History.

Grandvaux is first mentioned in 1250 as "de Gravaz". In 1445 it was mentioned as "Grandvaulx".

Geography.

Grandvaux has an area,, of. Of this area, is used for agricultural purposes, while is forested. Of the rest of the land, is settled (buildings or roads).  Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 22.1% and transportation infrastructure made up 11.6%. Out of the forested land, all of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 22.4% is used for growing crops and 11.9% is pastures, while 19.0% is used for orchards or vine crops.  The municipality was part of the Lavaux District until it was dissolved on 31 August 2006, and Grandvaux became part of the new district of Lavaux-Oron.  The municipality is located on the shores of Lake Geneva. It stretches from the lake up to the high Signal de Grandvaux. It consists of the village of Grandvaux, several hamlets including Curson as well as woods in the Jorat.

Coat of arms.

The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is "Gules, an Orb argent."

Demographics.

Grandvaux has a population () of 2,014., 18.9% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009) the population has changed at a rate of 4.4%. It has changed at a rate of 1.8% due to migration and at a rate of 2.2% due to births and deaths.  Most of the population () speaks French (1,628 or 84.0%), with German being second most common (135 or 7.0%) and English being third (81 or 4.2%). There are 29 people who speak Italian.  Of the population in the municipality 365 or about 18.8% were born in Grandvaux and lived there in 2000. There were 752 or 38.8% who were born in the same canton, while 344 or 17.8% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 424 or 21.9% were born outside of Switzerland.  In there were fourteen live births to Swiss citizens and two births to non-Swiss citizens, and in same time span there were eight deaths of Swiss citizens and one non-Swiss citizen death. Ignoring immigration and emigration, the population of Swiss citizens increased by six while the foreign population increased by one. There were eight Swiss men and eight Swiss women who emigrated from Switzerland. At the same time, there were thirteen non-Swiss men and twenty non-Swiss women who immigrated from another country to Switzerland. The total Swiss population change in 2008 (from all sources, including moves across municipal borders) was an increase of fifteen and the non-Swiss population increased by thirty people. This represents a population growth rate of 2.3%.  The age distribution,, in Grandvaux is; 196 children or 9.7% of the population are between 0 and 9 years old and 228 teenagers or 11.3% are between 10 and 19. Of the adult population, 168 people or 8.3% of the population are between 20 and 29 years old. 253 people or 12.6% are between 30 and 39, 347 people or 17.2% are between 40 and 49, and 315 people or 15.7% are between 50 and 59. The senior population distribution is 285 people or 14.2% of the population are between 60 and 69 years old, 131 people or 6.5% are between 70 and 79, there are 74 people or 3.7% who are between 80 and 89, and there are 15 people or 0.7% who are 90 and older. , there were 736 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 953 married individuals, 115 widows or widowers and 133 individuals who are divorced. , there were 808 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.3 persons per household. There were 234 households that consist of only one person and 38 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 823 households that answered this question, 28.4% were households made up of just one person and there were 7 adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 246 married couples without children, 266 married couples with children There were 42 single parents with a child or children. There were 13 households that were made up of unrelated people and 15 households that were made up of some sort of institution or another collective housing.  The historical population is given in the following chart:

Heritage sites of national significance.

The Maison Maillardo and part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site: Lavaux, Vineyard Terraces are listed as Swiss heritage site of national significance. The entire village of Grandvaux is part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites.  The Maison Maillardo is notable for its 16th Century late-gothic windows.

Politics.

In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SVP which received 21.35% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SP (19.28%), the FDP (15.72%) and the FDP (15.72%). In the federal election, a total of 680 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 52.4%.

Economy.

, Grandvaux had an unemployment rate of 2.8%., there were 71 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 20 businesses involved in this sector. 60 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 20 businesses in this sector. 203 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 49 businesses in this sector. There were 1,046 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 43.6% of the workforce. , there were 146 workers who commuted into the municipality and 823 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 5.6 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. Of the working population, 11% used public transportation to get to work, and 71.1% used a private car.

Religion.

From the, 570 or 29.4% were Roman Catholic, while 907 or 46.8% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were 15 members of an Orthodox church (or about 0.77% of the population), there were 4 individuals (or about 0.21% of the population) who belonged to the Christian Catholic Church, and there were 39 individuals (or about 2.01% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 6 individuals (or about 0.31% of the population) who were Jewish, and 16 (or about 0.83% of the population) who were Islamic. There were 2 individuals who were Buddhist and 4 individuals who belonged to another church. 307 (or about 15.85% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 82 individuals (or about 4.23% of the population) did not answer the question.

Education.

In Grandvaux about 685 or (35.4%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 524 or (27.1%) have completed additional higher education (either University or a "Fachhochschule"). Of the 524 who completed tertiary schooling, 49.6% were Swiss men, 29.0% were Swiss women, 11.5% were non-Swiss men and 9.9% were non-Swiss women.  In the 2009/2010 school year there were a total of 205 students in the Grandvaux school district. In the Vaud cantonal school system, two years of non-obligatory pre-school are provided by the political districts. During the school year, the political district provided pre-school care for a total of 665 children of which 232 children (34.9%) received subsidized pre-school care. The canton's primary school program requires students to attend for four years. There were 111 students in the municipal primary school program. The obligatory lower secondary school program lasts for six years and there were 94 students in those schools. , there were 50 students in Grandvaux who came from another municipality, while 232 residents attended schools outside the municipality.

Sister cities.

Grandvaux was sister cities with Nagara Furusato in Tōno, Iwate, Japan

Grandvaux is a former municipality in the Swiss canton of Vaud, located in the district of Lavaux-Oron. The municipalities of Cully, Epesses, Grandvaux, Riex and Villette (Lavaux) merged on 1 July 2011 into the new municipality of Bourg-en-Lavaux.

Grandvaux est une localité de la commune de Bourg-en-Lavaux et une ancienne commune suisse du canton de Vaud, située dans le district de Lavaux-Oron, au bord du lac Léman.


Personal life.

Pura Fé was born in New York City and brought up by her mother, grandparents and family of women singers. They count eight generations of sisters through their maternal line as Indigenous Tuscarora Deer Clan of North Carolina, and have Black and Scot-Irish ancestry as well. The family moved to New York from North Carolina in the 1930s.  Her mother, Nanice Lund, was a classically trained opera singer who toured with Duke Ellington and his Sacred Concert Series. Her father, Juan Antonio Crescioni-Collazo, was born in Maunabo, Puerto Rico. His maternal roots are Indigenous to Borinquen Taíno Indian and Canary Island Spanish/Berber ancestors. His paternal Corsican immigrant grandparents migrated to Puerto Rico in the mid 1800s.  In New York City, Pura Fé was on the board of the American Indian Community House (AICH).  In 1997 Pura Fé moved to North Carolina, and taught and traveled, bringing the Seventh Generation Youth Group under the North Carolina Cultural Center to open for Ulali. Pura Fé worked with several communities teaching culture, song and dance, and worked with a Native woman's society. She won several awards for her cultural contributions.  In 2015 Pura Fé moved, married and lives in Northern Saskatchewan, Canada. She has been working with several Native theater and dance theater groups and Native filmmakers, composing and recording music for Canadian productions.

Training.

As an adolescent, Pura Fé studied and performed with the American Ballet Theatre, briefly trained at Martha Graham school and performed in Broadway musicals "The Me Nobody Knows," "Ari" and "Via Galactica." She also sang with the Mercer Ellington Orchestra.  She attended Lincoln Square Academy. In the late 1970s, she worked as a waitress at club Max's Kansas City in New York. Soon after, she began singing in bands and as a studio singer. She recorded jingles, commercials, backup vocals and lead vocals on demos and recordings such as "Good Enough", written by James McBride.

Career.

In 1994, she was nominated and performed at the Juno Awards for Best Global Recording, for the album "Condor Meets the Eagle" by Kanatan Aski with Pura Fé. She released the CD, "Mahk Jchi" with Ulali on "Corn, Beans and Squash Music" and she appeared with Ulali on Robbie Robertson’s "Music for the Native Americans".  In 1995, she released her first solo album, the R&B-inspired "Caution to the Wind", written and produced by James McBride, on Shanachie Records. She appeared on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" with Ulali and Robbie Robertson, debuting the Ulali song "Mahk Jchi (Heartbeat Drum Song)", which went platinum in Italy.  In 1996, she appeared and toured on The Indigo Girls' album "Shaming of the Sun" with Ulali.  She has appeared on many recordings and film soundtracks including Miramax's "Smoke Signals" soundtrack, the Turner Documentary series "The Native Americans", "1 Giant Leap" DVD, "The World Festival of Sacred Music" for the Dalai Lama, Showtime's "The L-Word", and "A Thousand Roads" soundtrack.  After hearing guitarist Kelly Joe Phelps perform, Pura Fé began to play the acoustic lap slide guitar and recorded her second solo album, "Follow Your Heart's Desire", released on the Music Maker label.  A year later, she opened for Neil Young in Berkeley, California, singing "Rise Up Tuscarora Nation" and "Find the Cost of Freedom". As a solo artist, she has also opened for Herbie Hancock, Taj Mahal, Al Jarreau and George Duke.  Pura Fé won a NAMMY (Native American Music Award) for best female artist in 2006 and a L'Académie Charles Cros Award for best world album.  Her third album, "Hold The Rain", was released in 2007 with guitarist Danny Godinez.  In late 2009, she released "Full Moon Rising" for Dixiefrog Records and toured extensively throughout Europe.  Her fifth solo album, a live double CD, was released in the spring of 2011: "A Blues Night in North Carolina". 2014 Pura Fé put out "Sacred Seed on the French Label "Nueva Onda Records and toured with her new Quartet. She currently performs internationally and working a lot in Canada writing music for Native Theater and Native Dance Troops as well as Film. She has been teaching a lot of vocal workshops.  Pura Fe also appears in the 2017 Rezolution film documentary RUMBLE- The Indians that Rocked the World, which won at the Sundance Film Festival. It runs on APTN.  She is getting ready to record her next album "Reclaim Your Skin" for 2019/2020 release.

Activism.

