a national historic site of Canada, bearing many characteristics of a typical 18th century British colonial settlement, including the original grid layout with its market square, and the classical architecture.

Although often shortened in non-official sources to St. Andrews, the town's legal name is spelt Saint Andrews, and appears as such on the town's website; St. Andrews by-the-Sea is a brand used for tourism purposes by the local Chamber of Commerce.

On 1 January 2023, Saint Andrews annexed the local service district of Bayside and Chamcook. Revised census information has not yet been released.

History
The site of the town was named Qunnnoskwamk'ook, meaning long gravel bar in the Malecite-Passamaquoddy language. The present name was given by a French missionary who landed at the site on Saint Andrew's Day. At the eastern end the town is a midden, a pile of shells and other refuse that accumulated over 2,000 years due to year-round activity of the Passamaquoddy. Today it is a provincial heritage site.

The site was settled in 1783 by Penobscot Loyalists. The town's street grid was designed by Charles Morris and was laid out at that time and persists today. Except for the shoreline Water Street, the names of streets have royal or colonial associations: (Parr Street, Carleton Street and Montague Street are all named after governors. These streets cross thirteen named after the children of King George III.). Also typical of British colonial settlement of the time are the town's defensive sites, public spaces, and delineation. Between 1820 and 1860, the port of Saint Andrews welcomed Irish immigrants. They were first quarantined at Hospital Island, in Passamaquoddy Bay. At the 1851 census, more than 50% of the town's population had been born in Ireland.

The Pendlebury Lighthouse, also known as the St. Andrews North Point Lighthouse, was built in 1833 at the tip of the peninsula. Deactivated in 1938, it has since been restored and registered as a Canadian historic place.

In 1840, the Charlotte County Court House was built, and was used continually until 2016.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, St. Andrews became a seaside resort for people from Montreal and Boston who were seeking to escape the summer heat. The town's first seaside hotel, the Argyll, opened in 1881. It was followed in 1889 by The Algonquin, a resort on a hill overlooking the town, which became Canada's first seaside resort. The Argyll burned down in 1892 and was never rebuilt while the Algonquin burned in 1914 and was rebuilt one year later. The lifestyle of wealthy summer visitors is commemorated at the Ross Memorial Museum.

A federal marine research facility, the St. Andrews Biological Station, was established in 1908 and the Huntsman Marine Science Centre in 1969.

The town was designated a national historic site in 1998.

Geography
Saint Andrews is at the southern tip of a peninsula, extending into Passamaquoddy Bay. The waterfront faces Saint Andrews Harbour and the Western Channel, which is formed by Navy Island. The harbour is at the mouth of the St. Croix River.

The town is directly opposite the community of Robbinston, Maine, two kilometres to the west across the river mouth, and 53 km by road.

Ministers Island is east of the town and is accessible by road at low tide only.

Demographics
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Saint Andrews had a population of $2,048$ living in $921$ of its $1,096$ total private dwellings, a change of NaN% from its 2016 population of $1,786$. With a land area of 8.35 km2, it had a population density of in 2021.

Transportation
Despite its proximity to the Canada–United States border, the nearest border crossings are 30 km away at St. Stephen or via a ferry service at Deer Island, both in New Brunswick.

The only way into or out of Saint Andrews by land is via Route 127, which runs directly through the town. It meets Route 1 on either end of the town.

Media
A local community channel, CHCO-TV, serves the Saint Andrews and Charlotte County area. The station launched in 1993 on cable television, and began broadcasting over the air in 2006.

Education

 * NBCC St. Andrews
 * Vincent Massey Elementary School (K-5)
 * Sir James Dunn Academy (6-12)

title: Saint Andrews, New Brunswick


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Council of International Fellowship

The Council of International Fellowship (CIF) is a worldwide organisation to provide possibilities for inservice training and the exchange of professional experiences in the field of Social Work.

Henry. B. Ollendorff born in Germany, was sent to Germany to participate in the re-education program of the U.S. government. In 1954 he conducted courses for youth leaders and social workers in Hesse. Working with these young people made him think to start an exchange program. His plan was approved by the German Ministry of Youth and also the German Fulbright Commission. The first German participants went to Cleveland, Ohio. In 1956 the "Cleveland International Program - CIP" (later "Council of International Programs") was founded.

1958 followed the German exchange program - and started with the invitation of American social workers.

CIF was founded 1960 in Hamburg, Germany. It is registered in Bonn, Germany. Now the organisation has exchange programs in different parts of the world (United States, India, Western European countries, etc.).

Beside the exchange programs there are international conferences (2003 in Goa, India, 2005 in Bonn, Germany, 2007 in Cleveland, Ohio, 2009 in Finland, 2011 in Cyprus, and 2013 in Ankara, Turkey).

title: Council of International Fellowship


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Mycophenolic acid

Mycophenolic acid is an immunosuppressant medication used to prevent rejection following organ transplantation and to treat autoimmune conditions such as Crohn's disease and lupus. Specifically it is used following kidney, heart, and liver transplantation. It can be given by mouth or by injection into a vein. It comes as mycophenolate sodium and mycophenolate mofetil.

Common side effects include nausea, infections, and diarrhea. Other serious side effects include an increased risk of cancer, progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, anemia, and gastrointestinal bleeding. Use during pregnancy may harm the baby. It works by blocking inosine monophosphate dehydrogenase (IMPDH), which is needed by lymphocytes to make guanosine.

Mycophenolic acid was initially discovered by Italian Bartolomeo Gosio in 1893. It was rediscovered in 1945 and 1968. It was approved for medical use in the United States in 1995 following the discovery of its immunosuppressive properties in the 1990s. It is available as a generic medication. In 2020, it was the 313th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 900thousand prescriptions.

Organ transplant
Mycophenolate is used for the prevention of organ transplant rejection. Mycophenolate mofetil is indicated for the prevention of organ transplant rejection in adults and kidney transplantation rejection in children over 2 years; whereas mycophenolate sodium is indicated for the prevention of kidney transplant rejection in adults. Mycophenolate sodium has also been used for the prevention of rejection in liver, heart, or lung transplants in children older than two years.

Autoimmune disease
Mycophenolate is increasingly utilized as a steroid sparing treatment in autoimmune diseases and similar immune-mediated disorders including Behçet's disease, pemphigus vulgaris, immunoglobulin A nephropathy, small vessel vasculitides, and psoriasis. It is also used for retroperitoneal fibrosis along with a number of other medications. Specifically it has also be used for psoriasis not treatable by other methods.

