Inverness is an ancient cathedral city in the Scottish Highlands. It is the administrative centre for The Highland Council and is regarded as the capital of the Highlands, it served as the county town of the county of Inverness-shire. Inverness lies near two important battle sites: the 11th-century battle of Blàr nam Fèinne against Norway which took place on the Aird, the 18th century Battle of Culloden which took place on Culloden Moor, it is the northernmost city in the United Kingdom and lies within the Great Glen at its northeastern extremity where the River Ness enters the Moray Firth. At the latest, a settlement was established by the 6th century with the first royal charter being granted by Dabíd mac Maíl Choluim in the 12th century; the Gaelic king Mac Bethad Mac Findláich whose 11th-century killing of King Duncan was immortalised in Shakespeare's fictionalized play Macbeth, held a castle within the city where he ruled as Mormaer of Moray and Ross. The population of Inverness grew from 40,969 in 2001 to 46,969 in 2012, according to World Population Review.

The Greater Inverness area, including Culloden and Westhill, had a population of 56,969 in 2012. In 2018, it had a population of 69,696. Inverness is one of Europe's fastest growing cities, with a quarter of the Highland population living in or around it, is ranked fifth out of 189 British cities for its quality of life, the highest of any Scottish city. In the recent past, Inverness has experienced rapid economic growth: between 1998 and 2008, Inverness and the rest of the central Highlands showed the largest growth of average economic productivity per person in Scotland and the second greatest growth in the United Kingdom as a whole, with an increase of 86%. Inverness is twinned with one German city and two French towns, La Baule and Saint-Valery-en-Caux. Inverness College is the main campus for the University of the Islands. With around 8,420 students, Inverness College hosts around a quarter of all the University of the Highlands and Islands' students, 30% of those studying to degree level.

In 2014, a survey by a property website described Inverness as the happiest place in Scotland and the second happiest in the UK. Inverness was again found to be the happiest place in Scotland by a new study conducted in 2015. Inverness was one of the chief strongholds of the Picts, in AD 569 was visited by St Columba with the intention of converting the Pictish king Brude, supposed to have resided in the vitrified fort on Craig Phadrig, on the western edge of the city. A 93 oz silver chain dating to 500–800 was found just to the south of Torvean in 1983. A church or a monk's cell is thought to have been established by early Celtic monks on St Michael's Mount, a mound close to the river, now the site of the Old High Church and graveyard. Inverness Castle is said to have been built by Máel Coluim III of Scotland, after he had razed to the ground the castle in which Mac Bethad mac Findláich had, according to much tradition, murdered Máel Coluim's father Donnchad, which stood on a hill around 1 km to the north-east.

The strategic location of Inverness has led to many conflicts in the area. Reputedly there was a battle in the early 11th century between King Malcolm and Thorfinn of Norway at Blar Nam Feinne, to the southwest of the city. Inverness had four traditional fairs, including Legavrik or "Leth-Gheamhradh", meaning midwinter, Faoilleach. William the Lion granted Inverness four charters, by one. Of the Dominican friary founded by Alexander III in 1233, only one pillar and a worn knight's effigy survive in a secluded graveyard near the town centre. Medieval Inverness suffered regular raids from the Western Isles by the MacDonald Lords of the Isles in the 15th century. In 1187 one Domhnall Bán led islanders in a battle at Torvean against men from Inverness Castle led by the governor's son, Donnchadh Mac An Toisich. Both leaders were killed in the battle, Donald Ban is said to have been buried in a large cairn near the river, close to where the silver chain was found. Local tradition says that the citizens fought off the Clan Donald in 1340 at the Battle of Blairnacoi on Drumderfit Hill, north of Inverness across the Beauly Firth.

