Yangon (Burmese: ရန်ကုန်, MLCTS rankun mrui, pronounced: [jàɴɡòʊɴ mjo̰]; formerly known as Rangoon, literally: "End of Strife") is the capital of the Yangon Region of Myanmar, also known as Burma. Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government relocated the capital to the purpose-built city of Naypyidaw in central Myanmar. With over 7 million people, Yangon is Myanmar's largest city and is its most important commercial centre.

 

Yangon boasts the largest number of colonial-era buildings in the region, and has a unique colonial-era urban core that is remarkably intact. The colonial-era commercial core is centred around the Sule Pagoda, which reputed to be over 2,000 years old. The city is also home to the gilded Shwedagon Pagoda — Myanmar's most sacred Buddhist pagoda. The mausoleum of the last Mughal Emperor is located in Yangon, where he had been exiled following the Indian Mutiny of 1857.

 

Yangon suffers from deeply inadequate infrastructure, especially compared to other major cities in Southeast Asia. Though many historic residential and commercial buildings have been renovated throughout central Yangon, most satellite towns that ring the city continue to be profoundly impoverished and lack basic infrastructure.

 

ETYMOLOGY

Yangon (ရန်ကုန်) is a combination of the two words yan (ရန်) and koun (ကုန်), which mean "enemies" and "run out of", respectively. It is also translated as "End of Strife". "Rangoon" most likely comes from the British imitation of the pronunciation of "Yangon" in the Arakanese language, which is [rɔ̀ɴɡʊ́ɴ].

 

HISTORY

EARLY HISTORY

Yangon was founded as Dagon in the early 11th century (c. 1028–1043) by the Mon, who dominated Lower Burma at that time. Dagon was a small fishing village centred about the Shwedagon Pagoda. In 1755, King Alaungpaya conquered Dagon, renamed it "Yangon", and added settlements around Dagon. The British captured Yangon during the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824–26), but returned it to Burmese administration after the war. The city was destroyed by a fire in 1841.

 

COLONIAL RANGOON

The British seized Yangon and all of Lower Burma in the Second Anglo-Burmese War of 1852, and subsequently transformed Yangon into the commercial and political hub of British Burma. Yangon is also the place where the British sent Bahadur Shah II, the last Mughal emperor, to live after the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Based on the design by army engineer Lt. Alexander Fraser, the British constructed a new city on a grid plan on delta land, bounded to the east by the Pazundaung Creek and to the south and west by the Yangon River. Yangon became the capital of all British-ruled Burma after the British had captured Upper Burma in the Third Anglo-Burmese War of 1885. By the 1890s Yangon's increasing population and commerce gave birth to prosperous residential suburbs to the north of Royal Lake (Kandawgyi) and Inya Lake. The British also established hospitals including Rangoon General Hospital and colleges including Rangoon University.

 

Colonial Yangon, with its spacious parks and lakes and mix of modern buildings and traditional wooden architecture, was known as "the garden city of the East." By the early 20th century, Yangon had public services and infrastructure on par with London.

 

Before World War II, about 55% of Yangon's population of 500,000 was Indian or South Asian, and only about a third was Bamar (Burman). Karens, the Chinese, the Anglo-Burmese and others made up the rest.

 

After World War I, Yangon became the epicentre of Burmese independence movement, with leftist Rangoon University students leading the way. Three nationwide strikes against the British Empire in 1920, 1936 and 1938 all began in Yangon. Yangon was under Japanese occupation (1942–45), and incurred heavy damage during World War II. The city was retaken by the Allies in May 1945.

 

Yangon became the capital of Union of Burma on 4 January 1948 when the country regained independence from the British Empire.

 

CONTEMPORARY YANGON

Soon after Burma's independence in 1948, many colonial names of streets and parks were changed to more nationalistic Burmese names. In 1989, the current military junta changed the city's English name to "Yangon", along with many other changes in English transliteration of Burmese names. (The changes have not been accepted by many Burmese who consider the junta unfit to make such changes, nor by many publications, news bureaus including, most notably, the BBC and foreign nations including the United Kingdom and United States.)

 

Since independence, Yangon has expanded outwards. Successive governments have built satellite towns such as Thaketa, North Okkalapa and South Okkalapa in the 1950s to Hlaingthaya,

 

Shwepyitha and South Dagon in the 1980s. Today, Greater Yangon encompasses an area covering nearly 600 square kilometres.

 

During Ne Win's isolationist rule (1962–88), Yangon's infrastructure deteriorated through poor maintenance and did not keep up with its increasing population. In the 1990s, the current military government's more open market policies attracted domestic and foreign investment, bringing a modicum of modernity to the city's infrastructure. Some inner city residents were forcibly relocated to new satellite towns. Many colonial-period buildings were demolished to make way for high-rise hotels, office buildings, and shopping malls, leading the city government to place about 200 notable colonial-period buildings under the Yangon City Heritage List in 1996. Major building programs have resulted in six new bridges and five new highways linking the city to its industrial back country. Still, much of Yangon remains without basic municipal services such as 24-hour electricity and regular garbage collection.

 

Yangon has become much more indigenous Burmese in its ethnic make-up since independence. After independence, many South Asians and Anglo-Burmese left. Many more South Asians were forced to leave during the 1960s by Ne Win's xenophobic government. Nevertheless, sizable South Asian and Chinese communities still exist in Yangon. The Anglo-Burmese have effectively disappeared, having left the country or intermarried with other Burmese groups.

 

Yangon was the centre of major anti-government protests in 1974, 1988 and 2007. The 1988 People Power Uprising resulted in the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands of Burmese civilians, many in Yangoon where hundreds of thousands of people flooded into the streets of the then capital city. The Saffron Revolution saw mass shootings and the use of crematoria in Yangoon by the Burmese government to erase evidence of their crimes against monks, unarmed protesters, journalists and students.

 

The city's streets saw bloodshed each time as protesters were gunned down by the government.

 

In May 2008, Cyclone Nargis hit Yangon. While the city had few human casualties, three quarters of Yangon's industrial infrastructure was destroyed or damaged, with losses estimated at US$800 million.

 

In November 2005, the military government designated Naypyidaw, 320 kilometres north of Yangon, as the new administrative capital, and subsequently moved much of the government to the newly developed city. At any rate, Yangon remains the largest city, and the most important commercial centre of Myanmar.

 

GEOGRAPHY

Yangon is located in Lower Burma (Myanmar) at the convergence of the Yangon and Bago Rivers about 30 km away from the Gulf of Martaban at 16°48' North, 96°09' East (16.8, 96.15). Its standard time zone is UTC/GMT +6:30 hours.

 

CLIMATE

Yangon has a tropical monsoon climate under the Köppen climate classification system. The city features a lengthy wet season from May through October where a substantial amount of rainfall is received; and a dry season from November through April, where little rainfall is seen. It is primarily due to the heavy rainfall received during the rainy season that Yangon falls under the tropical monsoon climate category. During the course of the year 1961 to 1990s, average temperatures show little variance, with average highs ranging from 29 to 36 °C and average lows ranging from 18 to 25 °C.

 

CITYSCAPE

Until the mid-1990s, Yangon remained largely constrained to its traditional peninsula setting between the Bago, Yangon and Hlaing rivers. People moved in, but little of the city moved out. Maps from 1944 show little development north of Inya Lake and areas that are now layered in cement and stacked with houses were then virtual backwaters. Since the late 1980s, however, the city began a rapid spread north to where Yangon International airport now stands. But the result is a stretching tail on the city, with the downtown area well removed from its geographic centre. The city's area has steadily increased from 72.52 square kilometres in 1901 to 86.2 square kilometres in 1940 to 208.51 square kilometres in 1974, to 346.13 square kilometres in 1985, and to 598.75 square kilometres in 2008.

 

ARCHITECTURE

Downtown Yangon is known for its leafy avenues and fin-de-siècle architecture. The former British colonial capital has the highest number of colonial period buildings in south-east Asia. Downtown Yangon is still mainly made up of decaying colonial buildings. The former High Court, the former Secretariat buildings, the former St. Paul's English High School and the Strand Hotel are excellent examples of the bygone era. Most downtown buildings from this era are four-story mix-use (residential and commercial) buildings with 4.3 m ceilings, allowing for the construction of mezzanines. Despite their less-than-perfect conditions, the buildings remain highly sought after and most expensive in the city's property market.

 

In 1996, the Yangon City Development Committee created a Yangon City Heritage List of old buildings and structures in the city that cannot be modified or torn down without approval. In 2012, the city of Yangon imposed a 50-year moratorium on demolition of buildings older than 50 years. The Yangon Heritage Trust, an NGO started by Thant Myint-U, aims to create heritage areas in Downtown, and attract investors to renovate buildings for commercial use.

 

A latter day hallmark of Yangon is the eight-story apartment building. (In Yangon parlance, a building with no elevators (lifts) is called an apartment building and one with elevators is called a condominium. Condos which have to invest in a local power generator to ensure 24-hour electricity for the elevators are beyond the reach of most Yangonites.) Found throughout the city in various forms, eight-story apartment buildings provide relatively inexpensive housing for many Yangonites. The apartments are usually eight stories high (including the ground floor) mainly because city regulations, until February 2008, required that all buildings higher than 23 m or eight stories to install lifts. The current code calls for elevators in buildings higher than 19 m or six stories, likely ushering in the era of the six-story apartment building. Although most apartment buildings were built only within the last 20 years, they look much older and rundown due to shoddy construction and lack of proper maintenance.

 

Unlike other major Asian cities, Yangon does not have any skyscrapers. Aside from a few high-rise hotels and office towers, most high-rise buildings (usually 10 stories and up) are "condos" scattered across prosperous neighbourhoods north of downtown such as Bahan, Dagon, Kamayut and Mayangon. The tallest building in Yangon, Pyay Gardens, is a 25-story condo in the city's north.

 

Older satellite towns such as Thaketa, North Okkalapa and South Okkalapa are lined mostly with one to two story detached houses with access to the city's electricity grid. Newer satellite towns such as North Dagon and South Dagon are still essentially slums in a grid layout. The satellite towns - old or new - receive little or no municipal services.

 

ROAD LAYOUT

Downtown Yangon's road layout follows a grid pattern, based on four types of roads:

 

Broad 49-m wide roads running west to east

Broad 30-m wide roads running south to north

Two narrow 9.1-m wide streets running south to north

Mid-size 15-m wide streets running south to north

 

The east-west grid of central was laid out by British military engineers Fraser and Montgomerie after the Second Anglo-Burmese War. The city was later developed by the Public Works Department and Bengal Corps of Engineers. The pattern of south to north roads is as follows: one broad 30 m wide broad road, two narrow streets, one mid-size street, two more narrow streets, and then another 30 m wide broad road. This order is repeated from west to east. The narrow streets are numbered; the medium and broad roads are named.

 

For example, the 30 m Lanmadaw Road is followed by 9.1 m-wide 17th and 18th streets then the medium 15 m Sint-Oh-Dan Road, the 30-foot 19th and 20th streets, followed by another 30 m wide Latha Road, followed again by the two numbered small roads 21st and 22nd streets, and so on.

 

The roads running parallel west to east were the Strand Road, Merchant Road, Maha Bandula (née Dalhousie) Road, Anawrahta (Fraser) Road, and Bogyoke Aung San (Montgomerie) Road.

 

PARKS AND GARDENS

The largest and best maintained parks in Yangon are located around Shwedagon Pagoda. To the south-east of the gilded stupa is the most popular recreational area in the city – Kandawgyi Lake. The 61-ha lake is surrounded by the 45-ha Kandawgyi Nature Park, and the 28-ha Yangon Zoological Gardens, which consists of a zoo, an aquarium and an amusement park. West of the pagoda towards the former Hluttaw (Parliament) complex is the 53-ha People's Square and Park, (the former parading ground on important national days when Yangon was the capital.) A few miles north of the pagoda lies the 15-ha Inya Lake Park – a favorite hangout place of Yangon University students, and a well-known place of romance in Burmese popular culture.

 

Hlawga National Park and Allied War Memorial at the outskirts of the city are popular day-trip destinations with the well-to-do and tourists.

 

Yangon Book Plaza, the first and biggest book shop in Myanmar was opened on February 26, 2017 on the fifth floor of Than Zay Market in Lanmadaw Township, Yangon.

 

ADMINISTRATION

Yangon is administered by the Yangon City Development Committee (YCDC). YCDC also coordinates urban planning. The city is divided into four districts. The districts combined have a total of 33 townships. The current mayor of Yangon is Maung Maung Soe. Each township is administered by a committee of township leaders, who make decisions regarding city beautification and infrastructure. Myo-thit (lit. "New Towns", or satellite towns) are not within such jurisdictions.

 

TRANSPORT

Yangon is Burma's main domestic and international hub for air, rail, and ground transportation.

 

AIR

Yangon International Airport, located 19 km from the centre, is the country's main gateway for domestic and international air travel. The airport has three terminals, known as T1, T2 and T3 which is also known as Domestic. It has direct flights to regional cities in Asia – mainly, Doha, Dubai, Dhaka, Kolkata, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing, Seoul, Guangzhou, Taipei, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Kunming and Singapore. Although domestic airlines offer service to about twenty domestic locations, most flights are to tourist destinations such as Bagan, Mandalay, Heho and Ngapali, and to the capital Naypyidaw.

 

RAILWAYS

Yangon Central Railway Station is the main terminus of Myanmar Railways' 5,403-kilometre rail network whose reach covers Upper Myanmar (Naypyidaw, Mandalay, Shwebo), upcountry (Myitkyina), Shan hills (Taunggyi, Lashio) and the Taninthayi coast (Mawlamyaing, Dawei).

 

Yangon Circular Railway operates a 45.9-kilometre 39-station commuter rail network that connects Yangon's satellite towns. The system is heavily utilized by the local populace, selling about 150,000 tickets daily. The popularity of the commuter line has jumped since the government reduced petrol subsidies in August 2007.

 

BUSES AND CARS

Yangon has a 4,456-kilometre road network of all types (tar, concrete and dirt) in March 2011. Many of the roads are in poor condition and not wide enough to accommodate an increasing number of cars. The vast majority of Yangon residents cannot afford a car and rely on an extensive network of buses to get around. Over 300 public and private bus lines operate about 6,300 crowded buses around the city, carrying over 4.4 million passengers a day. All buses and 80% of the taxis in Yangon run on compressed natural gas (CNG), following the 2005 government decree to save money on imported petroleum. Highway buses to other cities depart from Dagon Ayeyar Highway Bus Terminal for Irrawaddy delta region and Aung Mingala Highway Bus Terminal for other parts of the country.

 

Motor transportation in Yangon is highly expensive for most of its citizens. As the government allows only a few thousand cars to be imported each year in a country with over 50 million people, car prices in Yangon (and in Burma) are among the highest in the world. In July 2008, the two most popular cars in Yangon, 1986/87 Nissan Sunny Super Saloon and 1988 Toyota Corolla SE Limited, cost the equivalent of about US$20,000 and US$29,000 respectively. A sports utility vehicle, imported for the equivalent of around US$50,000, goes for US$250,000. Illegally imported unregistered cars are cheaper – typically about half the price of registered cars. Nonetheless, car usage in Yangon is on the rise, a sign of rising incomes for some, and already causes much traffic congestion in highway-less Yangon's streets. In 2011, Yangon had about 300,000 registered motor vehicles in addition to an unknown number of unregistered ones.

 

Since 1970, cars have been driven on the right side of the road in Burma, as part of a military decree. However, as the government has not required left hand drive (LHD) cars to accompany the right side road rules, many cars on the road are still right hand drive (RHD) made for driving on the left side. Japanese used cars, which make up most of the country's imports, still arrive with RHD and are never converted to LHD. As a result, Burmese drivers have to rely on their passengers when passing other cars.

 

Within Yangon city limits, it is illegal to drive trishaws, bicycles, and motorcycles. Since February 2010, pickup truck bus lines have been forbidden to run in 6 townships of central Yangon, namely Latha, Lanmadaw, Pabedan, Kyauktada, Botahtaung and Pazundaung Townships. In May 2003, a ban on using car horns was implemented in six townships of Downtown Yangon to reduce noise pollution. In April 2004, the car horn ban was expanded to cover the entire city.

 

RIVER

Yangon's four main passenger jetties, all located on or near downtown waterfront, mainly serve local ferries across the river to Dala and Thanlyin, and regional ferries to the Irrawaddy delta. The 35-km Twante Canal was the quickest route from Yangon to the Irrawaddy delta until the 1990s when roads between Yangon and the Irrawaddy Division became usable year-round. While passenger ferries to the delta are still used, those to Upper Burma via the Irrawaddy river are now limited mostly to tourist river cruises.

 

DEMOGRAPHICS

Yangon is the most populous city by far in Burma although estimates of the size of its population vary widely. All population figures are estimates since no official census has been conducted in Burma since 1983. A UN estimate puts the population as 4.35 million in 2010 but a 2009 U.S. State Department estimate puts it at 5.5 million. The U.S. State Department's estimate is probably closer to the real number since the UN number is a straight-line projection, and does not appear to take the expansion of city limits in the past two decades into account. The city's population grew sharply after 1948 as many people (mainly, the indigenous Burmese) from other parts of the country moved into the newly built satellite towns of North Okkalapa, South Okkalapa, and Thaketa in the 1950s and East Dagon, North Dagon and South Dagon in the 1990s. Immigrants have founded their regional associations (such as Mandalay Association, Mawlamyaing Association, etc.) in Yangon for networking purposes. The government's decision to move the nation's administrative capital to Naypyidaw has drained an unknown number of civil servants away from Yangon.

 

Yangon is the most ethnically diverse city in the country. While Indians formed the slight majority prior to World War II, today, the majority of the population is of indigenous Bamar (Burman) descent. Large communities of Indians/South Asian Burmese and the Chinese Burmese exist especially in the traditional downtown neighborhoods. A large number of Rakhine and Karen also live in the city.

 

Burmese is the principal language of the city. English is by far the preferred second language of the educated class. In recent years, however, the prospect of overseas job opportunities has enticed

 

some to study other languages: Mandarin Chinese is most popular, followed by Japanese, and French.

 

RELIGIONS

The primary religions practiced in Yangon are Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam. Shwedagon Pagoda is a famous religious landmark in the city.

 

MEDIA

Yangon is the country's hub for the movie, music, advertising, newspaper and book publishing industries. All media is heavily regulated by the military government. Television broadcasting is off limits to the private sector. All media content must first be approved by the government's media censor board, Press Scrutiny and Registration Division.

 

Most television channels in the country are broadcast from Yangon. TV Myanmar and Myawaddy TV are the two main channels, providing Burmese-language programming in news and entertainment. Other special interest channels are MWD-1 and MWD-2, MRTV-3, the English-language channel that targets overseas audiences via satellite and via Internet, MRTV-4 and Channel 7 are with a focus on non-formal education programs and movies, and Movie 5, a pay-TV channel specializing in broadcasting foreign movies.

 

Yangon has three radio stations. Myanmar Radio National Service is the national radio service and broadcasts mostly in Burmese (and in English during specific times.) Pop culture oriented Yangon City FM and Mandalay City FM radio stations specialize in Burmese and English pop music, entertainment programs, live celebrity interviews, etc. New radio channels such as Shwe FM and Pyinsawaddy FM can also be tuned with the city area.

 

Nearly all print media and industries are based out of Yangon. All three national newspapers – two Burmese language dailies Myanma Alin (မြန်မာ့အလင်း) and Kyemon (ကြေးမုံ), and the English language The New Light of Myanmar — are published by the government. Semi-governmental The Myanmar Times weekly, published in Burmese and in English, is mainly geared for Yangon's expatriate community. Over twenty special interest journals and magazines covering sports, fashion, finance, crime, literature (but never politics) vie for the readership of the general populace.

 

Access to foreign media is extremely difficult. Satellite television in Yangon, and in Burma, is very expensive as the government imposes an annual registration fee of one million kyats. Certain foreign newspapers and periodicals such as the International Herald Tribune and the Straits Times can be found only in a few (mostly downtown) bookstores. Internet access in Yangon, which has the best telecommunication infrastructure in the country, is slow and erratic at best, and the Burmese government implements one of the world's most restrictive regimes of Internet control. International text messaging and voice messaging was permitted only in August 2008.

 

COMMUNICATION

Common facilities taken for granted elsewhere are luxury prized items in Yangon and Burma. The price of a GSM mobile phone was about K1.1 million in August 2008. In 2007, the country of 55 million had only 775,000 phone lines (including 275,000 mobile phones), and 400,000 computers. Even in Yangon, which has the best infrastructure, the estimated telephone penetration rate was only 6% at the end of 2004, and the official waiting time for a telephone line was 3.6 years. Most people cannot afford a computer and have to use the city's numerous Internet cafes to access a heavily restricted Internet, and a heavily censored local intranet. According to official statistics, in July 2010, the country had over 400,000 Internet users, with the vast majority hailing from just two cities, Yangon and Mandalay. Although Internet access was available in 42 cities across the country, the number of users outside the two main cities was just over 10,000.

 

LIFESTYLE

Yangon's property market is the most expensive in the country and beyond the reach of most Yangonites. Most rent outside the centre and few can afford to rent such apartments. (In 2008, rents for a typical 60 to 70 m2 apartments in the centre and vicinity range between K70,000 and K150,000 and those for high end condos between K200,000 and K500,000.)

 

Most men of all ages (and some women) spend their time at ubiquitous tea-shops, found in any corner or street of the city. Watching European football (mostly English Premier League with occasional La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga) matches while sipping tea is a popular pastime among many Yangonites. The average person stays close to his or her residential neighbourhood. The well-to-do tend to visit shopping malls and parks on weekends. Some leave the city on weekends for Chaungtha and Ngwesaung beach resorts in Ayeyarwady Division.

 

Yangon is also home to many pagoda festivals (paya pwe), held during dry-season months (November – March). The most famous of all, the Shwedagon Pagoda Festival in March, attracts thousands of pilgrims from around the country.

 

Yangon's museums are the domain of tourists and rarely visited by the locals.

 

Most of Yangon's larger hotels offer some kind of nightlife entertainment, geared towards tourists and the well-to-do Burmese. Some hotels offer traditional Burmese performing arts shows complete with a traditional Burmese orchestra. The pub scene in larger hotels is more or less the same as elsewhere in Asia. Other options include karaoke bars and pub restaurants in Yangon Chinatown.

 

Due to the problems of high inflation, the lack of high denomination notes, and the fact that many of the population do not have access to checks, or credit or debit cards, it is common to see citizens carrying a considerable amount of cash. (The highest denomination of Burmese currency kyat is 10 000 (~US$10.)) Credit cards are only rarely used in the city, chiefly in the more lavish hotels. Credit cards are also accepted in the major supermarket and convenience store chains.

 

SPORTS

As the city has the best sporting facilities in the country, most national-level annual sporting tournaments such as track and field, football, volleyball, tennis and swimming are held in Yangon. The 40,000-seat Aung San Stadium and the 32,000-seat Thuwunna Stadium are the main venues for the highly popular annual State and Division football tournament. Until April 2009, the now defunct Myanmar Premier League, consisted of 16 Yangon-based clubs, played all its matches in Yangon stadiums, and attracted little interest from the general public or commercial success despite the enormous popularity of football in Burma. Most Yangonites prefer watching European football on satellite TV. Teams such as Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester City are among the favorite European teams among the Yangonites. It remains to be seen whether the Myanmar National League, the country's first professional football league, and its Yangon-based club Yangon United FC will attract a sufficient following in the country's most important media market.