Pura Fé has lent her voice to many environmental and Indigenous rights groups and campaigns. In 2013, she rowed in the Two Row Wampum Renewal Campaign canoe journey. In 2014, she participated in the Honor the Earth Love Water Not Oil Tour with Winona LaDuke to oppose the Enbridge expansions of the tar sands and fracked oil pipelines. She marched with Ulali Project in the front lines of the People's Climate March singing the song, "Idle No More," which she co-wrote with Cary Morin for the Idle No More movement.  Pura Fé moved to North Carolina in the 1990s and volunteered to teach young people in the rural Indian communities of Robeson County, North Carolina. She won the Community Spirit Award from the First Peoples Fund of the Tides Foundation and later won its fellowship award for her volunteer contributions.

Pura Fé (born Pura Fé Antonia ("Toni") Crescioni) is an American Native singer-songwriter, musician, composer, seamstress, teacher and activist. She is also the founding member of the Native American women's a cappella trio, Ulali, that created a genre in the mainstream music scene.

Pura Fé est une artiste américaine, chanteuse, mais aussi auteur, compositeur, poète, danseuse, actrice, enseignante et militante. Membre fondateur du trio vocal amérindien Ulali puis artiste solo, elle transmet la culture des "natifs américains" dans un blues dont elle revendique les influences indiennes.


History.

The diving bell is one of the earliest types of equipment for underwater work and exploration. Its use was first described by Aristotle in the 4th century BC: "...they enable the divers to respire equally well by letting down a cauldron, for this does not fill with water, but retains the air, for it is forced straight down into the water." According to Roger Bacon, Alexander the Great explored the Mediterranean on the authority of Ethicus the astronomer. In 1535, Guglielmo de Lorena created and used what is considered to be the first modern diving bell.  In 1616, Franz Kessler built an improved diving bell.  In 1642, American Edward Bendall built two wooden diving bells to salvage the wreck of the Mary Rose, which had exploded in a cargo fire accident, off Portsmouth, England. The Vessel is eventually raised by the Mary Rose trust in 1982. In 1658, Albrecht von Treileben was permitted to salvage the warship "Vasa", which sank in Stockholm harbor on its maiden voyage in 1628. Between 1663 and 1665 von Treileben's divers were successful in raising most of the cannons, working from a diving bell.  A diving bell is mentioned in the 1663 (stanza 16): A wondrous Engine is contriveing  In forme, t'is said, much like a Bell,  Most usefull for the Art of Diveing.  If 't hitt, 't will prove a Miracle;  For, gentlemen, 't is no small matter  To make a man breath under water.In late 1686, Sir William Phipps convinced investors to fund an expedition to what is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic to find sunken treasure, despite the location of the shipwreck being based entirely on rumor and speculation. In January 1687, Phipps found the wreck of the Spanish galleon "Nuestra Señora de la Concepción" off the coast of Santo Domingo. Some sources say they used an inverted container for the salvage operation while others say the crew was assisted by Indian divers in the shallow waters. The operation lasted from February to April 1687 during which time they salvaged jewels, some gold and 30 tons of silver which, at the time, was worth over £200,000.  In 1689, Denis Papin suggested that the pressure and fresh air inside a diving bell could be maintained by a force pump or bellows. Engineer John Smeaton utilized this concept in 1789.  In 1691, Dr. Edmond Halley completed plans for a diving bell capable of remaining submerged for extended periods of time, and fitted with a window for the purpose of undersea exploration. In Halley's design, atmosphere is replenished by sending weighted barrels of air down from the surface.  In 1775, Charles Spalding, an Edinburgh confectioner, improved on Halley's design by adding a system of balance-weights to ease the raising and lowering of the bell, along with a series of ropes for signaling the surface crew. Spalding and his nephew, Ebenezer Watson, later suffocated off the coast of Dublin in 1783 doing salvage work in a diving bell of Spalding's design.

Mechanics.

The bell is lowered into the water by cables from a crane, gantry or A-frame attached to a floating platform or shore structure. The bell is ballasted so as to remain upright in the water and to be negatively buoyant, so that it will sink even when full of air.  Hoses, supplied by gas compressors or banks of high pressure storage cylinders at the surface, provide breathing gas to the bell, serving two functions:  The physics of the diving bell applies also to an underwater habitat equipped with a moon pool, which is like a diving bell enlarged to the size of a room or two, and with the water–air interface at the bottom confined to a section rather than forming the entire bottom of the structure.

Wet bell.

A wet bell is a platform for lowering and lifting divers to and from the underwater workplace, which has an air filled space, open at the bottom, where the divers can stand or sit with their heads out of the water. The air space is at ambient pressure at all times, so there are no great pressure differences, and the greatest structural loads are usually self weight and the buoyancy of the air space. A fairly heavy ballast is often required to counteract the buoyancy of the airspace, and this is usually set low at the bottom of the bell, which helps with stability. The base of the bell is usually a grating or deck which the divers can stand on, and folding seats may be fitted for the divers' comfort during ascent, as in-water decompression may be long. Other equipment that is carried on the bell include cylinders with the emergency gas supply, and racks or boxes for tools and equipment to be used on the job. There may be a tackle for hoisting and supporting a disabled diver so that their head projects into the air space.

Type 1 wet bell.

The type 1 wet bell does not have an umbilical supplying the bell. Umbilicals supply the divers directly from the surface, similar to a diving stage. Divers deploying from a type 1 bell will exit on the opposite side to where the umbilicals enter the bell so that the umbilicals pass through the bell and the divers can find their way back to the bell at all times by following the umbilical. Bailout from a type 1 bell is done by exiting the bell on the side that the umbilicals enter the bell so they no longer pass through the bell, leaving the divers free to surface.

Type 2 wet bell.

A gas panel inside the bell is supplied by the bell umbilical and the emergency gas cylinders, and supplies the divers' umbilicals and sometimes BIBS sets. There will be racks to hang the divers' excursion umbilicals, which for this application must not be buoyant. Abandonment of a type 2 wet bell requires the divers to manage their own umbilicals as they ascend along a remaining connection to the surface.

Operation of a wet bell.

The bell with divers on board is deployed from the working platform (usually a vessel) by a crane, davit or other mechanism with a man-rated winch. The bell is lowered into the water and to the working depth at a rate recommended by the decompression schedule, and which allows the divers to equalize comfortably. Wet bells with an air space will have the air space topped up as the bell descends and the air is compressed by increasing hydrostatic pressure. The air will also be refreshed as required to keep the carbon dioxide level acceptable to the occupants. The oxygen content is also replenished, but this is not the limiting factor, as the oxygen partial pressure will be higher than in surface air due to the depth.  When the bell is raised, the pressure will drop and excess air due to expansion will automatically spill under the edges. If the divers are breathing from the bell airspace at the time, it may need to be vented with additional air to maintain a low carbon dioxide level. The decrease in pressure is proportional to the depth as the airspace is at ambient pressure, and the ascent must be conducted according to the planned decompression schedule appropriate to the depth and duration of the diving operation.

Closed bell.

A closed or dry bell is a pressure vessel for human occupation which is lowered into the sea to the workplace, equalised in pressure to the environment, and opened to allow the divers in and out. These functional requirements dictate the structure and arrangement. The internal pressure requires a strong structure, and a sphere or spherical ended cylinder is most efficient for this purpose. When the bell is underwater, it must be possible for the occupants to get in or out without flooding the entire interior. This requires a pressure hatch at the bottom. The requirement that the bell retains its internal pressure when the external pressure is lowered dictates that the hatch opens inward, so that internal pressure will hold it closed.  Locking onto a decompression chamber at the surface is possible either from the bottom or the side. Using the bell bottom hatch for this purpose has the advantage of only needing one hatch, and the disadvantage of having to lift the bell up and place it over a vertical entry to the chamber.  The bell bottom hatch must be wide enough for a large diver fully kitted with appropriate bailout cylinders, to get in and out without undue difficulty, and it can not be closed while the diver is outside as the umbilical is tended through the hatch by the bellman. It must also be possible for the bellman to lift the working diver in through the hatch if he is unconscious, and close the hatch after him, so that the bell can be raised and pressurised for the ascent. A lifting tackle is usually fitted inside the bell for this purpose, and the bell may be partially flooded to assist the procedure.  The internal space must be large enough for a fully kitted diver and bellman (the stand-by diver responsible for manning the bell while the working diver is locked out) to sit, and for their umbilicals to be stowed neatly on racks, and the hatch to be opened inwards while they are inside. Anything bigger will make the bell heavier than it really needs to be, so all equipment that does not need to be inside is mounted outside. This includes a framework to support the ancillary equipment and protect the bell from impact and snagging on obstacles, and the emergency gas and power supplies, which are usually racked around the framework. The EGS is connected via manifolds to the internal gas panel. The part of the framework that keeps the lower hatch off the bottom is called the bell stage. It may be removable. The bell umbilical is connected to the bell via through hull fittings (hull penetrations), which must withstand all operating pressures without leaking. The internal gas panel connects to the hull penetrations and the diver's umbilicals. The umbilicals will carry main breathing gas supply, a communications cable, a pneumofathometer hose, hot water supply for suit heating, power for helmet mounted lights, and possibly gas reclaim hose and video cable. The bell umbilical will usually also carry a power cable for internal and external bell lighting. Hydraulic power lines for tools do not have to pass into the interior of the bell as they will never be used there, and tools can also be stored outside. There may be an emergency through-water communications system with a battery power supply, and a location transponder working on the international standard 37.5 kHz. The bell may also have viewports and a medical lock.  A closed bell may be fitted with an umbilical cutter, a mechanism which allows the occupants to sever the bell umbilical from inside the sealed and pressurised bell in the event of an umbilical snag that prevents bell recovery. The device is typically hydraulically operated using a hand pump inside the bell, and can shear the umbilical at or just above the point where it is fastened to the top of the bell. Once cut, the bell can be raised and if the umbilical can then be recovered, it can be reconnected with only a short length lost. An external connection known as a "hot stab unit" which allows an emergency umbilical to be connected to maintain life support in the bell during a rescue operation may be fitted.  The divers in the bell may also be monitored from the diving control point by closed circuit video, and the bell atmosphere can be monitored for volatile hydrocarbon contamination by a hyperbaric hydrocarbon analyser which can be linked to a topside repeater and set to give an alarm if the hydrocarbon levels exceed 10% of the anaesthetic level.  The bell may be fitted with an external emergency battery power pack, carbon dioxide scrubber for the internal atmosphere, and air conditioner for temperature control. Power supply is typically 12 or 24V DC.