On his way to the Battle of Harlaw in 1411, Donald of Islay harried the city, sixteen years James I held a parliament in the castle to which the northern chieftains were summoned, of whom three were arrested for defying the king's command. Clan Munro defeated Clan Mackintosh in 1454 at the Battle of Clachnaharry just west of the city. Clan Donald and their allies stormed the castle during the Raid on Ross in 1491. In 1562, during the progress undertaken to suppress Huntly's insurrection, Queen of Scots, was denied admittance into Inverness Castle by the governor, who belonged to the earl's faction, whom she afterwards caused to be hanged; the Clan Munro and Clan Fraser of Lovat took the castle for her. The house in which she lived meanwhile stood in Bridge Street until the 1970s, when it was demolished to make way for the second Bridge Street development. Beyond the northern limits of the town, Oliver Cromwell built a citadel capable of accommodating 1,000 men, but with the exception of a portion of the ramparts it was demolished at the Restoration.

The only surviving modern remnant is a clock tower. Inverness played a role in the Jacobite rising of 1689. In early May, it was besieged by a contingent of Jacobites led by MacDonell of Keppoch; the town was rescued by Viscount Dundee, the overall Jacobite commander, wh

The Canterbury Crusaders were a motorcycle speedway team who operated from the Kingsmead Stadium, Kingsmead Road, Canterbury. For all of their 20-year existence, the Crusaders operated at the second level of British league speedway, in British League Division Two and the National League; the first meeting at Kingsmead, on May 18 1968, saw the Crusaders narrowly lose a British League Division Two fixture 38-39 to Belle Vue Colts. The Colts and the Crusaders had contested the first Division Two fixture ten days at Belle Vue on May 8, when the Colts won 55-23; the Crusaders' first league title was won in 1970, a second championship was to follow in 1978. In 1977 the promoters Johnnie Hoskins and Wally Mawdsley had to go to court in order to keep the Kingsmead track open after complaints of noise from local residents. However, the team were forced to disband in 1987 when the Canterbury Council refused to renew the lease; the final Crusaders fixture took place at Kingsmead on October 31 1987 when Canterbury defeated Rye House Rockets 49-29 in the second leg of the Kent/Herts Trophy.

Greyhound racing continued at Kingsmead until 1999 but the site is now a housing estate. The longest serving rider was Barney Kennett who rode for the Crusaders from 1971 until 1984. Barney is uncle to Edward Kennett. Nigel Boocock Barry Thomas Canterbury Crusaders website

Lech and Rus refers to a founding myth of three Slavic peoples: the Poles, the Czechs, the Rus' people. The three legendary brothers appear together in the Wielkopolska Chronicle, compiled in the early 14th century; the legend states that the brothers, on a hunting trip, followed different prey and thus travelled in different directions. There are multiple versions of the legend, including several regional variants throughout West Slavic, to lesser extent, other Slavic countries that mention only one or two brothers; the three figure into the origin myth of South Slavic peoples in some legends. In the Polish version of the legend, three brothers went hunting together but each of them followed a different prey and they all traveled in different directions. Rus went to the east, Čech headed to the west to settle on the Říp Mountain rising up from the Bohemian hilly countryside, while Lech traveled north. There, while hunting, he followed his arrow and found himself face-to-face with a fierce, white eagle guarding its nest from intruders.

Seeing the eagle against the red of the setting sun, Lech took this as a good omen and decided to settle there. He adopted the White Eagle as his coat-of-arms; the white eagle remains a symbol of Poland to this day, the colors of the eagle and the setting sun are depicted in Poland's coat of arms, as well as its flag, with a white stripe on top for the eagle, a red stripe on the bottom for the sunset. According to Wielkopolska Chronicle, Slavs are descendants of a Pannonian prince, he had three sons - Lech, Čech, who decided to settle west and east. A variant of this legend, involving only two brothers, is known in the Czech Republic; as in the Polish version, Čech is identified as the founder of the Czech nation and Lech as the founder of the Polish nation. The older chronicles from 14th century do not specify the location of Čech and Lech's homeland Charvaty, but in the Alois Jirásek retelling of Staré pověsti české it is more determined. However, numerous battles had made the country unfavorable for the people, who were accustomed to living in peace, cultivate the land and grow grain.

