Andrew Murray (trade unionist)
Andrew Murray (born 1958) is a British campaigner and journalist. He was Chair of the Stop the War Coalition from its formation in 2001 until September 2011, and again from September 2015 after Jeremy Corbyn resigned.
Murray has been a senior official for several trade unions over many years.
All-party parliamentary group
An all-party parliamentary group (APPG) is a grouping in the British Parliament that is made up of politicians from all political parties.
If a parliament consists of both a lower house and an upper house, all-party parliamentary groups can usually include members of both houses. In the British Parliament, for example, APPGs include members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
In the British Parliament, an associate parliamentary group is similar to an all-party parliamentary group except that it is made up of not only members of the House of Commons or Lords but can also include members from outside Parliament.
Chagossians
The Chagossians (also Îlois or Chagos Islanders) are people who previously lived on the Chagos Islands. They are of African, Indian and Malay ancestry. They lived on Diego Garcia, Peros Banhos and the Salomon island chain, as well as other islands. They were forcibly removed from the islands by the British government in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This was done at the request of the United States government, so that Diego Garcia could become a military base. Most Chagossians now live in Mauritius and the United Kingdom. No Chagossians live in the Chagos Islands anymore, as it is now the site of the military base Camp Justice.
The Chagossians are mostly descended from African people, particularly from Madagascar, Mozambique and Mauritius. There is also a significant proportion of Indian and Malay ancestry. The French brought some to the Chagos islands as slaves from Mauritius in 1786. Others arrived as fishermen, farmers, and coconut plantation workers during the 19th century.
The Chagossians speak Chagossian Creole, a creole language based on French. It has words that come from various African and Asian languages. It is part of the Bourbonnais Creole family. Chagossian Creole is still spoken by some of their descendants in Mauritius and Seychelles. Chagossian people living in the UK speak English.
On 22 May 2019, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution [86] asking the United Kingdom to surrender the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius within six months.
Chagos Archipelago
The Chagos Archipelago ( or ) or Chagos Islands (formerly the Bassas de Chagas, and later the Oil Islands) is a group of seven atolls in the Indian Ocean. The atolls are made up of more than 60 individual islands. The islands are located about south of Maldives.
As of 2018, Mauritius has taken the matter to the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion, against British objections.
The islands make up the British Indian Ocean Territory.
On 25 February 2019, in an advisory opinion, the International Court of Justice found that the United Kingdom "illegally" separated the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius after its independence in 1968.
The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on May 22, 2019, commanding Great Britain to return the Chagos Archipelago to the Republic of Mauritius within six months, which would allow Chagossians to recover their land.
Brighton hotel bombing
The Brighton hotel bombing was an attack at the Grand Hotel in Brighton, England. It happened on 12 October 1984. A time bomb was planted in the hotel by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) member Patrick Magee. The purpose was to kill Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her ministers, who were staying at the hotel for the Conservative Party conference. Thatcher narrowly escaped injury. Five people were killed, including two high-profile members of the Conservative Party, and 31 were injured.
Flexagon
In geometry, a flexagon is a flat model, usually made by folding a piece of paper, so that when 'flexed' (folded), one or more hidden faces will be revealed (shown) from within the model.
Flexagons are usually square or rectangular (tetraflexagons) or hexagonal (hexaflexagons). A prefix can be added to the name to show the number of faces that the model can display, including the two faces (back and front) that are visible before flexing. For example, a hexaflexagon with a total of six faces is called a hexahexaflexagon.
Arthur H. Stone, a British man, is said to have first discovered the flexagon in 1939. At the time, he was a student at Princeton University in the United States. His new American paper would not fit in his English binder so he cut off the ends of the paper and began folding them into different shapes. One of these formed a trihexaflexagon.
Other students became interested in these shapes. They included Bryant Tuckerman, Richard Feynman, and John Tukey. Together, they formed the Princeton Flexagon Committee. Tuckerman worked out a topological method, called the "Tuckerman traverse", for revealing all the faces of a flexagon.
Flexagons were introduced to the general public by the recreational mathematician Martin Gardner in 1956. He wrote about in the first "Mathematical Games" column that he wrote for "Scientific American" magazine.
In 1955, Russell Rogers and Leonard D'Andrea of Homestead Park, Pennsylvania applied for a patent. In 1959 they were granted U.S. Patent number 2,883,195 for the hexahexaflexagon, under the title "Changeable Amusement Devices and the Like."
Their patent imagined possible ways that the device could be used as a toy, an device for advertising, or as a device for learning about geometry." A few such novelties were produced by the Herbick & Held Printing Company in Pittsburgh. The device, marketed as the "Hexmo", were not very successful.
Schlager music
Schlager music is a kind of pop music, where the text often talks about sentiments. Schlager started with operetta music, at the end of the 19th century. In the 1920s, Jazz music influenced it. Musically, Schlager music often has simple structures. Very often, Schlager songs are commercially successful.
Serotonin syndrome
Serotonin syndrome, also known as serotonin poisoning, serotonin sickness, and many other names, is a medical condition that can happen if there is too much serotonin in your brain or other parts of your nervous system. Serotonin syndrome can be mild (doesn't make you very sick), but in rare situations, it can kill you. Serotonin syndrome can happen if you use some drugs that can increase the amount of serotonin in your nervous system. Some examples of drugs that can make you have serotonin syndrome are antidepressants, opioids, CNS stimulants, 5-HT agonists (a drug that changes the receptors of serotonin), psychedelics, herbs, and many others.
Keith Morrison
Keith Morrison (born July 2, 1947) is a Canadian broadcast journalist. He has been a writer for "Dateline NBC" since 1995. In 1988 he joined NBC News as a west coast writer for the "NBC Nightly News" and "Today Show".
Bill Nelson
Clarence William "Bill" Nelson II (born September 29, 1942) is an American politician and astronaut. Nelson is the 14th and current Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration since May 2021. He is a member of the Democratic Party. He was the United States Senator from Florida from 2001 to 2019. He lost his re-election campaign in 2018 to Republican Governor Rick Scott.
He was a member of the Florida House of Representatives from 1972 to 1978 and in the United States House of Representatives from 1979 to 1991. In January 1986, he became the second sitting member of Congress to fly in space, after Jake Garn. He was a payload specialist on the Space Shuttle "Columbia".
Nelson retired from Congress in 1990 to run for Governor of Florida, but was lost the Democratic nomination to Lawton Chiles.