 

Yangon is also home to annual the Myanmar Open golf tournament, and the Myanmar Open tennis tournament. The city hosted the 1961 and 1969 South East Asian Games. During colonial times, cricket was played mostly by British officials in the city. First-class cricket was played in the city in January 1927 when the touring Marylebone Cricket Club played Burma and the Rangoon Gymkhana. Two grounds were used to host these matches, the BAA Ground and the Gymkhana Ground. These matches mark the only time Burma and Rangoon Gymkhana have appeared in first-class cricket, and the only time first-class cricket has been played in Burma. After independence cricket all but died out in the country.

 

Yangon has a growing population of skateboarders, as documented in the films Altered Focus: Burma and Youth of Yangon. German non-profit organization Make Life Skate Life has received permission from the Yangon City Development Committee to construct a concrete skatepark at Thakin Mya park in downtown, and plans to complete the park in November 2015.

 

ECONOMY

Yangon is the country's main centre for trade, industry, real estate, media, entertainment and tourism. The city represents about one fifth of the national economy. According to official statistics for FY 2010–2011, the size of the economy of Yangon Region was 8.93 trillion kyats, or 23% of the national GDP.

 

The city is Lower Burma's main trading hub for all kinds of merchandise – from basic food stuffs to used cars although commerce continues to be hampered by the city's severely underdeveloped banking industry and communication infrastructure. Bayinnaung Market is the largest wholesale centre in the country for rice, beans and pulses, and other agricultural commodities. Much of the country's legal imports and exports go through Thilawa Port, the largest and busiest port in Burma. There is also a great deal of informal trade, especially in street markets that exist alongside street platforms of Downtown Yangon's townships. However, on 17 June 2011, the YCDC announced that street vendors, who had previously been allowed to legally open shop at 3 pm, would be prohibited from selling on the streets, and permitted to sell only in their townships of residence, presumably to clean up the city's image. Since 1 December 2009, high-density polyethylene plastic bags have been banned by city authorities.

 

Manufacturing accounts for a sizable share of employment. At least 14 light industrial zones ring Yangon, directly employing over 150,000 workers in 4,300 factories in early 2010. The city is the centre of country's garment industry which exported US$292 million in 2008/9 fiscal year. More than 80 percent of factory workers in Yangon work on a day-to-day basis. Most are young women between 15 and 27 years of age who come from the countryside in search of a better life. The manufacturing sector suffers from both structural problems (e.g. chronic power shortages) and political.

 

problems (e.g. economic sanctions). In 2008, Yangon's 2500 factories alone needed about 120 MW of power; yet, the entire city received only about 250 MW of the 530 MW needed. Chronic power shortages limit the factories' operating hours between 8 am and 6 pm.

 

Construction is a major source of employment. The construction industry has been negatively affected by the move of state apparatus and civil servants to Naypyidaw, new regulations introduced in August 2009 requiring builders to provide at least 12 parking spaces in every new high-rise building, and the general poor business climate. As of January 2010, the number of new high-rise building starts approved in 2009–2010 was only 334, compared to 582 in 2008–2009.

 

Tourism represents a major source of foreign currency for the city although by south-east Asian standards the number of foreign visitors to Yangon has always been quite low - about 250,000 before the Saffron Revolution in September 2007. The number of visitors dipped even further following the Saffron Revolution and Cyclone Nargis. The recent improvement in the country's political climate has attracted an increasing number of businessmen and tourists. Between 300,000 and 400,000 visitors that went through Yangon International in 2011. However, after years of underinvestment, Yangon's modest hotel infrastructure - only 3000 of the total 8000 hotel rooms in Yangon are "suitable for tourists" - is already bursting at seams, and will need to be expanded to handle additional visitors. As part of an urban development strategy, a hotel zone has been planned in Yangon's outskirts, encompassing government- and military-owned land in Mingaladon, Hlegu and Htaukkyant Townships.

 

EDUCATION

Yangon educational facilities has a very high number of qualified teachers but the state spending on education is among the lowest of the world. Around 2007 estimate by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies puts the spending for education at 0.5% of the national budget. The disparity in educational opportunities and achievement between rich and poor schools is quite stark even within the city. With little or no state support forthcoming, schools have to rely on forced "donations" and various fees from parents for nearly everything – school maintenance to teachers' salaries, forcing many poor students to drop out.

 

While many students in poor districts fail to reach high school, a handful of Yangon high schools in wealthier districts such as Dagon 1, Sanchaung 2, Kamayut 2, Bahan 2, Latha 2, and TTC provide the majority of students admitted to the most selective universities in the country, highlighting the extreme shallowness of talent pool in the country. The wealthy bypass the state education system altogether, sending their children to private English language instruction schools such as YIEC or more widely known as ISM, or abroad (typically Singapore or Australia) for university education. In 2014, international schools in Yangon cost at least US$8,000 a year.

 

There are over 20 universities and colleges in the city. While Yangon University remains the best known (its main campus is a part of popular Burmese culture e.g. literature, music, film, etc.), the nation's oldest university is now mostly a graduate school, deprived of undergraduate studies. Following the 1988 nationwide uprising, the military government has repeatedly closed universities, and has dispersed most of undergraduate student population to new universities in the suburbs such as Dagon University, the University of East Yangon and the University of West Yangon. Nonetheless many of the country's most selective universities are still in Yangon. Students from around the country still have to come to study in Yangon as some subjects are offered only at its universities. The University of Medicine 1, University of Medicine 2, Yangon Technological University, University of Computer Studies and Myanmar Maritime University are the most selective in the country.

 

HEALTH CARE

The general state of health care in Yangon is poor. According to a 2007 estimate, the military government spends 0.4% of the national budget on health care, and 40% to 60% on defense. By the government's own figures, it spends 849 kyats (US$0.85) per person. Although health care is nominally free, in reality, patients have to pay for medicine and treatment, even in public clinics and hospitals. Public hospitals including the flagship Yangon General Hospital lack many of the basic facilities and equipment.

 

Wealthier Yangonites still have access to country's best medical facilities and internationally qualified doctors. Only Yangon and Mandalay have any sizable number of doctors left as many Burmese doctors have emigrated. The well-to-do go to private clinics or hospitals like Pun Hlaing International Hospital and Bahosi Medical Clinic. Medical malpractice is widespread, even in private clinics and hospitals that serve the well-to-do. In 2009 and 2010, a spate of high-profile deaths brought out the severity of the problem, even for the relatively well off Yangonites. The wealthy do not rely on domestic hospitals and travel abroad, usually Bangkok or Singapore, for treatment.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Video interview of Dr. Doug Rokke, former Director of the Pentagon's Depleted Uranium Project:

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-8PlJVhogs

 

Please help to spread the awareness.

 

Iraqi cancers, birth defects blamed on U.S. depleted uranium

 

By LARRY JOHNSON

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER FOREIGN DESK EDITOR

 

SOUTHERN DEMILITARIZED ZONE, Iraq -- On the "Highway of Death," 11 miles north of the Kuwait border, a collection of tanks, armored personnel carriers and other military vehicles are rusting in the desert.

 

They also are radiating nuclear energy.

  

Paul Kitagaki Jr. / P-I

Six-year-old Fatma Rakwan, being held by her mother at the Basra Hospital for Maternity and Children, was recently diagnosed with leukemia.

In 1991, the United States and its Persian Gulf War allies blasted the vehicles with armor-piercing shells made of depleted uranium -- the first time such weapons had been used in warfare -- as the Iraqis retreated from Kuwait. The devastating results gave the highway its name.

 

Today, nearly 12 years after the use of the super-tough weapons was credited with bringing the war to a swift conclusion, the battlefield remains a radioactive toxic wasteland -- and depleted uranium munitions remain a mystery.

 

Although the Pentagon has sent mixed signals about the effects of depleted uranium, Iraqi doctors believe that it is responsible for a significant increase in cancer and birth defects in the region. Many researchers outside Iraq, and several U.S. veterans organizations, agree; they also suspect depleted uranium of playing a role in Gulf War Syndrome, the still-unexplained malady that has plagued hundreds of thousands of Gulf War veterans.

 

Depleted uranium is a problem in other former war zones as well. Yesterday, U.N. experts said they found radioactive hot spots in Bosnia resulting from the use of depleted uranium during NATO air strikes in 1995.

 

With another war in Iraq perhaps imminent, scientists and others are concerned that the side effects of depleted uranium munitions -- still a major part of the U.S. arsenal -- will cause serious illnesses or deaths in a new generation of U.S. soldiers as well as Iraqis.

  

THE DANGERS

 

Depleted uranium, known as DU, is a highly dense metal that is the byproduct of the process during which fissionable uranium used to manufacture nuclear bombs and reactor fuel is separated from natural uranium. DU remains radioactive for about 4.5 billion years.

 

Uranium, a weakly radioactive element, occurs naturally in soil and water everywhere on Earth, but mainly in trace quantities. Humans ingest it daily in minute quantities.

  

Paul Kitagaki Jr. / P-I

Dr. Khajak Vartaanian, a radiation expert, holds a Geiger counter next to a hole in an Iraqi tank destroyed by depleted uranium weapons in the Persian Gulf War in 1991. The shell holes show 1,000 times the normal background radiation level.

DU shell holes in the vehicles along the Highway of Death are 1,000 times more radioactive than background radiation, according to Geiger counter readings done for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Dr. Khajak Vartaanian, a nuclear medicine expert from the Iraq Department of Radiation Protection in Basra, and Col. Amal Kassim of the Iraqi navy.

 

The desert around the vehicles was 100 times more radioactive than background radiation; Basra, a city of 1 million people, some 125 miles away, registered only slightly above background radiation level.

 

But the radioactivity is only one concern about DU munitions.

 

A second, potentially more serious hazard is created when a DU round hits its target. As much as 70 percent of the projectile can burn up on impact, creating a firestorm of ceramic DU oxide particles. The residue of this firestorm is an extremely fine ceramic uranium dust that can be spread by the wind, inhaled and absorbed into the human body and absorbed by plants and animals, becoming part of the food chain.

 

Once lodged in the soil, the munitions can pollute the environment and create up to a hundredfold increase in uranium levels in ground water, according to the U.N. Environmental Program.

 

Studies show it can remain in human organs for years.

 

The U.S. Army acknowledges the hazards in a training manual, in which it requires that anyone who comes within 25 meters of any DU-contaminated equipment or terrain wear respiratory and skin protection, and states that "contamination will make food and water unsafe for consumption."

 

Just six months before the Gulf War, the Army released a report on DU predicting that large amounts of DU dust could be inhaled by soldiers and civilians during and after combat.

 

Infantry were identified as potentially receiving the highest exposures, and the expected health outcomes included cancers and kidney problems.

 

The report also warned that public knowledge of the health and environmental effects of depleted uranium could lead to efforts to ban DU munitions.

 

But today the Pentagon plays down the effects. Officials refer queries on DU munitions to the latest government report on the subject, last updated on Dec. 13, 2000, which said DU is "40 percent less radioactive than natural uranium."

 

The report also said, "Gulf War exposures to depleted uranium (DU) have not to date produced any observable adverse health effects attributable to DU's chemical toxicity or low-level radiation. . . ."

 

In response to written queries, the Defense Department said, "The U.S. Military Services use DU munitions because of DU's superior lethality against armor and other hard targets."

 

It said DU munitions are "war reserve munitions; that is, used for combat and not fired for training purposes," with the exception that DU munitions may be fired at sea for weapon calibration purposes.

 

In addition to Iraq and Bosnia, DU munitions were used in Kosovo and Serbia in 1999.

  

Paul Kitagaki Jr. / P-I

Hamdin and his brother Amhid are receiving follow-up treatment after being treated successfully for leukemia two years ago at the Basra Hospital for Maternity and Children.

Also in 1999, a United Nations subcommission considered DU hazardous enough to call for an initiative banning its use worldwide. The initiative has remained in committee, blocked primarily by the United States, according to Karen Parker, a lawyer with the International Educational Development/Humanitarian Law Project, which has consultative status at the United Nations.

 

Parker, who first raised the DU issue in the United Nations in 1996, contends that DU "violates the existing law and customs of war."

 

She said there are four rules derived from all of humanitarian law regarding weapons:

  

Weapons may only be used in the legal field of battle, defined as legal military targets of the enemy in war. Weapons may not have an adverse effect off the legal field of battle.

  

Weapons can only be used for the duration of an armed conflict. A weapon that is used or continues to act after the war is over violates this criterion.

  

Weapons may not be unduly inhumane.

  

Weapons may not have an unduly negative effect on the natural environment.

 

"Depleted uranium fails all four of these rules," Parker said last week.

 

On Oct. 17, 2001, Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., introduced a bill calling for "the suspension of the use, sale, development, production, testing, and export of depleted uranium munitions pending the outcome of certain studies of the health effects of such munitions. . . ."

 

More than a year later, the bill -- co-sponsored by Reps. Anibal Acevedo-Vila, Puerto Rico; Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.; Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio; Barbara Lee, D-Ca.; and Jim McDermott, D-Wash. -- remains in committee awaiting comment from the Defense Department.

  

THE STUDIES

 

Gulf War veterans faced a wide array of potentially toxic materials during the war: smoke from oil and chemical fires, insecticides, pesticides, vaccinations and DU.

 

Of the 696,778 troops who served during the recognized conflict phase (1990-1991) of the Gulf War, at least 20,6861 have applied for VA medical benefits. As of May 2002, 159,238 veterans have been awarded service-connected disability by the Department of Veterans Affairs for health effects collectively known as the Gulf War Syndrome.

  

Paul Kitagaki Jr. / P-I

The woman in the foreground shares a room with four other cancer patients at the Saddam Teaching Hospital in Basra. The patient lying on the bed behind died earlier in the day on which this photograph was taken.

There have been many studies on Gulf War Syndrome over the years, as well as on possible long-term health hazards of DU munitions. Most have been inconclusive. But some researchers said the previous studies on DU, conducted by groups and agencies ranging from the World Health Organization to the Rand Corp. to the investigative arm of Congress, weren't looking in the right place -- at the effects of inhaled DU.

 

Dr. Asaf Durakovic, director of the private, non-profit Uranium Medical Research Centre in Canada and the United States, and center research associates Patricia Horan and Leonard Dietz, published a unique study in the August issue of Military Medicine medical journal.

 

The study is believed to be the first to look at inhaled DU among Gulf War veterans, using the ultrasensitive technique of thermal ionization mass spectrometry, which enabled them to easily distinguish between natural uranium and DU.

 

The study, which examined British, Canadian and U.S. veterans, all suffering typical Gulf War Syndrome ailments, found that, nine years after the war, 14 of 27 veterans studied had DU in their urine. DU also was found in the lung and bone of a deceased Gulf War veteran.

 

That no governmental study has been done on inhaled DU "amounts to a massive malpractice," Dietz said in an interview last week.

  

THE ACTIVIST

 

Dr. Doug Rokke was an Army health physicist assigned in 1991 to the command staff of the 12th Preventive Medicine Command and 3rd U.S. Army Medical Command headquarters. Rokke was recalled to active duty 20 years after serving in Vietnam, from his research job with the University of Illinois Physics Department, and sent to the Gulf to take charge of the DU cleanup operation.

 

Today, in poor health, he has become an outspoken opponent of the use of DU munitions.

 

"DU is the stuff of nightmares," said Rokke, who said he has reactive airway disease, neurological damage, cataracts and kidney problems, and receives a 40 percent disability payment from the government. He blames his health problems on exposure to DU.

 

Rokke and his primary team of about 100 performed their cleanup task without any specialized training or protective gear. Today, Rokke said, at least 30 members of the team are dead, and most of the others -- including Rokke -- have serious health problems.

 

Rokke said: "Verified adverse health effects from personal experience, physicians and from personal reports from individuals with known DU exposures include reactive airway disease, neurological abnormalities, kidney stones and chronic kidney pain, rashes, vision degradation and night vision losses, lymphoma, various forms of skin and organ cancer, neuropsychological disorders, uranium in semen, sexual dysfunction and birth defects in offspring.

 

"This whole thing is a crime against God and humanity."

 

Speaking from his home in Rantoul, Ill., where he works as a substitute high school science teacher, Rokke said, "When we went to the Gulf, we were all really healthy, and we got trashed."

 

Rokke, an Army Reserve major who describes himself as "a patriot to the right of Rush Limbaugh," said hearing the latest Pentagon statements on DU is especially frustrating now that another war against Iraq appears likely.

 

"Since 1991, numerous U.S. Department of Defense reports have said that the consequences of DU were unknown," Rokke said. "That is a lie. We warned them in 1991 after the Gulf War, but because of liability issues, they continue to ignore the problem." Rokke worked until 1996 for the military, developing DU training and management procedures. The procedures were ignored, he said.

 

"Their arrogance is beyond comprehension," he said. "We have spread radioactive waste all over the place and refused medical treatment to people . . . it's all arrogance.

 

"DU is a snapshot of technology gone crazy."

  

BIRTH DEFECTS IN IRAQ

 

At the Saddam Teaching Hospital in Basra, Dr. Jawad Al-Ali, a British-trained oncologist, displays, in four gaily colored photo albums, what he says are actual snapshots of the nightmares.

   

This picture is from one of four albums shown by Dr. Jawad Al-Ali that are filled with photos of deformed infants -- examples, he says, of the surge in birth defects in southern Iraq that he blames on depleted uranium.

The photos represent the surge in birth defects -- in 1989 there were 11 per 100,000 births; in 2001 there were 116 per 100,000 births -- that even before they heard about DU, had doctors in southern Iraq making comparisons to the birth defects that followed the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII.

 

There were photos of infants born without brains, with their internal organs outside their bodies, without sexual organs, without spines, and the list of deformities went on and on. There also were photos of cancer patients.

 

Cancer has increased dramatically in southern Iraq. In 1988, 34 people died of cancer; in 1998, 450 died of cancer; in 2001 there were 603 cancer deaths.

 

On a tour of one ward of the hospital, doctors pointed out boys and girls who were suffering from leukemia. Most of the children die, the doctors said, because there are insufficient drugs available for their treatment.

 

There was one notable exception, a young boy whose family was able to buy the expensive drugs on the black market.

 

Al-Ali said it defies logic to absolve DU of blame when veterans of the Gulf War and of the fighting in the Balkans share common illnesses with children in southern Iraq.

 

"The cause of all of these cancers and deformities remains theoretical because we can't confirm the presence of uranium in tissue or urine with the equipment we have," said Al-Ali. "And because of the sanctions, we can't get the equipment we need."

 

THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

 

www.ocregister.com/articles/gop-282654-cartoons-things.ht...

Malpractice, medical malpractice, injury, lawsuits, medical law

 

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The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away from the Bundaberg site at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850, in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mills was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg was emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875. The town was well established but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent until sugar eclipsed all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were being established reliant on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works to support the mines in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

 

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away from the Bundaberg site at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850, in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mills was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg was emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875. The town was well established but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent until sugar eclipsed all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were being established reliant on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works to support the mines in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

 

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away from the Bundaberg site at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850, in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mills was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg was emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875. The town was well established but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent until sugar eclipsed all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were being established reliant on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works to support the mines in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

Fairymead Plantation Homestead.

One of the great plantation homesteads, not quite as grand as the Southern American slave homesteads, is Fairymead in Bundaberg. It was built in 1890 in the Indian bungalow style of the British Raj occupation of India. It was built for Ernest and Margaret Young the owners of the Fairymead sugar mill. Margret Young’s brother was an architect and designed the house for the subtropical Bundaberg climate. It has 16 foot ceilings and a wide veranda encircles the house. The house was near the mill on the plantation and after World War One was used as accommodation for mill workers until Ernest Young’s grandson and his family moved back into the house in 1960. In 1988 it was donated to the City of Bundaberg and it was eventually transported into the Botanic Gardens site. The house is furnished as it was in 1890 and the interior arrangement of rooms has been little altered since then. The Fairymead sugar plantation was established by three Young brothers in 1880 when they bought 3,200 acres near Bundaberg. Their first sugar was sent to the Millaquin sugar mill until they completed their own sugar mill in 1884. They introduced a railway system to bring the cane to the mill and from 1902 they had irrigation water available if needed for the plantation. They pioneered mechanised single row harvesting of the cane in 1938 which was developed after World War Two to cover two rows. In the 1970s several Bundaberg mills and companies merged to form the Bundaberg Sugar Company.

 

Hinkler House and the Aviation Museum.

Also situated in the Botanic Gardens is the transported home of Bert Hinkler and the Aviation Museum. Bert Hinkler flew the first solo flight from England to Australia in 1928 with his landing spot where the Bundaberg Botanic Gardens now exist. Hinkler was born in Bundaberg in 1892. In 1913 he went to England and joined the Royal Naval Air Service just before the outbreak of World War One. After a distinguished aviation career during the War he remained in England working for an aviation manufacturer A.V Row or Avro as they were known. They later became Hawker Siddeley Aviation which manufactured planes until 1963. Bert Hinkler got his own plane and attempted a flight to Australia in 1920 but war in Syria forced his to abandon this attempt. He set out again on 7 February 1928 reaching Darwin on 22 February and Bundaberg on 27 February. He valiantly flew other record breaking solo flights until his death in Italy in 1933. In 1925 he built a typical two storey detached house in Southampton for his residence. After his death in 1933 it became the property of the City of Southampton and after much negotiation the house was sent brick by brick to Bundaberg in 1983. It was rebuilt as it was in the Botanic Gardens and opened as a museum in 2008. The Commonwealth electorate around Bundaberg is named Hinkler in his honour.

 

The Hinkler Hall of Aviation has six aircraft, paintings, static displays and interactive displays. It contains much memorabilia about Bert Hinkler and his various record breaking flights, and the Arvo airplane manufactory.

 

John Ellis "Jeb" Bush (born February 11, 1953) is an American businessman and politician who served as the 43rd Governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007.

 

Bush is the second son of former President George H. W. Bush and former First Lady Barbara Bush, the younger brother of former President George W. Bush, and grandson of the late Senator Prescott Sheldon Bush. He grew up in Houston, Texas. He graduated from the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts and attended the University of Texas, where he earned a degree in Latin American affairs. Following his father's successful run for Vice President in 1980, he moved to Florida and pursued a career in real estate development. In 1986, Bush was named Florida's Secretary of Commerce, a position he held until his resignation in 1988 to help his father's successful campaign for the Presidency.

 

In 1994, Bush made his first run for office, narrowly losing the election for governor by less than two percentage points to the incumbent Lawton Chiles. Bush ran again in 1998 and defeated Lieutenant Governor Buddy MacKay with 55 percent of the vote. He ran for reelection in 2002 and won with 56 percent to become Florida's first two-term Republican governor. During his eight years as governor, Bush was credited with initiating environmental improvements, such as conservation in the Everglades, supporting caps for medical malpractice litigation, moving Medicaid recipients to private systems, and instituting reforms to the state education system, including the issuance of vouchers and promoting school choice.

 

Bush is a candidate for the Republican nomination in the 2016 presidential election.