According to other versions, the reason was. They set off towards the sunset. According to the Chronicle of Dalimil, when Čech and his people climbed Říp Mountain, he looked upon the landscape and told his brothers that they have reached the promised land: a country where there are enough of beasts, birds and bees so that their tables will be always full, where they could defend themselves against enemies, he settled in the area with a tribe and, according to the Přibík Pulkava version, his brother Lech continued his journey to the lowlands over the snowy mountains of the north, where he founded Poland. Wenceslaus Hajek's version from 1541 adds many details not found in other sources. According to Hájek, the brothers were dukes who had owned castles in their homeland before their arrival in the region and dates their arrival to the year 644. A similar legend was registered in folk tales at two separated locations in Croatia: in the Kajkavian dialect of Krapina in Zagorje and in the Chakavian dialect of Poljica on the Adriatic Sea.

The Croatian variant was described and analysed in detail by S. Sakač in 1940. In the Bohemian chronicles, Čech appears on his own or only with Lech. Čech is first mentioned in Latin as Bohemus in the Cosmas' chronicle of 1125. The earliest Polish mention of Lech, Čech, Rus is found in the Chronicle of Greater Poland written at the end of the 13th or the beginning of the 14th century; the legend suggests a common ancestry of the Poles and Rus people, illustrates the fact that as early as the 13th century at least three different Slavic peoples were aware of being ethnically and linguistically interrelated and, derived from a common root stock. The legends agree on the location of the homeland of the Early Slavic peoples in Eastern Europe; this area overlapped the region presumed by mainstream scholarship to be the Proto-Indo-European homeland in the general region of the Pontic-Caspian steppe. In the framework of the Kurgan hypothesis, "the Indo-Europeans who remained after the migrations became speakers of Balto-Slavic".

The most well-known version of the legend is seen to be somewhat Polocentric, as it mentions a national symbol only for Lech and the Polish nation, while relegating the two other brothers Czech and Rus to secondary characters. Furthermore, this particular version does not address the origin of the South Slavonic peoples; the legend attempts to explain the etymology of the ethnonyms: Lechia, the Czech lands, Rus'. Jan Kochanowski, a prominent Renaissance Po

Controversies of the former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad included criticism after his election victory on June 29, 2005. These include charges that he participated in the 1979-1981 Iran Hostage Crisis, assassinations of Kurdish politicians in Austria, torture and executions of political prisoners in the Evin prison in Tehran. Ahmadinejad and his political supporters have denied these allegations. According to Iran Focus, soon after attending Elm-o Sanaat University in 1975 to study engineering, Ahmadinejad was caught up in the Islamic Revolution of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Ahmadinejad founded the Islamic Student Association at his university. By 1979, he became a representative of Office for Strengthening of Unity Between Universities and Theological Seminaries known as OSU; the OSU was organized by one of Khomeini's top advisors. Members of the OSU central council, including Ahmadinejad, Ibrahim Asgharzadeh, Mohsen Mirdamadi, Mohsen Kadivar, Mohsen Aghajari, Abbas Abdi, were received by Khomeini himself.

The OSU leadership played a key role in the crackdown on dissident university professors and students during the Islamic Cultural Revolution of 1980. Many professors and students who did not support Khomeini were executed. In voting for storming the US embassy, Ahmadinejad objected, arguing that the protest ought to be directed at the Soviet embassy, but they were outvoted. Ahmadinejad has said that he did not support the embassy takeover until Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini endorsed it; the endorsement came late on November 1979, the day the embassy was seized. According to al-Jazeera, when OSU leaders proposed taking over the US embassy in 1979, Ahmadinejad proposed taking over the Soviet embassy at the same time. Peter Pilz, an Austrian politician and former spokesman of the Austrian Green Party, has alleged Ahmadinejad had a hand in international assassinations ordered by the Iranian government against political opposition groups, including a 1989 assassination of exiled Kurdish leader Ebdulrehman Qasimlo and two of his associates in Vienna.

