title: Southern Ontario

text: For thousands of years, Ontario has been home to indigenous aboriginal communities, with numerous nations with differing languages at the time of European contact. Over 200,000 aboriginal Canadians live in Southern Ontario today.


title: Southern Ontario

text: Southern Ontario was colonized by the French and the British. After the area began to be developed for European settlement, especially after the American Revolutionary War, other European immigrants arrived as well, with increased immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Since the late 20th century, many immigrants have come from Asia and other parts of the world. The region is one of the top destinations for immigrants worldwide, particularly the Greater Toronto Area.


title: Southern Ontario

text: The area has a large manufacturing sector. Since the mid-2000s, Ontario has produced more vehicles per year than the state of Michigan. In a cross-border definition, a swath of Southern Ontario could be considered a part of the Rust Belt. Factory closings because of industry restructuring, globalization (corresponding movement of jobs overseas and to non-unionized labour markets in the United States) have for the past few decades taken their toll. This is most evident in the region's southern tier cities which have large automobile or associated industrial bases, such as Windsor, London, St. Thomas and St. Catharines. Still affected by these factors but to a lesser extent is Hamilton, the centre of steel production, and Sarnia, the centre of petrochemical production. The province's two largest cities, Toronto and Ottawa, have moved increasingly to a service and knowledge economy. Toronto, is home to the country's financial sector, including the major Canadian banks and Toronto Stock Exchange. Ottawa, the national capital, is home to the Government of Canada and most government departments and agencies, in addition to having a strong technology sector.


title: Southern Ontario

text: Some parts of Southern Ontario are heavily entwined with bordering cities in New York and Michigan in terms of industry and people. The focus areas are the Buffalo–Niagara, Sarnia and Detroit–Windsor. Many people work and live on opposite sides of the border. The NEXUS program for frequent travelers across the border is increasing in popularity among bordering communities. Other areas with heavy trade traffic with Southern Ontario include Montreal and the province of Quebec, parts of northern Ohio, and western Pennsylvania.


title: Southern Ontario

text: Most of the province's agriculture is found here. That includes most of Ontario's berry growers, who are represented by .


title: Southern Ontario

text: Southern Ontario is well known for its attractions and tourism. Some popular tourist attractions include the CN Tower, Parliament Hill, Niagara Falls, National Gallery of Canada, Canada's Wonderland, CNE, Caesars Windsor, Canadian War Museum, Toronto Zoo, Hockey Hall of Fame, Ripley's Aquarium of Canada, Royal Canadian Mint, Marineland, The Rideau Canal, the Canadian Museum of History and the Royal Ontario Museum.


title: Southern Ontario

text: Niagara Falls is the 6th most visited attraction by domestic and international tourists in the world, with over 14 million tourists each year. In 2006, Toronto was the 14th most visited city by international tourists in the world, with over 4.1 million visitors in the year. Ottawa is the most visited city in Canada by domestic tourists, hosting over 6.9 million Canadian visitors per year.


title: Southern Ontario

text: Southern Ontario is home to several professional sports teams, including the Ottawa Senators and Toronto Maple Leafs in the NHL; the Toronto Blue Jays in Major League Baseball; the NBA's Toronto Raptors; soccer's Toronto FC in MLS and Atlético Ottawa in the Canadian Premier League; and three teams in the Canadian Football League—the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, Ottawa Redblacks, and Toronto Argonauts. The region also hosts the Canadian Open in golf and Rogers Cup in tennis.


title: Southern Ontario

text: The area sponsors many internationally renowned festivals and events, including Toronto International Film Festival, Winterlude, Caribana, Bluesfest, Pride Week, Kitchener Oktoberfest, Havelock Jamboree, Toronto Indy, Sarnia Bayfest, Canada Day in Ottawa, International Freedom Festival in Windsor, Stratford Festival, Shaw Festival and Virgin Festival.


title: Southern Ontario

text: Several large legal gambling establishments have been built throughout the Province, with Caesars Windsor and Fallsview Casino being the two flagship casinos. In addition to casinos, Ontario has many legal horseracing facilities with slot machines. Racetrack slots are located throughout the Province. All gaming in the Province is overseen by the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG), and the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario.


title: Southern Ontario

text: Southern Ontario has many natural attractions. Wasaga Beach, Grand Bend, Sauble Beach, and Sandbanks are beaches along the Great Lakes. The Niagara Escarpment offers hiking, skiing, and hundreds of waterfalls, including Niagara Falls. The Ottawa River has white-water rafting which attracts rafters and kayakers from all over the world. Ontario Parks governs all provincial parks, and Parks Canada governs all national parks.


title: Southern Ontario

text: Southern Ontario is home to both Canada's capital city (Ottawa), and Canada's largest city (Toronto).


title: Southern Ontario

text: Southern Ontario communities have 13 telephone area codes: 226, 249, 289, 343, 365, 416, 437, 519, 548, 613, 647, 705, and 905.


title: Southern Ontario

text: Statistics Canada's measure of a "metro area", the Census Metropolitan Area (CMA), roughly bundles together population figures from the core municipality with those from "commuter" municipalities. Note: A city's metropolitan area may actually be larger than its CMA. For example; Oshawa is part of the Greater Toronto Area; however, it is considered its own CMA.


title: Southern Ontario

text: The region is broken up into 40 census divisions, including 22 counties, eight regional municipalities, nine single-tier municipalities and depending on its inclusion, one district. The line between the counties and regions of the south and the districts of the north can be considered a boundary between Southern and Northern Ontario.


title: Southern Ontario

text: This is disputed however, as the demarcation line that is referenced in provincial documents is the Nipissing Passageway, originally an Indian trail between Georgian Bay and the Ottawa River. The trail follows the French River from Georgian Bay to Lake Nipissing. At North Bay, of land separates Lake Nipissing from Trout Lake. From Trout Lake, the trail follows the Mattawa River to the Ottawa River.


title: Southern Ontario

text: The 2011 census revealed that the major urban divisions of York, Halton, Peel and Ottawa had the largest growth. While the heavy industrial divisions of Chatham, Lambton, and Essex, as well as the mainly recreational divisions of Huron and Prince Edward had a decrease in population.


title: Southern Ontario

text: Southern Ontario has long been an international destination for higher learning. It houses numerous internationally acclaimed public universities and colleges amongst its 13 universities and 20 colleges. It is also home to numerous private post-secondary institutions.


title: Southern Ontario

text: Many notable Canadians have been born in Southern Ontario, owing to its nature as Canada's largest concentration of population. Toronto is notable for its multiculturalism and cosmopolitan nature: it has been called the most diverse city in the world. Southern Ontario also features in the literary genre of Southern Ontario Gothic, a major strand in Canadian literature.


title: Southern Ontario

text: Southern Ontario has a highly developed transport system including many highways, airports, ports, trains and buses. The freeway system in Southern Ontario is referred to as the King's highways system, or the 400 series highways. The freeways are digitally monitored by the Ministry of Transportation (Ontario) using the COMPASS-Freeway Traffic Management System With the long-awaited upgrade of Highway 406, all the freeways in Ontario are at least 4 lanes wide, fully controlled with interchanges and divided. The major freeways are 400, 401, 402, 403, 404, 405, 406, 407 (Toll), 409, 410, 412 (Toll), 416, 417, 418 (Toll), 420, 427, Don Valley Parkway, Gardiner Expressway, Queen Elizabeth Way, Queensway, Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway, Red Hill Valley Parkway, Conestoga Parkway, and the E. C. Row Expressway.


title: Southern Ontario

text: Southern Ontario also has several border crossings with the United States. The Ambassador Bridge, Detroit–Windsor Tunnel, and Blue Water Bridge connect the region with the U.S. state of Michigan, while the Peace Bridge, Rainbow Bridge, Whirlpool Rapids Bridge, Lewiston–Queenston Bridge, Thousand Islands Bridge, Ogdensburg–Prescott International Bridge, and Seaway International Bridge link Southern Ontario with the U.S. state of New York.


title: Southern Ontario

text: The region has a long history of marine transportation, with hundreds of millions of tonnes of cargo moving along the Great Lakes, and Saint Lawrence Seaway each year. The Welland Canal is a vital part of the Great Lakes Waterway allowing ships to avoid Niagara Falls. The St. Clair River and Detroit River are also well travelled rivers between Lake Huron and Lake Erie in the Windsor, Sarnia area. Major, regional ports include the Port of Hamilton and Port of Windsor with smaller ports in Oshawa, Toronto, Goderich and Sarnia. Southern Ontario also has thousands of other fresh water lakes and rivers, as well as the Trent-Severn Waterway and Rideau Canal.


title: Southern Ontario

text: An inter-city train service in the region is provided mainly by Via Rail. The Greater Toronto area also has a commuter train system called the GO Train, which is supplemented by a network of bus services.


title: Southern Ontario

text: There are several major international airports including the busiest airport in the country, Toronto Pearson International Airport (ranked 15th busiest worldwide by flights in 2014), Ottawa Macdonald–Cartier International Airport, John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport, London International Airport, and Region of Waterloo International Airport. Many Southern Ontarians living close to the Michigan or New York State borders use either Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, or Buffalo Niagara International Airport as their local airport.


title: Southern Ontario

text: Southern Ontario has a humid continental climate with four distinct seasons. The average highs in July for the region range between 25 °C (77 °F) to 29 °C (84 °F). The average high in January ranges from -6 °C (21 °F) to 0 °C (32 °F). The highest recorded temperature in Southern Ontario was 45 °C (113 °F) and 52 °C (125 °F) with the humidex. During cold snaps, winter temperatures can on occasion drop below -30 °C (-22 °F). The climate found over most of southern Ontario falls within the "Dfb" and " Dfa" climate subtype, much warmer or milder than the northern part of the province due to lower latitude, presence of bodies of water and intense urbanization.


title: Southern Ontario

text: Harsh weather is not uncommon in the region, in the summer months Southern Ontario is susceptible to tornadoes but far more often, straight line wind damage, hail and localized flooding from severe thunderstorms. Although the majority of tornadoes rarely cause excessive damage, the region is on the periphery of Tornado Alley and (F4) tornadoes touchdown every few decades causing widespread damage. Southern Ontario also gets hurricane remnants, floods, ice storms, heavy fog, hail, and blizzards.


