A strategy game or strategic game is a game in which the players' uncoerced, autonomous decision-making skills have a high significance in determining the outcome. All strategy games require internal decision tree style thinking, very high situational awareness; the term "strategy" comes from Greek, meaning generalship. It differs from "tactics" in that it refers to the general scheme of things, whereas "tactics" refers to organization and execution; the history of turn-based strategy games goes back to the times of ancient civilizations found in places such as Rome, Egypt, the Levant, India. Many were played through their regions of origin, but only some are still played today. One such game is mancala, which may have originated in Samaria 5000 years ago and has since diversified into scores of varieties worldwide. One form challenges two opposing players to clear their side of a board of mancala pieces while adding them into their opponent's side and thereby preventing the opponent from clearing their side.

At each end of the game board in this version there is a larger pit in which each player must try to deposit the pieces to try and gain points. When one side is cleared the other side of the board's pieces are added to the cleared side's pile; this version of mancala can be played quite casually, but still presents strategy demands, e.g. to interfere in your opponent's playing area while clearing your own. Another game that has stood the test of time is chess. Chess is believed to have originated in India around the sixth century CE; the game spread to the west by trade, but chess gained social status and permanence more than many other games. Chess became a game of skill and tactics forcing the players to think two or three moves ahead of their opponent just to keep up; this game became accepted by many as a proxy for intelligence. The game portrays foot soldiers, kings, queens and rooks. Several portray actual positions in the historical European military; each piece has a unique movement pattern.

For example, the knight is constricted to moving in a L-shape two squares long and one square to the side, the rook can only move in a straight line vertically or horizontally, bishops can move diagonally on the board. In abstract strategy games, the game is only loosely tied to a thematic concept; the rules do not attempt to simulate reality, but rather serve the internal logic of the game. A purist's definition of an abstract strategy game requires that it cannot have random elements or hidden information; this definition includes such games as Go and Arimaa. However, many games are classed as abstract strategy games which do not meet these criteria: games such as backgammon, Can't Stop and Mentalis have all been described as "abstract strategy" games despite having a chance element. A smaller category of non-perfect abstract strategy games incorporate hidden information without using any random elements. One of the most focused; this card game consists of two teams of two players, whose offensive and defensive skills are continually in flux as the game's dynamic progresses.

Some argue that the benefits of playing this team strategy card game extend to those skills and strategies used in business and that the playing of these games helps to automate strategic awareness. Eurogames, or German-style boardgames, are a new genre that sit between abstract strategy games and simulation games, they have simple rules, short to medium playing times, indirect player interaction and abstract physical components. The games emphasize strategy, play down chance and conflict, lean towards economic rather than military themes, keep all the players in the game until it ends; this type of game is an attempt to simulate the decisions and processes inherent to some real-world situation. Most of the rules are chosen to reflect what the real-world consequences would be of each player's actions and decisions. Abstract games cannot be divided from simulations and so games can be thought of as existing on a continuum of pure abstraction to pure simulation. Wargames are simulations of campaigns or entire wars.

Players will have to consider situations that are analogous to the situations faced by leaders of historical battles. As such, wargames are heavy on simulation elements, while they are all "strategy games", they can be "strategic" or "tactical" in the military jargon sense, its creator, H. G. Wells, stated how "much better is this amiable miniature than the real thing". Traditionally, wargames have been played either with miniatures, using physical models of detailed terrain and miniature representations of people and equipment to depict the game state. Popular miniature wargames include its fantasy counterpart Warhammer Fantasy. Popular strategic board wargames include Risk and Allies, Paths of Glory. Advanced Squad Leader is a successful tactical scale wargame. Strategy video games are categorized based on whether they offer the continuous gameplay of real-time strategy, or the discrete phases of turn-based strategy; the computer is expected to emulate a strategically thinking "side" similar to that of a human player, or emulate the "instinctive" actions of individual units that would be too tedious for

Joe Sacco is a Maltese-American cartoonist and journalist. He is best known for his comics journalism, in particular in the books Palestine and Footnotes in Gaza, on Israeli–Palestinian relations. Sacco was born in Malta on October 2, 1960, his father Leonard was an engineer and his mother Carmen was a teacher. At the age of one, he moved with his family to Melbourne, where he spent his childhood until 1972, when they moved to Los Angeles, he began his journalism career working on the Sunset High School newspaper in Oregon. While journalism was his primary focus, this was the period of time in which he developed his penchant for humor and satire, he graduated from Sunset High in 1978. Sacco earned his BA in journalism from the University of Oregon in 1981 in three years, he was frustrated with the journalist work that he found at the time saying, " a job writing hard-hitting, interesting pieces that would make some sort of difference." After being employed by the journal of the National Notary Association, a job which he found "exceedingly, exceedingly boring," and several factories, he returned to Malta, his journalist hopes forgotten.

