title: Kelantan

text: States cannot transfer rights over something they do not own. In the case of Kelantan and any other Peninsular Malaysian state, the Deed should have been worded to refer only to onshore petroleum. Unfortunately for Kelantan, the matter cannot end with the two agreements. There is a supreme Constitution in Malaysia with a federal-state division of legislative and financial powers. The constitutional allocation cannot be altered except by constitutionally permitted procedures and amendments. Even mutual agreements cannot override the constitutional scheme of things because jurisdiction is a matter of law and not of consent or acquiescence.


title: Kelantan

text: The Kelantan state government is owed between RM850 million and RM1 billion from oil revenue royalties from the central government, according to the Petroleum Act 1974. In 2009, the central government offered 'compensation' or "Wang Ehsan", a fraction of the sum actually owed. Discrimination of Kelantan on the matter has led the state government considering action in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Support for Kelantan and the local government in defiance of the central government includes the group Kelantan Peoples' Movement Demanding Petroleum Royalties or "Gerakan Menuntut Royalti Petroleum Rakyat Kelantan (GMR)."


title: Kelantan

text: The largely rural state preserves rich Malay traditions such as kite-flying contests, top-spinning contests, and bird singing competitions, and traditional handicrafts such as batik, songket, and silver crafts. The Kelantanese people, regardless of ethnic origin, are proud of their state and its unique local culture and dialect. Kelantan's ethnic composition are 95.7% Malay, 3.4% Chinese, 0.3% Indian and 0.6% Others.


title: Kelantan

text: All the ethnicities generally live together harmoniously in Kelantan. For example, members of the Thai community received a permit to build a very large statue of the Buddha without any objection from the Malay community or the PAS government that granted the permit.


title: Kelantan

text: Kelantanese Malay people are the predominant ethnic group in the state. They speak Kelantanese Malay which is distinguished from standard Malay as well as other Malay varieties in Malaysia by its unique grammar, pronunciation and figures of speech.


title: Kelantan

text: Kelantanese Malay is somewhat partially intelligible with other Malay dialects. Whilst the Arabic script called Jawi has less influence in the other parts of Malaysia, it is still widely used in writing and printing the Malay language in Kelantan. Signboards in Kelantan are written in both Jawi and Rumi. To a certain extent, Thai is also used.


title: Kelantan

text: 95.7% of Kelantan's population are ethnic Malays, and under the Malaysian Constitution, all Malays are Muslims; therefore, Islam is the most influential religion in the state.


title: Kelantan

text: To most Malaysians, Kelantan is synonymous with Malays arts and crafts. Kota Bharu, as the state capital, is a popular centre for such pursuits as silat, martial arts, and "kertok" drumming. Here, too, more than any other place in Malaysia, the traditional pastimes of top-spinning — known as "gasing" — and the flying of giant, elaborately decorated kites called "wau", are still much in evidence.


title: Kelantan

text: The minority ethnic Thai inhabitants of Kelantan are mostly centred in an area around the coastal town of Tumpat, site of most of the state's two hundred or so Buddhist temples, and noteworthy for its number of relatively well-off Siamese villages.


title: Kelantan

text: The dialect of the Thai language spoken in Kelantan is called "Tak Bai", after the southernmost coastal town Tak Bai of Narathiwat Province, just across the Golok River from Malaysia. "Tak Bai" dialect differs substantially from standard southern Thai and other regional Thai dialects, and it seems certain that the Kelantan Thais are the descendants of an original enclave of Narathiwat settlers established in sparsely populated Malay territory as long as four centuries ago.


title: Kelantan

text: Buddhism is also visible in the hundreds of Thai wats, also known as "ketik", found throughout the state. Since 1980, the longest statue of a reclining Buddha in Southeast Asia can be found in Wat Photivihan, in Tumpat. This temple is very popular with pilgrims and devotees. The "Metta" chanting uses the original Pali language or a Thai translation. About a thousand visitors attend the Wat for such religious celebrations as Tok'katinna, Loy Krathong, Saibat and Songkran.


title: Kelantan

text: In Kelantan, the Kelantanese Chinese see themselves as either Cino Kapong (village Chinese) or Cino Bandar (town Chinese). Famous Chinese villages in Kelantan include Kampung Tok'kong (300-year-old temple), Batu Jong, Kampung Jelatok, Kampung Joh, Kampung Temangan, Kampung Mata Ayer, Kampung Tawang, Kampung Balai, and Gua Musang. Descendants of the earlier waves of small-scale migration are known as Oghe Cino kito (our very own Chinese) and the elders are seen as Oghe Kelate beto (true Kelantanese).


title: Kelantan

text: Cina Kampung assimilation in Kelantan is manifested as: "Malay behaviour as frontstage and Chinese behaviour as backstage". "Frontstage" or public behaviour includes speaking Kelantanese Malay even when among themselves, adopting Malay-style clothing, and observing certain Malay customs and holidays. "Backstage" or private behaviour includes maintaining certain traditional Chinese beliefs and customs confined only within the home. A pattern which they also associate as Peranakan Chinese, nonetheless they are culturally different in some ways from the Strait-Chinese Peranakan of Malacca, Penang and Singapore or even the Indonesian Peranakans.


title: Kelantan

text: The Cina Kampung in Kelantan have native speaker competence in the Kelantanese dialect. It is impossible to tell a Malay from a Chinese here just by listening to their speech in the Kelantanese dialect.


title: Kelantan

text: Much of Chinese culture still continues until today; such as Lion Dance and Dragon Dance during the Chinese New Year, temple celebration, eating bakchang (meat dumpling), mooncake, baby fullmoon, pulut kuning, telur merah, eat 'e' (tangyuan), religious celebration including praying Na Tuk Kong. They also cook 'bak hong', 'uang (meatball)' during the wedding ceremony and ' kiam mai' during the funeral.


title: Kelantan

text: The village of Kampung Tok'kong in the Kelantan state of Malaysian is well known for a historically significant Chinese Temple known as Seng Choon Kiong. 25 km from Kota Bharu, it is located within a paddy field village with a population of around 500 person. The temple is approximately 300 years old. It is dedicated to the worship of the Goddess Matsu. Every year on the equivalent date to 23 March on the Chinese Calendar, the birthday of Mazu is commemorated with concerts, lion dance, Carrying god ride 'Kheng kiu', 'siam hee' and also wayang kulit show for three days. Chinese and Mazu followers visit the temple to pay homage to Mazu, to offer prayers for health and wealth, as well as for personal safety and security and eat Kampung Tokkong most famous 'Bak hong'.


title: Kelantan

text: Unlike the Chinese in other parts of Malaysia, Kelantanese Chinese prefer to conduct their wedding party at home rather than at a restaurant. This reflects their mindset that their presence to celebrate the newly weds is more important than the wedding banquet. And also make it a gathering ceremony to celebrate the angsu 'red/ happiness'. the more guest mean the house owner is more respectable. This is further proven by their generosity of the money gifts from the newly weds. Usually the wedding ceremony begins on Thursday night and proceeds until the next morning because the weekend holiday is Friday in Kelantan. For good luck, the groom has to bring home the bride before 12 noon on the Friday with flowers decorate car.


title: Kelantan

text: Most Chinese villagers bury their deceased ones at the local town cemetery. Others cremate the dead at the nearest Wat. If the deceased is old, a three-day funeral ceremony and memorial is conducted, complete with chanting from the monks. But if the deceased is of the younger generation, they are either buried or cremated as soon as possible. They also offers prayers for anniversary for the death. example: for Villager in Kampung Tok'kong also have cemetery known as 'Chiakka sua' located nearby Kampung Tok'kong. and one of the biggest cemetery in kelantan is 'Fu Long Shan' located in nearby kem desa pahlawan.


title: Kelantan

text: Indians are known to be one of the smallest ethnic groups in Kelantan. During the colonial period of the British government, the Indians were brought in to Kelantan to work in rubber estates around Gua Musang and Tanah Merah as labourers.


title: Kelantan

text: Orang Asli, mostly Temiar, are people who have lived in the forests of Kelantan and Perak for thousands of years. Some of the Temiar maintain traditional beliefs in their natural surroundings and other forms of animist elements. Other "Orang Asli" ethnic groups that live in Kelantan are Jahais, Bateks and Mendriqs.


title: Kelantan

text: As of 2010 the population of Kelantan is 95.2% Muslim, 3.8% Buddhist, 0.3% Christian, 0.2% Hindu, 0.5% follower of other religions or non-religious.


title: Kelantan

text: Statistics from the 2010 Census indicate that 93.2% of the Chinese population identify as Buddhists, with significant minorities of adherents identifying as Muslims (3.0%), Christians (2.8%) and Chinese folk religions (0.6%). The latter figure may include followers of Taoism. The majority of the Indian population identify as Hindus (76.5%), with a significant minorities of numbers identifying as Muslims (11.6%), Buddhists (6.7%) and Christians (3.7%). The non-Malay "bumiputera" community are predominantly Muslims (39.8%), with significant minorities identifying as Atheists (30.3%) and Christians (14.3%). All Malays are considered Muslims according to the law.


title: Kelantan

text: Districts in Kelantan are called "Jajahan"s, though actually the direct translation of "Tanah Jajahan" in Malay to English is 'Occupied Territories'. Kelantan was a divided feudal state, a common situation in the Malay Peninsula, with separate petty local rulers. However, a strong one managed to rise and conquer all these small petty territories. In the end, Kelantan became united under one Sultan.


title: Kelantan

text: Kelantan is known as the cradle of Malay culture based on the diverse cultural activities practised by Kelantanese. Among the popular cultural practices are Dikir Barat, Wayang Kulit Kelantan, Wayang Kulit Melayu, Mak Yong, Menora, Main Puteri, Wau Bulan (kite-flying), Gasing (top-spinning), Silat, Tomoi, bird-singing competition and handicrafts. The unique Kelantan culture, Mak Yong is recognized by UNESCO. This ancient theatre form created by Malaysia's Malay communities combines acting, vocal and instrumental music, gestures and elaborate costumes. Specific to the villages of Kelantan in northwest Malaysia, where the tradition originated, Mak Yong is performed mainly as entertainment or for ritual purposes related to healing practices.