title: Southern Ontario

text: Small earthquakes occur in the region. The 5.8 Cornwall–Massena earthquake occurred in 1944 and had a maximum Mercalli intensity of VII ("Very strong").


title: Southern Ontario

text: Many tourists visit the area in the autumn months to look at the bright vibrant colours of fall foliage.


title: Southern Ontario

text: Southern Ontario has a very different climate from the rest of the country. It is the only area of Canada that has Carolinian forest. Many trees, plants, and wildlife in Southern Ontario are not found anywhere else in Canada. Some rare trees to Canada in this region include the tulip tree, pawpaw fruit tree and the cucumber tree. The Carolinian forests of Southern Ontario have in large part been destroyed by development sprawl. Very few original growth areas remain.


title: Southern Ontario

text: The region has the most fresh water beaches in the nation. With relatively warm waters by mid-summer due to the very warm and humid summer months with significant coastlines of white sand, the major beaches in the region are visited by millions of tourists every summer. The most popular beaches are Wasaga Beach, Grand Bend, Sauble Beach, and Sandbanks.


title: Gaffer tape

text: Gaffer tape (also known as gaffer's tape, gaff tape or gaffa tape as well as spike tape for narrow, colored gaffer tape) is a heavy cotton cloth pressure-sensitive tape with strong adhesive and tensile properties. It is widely used in theatre, photography, film, radio and television production, and industrial staging work.


title: Gaffer tape

text: While sometimes confused with duct tape, gaffer tape differs in the composition of both the backing, which is made from fabric as opposed to vinyl or other plastics, and the adhesive, which is more resistant to heat and more easily removed without damaging the surface to which it adhered.


title: Gaffer tape

text: The precise origin of the name is unknown, one theory being that it is named for the gaffer (chief lighting technician) on a film crew. When cables are taped down on a stage or other surface, either to prevent tripping hazards or conceal them from view of the audience or camera, they are said to be "gaffed" or "gaffered".


title: Gaffer tape

text: Gaffer tape was invented in 1959 by Ross Lowell, director, cinematographer, and founder of Lowel-Light. Lowell transferred the adhesive from Johnson & Johnson's Permacel tape, also known as "duct tape", to silver fabric, and Lowel-Light introduced gaffer tape to the market.


title: Gaffer tape

text: Gaffer tape is manufactured in many colors, including fluorescent and custom colors, but perhaps the most common variety is matte black. A matte finish keeps the tape from reflecting light, so that it blends in with a typical stage floor. It is sold in a variety of widths, from to , with and being the most common. Gaffer tape is strong, yet can be torn by hand, so no cutting tools are necessary, and it can easily be ripped into narrower strips when desired. The synthetic adhesive typically leaves little or no residue and will generally not damage most surfaces when it is removed. Gaffer tape is usually more expensive than duct tape because it is manufactured in smaller quantities, has more exacting specifications, and is marketed for professional use.


title: Gaffer tape

text: A common application for gaffer tape is securing cables to a stage floor, podium, or other surface, either for safety or concealment. It is also frequently used whenever a quick ad hoc fix is required, from temporarily attaching fixtures or props, to salvaging a broken piece of production equipment. A narrow version of gaffer tape, called "spike tape", is used in theater productions for floor layout.


title: Gaffer tape

text: In the absence of console tape or artist tape, live sound engineers or light board operators may use a strip of white gaffer tape along the bottom of a mixing board to label the channels or submasters used for a particular show.


title: Gaffer tape

text: In rock climbing gyms, gaffer tape can be used to mark climbs on the wall. It is preferable to duct tape because it is stronger and lasts longer on the wall.


title: BusyBox

text: BusyBox is a software suite that provides several Unix utilities in a single executable file. It runs in a variety of POSIX environments such as Linux, Android, and FreeBSD, although many of the tools it provides are designed to work with interfaces provided by the Linux kernel. It was specifically created for embedded operating systems with very limited resources. The authors dubbed it "The Swiss Army knife of Embedded Linux", as the single executable replaces basic functions of more than 300 common commands. It is released as free software under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2, after controversially deciding not to move to version 3.


title: BusyBox

text: Originally written by Bruce Perens in 1995 and declared complete for his intended usage in 1996, BusyBox initially aimed to put a complete bootable system on a single floppy disk that would serve both as a rescue disk and as an installer for the Debian distribution. Since that time, it has been extended to become the de facto standard core user space toolset for embedded Linux devices and Linux distribution installers. Since each Linux executable requires several kilobytes of overhead, having the BusyBox program combine over two hundred programs together often saves substantial disk space and system memory.


title: BusyBox

text: BusyBox was maintained by Enrique Zanardi and focused on the needs of the Debian boot-floppies installer system until early 1998, when Dave Cinege took it over for the Linux Router Project (LRP). Cinege made several additions, created a modularized build environment, and shifted BusyBox's focus into general high-level embedded systems. As LRP development slowed down in 1999, Erik Andersen, then of Lineo, Inc., took over the project and became the official maintainer between December 1999 and March 2006. During this time the Linux embedded marketplace exploded in growth, and BusyBox matured greatly, expanding both its user base and functionality. Rob Landley became the maintainer in 2005 until late 2006, then Denys Vlasenko took over as the current maintainer.


title: BusyBox

text: In September 2006, after heavy discussions and controversies between project maintainer Rob Landley and Bruce Perens, the BusyBox project decided against adopting the GNU Public License Version 3 (GPLv3); the BusyBox license was clarified as being GPL-2.0-only.


title: BusyBox

text: Since October 2006, Denys Vlasenko has taken over maintainership of BusyBox from Rob Landley, who has started Toybox, also as a result of the license controversies.


title: BusyBox

text: In late 2007, BusyBox also came to prominence for actively prosecuting violations of the terms of its license (the GPL) in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.


title: BusyBox

text: What was claimed to be the first US lawsuit over a GPL violation concerned use of BusyBox in an embedded device. The lawsuit, case 07-CV-8205 was filed on September 20, 2007 by the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) on behalf of Andersen and Landley against Monsoon Multimedia Inc., after BusyBox code was discovered in a firmware upgrade and attempts to contact the company had apparently failed. The case was settled with release of the Monsoon version of the source and payment of an undisclosed amount of money to Andersen and Landley.


title: BusyBox

text: On November 21, 2007, the SFLC brought two similar lawsuits on behalf of Andersen and Landley against two more companies, Xterasys (case 07-CV-10455) and High-Gain Antennas (case 07-CV-10456). The Xterasys case was settled on December 17 for release of source code used and an undisclosed payment, and the High-Gain Antennas case on March 6, 2008 for active license compliance and an undisclosed payment. On December 7, 2007, a case was brought against Verizon Communications over its distribution of firmware for Actiontec routers; this case was settled March 17, 2008 on condition of license compliance, appointment of an officer to oversee future compliance with free software licenses, and payment of an undisclosed sum. Further suits were brought on June 9, 2008 against Bell Microproducts (case 08-CV-5270) and SuperMicro (case 08-CV-5269), the Super Micro case being settled on July 23, 2008. BusyBox and Bell Microproducts also settled out of court on October 17.


title: BusyBox

text: On December 14, 2009, a new lawsuit was filed naming fourteen defendants including Best Buy, JVC, Samsung and others.


title: BusyBox

text: In February 2010 Samsung released its LN52A650 TV firmware under GPLv2, which was used later as a reference by the SamyGO community project.


title: BusyBox

text: On about August 3, 2010, BusyBox won from Westinghouse a default judgement of triple damages of $90,000 and lawyers' costs and fees of $47,865, and possession of "presumably a lot of high-def TVs" as infringing equipment in the lawsuit Software Freedom Conservancy v. Best Buy, et al., the GPL infringement case noted in the paragraph above.


title: BusyBox

text: No other developers, including original author Bruce Perens and maintainer Dave Cinege, were represented in these actions or party to the settlements. On December 15, 2009, Perens released a statement expressing his unhappiness with some aspects of the legal situation, and in particular alleged that the current BusyBox developers "appear to have removed some of the copyright statements of other BusyBox developers, and appear to have altered license statements".


title: BusyBox

text: BusyBox can be customized to provide a subset of over two hundred utilities. It can provide most of the utilities specified in the Single Unix Specification (SUS) plus many others that a user would expect to see on a Linux system. BusyBox uses the Almquist shell, also known as A Shell, ash and sh. An alternative for customization is the smaller 'hush' shell. "Msh" and "lash" used to be available.


title: BusyBox

text: As it is a complete bootstrap system, it will further replace the init daemon and udev (or the latter-day systemd) using itself to be called as "init" on startup and "mdev" at hotplug time.


title: BusyBox

text: Typical computer programs have a separate binary (executable) file for each application. BusyBox is a single binary, which is a conglomerate of many applications, each of which can be accessed by calling the single BusyBox binary with various names (supported by having a symbolic link or hard link for each different name) in a specific manner with appropriate arguments.


title: BusyBox

text: BusyBox benefits from the single binary approach, as it reduces the overhead introduced by the executable file format (typically ELF), and it allows code to be shared between multiple applications without requiring a library. This technique is similar to what is provided by the "crunchgen" command in FreeBSD, the difference being that BusyBox provides simplified versions of the utilities (for example, an <samp>ls</samp> command without file sorting ability), while a crunchgen generated sum of all the utilities would offer the fully functional versions.


title: BusyBox

text: Sharing of the common code, along with routines written with size-optimization in mind, can make a BusyBox system use much less storage space than a system built with the corresponding full versions of the utilities replaced by BusyBox. Research that compared GNU, BusyBox, asmutils and Perl implementations of the standard Unix commands showed that in some situations BusyBox may perform faster than other implementations, but not always.


title: BusyBox

text: The official BusyBox documentation lists an overview of the available commands and their command-line options.


title: BusyBox

text: Programs included in BusyBox can be run simply by adding their name as an argument to the BusyBox executable:


title: BusyBox

text: More commonly, the desired command names are linked (using hard or symbolic links) to the BusyBox executable; BusyBox reads argv[0] to find the name by which it is called, and runs the appropriate command, for example just


title: BusyBox

text: after "/bin/ls" is linked to "/bin/busybox". This works because the first argument passed to a program is the name used for the program call, in this case the argument would be "/bin/ls". BusyBox would see that its "name" is "ls" and act like the "ls" program.


