title: Respect for Marriage Act

text: Baptist Joint Committee leaders in support of the bill criticized opponents for stoking unreasonable fear, and erroneously arguing that civil rights for some, somehow means less religious rights for themselves. They noted the bill deals with civil marriage and has no impact on the institution of religious rites of marriage.


title: Respect for Marriage Act

text: Other denominations supported the measure. It was supported by over 40 other faith organizations in a joint letter to the Senate, including the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Hindus for Human Rights, the Interfaith Alliance, Jewish Women International, Muslims for Progressive Values, the National Council of Jewish Women, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, the Sikh Coalition, the Union for Reform Judaism, the Unitarian Universalist Association, and the United Church of Christ. Most of those organizations who signed the letter allow for same-sex weddings in their facilities and affirm LGBT parishioners.


title: Electronic media

text: Electronic media are media that use electronics or electromechanical means for the audience to access the content. This is in contrast to static media (mainly print media), which today are most often created digitally, but do not require electronics to be accessed by the end user in the printed form. The primary electronic media sources familiar to the general public are video recordings, audio recordings, multimedia presentations, slide presentations, CD-ROM and online content. Most new media are in the form of digital media. However, electronic media may be in either analogue electronics data or digital electronic data format.


title: Electronic media

text: Although the term is usually associated with content recorded on a storage medium, recordings are not required for live broadcasting and online networking.


title: Electronic media

text: Any equipment used in the electronic communication process (e.g. television, radio, telephone, game console, handheld device) may also be considered electronic media.


title: Tideland (film)

text: Tideland is a 2005 fantasy film co-written and directed by Terry Gilliam, following the story of Jeliza-Rose (Jodelle Ferland), a young child who struggles to make sense of life in isolation as she lives with an eccentric adult brother and sister in rural Texas after the death of her drug-addicted, abusive parents. It is an adaptation of Mitch Cullin's novel of the same name. The film was shot in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, and the surrounding area in late 2004. The world premiere was at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival where the film received a mixed response from both viewers and critics. After little interest from U.S. distributors, THINKFilm picked the film up for a U.S. release date in October 2006. Despite the film's eclectic and unconventional themes, which included child abuse, decomposition, incest, flatulence, mental illnesses and heroin usage, "Tideland" featured a number of notable actors, including Jennifer Tilly (the voice of Celia from "Monsters, Inc." and Grace from "Home On the Range"), Jeff Bridges (the voice of Price Lir from "The Last Unicorn"), and Janet McTeer (the narrator of "Maleficent").


title: Tideland (film)

text: "Tideland" centers on an abandoned child, Jeliza-Rose, and her solitary adventures during one summer in rural Texas while staying at a rundown farmhouse called What Rocks, and focuses on the increasingly dark, imaginative fantasy life the girl creates with the aid of dismembered Barbie doll heads that she often wears on her fingertips. With names such as Mystique, Sateen Lips, Baby Blonde and Glitter Gal, the doll heads not only engage in long conversations with Jeliza-Rose, reflecting different aspects of the girl's psyche, but also act as her companions while she explores the barren Texas landscape.


title: Tideland (film)

text: After her mother overdoses on Methadone, Jeliza-Rose and her father, Noah, flee to Noah's mother's home, a remote Texas farmhouse. Before they leave, however, Noah fears that with all the drugs in their house he will lose Jeliza-Rose and be sent to prison, so he attempts to set it alight, although Jeliza-Rose manages to stop him. They find the farmhouse abandoned, but they settle in anyway. Their first night there, Noah dies from a heroin overdose. For much of the rest of the film, Noah's corpse remains seated upright in a living room chair with sunglasses covering his eyes. As her father slowly begins to decompose, Jeliza-Rose doesn't readily acknowledge his death because she has grown accustomed to him being unconscious for long periods at a time. Instead, she retreats deeper and deeper into her own mind, exploring the tall grass around the farmhouse, relying on her doll heads for friendship as an unconscious way of keeping herself from feeling too lonely and afraid.


title: Tideland (film)

text: During Jeliza-Rose's wanderings, she eventually encounters and befriends her neighbors, a mentally impaired young man called Dickens and his older sister Dell who is blind in one eye from a bee sting. At this point the story begins to unfold, revealing a past connection between Dell and Jeliza-Rose's deceased father. The eccentric neighbors take the girl under their wing, going so far as to preserve Noah's body via taxidermy (which Dell and Dickens did to their own dead mother). Amorous feelings, initiated mostly by the much younger Jeliza-Rose, begin to creep into the childlike relationship between her and Dickens, and it is revealed that the deeply troubled Dickens, a man-child who once drove a school bus in front of an oncoming train, keeps a stash of dynamite in his bedroom that he intends to use against the "Monster Shark" he believes is roaming the countryside. The Monster Shark is, in reality, the nightly passenger train that travels past the farmhouse where Jeliza-Rose and her dead father reside. It is also revealed that Dell and Noah were once "kissers", as Jeliza-Rose finds pictures of the two in the room Dell shares with her own taxidermied mother.


title: Tideland (film)

text: At the end of the film, following a violent confrontation between Dell, Dickens and Jeliza-Rose, a train wreck is caused by Dickens' dynamite, creating a scene of chaos near the farmhouse. Wandering about the wreckage, and among the confusion of injured travelers, Jeliza-Rose is discovered by a woman who survived, and she assumes the little girl is also a victim of the train wreck. The film ends with the woman embracing Jeliza-Rose, who stares with stunned confusion at the wreckage.


title: Tideland (film)

text: "Tideland", despite being set in rural Texas, was filmed in the prairies of western Canada, with interiors shot in Saskatchewan. Terry Gilliam was enamoured by the original novel by Mitch Cullin, having discovered the book in a stack of unread books on his desk in 2001. He described the novel as "funny, touching and disturbing all at the same time", and while the film's crew had initial trouble financing the film, they were eventually able to get things in order. Rather than Jeliza-Rose narrating the story in first-person like she did in the book, the screenplay was instead third-person with more confusion and uncertainty than in the original novel. Qu'Appelle Valley served as the location for the decrepit house of Dell and Dickens, and also for Noah's old family home where he takes Jeliza-Rose. The harsh Canadian weather meant that the crew had to rush to finish the film before the winter. Casting Jeliza-Rose was also difficult; roughly 400 Canadian girls auditioned for the role, none of whom Gilliam felt had "a real soul" for the character. A VHS tape from Vancouver was submitted that featured Jodelle Ferland, whom Gilliam agreed was perfect for the role. While acting in the Stephen King miniseries "Kingdom Hospital", Ferland prepared for her upcoming role as Jeliza-Rose. Jennifer Tilly, who played Jeliza-Rose's morbidly obese, abusive mother, wore excess padding to make herself appear overweight, but for the most part the chosen cast merely relied on makeup and behavioural mannerisms to accentuate their characters. Production designer Jasna Stefanovic, who worked on most of the aesthetics and sets for "Tideland", took heavy inspiration from Andrew Wyeth paintings and Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. While the film portrayed disturbing and grotesque scenes of taxidermy and a trapped live squirrel, no animals were actually harmed during the production.


title: Tideland (film)

text: "Tideland" was released in theatres in 2006, but had first appeared in the autumn of 2005 at the Toronto International Film Festival and the Donostia-San Sebastian International Film Festival. The film was later released on DVD video in 2006-2007 in various countries, and a streaming version exists on Apple TV.


title: Tideland (film)

text: At Spain's 2005 San Sebastian Festival, "Tideland" was awarded the FIPRESCI Prize, selected by an international jury of critics who, in their award statement, said: "Our jury focused on the international competition and found Terry Gilliam's "Tideland" to be the best film of the selection—a decision which provoked controversial reactions." The jury consisted of Andrei Plakhov, Russia, President ("Kommersant"), Julio Feo Zarandieta, France ("Radio France Internationale"), Wolfgang Martin Hamdorf, Germany ("Film-Dienst"), Massimo Causo, Italy ("Corriere Del Giorno"), and Sergi Sanchez, Spain ("La Razón").


title: Tideland (film)

text: In response to the controversy surrounding the film's FIPRESCI win at San Sebastian, jurist Sergi Sanchez wrote: "Gilliam's was the only one that dared to propose a risky and radical image, without any concessions, on a specific matter: madness as the only way of escaping in the face of a hostile environment. All this is endlessly coherent with the director's body of work, which has been frequently misunderstood by the critics, the industry, and audiences alike." Defending Gilliam's film while also placing it in the context of the director's previous works, as well as explaining the jury's decision, Sanchez concluded by stating, "Fighting against windmills is, after all, the same as fighting against the prejudices that trap creative freedom."


title: Tideland (film)

text: The subsequent mainstream reviews of "Tideland" were mixed, with Japan being the only country where it was both a critical and box office success. The film was first released in Russia (February 2006) followed by the Netherlands (March 2006) and Greece (May 2006). After almost a year without any US distribution, the film was picked up for American release by THINKFilm, and subsequently opened in the US, earning just $7,276 from one theater during its first week run. The film's release was then expanded, but to only nine theatres, for a total domestic gross of $66,453. Since then, several independent cinemas and art museums have presented the film as a special event, including IFC Center and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.