title: Kelantan

text: Among the handicraft products that are songket, batik, silverware and mengkuang. The Kandis Resource Centre provides information on the Kelantanese wood carving.


title: Kelantan

text: The Kelantanese cuisine, heavily influenced by Malay cuisine. Kelantanese food makes more use of coconut milk than anywhere else in the country. Curries are richer, and creamier.


title: Kelantan

text: Apart from consumable items from local and also imported from Thailand. There are dishes which have developed through the rich culture of the Kelantanese themselves, such as:


title: Kelantan

text: • A sweet, sour and very mildly hot version. This colek is different from other chili sauces because colek is very thin and rather sweet. This dipping sauce is used for chicken, and also goes well with shrimp, fish cake, spring roll, sausage, etc.


title: Kelantan

text: Nowadays, other types of fish are also used to create Budu. Famous Budu maker villages are Kg. Tawang, Bachok and Kg. Penambang near Kota Bharu.


title: Kelantan

text: Historically, Kelantan had a strong relationship with the Pattani Kingdom. Pattani and Kelantan are geopolitically divided but culturally united. Kelantanese and Southern Thais cross the border frequently to visit their relatives and transport goods for small business.


title: History of Greenland

text: The first humans are thought to have arrived in Greenland around 2500 BC. Their descendants apparently died out and were succeeded by several other groups migrating from continental North America. There has been no evidence discovered that Greenland was known to Europeans until the 10th century, when Icelandic Vikings settled on its southwestern coast, which seems to have been uninhabited when they arrived. The ancestors of the Inuit Greenlanders who live there today appear to have migrated there later, around AD 1200, from northwestern Greenland. While the Inuit survived in the icy world of the Little Ice Age, the early Norse settlements along the southwestern coast disappeared, leaving the Inuit as the only inhabitants of the island for several centuries. During this time, Denmark-Norway, apparently believing the Norse settlements had survived, continued to claim sovereignty over the island despite the lack of any contact between the Norse Greenlanders and their Scandinavian brethren. In 1721, aspiring to become a colonial power, Denmark-Norway sent a missionary expedition to Greenland with the stated aim of reinstating Christianity among descendants of the Norse Greenlanders who may have reverted to paganism. When the missionaries found no descendants of the Norse Greenlanders, they baptized the Inuit Greenlanders they found living there instead. Denmark-Norway then developed trading colonies along the coast and imposed a trade monopoly and other colonial privileges on the area.


title: History of Greenland

text: During World War II, when Germany invaded Denmark, Greenlanders became socially and economically less connected to Denmark and more connected to the United States. After the war, Denmark resumed control of Greenland and in 1953, converted its status from colony to overseas "amt" (county). Although Greenland is still a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, it has enjoyed home rule since 1979. In 1985, the island decided to leave the European Economic Community (EEC), which it had joined as a part of Denmark in 1973; the Faroes had never joined.


title: History of Greenland

text: The prehistory of Greenland is a story of repeated waves of Paleo-Inuit immigration from the islands north of the North American mainland. (The peoples of those islands are thought to have descended, in turn, from inhabitants of Siberia who migrated into Canada thousands of years ago.) Because of Greenland's remoteness and climate, survival there was difficult. Over the course of centuries, one culture succeeded another as groups died out and were replaced by new immigrants. Archaeology can give only approximate dates for the cultures that flourished before the Norse exploration of Greenland in the 10th century.


title: History of Greenland

text: The earliest known cultures in Greenland are the Saqqaq culture (2500–800 BC) and the Independence I culture in northern Greenland (2400–1300 BC). The practitioners of these two cultures are thought to have descended from separate groups that came to Greenland from northern Canada. Around 800 BC, the so-called Independence II culture arose in the region where the Independence I culture had previously existed. It was originally thought that Independence II was succeeded by the early Dorset culture (700 BC–AD 1), but some Independence II artifacts date from as recently as the 1st century BC. Recent studies suggest that, in Greenland at least, the Dorset culture may be better understood as a continuation of Independence II culture; the two cultures have therefore been designated "Greenlandic Dorset". Artefacts associated with early Dorset culture in Greenland have been found as far north as Inglefield Land on the west coast and the Dove Bay area on the east coast.


title: History of Greenland

text: After the Early Dorset culture disappeared by around AD 1, Greenland was apparently uninhabited until Late Dorset people settled on the Greenlandic side of the Nares strait around 700. The late Dorset culture in the north of Greenland lasted until about 1300. Meanwhile, the Norse arrived and settled in the southern part of the island in 980.


title: History of Greenland

text: Europeans probably became aware of Greenland's existence in the early 10th century, after Gunnbjörn Ulfsson, while sailing from Norway to Iceland, was blown off course by a storm and sighted some islands off Greenland. During the 980s explorers led by Erik the Red set out from Iceland and reached the southwest coast of Greenland. They found the region uninhabited, and subsequently settled there. Erik named the island "Greenland" ("Grœnland" in Old Norse, "Grænland" in modern Icelandic, "Grønland" in modern Danish and Norwegian). Both the "Book of Icelanders" ("Íslendingabók", a medieval account of Icelandic history from the 12th century onward) and the "Saga of Eric the Red" ("Eiríks saga rauða", a medieval account of his life and of the Norse settlement of Greenland) state that Erik said that "it would encourage people to go there that the land had a good name"."


title: History of Greenland

text: According to the sagas, the Icelanders had exiled Erik the Red for three years for committing murder, 982. He sailed to Greenland, where he explored the coastline and claimed certain regions as his own. He then returned to Iceland to persuade people to join him in establishing a settlement on Greenland. The Icelandic sagas say that 25 ships left Iceland with Erik the Red in 985, and that only 14 of them arrived safely in Greenland. Radiocarbon dating of remains at the first settlement at Brattahlid (now Qassiarsuk) have approximately confirmed this timeline, yielding a date of about 1000. According to the sagas, in the year 1000 Erik's son, Leif Eirikson, left the settlement to explore the regions around Vinland, which historians generally assume to have been located in present-day Newfoundland.


title: History of Greenland

text: The Norse established settlements along Greenland's south-western fjords. It is possible that the bottom lands of the southern fjords at that time were covered by highgrown shrub and surrounded by hills covered with grass and brush (as the Qinngua Valley currently is), but this hasn't been determined yet. If the presumption is true then the Norse probably cleared the landscape by felling trees to use as building material and as fuel, and by allowing their sheep and goats to graze there in both summer and winter. Any resultant soil erosion could have become an important factor in the demise of the colonies, as the land was stripped of its natural cover.


title: History of Greenland

text: The Norse settled in three separate locations in south-western Greenland: the larger Eastern Settlement, the smaller Western Settlement, and the still smaller Middle Settlement (often considered part of the Eastern one). Estimates put the combined population of the settlements at their height between 2,000 and 10,000, with recent estimates trending toward the lower figure. Archeologists have identified the ruins of approximately 620 farms: 500 in the Eastern Settlement, 95 in the Western Settlement, and 20 in the Middle Settlement.


title: History of Greenland

text: The economy of the Norse Greenlanders depended on a combination of pastoral farming with hunting and some fishing. Farmers kept cattle, sheep and goats - shipped into the island - for their milk, cheese and butter, while most of the consumed meat came from hunted caribou and seals. Both individual farmers and groups of farmers organised summer trips to the more northerly Disko Bay area, where they hunted walruses, narwhals and polar bears for their skins, hides and ivory. Besides their use in making garments and shoes, these resources also functioned as a form of currency, as well as providing the most important export commodities.


title: History of Greenland

text: The Greenland settlements carried on a trade with Europe in ivory from walrus tusks, as well as exporting rope, sheep, seals, wool and cattle hides (according to one 13th-century account). They depended on Iceland and Norway for iron tools, wood (especially for boat building, although they may also have obtained wood from coastal Labrador - "Markland"), supplemental foodstuffs, and religious and social contacts. For a time, trade ships from Iceland and Norway traveled to Greenland every year and would sometimes overwinter in Greenland. Beginning in the late-13th century, laws required all ships from Greenland to sail directly to Norway. The climate became increasingly colder in the 14th and 15th centuries, during the period of colder weather known as the Little Ice Age.


title: History of Greenland

text: In 1126 the Roman Catholic Church founded a diocese at Garðar (now Igaliku). It was subject to the Norwegian archdiocese of Nidaros (now Trondheim); at least five churches in Norse Greenland are known from archeological remains. In 1261 the population accepted the overlordship of the King of Norway, although it continued to have its own law.


title: History of Greenland

text: A union between Norway and Sweden, including Greenland and Iceland existed between 1319 to 1355 through Magnus IV of Sweden (In Norway crowned Magnus VII after claims of birthright) and between 1362 and 1364 through Haakon VI, the son ”Håkan Magnusson”. During this period Greenland runs were made at intervals.


title: History of Greenland

text: After initially thriving, the Norse settlements in Greenland declined in the 14th century. It has been stated the Norse abandoned the Western Settlement around 1350. However, in 1355 Magnus IV of Sweden (In Norway Magnus VII) sent a ship (or ships) to Greenland to inspect its Western and Eastern Settlements. Sailors found settlements entirely Norse and Christian. The Greenland carrier ("Groenlands Knorr") made the Greenland run at intervals till 1369, when she sank and was apparently not replaced.


title: History of Greenland

text: In 1378 there was no longer a bishop at Garðar. In 1379 Inuit attacked the Eastern Settlement, killed 18 men and captured two boys and a woman. In 1402–1404 the Black Death hit Iceland for the first time and killed approximately half the population there - but there is no evidence that it reached Greenland.