Its increasing application in treating lupus nephritis has demonstrated more frequent complete response and less frequent complications compared to cyclophosphamide bolus therapy, a regimen with risk of bone marrow suppression, infertility, and malignancy. Further work addressing maintenance therapy demonstrated mycophenolate superior to cyclophosphamide, again in terms of response and side-effects. Walsh proposed that mycophenolate should be considered as a first-line induction therapy for treatment of lupus nephritis in people without kidney dysfunction.

Comparison to other agents
Compared with azathioprine it has higher incidence of diarrhea, and no difference in risk of any of the other side effects in transplant patients. Mycophenolic acid is 15 times more expensive than azathioprine.

Adverse effects
Common adverse drug reactions (≥ 1% of people) include diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, joint pain; infections, leukopenia, or anemia reflect the immunosuppressive and myelosuppressive nature of the drug. Mycophenolate sodium is also commonly associated with fatigue, headache, cough and/or breathing issues. Intravenous (IV) administration of mycophenolate mofetil is also commonly associated with thrombophlebitis and thrombosis. Infrequent adverse effects (0.1–1% of people) include esophagitis, gastritis, gastrointestinal tract hemorrhage, and/or invasive cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection. More rarely, pulmonary fibrosis or various neoplasia occur: melanoma, lymphoma, other malignancies having an occurrences of 1 in 20 to 1 in 200, depending on the type, with neoplasia in the skin being the most common site. Several cases of pure red cell aplasia (PRCA) have also been reported.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an alert that people are at increased risk of opportunistic infections, such as activation of latent viral infections, including shingles, other herpes infections, cytomegalovirus, and BK virus associated nephropathy. In addition the FDA is investigating 16 people that developed a rare neurological disease while taking the drug. This is a viral infection known as progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy; it attacks the brain and is usually fatal.

Pregnancy
Mycophenolic acid is associated with miscarriage and congenital malformations when used during pregnancy, and should be avoided whenever possible by women trying to get pregnant.

Blood tests
Among the most common effects of this drug is increased blood cholesterol levels. Other changes in blood chemistry such as hypomagnesemia, hypocalcemia, hyperkalemia, and an increase in blood urea nitrogen (BUN) can occur.

Mechanism of action
Purines (including the nucleosides guanosine and adenosine) can either be synthesized de novo using ribose 5-phosphate or they can be salvaged from free nucleotides. Mycophenolic acid is a potent, reversible, non-competitive inhibitor of inosine-5′-monophosphate dehydrogenase (IMPDH), an enzyme essential to the de novo synthesis of guanosine-5'-monophosphate (GMP) from inosine-5'-monophosphate (IMP). IMPDH inhibition particularly affects lymphocytes since they rely almost exclusively on de novo purine synthesis. In contrast, many other cell types use both pathways, and some cells, such as terminally differentiated neurons, depend completely on purine nucleotide salvage. Thus, use of mycophenolic acid leads to a relatively selective inhibition of DNA replication in T cells and B cells.

Pharmacology
Mycophenolate can be derived from the fungi Penicillium stoloniferum, P. brevicompactum and P. echinulatum. Mycophenolate mofetil is metabolised in the liver to the active moiety mycophenolic acid. It reversibly inhibits inosine monophosphate dehydrogenase, the enzyme that controls the rate of synthesis of guanine monophosphate in the de novo pathway of purine synthesis used in the proliferation of B and T lymphocytes. Other cells recover purines via a separate salvage pathway and are thus able to escape the effect.

Mycophenolate is potent and can, in many contexts, be used in place of the older anti-proliferative azathioprine. It is usually used as part of a three-compound regimen of immunosuppressants, also including a calcineurin inhibitor (ciclosporin or tacrolimus) and a glucocorticoid (e.g. dexamethasone or prednisone).

Chemistry
Mycophenolate mofetil is the morpholino ethyl ester of mycophenolic acid; the ester masks the carboxyl group. Mycophenolate mofetil is reported to have a pKa values of 5.6 for the morpholino moiety and 8.5 for the phenolic group.

History
Mycophenolic acid was discovered by Italian medical scientist Bartolomeo Gosio. Gosio collected a fungus from spoiled corn and named it Penicillium glaucum. (The species is now called P. brevicompactum.) In 1893 he found that the fungus had antibacterial activity. In 1896 he isolated crystals of the compound, which he successfully demonstrated as the active antibacterial compound against the anthrax bacterium. This was the first antibiotic that was isolated in pure and crystalline form. But the discovery was forgotten. It was rediscovered by two American scientists C.L. Alsberg and O.M. Black in 1912, and given the name mycophenolic acid. The compound was eventually demonstrated to have antiviral, antifungal, antibacterial, anticancer, and antipsoriasis activities. Although it is not commercialised as antibiotic due to its adverse effects, its modified compound (ester derivative) is an approved immunosuppressant drug in kidney, heart, and liver transplantations, and is marketed under the brands CellCept (mycophenolate mofetil by Roche) and Myfortic (mycophenolate sodium by Novartis).

Cellcept was developed by a South African geneticist Anthony Allison and his wife Elsie M. Eugui. In the 1970s while working at the Medical Research Council, Allison investigated the biochemical causes of immune deficiency in children. He discovered the metabolic pathway involving an enzyme, inosine monophosphate dehydrogenase, which is responsible for undesirable immune response in autoimmune diseases, as well as for immune rejection in organ transplantation. He conceived an idea that if a molecule that could block the enzyme is discovered, then, it would become an immunosuppressive drug that could be used for autoimmune diseases and in organ transplantation. In 1981 he decided to go for drug discovery and approached several pharmaceutical companies, which turned him down one by one as he had no primary knowledge of drug research. However, Syntex liked his plans and asked him to join the company with his wife. He became vice president for the research. In one of their experiments the Allisons used an antibacterial compound, mycophenolate mofetil, which was abandoned in clinical use due to its adverse effects. They discovered that the compound had immunosuppressive activity. They synthesised a chemical variant for increased activity and reduced adverse effects. They subsequently demonstrated that it was useful in organ transplantation in experimental rats. After successful clinical trials, the compound was approved for use in kidney transplant by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on 3 May 1995, and was sold under the brand name CellCept. It was approved for use in the European Union in February 1996.