title: Tideland (film)

text: Gilliam has openly criticized THINKFilm for the manner in which the company handled the American theatrical release of the film, and their unauthorized tampering with the aspect ratio of the film for its US DVD release. He has also gone on record as saying that nearly all his films have initially garnered mixed reactions from critics, and in at least one interview, as well as in the introduction to "Tideland," he has stated that he believes many moviegoers will hate "Tideland", others will love it, and some just won't know what to think about it. Gilliam has also said that Michael Palin, another former member of Monty Python, had told him that the film was either the best thing he had ever done, or the worst—although Palin himself couldn't quite decide either way.


title: Tideland (film)

text: "Entertainment Weekly" critic Owen Gleiberman gave "Tideland" an "F", calling it "gruesomely awful". In the subsequent review of the DVD release, Gleiberman's fellow "Entertainment Weekly" critic Clark Collis gave the film a "B" and stated: "Terry Gilliam's grim fairy tale is another fantastic(al) showcase for his visual talents."


title: Tideland (film)

text: The film received a "two thumbs way down" rating from Richard Roeper and guest critic A.O. Scott on the television show "Ebert & Roeper". Scott said that toward the end, the film was "creepy, exploitive, and self-indulgent," a sentiment that was echoed in his "New York Times" review of the film. Like Scott, Roeper had a strong negative opinion, saying, "I hated this film," and "I came very close to walking out of the screening room. And I never do that." In the "Chicago Reader", critic Jonathan Rosenbaum said the film was "hallucinatory and extremely unpleasant" and warned readers, "Enter this diseased Lewis Carroll universe at your own risk."


title: Tideland (film)

text: The "Chicago Tribune" critic Michael Wilmington, however, praised the film, further stating that "... it's crazy, dangerous and sometimes gorgeous ...", and Harry Knowles of "Ain't It Cool News" wrote, ""Tideland", for me, is a masterpiece", a blurb featured on the DVD release.


title: Tideland (film)

text: Filmmaker David Cronenberg described the film as a "poetic horror film", a quote which was used in the advertising campaign for the theatrical release.


title: Tideland (film)

text: In the 16 July 2007 online edition of Independent Film Channel News, Michael Atkinson published a comparative film review of Harry Kümel's rarely seen "Malpertuis" (1971) and "Tideland". Atkinson posits that a historical perspective has made Kümel's previously scorned film a more viable creation when far removed from the cultural context in which it was first released. He goes on to argue that "Tideland" could be the 21st century counterpart to "Malpertuis", suggesting that Gilliam's film "is a snark-hunted freak just waiting for its historical moment, decades from now, when someone makes a case for it as a neglected masterpiece."


title: Tideland (film)

text: The DVD of "Tideland" was released on 27 February 2007 in a 2-disc "Collector's Edition", with a commentary track, many interviews, deleted scenes (with a forced commentary over the original audio), and a making-of documentary entitled "Getting Gilliam", made by "Cube" director Vincenzo Natali.


title: Tideland (film)

text: There has been some controversy among fans over the aspect ratio presented on the Region 1 DVD released by THINKFilm for the United States, which is 1.78:1, instead of the aspect ratio prepared and approved by Gilliam and the director of photography (in theaters, it was shown in 2.35:1, but Gilliam wanted to open up the image slightly for home video, somewhere between 2.10:1 and 2.25:1).


title: Tideland (film)

text: There were early reports that DVD releases in Canada (Region 1) and other regions used the theatrical aspect ratio, but these have proven to be entirely false. The Region 3 DVD was rumored to feature the fully corrected transfer, but this was later debunked on the same website where the claim was made; as shown in a purported screen capture of the Hong Kong release, the Region 3 DVD uses the incorrect aspect ratio.


title: Tideland (film)

text: The UK (Region 2) release, does have a 2.10:1 aspect ratio. The German EuroVideo–Concorde Home Entertainment release has been independently verified to use the theatrical 2.35:1 ratio, as is seen in screen captures from it. OFDb.de also gives this ratio for the German release.


title: Tideland (film)

text: Both THINKFilm and Gilliam have publicly stated that they are working on a solution to the ratio problem and will release a corrected version for sale as soon as possible. That did not happen until the BluRay editions were released a decade later, long after THINKFilm had gone out of business.


title: Sapa Inca

text: The Sapa Inca (from Quechua "Sapa Inka" "the only Inca") was the monarch of the Inca Empire ("Tawantinsuyu"), as well as ruler of the earlier Kingdom of Cusco and the later Neo-Inca State. While the origins of the position are mythical and originate from the legendary foundation of the city of Cusco, it seems to have come into being historically around 1100 CE. Although the Inca believed the Sapa to be the son of Inti (the Inca Sun god) and often referred to him as "Intip Churin" or ‘Son of the Sun,’ the position eventually became hereditary, with son succeeding father. The principal wife of the Inca was known as the Coya or Qoya. The Sapa Inca was at the top of the social hierarchy, and played a dominant role in the political and spiritual realm.


title: Sapa Inca

text: There were two known dynasties, led by the Hurin and Hanan moieties respectively. The latter was in power at the time of Spanish conquest. The last effective Sapa Inca of Inca Empire was Atahualpa, who was executed by Francisco Pizarro and his conquistadors in 1533, but several successors later claimed the title.


title: Sapa Inca

text: Other terms for Sapa Inca, also spelled Sapan Inca, include Apu ("divinity"), Inka Qhapaq ("mighty Inca"), or simply Sapa ("the only one").


title: Sapa Inca

text: Chronicles identify the Inca as the highest ruler equivalent to European kings of the Middle Ages. However, the original access to that position was not linked to the inheritance of the eldest son, as is for a monarchy, but to the perceived selection of the gods by means of rigorous challenges, to which the physical and moral aptitudes of the pretender were tested. These trials were accompanied by a complex spiritual ritual through which the Sun god, Inti nominated the one who should assume the Inca position. Eventually, with the passage of time, Incas named their favorite son as co-governor with the intention of securing his succession, for example, Huiracocha Inca associated Inca Urco to the throne. The Coya, or Sapa Inca's primary wife, had significant influence upon making this decision of which son is apt to succeed his father.


title: Sapa Inca

text: The Sapa Inca was the absolute ruler of the empire and accumulated in his power the political, social, military, and economic direction of the State. He ordered and directed the construction of great engineering works, such as Sacsayhuaman, a fortress that took 50 years to complete; or the urban plan of the cities. However, among their most notable works was the network of roads that crossed the entire empire and allowed a rapid journey for the administrators, messengers and armies provided with hanging bridges and tambos. They made sure to always be supplied and well cared for, as is reflected in the construction of storehouses scattered throughout the empire and vast food and resource redistribution systems. The commander and chief of the standing army founded military colonies to expand the culture and control, while simultaneously ensuring the preservation of that network.


title: Sapa Inca

text: At the religious level, they were symbolic of the sun and promoted the worship of Inti, regarded as their father, and organized the calendar. At the political level, they sent inspectors to oversee the loyalty and efficiency of civil servants and collect tribute from the subjugated peoples. The emperors promoted a unified and decentralized government in which Cuzco acted as the articulating axis of the different regions or Suyu. They appointed highly trusted governors. At the economic level, they decided how much each province should pay according to its resources. They knew how to win over the curacas to ensure control of the communities. These were the intermediaries through whom they collected taxes.


title: Sapa Inca

text: Traditionally, every time an emperor died or resigned, his successor was disinherited from his father inheritance and formed his own lineage royal clan or Panaka, his father's lands, houses and servants were passed to his other children remaining on the previous Panaka. The new Sapa Inca had to obtain land and spoils to bequeath to his own descendants. Each time they subdued a people, they demanded that the defeated leader surrender part of their land to continue in command, and whose people pay tribute in the form of labor (mita) taxes.


title: Sapa Inca

text: The Sapa Inca also played a major role in the caring of the poor and hungry, hence his other title "Huaccha Khoyaq" or ‘Lover and Benefactor of the Poor’. The Sapa was responsible for organizing food redistribution in times of environmental disaster, allocated work via state-sponsored projects, and most notably promoted major state-sponsored religious feasts that followed each successful harvest season.


title: Sapa Inca

text: The Inca was divinized, both in his actions and his emblems. In public he carried the topayauri (scepter), ushno (golden throne), suntur páucar (feathered pike) and the mascaipacha (royal insignia) commonly carried in a llauto (headband), otherwise the mascapaicha could also be carried on an amachana chuku (military helmet). In religious ceremonies he was accompanied by the sacred white flame, the napa, and covered with a red blanket and adorned with gold earrings. With textiles representing a form of status and wealth, it has been speculated that the Sapa Inca never wore the same clothes twice. The community even revered the Sapa after his death, mummifying him and frequently visiting his tomb to "consult" him on pressing affairs.


title: Sapa Inca

text: Little is known of the rulers of the first dynasty of Sapa Incas. Evidently, they were affiliated with the Hurin moiety and their rule did not extend beyond the Kingdom of Cusco. Their origins are tied to the mythical establishment of Cusco and are shrouded in the later foundation myth. The dynasty was supposedly founded by Manco Cápac, considered the son of the Sun god Inti.


title: Sapa Inca

text: As a rough guide to the later reputation of the early Sapa Incas, in later years "capac" meant warlord and "sinchi" meant leader.


title: Sapa Inca

text: The second dynasty was affiliated with the Hanan moiety and was founded under Inca Roca, the son of the last Hurin Sapa Inca, Cápac Yupanqui. After Cápac Yupanqui's death, another of his sons, Inca Roca's half-brother Quispe Yupanqui, was intended to succeed him. However, the Hanan revolted and installed Inca Roca instead.