  

Every four years, as America’s campaign cycle rumbles back to life, two of the country’s smaller states again return to the national spotlight.

 

Taking advantage of this political stage, The Seventy Four aims to bring the urgent conversation of America’s K-12 education system to both Iowa and New Hampshire in the coming months.

 

As first reported in The New York Times, The Seventy Four, a non-partisan, non-profit news website about education, announced it will be hosting and organizing two 2015 Education Summits beginning in August. Sponsored by the American Federation for Children, the nation’s leading school-choice advocacy organization, and organized in partnership with The Des Moines Register, the first-of-its-kind summits will gather prominent elected officials, political influencers, and education thought leaders to discuss the challenges now facing America’s education system.

 

“Last year, 1.3 million children dropped out of school, and U.S. students have flatlined on national and international tests,” said Betsy DeVos, chairman of the American Federation for Children. “It’s time to have a national conversation and no better time than as we look to 2016.” (The Seventy Four receives support from the Dick & Betsy DeVos Family Foundation.)

 

The first of the 2015 Education Summits will be held in New Hampshire on Aug. 19 and will be moderated by The Seventy Four co-founder and Editor-in-Chief Campbell Brown and others. Confirmed speakers (thus far) include Governor Jeb Bush, Governor Chris Christie, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, Governor Bobby Jindal, Governor John Kasich and Governor Scott Walker. (Check out The Seventy Four's detailed education profiles of the six GOP leaders participating Wednesday)

Additional New Hampshire speakers will be confirmed in the coming weeks. Watch The74Million.org and EdSummits2015.org for new announcements, and check back for video and updates from both summits.

 

“These summits are an unprecedented opportunity to have an honest and intelligent discussion with our leaders about the failures of the education system”

 

The second summit, to be held in Iowa in October, will be co-hosted by The Seventy Four and The Des Moines Register, Iowa’s most influential news outlet.

 

The 2015 Iowa Summit will spotlight Democrats from both Iowa and across the nation — elected officials, analysts and thought leaders with clear thoughts on how to solve America’s education challenges.

 

All speakers at both the 2015 New Hampshire Summit and 2015 Iowa Summit are invited in their current personal or professional capacities and will appear on stage separately for an important conversation about America’s education challenges and opportunities.

When it comes to most political debates, K-12 education issues tend to get overshadowed by a landslide of other domestic policy issues. The 2015 Education Summits will keep the conversation focused on America’s most urgent policy issue, affording featured speakers time to provide in-depth perspectives outside the formal parameters of the presidential debates.

 

“As the political world descends on New Hampshire and Iowa, these summits are an unprecedented opportunity to have an honest and intelligent discussion with our leaders about the failures of the education system,” Brown said. “We must begin to treat fixing our education system with the urgency the crisis demands, as it is vital not only to our children’s future, but also the future of this nation.”

Sadie playing with the ball at the Sandy River.

 

Sadie is my blind dog. It hurts me still to think of her going blind at such an early age.

 

If there were malpractice suits for veterinarians, I would have two very good cases. On top of which I paid the assholes to create my dog’s blindness. Not hundreds of dollars, no… thousands of dollars with no recourse for compensation for failed and shoddy services. To this day I do NOT trust veterinarians and am furious at their exorbitant fees and deference to their ruination of a good dog. Sadie is healthy still, but is now blind and crippled in her back legs.

 

I guess I just needed to vent. At this point in my life my dogs are my family... no one else will have me. : )

Gavel, medical malpractice, lawsuits, hospital mistakes, doctors

 

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The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away from the Bundaberg site at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850, in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mills was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg was emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875. The town was well established but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent until sugar eclipsed all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were being established reliant on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works to support the mines in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

Fairymead Plantation Homestead.

One of the great plantation homesteads, not quite as grand as the Southern American slave homesteads, is Fairymead in Bundaberg. It was built in 1890 in the Indian bungalow style of the British Raj occupation of India. It was built for Ernest and Margaret Young the owners of the Fairymead sugar mill. Margret Young’s brother was an architect and designed the house for the subtropical Bundaberg climate. It has 16 foot ceilings and a wide veranda encircles the house. The house was near the mill on the plantation and after World War One was used as accommodation for mill workers until Ernest Young’s grandson and his family moved back into the house in 1960. In 1988 it was donated to the City of Bundaberg and it was eventually transported into the Botanic Gardens site. The house is furnished as it was in 1890 and the interior arrangement of rooms has been little altered since then. The Fairymead sugar plantation was established by three Young brothers in 1880 when they bought 3,200 acres near Bundaberg. Their first sugar was sent to the Millaquin sugar mill until they completed their own sugar mill in 1884. They introduced a railway system to bring the cane to the mill and from 1902 they had irrigation water available if needed for the plantation. They pioneered mechanised single row harvesting of the cane in 1938 which was developed after World War Two to cover two rows. In the 1970s several Bundaberg mills and companies merged to form the Bundaberg Sugar Company.

 

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away from the Bundaberg site at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850, in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mills was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg was emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875. The town was well established but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent until sugar eclipsed all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were being established reliant on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works to support the mines in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

Fairymead Plantation Homestead.

One of the great plantation homesteads, not quite as grand as the Southern American slave homesteads, is Fairymead in Bundaberg. It was built in 1890 in the Indian bungalow style of the British Raj occupation of India. It was built for Ernest and Margaret Young the owners of the Fairymead sugar mill. Margret Young’s brother was an architect and designed the house for the subtropical Bundaberg climate. It has 16 foot ceilings and a wide veranda encircles the house. The house was near the mill on the plantation and after World War One was used as accommodation for mill workers until Ernest Young’s grandson and his family moved back into the house in 1960. In 1988 it was donated to the City of Bundaberg and it was eventually transported into the Botanic Gardens site. The house is furnished as it was in 1890 and the interior arrangement of rooms has been little altered since then. The Fairymead sugar plantation was established by three Young brothers in 1880 when they bought 3,200 acres near Bundaberg. Their first sugar was sent to the Millaquin sugar mill until they completed their own sugar mill in 1884. They introduced a railway system to bring the cane to the mill and from 1902 they had irrigation water available if needed for the plantation. They pioneered mechanised single row harvesting of the cane in 1938 which was developed after World War Two to cover two rows. In the 1970s several Bundaberg mills and companies merged to form the Bundaberg Sugar Company.

 

Ka’aba The House Of Allah

 

In the province of Hejaz in the western part of Arabia, not far from the Red Sea, there lies the town of Makka. In the centre of this town there is a small square building made of stones, about 60 feet long, 60 feet wide and 60 feet high. Since time immemorial this town and this stone built house has been known to world travellers. This is Baitullah, the House of Allah. Its sanctity and antiquity is older than history itself.

 

Tradition goes that the Kaaba was ordained by Allah to be built in the shape of the House in Heaven called Baitul Ma’amoor. Allah in his infinite Mercy ordained a similar place on earth and Prophet Adam was the first to build this place. The Bible, in the Chapter of Genesis describes its building when God ordained Abraham to erect a Shrine for worship when Abraham was ordered to go to the Southern desert with his wife Hagera and infant son Ismael. The Old Testament describes this building as the Shrine of God at several places, but the one built at Ma’amoor is very much similar to the one at Makka. There is no doubt that it was referring to the stone built house at Makka.

 

Qora’an brought this story into the full light of history. In Sura 3 Verse 90 Qora’an says “Allah has spoken the Truth, therefore follow the creed of Ibrahim, a man of pure faith and no idolater”. The first house established for the people was at Makka, a Holy place and a guidance to all beings. Qora’an firmly establishes the fact that Ibrahim was the real founder of the Holy Shrine.

 

When Prophet Ibrahim built the Holy Shrine in Makka, his prayers were that this place should remain a centre of worship for all good and pious people; that Allah should keep his family the custodians of the Holy place. Ever since, Ismael the son of Ibrahim who helped his father to build this place and his descendants remained the custodians of the Holy Shrine. History tells us that centuries passed and the guardianship of the Kaaba remained in the family of Ismael until the name of Abde Manaf came into the limelight. He inherited this service and made it much more prominent. His son Hashim took this leadership and extended it to many other towns of Hejaz so much so that many pilgrims flocked annually to this place and enjoyed Hashims’s hospitality. A feast was given in honour of the pilgrims, food and water was served to all guests by the family of Hashim. This prominence created jealousies and his brother Abdushams’ adopted son Ummayya tried to create trouble. There was a dispute in which Umayya failed and left Makka to settle down in the Northern provinces of Suria(Sham) currently known as Syria. After Hashim his brother Muttalib and after him Hashim’s son Shyba who became known as Abdul Muttalib assumed the leadership of the family. He organised feasts and supplies of water to the pilgrims during the annual festival of Pilgrimage to the Holy Shrine.

 

Prophet Ibrahim built this House for devout worship to one God. But within his lifetime people disobeyed his orders and began to put idols inside the Kaaba. Ibrahim had to clean the House of these idols and of Idle worshippers. He told the people that this was a symbolic house of God. God does not live there for He is everywhere. People did not understand this logic and no sooner had Ibrahim died the people, out of reverence, filled the place with idols again. They thronged to this place annually and worshipped their personal gods, It was over Four Thousand years later that the last of the line of prophet (SA), Muhammad Ibne Abdullah entered Makka triumphantly, went inside the Ka’aba and, with the help of his cousin and son in law Ali Ibne Abi Talib, (AS) destroyed all the idols of Ka’aba with their own hands. At one stage of this destruction of idols, the tallest of the idol Hubbol was brought down after Ali had to stand on the shoulders of the Prophet to carry out God’s orders. The Prophet of Islam was reciting the Verse from the Qur’an

 

“Truth hath come and falsehood hath vanished.”

This was done in the 8th year of Hijra, January 630 AD after the bloodless victory at Makka by the Prophet of Islam.

Historically when Ibrahim was ordered by Allah to build the Shrine for worship over a small he uncovered the original foundations of the Kaaba built by Adam. Ibrahim with the help of his son Ismael erected the new shrine on the same foundations. Originally it contained only four walls without a roof . Centuries later during the timeof Kusayi who was the leader of the Tribe of Quraish in Makka a taller building was completed with a roof and a quadrangle wall around it to give it the shape of a sanctuary and doors all around the sanctuary walls. People entered through these doors to come to the Ka’aba for worship. It is now about 60 feet high, 60 feet wide from east to west and 60 feet from north to south. A door is fixed about 7 feet above ground level facing North East. A Black stone (Hajar al Aswad) was fixed into its eastern corner. In front of the building was Maqame Ibrahim, the arch shape gate known as that of Banu Shayba and the Zamzam Well. Just outside are the Hills called Safa and Merwa and the distance between the hills is about 500 yards. These days both of the hills are enclosed into the sanctuary walls with a roof over it.

 

The whole building is built of the layers of grey blue stone from the hills surrounding Makka. The four corners roughly face the four points of the compass. At the East is the Black stone (Rukn el Aswad), at the North is el Ruken el Iraqi, at the west al Rukne el Shami and at the south al Rukne el Yamani. The four walls are covered with a curtain (Kiswa). The kiswa is usually of black brocade with the Shahada outlined in the weave of the fabric. About 2/3rd’s of the way up runs a gold embroidered band covered with Qur'anic text.

 

In the Eastern corner about 5 feet above ground the Hajar el Aswad (the blackstone) is fixed into the wall. Its real nature is difficult to determine, its visible shape is worn smooth by hand touching and kissing. Its diameter is around 12 inches. Opposite the North west wall but not connected with it, is a semi circular wall of white marble. It is 3 feet high and about 5 feet thick. This semi circular space enjoys an especial consideration and pilgrims wait in queue to find a place to pray there. The graves of Ismael and his mother Hajera are within this semi circular wall. Between the archway and the facade (N.E.) is a little building with a small dome, the Maqame Ibrahim. Inside it is kept a stone bearing the prints of two human feet. Prophet Ibrahim is said to have stood on this stone when building the Ka’aba and marks of his feet are miraculously preserved.

 

On the outskirts of the building to the North East is the ‘Zamzam Well’ (this is now put under ground).

 

History of the building of the Ka’aba.

 

Qur’an in Sura Baqra Verses 121 to 127 described it clearly that Allah had ordained his servant Ibrahim to build the Shrine there for worship of One God. During Kusayi’s time it was rebuilt and fortified. During the early years of Prophet Muhammad (SA) before he announced his ministry, the Ka’aba was damaged by floods and it was rebuilt again. When the Black stone was to be put in its place the Makkans quarrelled among themselves as to who should have the honour to place it there. They had just decided that the first comer to the quadrangle should be given the task of deciding as to who should have the honour. Muhammad (SA) came in and was assigned this task. He advised them to place the stone in a cloak and ordered the heads of each Tribe each to take an end and bring the cloak nearer the corner on the eastern side. He himself then took out the stone and placed it in its position. It has been fixed there ever since.

 

After the martyrdom of the family of the Prophet at Kerbala in 61 Hijri (681 AD), the Ummayad Caliph Yazid Ibne Moawiya did not stop there in the pursuit of his destruction. He sent a large contingent under the command of Haseen Ibne Namir to Madina which destroyed the Mosque of the Prophet. They did not stop there but proceeded to Makka and demolished the four walls of the Ka’aba and killed thousands of muslims who protested. Yazid died and Ibne Namir returned to Damascus, Ka’aba was rebuilt by Abdullah Ibne Zubayr and his associates. Umawi forces came back to Makka and killed Abdullah Ibne Zubayr, hung his body on the gates of the Ka’aba for three months for all to see the Umawi power. But eventually this arrogance of power brought its own consequences and Mukhtar became the ruler in Iraq. Under his guidance the Ka’aba was refurbished and pilgrims began to arrive in safety to perform Hajj.

 

The Ka’aba successfully withstood the Karamatian invasion of 317/929, only the Blackstone was carried away which was returned some twenty years later. In the year 1981 the Wahabis brought tanks inside the Ka’aba to crush the kahtani revolution against the Saudi regime and almost demolished the South Eastern Wall. This was later restored with the help of the Makkan people.

 

Every man living in Makka in the 6th and 7th century must out of necessity have had some relationship with the Ka’aba. On the Muhammad (SA), the Prophet of Islam, the Qur’an is silent during the Makkans period in this respect. All that is known is that the muslim community of the period turned towards Jerusalem in prayers. Subsequently about a year and a half after the Hijra the Muslims were ordered during prayers which were lead by the Prophet of Islam himself to turn towards Makka. The particular mosque in Madina where this happened is called Masjide Qiblatain, meaning the mosque with two Qiblas.The Qur’an tells the muslims, “ turn then thy face towards the sacred mosque and wherever ye be turn your faces towards that part ”Qur’an II,139/144.

 

At this same period the Qur’an began to lay stress on the religion of Ibrahim, presenting Islam as a return to the purity of the religion of Ibrahim which, obscured by Judaism and Christianity, shone forth in its original brightness in the Qur’an. The pilgrimage’s to the Ka’aba and ritual progressions around the building were continued, but were now for the glorification of One God. The Abrahimic vision of the Ka’aba created a means of discerning an orthodox origin buried in the midst of pagan malpractices to which the first muslims pointed the way.

 

Every year after the Hajj ceremony the place is closed for one month and on the Day of Ashura the Ka’aba is washed from inside by the Water from the well of Zamzam and a new Kiswa is brought to cover the Ka’aba for the next year.

 

This is the story of the Ka’aba and the persons who protected it and remained its custodians and protectors from the satanic and evil forces throughout history. Muhammad (SA) and the people of his household (Ahlulbayt) were the protectors of the Ka’aba, and currently the 12th Imam from the direct descent of the Prophet of Islam is the real protector

tort reform, malpractice, the law, gavel, medical malpractice, doctors

 

Want to use one of our images on your own site? That's great! We do ask that you please give credit for the image by including a link to www.weisspaarz.com.

 

More details on our attribution policy can be found at www.weisspaarz.com/creative-commons-images/

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away from the Bundaberg site at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850, in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mills was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg was emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875. The town was well established but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent until sugar eclipsed all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were being established reliant on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works to support the mines in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

 

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away from the Bundaberg site at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850, in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mills was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg was emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875. The town was well established but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent until sugar eclipsed all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were being established reliant on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works to support the mines in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

Fairymead Plantation Homestead.

One of the great plantation homesteads, not quite as grand as the Southern American slave homesteads, is Fairymead in Bundaberg. It was built in 1890 in the Indian bungalow style of the British Raj occupation of India. It was built for Ernest and Margaret Young the owners of the Fairymead sugar mill. Margret Young’s brother was an architect and designed the house for the subtropical Bundaberg climate. It has 16 foot ceilings and a wide veranda encircles the house. The house was near the mill on the plantation and after World War One was used as accommodation for mill workers until Ernest Young’s grandson and his family moved back into the house in 1960. In 1988 it was donated to the City of Bundaberg and it was eventually transported into the Botanic Gardens site. The house is furnished as it was in 1890 and the interior arrangement of rooms has been little altered since then. The Fairymead sugar plantation was established by three Young brothers in 1880 when they bought 3,200 acres near Bundaberg. Their first sugar was sent to the Millaquin sugar mill until they completed their own sugar mill in 1884. They introduced a railway system to bring the cane to the mill and from 1902 they had irrigation water available if needed for the plantation. They pioneered mechanised single row harvesting of the cane in 1938 which was developed after World War Two to cover two rows. In the 1970s several Bundaberg mills and companies merged to form the Bundaberg Sugar Company.

 

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Wikipedia, The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, mainly known as the Knights Templar, was a military order of the Catholic faith, and one of the most important military orders in Western Christianity. They were founded in 1118 to defend pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem, with their headquarters located there on the Temple Mount, and existed for nearly two centuries during the Middle Ages.

 

Officially endorsed by the Catholic Church by such decrees as the papal bull Omne datum optimum of Pope Innocent II, the Templars became a favoured charity throughout Christendom and grew rapidly in membership and power. The Templar knights, in their distinctive white mantles with a red cross, were among the most skilled fighting units of the Crusades. They were prominent in Christian finance; non-combatant members of the order, who made up as much as 90% of their members,[1][2] managed a large economic infrastructure throughout Christendom.[3] They developed innovative financial techniques that were an early form of banking,[4][5] building a network of nearly 1,000 commanderies and fortifications across Europe and the Holy Land.[6]

 

The Templars were closely tied to the Crusades. As they became unable to secure their holdings in the Holy Land, support for the order faded.[7] In 1307, King Philip IV of France had many of the order's members in France arrested, tortured into giving false confessions, and then burned at the stake.[8] Under pressure, Pope Clement V disbanded the order in 1312.[9] In spite of its dissolution, however, between 1317–1319, a number of Templar knights, properties and other assets were absorbed within the Portuguese Order of Christ,[10][11][12][13] and the Spanish Order of Montesa;[14] the abrupt disappearance of this major medieval European institution in its original incarnation gave rise to speculation and legends, which have currently kept the "Templar" name alive in self-styled orders and popular culture.

 

Names

The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon (Latin: Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Salomonici and French: Pauvres Chevaliers du Christ et du Temple de Salomon) are also known as the Order of Solomon's Temple, and mainly the Knights Templar (French: Les Chevaliers Templiers), or simply the Templars (French: Les Templiers).

 

The Temple Mount where they had their headquarters had a mystique because it was above what was believed to be the ruins of the Temple of Solomon.[15]

 

History

Main article: History of the Knights Templar

Rise

After the Franks in the First Crusade captured Jerusalem from the Fatimid Caliphate in 1099, many Christians made pilgrimages to various sacred sites in the Holy Land. Although the city of Jerusalem was relatively secure under Christian control, the rest of Outremer was not. Bandits and marauding highwaymen preyed upon these Christian pilgrims, who were routinely slaughtered, sometimes by the hundreds, as they attempted to make the journey from the coastline at Jaffa through to the interior of the Holy Land.[16]

  

A Seal of the Knights Templar[17][18]

In 1119, the French knight Hugues de Payens approached King Baldwin II of Jerusalem and Warmund, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and proposed creating a monastic Catholic religious order for the protection of these pilgrims. King Baldwin and Patriarch Warmund agreed to the request, probably at the Council of Nablus in January 1120, and the king granted the Templars a headquarters in a wing of the royal palace on the Temple Mount in the captured Al-Aqsa Mosque.[19]

 

The order, with about nine knights including Godfrey de Saint-Omer and André de Montbard, had few financial resources and relied on donations to survive. Their emblem was of two knights riding on a single horse, emphasizing the order's poverty.[20]

  

The first headquarters of the Knights Templar, on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The Crusaders called it "the Temple of Solomon" and from this location derived their name of Templar.

The impoverished status of the Templars did not last long. They had a powerful advocate in Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, a leading Church figure, the French abbot primarily responsible for the founding of the Cistercian Order of monks and a nephew of André de Montbard, one of the founding knights. Bernard put his weight behind them and wrote persuasively on their behalf in the letter In Praise of the New Knighthood,[21][22] and in 1129, at the Council of Troyes, he led a group of leading churchmen to officially approve and endorse the order on behalf of the church. With this formal blessing, the Templars became a favoured charity throughout Christendom, receiving money, land, businesses, and noble-born sons from families who were eager to help with the fight in the Holy Land. At the Council of Pisa in 1135, Pope Innocent II initiated the first papal monetary donation to the Order.[23] Another major benefit came in 1139, when Innocent II's papal bull Omne Datum Optimum exempted the order from obedience to local laws. This ruling meant that the Templars could pass freely through all borders, were not required to pay any taxes and were exempt from all authority except that of the pope.[24] However, in practice, they often had to respect the wishes of the European rulers in whose kingdoms they resided, especially in their handling of funds for the local noblility in their banks.[25]

 

With its clear mission and ample resources, the order grew rapidly. Templars were often the advance shock troops in key battles of the Crusades, as the heavily armoured knights on their warhorses would charge into the enemy lines ahead of the main army. One of their most famous victories was in 1177 during the Battle of Montgisard, where some 500 Templar knights helped several thousand infantry to defeat Saladin's army of more than 26,000 soldiers.[a]

 

A Templar Knight is truly a fearless knight, and secure on every side, for his soul is protected by the armour of faith, just as his body is protected by the armour of steel. He is thus doubly armed, and need fear neither demons nor men.