British mini-bell system.

A variant of this system used in the North Sea oilfields between early 1986 and the early 90s was the Oceantech Minibell system, which was used for bell-bounce dives, and was operated as an open bell for the descent, and as a closed bell for the ascent. The divers would climb into the bell after stowing their umbilicals on outside racks, remove their helmets for outside storage, seal the bell, and return to the surface, venting to the depth of the first decompression stop. The bell would then be locked onto a deck decompression chamber, the divers transferred under pressure to complete decompression in the chamber, and the bell would be available for use for another dive.

Deployment of a modern diving bell.

Diving bells are deployed over the side of the vessel or platform using a gantry or A-frame from which the clump weight and the bell are suspended. On dive support vessels with in-built saturation systems the bell may be deployed through a moon pool. The bell handling system is also known as the launch and recovery system (LARS).  The bell umbilical supplies gas to the bell gas panel, and is separate from the divers' excursion umbilicals, which are connected to the gas panel on the inside of the bell. The bell umbilical is deployed from a large drum or umbilical basket and care is taken to keep the tension in the umbilical low but sufficient to remain near vertical in use and to roll up neatly during recovery, as this reduces the risk of the umbilical snagging on underwater obstructions.  Wet bell handling differs from closed bell handling in that there is no requirement to transfer the bell to and from the chamber system to make a pressure-tight connection, and that a wet bell will be required to maintain a finely controlled speed of descent and ascent and remain at a fixed depth within fairly close tolerances for the occupants to decompress at a specific ambient pressure, whereas a closed bell can be removed from the water without delay and the speed of ascent and descent is not critical.  A bell diving team will usually include two divers in the bell, designated the working diver and bellman, though they may alternate these roles during the dive. The bellman is a stand-by diver and umbilical tender from the bell to the working diver, the operator of the on-board gas distribution panel, and has an umbilical about 2 m longer than the working diver to ensure that the working diver can be reached in an emergency. This can be adjusted by tying off the umbilicals inside the bell to limit deployment length, which must often be done in any case, to prevent the divers from approaching known hazards in the water. Depending on circumstances, there may also be a surface stand-by diver, with attendant in case there is an emergency where the surface diver could assist. The team be under the direct control of the diving supervisor and will also include a winch operator, and may include a dedicated surface gas panel operator.  Deployment usually starts by lowering the clump weight, which is a large ballast weight suspended from a cable which runs down one side from the gantry, through a set of sheaves on the weight, and up the other side back to the gantry, where it is fastened. The weight hangs freely between the two parts of the cable, and due to its weight, hangs horizontally and keeps the cable under tension. The bell hangs between the parts of the cable, and has a fairlead on each side which slides along the cable as it is lowered or lifted. Deployment of the bell is by a cable attached to the top. As the bell is lowered, the fairleads prevent it from rotating on the deployment cable, which would put twist into the umbilical and risk loops or snagging. The clump weight cables therefore act as guidelines or rails along which the bell is lowered to the workplace, and raised back to the platform. If the lifting winch or cable fails, and the bell ballast is released, a positively buoyant bell can float up and the cables will guide it to the surface to a position where it can be recovered relatively easily. The clump weight cable can also be used as an emergency recovery system, in which case both bell and weight are lifted together. An alternative system for preventing rotation on the lifting cable is the use of a cross-haul system, which may also be used as a means of adjusting the lateral position of the bell at working depth, and as an emergency recovery system.  A closed bell handling system is used to move the bell from the position where it is locked on to the chamber system into the water, lower it to the working depth and hold it in position without excessive movement, and recover it to the chamber system. The system used to transfer the bell on deck may be a deck trolley system, an overhead gantry or a swinging A-frame. The system must constrain movement of the supported bell sufficiently to allow accurate location on the chamber trunking even in bad weather. A bell cursor may be used to control movement through and above the splash zone, and heave compensation gear may be used to limit vertical movement when in the water and clear of the cursor, particularly at working depth when the diver may be locked out and the bell is open to ambient pressure.  A bell cursor is a device used to guide and control the motion of the bell through the air and the splash zone near the surface, where waves can move the bell significantly. It can either be a passive system which relies on additional ballast weight or an active system which uses a controlled drive system to provide vertical motion. The cursor has a cradle which locks onto the bell and which moves vertically on rails to constrain lateral movement. The bell is released and locked onto the cursor in the relatively still water below the splash zone.  Heave compensation equipment is used to stabilise the depth of the bell by counteracting vertical movement of the handling system caused by movements of the platform, and usually also maintains correct tension on the guide wires. It is not usually essential, depending on the stability of the platform.  Cross-hauling systems are cables from an independent lifting device which are intended to be used to move the bell laterally from a point directly below the LARS, and may also be used to limit rotation and as an emergency bell recovery system.

Use with hyperbaric chambers.

Commercial diving contractors generally use a closed bell in conjunction with a surface hyperbaric chamber, These have safety and ergonomic advantages and allow decompression to be carried out after the bell has been raised to the surface and back on board the diving support vessel. Closed bells are often used in saturation diving and undersea rescue operations. The diving bell would be connected via the mating flange of an airlock to the deck decompression chamber or saturation system for transfer under pressure of the occupants.

Air-lock diving bells.

The air lock diving-bell plant was a purpose-built barge for the laying, examination and repair of moorings for battleships at Gibraltar harbour. Designed by Siebe Gorman of Lambeth and Forrestt & Co. Ltd of Wivenhoe in Essex, who built and supplied it in 1902 to the British Admiralty.  The vessel came about from the specific conditions at Gibraltar. The heavy harbour moorings have three chains extending out radially along the seabed from a central ring, each terminating in a large anchor. Most harbours have a soft seabed, and it is usual to lay down moorings by settling anchors in the mud, clay or sand but this could not be done in Gibraltar harbour, where the seabed is hard rock.  In operation the barge would be towed over the work site, moored in place with anchors, and the bell would be lowered vertically to the bottom. and the water displaced by pumping. The work teams entered the bell through an airlock in the central access shaft. Working in ordinary clothes they could dig out anchorings for the moorings.  The German service barge "Carl Straat" is similar in concept, but the bell is lowered by swinging the access tube. "Carl Straat" was built in 1963 for the Waterways and Shipping Directorate West in Münster. The 6 m x 4 m x 2,5 m bell is accessible through a 2 m diameter tube and an airlock. A pantograph system keeps the bell and internal stairs level at all depths. Maximum working depth is 10 m. The vessel is used on those inland waterways which have locks large enough to accommodate its 52 m length overall, 11.8 m beam and1.6 m draft.

Rescue bell.

Diving bells have been used for submarine rescue. The closed dry bell is designed to seal against the deck of the submarine above an escape hatch. Water in the space between the bell and the submarine is pumped out and the hatches can be opened to allow occupants to leave the submarine and enter the bell. The hatches are then closed, the bell skirt flooded to release it from the submarine, and the bell with its load of survivors is hoisted back to the surface, where the survivors exit and the bell may return for the next group. The internal pressure in the bell is usually kept at atmospheric pressure to minimise run time by eliminating the need for decompression, so the seal between the bell skirt and the submarine deck is critical to the safety of the operation. This seal is provided by using a flexible sealing material, usually a type of rubber, which is pressed firmly against the smooth hatch surround by the pressure differential when the skirt is pumped out.

Diver training.

Divers qualified to work from bells are trained in the skills and procedures relevant to the type of bell they will be expected to work from. Open bells are generally used for surface oriented surface-supplied deep air diving, and closed bells are used for saturation diving and surface oriented mixed gas diving. These skills include the standard procedures for the deployment of the working diver from the bell, the tending of the working diver from the bell by the bellman, and the emergency and rescue procedures for both working diver and bellman. There is considerable similarity and significant differences in these procedures between open and closed bell diving.

Underwater habitats.

As noted above, further extension of the wet bell concept is the moon-pool-equipped underwater habitat, where divers may spend long periods in dry comfort while acclimated to the increased pressure experienced underwater. By not needing to return to the surface between excursions into the water, they can reduce the necessity for decompression (gradual reduction of pressure), after each excursion, required to avoid problems with nitrogen bubbles releasing from the bloodstream (the bends, also known as caisson disease). Such problems can occur at pressures greater than, corresponding to a depth of of water. Divers in an ambient pressure habitat will require decompression when they return to the surface. This is a form of saturation diving.

In nature.

The diving bell spider, "Argyroneta aquatica", is a spider which lives entirely under water, even though it could survive on land.  Since the spider must breathe air, it constructs from silk a habitat like an open diving bell which it attaches to an underwater plant. The spider collects air in a thin layer around its body, trapped by dense hairs on its abdomen and legs. It transports this air to its diving bell to replenish the air supply in the bell. This allows the spider to remain in the bell for long periods, where it waits for its prey.

A diving bell is a rigid chamber used to transport divers from the surface to depth and back in open water, usually for the purpose of performing underwater work. The most common types are the open-bottomed wet bell and the closed bell, which can maintain an internal pressure greater than the external ambient. Diving bells are usually suspended by a cable, and lifted and lowered by a winch from a surface support platform. Unlike a submersible, the diving bell is not designed to move under the control of its occupants, nor to operate independently of its launch and recovery system.

La cloche de plongée (anglicisme : "diving bell"), ou plus exactement en français cloche à plongeur ou cloche de plongeur est l'un des plus anciens équipements permettant d'effectuer des travaux, des expériences ou des explorations sous l'eau.


Victorio's Campaign.

