Wuyue, 907–978, was an independent coastal kingdom founded during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period of Chinese history. It was ruled by the Qian family, whose family name remains widespread in the kingdom's former territory. Beginning in 887, the Qian family provided military leaders to the Tang Dynasty. Qian Liu was named Prince of Yue with the title of Prince of Wu added two years later. In 907, when the Tang Dynasty fell and was replaced in the north by the Later Liang, military leaders in the south formed their own kingdoms. Qian Liu used his position to proclaim himself the King of Wuyue; this signaled the beginning of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period which would last until the founding of the Song Dynasty in 960. The name Wuyue comes from the combination of Wu Kingdom and Yue Kingdom, two ancient kingdoms during the Spring and Autumn period from 770 to 476 BC. With its capital in Hangzhou called "Xifu", the kingdom included present-day Zhejiang, along with the southern portion of Jiangsu Province.

It later absorbed some of the northern part of Fujian when the Min Kingdom fell in 945. The territorial extent of Wuyue corresponded to the territories of the ancient Yue, but not the ancient Wu—which led to charges by the neighboring Wu that Wuyue had designs on its territory, the name was a source of tension for years between the two states. In the early decades of its existence, Wuyue bordered the Min Kingdom on its south and the Southern Tang Kingdom on its west and north. With the rebellion of Yin from the Min from 943 to 945, Wuyue had a third border. However, before long, Wuyue was encircled as both Yin and Min were absorbed by the Southern Tang; the population was 550,700 households, with many people living in commercial centers and major seaports. Wuyue was not a large kingdom compared to many of its neighbors. Although 12 prefectures, it consisted of 13 prefectures and 86 counties or sub-prefectures. Fuzhou was incorporated into Wuyue as its 13th prefecture, after the Min court declared allegiance to it as they were besieged by Southern Tang.

Former Administrative Divisions Changzhou from 886–891 CE, ceded to Yang Xingmi Runzhou from 886–891 CE, ceded to Yang Xingmi Under Qian Liu's reign, Wuyue prospered economically and developed its own regional culture that continues to this day. He developed the coastal kingdom's agriculture, built seawalls, expanded Hangzhou, dredged rivers and lakes, encouraged sea transport and trade. On his death-bed he urged a benign administration of state affairs and his words were followed by four succeeding kings. In 935, Wuyue established official diplomatic relations with Japan; the kingdom took advantage of its maritime location to maintain diplomatic contacts with north China, the Khitans and the Korean states of Later Baekje and Silla. Buddhism played a large role in the diplomatic relations with Goryeo. Japanese and Korean monks traveled to Wuyue, while monks from Wuyue went to Korea as well; the rulers of Wuyue tried to find sutras, lost during the turbulent final years of the Tang. In 947, Qian Zuo sent gifts to offering to buy any sutras, however none were available.

In 961, Qian Chu sent fifty precious objects and a letter to Goryeo inquiring about the missing sutras, Gwangjong sent the monk Jegwan with a complete set of Tiantai sutras. In 978, in the face of certain annihilation from northern imperial Chinese troops, the last king of Wuyue, Qian Chu, pledged allegiance to the Song Dynasty, saving his people from war and economic destruction. While Qian Chu nominally remained king, Wuyue was absorbed into the Song Dynasty ending the kingdom; the last king died in 988. The Wuyue Kingdom cemented the cultural and economic dominance of the Wuyue region in China for centuries to come, as well as creating a lasting regional cultural tradition distinctive from the rest of China; the leaders of the kingdom were noted patrons of Buddhism, architecture, temple decoration, religious sculptures related to Buddhism. The cultural distinctiveness that began developing over this period persists to this day as the Wuyue region speaks a dialect called Wu, has distinctive cuisine and other cultural traits.

The Baochu Pagoda, constructed during the reign of Qian Chu, was one of many temples and pagodas built under the patronage of the Wuyue kings. The physical legacy of the Wuyue Kingdom was the creation of the system of canals and dikes which allowed the region to become the most agriculturally rich region of China for many centuries; as a result, shrines to Qian Liu sprang up all across the region, many can still be found today. Qian Liu was known as the "Dragon King" or the "Sea Dragon King" because of his extensive hydro-engineering schemes which "tamed" the seas; the kings of Wuyue continue to enjoy positive treatment in orthodox history. They were popularly revered because of the hydro-engineering works, ensuring the economic prosperity of the region, for surrendering to the Song Dynasty, which ensured both a unified Chinese nation and that the region would not be ravaged by war. During the early Song Dynasty, the Qian royal family were treated as second only to the ruling Zhao imperial family, as reflected in the Hundred Family Surnames.