― Bernard of Clairvaux, c. 1135

De Laude Novae Militae – In Praise of the New Knighthood[27]

Although the primary mission of the order was military, relatively few members were combatants. The majority acted in support positions to assist the knights and manage their financial infrastructure. Although individual members were sworn to poverty, the Templar Order controlled vast wealth even beyond direct donations. A nobleman participating in the Crusades might place all his assets under Templar management during his absence. Accumulating wealth in this manner throughout Christendom and the Outremer, in 1150 the order began to issue letters of credit for pilgrims journeying to the Holy Land: pilgrims deposited their valuables with a local Templar preceptory before embarking, received a document indicating the value of their deposit, then showed that document upon arrival in the Holy Land to claim treasure of equal value to their funds. This innovative arrangement was an early form of banking and may have been the first use of bank cheques; it protected pilgrims from robbery, while augmenting Templar finances.[28]

 

Based on this mix of donations and business dealings, the Templars established financial networks across the whole of Christendom. They acquired large tracts of land, both in Europe and the Middle East; they bought and managed farms and vineyards; they built massive stone cathedrals and castles; they were involved in manufacturing, import, and export; they owned fleets of ships; and at one point they even owned the entire island of Cyprus. The order arguably qualifies as the world's first multinational corporation.[29][30] By the late 12th century the Templars were also politically powerful in the Holy Land. Secular nobles in the Kingdom of Jerusalem began granting them castles and surrounding lands as a defense against the growing threat of the Zengids in Syria. The Templars were even allowed to negotiate with Muslim rulers independently of the feudal lords. The Templar castles became de facto independent lordships with their own markets, further growing their political authority. During the regency after the death of King Baldwin IV in 1185, the royal castles were placed in the custody of the Templars and Hospitallers: the grand masters of the two orders, along with the patriarch of Jerusalem, each had a key to the crown jewels.[31]

 

From the mid-12th century, the Templars were recruited (jointly with the Hospitallers) to fight the Muslim kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula, in addition to their campaigns in the Latin East.[32] In the kingdoms of Castile and León, they obtained some major strongholds (such as Calatrava la Vieja or Coria), but their vulnerability along the border was exposed during the Almohad offensive.[33] In Aragon, the Templars subsumed the Order of Mountjoy in the late 12th century, becoming an important vanguard force on the border, while in Portugal they commanded some castles along the Tagus line.[34] One of these was Tomar, which was unsuccessfully besieged by the Almohad Caliphate in 1190.

 

Due to the expense of sending a third of their revenues to the East, Templar and Hospitaller activities in the Iberian Peninsula were at a disadvantage to the Hispanic military orders which expended all their resources in the region.[35]

 

War

 

King Baldwin II presiding over a council with the Templars

Accounts of the Order's early military activities in the Levant are vague, though it appears their first battles were defeats, because the Seljuk Turks and other Muslim powers used different tactics than those in Europe at that time. The Templars later adapted to this and became strategic advisors to the leaders of the Crusader states.[36] The first recorded battle involving the Knights Templar was in the town of Teqoa, south of Jerusalem, in 1138. A force of Templars led by their grand master, Robert de Craon (who succeeded Hugues de Payens about a year earlier), was sent to retake the town after it was captured by Muslims. They were initially successful, but the Muslims regrouped outside the town and were able to take it back from the Templars.[37]

 

The Order's mission developed from protecting pilgrims to taking part in regular military campaigns early on,[36] and this is shown by the fact that the first castle received by the Knights Templar was located four hundred miles north of the pilgrim road from Jaffa to Jerusalem, on the northern frontier of the Principality of Antioch: the castle of Bagras in the Amanus Mountains.[36][38] It may have been as early as 1131, and by 1137 at the latest, that the Templars were given the mountainous region that formed the border of Antioch and Cilician Armenia, which included the castles of Bagras, Darbsak, and Roche de Roissel. The Templars were there when Byzantine emperor John II Komnenos tried to make the Crusader states of Antioch, Tripoli, and Edessa his vassals between 1137 and 1142. Templar knights accompanied Emperor John II with troops from those states during his campaign against Muslim powers in Syria from 1137 to 1138, including at the sieges of Aleppo and Shaizar.[39] In 1143, the Templars also began taking part in the Reconquista in Iberia at the request of the count of Barcelona.[40]

 

In 1147 a force of French, Spanish, and English Templars[41] left France to join the Second Crusade, led by King Louis VII. At a meeting held in Paris on 27 April 1147 they were given permission by Pope Eugenius III to wear the red cross on their uniforms. They were led by the Templar provincial master in France, Everard des Barres, who was one of the ambassadors King Louis sent to negotiate the passage of the Crusader army through the Byzantine Empire on its way to the Holy Land. During the dangerous journey of the Second Crusade through Anatolia, the Templars provided security to the rest of the army from Turkish raids.[42] After the Crusaders arrived in 1148, the kings Louis VII, Conrad III of Germany, and Baldwin III of Jerusalem made the decision to capture Damascus, but their siege in the summer of that year failed and ended with the defeat of the Christian army.[43][44] In the fall of 1148 some returning Templars took part in the successful siege of Tortosa in Spain, after which one-fifth of that city was given to the Order.[41]

 

Robert de Craon died in January 1149 and was succeeded as grand master by Everard des Barres, one of the few leaders at the siege of Damascus whose reputation was not damaged by the event.[43] After the Second Crusade, Zengid forces under Nur ad-Din Zengi of Aleppo attacked the Principality of Antioch, and in June 1149 his army defeated the Crusaders at the Battle of Inab, where Prince Raymond of Antioch was killed. King Baldwin III led reinforcements to the principality, which led Nur ad-Din to accept a truce with Antioch and not advance any further.[45] The force with King Baldwin included 120 Templar knights and 1,000 sergeants and squires.[46]

 

In the winter of 1149 and 1150, King Baldwin III oversaw the reconstruction of the fortress at Gaza City, which had been left in ruins.[47][48] It was part of the ring of castles that were built along the southern border of the Kingdom of Jerusalem to protect it from raids by the Egyptian Fatimid Caliphate, and specifically from the Fatimid troops at the fortress of Ascalon, which by then was the last coastal city in the Levant still under Muslim control.[48][49] Gaza was given to the Knights Templar, becoming the first major Templar castle.[48] In 1152 Everard stepped down as grand master for unknown reasons, and his successor was Bernard de Tremelay.[50] In January of the following year, Bernard led the Templars when King Baldwin III led a Crusader army to besiege Ascalon. Several months of fighting went by until the wall of the city was breached in August 1153, at which point Bernard led forty knights into Ascalon. But the rest of the army did not join them and all of the Templars were killed by the Muslim defenders. Ascalon was captured by the rest of the army several days later,[51][52] and Bernard was eventually succeeded by André de Montbard.[53]

 

After the fall of Ascalon, the Templars continued operating in that region from their castle at Gaza. In June 1154 they attacked Abbas ibn Abi al-Futuh, the vizier of Egypt, when he tried to flee from Cairo to Damascus after losing a power struggle. Abbas was killed and the Templars captured his son, who they later sent back to the Fatimids.[53] In the late 1150s the Egyptians launched raids against the Crusaders in the areas of Gaza and Ascalon.[54]

 

Decline

 

Battle of Hattin in 1187, the turning point leading to the Third Crusade. From a copy of the Passages d’outremer, c. 1490

In the mid-12th century, the tide began to turn in the Crusades. The Islamic world had become more united under effective leaders such as Saladin, and the reborn Sunni regime in Egypt. Dissension arose among Christian factions in and concerning the Holy Land. The Knights Templar were occasionally at odds with the two other Christian military orders, the Knights Hospitaller and the Teutonic Knights, and decades of internecine feuds weakened Christian positions, both politically and militarily. After the Templars were involved in several unsuccessful campaigns, including the pivotal Battle of Hattin, Jerusalem was recaptured by Muslim forces under Saladin in 1187. The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II reclaimed the city for Christians in the Sixth Crusade of 1229, without Templar aid, but only held it for a little more than a decade. In 1244, the Ayyubid dynasty together with Khwarezmi mercenaries recaptured Jerusalem, and the city did not return to Western control until 1917 when, during World War I, the British captured it from the Ottoman Empire.[55]

 

The Templars were forced to relocate their headquarters to other cities in the north, such as the seaport of Acre, which they held for the next century. It was lost in 1291, followed by their last mainland strongholds, Tortosa (Tartus in present-day Syria) and Atlit (in present-day Israel). Their headquarters then moved to Limassol on the island of Cyprus,[56] and they also attempted to maintain a garrison on tiny Arwad Island, just off the coast from Tortosa. In 1300, there was some attempt to engage in coordinated military efforts with the Mongols[57] via a new invasion force at Arwad. In 1302 or 1303, however, the Templars lost the island to the Egyptian Mamluk Sultanate in the siege of Arwad. With the island gone, the Crusaders lost their last foothold in the Holy Land.[58]

 

With the order's military mission now less important, support for the organization began to dwindle. The situation was complex, however, since during the two hundred years of their existence, the Templars had become a part of daily life throughout Christendom.[59] The organization's Templar Houses, hundreds of which were dotted throughout Europe and the Near East, gave them a widespread presence at the local level.[2] The Templars still managed many businesses, and many Europeans had daily contact with the Templar network, such as by working at a Templar farm or vineyard, or using the order as a bank in which to store personal valuables. The order was still not subject to local government, making it everywhere a "state within a state" – its standing army, although it no longer had a well-defined mission, could pass freely through all borders. This situation heightened tensions with some European nobility, especially as the Templars were indicating an interest in founding their own monastic state, just as the Teutonic Knights had done in Prussia and the Baltic and the Knights Hospitaller were doing in Rhodes.[60]

 

The Templars were accused of enabling corruption in their ranks which often allowed them to influence the legal systems of Europe to act in their favor and gain influence over local rulers' lands at the expense of the rulers.[25]

 

Arrests, charges and dissolution

Main article: Trials of the Knights Templar

In 1305, the new Pope Clement V, based in Avignon, France, sent letters to both the Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay and the Hospitaller Grand Master Fulk de Villaret to discuss the possibility of merging the two orders. Neither was amenable to the idea, but Pope Clement persisted, and in 1306 he invited both grand masters to France to discuss the matter. De Molay arrived first in early 1307, but de Villaret was delayed for several months. While waiting, de Molay and Clement discussed criminal charges that had been made two years earlier by an ousted Templar and were being discussed by King Philip IV of France and his ministers. It was generally agreed that the charges were false, but Clement sent King Philip a written request for assistance in the investigation. According to some historians, Philip, who was already deeply in debt to the Templars from his war against England, decided to seize upon the rumours for his own purposes. He began pressuring the church to take action against the order, as a way of freeing himself from his debts.[61]

  

Convent of Christ Castle, Tomar, Portugal. Built in 1160 as a stronghold for the Knights Templar and besieged in 1190 by the Almohads, it became the headquarters of the renamed Order of Christ. In 1983, it was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.[62]

At dawn on Friday, 13 October 1307, King Philip IV had de Molay and scores of other French Templars to be simultaneously arrested. The arrest warrant started with the words: "Dieu n'est pas content, nous avons des ennemis de la foi dans le Royaume" ("God is not pleased. We have enemies of the faith in the kingdom.").[63]

 

Claims were made that during Templar admissions ceremonies, recruits were forced to spit on the Cross, deny Christ, and engage in indecent kissing; brethren were also accused of worshipping idols, and the order was said to have encouraged homosexual practices.[64] Many of these allegations contain tropes that bear similarities to accusations made against other persecuted groups such as Jews, heretics, and accused witches.[65] These allegations, though, were highly politicised without any real evidence.[66] Still, the Templars were charged with numerous other offences such as financial corruption, fraud, and secrecy.[67] Many of the accused confessed to these charges under torture, and their confessions, even though obtained under duress, caused a scandal in Paris. The prisoners were coerced to confess that they had spat on the Cross. One said: "Moi, Raymond de La Fère, 21 ans, reconnais que [j'ai] craché trois fois sur la Croix, mais de bouche et pas de cœur" ("I, Raymond de La Fère, 21 years old, admit that I have spat three times on the Cross, but only from my mouth and not from my heart"). The Templars were accused of idolatry and were charged with worshipping either a figure known as Baphomet or a mummified severed head they recovered, amongst other artefacts, at their original headquarters on the Temple Mount. Some have theorised that this head might have been believed to be that of John the Baptist, among other things.[68]

 

Relenting to King Phillip's demands, Pope Clement then issued the papal bull Pastoralis praeeminentiae on 22 November 1307, which instructed all Christian monarchs in Europe to arrest all Templars and seize their assets.[69] Clement called for papal hearings to determine the Templars' guilt or innocence, and once freed, many Templars recanted their confessions.

 

Several Templars are listed as having come from Gisors to defend the Order on 26 February 1310: Henri Zappellans or Chapelain, Anceau de Rocheria, Enard de Valdencia, Guillaume de Roy, Geoffroy de Cera or de La Fere-en-Champagne, Robert Harle or de Hermenonville, and Dreux de Chevru.[70][71][72] Some had sufficient legal experience to defend themselves in the trials, but in 1310, having appointed the archbishop of Sens, Philippe de Marigny, to lead the investigation, Philip blocked this attempt, using the previously forced confessions to have dozens of Templars burned at the stake in Paris.[73][74][75]

 

With Philip threatening military action unless the pope complied with his wishes, Clement finally agreed to disband the order, citing the public scandal that had been generated by the confessions. At the Council of Vienne in 1312, he issued a series of papal bulls, including Vox in excelso, which officially dissolved the order, and Ad providam, which turned over most Templar assets to the Hospitallers.[76]

  

Templars being burned

As for the leaders of the order, the elderly Grand Master Jacques de Molay, who had confessed under torture, retracted his confession. Geoffroi de Charney, Preceptor of Normandy, also retracted his confession and insisted on his innocence. Both men, under pressure from the king, were declared guilty of being relapsed heretics and sentenced to burn alive at the stake in Paris on 18 March 1314. De Molay reportedly remained defiant to the end, asking to be tied in such a way that he could face the Notre Dame Cathedral and hold his hands together in prayer.[77] According to legend, he called out from the flames that both Pope Clement and King Philip would soon meet him before God. His actual words were recorded on the parchment as follows: "Dieu sait qui a tort et a péché. Il va bientôt arriver malheur à ceux qui nous ont condamnés à mort" ("God knows who is wrong and has sinned. Soon a calamity will occur to those who have condemned us to death").[63] Clement died only a month later, and Philip died while hunting within the same year.[78][79][80]

 

The remaining Templars around Europe were either arrested and tried under the Papal investigation (with virtually none convicted), absorbed into other Catholic military orders, or pensioned off and allowed to live out their days peacefully. By papal decree, the property of the Templars was transferred to the Knights Hospitaller except in the Kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, and Portugal. Portugal was the first country in Europe where they had settled, occurring only two or three years after the order's foundation in Jerusalem and even having a presence during Portugal's conception.[81]

 

The Portuguese king, Denis I, refused to pursue and persecute the former knights, as had occurred in some other states under the influence of Philip & the crown. Under his protection, Templar organizations simply changed their name, from "Knights Templar" to the reconstituted Order of Christ and also a parallel Supreme Order of Christ of the Holy See; both are considered successors to the Knights Templar.[82][83][84]

 

Chinon Parchment

Main article: Chinon Parchment

In September 2001, a document known as the Chinon Parchment dated 17–20 August 1308 was discovered in the Vatican Archives by Barbara Frale, apparently after having been filed in the wrong place in 1628. It is a record of the trial of the Templars and shows that Clement absolved the Templars of all heresies in 1308 before formally disbanding the order in 1312, as did another Chinon Parchment dated 20 August 1308 addressed to Philip IV of France, also mentioning that all Templars that had confessed to heresy were "restored to the Sacraments and to the unity of the Church". This other Chinon Parchment has been well known to historians,[85][86][87] having been published by Étienne Baluze in 1693[88] and by Pierre Dupuy in 1751.[89]

 

The current position of the Catholic Church is that the persecution of the Knights Templar was unjust, that nothing was inherently wrong with the order or its rule, and that Pope Clement V was pressed into his actions by the magnitude of the public scandal and by the dominating influence of King Philip IV, who was Clement's relative.[90]

 

Organization

Main article: List of Knights Templar

 

Templar chapel from the 12th century in Metz, France. Once part of the Templar commandery of Metz, the oldest Templar institution of the Holy Roman Empire.

The Templars were organised as a monastic order similar to Bernard's Cistercian Order, which was considered the first effective international organization in Europe.[91] The organizational structure had a strong chain of authority. Each country with a major Templar presence (France, Poitou, Anjou, Jerusalem, England, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Tripoli, Antioch, Hungary, and Croatia)[92] had a master of the Order for the Templars in that region.

 

All of them were subject to the grand master, appointed for life, who oversaw both the order's military efforts in the East and their financial holdings in the West. The grand master exercised his authority via the visitors-general of the order, who were knights specially appointed by the grand master and convent of Jerusalem to visit the different provinces, correct malpractices, introduce new regulations, and resolve important disputes. The visitors-general had the power to remove knights from office and to suspend the master of the province concerned.[93][unreliable source?]

 

The central headquarters of the Templars had several offices that answered to the grand master. These were held as temporary appointments rather than for life. The second-in-command of the Order was the seneschal. The highest ranking military official was the marshal, while the preceptor (who was also sometimes called the commander) was responsible for the administration and provisions. The draper was responsible for their uniforms, the treasurer was in charge of finance, the turcopolier commanded auxiliary forces, and the prior was the head of the church at the headquarters.[94] The headquarters and its most senior officials were known as the convent[95][96] and its role was to assist and advise the grand master with running the administration of the Order.[97]

 

No precise numbers exist, but it is estimated that at the order's peak, there were between 15,000 and 20,000 Templars, of whom about a tenth were actual knights.[1][2]

 

Ranks within the order

Three main ranks

There was a threefold division of the ranks of the Templars: the noble knights, the non-noble sergeants, and the chaplains. The knights wear white mantles to symbolise their purity and chastity.[98] The sergeants wore black or brown. All three classes of brothers wore the order's red cross.[99] Before they received their monastic rule in 1129 at the Council of Troyes, the Templars were referred to only as knights (milites in Latin), and after 1129 they were also called brothers of their monastic order. Therefore the three main ranks were eventually known as knight brothers, sergeant brothers, and chaplain brothers. Knights and chaplains were referred to as brothers by 1140, but sergeants were not full members of the Order until the 1160s.[100]

 

The knights were the most visible division of the order. They were equipped as heavy cavalry, with three or four horses and one or two squires. Squires were generally not members of the order but were instead outsiders who were hired for a set period of time. The Templars did not perform knighting ceremonies, so anyone wishing to become a knight in the Templar had to be a knight already.[101]

 

Beneath the knights in the order and drawn from non-noble families were the sergeants.[102] They brought vital skills and trades from blacksmiths and builders, including administration of many of the order's European properties. In the Crusader states, they fought alongside the knights as light cavalry with a single horse.[103] Several of the order's most senior positions were reserved for sergeants, including the post of Commander of the Vault of Acre, who also served as the Templar fleet's admiral. But he was subordinated to the Order's preceptor instead of the marshal, indicating that the Templars considered their ships to be mainly for commerce rather than military purposes.[104][105]

 

From 1139, chaplains constituted a third Templar rank. They were ordained priests who cared for the Templars' spiritual needs.[106] These Templar clerics were also referred to as priest brothers or chaplain brothers.[107]

 

The Templars also employed lightly armed mercenaries as cavalry in the 12th century that were known as turcopoles (a Greek term for descendants of Turks). Its meaning has been interpreted as either referring to people of a mixed Muslim-Christian heritage who became Christians, or members of the local population in Syria. Sometime in the 13th century, turcopole became a formal rank held by Templar brothers, including Latin Christians.[108]

 

Grand masters

Main article: Grand Masters of the Knights Templar

 

Templar building at Saint Martin des Champs, France

Starting with founder Hugues de Payens, the order's highest office was that of grand master, a position which was held for life, though considering the martial nature of the order, this could mean a very short tenure. All but two of the grand masters died in office, and several died during military campaigns. For example, during the Siege of Ascalon in 1153, Grand Master Bernard de Tremelay led a group of 40 Templars through a breach in the city walls. When the rest of the Crusader army did not follow, the Templars, including their grand master, were surrounded and beheaded.[109] Grand master Gérard de Ridefort was beheaded by Saladin in 1189 at the Siege of Acre.

 

The grand master oversaw all of the operations of the order, including both the military operations in the Holy Land and Eastern Europe and the Templars' financial and business dealings in Western Europe. Some grand masters also served as battlefield commanders, though this was not always wise: several blunders in de Ridefort's combat leadership contributed to the devastating defeat at the Battle of Hattin. The last grand master was Jacques de Molay, burned at the stake in Paris in 1314 by order of King Philip IV.[75]

 

Conduct, uniform and beards

 

Representation of a Knight Templar (Ten Duinen Abbey museum, 2010 photograph)

 

Depiction of two Templars seated on a horse (emphasising poverty), with Beauséant, the "sacred banner" (or gonfanon) of the Templars, argent a chief sable (Matthew Paris, c. 1250)[110]

Bernard de Clairvaux and founder Hugues de Payens devised a specific code of conduct for the Templar Order, known to modern historians as the Latin Rule. Its 72 clauses laid down the details of the knights' way of life, including the types of garments they were to wear and how many horses they could have. Knights were to take their meals in silence, eat meat no more than three times per week, and not have physical contact of any kind with women, even members of their own family. A master of the Order was assigned "four horses, and one chaplain-brother, and one clerk with three horses, and one sergeant brother with two horses, and one gentleman valet to carry his shield and lance, with one horse".[111] As the order grew, more guidelines were added, and the original list of 72 clauses was expanded to several hundred in its final form.[112][113]

 

The daily schedule of the order adhered to the canonical hours in the Rule of Saint Benedict, with communal prayers designated at specific hours throughout the day. Members unable to participate must recite the Lord's Prayer at the same hours.

 

The knights wore a white surcoat with a red cross, and a white mantle also with a red cross; the sergeants wore a black tunic with a red cross on the front and a black or brown mantle.[114][115] The white mantle was assigned to the Templars at the Council of Troyes in 1129, and the cross was most probably added to their robes at the launch of the Second Crusade in 1147, when Pope Eugenius III, King Louis VII of France, and many other notables attended a meeting of the French Templars at their headquarters near Paris.[116][117][118] Under the Rule, the knights were to wear the white mantle at all times: They were even forbidden to eat or drink unless wearing it.[119]

 

The red cross that the Templars wore on their robes was a symbol of martyrdom, and to die in combat was considered a great honour that assured a place in heaven.[120] There was a cardinal rule that the warriors of the order should never surrender unless the Templar flag had fallen, and even then they were first to try to regroup with another of the Christian orders, such as that of the Hospitallers. Only after all flags had fallen were they allowed to leave the battlefield.[121] This uncompromising principle, along with their reputation for courage, excellent training, and heavy armament, made the Templars one of the most feared combat forces in medieval times.

 

Although not prescribed by the Templar Rule, it later became customary for members of the order to wear long and prominent beards. In about 1240, Alberic of Trois-Fontaines described the Templars as an "order of bearded brethren"; while during the interrogations by the papal commissioners in Paris in 1310–1311, out of nearly 230 knights and brothers questioned, 76 are described as wearing a beard, in some cases specified as being "in the style of the Templars", and 133 are said to have shaved off their beards, either in renunciation of the order or because they had hoped to escape detection.[122][123]

 

Initiation,[124] known as "reception" (receptio) into the order, was a profound commitment and involved a solemn ceremony. Outsiders were discouraged from attending the ceremony, which aroused the suspicions of medieval inquisitors during the later trials. New members had to willingly sign over all of their wealth and goods to the order and vow to "God and Our Lady" (mother of Jesus) poverty, chastity, piety, obedience to the master of the order, and to conquer the Holy Land of Jerusalem.[125] They were then promised "the bread and water and poor clothing of the house and much pain and suffering".[126]

 

Most brothers joined for life, although some were allowed to join for a set period. Sometimes a married man was allowed to join if he had his wife's permission,[115] but a married brother was not allowed to wear the white mantle.[127]

 

Legacy

See also: List of Knights Templar sites

 

Temple Church, London. As the chapel of the New Temple in London, it was the location for Templar initiation ceremonies. In modern times it is the parish church of the Middle and Inner Temples, two of the Inns of Court, and a popular tourist attraction.