title: BusyBox

text: BusyBox is used by several operating systems running on embedded systems and is an essential component of distributions such as OpenWrt, OpenEmbedded (including the Yocto Project) and Buildroot. The Sharp Zaurus utilizes BusyBox extensively for ordinary Unix-like tasks performed on the system's shell.


title: BusyBox

text: BusyBox is also an essential component of VMware ESXi, and Alpine Linux, both of which are not embedded distributions.


title: BusyBox

text: It is necessary for several root applications on Android and is also preinstalled with some "1 Tap Root" solutions such as Kingo Root.


title: BusyBox

text: Toybox was started early 2006 under the GPL-2.0-only license by former BusyBox maintainer Rob Landley as a result of the controversies around GPLv3/GPLv2 discussions. At the end of 2011 it was relicensed under the BSD-2-Clause license after the project went dormant. In March 2013, it was relicensed again under the 0BSD license. On January 11, 2012, Tim Bird, a Sony employee, suggested creating an alternative to BusyBox which would not be under the GNU General Public License. He suggested it be based on the dormant Toybox. In January 2012 the proposal of creating a BSD licensed alternative to the GPL licensed BusyBox project drew harsh criticism from Matthew Garrett for taking away the only relevant tool for copyright enforcement of the Software Freedom Conservancy group. The starter of BusyBox based lawsuits, Rob Landley, responded that this was intentional as he came to the conclusion that the lawsuits resulted not in the hoped for positive outcomes and he wanted to stop them ""in whatever way I see fit"".


title: Graham Parker

text: Graham Thomas Parker (born 18 November 1950) is an English singer-songwriter, who is best known as the lead singer of the British band Graham Parker & the Rumour.


title: Graham Parker

text: Parker was born in Hackney, East London, in 1950. He was a pupil at Chobham Secondary Modern School in Surrey. After the arrival of the Beatles, Parker and some other 12/13-year-olds formed the Deepcut Three, soon renamed the Black Rockers. None of the members actually learned to play their instruments, however, and were merely dress-up bands, adopting Beatle haircuts, black jeans and polo neck sweaters. By the time Parker was 15 he was a fan of soul music, especially Otis Redding, and would go to dance clubs in the nearby towns of Woking and Camberley where there was a thriving appreciation of soul music, Motown and ska. Parker left school at 16 and went to work at the Animal Virus Research Institute in Pirbright, Surrey, where he bred animals for foot-and-mouth disease research. At 18 he left the job and moved to Guernsey in the Channel Islands where he took a variety of jobs, picking tomatoes, digging ditches, collecting money from pinball machines, and working in a bakery. In Guernsey he bought an acoustic guitar and began to learn fingerpicking style and began writing songs with lyrics heavily influenced by the psychedelic music of the time.


title: Graham Parker

text: Parker returned to England for a year, living in Chichester in Sussex where he worked at the Chichester Rubber Glove Factory. By 1971, he had left England again and spent time in Paris right at the time of the Free Angela Davis march through the city. From France, Parker hitchhiked through Spain to Morocco, where he travelled around for a year before moving to Gibraltar. In Gibraltar he worked on the docks unloading frozen foods, which he then helped deliver to supermarkets. His guitar playing and writing skills were improving, and after playing songs to a few locals in a bar, he found himself on an afternoon show on Gibraltar television where he performed two or three of his own songs. At that time, a strongly psychedelic influenced band named Pegasus often played in the same bar and asked Parker to join them. With Parker in the band playing a borrowed electric guitar, Pegasus played one show in Gibraltar before going to Tangier, Morocco, where they briefly performed in a nightclub. Parker, however, was growing out of the hippie trappings and decided the band needed to learn a few songs that involved major keys (all the songs they played were in A minor) and so taught the members some of the soul numbers he had loved as a youth, including Wilson Pickett’s "In The Midnight Hour". He also tired of the band's hippie name and renamed them Terry Burbot's Magic Mud.


title: Graham Parker

text: In late 1972, Parker returned to England and lived with his parents, working at a petrol station around the corner from his childhood home in Deepcut. By now he was determined to pursue a career in music and worked steadily on improving his guitar playing and song writing. In late 1974 he placed an ad in "Melody Maker" seeking like-minded backing musicians. One of the musicians who answered the ad was Noel Brown, a guitarist who lived in south London. Brown introduced him to Paul "Bassman" Riley who had recently been a member of Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers. (Brown also found Parker a gig at Southern Comfort, a tiny hamburger café on Seven Sisters Road in Finsbury Park, London where he played solo, performing a mixture of original songs and covers.) Riley thought Parker should meet Dave Robinson, the manager of the by now defunct Brinsley Schwarz band. Robinson had a small studio above the Hope & Anchor pub in Islington and began to record Parker, sometimes solo and sometimes with a few musicians behind him.


title: Graham Parker

text: One of the songs Parker recorded was "Between You and Me." This demo version ended up on Parker's first album, "Howlin' Wind", after the Rumour tried to record it but failed to achieve the natural feel of the demo. Another song, "Nothin's Gonna Pull Us Apart" was played, in demo form, on the Charlie Gillett show "Honky Tonk" on BBC London 94.9. On hearing the song, Nigel Grainge from Phonogram Records called Gillett and asked who the new singer was. By now Robinson had become Parker's manager and a deal with Phonogram was struck. Robinson then went about recruiting the musicians who would become the Rumour, and recording for "Howlin’ Wind" began in the winter of 1975 with Nick Lowe producing. In 1975, he recorded a few demo tracks in London with Dave Robinson, who would shortly found Stiff Records and who connected Parker with his first backing band of note, The Rumour. Parker had one track, "Back to Schooldays", released on the compilation album, "A Bunch of Stiff Records" for Stiff Records.


title: Graham Parker

text: In the summer of 1975, Parker joined ex-members of three British pub-rock bands to form Graham Parker and the Rumour: Parker (lead vocals, guitar) with Brinsley Schwarz (lead guitar) and Bob Andrews (keyboards) (both ex Brinsley Schwarz), Martin Belmont (rhythm guitar, ex Ducks Deluxe) and Andrew Bodnar (bass) and Steve Goulding (drums). They began in the British pub rock scene, often augmented at times by a four-man horn section known as The Rumour Horns: John "Irish" Earle (saxophone), Chris Gower (trombone), Dick Hanson (trumpet), and Ray Beavis (saxophone).


title: Graham Parker

text: The band's first album, "Howlin' Wind", was released to acclaim in April 1976 and was rapidly followed by the stylistically similar "Heat Treatment". A mixture of rock, ballads, and reggae-influenced numbers, these albums reflected Parker's early influences and contained the songs which formed the core of Parker's live shows – "Black Honey", "Soul Shoes", "Lady Doctor", "Fool's Gold", and his early signature tune "Don't Ask Me Questions", which hit the top 40 in the UK Singles Chart.


title: Graham Parker

text: Establishing a recording career in early 1976, Parker preceded two other new wave English singer-songwriters with whom he is often compared: Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson. (Costello's first single was released in 1977, and Jackson's first solo single in late 1978).


title: Graham Parker

text: Graham Parker and the Rumour appeared on BBC television's "Top of the Pops" in 1977, performing their version of The Trammps' "Hold Back the Night" from "The Pink Parker" EP, a top 30 hit in the UK Singles Chart in March 1977. At this point, Parker began to change his songwriting style, hoping to break into the American market. The first fruits of this new direction appeared on "Stick To Me" (1977), which broke the top 20 on the UK Albums Chart.


title: Graham Parker

text: Parker and the Rumour gained a following in Australia thanks to the support of community radio (4ZZZ, 3RRR), Sydney independent rock station Double Jay (2JJ) and the ABC's weekly pop TV show "Countdown", which gave the group nationwide exposure. They made their first tour there in 1978, where they spotted rising Australian band The Sports, who subsequently supported Parker and the Rumour on their early 1979 UK tour. The group made a second Australian tour in late 1979, when Parker appeared on "Countdown" as a guest presenter.


title: Graham Parker

text: An official Graham Parker and The Rumour live album, "The Parkerilla", issued in 1978, had nothing new: three sides were live, with versions of previously released songs; the fourth was devoted to a "disco" remake of "Hey Lord, Don't Ask Me Questions". "The Parkerilla" satisfied his contractual obligation to Mercury Records, freeing him to sign with Arista. Parker had long been dissatisfied with the performance of Mercury Records, finally issuing in 1979 as a single B-side "Mercury Poisoning" a song that directly attacked it. The flip side of the single was a cover of the Jackson Five song "I Want You Back (Alive)."


title: Graham Parker

text: Graham Parker and The Rumour were one of the four support acts for Bob Dylan at the Picnic at Blackbushe on 15 July 1978. The band also opened Richard Branson's new club The Venue, London, in November 1978.


title: Graham Parker

text: Energized by his new label, Arista Records, and with record producer Jack Nitzsche, Parker wrote the songs that would form the basis for "Squeezing Out Sparks", widely held to be the best album of his career. For this album, The Rumour's brass section, prominent on all previous albums, was jettisoned.


title: Graham Parker

text: "Squeezing Out Sparks" (1979) was named by "Rolling Stone" at No. 335 on its List of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. In an early 1987 "Rolling Stone" list of their top 100 albums from 1967 to 1987, "Squeezing Out Sparks" was ranked at No. 45, while "Howlin' Wind" came in at No. 54. The album features several of Parker's most famous songs, including "Passion Is No Ordinary Word", "You Can't Be Too Strong", and the singles "Local Girls", "Protection", and "Discovering Japan". The companion live album "Live Sparks", was sent to US radio stations as part of a concerted promotional campaign.


title: Graham Parker

text: The jettisoned brass section continued to play on other people's records, credited as The Irish Horns (on the album "London Calling" by The Clash) or The Rumour Brass, most notably on Katrina and the Waves' 1985 hit "Walking On Sunshine".


title: Graham Parker

text: Bob Andrews left The Rumour in early 1980, and was not officially replaced. However, in studio sessions for the next album, Nicky Hopkins and Danny Federici (of The E Street Band) played keyboards.


title: Graham Parker

text: 1980's "The Up Escalator" was Parker's highest-charting album in the UK, and was produced by Jimmy Iovine. The album featured the single "Stupefaction" and the track "Endless Night", which had guest vocals from Bruce Springsteen. The front cover of the album credited only Graham Parker, not "Graham Parker and The Rumour". The album was certified Gold in Canada (for over 50,000 copies sold).


