text:
Florida College

Florida College is a private Christian college in Temple Terrace, Florida. It was founded in 1946. Although it draws its staff, faculty, and most of its students from non-institutional churches of Christ, it is not legally or financially connected to any specific church, group of churches, or religious institution. All undergraduates take biblical courses as part of their liberal arts curriculum. Brief devotional chapel services are held on weekdays during the academic calendar year, which all students are required to attend.

History
The campus is located in the center of Temple Terrace, Florida, along the banks of the Hillsborough River. It is surrounded by the Temple Terrace Golf and Country Club, a private country club that opened in 1922. The school occupies land that originally belonged to the club; the college's Sutton Hall was the club's original clubhouse, built in 1922 and one of the oldest buildings in the city. Another historic structure, the circa-1926 Club Morocco Nightclub and Casino, was used as the college's student center until it was razed in 2018 to be replaced by the college's Quad. The primary function of the student center, being the campus mail room, was relocated to the Riverview Center beneath Henderson Dining Hall. Tampa architect M. Leo Elliott was the architect for both buildings which were part of the original Temple Terrace Estates, one of the first Mediterranean Revival golf course planned communities in the United States (1921). According to the 1988 Temple Terrace Historic Resources Survey, both buildings were eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.

After the 1920s Florida land boom and during recovery from the economic Great Depression, the property and its buildings were acquired in the late 1930s by the Florida Bible Institute from the City of Temple Terrace. Billy Graham attended Florida Bible Institute soon thereafter, before the property was sold to the founders of today's Florida College. In his autobiography Graham writes he received his calling "on the 18th green of the Temple Terrace Golf and Country Club". A Billy Graham Memorial Park is on the east side of the 18th green on the river.

The school's charter was drafted in 1944, and it opened as Florida Christian College in the fall of 1946 with 100 students. The college charter stipulates that each board of trustees member be active in a local, generally non-institutional Church of Christ. The college catalog includes more regarding the charter stipulation:

"... but that the College would be independent. No finances are accepted from any church and there is no organizational tie between the College and any church. The Board nominates and elects its own members and is in every way independent of any church."

The first president of the school was L.R. Wilson, who served from 1946 to 1949. He was followed by James R. Cope, who remained in office from 1949 until 1982. During the 1950s, the Churches of Christ debated internally whether congregations should support missions or educational institutions. This resulted in a schism and the development of non-institutional Churches of Christ, which do not offer financing to educational institutions. Florida College was unique during these debates as the only college associated with the Churches of Christ which advocated non-institutionalism. Florida College continues to refuse donations from churches. The college supports itself entirely through the donations from individuals and the tuition paid by students.

Throughout the 1950s, the majority of the students were older men who wished to become preachers; according to David Edwin Harrell, the school "became something of a training ground for a cadre of non-institutional leaders". In 1954 the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools granted Florida College full accreditation, which has been reaffirmed about every ten years, most recently in June 2017.

In the 1960s the school's recruitment policies changed, and students outside Churches of Christ were pursued. A vote by the students and staff resulted in dropping the word "Christian" from the school name in 1963. The name change was fueled in part by the controversy that the word Christian was only used as a noun and never as an adjective in the New Testament. By the 1970s the bulk of the student body were again members of Churches of Christ, although the students were younger and more traditional than those of the 1950s. In 1982, Bob F. Owen became president of Florida College, the position he held until 1991, when Charles G. "Colly" Caldwell III, assumed office.

At the beginning of the 2008 academic year, Caldwell announced his resignation as president of Florida College. He remains at Florida College as a tenured faculty member in the Biblical Studies department. After a nationwide search, the college's academic dean and vice president, Harry E. "Buddy" Payne, was named the fifth president of the college, effective May 22, 2009. In 2023, John B. Weaver was named the sixth president of the college.

In 2017, author Jim Deason quoted then college president Payne regarding the school's function:

"The Board of Florida College is a group of Christians who have established a non-profit business, an educational institution guided by the principles of Jesus Christ, our Lord, just as many other business men and women have established other kinds of businesses founded on the principles of Christ. Florida College functions as an adjunct of the home, not the church." In 1966, author Brent Lewis wrote the following about the purpose of the school and how it would not have any hint of being connected to the church: "Not only did I attend that college [Florida College] as a student, but also I lived on the campus almost all my life, from the time the college opened in September 1946. Hence, I know Florida College and the men who operate it. It is both encouraging and refreshing to know that their attitude and concept of the function of Florida College is in no way connected with the church. I was glad to read recently a statement by the president of Florida College, James R. Cope, concerning the purposes of its existence. It is noticeable that not once is there any mention or hint of the church in connection with it. Brother Cope says:'We want a school where college students learn right from wrong while they learn about money and government; where manhood is identified because of its respect for womanhood, not for panty raids and telephone booth squeezes; where womanhood is identified with virtue and refinement, not by non-virgin clubs and back-alley coarseness; where the sanctity of the home is upheld rather than scoffed at by infidel professors advocating free-love; where Americanism is identified by respect for the Stars and Stripes rather than by compliments for the Hammer and Sickle; where the capitalistic system is presented with appreciation rather than apology; where prayer is an occasion of acknowledging God rather than its absence being an occasion of denying him; and where the Bible, the Word of God, is believed rather than belittled.'"

Florida College added its first accredited four-year degree program, the Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Studies, in 1996. It has since added bachelor's degrees in business, communication, elementary education, history, liberal studies and music. The school planned to add a nursing program in the fall of 2021.

In 2017, Florida College received an exemption to Title IX that allows it to discriminate against LGBTQ students.

Campus
Florida College is located in Temple Terrace, Florida, about 20 minutes northeast of Tampa. About 20,000 people live in Temple Terrace, which covers an area of 4.5 sqmi. The Hillsborough River marks the eastern edge of the main campus, which is bordered on the other three sides by the private golf course land of the Temple Terrace Golf and Country Club. Across the Hillsborough River, the college has Conn Gymnasium and its athletic fields. Next to the gym is Florida College Academy, an affiliated private school for students pre-kindergarten through ninth grade.

The main campus includes one of the oldest buildings in the city: Sutton Hall, built around 1922 as the clubhouse for the Temple Terrace Golf and Country Club. The former Student Center, razed in 2018, was built around 1926, and served as the Club Morocco Nightclub and Casino. Tampa architect M. Leo Elliott designed both buildings. According to the 1988 Temple Terrace Historic Resources Survey, both buildings were eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. Economic collapse in 1926 forced their closure as recreational leisure facilities and the property passed to the Florida Bible Institute during the Great Depression. The land was then later purchased by the founders of Florida College.

The Hutchinson Auditorium, one of the more striking mid-century modern buildings in Temple Terrace, cost $100,000 to build and opened on March 5, 1961. The architect was Garry Boyle of Tampa and the structure was built by the Paul Smith Construction Co. of Tampa with financing largely provided by the Hutchinson family. Most materials for the auditorium were shipped from Chattanooga, Tennessee. The auditorium serves as the meeting place for weekday chapel assemblies at 10:15 a.m. during the school year and as a theater for major productions on campus (e.g., plays, concerts, etc.).

Two new residence halls were begun during the 2007–2008 school year and completed in the first half of the 2008–2009 academic year. Boswell Hall, which holds 320 beds, is five stories tall, and is said to be the tallest building in old Temple Terrace with a top floor view that looks out over the old city as well as the Hillsborough River. All on-campus men live in Boswell. Five-story Jennifer Hall provides a new 90-bed residence hall for women. This supplements the other residence hall for women, Hinely Hall, and replaces the now condemned Sutton Hall.

In 2013, a project was undertaken to renovate the condemned building known as "C Dorm", the primary male dorm before Boswell. The project was completed over the summer months of 2013 and dedicated on September 22 of that year. The newly renovated building, now known as "College Hall", houses women of junior and senior standing.

Academics
Florida College offers 17 Bachelor's degrees in the fields of biblical studies, business, communication, education, music, English, history, and liberal studies, as well as an Associate of Arts degree. The college is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The student-to-faculty ratio is 11 to 1.

Rankings
Florida College was ranked #68 (tie) in the Regional Colleges South category of the 2022–23 Best Colleges rankings by U.S. News & World Report.

Recruitment
Although most of its students are members of churches of Christ, Florida College does not recruit through churches since the school is founded on the principles of the non-institutional churches of Christ, which per its doctrine does not engage in congregational support of colleges. Instead, the school gains name recognition by offering 21 one-week summer camps annually in locations across the United States. About 4,000 children attend the summer camps, with about 400 volunteers to teach and entertain them.

Student life
Florida College draws students from all 50 U.S. states, though primarily states to the south, and several foreign countries. For the 2023–24 academic year, 591 students were enrolled, representing 33 states, Puerto Rico, and 12 countries. Ninety percent are members of non-institutional Churches of Christ. In many instances, both of a student's parents attended and met at Florida College.

Students are expected to adhere to a Code of Moral Conduct. As set forth in the 2022–23 Student Handbook, the code forbids "sexual relationships of any type outside of marriage," "inappropriate physical contact that is sexually sensual, whether on or off campus," and being "alone with a member of the opposite sex in a private place". Students are expected to avoid immoral environments such as "restaurants known for the immodest dress of staff" and "any establishment that serves alcohol and checks identifications at their door [sic]."

Students are required to live on campus until they reach the age of 21 or have been in college for two years out of high school. In situations where an adult relative lives in the immediate vicinity this rule is sometimes relaxed. Residence halls are segregated by gender with each off limits to members of the opposite sex except in lobbies during posted hours. There are four residence halls:
 * Boswell Hall (houses all male students on campus)
 * Jennifer Hall (formerly Terrace Hall, was renamed in 2015)
 * Hinely Hall (built as an additional wing of Sutton Hall)
 * College Hall (formerly C-Dorm, was renovated in 2013)

Athletics
The Florida College athletic teams are called the Falcons. The college is a member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), primarily competing as an NAIA Independent within the Continental Athletic Conference since the 2021–22 academic year. They were also a member of the United States Collegiate Athletic Association (USCAA) until the 2017–18 school year. The Falcons previously competed in the Southern States Athletic Conference (SSAC; formerly known as Georgia–Alabama–Carolina Conference (GACC) until after the 2003–04 school year) of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) from 2018–19 to 2020–21.