With their military mission and extensive financial resources, the Knights Templar funded a large number of building projects around Europe and the Holy Land. Many of these structures are still standing. Many sites also maintain the name "Temple" because of centuries-old association with the Templars.[128] For example, some of the Templars' lands in London were later rented to lawyers, which led to the names of the Temple Bar gateway and the Temple Underground station. Two of the four Inns of Court which may call members to act as barristers are the Inner Temple and Middle Temple – the entire area known as Temple, London.[129]

 

Distinctive architectural elements of Templar buildings include the use of the image of "two knights on a single horse", representing the Knights' poverty, and round buildings designed to resemble the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.[130]

 

Modern organizations

The Knights Templar were disbanded in 1309. Following the suppression of the Order, a number of Knights Templar joined the newly established Order of Christ, which effectively reabsorbed the Knights Templar and its properties in AD 1319, especially in Portugal.[13][131]

 

The story of the persecution and sudden dissolution of the Templars has drawn many other groups to use alleged connections with them as a way of enhancing their own image and mystery.[132] Apart from the Order of Christ and Order of Montesa in Spain,[13][131][14] there are no historical connections between the Knights Templar and any other modern organization, the earliest of which emerged publicly in the 18th century.[133][134][135][136]

 

Order of Christ

Main article: Order of Christ (Portugal)

Further information: History of the Order of Christ

Following the dissolution of the Knights Templar, the Order of Christ was erected in 1319 and absorbed many of the Knights Templar into its ranks, along with Knights Templar properties in Portugal.[13][131] Its headquarters became a castle in Tomar, a former Knights Templar castle.[13]

 

The Military Order of Christ consider themselves the successors of the former Knights Templar. After the Templars were abolished on 22 March 1312,[137][84] the Order of Christ was founded in 1319[138][83] under the protection of the Portuguese king Denis, who refused to persecute the former knights. Denis revived the Templars of Tomar as the Order of Christ, grateful for their aid during the Reconquista and in the reconstruction of Portugal after the wars. Denis negotiated with Clement's successor John XXII for recognition of the new order and its right to inherit Templar assets and property. This was granted in the papal bull Ad ea ex quibus of 14 March 1319.[12] The Portuguese brought the Order of Christ with them to Kongo and Brazil, where the Order of Christ continues to be awarded; the Vatican additionally has awarded the Supreme Order of Christ.[139][140][141]

 

Temperance movement

Main articles: IOGT and Tempel Riddare Orden

Many temperance organizations named themselves after the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, citing the belief that the original Knights Templar "drank sour milk, and also because they were fighting 'a great crusade' against 'this terrible vice' of alcohol".[142] The largest of these, the International Order of Good Templars (IOGT), grew throughout the world after being started in the 19th century and continues to advocate for the abstinence from alcohol and other drugs; other Orders in this tradition include those of the Templars of Honor and Temperance (Tempel Riddare Orden), which has a large presence in Scandinavia.[142][143]

 

Freemasonry

Main article: Knights Templar (Freemasonry)

Freemasonry has incorporated the symbols and rituals of several medieval military orders in a number of Masonic bodies since at least the 18th century. This can be seen in the "Red Cross of Constantine," inspired by the Military Constantinian Order; the "Order of Malta," inspired by the Knights Hospitaller; and the "Order of the Temple", inspired by the Knights Templar. The Orders of Malta and the Temple feature prominently in the York Rite. Though some have claimed a link between the historical Knights Templar of the 14th century through members who allegedly took refuge in Scotland and aided Robert the Bruce, this theory has been rejected by both Freemasons and historians.[144][145]

 

Neo-Templarism

Main article: Neo-Templarism

Neo-Templarism is a term used to describe movements that claim to be direct continuations of the original Templars. The Templar degree system in Freemasonry built off an idea that Templars had embedded themselves within Freemasonry; however, some Freemasons believed the Templar degrees were not subordinate to masonry and were their own system. This culminated in 1805, when Bernard-Raymond Fabré-Palaprat, a physician who refused to acknowledge the authority of the Catholic Church, created a revivalist Templar movement, claiming he had discovered a document that revealed an unbroken history of Templar grand masters to the present day. Fabré-Palaprat declared himself the grand master of his revivalist order. This began a long series of revival orders involving various schisms, which Fabré-Palaprat is usually regarded as the originator of; Fabré-Palaprat's organization eventually evolved into the Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem. The idea that these orders have legitimate descent from the Templars has been criticized by scholars of Templar history as dubious and tied to false claims.[146][147]

 

Modern popular culture

Main article: Knights Templar in popular culture

The Knights Templar have been associated with legends circulated even during their time. Many orders, such as the freemasons, claimed to have received esoteric wisdom from the Templars, or were direct descendants of the order. Masonic writers added their own speculations in the 18th century, and further fictional embellishments have been added in popular novels such as Ivanhoe, Foucault's Pendulum, and The Da Vinci Code;[148] modern movies such as National Treasure, The Last Templar, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade; the television series Knightfall; as well as video games such as Broken Sword, Deus Ex, Assassin's Creed and Dante's Inferno.[149]

 

The Templars were the subject of many conspiracy theories and legends. A legend is that when Louis XVI was executed, a freemason dipped a cloth in the king's blood and said, "Jacques de Molay, you are avenged.", the idea being that the king of France was responsible for destroying the Knights Templar back then. A theory states that they are still existent and running a secret conspiracy to preserve the bloodline of Jesus.[150]

 

There have been speculative popular publications surrounding the order's early occupation of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem as well as speculation about what relics the Templars may have found there. The association of the Holy Grail with the Templars has precedents even in 12th-century fiction; Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival calls the knights guarding the Grail Kingdom templeisen, apparently a conscious fictionalization of the templarii.[151][152][153]

 

The Convent of Christ (Portuguese: Convento de Cristo/Mosteiro de Cristo) is a former Catholic convent in Tomar, Portugal. Originally a 12th-century Templar stronghold, when the order was dissolved in the 14th century the Portuguese branch was turned into the Knights of the Order of Christ, that later supported Portugal's maritime discoveries of the 15th century. The convent and castle complex are a historic and cultural monument and was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1983.

 

History

The main church of the Convent of Tomar constructed by the Knights Templar

The main church of the Convent of Tomar constructed by the Knights Templar

The Manueline nave, as seen from the Renaissance era cloisters

The Manueline nave, as seen from the Renaissance era cloisters

The elaborate pinnacles over the western facade of the church

The elaborate pinnacles over the western facade of the church

Renaissance Cloister of John III

Renaissance Cloister of John III

Templars

See also: Knights Templar in Portugal

The castle was founded by the Order of Poor Knights of the Temple (or Templar Knights) in 1118.[1] Its construction continued until the final part of the 12th century with the construction of the oratory, in one of the angles of the castle, completed by the Grand Master D. Gualdim Pais (sometime around 1160).[1] Around 1190 it was encircled and resisted the armies of caliph Abu Yusuf al-Mansur who was successful in taking strongholds in the south.[1] (A plaque was erected near the entrance to the castle to commemorate this event).

 

During the second quarter of the 13th century, Tomar was transferred into the control of the Templars, becoming its seat.[1] The castle became an integral part of the defence system created by the Templars to secure the border of the young Christian Kingdom against the Moors, which at the time occupied the area to approximately the Tagus River. But, following the dissolution of the Templar Order, on 14 March 1319, and following the request of King Denis of Portugal, Pope John XXII instituted the Order of Christ.[1] The seat of the former Knights Templar was converted in 1357 into the seat of this new order.[1]

 

The famous round church (rotunda) of the castle of Tomar was also built in the second half of the 12th century. The church, like some other templar churches throughout Europe, was modelled after the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, which was believed by the crusaders to be a remnant of the Temple of Solomon. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem may also have served as model.

 

Order of Christ

Following the dissolution of the Templar Order, on 14 March 1319 (following the request of King Denis of Portugal), Pope John XXII instituted the Order of Christ.[1] The Templar order had been suppressed during most of Europe from 1312 to 1314, but in Portugal its members, assets, and partly its membership were transferred to the Order of Christ.[1] The seat of the former Knights Templar was converted in 1357 into the seat of this new order.[1] As a result, at about the first half of the 15th century, work was completed to adapt the Templar oratory, introducing an open choir to the western niche, about half-way up the wall.[1] What remains of this adaptation was the colonnade frame with interior arch.[1] At the same time the main palace was constructed.

 

During the internship of Prince Henry the Navigator as its leader (1417–1450), the Order of Christ initiated the construction of two cloisters under the direction of master Fernão Gonçalves: the Claustro do Cemitério (Cemetery Cloister) and Claustro das Lavagens (Washing Cloister).[1] Prior to these large works, Henry began work on constructing the Chapel of São Jorge sometime in 1426 and was responsible for urban improvements in the town of Tomar.[1]

 

In 1484, King D. Manuel (who became Master of the Order in 1484 and King of Portugal in 1495) ordered the construction of a sacristy (today the Hall of Passage), that connected the choir to the Chapel of São Jorge, linking the choir with the wall of the stronghouse.[1] By the end of the century, the convent's General Chapter, decided to expand the convent (sometime around 1492), with 3,500 reis being spent on the public works in 1499: the chapterhouse, main altar, ironworks for the niche/archway, paintings and sculptures (for the same) and the choir were all expanded or remodelled.[1]

 

A new meeting of the Chapter to reform the Order, ordered by the King 1503, expropriated the old Vila de Dentro, within the walls and closed the Sun Gate and Almedina Gate.[1] On 11 October 1504, Francisco Lopes was nominated as masterbuilder for the project, by King John III, receiving 8$000 reis annually and 120 reis for meals. By 1506, D. Manuel decided to order the construction of the church's nave.[1]

 

The successor of Manuel I, King John III, demilitarised the order, turning it into a more religious order with a rule based on that of Bernard of Clairvaux. He also ordered the construction of a new cloister in 1557, which is one of the best examples of Renaissance architecture in Portugal.

 

In 1581, after a succession crisis, the Portuguese Nobility gathered in the Convent of Christ in Tomar and officially recognised Philip II of Spain (Philip I of Portugal) as King. This is the beginning of the Iberian Union (1581–1640), during which the Crowns of Portugal and Spain were united in a dynastic union. The aqueduct of the Convent was built during this period (aqueduct completed in 1614).

 

Architecture

 

The entrance of the Convent church in Manueline style.

The castle and Convent of Christ have examples of Romanesque, Gothic, Manueline and Renaissance architectural styles.

  

Floorplan of the church of the Convent of Christ. The Templar round church (late 12th century) is indicated in red, while the manueline nave (early 16th century) is in blue.

Castle

Main article: Castelo de Tomar

 

Interior of the Round church decorated with late Gothic painting and sculpture.

The castle of Tomar was built around 1160 on a strategic location, over a hill and near river Nabão. It has an outer defensive wall and a citadel (alcáçova) with a keep inside. The Keep, a central tower of residential and defensive functions, was introduced in Portugal by the Templars, and the one in Tomar is one of the oldest in the country. Another novelty introduced in Portugal by the Templars (learned from decades of experience in Normandy and Brittany and elsewhere) are the round towers in the outer walls, which are more resistant to attacks than square towers. When the town was founded, most of its residents lived in dwellings located inside the protective outer walls of the castle.

 

Church

The Romanesque round church is a Catholic Church from the castle (charola, rotunda) was built in the second half of the 12th century by the Knights Templar. From the outside, the church is a 16-side polygonal structure, with strong buttresses, round windows and a belltower. Inside, the round church has a central, octagonal structure, connected by arches to a surrounding gallery (ambulatory). The general shape of the church is modelled after similar round structures in Jerusalem: the Mosque of Omar and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

 

The capitals of the columns are still Romanesque (end of the 12th century) and depict vegetal and animal motifs, as well as a Daniel in the Lions' Den scene. The style of the capitals shows the influence of artists working on the Cathedral of Coimbra, which was being built at the same time as the round church.

 

The interior of the round church is magnificently decorated with late gothic/manueline sculpture and paintings, added during a renovation sponsored by King Manuel I starting in 1499. The pillars of the central octagon and the walls of the ambulatory have polychrome statues of saints and angels under exuberant Gothic canopies, while the walls and ceilings of the ambulatory are painted with Gothic patterns and panels depicting the life of Christ. The paintings are attributed to the workshop of the court painter of Manuel I, the Portuguese Jorge Afonso, while the sculptured decoration is attributed to Flemish sculptor Olivier de Gand and the Spaniard Hernán Muñoz. A magnificent panel depicting the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, by Portuguese painter Gregório Lopes, was painted for the Round Church and now hangs in the National Museum of Ancient Art in Lisbon.

 

Manueline nave

 

Detail of the round church, view from the nave

 

The famous chapterhouse window, made by Diogo de Arruda in 1510–1513.

During the administration of Prince Henry the Navigator (first half of the 15th century), a gothic nave was added to the round church of the Convent, thus turning the round church into a church apse. From 1510 onwards, King Manuel I ordered the rebuilding of the nave in the style of the time, a mix of late gothic and renaissance that would be called Manueline style by art historians. The architects involved were the Portuguese Diogo de Arruda and the Spaniard Juan de Castillo (João de Castilho).

 

From the outside, the rectangular nave is covered by abundant Manueline motifs, including gargoyles, gothic pinnacles, statues and "ropes" that remind the ones used in the ships during the Age of Discovery, as well as the Cross of the Order of Christ and the emblem of King Manuel I, the armillary sphere. The so-called Window of the Chapter House (Janela do Capítulo), a huge window visible from the Saint Barbara Cloister in the Western façade of the nave, carries most of the typical Manueline motifs: the symbols of the Order of Christ and of Manuel I, and fantastic and unprecedented elaborations of ropes, corals and vegetal motifs. A human figure in the bottom of the window probably represents the designer, Diogo de Arruda. This window of the Convent constitutes one of the masterworks of Manueline decoration. Above is a smaller circular window and a balustrade. The façade is divided by two string courses of knotted ropes. The round angle buttresses are decorated with gigantic garters (alluding to investiture of Manuel I by the Order of the Garter by the English king Henry VII).

 

The entrance of the church is done through a magnificent lateral portal, also decorated with abundant Manueline motifs and statues of the Virgin with the Child as well as the Prophets of the Old Testament. This portal was designed by João de Castilho c. 1530.

 

In the interior, the Manueline nave is connected to the Romanesque round church by a large arch. The nave is covered by beautiful ribbed vaulting and has a high choir that used to have Manueline choir stalls, unfortunately destroyed by invading Napoleonic troops in the early 19th century. Under the high choir there is a room that used to be the sacristy of the church. Its window is the famous Chapter House Window already mentioned.

 

Cloisters

 

Gothic Cloister of the Cemetery (first half of the 15th century).

The Convent of Christ has a total of eight cloisters, built in the 15th and 16th centuries. Some examples:

 

Claustro da Lavagem (Washing Cloister): Two-storey gothic cloister built around 1433 under Henry the Navigator. The garments of the monks used to be washed in this cloister, hence the name.

Claustro do Cemitério (Cloister of the Cemetery): Also built under Henry the Navigator, this gothic cloister was the burial site for the knights and monks of the Order. The elegant twin columns of the arches have beautiful capitals with vegetal motifs, and the walls of the ambulatory are decorated with 16th-century tiles. In a manueline tomb (c. 1523) rests Diogo da Gama, brother of navigator Vasco da Gama.

Claustro de Santa Bárbara (Saint Barbara's Cloister): Built in the 16th century. The Chapter House Window and the West façade of the manueline nave of the church are visible from this cloister.

Claustro de D. João III (Cloister of John III): Started under King John III of Portugal, was finished during the reign of Philip I of Portugal. The first architect was Diogo de Torralva, who began the work in 1557, to be finished in 1591 by Philip I's architect, the Italian Filippo Terzi. This magnificent, two-story cloister connects the dormitory of the monks to the church and is considered one of the most important examples of Mannerist architecture in Portugal. The storeys are connected to each other by four elegant helicoidal stairways, located at each corner of the cloisters.

Gavel and computer keyboard, medical malpractice, online medical advice, lawsuits

 

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Yangon (Burmese: ရန်ကုန်, MLCTS rankun mrui, pronounced: [jàɴɡòʊɴ mjo̰]; formerly known as Rangoon, literally: "End of Strife") is the capital of the Yangon Region of Myanmar, also known as Burma. Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government relocated the capital to the purpose-built city of Naypyidaw in central Myanmar. With over 7 million people, Yangon is Myanmar's largest city and is its most important commercial centre.

 

Yangon boasts the largest number of colonial-era buildings in the region, and has a unique colonial-era urban core that is remarkably intact. The colonial-era commercial core is centred around the Sule Pagoda, which reputed to be over 2,000 years old. The city is also home to the gilded Shwedagon Pagoda — Myanmar's most sacred Buddhist pagoda. The mausoleum of the last Mughal Emperor is located in Yangon, where he had been exiled following the Indian Mutiny of 1857.

 

Yangon suffers from deeply inadequate infrastructure, especially compared to other major cities in Southeast Asia. Though many historic residential and commercial buildings have been renovated throughout central Yangon, most satellite towns that ring the city continue to be profoundly impoverished and lack basic infrastructure.

 

ETYMOLOGY

Yangon (ရန်ကုန်) is a combination of the two words yan (ရန်) and koun (ကုန်), which mean "enemies" and "run out of", respectively. It is also translated as "End of Strife". "Rangoon" most likely comes from the British imitation of the pronunciation of "Yangon" in the Arakanese language, which is [rɔ̀ɴɡʊ́ɴ].

 

HISTORY

EARLY HISTORY

Yangon was founded as Dagon in the early 11th century (c. 1028–1043) by the Mon, who dominated Lower Burma at that time. Dagon was a small fishing village centred about the Shwedagon Pagoda. In 1755, King Alaungpaya conquered Dagon, renamed it "Yangon", and added settlements around Dagon. The British captured Yangon during the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824–26), but returned it to Burmese administration after the war. The city was destroyed by a fire in 1841.

 

COLONIAL RANGOON

The British seized Yangon and all of Lower Burma in the Second Anglo-Burmese War of 1852, and subsequently transformed Yangon into the commercial and political hub of British Burma. Yangon is also the place where the British sent Bahadur Shah II, the last Mughal emperor, to live after the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Based on the design by army engineer Lt. Alexander Fraser, the British constructed a new city on a grid plan on delta land, bounded to the east by the Pazundaung Creek and to the south and west by the Yangon River. Yangon became the capital of all British-ruled Burma after the British had captured Upper Burma in the Third Anglo-Burmese War of 1885. By the 1890s Yangon's increasing population and commerce gave birth to prosperous residential suburbs to the north of Royal Lake (Kandawgyi) and Inya Lake. The British also established hospitals including Rangoon General Hospital and colleges including Rangoon University.

 

Colonial Yangon, with its spacious parks and lakes and mix of modern buildings and traditional wooden architecture, was known as "the garden city of the East." By the early 20th century, Yangon had public services and infrastructure on par with London.

 

Before World War II, about 55% of Yangon's population of 500,000 was Indian or South Asian, and only about a third was Bamar (Burman). Karens, the Chinese, the Anglo-Burmese and others made up the rest.

 

After World War I, Yangon became the epicentre of Burmese independence movement, with leftist Rangoon University students leading the way. Three nationwide strikes against the British Empire in 1920, 1936 and 1938 all began in Yangon. Yangon was under Japanese occupation (1942–45), and incurred heavy damage during World War II. The city was retaken by the Allies in May 1945.

 

Yangon became the capital of Union of Burma on 4 January 1948 when the country regained independence from the British Empire.

 

CONTEMPORARY YANGON

Soon after Burma's independence in 1948, many colonial names of streets and parks were changed to more nationalistic Burmese names. In 1989, the current military junta changed the city's English name to "Yangon", along with many other changes in English transliteration of Burmese names. (The changes have not been accepted by many Burmese who consider the junta unfit to make such changes, nor by many publications, news bureaus including, most notably, the BBC and foreign nations including the United Kingdom and United States.)

 

Since independence, Yangon has expanded outwards. Successive governments have built satellite towns such as Thaketa, North Okkalapa and South Okkalapa in the 1950s to Hlaingthaya,

 

Shwepyitha and South Dagon in the 1980s. Today, Greater Yangon encompasses an area covering nearly 600 square kilometres.

 

During Ne Win's isolationist rule (1962–88), Yangon's infrastructure deteriorated through poor maintenance and did not keep up with its increasing population. In the 1990s, the current military government's more open market policies attracted domestic and foreign investment, bringing a modicum of modernity to the city's infrastructure. Some inner city residents were forcibly relocated to new satellite towns. Many colonial-period buildings were demolished to make way for high-rise hotels, office buildings, and shopping malls, leading the city government to place about 200 notable colonial-period buildings under the Yangon City Heritage List in 1996. Major building programs have resulted in six new bridges and five new highways linking the city to its industrial back country. Still, much of Yangon remains without basic municipal services such as 24-hour electricity and regular garbage collection.

 

Yangon has become much more indigenous Burmese in its ethnic make-up since independence. After independence, many South Asians and Anglo-Burmese left. Many more South Asians were forced to leave during the 1960s by Ne Win's xenophobic government. Nevertheless, sizable South Asian and Chinese communities still exist in Yangon. The Anglo-Burmese have effectively disappeared, having left the country or intermarried with other Burmese groups.

 

Yangon was the centre of major anti-government protests in 1974, 1988 and 2007. The 1988 People Power Uprising resulted in the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands of Burmese civilians, many in Yangoon where hundreds of thousands of people flooded into the streets of the then capital city. The Saffron Revolution saw mass shootings and the use of crematoria in Yangoon by the Burmese government to erase evidence of their crimes against monks, unarmed protesters, journalists and students.

 

The city's streets saw bloodshed each time as protesters were gunned down by the government.

 

In May 2008, Cyclone Nargis hit Yangon. While the city had few human casualties, three quarters of Yangon's industrial infrastructure was destroyed or damaged, with losses estimated at US$800 million.

 

In November 2005, the military government designated Naypyidaw, 320 kilometres north of Yangon, as the new administrative capital, and subsequently moved much of the government to the newly developed city. At any rate, Yangon remains the largest city, and the most important commercial centre of Myanmar.

 

GEOGRAPHY

Yangon is located in Lower Burma (Myanmar) at the convergence of the Yangon and Bago Rivers about 30 km away from the Gulf of Martaban at 16°48' North, 96°09' East (16.8, 96.15). Its standard time zone is UTC/GMT +6:30 hours.

 

CLIMATE

Yangon has a tropical monsoon climate under the Köppen climate classification system. The city features a lengthy wet season from May through October where a substantial amount of rainfall is received; and a dry season from November through April, where little rainfall is seen. It is primarily due to the heavy rainfall received during the rainy season that Yangon falls under the tropical monsoon climate category. During the course of the year 1961 to 1990s, average temperatures show little variance, with average highs ranging from 29 to 36 °C and average lows ranging from 18 to 25 °C.