title: Graham Parker

text: "The Up Escalator" would prove to be Parker's last album with the Rumour until a reunion decades later. However, Rumour guitarist Brinsley Schwarz reunited with Parker in 1983 and play on most of his albums through the decade's end. Other Rumour members also played with Parker in later years: bassist Andrew Bodnar would rejoin Parker from 1988 through the mid-1990s, and drummer Steve Goulding would play on Parker's 2001 album "Deepcut To Nowhere".


title: Graham Parker

text: The 1980s were Parker's most commercially successful years, with well-financed recordings and radio and video play. His follow-up to "The Up Escalator", 1982's "Another Grey Area", used session musicians Nicky Hopkins and Hugh McCracken. This album charted at UK No. 40 and US No. 51, and spun off a top 50 UK single in "Temporary Beauty".


title: Graham Parker

text: 1983's "The Real Macaw", with drumming by Gilson Lavis of Squeeze and Brinsley Schwarz on guitar, did not fare as well, hitting US No. 59 on the album charts but missing the UK charts altogether. However, Parker's 1985 release "Steady Nerves" (credited to Graham Parker and The Shot) was a moderate success and included his only US top 40 hit "Wake Up (Next to You)". The Shot was a four-piece backing band, all of whom had played on either "The Real Macaw" or "Another Grey Area": Brinsley Schwarz (guitar), George Small (keyboards), Kevin Jenkins (bass) and Michael Braun (drums). "Steady Nerves" was recorded in New York City, and Parker began living mostly in the United States during this time.


title: Graham Parker

text: Record label changes came quickly after the mid-1980s, partly accounting for the number of compilation albums in Graham Parker's discography. Particularly unproductive was Parker's tenure at Atlantic Records, where he released nothing and signed to RCA Records. He began producing his own recordings and issued "The Mona Lisa's Sister". The backing band for this album included former Rumour-mates Schwarz and Bodnar; keyboardists James Hallawell and Steve Nieve; and drummer Terry Williams (replaced on one cut by Andy Duncan, and two others by Pete Thomas, who, like Nieve, was a member of Elvis Costello and the Attractions). "Rolling Stone" magazine ranked "The Mona Lisa's Sister" at No. 97 on its list of The 100 Greatest Albums of the 1980s.


title: Graham Parker

text: Parker continued to record for RCA through the early 1990s. Long-time guitarist Schwarz once again left Parker after the 1989 album "Human Soul". Parker's 1991 offering, "Struck By Lightning", had Bodnar and Pete Thomas in the backing band, as well as guest appearances from The Band's Garth Hudson on keyboards and John Sebastian on autoharp. However, the album's chart peak of US No. 131 saw Parker dropped by the label. 1992's "Burning Questions" was released by Capitol Records, who promptly dropped him after the album failed to sell.


title: Graham Parker

text: A 1994 Christmas-themed EP release ("Graham Parker's Christmas Cracker") was issued on Dakota Arts Records, before Parker found a more permanent home on American independent label Razor & Tie. After the personal "12 Haunted Episodes", and 1996's "Acid Bubblegum" (featuring Jimmy Destri of Blondie on keyboards), Parker grew quiet in the late 1990s. However, he continued to play live fairly regularly, often working with backing band The Figgs (who, like The Rumour, when not backing Parker also issue records as a discrete unit).


title: Graham Parker

text: Parker began a more active period in 2001, with the UK re-release of his early Rumour work, and with his third studio album for Razor & Tie, "Deepcut to Nowhere". In 2003, he collaborated with Kate Pierson of the B-52's and Bill Janovitz of Buffalo Tom to record an album of lesser-known John Lennon/Paul McCartney compositions that had never been recorded by The Beatles. The album, called "From a Window: Lost Songs of Lennon & McCartney", was credited to "Pierson, Parker, Janovitz". Also in 2003, Parker contributed a solo acoustic version of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" to the compilation album, "A Fair Forgery of Pink Floyd".


title: Graham Parker

text: New solo work continued with 2004's "Your Country", which saw Parker switch labels to Chicago-based indie Bloodshot Records and was co-produced by John Would at Stanley Recording in Venice, California. The album was recorded and mixed in two weeks.


title: Graham Parker

text: "Songs of No Consequence" was recorded with The Figgs in 2005. A show from the ensuing tour with the Figgs was broadcast on FM radio and released as an album in 2006. In March 2007, a new full-length album, "Don't Tell Columbus", was released.


title: Graham Parker

text: In addition to his records, Parker published an illustrated science fiction novella, "The Great Trouser Mystery" in 1980. He published a set of short stories, "Carp Fishing on Valium", in June 2000. His third book, the novel "The Other Life of Brian", appeared in September 2003.


title: Graham Parker

text: In early 2011, Parker reunited with all five original members of The Rumour to record a new album, "Three Chords Good". It was released in November 2012. Music journalist, Stephen Thomas Erlewine noted that the release was "the rare reunion that simultaneously looks back while living in the present." Meanwhile, the Judd Apatow film "This Is 40", in which Parker and Rumour play themselves, was released a month later, in December 2012.


title: Graham Parker

text: The Parker/Rumour reunion continued into 2015, when their new album "Mystery Glue" was issued. It was followed by a short international tour, after which the reunion ended.


title: Graham Parker

text: In April 2018, Parker signed with 100% Records, and released a brand new single titled "Dreamin'". Later, in July 2018, Parker announced "Cloud Symbols", his brand new studio album to be released on 21 September 2018. The album features Parker's brand new backing band The Goldtops, which consists of Martin Belmont on guitar, Geraint Watkins on keyboards, Simon Edwards on bass, and Roy Dodds on drums. The album also features the Rumour Brass, making this their first appearance on a Graham Parker album since "Stick to Me" in 1977 and their first time working with Parker since the Squeezing Out Sparks tour in 1979. The album was initially to be produced by Neil Brockbank, but he died during the recording of the album and production duties for the rest of the album were passed onto Tuck Nelson and Parker himself.


title: Graham Parker

text: He announced a solo, acoustic 40th Anniversary version of "Squeezing Out Sparks", for an 13 April 2019 release. It also contains the non-album single, "Mercury Poisoning".


title: Nyla Usha

text: Nyla Usha Gopakumar (born 25 March 1982) is an Indian actress, television host, and radio jockey from Trivandrum, Kerala. After working for nearly a decade as an RJ at Hit 96.7 in Dubai, she made her acting debut in 2013 with "Kunjananthante Kada".


title: Nyla Usha

text: Nyla was born to Gopakumar and Usha Kumari in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates. She did her schooling at the Holy Angel's Convent Trivandrum and pursued her college education at All Saints College, Thiruvananthapuram. In 2004, she moved to Dubai and joined the radio station Hit 96.7 where she worked as a radio jockey.


title: Nyla Usha

text: In 2013, Nyla Usha debuted in the Malayalam film industry with Salim Ahamed's "Kunjananthante Kada", opposite Mammootty. Ahamed had known Nyla since she had interviewed him on several occasions in Dubai and offered her the lead female role. She played Chithira, a woman who is going through an unhappy marriage.


title: Nyla Usha

text: Later that year she had her second release, "Punyalan Agarbattis", in which she played "a vibrant girl, similar to the real me". Since she could relate herself to the character, she used her own looks and costumes in the film. Although she had a major role in "Kunjananthante Kada" she said that it was her role in "Punyalan Agarbathis" that fetched her recognition.


title: Nyla Usha

text: She played the female lead in Aashiq Abu's 2014 crime film "Gangster" and Deepu Karunakaran's 2015 thriller "Fireman". From 2016 to 2017, she hosted the Malayalam version of "Minute to Win It" in Mazhavil Manorama. She essayed the role of Effymol in "Diwanjimoola Grand Prix" in 2018. In 2019, she had two releases, Prithviraj Sukumaran-directed action drama "Lucifer", in which she played a TV channel executive, and Joshiy-directed action drama "Porinju Mariam Jose", in which she played Mariam, one of the three title characters. Both the films were commercial successes.


title: Nyla Usha

text: Nyla Usha married Rona Rajan in January 2007, before entering film industry and they have a son Aarnav Rona.


title: Paintball

text: Paintball is a competitive team shooting sport in which players eliminate opponents from play by hitting them with spherical dye-filled gelatin capsules called paintballs that break upon impact. Paintballs are usually shot using low-energy air weapons called paintball markers that are powered by compressed air or carbon dioxide and were originally designed for remotely marking trees and cattle.


title: Paintball

text: The game was invented in May 1981 in New Hampshire by Hayes Noel, a Wall Street stock trader, and Charles Gaines, an outdoorsman and writer. A debate arose between them about whether a city-dweller had the instinct to survive in the woods against a man who had spent his youth hunting, fishing, and building cabins. The two men chanced upon an advertisement for a paint gun in a farm catalogue and were inspired to use it to settle their argument with 10 other men all in individual competition, eventually creating the sport of paintball.


title: Paintball

text: The sport is played for recreation and is also played at a formal sporting level with organized competition that involves major tournaments, professional teams, and players. Paintball technology is also used by military forces, law enforcement, paramilitary, and security organizations to supplement military or other training.


title: Paintball

text: Games can be played on indoor or outdoor fields of varying sizes. A playing field may have natural or artificial terrain which players use for tactical cover. Game types and goals vary, but include capture the flag, elimination, defending or attacking a particular point or area, or capturing objects of interest hidden in the playing area. Depending on the variant played, games can last from minutes to hours, or even "days" in "scenario play".


title: Paintball

text: The legality of the sport and use of paintball markers varies among countries and regions. In most areas where regulated play is offered, players are required to wear protective masks, use barrel-blocking safety equipment, and strictly enforce safe game rules.


