Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1st Baronet, was the leading portrait painter in England during the late 17th and early 18th centuries, was court painter to English and British monarchs from Charles II to George I. His major works include The Chinese Convert. Kneller was born Gottfried Kniller in the Free City of Lübeck, the son of Zacharias Kniller, a portrait painter. Kneller studied in Leiden, but became a pupil of Ferdinand Bol and Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn in Amsterdam, he travelled with his brother John Zacharias Kneller, an ornamental painter, to Rome and Venice in the early 1670s, painting historical subjects and portraits in the studio of Carlo Maratti, moved to Hamburg. The brothers came to England in 1676, won the patronage of the Duke of Monmouth, he was introduced to, painted a portrait of, Charles II. In England, Kneller concentrated entirely on portraiture. In the spirit of enterprise, he founded a studio which churned out portraits on an industrial scale, relying on a brief sketch of the face with details added to a formulaic model, aided by the fashion for gentlemen to wear full wigs.

His portraits set a pattern, followed until William Hogarth and Joshua Reynolds. He established himself as a leading portrait artist in England; when Sir Peter Lely died in 1680, Kneller was appointed Principal Painter in Ordinary to the Crown by Charles II. For about 20 years he lived at No. 16-17 The Great Piazza, Covent Garden. In the 1690s, Kneller painted the Hampton Court Beauties depicting the most glamorous ladies-in-waiting of the Royal Court for which he received his knighthood from William III, he produced a series of "Kit-cat" portraits of 48 leading politicians and men of letters, members of the Kit-Cat Club. Created a baronet by King George I on 24 May 1715, he was head of the Kneller Academy of Painting and Drawing 1711–1716 in Great Queen Street, which counted such artists as Thomas Gibson amongst its founding directors, his paintings were praised by Whig luminaries such as John Dryden, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, Alexander Pope. On the landing in Horsham Museum hang works of art from the Museum's extensive painting collection, featuring a large 18th-century portrait of Charles Eversfield and his wife, of Denne Park House.

In the painting Eversfield is giving his wife some violets which signifies fidelity and honesty. It is that the picture was cut down at some time as it was unusual to stop just below the knee, it may have been painted by more than one person: someone who specialised in clothing, another in drapes, so on, with Kneller painting the heads, for it was the portraits that gave the sitters their identity, everything else is rather formulaic. He married Susanna Grave, on 23 January 1704 at St Bride's Church, London, she was the daughter of the Reverend John Cawley, Archdeacon of Lincoln and Rector of Henley-on-Thames, the granddaughter of regicide William Cawley. The couple had no children. Kneller died of fever in 1723 at Great Queen Street and his remains were interred at Twickenham, he had been a churchwarden at St Mary's, Twickenham when the 14th-century nave collapsed in 1713 and was active in the plans for the church's reconstruction by John James. His widow was buried at Twickenham on 11 December 1729.

A memorial was erected in Westminster Abbey. Kneller's will gave a pension of £100 a year to his assistant Edward Byng and entrusted Byng with seeing that all unfinished work was completed. Byng inherited the drawings in Kneller's studio. Kneller and his wife had no children together. Most of his fortune was inherited by his grandson, Godfrey Kneller Huckle, the son of Agnes Huckle, Kneller's illegitimate daughter by Mrs Voss, who took his grandfather's surname as a condition of his inheritance; the site of the house Kneller built in 1709 in Whitton, near Twickenham, became occupied by the mid-19th century Kneller Hall, home of the Royal Military School of Music. "As to thinking better or worse of mankind from experience, some cunning people will not be satisfied unless they have put men to the test, as they think. There is a good story told of Sir Godfrey Kneller, in his character of a Justice of the peace. A gentleman brought his servant upon an accusation of having stolen some money from him.