Names
It was initially introduced as the prodrug mycophenolate mofetil (MMF, trade name CellCept) to improve oral bioavailability. The salt mycophenolate sodium has also been introduced. Enteric-coated mycophenolate sodium (EC-MPS) is an alternative MPA formulation.

MMF and EC-MPS appear to be equal in benefits and safety.

Research
Mycophenolate mofetil is beginning to be used in the management of auto-immune disorders such as idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), scleroderma (systemic sclerosis or SSc), and pemphigus vulgaris (PV) with success for some patients.

It is also being used as a long-term therapy for maintaining remission of granulomatosis with polyangiitis, though thus far, studies have found it inferior to azathioprine. A combination of mycophenolate and ribavirin has been found to stop infection by and replication of dengue virus in vitro. It has also shown promising antiviral activity against MERS, especially in combination with interferon.

Preliminary data suggest that mycophenolate mofetil might have benefits in people with multiple sclerosis. However the evidence is insufficient to determine the effects as an add‐on therapy for interferon beta-1a in people with RRMS.

title: Mycophenolic acid


text:
Torpids

Torpids is one of two series of bumping races, a type of rowing race, held yearly at Oxford University; the other is Eights Week. Over 130 men's and women's crews race for their colleges in twelve divisions: six each of men's and women's; almost 1,200 participants in total. The racing takes place on the Isis (part of the River Thames), usually in the 7th week of Hilary Term on four successive days from Wednesday to Saturday (around the start of March).

Overview
Bumping races evolved in Oxford as the river is too narrow for normal side by side racing. Competing crews start the race lined up in order, one behind another, with their coxes holding ropes ('bung lines') attached to the bank, with gaps of about 1.5 boat lengths between the bow of one boat and the stern of the one in front. Racing is started by the firing of a cannon. Racing is by division, the number of crews in a division depending on river conditions. The bottom men's division starts first with men's and women's alternating, finishing with the top women's division.

Crews attempt to progress up their division by hitting ('bumping') the boat in front without being hit by the boat behind, with the ultimate aim of becoming "Head Of The River" i.e. top of the first division. The Head of the River is awarded the Torpids Challenge Cup, presented to the OUBC by President T.C. Edwards-Moss of Brasenose College Boat Club. Once a bump has taken place, the crew whose boat was bumped has to continue racing (and is liable to be bumped again) whilst the bumping crew moves to the side. This can lead to a crew moving down several places during a day's racing. This is the principal difference in the rules between Torpids and Summer Eights, where both crews stop racing. Commonly a cox will concede a bump, signalled by raising an arm, rather than waiting to be hit. The crew finishing top of a lower division rows again the same day at the bottom of the division above.

The name 'Torpids' derives from the event's origins as a race for the second boats of the colleges, which were of course slower than the first boats. The status of the event - still adjudged below that of Summer Eights on account of the absence of rowers in the varsity boat races - only began to rise at the very end of the nineteenth century, when colleges began to form first boats to compete. Nowadays there is no limit on the number of boats a college may enter, although crews in the last two divisions and crews without a position have to qualify to race by competing in a timed race the preceding Friday, known as 'rowing on'.

Athletes competing in that year's Boat Race, Women's Boat Race or any of the Lightweight University crews at Henley Boat Races may not compete in Torpids, but may compete in Summer Eights.

Double Headship

The 'Double Headship' is an accolade of any college finishing with their men's and women's crews at the 'Head of the River'. Oriel is the first to have achieved this in Torpids, in 2006. The college's new first crews repeated this in 2018.

Trophies
The first day's starting order is based on the previous year's finishing positions, and each subsequent day's starting order is based on the previous day's finishing positions. A crew that bumps on every day or that finishes at the Head of the River is awarded blades - the right to get trophy oars painted up in their college colours with the names and weights of the successful crew emblazoned on them. Spoons are awarded in case the crew was bumped on every single day. A third, somewhat unusual possibility is the award of spades. The crew is both bumped and then proceeds to bump a crew in front of it before the end of the race. Thus being both the bumper and the bumped on the same day. Owing to the differences in rules between Torpids and Lent Bumps at the University of Cambridge this achievement is only possible at Oxford.

Men's Head of Torpids
Torpids has been held since 1838. The following gives the colleges that were Head of the River (Head of Torpids) in these years.

Women's Head of Torpids
Women's division in Torpids have existed since 1978. This was delayed from 1977 when the river was flooded and Torpids was cancelled.

title: Torpids


text:
Buchi Emecheta

Buchi Emecheta (born Florence Onyebuchi Emecheta; 21 July 1944 – 25 January 2017) was a Nigerian writer who wrote novels, plays, autobiography, and children's book. She is known for her first novel, Second Class Citizen (1974). Others includes, The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977) and The Joys of Motherhood (1979). Emecheta has been characterized as "the first successful black woman novelist living in Britain after 1948".

Born in Lagos, Nigeria, Emecheta's themes of child slavery, motherhood, female independence and freedom through education gained recognition from critics and honours especially with her debut novel, Second Class Citizen. Her works often explore the themes of culture, and tension between tradition and modernity. Most of her early novels were published by Allison and Busby, and editor as Margaret Busby.

Background and marriage
Emecheta was born on 21 July 1944, in Lagos, Colonial Nigeria, to Igbo parents, Alice Okwuekwuhe and Jeremy Nwabudinke Emecheta  from Umuezeokolo Odeanta village in Ibusa, Delta State. Her father was a railway worker and moulder. Her mother, Alice Ogbanje Ojebeta Emecheta, was a former slave girl sold into slavery by her brother to a relative to buy silk head ties for his coming-of-age dance. When her mistress died, Ogbanje Emecheta returned home to freedom.

Emecheta has her early childhood education at an all-girls' missionary school. At 9, she lost her father, who died of the complications from the wound, which he contracted in the swamps of Burma, where he had been conscripted to fight for Lord Louis Mountbatten and the remnants of the British Empire. After a year, she received a fully funded scholarship to Methodist Girls' School in Yaba, Lagos, where she remained until the age of 16. During this time, her mother died, leaving Emecheta an orphan. In 1960, she married Sylvester Onwordi, a schoolboy to whom she had been engaged since she was 11 years old. Later that year, she gave birth to a daughter, and in 1961 their younger son was born.

