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Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc

The Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (Блок Юлії Тимошенко, БЮТ; Blok Yuliyi Tymoshenko, BYuT) was the name of the bloc of political parties in Ukraine led by Yulia Tymoshenko since 2001. In November 2011, the participation of blocs of political parties in parliamentary elections was banned. The core party of the alliance, Batkivshchyna, remained a major force in Ukrainian politics.

Overview
Founded for the 2002 parliamentary elections, the alliance attracted most of its voters from western Ukrainian (Ukrainian speaking) provinces (oblasts) and from central Ukraine. The alliance had low support in the east and the south of Ukraine (where the Russian language is dominant). though they did recruit several politicians from these Russian-speaking provinces like Crimea (Lyudmyla Denisova ) and Luhansk Oblast (Natalia Korolevska ). The alliance was often associated with the 2004 Orange Revolution (the alliance's leader, Yulia Tymoshenko, was one of the leaders of the Orange Revolution) and thus named "Orange Party" in media publications. The alliance also had prominent members who had been associated with the opponents of the Orange Revolutions (the "Blue camp") including Ivan Kyrylenko, the former faction leader of the Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko (BYuT) in the Ukrainian Parliament. Other notable BYuT deputies were Soviet dissident Levko Lukyanenko and former UNA-UNSO leader Andriy Shkil.

BYuT had intended to include more representatives from the education sector into its voting lists. According to Tymoshenko: "Certain branches and sectors have powerful lobbies. And there are only three to four lobbyists who represent the spheres of education and health care in the Verkhovna Rada [Ukrainian parliament]. Therefore some sectors lack financing, while others have excessive funding".

According to Tymoshenko, representatives of business had no dominant influence on decision making in her political force. "Business is represented in the parliament, but it doesn't shape politics this is what distinguishes my political force from the Party of Regions for instance." Several billionaires have been members of the BYuT faction in the Verkhovna Rada.

Creation
In January 2001, President Leonid Kuchma dismissed Tymoshenko from the post of Deputy Prime Minister for fuel and energy sector in the cabinet of Viktor Yushchenko. Following this, and during the Ukraine without Kuchma-protests, Tymoshenko began the loose organisation the National Salvation Committee on 9 February 2001. This organisation later merged into the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (BYuT) in November 2001.

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe noted at the time that there were physical assaults and harassment of candidates and campaign workers associated with the BYuT, and other opposition parties leading up to the March 2002 election. The BYuT itself complained of campaign-related violations including "an informal 'media blackout,' [and] negatively slanted coverage".

At the parliamentary elections on 30 March 2002, the alliance comprised the following liberal and nationalist member parties:
 * Fatherland Party (Partiya Bat'kivshchyna ), also rendered as All-Ukrainian Union "Fatherland" (Vseukrajins’ke Ob’ednannja Bat’kivščyna) (13 berths)
 * Ukrainian Republican Party "Sobor" (Ukrajins’ka Respublikanska Partija Sobor) (3 berths)
 * Ukrainian Social Democratic Party (Ukrajins’ka Social-Demokratyčna Partija) (3 berths)
 * Ukrainian Republican Party (Ukrajinska Respublikanska Partija) (1 berth)
 * Non-partisan (2 berths)

 * Top 10 members

The bloc won 7.2% of the popular vote and 22 out of 450 seats. This result was better than expected, because BYuT had limited access to the media and limited support from local authorities.

The alliance supported Viktor Yushchenko during the Ukrainian presidential election of 2004, and played an active role in the widespread acts of civil non-violent protest that became known as the Ukrainian Orange Revolution.

In January 2005, Tymoshenko became Prime Minister of Ukraine under Yushchenko's presidency.

The party had lost a few seats in 2002 and 2003, but doubled to 40 members of parliament in September 2005.

Electoral breakthrough
The BYuT entered the parliamentary elections on 26 March 2006, with only Fatherland and Ukrainian Social Democratic Party after both republican parties left the alliance. Nonetheless, BYuT moved into second place with 22.27% of the vote behind Party of Regions with 33% and ahead of Our Ukraine with less than 14% support. BYuT won 129 seats out of 450.

Note that after the 2002 merger of the Ukrainian Republican Party "Sobor" and the Ukrainian Republican Party – which then became known as the Ukrainian Republican Party "Sobor" (URP Sobor) – the party went through a schism before the 2006 elections. The majority of the party led by Anatoliy Mativienko aligned with Our Ukraine Bloc, while others left the party and stayed with BYuT. After the 2006 elections, Levko Lukyanenko managed to reinstate the original Ukrainian Republican Party.

 * Top 10 members

It was widely expected that a coalition between supporters of the Orange Movement would form Ukraine's next government, but after three months of negotiations and a failure to reach an agreement the proposed coalition collapsed following the decision of the Socialist Party of Ukraine to support the formation of the "anti-crisis coalition" with Party of Regions and the Communist Party of Ukraine.

During the 2007 parliamentary elections, the BYuT consisted of:
 * All-Ukrainian Union "Fatherland"
 * Ukrainian Social Democratic Party
 * Reforms and Order Party

The Ukrainian Republican Party "Sobor" was part of the Our Ukraine–People's Self-Defense Bloc in this election.

 * Top 10 members

In the parliamentary elections on 30 September 2007, the bloc won 156 of 450 seats (and thus 30.71% of the total votes ), securing an additional 1.5 million votes (8.24%) in comparison with the 2006 election. Most of this vote swing came as a result of consolidation in regions where BYuT had already been the leading party. Statistics published by Ukraine's Central Electoral Commission indicate that most of the swing came from minor parties with some voters turning away from the Socialist Party and to a lesser extent Our Ukraine.

On 15 October 2007, Our Ukraine–People's Self-Defense Bloc and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc agreed to form a majority coalition in the new parliament of the 6th convocation. On 29 November, a coalition was signed between the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and Our Ukraine–People's Self-Defense Bloc (OU-PSD) which together had received 45% of the national vote. On 18 December 2007 Yulia Tymoshenko, with a margin of two votes, was elected Prime Minister.

During the 2008 Ukrainian political crisis the BYuT–OU-PSD coalition faltered. There were negotiations between BYuT and Party of Regions to form a coalition but after Volodymyr Lytvyn was elected Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) on 9 December 2008, he announced the creation of a coalition between his Lytvyn Bloc, BYuT and OU-PSD. Following negotiations, the three parties officially signed the coalition agreement on 16 December. It was unsure if this coalition would stop the snap election  although Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn predicted that the Verkhovna Rada would work until the next scheduled elections in 2012. President Viktor Yushchenko's decree to dissolve the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) – made during the 2008 Ukrainian political crisis – was never put into action.

On 3 July 2009 the Verkhovna Rada terminated the mandate of BYuT deputy Viktor Lozinskyi. At the time there was a criminal proceeding against Lozinskyi who was suspected of deliberately inflicting grave bodily harm causing death; the Prosecutor-General's Office had applied to the Verkhovna Rada for permission to arrest Lozinskyi. 416 out of 444 deputies registered in Parliament, including 133 deputies of the BYoT, voted for removal of the Lozinskyi's parliamentary immunity.

Return to opposition
In October 2009, BYuT endorsed Yulia Tymoshenko, then incumbent Prime Minister, as their candidate for the 2010 Presidential election. She was not elected. In the second round of the election she lost to Viktor Yanukovich while gaining 45.47% of the votes; Yanukovich got 48.95% of the votes so Tymoshenko lost by 3.48%.

After the fall of the second Tymoshenko Government on 3 March 2010 (seven BYuT lawmakers had supported the motion of no confidence ) BYuT moved into opposition. On 11 March 2010 BYuT appealed to the Central Election Commission of Ukraine to terminate the parliamentary mandates of six parliamentarians who had joined the new parliamentary coalition. Ten representative of BYuT joined the coalition supporting the Azarov Government as an independent MP in April 2010.

On 16 March, a shadow government including BYuT was established.

It late May 2010, BYuT deputies had to submit new applications for faction membership. On 26 June 2010 the Political Council Presidium of All-Ukrainian Union "Fatherland" expelled Oleksandr Feldman, a Verkhovna Rada deputy of the BYuT faction, from the party because he had joined the coalition supporting the Azarov Government the previous month. On 21 September 2010, another 28 members of the faction were officially expelled because they had joined the majority coalition.

On 16 November 2010, the ByuT faction was officially renamed "Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko-Batkivschyna".

