Civil defence or civil protection is an effort to protect the citizens of a state from military attacks and natural disasters. It uses the principles of emergency operations: prevention, preparation, response, or emergency evacuation and recovery. Programs of this sort were discussed at least as early as the 1920s and were implemented in some countries during the 1930s as the threat of war and aerial bombardment grew, it became widespread. Since the end of the Cold War, the focus of civil defence has shifted from military attack to emergencies and disasters in general; the new concept is described by a number of terms, each of which has its own specific shade of meaning, such as crisis management, emergency management, emergency preparedness, contingency planning, civil contingency, civil aid and civil protection. In some countries, civil defense is seen as a key part of "total defense". For example, in Sweden, the Swedish word totalförsvar refers to the commitment of a wide range of resources of the nation to its defense—including to civil protection.

Some countries may have or have had military-organized civil defense units as part of their armed forces or as a paramilitary service. The advent of civil defense was stimulated by the experience of the bombing of civilian areas during the First World War; the bombing of the United Kingdom began on 19 January 1915 when German zeppelins dropped bombs on the Great Yarmouth area, killing six people. German bombing operations of the First World War were effective after the Gotha bombers surpassed the zeppelins; the most devastating raids inflicted. After the war, attention was turned toward civil defense in the event of war, the Air Raid Precautions Committee was established in 1924 to investigate ways for ensuring the protection of civilians from the danger of air-raids; the Committee produced figures estimating that in London there would be 9,000 casualties in the first two days and a continuing rate of 17,500 casualties a week. These rates were thought conservative, it was believed that there would be "total chaos and panic" and hysterical neurosis as the people of London would try to flee the city.

To control the population harsh measures were proposed: bringing London under military control, physically cordoning off the city with 120,000 troops to force people back to work. A different government department proposed setting up camps for refugees for a few days before sending them back to London. A special government department, the Civil Defence Service, was established by the Home Office in 1935, its remit included the pre-existing ARP as well as wardens, fire watchers, first aid post, stretcher party and industry. Over 1.9 million people served within the CD. The organization of civil defense was the responsibility of the local authority. Volunteers were ascribed to different units depending on training; each local civil defense service was divided into several sections. Wardens were responsible for local reconnaissance and reporting, leadership, organization and control of the general public. Wardens would advise survivors of the locations of rest and food centers, other welfare facilities.

Rescue Parties were required to assess and access bombed-out buildings and retrieve injured or dead people. In addition they would turn off gas and water supplies, repair or pull down unsteady buildings. Medical services, including First Aid Parties, provided on the spot medical assistance; the expected stream of information that would be generated during an attack was handled by'Report and Control' teams. A local headquarters would have an ARP controller who would direct rescue, first aid and decontamination teams to the scenes of reported bombing. If local services were deemed insufficient to deal with the incident the controller could request assistance from surrounding boroughs. Fire Guards were responsible for a designated area/building and required to monitor the fall of incendiary bombs and pass on news of any fires that had broken out to the NFS, they could deal with an individual magnesium electron incendiary bomb by dousing it with buckets of sand or water or by smothering. Additionally,'Gas Decontamination Teams' kitted out with gas-tight and waterproof protective clothing were to deal with any gas attacks.

They were trained to decontaminate buildings, roads and other material, contaminated by liquid or jelly gases. Little progress was made over the issue of air-raid shelters, because of the irreconcilable conflict between the need to send the public underground for shelter and the need to keep them above ground for protection against gas attacks. In February 1936 the Home Secretary appointed a technical Committee on Structural Precautions against Air Attack. During the Munich crisis, local authorities dug trenches to provide shelter. After the crisis, the British Government decided to make these a permanent feature, with a standard design of precast concrete trench lining, they decided to issue the Anderson shelter free to poorer households and to provide steel props to create shelters in suitable basements. During the Second World War, the ARP was responsible for the issuing of gas masks, pre-fabricated air-raid shelters, the upkeep of local public shelters, the maintenance of the bl

A Langer vote was a style of voting in the Australian electoral system designed to avoid the requirement to express preferences for all candidates without the vote being rejected as informal. The title is a tribute to Albert Langer, an Australian political activist, who advocated for the use of this style as a de facto method of optional preferential voting for making a valid vote for the voter's preferred candidates while the deliberate "error" avoided the vote being counted for one of the major political parties. Voters were advised to mark 1, 2..n, for favoured candidates, but to mark a repetition of the next digit against each of the remaining candidates. For example, a vote would be marked 1, 2, 3, 3, 3; the votes for the first and second candidates would be counted but the remaining candidates would not receive preferences. From 1983 this was a valid vote, however since 1998 the Electoral Act requires that there be no repeated numbers. Preferential voting was introduced in Federal elections in 1918.

While voting was voluntary at the time, a valid vote was required to express a preference for every candidate, described as full preferential voting, a failure to mark ballots in consecutive numerical order meant that the vote was informal. This was confirmed by the High Court in a case concerning the 1928 election; this was a half senate election. 6 candidates were nominated, however Maj Gen John Forsyth died before the ballot. Most ballot papers were reprinted with just the 5 remaining candidates; the Labor how-to-vote card had Forsyth listed as #5 and more than 11,000 ballots had numbered the candidates 1, 2, 3, 4 & 6. Starke J noted that the Electoral Act required that a ballot paper being given effect according to the voter's intention so far as his intention is clear and accepted that in this case the voters preferences were clear. Despite this however Starke J held that the Electoral Act "absolutely and imperatively" required that a voter use consecutive numbers so that the votes were properly rejected as informal.