Onwordi moved to London for his studies, and Emecheta joined him there with their first two children in 1962. In the next six years, she would later give birth to five children; three daughters and two sons. According to Emecheta, her marriage was an unhappy and sometimes violent one; those she would incorporate in her autobiographical book, Second Class Citizen. To keep her sanity, Emecheta wrote in her spare time. However, her husband was deeply suspicious of her writing, and he ultimately burned her first manuscript, as revealed in The Bride Price, which was eventually published in 1976. It had been her first book, but she had to rewrite it after the earlier version had been destroyed. As she later said, "There were five years between the two versions."

At the age of 22, pregnant with her fifth child, Emecheta left her husband. While working to support her children alone, she earned a B.Sc. (Hons) degree in Sociology in 1972 from the University of London. In her 1984 autobiography, Head above Water, she wrote: "As for my survival for the past twenty years in England, from when I was a little over twenty, dragging four cold and dripping babies with me and pregnant with a fifth one—that is a miracle." She went on to gain her PhD from the university in 1991.

Writing
Emecheta began writing about her experiences of Black British life in a regular column in the New Statesman, and a collection of these pieces became her first published book in 1972, In the Ditch. The semi-autobiographical novel chronicled the struggles of a main character named Adah, who is forced to live in a housing estate while working as a librarian to support her five children. Her second novel published two years later, Second-Class Citizen (Allison and Busby, 1974), also drew on Emecheta's own experiences, and both books were eventually published in one volume by Allison and Busby under the title Adah's Story (1983). These three stories introduced Emecheta's three major themes, which were the quest for equal treatment, self-confidence and dignity as a woman. Her works Gwendolen (1989, also published as The Family), Kehinde (1994) and The New Tribe (2000) differ in some way, as they address the issues of immigrant life in Great Britain. Most of her fictional works are focused on sexual discrimination and racial prejudice, informed by her own experiences as both a single parent and a black woman living in the United Kingdom.

From 1965 to 1969, Emecheta worked as a library officer for the British Museum in London. From 1969 to 1976, she was a youth worker and sociologist for the Inner London Education Authority, and from 1976 to 1978 she worked as a community worker in Camden, North London, meanwhile continuing to produce further novels at Allison and Busby, with Margaret Busby as her editor – The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977), The Joys of Motherhood (1979) and Destination Biafra (1982) – as well as the children's books Titch the Cat (1979, based on a story by her 11-year-old daughter Alice) and Nowhere To Play (1980).

Following Emecheta's success as an author, she travelled widely as a visiting professor and lecturer. She visited several American universities, including Pennsylvania State University, Rutgers University, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. From 1980 to 1981, she was senior resident fellow and visiting professor of English at the University of Calabar, Nigeria. From 1982 to 1983, Emecheta, together with her son Sylvester, ran the Ogwugwu Afor Publishing Company, producing her own work under the imprint, beginning with Double Yoke (1982). She received an Arts Council of Great Britain bursary, 1982–83, and was one of Granta magazine's "Best of Young British Novelists" in 1983. In 1982, she lectured at Yale University, and the University of London. She became a Fellow at the University of London in 1986.

Over her career, Emecheta worked with many cultural and literary organizations, including the Africa Centre, London, and with the Caine Prize for African Writing as a member of the Advisory Council.

Buchi Emecheta suffered a stroke in 2010, and her last years were marked by increasing disability and illness. She died in London on 25 January 2017, aged 72.

Awards and recognition
Among honours received during her literary career, Emecheta won the 1978 Jock Campbell Prize from the New Statesman (first won by Chinua Achebe's Arrow of God) for her novel The Slave Girl, and she was on Granta magazine's 1983 list of 20 "Best of Young British Novelists". She was a member of the British Home Secretary's Advisory Council on Race in 1979.

In September 2004, she appeared in the "A Great Day in London" photograph taken at the British Library, featuring 50 Black and Asian writers who have made major contributions to contemporary British literature. In 2005, she was made an OBE for services to literature.

She received an Honorary doctorate of literature from Farleigh Dickinson University in 1992.

Legacy
In 2017, Emecheta's son Sylvester Onwordi announced the formation of the Buchi Emecheta Foundation – a charitable organisation promoting literary and educational projects in the UK and in Africa – which was launched in London on 3 February 2018 at the Brunei Gallery, SOAS, together with new editions of several of her books published by Onwordi through his Omenala Press. Among participants in the "Celebrating Buchi Emecheta" day-long event – "a gathering of writers, critics, artists, publishers, literature enthusiasts and cultural activists from all over the world, including London and other parts of the U.K., France, Germany, U.S., Canada, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, and the Caribbean" – were Diane Abbott, Leila Aboulela, Carole Boyce Davies, Margaret Busby, James Currey, Louisa Uchum Egbunike, Ernest Emenyonu, Akachi Ezeigbo, Kadija George, Mpalive Msiska, Grace Nichols, Alastair Niven, Irenosen Okojie, Veronique Tadjo, Marie Linton Umeh, Wangui wa Goro, and Bibi Bakare-Yusuf.

Emecheta features at number 98 on a list of 100 women recognised in August 2018 by BBC History Magazine as having changed the world.

In March 2019, Camden Town Brewery launched a football kit using artwork featuring "some of the most inspiring female icons to have influenced the brewery's home borough of Camden".

On 21 July 2019, which would have been Emecheta's 75th birthday, Google commemorated her life with a Doodle.

In October 2019, a new exhibition space in the library for students at Goldsmiths, University of London, was dedicated to Buchi Emecheta, marked by a reception with short talks by Goldsmiths warden Frances Corner and the Head of Library Services, Leo Appleton, preceding an address by Margaret Busby.

In October 2021, Emecheta's second novel, Second Class Citizen, was reissued as a Penguin Modern Classic, as was In the Ditch in 2023.