title: Sapa Inca

text: Ninan Cuyochi, who was Inca for only a few days in 1527, is sometimes left off the list of Sapa Incas because news of his death from smallpox arrived in Cusco very shortly after he was declared Sapa Inca. He had witnessed the death of his father Huayna Cápac. The death of Ninan, the presumed heir, led to the Inca Civil War between Huáscar and Atahualpa, a weakness that the Spanish exploited when they conquered the Inca Empire.


title: Sapa Inca

text: This last Sapa Inca must not be confused with Túpac Amaru II, who was leader of an 18th-century Peruvian uprising.


title: Cilostazol

text: Cilostazol, sold under the brand name Pletal among others, is a medication used to help the symptoms of intermittent claudication in peripheral vascular disease. If no improvement is seen after 3 months, stopping the medication is reasonable. It may also be used to prevent stroke. It is taken by mouth.


title: Cilostazol

text: Common side effects include headache, diarrhea, dizziness, and cough. Serious side effects may include decreased survival in those with heart failure, low platelets, and low white blood cells. Cilostazol is a phosphodiesterase 3 inhibitor which works by inhibiting platelet aggregation and dilating arteries.


title: Cilostazol

text: Cilostazol was approved for medical use in the United States in 1999. It is available as a generic medication. In 2019, it was the 347th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 800thousand prescriptions.


title: Cilostazol

text: Cilostazol is approved for the treatment of intermittent claudication in the United States and United Kingdom.


title: Cilostazol

text: Cilostazol is also used for secondary stroke prevention, though to date no regulatory body has approved it specifically for that indication.


title: Cilostazol

text: Cilostazol is dangerous for people with severe heart failure. Cilostazol has been studied in people without heart failure, without evidence of harm, but much more data would be needed to determine no risk exists. Although cilostazol would not be approvable for a trivial condition the Cardio-Renal Advisory Committee and FDA concluded that fully informed patients and physicians should be able to choose to use it to treat intermittent claudication. Patient and physician labeling will describe the basis for concern and the incomplete information available.


title: Cilostazol

text: Possible side effects of cilostazol use include headache (the most common), diarrhea, severe heat intolerance, abnormal stools, increased heart rate, and palpitations.


title: Cilostazol

text: Cilostazol is metabolized by CYP3A4 and CYP2C19, two isoenzymes of the cytochrome P450 system. Drugs that inhibit CYP3A4, such as itraconazole, erythromycin, ketoconazole, and diltiazem, are known to interact with cilostazol. The proton pump inhibitor omeprazole, an inhibitor of CYP2C19, increases exposure to the active metabolite of cilostazol.


title: Cilostazol

text: A single report has been made of grapefruit juice possibly increasing the effects of cilostazol; some drug information sources list this as a possible interaction. The FDA-approved labeling of cilostazol notes that grapefruit juice (which is a CYP3A4 inhibitor) increases the drug's maximum concentration by around 50%.


title: Cilostazol

text: Cilostazol is a selective inhibitor of phosphodiesterase type 3 (PDE) with therapeutic focus on increasing cAMP. An increase in cAMP results in an increase in the active form of protein kinase A (PKA), which is directly related with an inhibition in platelet aggregation. PKA also prevents the activation of an enzyme (myosin light-chain kinase) that is important in the contraction of smooth muscle cells, thereby exerting its vasodilatory effect.


title: Needlefish

text: Needlefish (family Belonidae) or long toms are piscivorous fishes primarily associated with very shallow marine habitats or the surface of the open sea. Some genera include species found in marine, brackish, and freshwater environments (e.g., "Strongylura"), while a few genera are confined to freshwater rivers and streams, including "Belonion", "Potamorrhaphis", and "Xenentodon". Needlefish closely resemble North American freshwater gars (family Lepisosteidae) in being elongated and having long, narrow jaws filled with sharp teeth, and some species of needlefishes are referred to as gars or garfish despite being only distantly related to the true gars. In fact, the name "garfish" was originally used for the needlefish "Belone belone" in Europe and only later applied to the North American fishes by European settlers during the 18th century.


title: Needlefish

text: Needlefish are slender, ranging from in length. They have a single dorsal fin, placed far back on the body, almost opposite to the anal fin. Their most distinctive feature is their long, narrow beak, which bears multiple sharp teeth. In most species, the upper jaw reaches its full length only in adults, so the juveniles have a half-beak appearance, with an elongated lower jaw, but a much smaller upper one. During this stage of their lifecycle, they eat plankton, switching to fish once the beak fully develops. Needlefish reproduce through mating and laying eggs. The male usually rides the female on the waves as they mate.


title: Needlefish

text: Needlefish are most common in the subtropics, but some inhabit temperate waters, as well, particularly during the winter. "Belone belone", a common North Atlantic species, often swim in schools alongside tuna. Recently, some small specimens have been seen in the Mediterranean Sea.


title: Needlefish

text: All needlefish feed primarily on smaller fish. In addition, some species also take krill, swimming crustaceans, small cephalopods and insects.


title: Needlefish

text: Needlefish have been documented in taking advantage of Snell's Window when attacking prey; leaping at a shallow angle to ambush schools of small fish. Due to light refraction through water, objects at the edges of the window appear distorted, disrupting the image of the leaping needlefish and allowing it to get within very short distances of its prey.


title: Needlefish

text: Needlefish, like all ray-finned beloniforms, are capable of making short jumps out of the water at up to . Since needlefish swim near the surface, they often leap over the decks of shallow boats rather than going around. This jumping activity is greatly excited by artificial light at night; night fisherman and divers in areas across the Pacific Ocean have been "attacked" by schools of suddenly excited needlefish diving across the water towards the light source at high speed. Their sharp beaks are capable of inflicting deep puncture wounds, often breaking off inside the victim in the process. For many traditional Pacific Islander communities, who primarily fish on reefs from low boats, needlefish represent an even greater risk of injury than sharks.


title: Needlefish

text: Occasional deaths and serious injuries have been attributed to needlefish. In 1977, a 10-year-old Hawaiian boy, night fishing with his father at Hanamaulu Bay, Kaua'i, was killed when a needlefish jumped from the water and pierced his eye and brain. In 2007, a 16-year-old Vietnamese boy was stabbed through the heart by the beak of a needlefish while diving for sea cucumbers at night near Halong Bay.


title: Needlefish

text: In 2010, a kayaker in Florida was nearly killed when a crocodile needlefish (houndfish, "Tylosurus crocodilus") leapt from the water and impaled her in the chest. In 2012, German kitesurfer Wolfram Reiners was seriously wounded in the foot by a needlefish near the Seychelles. In May 2013, a kitesurfer in Egypt's Red Sea was speared directly under his knee when a needlefish jumped out of the water. In October 2013, a Saudi Arabian news website also reported the death of a young Saudi man in Dammam who died of hemorrhaging after being hit by a needlefish on the left side of the neck. In 2014, a Russian tourist was nearly killed by a needlefish off Nha Trang in Vietnam. The fish bit her neck and left pieces of its teeth inside her spinal cord, paralyzing her. In early January 2016, a 39-year-old Indonesian woman from Palu, Central Sulawesi, was seriously injured when a half-metre-long needlefish jumped and pierced her just above the right eye. She was swimming in water 80 cm deep in Tanjung Karang, a popular recreational spot in the Donggala Regency, Central Sulawesi. She died a few hours later despite efforts to save her at a local hospital. Shortly after, pictures of her injury spread through instant-messaging applications, while several local news websites also reported the incident, some erroneously attributing the attack to a marlin. In December 2018, a needlefish was responsible for the death of a Thai Navy special forces cadet.


title: Needlefish

text: Some species of needlefish inhabit brackish and freshwater environments, and one of the freshwater species, "Xenentodon cancila" from Southeast Asia, is occasionally kept as an aquarium fish. It is a relatively small species, no more than 40 cm in length when fully grown, but is considered to be a rather delicate fish best suited to advanced aquarists.


title: Needlefish

text: The needlefish family is classified within the order Beloniformes and along with the sauries of the family Scomberesocidae they make up the superfamily Scomberesocoidea and in turn, is one of two superfamilies in the suborder Exocoetoidei which comprises all of the Beloniformes except for the ricefishes of the family Adrianichthydae. Workers have concluded that the genus "Belone" is the sister group to the sauries and that if this is correct them the Belonidae is only monophyletic if the sauries are included within it.


title: Global governance

text: Global governance refers to institutions that coordinate the behavior of transnational actors, facilitate cooperation, resolve disputes, and alleviate collective action problems. Global governance broadly entails making, monitoring, and enforcing rules. Within global governance, a variety of types of actors – not just states – exercise power. Governance is thus broader than government.


title: Global governance

text: Global governance began in the mid-19th century. It became particularly prominent in the aftermath of World War I, and more so after the end of World War II. Since World War II, the number of international organizations has increased substantially. The number of actors (whether they be states, non-governmental organizations, firms, and epistemic communities) who are involved in governance relationships has also increased substantially.


title: Global governance

text: Various terms have been used for the dynamics of global governance, such as complex interdependence, international regimes, multilevel governance, global constitutionalism, and ordered anarchy.


title: Global governance

text: The term world governance is broadly used to designate all regulations intended for organization and centralization of human societies on a global scale. The Forum for a new World Governance defines world governance simply as "collective management of the planet". Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations, the predecessor of the United Nations, was one of the first organizations to promote global governance.


