About 120,000 requests are made each year. Private citizens made 60% of them, with businesses and journalists accounting for 20% and 10% respectively. The Act cost £35.5 million in 2005.
Although there are some groups which are exceptions to the Act, it covers over 19,000 authorities.
Cannabis (drug)
Cannabis, also known as marijuana or Cannabis sativa and among other names, is a psychoactive drug from the "Cannabis" plant used for medical or recreational purposes. The main psychoactive part of cannabis is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), one of the 483 known compounds in the plant, including at least 65 other cannabinoids, which are chemicals only found in Cannabis. Cannabis can be used by smoking, vaporizing, within food, or as an extract.
Marijuana is grouped into 3 categories: Sativa, Indica, and Hybrid. A hybrid is a combination of Sativa and Indica. These 3 categories are then divided and categorized more into different strains. Strains are minor differences in how you feel when you use Cannabis. Some of the most famous and well-known strains of marijuana are: Acapulco Gold, Gelato, Grape Ape, White Widow, Purple Haze, Skunk and G13.
Draguignan
Draguignan () is a commune in the Var department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, in southeastern France.
It is a subprefecture of the department.
Draguignan became the prefecture of the Var in 1797, at the beginning of the French Revolution. This was even if the town was not the biggest city in the department. It remained as the prefecture until 1974 when it was moved to Toulon.
The city is at the foot of the Malmont mountain, in a valley that is about long, from northwest to southeast. The Nartuby, a tributary of the Argens river, flows to the west of the city.
Draguignan has an area of , and its average altitude is ; at the city hall, the altitude is .
Draguignan is surrounded by the "communes" Saint-Rémy, Maleville, La Bastide-l'Évêque, Morlhon-le-Haut, Sanvensa, La Rouquette, Savignac and Toulonjac.
The climate of Draguignan, in the Köppen climate classification, is Csb - Mediterranean climate with template summers.
With a population in 2013 of 39,174, Draguignan has a population density is of inhabitants/km.
The inhabitants of Draguignan are known, in French, as "Dracenois" (women: "Dracenoises").
Draguignan is twinned with:
The Conquest of Malacca (epic poem)
The Conquest of Malacca ("Malaca conquistada") is an epic poem by Portuguese poet Francisco de Sá de Meneses.
"The Conquest of Malacca" is an epic poem. It was published in 1634. It is one of the more noted Portuguese poem of the 17th century.
Francisco de Sá de Meneses was a poet of Baroque. He was born about 1600 and died in 1664.
The poem is written in ottava rima (oitava-rima in Portuguese). In other words it is composed of stanzas of eight lines, rhymed abababcc. The same strophe was used earlier by Luís de Camões in "The Lusiads".
The poem by Francisco de Sá de Meneses tells about the batles of Malacca. The battle was fought in 1511. Portuguese forces, led by Afonso de Albuquerque, the governor of India, seized the city of Malacca. The city was a strong fortress. It controlled the strait of Malacca, which was the way to China.
The poem was translated into English by Edgar C. Knowlton, Jr. The book was published by University of Malaya Press in Kuala Lumpur in 1970.
Bielski partisans
The Bielski partisans were a group of Jewish partisans (an irregular military group) who fought against the Nazis during World War II. They rescued Jews from extermination. They fought against the Nazis, who had taken over Poland. They also fought against people who cooperated with the Nazis. They lived and fought around Nowogródek (Navahrudak) and Lida in Poland (now western Belarus). They were named after the Bielskis, a family of Polish Jews who led the group.
Under the Bielski partisans' protection, 1,236 Jews survived the war. This was one of many remarkable rescue missions in the Holocaust. The group spent more than two years living in the forests and was initially organised by members of the Bielski family.
The Bielski family were millers and grocers in Stankiewicze (Stankievichy) near Nowogródek. At the beginning of WWII, this area belonged to the Second Polish Republic. It was taken over by the Soviet Union in September 1939 (cf. Polish September Campaign and Soviet invasion of Poland) as part of an agreement between Nazi Germany and Josef Stalin's Soviet Union that they would not fight each other.
The Bielski family served as low-level administrators in the new government set up by the Soviets. This made many local Poles unhappy, because they saw the Soviets as occupiers.
On 22 June 1941, Nazi Germany began Operation Barbarossa and invaded the Soviet Union. Nowogródek became a Jewish ghetto. The Nazis took over and began their genocidal policies in Poland and Belarus.
The Bielski's parents and older family members were killed in the ghetto on 8 December 1941. The four Bielski brothers - Tuvia, Alexander (also known as "Zus"), Asael, and Aron Bielski - managed to escape to the nearby forest. Together with 13 neighbours from the ghetto, they formed their partisan combat group in the spring of 1942. Originally, about forty people were in the group, but it grew quickly.
The oldest brother, Tuvia, was the group's commander. Tuvia had served in the Polish Army from 1927 to 1929, rising to the rank of corporal. He had been interested in the Zionist youth movement. He sent people to sneak into the ghettos in the area, recruiting new members to join the group in the Naliboki Forest. Hundreds of men, women and children eventually found their way to the Bielski camp. At its largest, 1,236 people belonged to the group. Seven out of every ten members were women, children, or elderly. No one was turned away. About 150 group members used weapons to fight the Nazis and the people who cooperated with them.
The partisans lived in underground dugouts (zemlyankas) or bunkers. In their forest camp, they built many things, including:
Members of the group did many different jobs. For example:
The group also set up a school in one of the dugouts. The camp even had its own jail and court of law.
Some accounts say that poor members of the group were not treated as well as richer members.
The Bielski group's partisan activities were aimed at the Germans and their collaborators (people who cooperated with the Nazis, like Belarusian volunteer policemen or local residents who had betrayed or killed Jews). The group also used sabotage to fight the Nazis. The Nazi regime offered a reward of 100,000 Reichsmarks to anyone who could help them catch Tuvia Bielski. In 1943, the Nazis led major efforts to get rid of all partisan groups in the area. Some of these groups suffered major casualties, but the Bielski partisans fled safely to a deeper part of the forest, and continued to offer protection to the non-fighters among their band.
Like other partisan groups in the area, the Bielski group would raid nearby villages and force people to give them food. Sometimes, peasants who refused to share their food with the partisans were attacked or even murdered. This made many of the peasants in the villages angry at the Bielski partisans, though some would willingly help the Jewish partisans.
The Bielski partisans eventually teamed up with Soviet groups around the Naliboki Forest under General Platon (Vasily Yefimovich Chernyshev). Soviet commanders tried several times to get Bielski fighters to join their units, but they refused. Tuvia continued to command the Bielski partisans. This allowed him to continue in his mission to protect Jewish lives along with engaging in combat activity. However, it would also cause problems later on.