Novels

 * In the Ditch (1972)
 * Second Class Citizen (1974)
 * The Bride Price (1976)
 * The Slave Girl (1977); winner of the New Statesman's 1978 Jock Campbell Award
 * The Joys of Motherhood (1979)
 * The Moonlight Bride (1981)
 * Destination Biafra (1982)
 * Naira Power (1982)
 * Adah's Story [In the Ditch/Second-Class Citizen] (London: Allison & Busby, 1983).
 * The Rape of Shavi (1983)
 * Double Yoke (1982)
 * A Kind of Marriage (London: Macmillan, 1986); Pacesetter Novels series.
 * Gwendolen (1989). Published in the US as The Family
 * Kehinde (1994)
 * The New Tribe (2000)

Autobiography

 * Head above Water (1984; 1986)
 * Voices of the Crossing - The impact of Britain on writers from Asia, the Caribbean and Africa. Ferdinand Dennis, Naseem Khan (eds), London: Serpent's Tail, 1998.  Buchi Emecheta: p. 93 "Crossing Boundaries."

Children's/Young adults' books

 * Titch the Cat (illustrated by Thomas Joseph; 1979)
 * Nowhere to Play (illustrated by Peter Archer; 1980)
 * The Wrestling Match (1981)

Plays

 * Juju Landlord (episode of Crown Court), Granada Television, 1975.
 * A Kind of Marriage, BBC television, 1976.
 * Family Bargain, BBC Television, 1987.

Articles and shorter writings

 * Introduction and comments to Our Own Freedom, photographs by Maggie Murray; 1981
 * The Black Scholar, November–December 1985, p. 51.
 * "Feminism with a small 'f'!" in Kirsten Holst Petersen (ed.), Criticism and Ideology: Second African Writers' Conference, Stockholm 1988, Uppsala: Scandinanvian Institute of African Studies, 1988, pp. 173–181.
 * Essence magazine, August 1990, p. 50.
 * The New York Times Book Review, 29 April 1990.
 * Publishers Weekly, 16 February 1990, p. 73; reprinted 7 February 1994, p. 84.
 * World Literature Today, Autumn 1994, p. 867.

Selected tributes and obituaries

 * Dennis Abrams, "Comments On the Work of the Late Nigerian Novelist Buchi Emecheta", Publishing Perspectives, 30 January 2017.
 * Adekeye Adebajo, "Tribute to an African woman of courage", The Guardian (Nigeria), 31 January 2017.
 * Adekunle, "Tribute to a literary lioness", Vanguard (Nigeria), 17 February 2017.
 * Jane Bryce, "A Sort-of Career: Remembering Buchi Emecheta", Wasafiri, 10 February 2017.
 * Margaret Busby, "Buchi Emecheta obituary", The Guardian, 3 February 2017.
 * Eashani Chavda, "Black British Writing: A Tribute To Buchi Emecheta", gal-dem, 18 May 2017.
 * Vimbai Chinembiri, "Buchi Emecheta: How she made her writing a voice for women", Her (Zimbabwe), 28 January 2017.
 * The Council of the Caine Prize for African Writing, "Tribute to Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017)", Caine Prize blog, 1 February 2017.
 * William Grimes, "Buchi Emecheta, Nigerian Novelist, Dies at 72", The New York Times, 10 February 2017.
 * Fred Obera, "Nigeria: Remembering Nigerian Literary Icon Buchi Emecheta", AllAfrica, 26 January 2017.
 * Margaret Olele, "Of Buchi Emecheta and womankind", The Guardian (Nigeria), 14 March 2017.
 * Sylvester Onwordi, "Remembering my mother Buchi Emecheta, 1944–2017", New Statesman, 31 January 2017. Also as "Remembering Buchi Emecheta, Nigerian novelist, feminist, my mother", African Arguments (Royal African Society), 1 February 2017.
 * Niyi Osundare, "The Unintended Feminist: For Buchi Emecheta, 1944–2017", Sahara Reporters, 29 January 2017.

title: Buchi Emecheta


text:
The Age of Anxiety

The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue (1947; first UK edition, 1948) is a long poem in six parts by W. H. Auden, written mostly in a modern version of Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse.

The poem deals, in eclogue form, with man's quest to find substance and identity in a shifting and increasingly industrialized world. Set in a wartime bar in New York City, Auden uses four characters – Quant, Malin, Rosetta, and Emble – to explore and develop his themes.

The poem won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1948.

A critical edition of the poem, edited by Alan Jacobs, was published by Princeton University Press in 2011.

Influence
The poem inspired Leonard Bernstein's 1949 Symphony No. 2, also known as The Age of Anxiety.

The phrase "Age of Anxiety" was used in the titles of E. R. Dodds' book Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety (1965), as well as Pete Townshend's novel The Age of Anxiety (2019).

title: The Age of Anxiety


text:
Henri Nestlé

Henri Nestlé (born Heinrich Nestle, ; 10 August 1814 – 7 July 1890) was a German-Swiss confectioner and the founder of Nestlé, the world's largest food and beverage company.

Early life
Heinrich Nestle was born on 10 August 1814 in Frankfurt am Main. He was the eleventh of fourteen children of Johann Ulrich Matthias Nestle and Anna Maria Catharina Ehemann. Nestlé's father, by tradition, inherited the business of his father, Johann Ulrich Nestle, and became a glazier in Töngesgasse. The later Lord Mayor of Frankfurt am Main, Gustav Edmund Nestlé, was his brother.

The Nestlé family has its roots in western Swabia, predominantly in boroughs of the Black Forest such as Dornstetten, Freudenstadt, Mindersbach, Nagold, and Sulz am Neckar. In the Swabian dialect, "Nestlé" is a small bird's nest. The name Nestlé also has different variations, including Nästlin, Nästlen, Nestlin, Nestlen, and Niestle.

The Nestlé family tree began with three brothers (thus the three young birds in the nest being fed by their mother on the family coat of arms) from Mindersbach, called Hans, Heinrich, and Samuel Nestlin. The father of these three sons was born circa 1495. Hans, the eldest, was born in 1520 and had a son with the same name, who later became mayor of Nagold. His son Ulrich was a barber and his fifth son was the first glazier in the family. For over five generations, this profession was passed down from father to son. Additionally, the Nestles provided a number of mayors for the boroughs of Dornstetten, Freudenstadt, Nagold, and Sulz am Neckar.

Career
Before Nestlé turned 20 in 1834, he completed a four-year apprenticeship with J. E. Stein, owner of a Frankfurt pharmacy. At some point between 1834 and 1839 he migrated, for reasons unknown, to Switzerland. At the end of 1839, he was officially authorized in Lausanne, Vaud, to perform chemical experiments, make up prescriptions, and sell medicines. During this time, he changed his name to Henri Nestlé in order to adapt better to the new social environment in French-speaking Vevey, where he eventually settled.