title: Paintball

text: The paintball equipment used may depend on the game type, for example: woodsball, speedball, or scenario; on how much money one is willing to spend on equipment; and personal preference. However, almost every player will utilize three basic pieces of equipment:


title: Paintball

text: Additional equipment, commonly seen among frequent players, tournament participants, and professional players include:


title: Paintball

text: Paintball is played with a potentially limitless variety of rules and variations, which are specified before the game begins. The most basic game rule is that players must attempt to accomplish a goal without being shot and marked with a paintball. A variety of different rules govern the legality of a hit, ranging from "anything counts" (hits cause elimination whether the paintball broke and left a mark or not) to the most common variation: the paintball must break and leave a mark the size of a US quarter or larger. Eliminated players are expected to leave the field of play; eliminations may also earn the opposing team points. Depending on the agreed upon game rules, the player may return to the field and continue playing, or is eliminated from the game completely.


title: Paintball

text: The particular goal of the game is determined before play begins; examples include "capture the flag" and "elimination". Paintball has spawned popular variants, including woodsball, which is played in the natural environment and spans across a large area. Conversely, the variant of speedball is played on a smaller field and has a very fast pace with games as brief as two minutes fifteen seconds in the (NSL) or lasting up to twenty minutes in the PSP (Paintball Sports Promotions). Another variant is scenario paintball, in which players attempt to recreate historical, or fictional settings.


title: Paintball

text: Tournaments are skill based competitions. These are often bracket tournaments with 5 person teams, taking place on Speedball (paintball) fields. Tournaments such as the NXL hold different events throughout the summer months all over the United States with a range of skill divisions. Other series such as the Ultimate Woodsball League (UWL) play tournaments with large teams on large wooded fields. The types of tournaments and applicable skill divisions vary wildly to serve the diverse interest of paintball competitors.


title: Paintball

text: Speedball is played in an open field that could be compared to a soccer field, it is flat with a minimum of natural obstacles, and sometimes artificial turf is used, especially in indoor fields. The first speedball fields were constructed with flat wooden obstacles staked into the ground to provide cover; this concept was further developed into a number of urban-scenario field styles with larger building-like obstacles for casual play, but speedball itself progressed to using smaller obstacles made from plastic drainage pipe, which offered a more variable field layout and some "give" to the obstacles for increased safety. This style of play was often referred to as "Hyperball". Eventually, inflatable fabric "bunkers" were developed based on common obstacle shapes from previous fields, such as "snake" and "can" bunkers. Often referred to as "Airball", the use of these inflatable obstacles both increases player safety by reducing potential injury from collisions with obstacles, and allows them to be easily moved to reconfigure the field or to set up temporary fields.


title: Paintball

text: Woodsball, or "Bushball", is a fairly recent term that refers to what was the original form of the game: teams competing in a wooded or natural environment, in which varying amounts of stealth and concealment tactics can offer an advantage. The term is commonly used as a synonym for specialized scenario-based play, but it technically refers to virtually any form of paintball played in fields primarily composed of natural terrain and cover such as trees and berms, instead of manmade obstacles. Usually the gamemode is "team death match" although some times it is "capture the flag", or "protect the president" (where one player is chosen as the "president", the president's team must protect the president, the enemy team must eliminate the president).


title: Paintball

text: Commonly referred to as "Big Games" or "Scenario Games". "Big Games" refer to territory control based gameplay, while a "Paintball Scenario" refers to a game where tasks are given to each side at timed intervals. Pioneered by Wayne Dollack, "Scenario Paintball" focus much more heavily on Live Action Roleplaying events, elevating their immersion, storyline, and game play mechanics above the paintball aspect of play. Many variations and combinations of these games are currently played and are unique to each event and event producer. The game uses the entire venue it is at, combining all normal gaming fields into 1 large playing area. Popular examples of the scenario format are Paintball's Grand Finale


title: Paintball

text: at Wayne's World (Ocala, Florida), Cousin's Big Game in Coram, New York (on Long Island), Hell Survivor's Monster Game (just outside Pinckney, Michigan), Invasion of Normandy at Skirmish U.S.A in Pennsylvania, Oklahoma D-Day (in Wyandotte, Oklahoma), Fight For Asylum at PRZ Paintball (Picton, Ontario), Battle Royale at Flag Raiders Paintball (Kitchener, Ontario), the Sherwood Classic at Sherwood Forest (La Porte, Indiana), and Free Finale at Low Country Paintball (Ludowici, GA) events which draws in 100 to 5000 players and run at least 6 hours of uninterrupted play, most often averaging 12 hours of play in 2 days. "True24" scenario events run at least 24 hours continuously, the most recent one taking place in May 2019 at Sherwood Forest. These formats vary widely and are frequently historical MilSim, movie, or pop culture themed.


title: Paintball

text: MilSim ("Military Simulation") is a mode of play designed to create an experience closer to military reality, where the attainment of specific objectives is the most important aspect of the game.


title: Paintball

text: MilSim addresses the logistics of combat, mission planning and execution, and dealing with limited resources and ammunition. Players are typically eliminated from the game when struck by paint just like in any traditional game of paintball. MilSim is a popular gamemode also played in Airsoft, which is a similar sport to paintball.


title: Paintball

text: With the advent of shaped projectiles, such as the First Strike, and the resulting development of magazine fed markers, a considerable increase in range, accuracy and MILSIM realism was gained. Functionally speaking, magazine-fed markers are no different from any other paintball marker, with one exception. Instead of paintballs being gravity fed from a bulky hopper, which sits above the marker, shaped projectiles (or paintballs) are fed from a spring-loaded magazine from the bottom of the marker. The caliber of both the gravity fed and magazine fed markers are the same (.68 caliber) and the velocities are also generally the same. The increased range and accuracy of the shaped projectile comes from the higher ballistic coefficient that the shaped projectile has, and the gyroscopic spin imparted onto the projectile from a rifled barrel and fins on the projectile itself. Magazine fed markers and shaped projectiles have allowed marker designs to more closely approximate the styling and functionality of actual (real steel) firearms, which in turn has given paintball a better avenue to compete with Airsoft in the MilSim environment.


title: Paintball

text: Mag-Fed Only Game. An increasingly popular style of game play that forbids bulk loading devices such as the traditional paintball "hopper" or "loader" and under or back mounted bulk loaders such as the Dye BoxRotor, Maxxloader backpack, and AGD Warp Feed. In this style of play all markers must accept a magazine, greatly limiting paint capacities and creating a type of paintball much more similar to popular First Person Shooter video games.


title: Paintball

text: A single player paintball attraction in which participants move through a closed course and shoot at a succession of targets. Runs are timed and competition among players is through a leader board, competing to be the quickest.


title: Paintball

text: A static (or mobile) entertainment attraction. Venue staff are padded up and dressed as zombies. Paintball markers are mounted to a flat bed trailer. Participants are taken on a "Haunted Hay Ride" style attraction, towed through the property, where they defend themselves from the zombie hordes with paintballs. Generally, black lights and glow in the dark paintballs are used as ammo.


title: Paintball

text: Regulated games are overseen by referees or marshals, who patrol the course to ensure enforcement of the rules and the safety of the players. If a player is marked with paint, they will call them out, but competitors may also be expected to follow the honor code; a broken ball means elimination. Field operators may specify variations to this rule, such as requiring a tag to certain body locations only – such as the head and torso only. There are game rules that can be enforced depending on the venue, to ensure safety, balance the fairness of the game or eliminate cheating.


title: Paintball

text: Player and team strategy varies depending on the size and layout of the field and the total number and experience level of players. The most basic strategy is to coordinate with the team to distribute the team members across the field roughly perpendicular to the line between starting stations to cover all potential lines of advance; a team that runs all in the same direction is easily flanked by opponents moving around the field on the opposite side. A second basic goal is to control as much of the field as possible, as early as possible, either by being the first to get to advantageous obstacles on the field or by quickly eliminating one or more opponents to reduce the number of directions each player has to watch for incoming paint. The more territory that the members of a team have behind them, the more options they have for choosing effective cover and changing position to get a good shot at one or more opponents, and because the field is of finite size, the fewer options the opposing team has.


title: Paintball

text: A key element of intermediate and advanced strategy is the concept of "firing lanes". These are clear lines of sight between obstacles on the field and thus potentially between opposing players on the field behind them. A lane is "occupied" if at least one player of the opposing team can fire along it, and it's "active" if any player is firing along it, friend or foe. Occupied and active lanes hinder player movement as the player risks getting hit and eliminated. Open fields with sparse cover often have long open lanes between most or all bunkers on the field, most of which will be occupied if not active. Therefore, players have to keep track of which lanes to and from their bunker become occupied by the other team, so the player can make sure the bunker is between themselves and the opponent(s). This becomes harder the more occupied firing lanes there are; when most available firing lanes on the field are occupied, each team has to create cover in at least one direction using suppressing fire (rounds sent to the opponent's location designed to keep their head down more than to eliminate them). Speedball, which tends to use small open fields with relatively few obstacles, requires each player to use hundreds of paintballs in the course of a game to keep his opponents pinned down, lest he be pinned himself. Conversely, if most firing lanes on the field are clear, players on each team have greater mobility and the use of covering fire to pin an opponent is less useful as the player can stay behind cover while moving long distances, so players tend to fire less and move more to gain clear shots. Urban scenarios and woodsball fields tend to be larger and with more cover, shortening firing lanes and requiring players to move more to get good shots against their opponent.


title: Paintball

text: Typically, strategy is limited for casual walk-on style paintball play. Some teamwork will be seen at the beginning of the games with brief discussions on tactics and strategy, such as distributing players between bunkers and assigning defenders that will stay back and cover attackers that advance. However, mid to late game tactics tend to be limited to groups of players sticking together or doing isolated attacks rather than a coordinated sweep down the field. In team paintball tournaments, more serious planned team tactics and strategy is seen throughout each game from the opening to the endgame. Teams generally practice together and have planned tactics they can use in the tournament, and know what each of their teammates will be trying to do in various situations during the game.


title: Paintball

text: Paintball is played at both commercial venues, which require paid admission, and private land; both of which may include multiple fields of varying size and layout. Fields can be scattered with either natural or artificial terrain, and may also be themed to simulate a particular environment, such as a wooded or urban area, and may involve a historical context. Smaller fields (such as those used for speedball and tournament play) may include an assortment of various inflatable bunkers; these fields are less prone to cause injury as the bunkers are little more than air bags, which can absorb the impact of a player colliding with them. Before these inflatable fields became available and popular, speedball fields were commonly constructed of various rigid building materials, such as plywood and framing timber, shipping pallets, even concrete and plastic drainage pipe. The use of plastic pipe tethered with stakes became common, as it allowed for relatively easy reconfiguration of fields and at least some impact-absorption, and was the precursor to the modern inflatable bunker (in fact, certain common features in inflatable fields, such as "can" and "snake" bunkers, were derived from similar features built with plastic drainage pipe). Recreational fields still commonly use these older materials for their higher durability and novelty; inflatable bunkers are prone to bursting seams or otherwise developing holes and leaks. Other fields have wooden or plastic barriers.


