Japanese gardens are traditional gardens whose designs are accompanied by Japanese aesthetics and philosophical ideas, avoid artificial ornamentation, highlight the natural landscape. Plants and worn, aged materials are used by Japanese garden designers to suggest an ancient and faraway natural landscape, to express the fragility of existence as well as time's unstoppable advance. Ancient Japanese art inspired past garden designers. By the Edo period, the Japanese garden had its own distinct appearance; the idea of these unique gardens began during the Asuka period. Japanese merchants witnessed the gardens that were being built in China and brought many of the Chinese gardening techniques and styles back to Japan. Today, the tradition of Japanese garden art is still popular around the world, with many eastern and western practitioners expressing themselves through the medium. Japanese gardens first appeared on the island of the large central island of Japan, their aesthetic was influenced by the distinct characteristics of the Honshu landscape: rugged volcanic peaks, narrow valleys, mountain streams with waterfalls and cascades and beaches of small stones.

They were influenced by the rich variety of flowers and different species of trees evergreen trees, on the islands, by the four distinct seasons in Japan, including hot, wet summers and snowy winters. Japanese gardens have their roots in the Japanese religion of Shinto, with its story of the creation of eight perfect islands, of the shinchi, the lakes of the gods. Prehistoric Shinto shrines to the kami, the gods and spirits, are found on beaches and in forests all over the island. Prehistoric shrines took the form of unusual rocks or trees marked with cords of rice fiber and surrounded with white stones or pebbles, a symbol of purity; the white gravel courtyard became a distinctive feature of Shinto shrines, Imperial Palaces, Buddhist temples, Zen gardens. Japanese gardens were strongly influenced by the Chinese philosophy of Daoism and Amida Buddhism, imported from China in or around 552. Daoist legends spoke of five mountainous islands inhabited by the Eight Immortals, who lived in perfect harmony with nature.

Each Immortal flew from his mountain home on the back of a crane. The islands themselves were located on the back of an enormous sea turtle. In Japan, the five islands of the Chinese legend became one island, called Horai-zen, or Mount Horai. Replicas of this legendary mountain, the symbol of a perfect world, are a common feature of Japanese gardens, as are rocks representing turtles and cranes; the earliest recorded Japanese gardens were the pleasure gardens of the Japanese Emperors and nobles. They are mentioned in several brief passages of the Nihon Shoki, the first chronicle of Japanese history, published in 720. In the spring of the year 74, the chronicle recorded: "The Emperor Keikō put a few carp into a pond, rejoiced to see them morning and evening"; the following year, "The Emperor launched a double-hulled boat in the pond of Ijishi at Ihare, went aboard with his imperial concubine, they feasted sumptuously together". And in 486, "The Emperor Kenzō went into the garden and feasted at the edge of a winding stream".

The Chinese garden had a strong influence on early Japanese gardens. In or around 552, Buddhism was installed from China, via Korea, into Japan. Between 600 and 612, the Japanese Emperor sent four legations to the Court of the Chinese Sui Dynasty. Between 630 and 838, the Japanese court sent fifteen more legations to the court of the Tang Dynasty; these legations, with more than five hundred members each, included diplomats, students, Buddhist monks, translators. They brought back Chinese writing, art objects, detailed descriptions of Chinese gardens. In 612, the Empress Suiko had a garden built with an artificial mountain, representing Shumi-Sen, or Mount Sumeru, reputed in Hindu and Buddhist legends to be located at the centre of the world. During the reign of the same Empress, one of her ministers, Soga no Umako, had a garden built at his palace featuring a lake with several small islands, representing the islands of the Eight Immortals famous in Chinese legends and Daoist philosophy; this Palace became the property of the Japanese Emperors, was named "The Palace of the Isles", was mentioned several times in the Man'yōshū, the "Collection of Countless Leaves", the oldest known collection of Japanese poetry.

It appears from the small amount of literary and archaeological evidence available that the Japanese gardens of this time were modest versions of the Imperial gardens of the Tang Dynasty, with large lakes scattered with artificial islands and artificial mountains. Pond edges were constructed with heavy rocks as embankment. While these gardens had some Buddhist and Daoist symbolism, they were meant to be pleasure gardens, places for festivals and celebrations; the Nara Period is named after its capital city Nara. The first authentically Japanese gardens were built in this city at the end of the eighth century. Shorelines and stone settings were naturalistic, different from the heavier, earlier continental mode of constructing pond edges. Two such gardens have been found at excavations, both of which were used for poetry-writing festivities. One of these gardens, the East Palace garden at Heijo Palace, has been faithfully reconstructed using the same location and the original garden features, excavated.