 

CITYSCAPE

Until the mid-1990s, Yangon remained largely constrained to its traditional peninsula setting between the Bago, Yangon and Hlaing rivers. People moved in, but little of the city moved out. Maps from 1944 show little development north of Inya Lake and areas that are now layered in cement and stacked with houses were then virtual backwaters. Since the late 1980s, however, the city began a rapid spread north to where Yangon International airport now stands. But the result is a stretching tail on the city, with the downtown area well removed from its geographic centre. The city's area has steadily increased from 72.52 square kilometres in 1901 to 86.2 square kilometres in 1940 to 208.51 square kilometres in 1974, to 346.13 square kilometres in 1985, and to 598.75 square kilometres in 2008.

 

ARCHITECTURE

Downtown Yangon is known for its leafy avenues and fin-de-siècle architecture. The former British colonial capital has the highest number of colonial period buildings in south-east Asia. Downtown Yangon is still mainly made up of decaying colonial buildings. The former High Court, the former Secretariat buildings, the former St. Paul's English High School and the Strand Hotel are excellent examples of the bygone era. Most downtown buildings from this era are four-story mix-use (residential and commercial) buildings with 4.3 m ceilings, allowing for the construction of mezzanines. Despite their less-than-perfect conditions, the buildings remain highly sought after and most expensive in the city's property market.

 

In 1996, the Yangon City Development Committee created a Yangon City Heritage List of old buildings and structures in the city that cannot be modified or torn down without approval. In 2012, the city of Yangon imposed a 50-year moratorium on demolition of buildings older than 50 years. The Yangon Heritage Trust, an NGO started by Thant Myint-U, aims to create heritage areas in Downtown, and attract investors to renovate buildings for commercial use.

 

A latter day hallmark of Yangon is the eight-story apartment building. (In Yangon parlance, a building with no elevators (lifts) is called an apartment building and one with elevators is called a condominium. Condos which have to invest in a local power generator to ensure 24-hour electricity for the elevators are beyond the reach of most Yangonites.) Found throughout the city in various forms, eight-story apartment buildings provide relatively inexpensive housing for many Yangonites. The apartments are usually eight stories high (including the ground floor) mainly because city regulations, until February 2008, required that all buildings higher than 23 m or eight stories to install lifts. The current code calls for elevators in buildings higher than 19 m or six stories, likely ushering in the era of the six-story apartment building. Although most apartment buildings were built only within the last 20 years, they look much older and rundown due to shoddy construction and lack of proper maintenance.

 

Unlike other major Asian cities, Yangon does not have any skyscrapers. Aside from a few high-rise hotels and office towers, most high-rise buildings (usually 10 stories and up) are "condos" scattered across prosperous neighbourhoods north of downtown such as Bahan, Dagon, Kamayut and Mayangon. The tallest building in Yangon, Pyay Gardens, is a 25-story condo in the city's north.

 

Older satellite towns such as Thaketa, North Okkalapa and South Okkalapa are lined mostly with one to two story detached houses with access to the city's electricity grid. Newer satellite towns such as North Dagon and South Dagon are still essentially slums in a grid layout. The satellite towns - old or new - receive little or no municipal services.

 

ROAD LAYOUT

Downtown Yangon's road layout follows a grid pattern, based on four types of roads:

 

Broad 49-m wide roads running west to east

Broad 30-m wide roads running south to north

Two narrow 9.1-m wide streets running south to north

Mid-size 15-m wide streets running south to north

 

The east-west grid of central was laid out by British military engineers Fraser and Montgomerie after the Second Anglo-Burmese War. The city was later developed by the Public Works Department and Bengal Corps of Engineers. The pattern of south to north roads is as follows: one broad 30 m wide broad road, two narrow streets, one mid-size street, two more narrow streets, and then another 30 m wide broad road. This order is repeated from west to east. The narrow streets are numbered; the medium and broad roads are named.

 

For example, the 30 m Lanmadaw Road is followed by 9.1 m-wide 17th and 18th streets then the medium 15 m Sint-Oh-Dan Road, the 30-foot 19th and 20th streets, followed by another 30 m wide Latha Road, followed again by the two numbered small roads 21st and 22nd streets, and so on.

 

The roads running parallel west to east were the Strand Road, Merchant Road, Maha Bandula (née Dalhousie) Road, Anawrahta (Fraser) Road, and Bogyoke Aung San (Montgomerie) Road.

 

PARKS AND GARDENS

The largest and best maintained parks in Yangon are located around Shwedagon Pagoda. To the south-east of the gilded stupa is the most popular recreational area in the city – Kandawgyi Lake. The 61-ha lake is surrounded by the 45-ha Kandawgyi Nature Park, and the 28-ha Yangon Zoological Gardens, which consists of a zoo, an aquarium and an amusement park. West of the pagoda towards the former Hluttaw (Parliament) complex is the 53-ha People's Square and Park, (the former parading ground on important national days when Yangon was the capital.) A few miles north of the pagoda lies the 15-ha Inya Lake Park – a favorite hangout place of Yangon University students, and a well-known place of romance in Burmese popular culture.

 

Hlawga National Park and Allied War Memorial at the outskirts of the city are popular day-trip destinations with the well-to-do and tourists.

 

Yangon Book Plaza, the first and biggest book shop in Myanmar was opened on February 26, 2017 on the fifth floor of Than Zay Market in Lanmadaw Township, Yangon.

 

ADMINISTRATION

Yangon is administered by the Yangon City Development Committee (YCDC). YCDC also coordinates urban planning. The city is divided into four districts. The districts combined have a total of 33 townships. The current mayor of Yangon is Maung Maung Soe. Each township is administered by a committee of township leaders, who make decisions regarding city beautification and infrastructure. Myo-thit (lit. "New Towns", or satellite towns) are not within such jurisdictions.

 

TRANSPORT

Yangon is Burma's main domestic and international hub for air, rail, and ground transportation.

 

AIR

Yangon International Airport, located 19 km from the centre, is the country's main gateway for domestic and international air travel. The airport has three terminals, known as T1, T2 and T3 which is also known as Domestic. It has direct flights to regional cities in Asia – mainly, Doha, Dubai, Dhaka, Kolkata, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing, Seoul, Guangzhou, Taipei, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Kunming and Singapore. Although domestic airlines offer service to about twenty domestic locations, most flights are to tourist destinations such as Bagan, Mandalay, Heho and Ngapali, and to the capital Naypyidaw.

 

RAILWAYS

Yangon Central Railway Station is the main terminus of Myanmar Railways' 5,403-kilometre rail network whose reach covers Upper Myanmar (Naypyidaw, Mandalay, Shwebo), upcountry (Myitkyina), Shan hills (Taunggyi, Lashio) and the Taninthayi coast (Mawlamyaing, Dawei).

 

Yangon Circular Railway operates a 45.9-kilometre 39-station commuter rail network that connects Yangon's satellite towns. The system is heavily utilized by the local populace, selling about 150,000 tickets daily. The popularity of the commuter line has jumped since the government reduced petrol subsidies in August 2007.

 

BUSES AND CARS

Yangon has a 4,456-kilometre road network of all types (tar, concrete and dirt) in March 2011. Many of the roads are in poor condition and not wide enough to accommodate an increasing number of cars. The vast majority of Yangon residents cannot afford a car and rely on an extensive network of buses to get around. Over 300 public and private bus lines operate about 6,300 crowded buses around the city, carrying over 4.4 million passengers a day. All buses and 80% of the taxis in Yangon run on compressed natural gas (CNG), following the 2005 government decree to save money on imported petroleum. Highway buses to other cities depart from Dagon Ayeyar Highway Bus Terminal for Irrawaddy delta region and Aung Mingala Highway Bus Terminal for other parts of the country.

 

Motor transportation in Yangon is highly expensive for most of its citizens. As the government allows only a few thousand cars to be imported each year in a country with over 50 million people, car prices in Yangon (and in Burma) are among the highest in the world. In July 2008, the two most popular cars in Yangon, 1986/87 Nissan Sunny Super Saloon and 1988 Toyota Corolla SE Limited, cost the equivalent of about US$20,000 and US$29,000 respectively. A sports utility vehicle, imported for the equivalent of around US$50,000, goes for US$250,000. Illegally imported unregistered cars are cheaper – typically about half the price of registered cars. Nonetheless, car usage in Yangon is on the rise, a sign of rising incomes for some, and already causes much traffic congestion in highway-less Yangon's streets. In 2011, Yangon had about 300,000 registered motor vehicles in addition to an unknown number of unregistered ones.

 

Since 1970, cars have been driven on the right side of the road in Burma, as part of a military decree. However, as the government has not required left hand drive (LHD) cars to accompany the right side road rules, many cars on the road are still right hand drive (RHD) made for driving on the left side. Japanese used cars, which make up most of the country's imports, still arrive with RHD and are never converted to LHD. As a result, Burmese drivers have to rely on their passengers when passing other cars.

 

Within Yangon city limits, it is illegal to drive trishaws, bicycles, and motorcycles. Since February 2010, pickup truck bus lines have been forbidden to run in 6 townships of central Yangon, namely Latha, Lanmadaw, Pabedan, Kyauktada, Botahtaung and Pazundaung Townships. In May 2003, a ban on using car horns was implemented in six townships of Downtown Yangon to reduce noise pollution. In April 2004, the car horn ban was expanded to cover the entire city.

 

RIVER

Yangon's four main passenger jetties, all located on or near downtown waterfront, mainly serve local ferries across the river to Dala and Thanlyin, and regional ferries to the Irrawaddy delta. The 35-km Twante Canal was the quickest route from Yangon to the Irrawaddy delta until the 1990s when roads between Yangon and the Irrawaddy Division became usable year-round. While passenger ferries to the delta are still used, those to Upper Burma via the Irrawaddy river are now limited mostly to tourist river cruises.

 

DEMOGRAPHICS

Yangon is the most populous city by far in Burma although estimates of the size of its population vary widely. All population figures are estimates since no official census has been conducted in Burma since 1983. A UN estimate puts the population as 4.35 million in 2010 but a 2009 U.S. State Department estimate puts it at 5.5 million. The U.S. State Department's estimate is probably closer to the real number since the UN number is a straight-line projection, and does not appear to take the expansion of city limits in the past two decades into account. The city's population grew sharply after 1948 as many people (mainly, the indigenous Burmese) from other parts of the country moved into the newly built satellite towns of North Okkalapa, South Okkalapa, and Thaketa in the 1950s and East Dagon, North Dagon and South Dagon in the 1990s. Immigrants have founded their regional associations (such as Mandalay Association, Mawlamyaing Association, etc.) in Yangon for networking purposes. The government's decision to move the nation's administrative capital to Naypyidaw has drained an unknown number of civil servants away from Yangon.

 

Yangon is the most ethnically diverse city in the country. While Indians formed the slight majority prior to World War II, today, the majority of the population is of indigenous Bamar (Burman) descent. Large communities of Indians/South Asian Burmese and the Chinese Burmese exist especially in the traditional downtown neighborhoods. A large number of Rakhine and Karen also live in the city.

 

Burmese is the principal language of the city. English is by far the preferred second language of the educated class. In recent years, however, the prospect of overseas job opportunities has enticed

 

some to study other languages: Mandarin Chinese is most popular, followed by Japanese, and French.

 

RELIGIONS

The primary religions practiced in Yangon are Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam. Shwedagon Pagoda is a famous religious landmark in the city.

 

MEDIA

Yangon is the country's hub for the movie, music, advertising, newspaper and book publishing industries. All media is heavily regulated by the military government. Television broadcasting is off limits to the private sector. All media content must first be approved by the government's media censor board, Press Scrutiny and Registration Division.

 

Most television channels in the country are broadcast from Yangon. TV Myanmar and Myawaddy TV are the two main channels, providing Burmese-language programming in news and entertainment. Other special interest channels are MWD-1 and MWD-2, MRTV-3, the English-language channel that targets overseas audiences via satellite and via Internet, MRTV-4 and Channel 7 are with a focus on non-formal education programs and movies, and Movie 5, a pay-TV channel specializing in broadcasting foreign movies.

 

Yangon has three radio stations. Myanmar Radio National Service is the national radio service and broadcasts mostly in Burmese (and in English during specific times.) Pop culture oriented Yangon City FM and Mandalay City FM radio stations specialize in Burmese and English pop music, entertainment programs, live celebrity interviews, etc. New radio channels such as Shwe FM and Pyinsawaddy FM can also be tuned with the city area.

 

Nearly all print media and industries are based out of Yangon. All three national newspapers – two Burmese language dailies Myanma Alin (မြန်မာ့အလင်း) and Kyemon (ကြေးမုံ), and the English language The New Light of Myanmar — are published by the government. Semi-governmental The Myanmar Times weekly, published in Burmese and in English, is mainly geared for Yangon's expatriate community. Over twenty special interest journals and magazines covering sports, fashion, finance, crime, literature (but never politics) vie for the readership of the general populace.

 

Access to foreign media is extremely difficult. Satellite television in Yangon, and in Burma, is very expensive as the government imposes an annual registration fee of one million kyats. Certain foreign newspapers and periodicals such as the International Herald Tribune and the Straits Times can be found only in a few (mostly downtown) bookstores. Internet access in Yangon, which has the best telecommunication infrastructure in the country, is slow and erratic at best, and the Burmese government implements one of the world's most restrictive regimes of Internet control. International text messaging and voice messaging was permitted only in August 2008.

 

COMMUNICATION

Common facilities taken for granted elsewhere are luxury prized items in Yangon and Burma. The price of a GSM mobile phone was about K1.1 million in August 2008. In 2007, the country of 55 million had only 775,000 phone lines (including 275,000 mobile phones), and 400,000 computers. Even in Yangon, which has the best infrastructure, the estimated telephone penetration rate was only 6% at the end of 2004, and the official waiting time for a telephone line was 3.6 years. Most people cannot afford a computer and have to use the city's numerous Internet cafes to access a heavily restricted Internet, and a heavily censored local intranet. According to official statistics, in July 2010, the country had over 400,000 Internet users, with the vast majority hailing from just two cities, Yangon and Mandalay. Although Internet access was available in 42 cities across the country, the number of users outside the two main cities was just over 10,000.

 

LIFESTYLE

Yangon's property market is the most expensive in the country and beyond the reach of most Yangonites. Most rent outside the centre and few can afford to rent such apartments. (In 2008, rents for a typical 60 to 70 m2 apartments in the centre and vicinity range between K70,000 and K150,000 and those for high end condos between K200,000 and K500,000.)

 

Most men of all ages (and some women) spend their time at ubiquitous tea-shops, found in any corner or street of the city. Watching European football (mostly English Premier League with occasional La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga) matches while sipping tea is a popular pastime among many Yangonites. The average person stays close to his or her residential neighbourhood. The well-to-do tend to visit shopping malls and parks on weekends. Some leave the city on weekends for Chaungtha and Ngwesaung beach resorts in Ayeyarwady Division.

 

Yangon is also home to many pagoda festivals (paya pwe), held during dry-season months (November – March). The most famous of all, the Shwedagon Pagoda Festival in March, attracts thousands of pilgrims from around the country.

 

Yangon's museums are the domain of tourists and rarely visited by the locals.

 

Most of Yangon's larger hotels offer some kind of nightlife entertainment, geared towards tourists and the well-to-do Burmese. Some hotels offer traditional Burmese performing arts shows complete with a traditional Burmese orchestra. The pub scene in larger hotels is more or less the same as elsewhere in Asia. Other options include karaoke bars and pub restaurants in Yangon Chinatown.

 

Due to the problems of high inflation, the lack of high denomination notes, and the fact that many of the population do not have access to checks, or credit or debit cards, it is common to see citizens carrying a considerable amount of cash. (The highest denomination of Burmese currency kyat is 10 000 (~US$10.)) Credit cards are only rarely used in the city, chiefly in the more lavish hotels. Credit cards are also accepted in the major supermarket and convenience store chains.

 

SPORTS

As the city has the best sporting facilities in the country, most national-level annual sporting tournaments such as track and field, football, volleyball, tennis and swimming are held in Yangon. The 40,000-seat Aung San Stadium and the 32,000-seat Thuwunna Stadium are the main venues for the highly popular annual State and Division football tournament. Until April 2009, the now defunct Myanmar Premier League, consisted of 16 Yangon-based clubs, played all its matches in Yangon stadiums, and attracted little interest from the general public or commercial success despite the enormous popularity of football in Burma. Most Yangonites prefer watching European football on satellite TV. Teams such as Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester City are among the favorite European teams among the Yangonites. It remains to be seen whether the Myanmar National League, the country's first professional football league, and its Yangon-based club Yangon United FC will attract a sufficient following in the country's most important media market.

 

Yangon is also home to annual the Myanmar Open golf tournament, and the Myanmar Open tennis tournament. The city hosted the 1961 and 1969 South East Asian Games. During colonial times, cricket was played mostly by British officials in the city. First-class cricket was played in the city in January 1927 when the touring Marylebone Cricket Club played Burma and the Rangoon Gymkhana. Two grounds were used to host these matches, the BAA Ground and the Gymkhana Ground. These matches mark the only time Burma and Rangoon Gymkhana have appeared in first-class cricket, and the only time first-class cricket has been played in Burma. After independence cricket all but died out in the country.

 

Yangon has a growing population of skateboarders, as documented in the films Altered Focus: Burma and Youth of Yangon. German non-profit organization Make Life Skate Life has received permission from the Yangon City Development Committee to construct a concrete skatepark at Thakin Mya park in downtown, and plans to complete the park in November 2015.

 

ECONOMY

Yangon is the country's main centre for trade, industry, real estate, media, entertainment and tourism. The city represents about one fifth of the national economy. According to official statistics for FY 2010–2011, the size of the economy of Yangon Region was 8.93 trillion kyats, or 23% of the national GDP.

 

The city is Lower Burma's main trading hub for all kinds of merchandise – from basic food stuffs to used cars although commerce continues to be hampered by the city's severely underdeveloped banking industry and communication infrastructure. Bayinnaung Market is the largest wholesale centre in the country for rice, beans and pulses, and other agricultural commodities. Much of the country's legal imports and exports go through Thilawa Port, the largest and busiest port in Burma. There is also a great deal of informal trade, especially in street markets that exist alongside street platforms of Downtown Yangon's townships. However, on 17 June 2011, the YCDC announced that street vendors, who had previously been allowed to legally open shop at 3 pm, would be prohibited from selling on the streets, and permitted to sell only in their townships of residence, presumably to clean up the city's image. Since 1 December 2009, high-density polyethylene plastic bags have been banned by city authorities.

 

Manufacturing accounts for a sizable share of employment. At least 14 light industrial zones ring Yangon, directly employing over 150,000 workers in 4,300 factories in early 2010. The city is the centre of country's garment industry which exported US$292 million in 2008/9 fiscal year. More than 80 percent of factory workers in Yangon work on a day-to-day basis. Most are young women between 15 and 27 years of age who come from the countryside in search of a better life. The manufacturing sector suffers from both structural problems (e.g. chronic power shortages) and political.

 

problems (e.g. economic sanctions). In 2008, Yangon's 2500 factories alone needed about 120 MW of power; yet, the entire city received only about 250 MW of the 530 MW needed. Chronic power shortages limit the factories' operating hours between 8 am and 6 pm.

 

Construction is a major source of employment. The construction industry has been negatively affected by the move of state apparatus and civil servants to Naypyidaw, new regulations introduced in August 2009 requiring builders to provide at least 12 parking spaces in every new high-rise building, and the general poor business climate. As of January 2010, the number of new high-rise building starts approved in 2009–2010 was only 334, compared to 582 in 2008–2009.

 

Tourism represents a major source of foreign currency for the city although by south-east Asian standards the number of foreign visitors to Yangon has always been quite low - about 250,000 before the Saffron Revolution in September 2007. The number of visitors dipped even further following the Saffron Revolution and Cyclone Nargis. The recent improvement in the country's political climate has attracted an increasing number of businessmen and tourists. Between 300,000 and 400,000 visitors that went through Yangon International in 2011. However, after years of underinvestment, Yangon's modest hotel infrastructure - only 3000 of the total 8000 hotel rooms in Yangon are "suitable for tourists" - is already bursting at seams, and will need to be expanded to handle additional visitors. As part of an urban development strategy, a hotel zone has been planned in Yangon's outskirts, encompassing government- and military-owned land in Mingaladon, Hlegu and Htaukkyant Townships.

 

EDUCATION

Yangon educational facilities has a very high number of qualified teachers but the state spending on education is among the lowest of the world. Around 2007 estimate by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies puts the spending for education at 0.5% of the national budget. The disparity in educational opportunities and achievement between rich and poor schools is quite stark even within the city. With little or no state support forthcoming, schools have to rely on forced "donations" and various fees from parents for nearly everything – school maintenance to teachers' salaries, forcing many poor students to drop out.

 

While many students in poor districts fail to reach high school, a handful of Yangon high schools in wealthier districts such as Dagon 1, Sanchaung 2, Kamayut 2, Bahan 2, Latha 2, and TTC provide the majority of students admitted to the most selective universities in the country, highlighting the extreme shallowness of talent pool in the country. The wealthy bypass the state education system altogether, sending their children to private English language instruction schools such as YIEC or more widely known as ISM, or abroad (typically Singapore or Australia) for university education. In 2014, international schools in Yangon cost at least US$8,000 a year.

 

There are over 20 universities and colleges in the city. While Yangon University remains the best known (its main campus is a part of popular Burmese culture e.g. literature, music, film, etc.), the nation's oldest university is now mostly a graduate school, deprived of undergraduate studies. Following the 1988 nationwide uprising, the military government has repeatedly closed universities, and has dispersed most of undergraduate student population to new universities in the suburbs such as Dagon University, the University of East Yangon and the University of West Yangon. Nonetheless many of the country's most selective universities are still in Yangon. Students from around the country still have to come to study in Yangon as some subjects are offered only at its universities. The University of Medicine 1, University of Medicine 2, Yangon Technological University, University of Computer Studies and Myanmar Maritime University are the most selective in the country.

 

HEALTH CARE

The general state of health care in Yangon is poor. According to a 2007 estimate, the military government spends 0.4% of the national budget on health care, and 40% to 60% on defense. By the government's own figures, it spends 849 kyats (US$0.85) per person. Although health care is nominally free, in reality, patients have to pay for medicine and treatment, even in public clinics and hospitals. Public hospitals including the flagship Yangon General Hospital lack many of the basic facilities and equipment.

 

Wealthier Yangonites still have access to country's best medical facilities and internationally qualified doctors. Only Yangon and Mandalay have any sizable number of doctors left as many Burmese doctors have emigrated. The well-to-do go to private clinics or hospitals like Pun Hlaing International Hospital and Bahosi Medical Clinic. Medical malpractice is widespread, even in private clinics and hospitals that serve the well-to-do. In 2009 and 2010, a spate of high-profile deaths brought out the severity of the problem, even for the relatively well off Yangonites. The wealthy do not rely on domestic hospitals and travel abroad, usually Bangkok or Singapore, for treatment.

 

WIKIPEDIA

www.bem-law.com/birth-injuries/

Birth injuries are some of the most devastating injuries of all. There can be obstetrical problems where a physician is ignoring the signs of distress of a baby. Babies can send up red flags before they are born like not getting enough oxygen. There are things that show up on monitors that can be ignored by nurses resulting in horrible brain damage to infants. A young boy who had his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and the doctors gave a drug that caused the uterus to contract. Every time the uterus contract, the cord around the baby’s neck would pull tighter. By the time the baby was born he had suffered severe brain damage. We got all the experts we needed and that case successfully settled.