title: Paintball

text: Commercial venues may provide amenities such as bathrooms, picnic areas, lockers, equipment rentals, air refills and food service. Countries may have paintball sports guidelines, with rules on specific safety and insurance standards, and paid staff (including referees) who must ensure players are instructed in proper play to ensure participants' safety. Some fields are "BYOP" (Bring Your Own Paint), allowing players to buy paint at unrelated retail stores or online and use it at their field. However, most fields are FPO (Field Paint Only,) meaning players must buy paint at the venue or at a pro shop affiliated with the park. This is largely for revenue reasons; field and rental fees generally do not cover expenses of a paintball park. However, other reasons relating to player safety are generally cited and have some merit, as poor quality or poorly stored paint can cause gun failures or personal injury to targeted players. Other times, FPO policies are in keeping with municipal laws for wastewater and runoff; paintballs contain food dyes, and some formulations have metallic flakes and/or cornstarch to make them more visible, all of which can pose problems in water reservoirs and treatment plants. So, fields that must wash paintball paint into municipal wastewater facilities, or that have substantial rain runoff into bodies of water that are used as sources of drinking water, are generally required by the municipality to restrict players to only certain paint formulations; the easiest way to achieve this is to sell only approved paint and require that field paint be used.


title: Paintball

text: Playing on a non-established field is sometimes referred to as "renegade" or "gonzo" play or "outlaw ball" (with the players nicknamed "renegade ballers" or "outlaws"). Though less expensive and less structured than play at a commercial facility, the lack of safety protocols, instruction, and oversight can lead to higher incidence of injuries.


title: Paintball

text: The first organized paintball game in record was held by Charles Gaines and his friends in New Hampshire in 1981, with the first paintball field opening approximately a year later in Sutton, New Hampshire. In 1983, the first "National Survival Game" (NSG) championship was held, with a $14,000 cash award for the winning team. , tournaments are largely organized by "paintball leagues".


title: Paintball

text: A Speedball league is an organization that provides a regulated competition for Speedball players to compete. Leagues can be of various sizes (for example, regional, national or international) and offer organized tournaments and or games for professional, semi-professional, and amateur teams, sometimes with financial prizes. The first British national league was the British Paintball League created in 1989 by Gary Morhall, Richard Hart and Derek Wildermuth in Essex England. As of 2017, the major leagues in the United States are the National X-ball League (NXL), Carolina Field Owners Association (CFOA), Maximum Velocity Paintball Series (MVPS), the Northern Xtreme Paintball League (NXPL). Internationally, Paintball League Middle-East (PALM)  in  Middle-East , East Asian Paintball League (PALS) series in East Asia, Hazara Series in Western Europe, the Centurio series in Eastern Europe, and the National Collegiate Paintball Association in the US and Canada (A league was also created for high school and college players, the NCPA.*Not recognized by the NCAA*). They are supplemented by various regional and local leagues spread worldwide. Within these leagues it is narrowed down further to divisions. There are six divisions from division 5 to division 1 besides various professional leagues.


title: Paintball

text: The nature and timing of paintball events are specified by the league running the tournament, with the league also defining match rules – such as number of players per team (anywhere from 3-7 players per team), or acceptable equipment for use. The number of matches in a tournament is largely defined by the number of available teams playing. However, the NSL offers non-tournament game play where a more traditional game day format has been adopted. Two teams face off at a set time and play only one game per game day in the season as beginners play a 24-minute game and amateur and professionals play a 32-minute game, both requiring 90 minutes to resolve.


title: Paintball

text: A match in a tournament is refereed by a judge, whose authority and decisions are final. Tournament rules can vary as specified by the league, but may include for example – not allowing players to use devices to communicate with other persons during a game, or not allowing players to unduly alter the layout of terrain on the field. In contrast to a casual game designed for fun, a tournament is much stricter and violations of rules may result in penalties for the players or entire teams.


title: Paintball

text: Though tournament paintball was originally played in the woods, speedball became the standard competitive format in the 1990s. The smaller fields made use of artificial terrain such as bunkers, allowing symmetrical fields that eliminate terrain advantages for either team; woodsball fields having no such guarantee. Most recently, fields using inflatable bunkers, tethered to the ground with stakes, have become standard for most tournament formats; the soft, yielding bunkers reduce the occurrence of injuries, the bunkers deflate to store in a compact space and anchor to the ground with tent stakes, allowing for temporary fields to be set up and torn down with less impact on the ground underneath, and the arrangement of bunkers can be easily re-configured to maintain novelty of play or to simulate a predetermined field layout for an upcoming event.


title: Paintball

text: A professional paintball team is one that plays paintball with the financial, equipment or other kind of support of one or more sponsors, often in return for advertising rights. Professional teams can have different names in different leagues due to franchising and sponsorship issues.


title: Paintball

text: In the past, unlawful groups and terrorists have been accused of using paintball for tactical training purposes in connection with the following incidents:


title: Paintball

text: Mohamed Mahmood Alessa and Carlos "Omar" Eduardo Almonte, two men arrested in June 2010 as they were bound for Somalia, and charged with terrorism and conspiring to kill, maim, and kidnap people outside the U.S., had simulated combat at an outdoor paintball facility in West Milford, New Jersey, according to the complaint against them.


title: Paintball

text: Similarly, 11 men, convicted in 2003–04 of composing the Virginia Jihad Network, engaged in paintball training in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, to simulate guerrilla operations and develop combat skills to prepare for "jihad", according to prosecutors. In 2006, Ali Asad Chandia of the Virginia Jihad Network was sentenced to 15 years in prison aiding the Pakistani terrorist organization, Lashkar-e-Taiba, including arranging a shipment of 50,000 paintballs from the U.S. to Pakistan.


title: Paintball

text: In addition, two of the 2005 London 7/7 bombers were filmed while training in June 2005 at a paintball center in Tonbridge, Kent. Also, the suspects in the 2006 Toronto terrorism case played paintball to prepare for their attack. In 2007, paintball training was engaged in by five terrorists to prepare for an attack aimed at killing American soldiers in Fort Dix, New Jersey; they were later convicted.


title: Paintball

text: The rate of injury to paintball participants has been estimated as 45 injuries per 100,000 participants per year.


title: Paintball

text: Research published by the Minnesota Paintball Association has argued that paintball is one of the statistically safest sports to participate in, with 20 injuries per 100,000 players annually, and these injuries tend to be incidental to outdoor physical activity (e.g. trip-and-fall). A 2003 study of the 24 patients with modern sports eye injuries presenting to the eye emergency department of Porto São João Hospital between April 1992 and March 2002 included five paintball eye injuries. Furthermore, a one-year study undertaken by the Eye Emergency Department, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston has shown that most sports eye injuries are caused by basketball, baseball, hockey, and racquetball. Another analysis concluded that eye injuries incurred from paintball were in settings where protective equipment such as masks were not enforced, or were removed by the player.


title: Paintball

text: Eye injuries can occur when protective equipment is not properly used and such injuries often cause devastating visual loss. For safety, most regulated paintball fields strictly enforce a 'masks-on' policy, and most eject players who consistently disobey.


title: Paintball

text: Regardless, paintball has received criticism due to incidents of injury. In Canada in 2007, an eleven-year-old boy lifted his mask and was shot point blank in the eye by an adult playing on the same field, leading to calls by the Montreal Children's Hospital to restrict the minimum age of paintball participants to 16 years. In Australia, the sport attracted criticism when a 39-year-old man playing at a registered field in Victoria died of a suspected heart attack, after being struck in the chest.


title: Paintball

text: Additionally, the use of paintball markers outside a regulated environment has caused concern. In the United States in 1998, 14-year-old Jorel Lynn Travis was shot with a paintball gun while standing outside a Fort Collins, Colorado ice cream parlor – blinding her in one eye. In 2001, a series of pre-meditated and racially motivated drive-by shootings targeted Alaska Natives in Anchorage, Alaska, using a paintball marker. In Ottawa, Canada in 2007, Ashley Roos was shot in the eye and blinded with a paintball gun while waiting for a bus. In 2014 in the UK, as a marketing strategy, one company advertised and hired a Human Bullet Tester.


title: Paintball

text: Paintball has been considered an inappropriate game, that promotes violence, by the Parliament of the Province of Buenos Aires. The approved law 14,492 (December 2012) regulates its use: it is totally forbidden for children under 16 years old, but can be played with written authorization by the parents, or responsible person in charge, of youths between 16 and 18 years old. Originally, the initiative had proposed the total prohibition for players under 21 years old. The penalties are also established by law, as 30 days of communitarian work or other modalities.


title: Paintball

text: Paintballing in Australia is controlled by the police in each state, with differing minimum age requirements. Players under 18 are required to have a guardian sign a consent form. The minimum ages are 12 for South Australia, New South Wales and Western Australia, 15 for Queensland, 16 for Australian Capital Territory and Victoria. Previously the minimum age for Victoria was 18, but legislation has recently been introduced to lower the legal age for paintball to 16. Both major parties in Victoria have supported the changes.


title: Paintball

text: To own a paintball marker privately in Australia (outside Tasmania and the Northern Territory) one must hold a valid firearms license endorsed for paintball use.


title: Paintball

text: In New South Wales, South Australia, the Australian Capital Territory and Queensland they are considered Class A firearms for the purposes of licensing and storage.


title: Paintball

text: Operators must adhere to legislation on gun storage, safety training and field sizes; private owners have to secure their markers according to state law on storage, as by law paintball markers are considered firearms in Australia.


title: Paintball

text: As in Australia, paintballing in the Republic of Cyprus is controlled by police, i.e. all paintball markers must be registered and licensed, the field must be in certain standards that is inspected by police in order to obtain the license for a paintball field. The process of buying one's own paintball marker is just as complicated, the buyer must have completed military service, have a clean police record and be over the age of 18 years.