Florida College competes in 11 intercollegiate varsity sports: Men's sports include basketball, cross country, golf, soccer and track & field (outdoor); while women's sports include cheerleading, cross country, golf, soccer, track & field (outdoor) and volleyball.

Mascot
Although originally represented by a pelican, the school's current mascot is the Florida College Falcon.

Band
The school has a touring public-relations band called the Friends, a reference to Florida College's original motto, "A Friend to Youth."

Men's basketball
The 2021–22 men's basketball team won the Continental Athletic Conference (CAC) Championship en route to the NAIA National Tournament. In the national tournament, the 9-seeded Falcons defeated the 8-seed Evangel University 75–72, for the first NAIA National Tournament win in school history. The Falcons' leading scorer, Matt Simpson, was named a 1st Team All-American as well as CAC Player of the Year. Head coach Chase Teichmann was also named CAC Coach of the Year.

Alumni
Florida College receives support from alumni across the United States. From 2011 and 2013, Florida College was ranked first by U.S. News & World Report for alumni giving, with 64.7% of alumni making financial donations to the school.

Academy
The college president and board of directors administer Florida College Academy (FCA), a K–12 private school on the Temple Terrace campus which serves about 360 students. FCA shares the athletic facilities, and participates in the Tampa Bay Christian Athletic League.

title: Florida College


text:
Gravitational time dilation

Gravitational time dilation is a form of time dilation, an actual difference of elapsed time between two events, as measured by observers situated at varying distances from a gravitating mass. The lower the gravitational potential (the closer the clock is to the source of gravitation), the slower time passes, speeding up as the gravitational potential increases (the clock moving away from the source of gravitation). Albert Einstein originally predicted this in his theory of relativity, and it has since been confirmed by tests of general relativity.

This effect has been demonstrated by noting that atomic clocks at differing altitudes (and thus different gravitational potential) will eventually show different times. The effects detected in such Earth-bound experiments are extremely small, with differences being measured in nanoseconds. Relative to Earth's age in billions of years, Earth's core is in effect 2.5 years younger than its surface. Demonstrating larger effects would require measurements at greater distances from the Earth, or a larger gravitational source.

Gravitational time dilation was first described by Albert Einstein in 1907 as a consequence of special relativity in accelerated frames of reference. In general relativity, it is considered to be a difference in the passage of proper time at different positions as described by a metric tensor of spacetime. The existence of gravitational time dilation was first confirmed directly by the Pound–Rebka experiment in 1959, and later refined by Gravity Probe A and other experiments.

Gravitational time dilation is closely related to gravitational redshift, in which the closer a body emitting light of constant frequency is to a gravitating body, the more its time is slowed by gravitational time dilation, and the lower (more "redshifted") would seem to be the frequency of the emitted light, as measured by a fixed observer.

Definition
Clocks that are far from massive bodies (or at higher gravitational potentials) run more quickly, and clocks close to massive bodies (or at lower gravitational potentials) run more slowly. For example, considered over the total time-span of Earth (4.6 billion years), a clock set in a geostationary position at an altitude of 9,000 meters above sea level, such as perhaps at the top of Mount Everest (prominence 8,848m), would be about 39 hours ahead of a clock set at sea level. This is because gravitational time dilation is manifested in accelerated frames of reference or, by virtue of the equivalence principle, in the gravitational field of massive objects.

According to general relativity, inertial mass and gravitational mass are the same, and all accelerated reference frames (such as a uniformly rotating reference frame with its proper time dilation) are physically equivalent to a gravitational field of the same strength.

Consider a family of observers along a straight "vertical" line, each of whom experiences a distinct constant g-force directed along this line (e.g., a long accelerating spacecraft, a skyscraper, a shaft on a planet). Let $$g(h)$$ be the dependence of g-force on "height", a coordinate along the aforementioned line. The equation with respect to a base observer at $$h=0$$ is

 * $$T_d(h) = \exp\left[\frac{1}{c^2}\int_0^h g(h') dh'\right]$$

where $$T_d(h)$$ is the total time dilation at a distant position $$h$$, $$g(h)$$ is the dependence of g-force on "height" $$h$$, $$c$$ is the speed of light, and $$\exp$$ denotes exponentiation by e.

For simplicity, in a Rindler's family of observers in a flat spacetime, the dependence would be

 * $$g(h) = c^2/(H+h)$$

with constant $$H$$, which yields

 * $$T_d(h) = e^{\ln (H+h) - \ln H} = \tfrac{H+h}H$$.

On the other hand, when $$g$$ is nearly constant and $$gh$$ is much smaller than $$c^2$$, the linear "weak field" approximation $$T_d = 1 + gh/c^2$$ can also be used.

See Ehrenfest paradox for application of the same formula to a rotating reference frame in flat spacetime.

Outside a non-rotating sphere
A common equation used to determine gravitational time dilation is derived from the Schwarzschild metric, which describes spacetime in the vicinity of a non-rotating massive spherically symmetric object. The equation is

 * $$t_0 = t_f \sqrt{1 - \frac{2GM}{rc^2}} = t_f \sqrt{1 - \frac{r_{\rm s}}{r}} = t_f \sqrt{1 - \frac{v_e^2}{c^2}} = t_f \sqrt{1 - \beta_e^2} < t_f $$

where To illustrate then, without accounting for the effects of rotation, proximity to Earth's gravitational well will cause a clock on the planet's surface to accumulate around 0.0219 fewer seconds over a period of one year than would a distant observer's clock. In comparison, a clock on the surface of the Sun will accumulate around 66.4 fewer seconds in one year.
 * $$t_0$$ is the proper time between two events for an observer close to the massive sphere, i.e. deep within the gravitational field
 * $$t_f$$ is the coordinate time between the events for an observer at an arbitrarily large distance from the massive object (this assumes the far-away observer is using Schwarzschild coordinates, a coordinate system where a clock at infinite distance from the massive sphere would tick at one second per second of coordinate time, while closer clocks would tick at less than that rate),
 * $$G$$ is the gravitational constant,
 * $$M$$ is the mass of the object creating the gravitational field,
 * $$r$$ is the radial coordinate of the observer within the gravitational field (this coordinate is analogous to the classical distance from the center of the object, but is actually a Schwarzschild coordinate; the equation in this form has real solutions for $$r > r_{\rm s}$$),
 * $$c$$ is the speed of light,
 * $$r_{\rm s} = 2GM/c^2$$ is the Schwarzschild radius of $$M$$,
 * $$v_e = \sqrt{ \frac{2 G M}{r} }$$ is the escape velocity, and
 * $$\beta_e = v_e/c$$ is the escape velocity, expressed as a fraction of the speed of light c.

Circular orbits
In the Schwarzschild metric, free-falling objects can be in circular orbits if the orbital radius is larger than $$\tfrac{3}{2} r_s$$ (the radius of the photon sphere). The formula for a clock at rest is given above; the formula below gives the general relativistic time dilation for a clock in a circular orbit:

 * $$t_0 = t_f \sqrt{1 - \frac{3}{2} \! \cdot \! \frac{r_{\rm s}}{r}}\, .$$

Both dilations are shown in the figure below.

Important features of gravitational time dilation

 * According to the general theory of relativity, gravitational time dilation is copresent with the existence of an accelerated reference frame. Additionally, all physical phenomena in similar circumstances undergo time dilation equally according to the equivalence principle used in the general theory of relativity.
 * The speed of light in a locale is always equal to c according to the observer who is there. That is, every infinitesimal region of spacetime may be assigned its own proper time, and the speed of light according to the proper time at that region is always c. This is the case whether or not a given region is occupied by an observer. A time delay can be measured for photons which are emitted from Earth, bend near the Sun, travel to Venus, and then return to Earth along a similar path. There is no violation of the constancy of the speed of light here, as any observer observing the speed of photons in their region will find the speed of those photons to be c, while the speed at which we observe light travel finite distances in the vicinity of the Sun will differ from c.
 * If an observer is able to track the light in a remote, distant locale which intercepts a remote, time dilated observer nearer to a more massive body, that first observer tracks that both the remote light and that remote time dilated observer have a slower time clock than other light which is coming to the first observer at c, like all other light the first observer really can observe (at their own location). If the other, remote light eventually intercepts the first observer, it too will be measured at c by the first observer.
 * Gravitational time dilation $$T$$ in a gravitational well is equal to the velocity time dilation for a speed that is needed to escape that gravitational well (given that the metric is of the form $$g=(dt/T(x))^2-g_{space}$$, i. e. it is time invariant and there are no "movement" terms $$dxdt$$). To show that, one can apply Noether's theorem to a body that freely falls into the well from infinity. Then the time invariance of the metric implies conservation of the quantity $$g(v,dt)=v^0/T^2$$, where $$v^0$$ is the time component of the 4-velocity $$v$$ of the body. At the infinity $$g(v,dt)=1$$, so $$v^0=T^2$$, or, in coordinates adjusted to the local time dilation, $$v^0_{loc}=T$$; that is, time dilation due to acquired velocity (as measured at the falling body's position) equals to the gravitational time dilation in the well the body fell into. Applying this argument more generally one gets that (under the same assumptions on the metric) the relative gravitational time dilation between two points equals to the time dilation due to velocity needed to climb from the lower point to the higher.

Experimental confirmation

Gravitational time dilation has been experimentally measured using atomic clocks on airplanes, such as the Hafele–Keating experiment. The clocks aboard the airplanes were slightly faster than clocks on the ground. The effect is significant enough that the Global Positioning System's artificial satellites need to have their clocks corrected.

Additionally, time dilations due to height differences of less than one metre have been experimentally verified in the laboratory.

Gravitational time dilation in the form of gravitational redshift has also been confirmed by the Pound–Rebka experiment and observations of the spectra of the white dwarf Sirius B.

Gravitational time dilation has been measured in experiments with time signals sent to and from the Viking 1 Mars lander.