title: History of Greenland

text: The last written record of the Norse Greenlanders documents a marriage in 1408 at Hvalsey Church, whose ruins are the best-preserved of the Norse buildings of that period.


title: History of Greenland

text: After 1408 few written records mention the settlers. Correspondence between the Pope and the Biskop Bertold af Garde dates from the same year. The Danish cartographer Claudius Clavus seems to have visited Greenland in 1420, according to documents written by Nicolas Germanus and Henricus Martellus, who had access to original cartographic notes and a map by Clavus. In the late 20th century the Danish scholars Bjönbo and Petersen found two mathematical manuscripts containing the second chart of the Claudius Clavus map from his journey to Greenland (where he himself mapped the area).


title: History of Greenland

text: In a letter dated 1448 from Rome, Pope Nicholas V instructed the bishops of Skálholt and Hólar (the two Icelandic episcopal sees) to provide the inhabitants of Greenland with priests and a bishop, the latter of which they had not had in the 30 years since a purported attack by "heathens" who destroyed most of the churches and took the population prisoner. It is probable that the Eastern Settlement was defunct by the middle of the 15th century, although no exact date has been established. A European ship that landed in the former Eastern Settlement in the 1540s found the corpse of a Norse man there, which may be the last mention of a Norse individual from the settlement.


title: History of Greenland

text: There are many theories as to why the Norse settlements in Greenland collapsed after surviving for some 450–500 years (985 to 1450–1500). Among the factors that have been suggested as contributing to the demise of the Greenland colony are:


title: History of Greenland

text: Numerous studies have tested these hypotheses and some have led to significant discoveries. In "The Frozen Echo," Kirsten Seaver contests some of the more generally accepted theories about the demise of the Greenland colony, and asserts that the colony, towards the end, was healthier than some scholars previously claimed. Seaver believes that the Greenlanders cannot have starved to death, but rather may have been wiped out by Inuit or unrecorded European attacks, or they may have abandoned the colony for Iceland or Vinland. However, the physical evidence from archeological studies of the ancient farm sites does not show evidence of attack. The paucity of personal belongings at these sites is typical of North Atlantic Norse sites that were abandoned in an orderly fashion, with any useful items being deliberately removed; but to others it suggests a gradual but devastating impoverishment. Middens at these sites do show an increasingly impoverished diet for humans and livestock. Else Roesdahl argues that declining ivory prices in Europe due to the influx of Russian and African ivory adversely affected the Norse settlements in Greenland, which depended largely on the export of walrus ivory to Europe.


title: History of Greenland

text: Greenland was always colder in winter than Iceland and Norway, and its terrain less hospitable to agriculture. Erosion of the soil was a danger from the beginning, one that the Greenland settlements may not have recognized until it was too late. For an extended time, nonetheless, the relatively warm West Greenland current flowing northwards along the southwestern coast of Greenland made it feasible for the Norse to farm much as their relatives did in Iceland or northern Norway. Palynologists' tests on pollen counts and fossilized plants prove that the Greenlanders must have struggled with soil erosion and deforestation. A Norse farm in the Vatnahverfi district, excavated in the 1950s, had been buried in layers of drifting sand up to 10 feet deep. As the unsuitability of the land for agriculture became more and more patent, the Greenlanders resorted first to pastoralism and then to hunting for their food. But they never learned to use the hunting techniques of the Inuit, one being a farming culture, the other living on hunting in more northern areas with pack ice.


title: History of Greenland

text: To investigate the possibility of climatic cooling, scientists drilled into the Greenland ice cap to obtain core samples, which suggested that the Medieval Warm Period had caused a relatively milder climate in Greenland, lasting from roughly 800 to 1200. However, from 1300 or so the climate began to cool. By 1420, the "Little Ice Age" had reached intense levels in Greenland. Excavations of middens from the Norse farms in both Greenland and Iceland show the shift from the bones of cows and pigs to those of sheep and goats. As the winters lengthened, and the springs and summers shortened, there must have been less and less time for Greenlanders to grow hay. A study of North Atlantic seasonal temperature variability showed a significant decrease in maximum summer temperatures beginning in the late 13th century to early 14th century—as much as 6-8 °C lower than modern summer temperatures. The study also found that the lowest winter temperatures of the last 2,000 years occurred in the late 14th century and early 15th century. By the mid-14th century deposits from a chieftain's farm showed a large number of cattle and caribou remains, whereas, a poorer farm only several kilometers away had no trace of domestic animal remains, only seal. Bone samples from Greenland Norse cemeteries confirm that the typical Greenlander diet had increased by this time from 20% sea animals to 80%.


title: History of Greenland

text: Although Greenland seems to have been uninhabited at the time of initial Norse settlement, the Thule people migrated south and finally came into contact with the Norse in the 12th century. There are limited sources showing the two cultures interacting; however, scholars know that the Norse referred to the Inuit (and Vinland natives) as skræling. The "Icelandic Annals" are among the few existing sources that confirm contact between the Norse and the Inuit. They report an instance of hostility initiated by the Inuit against the Norse, leaving eighteen Greenlanders dead and two boys carried into slavery. Archaeological evidence seems to show that the Inuit traded with the Norse. On the other hand, the evidence shows many Norse artefacts at Inuit sites throughout Greenland and on the Canadian Arctic islands but very few Inuit artefacts in the Norse settlements. This may indicate either European indifference—an instance of cultural resistance to Inuit crafts among them—or perhaps hostile raiding by the Inuit. It is also quite possible that the Norse were trading for perishable items such as meat and furs and had little interest in other Inuit items, much as later Europeans who traded with Native Americans.


title: History of Greenland

text: The Norse never learned the Inuit techniques of kayak navigation or ring seal hunting. Archaeological evidence plainly establishes that by 1300 or so the Inuit had successfully expanded their winter settlements as close to the Europeans as the outer fjords of the Western Settlement. By 1350, the Norse had completely deserted their Western Settlement. But in 1355 union king Magnus IV of Sweden and Norway (In Norway crowned Magnus VII after claims of birthright) sent a ship (or ships) to Greenland to inspect its Western and Eastern Settlements. Sailors found settlements entirely Norse and Christian. The Greenland carrier ("Groenlands Knorr") made the Greenland run at intervals till 1369, when she sank and was apparently not replaced. The Inuit, being a hunting society, may have hunted the Norse livestock, forcing the Norse into conflict or abandonment of their settlements.


title: History of Greenland

text: In mild weather conditions, a ship could make the 900-mile (1400 kilometers) trip from Iceland to Eastern Settlement within a couple of weeks. Greenlanders had to keep in contact with Iceland and Norway in order to trade. Little is known about any distinctive shipbuilding techniques among the Greenlanders. Greenland lacks a supply of lumber, so was completely dependent on Icelandic merchants or, possibly, logging expeditions to the Canadian coast.


title: History of Greenland

text: The sagas mention Icelanders traveling to Greenland to trade. Settlement chieftains and large farm owners controlled this trade. Chieftains would trade with the foreign ships and then disperse the goods by trading with the surrounding farmers. The Greenlanders' main commodity was the walrus tusk, which was used primarily in Europe as a substitute for elephant ivory for art décor, whose trade had been blocked by conflict with the Islamic world. Professor Gudmundsson suggests a very valuable narwhal tusk trade, through a smuggling route between western Iceland and the Orkney islands.


title: History of Greenland

text: It has been argued that the royal Norwegian monopoly on shipping contributed to the end of trade and contact. However, Christianity and European customs continued to hold sway among the Greenlanders for the greater part of the 14th and 15th centuries. In 1921, a Danish historian, Paul Norland, found human remains from the Eastern Settlement in the Herjolfsnes church courtyard. The bodies were dressed in 15th century medieval clothing with no indications of malnutrition or inbreeding. Most had crucifixes around their necks with their arms crossed as in a stance of prayer. Roman papal records report that the Greenlanders were excused from paying their tithes in 1345 because the colony was suffering from poverty. The last reported ship to reach Greenland was a private ship that was "blown off course", reaching Greenland in 1406, and departing in 1410 with the last news of Greenland: the burning at the stake of a condemned male witch, the insanity and death of the woman this witch was accused of attempting to seduce through witchcraft, and the marriage of the ship's captain, Thorsteinn Ólafsson, to another Icelander, Sigríður Björnsdóttir. However, there are some suggestions of much later unreported voyages from Europe to Greenland, possibly as late as the 1480s. In the 1540s, a ship drifted off-course to Greenland and discovered the body of a dead man lying face down who demonstrated cultural traits of both Norse and Inuit. An Icelandic crew member of the ship wrote: "He had a hood on his head, well sewn, and clothes from both homespun and sealskin. At his side lay a carving knife bent and worn down by whetting. This knife they took with them for display."


title: History of Greenland

text: According to a 2009 study, "there is no evidence for perceptible contact between Iceland and Greenland after the mid fifteenth century... It is clear that neither Danish and Norwegian nor Icelandic public functionaries were aware that the Norse Greenland colony had ceased to exist. Around 1514, the Norwegian archbishop Erik Valkendorf (Danish by birth, and still loyal to Christian II) planned an expedition to Greenland, which he believed to be part of a continuous northern landmass leading to the New World with all its wealth, and which he fully expected still to have a Norse population, whose members could be pressed anew to the bosom of church and crown after an interval of well over a hundred years. Presumably, the archbishop had better archives at his disposal than most people, and yet he had not heard that the Greenlanders were gone."


title: History of Greenland

text: One intriguing fact is that very few fish remains are found among their middens. This has led to much speculation and argument. Most archaeologists reject any decisive judgment based on this one fact, however, as fish bones decompose more quickly than other remains, and may have been disposed of in a different manner. Isotope analysis of the bones of inhabitants shows that marine food sources supplied more and more of the diet of the Norse Greenlanders, making up between 50% and 80% of their diet by the 14th century.