After Ahmadinejad's election to presidency, in early July 2005, Pilz passed his documents about his claims to the Austrian Interior ministry, which "were forwarded to the state prosecutor's office."This allegation has been denied by several sources in Iran, including Saeed Hajjarian, a political opponent of Ahmadinejad. Notable among the deniers, is Ali Rabiee, the intelligence advisor to the reformist President Khatami, who stated "during the mentioned accident happened, I was present in action regions of northwest and western Iran, at that time Mr. Ahmadinejad was only involved at the civil construction work in the governing offices of Maku and the province". At the same time, the allegation has been echoed by a spokesman for the People's Mujahedin of Iran, an opposition group in exile. Reuters has mentioned that information received from an "extraordinarily credible" informer, an Iranian journalist living in France who Pilz calls only "witness D". Witness D's information came from one of the alleged gunmen, who contacted Witness D in 2001 but drowned, Pilz said.

Supporters of Ahmadinejad have questioned the credibility of such information, have mentioned that Pilz is a Jew, have called the media reporting these to be "Zionist media." Hamid Reza Asefi, the spokesman of the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said that, "The charges are so self-evidently false they are not worthy of response. We advise the Europeans not to fall into the trap of the Zionist media and to separate their interests from America and the Zionist entity." During the Iranian presidential election of 2005, some people, including Mehdi Karroubi, a reformist candidate who ranked third in the election, alleged that a network of mosques, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Basij militia forces, have been illegally used to generate and mobilize support for Ahmadinejad. Karroubi has explicitly alleged that Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, is involved. Ahmadinejad's supporters consider these to be false allegations. Furthermore, Khamenei has written to Karroubi stating that his allegations are "below his dignity" and "will result in a crisis".

As a reply, Karroubi resigned from all his political posts, including his positions as an adviser to the Supreme Leader and as a member of the Expediency Discernment Council, both of which he had been appointed to directly by Khamenei. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad's rival in the second round, has pointed to what he claims are "organized and unjust" interventions conducted by "guiding" the votes, has supported Karroubi's complaint. Rafsanjani alleged a "dirty tricks" campaign had "illegally" propelled Ahmadinejad into the presidency, an allegation which he denies. In the same statement, Rafsanjani stated that he would only appeal the election results to "God", recommended accepting the results and "assisting" the new president-elect; some political groups, including the reformist party Islamic Iran Participation Front, allege that Ahmadinejad received illegal support and advertising activities from supervisors selected by the Guardian Council who should have remained nonpartisan according to the election law.

The reformist newspaper Shargh pointed out an announcement by Movahhedi Kermani, the official representative of the Supreme Leader in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, quoted as saying, "vote for a person who keeps to the minimum in his advertisements and doesn't lavish," which uniquely pointed to Ahmadinejad, whose supporters touted as being not wealthy. On 10 January 2006, Ahmadinejad declared that his governme

Fuiavailili Egon Keil was appointed Samoa's Police Commissioner in 2015. He was appointed to a second three year term in July 2018. Keil had prior Police experience when he was appointed commissioner, have served for 17 years as a Police officer in the Los Angeles Police Department, he joined in 1995, rose to Sergeant, where he worked as an assistant watch commander. He graduated from California State University with a B. Sc. in Criminal Justice Administration. When he returned to Samoa in 2012 he operated a car repair business. Keil was suspended in 2016. In August 2019 Keil joined Deputy Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa at the Austal plant in Henderson, Western Australia, to accept delivery of the Nafanua II; the Nafanua II, a Guardian class patrol vessel, with a crew of 18, is a Police vessel

The Minardi PS02 was a Formula One racing car with which Minardi contested the 2002 Formula One season. It scored 2 points, both at Australia, it scored no more points that season. Webber was partnered by Alex Yoong, replaced before the Hungarian round by Anthony Davidson; the PS02 benefitted from an aerodynamics package from Loic Bigois, brought in from the now defunct Prost team. A manufacturing error which caused the front wing to fail sidelined the team from the Spanish Grand Prix; this car was the last Minardi model, powered by an Asiatech engine and Michelin tyres before their switch to Bridgestone tyres. The following year's model, the Minardi PS03 had an engine provided by Cosworth. Minardi struggled for finance throughout the season. Paul Stoddart attempted to bring aboard Al-Waleed bin Talal, who had tried to buy into Prost as a major shareholder but nothing came of the deal. Technical details for the Minardi PS02