"... I sort of decided to forget it and just go the other route, take my hobby, cartooning, see if I could make a living out of that," he told the BBC, he began working for a local publisher writing guidebooks. Returning to his fondness for comics, he wrote a Maltese romance comic named Imħabba Vera, one of the first art-comics in the Maltese language. "Because Malta has no history of comics, comics weren't considered something for kids," he told The Village Voice. "In one case, for example, the girl got pregnant and she went to Holland for an abortion. Malta is a Catholic country where, at the time, not divorce was allowed, it was unusual, but it's not like anyone raised a stink about it, because they had no way of judging whether this was appropriate material for comics or not."Eventually returning to the United States, by 1985 Sacco had founded a satirical, alternative comics magazine called Portland Permanent Press in Portland, Oregon. When the magazine folded fifteen months he took a job at The Comics Journal as the staff news writer.

This job provided the opportunity for him to create and edit another satire: the comics anthology Centrifugal Bumble-Puppy, published by The Comics Journal's parent company Fantagraphics Books. But Sacco was more interested in travelling. In 1988, he left the U. S. again to travel across a trip which he chronicled in his autobiographical comic Yahoo. The trip led him towards the ongoing Gulf War, in 1991 he found himself nearby to research the work he would publish as Palestine; the Gulf War segment of Yahoo drew Sacco into a study of Middle Eastern politics, he traveled to Israel and the Palestinian territories to research his first long work. Palestine was a collection of short and long pieces, some depicting Sacco's travels and encounters with Palestinians, some dramatizing the stories he was told, it was serialized as a comic book from 1993 to 1995 and published in several collections, the first of which won an American Book Award in 1996 and sold more than 30,000 copies in the UK. Sacco next travelled to Sarajevo and Goražde near the end of the Bosnian War, produced a series of reports in the same style as Palestine: the comics Safe Area Goražde, The Fixer, the stories collected in War's End.

Safe Area Goražde won the Eisner Award for Best Original Graphic Novel in 2001. He has contributed short pieces of graphic reportage to a variety of magazines, on subjects ranging from war crimes to blues, was a frequent illustrator of Harvey Pekar's American Splendor. In 2005 he drew two eight-page comics depicting events in Iraq published in The Guardian, he contributed a 16-page piece in April 2007's issue of Harper's Magazine, entitled "Down! Up! You're in the Iraqi Army Now". In 2009, his Footnotes in Gaza was published, which investigates two forgotten massacres that took place in Khan Younis and Rafah in November 1956. In June 2012, a book on poverty in the United States, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, co-written with journalist Chris Hedges, was published. Sacco lives in Portland, Oregon. In addition to his 1996 American Book Award, 2001 Guggenheim Fellowship, 2001 Eisner Award, Sacco's Footnotes in Gaza was nominated for the 2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Graphic Novel award. Sacco was awarded the 2010 Ridenhour Book Prize for Footnotes in Gaza.

He was award the 2012 Oregon Book Award for Footnotes in Gaza and 2014 Oregon Book Award Finalist for Journalism. 1988–1992: Yahoo #1–6. Fantagraphics Books 1993–1995: Palestine #1–9. Fantagraphics Books 1994: Spotlight on the Genius, Joe Sacco. Fantagraphics Books 1998: Stories From Bosnia #1: Soba. Drawn and Quarterly 1987–1988: Centrifugal Bumble-Puppy Fantagraphics Books 1993: Palestine: A Nation Occupied. Fantagraphics Books. ISBN 978-1560971504 1996: Palestine: In the Gaza Strip. Fantagraphics Books. ISBN 978-1560973003 1997: War Junkie. Fantagraphics Books. ISBN 1-56097-170-3. 2000: Safe Area Goražde: The War in Eastern Bosnia 1992–1995. Fantagraphics Books. ISBN 1-56097-470-2 2001: Palestine. Fantagraphics Books. ISBN 1-56097-432-X (

DreamWorks Animation LLC is an American animation studio, a subsidiary of Universal Pictures, a division of NBCUniversal, owned by Comcast. It is based in Glendale and produces animated feature films, television programs, online virtual games; the studio has released a total of 37 feature films, notably including ones from the Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon, The Croods and The Boss Baby franchises. Formed under the banner of DreamWorks Pictures in 1994 by some of Amblin Entertainment's former animation branch Amblimation alumni, it was spun off into a separate public company in 2004. DreamWorks Animation maintains its Glendale campus, as well as satellite studios in India and China. On August 22, 2016, NBCUniversal acquired DreamWorks Animation for $3.8 billion, making it a division of the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group as an acquisition for the animation studio. As of May 2019, its feature films have grossed $15.019 billion worldwide, with a $417.2 million average gross per film.