title: Paintball

text: Minimum age for paintball is 14 years old with parents consent, from 16 and up no parental consent is required. It is required that all players must wear a protective mask as well and neck and chest protection.


title: Paintball

text: Paintball markers are not allowed to exceed 290 fps velocity and a maximum of 12 bit/s (balls per second) firing rate.


title: Paintball

text: In Germany, paintball is restricted to players over 18 years of age. Paintball markers are classified as weapons that do not require a license or permit; they are legal to buy and use, but restricted to adults. Markers are limited to a kinetic energy of 7.5 J. Tampering with the marker to increase muzzle velocity above 214 fps can lead to confiscation/destruction of the marker and a fine. All paintball markers sold officially in Germany must be certified by the government "Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt" (PTB) (Federal Physical and Technical Institute) to operate within these limits and must have a registered serial number and an official stamp on the firing mechanism. In May 2009, reacting to the Winnenden school shooting, German lawmakers announced plans to ban games such as paintball as they allegedly trivialized and encouraged violence but the plans were retracted a few days later. Most Indoor-Paintball-Areas in Germany have a strict "No-Mil-Sim"-Policy, meaning that no camouflage clothing or real-life looking markers are allowed.


title: Paintball

text: Paintballing is widely accepted as a recreational pastime in Ireland and is not directly subject to any governing regulations. In Northern Ireland all paintball guns are classified as firearms and as such all gun owners needs to obtain a license from the PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland). There is also a minimum age where all players need to be 16 or older. Paintball is governed by the local Gardaí in the Republic of Ireland. A firearms licence is required for both personal and site use. Weapon storage guidelines and security must also be strictly adhered to.


title: Paintball

text: Paintball markers are classified as Airguns under New Zealand law, and as such are legal for persons 18 and over to possess (those between the ages of 16 and 18 require a firearms license). Following the Arms (Military Style Semi-automatic Firearms and Import Controls) Amendment Act 2012 (Which came into effect on December 1, 2013), fully automatic Paintball guns are legal to purchase and use, although a permit to procure from the New Zealand Police is required in order to legally import them into the country. Military replicas require a permit for import.


title: Paintball

text: The UKPSF (UK Paintball Sports Federation) is the only recognised body on behalf of paintball in the UK.


title: Paintball

text: The UKPSF represents players, traders and sites within the UK and is recognised by the Home Office and government as the representative body for the UK.


title: Paintball

text: Under Covid lockdown exit arrangements the UKPSF established authority and covid operating procedures for the reopening of sites as sports/activity centres in the UK with the authority of Sport England on recognition of safe operating procedures and standards of UKPSF member sites.


title: Paintball

text: Note that the UKPBA is not an acredited body and has been rejected for its attempts to claim that one off players at Delta Force sites were UKPBA/Delta Force members due to having completed game waivers required to play.


title: Paintball

text: The UKPBA is a single purpose body to legitimise Delta Force sites, and on cessation of trading under the name Delta Force to cover IPG sites, and subsequently Epic Paintball. All of which are rebranding.


title: Paintball

text: Laws pertaining to paintball markers in the United Kingdom classify them as a type of air gun, although some could be considered to be imitation firearms. Owners do not require a license unless the marker fires above . Only approved paintballs may be used, and the marker must not be fully automatic. The minimum age to be in possession of a marker is 17, except in target shooting clubs or galleries, or on private property so long as projectiles are not fired beyond the premises. It is prohibited to be in possession of a paintball marker in public places. The minimum age for a commercial venue is generally 10, although some venues provide lower-powered guns for children of a younger age.


title: Paintball

text: In the United States, eight states define explicit legislation for paintball guns. In Pennsylvania, paintball markers have transport requirements, cannot be used against anyone not participating in a paintball activity, and cannot be used for property damage. New Hampshire and Rhode Island require players be at least 18 years of age to own a marker, with students in New Hampshire faced with the possibility of expulsion from school for possessing a marker. In Illinois, owners must be at least 13 years of age, and Illinois law makes it unlawful to fire a paintball gun from or across a street, sidewalk, road, highway, public land, or public place except on a safely constructed target range.


title: Paintball

text: Virginia is one of two states that permit its towns to adopt ordinances on paintball guns, allowing its local authorities to do so. Delaware on the other hand only authorizes Wilmington to do so, but does allow paintball to be played on farms as it is considered an agritourism activity. Florida and Texas limit government liability if a government entity allows paintball on its property.


title: Paintball

text: In virtually all jurisdictions, the use of a paintball marker in a manner other than its intended purpose and/or outside the confines of a sanctioned game or field can result in criminal charges such as disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct, vandalism, criminal mischief or even aggravated assault. Paintball guns may also be considered air guns in some states. The possession and use of paintball guns in public places may also provoke officer-involved shootings from police.


title: Paintball

text: Despite stiff legislation, paintball is growing in popularity as a competitive sport, with several leagues and tournaments across the country. There are paintball fields in every state except Tasmania that allows paintball marker ownership. In Victoria the Paintball Association of Victoria runs a number of events including scenario, 3v3 and 5v5 competitions.


title: Paintball

text: Certain paintball fields opened in the Eastern Townships and in the Laurentians. In the beginning it was mostly fields with regular open fields with barricades of wood, old tires and barrels, and very basic infrastructure. Harry Kruger has operated a paintball venue known as "Capture the Flag" in Alberta since the late 1980s. In 1995 Bigfoot Paintball opened in St. Alphonse-Rodriguez in the region of Lanaudière. After only a few years it became more and more prominent in Québec. In 2013, paintball has become relatively mainstream in Canada, with multiple commercial indoor paintball facilities located in most large cities across Canada, as well as a variety of outdoor style commercial paintball fields located in the countryside around the cities. In 2016, the Ontario Paintball League (OPL) was created. The league offers four divisions with cash and gear prizes for the different divisions. In 2018, the most recent "NXL World Cup" winners, Edmonton Impact, or just Impact, were based out of Canada.


title: Paintball

text: There are about ten fields in Cyprus, the most recognized of them being the Lapatsa Paintball Ranch in Nicosia, DNA-Paintball in Paphos, and Paintball Cyprus in Limassol. The Republic of Cyprus has a number of ongoing paintball leagues, including CRL (Cyprus Rec-ball League) and CSL (Cyprus Speedball League). Each league has tournaments every month for the duration of the season which is usually about 7–9 months.


title: Paintball

text: In Denmark paintball is a popular sport. There are around 25 paintball outdoor and indoor fields in Denmark. The largest indoor paintball center in Europe is in Copenhagen.


title: Paintball

text: In India as of 2018, paintball fields are found in many cities. The youth have taken a liking to this adventure sport.


title: Paintball

text: In India, paintball dates back to 2005 when TPCI (The Paintball Co India) joined with PALS (Paintball Asia League Series) which then was the biggest paintball tournament organizer in the Asian circuit and introduced this sport to the country by starting the first commercial paintball park on the outskirts of the national capital at Damdama Lake in Gurgaon, Haryana.


title: Paintball

text: With the growth of outsourcing and offshoring of IT companies, especially in New Delhi and Bangalore, paintball as a sport is being used as a tool for corporate training. There has been a sharp increase in woodsball, speedball and scenario gaming arenas and is growing at a fast pace. Many semi-urban Indian cities have built indoor and outdoor paintball fields in recent years.


title: Paintball

text: National Paintball League - India (Now Disfunc) was the first paintball operator to organise an international paintball championship in India in 2011.


title: Paintball

text: War Lords - The Paintball Field in Rajasthan is India's most versatile scenario based Paintball field with over 3 different terrains for Paintball which includes two "Woodsball" Paintball. Woodsball paintball is only available in Paintball Jodhpur. their unique "Point based paintball game" is unique to every other paintball field in India.


title: Paintball

text: Bootcamp Adventure Zone in Gujarat has four outlets, three in Ahmedabad and one in Statue of Unity, Vadodara.


title: Paintball

text: Delta 9 Adventures hosts three paintball fields at their Vadodara arena. They host multiple tournaments throughout the year for various paintball divisions.


title: Paintball

text: PaintBall X Bangalore, has the only International Standard "Speedball" arena in India. Started in 2010 they are actively involved with promoting paintball as a sport in India. They sponsor teams to play international paintball events with the latest being the NXL - Asia (National X Ball League - Asia) held at Penang - Malaysia in July 2019. Team X is the only Indian team that has made it to the podium in International participations in the last decade. Last concluded India Level paintball tournament was the PaintBall X - India Cup 2018.


title: Paintball

text: India has been participating in world championships since 2009. The following are few of India's top paintball teams:


title: Paintball

text: In Iran, paintball is a popular recreational sport but also considered by some as expensive and/or dangerous. Nearly every city has one or more paintball fields but only a few of them offer woodsball and realistic terrain, and every province has one or more teams that play in the national paintball league. Iran has a national paintball team.


title: Paintball

text: Paintball is a very popular sport in Malaysia. The Malaysian paintball community is considered the largest in Asia. The Paintball Asia League Series (PALS) is headquartered in Petaling Jaya near the capital city of Kuala Lumpur.


title: Paintball

text: There are also the Malaysian Paintball Official Circuit (MPOC), Malaysian National Paintball League (MY-NPL), the Malaysian Super Sevens Series, World Paintball Players League (WPPL), the Malaysian Ultimate Woodsball League (UWL Malaysia), and Tactical Paintball Championship (TPC). The Paintball World Cup Asia is also held annually in Langkawi island.


title: Paintball

text: Several woodsball and scenario big games are also held throughout the year such as the International Scenario Paintball Games (ISPG) and by Paintball Warfare Group Malaysia (PWG-Malaysia). There are many commercial paintball fields operating in almost every major city across the country, with most of them concentrated around the Klang Valley region. However, in December 2013, the Royal Malaysian Police stated that all paintball markers must be owned with a licence and owners must hand in their markers. Some paintball organizations have stated that this will be "a big blow" to paintball in the country while others stated that this will not affect the sport at all.


title: Paintball

text: In February 2019 The high court has said that paintball markers do not fall under the firearms act but look alike weapons do fall under the category of imitation firearms. This means that paintball markers that do not look like firearms can be owned by anyone with a licence.