By late 2010 the BYuT faction consisted of 113 lawmakers of the original 156 elected in September 2007. Most who left BYuT had become members of the "Stability and Reforms" coalition supporting the Azarov Government (17 of these became founding members of Reforms for the Future in February 2011 ). Four joined the Party of Regions faction in October 2010 (followed by five others in March 2011). In early February 2011 seven more deputies were expelled from the faction. On 2 February 2011 party-leader Tymoshenko claimed members of the "Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko-Batkivschyna"-faction had been offered money and places in the election list of the Party of Regions and have been blackmailed into voting for laws introduced by the Azarov Government. In 2011, the faction of BYuT lost 11 more deputies. On 29 December 2011, it consisted of 102 deputies.

Alliance leader Tymoshenko was sentenced to seven years in jail in October 2011 on abuse of power charges. Ukrainian President Yanukovych and the Party of Regions have been accused of trying to create a "controlled democracy" in Ukraine, and as a means to this tried to "destroy" main opposition party BYuT, but both have denied this charges.

Dissolution
In November 2011, the participation of blocs of political parties in parliamentary elections was banned. The People's Self-Defense Political Party merged with All-Ukrainian Union "Fatherland".

"Fatherland" and Reforms and Order Party (with People's Movement of Ukraine) announced to compete one single party list during the parliamentary elections in March 2012. On 7 April 2012 Arseniy Yatsenyuk announced his party Front of Changes would join them on this (single) party list.

On 15 March 2012, the Ukrainian Social-Democratic Party was expelled from the bloc for alleged "cooperation with the presidential administration and the ruling regime"; the day before the Ukrainian Social Democratic Party party-leader Natalia Korolevska had been expelled from the "Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko-Batkivschyna"-faction. The Ukrainian Social-Democratic Party had stated in December 2011 "that we are doing nothing that can harm the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko... Our task is to collect the most votes in parliament at the 2012 parliamentary elections". On 22 March 2012 the Ukrainian Social-Democratic Party was renamed Party of Natalia Korolevska "Ukraine – Forward!".

"Fatherland" became the "umbrella" party with an election list that included members of Reforms and Order Party, People's Movement of Ukraine, Front of Changes, For Ukraine, People's Self-Defense, Civil Position and Social Christian Party. In July 2012, members of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People joined this list. This list named themselves: United Opposition "Fatherland". During the election the list won 62 seats and 25.55% of the votes under the proportional party-list system (falling from 30.71% in 2007 for BYuT ) and another 39 by winning 39 simple-majority constituencies. This gave them a total of 101 seats and 22.67% of the 450 seats in the Ukrainian Parliament. The party lost about 2 million voters compared with BYuT's results in the previous election.

By late November 2012 the BYuT faction consisted of 97 lawmakers of the original 156 elected in September 2007.

On 15 June 2013, Reforms and Order Party and Front for Change merged into "Fatherland".

Ideology
The official ideology of the block is solidarism. But the block includes parties with different ideologies: Pro-Europeanism, liberal nationalism and social democracy. The hostile parties claim that the ideology of BYuT is populism.

Issues
The BYuT had advocated the following positions:

 * Constitutional reform – BYuT proposed a national referendum on the system of governance (Presidential or Parliamentary) and the adoption a new constitution.
 * Justice – The bloc advocated raising salaries for judges and abolishing the requirement for them to hear specific cases. They proposed legal aid schemes for poor citizens so that income would not be the final determinant of judicial representation and consideration.
 * Media – The bloc advocated for the creation of public broadcast television, greater transparency and disclosure of ownership of media interests, the establishment of agreements between owners of media outlets and journalists in order to facilitate open and honest editorial policy, and increased Internet availability.
 * Corruption – The bloc proposed implementing a systematic program to combat corruption.
 * Social reform – The bloc proposed to improve social welfare services while encouraging an expansion of the population. Specific plans included obligatory medical insurance, free state medical services for those in need, affordable medication, a rural doctor program, and increased payments for each newborn child. In addition, there were proposals for increased baby-care allowances and long-term low interest loans for young families.
 * Education – The bloc proposed to restore the status and raise the standards of the education system to stop the brain drain problem. Measures included incentives for investment in professional and higher education and in research and development.
 * Transit – The bloc proposed to build new oil and gas pipelines and expand public-private partnership investments to improve roads, railways and airports. They advocated a liberalization of the transit system.
 * Business – The bloc wished to address the imbalance between large enterprises, which dominate the business sector, and small enterprises by encouraging the growth of wealth-creating small- and medium-sized enterprises. They advocated a new tax code while expanding assessment, minimizing tax remissions, abolishing VAT, and overall simplifying the process to set up and administer businesses. They advocated lower business lending rates in line with European levels, and measures to liberalize banking and insurance services and encourage longer-term lending. Shareholder rights will be protected, the permit system reformed, and the governmental bureaucracy reduced.
 * Energy – The bloc sought to overturn the nation's dependence on monopolies for importing energy while strengthening collaboration and coordination of energy policy with the EU. Specific policies included integration with the European market for the supply and consumption of electricity, measures to reduce oil and gas consumption, an increase in utilization of brown coal and the production of synthetic fuel. They wished to complete the Odessa–Brody–Plotsk (Gdańsk) transit pipeline, build a gas transit pipeline linking the Caspian Sea (running through Azerbaijan and Georgia) and the Black Sea, and encourage domestic production both onshore and offshore in the Black and Azov Seas.
 * Investment – The bloc encouraged domestic and foreign investment by removing legal barriers and streamlining procedures, particularly for the technology and energy sectors. Other proposals included transparent and open privatization and tender processes and the establishment of a network of regional ombudsman to simplify processes for obtaining import certificates. All new legislation was to be in accordance with WTO practices.
 * Construction – BYuT proposed a system of mortgage lending with lower interest rates for house purchases along with government targets for public housing projects. Decentralization to the regional level would facilitate these targets for both housing and commercial facilities. Special tax incentives were envisioned for industrial projects to complement planning for investment described above.
 * Agriculture – The bloc advocated a stronger, more profitable and environmentally responsible agricultural sector. Crucial measures included the availability of development funds, agricultural exchanges, insurance funds and land-banks. Other initiatives involved the promotion of agricultural products to overseas markets. To facilitate a functioning land market, agricultural producers would have access to low-interest loans, with incentives for the development of cooperative banks and credit unions in rural areas.

Relationships with other parties
"Late May was marked with another story on a boring subject – betrayal, conspiracy, coup d'état, the usurpation of power and other terrible things. This has already become a political characteristic of Ukraine." Our Ukraine has been the main ally of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (BYuT) during the Orange Revolution and in its aftermath.

Relations with arch-rival Party of Regions (PoR)  has always been sour but at times seemed to improve. In 2009 a coalition government between these two seemed to become a reality. But early June talks to build a broad coalition to address the economic crisis collapsed; Yulia Tymoshenko accused PoR leader Viktor Yanukovych of betrayal. At that time, Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko showed little enthusiasm for a BYuT–PoR coalition.

Although unrelated to these developments, American analyst Ryan Renicker asserted that allegations of Tymoshenko's alleged wrongdoings are unsubstantiated and misguided. Official documents from both the European Union and the United States suggest Tymoshenko's prosecution and imprisonment were politically motivated.

title: Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc


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Aviva

Aviva plc is a British multinational insurance company headquartered in London, England. It has about 19 million customers across its core markets of the United Kingdom, Ireland and Canada. In the United Kingdom, Aviva is the largest general insurer and a leading life and pensions provider. Aviva is also the second largest general insurer in Canada.

Aviva has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange, and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

Name
The name of the company upon its formation in May 2000 was CGNU plc and was created when Norwich Union merged with insurer CGU. In April 2002, the company's shareholders voted to change the company name to Aviva plc, an invented palindrome word derived from "viva", the Latin for 'alive' and designed to be short, memorable and work worldwide. The Norwich Union brand was retained for the UK long-term savings and general insurance business.

In April 2008, Aviva announced that it would adopt the Aviva name as its worldwide consumer-facing brand, and that the Norwich Union brand would be phased out in the United Kingdom.

History
Aviva can trace its history back to the establishment of the Hand in Hand Fire & Life Insurance Society in London in 1696. It was created by a merger of two British insurance firms, Norwich Union and CGU plc (itself created by the merger of 1998 of Commercial Union and General Accident ) as CGNU in February 2000. The Aviva name was adopted in July 2002. Thereafter, most of the group operations, except for some strong local brands, were carried out under the uniform brand "Aviva".

In 2002, Aviva purchased Abeille Vie, a French life insurance company.

In March 2005, Aviva acquired the RAC plc breakdown recovery operation for around £1.1 billion.

In July 2006, Aviva greatly increased its presence in the United States by acquiring AmerUs Group, a Des Moines based financial services company founded in 1896 in a $2.9 billion (£1.6 billion) deal.