title: History of Greenland

text: One Inuit story recorded in the 18th century tells that raiding expeditions by European ships over the course of three years destroyed the settlement, after which many of the Norse sailed away south and the Inuit took in some of the remaining women and children before the final attack.


title: History of Greenland

text: The Late Dorset culture inhabited Greenland until the early fourteenth century. This culture was primarily located in the northwest of Greenland, far from the Norse who lived around the southern coasts. Archaeological evidence points to this culture predating the Norse or Thule settlements. In the region of this culture, there is archaeological evidence of gathering sites for around four to thirty families, living together for a short time during their movement cycle.


title: History of Greenland

text: Around AD 1300–1400, the Thule arrived from the west settling in the Northeast areas of Greenland. These people, the ancestors of the modern Greenland Inuit, were flexible and engaged in the hunting of almost all animals on land and in the ocean, including walrus, narwhal, and seal. The Thule adapted well to the environment of Greenland, as archaeological evidence indicates that the Thule were not using all parts of hunting kills, unlike other arctic groups, meaning they were able to waste more resources due to either surplus or well adapted behaviors.


title: History of Greenland

text: The nature of the contacts between the Dorset and Norse cultures is not clear, but may have included trade elements. The level of contact is currently the subject of widespread debate, possibly including Norse trade with Thule or Dorsets in Canada.


title: History of Greenland

text: Most of the old Norse records concerning Greenland were removed from Trondheim to Copenhagen in 1664 and subsequently lost, probably in the Copenhagen Fire of 1728. The precise date of rediscovery is uncertain because south-drifting icebergs during the Little Ice Age long made the eastern coast unreachable. This led to general confusion between Baffin Island, Greenland, and Spitsbergen, as seen, for example, in the difficulty locating the Frobisher "Strait", which was not confirmed to be a bay until 1861. Nonetheless, interest in discovering a Northwest Passage to Asia led to repeated expeditions in the area, though none were successful until Roald Amundsen in 1906 and even that success involved his being iced in for two years. Christian I of Denmark purportedly sent an expedition to the region under Pothorst and Pining to Greenland in 1472 or 1473; Henry VII of England sent another under Cabot in 1497 and 1498; Manuel I of Portugal sent a third under Corte-Real in 1500 and 1501. It had certainly been generally charted by the 1502 Cantino map, which includes the southern coastline. The island was "rediscovered" yet again by Martin Frobisher in 1578, prompting King Frederick II of Denmark to outfit a new expedition of his own the next year under the Englishman James Alday; this proved a costly failure. The influence of English and Dutch whalers became so pronounced that for a time the western shore of the island itself became known as "Davis Strait" () after John Davis's 1585 and 1586 expeditions, which charted the western coast as far north as Disko Bay.


title: History of Greenland

text: Meanwhile, following Sweden's exit from the Kalmar Union, the remaining states in the personal union were reorganized into Denmark-Norway in 1536. In protest against foreign involvement in the region, the Greenlandic polar bear was included in the state's coat of arms in the 1660s (it was removed in 1958 but remains part of the royal coat of arms). In the second half of the 17th century Dutch, German, French, Basque, and Dano-Norwegian ships hunted bowhead whales in the pack ice off the east coast of Greenland, regularly coming to shore to trade and replenish drinking water. Foreign trade was later forbidden by Danish monopoly merchants.


title: History of Greenland

text: From 1711 to 1721, the Norwegian cleric Hans Egede petitioned King Frederick IV of Denmark for funding to travel to Greenland and re-establish contact with the Norse settlers there. Presumably, such settlers would still be Catholic or even pagan and he desired to establish a mission among them to spread the Reformation. Frederick permitted Egede and some Norwegian merchants to establish the Bergen Greenland Company to revive trade with the island but refused to grant them a monopoly over it for fear of antagonizing Dutch whalers in the area. The Royal Mission College assumed authority over the mission and provided the company with a small stipend. Egede found but misidentified the ruins of the Norse colony, went bankrupt amid repeated attacks by the Dutch, and found lasting conversion of the migrant Inuit exceedingly difficult. An attempt to found a royal colony under Major Claus Paarss established the settlement of Godthåb ("Good Hope") in 1728, but became a costly debacle which saw most of the soldiers mutiny and the settlers killed by scurvy. Two child converts sent to Copenhagen for the coronation of Christian VI returned in 1733 with smallpox, devastating the island. The same ship that returned them, however, also brought the first Moravian missionaries, who in time would convert a former angekok (Inuit shaman), experience a revival at their mission of New Herrnhut, and establish a string of mission houses along the southwest coast. Around the same time, the merchant Jacob Severin took over administration of the colony and its trade, and having secured a large royal stipend and full monopoly from the king, successfully repulsed the Dutch in a series of skirmishes in 1738 and 1739. Egede himself quit the colony on the death of his wife, leaving the Lutheran mission to his son Poul. Both of them had studied the Kalaallisut language extensively and published works on it; as well, Poul and some of the other clergy sent by the Mission College, such as Otto Fabricius, began wide-ranging study of Greenland's flora, fauna, and meteorology. However, though kale, lettuce, and other herbs were successfully introduced, repeated attempts to cultivate wheat or clover failed throughout Greenland, limiting the ability to raise European livestock.


title: History of Greenland

text: As a result of the Napoleonic Wars, Norway was ceded to Sweden at the 1814 Treaty of Kiel. The colonies, including Greenland, remained in Danish possession. The 19th century saw increased interest in the region on the part of polar explorers and scientists like William Scoresby and Greenland-born Knud Rasmussen. At the same time, the colonial elements of the earlier trade-oriented Danish presence in Greenland expanded. In 1861, the first Greenlandic-language journal was founded. Danish law still applied to only the Danish settlers, though. At the turn of the 19th century, the northern part of Greenland was still sparsely populated; only scattered hunting inhabitants were found there. During that century, however, Inuit families immigrated from British North America to settle in these areas. The last group from what later became Canada arrived in 1864. During the same time, the northeastern part of the coast became depopulated following the violent 1783 Lakagígar eruption in Iceland.


title: History of Greenland

text: Democratic elections for the district assemblies of Greenland were held for the first time in 1862–1863, although no assembly for the land as a whole was allowed. In 1888, a party of six led by Fridtjof Nansen accomplished the first land crossing of Greenland. The men took 41 days to make the crossing on skis, at approximately 64°N latitude. In 1911, two Landstings were introduced, one for northern Greenland and one for southern Greenland, not to be finally merged until 1951. All this time, most decisions were made in Copenhagen, where the Greenlanders had no representation. Towards the end of the 19th century, traders criticized the Danish trade monopoly. It was argued that it kept the natives in non-profitable ways of life, holding back the potentially large fishing industry. Many Greenlanders however were satisfied with the "status quo", as they felt the monopoly would secure the future of commercial whaling. It probably did not help that the only contact the local population had with the outside world was with Danish settlers. Nonetheless, the Danes gradually moved over their investments to the fishing industry.


title: History of Greenland

text: By 1911, the population was about 14,000, scattered along the southern shores. They were nearly all Christian, thanks to the missionary efforts of Moravians and especially Hans Egede (1686–1758), a Lutheran missionary called "the Apostle of Greenland." He founded Greenland's capital Godthåb, now known as Nuuk. His grandson Hans Egede Saabye (1746–1817) continued the missionary activities.


title: History of Greenland

text: At the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, American explorers, including Robert Peary, explored the northern sections of Greenland, which up to that time had been a mystery and were often shown on maps as extending over the North Pole. Peary discovered that Greenland's northern coast in fact stopped well short of the pole. These discoveries were considered to be the basis of an American territorial claim in the area. But after the United States purchased the Virgin Islands from Denmark in 1917, it agreed to relinquish all claims on Greenland.


title: History of Greenland

text: After Norway regained full independence in 1905, it argued that Danish claims to Greenland were invalid since the island had been a Norwegian possession prior to 1815. In 1931, Norwegian meteorologist Hallvard Devold occupied uninhabited eastern Greenland, on his own initiative. After the fact, the occupation was supported by the Norwegian government, who claimed the area as Erik the Red's Land. Two years later, the Permanent Court of International Justice ruled in favor of Denmark.


title: History of Greenland

text: During World War II, when Nazi Germany extended its war operations to Greenland, Henrik Kauffmann, the Danish Minister to the United States — who had already refused to recognize the German occupation of Denmark — signed a treaty with the United States on April 9, 1941, granting permission to establish stations in Greenland. Kauffmann did this without the knowledge of the Danish government, and consequently "the Danish government accused him of high treason, fired him and told him to come home immediately – none of which had any result". Because it was difficult for the Danish government to govern the island during the war, and because of successful exports, especially of cryolite, Greenland came to enjoy a rather independent status. Its supplies were guaranteed by the United States.


title: History of Greenland

text: During the Cold War, Greenland had a strategic importance, controlling parts of the passage between the Soviet Union's Arctic Ocean harbours and the Atlantic Ocean, as well as being a good base for observing any use of intercontinental ballistic missiles, typically planned to pass over the Arctic. In the first proposed United States purchase of Greenland, the country offered to buy it for $100,000,000 but Denmark did not agree to sell. In 1951, the Kauffman treaty was replaced by another one. The Thule Air Base in the northwest was made permanent. In 1953, some Inuit families were forced by Denmark to move from their homes to provide space for extension of the base. For this reason, the base has been a source of friction between the Danish government and the Greenlandic people. In the 1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash of January 21, 1968, four hydrogen bombs contaminated the area with radioactive debris. Although most of the contaminated ice was cleaned up, one of the bombs was not accounted for. A 1995 Danish parliamentary scandal, dubbed Thulegate, highlighted that nuclear weapons were routinely present in Greenland's airspace in the years leading up to the accident, and that Denmark had tacitly given the go-ahead for this activity despite its official nuclear free policy.


title: History of Greenland

text: The United States upgraded the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System to a phased array radar. Opponents argue that the system presents a threat to the local population, as it would be targeted in the event of nuclear war.