title: Global governance

text: Traditionally, "government" has been associated with "governing," or with political authority, institutions, and, ultimately, control. "Governance" denotes a process through which institutions coordinate and control independent social relations, and that have the ability to enforce their decisions. However, authors like James Rosenau have also used "governance" to denote the regulation of interdependent relations in the absence of an overarching political authority, such as in the international system. Some now speak of the development of "global public policy".


title: Global governance

text: Adil Najam, a scholar on the subject at the Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University has defined global governance simply as "the management of global processes in the absence of global government." According to Thomas G. Weiss, director of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at the Graduate Center (CUNY) and editor (2000–05) of the journal "", "'Global governance'—which can be good, bad, or indifferent—refers to concrete cooperative problem-solving arrangements, many of which increasingly involve not only the United Nations of states but also 'other UNs,' namely international secretariats and other non-state actors." In other words, global governance refers to the way in which global affairs are managed.


title: Global governance

text: States are more likely to formally include civil society organizations (CSOs) in order to avoid a potential legitimacy advantage of their counterparts and to enhance domestic legitimacy if the following two conditions apply: first if they are more central to the global governance network; and second, if other states formally include CSOs as well. Thus, while government choices concerning whether to involve formally CSOs in global climate policy are obviously driven to a considerable degree by domestic factors, the authors concentrate on international network effects.


title: Global governance

text: The definition is flexible in scope, applying to general subjects such as global security and order or to specific documents and agreements such as the World Health Organization's Code on the Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes. The definition applies whether the participation is bilateral (e.g. an agreement to regulate usage of a river flowing in two countries), function-specific (e.g. a commodity agreement), regional (e.g. the Treaty of Tlatelolco), or global (e.g. the Non-Proliferation Treaty). These "cooperative problem-solving arrangements" may be formal, taking the shape of laws or formally constituted institutions for a variety of actors (such as state authorities, intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), private sector entities, other civil society actors, and individuals) to manage collective affairs. They may also be informal (as in the case of practices or guidelines) or ad hoc entities (as in the case of coalitions).


title: Global governance

text: However, a single organization may take the nominal lead on an issue, for example the World Trade Organization (WTO) in world trade affairs. Therefore, global governance is thought to be an international process of consensus-forming which generates guidelines and agreements that affect national governments and international corporations. Examples of such consensus would include WTO policies on health issues.


title: Global governance

text: The WTO is needed when establishing a regulatory guide in decision-making, the Global Administrative Law is active in going hand-in-hand with WTO. They promote global principles when involving accountability, transparency, and legitimacy when making decisions involving more than one country or state. This is necessary to prevent future disputes between states.


title: Global governance

text: In short, global governance may be defined as "the complex of formal and informal institutions, mechanisms, relationships, and processes between and among states, markets, citizens and organizations, both inter- and non-governmental, through which collective interests on the global plane are articulated, Duties, obligations and privileges are established, and differences are mediated through educated professionals."


title: Global governance

text: Titus Alexander, author of "Unravelling Global Apartheid, an Overview of World Politics", has described the current institutions of global governance as a system of global apartheid, with numerous parallels with minority rule in the formal and informal structures of South Africa before 1991.


title: Global governance

text: While attempts of intergovernmental coordination of policy-making can be traced back to ancient times, comprehensive search for effective formats of international coordination and cooperation truly began after the end of the WWI. It was during that post-war period that some of the still existing international institutions (or their immediate predecessors) were founded. Among thinkers who made major contributions to the period discussions on the goals and forms of international governance and policy coordination were J.M. Keynes with his "The Economic Consequences of the Peace" and G. Cassel with his works on the post-war development of the global monetary system.


title: Global governance

text: The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 marked the end of a long period of international history based on a policy of balance of powers. Since this historic event, the planet has entered a phase of geostrategic breakdown. The national-security model, for example, while still in place for most governments, is gradually giving way to an emerging collective conscience that extends beyond the restricted framework it represents.


title: Global governance

text: World authorities including international organizations and corporations achieve deference to their agenda through different means. Authority can derive from institutional status, expertise, moral authority, capacity, or perceived competence. The 2030 Agenda also employs these strategies in its advocacy for strong institutions embodied by Sustainable Development Goal 16.


title: Global governance

text: In its initial phase, world governance was able to draw on themes inherited from geopolitics and the theory of international relations, such as peace, defense, geostrategy, diplomatic relations, and trade relations. But as globalization progresses and the number of interdependencies increases, the global level is also highly relevant to a far wider range of subjects. Following are a number of examples.


title: Global governance

text: "The crisis brought about by the accelerated pace and the probably irreversible character of the effect of human activities on nature requires collective answers from governments and citizens. Nature ignores political and social barriers, and the global dimension of the crisis cancels the effects of any action initiated unilaterally by state governments or sectoral institutions, however powerful they may be. Climate change, ocean and air pollution, nuclear risks and those related to genetic manipulation, the reduction and extinction of resources and biodiversity, and above all a development model that remains largely unquestioned globally are all among the various manifestations of this accelerated and probably irreversible effect.


title: Global governance

text: This effect is the factor, in the framework of globalization, that most challenges a system of states competing with each other to the exclusion of all others: among the different fields of global governance, environmental management is the most wanting in urgent answers to the crisis in the form of collective actions by the whole of the human community. At the same time, these actions should help to model and strengthen the progressive building of this community."


title: Global governance

text: Proposals in this area have discussed the issue of how collective environmental action is possible. Many multilateral, environment-related agreements have been forged in the past 30 years, but their implementation remains difficult. There is also some discussion on the possibility of setting up an international organization that would centralize all the issues related to international environmental protection, such as the proposed World Environment Organization (WEO). The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) could play this role, but it is a small-scale organization with a limited mandate. The question has given rise to two opposite views: the European Union, especially France and Germany, along with a number of NGOs, is in favor of creating a WEO; the United Kingdom, the US, and most developing countries prefer opting for voluntary initiatives.


title: Global governance

text: The International Institute for Sustainable Development proposes a "reform agenda" for global environmental governance. The main argument is that there seems to exist an unspoken but powerful consensus on the essential objectives of a system of global environmental governance. These goals would require top-quality leadership, a strong environmental policy based on knowledge, effective cohesion and coordination, good management of the institutions constituting the environmental governance system, and spreading environmental concerns and actions to other areas of international policy and action.


title: Global governance

text: The focus of environmental issues shifted to climate change from 1992 onwards. Due to the transboundary nature of climate change, various calls have been made for a World Environment Organisation (WEO) (sometimes referred to as a Global Environment Organisation) to tackle this global problem on a global scale. At present, a single worldwide governing body with the powers to develop and enforce environmental policy does not exist. The idea for the creation of a WEO was discussed thirty years ago but is receiving fresh attention in the light of arguably disappointing outcomes from recent, ‘environmental mega conferences’(e.g.Rio Summit and Earth Summit 2002).


title: Global governance

text: Multiple national environmental organizations are used to help build environments from the ground up. The Nature Conservancy helps from re-growing coral reefs to finding climate change solutions. The Nature Conservancy has scientists and volunteers in over 70 countries, working to conserve the world as much as possible. While creating international policies involving limiting pollution, the stop of habitat loss and trying to promote biodiversity, they work with other countries to find solutions. They go hand in hand with other international organizations that support finding ways to better the environment. The Environmental Defense Fund works with The Nature Conservancy to find solutions to environmental crises.


title: Global governance

text: International environmental organizations do exist. The United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), created in 1972, coordinates the environmental activity of countries in the UN. UNEP and similar international environmental organizations are seen as not up to the task. They are criticized as being institutionally weak, fragmented, lacking in standing and providing non-optimal environmental protection. It has been stated that the current decentralized, poorly funded and strictly intergovernmental regime for global environmental issues is sub-standard. However, the creation of a WEO may threaten to undermine some of the more effective aspects of contemporary global environmental governance; notably its fragmented nature, from which flexibility stems. This also allows responses to be more effective and links to be forged across different domains. Even though the environment and climate change are framed as global issues, Levin states that ‘it is precisely at this level that government institutions are least effective and trust most delicate’ while Oberthur and Gehring argue that it would offer little more than institutional restructuring for its own sake.


title: Global governance

text: The UN is widely involved with the development of protecting the environment from an international perspective. In 2012 at the IN Conference on Sustainable Development, they have fully committed to working towards a safer and healthier environment. This ranges from the planting of trees to the type of cars citizens can drive. Between analyzing and writing multiple solutions, they have found possibilities to strengthen and enhance synergies among global environmental conventions.


title: Global governance

text: There are multiple organizations involved in creating a strong environmental impact, although the changes are not being made. Over the past couple decades there has been a decrease in trend and an increase in risks to the environment. Global Governance reforms have been taken place to try and make changed, but it is the issue of making the game plans effective.


title: Global governance

text: Many proposals for the creation of a WEO have emerged from the trade and environment debate. It has been argued that instead of creating a WEO to safeguard the environment, environmental issues should be directly incorporated into the World Trade Organization (WTO). The WTO has “had success in integrating trade agreements and opening up markets because it is able to apply legal pressure to nation states and resolve disputes”. Greece and Germany are currently in discussion about the possibility of solar energy being used to repay some of Greece's debt after their economy crashed in 2010. This exchange of resources, if it is accepted, is an example of increased international cooperation and an instance where the WTO could embrace energy trade agreements. If the future holds similar trade agreements, then an environmental branch of the WTO would surely be necessary. However critics of a WTO/WEO arrangement say that this would neither concentrate on more directly addressing underlying market failures, nor greatly improve rule-making.