In his hometown Lübeck there are works to be seen in the St. Annen Museum and in Saint Catherine Church, his former works at St. Mary's Church were destroyed by the Bombing of Lübeck 1942. A large oil portrait of James VII of Scotland hangs on the main staircase of private members' Club, The Caledonian Club, in Belgravia, London. A portrait of Queen Anne that belongs to Trinity Hospital in Retford, Nottinghamshire has been attributed to Kneller by the auctioneers Phillips – though it is unsigned; the hospital has a strong connection with Queen Anne, the founder being a first cousin of her grandmother. The portrait was restored and cleaned in 1999. English school of painting Kneller Hall Notes Sources Godfried & Johan Zacharias Kneller biography i

Guanacaste is a province of Costa Rica located in the northwestern region of the country, along the coast of the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Alajuela Province to the east, Puntarenas Province to the southeast, it is the most sparsely populated of all the provinces of Costa Rica. The province covers an area of 10,141 km2 and as of 2010, had a population of 354,154. Guanacaste's capital is Liberia. Other important cities include Nicoya; the province is named for the guanacaste tree known as the ear pod tree, the national tree of Costa Rica. Before the Spanish arrived, this territory was inhabited by Chorotega Indians from the towns of Zapati, Paro, Nicopasaya, Pocosí, Diriá, Namiapí and Orosí; the Corobicies lived on the eastern shore of the Gulf of Nicoya and the Nahuas or Aztecan in the zone of Bagaces. The first church was built out of grass in Nicoya in the 17th century. In the 18th century some neighbors of Rivas established their houses and cattle farms in the northern part of the Nicoya Peninsula at crossroads that connected the towns of Bagaces and Rivas.

The place was baptized after a famous Guanacaste tree. After a plebiscite in 1824-25, the territory of Guanacaste was annexed to Costa Rica. In 1836 the town of Guanacaste was declared the capital of the Guanacaste province. In 1854 the town of Guanacaste was renamed Liberia. In 2013, Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega claimed. Taking over Guanacaste would increase the continental shelf area available to Nicaragua for oil exploration concessions, move the Nicaraguan border to within 70 kilometres of Costa Rican capital San José; the province is bounded on the east by a group of green-swathed volcanoes forming the Cordillera de Guanacaste and the Cordillera de Tilarán. The rivers that tumble out of these steep mountains flow down to rolling flatlands, forming a vast alluvial plain drained by the Rio Tempisque, which empties through swampy wetlands into de Golfo de Nicoya; the Rio Tempisque defines one side of the horsehead-shaped Península de Nicoya enclosing the gulf to the west. Guanacaste's climate and culture are unique among Costa Rican provinces.

The province experiences little rain and consistent heat from November to April, resulting in ubiquitous tropical dry forests as a natural adaption to the dry season conditions. Tourists seek out this dry heat during the North American winter to enjoy the Guanacastecan beaches. Irrigation of the agricultural land is necessary during the long dry period. From May to October, the climate is similar to that of San José, consisting of showers daily and moderate temperatures. Guanacaste is, however warmer than other provinces in the country located in higher elevations. Tourism spreads across more than 400 miles of coast line. Main attractions of tourists include water, mountains and coastal ecosystems; the two main commercial areas Santa Cruz and Liberia with six surrounding tourism development centers: Papagayo Peninsula, El Coco, Las Catalinas, Flamingo and Tamarindo. Liberia is complete with an airport. Animal rehab center, Centro de Rescate Las Pumas, is located in the heart of Area de Conservación Guanacaste World Heritage Site.

The Guanacaste province is home to the bulk of Costa Rica's all-inclusive resorts. This along with its proximity to both beaches and the Arenal volcano have made it one of the more popular tourist destinations in the country. Most of the population descends from a mix of Chorotega natives and Spaniards, with a significant African admixture as a result of a large number of slaves working the land during the colonial period; as in Nicaragua and elsewhere in Costa Rica, Usted is the form of address used by Guanacastecans upon initial meetings and among adults. The vos verb-form is used when adults address children their own, between adults who are family members or good friends; the Chorotega culture and the Spanish culture have integrated. The province has an cultural heritage based on beef cattle ranching. Most of the area is covered by small patches of forest, scattered trees and large pastures of coarse grasses where Brahman cattle and related breeds graze; the main source of income of Guanacaste was cattle ranching.