In 1843, Nestlé bought into one of the region's production of rapeseeds. He also became involved in the production of nut oils (used to fuel oil lamps), liqueurs, rum, absinthe, and vinegar. He also began manufacturing and selling carbonated mineral water and lemonade, although during the European food crisis in the 1840s, Nestlé gave up mineral water production. In 1857 he began concentrating on gas lighting and fertilizers.

Though it is not known when Nestlé started working on his infant formula project, by 1867, Nestlé had produced a viable powdered milk product. His interest is known to have been spurred by several factors. Although Nestlé and his wife were childless, they were aware of the high death rate among infants. Nestlé would have been aware of Justus von Liebig's work in developing an infant formula. In addition, fresh milk was not always available in large towns, and women in higher society were starting to view breastfeeding as an unfashionable option.

Nestlé combined cow's milk with grain and sugar to produce a substitute for breast milk. Moreover, he and his friend Jean Balthasar Schnetzler, a scientist in human nutrition, removed the acid and the starch in wheat flour because they were difficult for babies to digest. Initially called "kindermehl," or "children flour", his product had an advantage over Liebig's "soup for infants" in that it was much easier to prepare, needing only to be boiled prior to feeding, and it soon proved to be a viable option for infants who were unable to breastfeed. People quickly recognized the value of the new product, and soon Farine Lactée Henri Nestlé, "Henri Nestlé's Milk Flour" in French, was being sold in much of Europe. By the 1870s, Nestlé's Infant Food, made with malt, cow's milk, sugar, and wheat flour, was selling in the US for $0.50 a bottle.

Nestlé's milk-condensation process enabled the chocolatier Daniel Peter, of Vevey, to perfect his milk chocolate formulation in 1875, after seven years of effort, and the two men subsequently formed a partnership which resulted, four years later, in 1879, in the organisation of the Nestlé Company, which eventually became one of the largest Europe-based confection industries.

Personal life
Nestlé and Anna Clémentine Thérèse Ehemant were married in Frankfurt, Germany on 23 May 1860. Nestlé sold his company in 1875 to his business associates and then lived with his family alternately in Montreux and Glion, where they helped people with small loans and publicly contributed towards improving the local infrastructure. In Glion, he moved into a house later known as Villa Nestlé.

Nestlé died in Glion on 7 July 1890.

title: Henri Nestlé


text:
Maria Pia de Saxe-Coburgo e Bragança

Maria Pia de Saxe-Coburgo e Bragança  (March 13, 1907 – May 6, 1995 ), also known by her literary pseudonym Hilda de Toledano, was a Portuguese writer and journalist who claimed to be the illegitimate daughter of King Carlos I of Portugal. From 1932 she also claimed the right to the title of Duchess of Braganza and to be the rightful heiress to the throne of Portugal.

Maria Pia of Braganza claimed that King Carlos I legitimized her through a royal decree and placed her in the line of succession, however no proof was presented to demonstrate this and the King similarly did not have the personal authority to do so. Maria Pia's paternity was never proven and her claim to the throne or of royal ancestry never widely accepted.

Birth and baptism
Maria Pia de Saxe-Coburgo Gotha e Bragança was born Lisbon, Portugal, allegedly as the royal bastard daughter of an adulterous relationship between King Carlos I of Portugal, then married to Princess Amélie of Orléans, and Maria Amélia Laredó e Murça, the daughter of a wealthy Brazilian couple who had moved to Europe: Armando Maurício Laredó and Maria Amélia Murça e Berhen. Maria Amélia's parents are sometimes given the title "baron", but they did not actually hold any noble title; their wealth and patrician status, however, may have allowed them to use such a title unquestioned.

Maria Amélia Laredó e Murça was not married at the time she gave birth to her daughter on March 13, 1907. Maria Pia of Braganza claimed that, shortly thereafter, she was taken by her mother and grandparents to Madrid, Spain. There, she said, she was baptised in the Church of Saint Fermin de los Navarros on April 15, 1907, and that the baptism was registered at the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel and Saint Aloysius. She claimed that her baptismal registration recorded that her father was "D. Carlos de Sassonia-Coburgo y Savoya de la Casa de Braganza de Portugal". This clearly refers to King Carlos I of Portugal, who at the time was married to another woman, Princess Amélie of Orléans.

The original baptismal registers of the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel and Saint Aloysius were destroyed during the Spanish Civil War, and no original birth record of Maria Pia of Braganza has ever been made public. In 1939 the Vicar-General of the Diocese of Madrid-Alcalas issued a baptismal certificate to Maria Pia of Braganza with information provided to him at that time by Don Antonio Goicoechea y Cusculluela, a member of the Spanish parliament and the Governor of the Bank of Spain, who had reportedly been present at the baptism. Subsequently, Maria Pia of Braganza used this baptismal certificate as evidence for her claim to be the recognised daughter of King Carlos.

Maria Pia of Braganza also claimed that in the archives of the Diocese of Madrid-Alcalá there was a copy of a document signed by King Carlos March 14, 1907 in which he recognised Maria Pia of Braganza as his daughter and that "she may be called by my name and enjoy from now on the use of this name with the honours, prerogatives, rank, obligations and advantages of the princes of the House of Braganza of Portugal". Like the baptismal certificate, the original of this document did not survive.

Marriages and children
In 1925, at the age of eighteen, Maria Pia of Braganza married Francesco Javier Bilbao y Batista, a Cuban playboy twenty years her senior. He came from a rich family of cattle breeders. Since Bilbao was divorced, the marriage was a civil one only and took place in the Cuban embassy in Paris. They had one daughter, Fátima Francisca Xaviera Iris Bilbao de Saxe-Coburgo e Bragança, in 1932, who became a cloistered nun in a convent.