title: Global governance

text: The creation of a new agency, whether it be linked to the WTO or not, has now been endorsed by Renato Ruggiero, the former head of the World Trade Organization (WTO), as well as by the new WTO director-designate, Supachai Panitchpakdi. The debate over a global institutional framework for environmental issues will undoubtedly rumble on but at present there is little support for any one proposal.


title: Global governance

text: World Trade involves a wide amount of funding and taxes when being sent from one state to another. Singapore's Prime Minister created a solution that would benefit all countries which would promote economic stability and sustainable growth for all states. The Eminent Person's Group (EPG) would control Financial Global Governance to create fair and equal regulations with all involved. This governance structure would require the development of finance institutions and would involve all countries working together.


title: Global governance

text: The 2008 financial crisis may have undermined faith that laissez-faire capitalism will correct all serious financial malfunctioning on its own, as well as belief in the presumed independence of the economy from politics. It has been stated that, lacking in transparency and far from democratic, international financial institutions may be incapable of handling financial collapses. There are many who believe free-market capitalism may be incapable of forming the economic policy of a stable society, as it has been theorised that it can exacerbate inequalities.


title: Global governance

text: Nonetheless, the debate on the potential failings of the system has led the academic world to seek solutions. According to Tubiana and Severino, "refocusing the doctrine of international cooperation on the concept of public goods offers the possibility . . . of breaking the deadlock in international negotiations on development, with the perception of shared interests breathing new life into an international solidarity that is running out of steam."


title: Global governance

text: Joseph Stiglitz argues that a number of global public goods should be produced and supplied to the populations, but are not, and that a number of global externalities should be taken into consideration, but are not. On the other hand, he contends, the international stage is often used to find solutions to completely unrelated problems under the protection of opacity and secrecy, which would be impossible in a national democratic framework.


title: Global governance

text: On the subject of international trade, Susan George states that ". . . in a rational world, it would be possible to construct a trading system serving the needs of people in both North and South. . . . Under such a system, crushing third world debt and the devastating structural adjustment policies applied by the World Bank and the IMF would have been unthinkable, although the system would not have abolished capitalism."


title: Global governance

text: Building a responsible world governance that would make it possible to adapt the political organization of society to globalization implies establishing a democratic political legitimacy at every level: local, national, regional and global.


title: Global governance

text: The political aspect of world governance is discussed in greater detail in the section Problems of World Governance and Principles of Governance


title: Global governance

text: The political and institutional governments help protect the rights of humans and make all things equal between states. The middle balance prevents war breakouts and civil wars. They prevent the world from a global crisis and have programs to conduct research on ways to increase citizen participation in politics to become more involved. The increasing of interdependence has led to the incline of needing political and institutional governance.


title: Global governance

text: Armed conflicts have changed in form and intensity since the Berlin wall came down in 1989. The events of 9/11, the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq, and repeated terrorist attacks all show that conflicts can repercuss well beyond the belligerents directly involved. The major powers and especially the United States, have used war as a means of resolving conflicts and may well continue to do so. If many in the United States believe that fundamentalist Muslim networks are likely to continue to launch attacks, in Europe nationalist movements have proved to be the most persistent terrorist threat. The Global War on Terrorism arguably presents a form of emerging global governance in the sphere of security with the United States leading cooperation among the Western states, non-Western nations and international institutions. Beyer argues that participation in this form of 'hegemonic governance' is caused both by a shared identity and ideology with the US, as well as cost-benefit considerations.


title: Global governance

text: At the same time, civil wars continue to break out across the world, particularly in areas where civil and human rights are not respected, such as Central and Eastern Africa and the Middle East. These and other regions remain deeply entrenched in permanent crises, hampered by authoritarian regimes, many of them being supported by the United States, reducing entire swathes of the population to wretched living conditions. The wars and conflicts we are faced with have a variety of causes: economic inequality, social conflict, religious sectarianism, Western imperialism, colonial legacies, disputes over territory and over control of basic resources such as water or land. They are all illustrations of a deep-rooted crisis of world governance.


title: Global governance

text: The resulting bellicose climate imbues international relations with competitive nationalism and contributes, in rich and poor countries alike, to increasing military budgets, siphoning off huge sums of public money to the benefit of the arms industry and military-oriented scientific innovation, hence fueling global insecurity. Of these enormous sums, a fraction would be enough to provide a permanent solution for the basic needs of the planet's population hence practically eliminating the causes of war and terrorism.


title: Global governance

text: Andrée Michel argues that the arms race is not only proceeding with greater vigor, it is the surest means for Western countries to maintain their hegemony over countries of the South. Following the break-up of the Eastern bloc countries, she maintains, a strategy for the manipulation of the masses was set up with a permanent invention of an enemy (currently incarnated by Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, and North Korea) and by kindling fear and hate of others to justify perpetuating the Military–industrial complex and arms sales. The author also recalls that the "Big Five" at the UN who have the veto right are responsible for 85% of arms sales around the world.


title: Global governance

text: Proposals for the governance of peace, security, and conflict resolution begin by addressing prevention of the causes of conflicts, whether economic, social, religious, political, or territorial. This requires assigning more resources to improving people's living conditions—health, accommodation, food, and work—and to education, including education in the values of peace, social justice, and unity and diversity as two sides of the same coin representing the global village.


title: Global governance

text: Resources for peace could be obtained by regulating, or even reducing military budgets, which have done nothing but rise in the past recent years. This process could go hand in hand with plans for global disarmament and the conversion of arms industries, applied proportionally to all countries, including the major powers. Unfortunately, the warlike climate of the last decade has served to relegate all plans for global disarmament, even in civil-society debates, and to pigeonhole them as a long-term goal or even a Utopian vision. This is definitely a setback for the cause of peace and for humankind, but it is far from being a permanent obstacle.


title: Global governance

text: International institutions also have a role to play in resolving armed conflicts. Small international rapid deployment units could intervene in these with an exclusive mandate granted by a reformed and democratic United Nations system or by relevant regional authorities such as the European Union. These units could be formed specifically for each conflict, using armies from several countries as was the case when the UNIFIL was reinforced during the 2006 Lebanon War. On the other hand, no national army would be authorized to intervene unilaterally outside its territory without a UN or regional mandate.


title: Global governance

text: Another issue that is worth addressing concerns the legitimate conditions for the use of force and conduct during war. Jean-Réné Bachelet offers an answer with the conceptualization of a military ethics corresponding to the need for a "principle of humanity." The author defines this principle as follows: "All human beings, whatever their race, nationality, gender, age, opinion, or religion, belong to one same humanity, and every individual has an inalienable right to respect for his life, integrity, and dignity."


title: Global governance

text: The World Trade Organization's (WTO) agenda of liberalizing public goods and services are related to culture, science, education, health, living organisms, information, and communication. This plan has been only partially offset by the alter-globalization movement, starting with the events that took place at the 1999 Seattle meeting, and on a totally different and probably far more influential scale in the medium and long term, by the astounding explosion of collaborative practices on the Internet. However, lacking political and widespread citizen support as well as sufficient resources, civil society has not so far been able to develop and disseminate alternative plans for society as a whole on a global scale, even though plenty of proposals and initiatives have been developed, some more successful than others, to build a fairer, more responsible, and more solidarity-based world in all of these areas.


title: Global governance

text: Above all, each country tries to impose their values and collective preferences within international institutions such like WTO or UNESCO, particularly in the Medias sector. This is an excellent opportunity to promote their soft power, for instance with the promotion of the cinema.


title: Global governance

text: As far as science is concerned, "[r]esearch increasingly bows to the needs of financial markets, turning competence and knowledge into commodities, making employment flexible and informal, and establishing contracts based on goals and profits for the benefit of private interests in compliance with the competition principle. The directions that research has taken in the past two decades and the changes it has undergone have drastically removed it from its initial mission (producing competence and knowledge, maintaining independence) with no questioning of its current and future missions. Despite the progress, or perhaps even as its consequence, humankind continues to face critical problems: poverty and hunger are yet to be vanquished, nuclear arms are proliferating, environmental disasters are on the rise, social injustice is growing, and so on.


title: Global governance

text: Neoliberal commercialization of the commons favors the interests of pharmaceutical companies instead of the patients', of food-processing companies instead of the farmers' and consumers'. Public research policies have done nothing but support this process of economic profitability, where research results are increasingly judged by the financial markets. The system of systematically patenting knowledge and living organisms is thus being imposed throughout the planet through the 1994 WTO agreements on intellectual property. Research in many areas is now being directed by private companies."


title: Global governance

text: On the global level, "[i]nstitutions dominating a specific sector also, at every level, present the risk of reliance on technical bodies that use their own references and deliberate in an isolated environment. This process can be observed with the 'community of patents' that promotes the patenting of living organisms, as well as with authorities controlling nuclear energy. This inward-looking approach is all the more dangerous that communities of experts are, in all complex technical and legal spheres, increasingly dominated by the major economic organizations that finance research and development."


title: Global governance

text: On the other hand, several innovative experiments have emerged in the sphere of science, such as: conscience clauses and citizens' panels as a tool for democratizing the production system: science shops and community-based research. Politically committed scientists are also increasingly organizing at the global level.


title: Global governance

text: As far as education is concerned, the effect of commoditization can be seen in the serious tightening of education budgets, which affects the quality of general education as a public service. The Global Future Online report reminds us that ". . . at the half-way point towards 2015 "(author's note: the deadline for the Millennium Goals)", the gaps are daunting: 80 million children (44 million of them girls) are out of school, with marginalized groups (26 million disabled and 30 million conflict-affected children) continuing to be excluded. And while universal access is critical, it must be coupled with improved learning outcomes—in particular, children achieving the basic literacy, numeracy and life skills essential for poverty reduction."