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

title: Gravitational time dilation


text:
Category:Mazda vehicles

This category contains automobiles sold under the Mazda, Eunos, Autozam, and Efini marques by Mazda.

title: Category:Mazda vehicles


text:
Talk:Clear Channel

From VfD:

I don't think y'all realize that the issue is a matter of capitalization. If it's going to redirect to anything it should redirect to Clear channel not Clear Channel Communications. If someone were looking for Clear Channel Communications they could find it through Clear channel, however if someone were looking for the informations about clear channel designations for radio stations they would NOT be able to find it from Clear Channel Communications. Kevin Rector 22:02, Jul 26, 2004 (UTC)
 * I'm putting up Clear Channel (not to be confused with Clear channel) because every page that linked to it should have linked to Clear Channel Communications. I fixed the bad links. Also, it's a disambiguation page that is not needed because there is a clear note at the top of Clear channel that can be used to direct people to Clear Channel Communications. if that is what they wanted (there is also a note in the article as well). Kevin Rector 14:46, Jul 23, 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep as a redirect to Clear Channel Communications. Wile E. Heresiarch 15:44, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Agree. Make it a redirect. Rossami 17:13, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Redirect. Bacchiad 21:34, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * But you said above that every link to Clear Channel should have linked to Clear Channel Communications. That seems pretty clear to me.  Users who were creating the link were not intending to go to clear channel. Either way, the current version looks like a perfectly valid disambiguation page. Rossami
 * Redirect. Both articles have notes that will direct lost users to the other. I think Clear Channel should redirect to Clear Channel Communications because there's no reason the C in Channel would be capitalized if it wasn't refering to the corporation. Also, the company is usually refered to as "Clear Channel", even though technically that's not their full name. I don't think a disambig is necesary here. - Eisnel 08:12, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Concur with Eisnel - Jmabel 00:03, Jul 29, 2004 (UTC)

end moved discussion

title: Talk:Clear Channel


text: User talk:193.134.254.115

title: User talk:193.134.254.115


text:
Christian Wulff

Christian Wilhelm Walter Wulff (born 19 June 1959) is a retired German politician and lawyer who served as President of Germany from 2010 to 2012. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), he previously served as minister president of the state of Lower Saxony from 2003 to 2010. He was elected to the presidency in the 30 June 2010 presidential election, defeating opposition candidate Joachim Gauck and taking office immediately, although he was not sworn in until 2 July. With the age of 51, he became Germany's youngest president.

On 17 February 2012, Wulff resigned as President of Germany, facing the prospect of prosecution for allegations of corruption relating to his prior service as Minister President of Lower Saxony. In 2014, he was acquitted of all corruption charges by the Hanover regional court.

Early life and education
Wulff was born in Osnabrück and is Roman Catholic. He was the first Roman Catholic to hold the post of President of Germany since Heinrich Lübke (1959–1969) and the first President to have been born in the post-World War II period. His father left the family, and he grew up with his mother. As a teenager, he took responsibility for the care of his younger sister, after his mother developed multiple sclerosis. After completing his Abitur at the Ernst Moritz Arndt Gymnasium in Osnabrück, Wulff studied law with a specialisation in economics at the University of Osnabrück. He joined the Christian Democratic Union of Germany in 1975. In 1987 and 1990, he passed the first and second state examinations in law, and has since worked as an attorney.

Political career
Since 1975, Wulff has been a member of the CDU. From 1978 to 1980, he served as federal chairman of the Schülerunion, a political high school student organization affiliated with the Christian Democrats. From 1979 to 1983, he was on the executive board of the Junge Union and became its state chairman in Lower Saxony in 1983. However, he decided to resign from the board in order to pursue his law degree, which he completed in 1986. The same year, he was elected a city councillor in his hometown. Since 1984, he sat on the CDU's state party council of Lower Saxony, serving as its chairman from 1994 to 2008.

The Christian Democrats made Wulff candidate for Minister President of the state in the run-up of the 1994 parliamentary election. However, the popular incumbent Gerhard Schröder won an absolute majority in the Lower Saxony legislature, while the state CDU under Wulff received one of its worst results, leading some observers to doubt the wisdom of the provincial party nominating a young and neophyte candidate for Premier. After four years in opposition, the 1998 legislative assembly election brought another opportunity for Wulff to become Minister President. Indeed, the federal Christian Democrat party, led by Chancellor Helmut Kohl, pinned their hopes on Wulff – a Wulff victory would have stopped the inevitable rise of Schröder to the Social Democrat nomination for Chancellor. However, supported by a wave of sympathy for his potential candidacy for chancellor in the 1998 federal election, Schröder was returned to power by an enhanced majority – leaving Wulff to serve five more years as state leader of the opposition.

Schröder won the 1998 federal election, leaving the post of Minister President to his anointed successor, Interior minister Gerhard Glogowski. The latter soon stumbled over a scandal involving free travel paid by TUI and was succeeded by young parliamentary leader Sigmar Gabriel. In the wake of the 1999 scandal, as well as rising discontent with Schröder's federal cabinet, the Christian Democrats rose in the opinion polls and became a serious contender for power in the 2003 parliamentary election.

Wulff had been one of the four deputy chairmen of the CDU party at the federal level after 7 November 1998, and had been a board member of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation after 2003.

2003 state election
With Lower Saxony announcing deeper cuts of education and municipal services, the stage was set for the 2003 election campaign. Wulff entered the race as the favourite to win the election and essentially campaigned on a platform of fiscal restraint and clear-cut reforms in the areas of law enforcement and education. Both issues were decisive in the elections that led to a change in fortunes for the two major parties. The Christian Democrats, in the political wilderness since the 1990 Schröder victory, were returned to power with an absolute majority in the state parliament, gaining 48.3% of the vote. Wulff was sworn in as Minister President on 4 March 2003, as the head of a coalition between centre-right Christian Democrats and liberal Free Democrats (FDP).

Policies
As Minister President of Lower Saxony, Wulff pursued a multitude of reforms, including a restructuration of the primary education system in the state, as well as an increase of police officers on the beat. When Wulff took office, Lower Saxony faced a severe budget crisis, resulting from years of public deficits. Painful cuts to public expenditure were enacted and implemented against considerable political resistance. The measures included cuts in university funding and in benefits for the blind. Other policies concern the reform of the administration (especially the abolition of certain district authorities). Budgetary problems continued to overshadow Wulff's policies, albeit with somewhat less pressure. Many measures have remained controversial.

Prior to the 2005 federal election, Wulff was mentioned as a potential candidate for the federal chancellorship. In a spring 2005 poll, 28% of all respondents named Wulff as their preferred candidate for the Christian Democratic nomination for Chancellor. As Wulff had only began his first term as Minister President of Lower Saxony in early 2003, he largely dismissed such speculations. Speculation had particularly increased since the December 2004 Christian Democratic federal convention in Düsseldorf, when Wulff was reelected deputy leader of the federal party with roughly 86% of all delegates supporting him. However, the premature dissolution of the Bundestag in 2005 and the subsequent election of Chancellor Angela Merkel largely put an end to further speculation about Wulff's future at the time.

A Wulff candidacy for the CDU nomination for Chancellor was seen to appeal to northerners and liberals within the Christian Democrats. Outside the mold of a typical conservative, he was able to attract swing voters disillusioned with the slowness of reforms, as well as the then rather high rates of unemployment in Germany. Indeed, he worked on increasing his visibility beyond Lower Saxony's confines, particularly by appearing frequently on television shows and giving interviews to the national newspapers. Moreover, Wulff was also acquiring a profile on a broad range of issues, including the reform of the German language, Medicare and social security reform, as well as a modernisation of Germany's federal constitution, the Grundgesetz. In fact, he criticised the consensus reached between the Christian Democratic and Social Democratic parties on the modernisation of Germany's constitution, stating that he felt that the states (Länder) had not been given sufficient powers to deal with their own affairs. Wulff also took a conservative stand on nuclear energy, advocating an extension of the deadlines for the decommissioning of Germany's nuclear reactors.

In a speech, Wulff also expressed his opposition to euthanasia and warned of a retreat of moral values. This was seen as the first attempt to formulate a value-based agenda for the 2008 state, as well as more importantly, the 2009 federal election. In this context, it is important to note that Chancellor Merkel had been severely criticised for a lack of emotional warmth during the 2005 federal election campaign, leading to a worse-than-expected result for the Christian Democrats.

Wulff announced on 8 January 2006 that Lower Saxony would become the first state to approve a new model according to which the government will temporarily pay part of the salaries for low-salary jobs, if the employers concerned are willing to employ an employee concerned on a long-term basis. This pilot was supposed to make new jobs more affordable in Germany's notoriously high-wages environment.

Wulff and the 2005 federal elections
Due to his popularity in Lower Saxony, and in federal opinion polls, Wulff was considered to be a contender for the office of Chancellor.

After the 23 May announcement that federal elections were to be advanced to September 2005, Wulff announced that he was not a candidate for the Christian Democrat nomination for Chancellor, particularly as he had not completed his first term as Minister President of Lower Saxony. Instead, Wulff declared his support for CDU party and parliamentary leader Angela Merkel. Although there was speculation that Wulff would be given a position in the new government, entering federal politics, he remained Minister President of Lower Saxony.

President of Germany
Wulff was elected President of Germany on 30 June 2010 to follow Horst Köhler, who had resigned on 31 May 2010. He won 625 of 1,242 votes on the third ballot of the Federal Convention. He became Germany's youngest president at the age of 51 and was sworn in on 2 July 2010 in front of the Bundestag and the Bundesrat.

His main contender in the election was Joachim Gauck, a civil rights activist from East Germany and former Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records. Not a member of any party himself, Gauck was nominated by the opposition SPD and Greens as their presidential candidate on 3 June.

Wulff was succeeded as Minister President of Lower Saxony by David McAllister. Wulff's candidacy for President of Germany in the 2010 presidential election was formally confirmed by Angela Merkel, Guido Westerwelle and Horst Seehofer, the heads of the governing CDU, FDP and CSU parties, during the evening of 3 June 2010.

In August 2011, President Wulff opened an economists' conference with a speech on the euro. He criticised the European Central Bank (ECB), which had entered a second round of bond buy-ups from heavily indebted euro-zone nations, calling the plan to stabilise the euro "legally and politically questionable".