Maria Pia of Braganza lived briefly with Bilbao in Cuba, before returning to Spain. Bilbao died November 15, 1935. Francisca died unmarried in 1982. To escape the Spanish Civil War, Maria Pia of Braganza moved with her mother to Rome. In 1939, she married Giuseppe Blais, a colonel in the Italian carabinieri. At the time, members of the carabinieri were forbidden from marrying foreigners. The marriage was, therefore, celebrated clandestinely, and was not registered civilly until August 5, 1946. The union proved much happier and together they had a daughter, Maria da Glória Cristina Amélia Valéria Antónia Blais de Saxe-Coburgo e Bragança, born in 1946. Maria Cristina Blais de Saxe-Coburgo e Bragança (in Spain also called María Cristina Blais de Sajonia-Coburgo Braganza) married the Spanish sculptor Miguel Ortíz y Berrocal (1933–2006) and together they lived in Verona and had two sons: Carlos Miguel Berrocal de Saxe-Coburgo e Bragança (born 1976) and Beltrão José Berrocal de Saxe-Coburgo e Bragança (born 1978).

General Blais died in 1983. In 1985, Maria Pia of Braganza married António João da Costa Amado-Noivo (January 28, 1952 – December 29, 1996). At the time of the wedding, Maria Pia was 78, Amado-Noivo 33.

Literary career
Like many society ladies, Maria Pia of Braganza supplemented her income by writing. In the early 1930s she had a number of articles published in two Spanish newspapers Blanco y Negro and ABC.

In 1937, Maria Pia wrote her first book La hora de Alfonso XIII (The Hour of Alfonso XIII) published in Havana, Cuba, by Ucar, Garcia y Companía. This work, written in Spanish and published under the name "Hilda de Toledano", is a defence of King Alfonso XIII of Spain, who was living in exile at the time.

In 1954, Maria Pia wrote Un beso y ... nada más: confidencia consciente de una pecadora inconsciente (A Kiss and ... Nothing More: Conscious Confidences of an Unconscious Sinner) published in Madrid by Plenitud. This novel was also written in Spanish and published under the name "Hilda de Toledano".

In 1957, Maria Pia wrote Mémoires d'une infante vivante (Memoirs of a Living Infanta) published in Paris by Del Duca. This work, written in French and published under the name "Maria Pia de Saxe-Cobourg Bragance", is an autobiography. It marks the first attempt of Maria Pia to receive widespread public recognition for her claim that she was the bastard daughter of King Carlos I of Portugal. In the book, however, Maria Pia makes no claim to any dynastic rights. The book closes with the sentence, "I claim no sceptre but my pen, no crown but that bequeathed by my father and mother: my dignity." Instead, Maria Pia of Braganza suggests that the rightful heir to the Portuguese throne should be Princess Isabelle d’Orléans, eldest child of Henri, Count of Paris.

Claim to the Portuguese throne

For at least several decades Maria Pia had claimed to be the bastard daughter of King Carlos I, and even to be entitled to the style "Her Royal Highness" and the title "Infanta". It was not, however, until 1957 that she claimed to be the rightful queen of Portugal in succession to Manuel II, the son of Carlos I (and the purported half-brother of Maria Pia) who had died childless in 1932. On July 15, 1957, a group of ten Portuguese monarchists published a petition asking Maria Pia to claim the throne. In 1958 she went to Portugal where she was received by the President Francisco Craveiro Lopes; the Prime Minister, António de Oliveira Salazar, however, refused to meet her. In the presidential elections that year Maria Pia supported the failed candidacy of Humberto Delgado. She continued to support Delgado after he went into exile in Brazil.

From this point forward Maria Pia used the title Duchess of Braganza. She attracted the support of a small minority of monarchists who were actively opposed to Salazar. Maria Pia of Braganza played on the rivalry in monarchist circles between the Miguelists and the constitutionalists, presenting herself as the "constitutional" (i.e. liberal) candidate. The support given to Salazar by Miguel's heir at the time, Duarte Nuno, in the 1950s enabled Maria Pia of Braganza even more to represent herself as the liberal and democratic claimant to the Portuguese throne.

Maria Pia was very active in her claim to the Portuguese throne. Articles about her appeared in Italian and Portuguese newspapers. In February 1965, she went to Portugal to visit the tomb of King Carlos. As she was leaving Portugal and returning to Spain, she was arrested and held in custody overnight. She was released without charge at the request of the Italian embassy. In 1976, she infamously checked out of a hotel in Lisbon, where she had stayed for several weeks, without paying the bill, claiming simply that as the Duchess of Braganza she was not obligated to pay for her lodging.

Maria Pia mixed frequently with the jet set idle rich. She claimed that for many years she maintained an ongoing friendship with the exiled King Alfonso XIII of Spain and his son Infante Jaime, Duke of Segovia, and this was confirmed by the first wife of the latter, Emanuela de Dampierre. Much correspondence exists between Maria Pia of Braganza and members of European royal families recording her efforts to gain legitimacy within royal circles, but most of the replies were merely polite but unsupportive.

Baptismal certificate
In October 1966 Duarte Nuno petitioned an ecclesiastical court of the Diocese of Madrid-Alcala to remove the name of King Carlos from the baptismal certificate of Maria Pia. Duarte Nuno claimed that there was no evidence that King Carlos was the father of Maria Pia. It is unusual for a baptismal registration to record the father of a bastard child. The Roman Ritual instructs the officiating priest only to record the father's name if the father himself requests it or if he is known to be the father from some public authentic document (Titulus XII, caput II). Clearly King Carlos was not present at Maria Pia's baptism, but Maria Pia claimed that the copy of the document purportedly signed by Carlos granting her the rights of the princes of Portugal was sufficient justification in ecclesiastical law for Carlos to be named her father on her baptismal certificate.

In February 1972 the case between Duarte Nuno and Maria Pia moved up to the Sacred Roman Rota, the normal appeal court for the Roman Catholic Church. On December 6, 1972, the court dismissed the claim, on the grounds that Duarte Nuno did not have legal standing in the case, being only the second cousin twice removed of King Carlos. The court did not address the primary question of whether there was sufficient evidence for Carlos being Maria Pia's father and thus named as such on the baptismal certificate. It did, however, question the necessity of changing a certificate which was over sixty years old.

Had the Roman Rota found in favour of Duarte Nuno, his supporters could have said that the court had determined that Carlos was not Maria Pia's father. Since the court found against Duarte Nuno, the supporters of Maria Pia of Braganza were able to say that the court had affirmed the validity of her baptismal certificate and therefore the validity of her claimed parentage – neither of which in fact actually occurred. The court found only that Duarte Nuno did not have the legal standing to bring such a case: "Patres Auditores de Turno ... decreverunt negative, seu non constare de legitimatione actoris ad causam".