title: Global governance

text: In addition to making the current educational system available universally, there is also a call to improve the system and adapt it to the speed of changes in a complex and unpredictable world. On this point, Edgar Morin asserts that we must "[r]ethink our way of organizing knowledge. This means breaking down the traditional barriers between disciplines and designing new ways to reconnect that which has been torn apart." The UNESCO report drawn up by Morin contains "seven principles for education of the future": detecting the error and illusion that have always parasitized the human spirit and human behavior; making knowledge relevant, i.e. a way of thinking that makes distinctions and connections; teaching the human condition; teaching terrestrial identity; facing human and scientific uncertainties and teaching strategies to deal with them; teaching understanding of the self and of others, and an ethics for humankind.


title: Global governance

text: The exponential growth of new technologies, the Internet in particular, has gone hand in hand with the development over the last decade of a global community producing and exchanging goods. This development is permanently altering the shape of the entertainment, publishing, and music and media industries, among others. It is also influencing the social behavior of increasing numbers of people, along with the way in which institutions, businesses, and civil society are organized. Peer-to-peer communities and collective knowledge-building projects such as Wikipedia have involved millions of users around the world. There are even more innovative initiatives, such as alternatives to private copyright such as Creative Commons, cyber democracy practices, and a real possibility of developing them on the sectoral, regional, and global levels.


title: Global governance

text: Regional players, whether regional conglomerates such as Mercosur and the European Union, or major countries seen as key regional players such as China, the United States, and India, are taking a growing interest in world governance. Examples of discussion of this issue can be found in the works of: Martina Timmermann "et al.", "Institutionalizing Northeast Asia: Regional Steps toward Global Governance"; Douglas Lewis, "Global Governance and the Quest for Justice - Volume I: International and Regional Organizations"; Olav Schram Stokke, "Examining the Consequences of International Regimes," which discusses Northern, or Arctic region building in the context of international relations; Jeffery Hart and Joan Edelman Spero, "Globalization and Global Governance in the 21st Century," which discusses the push of countries such as Mexico, Brazil, India, China, Taiwan, and South Korea, "important regional players" seeking "a seat at the table of global decision-making"; Dr. Frank Altemöller, “International Trade: Challenges for Regional and Global Governance: A comparison between Regional Integration Models in Eastern Europe and Africa – and the role of the WTO”, and many others.


title: Global governance

text: Always seen as a problem to be solved rather than a people or region with an opinion to express on international policy, Africans and Africa draw on a philosophical tradition of community and social solidarity that can serve as inspiration to the rest of the world and contribute to building world governance. One example is given by Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gathseni when he reminds us of the relevance of the Ubuntu concept, which stresses the interdependence of human beings.


title: Global governance

text: African civil society has thus begun to draw up proposals for governance of the continent, which factor in all of the dimensions: local, African, and global. Examples include proposals by the network "Dialogues sur la gouvernance en Afrique" for "the construction of a local legitimate governance," state reform "capable of meeting the continent's development challenges," and "effective regional governance to put an end to Africa's marginalization."


title: Global governance

text: The 21st century has seen the arrival of a new and diverse generation of left-wing governments in Latin America. This has opened the door to initiatives to launch political and governance renewal. A number of these initiatives are significant for the way they redefine the role of the state by drawing on citizen participation, and can thus serve as a model for a future world governance built first and foremost on the voice of the people. The constituent assemblies in Ecuador and Bolivia are fundamental examples of this phenomenon.


title: Global governance

text: In Ecuador, social and indigenous movements were behind the discussions that began in 1990 on setting up a constituent assembly. In the wake of Rafael Correa's arrival at the head of the country in November 2006, widespread popular action with the slogan ""que se vayan todos"" (let them all go away) succeeded in getting all the political parties of congress to accept a convocation for a referendum on setting up the assembly.


title: Global governance

text: In April 2007, Rafael Correa's government organized a consultation with the people to approve setting up a constituent assembly. Once it was approved, 130 members of the assembly were elected in September, including 100 provincial members, 24 national members and 6 for migrants in Europe, Latin America and the USA. The assembly was officially established in November. Assembly members belonged to traditional political parties as well as the new social movements. In July 2008, the assembly completed the text for the new constitution and in September 2008 there was a referendum to approve it. Approval for the new text won out, with 63.9% of votes for compared to 28.1% of votes against and a 24.3% abstention rate.


title: Global governance

text: The new constitution establishes the rule of law on economic, social, cultural and environmental rights (ESCER). It transforms the legal model of the social state subject to the rule of law into a "constitution of guaranteed well-being" ("Constitución del bienestar garantizado") inspired by the ancestral community ideology of "good living" propounded by the Quechuas of the past, as well as by 21st century socialist ideology. The constitution promotes the concept of food sovereignty by establishing a protectionist system that favors domestic production and trade. It also develops a model of public aid for education, health, infrastructures and other services.


title: Global governance

text: In addition, it adds to the three traditional powers, a fourth power called the Council of Citizen Participation and Social Control, made up of former constitutional control bodies and social movements, and mandated to assess whether public policies are constitutional or not.


title: Global governance

text: The new Bolivian constitution was approved on 25 January 2009 by referendum, with 61.4% votes in favor, 38.6% against and a 90.2% turnout. The proposed constitution was prepared by a constituent assembly that did not only reflect the interests of political parties and the elite, but also represented the indigenous peoples and social movements. As in Ecuador, the proclamation of a constituent assembly was demanded by the people, starting in 1990 at a gathering of indigenous peoples from the entire country, continuing with the indigenous marches in the early 2000s and then with the Program Unity Pact ("Pacto de Unidad Programático") established by family farmers and indigenous people in September 2004 in Santa Cruz.


title: Global governance

text: The constitution recognizes the autonomy of indigenous peoples, the existence of a specific indigenous legal system, exclusive ownership of forest resources by each community and a quota of indigenous members of parliament. It grants autonomy to counties, which have the right to manage their natural resources and elect their representatives directly. The "latifundio" system has been outlawed, with maximum ownership of 5,000 hectares allowed per person. Access to water and sanitation are covered by the constitution as human rights that the state has to guarantee, as well as other basic services such as electricity, gas, postal services, and telecommunications that can be provided by either the state or contracting companies. The new constitution also establishes a social and community economic model made up of public, private, and social organizations, and cooperatives. It guarantees private initiative and freedom of enterprise, and assigns public organizations the task of managing natural resources and related processes as well as developing public services covered by the constitution. National and cooperative investment is favored over private and international investment.


title: Global governance

text: The "unitary plurinational" state of Bolivia has 36 official indigenous languages along with Spanish. Natural resources belong to the people and are administered by the state. The form of democracy in place is no longer considered as exclusively representative and/or based on parties. Thus, "the people deliberate and exercise government via their representatives and the constituent assembly, the citizen legislative initiative and the referendum . . ." and "popular representation is exercised via the political parties, citizen groups, and indigenous peoples." This way, "political parties, and/or citizen groups and/or indigenous peoples can present candidates directly for the offices of president, vice-president, senator, house representative, constituent-assembly member, councilor, mayor, and municipal agent. The same conditions apply legally to all. . . ."


title: Global governance

text: Foreign-policy proposals announced by President Barack Obama include restoring the Global Poverty Act, which aims to contribute to meeting the UN Millennium Development Goals to reduce by half the world population living on less than a dollar a day by 2015. Foreign aid is expected to double to 50 billion dollars. The money will be used to help build educated and healthy communities, reduce poverty and improve the population's health.


title: Global governance

text: The United States and China have been working side by side to improve foreign policy and global governance. There has been a 3-year project to support the international business industry. They have discussed climate change, areas of trade, investment and finance.


title: Global governance

text: The Research Center for Chinese Politics and Business (RCCPB) has done the majority of international relationship meetings and has input the most solutions for development including bringing scholars from all around the world to meet and discuss action plans.


title: Global governance

text: In terms of international institutions, The White House Web site advocates reform of the World Bank and the IMF, without going into any detail.


title: Global governance

text: Below are further points in the Obama-Biden plan for foreign policy directly related to world governance:


title: Global governance

text: The growing interest in world governance in Asia represents an alternative approach to official messages, dominated by states' nationalist visions. An initiative to develop proposals for world governance took place in Shanghai in 2006, attended by young people from every continent. The initiative produced ideas and projects that can be classified as two types: the first and more traditional type, covering the creation of a number of new institutions such as an International Emissions Organization, and a second more innovative type based on organizing network-based systems. For example, a system of cooperative control on a worldwide level among states and self-organization of civil society into networks using new technologies, a process that should serve to set up a "Global Calling-for-Help Center" or a new model based on citizens who communicate freely, share information, hold discussions, and seek consensus-based solutions. They would use the Internet and the media, working within several types of organizations: universities, NGOs, local volunteers and civil-society groups.


title: Global governance

text: Given the demographic importance of the continent, the development of discussion on governance and practices in Asia at the regional level, as well as global-level proposals, will be decisive in the years ahead in the strengthening of global dialog among all sorts of stakeholders, a dialog that should produce a fairer world order.(See Kishore Mahbubani).