  

Other kind of problems are when the mom has some sort of illness and the physician ignore it causing premature birth of the baby and simple prematurity can cause a terrible injury in a child. Those are cases that we do and have successfully done it for past clients.

  

Biancheria & Maliver P.C.

401 Wood St, Ste 1600

Pittsburgh, PA 15222

(412) 394-1001

  

Biancheria & Maliver P.C.

1001 State Street, Ste 1400

Erie, PA 16501

(814) 455-5760

Les douaniers possèdent une habileté(compétence) générale dans la recherche et dans l'observation des fautes professionnelles contre les lois douanières et les règlements. Ils peuvent passer à la visite des marchandises et les bateaux aussi bien qu'au contrôle des personnes dans des eaux territoriales et la zone contigüe. Ils ont l'habileté (la compétence) de visiter les installations de la zone économique.

Ils sont aussi autorisés à exercer des habiletés(compétences) dans les autres domaines en particulier dans la police de pêches et la police des pollutions.

  

The customs officers possess a general skill(competence) in search(research) and in observation of the malpractices against the customs laws and regulations. They can proceed to the visit of the goods and the ships as well as to the control of the persons in territorial waters and the zone contigüe. They have skill(competence) to visit the installations of the economic zone.

They are also authorized to exercise skills in the other domains in particular in police of peaches(fishing) and police of the pollutions.

 

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away from the Bundaberg site at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850, in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mills was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg was emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875. The town was well established but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent until sugar eclipsed all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were being established reliant on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works to support the mines in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

Fairymead Plantation Homestead.

One of the great plantation homesteads, not quite as grand as the Southern American slave homesteads, is Fairymead in Bundaberg. It was built in 1890 in the Indian bungalow style of the British Raj occupation of India. It was built for Ernest and Margaret Young the owners of the Fairymead sugar mill. Margret Young’s brother was an architect and designed the house for the subtropical Bundaberg climate. It has 16 foot ceilings and a wide veranda encircles the house. The house was near the mill on the plantation and after World War One was used as accommodation for mill workers until Ernest Young’s grandson and his family moved back into the house in 1960. In 1988 it was donated to the City of Bundaberg and it was eventually transported into the Botanic Gardens site. The house is furnished as it was in 1890 and the interior arrangement of rooms has been little altered since then. The Fairymead sugar plantation was established by three Young brothers in 1880 when they bought 3,200 acres near Bundaberg. Their first sugar was sent to the Millaquin sugar mill until they completed their own sugar mill in 1884. They introduced a railway system to bring the cane to the mill and from 1902 they had irrigation water available if needed for the plantation. They pioneered mechanised single row harvesting of the cane in 1938 which was developed after World War Two to cover two rows. In the 1970s several Bundaberg mills and companies merged to form the Bundaberg Sugar Company.

 

Hinkler House and the Aviation Museum.

Also situated in the Botanic Gardens is the transported home of Bert Hinkler and the Aviation Museum. Bert Hinkler flew the first solo flight from England to Australia in 1928 with his landing spot where the Bundaberg Botanic Gardens now exist. Hinkler was born in Bundaberg in 1892. In 1913 he went to England and joined the Royal Naval Air Service just before the outbreak of World War One. After a distinguished aviation career during the War he remained in England working for an aviation manufacturer A.V Row or Avro as they were known. They later became Hawker Siddeley Aviation which manufactured planes until 1963. Bert Hinkler got his own plane and attempted a flight to Australia in 1920 but war in Syria forced his to abandon this attempt. He set out again on 7 February 1928 reaching Darwin on 22 February and Bundaberg on 27 February. He valiantly flew other record breaking solo flights until his death in Italy in 1933. In 1925 he built a typical two storey detached house in Southampton for his residence. After his death in 1933 it became the property of the City of Southampton and after much negotiation the house was sent brick by brick to Bundaberg in 1983. It was rebuilt as it was in the Botanic Gardens and opened as a museum in 2008. The Commonwealth electorate around Bundaberg is named Hinkler in his honour.

 

The Hinkler Hall of Aviation has six aircraft, paintings, static displays and interactive displays. It contains much memorabilia about Bert Hinkler and his various record breaking flights, and the Arvo airplane manufactory.

  

www.YourHighlandsLawyers.com

Personal Injury Due To Accidents Negligence Medical Malpractice

Highlands County FL | Sebring FL | Avon Park FL

Semi and Tractor Trailer Related Accidents and Claims

Personal Injury Attorneys in Highlands County Florida

Auto Accidents | Boating Accidents and Related Injuries

 

In most personal injury and wrongful death cases, the opposition is enormous. The large insurance companies and big businesses have incredible resources to muster against any claim, with the goal of NOT paying out anything that they are not ordered by the Courts to do so. They are not focused on doing the right thing, but representing only their own interests against claimants who rarely have the will, or the expertise, to fight them for a proper and just outcome.

 

Injuries can occur in a wide range of situations and environments. The leading causes of accident and injury are:

 

Motor Vehicle Collisions and Accident

 

Trucking Accidents

 

Motorcycle Accidents

 

Boating Accidents

 

Negligence in Public Places-Slip and Fall Accidents and Injuries

 

Workplace or labor related injuries

 

Building liabilities and “slip and fall” accidents

 

Surgical errors and medical malpractice

 

Product liability and defective product litigation

 

Elderly care and child abuse

 

Now you can turn to Lopez and Humphries, P.A. to represent your claim and explain everything that you need to know about the laws governing your case. The firm has over 2 decades of trial law experience and know their way way around, and through, the system that is designed to stop you in your tracks when pursuing your legitimate claim for damages…or worse. Don't attempt to handle any of this on your own, and NEVER SIGN ANY LEGAL DOCUMENT OR ACCEPT ANY CLAIMS SETTLEMENT before consulting an attorney first!

 

Whenever an accident or injury occurs, the hospital and doctor related expenses are only the beginning. We understand the additional and devastating consequences brought on by injuries or death and will work diligently and professionally to recover the compensation that YOU deserve related to:

 

Medical/Hosptial/Physician costs

 

Loss of Income

 

Decrease in your Capability to Work

 

Pain and Suffering

 

Mental and Emotional Suffering

 

Long-term rehabilitation and treatment costs

 

Funeral and other wrongful death related costs

 

Loss of quality of your life

 

Wrongful Death

 

Aussie Fielding Practice

Hinderwell and Port Mulgrave Scarecrow Festival 2018

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away from the Bundaberg site at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850, in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mills was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg was emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875. The town was well established but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent until sugar eclipsed all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were being established reliant on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works to support the mines in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

Fairymead Plantation Homestead.

One of the great plantation homesteads, not quite as grand as the Southern American slave homesteads, is Fairymead in Bundaberg. It was built in 1890 in the Indian bungalow style of the British Raj occupation of India. It was built for Ernest and Margaret Young the owners of the Fairymead sugar mill. Margret Young’s brother was an architect and designed the house for the subtropical Bundaberg climate. It has 16 foot ceilings and a wide veranda encircles the house. The house was near the mill on the plantation and after World War One was used as accommodation for mill workers until Ernest Young’s grandson and his family moved back into the house in 1960. In 1988 it was donated to the City of Bundaberg and it was eventually transported into the Botanic Gardens site. The house is furnished as it was in 1890 and the interior arrangement of rooms has been little altered since then. The Fairymead sugar plantation was established by three Young brothers in 1880 when they bought 3,200 acres near Bundaberg. Their first sugar was sent to the Millaquin sugar mill until they completed their own sugar mill in 1884. They introduced a railway system to bring the cane to the mill and from 1902 they had irrigation water available if needed for the plantation. They pioneered mechanised single row harvesting of the cane in 1938 which was developed after World War Two to cover two rows. In the 1970s several Bundaberg mills and companies merged to form the Bundaberg Sugar Company.

 

www.YourHighlandsLawyers.com

Personal Injury Due To Accidents Negligence Medical Malpractice

Highlands County FL | Sebring FL | Avon Park FL

Semi and Tractor Trailer Related Accidents and Claims

Personal Injury Attorneys in Highlands County Florida

Auto Accidents | Boating Accidents and Related Injuries

 

In most personal injury and wrongful death cases, the opposition is enormous. The large insurance companies and big businesses have incredible resources to muster against any claim, with the goal of NOT paying out anything that they are not ordered by the Courts to do so. They are not focused on doing the right thing, but representing only their own interests against claimants who rarely have the will, or the expertise, to fight them for a proper and just outcome.

 

Injuries can occur in a wide range of situations and environments. The leading causes of accident and injury are:

 

Motor Vehicle Collisions and Accident

 

Trucking Accidents

 

Motorcycle Accidents

 

Boating Accidents

 

Negligence in Public Places-Slip and Fall Accidents and Injuries

 

Workplace or labor related injuries

 

Building liabilities and “slip and fall” accidents

 

Surgical errors and medical malpractice

 

Product liability and defective product litigation

 

Elderly care and child abuse

 

Now you can turn to Lopez and Humphries, P.A. to represent your claim and explain everything that you need to know about the laws governing your case. The firm has over 2 decades of trial law experience and know their way way around, and through, the system that is designed to stop you in your tracks when pursuing your legitimate claim for damages…or worse. Don't attempt to handle any of this on your own, and NEVER SIGN ANY LEGAL DOCUMENT OR ACCEPT ANY CLAIMS SETTLEMENT before consulting an attorney first!

 

Whenever an accident or injury occurs, the hospital and doctor related expenses are only the beginning. We understand the additional and devastating consequences brought on by injuries or death and will work diligently and professionally to recover the compensation that YOU deserve related to:

 

Medical/Hosptial/Physician costs

 

Loss of Income

 

Decrease in your Capability to Work

 

Pain and Suffering

 

Mental and Emotional Suffering

 

Long-term rehabilitation and treatment costs

 

Funeral and other wrongful death related costs

 

Loss of quality of your life

 

Wrongful Death

 

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Portuguese

O Tribunal de Contas da União (TCU) é instituição brasileira prevista na Constituição Federal para exercer a fiscalização contábil, financeira, orçamentária, operacional e patrimonial da União e das entidades da administração direta e administração indireta, quanto à legalidade, à legitimidade e à economicidade e a fiscalização da aplicação das subvenções e da renúncia de receitas. Auxilia o Congresso Nacional no planejamento fiscal e orçamentário anual. Tanto pessoa física quanto pessoa jurídica, seja de direito público ou direito privado, que utilize, arrecade, guarde, gerencie ou administre dinheiros, bens e valores públicos ou pelos quais a União responda, ou que, em nome desta, assuma obrigações de natureza pecuniária tem o dever de prestar contas ao TCU. Conforme o art. 71 da Constituição Federal o Tribunal de Contas da União é uma instituição com autonomia administrativa, financeira e orçamentária. O tribunal não está ligado diretamente a nenhum poder, o que faz com que seja um órgão independente. Sua independência é comparada à do Ministério Público, um órgão que não está ligado a nenhum poder e exerce sua função constitucional.

  

English

The Tribunal de Contas da União (Federal Court of Accounts, often referred to as TCU) is the Brazilian federal accountability office. It is an arm of the Legislative Branch of the Brazilian government, to assist Congress in its Constitutional incumbency to exercise external audit over the Executive Branch. Its members, called ministers, are appointed by the National Congress and the President of Brazil. The TCU employs a highly qualified body of civil servants to prevent, investigate and sanction corruption and malpractice of public funds, with national jurisdiction.

The Tribunal was created in 1891, although its origins are traced back to the Royal Treasury (Erário Régio), established in 1808 by King John VI. It is, therefore, one of the world's earlier institutions charged with national government accountability. Today, the TCU cooperates with the Comptroller-General of the Union (CGU), which centralizes federal executive internal audit. The Tribunal's work is scrutinized by the Public Ministry.

In 1959 it hosted III INCOSAI, the third triennial convention of the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions.

The work executed by the TCU in 2011 produced savings of 14 billion reais (USD 7.44 billion) to the Brazilian taxpayer. For each real spent by the court to avert corruption and wasteful spending, 10.5 reais were saved.

 

Wikipedia

John Ellis "Jeb" Bush (born February 11, 1953) is an American businessman and politician who served as the 43rd Governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007.

 

Bush is the second son of former President George H. W. Bush and former First Lady Barbara Bush, the younger brother of former President George W. Bush, and grandson of the late Senator Prescott Sheldon Bush. He grew up in Houston, Texas. He graduated from the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts and attended the University of Texas, where he earned a degree in Latin American affairs. Following his father's successful run for Vice President in 1980, he moved to Florida and pursued a career in real estate development. In 1986, Bush was named Florida's Secretary of Commerce, a position he held until his resignation in 1988 to help his father's successful campaign for the Presidency.

 

In 1994, Bush made his first run for office, narrowly losing the election for governor by less than two percentage points to the incumbent Lawton Chiles. Bush ran again in 1998 and defeated Lieutenant Governor Buddy MacKay with 55 percent of the vote. He ran for reelection in 2002 and won with 56 percent to become Florida's first two-term Republican governor. During his eight years as governor, Bush was credited with initiating environmental improvements, such as conservation in the Everglades, supporting caps for medical malpractice litigation, moving Medicaid recipients to private systems, and instituting reforms to the state education system, including the issuance of vouchers and promoting school choice.

 

Bush is a candidate for the Republican nomination in the 2016 presidential election.

  

Every four years, as America’s campaign cycle rumbles back to life, two of the country’s smaller states again return to the national spotlight.

 

Taking advantage of this political stage, The Seventy Four aims to bring the urgent conversation of America’s K-12 education system to both Iowa and New Hampshire in the coming months.

 

As first reported in The New York Times, The Seventy Four, a non-partisan, non-profit news website about education, announced it will be hosting and organizing two 2015 Education Summits beginning in August. Sponsored by the American Federation for Children, the nation’s leading school-choice advocacy organization, and organized in partnership with The Des Moines Register, the first-of-its-kind summits will gather prominent elected officials, political influencers, and education thought leaders to discuss the challenges now facing America’s education system.

 

“Last year, 1.3 million children dropped out of school, and U.S. students have flatlined on national and international tests,” said Betsy DeVos, chairman of the American Federation for Children. “It’s time to have a national conversation and no better time than as we look to 2016.” (The Seventy Four receives support from the Dick & Betsy DeVos Family Foundation.)

 

The first of the 2015 Education Summits will be held in New Hampshire on Aug. 19 and will be moderated by The Seventy Four co-founder and Editor-in-Chief Campbell Brown and others. Confirmed speakers (thus far) include Governor Jeb Bush, Governor Chris Christie, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, Governor Bobby Jindal, Governor John Kasich and Governor Scott Walker. (Check out The Seventy Four's detailed education profiles of the six GOP leaders participating Wednesday)

Additional New Hampshire speakers will be confirmed in the coming weeks. Watch The74Million.org and EdSummits2015.org for new announcements, and check back for video and updates from both summits.

 

“These summits are an unprecedented opportunity to have an honest and intelligent discussion with our leaders about the failures of the education system”

 

The second summit, to be held in Iowa in October, will be co-hosted by The Seventy Four and The Des Moines Register, Iowa’s most influential news outlet.

 

The 2015 Iowa Summit will spotlight Democrats from both Iowa and across the nation — elected officials, analysts and thought leaders with clear thoughts on how to solve America’s education challenges.

 

All speakers at both the 2015 New Hampshire Summit and 2015 Iowa Summit are invited in their current personal or professional capacities and will appear on stage separately for an important conversation about America’s education challenges and opportunities.

When it comes to most political debates, K-12 education issues tend to get overshadowed by a landslide of other domestic policy issues. The 2015 Education Summits will keep the conversation focused on America’s most urgent policy issue, affording featured speakers time to provide in-depth perspectives outside the formal parameters of the presidential debates.

 

“As the political world descends on New Hampshire and Iowa, these summits are an unprecedented opportunity to have an honest and intelligent discussion with our leaders about the failures of the education system,” Brown said. “We must begin to treat fixing our education system with the urgency the crisis demands, as it is vital not only to our children’s future, but also the future of this nation.”

Two opposite things inspired by the great Dr. Feelgood song Milk and Alcohol. Dr. Feelgood was a blues-rock band formed in 1971 in Canvey Island, Essex, England. Members changed over the years, but the initial line-up was Wilko Johnson on guitar, Lee Brilleaux on vocals, The Big Figure (John Martin) on drums and John B. Sparks (Sparko) on bass. With albums like Down by the Jetty, Malpractice, Be Seeing You and Stupidity, the Feelgoods were cutting edge, pub style R&B.

 

Here's the song Milk and Alcohol from Top of the Pops from 25th January 1979.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5q4GNQuZpw

 

We're Here looks at Things that are Unrelated today. By the way, in Ontario milk is sold in 1 litre and 2 litre cartons and in a package of three bags for the 4 litre size. Scotch is sold universally in bottles.

 

After 106 years, Leo Frank gets another day in court

 

By Jon Gillooly jgillooly@mdjonline.com Jun 14, 2019

 

MARIETTA — A part of history some Mariettans would prefer stay buried is being dug up, once again.

 

More than a century after Leo Frank was convicted in the 1913 murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan, former Gov. Roy Barnes is working with the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office to exonerate him.

 

Barnes believes a judge could rule on the case as early as next year.

 

The circumstances surrounding Phagan’s murder and Frank’s lynching have haunted Marietta ever since they occurred. Frank employed Phagan, a Marietta resident, at the National Pencil Company in Atlanta, where he was superintendent.

 

After he was found guilty of her murder, the governor commuted his sentence from death to life imprisonment. In response, a lynch mob of prominent Marietta men calling themselves the Knights of Mary Phagan drove to Milledgeville where Frank was imprisoned, kidnapped him, brought him back to Marietta and hanged him from a tree in 1915.

 

“The great question I have is how could the most upright members of the community have lost their minds and done this? I just don’t understand,” said Barnes, who has been fascinated by the case ever since he started reading about it in law school. “After I came back here from law school I went down to Fulton County Superior Court and told them I wanted to pull the file so I could read it, and the file was gone from the clerk’s office. Somebody took it years ago.”

 

For years, the story of Leo Frank was “hush, hush” in Marietta and only spoken in whispers. Barnes suspects that’s in part because members of the lynch mob were still alive. When Barnes spoke at the dedication ceremony of a marker in Frank’s honor a few years ago, he told the audience they couldn’t blame the lynching on the Barnes family.

 

“We were still making moonshine and whiskey in the north Georgia mountains. ‘We didn’t get here until 1919,’ I said, ‘but everybody else in town you can blame.’”

 

And that includes a relative of Barnes’ wife Marie, who drove one of the cars, he freely acknowledges.

 

Barnes has had an ongoing email conversation with a circle of fellow enthusiasts interested in the case, among them Rabbi Steven Lebow of Temple Kol Emeth, attorney Dale Schwartz, former Marietta Councilman Van Pearlberg, former UGA law school professor Donald Wilkes and former Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Leah Sears.

 

“We all talked several years ago that we should try to bring some action to legally exonerate Leo Frank,” he said.

About two years ago, Barnes said he went by to see Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard about the matter since Fulton County is where Frank was convicted.

 

“And I said, ‘Paul, this was a miscarriage of justice. I said I’m convinced through the reading not only did he not get a fair trial, he was not guilty. The case just simply was wrong. They had one of the main witnesses on his deathbed to recant, this was back in the 70s.”

 

When Howard asked Barnes what he had in mind, Barnes said he wanted to see if he could get the judgment against Frank set aside. Howard said he was open to the idea, but believed if he assembled a team to consider it, the team should look at more than one case.

 

“There’s no question he didn’t get a fair shot,” Barnes said.

At the time of Frank’s trial, the Fulton County Courthouse was on Marietta Street in downtown Atlanta and was without air conditioning. The jury stayed in the Kimball House.

 

“And there were just mobs of people. And as the jury would go up from the Kimball House to go to the courthouse everyday, the mob would scream, ‘Hang the Jew or we’ll hang you!” Barnes said.

 

Former Marietta Councilman Philip Goldstein has shared how his grandfather, a merchant on Marietta Square at the time of the lynching, had to flee with his family to Atlanta to avoid an angry mob approaching his shop.

 

In 1986, Frank was posthumously pardoned by the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles under Gov. Joe Frank Harris. Barnes was Harris’ floor leader in the Legislature at the time and worked on the effort.

 

Yet “Pardon just means that you are relieved of the conviction because you didn’t get a fair trial. Now you can have a pardon because of innocence. But the governor and the pardon parole board didn’t do that. They did it on the basis that he didn’t get a fair trial. We all wanted exoneration because we all were convinced he was innocent,” Barnes said.

 

A few months ago, Barnes said District Attorney Howard called to say he was creating a new division in his office to review several cases and that the Frank case would be among them. He asked Barnes to serve as an adviser.

 

“It will take several months to assemble everything, and then we’re going to present it to this unit and ask that he be exonerated through court procedures,” Barnes said. “There will be a motion for new trial that will be filed if it is agreed so that the case can be dismissed on the basis of innocence even though he’s been dead for over 100 years. They hung him over 100 years ago.”

 

Chris Hopper, public affairs director for the Fulton DA, said Howard is in the process of forming the first “Conviction Integrity Unit” in a Georgia DA’s office. The first cases the unit will review are the Leo Frank case and the Atlanta Missing and Murdered Children case.

 

“Some within the criminal justice system here in Fulton County have said that my office is taking a significant risk by creating and forming a Conviction Integrity Unit,” Howard said in a news release. “Some believe we are exposing ourselves to greater scrutiny and criticism by sanctioning an independent review of our cases. However, it is my belief that a conviction based upon truth and justice will withstand any scrutiny. It is my belief that the greatest risk is not allowing truth and justice to direct your decisions.”

 

But if Frank is innocent, who killed Phagan?

 

“I think it’s pretty clear that the custodian is the one who did it,” Barnes said, referring to Jim Conley, a janitor at the pencil factory.

 

A question many have asked over the years is how an African American in early 1900s Georgia could have escaped blame in such a toxic atmosphere.

 

Barnes said to understand that question, one most know about Tom Watson, a Georgia congressman and newspaper editor who used his publications to fan the flames of anti-Semitism, poisoning public opinion against Frank.

 

Just months after Frank’s lynching, “many of these same men would take part in the nighttime ceremony at Stone Mountain that established the modern Ku Klux Klan,” according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia.

 

“It was just kind of a perfect storm,” Barnes said. “That’s my answer to how an African American could be believed over someone of Jewish extraction at the time.”

 

Barnes believes the evidence will show that Frank was innocent. That evidence ranges from a freight elevator in the factory that led to the basement where Phagan’s body was found to a witness who recanted his testimony, among other items.

 

“We have the evidence,” Barnes said.

 

The former governor is aware that the Phagan family is unhappy about the case being reopened.