In the 1870s, Victorio and his band of Apaches were moved to the deplorable conditions of the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona. He and his followers left the reservation around 1877 and began marauding and raiding, all while evading capture by the military. Lozen fought beside Victorio when he and his followers rampaged against Americans who had appropriated their homeland around west New Mexico's Black Mountain.  As the band fled American forces, Lozen inspired women and children, frozen in fear, to cross the surging Rio Grande. "I saw a magnificent woman on a beautiful horse—Lozen, sister of Victorio. Lozen the woman warrior!", remembers James Kaywaykla, a child at the time, riding behind his grandmother. "High above her head she held her rifle. There was a glitter as her right foot lifted and struck the shoulder of her horse. He reared, then plunged into the torrent. She turned his head upstream, and he began swimming".  Immediately, the other women and the children followed her into the torrent. When they reached the far bank of the river, cold and wet but alive, Lozen came to Kaywaykla's mother, Gouyen. "You take charge, now", she said. "I must return to the warriors", who stood between their women and children and the onrushing cavalry. Lozen drove her horse back across the wild river and returned to her comrades.  According to Kaywaykla, "She could ride, shoot, and fight like a man, and I think she had more ability in planning military strategy than did Victorio." He also remembers Victorio saying, "I depend upon Lozen as I do Nana" (the aging patriarch of the band).  Late in Victorio's campaign, Lozen left the band to escort a new mother and her newborn infant across the Chihuahuan Desert from Mexico to the Mescalero Apache Reservation, away from the hardships of the trail.  Equipped with only a rifle, a cartridge belt, a knife, and a three-day supply of food, she set out with the mother and child on a perilous journey through territory occupied by Mexican and U.S. Cavalry forces. En route, afraid that a gunshot would betray their presence, she used her knife to kill a longhorn, butchering it for the meat.  She stole a Mexican cavalry horse for the new mother, escaping through a volley of gunfire. She then stole a vaquero's horse for herself, disappearing before he could give chase. She also acquired a soldier's saddle, rifle, ammunition, blanket and canteen, and even his shirt. Finally, she delivered her charges to the reservation.  There, she learned that Mexican and Tarahumara Indian forces under Mexican commander Joaquin Terrazas had killed Victorio and most of his warriors in the Battle of Tres Castillos, fought on three stony hills in northeastern Chihuahua.

End of Apache Wars and Lozen's later years.

Knowing the survivors would need her, Lozen immediately left the Mescalero Reservation and rode alone southwest across the desert, threading her way undetected through U.S. and Mexican military patrols. She rejoined the decimated band in the Sierra Madre (in northwestern Chihuahua), now led by the 74-year-old patriarch Nana.  Lozen fought beside Geronimo after his breakout from the San Carlos reservation in 1885, in the last campaign of the Apache wars. With the band pursued relentlessly, she used her power to locate their enemies—the U.S. and Mexican cavalries. According to Alexander B. Adams in his book "Geronimo", "she would stand with her arms outstretched, chant a prayer to Ussen, the Apaches' supreme deity, and slowly turn around." Lozen's prayer is translated in Eve Ball's book "In the Days of Victorio":  According to Laura Jane Moore in the book "Sifters, Native American Women's Lives": In 1885 Geronimo and Naiche fled their reservation with 140 followers including Lozen after rumors began circulating that their leaders were to be imprisoned at Alcatraz Island. Lozen and Dahteste began negotiating peace treaties. One of which was that the Apache leaders would be imprisoned for two years then would have their freedom. The American's leaders dismissed the peace treaty and Lozen and Dahteste continued to negotiate. The Apache rebels believed they had strong resolve until it was revealed all the Chiricahuas had been rounded up and sent to Florida. If they wanted to rejoin their kin, the Apache needed to head east. The Apache warriors agreed to surrender and laid down their arms. Five days later they were on a train bound to Florida.  Taken into U. S. military custody after Geronimo's final surrender, Lozen traveled as a prisoner of war to Mount Vernon Barracks in Alabama. Like many other imprisoned Apache warriors, she died in confinement of tuberculosis on June 17, 1889.

Lozen (c. 1840-June 17, 1889) was a warrior and prophet of the Chihenne Chiricahua Apache. She was the sister of Victorio, a prominent chief. Born into the Chihenne band during the 1840s, Lozen was, according to legends, able to use her powers in battle to learn the movements of the enemy. According to James Kaywaykla, Victorio introduced her to Nana, "Lozen is my right hand... strong as a man, braver than most, and cunning in strategy. Lozen is a shield to her people".

Lozen (née vers 1840 et morte le ) était la sœur de Victorio, chef de guerre apache Chihenne-Chiricahua. Née dans les années 1840, elle fut rapidement considérée comme une guerrière expérimentée et une chamane. Selon la légende, elle était capable d’utiliser ses pouvoirs (Diya) durant la bataille afin de connaître le mouvement de ses ennemis. Victorio disait d’elle :


History.

It was founded on November 19, 1758 as an iron mining factory. Magnesite, a mineral essential to the manufacture of refractory brick used in blast furnaces, was discovered there.  In the beginning of the 20th century in Satka lived up to 10 thousand people. Among them are many alien people. Reached out to work the old believers of different sects and persuasions (the Austrians, the Pomorians, precedency, filippovtsy, fedoseevtsy etc.). There were two churches, two schools, post office, Telegraph, hospital, consumer society, two 46 industrial and commercial enterprises.  In 1824 the city was visited by Emperor Alexander I, which has a positive impact on further development of production. By the end of the 19th century there were two blast furnaces, between the mechanical workshop and foundry in laid track. The Soviet government inherited a large production. In 1928 Satka became an urban-type settlement, and in 1937 — a city district, and since 1957 — of regional subordination.

Administrative and municipal status.

Within the framework of administrative divisions, Satka serves as the administrative center of Satkinsky District. As an administrative division, it is, together with ten rural localities, incorporated within Satkinsky District as the Town of Satka. As a municipal division, the Town of Satka is incorporated within Satkinsky Municipal District as Satkinskoye Urban Settlement.

Economy.

The major industry in the town is the extraction of magnesite and other ores along with metallurgical plants to process the ore. In the conduct of Kombinat Magnezit there is the unique current narrow gauge railroad for Russia. The expanded length of the narrow railway was about 20 kilometers. The road is completely electrified. There is a small tourist industry because of the town's location in the center of the Ural Mountains near Zyuratkul National Park. There is also a nearby historic site at Porogi where the first hydro-electric generator in Russia was installed.  Satka has a little industry and one factory.

Transportation.

Although there is a railway station in Satka, it is a spur line so connections are inconvenient.

Education.

In addition to secondary schools, there is a satellite campus of the Chelyabinsk State University.

Satka () is a town and the administrative center of Satkinsky District in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, located on the western slope of the Southern Ural Mountains on the bank of the Satka River, from Chelyabinsk, the administrative center of the oblast. Population:

Satka (en ) est une ville de l'oblast de Tcheliabinsk, en Russie, et le centre administratif du raïon de Satka. Sa population s'élevait à habitants en 2013.


History.

The 5th Panzer Division was formed in Oppeln, now Opole in Poland, on 15 November 1938 as part of a second wave of new armoured divisions in Germany following the creation of the original three tank divisions in 1935. Alongside the 5th Panzer Division the 4th had been formed in Würzburg five days earlier. The personnel of the division was mainly made up of Silesians and Sudeten Germans, the Sudetenland having been annexed by Germany shortly before.  The division took part in the invasion of Poland in 1939 but played no major role in it, being part of the southern thrust of the German advance towards Lwów and taking part in the Battle of Lwow. The 5th Panzer Division played a much greater role in the German invasion of France and Belgium. It took part in the battle of Belgium, advanced towards Lille and participated in the Battle of Dunkirk. It continued its advance south, took Brest on 19 June and continued on towards the French-Spanish border. The division remained in France until January 1941. During this time, in September 1940, it lost one of its two tank regiments to the newly created 11th Panzer Division in an effort to increase the number of German tank divisions that, in turn, slightly weakened the existing ones.  The 5th Panzer Division was sent to Romania and Bulgaria in early 1941 and took part in the German invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece. It advanced through southern Yugoslavia and into Greece and was engaged in heavy fighting against the 2nd New Zealand Division. After the end of the Greek campaign the division was sent to the north to participate in the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa, in which the 5th Panzer Division took part in the advance on Moscow. Coming within 34 km of the city the division was forced to retreat after the Soviet counterattack in December 1941 and remained in a defensive position throughout the winter of 1941–42. It did not take part in the German advance on the Caucasus and the Volga, Case Blue, instead remaining with the Army Group Center and being engaged in defensive battles.  The division did not actively participate in the German offensive during the Battle of Kursk but was involved in defensive battles after the failure of the former. For the remainder of the war the division continued to retreat and fight in defensive battles on the Eastern Front in Poland, briefly in Courland and East Prussia. It was trapped on the Samland peninsula in April 1945 and parts of the division were evacuated by the German Navy, thereby being able to surrender to the Western Allies at the end of the war. The remainder surrendered to Soviet forces in April 1945.  Throughout the fighting on the Eastern Front the division was seen as one of the best German units by their Soviet counterparts. Up until July 1944, when Operation Bagration caused the destruction of the German Army Group Center, the Soviet High Command advised against directly engaging the division if possible.

Commanding officers.

The commanders of the division:

Organisation.

The organisation of the division:

The 5th Panzer Division () was an armoured division in the German Army, the Wehrmacht, during World War II, established in 1938.

La Panzerdivision était une division blindée de la Heer (Wehrmacht) durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale créée le à Oppeln ; elle a participé à toute la Seconde Guerre mondiale.


Early years.

Zavoisky was born in 1907 in Mogilyov-Podolsk, a town in the south of Russian Empire (now in Vinnytsia oblast, Ukraine). His father Konstantin Ivanovich was a military doctor and mother Elizaveta Nikolaevna was trained as a teacher. In 1910, Zavoisky family moved to Kazan – a major Russian university city – for the sake of better education and well-being of their five children. There, Konstantin Ivanovich obtained a respectable job and a large apartment, which he equipped with equipment and books for home experiments with his children. Yevgeny, in particular, was keen to electromagnetism.  The October revolution of 1917 brought difficult times. Konstantin Ivanovich died in 1919 from exhaustion, and the family moved to a small rural town to survive the hunger period. They returned to Kazan in 1925. In 1926, Yevgeny entered the faculty of physics at Kazan University. By that time, he was already an experienced amateur engineer who had assembled his own radio receivers and had numerous ideas of new inventions and measurements. Zavoisky established himself as a talented student and researcher. He was sent to Saint Petersburg to continue his studies and after returning to Kazan had worked in the laboratory of oscillations at Kazan University. After defending his PhD in 1933, he became the laboratory head. His research directions included generation of ultrashort waves; study of their physical and chemical effects on matter, including the effect on seed germination; and investigation of superregenerative effect. The seed germination topic was a reflection of that difficult period when scientists were required to try helping the Russian economy, which was recovering from the years of wars.