title: Global governance

text: According to Michel Rocard, Europe does not have a shared vision, but a collective history that allows Europeans to opt for projects for gradual political construction such as the European Union. Drawing on this observation, Rocard conceives of a European perspective that supports the development of three strategies for constructing world governance: reforming the UN, drawing up international treaties to serve as the main source of global regulations, and "the progressive penetration of the international scene by justice."


title: Global governance

text: Europe does not have the same views as other nations, however according to the Ambassador of Vienna, Walther Lichem, "Today, every citizen can contribute to the recognition of the dignity of the other and the related human rights. The impact of citizen-focused human rights programs is visible in human rights cities in all regions of the world. The citizen creating conditions of societal cohesion also essentially contributes to peace and security." Overall, having the same human rights goal is the ultimate end game in all nations.


title: Global governance

text: Europe's main focus now through global governance is to keep the trend of peacekeeping. Involved in the peacekeeping is Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Belgium and Norway. They have worked with The International Collaboration Research Network to establish rules and norms to follow by.


title: Global governance

text: Rocard considers that there are a number of "great questions of the present days" including recognition by all nations of the International Criminal Court, the option of an international police force authorized to arrest international criminals, and the institution of judicial procedures to deal with tax havens, massively polluting activities, and states supporting terrorist activities. He also outlines "new problems" that should foster debate in the years to come on questions such as a project for a Declaration of Interdependence, how to re-equilibrate world trade and WTO activities, and how to create world regulations for managing collective goods (air, drinking water, oil, etc.) and services (education, health, etc.).


title: Global governance

text: In the light of the unclear meaning of the term "global governance" as a concept in international politics, some authors have proposed defining it not in substantive, but in disciplinary and methodological terms. For these authors, global governance is better understood as an analytical concept or optic that provides a specific perspective on world politics different from that of conventional international relations theory. Thomas G. Weiss and Rorden Wilkinson have even argued that global governance has the capacity to overcome some of the fragmentation of international relations as a discipline particularly when understood as a set of questions about the governance of world orders. Other authors conceptualised global governance as a field of practice in which diverse stakeholders, such as public, private, and supra-governmental actors can compete for influence about issues that are not bound to national boundaries. This conceptualisation allows to better understand the principles of exclusions of specific stakeholders from the negotiation field as some actors lack the economic, social, cultural and symbolic resources required to gain enough influence.


title: Global governance

text: Some universities, including those offering courses in international relations, have begun to establish degree programmes in global governance.


title: Global governance

text: One effect of globalization is the increasing regulation of businesses in the global marketplace. Jan Aart Scholte asserts, however, that these changes are inadequate to meet the needs: "Along with the general intensified globalization of social relations in contemporary history has come an unprecedented expansion of regulatory apparatuses that cover planetary jurisdictions and constituencies. On the whole, however, this global governance remains weak relative to pressing current needs for global public policy. Shortfalls in moral standing, legal foundations, material delivery, democratic credentials and charismatic leadership have together generated large legitimacy deficits in existing global regimes."


title: Global governance

text: Proposals and initiatives have been developed by various sources to set up networks and institutions operating on a global scale: political parties, unions, regional authorities, and members of parliament in sovereign states.


title: Global governance

text: One of the conditions for building a world democratic governance should be the development of platforms for citizen dialogue on the legal formulation of world governance and the harmonization of objectives.


title: Global governance

text: This legal formulation could take the form of a Global Constitution. According to Pierre Calame and Gustavo Marin, "[a] Global Constitution resulting from a process for the institution of a global community will act as the common reference for establishing the order of rights and duties applicable to United Nations agencies and to the other multilateral institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization." As for formulating objectives, the necessary but insufficient ambition of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, which aim to safeguard humankind and the planet, and the huge difficulties in implementing them, illustrates the inadequacy of institutional initiatives that do not have popular support for having failed to invite citizens to take part in the elaboration process.


title: Global governance

text: Furthermore, the Global Constitution "must clearly express a limited number of overall objectives that are to be the basis of global governance and are to guide the common action of the U.N. agencies and the multilateral institutions, where the specific role of each of these is subordinated to the pursuit of these common objectives."


title: Global governance

text: Is the UN capable of taking on the heavy responsibility of managing the planet's serious problems? More specifically, can the UN reform itself in such a way as to be able to meet this challenge? At a time when the financial crisis of 2008 is raising the same questions posed by the climate disasters of previous years regarding the unpredictable consequences of disastrous human management, can international financial institutions be reformed in such a way as to go back to their original task, which was to provide financial help to countries in need?


title: Global governance

text: Lack of political will and citizen involvement at the international level has also brought about the submission of international institutions to the "neoliberal" agenda, particularly financial institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization (WTO). Pierre Calame gives an account of this development, while Joseph E. Stiglitz points out that the need for international institutions like the IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO has never been so great, but people's trust in them has never been so low.


title: Global governance

text: One of the key aspects of the United Nations reform is the problem of the representativeness of the General Assembly. The Assembly operates on the principle of "one state, one vote," so that states of hugely varying sizes have the same effect on the vote, which distorts representativeness and results in a major loss of credibility. Accordingly, "the General Assembly has lost any real capacity to influence. This means that the mechanisms for action and consultation organized by rich countries have the leading role."


title: Global governance

text: Gustave Massiah advocates defining and implementing a radical reform of the UN. The author proposes building new foundations that can provide the basis for global democracy and the creation of a Global Social Contract, rooted in the respect and protection of civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights, as well as in the recognition of the strategic role of international law.


title: Ryan Dahl

text: Ryan Dahl (born 1981) is an American software engineer who is best known for creating the Node.js JavaScript runtime as well as the Deno JavaScript/TypeScript runtime.


title: Ryan Dahl

text: Dahl grew up in San Diego, California. His mother bought him an Apple IIc when he was six years old, one of his first experiences with technology. Dahl attended a community college in San Diego and later transferred into UC San Diego where he studied mathematics. He went on to attend grad school for Mathematics at the University of Rochester where he studied algebraic topology, which he found "very abstract and beautiful" for a couple of years but later got bored of it because "it was not so applicable to real life".


title: Ryan Dahl

text: After graduating, Dahl entered a Ph.D. program, but eventually dropped out, since he did not want to devote the rest of his life to mathematics. Instead, he left for South America, where he started developing web applications in Ruby.


title: Ryan Dahl

text: In January 2012, after having worked on the Node.js project since 2009, Dahl announced that he would step away from the project and turn operational management over to NPM creator and former Joyent employee Isaac Z. Schlueter.


title: The X-Files (season 5)

text: The fifth season of the science fiction television series "The X-Files" commenced airing on the Fox network in the United States on November 2, 1997, concluding on the same channel on May 17, 1998, and contained 20 episodes. The season was the last in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; subsequent episodes would be shot in Los Angeles, California. In addition, this was the first season of the show where the course of the story was planned, due to the 1998 "The X-Files" feature film being filmed before it, but scheduled to be released after it aired.


title: The X-Files (season 5)

text: The fifth season of the series focused heavily on FBI federal agents Fox Mulder's (David Duchovny) loss of faith in the existence of extraterrestrials and his partner, Dana Scully's (Gillian Anderson), resurgence of health following her bout with cancer. New characters were also introduced, including agents Jeffrey Spender (Chris Owens) and Diana Fowley (Mimi Rogers) and the psychic Gibson Praise (Jeff Gulka). The finale, "The End", led up to both the 1998 film and the sixth season premiere "The Beginning".


title: The X-Files (season 5)

text: Debuting with high viewing figures and ranking as the eleventh most watched television series during the 1997–98 television year in the United States, the season was a success, with figures averaging around 20 million viewers an episode. This made it the year's highest-rated Fox program as well as the highest rated season of "The X-Files" to air. Critical reception from television critics was generally positive.


title: The X-Files (season 5)

text: The show centers on FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files. At the end of the fourth season, Scully is dying of cancer. Mulder is convinced that her condition is a result of her earlier abduction, and is prepared to make a deal with the Syndicate to find a cure. While being pursued by an assassin responsible for a hoax alien corpse discovered on a mountaintop, Mulder fakes his own suicide, mutilating the assassin's face to provide a decoy body. In the fifth season opener "Redux", he uses the distraction to infiltrate The Pentagon to find a cure for Scully's cancer, while Scully is able to uncover and reveal a Syndicate connection within the FBI. Due to the information he learns from Michael Kritschgau (John Finn), Mulder loses his belief in extraterrestrials.


title: The X-Files (season 5)

text: Later, as a rebel alien race secretly attacks several groups of former alien abductees, the agents meet Cassandra Spender (Veronica Cartwright), a woman who claims to be a multiple abductee and wants to deliver a positive message about aliens. Eventually, Mulder has Scully put under hypnosis to learn the truth about her abduction after Cassandra goes missing and her son, Jeffrey Spender (Chris Owens), angrily attempts to push his way up in the FBI. The Syndicate, meanwhile, quicken their tests for the black oil vaccine, sacrificing their own to do so. Later, the assassination of a chess grandmaster leads Mulder and Scully into an investigation that they soon discover strikes at the heart of the X-Files; they learn that the real target was a telepathic boy named Gibson Praise (Jeff Gulka).


title: The X-Files (season 5)

text: Due to the pending release of "The X-Files" feature film, this was the first season where the course of the season was planned in advance, as it had to set up for the film. Originally, the season was supposed to be the show's last. In this manner, the finale was originally supposed to have segued the television series into a movie franchise. David Duchovny explained, "we were saying, 'Okay, we're going to do five. We'll get out of here at five.' And then five came around, and no one was going anywhere." The series proved to be so lucrative for Fox that two additional seasons were ordered. Thus, the season was created in a way to segue into the 1998 film, as well as the sixth season premiere, "The Beginning".