The launch was supported by a £9 million advertising campaign to promote the rebranding (one of the most expensive ever in the insurance field), with the participation of celebrities including Bruce Willis and Alice Cooper. In June 2009, the company decided to dispose of Navigator, its Australian wealth management business, to National Australia Bank for A$825 million (£401 million).

In October 2009, the company decided to focus on its commercial insurance sector and demonstrate its commitment to brokers by launching their 'find a broker' facility, using the British Insurance Brokers Association search engine. To help them with this endeavour, Paul Whitehouse was recruited to play the part of a successful hairdresser running three salons. The message of the campaign focused on business insurance through insurance brokers.

In September 2011, Aviva completed the sale of RAC plc breakdown recovery operation for £1.0 billion to The Carlyle Group. In February 2012, Aviva sold its occupational health business to the British support services company Capita.

In July 2012, Aviva announced plans to sell or close 16 non core businesses in order to simplify its activities and boost shareholder returns. As part of the plans Aviva announced the sale of its operations in South Korea and the closure to new business of its bulk buying annuity unit in the United Kingdom. In August 2012, Aviva announced that up to 800 jobs would be lost, following a reorganization caused by further turmoil in the Eurozone.

In December 2012, Aviva agreed to sell Aviva USA Corporation to Athene Holding for US$1.8 billion (£1.1 billion) as part of a plan to improve shareholder returns and reduce the group's capital requirements, having paid $2.9 billion in 2006 and incurring a large loss on sale. Athene subsequently sold the life insurance business of Aviva to Global Atlantic.

On 13 April 2015, Aviva completed the £5.6 billion all share takeover of Friends Life Group. Andy Briggs, then group chief executive of Friends Life, became CEO of Aviva UK Life, with Mark Wilson continuing as CEO of the enlarged Aviva Group. In July 2016, Aviva froze withdrawals from the Aviva Investors Property Trust because of a lack of liquidity after Britain's vote to leave the European Union on 23 June. In September 2017, Aviva agreed to sell its Italian joint venture Avipop Assicurazioni to Banco BPM for US$312.01 million (€265 million).

In March 2018, Aviva, controversially, announced that it "had the ability" to cancel its irredeemable preference shares at par. This caused a wider sell off in the preference share market in the United Kingdom. Also in March 2018 the company announced to spend around £600 million on so called "bolt on" acquisitions, that are in "Poland, Turkey, anywhere we have existing markets".

In October 2018, Mark Wilson agreed to step down as CEO with immediate effect, with Adrian Montague taking interim control of the company, pending Wilson's formal departure in 2019. Maurice Tulloch was appointed CEO in March 2019; however, he stood down in July 2020 for family health reasons and was replaced by Amanda Blanc, who previously served as an Independent Non-Executive Director of the company.

In November 2020, Aviva sold its stake in their Indonesian company Astra Aviva Life and their Hong Kong division.

In 2021, Aviva sold its French operations to Aéma Groupe. As part of the deal, Aviva agreed to indemnify Aéma against potential legal liabilities to Max-Hervé George. In May, Aviva completed the sale of its Turkish business, followed by businesses in Italy (Aviva Italia Holding) and Poland in December 2021.

In April 2023, Aviva terminated its membership of the Confederation of British Industry in response to allegations made by former employees of sexual harassment and rape at the business group.

In September 2023, it was announced Aviva had acquired the London-headquartered life insurance company, AIG Life Limited from Corebridge Financial for £460 million.

In November 2023, Aviva acquired a Canadian vehicle replacement insurance business, Optiom, for £100 million (US$126 million).

Operations
Aviva's main activities are the provision of general and life insurance, long term savings products and fund management services. The group has around 23,000 employees and 19 million customers. Aviva Investors has £233 billion assets under management as at 31 March 2024.

Principal subsidiaries

 * United Kingdom
 * Insurance, Wealth & Retirement
 * Aviva Insurance – General Insurance (including the Quotemehappy brand)
 * Aviva Investors – Fund Management ''(formerly Morley)
 * Canada – Aviva Canada
 * China – Aviva-Cofco
 * India – Aviva India
 * Ireland
 * Aviva Direct
 * Aviva Health

Following the completion of Friends Life Group Limited in April 2015, Friends Provident International Limited is now part of the Aviva Group.

Senior management
CEO Richard Harvey retired on 11 July 2007. His successor was Andrew Moss, the former group finance director. Moss was paid an annual base salary of £925,000 for his role as Chief Executive. Moss resigned on 8 May 2012, after shareholders voted down a proposed senior management pay deal which would have seen Moss increase his basic pay by 5% despite several years of Aviva underperformance.

Following the departure of Aviva's CEO, Andrew Moss, McFarlane assumed the role of executive deputy chairman and became executive chairman on 1 July 2012. On 20 November 2012, Aviva announced that Mark Wilson had been appointed CEO, starting 1 January 2013.

On 12 September 2014, Aviva announced that Sir Adrian Montague would become non executive chairman, on the retirement of John McFarlane at the Aviva AGM in April 2015. On 9 October 2018, the Aviva Board announced Mark Wilson was to step down, remaining as part of the company until April 2019 though on garden leave; with Sir Adrian Montague assuming executive responsibilities in the interim whilst a replacement candidate is sought. Maurice Tulloch was appointed CEO in March 2019; however, he stood down in July 2020 for family health reasons and was replaced by Amanda Blanc, who previously served as an Independent Non-Executive Director of the company.

George Culmer took over as chairman from Sir Adrian Montague on 27 May 2020.

Sponsorships
In May 2008, Aviva became Norwich City Football Club's main sponsor. In an advert from 2009 starring Paul Whitehouse, they feature a Plymouth Argyle F.C. fan who uses Aviva car insurance, followed by a Green Army chant. It also acquired the naming rights for the redeveloped Lansdowne Road stadium in Dublin, Ireland, which was renamed the Aviva Stadium. In January 2018, the naming rights were extended to 2025.

In 2023, Aviva sponsored Aviva Studios, a cultural space in Manchester. It has been designed to enable the commissioning of large scale and intimate work across different art forms, including dance, theatre, music, opera, visual arts, popular culture and digital work, plus major exhibitions and concerts.

Aviva sponsored rugby union's English Premiership from 2010 to 2018.

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

title: Aviva


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Eildon Hill

Eildon Hill lies just south of Melrose, Scotland in the Scottish Borders, overlooking the town. The name is usually pluralised into "the Eildons" or "Eildon Hills", because of its triple peak. The 422 m high eminence overlooks Teviotdale to the South. The north hilltop (of three peaks) is surrounded by over 5 km of ramparts, enclosing an area of about 16 ha (40 acres) in which at least 300 level platforms have been cut into the rock to provide bases for turf or timber-walled houses, forming one of the largest hill forts known in Scotland. A Roman army signalling station was later constructed on the same site as this hill fort.

The mid hilltop is the highest, whilst the south hilltop is the lowest. The hills are owned by the Duke of Buccleuch, Scotland's largest private landowner. As with all land in Scotland the public have a right of responsible access to the hills, and there are many paths crossing the area and leading to all three summits.

The hills form part of the Eildon and Leaderfoot National Scenic Area, one of forty such areas in Scotland, which have been defined so as to identify areas of exceptional scenery and to ensure its protection from inappropriate development. The areas protected by the national scenic area (NSA) designation are considered to represent the type of scenic beauty "popularly associated with Scotland and for which it is renowned". The Eildon and Leaderfoot NSA covers 3877 ha, and extends to include the town of Melrose, Scott's View and Leaderfoot Viaduct.

History
Excavations have revealed evidence that the hill fort was occupied by 1000 BC, in the Bronze Age. The ramparts seem to have been built and rebuilt in three phases. 296 individual hut floors have been identified within the fort, suggesting a population of around 2000, and making it one of the largest known in Scotland from this period. The hill fort is thought to have been the capital of the Selgovae, who lived in upper Tweeddale prior to the arrival of the Romans.

In the 1st century AD the Roman army built the massive fort of Trimontium at Newstead, named after the three peaks, at the foot of the hill on the bank of the River Tweed. In association with this fort they constructed a signal tower with a tiled roof in a 15 m diameter enclosure built on the summit of Eildon North Hill. The hill fort may have been abandoned by this time, as Roman archaeological finds uncovered during excavation of the site in 1986 all overlaid native finds. The tower was thought to have been constructed out of timber during the Flavian period, with a later tower being constructed out of stone during the reign of Emperor Antoninus Pius. Finds including Roman coins and pottery have suggested that some of the house platforms were again in use in the 2nd to 4th century.