Scandals, resignation and final acquittal
In December 2011, German media reported allegations that Wulff had deceived the Parliament of Lower Saxony in February 2010, during an inquiry into his connections as Minister President of Lower Saxony with a number of affluent businessmen. In particular, there were a number of questions concerning the purchase of a house, for which Wulff accepted a loan from an entrepreneur family with whom he was friends. In this context, Wulff tried to influence the media coverage in the run-up to the breaking of the scandal. Additional investigations were launched into Wulff's political dealing with various entrepreneurs with whom he and his family spent their private vacations. Since it was not clear who had paid for these holidays, Wulff was subsequently accused of favoritism and unethical behavior. After the district attorney's office in Hanover had requested the lifting of his immunity on 16 February 2012, Wulff then resigned as German President the following day. On 27 February 2014, two years after his resignation, Wulff was acquitted of all corruption charges by the Hanover regional court.

Life after politics
After leaving public office, Wulff represented Germany at several public events, including the state funerals of Abdullah ibn Abd al-Aziz of Saudi Arabia (2015) and of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan (2022) as well as the inauguration of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine (2019) and inauguration of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey (2023).

In 2016 Wulff was awarded the Mercator Visiting Professorship for Political Management at the Universität Essen-Duisburg's NRW School of Governance. He gave both seminars and lectures at the university. In August 2017, it was revealed that Wulff also works as an advisor for the German branch of Yargici, a Turkish high-street fashion company.

Awards and recognitions

 * 2014 Toleranzpreis der Evangelischen Akademie Tutzing

Personal life
Christian Wulff met his first wife, lawyer Christiane Vogt (born 1961), when they were both law students in Osnabrück in 1983. They married in March 1988, and have a daughter, Annalena (born 1993). In June 2006, Wulff announced their divorce. Wulff subsequently married Bettina Körner (born 1973 in Hannover), on 21 March 2008 at a ceremony in Castle Herrenhausen, near Hannover. She has a son Leander Balthasar (2003) from a previous relationship. On 12 May 2008, gave birth to their first child together, a boy named Linus. Wulff and second wife Bettina announced their separation in January 2013, and he moved out of their Hannover home. They started divorce proceedings in March 2015, but reconciled a mere two months thereafter. They separated a second time in 2018.

title: Christian Wulff


text:
ICICI Bank

ICICI Bank Limited is an Indian multinational bank and financial services company headquartered in Mumbai with a registered office in Vadodara. It offers a wide range of banking and financial services for corporate and retail customers through various delivery channels and specialized subsidiaries in the areas of investment banking, life, non-life insurance, venture capital and asset management.

ICICI Bank has a network of 6,000 branches and 17,000 ATMs across India, and has a presence in 17 countries. The bank has subsidiaries in the United Kingdom and Canada; branches in United States, Singapore, Bahrain, Hong Kong, Qatar, Oman, Dubai International Finance Centre, China and South Africa; as well as representative offices in United Arab Emirates, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia. The company's UK subsidiary has also established branches in Belgium and Germany. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has identified the State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, and ICICI Bank as Domestic Systemically Important Banks (D-SIBs), which are often referred to as banks that are “too big to fail”.

History
The Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India (ICICI) was a government institution established on 5 January 1955 and Sir Arcot Ramasamy Mudaliar was elected as the first Chairman of ICICI Ltd. It was structured as a joint-venture of the World Bank, India's public-sector banks and public-sector insurance companies to provide project financing to Indian industry. ICICI Bank was established by ICICI, as a wholly owned subsidiary in 1994 in Vadodara. The bank was founded as the Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India Bank, before it changed its name to ICICI Bank. In October 2001, the Boards of Directors of ICICI and ICICI Bank approved the merger of ICICI and two of its wholly-owned retail finance subsidiaries, ICICI Personal Financial Services Limited and ICICI Capital Services Limited, with ICICI Bank. The merger of parent ICICI Ltd. into its subsidiary ICICI Bank led to privatization.

In the 1990s, ICICI transformed its business from a development financial institution offering only project finance to a diversified financial services group, offering a wide variety of products and services, both directly and through a number of subsidiaries and affiliates like ICICI Bank. ICICI Bank launched Internet Banking operations in 1998.

ICICI's shareholding in ICICI Bank was reduced to 46% through a public offering of shares in India in 1998, followed by an equity offering in the form of American depositary receipts on the NYSE in 2000. ICICI Bank acquired the Bank of Madura Limited in an all-stock deal in 2001 and sold additional stakes to institutional investors during 2001–02. In 1999, ICICI become the first Indian company and the first bank or a financial institution from non-Japan Asia to be listed on the NYSE.

ICICI, ICICI Bank, and ICICI subsidiaries ICICI Personal Financial Services Limited and ICICI Capital Services Limited merged in a reverse merger in 2002. During the financial crisis of 2007–2008, customers rushed to ICICI ATMs and branches in some locations due to rumors of bank failure. The Reserve Bank of India issued a clarification on the financial strength of ICICI Bank to dispel the rumours.

In 2015, ICICI unveiled an outward remittance platform called ‘Money2World’. The first of its kind, it enabled fully online outward remittance transactions for non-ICICI and ICICI customers alike. In March 2020, the board of ICICI Bank Ltd. approved an investment of inr 10000000000 in Yes Bank, resulting in a 5% ownership interest in Yes.

Acquisitions

 * 1996: ICICI Ltd. A diversified financial institution with headquarters in Mumbai
 * 1997: ITC Classic Finance. Incorporated in 1986, ITC Classic was a non-bank financial firm that engaged in hire, purchase and leasing operations. At the time of being acquired, ITC Classic had eight offices, 26 outlets and 700 brokers.
 * 1997: SCICI (Shipping Credit and Investment Corporation of India)
 * 1998: Anagram (ENAGRAM) Finance. Anagram had built up a network of some 50 branches in Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Maharashtra that were primarily engaged in the retail financing of cars and trucks. It also had some 250,000 depositors.
 * 2001: Bank of Madura
 * 2002: The Darjeeling and Shimla branches of Grindlays Bank
 * 2005: Investitsionno-Kreditny Bank (IKB), a Russian bank
 * 2007: Sangli Bank. Sangli Bank was a private sector unlisted bank, founded in 1916, and 30% owned by the Bahte family. Its headquarters were in Sangli in Maharashtra, and it had 198 branches. It had 158 in Maharashtra and 31 in Karnataka, and others in Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Goa, and Delhi. Its branches were relatively evenly split between metropolitan areas and rural or semi-urban areas.
 * 2010: The Bank of Rajasthan (BOR) was acquired by the ICICI Bank in 2010 for inr 30000000000. Reserve Bank of India was critical of BOR's promoters not reducing their holdings in the company. BOR has since been merged with ICICI Bank.

Role in Indian financial infrastructure
ICICI Bank has contributed to the setting up of a number of Indian institutions to establish financial infrastructure in the country over the years:
 * In 1992, India's leading financial institutions, including ICICI Ltd., promoted the National Stock Exchange of India on behalf of the Government of India to establish a nationwide trading facility for equities, debt instruments, and hybrids, ensuring equal access to investors across the country through an appropriate communication network.
 * In 1987, ICICI Ltd along with UTI set up CRISIL as India's first professional credit rating agency.
 * NCDEX (National Commodities and Derivatives EXchange) was set up in 2003, by ICICI Bank Ltd, LIC, NABARD, NSE, Canara Bank, CRISIL, Goldman Sachs, Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Limited (IFFCO) and Punjab National Bank.
 * ICICI Bank facilitated the setting up of "FINO Cross Link to Case Link Study" in 2006, as a company that would provide technology solutions and services to reach the underserved and underbanked population of the country. Using technologies like smart cards, biometrics and a basket of support services, FINO enables financial institutions to conceptualise, develop and operationalise projects to support sector initiatives in microfinance and livelihoods.
 * Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDII), was set up in 1983, by the erstwhile apex financial institutions like IDBI, ICICI, IFCI and SBI with the support of the Government of Gujarat as a national resource organisation committed to entrepreneurship development, education, training and research.
 * Eastern Development Finance Corporation (NEDFI) was promoted by national-level financial institutions like ICICI Ltd in 1995 at Guwahati, Assam for the development of industries, infrastructure, animal husbandry, agri-horticulture plantation, medicinal plants, sericulture, aquaculture, poultry and dairy in the North Eastern states of India.
 * Following the enactment of the Securitisation Act in 2002, ICICI Bank, together with other institutions, set up Asset Reconstruction Company India Limited (ARCIL) in 2003. ARCIL was established to acquire non-performing assets (NPAs) from financial institutions and banks with a view to enhance the management of these assets and help in the maximisation of recovery.
 * ICICI Bank helped establish India's first national credit bureau, Credit Information Bureau of India Limited (CIBIL), in 2000. CIBIL provides credit information reports to its members, containing the credit history of both commercial and consumer borrowers.

Products
ICICI Bank offers products and services such as savings and current accounts, trade and forex services, fixed and recurring deposits, business loans, home loans, personal loans, auto loans, and gold loans, NRI Banking services, remittances, card services, lockers, agri and rural services. The digital platforms that ICICI Bank offers include iMobile Pay, InstaBiz, Digital Rupee App, Retail Internet Banking, Corporate Internet Banking, Money2India, Money2World, and digital wallet named Pockets by ICICI Bank.

In March 2020, ICICI Bank launched 'ICICI STACK,' a digital banking suite for individuals, merchants, and corporates, providing online services such as payments, digital accounts, instant loans, insurance, investments, and more.

In December 2020, ICICI Bank introduced 'iMobile Pay', an interoperable app offering payment and banking services to customers across various banking institutions. The app was originally launched as iMobile in 2008. iMobile Pay provides over 350 services. iMobile Pay registered over 10 million sign-ups from non-ICICI Bank account holders by the end of September in 2023.

In July 2019, ICICI Bank introduced the InstaBIZ app to offer enhanced banking and value-added services to micro, small, and medium (MSME) customers, and customers of any bank. InstaBIZ offers interoperability, enabling merchants to instantly collect payments using UPI IDs and QR codes. The app currently has approximately 1.5 million active users, with a year-on-year throughput growth of over 70%. As of September 2022, the platform had accumulated around 195,000 registrations from non-ICICI Bank account holders.