title: The X-Files (season 5)

text: Due to the necessity of filming reshoots for the upcoming movie, both Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny are absent in places throughout the season. For instance, the episodes "Unusual Suspects" and "Travelers"—both of which being flashback episodes—do not feature Anderson's character Dana Scully at all. In fact, the former was written entirely as a stop-gap episode when the show's producers were forced to start production of the fifth season in the last week of August in Vancouver, but still needed series stars Duchovny and Anderson for the filming of "The X-Files" movie in Los Angeles. The producers decided to create an episode dedicated to The Lone Gunmen, and writing duties were assigned to Vince Gilligan. Other episodes such as "Chinga" and "Christmas Carol" feature minimal appearances by Duchovny's character Fox Mulder.


title: The X-Files (season 5)

text: The season's fifth episode, "The Post-Modern Prometheus", written and directed by Carter, was filmed entirely in black-and-white—in homage to James Whale's 1931 film version of "Frankenstein". The director of photography, Joel Ransom, had to spend longer than usual lighting each scene because of the grayscale. The stormy skies in the episode, added to emulate the atmosphere of old "Frankenstein" movies, were a visual effect. Carter also used a wide-angle camera lens throughout the episode, which forced the actors to act directly to the camera, rather than to each other. According to Carter, it also enabled him to give scenes in the episode a more surreal staging than was usual for the show.


title: The X-Files (season 5)

text: This season finale, "The End", was the last episode of the series to be filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada prior to production moving to Los Angeles, although the second film in the franchise, "", released in 2008, was once more filmed in Vancouver. The move was influenced in part by Duchovny, who after five years of filming wanted to be closer to his wife. The audience at the chess match was made up of local fans as a "thank you" to the city for hosting the production during its first five years. The chess match was filmed at Rogers Arena—then known as GM Place—the home of the Vancouver Canucks as well as the Vancouver Grizzlies at the time. While the producers expected five thousand people to show up, twelve thousand appeared. Instructions were given to the crowd by director R. W. Goodwin using giant video screens attached to the scoreboard. During breaks between shooting concession stands, music and videos were made available to the attendees. Actors Duchovny and Anderson also answered questions for the audience and over $20,000 worth of equipment was raffled off. Series creator Chris Carter directed the second unit filming for the episode in order to be with the show's Canadian crew members.


title: The X-Files (season 5)

text: Carter served as executive producer and showrunner and wrote seven episodes. Frank Spotnitz and John Shiban were both promoted to co-executive producer and wrote seven and five episodes, respectively. Vince Gilligan was promoted to supervising producer and contributed six scripts. Tim Minear joined the series for his only season on the series as an executive story editor and wrote two episodes. Writing team Billy Brown and Dan Angel joined the series as story editors for this season only and provided the story for one episode. Writing team Jessica Scott and Mike Wollaeger wrote one freelance episode. Special guest writers for this season included author Stephen King, who co-wrote one episode with creator Chris Carter, and cyberpunk novelists William Gibson and Tom Maddox, who wrote their first of two episodes for the series. Other producers included producer Joseph Patrick Finn, producer Paul Rabwin, and co-producer Lori Jo Nemhauser who previously served as post-production supervisor.


title: The X-Files (season 5)

text: Producing-director Kim Manners directed the most episodes of the season, directing seven. Producer Rob Bowman, executive producer R. W. Goodwin, and series creator Chris Carter, each directed two episodes. The rest of the episodes were directed by Brett Dowler, Peter Markle, Daniel Sackheim, Ralph Hemecker, Cliff Bole, William A. Graham and Allen Coulter, who each directed one episode.


title: The X-Files (season 5)

text: The fifth season of "The X-Files" debuted with "Redux I" on November 2, 1997. This episode earned a Nielsen rating of 16.1, with a 22 share, meaning that roughly 16.1 percent of all television-equipped households, and 22 percent of households watching television, were tuned in to the episode. The episode was viewed by 27.34 million people, a marked increase from the fourth season's finale, "Gethsemane", which was viewed by 19.85 million viewers. "Redux I" also marked a drastic increase from the fourth season debut, "Herrenvolk", which garnered 21.11 million viewers. As the season continued, however, ratings began to drop slightly, stabilizing around approximately 20 million viewers-per-episode. The season hit a low with the seventeenth episode, "All Souls", which was viewed by 13.44 million viewers. The season finale, "The End", earned a Nielsen rating of 11.9, with an 18 share, and was viewed by 18.76 viewers, marking a 31.4 percent drop in viewers when compared to the season premiere, and a 5.5 percent drop in viewers when compared to the previous season finale. The season ranked as the eleventh most watched television series during the 1997–98 year, with an average of 19.8 million viewers. This made it the highest-rated season of "The X-Files" to air as well as the highest rated Fox program for the 1997–98 season.


title: The X-Files (season 5)

text: Michael Sauter of "Entertainment Weekly" gave the season an "A−", writing that it "proves the show was—even then—still at its creative peak (if only for another year or so) and full of surprises". He praised the new additions to the series' mythology and concluded that "many stand-alone episodes now look like classics". Francis Dass, writing for the "New Straits Times", noted that the season was "very interesting" and possessed "some [...] truly inspiring and hilarious" episodes." Not all seasonal reviews were glowing. Paula Vitaris from "Cinefantastique" called the season "a mixed bag of episodes".


title: The X-Files (season 5)

text: The episodes themselves received varied responses from critics. Several were culled out as highlights of the series. "The Post-Modern Prometheus" was heralded as a classic by several reviewers and was called the finest stand-alone episode produced by the series by another. The episode "Bad Blood" was praised by critics for its mix of horror and comedy. Dass called the episode "an absolute gem" and "the most hilarious "X-Files" episode I have ever seen." The episode has also appeared on various "Best-Of" lists of "The X-Files". Other episodes fared worse. "Schizogeny" was derided by critics: "The A.V. Club" reviewer Emily VanDerWerff noted that the episode "might be the very worst episode of "The X-Files"" "Chinga", written by Stephen King, was criticized for having a poor story. Vitaris called the entry "a major disappointment" and wrote that it "isn't scary in the least".


title: The X-Files (season 5)

text: The fifth season earned the series a record of sixteen Primetime Emmy Award nominations, the most a single season of "The X-Files" received. It won two of the awards it was nominated for–Outstanding Art Direction for a Series for "The Post-Modern Prometheus" and Outstanding Single Camera Picture Editing for a Series for "Kill Switch". The series received its fourth consecutive nomination for Outstanding Drama Series. David Duchovny received his second consecutive nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, while Gillian Anderson received her third nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, which she won the previous year. Lili Taylor and Veronica Cartwright both received nominations for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series. The episode "The Post-Modern Prometheus" received multiple nominations, with the exception of its single win, it was also nominated for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series (Chris Carter), Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series (Chris Carter), Outstanding Cinematography for a Series (Joel Ransom), Outstanding Music Composition for a Series (Mark Snow), Outstanding Single Camera Picture Editing for a Series (Lynne Willingham), and Outstanding Makeup for a Series. Other nominations were for Outstanding Single Camera Picture Editing for a Series for "Mind's Eye", and Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series and Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Drama Series for "The Red and the Black". The series also won its third and final Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Drama, while Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny received nominations in the television series drama acting categories.


title: Oil paint

text: Oil paint is a type of slow-drying paint that consists of particles of pigment suspended in a drying oil, commonly linseed oil. The viscosity of the paint may be modified by the addition of a solvent such as turpentine or white spirit, and varnish may be added to increase the glossiness of the dried oil paint film. The addition of oil or alkyd medium can also be used to modify the viscosity and drying time of oil paint. Oil paints were first used in Asia as early as the 7th century AD and can be seen in examples of Buddhist paintings in Afghanistan. Oil-based paints made their way to Europe by the 12th century and were used for simple decoration, but oil painting did not begin to be adopted as an artistic medium there until the early 15th century. Common modern applications of oil paint are in finishing and protection of wood in buildings and exposed metal structures such as ships and bridges. Its hard-wearing properties and luminous colors make it desirable for both interior and exterior use on wood and metal. Due to its slow-drying properties, it has recently been used in paint-on-glass animation. The thickness of the coat has considerable bearing on the time required for drying: thin coats of oil paint dry relatively quickly.


title: Oil paint

text: The technical history of the introduction and development of oil paint, and the date of introduction of various additives (driers, thinners) is still—despite intense research since the mid 19th century—not well understood. The literature abounds with incorrect theories and information: in general, anything published before 1952 is suspect. Until 1991 nothing was known about the organic aspect of cave paintings from the Paleolithic era. Many assumptions were made about the "chemistry" of the binders. Well known Dutch-American artist Willem de Kooning is known for saying "Flesh is the reason oil paint was invented".


title: Oil paint

text: The oldest known oil paintings are Buddhist murals created circa 650 AD. The works are located in cave-like rooms carved from the cliffs of Afghanistan's Bamiyan Valley, "using walnut and poppy seed oils."


title: Oil paint

text: Though the ancient Mediterranean civilizations of Greece, Rome, and Egypt used vegetable oils, there is little evidence to indicate their use as media in painting. Indeed, linseed oil was not used as a medium because of its tendency to dry very slowly, darken, and crack, unlike mastic and wax (the latter of which was used in encaustic painting).