There is some evidence that prehistoric peoples regarded the Eildon Hills as a holy place and scholars believe they may have been a place of ceremonial gatherings. There are several holy springs around the base of the hills, now dedicated to Christian saints, but probably originally sacred to Celtic deities.

They were once known as Eldune, derived from the 12th-century Simeon of Durham who referred to them as Eldunum. The final part of the word is Old English dun, meaning a rounded hill, while the first part has been variously etymologized as Brittonic eil (referring to a fenced enclosure) or Old English ǣled ("fire") or ǣlǣte ("empty place").

Formation
It is possible that the hills were formed deep beneath the Earth's surface as ancient laccoliths.

In folklore
Eildon is said to be a "hollow hill", and is mentioned in the legend of Thomas the Rhymer. Some believe Thomas went under the hill itself, and certainly part of the ballad occurs in the vicinity. Sir Walter Scott tells the tale of a horse dealer who is paid in "ancient coin" by an elderly buyer in old-fashioned dress and taken inside the hill at night. A host of armed knights lie asleep at their horses' feet; their sleeping leader is King Arthur. Shown a horn and a sword, in confusion the dealer blows the horn: the men begin to awake and a loud voice indicates that he has been proved a coward for not seizing the sword first. A whirlwind ejects him from the chamber and outside he tells his story to some shepherds before dropping dead of exhaustion. Scott identifies the elderly man as Thomas the Rhymer. Another legend concerns the Eildon Tree Stone, a large moss-covered boulder near Melrose, marking the spot where the Fairy Queen led Thomas into her realms in the heart of the hills.

The volcanic rock was said to have been cleft in three by the wizard Michael Scot, as relayed by Walter Scott in his 1805 poem, The Lay of the Last Minstrel:

In these far climes it was my lot To meet the wondrous Michael Scott, A wizard, of such dreaded fame,

Than when, in Salmanca's cave, Him listed his magic wand to wave, The bells would ring in Notre Dame! Some of his skill he taught to me; And Warrior, I could say to thee The words that cleft Eildon hills in three, And bridled the Tweed with a curb of stone: But to speak them were a deadly sin.

James Hogg retold the legend in his 1823 novel The Three Perils of Man.

Media
This place was cited in the lyric of the song "Eiledon", from Big Country's The Seer album.

title: Eildon Hill


text:
Pisa (disambiguation)

Pisa is a city in Tuscany, Italy.

Pisa or PISA may also refer to:

Places

 * Province of Pisa, a province in the Tuscany region of Italy
 * Republic of Pisa, a de facto independent state centered on the Tuscan city of Pisa during the 10th and 11th centuries
 * Pisa, Greece or Pisatis, an ancient Greek town in Elis
 * Pisa (river), Poland

Ships

 * Pisa-class cruiser, a class of three armoured cruisers built in the early 20th century
 * Italian cruiser Pisa, the lead ship of the class
 * SS Pisa (1896), a transatlantic passenger steamship

People

 * Alberto Pisa (1864-1936), Italian painter
 * Aleš Píša (born 1977), Czech ice hockey player
 * Apisaloma Pisa Tinoisamoa (born 1981), American former National Football League player

PISA

 * Penang International Sports Arena, Malaysia
 * Primary Industries South Australia, defunct South Australian government agency whose merges formed PIRSA
 * Programme for International Student Assessment, an OECD survey
 * The Protein Interfaces, Surfaces and Assemblies server, a bioinformatics web application

Other uses

 * Pisa (crab), a genus of crabs
 * University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy
 * A.C. Pisa 1909, an Italian football club, formerly Pisa Calcio
 * Pisa language, spoken in Papua, Indonesia

title: Pisa (disambiguation)


text: Category:Elections in Ukraine

title: Category:Elections in Ukraine


text:
Great Ormond Street Hospital

Great Ormond Street Hospital (informally GOSH, formerly the Hospital for Sick Children) is a children's hospital located in the Bloomsbury area of the London Borough of Camden, and a part of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust.

The hospital is the largest centre for child heart surgery in Britain and one of the largest centres for heart transplantation in the world. In 1962 it developed the first heart and lung bypass machine for children. With children's book author Roald Dahl, it developed an improved shunt valve for children with hydrocephalus, and non-invasive (percutaneous) heart valve replacements. Great Ormond Street performed the first UK clinical trials of the rubella vaccine, and the first bone marrow transplant and gene therapy for severe combined immunodeficiency.

The hospital is the largest centre for research and postgraduate teaching in children's health in Europe.

In 1929, J. M. Barrie donated the copyright to Peter Pan to the hospital.

Origins
The Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street was founded on 14 February 1852 after a long campaign by Dr Charles West, and was the first hospital in England to provide in-patient beds specifically for children.

Despite opening with just 10 beds, it grew into one of the world's leading children's hospitals through the patronage of Queen Victoria, counting Charles Dickens, a personal friend of the Chief Physician Dr West, as one of its first fundraisers. The Nurses League was formed in February 1937.

Nationalisation
Great Ormond Street Hospital was nationalised in 1948, becoming part of the National Health Service. During the early years of the NHS, private fundraising for the hospital was heavily restricted, though the hospital was permitted to continue to receive pre-existing legacies.

Audrey Callaghan, wife of James Callaghan (prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1976 to 1979), served the hospital as Chairman of the Board of Governors from 1968 to 1972 and then as Chairman of the Special Trustees from 1983 until her final retirement in 1990. Diana, Princess of Wales, served as president of the hospital from 1989 until her death. A plaque at the entrance of the hospital commemorates her services.

1990s
The Charles West School of Nursing transferred from Great Ormond Street to London South Bank University in 1995.

2000s
In 2002 Great Ormond Street Hospital commenced a redevelopment programme which is budgeted at £343 million and the next phase of which was scheduled to be complete by the end of 2016. In July 2012, Great Ormond Street Hospital was featured in the opening ceremony of the London Summer Olympics.

In 2017 Great Ormond Street Hospital was subject to international attention regarding the Charlie Gard treatment controversy.

Archives
The hospital's archives are available for research under the terms of the Public Records Act 1958 and a catalogue is available on request. Admission records from 1852 to 1914 have been made available online on the Historic Hospital Admission Records Project.

St Christopher's Chapel

St Christopher's Chapel is a chapel decorated in the Byzantine style and Grade II* listed building located in the Variety Club Building of the hospital. Designed by Edward Middleton Barry (son of the architect Sir Charles Barry who designed the Houses of Parliament) and built in 1875, it is dedicated to the memory of Caroline Barry, the architect's sister-in-law, who provided the £40,000 required to build the chapel and a stipend for the chaplain. It was built in "elaborate Franco-Italianate style". As the chapel exists to provide pastoral care to ill children and their families, many of its details refer to childhood. The stained glass depicts the Nativity, the childhood of Christ and biblical scenes related to children. The dome depicts a pelican pecking at her breast in order to feed her young with drops of her own blood, a traditional symbol of Christ's sacrifice for humanity.

When the old hospital was being demolished in the late 1980s, the chapel was moved to its present location via a "concrete raft" to prevent any damage en route. The stained glass and furniture were temporarily removed for restoration and repair. It was reopened along with the new Variety Club Building on 14 February 1994 by Diana, Princess of Wales, then president of the hospital.

Peter Pan
In April 1929 J. M. Barrie gave the copyright to his Peter Pan works to the hospital, with the request that the income from this source not be disclosed. This gave the institution control of the rights to these works, and entitled it to royalties from any performance or publication of the play and derivative works. Innumerable performances of the play and its various adaptations have been staged, several theatrical and television adaptations have also been produced, and numerous editions of the novel have been published, all under licence from the hospital. The hospital's trustees further commissioned a sequel novel, Peter Pan in Scarlet, written by Geraldine McCaughrean and published in 2006.

After the copyright first expired in the UK at the end of 1987 – 50 years after Barrie's death – the government's Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988 granted the hospital a perpetual right to collect royalties for public performances and commercial publication of the work within the UK. This did not grant the hospital full copyright control over the work, however. When British copyright terms were later extended to the author's life plus 70 years by a European Union directive in 1996, Great Ormond Street revived its full copyright claim on the work. After the copyright expired again in 2007, the terms of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act again applied.

Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity
The hospital has relied on charitable support since it first opened. One of the main sources for this support is Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity. Whilst the NHS meets the day-to-day running costs of the hospital, the fundraising income allows Great Ormond Street Hospital to remain at the forefront of child healthcare. The charity aims to raise over £50 million every year to complete the next two phases of redevelopment, as well as provide substantially more fundraising directly for research. The charity also purchases up-to-date equipment, and provides accommodation for families and staff.

Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity was one of the charities that benefited from the national Jeans for Genes campaign, which encourages people across Britain to wear their jeans and make a donation to help children affected by genetic disorders. All Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity's proceeds from the campaign went to its research partner, the UCL Institute of Child Health.

On 6 August 2009, Arsenal F.C. confirmed that Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity was to be their "charity of the season" for the 2009–10 season. They raised over £800,000 for a new lung function unit at the hospital.

Two charity singles have been released in aid of the hospital. In 1987, "The Wishing Well", recorded by an ensemble line-up including Boy George, Peter Cox and Dollar amongst others became a top 30 hit. In 2009, The X Factor finalists covered Michael Jackson's "You Are Not Alone" in aid of the charity, reaching No.1 in the UK Charts.

On 30 March 2010, Channel 4 staged the first Channel 4's Comedy Gala at the O2 Arena in London, in aid of the charity. The event has been repeated every year since, raising money for Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity each time.

In 2011, Daniel Boys recorded a charity single called "The World Is Something You Can Imagine". It was also released as with proceeds going to the Disney Appeal at Great Ormond Street Hospital.

In 2018, celebrity supergroup The Celebs formed at Metropolis Studios to record an original Christmas song called "Rock With Rudolph", written and produced by Grahame and Jack Corbyn. The song was in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital. It was released digitally through independent record label Saga Entertainment in November 2018. The music video debuted exclusively with The Sun on 29 November 2018 and had its first TV showing on Good Morning Britain on 30 November 2018. The song peaked at number two on the iTunes pop chart.

Peter Pan copyright
At various times, Great Ormond Street has been involved in legal disputes in the United States, where the copyright term is based on date of publication, putting the 1911 novel in the public domain since the 1960s. The hospital asserted that the play, first published in 1928, was still under copyright in the US until the end of 2023.

Gender identity
In August 2023 reports indicated that during a presentation by a transgender advocacy group, personnel at Great Ormond Street Hospital learned of more than 150 expressions of gender identity. It comes after parent groups called for the head of the Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity to quit over her public support for a controversial transgender activism campaign.

In September 2023 it was revealed "doctors and staff at a world-renowned children's hospital are being advised not to use terms such as girls and boys in diversity guidance".

In January 2024 it was revealed that proposed gender service "has been hit by revolt before it has opened after several experts quit over apparent concerns with staff training" and that "The resignations included experts who believed the training materials were not following the independent recommendations made by Dr Hilary Cass, former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. Namely, that the service should provide an "exploratory" rather than "affirmative" approach to the child's health". Some clinicians working on the new training materials and who did not resign are understood to have felt it important to affirm a patient’s gender identity and know that patients benefit from medication. This recommendation has also been criticised, due to ethical concerns around the nature of an "exploratory" approach. Specifically, that it will result in biased clinicians carrying out conversion therapy.

On 1 April 2024, despite transphobic opposition, the new Children and Young People's Gender Service (London) began delivering for children and young people experiencing gender related distress.

Despite resistance to the service, the hospital has assured the public that their aim "is to develop a robust training and education programme that is underpinned by the latest evidence that can enable clinicians and support staff to deliver the very best care for the children and young people who urgently need this new service"

In March 2024 NHS England confirmed children attending the regional centres will no longer receive puberty blockers and will be supported in line with the recommendations made by Dr Hilary Cass by "resulting in a holistic approach to care". One of the last acts of government in 2024 was to bring in an emergency ban on puberty blockers.

Fundraising
The hospital's charity faced an investigation by the Information Commissioner's Office over potential breaches of data protection law in February 2017. The Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity was fined "£11,000 for sharing 910,283 records with other charities, sending on average 795,000 records per month to a wealth screening company and using email and birthdays to find out extra information about more than 311,000 supporters".

In 2024 Fundraisers working on behalf of Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity have found themselves embroiled in controversy due to allegations of employing "pressure-selling techniques". These door-to-door fundraisers have been accused of coercing people into signing up for donations. An undercover investigation exposed some concerning practices such as:

 * Psychological manipulation: Fundraisers were taught to use "psychological motivators" and anticipate objections when interacting with potential donors at their doorsteps. This included tactics to encourage regular monthly donations via direct debit, allowing the hospital to better plan its budget.

 * Emotional manipulation: One senior fundraiser even claimed the ability to cry on demand to evoke sympathy from potential donors.

 * Hard-sell tactics: Trainees were armed with an array of hard-sell techniques designed to overcome any objections raised by potential donors.

Other
Great Ormond Street Hospital was involved in a scandal regarding the removal of live tissue and organs from children during surgery and onward sale to pharmaceutical companies without the knowledge of parents in 2001.

In January 2014, it was revealed that as a result of an accidental injection of glue into her brain, Maisha Najeeb brought a claim for compensation against the Great Ormond Street Hospital leading to a payment of up to £24million.

The hospital's charity faced an investigation by the Information Commissioner's Office over potential breaches of data protection law in February 2017. The Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity was fined "£11,000 for sharing 910,283 records with other charities, sending on average 795,000 records per month to a wealth screening company and using email and birthdays to find out extra information about more than 311,000 supporters".

In April 2018, it was revealed children were put at risk by being given potentially dangerous drugs.

In April 2019, following an inquiry into the death of Amy Allan, the coroner criticised the hospital for not providing a proper plan for the teenager's recovery after surgery.

In 2019 the Great Ormond Street mortuary manager made the senior leadership aware of staffing issues. "Since April 2019 GOSH mortuary has been very short staffed but somehow we have managed to keep our standards up, get through a HTA inspection and still give 100% care to our patients whilst having 50% staff. Patient first and always".

The former Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, urged Great Ormond Street Hospital to examine a possible fundamental cultural problem amid claims it prioritizes reputation over patient care in March 2020.

In March 2020, the BBC conducted an investigation into the death of a child and revealed that at least six children had died of invasive aspergillosis at Great Ormond Street since 2016.

Several leaked emails from the head of Great Ormond Street Hospital, released in November 2020, suggested that the hospital had become accustomed to some "bad behaviours" and that more needed to be done to ensure staff feel safe.

In June 2021, the mother of a baby questioned why action was not taken sooner for her son who died at Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Great Ormond Street Hospital entered into an agreement with Sensyne, an AI company, in September 2021. The hospital received 1,428,571 shares in the company in exchange for patient data. Sensyne has since been delisted from the London Stock Exchange leading to a loss to the hospital of around £2 million.

Following a lawsuit against Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust, a family received up to £7 million after the boy was left disabled, in July 2022.

In February 2023, the mother of a sick child with cancer was shocked after hearing Great Ormond Street hospital workers making jokes about his likely death.

In March 2023, it was revealed trainee dentist doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Foundation Trust were going unsupervised.

In May 2023, newspapers highlighted the case of Ryan, left unattended in a lift by a Great Ormond Street hospital worker. His mother Catherine suffered a stress-induced seizure as she fell down the stairs and broke several bones after learning what happened to her son. Ryan was found again after someone needed to use the trolley he was in, around 11 hours later. A spokesperson from the hospital said that there was a situation on the day of Ryan’s arrival and that they had half the number of staff that were due to be on duty.

Hospital cleaners have made allegations of institutional racism at Great Ormond Street Hospital in March 2023. Hospital cleaners from minority ethnic groups say they were denied NHS contracts and paid less than white NHS employees. A court hearing was concluded in 2023. Each cleaner could receive between £80,000 and £190,000 if the claims are successful.

In August 2023 it was revealed a child began to experience lung complications with an invasive aspergillosis infection which led to his death.

In February 2024, the hospital's orthopedic unit faced scrutiny following the discovery of the use of outdated limb lengthening devices from the Soviet era by one of its surgeons. Soviet-era limb lengthening devices are outdated and potentially unsafe compared to modern medical equipment. The use of such devices in 2017-2022 would raise concerns about patient safety, medical ethics, and the standards of care provided by the surgeon. The revelation came about after parents raised concerns.

Food quality
In 2013 a survey of more than 1,300 health units revealed Great Ormond Street Hospital had the second worst score in London and the 13th lowest score overall. The hospital that treats some of the country's most severely ill children and teenagers said it was surprised by the results of the first patient-led assessment of non-clinical issues. According to a hospital spokeswoman, the food quality has now improved "after extensive taste testing."

In 2023 a new patient-led assessment released by NHS Digital revealed Great Ormond Street Hospital was still ranked amongst the worst hospitals in UK with the 40th lowest score overall. As part of the assessment of food provision, assessors were asked questions regarding the choice of food offered, the availability of food 24 hours a day, meal times, and menu accessibility. A ward-level assessment of the food was also conducted, including an assessment of taste, texture, and serving temperature.