ICICI Bank Canada
ICICI Bank Canada is a wholly owned subsidiary of ICICI Bank, whose corporate office is located in Toronto. Established in December 2003, ICICI Bank Canada is a full-service direct bank with assets of about $6.5 billion as of 31 December 2019. It is governed by Canada's Bank Act and operates under the supervision of the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions. The bank has seven branches in Canada.

In 2003, ICICI Bank Canada was established as a Schedule II (foreign-owned or -controlled) bank. It was incorporated in November and opened its head office and downtown Toronto branch in December. In 2004 it launched an online banking platform. In 2005, it launched its financial advisor services channel. In 2008, the bank relocated its corporate office to the Don Valley Business Park in Toronto. In 2010, it launched a mortgage broker service. In 2014, the bank launched a mobile banking app.

ICICI Bank Canada is a member of several esteemed trade association; as well as the Canadian Bankers Association (CBA); a registered member with the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation (CDIC), a federal agency insuring deposits at all of Canada's chartered banks; Interac Association; Cirrus Network; and The Exchange Network.

ICICI Bank UK PLC
ICICI Bank UK PLC was incorporated in England and Wales on 11 February 2003, as a private company with the name ICICI Bank UK Ltd. It then became a public limited company on 30 October 2006. Presently the Bank has seven branches in the UK: one each in Birmingham, East Ham, Harrow, London, Manchester, Southall and Wembley.

The bank currently has seven branches in the UK. ICICI Bank UK PLC is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority. It is covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). The bank has a long-term foreign currency credit rating of Baa1 from Moody's. On 31 March 2019, it had a capital adequacy ratio of 16.8%.

ICICI Bank UK PLC offers products and services such as a current account, savings account, remittance to India, safe deposit box, NRI Services, business banking, foreign exchange services, commercial real estate and corporate banking. In 2019, ICICI Bank UK PLC launched an instant account opening facility through its iMobile app.

ICICI Bank Regional Subsidiaries
ICICI Bank has operations in Bahrain, Germany, Europe, Hong Kong, and China in addition to the countries mentioned above.

Inhumane debt recovery methods
A few years after its rise to prominence in the banking sector, ICICI Bank faced allegations on the recovery methods it used against loan payment defaulters. A number of cases were filed against the bank and its employees for using "brutal measures" to recover the money. Most of the allegations were that the bank was using goons to recover the credit card payments and that these "recovery agents" exhibited inappropriately and in some cases, inhuman behaviour. Incidents were reported wherein the defaulters were put to "public shame" by the recovery agents

The bank also faced allegations of inappropriate behaviour in recovering its loans. These allegations started initially when the "recovery agents" and bank employees started threatening the defaulters. In some cases, notes were written by the bank's employees asking the defaulters to "sell everything in the house, including family members", were found. Such charges faced by the bank rose to a peak when suicide cases were reported, wherein the suicide notes spoke of the bank's recovery methods as the cause of the suicide. This led to legal battles and the bank paying huge compensation.

Money laundering allegations
ICICI Bank was one of the leading Indian banks accused of blatant money laundering through violation of RBI guidelines in the famous CobraPost sting operation which shook up Indian banking industry during April–May 2013.

On 14 March 2013 the online magazine Cobrapost released video footage from Operation Red Spider showing high-ranking officials and some employees of ICICI Bank agreeing to convert black money into white, an act in violation of Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002. The Government of India and Reserve Bank of India ordered an inquiry following the exposé. On 15 March 2013, ICICI Bank suspended 18 employees, pending inquiry. On 11 April 2013 the Deputy Governor of RBI, Harun Rashid Khan reportedly said that the central bank was initiating action against ICICI Bank in connection with allegations of money laundering.

Chanda Kochhar fraud case
On 4 October 2018, the then MD & CEO Chanda Kochhar stepped down from her position following allegations of corruption. In January 2019, based on the report of an enquiry panel headed by Justice Srikrishna, the bank board officially terminated her from service. It also become one of the first in the country to ask for a claw back of bonuses and benefits. In 2020 the Enforcement Directorate provisionally seized assets and shares belonging to Chanda Kochhar with an estimated value of more than inr 780000000, in relation to the ICICI bank loan case.

title: ICICI Bank


text:
User:Supadawg/monobook.css

/* make a few corners round, only supported by moz/firefox/other gecko browsers for now */ -moz-border-radius-topleft: 1em; -moz-border-radius-topright: 1em; } -moz-border-radius-topleft: 1em; -moz-border-radius-bottomleft: 1em; } div.pBody { -moz-border-radius-topright: 1em; -moz-border-radius-bottomright: 1em; }
 * 1) p-cactions ul li, #p-cactions ul li a {
 * 1) content {

/* same following the css3 draft specs, any browsers supporting this? */ border-radius-topleft: 1em; border-radius-topright: 1em; } border-radius-topleft: 1em; border-radius-bottomleft: 1em; } div.pBody { border-radius-topright: 1em; border-radius-bottomright: 1em; }
 * 1) p-cactions ul li, #p-cactions ul li a {
 * 1) content {

title: User:Supadawg/monobook.css


text:
User talk:Apatomerus

Hello and welcome to Wikipedia! Hope you like it here, and stick around.

Here are some tips to help you get started:

 * To sign your posts (on talk pages, for example) use the '~' symbol. To insert just your name, type ~~~ (3 tildes), or, to insert your name and timestamp, use ~~~~ (4 tildes).
 * Try the Tutorial, and feel free to experiment in the test area.
 * If you need help, post a question at the Help Desk
 * Follow the Simplified Ruleset
 * Eventually, you might want to read the Manual of Style and Policies and Guidelines.
 * Remember Neutral point of view
 * Explore, be bold in editing pages, and, most importantly, have fun!

Good luck!

AFD
As an AIW member please review Articles for deletion/List of relationships with age disparity and please take a side.

American and British English spelling differences
Welcome, and thank you for correcting spelling on the Rainwater tank page on Wikipedia! However, galvanized and galvanised both are acceptable spellings of the word.

Please familiarize yourself with American and British English spelling differences before making further spelling corrections to articles. Wikipedia has registered users on this English Wikipedia. These editors use different versions of English including American English and British English. The list of dialects of the English language goes on and on.

When many styles are acceptable, avoid changing from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change. It is acceptable to change from American spelling to British spelling only if the article concerns a British topic or vice versa or if you are making the article internally consistent.

More information is available on Wikipedia's Manual of Style. Enjoy your time on the internet's fastest growing encyclopædia/encyclopedia. Thank you. --Kralizec! (talk) 03:59, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Stegosaurus
Hi Apato!

I'm planning to send Stegosaurus to Featured Article candidacy. The article failed its first nomination, but user:Casliber and I have been hard at work fixing stuff. As you're listed as a member of WikiProject Dinosaurs, I figured I'd drop you a line and see if there was anything you thought should be added/removed/cited on the article before it is sent to FAC. We definitely want it to pass! :)

(Feel free to make any edits on the article itself, comment on the talk page, or leave a note on my talk page). Thanks for your time, Firsfron of Ronchester  19:19, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Coloborhynchus
Well done on that edit, mate. I was stumped about the type species. Can be very confusing, eh? Cheers!--Gazzster 01:01, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I honor you with this reward for eating Cheese
Josephseagullstalin 06:04, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Volapük
Hi Apatomerus! I found your name via the Association of Inclusionist Wikipedians and thought you might want to know about this proposal: Proposals for closing projects/Radical cleanup of Volapük Wikipedia. In case you think that deleting stubs is not the best for the Volapük Wikipedia, perhaps you could help us fight against it with your vote. Thanks! Smeira —Preceding unsigned comment added by Smeira (talk • contribs) 17:29, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

You maybe interested in the Article Rescue Squadron

I notice that you are part of Category:Inclusionist_Wikipedians. I would like you to consider joining the Article Rescue Squadron. Rescue Squadron members are focused on rescuing articles for deletion, that might otherwise be lost forever. I think you will find our project matches your vision of Wikipedia.

Ikip (talk) 00:27, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Request for Participation - Article for Deletion (Live Wire Radio)
Hello - there is currently difficulty in achieving consensus regarding the proposed deletion of Live Wire Radio. You have been randomly selected to give your opinion as to whether this article should be kept or deleted. If you have a moment, please visit the discussion page here. Thank you very much for your time and assistance. BlueSalix (talk) 18:30, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Europe 10,000 Challenge invite
Hi. The WikiProject Europe/The 10,000 Challenge has recently started, based on the UK/Ireland The 10,000 Challenge. The idea is not to record every minor edit, but to create a momentum to motivate editors to produce good content improvements and creations and inspire people to work on more countries than they might otherwise work on. There's also the possibility of establishing smaller country or regional challenges for places like Germany, Italy, the Benelux countries, Iberian Peninsula, Romania, Slovenia etc, much like The 1000 Challenge (Nordic). For this to really work we need diversity and exciting content and editors from a broad range of countries regularly contributing. If you would like to see masses of articles being improved for Europe and your specialist country like WikiProject Africa/The Africa Destubathon, sign up today and once the challenge starts a contest can be organized. This is a way we can target every country of Europe, and steadily vastly improve the encyclopedia. We need numbers to make this work so consider signing up as a participant and also sign under any country sub challenge on the page that you might contribute to! Thank you. -- Ser Amantio di Nicolao Che dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 02:07, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Women in Red World Contest
Hi. We're into the last five days of the Women in Red World Contest. There's a new bonus prize of $200 worth of books of your choice to win for creating the most new women biographies between 0:00 on the 26th and 23:59 on 30th November. If you've been contributing to the contest, thank you for your support, we've produced over 2000 articles. If you haven't contributed yet, we would appreciate you taking the time to add entries to our articles achievements list by the end of the month. Thank you, and if participating, good luck with the finale!

title: User talk:Apatomerus


text:
Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge

The Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge is a 9870.35 acre National Wildlife Refuge in Saginaw County managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. It is located in the central portion of the lower peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan, approximately 25 miles (40 km) south of the Saginaw Bay in Lake Huron and five miles (8 km) south of the city of Saginaw in the county's Spaulding and James townships. It was established in 1953 to provide habitat for migratory waterfowl.