Subsequently, many shrines were erected across the Wuyue region where the kings of Wuyue were memorialised, sometimes, worshipped as dictating weather and agriculture. Many of these shrines, known a

The Hudson–Evans House is a private, single-family home located at 79 Alfred Street in Midtown Detroit, within the Brush Park district. The Hudson–Evans House was built circa 1872/73 for Philo Wright, a Detroit-based ship owner. In 1882, the house was given as a wedding present to Grace Whitney Evans, daughter of the lumber baron David Whitney Jr.. Grace Evans was active in numerous charitable activities, became the first president of the Detroit YWCA. Between 1894 and 1904 Mrs. Evans rented the house to Joseph Lowthian Hudson, founder of Detroit's J. L. Hudson Company department store; the house was designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1973 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. The structure is now used for the law offices of VanOverbeke, Michaud, & Timmony, P. C; the Hudson–Evans House is a three-story house built of red brick on a rough-cut stone foundation, designed in a French Second Empire architectural style with Italianate influences. The floor-plan is rectangular, but the elaborate two-story bay windows that grace both sides of the house minimize the severity of the design.

Arched moldings top the windows in the home, the mansard roof includes colored slate laid in a decorative pattern. The porch on the home was added after the original construction. VanOverbeke, Michaud, & Timmony, P. C

Helena Tulve is an Estonian composer. Born in Tartu, she studied composition at the Tallinn Secondary Music School under Alo Põldmäe and from 1989–1992 at the Estonian Academy of Music with Erkki-Sven Tüür, being the latter’s sole student of composition thus far. In 1994 Tulve graduated with the Premier Prix from Jacques Charpentier’s composition class at the Conservatoire Superieur de Paris. Between 1993 and 1996 she furthered her knowledge of Gregorian chant, she has attended György Ligeti’s and Marco Stroppa’s summer courses. Tulve belongs to the younger generation of Estonian composers who, in contrast to the neo-classicist tradition of rhythm-centeredness, create music which focuses on sound and sonority. Tulve’s works give a fair idea of the richness and variety of her cultural experience: the French school of spectral music, IRCAM’s experimentalism, Kaija Saariaho and Giacinto Scelsi, echoes of Gregorian chant and Eastern musics. Deriving from her refined sound processing, Tulve’s approach to form is “fluid” – more process based than architectonic.

Reyah hadas ´ala for male voices and ancient music instruments Lendajad for amplified flutes ligne d´horizon for ensemble lumineux/opaque new version for clarinet, piano and 3 wine glasses chamber-opera It Is Getting So Dark …il neige for harpsichord and kannel nec ros, nec pluvia… for string quartet effleurements, éclatements… for guitar and percussion abysses for flute and ensemble lijnen for soprano and ensemble delta soundscape for tape Vie secrète for chamber choir lumineux / opaque for violin, piano and 3 wine glasses Valvaja for oboe solo Cendres for ensemble (2001 Traces for ensemble (2001 Vertige for piano Ithaque for female voice, violinand piano Sula for orchestra Passage secret for two clarinets Sans titre for harpsichord Sinine for chamber ensemble à travers for chamber ensemble Öö for saxophone quartet Sõnajalad for voice and piano with words by Karl Ristikivi Saar for violin and clarinet Exodus for chamber choir Lethe for chamber ensemble Phainomenon for piano and tape Lijnen Arboles lloran por lluvia Composer's website Interview of Helena Tulve about her music lectures

Montesson is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. It is located in the western suburbs of Paris. Transport in Montesson is served by buses with T-tickets as well as by several Paris-suburban lines: Line 01, Line 04, Line 07, Line 19, Line 22; the Bus tickets have a category called "Bus T", for occasional users and replaces the old tickets in the notebooks of the previous bus network. The T ticket is valid on the entire metro on the RER lines of the RATP and the SNCF, it is sold for a single price of 1.70 € for a journey or 12.50 € for the book of 10. It can be purchased all around the Ile de France metro stations, RER stations,Bus terminals as well as RATP authorized dealers. Communes of the Yvelines department INSEE http://flagspot.net/flags/fr-78-ms.html