Cleanliness
in 2023 the patients-led assessment data released by NHS Digital also revealed Great Ormond Street Hospital was the third worst hospital in UK for cleanliness.

Notable staff

 * Sir Lancelot Barrington-Ward, surgeon
 * Mildred Creak, child psychiatrist
 * Dr. Norman Bethune, Canadian physician and humanitarian
 * Gwendoline Kirby, MVO, matron 1950-
 * H. S. Sington, anaesthetist 1907 to 1938
 * Lewis Spitz, surgeon
 * Catherine Jane Wood, Matron from 1880

title: Great Ormond Street Hospital


text: User talk:68.109.121.178

title: User talk:68.109.121.178


text:
U.S. Route 55

U.S. Highway 55 was a north–south United States highway. Though it was part of the original 1926 numbering plan, it was deleted within 10 years.

Route description
From its southern terminus in Davenport, Iowa, U.S. Highway 55 initially followed the route of present-day U.S. Highway 52 through Hampton, Minnesota excepting for later local improvements such as the Rochester and Decorah bypasses. It was deleted 90 years ago.

North of Hampton, Minnesota, U.S. Highway 55 headed north and west to downtown Minneapolis. Within the village of Hampton, Minnesota, U.S. Highway 55 followed along Main Street and present-day Minnesota Highway 50 to Farmington. Within Farmington, the highway had a shared segment with what was then U.S. Highway 65 (now Minnesota Highway 3) to Elm Street in Hampton.

From Farmington, U.S. Highway 55 headed westward to Burnsville via present-day 212th Street West, Lakeville Blvd, 210th Street West, Kenwood Trail, and Burnsville Parkway to Lyndale Ave (now Interstate 35W). Following the decommissioning of U.S. Highway 55, the portion of the route between Farmington and Burnsville was subsequently designated as a portion of Minnesota Highway 50, and transferred to County control in 1994 as Dakota County Road 50. From Burnsville, U.S. Highway 55 again turned northwards, following Lyndale Avenue across the Minnesota River and into Downtown Minneapolis via Lyndale Avenue, Lake Street, and 3rd Avenue.

History
When the route was designated in 1926, its northern terminus was in Minneapolis at an intersection with U.S. Highway 12, near the Mississippi River. Its southern terminus was in Dubuque, Iowa, at an intersection with U.S. Highway 61 (or possibly U.S. Highway 20). In 1932, US 55 was extended south to Davenport, Iowa, to another intersection with US 61. While US 61 followed a more direct route from Dubuque to Davenport, the new US 55 extension followed the western shore of the Mississippi River.

Just two years later, in 1934, US 55 was deleted entirely. U.S. Highway 67 was extended through Davenport to Dubuque, absorbing the 1932 extension of US 55. The northern half of this stretch was co-signed with an extension of U.S. Highway 52, which took over the US 55 designation to Hampton, Minnesota. From Hampton, US 52 was routed to Saint Paul via Minnesota Highway 56 to Inver Grove Heights and Robert Street into downtown Saint Paul. The remainder of U.S. Highway 55 north and west of Hampton was designated as U.S. Highway 65. The prior routing of U.S. Highway 65 into from Farmington to Saint Paul was redesignated as U.S. Highway 218 for one year, and subsequently redesignated as Minnesota Highway 218, and later as Minnesota Highway 3.

The number "55" was later proposed for the route which would become U.S. Highway 56.

title: U.S. Route 55


text:
Colin Pitchfork

Colin Pitchfork is a British double child-murderer and rapist. He was the first person convicted of rape and murder using DNA profiling after he murdered two girls in neighbouring Leicestershire villages: Lynda Mann in Narborough in November 1983, and Dawn Ashworth in Enderby in July 1986. He was arrested on 19 September 1987 and was sentenced to life imprisonment on 22 January 1988 after pleading guilty to both murders, with the judge giving him a 30-year minimum term (reduced to 28 years on appeal).

He was granted parole in June 2021, and was released on licence on 1 September that year. On 19 November the same year, he was recalled to prison for breaching his licence conditions. Pitchfork was granted parole a second time in June 2023, but after intervention from the Lord Chancellor Alex Chalk the Parole Board reviewed its decision and decided not to release him.

Life
Pitchfork lived at 6 Brascote Lane in Newbold Verdon, attending school in Market Bosworth and Bosworth College in Desford. He was in the 1st Newbold Verdon Scout Group, gaining the Chief Scout's Award in September 1976. He was one of four scouts chosen in Leicestershire to go to the 14th World Scout Jamboree in Norway in August 1975, amongst 1,600 scouts from the UK. Molly Pitchfork, his mother, was the Group Scout Leader.

He married in 1981 to a social worker and moved to the Leicestershire village of Littlethorpe. Before his marriage, Pitchfork had been convicted of indecent exposure and had been referred for therapy to the Carlton Hayes Hospital, Narborough.

Pitchfork had obtained work in Hampshire's Bakery in Leicester, in 1976, as an apprentice. He continued to work there until his arrest for the murders. He became particularly skilled as a sculptor of cake decorations and had hoped, eventually, to start his own cake decorating business. According to his supervisor, he was "a good worker and time-keeper, but he was moody... and he couldn't leave women employees alone. He was always chatting them up."

Crimes
In October 1977, he was fined £30 by Market Bosworth magistrates for exposing himself to a schoolgirl, pleading guilty, when aged 17.

In 1979, Pitchfork forced a 16-year-old girl into a field and sexually assaulted her.

On 14 February 1980, when aged 20, he exposed himself to two teenage girls in Earl Shilton, and was given a year's probation by Hinckley magistrates.

On 21 November 1983, 15-year-old Lynda Mann took a shortcut on her way home from babysitting instead of taking her normal route home. She did not return and her parents and neighbours spent the night searching for her. The next morning, she was found raped and strangled on a deserted footpath known locally as the Black Pad. Using forensic science techniques available at the time, police linked a semen sample taken from her body to a person with type A blood and an enzyme profile that matched only 10% of males. With no other leads or evidence, the case was left open.

In October 1985, Pitchfork sexually assaulted another 16-year-old girl, threatening her with a screwdriver and with a knife at her throat.

Liz Knight was picked up by Pitchfork on a Saturday in June 1986 and driven for 40 minutes from Wigston towards Great Glen. When she grabbed the steering wheel, Pitchfork's demeanour suddenly changed, and he decided to drive to her house, and not attack. Pitchfork put his hand on her knee, saying: "I haven't hurt you yet." Pitchfork dropped Knight at her house, asking, "How about a goodnight kiss?" which she refused. Pitchfork said, "I bet you would never accept a lift from a stranger again."

On 31 July 1986, 15-year-old Dawn Ashworth left her home to visit a friend's house. Her parents expected her to return at 9:30 pm; when she failed to do so they called police to report her missing. Two days later, her body was found in a wooded area near a footpath called Ten Pound Lane. She had been beaten, savagely raped, and strangled. The modus operandi matched that of the first attack, and semen samples revealed the same blood type. Both girls had attended Brockington High School. Dawn's mother worked at Next plc in Enderby; George Davies offered a £10,000 reward.

An initial suspect was Richard Buckland, a local 17-year-old with learning difficulties who, while innocent of both murders, revealed knowledge of Ashworth's body and admitted to the Ashworth crime under questioning, denying the first murder.

Arrest and conviction
In early 1987, police asked every local male between the ages of 16 and 34 to voluntarily give blood samples for DNA testing. By the end of January, a thousand men had been tested. Men who declined to give blood samples found themselves under scrutiny by police.

According to 1988 news reports, one of Pitchfork's colleagues at the bakery, 23-year-old Ian Kelly, was overheard in a pub discussing how he had provided a fake blood sample for Pitchfork (using a fake passport) as he lived outside the area. He had agreed to do this in exchange for £200, and he then took the test on 29 January 1987. The conversation, during the lunchtime of Saturday, 1 August 1987, was overheard by other bakery colleagues, and 28-year-old Jackie Foggin (Tyson), of Fleckney, reported it to the police. This vital tip-off was later credited with enabling Pitchfork to be caught. Pitchfork had told Kelly that he wanted to avoid being harassed by police because of his prior convictions for indecent exposure. Kelly was arrested at 31 Stuart Street in Leicester on Friday, 18 September.

On Saturday, 19 September 1987, Pitchfork was arrested at 32 Haybarn Close, in Littlethorpe, by Detective Inspector Mick Thomas. Pitchfork's wife tried to attack him, when he told her that he had killed two girls.