Known locally as the Shiawassee Flats, the refuge lies in the Saginaw Bay watershed, historically one of the largest and most productive wetland ecosystems in Michigan. The Bad, Flint, and Cass Rivers flow into the Shiawassee River in the refuge. Here also the Shiawassee converges with the Tittabawassee River to form the Saginaw River.

Wildlife and Habitat
Refuge habitats include riparian, floodplain/bottomland hardwood forests, and emergent marshes, as well as shallow managed wetlands and croplands.

Over 265 species of birds have been documented on the refuge, including raptors, shore and wading birds, and more than 100 songbird species. Shiawassee Refuge is designated as an Important Bird Area for its global significance to migratory waterfowl. It is also one of six focus areas designated by the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence Basin Joint Venture of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan.

During peak populations in late October, up to 25,000 Canada geese and 40,000 ducks are present. A great diversity of other wildlife associated with freshwater marshes and floodplain forests are also found here.

History
In postglacial times, Lake Huron and Saginaw Bay extended much farther inland than they do now. When the water receded, it left behind a flat, sandy wetland surrounded by low hills. It served as the drainage zone for an area of lower Michigan that covers approximately ten counties. The region was a treasure-house of the wetland timber industry in the late 19th century. After the old-growth trees had almost all been removed, starting in 1903 farmers tried to ditch and tile-drain the land for arable crops. The Ferguson Bayou region of this drained land did not prove to be well-suited for this purpose, although the wildlife refuge continues to use, maintain, and rebuild many of the ditches, drains, and dikes dug during this period. The Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1953.

The area was an attractive hunting and gathering area for many early cultures and later Native American tribes, like the Odawa and Ojibwa. Ducks and geese flocked to this vast area of wetlands and rivers. Mammalian species including river otter, fisher, marten, elk, moose, and black bear were also found here.

The Flats received little human impact until the late 19th century, when the lumber industry expanded to this area. Coal was mined in the area from the early 20th century to the late 1930s. In 1903, farmers began converting the land for crops and, by 1950, a system of pumps, drainage tile, ditches and dikes were in place, making this an extensive agricultural area.

Canada geese
Shiawassee NWR has been designated as a U.S. Important Bird Area by the American Birding Association because of the genuinely migratory James Bay flocks of Canada geese that utilize the wetland annually. These James Bay geese should be sharply distinguished from the stay-at-home geese that have learned how not to migrate.

Refuge management
Shiawassee Refuge is also responsible for managing a portion of the Michigan Islands National Wildlife Refuge within Lake Huron and Saginaw Bay, including Thunder Bay, Scarecrow, and the Charity Islands. The Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge is also under its management, until a permanent staff is hired. The refuge also administers the Shiawassee Management District which coordinates wetland restorations in 22 counties and manages conservation easements in 44 counties of lower Michigan.

The refuge is authorized to expand its present boundaries by 7,500 acres (30 km2) along the Tittabawassee, Shiawassee, and Cass rivers from willing sellers.

title: Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge


text:
Muhammad III as-Sadiq

Muhammad III as-Sadiq (محمد الثالث الصادق; 7 February 1813 – 27 October 1882) commonly known as Sadok Bey (الصادق باي), was the Husainid Bey of Tunis from 1859 until his death. Invested as Bey al-Mahalla (Heir Apparent) on 10 June 1855, he succeeded his brother Muhammad II ibn al-Husayn on 23 September 1859. Named as divisional General in the Imperial Ottoman Army on 10 June 1855, he was promoted to the rank of Marshal on 10 December 1859.

Reign
In July 1860, the Bey was persuaded by the British consul, Richard Wood, to allow a British subject named Holt to set up the first official printing press, as well as the first Arabic-language newspaper in the country, the ar-Ra'id at-Tūnisi. A telegraph concession was established, with a French interest taking it up in 1859.

On 23 April 1861 he promulgated the first written constitution in the Arab world, separating executive, legislative and judiciary powers, through a new Supreme Council, legislature and court system, thus limiting the powers of the Bey. This constitution guaranteed equality of rights to Muslims, Christians (effectively, therefore, to Europeans) and to Jews; in particular, concerning the right to own property. This created a new legal environment which encouraged Europeans to set up businesses in Tunisia; thus new French traders appeared, along with non-Muslim religious schools. On 26 April 1861, the Bey changed the order of succession to the throne; henceforth it would be the oldest prince in the beylical family who would inherit, rather than the oldest son of the late sovereign.

Since the time of Hammouda Pasha two hundred years before, French interests in Tunisia had been housed in the fondouk des Français, a caravanserai in the medina. Now the Tunisian government had a new French consulate built, on what was to become the Avenue de la Marine (now Avenue Habib Bourguiba), and it was formally opened by the Bey on 12 January 1862.

The Bey commissioned the Marseille engineer Colin to repair the Zaghouan aqueduct providing a fresh water supply to the capital. In 1865 he began demolishing the walls around the medina, some of which were so unsound they threatened to collapse. It is during this period that Tunis lost a number of its historic gates - Bab Cartagena, Bab Souika, Bab Bnet and Bab El Jazira. The bronze cannon on the city walls and the fortifications of La Goulette were sold off in 1872. Europeans began to settle near the former Bab el Bhar, in streets close to the old walls and along the Avenue de la Marine, now planted with fig trees. Room for building was limited in nearby areas by European cemeteries, particularly opposite the new consulate building, and by market gardens along the Lake of Tunis which extended as far towards the city as the present Avenue de Carthage.

However, intrigues among his ministers, notably Mustapha Khaznadar and Mustapha Ben Ismaïl, constant pressure from European consuls and the looming bankruptcy of the state, provoked the Mejba Revolt of 1864, compelled him to secure debts which he could not repay, and opened the door to foreign occupation despite the efforts of his Grand Vizier Kheireddine Pacha.

France gained an important foothold in Tunisia in 1869 by means of a tripartite Debt Commission, constituted with the United Kingdom and Italy to manage the country's financial commitments to its creditors. In April 1881, a border incident with French Algeria involving raids by Khroumire tribesmen who were subjects of the Bey provided the final pretext for the dispatch of a French expeditionary force which took El Kef, and for the landing of French troops at Bizerte on 1 May. The French army occupied Tunis on 11 May. The Bey was therefore compelled to sign the Treaty of Bardo on 12 May, establishing the French protectorate of Tunisia.

Private life

Muhammad as-Sadiq had several wives. The first was his cousin, the daughter of the Qaid Ahmed al-Munastiri, from a Turkish family which had been influential in the harem of the Beys of Tunis throughout the century; her mother and grandmother were respectively the second wives of Hussein II Bey et Mahmud ibn Muhammad. His second wife was Henani, daughter of Ali Laroussi, a rich merchant dealing in traditional Tunisian chéchia headgear. He also married a Circassian odalisque Lella Kmar, who was a gift from the Ottoman sultan.

His main residence was the Ksar Said palace, built in an Italianate style in front of the Bardo palace. It had been confiscated from the former minister and Keeper of the Seals, Ismail as-Sunni, who was accused of treason and executed in 1867. (This minister was the maternal grandfather of the future Moncef Bey). It was to one of the first floor staterooms of this palace that, on 12 May 1881, the French consul Théodore Roustan brought the French General Jules Aimé Bréart to the Bey's privy council to secure his signature on the Treaty of Bardo.

In his later years, the Bey fell under the influence Mustapha Ben Ismaïl, and died without issue. He was buried in the Tourbet el Bey mausoleum in the medina of Tunis. He was succeeded by his brother Ali III ibn al-Husayn.

Homosexuality of the bey
According to the writer Nizar Ben Saad, The Bey had many sexual affairs with several male ministers from his court, the most famous with his Grand Vizir Mustapha Ben Ismail. The intimate meetings of the bey were always held in Dar El Bey at night to avoid being seen. Not only that, his marriage to Lella Kmar was never consummated, which made it easier for her to marry his brother Ali Bey after his death.

Descendants
The bey died without leaving any children to inherit the throne. Yet, he was the adoptive father of his nephew Mohamed Naceur, and Jnaina the spouse of his Vizie Ismail Ben Mustapha.

Honours
• Beylik of Tunis: Founder of the Order of the Fundamental Pact, 16 January 1860

•  Ottoman Empire:

• * Order of the Medjidie, 1st Class in Diamonds, 10 January 1860

• * Order of Osmanieh, 1st Class in Diamonds, 27 April 1862

•  Austrian Empire:

• * Grand Cross of the Imperial Order of Leopold, 1862

• * Grand Cross of the Royal Hungarian Order of St. Stephen, 1870

•  Kingdom of Bavaria: Grand Cross of Merit of the Bavarian Crown, 1870

• 🇧🇪 Belgium: Grand Cordon of the Order of Leopold (civil), 6 February 1861

• 🇩🇰 Denmark: Grand Cross of the Dannebrog, 23 June 1860

•  French Empire: Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, in Diamonds, 17 September 1860

•  Kingdom of Hawaii: Grand Cross of the Order of Kalākaua, July 1881

•  Kingdom of Italy: Knight of the Annunciation, 16 November 1862

• 🇲🇨 Monaco: Grand Cross of St. Charles, 28 December 1864

• 🇳🇱 Netherlands: Grand Cross of the Netherlands Lion, 14 August 1861

•  Kingdom of Prussia: Grand Cross of the Red Eagle, 9 February 1863

• 🇪🇸 Spain:

• * Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic, 23 December 1862

• * Grand Cross of the Order of Charles III, 8 November 1864

• * Knight of the Golden Fleece, 31 October 1870

• 🇸🇪 🇳🇴 Sweden-Norway:

• * Commander Grand Cross of the Order of Vasa, 7 September 1860

• * Grand Cross of St. Olav, 2 May 1865

•  undefined: Honorary Grand Cross of the Bath (civil), 1 June 1865

title: Muhammad III as-Sadiq


text:
Deserted medieval village

In the United Kingdom, a deserted medieval village (DMV) is a former settlement which was abandoned during the Middle Ages, typically leaving no trace apart from earthworks or cropmarks. If there are fewer than three inhabited houses the convention is to regard the site as deserted; if there are more than three houses, it is regarded as a shrunken medieval village. There are estimated to be more than 3,000 DMVs in England alone.