Work on resonance phenomena.

Zavoisky started systematic studies on interaction of electromagnetic waves with matter in 1933. He formed a group of talented experimentalists and theorists of various background, which included Boris Kozyrev, A. V. Nesmelov and later Semen Altshuler. He also visited several laboratories in major Russian cities and found that the experimental techniques in this research field were undeveloped. He was particularly dissatisfied with poor detection sensitivity and spent much effort on improving it using better detectors and electronic circuitry.  Zavoisky was much interested in the pioneering results obtained by Isidor Isaac Rabi in 1938 on interaction of molecular beams with electromagnetic waves in a static magnetic field, that is nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). Eight years later, in 1946, Felix Bloch and Edward Mills Purcell refined the technique for use on liquids and solids, for which they shared the Nobel Prize in physics in 1952. Zavoisky too tried to detect NMR in solids and liquids around 1940–1941. He had a sensitive enough detection system and managed to obtain the resonance signals. However, the strict requirement for the spatial homogeneity of the magnetic field were likely not met. The signals were unstable and poorly reproducible and thus were discarded. The work was interrupted by World War II and had not been resumed.  Instead, starting from 1943, Zavoisky focused on electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR), which is much less demanding for the homogeneity of magnetic field. On the other hand, it requires much more sensitive detection electronics, but Zavoisky was well prepared in this area. In particular he had replaced the calorimetric (thermal) detection of C. J. Gorter by a much more sensitive electronic technique of grid current. A further improvement was addition of a small AC magnetic field to the main static magnetic field. This dramatically increased the detection sensitivity and allowed easy amplification of the resonance signal and outputting it directly to an oscilloscope. In 1944, EPR signals were detected in several salts, including hydrous copper chloride (CuCl·2HO), copper sulfate and manganese sulfate. The results were revolutionary and were first not accepted even by the Soviet scientists (including Pyotr Kapitsa). The doubts were dispersed when Zavoisky visited Moscow, assembled an EPR spectrometer from scratch and reproduced his results there. In 1945, Zavoisky defended his habilitation on the phenomenon of electron paramagnetic resonance.

Teaching.

Zavoisky was a popular teacher who focused on demonstrations rather than theories. He himself showed various cryogenic phenomena, such as hardening and shattering of matter upon freezing. One experiment nearly resulted in his arrest by the internal police. Zavoisky demonstrated interference of polarized light in a biaxial crystal that resulted in an encircled swastika-like image projected onto the screen in front of a large audience. The demonstration crystals were soon confiscated and analyzed by a special commission, seeking relation between the experiment and Nazi Germany, and only a series of letters from scientists settled the matter.

Late years.

In 1947, upon invitation from Igor Kurchatov, Zavoisky moved from Kazan to Moscow, to work in the institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences which later became the Institute of Atomic Energy (IAE). He was then moved to the classified location Arzamas-16 and participated in the Soviet atomic bomb project. Upon return to IAE, he worked on detectors of ultrafast processes and in 1952 developed a novel luminescence camera for detection of nuclear processes. Starting from 1958, he studied plasma and nuclear fusion related phenomena and discovered magneto-acoustic resonance in plasma in the same year.  A serious illness took him away from science in 1972. Zavoisky died in 1976 in Moscow.

Awards and honors.

Zavoisky was awarded the Stalin Prize (1949), the Lenin Prize (1957) and Hero of Socialist Labour (1969), as well as two Orders of Lenin. On 23 October 1953, he became an Associated Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and on 26 June 1964 was elected as Academician.  In 1977, a year after his death, his discovery of EPR was acknowledged by the international EPR society, which also established the "Zavoisky Award". In 1984, Kazan Physics Institute was named after Zavoisky.  Zavoisky received 17 nominations for the Nobel Prize between 1958 and 1966, of which 15 were in Physics and 2 in Chemistry.

Yevgeny Konstantinovich Zavoisky (; September 28, 1907 – October 9, 1976) was a Soviet physicist known for discovery of electron paramagnetic resonance in 1944. He likely observed nuclear magnetic resonance in 1941, well before Felix Bloch and Edward Mills Purcell, but dismissed the results as not reproducible. Zavoisky is also credited with design of luminescence camera for detection of nuclear processes in 1952 and discovery of magneto-acoustic resonance in plasma in 1958.

Ievgueni Konstantinovitch Zavoïski (en ), né le à Mohyliv-Podilskyï, et mort le à Moscou, est un physicien soviétique, membre de l'Académie des sciences d'URSS depuis 1964.


History.

Westralian Farmers Co‐operative Limited was formed in 1914 as a cooperative company by the Farmers' and Settlers' Association of Western Australia, to acquire the assets of the West Australian Producers' Union, to be focused on the provision of services and merchandise to the Western Australian rural community. By 1919 more than 65 local co-operative companies were acting as agents for Westralian Farmers Limited.  In 1924, it established the first public radio station in Western Australia with 6WF, before it passed into the hands of the Australian Broadcasting Commission in 1929, now called ABC Radio Perth  By the 1940s the company's business included "being wheat and general merchants; country distribution for Commonwealth Oil Refineries Ltd; wool, livestock, skin and produce auctioneers; grain & fruit exporters; insurance underwriters; acquiring agents for the wheat pool of W.A." Known as Westralian Farmers Limited, it had premises in various locations within the Perth central business district. In the 1940s there were premises at 563-571 Wellington Street. They also had premises in Newman Street in Fremantle.  In 1949 Wesfarmers acquired Ashburton Transport, which at the time was lossmaking. The following year it also acquired its major competitor Gascoyne Trading, combining the operations of the two companies to supply the northwest of Western Australia. Along with wool and mail, it carted bananas from Carnarvon to Perth, returning with stores and mail from Perth. Gascoyne Trading introduced refrigerated transport to the region and three trailer road trains that now carry loads up to 115 tonnes.  In 1984 Westralian Farmers Co-operative Limited formed Wesfarmers Limited, restructuring from a co-operative to a public company and listed on the Australian Securities Exchange on 15 November 1984. Initially the Co-operative retained 60% of the ordinary shares, guaranteeing that the co-op's farmer members retained control, and the rest was distributed to its members.  In 1991, 19 m3 of the records of Westralian Farmers Co-operative were deposited with the J S Battye Library in Perth.

Rural business, Dalgety Farmers and Wesfarmers Landmark.

Bought in January 1993 the integration of Dalgety Farmers with Wesfarmers proved more difficult than expected. For a time the merged rural agency and merchandise business was Wesfarmers Dalgety until renamed Wesfarmers Landmark in March 2001 after IAMA Limited was brought in. Landmark, Wesfarmers foundation business, was sold to AWB Limited (originally the Australia Wheat Board) in August 2003.

Bunnings.

An initial investment in 10 percent of Bunnings in February 1987 reached full ownership in January 1994. Bunnings bought UK retailer Homebase in February 2016 and Britain's first Bunnings store opened twelve months later in February 2017. They were 265 well-located stores and Wesfarmers believed Bunnings' management would greatly improve their modest profits. The plan was to make changes gently but tactics changed and local management, perceived as under-performing, was removed and replaced by expatriate management. The expatriate management's changes alienated the existing customer base and, aided by a poor retailing climate, brought a rapid decline into losses. A strategic review by Wesfarmers resulted in the May 2018 sale of the business to Hilco Capital at a loss of (Australian) $1.96 billion.

Australian Railroad Group.

Begun in a joint venture with Genesee & Wyoming by the purchase of Westrail at the beginning of 2000 Australian Railroad Group was sold in 2006 to Babcock & Brown and Queensland Rail.

End of co-operative ownership.

In 2001 Wesfarmers become a freely-traded publicly listed company with open ownership. After becoming a public company, Wesfarmers diversified its interests by acquiring other businesses.

Divisions.

Home improvement and office supplies.

This division is made up of Bunnings Warehouse, a retailer of home improvement and outdoor living products, servicing home and commercial customers in Australia and New Zealand, and Officeworks, a retailer and supplier of office products for home, business and education in Australia. There are 210 Bunnings "warehouse" (larger) stores, 67 Bunnings small format stores, 36 Bunnings Trade centres and 150 Officeworks stores. Bunnings employs more than 33,000 staff and Officeworks employs more than 6,000 staff.  In January 2016, Home Retail Group accepted an offer from Wesfarmers to acquire the British home improvement retailer and garden centre Homebase. Stores in the United Kingdom and Ireland began to be rebranded as Bunnings following the takeover. However, following Wesfarmer's sale of Homebase to Hilco in May 2018, it was reported that the 24 stores already converted would return to the "Homebase" branding.

Department stores.

In February 2016, Wesfarmers announced a restructure of its department store businesses into a single division named Department Stores, with each brand continuing to operate independently.

Kmart.

Kmart is a discount department store retailer in Australia and New Zealand, and a provider of retail automotive services, repairs and tyres in Australia. Kmart has 228 Kmart stores and 259 Kmart Tyre & Auto Service centres. Kmart employs more than 31,000 staff.

Target.

Target is a mid-level department store retailer in Australia. Target has 305 stores. Target employs more than 24,000 staff. In 2014, Wesfarmers was forced to write-down the value of Target by $680 million because of a fall in the company's profits.

Industrials.

In August 2015, Wesfarmers announced an organisational restructure to cluster its three industrial businesses, Chemicals, Energy & Fertilisers (WesCEF); Resources; and Industrial and Safety (WIS) into a single, new Industrials division.

Wesfarmers Chemicals, Energy & Fertilisers.