During questioning, Pitchfork admitted to exposing himself to more than 1,000 women, a compulsion that began in his early teens. He later progressed to sexual assault and then to strangling his victims. Pitchfork said this was in order to protect his identity. Investigators rejected this, viewing the motivation for the strangulations as "perverted sadism". During his interviews with the police he admitted his crimes, but lied about the level and nature of the violence he had inflicted on his victims.

At his trial at Leicester Crown Court, Pitchfork pleaded guilty to the two rapes and murders, in addition to sexual assault of two other girls, and conspiring to pervert the course of justice. In January 1988 he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the two murders and 10 years for raping the victims; he was also sentenced to three years for each count of sexual assault and three years for perverting the course of justice, with all sentences to run concurrently. A psychiatric report prepared for the court described Pitchfork as possessing a psychopathic personality disorder accompanied with a serious psychosexual pathology. The Lord Chief Justice at the time of his sentencing said: "From the point of view of the safety of the public I doubt if he should ever be released." The Secretary of State set a minimum term of 30 years; in 2009, Pitchfork's minimum term sentence was reduced on appeal to 28 years.

Parole reviews
On 22 April 2016, the Parole Board for England and Wales heard Pitchfork's case for early release on parole. Pitchfork's advocates presented evidence of his improved character, noting that Pitchfork had furthered his education to degree level and had become expert at the transcription of printed music into braille, for the benefit of blind people. The families of victims Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth opposed his release on parole.

On 29 April 2016, the board announced that Pitchfork's application for release on licence had been refused, but recommended that he be moved to an open prison. In June 2016, Michael Gove, then Justice Secretary, agreed with the board's recommendation, and at some point prior to 8 January 2017, Pitchfork was moved to an undisclosed open prison.

In November 2017, Pitchfork was seen walking around Bristol, so it was assumed that he had been moved to HM Prison Leyhill in Gloucestershire.

On 3 May 2018, Pitchfork was refused release on licence. The Parole Board said Pitchfork would be eligible for a further review within two years. Lynda's mother said the board had "listened to us before the murderer". In 2017, it emerged Pitchfork would be released from open prison on unsupervised days out.

2021: release and recall
On 7 June 2021, Pitchfork was granted release on conditional licence. The Secretary of State for Justice, Robert Buckland, applied for a review of the decision under the terms of the Parole Board Reconsideration Mechanism, introduced in 2019, and Pitchfork remained in custody pending the outcome. On 13 July 2021, it was reported that the review had been refused and that Pitchfork would therefore be released. He was released on 1 September 2021.

In November 2021, Pitchfork was recalled to prison for breaching his licence conditions by "approaching young women" while on walks from his bail hostel. His second victim's mother, Barbara Ashworth, told BBC News that she was pleased "he's been put away and women and girls are safe and protected from him now". There are complaints that the Parole Board was insufficiently cautious in allowing Pitchfork's release. Justice Secretary Dominic Raab promised a Parole Board review. David Baker, a former police detective who helped capture Pitchfork, believes Pitchfork could deceive the Parole Board and pretend it was safe to release him. Baker maintains Pitchfork is a psychopath and it will never be safe to release him.

2023: consideration for release
The Parole Board's hearing to consider releasing Pitchfork again was postponed to 2023. His potential release was opposed by MP Alberto Costa.

In June 2023 it was announced that Pitchfork would again be released under parole. The decision was widely criticised. In July 2023, the Lord Chancellor intervened and ordered that the board reconsider their decision after a huge public outcry, particularly since Pitchfork breached his licence conditions within weeks of his initial release. Pitchfork's new parole hearing took place on 2 and 3 October 2023. In December 2023, parole was denied, meaning that Pitchfork would remain in prison.

2024 review
Pitchfork challenged the Parole Board's decision on procedural grounds, and in February 2024 the Board agreed to schedule another hearing before a different panel to consider his potential release. In May 2024, the parole board confirmed that Pitchfork's next parole hearing would take place on 8 July, with members of the public allowed to attend.

Artwork
In April 2009, a sculpture that Pitchfork had created in prison and which was exhibited at the Royal Festival Hall, Bringing the Music to Life, depicted an orchestra and choir. The sculpture was exhibited as part of a venture by the Koestler Trust, having been purchased by the Festival Hall for £600. Following outrage in the media and from victim-advocate groups, it was removed from display.

In popular culture
Pitchfork’s crimes were originally chronicled in the 1989 book The Blooding by Joseph Wambaugh.

Pitchfork's crimes were aired on the American true crime series Forensic Files in October 1996.

The killings featured in a 2002 episode of Real Crime "Cracking the Killer's Code". Pitchfork was played by John Duttine.

In 2014, ITV commissioned a two-part television drama, Code of a Killer, based on Pitchfork's crimes and the creation of DNA profiling. It starred John Simm as researcher Alec Jeffreys and David Threlfall as David Baker, the lead police detective. Pitchfork was played by Nathan Wright. The drama was the first broadcast in two 90-minute episodes, on 6 and 13 April 2015. It was subsequently reformatted as three episodes and released on DVD.

Pitchfork's crimes are also the focus of an episode of the Sky series How I Caught the Killer.

title: Colin Pitchfork


text:
Ukrainian Evangelical Baptist Convention of Canada

The Ukrainian Evangelical Baptist Convention of Canada is a Baptist organization serving the Ukrainian Baptists in the country of Canada.

History
Ukrainian Baptists became established in Canada early in the 20th century from two independent sources. A group of Ukrainian immigrant families laid down the foundation and established the first Ukrainian Baptist church in Canada, electing Rev. Ivan Shakotko to be the pastor in Winnipeg in 1903. Around the turn of the 20th century, English-speaking Baptists sent a missionary to labour among the growing Ukrainian population in western Canada. From this work, a church was organized in Overstone, Manitoba in 1904. Around this same time, Baptist work among Ukrainian Canadians was started in Toronto, and in Saskatchewan. John Kolesnikoff, a missionary, moved to Canada from eastern Ukraine in 1907. These churches were successful in attracting Mennonite, Shtundist, and Eastern Orthodox emigrants from Imperial Russia. The first annual conference of Ukrainian Baptists in Canada was organized by Rev. Shakotko and Rev. Kolesnikoff in Canora, Saskatchewan in 1908. It was originally called the "Russian-Galician Evangelical Convention" and gradually changed to "Russian-Ukrainian" as the name Ukrainian was popularized. For a number of years afterwards the body operated as the "Federation of Ukrainian Baptist Churches in Canada". In 1961, they incorporated under the current name.


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Decry

Non-notable and defunct punk band from the very un-punk town of Monrovia, California. - Lucky 6.9 21:55, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * Hopeless. What bright spirit is going to start a BandWiki to deflect all the people who think their band is notable? JFW | T@lk  22:07, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Someone already did (not me) www.music-wiki.org. That being said, delete. Lyellin 07:27, Jul 30, 2004 (UTC)
 * Monrovia ..., maybe 40 miiles east of Hollywood.. It'd be nice if they had a more accurate idea of where they were from... Delete. --Ianb 00:15, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete: The hardcore scene generated hundreds and hundreds of bands. They all have someone who remembers them today.  That's not the same thing as notability.  Geogre 00:37, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete - "Interested listeners can find their songs on a few compliations" = not sufficiently notable. —Stormie 01:54, Jul 30, 2004 (UTC)

title: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Decry


text:
IMB

IMB is a three-letter abbreviation that may refer to:

Organizations

 * IMB Bank, an Australian banking institution
 * Indymac Bancorp, former NYSE symbol
 * Institute of Molecular Biology in Mainz, Germany
 * The International Maritime Bureau of the International Chamber of Commerce
 * The International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention

Other

 * Independent Monitoring Board, of the conditions of prisoners in English jails
 * Integrated Media Block in digital cinema
 * Integrated Mobile Broadcast of TV over mobile telephony
 * Intelligent Mail Barcode, a barcode used on mail in the United States
 * Intermenstrual bleeding, uterine bleeding between the expected menstrual periods
 * Internal Market Bill, United Kingdom, proposals for trading mechanisms within the UK
 * The Irvine-Michigan-Brookhaven detector, of neutrinos, Ohio, US

title: IMB


text:
Walden's hornbill

Walden's hornbill (Rhabdotorrhinus waldeni) locally called dulungan, also known as the Visayan wrinkled hornbill, rufous-headed hornbill or writhe-billed hornbill, is a critically endangered species of hornbill living in the rainforests on the islands of Negros and Panay in the Philippines. It is closely related to the writhed hornbill, but can be recognized by the yellow throat and ocular skin in the male, and the blue throat and ocular skin in the female (both throat and ocular skin are deep orange or red in both sexes of the writhed hornbill). Its binomial name commemorates the Scottish ornithologist Viscount Walden.