title: History of Greenland

text: The American presence in Greenland brought Sears catalogs, from which Greenlanders and Danes purchased modern appliances and other products by mail. From 1948 to 1950, the Greenland Commission studied the conditions on the island, seeking to address its isolation, unequal laws, and economic stagnation. In the end, the Royal Greenland Trading Department's monopolies were finally removed. In 1953, Greenland was raised from the status of colony to that of an autonomous province or constituent country of the Danish Realm. Greenland was also assigned its own Danish county. Despite its small population, it was provided nominal representation in the Danish Folketing.


title: History of Greenland

text: Denmark also began a number of reforms aimed at urbanizing the Greenlanders, principally to replace their dependence on (then) dwindling seal populations and provide workers for the (then) swelling cod fisheries, but also to provide improved social services such as health care, education, and transportation. These well-meaning reforms have led to a number of problems, particularly modern unemployment and the infamous Blok P housing project. The attempt to introduce European-style urban housing suffered from such inattention to local detail that Inuit could not fit through the doors in their winter clothing and fire escapes were constantly blocked by fishing gear too bulky to fit into the cramped apartments. Television broadcasts began in 1982. The collapse of the cod fisheries and mines in the late 1980s and early 1990s greatly damaged the economy, which now principally depends on Danish aid and cold-water shrimp exports. Large sectors of the economy remain controlled by state-owned corporations, with Air Greenland and the Arctic Umiaq ferry heavily subsidized to provide access to remote settlements. The major airport remains the former US air base at Kangerlussuaq well north of Nuuk, with the capital unable to accept international flights on its own, owing to concerns about expense and noise pollution.


title: History of Greenland

text: Greenland's minimal representation in the Folketing meant that despite 70.3% of Greenlanders rejecting entry into the European Common Market (EEC), it was pulled in along with Denmark in 1973. Fears that the customs union would allow foreign firms to compete and overfish its waters were quickly realized and the local parties began to push strongly for increased autonomy. The Folketing approved devolution in 1978 and the next year enacted home rule under a local Landsting. On 23 February 1982, a bare majority (53%) of Greenland's population voted to leave the EEC, a process which lasted until 1985. This resulted in The Greenland Treaty of 1985.


title: History of Greenland

text: Greenland Home Rule has become increasingly Greenlandized, rejecting Danish and avoiding regional dialects to standardize the country under the language and culture of the Kalaallit (West Greenland Inuit). The capital Godthåb was renamed Nuuk in 1979; a local flag was adopted in 1985; the Danish KGH became the locally administered Kalaallit Niuerfiat (now KNI A/S) in 1986. Following a successful referendum on self-government in 2008, the local parliament's powers were expanded and Danish was removed as an official language in 2009.


title: History of Greenland

text: International relations are now largely, but not entirely, also left to the discretion of the home rule government. As part of the treaty controlling Greenland's exit of the EEC, Greenland was declared a "special case" with access to the EEC market as a constituent country of Denmark, which remains a member. Greenland is also a member of several small organizations along with Iceland, the Faroes, and the Inuit populations of Canada and Russia. It was one of the founders of the environmental Arctic Council in 1996. The US military bases on the island remain a major issue, with some politicians pushing for renegotiation of the 1951 US–Denmark treaty by the Home Rule government. The 1999–2003 Commission on Self-Governance even proposed that Greenland should aim at Thule base's removal from American authority and operation under the aegis of the United Nations.


title: Background check

text: A background check is a process a person or company uses to verify that an individual is who they claim to be, and this provides an opportunity to check and confirm the validity of someone's criminal record, education, employment history, and other activities from their past. The frequency, purpose, and legitimacy of background checks vary among countries, industries, and individuals. An employment background check typically takes place when someone applies for a job, but it can also happen at any time the employer deems necessary. A variety of methods are used to complete these checks including thoroughly verifying references, conducting detailed online searches, utilizing third-party services or agencies when appropriate, depending on the sensitivity of the position or industry regulations, checking academic records, and conducting criminal record checks. All of these steps help employers identify any potential risks associated with hiring an individual and make well-informed decisions.


title: Background check

text: Background checks are often requested by employers on job candidates for employment screening, especially on candidates seeking a position that requires high security or a position of trust, such as in a school, courthouse, hospital, financial institution, airport, and government. They can also be requested when purchasing a firearm (from a legal authorization). These checks are traditionally administered by a government agency for a nominal fee, but they can also be administered by private companies. Results of a background check typically include past employment verification, credit history, and criminal history. The objective of background checks is to ensure the safety and security of the employees in the organization.


title: Background check

text: These checks are often used by employers as a means of judging a job candidate's past mistakes, character, and fitness, and to identify potential hiring risks for safety and security reasons. Background checks are also used to thoroughly investigate potential government employees in order to be given a security clearance. However, these checks can sometimes be used for illegal purposes, such as unlawful discrimination (or employment discrimination), identity theft, and violation of privacy.


title: Background check

text: Checks are frequently conducted to confirm information found on an employment application or résumé/curriculum vitae. One study showed that half of all reference checks done on prospective employees differed between what the job applicant provided and what the source reported. They are also conducted as a way to further differentiate potential employees and pick the one the employer feels is best suited for the position. Employers have an obligation to make sure their work environment is safe for all employees and helps prevent other employment problems in the workplace.


title: Background check

text: In the United States, the Brady Bill requires criminal checks for those wishing to purchase handguns from licensed firearms dealers. Restricted firearms (like machine guns), suppressors, explosives or large quantities of precursor chemicals, and concealed weapons permits also require criminal checks. Checks are also required for those working in positions with special security concerns, such as trucking, ports of entry, and airports (including airline transportation). Laws exist to prevent those who do not pass a criminal check from working in careers involving the elderly, disabled, or children.


title: Background check

text: Pre-employment screening refers to the process of investigating the backgrounds of potential employees and is commonly used to verify the accuracy of an applicant's claims as well as to discover any possible criminal history, workers compensation claims, or employer sanctions.


title: Background check

text: The Brazilian legal system prohibits discrimination against people. Many people consider background checks to be discriminatory.


title: Background check

text: It is the responsibility of the employer to treat all personal information collected from the employee as confidential information and to limit the access to this information within the organization. The employer cannot retain the personal information from the applicant and have to have protective measures just in case there is data breaching. The employer have to give the applicant the opportunity to access their personal information. Dutch Data Protection Authority must be notified of the background check.


title: Background check

text: The first Polish research on the issue of pre-employment screening shows that 81% of recruiters have come across the phenomenon of lies in the CVs of candidates for the job. The responsibility of the employer is to collect necessary information and to protect it so only certain people in the organization could access it. The applicant have to receive a copy of the background check so the applicant could have an opportunity to make sure if the information in the background check is correct. The employer could not keep the personal information more than they need to.


title: Background check

text: The employer has to treat the personal information from the applicant as confidential. The applicant has to receive a copy of the background to check or update the information that appears on the background check. The employer can not retain the information more than it is necessary. The employer has to give any one who comes in contact with the information of the applicant a code of conduct. The company has to go through an audit to make sure they are complying and protecting the data.


title: Background check

text: Since the onset of the financial crisis of 2007–2010, the level of fraud has almost doubled and some experts have predicted that it will escalate further. Background-checking firm Powerchex has claimed the number of applicants lying on their applications has been increasing since the summer of 2007 when the financial crisis began. In 2009, Powerchex claimed that nearly one in 5 applicants has a major lie or discrepancy on his or her application. Almost half (48%) of organizations with fewer than 100 staff experienced problems with vetted employees. The research shows how many failures occurred in the relationship between employer and employee over the years and what dangers it brings. Applicants usually lie about additional skills (85%), dates of employment (58%), responsibilities (53%) or positions (28%).


title: Background check

text: The Financial Services Authority states in their Training & Competence guidance that regulated firms should have:


title: Background check

text: The employer must obtain consent from the applicant granting approval of the background check. The employer must be in accordance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The employers have to guarantee that they will not discriminate against the applicant.


title: Background check

text: Most notably, the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) regulates the use of consumer reports (which it defines as information collected and reported by third party agencies) as it pertains to adverse decisions, notification to the applicant, and destruction and safekeeping of records. If a consumer report is used as a factor in an adverse hiring decision, the applicant must be presented with a "pre-adverse action disclosure," a copy of the FCRA summary of rights, and a "notification of adverse action letter." Individuals are entitled to know the source of any information used against them, including a credit reporting company. Individuals must also consent in order for the employer to obtain a credit report.


title: Background check

text: Title XLV, section 768.095 of the "Florida Statutes" is a law that allows former employers to disclose information about an employee to a future employer, protecting employers from negligent hiring liabilities. Employers use disclosed information from past employers when a background check does not provide enough information on the employee. Employers have to verify that the information disclosed to them is true because if it is false, the employer will be violating the civil rights of the employee.


title: Background check

text: There are a variety of types of investigative searches that can be used by potential employers. Many commercial sites will offer specific searches to employers for a fee. Services like these will actually perform the checks, supply the company with adverse action letters, and ensure compliance throughout the process. It is important to be selective about which pre-employment screening agency one uses. A legitimate company will maintain a background check policy and will explain the process.


title: Background check

text: Many employers choose to search the most common records such as criminal records, driving records, and education verification. Other searches such as sex offender registry, credential verification, skills assessment, reference checks, credit reports and Patriot Act searches are becoming increasingly common.


title: Background check

text: Larger companies are more likely to outsource than their smaller counterparts – the average staff size of the companies who outsource is 3,313 compared to 2,162 for those who carry out in-house checks. Financial service firms had the highest proportion of respondents who outsource the service, with over a quarter (26%) doing so, compared to an overall average of 16% who outsource vetting to a third party provider. The construction and property industry showed the lowest level of outsourcing, with 89% of such firms in the sample carrying out checks in-house, making the overall average 16%. This can increase over the years. Companies that choose to outsource must be sure to use companies that are Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) compliant. Companies that fail to use an FCRA compliant company may face legal issues.