Wesfarmers Chemicals, Energy & Fertilisers (WesCEF) produces and markets chemicals, fertilisers and gas products. WesCEF has ammonia and ammonium nitrate production facilities in Western Australia, 50% of QNP ammonium nitrate production facilities in Queensland, sodium cyanide production facilities in Western Australia, PVC resin and specialty chemicals production facilities in Victoria, LPG and LNG distribution across Australia with LPG and LNG production facilities in Western Australia and fertiliser production and importation facilities in Western Australia. WesCEF employs more than 1,200 staff. WesCEF businesses include CSBP, Australian Vinyls, AGR, QNP, Evol LNG, Kleenheat and Modwood.

Wesfarmers Resources.

Wesfarmers Resources owns and operates world-scale open-cut coal producing resources in Australia, and has Curragh in Queensland which produces metallurgical coal for export and steaming coal for domestic power generation and 40% of Bengalla in New South Wales, which is operated by Coal & Allied and produces export steaming coal for Asia. Wesfarmers Resources employs more than 650 staff.

Wesfarmers Industrial and Safety.

Wesfarmers Industrial and Safety provides industrial and safety products and services in Australia and New Zealand. On 1 December 2014, Wesfamers Industrial and Safety completed the acquisition of the Workwear Group of Pacific Brands Limited. Wesfarmers Industrial and Safety businesses include Blackwoods, NZ Safety, Greencap, Bullivants, Coregas, Blackwoods Protector, Safety Source, Total Fasteners, Packaging House, King Gee, Hard Yakka, Stubbies and GotStock.

Other activities.

Wesfarmers has a 50% interest in investment house Gresham Partners plus interests in Gresham Private Equity Funds, 50% interest in Wespine, a plantation softwood sawmill in Dardanup and a 24% interest in BWP Trust which mainly owns Bunnings Warehouses tenanted by Bunnings Group Limited.

Other businesses.

Wesfarmers has 100% interest in many other subsidiaries across Australia, New Zealand, India, New Caledonia, United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Indonesia, China, Bermuda and Singapore. These include BBC Hardware, Coles Ansett Travel, Coles Group Superannuation Fund, Coles Property Management, Comnet, Fosseys, Grocery Holdings Pty Ltd, Harris Technology, Howard Smith, Katies Fashions, Loyalty Pacific, Masters Home Improvement New Zealand, Morley Shopping Centre, now.com.au, Theo's Liquor, Tooronga Shopping Centre, Tyremaster, Viking Direct and World 4 Kids.

Former interests.

Insurance.

On 16 June 2014, Wesfarmers completed the sale of its insurance broking and premium funding operations, including OAMPS Insurance Brokers in Australia, OAMPS UK, Crombie Lockwood in New Zealand, Lumley Finance and Monument Premium Financing to Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. On 30 June 2014, Wesfarmers completed the sale of its insurance underwriting operations, including the WFI and Lumley brands, to the Insurance Australia Group.

Coles.

On 2 July 2007, Wesfarmers announced it was purchasing the Coles Group retail business for A$22 billion making it the largest successful take-over in Australian corporate history. Wesfarmers took control of Coles on 23 November 2007, after paying almost A$20 billion for the company. Wesfarmers had already purchased 13 per cent of the retailer in April.  Coles is a national supermarket, liquor, fuel and convenience retailer in Australia. As of September 2013, Coles operates 756 full-service supermarkets, 810 liquor outlets, 92 hotels, and 636 fuel and convenience stores. Coles employs more than 105,000 staff. Coles' businesses include Coles Supermarkets, Coles Online, Coles Express, Vintage Cellars, 1st Choice Liquor Superstore, BI-LO, Coles Financial Services and Liquorland.  On 16 March 2018, Wesfarmers held a meeting to discuss its intention to demerge from Coles, The demerge was effective from 21 November 2018 with Wesfarmers retaining a 15% shareholding.

Wesfarmers Limited is an Australian conglomerate, headquartered in Perth, Western Australia, with interests predominantly in Australian and New Zealand retail, chemicals, fertilisers, coal mining and industrial and safety products. With AU$65.98 billion in the 2016 financial year, it is the largest Australian company by revenue, overtaking Woolworths and BHP. Wesfarmers is the largest private employer in Australia, with approximately 220,000 employees.

Wesfarmers Limited () est une entreprise australienne qui fait partie de l'indice S&P/ASX 50. C'est le plus grand employeur du pays avec plus de employés.


Early and personal life.

Sullivan was born in South Godstone, Surrey, England into a Roman Catholic family of Irish descent, and was brought up in the nearby town of East Grinstead, West Sussex. He was educated at Reigate Grammar School and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was awarded a first-class Bachelor of Arts in modern history and modern languages. In his second year, he was elected President of the Oxford Union for Trinity term 1983.  Sullivan earned a Master of Public Administration in 1986 from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, followed by a Doctor of Philosophy degree in government from Harvard in 1990. His dissertation was titled "Intimations Pursued: The Voice of Practice in the Conversation of Michael Oakeshott."  In 2001, it came to light that Sullivan had posted anonymous online advertisements for unprotected anal sex, preferably with "other HIV-positive men". He was widely criticised in the media for this, with some critics noting that he had condemned President Bill Clinton's "incautious behavior", though others wrote in his defense. In 2003, Sullivan wrote a "Salon" article identifying himself as a member of the gay "bear community". On 27 August 2007, he married Aaron Tone in Provincetown, Massachusetts.  Sullivan was barred for many years from applying for United States citizenship because of his HIV-positive status. Following the statutory and administrative repeals of the HIV immigration ban in 2008 and 2009, respectively, he announced his intention to begin the process of becoming a permanent resident and citizen. On "The Chris Matthews Show" on 16 April 2011, Sullivan confirmed that he had become a permanent resident, showing his green card. On 1 December 2016, Sullivan became a naturalised US citizen.  He has been a daily user of marijuana since 2001.

Career.

In 1986, Sullivan began his career with "The New Republic" magazine, serving as its editor from 1991 to 1996. In that position, he expanded the magazine from its traditional roots in political coverage to cultural issues and the politics surrounding them. During this time, the magazine generated several high-profile controversies.  While completing graduate work at Harvard in 1988, Sullivan published an attack in "Spy" magazine on Rhodes Scholars, "All Rhodes Lead Nowhere in Particular," which dismissed recipients of the scholarship as "hustling apple-polisher[s]"; "high-profile losers"; "the very best of the second-rate"; and "misfits by the very virtue of their bland, eugenic perfection." "[T]he sad truth is that as a rule," Sullivan wrote, "Rhodies possess none of the charms of the aristocracy and all of the debilities: fecklessness, excessive concern that peasants be aware of their achievement, and a certain hemophilia of character." Author Thomas Schaeper notes that "[i]ronically, Sullivan had first gone to the United States on a Harkness Fellowship, one of many scholarships spawned in emulation of the Rhodes program."  In 1994, Sullivan published excerpts on race and intelligence from Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray's controversial "The Bell Curve", which argued that some of the measured difference in IQ scores among racially defined groups was a result of genetic inheritance. Almost the entire editorial staff of the magazine threatened to resign if material that they considered racist was published. To appease them, Sullivan included lengthy rebuttals from 19 writers and contributors. He has continued to speak approvingly of the research and arguments presented in "The Bell Curve", writing, "The book... still holds up as one of the most insightful and careful of the last decade. The fact of human inequality and the subtle and complex differences between various manifestations of being human—gay, straight, male, female, black, Asian—is a subject worth exploring, period." According to Sullivan, this incident was a turning point in his relationship with the magazine's staff and management, which he conceded was already bad because he "was a lousy manager of people". He left the magazine in 1996.  Sullivan began writing for "The New York Times Magazine" in 1998, but was fired by editor Adam Moss in 2002. Jack Shafer wrote in "Slate" magazine that he had asked Moss in an e-mail to explain this decision, but that his e-mails went unanswered, adding that Sullivan was not fully forthcoming on the subject. Sullivan wrote on his blog that the decision had been made by "Times" executive editor Howell Raines, who found Sullivan's presence "uncomfortable", but defended Raines's right to fire him. Sullivan suggested that Raines had done so in response to Sullivan's criticism of the "Times" on his blog, and said he had expected that his criticisms would eventually anger Raines.  Sullivan has also worked as a columnist for "The Sunday Times" of London.  Ross Douthat and Tyler Cowen have suggested that Sullivan is the most influential political writer of his generation, particularly because of his very early and strident support for same-sex marriage, his early political blog, his support of the Iraq War, and his subsequent support of Barack Obama's presidential candidacy. Mark Ames has charged that Sullivan lacks journalistic integrity and has been responsible for a number of unethical and misleading articles during his career.

Politics.