 

In an email to the MDJ, Mary Phagan-Kean, great-niece and namesake of Mary Phagan, writes “The Phagan family has no objection to anyone expressing their opinions about the Frank case, but we do insist that organizations and personal campaigns not distort the truth and facts to use this case for their own political purposes. ... Driven by the need to exonerate a Jewish leader, they intend to convict an innocent African-American man. They spread fabrications, propagandize falsehoods, distort the facts and change headlines of original newspapers to promote the hoax of not guilty. The real miscarriage of justice is that in this time of the #MeToo movement, they seek to override a duly convicted child rapist and murderer’s conviction.”

 

To those who say Barnes is simply trying to open old wounds better left closed, he quotes Rabbi Lebow: “There’s never a statute of limitations on doing what is right,” Barnes said. “And that summarizes it pretty well. Leo Frank did not kill Mary Phagan. I’m convinced of it. And I feel for her family. They lost a young woman. Just a teenager. But what is even worse is to lose a teenager and to have the wrong fellow convicted for killing her. And so the purpose of history, you know, is after the passions of the moment pass, is to look dispassionately at the facts, and when you do that, there is not any question in my mind.”

  

[End of Article]

 

* * *

 

Intelligent Comments Wanted

 

What are your final thoughts on this article about the efforts to exonerate Leo Frank?

 

Please sign up to MDJ so you can make polite comments to their articles (when they aren't censoring, suppressing and shutting down dialogue. They have shut down thoughtful comments before on articles concerning the Leo Frank's legal case when people shared testimony and evidence from the official legal records tending to prove his guilt).

 

Please subscribed to MDJ so you can follow any future news on the city or developments with regards to the clandestine rubberstamp exoneration movement for Leo Frank in Atlanta which is opening old wounds for the people of Marietta and creating incendiary tensions between Jews and Gentiles.

 

Please consider contributing responsibly to the comments section of this article (link provided)

 

Please share your thoughts in the comments section, but before you do, think very carefully of what you want to express without vitriol, bitterness or invective. Please write something mindful, discussion provoking, fact-checking, and common sensical to inspiring further discourse. Please add commentary showing you are knowledge about the Phagan murder case (which means you should study the subject in depth, before commenting), share something in the comments section on MDJ which would be valuable to empowering understanding, not just venting or ranting.

 

"After 106 years, Leo Frank gets another day in court"

www.mdjonline.com/news/after-years-leo-frank-gets-another...

 

ADDENDUM 2019

 

MACON – Former Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes will describe to Mercer Law students his efforts to reopen one of Georgia’s most notorious lynching cases on Nov. 12, [2019] from 12-1 p.m., in Mercer Law School’s Bell-Jones Courtroom.

 

Barnes, founding partner of the Barnes Law Group in Marietta, is working as a consultant to the Fulton County District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit to review old cases. One of these is the case of Leo Frank, a factory superintendent who was killed by a lynch mob in Marietta in the early 1900s following the commutation of his death sentence for killing a 13-year-old female employee in the factory he managed.

 

Barnes will discuss the details of the case, its evidence and the process of reviewing the case now for possible exoneration of Frank.

 

Online registration is $50 until Nov. 11 and $70 after Nov. 11 [2019] for attorneys who wish to obtain one hour of continuing legal education (CLE) credit; lunch is included. The presentation is free to Mercer Law students.

 

A lifelong resident of Cobb County, Barnes earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Georgia and graduated with honors from the Lumpkin School of Law at UGA in 1972. Upon graduation, he went to work as a prosecutor in the Cobb County District Attorney’s office, where he stayed until opening his first law firm in 1975.

 

For more than 40 years, Barnes has tried civil and criminal cases throughout Georgia and in neighboring states. His practice has concentrated primarily on civil litigation, where he has developed an expertise in consumer class action cases, medical malpractice matters, products liability law, general tort matters and commercial litigation. He has appeared in more than 250 cases in the state and federal appellate courts.

 

At age 26, Barnes was elected the youngest member of the Georgia State Senate. He went on to serve a total of eight terms and was a member of the Appropriations, Rules and Transportation committees. In addition, he was chairman of the Select Committee on Constitutional Revision, which rewrote the state’s constitution, as well as chairman of the powerful Judiciary Committee.

 

He also served as a floor leader to Gov. Joe Frank Harris from 1983-1989. After an unsuccessful bid for the Governor’s Office in 1990, he was elected to the State House of Representatives, where he served for six years and was vice chairman of the Judiciary Committee and chair of the Subcommittee on General Law.

 

In 1998, Barnes was elected to serve as the 80th governor of Georgia. During his term, he concentrated on education reform, healthcare reform and remedies for urban growth and sprawl.

 

news.mercer.edu/former-georgia-gov-roy-barnes-to-discuss-...

Our disabled daughter, Christina Nichole, was physically and mentally abused by a doctor and police officer at the Gray's Harbor County Hospital in Aberdeen WA last Thursday, March 11, 2010, while she was there after being transported by ambulance to seek care for a 10-day severe headache and nearly continuous epileptic seizures. She just spent a week in Harborview Hospital receiving her 3rd brain study and medicine change by Dr. Wilensky throughout her life so far, which again diagnosed the many types of seizures she has. Dr. Wilensky's staff had advised her to call 911 to go to the ER, which she did. She was instructed to have the ER doctor call them, with a number they gave Christina, and to make arrangements to have her flown to Harborview, if needed. The ER doctor apparently did not like that, and told Christina to leave, without any work-up or care. Christina requested a different doctor and a patient's advocate. In response the non-caring doctor called the police to have her removed from the ER. The policeman told her to get out of the bed, and she tried to cooperate, but went into a seizure, falling back on the bed. The policeman grabbed her arm, pulling her out of the bed. In the process he damaged her shoulder and neck, and caused her to land on her feet which have both been recently operated on 3 times and are still trying to heal correctly. Her feet were hurt and damaged and she screamed in pain from the abusive, sedistic, arm pulling which resulted in trauma to the arm, shoulder, and neck, as well as her feet. Then she felt nauseaous and reached toward to the wall dispenser for a vomit bag and the policeman forcefully hit her other arm with his fist, not allowing her to get the bag. She again screamed from the new pain of her other arm being hit so hard. She kept falling down because she was still very much disoriented, confused, and unstable from her seizure(s) and the relentless headache, which had been diagnosed a few days earlier when she was taken by ambulance to the same ER for the same reasons, by had a caring doctor who treated her correctly, even though failing to follow standard procedures of care and testing by not taking a cat scan, blood work, or UA, which her family doctor, local neurologist, and Harborview Epilepsy Center had requested when advising her to go to the emergency room, four days in a row while my husband and I were in Seattle where I had surgery at Swedish Hospital leaving home on Monday and returning Thursday night. The policeman continued man-handling her limp body and threw her into a wheelchair without leg and foot rests. He told her to pick up her feet because they were dragging under the wheelchair backwards, but she had no body control to be able to follow his orders. He said she could let her feet drag behind her under the wheelchair because he did not care. He called her a baby and told her act her age when she cried and was terrorized. Her records show clearly that she was in a coma in 2004, declared brain dead, somehow came back but lost 20 years of memory and has daily short-term memory loss and multiple kinds of seizures, including life-threatening grandmal seizures. She looks like a 37 year old woman, but is very much like a 12 year old child when put in stressful situations. She was terrified, feared for her life, and could not understand anything clearly. The officer told her to leave the hospital, go out into the cold, rainy night, with no transportation. She asked to call her parents but could not understand how to operate the pay phone or remember our cell phone numbers. The policeman told her that no one wanted to talk to her so she was on her own and if she did not leave the hospital he was going to arrest her. She somehow left a message on our home phone. As soon as my husband heard the message he called the hospital and told them to keep her there and safe until he could drive the 25 miles to get there. During the wait the policeman intimidated Christina by standing behind her, jingling coins and keys, and threatening her to leave immediately or be arrested. When my husband arrived the policeman attempted to intimidate him by puffing himself up and threatening to arrest them both if they did not leave immediately. My husband took out his notebook and began collecting names and titles. He spoke with the head nurse. When finished he took Christina to our car and brought her home. She was emotionally damaged as much as she was physically damaged, and the brain swelling, headache, and seizures were not treated. The next morning deep bruise marks were showing on both arms and both feet. Her shoulder and neck were in tremendous pain. Her entire body hurt from the abuse, mishandling, torture, and trauma she had experienced. My husband drove her to Olympia WA, to the Capital Mall Hospital emergency room where she received kind and caring evaluation of all her injuries. The staff consulted with the doctor at Harborview Epilepsy Center and they determined an appropriate course of treatment. It was determined that she did not have to be airlifted to Harborview with this treatment plan being provided in this ER. X-rays and a Cat Scan were taken of her brain, arms, and feet. A suspicious spot was found on the Cat Scan that may explain why she was having so many seizures, headache, and brain swelling. It needs to be further evaluated, which she has an appointment with her Neurologist to do. The injuries inflicted by the policeman are severe, but no bones were broken. The bruising is massive and was documented with photographs and medical records by us and the Olympia ER staff. On Saturday my husband took Christina to the local Westport Fire Station to meet with the ambulance crew. Christina is well-known in Westport and everyone on the ambulance crews knows her medical history and has taken care of her dozens of times since we moved here after her coma. They call her their 'miracle girl' and always tell her how much they enjoy her and her always cooperative and happy nature, regardless of how much pain or distress she may be in at any time. The ambulance crew was devastated to learn that Christina was abused by the doctor, nurses, aids, and policeman at the emergency room they took her to on Thursday evening. They documented everything and reported the situation to the local city police department. The Westport police came and was equally upset. He took statements and then called a County Sheriff to the fire station. The Sheriff also took statements and made a report. On Monday (today), 3/15/2010, Christina was seen and evaluated by her family physician, Dr. Jackson, her foot surgeon, Dr. Tronvig, and her Chiropractor, Dr. Failor. They are all shocked and disgusted at what they saw. They all know Christina to be a sweet, trusting, loving child who has survived unimaginable odds and is always happy and thankful. Like us, they cannot fathom how this horrible abuse, neglect, and trauma could have happened to her. Why would anyone want to hurt her this way? Tomorrow she has an appointment to see Dr. Miller, her local Neurologist in Aberdeen. He will do his evaluation of the damages and follow-up on her seizure and headache conditions. He will determine if she needs to begin phychological counseling, either as an out-patient or as an in-patient, because Christina is so severely traumatized now. Coming out of the coma knowing that her doctors fought with us to try to get us to sign papers to allow them to euthanize her and harvest anything viable when she was in her locked-in coma, hearing everything but unable to respond was bad enough, but this added to that is simply too much. She has an appointment to see Dr. Wilensky at Harborview Epileptic Center on March 26, 2010 for further evaluation. I want to stress that Christina was following her doctor's orders to call the ambulance each time she went to the ER while my husband and I were away. Her doctors called her each day, several times a day, to ask how she was doing and to supervise her care while she was home alone. At no time was she seeking 'drugs', as the ER doctor flattly told her and labeled her. At no time did she resist the officer or do anything to warrent him putting his hands on her or drag her feet under the wheelchair. Dr. Wilensky called a prescription of pain pills into the pharmacy for her on Friday to take for her head pain, but she declined to pick up the prescription because she does not like to take pain pills as they make her very sick to her stomach and alter her thinking and feelings. She may take what is prescribed to her at an ER for pain while she is there, but does not want to take it at home. Her foot doctor says that her feet will heal, but her foot surgery recovery has been set back by at least another two weeks due to the damages the officer caused her. The bruises will eventually heal and the pain from them will fade away with time. Her shoulder and neck injuries will heal with the care of the Chiropractor. But Christina's trust in the emergency room at Aberdeen and the police there has been shattered and can never be repaired. The Westport ambulance crew said that they will take her to Willapa Hospital ER from now on, which is about twice the distance, but they no longer trust the Gray's Harbor Hospital ER to take appropriate care of Christina again. When my husband or I take her to an ER, we will make the long drive to Olympia and never let her out of our sight for even a minute. We retained an attorney today to handle this case against the Gray's Harbor Hospital and staff and the Aberdeen Police Dept. and officer. What amazing timing. We are scheduled to give our first depositions this week in Seattle in our lawsuit against Eli Lilly who makes Zyprexa, which put Christina into her coma in 2004. Attached are some photos of Christina's bruises taken on Saturday. If you haven't read the story of her coma yet, you can find it at: pekingeseshihtzu.wordpress.com/christina-nichole%e2%80%99...

 

Lavaur : Festival Rock'&'Cars

"The sound of circumcision… A cry like no other… We have let inhuman doctors torture a nation of men. Did we think there would be no consequences?"~Brother K

 

Circumcision causes severe brain trauma.

 

Witness the horror for yourself: "The Surgery: Infant Circumcision" www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDuDhkiDdns

  

www.BLOODSTAINEDMEN.org

He had his face covered with

this filthy scarf when i first met him.

 

This was in a LEPROSARIUM

outside of VARANASI.

 

He does not suffer from LEPROSY .

 

I asked him to remove it for me

and at first he said no.

 

I then told him i was a physician in the USA and wanted to show my colleagues his surgery.

 

I was surprised but not shocked.

I mean this is INDIA.

 

A facial tumour had been removed.

It was pretty obvious this was not the best surgery

nor could this man afford a plastic surgeon .

 

This was the result.

 

The assumption of course is

his life was saved.

  

Yet, its certain infection might set in and he could die from sepsis.

  

Photography’s new conscience

linktr.ee/GlennLosack

linktr.ee/GlennLosack

www.YourPlantCityAttorneys.com

Personal Injury Due To Accidents Negligence Medical Malpractice

Plant City FL | Valrico FL | Brandon FL | Hillsborough County FL

Social Security Claims | Disability Claims Attorney| SSI Claims

Auto Accidents | Boating Accidents and Related Injuries

Distracted Driving Accident Lawsuits and Claims Attorney

 

Common Questions:

What are the steps involved in receiving social security disability or supplemental security income?

 

The first step is applying. There are three ways to do that:

 

You can apply in person at your local office. In Polk County there is an office in Lakeland on Commerce Drive and one in Winter Haven on Central Avenue.

 

You can apply by phone by calling 1(800) 772-1213. ; or

 

You can apply online at SSA.gov.

 

Social security typically responds in sixty to ninety days. If you get turned down, do not give up- Step two is called the “request for reconsideration.” You fill out the papers and can submit them by mail or in person.

 

Again, you usually receive a response in sixty to ninety days. If you are turned down at step two you go to the final stage by submitting a “request for hearing.” This is the longest stage in the process. Over the last year or so, our hearing cases have waited from twelve to eighteen months.

 

Why should I hire Lopez & Humphries?

 

If you retain Lopez & Humphries, you will have an experienced attorney handle your case from start to finish. Some law firms or associations that handle social security cases have a “representative” handle your case. We only have attorneys represent you. This means that you will have someone who is trained in the rules of evidence, and we have been admitted to the state and federal bars, In addition, our attorneys have handled over 1000 social security cases that have gone to hearings. This is in addition to over 100 jury trials that we have handled.

 

No one will hire me so why does social security keep on turning me down on benefits?

 

Not finding a job is not a standard on determining whether you are disabled or not. The social security administration uses a 5 step evaluation to decide whether you are disabled or not. The most important criteria are your present physical capabilities and your prior work. Although you may not be able to work in heavy or manual labor, social security often turns you down by determining that you are able to do other jobs that are lighter in nature. It may not matter if you have no experience other than being a truck driver or a cement layer because there are many jobs that exist that are unskilled and do not require heavy lifting.

 

What is the difference between social security disability and social security income?

 

Both social security disability (SSD) and supplemental security income (SSI) use the same physical or functional ability standards in determining ability, but SSD is based on your work history and the amount of credits you have with social security. In general, if you have worked five of the last of ten years, then you meet the initial requirements of SSD, but if you do not have enough credits, you may be eligible for SSI. However, a requirement of SSI is minimal household income. Essentially, if you own personal property valued over $3000, you may not qualify for SSI even if you are clearly disabled. Further information regarding income limits may be found at SSA.gov or by calling Social Security.

 

Do I need to hire an attorney?

 

No, you can represent yourself like in every legal battle, but there are many reasons why you should hire a lawyer- we are experienced in trials; we can prepare your hearing questions;, we will make sure the court has all of your medical records; and we have specific forms that we give your doctors that will help your case.

 

Don’t go it alone- contact Lopez & Humphries, P.A. for a free consultation today!

 

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away from the Bundaberg site at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850, in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mills was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg was emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875. The town was well established but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent until sugar eclipsed all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were being established reliant on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works to support the mines in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

 

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away from the Bundaberg site at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850, in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mills was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg was emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875. The town was well established but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent until sugar eclipsed all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were being established reliant on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works to support the mines in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

Fairymead Plantation Homestead.

One of the great plantation homesteads, not quite as grand as the Southern American slave homesteads, is Fairymead in Bundaberg. It was built in 1890 in the Indian bungalow style of the British Raj occupation of India. It was built for Ernest and Margaret Young the owners of the Fairymead sugar mill. Margret Young’s brother was an architect and designed the house for the subtropical Bundaberg climate. It has 16 foot ceilings and a wide veranda encircles the house. The house was near the mill on the plantation and after World War One was used as accommodation for mill workers until Ernest Young’s grandson and his family moved back into the house in 1960. In 1988 it was donated to the City of Bundaberg and it was eventually transported into the Botanic Gardens site. The house is furnished as it was in 1890 and the interior arrangement of rooms has been little altered since then. The Fairymead sugar plantation was established by three Young brothers in 1880 when they bought 3,200 acres near Bundaberg. Their first sugar was sent to the Millaquin sugar mill until they completed their own sugar mill in 1884. They introduced a railway system to bring the cane to the mill and from 1902 they had irrigation water available if needed for the plantation. They pioneered mechanised single row harvesting of the cane in 1938 which was developed after World War Two to cover two rows. In the 1970s several Bundaberg mills and companies merged to form the Bundaberg Sugar Company.

 

Last time I went to Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan, India, I was lucky to photograph a fine female tiger, Bubbly, who later got relocated to Sariska, also in Rajasthan, from where the tiger population had vanished due to poor management and malpractices. That is when I fell in love with Ranthambhore and with tigers as a whole. My love for the Big Cats brought me back to Ranthambhore this year again. I spent longer time at the National Park this time and was lucky to be able to photograph two of the best specimens of the Royal Bengal Tiger (Panthera tigris). Once you meet a tiger at Ranthambhore, you know why it is called the “Royal” Bengal Tiger. Though Lion is universally accepted King of the forest, he is no match to the tiger in grace, beauty and nobility.

 

This one is without doubt the most beautiful female tiger on earth, the equivalent of Miss World, indeed the tiger version of Aishwarya Rai. Except for two things. This one has a very unromantic name, T17. And unlike the former Miss Word, she has still not found her mate. Those unimaginative Forest guys have put a radio collar on her, but I managed this shot where the collar is not visible, almost…

 

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away from the Bundaberg site at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850, in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mills was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg was emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875. The town was well established but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent until sugar eclipsed all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were being established reliant on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works to support the mines in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

 

Medical malpractice is where a doctor or physician falls below the standard of care also known as medical negligence. We handle birth injuries, surgical mistakes, and failure to diagnose injuries. One of the most important things that you need to consider in hiring a medical malpractice lawyer is the experience. Our firm has one of the highest success rates with medical malpractice cases in the area. We have the talent, the resources, and the medical expertise to win the toughest cases. We handle these cases on a contingency fee basis that means we do not collect any fee unless we are able to make a recovery for our client.

  

Brannon Law Firm

130 West Second St #900

Dayton, OH 45402

(937) 228-2306

 

branlaw.com/medical-malpractice/

We value our medical professionals. When they make mistakes that cause injuries or wrongful death, they should be held accountable. We represent victims of medical malpractice

www.hoganfrick.com/orlando

Hogan Frick Law

5626 Curry Ford Road Suite 101

Orlando, FL 32822

(407) 377-0733

Medical Malpractice Specialists

www.YourPlantCityAttorneys.com

Lopez and Humphries, P.A.

Personal Injury Due To Accidents Negligence Medical Malpractice

Plant City FL | Valrico FL | Brandon FL | Hillsborough County FL

 

Boating and Watercraft Accident and Injury Attorneys

Maritime Law Attorneys | Negligence Boating Cases

 

Settlements, Compensation and Hiring a Personal Injury Lawyer

 

In 2007, 5,191 boating accidents claimed the lives of 685 people and injured another 3,673, according to a report by the U.S. Coast Guard. Many of these accidents occurred due to negligence on someone's part. When a boating accident is caused by another party's negligence, people who are harmed are often eligible for compensation for medical expenses, pain and suffering as well as other damages.

 

To learn more about the legal implications of boating accidents and your right to compensation, please review the information below and contact a qualified boating accident attorney.

Boating Accidents and the Law

 

As a legal matter, a boating accident occurs when a boat (motorboat, canoe/kayak, pontoon boat, sail boat, jet ski, etc.) is involved in an event or series of events that cause harm, such as property damage, total vessel loss, missing person(s), injury or death. Boating accidents are one type of motor vehicle accidents. According to the U.S. Coast Guard, common accidents include: Collision with another vessel Collision with a fixed, sometimes submerged, object Collision with a floating object (e.g., log, swimmer) Mishaps involving a skier or person on a towable object Mishaps involving a person falling overboard Capsizing Grounding, sinking, flooding or swamping Fire or explosion Carbon monoxide poisoning

 

Most boating accidents involve an element of negligence.

 

Negligence

 

Victims who have suffered injuries or property damage as a result of boating accidents often are eligible to receive compensation from an insurance company or a court award. First, however, they must establish that someone's negligence, or failure to act responsibly, was to blame.

 

Many victims of boating accidents prove negligence with eyewitness testimony, law enforcement reports and photographs of the accident scene. With this evidence, they must show that: The boating accident was caused by carelessness The victim was caused harm The negligent party is responsible for compensation

 

Direct evidence provided by eyewitness testimony is persuasive evidence of negligence in a boating accident. For example, the statement of an onlooker, who witnessed a boat operator drinking beer, driving erratically and/or crashing into another boat, is convincing evidence of negligent boat operation. Indirect or circumstantial evidence may be just as compelling. For example, a law enforcement report stating that a swimmer's electrocution occurred near a boat that was wrongly connected to shore power is likely to persuade a jury of operator negligence.

 

To prove harm done, injuries must be directly linked to the boat accident. Among others, they may include: Drowning Hypothermia Abrasions, contusions, lacerations Trauma Broken bones Spinal cord injuries Amputation Burns Electrocution Carbon monoxide poisoning

  

To help prove negligence and win a civil suit, you should: File a Boating Accident Report (BAR) with the law enforcement agency that has jurisdiction where the accident occurred. Federal regulations require the filing of a BAR within 48 hours when someone dies, disappears from a vessel or is seriously injured. A BAR must be filed within 10 days when a vessel's damages exceed $2,000 or the vessel is completely lost. Individual states often have stricter regulations. Gather names and contact information of any eyewitnesses to the accident who are willing to testify on your behalf. Photograph or sketch the scene of the accident (if possible), especially damages to the boat(s) involved. Photograph injuries caused by the boating accident (if possible). Keep notes on what you remember about the accident.

 

Ok, I've had it! Food here stinks, patient care is abysmal. Time to escape!

 

Gotta get Hiram back for what he did to Ryan and me!

 

I hear this hospital has been marked by several legal cases of malpractice due to some "nurse" but heh, c'mon, what's the worst that can happen?...shh....