title: Background check

text: As a general rule, employers may not take adverse action against an applicant or employee (not hiring or terminating them), solely on the basis of results obtained through a database search. Database searches, as opposed to source records searches (search of actual county courthouse records), are notoriously inaccurate, contain incomplete or outdated information, and should only be used as an added safety net when conducting a background check. Failure by employers to follow FCRA guidelines can result in hefty penalties.


title: Background check

text: In the United States, the employer could use criminal records as verification as long as the employer does not discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin, as analyzed under the disparate treatment and disparate impact frameworks. There are several types of criminal record searches available to employers, some more accurate and up to date than others. These "third party" background checking agencies cannot guarantee the accuracy of their information, thus many of them have incomplete records or inaccurate records. The only way to conduct an accurate background check is to go directly through the state. Most times using the state of choice is much cheaper than using a "third party" agency. Many websites offer the "instant" background check, which will search a compilation of databases containing public information for a fee. These "instant" searches originate from a variety of sources, from statewide court and corrections records to law enforcement records which usually stem from county or metro law enforcement offices. There are also other database-type criminal searches, such as statewide repositories and the national crime file. A commonly used criminal search by employers who outsource is the county criminal search.


title: Background check

text: Employers could use social media as tool to conduct a background check on an applicant. An employer could check the applicant's Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts to see how the applicant behaves outside of work. U.S. employers are legally prohibited from taking into account anything they discover about a person's marital status, sexual orientation, religion, or political views when making the final decision to hire or not hire the applicant.


title: Background check

text: Some companies provide Media Mentions Reports collected from open sources including Social Media public accounts.


title: Background check

text: Employers may investigate past employment to verify position and salary information. More intensive checks can involve interviews with anybody that knew or previously knew the applicant—such as teachers, friends, coworkers, neighbors, and family members; however, extensive hearsay investigations in background checks can expose companies to lawsuits. Past employment and personal reference verifications are moving toward standardization with most companies in order to avoid expensive litigation. These usually range from simple verbal confirmations of past employment and timeframe to deeper, such as discussions about performance, activities and accomplishments, and relations with others. The past experiences and the companies which have provided these experiences are also verified and researched upon to detect frauds.


title: Background check

text: A fraudulent SSN may be indicative of identity theft, incorrect claims of citizenship status, or concealment of a "past life". Background screening firms usually perform a Social Security trace to determine where the applicant or employee has lived. The hiring of undocumented workers has become an increasing issue for American businesses since the formation of the Department of Homeland Security and its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division, as immigration raids have forced employers to consider including legal working status as part of their background screening process. All employers are required to keep government Form I-9 documents on all employees and some states mandate the use of the federal E-Verify program to research the working status of Social Security numbers. With increased concern for right-to-work issues, many outsourcing companies are sprouting in the marketplace to help automate and store Form I-9 documentation.


title: Background check

text: Credit checks are conducted for applicants who are applying to positions that deal with financial records or deal with a lot of money. For example, in the state of Illinois, employers could use an applicant's credit history, only the credit score is considered satisfactory. Individuals must also give consent in order for the employer to obtain a credit report. Pre-employment credit reports do not include a credit score. A pre-employment credit report will show up on an individual's credit report as a "soft inquiry" and do not affect the individual's credit score.


title: Background check

text: Drug tests and credit checks for employment are highly controversial practices. According to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a project of the Utility Consumers' Action Network (UCAN): "While some people are not concerned about background investigations, others are uncomfortable with the idea of investigators poking around in their personal histories. In-depth checks could unearth information that is irrelevant, outdated, taken out of context, or just plain wrong. A further concern is that the report might include information that is illegal to use for hiring purposes or which comes from questionable sources."


title: Background check

text: In May 2002, allegedly improper post-hire checks conducted by Northwest Airlines were the subject of a civil lawsuit between Northwest and 10,000 of their mechanics.


title: Background check

text: In the case of an arrest that did not lead to a conviction, employment checks can continue including the arrest record for up to seven years, per § 605 of the Fair Credit Reporting Act:


title: Background check

text: Subsection (b) provides for an exception if the report is in connection with "the employment of any individual at an annual salary which equals, or which may reasonably be expected to equal $75,000, or more".


title: Background check

text: In New Zealand, criminal checks have been affected by the "Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Act 2004", which allows individuals to legally conceal "less serious" convictions from their records provided they had been conviction-free for at least seven years.


title: Background check

text: In Michigan, the system of criminal checks has been criticized in a recent case where a shooting suspect was able to pass an FBI check to purchase a shotgun although he had failed the check for a state handgun permit. According to the spokesman of the local police department,


title: Background check

text: The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence has criticized the federal policy, which denies constitutional rights based on a criminal check only if the subject has been accused of a crime.


title: London Wall

text: The London Wall was a defensive wall first built by the Romans around the strategically important port town of Londinium in AD 200, and is now the name of a modern street in the City of London. It has origins as an initial mound wall and ditch from AD 100 and an initial fort, now called Cripplegate fort after the city gate (Cripplegate) that was positioned within its northern wall later on, built in 120-150 where it was then expanded upon by Roman builders into a city-wide defence. Over time, as Roman influence waned through the departure of the Roman army in 410, their withdrawal led to its disrepair, as political power on the island of Great Britain dispersed through the Heptarchy (seven kingdoms) period of Anglo-Saxon England. From the conquest of William the Conqueror, successive medieval restorations and repairs to its use have been undertaken. This wall largely defined the boundaries of the City of London until the later Middle Ages, when population rises and the development of towns around the city blurred the perimeter.


title: London Wall

text: Events such as the Wars of the Roses also played a part in the wall's development. This can be seen upon fragments of wall in the distinctive bricks used to increase its height through the diaper pattern bricks characteristic of the Tudor period and added crenellated battlements. Throughout its existence, the wall has served multiple purposes such as fortification, controlling the population, and acting as a ceremonial boundary for the city.


title: London Wall

text: From the 18th century onward, the expansion of the City of London saw large parts of the wall demolished, including its city gates, to improve traffic flow; or incorporated into new or existing buildings. Over time, parts of the wall have been lost through this development, although archeological and conservation efforts from the Second World War onward have helped to preserve sections of the city wall as scheduled monuments.


title: London Wall

text: Like most other city walls around England, and unlike rare examples such as York, the London Wall largely no longer exists, most of its foundations and/or surviving structures having been either buried underground or removed. Its existence, though, can still be seen through a number of uncovered and/ or preserved structures, records (see interactive map), and within modern urban architecture like the present road which echoes the perimeter of the northern section of the London Wall.


title: London Wall

text: Although the exact reason for the wall's construction is unknown, it appears to have been built in the late 2nd or early 3rd century AD. This was around 80 years after the construction in 120 of the city's fort, whose north and west walls were thickened and doubled in height to form part of the new city wall. The incorporation of the fort's walls gave the walled area its distinctive shape in the north-west part of the City.


title: London Wall

text: It continued to be developed until at least the end of the 4th century, making it among the last major building projects undertaken by the Romans before the Roman departure from Britain in 410. Reasons for its construction may have been connected to the invasion of northern Britain by Picts who overran Hadrian's Wall in the 180s. This may be linked to the political crisis that emerged in the late 2nd century when the governor of Britain Clodius Albinus was consolidating his power after claiming the right of succession as Roman emperor. After a struggle with his rival Septimius Severus, Albinus was defeated in 197 at the Battle of Lugdunum (near Lyon, France). The economic stimulus provided by the wall and Septimius's subsequent campaigns in Scotland improved Londinium's financial prosperity in the early 3rd century.


title: London Wall

text: The wall's gateways coincided with their alignment to the British network of Roman roads. The original gates, clockwise from Ludgate in the west to Aldgate in the east, were: Ludgate, Newgate, Cripplegate, Bishopsgate and Aldgate. Aldersgate, between Newgate and Cripplegate, was added around 350. (Moorgate, initially just a postern, was built later still, in the medieval period).


title: London Wall

text: The length and size of the wall made it one of the biggest construction projects in Roman Britain. It had gateways, towers and defensive ditches, and was built from Kentish ragstone, which was brought by barge from quarries near Maidstone. It was long, enclosing an area of about . It was to wide and up to high. The ditch or "fossa" in front of the outer wall was deep and up to wide. There were at least 22 towers spaced about apart on the eastern section of the wall.


title: London Wall

text: Excavation work has traced a significant development of 300 metres of timber-framed waterfronts to the east and west of the modern site of London Bridge, with a piece of wooden bridge found at the end of Fish Street Hill. The constructions advancing around 35 metres into the River Thames took place between the late 1st and mid-3rd centuries, highlighting that between these periods no wall stood against the river.


title: London Wall

text: After Londinium was raided on several occasions by Saxon pirates in the late 3rd century, construction of an additional riverside wall, built in phases, began in 280 and was repaired 390. The existence of this riverside section was long doubted due to a lack of evidence, but excavations at the Tower of London in 1977 showed that the section of the inner curtain wall between the Lanthorne and Wakefield Towers, to the south of the White Tower, was originally the eastern part of the Roman riverside wall that was built or rebuilt in the late 4th century. The riverside wall may have limited access to the Thames, both commercial and otherwise, so it may have reflected a diminished level of activity within the city.


title: London Wall

text: It is not clear how long the riverside wall survived, but there are references to a part of it near the dock of Queenhithe, in two charters of 889 and 898. There is currently no evidence of post-Roman restoration, so surviving sections are not likely to have been part, or an important part, of defences much after the Roman period.


title: London Wall

text: With the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, Londinium ceased to be the capital of "Britannia" although Romano-British culture continued in the St Martin-in-the-Fields area until around 450. However, the defences must have retained some of their former formidable strength because the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" mentions that the Romano-British retreated back to London after their bloody defeat at the battle of Crecganford (Crayford, Kent) at the hands of Hengist and Horsa, leaders of the Saxon invaders.