Sullivan describes himself as a conservative and is the author of "The Conservative Soul". He has supported a number of traditional libertarian positions, favouring limited government and opposing interventionist measures such as affirmative action. However, on a number of controversial public issues, including same-sex marriage, social security, progressive taxation, anti-discrimination laws, the Affordable Care Act, the United States government's use of torture, and capital punishment, he has taken positions not typically shared by conservatives in the United States. In July 2012, Sullivan said that "the catastrophe of the Bush-Cheney years... all but exploded the logic of neoconservatism and its domestic partner-in-crime, supply-side economics."  One of the most important intellectual and political influences on Sullivan is Michael Oakeshott. Sullivan describes Oakeshott's thought as "an anti-ideology, a nonprogramme, a way of looking at the world whose most perfect expression might be called inactivism." He argues "that Oakeshott requires us to systematically discard programmes and ideologies and view each new situation "sui generis". Change should only ever be incremental and evolutionary. Oakeshott viewed society as resembling language: it is learned gradually and without us really realising it, and it evolves unconsciously, and for ever." In 1984, he wrote that Oakeshott offered "a conservatism which ends by affirming a radical liberalism." This "anti-ideology" is perhaps the source of accusations that Sullivan "flip-flops" or changes his opinions to suit the whims of the moment. He has written, "A true conservative—who is, above all, an anti-ideologue—will often be attacked for alleged inconsistency, for changing positions, for promising change but not a radical break with the past, for pursuing two objectives—like liberty and authority, or change and continuity—that seem to all ideologues as completely contradictory."  As a youth, Sullivan was a fervent supporter of Margaret Thatcher and later Ronald Reagan. He says of that time, "What really made me a right-winger was seeing the left use the state to impose egalitarianism—on my school", after the Labour government in Britain tried to merge his admissions-selective school with the local comprehensive school. At Oxford, he became friends with future prominent conservatives William Hague and Niall Ferguson and became involved with Conservative Party politics.  From 1980 through 2000, he supported Republican presidential candidates in the United States, with the exception of the election of 1992, when he supported Bill Clinton in his first presidential campaign. In 2004, however, he was angered by George W. Bush's support of the Federal Marriage Amendment designed to enshrine in the Constitution marriage as a union between a man and a woman, as well as what he saw as the Bush administration's incompetence over its Iraq War management, and consequently supported the presidential campaign of John Kerry, a Democrat.  Sullivan endorsed Senator Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination in the 2008 United States presidential election, and Representative Ron Paul for the Republican nomination. He eventually endorsed Obama for president, largely because he believed that he would restore "the rule of law and Constitutional balance"; he also argued that Obama represented a more realistic prospect for "bringing America back to fiscal reason", and expressed a hope that Obama would be able to "get us past the culture war." Sullivan continued to maintain that Obama was the best choice for president from a conservative point of view. During the 2012 election campaign, he wrote, "Against a radical right, reckless, populist insurgency, Obama is the conservative option, dealing with emergent problems with pragmatic calm and modest innovation. He seeks as a good Oakeshottian would to reform the country's policies in order to regain the country's past virtues. What could possibly be more conservative than that?"  Sullivan has declared support for Arnold Schwarzenegger and other like-minded Republicans. He argues that the Republican Party, and much of the conservative movement in the United States, has largely abandoned its earlier scepticism and moderation in favour of a more fundamentalist certainty, both in religious and political terms. He has said this is the primary source of his alienation from the modern Republican Party.  In January 2009, "Forbes" magazine ranked Sullivan No. 19 on a list of "The 25 Most Influential Liberals in the U.S. Media". Sullivan rejected the "liberal" label and set out his grounds in a published article in response.  In August 2018, after Sarah Jeong, a "New York Times" editorial board-member, received widespread criticism for her old anti-white tweets, Sullivan accused Jeong of being racist and calling white people "subhuman". Sullivan also accused Jeong of spreading eliminationist rhetoric; a belief that political opponents are a societal cancer that should be separated, censored or exterminated.

LGBT issues.

Sullivan, like Marshall Kirk, Hunter Madsen, and Bruce Bawer, has been described by Urvashi Vaid as a proponent of "legitimation", seeing the objective of the gay rights movement as being "mainstreaming gay and lesbian people" rather than "radical social change". Sullivan wrote the first major article in the United States advocating for gay people to be given the right to marry, published in "The New Republic" in 1989. Many gay rights organisations attacked him for the stance at the time. Many on "the gay left" believed that he was promoting "assimilation" into "straight culture", when the aim of most at that time was to alter codes of sexuality and society as a whole, rather than fitting gays into it. However, his arguments eventually became widely accepted and formed the basis of the modern movement to allow same-sex marriage. The book won the 1996 Mencken Award for Best Book, presented by the Free Press Association. In the wake of the United States Supreme Court rulings on same-sex marriage in 2013 ("Hollingsworth v. Perry" and "United States v. Windsor"), "New York Times" op-ed columnist Ross Douthat suggested that Sullivan might be the most influential political writer of his generation, writing, "No intellectual that I can think of, writing on a fraught and controversial topic, has seen their once-crankish, outlandish-seeming idea become the conventional wisdom so quickly, and be instantantiated so rapidly in law and custom."  Sullivan opposes hate crime laws, arguing that they undermine freedom of speech and equal protection. He also opposes the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, arguing that it would "not make much of a difference" and that the "gay rights establishment" was wrong to oppose a version of the bill that did not include protections for gender identity. Sullivan opposed calls to remove Brendan Eich as CEO of Mozilla for donating to the campaign for Proposition 8, which made same-sex marriage illegal in California. He argued that "old-fashioned liberalism brought gay equality to America far, far faster than identity politics leftism."  In 2006, Sullivan was named as an LGBT History Month icon.  In November 2019, Sullivan wrote an "Intelligencer" column on people who at one time identified as transgender but later detransitioned. Sullivan also discussed the controversy over a 2018 journal article by Lisa Littman proposing rapid onset gender dysphoria as a socially mediated subtype of gender dysphoria.

War on terror.

Sullivan supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States and was initially hawkish in the war on terror, arguing that weakness would embolden terrorists. He was "one of the most militant" supporters of the Bush administration's counter-terrorism strategy immediately following the September 11 attacks in 2001; in an essay for "The Sunday Times", he stated, "The middle part of the country—the great red zone that voted for Bush—is clearly ready for war. The decadent Left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead—and may well mount what amounts to a fifth column." Eric Alterman wrote in 2002 that Sullivan had "set himself up as a one-man House Un-American Activities Committee" running an "inquisition" to unmask "anti-war Democrats", "basing his argument less on the words these politicians speak than on the thoughts he knows them to be holding in secret".  Later, Sullivan criticised the Bush administration for its prosecution of the war, especially regarding the numbers of troops, protection of munitions, and treatment of prisoners, including the use of torture against detainees in United States custody. Though he argues that enemy combatants in the war on terror should not be given status as prisoners of war because "terrorists are not soldiers", he believes that the US government must abide by the rules of war—in particular, Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions—when dealing with such detainees. In retrospect, Sullivan said that the torture and abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq had jolted him back to "sanity". Of his early support for the invasion of Iraq, he said, "I was terribly wrong. In the shock and trauma of 9/11, I forgot the principles of scepticism and doubt towards utopian schemes that I had learned."  On the edition of 27 October 2006 of "Real Time with Bill Maher", he described conservatives and Republicans who refused to admit they had been wrong to support the Iraq War as "cowards". On 26 February 2008, he wrote on his blog: "After 9/11, I was clearly blinded by fear of al Qaeda and deluded by the overwhelming military superiority of the US and the ease of democratic transitions in Eastern Europe into thinking we could simply fight our way to victory against Islamist terror. I wasn't alone. But I was surely wrong." His reversal on the Iraq issue and his increasing attacks on the Bush administration caused a severe backlash from many hawkish conservatives, who accused him of not being a "real" conservative.  Sullivan authored an opinion piece, "Dear President Bush," that was featured as the cover article of the October 2009 edition of "The Atlantic" magazine. In it, he called on former President Bush to take personal responsibility for the incidents and practices of torture that occurred during his administration as part of the war on terror.

Israel.

Sullivan states that he has "always been a Zionist". However, his views have become more critical over time. In February 2009, he wrote that he could no longer take the neoconservative position on Israel seriously:  In January 2010, Sullivan blogged that he was "moving toward" the idea of "a direct American military imposition" of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with NATO troops enforcing "the borders of the new states of Palestine and Israel". He commented, "I too am sick of the Israelis. [...] I'm sick of having a great power like the US being dictated to." His post was criticised by Noah Pollak of "Commentary", who referred to it as "crazy", "heady stuff" based on "hubris".  In February 2010, Leon Wieseltier suggested in "The New Republic" that Sullivan, a former friend and colleague, had a "venomous hostility toward Israel and Jews" and was "either a bigot, or just moronically insensitive" toward the Jewish people. Sullivan rejected the accusation and was defended by some writers, while others at least partly supported Wieseltier.  In March 2019, Sullivan wrote in "New York" magazine that while he strongly supported the right of a Jewish state to exist, he felt that Rep. Ilhan Omar's comments about the influence of the pro-Israel lobby were largely correct. Sullivan said that "it is simply a fact that the Israel lobby uses money, passion, and persuasion to warp this country’s foreign policy in favor of another country — out of all proportion to what Israel can do for the US."

Iran.

Sullivan devoted a significant amount of blog space to covering the allegations of fraud and related protests after the 2009 Iranian presidential election. Francis Wilkinson of "The Week" stated that Sullivan's "coverage—and that journalism term takes on new meaning here—of the uprising in Iran was nothing short of extraordinary. 'Revolutionary' might be a better word."  Sullivan was inspired by the Iranian people's reactions to the election results and used his blog as a hub of information. Because of the media blackout in Iran, Iranian Twitter accounts were a major source of information. Sullivan frequently quoted and linked to Nico Pitney of "The Huffington Post".

Immigration.

Writing for "New York" magazine, Sullivan expressed concern that high levels of immigration to the United States could drive "white anxiety" by causing white Americans to be "increasingly troubled by the pace of change" since they were never formally asked whether they wanted such a demographic shift. Sullivan has advocated for tighter immigration controls on asylum and overall lower levels of immigration. He has criticized Democrats for what he perceived as their unwillingness to implement such controls.

Religion.

Sullivan identifies himself as a faithful Catholic while disagreeing with some aspects of the Catholic Church's doctrine. In "Virtually Normal", he argues that the Bible forbids same-sex sexual activity only when it is linked to prostitution or pagan rituals.  He expressed concern about the election of Pope Benedict XVI in an article in "Time Magazine" on 24 April 2005, titled "The Vicar of Orthodoxy". He wrote that Benedict was opposed to the modern world and women's rights, and considered gays and lesbians innately disposed to evil. Sullivan has, however, agreed with Benedict's assertion that reason is an integral element of faith.  Sullivan takes a moderate approach to religion, rejecting fundamentalism and describing himself as a "dogged defender of pluralism and secularism". He defended religious moderates in a series of exchanges with atheist author Sam Harris in which Harris maintained that religious moderates provided cover for fundamentalists and made it impossible for anyone to effectively oppose them.

Blogging.