In 794, at the beginning of the Heian Period, the Japanese court moved its capital to Heian-kyō. During this period, there were three different kinds of gardens: palace gardens and the gardens of nobles in the capital, the gardens of villas at the edge of the city, the gardens of temples; the architectur

L. Scott Pendlebury or Laurence Scott Pendlebury was an Australian landscape and portrait artist and teacher, he married fellow artist Eleanor Constance "Nornie" Gude in January 1943 and they were the parents of Anne Lorraine Pendlebury, a stage, film and TV actress. Pendlebury won the Wynne Prize four times for his landscape paintings with The Chicory Kiln, Phillip Island, Constitution Dock, Old Farmhouse and Road to Whistlewood, he was a finalist in the Archibald Prize twenty-four times, including Nornie Gude and Anne and Drew Pendlebury. His work was presented in the state galleries of New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria. Pendlebury worked at Swinburne Technical College as an instructor from 1946 to 1963 and as head of the art school until his retirement in 1974, he died in May 1986, aged 72. Laurence Scott Pendlebury was born on 21 April 1914 in Melbourne, his father was Thomas Pendlebury, who worked at the Government Printing Office, his mother was Jessie. Pendlebury attended the National Gallery of Victoria Art School from 1932 to 1938.

While there, in 1936, he met fellow artist, Eleanor Constance "Nornie" Gude, daughter of Ballarat-based music teacher and orchestra conductor, Walter Gude. On 28 January 1943 Pendlebury and Gude married. During World War II, on 26 April 1945, Pendlebury enlisted in the Australian Army and was discharged as a Sergeant on 21 December that year. Pendlebury and Gude's children are Anne Lorraine Pendlebury, who became a stage, film and TV actress. In May 1953 Pendlebury won the Dunlop Art Contest, with a first prize of A£300, ahead of Arthur Boyd, for his oil painting, Late Afternoon – Rhyll, it was Pendlebury's fourth award in the competition, he finished third in 1952, fourth in 1951, fourth in 1950 – the competition's inaugural year. The contest was sponsored by the Dunlop Rubber Company of Australia and aimed to "foster contemporary Australian art on aesthetic merits alone". One of the 1953 judges, Arnold Shore, reported in The Argus, that Pendlebury's work was a "sober, well-considered landscape" and it won against about 900 entries from throughout Australia.

When exhibited in Adelaide, The Advertiser's Elizabeth Young preferred the watercolour entrants and felt Late Afternoon – Rhyll "completely lacks subtlety and with a slick harshness apes to a certain extent the contemporary approach, while having nothing of its essential spirit". Pendlebury has won the Wynne Prize for a landscape painting, four times: The chicory kiln, Phillip Island, Constitution Dock, Old farmhouse, Road to Whistlewood, he qualified as a finalist, twenty-four times, in the Archibald Prize by painting portraits of notable Australians, including related subjects: Nornie Gude, Walter Gude, Nornie Gude, Self Portrait, Nornie Gude, Anne as "Irena" in the Three Sisters, Nornie Gude, Anne and Drew Pendlebury. His art work was presented in the state galleries of New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria. Pendlebury worked at Swinburne Technical College as an instructor from 1946 to 1963 and as head of the art school until his retirement in 1974. L. Scott Pendlebury died in May 1986, aged 72.

Dunlop Art Contest 1950. – Fourth 1951. – Fourth 1952. – Third 1953 Late Afternoon – Rhyll – First 1954 1955 "His £300 picture". The Mail. Adelaide: National Library of Australia. 1 August 1953. P. 57. Retrieved 16 November 2012. Photo of L. Scott Pendlebury and Nornie Gude viewing Pendlebury's Late Afternoon – Rhyll, winner of the 1953 Dunlop Art Contest

The Uganda Business Facilitation Centre is a government office development project under construction in Uganda's capital city of Kampala. The centre is intended to house the offices of key business-related departments, including the Uganda Registration Services Bureau, the Uganda Investment Authority and the Capital Markets Authority; the aim of housing these and other government agencies under one roof is to increase their effectiveness and to improve service delivery to the business community. These actions are expected to improve Uganda's ranking in the ease of doing business; the centre is located at 1 Baskerville Avenue, in the neighborhood of Kololo, in the Kampala Central Division, in Uganda's capital city of Kampala 4.5 kilometres, by road north-east of the city's center. The geographical coordinates of the center:0°19'49.0"N, 32°36'06.0"E. The UBFC is a government centre, whose construction is funded by the government of Uganda, with facilitation from the World Bank to house the relevant government agencies responsible for registration and licensing of businesses, in an effort to speed up the registration and operationalization of businesses, from the current three weeks an expected four hours.

The centre will house key government agencies that support business licensing. In addition to the three lead institutions, these other institutions will maintain offices in the centre, including the following: Uganda National Social Security Fund, Uganda Export Promotion Board Kampala Capital City Authority and Uganda Ministry of Local Government. Others include Uganda Revenue Authority, National Identification and Registration Authority, Uganda Ministry of Lands and Urban Development. Construction is expected to last 18 months. China National Aero Technology International Engineering Corporation is the lead contractor. JLOS House Project Ministry of Health Uganda Headquarters URSB showcases achievements at the World Bank Open Day Construction Of The Proposed Uganda Business Facilitation Centre