title: London Wall

text: From 500, an Anglo-Saxon settlement known as Lundenwic developed in the same area slightly to the west of the old abandoned Roman city. By about 680, London had revived sufficiently to become a major Saxon port. However, the upkeep of the wall was not maintained and London fell victim to two successful Viking assaults in 851 and 886.


title: London Wall

text: In 886 the King of Wessex, Alfred the Great, formally agreed to the terms of the Danish warlord, Guthrum, concerning the area of political and geographical control that had been acquired by the incursion of the Vikings. Within the eastern and northern part of England, with its boundary roughly stretching from London to Chester, the Scandinavians would establish Danelaw.


title: London Wall

text: In the same year, the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" recorded that London was "refounded" by Alfred. Archaeological research shows that this involved abandonment of Lundenwic and a revival of life and trade within the old Roman walls. This was part Alfred's policy of building an in-depth defence of the Kingdom of Wessex against the Vikings as well as creating an offensive strategy against the Vikings who controlled Mercia. The burh of Southwark was also created on the south bank of the River Thames during this time.


title: London Wall

text: The city walls of London were repaired as the city slowly grew until about 950 when urban activity increased dramatically. A large Viking army that attacked the London burgh was defeated in 994.


title: London Wall

text: By the 11th century, London was beyond all comparison the largest town in England. Westminster Abbey, rebuilt in the Romanesque style by King Edward the Confessor, was one of the grandest churches in Europe. Winchester had previously been the capital of Anglo-Saxon England, but from this time on, London was the main forum for foreign traders and the base for defence in time of war. In the view of Frank Stenton: "It had the resources, and it was rapidly developing the dignity and the political self-consciousness appropriate to a national capital."


title: London Wall

text: The size and importance of London led to the redevelopment of the city's defences. During the early medieval period – following the Norman Conquest of England – the walls underwent substantial work that included crenellations, additional gates and further towers and bastions. Aside from the seven City Wall gates and the four bars, there are the 13 water-gates on the Thames where goods were unloaded from ships. These include Billingsgate and Bridge Gate. Additionally there were pedestrian-only gates such as Tower Gate and the postern gate at the Tower of London.


title: London Wall

text: A further medieval defensive feature was the restoration of the defensive ditch immediately adjacent to the outside of the wall. The street name Houndsditch recalls a part of this former feature. This seems to have been re-cut in 1213, with the restored ditch being V-cut to a depth of 6 feet and a width of between 9 and 15 feet.


title: London Wall

text: The re-cut of the ditch may have diverted some of the waters of the Walbrook which would otherwise have flowed through the City, and the wall itself does appear to have acted like a dam, partially obstructing the Walbrook and leading to the marshy conditions at the open space of Moorfields, just north of the wall.


title: London Wall

text: As London continued to grow throughout the medieval period, urban development grew beyond the city walls. This expansion led to the suffix words "Without" and "Within" which denote whether an area of the City – and usually applied to the wards – fell outside or within the London Wall, though only Farringdon and (formerly) Bridge were split into separate wards this way (Bridge Without falling beyond the gates on London Bridge). Some wards – Aldersgate, Bishopsgate and Cripplegate – cover an area that was both within and outside the wall; although not split into separate wards, often the part (or "division") within the Wall is denoted (on maps, in documents, etc.) as being "within" and the part outside the Wall as being "without". Archaically "infra" (within) and "extra" (without) were also used and the terms "intramural" and "extramural" are also used to describe being within or outside the walled part of the city.


title: London Wall

text: The suffix is applied to some churches and parishes near the city gateways, such as St Audoen within Newgate and St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate.


title: London Wall

text: Edward I gave the Dominican Friars (or Black Friars) permission to demolish and re-route the section of City wall between Ludgate and the Thames. The did this in stages between 1284 and 1320, extending the walled area as far as the River Fleet so that it enclosed their precinct. The westward extension is likely to have improved the defensibility of Ludgate.


title: London Wall

text: In the medieval period the developed area of the City was largely confined to the City Wall, but there was extramural development, especially in the large western ward of Farringdon Without. The wall provided security but was a constraint to accessibility and growth. The extent of the City’s jurisdiction has changed little from 1000 to the modern day; but the extra-mural parts were long home to only a few people. A notable late change to the boundary appears to be that Stow’s Survey of London suggests that the part of Moorfields next to the wall was still, in 1603, outside the City’s jurisdiction.


title: London Wall

text: The boundary of the City’s jurisdiction was marked by "city bars", toll gates which were situated just beyond the old walled area; Holborn Bar, Temple Bar, West Smithfield Bar, and Whitechapel Bar. These were the important entrances to the city and their control was vital in maintaining the city's special privileges over certain trades.


title: London Wall

text: During the Great Fire of London in September 1666, almost all of the medieval City of London inside the wall was destroyed, but the wall and gates survived.


title: London Wall

text: The seven gates to the City of London, with many repairs and rebuilding over the years, stood until they were all demolished between 1760 and 1767. Work to demolish the walls continued into the 19th century; however, large sections of the wall were incorporated into other structures.


title: London Wall

text: The Blitz during the Second World War, through the sheer scale of bombing and destruction of buildings and the surrounding landscape, revealed numerous parts of the London Wall.


title: London Wall

text: At 00:15 on 28 August 1940, during the pre-wave of bombing before the London Blitz, buildings and parts of the wall were destroyed between Fore Street and St. Alphage's churchyard Gardens around Cripplegate. This revealed parts of the wall unseen for over 300 years as the rubble of buildings destroyed around it were removed.


title: London Wall

text: On 29 December 1940, a section near the Museum of London was revealed at Noble Street after the devastation of an air raid at the height of the Blitz, which additionally helped cause the Second Great Fire of London.


title: London Wall

text: In 1957 an 64 metre section of wall was uncovered during works on the London Wall road, the section was then destroyed to accommodate the road changes and to make way for a new car park. An 11 metre section has been preserved.


title: London Wall

text: In 1984, the Museum of London set up a Wall Walk from the Tower of London to the museum, using 23 tiled panels. A number of these have been destroyed in subsequent years. At Noble Street, the panels were replaced by etched glass panels. These were intended as a prototype for new panels along the entire walk, but no further replacements have been made. One of the largest and most readily accessed fragments of the wall stands just outside Tower Hill tube station, with a replica statue of the Emperor Trajan standing in front of it. There is a further surviving section preserved in the basement of the One America Square building. There are further remains in the basement of the Old Bailey.


title: London Wall

text: The layout of the Roman and medieval walls have had a profound effect on the development of London, even down to the present day. The walls constrained the growth of the city, and the location of the limited number of gates and the route of the roads through them shaped development within the walls, and in a much more fundamental way, beyond them. With a few exceptions, the parts of the modern road network heading into the former walled area are the same as those which passed through the former medieval gates.


title: London Wall

text: Part of the route originally taken by the northern wall is commemorated, although now only loosely followed, by the road also named London Wall. The Financial Reporting Council's offices are at 125 London Wall and the Museum of London is located at 150 London Wall. The modern road starts in the west with the Rotunda junction at Aldersgate, then runs east past Moorgate, from which point it runs parallel to the line of the City Wall, and eventually becomes Wormwood Street before it reaches Bishopsgate. This alignment, however, is the result of rebuilding between 1957 and 1976. Before this, London Wall was narrower, and ran behind the line of the City Wall for its entire length, from Wormwood Street to Wood Street. The western section is now St Alphage Garden.


title: London Wall

text: The wall's moat forms the street of Houndsditch. This was once London's main rubbish disposal site and was notorious for its appalling odour; its name, according to 16th-century historian John Stow, was derived "from that in old time, when the same lay open, much filth (conveyed forth of the City) especially dead dogges were there laid or cast". The moat was finally covered over and filled in at the end of the 16th century, becoming the line of the aforementioned street.


title: London Wall

text: The eastern section of the wall starts in what is now the Tower of London. Within the grounds of the Tower remains of the eastern most wall can still be seen along with a line in the paths heading North within the Tower grounds to outline where it used to run before most of it was demolished to expand the fortification of the Tower. This followed on with a junction at the Tower of London's moat to the Tower Hill Postern, Gate 1, a medieval fortified entrance. The foundation to this entrance can still be seen today within the Tower Hill pedestrian subway. Other large sections of the wall can also be seen further ahead within the Tower Hill gardens.


title: London Wall

text: The wall from Tower Hill then runs east of Walbrook toward the second historic gate, Aldgate – Gate 2. These would have led onto the Roman road network toward Essex and East Anglia via Stratford and Colchester. In present times, the roads Leadenhall and Fenchurch Street lead into Aldgate High Street where the gate's foundations are buried roughly where the Jewry Street intersects. Following the wall North, it runs between what is now The Aldgate School and Aldgate Square.


title: London Wall

text: From Aldgate, the wall then ran North-West toward Gate 3, Bishopsgate. The road through this would have led onto the Roman road network toward leading to Lincoln and York. The current road, the A10 going north, now goes over the foundations of this gate.


title: London Wall

text: From Bishopsgate going along the northern section of wall leads to Gate 4; Moorgate. Until 1415 this was a small postern leading onto marshy Moorfields area of Finsbury. The wet conditions were probably caused by the wall partially obstructing the flow of the Walbrook. Moorgate remained ill-connected with no direct approach road from the south until 1846, some time after the wall had been demolished. London Wall, the modern road following this section of the wall, now crosses this gate's foundations. Leading from here north are routes into Finsbury.


title: London Wall

text: High Holborn and Oxford Street, with access via the Devil's Highway to Silchester and Bath, and Watling Street to St Albans and the west midlands. These roads leading over the River Fleet.


title: London Wall

text: The bastions, a tower built against the face of the city wall, are scattered irregularly across its perimeter. Not bonded to the city wall itself, they are considered to be added after the construction of the wall and even later after by post-Roman builders.