Other deserted settlements
Not all sites are medieval: villages reduced in size or disappeared over a long period, from as early as Anglo-Saxon times to as late as the 1960s, due to numerous different causes.

Reasons for desertion
Over the centuries, settlements have been deserted as a result of natural events, such as rivers changing course or silting up, flooding (especially during the wet 13th and 14th centuries) as well as coastal and estuarine erosion or being overwhelmed by windblown sand.

Many were thought to have been abandoned due to the deaths of their inhabitants from the Black Death in the mid-14th century. While the plague must often have greatly hastened the population decline, which had already set in by the early 14th century in England because of soil exhaustion and disease, most DMVs actually seem to have become deserted during the 15th century. At this time, and other policies allowed land traditionally cultivated for cereals and vegetables to be transformed into pastures for sheep. The medieval ridge and furrow cultivation pattern remains evident in fields, even until today. This change of land use by landowners, which was to take advantage of the profitable wool trade, led to hundreds of villages being deserted.

Later, the aristocratic fashion for grand country mansions, parks and landscaped gardens led to whole villages being moved or destroyed to enable lords of the manor to participate in this trend: a process often called emparkment or enclosure.

Examples
Perhaps the best-known deserted medieval village in England is at Wharram Percy in North Yorkshire, because of the extensive archaeological excavations conducted there between its discovery in 1948 and 1990. Its ruined church and its former fishpond are still visible.

In Northamptonshire, around 100 villages can be classified as deserted: there are articles relating to many of them, such as Onley, Althorp, Canons Ashby, Church Charwelton and Coton along with Faxton, Glendon, Snorscombe, Wolfhampcote and Wythmail.

Other examples are at Gainsthorpe and Burreth in Lincolnshire.

title: Deserted medieval village


text:
Category:National Wildlife Refuges in Michigan

National Wildlife Refuges in the U.S. state of Michigan.


text:
Talk:Communist Party – Alberta

Untitled
I removed the text from this page. An anonymous editor, thinking him/herself to be witty, copied the text of the article on the Alberta New Democrats onto this page. Kevintoronto 14:58, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Um ... is that the actual party logo? CJCurrie 00:54, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
 * If not, it would be worth BJAODNing. But it is from the website. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 08:01, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

title: Talk:Communist Party – Alberta


text:
Frankétienne

Frankétienne (born Franck Étienne on April 12, 1936, in Ravine-Sèche, Haiti) is a Haitian writer, poet, playwright, painter, musician, activist and intellectual. He is recognized as one of Haiti's leading writers and playwrights of both French and Haitian Creole, and is "known as the father of Haitian letters". As a painter, he is known for his colorful abstract works, often emphasizing the colors blue and red. He was a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2009, made a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et Lettres (Order of the Arts and Letters), and was named UNESCO Artist for Peace in 2010.

Early life
Frankétienne was born in Ravine-Sèche, a small village in Haiti. He was abandoned by his father, a rich American industrialist, at a young age and was raised by his mother in the Bel Air neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, where she was a respected entrepreneur, owning her own business to support her eight children, managing to send him, who was the eldest, to school.

He first began writing poetry around 1960. He published his first texts in 1964 and 1965. His first novel, Mûr a créver, was published in 1968. From 1977 onward he found success in theater.

Selected works

 * Au Fil du Temps, a compilation of poems
 * Ultravocal, a novel
 * Pèlin Tèt, a play written in Haitian Creole
 * Dézafi, a novel about life during under the Duvalier regime, the first ever in Haitian Creole
 * Mûr à Crever, a novel
 * Les Affres d'un Défi, a novel
 * Désastre (12 janvier 2010), painting
 * Difficile émergence vers la lumière, painting

title: Frankétienne


text:
Category:Saginaw County, Michigan

Articles related to Saginaw County in the U.S. state of Michigan.

title: Category:Saginaw County, Michigan


text:
User talk:Morexyz

Hello and welcome to Wikipedia! Hope you like it here, and stick around.

Here are some tips to help you get started:

 * To sign your posts (on talk pages, for example) use the '~' symbol. To insert just your name, type ~~~ (3 tildes), or, to insert your name and timestamp, use ~~~~ (4 tildes).
 * Try the Tutorial, and feel free to experiment in the test area.
 * If you need help, post a question at the Help Desk
 * Follow the Simplified Ruleset
 * Eventually, you might want to read the Manual of Style and Policies and Guidelines.
 * Remember Neutral point of view
 * Explore, be bold in editing pages, and, most importantly, have fun!

Good luck!

Proposed deletion of GeoShell

The article GeoShell has been proposed for deletion  because of the following concern:
 * No significant coverage in reliable sources independent of topic — notability of topic is not established.

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 18:18, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

title: User talk:Morexyz


text:
Muhammad IV al-Hadi

Muhammad IV al-Hadi (محمد الرابع الهادي), commonly referred to as Hédi Bey (الهادي باي ; 24 June 1855 in Le Bardo – 11 May 1906 in Carthage) was the son of Ali III ibn al-Husayn and the fourteenth Husainid Bey of Tunis, ruling from 1902 until his death.

He was named Bey al-Mahalla (Heir Apparent) on 3 December 1898 and succeeded as Bey of Tunis on the day of his predecessor's death, 11 June 1902, at a ceremony in the throne room of the palace in Tunis, in the presence of the French resident. Before the French protectorate of Tunisia the Ottoman sultan had bestowed honorific military ranks on the Bey of Tunis and his Heir Apparent. Hédi Bey did not receive such an honour, but was instead made Divisional General of the Beylical Guard when he became Heir Apparent, and became Marshal on his accession.

Following a dispute in 1904 with the French Resident General Stephen Pichon over the dismissal of his Grand Vizier Mohammed Aziz Bouattour, he suffered a stroke which caused paralysis of his lower limbs. Shortly before his death, the first violent resistance to authority since the start of the protectorate took place in the Thala-Kasserine Disturbances.

He died in his palace at Carthage Dermech and was buried in the Tourbet el Bey mausoleum in the medina of Tunis. He was succeeded by his cousin Muhammad V an-Nasir.

title: Muhammad IV al-Hadi


text:
Category:Saab vehicles

This category contains automobiles sold with the Saab nameplate by Saab Automobile.

title: Category:Saab vehicles


text:
Delivering Security in a Changing World

The 2003 Defence White Paper, titled Delivering Security in a Changing World, set out the future structure of the British military, and was preceded by the 1998 Strategic Defence Review (SDR) and the 2002 SDR New Chapter, which responded to the immediate challenges to security in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks in 2001. Published under the then Secretary of State for Defence, Geoff Hoon, the report effectively introduced a series of cutbacks to core equipment and manpower and the scaling back of a series of future capital procurement projects. This was justified due to the implementation of a policy termed Network Enabled Capability. The review also outlined a major restructuring and consolidation of British Army Infantry regiments.

Key points
The White Paper, scaling back to an extent from the previous Strategic Defence Review, outlined the following posture for the UK armed forces:
 * The ability to support three simultaneous small (e.g. Operation Palliser in Sierra Leone) to medium scale (e.g. Operation Veritas in Afghanistan) operations, where at least one is an enduring peace-keeping mission (e.g. Kosovo). These forces must be capable of acting as lead nation in any coalition operations.
 * The ability, at longer notice, to deploy forces in a large scale operation (e.g. Operation Telic in Iraq or Operation Herrick in Afghanistan) while running a concurrent small scale operation.

Most of the reforms listed below were announced as part of the Delivering Security in a Changing World: Future Capabilities review, published on 21 July 2004.

British Army
 * Manpower reduced by 1,000.
 * Restructuring will cut 4 infantry battalions otherwise tasked to Northern Ireland, and the manpower redistributed elsewhere.
 * Army High Velocity Missile fire units to be halved, which would lead to the re-role of 2 TA Royal Artillery regiments; 100th (Yeomanry) Regiment Royal Artillery, re-equipped with L118 light guns and 104th Regiment Royal Artillery, re-equipped with L118 light guns. In addition, 22nd Regiment Royal Artillery was disbanded.
 * The re-role of a Challenger 2 regiment into an armoured reconnaissance regiment, Queen's Royal Lancers, and several AS-90 batteries to a light gun regiment, 40th Regiment Royal Artillery, into what would become 19 Light Brigade (see Future Army Structure).
 * Withdrawal of 7 Challenger 2 squadrons and 6 AS-90 self-propelled gun batteries (approx. 84 tanks and 48 AS90s). -> 4 of these from the Queen's Royal Lancers, three others from Royal Wessex Yeomanry (4 tank replacement squadrons dissolved to just 1 replacement squadron; A (Dorset Yeomanry) Armour Replacement Squadron )
 * Infantry battalions to be incorporated into new, large, multi-battalion regiments.
 * Creation of 3 light armoured squadrons that will support development of the next generation of armoured vehicles, the Future Rapid Effect System (FRES).

Royal Air Force
 * Manpower reduced by 7,000.
 * Early withdrawal of the 41-strong SEPECAT Jaguar force by 2007 and closure of Jaguar's operating base, RAF Coltishall, Norfolk.
 * Current Nimrod MR2 maritime patrol aircraft fleet to be reduced from 21 to 16.
 * Reduction in the purchase of re-manufactured Nimrod MRA.4s from 18 to 16 (eventually 9 and then later cancelled) aircraft.
 * Reduction in the Tornado F3 force by one squadron (16 aircraft) in preparation for replacement with Typhoon.
 * Reduction of 6 Puma helicopters of No. 230 Squadron RAF based in Northern Ireland.
 * Reduction in Rapier missile launchers from 48 to 24, coupled with the transfer of the launchers to the Royal Artillery, and the disbandment of four RAF Regiment squadrons that operated Rapier.
 * Additional procurement numbers of Hawk 128 training aircraft above an initial batch of 20 to be decided upon in 2005.
 * Typhoon purchase confirmed, Tranche 2 contract delayed until December 2004 when cost/capability issues were resolved.
 * Purchase of 4 Boeing C-17s operated by the RAF at the end of their lease period including one additional aircraft for a total fleet of 5.