title: Paintball

text: In South Africa, organised paintball has been played since the late 1980s. The only legal enforcement regarding paintball is the concealment of paintball (and airsoft) guns in public areas. There are no license requirements or age limitations in place, but with the threat of the implementation of the "Dangerous Weapons Act", this could change.


title: Paintball

text: South Africa has seen a steady growth of the sport of paintball since its introduction. Recreational bushball is the most popular form throughout the country, but the last couple of years have seen a big increase in the popularity of speedball. The South African Paintball League has been in existence since 2002. During 2013 South Africa was invited to send a representative paintball team to the first ever Paintball World Cup held in Paris, France. The South African team got officially ranked 13th in the world.


title: Paintball

text: Popular tournaments such as The Tippmann Challenge, D-Day and the Navy Festival SWAT Challenge, see hundreds of players from around the entire country participate.


title: Paintball

text: The first ever public paintball performance in South Africa was held at the Swartkop Airshow during 2013. More than 80 paintball players took part a in a simulated a counter terrorist raid on a weapons dealer.


title: Paintball

text: Since 2009 the largest national speedball league in South Africa is the South African Regional Paintball League (SARPL) having over 500 members during 2014 and hosting both a 3-man and 5-man series events at one stage in 5 provinces (including Gauteng, Kwazulu Natal, Eastern Cape, Western Cape and the Free State). The league hosted around 31 events per year on a regional and national level with the national finals that usually takes place during the beginning of December each year since its inception in 2013. The SARPL currently uses the NXl Mercy-to format and use their own ruleset based on the NXL rules as well as using the APPA system for player classification.


title: Paintball

text: The South African National Paintball and Airsoft Association (SANPA) is the national body looking after the sport of paintball and airsoft in South Africa and is an active member of the United Paintball Federation (UPBF) and also have committee members on both the ASTM as well as the SABS.


title: Paintball

text: Since 2013 The South African National Paintball and Airsoft Association (SANPA) represented South Africa at the United Paintball Federation (UPBF) World Championship events in the Mens category with SANPA also being fortunate enough, in later years, to sent over the first U16, U19, Women's and Veterans teams to represent South Africa.


title: Paintball

text: During 2016 The South African National Paintball and Airsoft Association (SANPA) sent over the first U19 team to compete in the United Paintball Federation (UPBF) World Championships where the team missed out going into the finals due to a technicality in the rules which was subsequently updated by the organization to prevent future situations.


title: Paintball

text: During 2018 the South African National Paintball and Airsoft Association (SANPA) sent over the first all female team to compete in the United Paintball Federation (UPBF) World Championships where they won the Women's 3-player category and brought South Africa the Gold.


title: Paintball

text: 2019 saw the South African National Paintball and Airsoft Association (SANPA) sent over teams in the U16, U19, Women's (3 and 5-player) as well as Mens and Veterans Categories to represent South Africa in all the categories at the United Paintball Federation (UPBF) Paintball World Championship.


title: Paintball

text: Paintball is a very niche yet extremely competitive sport in Thailand. Thai paintball teams are considered to be one of the strongest, if not the strongest in Asia. Thai teams have taken home the Division 1 Paintball Asia League Series (PALS) World Cup and series titles in year 2012, 2014, and 2015. In 2014, Thai teams made history by taking victories in all Divisions 1, 2, and 3 at the PALS World Cup at Langkawi Island, Malaysia. This trend continued into 2015, with Thai teams taking victories in Divisions 1 and 2 during the PALS World Cup 2015. Along with winning the PALS World Cup titles in 2014 and 2015, all respective teams also took the overall series titles for their respective divisions in 2014 and 2015. Thai paintball continues to grow at a slow pace, thus allowing the community to be a very well knit family.


title: Paintball

text: At first, paintball was engaged to the Turkey Shooting and Hunting Federation in 2006, it has grown especially in recent years in Turkey. It has organized at least four tournaments each year in different cities.


title: Paintball

text: Particularly on the European side of Istanbul, there are some paintball areas opened in the last decade.


title: Paintball

text: Paintball is a growing sport in the United Arab Emirates. Paintball was first introduced in the UAE and the Middle East in 1996. The very first paintball facility was established in Dubai with the technical assistance of some of the best European and American Paintball operators in the industry.


title: Paintball

text: In Bangladesh paintball as a sport is rare. Paintball was first initiated in the BD and the Middle East in 1996. Paintball games and rules were established in Dhaka.


title: Paintball

text: Paintball in Singapore started in the late 1990s as a recreational team building activity for corporate sectors. Singapore was one of the earliest countries in South East Asia to introduce paintball as a team building tool. TAG Paintball which was originally located in Downtown East shifted its operations to Orchid Country Club (Yishun) and remained there for almost a decade. Speedball which is the competitive side of paintball was introduced in 2007 by Red Dynasty Paintball Park through a competition known as the Singapore Paintball Novice Series (SPNS). The first tournament saw the participation of 8 3on3 teams which PSG Warfreakz taking the Champion title. The SPNS was later renamed as the Singapore Paintball Series in 2010 to cater to the growing sport. Over the years, Singapore held many international paintball tournaments notably the Paintball Asia League Series (PALS) Singapore edition in 2015 and 2016, the GI.Sportz Cup in 2017 and the Asia Girls Paintball International Championship (AGPIC) in 2018. The AGPIC is the only All-Female paintball tournament to promote women's paintball in Asia. All tournaments were held in Red Dynasty Paintball Park which houses 2 internationally sized speedball fields with artificial turf grass.


title: Costa-Gavras

text: Costa-Gavras (short for Konstantinos Gavras; ; born 12 February 1933) is a Greek-French film director, screenwriter, and producer who lives and works in France. He is known for films with political and social themes, such as the political thriller "Z" (1969), for which he won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and "Missing" (1982), for which he won the Palme d'Or and an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Most of his films have been made in French; however, six of them were made in English.


title: Costa-Gavras

text: His film "Z" was the first film, and one of the few, to be nominated for both the Best Picture and Best Foreign Language Film.


title: Costa-Gavras

text: Costa-Gavras was born in Loutra Iraias, Arcadia. His family spent the Second World War in a village in the Peloponnese, and moved to Athens after the war. His father had been a member of the Pro-Soviet branch of the Greek Resistance, and was imprisoned during the Greek Civil War. His father's Communist Party membership made it impossible for Costa-Gavras to attend university in Greece or to be granted a visa to the United States, so after high school he settled in France, where he began studying literature at the Sorbonne in 1951.


title: Costa-Gavras

text: In 1956, he left his university studies to study film at the French national film school, IDHEC. After film school, he apprenticed under Yves Allégret, and became an assistant director for Jean Giono and René Clair. After several further positions as first assistant director, he directed his first feature film, "Compartiment Tueurs", in 1965.


title: Costa-Gavras

text: His 1967 film "Shock Troops" ("Un homme de trop") was entered into the 5th Moscow International Film Festival.


title: Costa-Gavras

text: In "Z" (1969), an investigating judge, played by Jean-Louis Trintignant, tries to uncover the truth about the murder of a prominent leftist politician, played by Yves Montand, while government officials and the military attempt to cover up their roles. The film is a fictionalised account of the events surrounding the assassination of Greek politician Grigoris Lambrakis in 1963. It had additional resonance because, at the time of its release, Greece had been ruled for two years by the "Regime of the Colonels". "Z" won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Costa-Gavras and co-writer Jorge Semprún won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Film Screenplay.


title: Costa-Gavras

text: "L'Aveu" ("The Confession", 1970) follows the path of Artur London, a Czechoslovakian communist minister falsely arrested and tried for treason and espionage in the Slánský 'show trial' in 1952.


title: Costa-Gavras

text: "State of Siege" (1972) takes place in Uruguay under the civic-military dictatorship of Uruguay in the early 1970s. In a plot loosely based on the case of US police official and alleged torture expert Dan Mitrione, an American embassy official (played by Yves Montand) is kidnapped by the Tupamaros, a radical leftist urban guerilla group, which interrogates him in order to reveal the details of secret American support for repressive regimes in Latin America.


title: Costa-Gavras

text: "Missing," originally released in 1982 and based on the book "The Execution Of Charles Horman", concerns an American journalist, Charles Horman (played by John Shea in the film), who disappeared in the 1973 coup d'état led by General Augusto Pinochet in Chile. Horman's father, played by Jack Lemmon, and wife, played by Sissy Spacek, search in vain to determine his fate. Nathaniel Davis, US ambassador to Chile from 1971–1973, a version of whose character had been portrayed in the movie (under a different name), filed a US$150 million libel suit, "Davis v. Costa-Gavras", 619 F. Supp. 1372 (1985), against the studio and the director, which was eventually dismissed. The film won an Oscar for Best Screenplay Adaptation and the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. "Betrayed" (1988), roughly based upon the terrorist activities of American neo-Nazi and white supremacist Robert Mathews and his group The Order.


title: Costa-Gavras

text: In "Music Box" (1989), a respected Hungarian immigrant (Armin Mueller-Stahl) is accused of having commanded an Anti-Semitic death squad during World War II. His daughter, a Chicago defence attorney played by Jessica Lange, agrees to defend him at his denaturalization hearing. The film is inspired by the arrest and trial of Ukrainian immigrant John Demjanjuk and screenwriter Joe Eszterhas' realisation that his father had been a member of the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party. The film won the Golden Bear at the 40th Berlin International Film Festival.


title: Costa-Gavras

text: "La Petite Apocalypse" (1993) was entered into the 43rd Berlin International Film Festival. "Amen." (2003), was based in part on the highly controversial 1963 play, "Der Stellvertreter. Ein christliches Trauerspiel" ("The Deputy, a Christian Tragedy"), by Rolf Hochhuth. The film plot alleges that Pope Pius XII was aware of the plight of the Jews in Nazi concentration camps during World War II, but failed to take public action to publicise or condemn the Holocaust. Gavras won César Award for Best Writing for this film.


title: Costa-Gavras

text: Costa-Gavras is known for merging controversial political issues with the entertainment value of commercial cinema. Law and justice, oppression, legal/illegal violence, and torture are common subjects in his work, especially relevant to his earlier films. Costa-Gavras is an expert of the “statement” picture. In most cases, the targets of Costa-Gavras's work have been right wing or far right movements and regimes, including the Greek military in "Z", and right-wing dictatorships that ruled much of Latin America during the height of the Cold War, as in "State of Siege" and "Missing".