title: London Wall

text: 21 bastions are currently known about (more may be undiscovered) that can be grouped into an eastern section from the Tower of London to Bishopsgate (B1 - 10), a single bastion west of Bishopsgate (B11), and a western section (B12 – 21). Between the eastern and western section, a gap of 731 metres (2400 feet or 800 yards) along the northern section of the city wall has no recorded bastions.


title: Tillotama Shome

text: Tillotama Shome is an Indian actress. She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the 63rd Filmfare Awards for her role in "A Death in the Gunj". In 2021, she won the Filmfare Award for Best Actress (Critics) for portraying a praiseworthy role "Ratna" in "Sir" at the 66th Filmfare Awards.


title: Tillotama Shome

text: Born in Kolkata, Shome grew up all over India since her father was with the Indian Air Force. She went to Delhi's Lady Shri Ram College and became a part of Arvind Gaur's Asmita theatre group. She moved to New York in the Autumn of 2004 for a master's program in educational theatre at New York University, where she remained until visiting Mumbai on holiday in February 2008. Thereafter, she took up residence in Mumbai and, after completing some outstanding projects in New York, she returned to India in May 2008. In New York, she also taught theatre to murder convicts at a high security US prison. Shome is married to Kunal Ross, the nephew of Jaya Bachchan, thus making her the niece-in-law of Jaya and Amitabh Bachchan.


title: Tillotama Shome

text: She played Alice in Mira Nair's feature film "Monsoon Wedding", and played Deepa in "Shadows of Time" ("Schatten der Zeit"), directed by Florian Gallenberger. She played a nun in the Australian film "The Waiting City" by Claire McCarthy. Italo Spinelli's "Gangor", based on Mahashweta Devi's novel, had her play a social worker. She also worked in Qaushiq Mukherjee's "Tasher Desh". She played Mrs. Ahmadi in the Hindi political thriller film "Shanghai" directed by Dibakar Banerjee. About her performance in "Shanghai" Rediff wrote "Shome created one of this year's most heartbreaking performances in a Hindi film".


title: Tillotama Shome

text: Her other roles have included Lara in "Little Box of Sweets" (directed by Meneka Das), Jaya in "Long After" (short film, directed by Afia Nathaniel) and Miraal in "Butterfly" (directed by Tanuj Chopra).


title: Tillotama Shome

text: Her performance as a girl who is raised as a boy in "Qissa" won her the best actress title in the New Horizons Competition of the seventh Abu Dhabi Film Festival (ADFF). She shared the title with Norwegian actress Julia Wildschutt.


title: Antara Biswas

text: Antara Biswas (born 21 November 1982), better known by her stage name Monalisa, is an Indian actress. She has done mostly Bhojpuri language films, and has also appeared in Hindi, Bengali, Odia, Tamil, Kannada and Telugu language films. She was a contestant of Indian show "Bigg Boss 10" in 2016 and is known for portraying Mohana Rathod in "Nazar". In 2020 to 2021, she had played the main antagonist, Iravati Verma in "Namak Issk Ka" on Colors TV.


title: Antara Biswas

text: Antara Biswas was born to a Bengali Hindu family on 21 November 1982. She adopted the stage name of Monalisa at the behest of her uncle. She studied at Julien Day School in Elgin Road, South Kolkata, and graduated from Ashutosh College of the University of Calcutta, earning a BA degree in Sanskrit before starting out a few years ago as a small-time TV actress and model in Odia video albums.


title: Antara Biswas

text: She acted in several low budget films before making her debut in Bollywood with "Blackmail", starring Ajay Devgn and Suniel Shetty. She then acted in South Indian films before coming to notice through her role in "Tauba Tauba" opposite Amin Gazi. She acted in a Kannada film titled "Jackpot".


title: Antara Biswas

text: In 2010, "The Hindu" reported that Monalisa (along with Rinku Ghosh) was the most sought after actress in the Bhojpuri film industry.


title: Antara Biswas

text: In February 2022, she participated in Star Plus' "Smart Jodi" with her husband, Vikrant Singh Rajpoot. In December 2022, she portraying Rama in Dangal TV's sitcom "Favvara Chowk: Indore Ki Shaan".


title: William Alwyn

text: William Alwyn (born William Alwyn Smith; 7 November 1905 – 11 September 1985), was an English composer, conductor, and music teacher.


title: William Alwyn

text: William Alwyn was born William Alwyn Smith in Northampton, the son of Ada Tyler (Tompkins) and William James Smith. He showed an early interest in music and began to learn to play the piccolo. At the age of 15 he entered the Royal Academy of Music in London where he studied flute and composition. He was a virtuoso flautist and for a time was a flautist with the London Symphony Orchestra. Alwyn served as professor of composition at the Royal Academy of Music from 1926 to 1955.


title: William Alwyn

text: Alwyn was a distinguished polyglot, poet, and artist, as well as musician. In 1948 he became a member of the Savile Club in London. He helped found the Composers' Guild of Great Britain (now merged into the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors), and was its chairman in 1949, 1950 and 1954. He was also sometime Director of the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society, a Vice-President of the Society for the Promotion of New Music (S.P.N.M.) and Director of the Performing Right Society. For many years he was one of the panel engaged by the BBC to read new scores to help assess whether the works should be performed and broadcast. He was appointed a CBE in 1978 in recognition of his services to music.


title: William Alwyn

text: His compositional output was varied and large and included five symphonies, four operas, several concertos, film scores and string quartets.


title: William Alwyn

text: Alwyn wrote over 70 film scores from 1941 to 1962. His classic film scores included "Green for Danger", "Odd Man Out", "Desert Victory", "Fires Were Started", "The History of Mr. Polly", "The Fallen Idol", "The Black Tent", "The Way Ahead", "The True Glory" and "The Crimson Pirate". Some of the scores have been lost, although many scores and sketches are now in the William Alwyn Archive at Cambridge University Library. In recent years CD recordings have been made. Some works, for which only fragmentary sketches remained, were reconstructed by Philip Lane or Christopher Palmer from the film soundtracks themselves.


title: William Alwyn

text: Alwyn relished dissonance, and devised his own alternative to twelve-tone serialism. For instance, in his third symphony (1955–56), eight notes of the possible twelve are used in the first movement, with the remaining four (D, E, F, and A) constituting the middle movement, and all twelve being combined for the finale. The work was premièred on the 10th of October 1956 at the Royal Festival Hall by Sir Thomas Beecham.


title: William Alwyn

text: Alwyn's concerto for harp and string orchestra, "Lyra Angelica", was popularized when the American figure skater Michelle Kwan performed to it at the 1998 Winter Olympics.


title: William Alwyn

text: William Alwyn spent the last twenty-five years of his life at Lark Rise, Dunwich Road, Blythburgh, Suffolk, where he composed his Concerto Grosso no. 3 (1964) two operas, "Juan, or the Libertine" and "Miss Julie" and his last major orchestral work, Symphony No. 5 "Hydriotaphia" (1972–73).


title: William Alwyn

text: Alwyn recorded his five symphonies as conductor for the Lyrita label in the 1970s, recordings which have since been reissued on CD. Most of Alwyn's orchestral and chamber music has more recently been recorded on CD for Chandos Records: the five symphonies were played by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Richard Hickox.


title: William Alwyn

text: Alwyn's opera "Miss Julie" has been recorded twice: for Lyrita, and in 2019 for Chandos conducted by Sakari Oramo.


title: William Alwyn

text: He was married first to Olive Mary Audrey (Pull). He died in Southwold, Suffolk, in 1985. Alwyn was survived by his second wife, the composer Doreen Carwithen. His great-grandson is the actor Joe Alwyn.


title: Meropenem

text: Meropenem, sold under the brand name Merrem among others, is an intravenous β-lactam antibiotic used to treat a variety of bacterial infections. Some of these include meningitis, intra-abdominal infection, pneumonia, sepsis, and anthrax.


title: Meropenem

text: Common side effects include nausea, diarrhea, constipation, headache, rash, and pain at the site of injection. Serious side effects include "Clostridioides difficile" infection, seizures, and allergic reactions including anaphylaxis. Those who are allergic to other β-lactam antibiotics are more likely to be allergic to meropenem as well. Use in pregnancy appears to be safe. It is in the carbapenem family of medications. Meropenem usually results in bacterial death through blocking their ability to make a cell wall. It is more resistant to breakdown by β-lactamase producing bacteria.


title: Meropenem

text: Meropenem was patented in 1983. It was approved for medical use in the United States in 1996. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. The World Health Organization classifies meropenem as critically important for human medicine.


title: Meropenem

text: The spectrum of action includes many Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria (including "Pseudomonas") and anaerobic bacteria. The overall spectrum is similar to that of imipenem, although meropenem is more active against Enterobacteriaceae and less active against Gram-positive bacteria. It works against extended-spectrum β-lactamases, but may be more susceptible to metallo-β-lactamases. Meropenem is frequently given in the treatment of febrile neutropenia. This condition frequently occurs in patients with hematological malignancies and cancer patients receiving anticancer drugs that suppress bone marrow formation. It is approved for complicated skin and skin structure infections, complicated intra-abdominal infections and bacterial meningitis.


title: Meropenem

text: In 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted approval for the combination of meropenem and vaborbactam to treat adults with complicated urinary tract infections.


title: Meropenem

text: Meropenem is administered intravenously as a white crystalline powder to be dissolved in 5% monobasic potassium phosphate solution. Dosing must be adjusted for altered kidney function and for haemofiltration.


title: Meropenem

text: As with other β-lactams antibiotics, the effectiveness of treatment depends on the amount of time during the dosing interval that the meropenem concentration is above the minimum inhibitory concentration for the bacteria causing the infection. For β-lactams, including meropenem, prolonged intravenous administration is associated with lower mortality than bolus intravenous infusion in persons with whose infections are severe, or caused by bacteria that are less sensitive to meropenem, such as "Pseudomonas aeruginosa".