In 1983 the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform was concerned at the informality rate for Senate voting. The Electoral Act was amended so that while a voter was formally required to express a preference for all candidates, a vote that erroneously did not comply with this requirement was saved from being rejected as informal. Subsection 270 applied to the subsection 270 to the House of Representatives. In 1987 Harold Van Moorst and Langer were part of "The Coalition Against Poverty and Unemployment" and were urging people to either not vote at the election on 11 July 1987 to deliberately vote informally or informing electors of the effect of section 270 of the Electoral Act, set out in a document headed "How not to give preferences" so that electors could avoid voting for the major parties; the Australian Electoral Commission applied to the Supreme Court of Victoria for an order preventing Van Moorst from encouraging people not to vote. Langer was added as a defendant at his own request.

Murphy J granted the injunction until the defendants could put on evidence and the matter could be heard. After hearing the evidence on 2 July, Vincent J held that it was an offence not to vote and an offence to incite people not to vote. Vincent J held it was an offence to use a representation of a ballot paper to vote other than in accordance with the directions on the ballot paper and granted injunctions to prevent Van Moorst or Langer distributing documents to that effect. Van Moorst and Langer did have some measure of success however in that Vincent J held that it was not an offence to vote informally, nor to inform voters as to the effect of s 270 of the Electoral Act, holding that; the system of compulsory voting requires. It is, of course, integral to the operation of that system, it is not integral that they must choose between the candidates or that, contrary to the dictates of their consciences, they must vote for persons who they may regard as being unacceptable to fill the offices for which they present themselves....

That choice in my view does permit them to say in effect "A plague on all their houses". Van Moorst and Langer sought a declaration that electors were entitled to deliberately vote informally and electors were entitled to make a Langer vote, they sought orders requiring the Australian Electoral Commission to publicise these declarations. Murray J declined to make either of the declarations, holding they sought to repeat the effect of the judgement of Vincent J and that they had no standing to seek an order requiring the Australian Electoral Commission to publish them; the campaign was not effective with just 2,082 exhausted votes being recorded. For the 1990 election however this jumped to 18,765 exhausted votes. Following the 1990 election the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral matters recommended that it be made an offence to encourage others to vote other than in accordance with full preferential voting; the Electoral Act was again amended to include s 329A which provided as follows: 329A.

A person must not, during the relevant period in relation to a House of Representatives election under this Act, publish or distribute, or cause, permit or authorise to be printed, published or distributed, any matter or thing with the intention of encouraging persons voting at the election to fill in a ballot paper otherwise than in accordance with section 240. Penalty: Imprisonment for 6 months; the purpose of s 270 was said to be that voters "do not have their votes discarded because of an unintentional mistake", but that s 329A was necessary to ensure that "people do not go out and intentionally frustrate the will of this Parliament by ad

"What You're Made Of" is the first single from British singer Lucie Silvas' debut album Breathe In. It debuted and peaked at number seven on the UK Singles Charts and reached the top 30 in Austria, the Netherlands and Sweden. Silvas subsequently recorded two different versions of the song: one with French singer Grégory Lemarchal and another with Spanish singer Antonio Orozco; the French version—titled "Même si"—peaked at number two in France and charted in Wallonia and Switzerland. In 2006 Silvas recorded a third version with the Dutch Metropole Orchestra that became a minor hit in the Netherlands. Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics

Ashwell railway station was a station in Ashwell, Rutland on the line between Melton Mowbray and Oakham. It lies west of the village, on the road to Whissendine. Just north of Ashwell was Ashwell Junction; this served quarries in the vicinity of Cottesmore and Exton. Part of the former mineral branch line is now Rutland Railway Museum. Opened by the Midland Railway as the Syston and Peterborough Railway, it became part of the London and Scottish Railway during the Grouping of 1923; the station passed on to the London Midland Region of British Railways on nationalisation in 1948. In 1966 it was closed by the British Railways Board. Trains still pass the former station between Melton Mowbray and Oakham stations on the Birmingham to Peterborough Line; the site now houses some industrial units, called Station Court. Butt, R. V. J.. The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt and stopping place and present. Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85260-508-7.

OCLC 60251199. Jowett, Alan. Jowett's Nationalised Railway Atlas. Penryn, Cornwall: Atlantic Transport Publishers. ISBN 978-0-906899-99-1. OCLC 228266687. Ashwell station on navigable O. S. map

Gillenia trifoliata is a species of flowering plant in the family Rosaceae, native to eastern North America from Ontario to Georgia. It is an erect herbaceous perennial growing to 100 cm tall by 60 cm wide, with 3-palmate leaves and pale pink flowers with narrow petals and reddish calyces above red coloured stems in spring and summer; this plant has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. The root was used as both a laxative and emetic. Pink, A.. Gardening for the Million. Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Plants for a Future database: Gillenia trifoliata Media related to Gillenia trifoliata at Wikimedia Commons

Poundon is a hamlet and a civil parish in Aylesbury Vale district in Buckinghamshire, England. It is located near the Oxfordshire border, about four miles northeast of Bicester, three miles southwest of Steeple Claydon; the hamlet name is Anglo Saxon in origin. In manorial rolls of 1255 it was recorded as Paundon. Poundon Hill wireless station was a FCO/MI6 signals intelligence station just outside the hamlet; the site is now Tower Hill Business Park. During the Second World War Poundon and Poundon House were sites of stations 53b and 53c of the Special Operations Executive. List of SOE establishments