Fifteen of their films produced by the studio are among the 50 highest-grossing animated films, with Shrek 2 being the eleventh all-time highest. Although the studio made traditionally animated films in the past, as well as two stop-motion co-productions with Aardman Animations, all of their films now use computer animation; the studio has earned three Academy Awards, as well as 41 Emmy Awards and numerous Annie Awards, multiple Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations. In recent years, the animation studio has acquired and created new divisions in an effort to diversify beyond the high-risk movie business. Since 2013, DreamWorks Animation produced various TV shows based on various film franchises as DreamWorks Animation Television. Films produced by DreamWorks Animation were distributed worldwide by DreamWorks Pictures from 1998 to 2005, Paramount Pictures from 2006 to 2012, 20th Century Fox from 2013 to 2017. Universal Pictures now distributes subsequent DreamWorks Animation films, which began on February 22, 2019 with the release of How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, owns the rights to its back catalogue as well.

On October 12, 1994, a trio of entertainment players, film director and producer Steven Spielberg, former Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, music executive David Geffen, founded DreamWorks SKG. To build the talent base, Spielberg brought over artists from his London-based studio, while Katzenberg recruited some of the top animation staff from Disney; some of Amblimation's artists came to DreamWorks in 1995, when the studio's last feature was completed, with the rest doing so following the studio's closure in 1997. In 1995, DreamWorks signed a co-production deal with Pacific Data Images to form subsidiary PDI, LLC; this new unit would produce computer-generated feature films, beginning with Antz in 1998. In the same year, DreamWorks SKG produced The Prince of Egypt, which used both CGI technology and traditional animation techniques. In 1997, DreamWorks partnered with Aardman Animations, a British stop-motion animation studio, to co-produce and distribute Chicken Run, a stop-motion film in pre-production.

Two years they extended the deal for an additional four films. With Aardman doing stop-motion, they covered all three major styles, besides traditional and computer animation; this partnership had DreamWorks participating in the production of stop-motion films in Bristol, had Aardman participating in some of the CGI films made in the United States. Three years DreamWorks SKG created DreamWorks Animation, a new business division that would produce both types of animated feature films; the same year DW acquired majority interest in PDI, reformed it into PDI/DreamWorks, the Northern California branch of its new business division. In 2001, Shrek was released and went on to win the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film. Due to the success of CGI animated films, DWA decided the same year to exit hand-drawn animation business after the next two of total four hand-drawn films. Beginning with Shrek 2, all released films, other than some co-produced with Aardman, were expected to be produced with CGI.

The releases of Shrek 2 and Shark Tale made DWA the first studio to produce two CGI animated features in a single year. The animation division was spun off into a publicly traded company named DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc. on October 27, 2004, traded via the New York Stock Exchange. Katzenberg headed the new division, while Spielberg and Geffen remained on board as investors and consultants. DWA inherited interests in PDI/DreamWorks, they made an agreement with their former parent to distribute all of their films until they deliver twelve new films, or December 12, 2010, whichever came last. On January 31, 2006, DWA entered into a distribution agreement with Paramount Pictures, which acquired DWA's former parent and distribution partner, DreamWorks SKG; the agreement granted Paramount the worldwide rights to distribute all animated films, including released films, until the delivery of 13 new animated feature films or December 31, 2012, whichever came last. DWA's partnership with Aardman ended after the release of Flushed Away in November 2006, having delivered three out of five films.

The announcement was made before the film's release, on October 3, citing "creative differences". DWA retained the co-ownership of rights to all films co-produced with Aardman, with an exception being Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, for which they only k

The Church of the Holy Virgin in Babylon El-Darag is a Coptic Orthodox church in Coptic Cairo built in the 11th century AD. The Church of the Holy Virgin in Babylon El-Darag was occupied from the 11th to the 15th centuries by several Coptic patriarchs, seven of whom were buried in the church. Pope Zacharias was one of them. Pope Cyril VI of Alexandria used to pray in the church before assuming papacy. According to tradition, the church was one of the resting places of the Holy Family during their sojourn in Egypt, as well as the location from which Peter sent his epistle; the relics of saints Demiana and Simon the Tanner are contained in the church as well. The ground plan of the church is typical of other Coptic churches: a narthex, a nave, a choir and southern aisles and three sanctuaries; the northern sanctuary is dedicated to the Virgin Mary and the southern sanctuary is used as a shrine. It contains several 19th century icons of the Holy Virgin and saints Demiana, Barbara, Paul the Hermit and Peter and Paul.