Cattle ranching is declining in Guanacaste due to an international drop in the demand for beef. Many pastures are reverting to dry forest or are being converted to tree plantations; the other agricultural products of relative importance in the province are sugar cane and cotton, since the late 1980s, with the creation of a large-scale irrigation program, rice has become a prominent crop. Since the late 20th century, tourism has emerged as the new and growing activity in the local economy; the combination of beaches like Playas del Coco, Playa Tamarindo, the sunny dry season that coincides with the winter months in northern latitudes have made tourism a key economic activity. A lot of tourists are attracted by the Province's seven national parks; these include the Santa Rosa and Rincon de la Vieja National Parks. Guanacaste is subdivided into eleven cantons; the cantons are: A major portion of the peninsula of Nicoya is now under the jurisdiction of the p

Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants is an international environmental treaty, signed in 2001 and effective from May 2004, that aims to eliminate or restrict the production and use of persistent organic pollutants. In 1995, the Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme called for global action to be taken on POPs, which it defined as “chemical substances that persist in the environment, bio-accumulate through the food web, pose a risk of causing adverse effects to human health and the environment”. Following this, the Intergovernmental Forum on Chemical Safety and the International Programme on Chemical Safety prepared an assessment of the 12 worst offenders, known as the dirty dozen; the INC met five times between June 1998 and December 2000 to elaborate the convention, delegates adopted the Stockholm Convention on POPs at the Conference of the Plenipotentiaries convened from 22–23 May 2001 in Stockholm, Sweden. The negotiations for the Convention were completed on 23 May 2001 in Stockholm.

The convention entered into force on 17 May 2004 with ratification by an initial 128 parties and 151 signatories. Co-signatories agree to outlaw nine of the dirty dozen chemicals, limit the use of DDT to malaria control, curtail inadvertent production of dioxins and furans. Parties to the convention have agreed to a process by which persistent toxic compounds can be reviewed and added to the convention, if they meet certain criteria for persistence and transboundary threat; the first set of new chemicals to be added to the Convention were agreed at a conference in Geneva on 8 May 2009. As of September 2019, there are 184 parties to the Convention. Notable non-ratifying states include the United States, Israel and Italy; the Stockholm Convention was adopted to EU legislation in Regulation No 850/2004. In 2019, the latter was replaced by Regulation 2019/1021. Key elements of the Convention include the requirement that developed countries provide new and additional financial resources and measures to eliminate production and use of intentionally produced POPs, eliminate unintentionally produced POPs where feasible, manage and dispose of POPs wastes in an environmentally sound manner.

Precaution is exercised throughout the Stockholm Convention, with specific references in the preamble, the objective, the provision on identifying new POPs. When adopting the Convention, provision was made for a procedure to identify additional POPs and the criteria to be considered in doing so. At the first meeting of the Conference of the Parties, held in Punta del Este, Uruguay from 2–6 May 2005, the POPRC was established to consider additional candidates nominated for listing under the Convention; the Committee is composed of 31 experts nominated by parties from the five United Nations regional groups and reviews nominated chemicals in three stages. The Committee first determines whether the substance fulfills POP screening criteria detailed in Annex D of the Convention, relating to its persistence, potential for long-range environmental transport, toxicity. If a substance is deemed to fulfill these requirements, the Committee drafts a risk profile according to Annex E to evaluate whether the substance is as a result of its LRET, to lead to significant adverse human health and/or environmental effects and therefore warrants global action.

If the POPRC finds that global action is warranted, it develops a risk management evaluation, according to Annex F, reflecting socioeconomic considerations associated with possible control measures. Based on this, the POPRC decides to recommend that the COP list the substance under one or more of the annexes to the Convention; the POPRC has met annually in Switzerland since its establishment. The seventh meeting of the Persistent Organic Pollutants Review Committee of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants took place from 10–14 October 2011 in Geneva, Switzerland. POPRC-8 was held from 15–19 October 2012 in Geneva, POPRC-9 to POPRC-15 were held in Rome. There were twelve distinct chemicals listed in three categories. Two chemicals, hexachlorobenzene and polychlorinated biphenyls, were listed in both categories A and C. POPRC-7 considered three proposals for listing in Annexes A, B and/or C of the Convention: chlorinated naphthalenes, hexachlorobutadiene and pentachlorophenol, its salts and esters.