The 2004 Equatorial Guinea coup d'état attempt known as the Wonga Coup, failed to replace President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo with exiled opposition politician Severo Moto. Mercenaries organised by British financiers were arrested in Zimbabwe on 7 March 2004 before they could carry out the plot. Prosecutors alleged that Moto was to be installed as the new president in return for preferential oil rights to corporations affiliated to those involved with the coup; the incident received international media attention after the reported involvement of Sir Mark Thatcher in funding the coup, for which he was convicted and fined in South Africa. On 7 March 2004 Zimbabwean police in Harare airport impounded a plane which flew in from South Africa; the alleged plot leader, ex-Special Air Service officer Simon Mann, was arrested with two colleagues near the runway while waiting for arms to be loaded on a Boeing 727, carrying three crew and 64 former soldiers recruited in South Africa. The majority of those alleged to have been the mercenaries planning to carry out the coup are based in South Africa and ex-members of the 32 Buffalo Battalion, a special force unit that fought for the South African apartheid regime.

On 9 March 2004 Nick du Toit and 14 other South African and Angolan men were arrested in Equatorial Guinea on suspicion of being the mercenaries' vanguard. The marketing manager of Zimbabwe Defense Industries, Hope Mutize, said in court that Simon Mann had paid him a deposit of $180,000 in February 2004 and indirectly linked Mann to the alleged plot by saying he was accompanied by a South African, Nick du Toit, the leader of the 14 men arrested in Equatorial Guinea, their arms requisition included 20 machine guns, 61 AK-47 assault rifles, 150 hand grenades, 10 rocket-propelled grenade launchers, 75,000 rounds of ammunition. Mann said he wanted the rifles and ammunition to guard diamond mines in volatile parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo, it was alleged that those arrested in Zimbabwe made a stopover in Harare city to buy weapons and expected to join a team in Equatorial Guinea to overthrow President Obiang. Nick du Toit, the leader of the group of arrested in Equatorial Guinea, said at his trial in Equatorial Guinea that he was recruited by Simon Mann and that he was helping with recruitment, acquiring weapons and logistics.

He says he was told they were trying to install an exiled opposition politician, Severo Moto, as the new president. In a letter from prison on 31 March, Simon Mann told his wife and his legal team: "Our situation is not good and it is URGENT, it may be that getting us out comes down to a large splodge of wonga! Of course investors did not think. Did!?.... They get no reply from Smelly and Scratcher asked them to ring back after the Grand Prix race was over!...... We need heavy influence of the sort that... Smelly, Scratcher... David Hart and it needs to be used and now. Once we get into a real trial scenario we are fucked." David Hart was ex-prime minister Margaret Thatcher's unofficial adviser during the miners' strike and served as special adviser to Michael Portillo and Malcolm Rifkind in subsequent Conservative administrations. "Scratcher" is thought to be "Smelly" Ely Calil. The names were on a so-called "Wonga List" by James Kershaw – 24-year-old, believed to have acted as Simon Mann's accountant.

Kershaw is said to have been brought in by Nigel Morgan, a security consultant and former Irish Guards officer who had employed Kershaw as an IT expert and accountant at a diamond mine in the DR Congo operated by his employer, MIBA. Morgan, a friend of Mann, refused to comment when asked whether he had been involved in the coup attempt, but was known for his connections to the South African Secret Service and was suspected of reporting on the plotters to the authorities, he may have installed Kershaw in the scheme to keep tabs on the other plotters. Kershaw entered a witness protection scheme after voluntarily surrendering to police on the advice of his lawyers, he was given 24-hour police protection because of assassination concerns. The list, said to have been handed over to South African police by Kershaw and other former colleagues of Mr Mann, who have turned state's evidence, has been seen by The Guardian. In December 2003 and January 2004 two separate detailed reports of the planned coup were sent to two senior officers in British intelligence and to Michael Westphal senior colleague of Donald Rumsfeld.

The documents were from Johann Smith, a former commander in South African Special Forces and an internationally renowned security analyst, an occasional adviser to President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. In a statement by Smith given to lawyers representing the government of Equatorial Guinea, he says he began hearing rumours of a coup in both Equatorial Guinea and Sao Tomé in November 2003 from two ex-soldiers of the 32 Buffalo Battalion who told him they had been recruited for a coup by Nick du Toit: Because I was continuing to work in Equatorial Guinea with government, it was not in my interest that there be a coup d'etat.....'I therefore wanted to warn the Equatorial Guinea authorities. I considered it my duty to warn the authorities in US and England because some of their nationals might be killed. I submitted a report in December 2003. I expected the US government to take steps to stop the coup; this was my expectation as regard the British government, which I warned through two SIS people I knew, to whom I sent the report by email in December 2003, to their personal email addresses.