In late 2000, Sullivan began his blog, "The Daily Dish". The core principle of the blog has been the style of conservatism he views as traditional. This includes fiscal conservatism, limited government, and classic libertarianism on social issues. Sullivan opposes government involvement with respect to sexual and consensual matters between adults, such as the use of marijuana and prostitution. He believes recognition of same-sex marriage is a civil-rights issue but expressed willingness to promote it on a state-by-state legislative federalism basis, rather than trying to judicially impose the change. Most of Sullivan's disputes with other conservatives have been over social issues and the handling of postwar Iraq.  Sullivan gave out yearly "awards" for various public statements, parodying those of the people the awards were named after. Throughout the year, nominees were mentioned in various blog posts. The readers of his blog chose winners at the end of each year.  In February 2007, Sullivan moved his blog from "Time" to "The Atlantic Monthly", where he had accepted an editorial post. His presence was estimated to have contributed as much as 30% of the subsequent traffic increase for "The Atlantic"'s website.  In 2009, "The Daily Dish" won the 2008 Weblog Award for Best Blog.  Sullivan left "The Atlantic" to begin blogging at "The Daily Beast" in April 2011. In 2013, he announced that he was leaving "The Daily Beast" to launch "The Dish" as a stand-alone website, charging subscribers $20 a year.  In a note posted on "The Dish" on 28 January 2015, Sullivan announced his decision to retire from blogging. He posted his final blog entry on 6 February 2015. On 26 June 2015, he posted an additional piece in reaction to "Obergefell v. Hodges", which legalized same-sex marriage in the United States.

Andrew Michael Sullivan (born 10 August 1963) is a British-born American author, editor, and blogger. Sullivan is a conservative political commentator, a former editor of "The New Republic", and the author or editor of six books. He started a political blog, "The Daily Dish", in 2000, and eventually moved his blog to various publishing platforms, including "Time", "The Atlantic", "The Daily Beast", and finally an independent subscription-based format. He announced his retirement from blogging in 2015. Sullivan has been a writer-at-large at "New York" since 2016.

Andrew Michael Sullivan (né le ) est un auteur, éditeur et blogueur. Un ancien rédacteur en chef de "The New Republic", il est l'auteur ou l'éditeur de sept livres. Il a été un pionnier du blog politique comme une forme de commentaire politique. Son blog, qui a été lancé en 2000, a été parmi les plus lus et les plus influents en politiques américaine. Il a annoncé sa retraite à partir de blogs en 2015.


History.

Tatneft was created in 1950 by the merger of several local oil companies and related industries. Tatneft is listed on the MICEX-RTS, and its ADRs are traded on the Frankfurt () and London () stock exchanges. For years, Tatneft traded under the ADR (stock symbol TNT). It retired that listing in 2006. In 2013 Tatneft produced its one millionth tire.

Operations.

The main activities of Tatneft are:  Tatneft is the first Russian oil company, which developed a contract with Syria to extract oil. The contract became effective in March 2005.  In 2007, Tatneft had total proved reserves of approximately 6.140 billion barrels of crude oil according to the audit by Miller and Lents. It operated 77 oil fields, including the main field of the company - Romashkino, with total production capacity of 25 million tons of oil and a very high amount of natural gas annually. Other main oil fields are Novo-Yelokhov and Bavly. In addition to Russia, it conducts exploration and production operations also in Libya, Angola, Syria, Iran, Vietnam, Oman and Saudi Arabia. In 2008, Tatneft's crude oil production was 189 million barrels and was expected to shrink by 1.5% to 186 million barrels in 2009.  As of 1 July 2010, Tatneft had 626 filling stations, of which 490 are located on the territory of the Russian Federation and 136 are located in Ukraine.  In September 2007, Tatneft formed a strategic partnership with Royal Dutch Shell to develop heavy crude oil (bitumen) production in Tatarstan. It considers similar partnership with Chevron.  Through its subsidiary TANEKO, Tatneft is constructing the Nizhnekamsk refinery and petrochemical complex, which it intends to commission in phases in 2009 and 2011-2012. The complex will include of refineries with the capacity of seven million tons per year, deep oil conversion plant of 3.5 million tons per year and petrochemical plant, which will produce linear alkyl benzene for production of washing materials and oil lubricants, paraxylene and terephthalic acid for production of polyester fibers (u1074), cellophane film and bottles, and polypropylene. The complex is expected to cost US$3–3.2 billion, of which $2 billion was invested in 2008, and $1–1.2 billion would be invested in 2009.  "Metal Mining Wire" reports that in the first half of 2013, Tatneft has installed 630 gas filling stations across Russia. In Ukraine, the number of filling stations has reached 114, and Belarus has received a total of eight gas filling stations. Tatneft delivered 730,000 tons of petroleumand gas products to its filling stations. Tatneft also upgraded many of its stations to deliver diesel fuel and eco-friendly grade five gasoline, both of which have a lower negative environmental impact than traditional gasoline. As of July 2013, Tatneft is evaluating ways to install solar panels at its filling stations in an effort to save resources.

Shareholders.

The main shareholder is the Republic of Tatarstan through its holding company Svyazinvestneftekhim, which holds 34% of Tatneft. The Government of Tatarstan holds also a golden share in the company.

Controversies.

Tatneft has an ongoing dispute with the Government of Ukraine over control in Ukrtatnafta, an owner of the Kremenchuk oil refinery. Ukrainian state-owned energy company Naftogaz Ukrainy owns 43.1% of shares in Ukrtatnafta, Tatneft owns 8.6% and Government of Tatarstan owns 28.8%. 18% of the shares were transferred to two offshore companies allied with Tatneft, transaction which was not recognized by Ukrainian authorities. According to the court decision, these share were handed over to Naftogaz and in October 2007, there was a management change, which is not recognized by Tatneft. In March Tatneft filed international arbitration against Ukraine.  On 9 July 2008, after signing an agreement between the United States and the Czech Republic to host a tracking radar for an antiballistic missile system, Tatneft reduced oil supplies through the Druzhba pipeline to the Czech Republic. Tatneft said that it re-routed volumes from the Czech Republic to Turkey due to better prices. Although officially the linkage between reduction of oil supplies and the radar agreement was not claimed, it was suspected.

Ecology.

In 2013, TatNIPIneft, the Tatar Oil Research and Design Institute devised a new technology called SSG-VUKSZHS, which increases the depletion of oil reservoirs using a composition based on silica gel. The technology has been applied by Tatneft to enhance the recovery of oil, after winning the Grand Prix for best exhibit, engineering design or technical solution at the XX International Oil and Gas Exhibition 2013 held in Baku, Azerbaijan, in June.

Tatneft (; traded as:, ) is a Russian vertically integrated oil and gas company with headquarters in the city of Almetyevsk. It is the sixth largest oil company in Russia.

Tatneft est une entreprise russe qui occupe la sixième place en Russie au niveau des volumes de pétrole extrait. C'est une compagnie pétrolière verticalement intégrée, c'est-à-dire qu'elle inclut production, raffinage, pétrochimie, et distribution de carburants. Sa production se concentre sur le Tatarstan, et le gouvernement de cette république autonome possède d'ailleurs une partie de son capital. La compagnie contrôle notamment l'important gisement de Romashkino. Son siège est à Almetievsk.


Construction.

On 1 September 2008, Olympique Lyonnais president Jean-Michel Aulas announced plans to create a new 60,000-seat stadium, tentatively called "OL Land", to be built on 50 hectares of land located in Décines-Charpieu, a suburb of Lyon. The stadium would also include state-of-the-art sporting facilities, two hotels, a leisure center, and commercial and business offices.  On 13 October 2008, the project was agreed upon by the French government, the General Council of Rhône, the Grand Lyon, SYTRAL, and the commune of Décines for construction with approximately €180 million of public money being used and between €60–80 million coming from the Urban Community of Lyon. The project was hindered by slow administrative procedures, political interests, and various opposition groups who viewed the stadium as financially, ecologically, and socially wrong for the taxpayers and community of Décines. After landscaping in 2012, stadium construction started in summer 2013.

Football.

Olympique Lyonnais played their first game in the new stadium on 9 January 2016, winning 4–1 against Troyes in Ligue 1; Alexandre Lacazette scored the first goal at the ground.  In November 2009, the French Football Federation chose Parc Olympique Lyonnais one of the twelve stadiums to be used in the country's bidding for UEFA Euro 2016. It hosted six games at the tournament, including the hosts' 2–1 win over the Republic of Ireland in the last 16, and eventual champions Portugal's 2–0 win over Wales in the semi-finals.  In September 2016, the new stadium was chosen as the host of the 2017 Coupe de la Ligue Final, the first time that the final had been hosted outside the Paris area. Paris Saint-Germain won 4–1 against Monaco. On 9 December 2016, UEFA announced that Parc OL had been chosen to host the 2018 UEFA Europa League Final on 16 May 2018.  Parc OL was one of nine stadiums hosting matches at the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup, staging the semi-finals and the final. It will also be a venue for football at the 2024 Summer Olympics.

Other uses.

The venue hosted an outdoor Ligue Magnus ice hockey game between Lyon and Grenoble on 30 December 2016. In that game, Grenoble defeated Lyon 5–2; the attendance at that game was 25,142, which turned out to be the all-time record attendance for an ice hockey game in France.  Parc Olympique Lyonnais hosted the finals of rugby union's European Rugby Champions Cup and European Rugby Challenge Cup in 2016. It is one of nine venues chosen for France's hosting of the 2023 Rugby World Cup.  The stadium has hosted several musical performances, the first being by American singer will.i.am after the inaugural match on 9 January 2016. Other acts who have played there include Christophe Maé, Rihanna, Coldplay, Ed Sheeran and Céline Dion.

Parc Olympique Lyonnais, known for sponsorship reasons as Groupama Stadium, and in some competitions as Grand Stade de Lyon, Stade des Lumières or OL Land, is a 59,186-seat stadium in Décines-Charpieu, in the Lyon Metropolis. The home of French football club Olympique Lyonnais, it replaced their previous stadium, Stade de Gerland, in January 2016.

Le Parc Olympique lyonnais (anciennement Stade des Lumières, notamment avant son inauguration, et appelé Groupama Stadium par contrat de naming avec Groupama depuis 2017 et jusqu'à la fin de la saison 2019-2020) désigne un stade de football ainsi qu'un complexe de sports et de loisirs comprenant ce stade situé à Décines-Charpieu, dans l'est de l'agglomération lyonnaise. Il est la propriété de la société OL Groupe, la holding dont fait partie le club de football de l'Olympique lyonnais. Le projet de construction date de 2007, le stade étant ensuite construit de 2012 à 2015 puis inauguré en 2016.