The proposal is the first stage of the POPRC's work in assessing a substance, requires the POPRC to assess whether the proposed chemical satisfies the criteria in Annex D of the Convention. The criteria for forwarding a proposed chemical to the risk profile preparation stage are persistence, potential for long-range environmental transport, adverse effects. POPRC-8 proposed hexabromocyclododecane for listing in Annex A, with specific exemptions for production and use in expanded polystyrene and extruded polystyrene in buildings; this proposal was agreed at the sixth Conference of Parties on 28 April-10 May 2013. POPRC-9 proposed di-, tri-, tetra-, penta-, hexa-, hepta- and octa-chlorinated napthalenes, hexachlorobutadiene for listing in Annexes A and C, it set up further work on pentachlorophenol, its salts and esters, decabromodiphenyl ether, perfluorooctanesulfonic acid, its salts and perfluorooctane sulfonyl chloride. POPRC-15 proposed PFHxS for listing in Annex A without specific exemptions.

Although some critics have alleged that the treaty is responsible for the continuing death toll from malaria, in reality the treaty permits the public health use of DDT for the control of mosquitoes. There are ways to prevent high amounts of DDT consume

The Tree Studio Building and Annexes was an artist colony established in Chicago, Illinois in 1894 by Judge Lambert Tree and his wife, Anne Tree. Tree arranged to have the original Tree building constructed in 1894, designed by the architecture firm of Parfitt Brothers; the building is two stories high. The ground level is covered in a cast iron arcade and designed as storefronts, while the second story is covered in a Roman brick and is designed to serve as artist studios with large windows to allow natural light to enter. Tree created a legal trust; this trust remained in force until 1959 when the complex was sold to the Medinah Temple, with which the studio complex shared a block. Some of the studio's residents have included sculptors Albin Polasek, John Storrs, Nancy Cox-McCormack. Painter Indiana Gyberson was a resident for some time, as was painter Anna Lynch; the studios and temple were included in the 2000 World Monuments Watch by the World Monuments Fund, after citizens became concerned that the complex would be demolished and a high rise tower constructed in its place.

With support from the financial services company American Express WMF awarded a grant toward the preparation of an architectural significance survey and a feasibility study for the site. The results of the significance survey led to the sites being designated as Chicago landmarks. Restoration of the property was guided by Albert Friedman, who purchased the property in 2001, following which construction workers and artisans labored side-by-side, rebuilding Tree Studios by hand. Architectural details were re-created from surviving fragments in on-site woodworking shops; the State Street building was listed as a Chicago Landmark on February 26, 1997. The Ohio Street and Ontario Street annexes and courtyard were added as Chicago Landmarks on June 27, 2001; the complex was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 16, 1974. Chicago architecture Friedman Properties The Ivy Room at Tree Studios Property owner's web page for Tree Studios

The 2000 Arab Junior Athletics Championships was the ninth edition of the international athletics competition for under-20 athletes from Arab countries. It took place in Damascus, Syria – the second consecutive time the city hosted the tournament, a sixth hosting for Syria. A total of 42 athletics events were 22 for men and 20 for women. Neither Morocco, Algeria nor Qatar—all regional powers in the sport—sent a team to the meeting, which impacted the overall quality of performances. Egypt topped the table with nineteen gold medals. Saudi Arabia was runner-up with ten gold medals – all were in the men's section, reflecting the nation's ban on women athletes; the hosts, placed third with their six gold medals. Lebanon won its first gold medal in the history of the tournament, topping the podium in the women's 4×100 m relay; the women's programme was expanded with the introduction of the hammer throw, bringing the throws events to parity with men. A minority of track finals had times recorded only to a tenth of a second due to technical restrictions.