Royal Navy
 * Manpower reduced by 1,500.
 * Reduced purchase of Type 45 destroyers from 12 to 8 (eventually 6) vessels.
 * Reduced force of Type 23 frigates from 16 to 13 vessels by March 2006.
 * Reduced force of nuclear attack submarine fleet (SSNs) from 12 to 8 boats by December 2008.
 * Reduced force of mine countermeasure vessels from 19 to 16 by April 2005.
 * Northern Ireland patrol fleet of 3 reconfigured Hunt-class mine hunters to be decommissioned by April 2007.
 * Early retirement of the 3 oldest Type 42 destroyers.
 * Royal Navy Future Carrier (CVF) purchase confirmed.
 * A summary of warships to be paid off, as planned or early, without replacement as detailed in the review:
 * HMS Cardiff, Type 42 destroyer.
 * HMS Newcastle, Type 42 destroyer.
 * HMS Glasgow, Type 42 destroyer.
 * HMS Norfolk, Type 23 frigate.
 * HMS Marlborough, Type 23 frigate.
 * HMS Grafton, Type 23 frigate.
 * HMS Superb, Swiftsure-class nuclear attack submarine.
 * HMS Trafalgar, Trafalgar-class nuclear attack submarine.
 * HMS Bridport, Sandown-class minehunter.
 * HMS Inverness, Sandown-class minehunter.
 * HMS Sandown, Sandown-class minehunter.
 * HMS Brecon, Northern Ireland patrol vessel, former Hunt-class minehunter.
 * HMS Cottesmore, Northern Ireland patrol vessel, former Hunt-class minehunter.
 * HMS Dulverton, Northern Ireland patrol vessel, former Hunt-class minehunter.

The review also mentioned "significant" classified enhancements of British special forces, including strength increases and investment in new equipment.

Financially, in a Treasury spending review announced the week before, the budget would rise by £3.7bn from £29.7bn in 2004/2005 to £33.4bn in 2007/2008. The review also mentions £3bn to be invested into procuring new helicopters over the next ten years.

Future army structure
The future regimental structure, after changes were outlined in the review was announced in December 2004. Significant changes included:

 * Creation of new 'Combat Service Support Formations', including:
 * 1st Military Intelligence Brigade
 * 12th Signal Group; reformed in 2004 to administer three reserve signals regiments, part of 2nd (National Communications) Signal Brigade
 * 8th Engineer Brigade
 * 2nd Medical Brigade
 * Conversion of an armoured regiment to the formation reconnaissance role; Queen's Royal Lancers was selected.
 * All single-battalion infantry regiments to be merged into existing or new regiments. This measure met with some opposition, especially in Scotland, amongst former soldiers and nationalist groups.
 * Royal Scots (Lothian Regiment), King's Own Scottish Borderers, Royal Highland Fusiliers (Princess Margaret's Own Glasgow and Ayrshire Regiment), The Highlanders (Seaforth, Gordons and Camerons), Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (Princess Louise's) and TA elements amalgamated into the Royal Regiment of Scotland -> Royal Scots (1 SCOTS) and King's Own Scottish Borderers (2 SCOTS) amalgamated shortly thereafter into the Royal Scots Borderers (new 1 SCOTS)
 * King's Own Royal Border Regiment, King's Regiment, and Queen's Lancashire Regiment and TA elements amalgamated into the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment -> 3rd Bn shortly thereafter disbanded
 * Prince of Wales's Own Regiment of Yorkshire, The Green Howards (Alexandra, Princess of Wales's Own Yorkshire Regiment), Duke of Wellington's Regiment, and TA elements amalgamated into the Yorkshire Regiment
 * Cheshire Regiment, Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters, Staffordshire Regiment (Prince of Wales'), and TA elements amalgamated into the Mercian Regiment
 * Royal Welch Fusiliers, Royal Regiment of Wales, and TA elements amalgamated into the Royal Welsh
 * Devonshire and Dorset Light Infantry, Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment, two battalions each of the Royal Green Jackets and The Light Infantry all amalgamated into The Rifles -> first two units forming the 1st Battalion, all other redesignation
 * Conversion of 4th Armoured Brigade to a mechanised brigade
 * Conversion of 19th Mechanised Brigade to a light brigade (19 Light Brigade)
 * Conversion of 52nd (Lowland) Infantry Brigade into a holding infantry brigade under 3rd (UK) Mechanised Division for battalions preparing to deploy on Operation Herrick (this change occurred in 2006/07)
 * Conversion of a single battalion of the Parachute Regiment to a tri-service specialist special forces support battalion (see Special Forces Support Group)
 * Reorganisation of the Territorial Army infantry into 14 battalions that are attached to regular infantry regiments of the British Army (below is the main mergers, however company sized changes did occur)
 * 52nd Lowland Volunteers -> 52nd Lowland Volunteers, 6th Battalion Royal Regiment of Scotland
 * 51st Highland Volunteers -> 51st Highland Volunteers, 7th Battalion Royal Regiment of Scotland
 * Lancastrian and Cumbrian Volunteers -> 4th (Volunteer) Battalion, Duke of Lancaster's Regiment
 * Tyne-Tees Regiment -> 5th (Volunteer) Battalion, Royal Regiment of Fusiliers
 * East of England Regiment -> 3rd (Volunteer) Battalion, Royal Anglian Regiment
 * East and West Riding Regiment -> 4th (Volunteer) Battalion, Yorkshire Regiment
 * West Midlands Regiment -> 4th (Volunteer) Battalion, Mercian Regiment
 * Royal Welsh Regiment -> 3rd (Volunteer) Battalion, Royal Welsh
 * Rifle Volunteers -> 6th Battalion, The Rifles
 * Royal Rifle Volunteers -> 7th Battalion, The Rifles
 * Reduction in the number of British infantry battalions from 40 to 36 -> reductions occurring in the Royal Irish Regiment following the end to Operation Banner
 * 2nd Battalion (Home Service); disbanded in 2007
 * 3rd Battalion (Home Service); disbanded in 2007
 * 4th Battalion (Home Service); disbanded in 2007
 * King's and Cheshire Regiment; disbanded in 2006 with companies going to 4 LANCS and 4 MERCIAN
 * Reduction in the number and size of regular military bands in the Corps of Army Music from 29 to 23:
 * Band of the Royal Irish Regiment disbanded
 * Band of the Hussars and Light Dragoons and Band of the Royal Lancers amalgamated -> Band of the Light Cavalry
 * Band of the Dragoon Guards and Cambrai Band of the Royal Tank Regiment -> Heavy Cavalry (Cambrai) Band
 * Lowland Band of the Scottish Division and Highland Band of the Scottish Division amalgamated -> Band of the Royal Regiment of Scotland
 * Normandy Band of the Queen's Division merged with Minden Band of the Queen's Division
 * Normandy Band of the King's Division and Waterloo Band of the King's Division amalgamated -> Band of the King's Division
 * Clive Band of the Prince of Wales's Division and Lucknow Band of the Prince of Wales's Division amalgamated -> Band of the Prince of Wales's Division
 * Band of the Light Division -> Band and Bugles of The Rifles
 * Reduction in the number of Army Air Corps helicopters based in Northern Ireland
 * Creation of the Defence HUMINT Unit
 * Creation of a new commando engineer regiment, later 24 Commando Engineer Regiment, Royal Engineers
 * Creation of a new signals regiment, later 10th Signal Regiment

title: Delivering Security in a Changing World


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/madfiddler

Does not appear notable. Andris 15:04, Jul 23, 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete both, not articles. -- Cyrius|✎ 19:33, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * The information on suggests some amount of fame; I don't know if it's enough.  In any case, these one-sentence articles are barely stubs.  Delete unless somebody can think of something useful to add. Triskaideka 19:40, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * not convincing (open to neutral 3rd party opinion of course), and two articles like that (one for the real name, one for the nick) is asking for it. Delete. Ianb 20:59, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Vanity, delete. Bacchiad 21:33, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * I converted the Mark Knight entry into an article, please keep it. He is genuinely a well known person in the Amiga music scene. I haven't heard much from his new madfiddler persona, delete that if you wish --Kyzer 00:28, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)


text:
Talk:Kernel (set theory)

Untitled
I moved this page from kernel (function) because the former title may be confused with the concept of a kernel function, which is altogether different from the topic of this article. Michael Hardy 15:04, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Simple example?
Could someone add a very very simple example? For example, what's the kernel of $$f(x)=x^2$$? If that's a nonsensical question, why? —Ben FrantzDale 21:44, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

 * that corresponding kernel is the equivalence relation x ~ y if x^2 = y^2. so we identify x with -x and effectively what you have left is the, say, right half of the real line [0, ∞). Mct mht 07:08, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

title: Talk:Kernel (set theory)


text:
Muhammad V an-Nasir

Muhammad V an-Nasir (محمد الخامس الناصر), commonly known as Naceur Bey (الناصر باي ; 14 July 1855 in La Marsa – 8 July 1922 in La Marsa) was the son of Muhammad II ibn al-Husayn and the fifteenth Husainid Bey of Tunis, ruling from 1906 until his death. He was named Divisional General of the Beylical army when he became Bey al-Mahalla (Heir Apparent) on 11 June 1902, and assumed the rank of Marshal when he succeeded Muhammad IV al-Hadi on 11 May 1906.

The reign of Naceur Bey saw increasing tension between the authorities of the French Protectorate and the Tunisian population. Shortly before he succeeded as Bey, the Thala-Kasserine Disturbances broke out and a few years later the discontent escalated to include major incidents such as the Jellaz Affair and the Tunis Tram Boycott. The French managed to secure from him a decree expelling the leaders of the Tunisian national movement, Ali Bach Hamba, Hassan Guelati, Mohamed Nomane and Abdelaziz Thâalbi from the country in March 1912.

Increasingly dissatisfied with the way the authorities were treating the Destour, in April 1922 he threatened to abdicate if France did not meet their demands, including the repeal of French laws on naturalisation. In response, the French Resident General Lucien Saint surrounded the Bey's palace with troops in order to put pressure on him not to do so. With his hand forced, he complied with the wishes of the French. Humiliated by this experience, he died on 8 July.

He was buried in the mausoleum of Tourbet el Bey in the medina of Tunis. He was succeeded by his cousin Muhammad VI al-Habib and his oldest son, Moncef Bey became Bey in 1942.

title: Muhammad V an-Nasir