It is considered one of the Western Visayas Big 5 which includes the Negros bleeding-heart pigeon, Visayan spotted deer, Visayan hornbill and the Visayan warty pig.

Description
EBird describes the bird as "A large rare bird of lowland and foothill forest on Panay and Negros, although almost extinct on the latter. Mostly black with a cream-colored tail with black terminal band, an orange casque, and a wrinkled lower bill. Male has a rufous head, a yellow pouch, and yellow around the eye. Female has a black neck and head, a smaller bill and casque , and blue and yellow around the eye and on the chin. The only other hornbill in range is the Visayan hornbill but the Writhe-billed is larger, with a pale bill. Voice includes a three-noted throaty chuckle.."

They exhibit sexual dimorphism with the males having a rufous head and yellow facial skin while the females having a black head and blue facial skin and a smaller bill.

Habitat and behaviour
It inhabits closed-canopy forests, also frequenting logged areas and occasionally isolated trees in clearings at an altitudinal range of 400 to 1,200 m Panay and 350 to 950 m in Negros. It prefers areas abundant fruit-bearing trees for feeding and large trees for nesting. They are known to live in small and noisy flocks. The Walden's hornbills are cavity nesters and use natural or carved-out hollows in tree trunks for its nest. As other hornbills, they reproduce very slowly. As lack of appropriate nesting sites is a problem, nest boxes are being attached to tree trunks in certain reserves.

It is omnivorous, taking some animal matter to its nests and feeding in the canopy on figs and other fruits. It may make local nomadic movements in response to food availability. It nests in large trees.

Conservation status
This is a critically endangered species, one of the three critically endangered hornbills including the Sulu hornbill and Helmeted hornbill. It is presumed extinct on Guimaras and now survives only on Negros and Panay The total population has been estimated at less than 160, though recent work from the Central Panay Mountain Range suggests 600-700 pairs may remain there. No recent figures are available for Negros, where it may be functionally extinct. The IUCN Red List estimates the population to be 1,000 to 2,499 mature individuals with the population continuing to decline.

Walden's hornbill reproduce very slowly and thus are unable to survive high hunting pressures coupled with heavy logging of the rainforests. By 2007, Negros and Panay had a 3% and 6% remaining forest cover with most of this being higher elevation forest where this bird does not thrive in. Despite already paltry forest cover, deforestation still continues thanks to both legal and illegal logging, conversion into farmland, mining and road development. As for the case of the Northwest Panay Peninsula Natural Park, a road was built splitting it from the Central Panay Mountain Range and has severely affected the population in the former as these roads allow for easier access by hunters and loggers.

Another huge threat is hunting and capture for the illegal wildlife trade. According to the Philippine Initiative for Environmental Conservation (Philincon), up to 50% of all nests in Central Panay Mountain Range were affected by poachers who would either climb up or cut down the nesting trees to poach the nestlings and the mother.

Due to this high poaching rate, Philincon has devised a nest guarding program where they pay locals US$20 a month to guard hornbill nests and offer an incentive of US$11 for each successful fledge. This program has been effective cutting down the poaching rate to just 5%. Philincon now guards more than 1,000 nest holes which is believed to be at least two-thirds of all nests in the Central Panay Mountain Range. In areas where their large nesting trees have been logged, Philincon installs nest boxes for these hornbills to breed in.

The bird is listed as an EDGE species by the Zoological Society of London where it is ranked as the 50th which uses the basis of evolutionary distinctness  and endangeredness.

This bird was bred in captivity for the first time by the Mari-it Wildlife and Conservation Park in 2005. As of 2010, they have bred 15 Walden's hornbills. In 2019, The Talarak Foundation has also successfully bred them in captivity in their Negros facility after nine years of attempts.

Further conservation actions proposed are: more funding should be allocated primarily to in situ protection along the lines of PhilCon's guarding scheme; conduct further surveys, particularly on Panay to identify important sites and use this data to decide further actions; continue community awareness programmes to reduce hunting and illegal logging on both Negros and Panay; work in partnership at the government level to strengthen protected area legislation and improve the network in the long term; and support the development of captive breeding and reintroduction programmes.

title: Walden's hornbill


text:
Talk:Bandwidth (signal processing)

old question
Aren't bps-type bandwidths and frequency bandwidths really the same thing? A coax cable can only carry a certain frequency range, or a certain number of bits per second. how do you convert between them? - Omegatron 21:59, Jul 29, 2004 (UTC)

 * This is given by the Shannon-Hartley theorem. - Omegatron 18:27, Aug 10, 2004 (UTC)

Simple English
The article linked on "Simple English" is not just simple; it's completely wrong. Does anyone here who understands anything have an account there to fix it? Dicklyon 15:18, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

 * I don't think the simple English version is well maintained but I don't see where it is wrong. ~Kvng (talk) 20:31, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Disambig
I support, for bandwidth can also mean how much a server can take. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by -Slash- (talk • contribs) 20:08, 19 December 2006 (UTC).

I was looking for info on the Bandwidth Theorem; i think a disabiguation page would be a good idea, as clearly the term bandwidth means something different to network anylists and physicists (although they describe related phenomena).

 * There used to be a link at the very top of each of the articles to the disambiguation page Bandwidth. What happened to it?  CosineKitty (talk) 20:04, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

 * There is a hatnote here. I've added a complementary one to Bandwidth (computing) ~Kvng (talk) 20:31, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

External link
Hi! I would add the following link to the additional resources section: It contains some very nice and detailed tutorials on telecommunication basics

 * ❌ This link is now dead ~Kvng (talk) 20:31, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

computer network bandwidth should be split
The sections of this current page about computer network bandwidth belong in their own separate article. They should be split out, and a disambig. link put at the top of this article. --jacobolus (t) 22:54, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

 * Oppose. You mean moving one short paragraph to a separate article about Digital bandwidth in bit/s? It is important that people from analogue electronics, traditional telecommunications and physics become aware about today's widespread usage of the digital definition. It is also important that computer science people are aware of the original analogue definition in Herz, and are encouraged to use less ambiguous terms such as gross bit rate, throughput or channel capacity.   Mange01 00:29, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
 * No, there's a lot more than that to split out; we should definitely have the articles cross reference each others to achieve the clarity that you speak of. Dicklyon (talk) 22:09, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree with jackobolus that they should be split into:

Analog Bandwidth being a range of frequencies utilized in an application such as an RF communications channel

Digital Bandwidth being the data rate witch differs from throughput (witch should account for transmission overhead) --Douglasmwilliams (talk) 20:43, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

 * Support These are different concepts and should be split Lbgrowl (talk) 00:42, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

 * Oppose. I believe there is room on this page to support all the meanings of bandwidth. Like Mange01, I think the reader should be able to see the various meanings side by side and so become aware of the similarities. Binksternet (talk) 03:01, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

 * Support Analogue bandwidth is a complex topic, with links to control theory. It needs exposition of some analogue concepts totaly irrelevant to someone looking for digital bandiwdth. Digital bandwidth does not deal with similar topics anymore. With multiple digital lines and transmission media, analogue bandwidth in terms information theory and digital technology is not relevant. Where it is (i.e. chanel coding?), a link would be appropriate. 134.225.216.197 (talk)

 * Support – the modern proliferation of things called bandwidth (the digital stuff) is pretty much distracting in an article that wants to try to communicate the traditional meaning. Make a new article to split off the digital stuff. Dicklyon (talk) 05:15, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

 * Support - The digital use of "bandwidth" is definitely an error that has crept into common speech. It is also not correct to say that information rate (digital bw) is proportional to bandwidth (analog) and this should be removed from the entry. Shannon's equation gives C=B*log2(S/N+1), C in bps and B in Hz which appears linear. However for the common case where ultimate noise, N, is thermally rather than interference limited, this is equal to KTB, thus B shows up inside the logged argument and the relationship is no longer linear (proportional). The maximum information capacity situation, the so called Shannon limit, represents this case; where the bandwidth (actual/analog) has been increased greatly and the  signal plus noise power is very nearly identical to the noise power; (S/N+1) approximately unity.   N6gn (talk) 18:14, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I went ahead and started the bandwidth (computers) article (the title suggested in the merge tag we were discussing). If someone wants to work on it, or move it, feel free. I'll start pulling those bits out of bandwidth now. Dicklyon (talk) 22:09, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * They should be summarized here, shouldn't they? Richard001 (talk) 00:13, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

title: Talk:Bandwidth (signal processing)