Coptic Cairo Coptic Orthodox Church Coptic Saints Christian Egypt Holy Family in Egypt Coptic architecture — information on Coptic Orthodox Churches List of Coptic Orthodox Churches in the United States Coptic Cairo Seat of the Coptic Orthodox Pope of Alexandria Saint Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral, Cairo Saint Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral Saint Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral Saint Mark Coptic Orthodox Church Saint Mary and Saint Abasikhiron Coptic Orthodox Church Saint Mary Church St Mary and St Mercurius Coptic Orthodox Church Church of Saint Menas Saint Mercurius Church in Coptic Cairo Saints Sergius and Bacchus Church The Hanging Church Church of the Virgin Mary Copticarchitecture.com Meinardus, Otto F. A.. Two Thousand Years of Coptic Christianity. Cairo: American University in Cairo. ISBN 977-424-511-3

Saint Petersburg City Administration is the superior executive body of Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation. It is located in a historic building and known as the Government of Saint Petersburg; the head of the administration is the Governor of Saint Petersburg. In 1990 – 2006 the head of the city was elected by direct vote of the city residents. However, according to a Russian Federal Law accepted in 2004, the governor was proposed by the President of the Russian Federation and approved by the City Legislative Assembly until 2014, while in 2014 the governor was elected by popular vote of the city residents. Anatoly Sobchak Vladimir Yakovlev (Governor, 1996 - 2003 Alexander Beglov Valentina Matviyenko Georgy Poltavchenko See List of heads of Saint Petersburg government; the Administration consists of the Governor, the Government, The Governor's Chancellery, the city committees and the executive bodies of the districts subordinate to it. Committee for City Improvement and Roads Committee for External Relations and Tourism Committee for Housing Policy Committee for the Press and Mass Media Cooperation Committee for Science and Higher Education Committee for Public Health Committee for Transport Committee for Labor and Social Security Committee for Economic Development, Industrial Policy and Trade Committee for Energetic and Engineering Support Committee for State Control and Protection of Historical and Cultural Landmarks Committee for City Planning and Architecture Committee for Youth policy and Social organizations Interaction Committee for Construction Committee for Education Committee for Culture Committee for City Property Management Committee for Physical Culture and Sports Committee for Finances State Technical Administrative Inspection State Housing Inspection Committee for Justice, Legal Order, Safety Committee for Land Resources and Land Development Committee for Investments and Strategic Projects Informatization and Communication Committee Committee for Use of Natural Resources, Environment Protection, Environmental Safety Saint Petersburg Licensing Chamber Saint Petersburg Regional Power Commission Veterinary Department Saint Petersburg State Construction Supervision and Expertise Department Civil Registration Department Saint Petersburg Flood Control Facilities Construction Department Committee for Executive powers of the government development and Interaction with the local autonomous bodies Committee on transport-transit policy Appeals and Complaints Department Hotels services Department of the Administration of St.

Petersburg Information Department – Press-service of the Governor’s Administration of St. Petersburg Committee on Financial control of St. Petersburg St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region Archival Committee Gardening and Market-gardening Development Department St. Petersburg and Leningrad region Central Administrative Board of Internal Affairs Admiralteysky District Administration Vasileostrovsky District Administration Vyborgsky District Administration Kalininsky District Administration Kirovsky District Administration Kolpinsky District Administration Krasnogvardeysky Administration Krasnoselsky District Administration Kronshtadtsky District Administration Kurortny District Administration Moskovsky District Administration Nevsky District Administration Petrogradsky District Administration Petrodvortsovy District Administration Primorsky District Administrati

The Seventh Sin is a 1957 American drama film directed by Ronald Neame and starring Eleanor Parker, Bill Travers and George Sanders. It is based on the 1925 novel The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham. In post-World War II Hong Kong, unhappily married Carol has an affair with Paul, her physician husband Walter discovers it and presents her with a choice: travel with him to a remote mainland village or face the scandal of a public divorce. She persuades him to reconsider and he proposes an alternative. If Paul's wife will agree to a divorce and he marries Carol within one week Walter will obtain a quiet divorce. Carol presents Walter's ` deal' to Paul. Carol sees as her only choice to accompany Walter to the village, where she meets the rakish and booze-soaked Tim, he soon introduces her to nuns at the local hospital-convent and Carol begins to re-evaluate her self-absorbed life and character. Working at the convent, Carol learns, she tells Walter she's unsure, the father and he regrets her honesty.

Shortly after, Walter dies. Carol returns to an uncertain future; the film was announced as a vehicle for Ava Gardner. It was directed by Ronald Neame. Neame left the film during production and Vincente Minnelli took over uncredited. According to MGM records the film earned $250,000 in the US and Canada and $475,000 elsewhere resulting in a loss of $1,202,000. List of American films of 1957 The Painted Veil The Painted Veil The Seventh Sin on IMDb The Seventh Sin at AllMovie The Seventh Sin at the TCM Movie Database The Seventh Sin at the American Film Institute Catalog