Legal battle over property
In 1982 Maria Pia filed a claim for the restitution of the private real property of the Royal House of Portugal. It was rejected by the Supreme Tribunal of Justice at Lisbon on April 14, 1983. The Court found that Maria Pia had not established the identity of her father, despite the presentation of the same baptismal certificate presented to the court at the Vatican.

Rosario Poidimani
Rosario Poidimani (born Syracuse, August 25, 1941) is an Italian businessman. On December 2, 1985, Maria Pia signed a document purporting to amend the Portuguese Monarchic Constitution of 1838, and recognising Rosario Poidimani as her eventual heir. On February 19, 1986, she signed a second document affirming that there was a blood relationship between her and Rosario Poidimani – but not stating exactly what this relationship was. The Constitution of 1838, which excluded Miguel I of Portugal and his descendants, the present line of the Portuguese Royal family, was revoked in 1842, when the Constitutional Charter of 1826 was reinstated until the Republic, on October 5, 1910.

On April 3, 1987, Maria Pia signed a document abdicating her claim to the Portuguese throne and transferring her claimed rights to Rosario Poidimani. In the abdication document she stated that the reason for her action in favour of Rosario Poidimani was that she had been "totally deprived of the support of my descent".

Since 1987, Rosario Poidimani has styled himself "H.R.H. Dom Rosario of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Braganza, 22nd Duke of Braganza", and has been active in promoting his claims.

In December 2003, Rosario Poidimani brought a libel suit in Italy against Guy Stair Sainty in response to Sainty's analysis of the claims of Maria Pia and Rosario Poidimani, A brief response to statements made by the supporters of the late Maria Pia de Saxe-Coburgo e Bragança, her grandson Carlos Miguel Berrocal y Blais, and her alleged cognate Rosario Poidimani in respect of their claims to the throne of Portugal. In August 2010 Rosario Poidimani won a decision against Sainty in the court of Vicenza; for defamation allegedly caused by the article, Sainty was ordered to pay twenty thousand euro in the judgment. However, that judgment was reversed by the Italian Court of Appeal of Venice, no. 730/2016 published March 30, 2016, RG n. 2667/2010, Repert. n. 680/2016 of March 30, 2016.

In 2007 Poidimani was arrested on the charge of fraud in connection with the alleged sale of diplomatic passports; Poidimani claimed that he had the right to issue these passports as head of the Royal House of Portugal and president of the IIRD. The Court of Busto Arsizio initially sentenced him to 5 years in prison in January 2011. However, on April 15, 2013, the Court of Appeal of Milan overturned the conviction and sentence. Rosario Poidimani has also initiated a number of complaints and lawsuits against Duarte Pio and against numerous Portuguese government officials.

Death
Maria Pia of Braganza died in Verona, Italy, in 1995. She was buried with her second husband, General Blais, in the Cimitero Monumentale of Verona.

Analysis
Maria Pia's claims, and those of Rosario Poidimani, have hinged upon the truth or falsehood of the following:
 * 1) that she was the illegitimate daughter of King Carlos I;
 * 2) that Carlos I had the constitutional power and the political clout (at a time shortly before his death and the overthrow of his son) to alter the line of succession to the Portuguese throne;
 * 3) that Carlos I both recognized Maria Pia of Braganza as his daughter and declared her a legitimate heir, despite her birth from an adulterine union;
 * 4) that Carlos I was able to do the above without causing public scandal or friction within the royal house, particularly in relation to Amélie of Orléans, his wife and their two sons;
 * 5) that Maria Pia of Braganza, supposedly heir-presumptive, could then marry foreigners and/or commoners (which she did twice), in apparent violation of the Constitution and/or the laws of the Portuguese royal house;
 * 6) that her daughter Maria Cristina of Braganza, and Maria Cristina's sons, all waived their rights of succession;
 * 7) that she adopted Rosario Poidimani according to Italian laws comparable to those of Portugal; and that this adoption did not violate the Portuguese royal house's laws and/or the Constitution; and
 * 8) that she could alter the succession line in favour of Rosario Poidimani, a foreigner and adopted son without authenticated blood relationship to her, although he claimed to be a descendant of Luis I of Portugal.

There are no original documents to support Maria Pia's claims to be both a daughter of Carlos I and an heir to the Dukedom of Braganza and pretender to the throne of Portugal. Maria Pia's baptismal certificate from 1907 was destroyed and there is only a copy of the document in which Carlos I supposedly granted succession rights to her. Nonetheless, there are some records concerning a relationship between Maria Pia's mother Maria Amélia Laredó e Murça and King Carlos I. A biography of Infanta Eulalia of Spain purports to reveal some letters of the Portuguese King and also reveals the existence of Maria Pia of Braganza as King Carlos I's bastard daughter. King Alfonso XIII of Spain and his son Infante Jaime, Duke of Segovia seem to have had an ongoing friendship with Maria Pia; her supporters have interpreted this relationship as an affirmation on the part of Alfonso and Jaime that they recognised Maria Pia of Braganza as Carlos's bastard daughter. In fact, most of the letters cited by Maria Pia in support of her claim were simply courteous replies by royals to her numerous queries and salutations.

Traditionally, the only way in which an illegitimate child of a Portuguese monarch could have been made legitimate and take his or her place in the line of succession was if his or her parents subsequently were married. At the time of Maria Pia's birth, Carlos was married to Queen Amélie and had two sons with her. Children born of adultery were specifically excluded from the line of succession.

Carlos I was a constitutional monarch. He did not claim autocratic power, but instead ruled according to the Constitutional Charter of 1826 which stated that the succession to the throne passed only to legitimate descendants. The Constitution, including all matters of succession, could only be amended by the Cortes. Even if Carlos had signed a document granting succession rights to Maria Pia, it would have had no legal value at all.

Just as Carlos could not unilaterally change the Constitutional Charter and grant Maria Pia succession rights, neither could Maria Pia (even if she were rightful queen of Portugal) unilaterally change the Constitution and grant succession rights to Rosario Poidimani above her daughter and grandsons.

The claims of Maria Pia of Braganza (or Hilda de Toledano) are similar to those of several Europeans born outside marriage who entertain the idea of descent from royalty; the late Enrico Vigo, who claimed the Byzantine Crown, is another example.

title: Maria Pia de Saxe-Coburgo e Bragança