The report n

Francesco Marconi was an operatic tenor from Rome who enjoyed an important international career. In 1924, a reputable biographical dictionary of musicians called him'one of the most renowned and esteemed singers of the last 50 years'. Along with his great contemporary Francesco Tamagno, he is the earliest Italian tenor to have left a representative legacy of acoustic recordings. Born of humble origins in Rome, "Cecco" Marconi worked as a carpenter during his youth; the promising quality of his voice came to the attention of a singing teacher, Ottavio Bartolini, who gave him his first lessons. He studied with a much more prominent pedagogue, Venceslao Persichini, at the Rome Conservatory. Persichini taught Marconi's coevals Antonio Magini-Coletti and Mattia Battistini —both of whom were baritones with outstanding voices and, like Marconi, international reputations. Marconi made his operatic debut in the Spanish capital of Madrid in 1878 at the Teatro Real, singing the title role in Faust by Charles Gounod.

His debut was a success, he was soon appearing at Italy's premier opera house, La Scala, with lucrative summer seasons spent performing in South America at Buenos Aires. He sang with distinction at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, for two seasons: 1883 and 1884, he was engaged to perform the United States, in New York City in 1888, he appeared as the protagonist in the first American performances of Giuseppe Verdi's Otello. He failed, however, to achieve a real success on this particular occasion because his lyric voice was not equal to the heavyweight dramatic demands of Otello's score, written by Verdi to suit the more powerful tones of his stentorian rival Tamagno. Thereafter, Marconi built his operatic career in Eastern Europe, singing in Poland and Russia to considerable acclaim during the 1890s. While in Russia, he appeared at the imperial opera houses situated in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, added Anton Rubinstein's Nero and Peter Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin to his repertoire. Marconi's repertoire did not consist of operas, however.

He participated in performances of such significant sacred works as Rossini's Stabat mater and the Verdi Requiem. Indeed, near the end of his career, he toured in the Requiem, performing as part of a regular quartet of singers which contained one other top-class artist, Francesco Navarini, considered to be the best Italian bass of the era; the operatic parts that Marconi undertook in Europe and the two American continents included the principal tenor roles in the following works: Lucrezia Borgia, Lucia di Lammermoor La favorita, I Puritani, Un ballo in maschera, Rigoletto, La traviata and Aida, La Gioconda, Ruy Blas, L'Africaine and Les Huguenots and Lohengrin. Famed during the peak of his career for the silvery beauty of his singing, the ease of his high notes and the spontaneity of his interpretations, Marconi retained all his life a simplicity of character which endeared him to many admirers, he made two sets of recordings, for the Gramophone Company. Some of them, like Marconi's sweet-toned and finely structured version of Cielo e mar from La Gioconda and his stylish delivery of arias from Lucia di Lammermoor convey the limpidity and grace of his bel canto method of vocalism.

Marconi notably partnered Antonio Cotogni, an illustrious baritone and voice teacher from an earlier generation, in the only record, known to have been made by Cotogni, the duet I Mulattieri. In 1990, the English firm Symposium Records issued a compact disc containing 22 of Marconi's recordings, including the duet with Cotogni. Marconi's recordings were made for the Gramophone Company's Italian Catalogue, as follows: 52016 Dai campi, dai prati, with piano. 52017 Stanze, with piano. 52788 Questa o quella, with piano. 052054 Romanza del duello, Eugene Onegin, with piano. 052055 O Paradiso! L'Africaine, with piano. 052056 Cielo e mar! La Gioconda, with piano. 052057 Ingemisco tamquam reus, with piano. 052058 Bella cantiam l'amore, with piano. 052065 Non guardarmi così, with piano. 052200 Di pescatore ignobile, Lucrezia Borgia, with piano. 2-52631 Invan, Nerone, with piano. 2-52632 Questa o quella, with piano. 2-52662 Ed ei non, Ruy Blas. 2-52663 Una vergine, un angiol di Dio, La favorita. 2-52672 Dai campi, dai prati, Mefistofele.

2-52673 In questa sera. 54373 Duetto, I Mulattieri, with piano. 052221 Fra poco a me Lucia di Lammermoor. (1