The foremost athletes to emerge from the competition were among the Saudi contingent. Mubarak Ata Mubarak added an Asian senior title to his 110 metres hurdles gold that same year. Hamdan Al-Bishi and Hamed Al-Bishi both won multiple sprint medals at the Asian Athletics Championships over the following years. Omar Ahmed El Ghazaly of Egypt won the discus here and won several African titles in that discipline. Mohammad Al-Azemi, only an 800 m runner-up here, went on to a middle-distance double at the 2011 Asian Athletics Championships. Ismail Ahmed Ismail was a runner-up in Damascus but went on to the greatest honour among the participants by winning Sudan's first Olympic medal in 2008. On the women's side, his fellow Sudanese middle-distance runner Hind Roko Musa, took an Arab junior double. Egypt's Ines Abul Ala Mohamed and Maha Mohamed Mohamed were other multiple champions at the competition

David Thorstad is an American political activist engaged with pro-pederast and pro-pedophile activism within the North American Man/Boy Love Association, of which he was a founding member. He was a former president of New York's Gay Activists Alliance. Thorstad describes himself as a bisexual pederast and atheist who has "never been charged with violating any sex laws". Thorstad was active in Trotskyist politics for some years. For more than six years, he was a member of the Upper West Side branch of the Socialist Workers Party, a staff writer for its newspaper, The Militant, he left the SWP in December 1973, citing the organization's lack of enthusiasm for the gay liberation movement and failure to develop a "Marxist materialist analysis" of it. In 1976 he self-published a collection of internal party documents relating to its discussion of the gay liberation movement, under the title Gay Liberation and Socialism: Documents from the Discussions on Gay Liberation Inside the Socialist Workers Party.

In the early 1970s, Thorstad was president of the Gay Activists Alliance, a leading gay liberation group in New York. In June 1973, Thorstad and John Lauritsen published The Early Homosexual Rights Movement, a fourteen-page historical survey in the SWP internal Discussion Bulletin which attempted to prove that the gay liberation movement had a long and substantial history in Germany; this was expanded the next year into a 92-page book of the same name published by Times Change Press, a New York publishing house specializing in feminist and politically progressive books. The book was translated into German. In 1977, David founded the Coalition for Gay Rights. In 1978, Thorstad was a founding member of NAMBLA, "served as a member of the Steering Committee from some undetermined time until September 1996" and was one of a group of NAMBLA members who were sued in 2000 for the wrongful death of a ten-year-old boy in a long-running court case Curley v. NAMBLA in Boston. Thorstad claims that pederasty is the main way in which homosexuality has been expressed in modern culture, that "child abuse hysteria is an industry of insanity aimed at homosexuals... plays on the impression people have always had of homosexuals as being child molesters", describes opposition to NAMBLA as "... to one waged by'lesbian feminists who jumped right on the bandwagon' of what he calls the anti-gay male/child pornography scare", according to The Advocate.

He has likened being a pederast in the United States as the equivalent of being "a Jew in Nazi Germany" and has criticized the mainstream LGBT community for its assimilationist approach towards capitalist and heterocentric society. He has said that the label LGBT is "the most absurd one of all" and is "far too fixed an identity, eliding the fluidity of sexuality and sexual behavior... in that sense Kinsey's scale is valid." He believes that "assimilationist homosexual groups... the psychiatric profession and the bourgeois media, such as the New York Times... all nowadays blur distinctions by lumping everything under the rubric'pedophilia,' an absurdity intended to criminalize love and force different behaviors into one negative pigeonhole."Summaries of Thorstad's views appear in his articles "Man/Boy Love and the American Gay Movement" in Male Intergenerational Intimacy: Historical, Socio-Psychological and Legal Perspectives, "Homosexuality and the American Left: The Impact of Stonewall", in Gay Men and the Sexual History of the Political Left.

The Leninist theory of organizations: its relevance for today by Ernest Mandel London: International Marxist Group, 1973 Israel: a colonial-settler state? by Maxime Rodinson New York, Monad Press. Part 2, 1975-79 editor,.