Johannes Van Damme
Johannes van Damme (1 June 1935 – 23 September 1994) was a Dutch engineer and businessman executed in Singapore for drug trafficking. He was the first European to be executed in Singapore since its independence. Biography Born in The Netherlands, Van Damme had been a resident of Nigeria since 1976 and was married to a Nigerian woman at the time of his arrest. Background to Arrest In the early 1990s, the US Drug Enforcement Administration set up the Kodiac car brokerage firm in Baltimore, Maryland as a front company. As well as selling cars, the undercover DEA agents running the firm helped to transfer large amounts of money to foreign banks on behalf of local drug traffickers. The information gathered during these operations would then be used to help arrest drug offenders and used as evidence during their prosecution in court. In October 1990, DEA agent Wilbert Lee Plummer (who was the undercover agent in charge of Kodiac) was introduced to a Washington D.C. based ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Middelburg, Zeeland
Middelburg () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the south-western Netherlands serving as the Capital (political), capital of the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of Zeeland. Situated on the central peninsula of the Zeeland province, ''Midden-Zeeland'' (consisting of former islands Walcheren, Noord-Beveland and Zuid-Beveland), it has a population of about 48,000. The city lies as the crow flies about 75 km south west of Rotterdam, 60 km north west of Antwerp and 40 km north east of Bruges. In terms of technology, Middelburg played a role in the Scientific Revolution at the early modern period. The town was historically a center of Lens (optics), lens crafting in the Dutch Golden Age, Golden Age of Dutch science and technology. The invention of the microscope and invention of the telescope, telescope is often credited to Middelburg spectacle-makers (including Zacharias Janssen and Hans Lippersh ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bangkok
Bangkok, officially known in Thai language, Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estimated population of 10.539 million as of 2020, 15.3 percent of the country's population. Over 14 million people (22.2 percent) lived within the surrounding Bangkok Metropolitan Region at the 2010 census, making Bangkok an extreme primate city, dwarfing Thailand's other urban centres in both size and importance to the national economy. Bangkok traces its roots to a small trading post during the Ayutthaya Kingdom in the 15th century, which eventually grew and became the site of two capital cities, Thonburi Kingdom, Thonburi in 1768 and Rattanakosin Kingdom (1782–1932), Rattanakosin in 1782. Bangkok was at the heart of the modernization of Siam, later renamed Thailand, during the late-19th century, as the country faced pressures from the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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River Valley, Singapore
River Valley is a planning area located within the Central Area of the Central Region of Singapore. The planning area shares boundaries with Orchard in the north, Museum in the east, Tanglin in the west and Singapore River in the south. Etymology In the 1840s, there were two River Valley roads that ran on either side of the Singapore River. The Singapore River was seen as a valley between Fort Canning Hill, to the north side of the river, and Pearl's Hill, to the south side of the river. The roads on either bank of the Singapore River were named River Valley Road — the current River Valley Road and Havelock Road. Both these River Valley roads were present in John Turnbull Thomson's 1844 map. History Adjoining the area around the Singapore River and on high ground, River Valley naturally attracted wealthy Europeans and Chinese merchants who wanted to move away from the crowded town centre and began building their homes in the countryside up river in the 1830s. One of the firs ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates and is the capital of the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning over 3,400 years and its earliest human presence beginning somewhere between the 11th and 7th millennia BC. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state. It was a centre for the arts, learning and philosophy, and the home of Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum. It is widely referred to as the cradle of Western civilization and the birthplace of democracy, largely because of its cultural and political influence on the European continent—particularly Ancient Rome. In modern times, Athens is a large cosmopolitan metropolis and central to economic, financial, industrial, maritime, political and cultural life in Gre ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Phuket
Phuket (; th, ภูเก็ต, , ms, Bukit or ''Tongkah''; Hokkien:普吉; ) is one of the southern provinces (''changwat'') of Thailand. It consists of the island of Phuket, the country's largest island, and another 32 smaller islands off its coast. It lies off the west coast of mainland Thailand in the Andaman Sea. Phuket Island is connected by the Sarasin Bridge to Phang Nga province to the north. The next nearest province is Krabi, to the east across Phang Nga Bay. Phuket province has an area of , somewhat less than that of Singapore, and is the second-smallest province of Thailand. The island was on one of the major trading routes between India and China, and was frequently mentioned in foreign ships' logs of Portuguese, French, Dutch, and English traders, but was never colonised by a European power. It formerly derived its wealth from tin and rubber and now from tourism. Toponymy There are several possible derivations of the relatively recent name "Phuket" (of whi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Singapore Changi Airport
Singapore Changi Airport, commonly known as Changi Airport , is a major civilian international airport that serves Singapore, and is one of the largest transportation hubs in Asia. As one of the world's busiest airports by international passenger and cargo traffic, it has been rated as the 'World's Best Airport' by Skytrax several times, and is the first airport in the world to hold the accolade for eight consecutive years. It has also been rated as one of the world's cleanest airports and highly rated international transit airports. More than 100 airlines operate from the airport, with nonstop or direct flights to destinations in Asia, Australia/New Zealand & South-West Pacific, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and North America. The airport is located within its namesake district of Changi, at the eastern end of Singapore, approximately east from Singapore's Downtown Core at the Central Region on a site. It is the home base of BOC Aviation and Jetstar Asia Airways, as w ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tape Recorder
An audio tape recorder, also known as a tape deck, tape player or tape machine or simply a tape recorder, is a sound recording and reproduction device that records and plays back sounds usually using magnetic tape for storage. In its present-day form, it records a fluctuating signal by moving the tape across a tape head that polarizes the magnetic domains in the tape in proportion to the audio signal. Tape-recording devices include the reel-to-reel tape deck and the cassette deck, which uses a cassette for storage. The use of magnetic tape for sound recording originated around 1930 in Germany as paper tape with oxide lacquered to it. Prior to the development of magnetic tape, magnetic wire recorders had successfully demonstrated the concept of magnetic recording, but they never offered audio quality comparable to the other recording and broadcast standards of the time. This German invention was the start of a long string of innovations that have led to present-day magnetic t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Microphone
A microphone, colloquially called a mic or mike (), is a transducer that converts sound into an electrical signal. Microphones are used in many applications such as telephones, hearing aids, public address systems for concert halls and public events, motion picture production, live and recorded audio engineering, sound recording, two-way radios, megaphones, and radio and television broadcasting. They are also used in computers for recording voice, speech recognition, VoIP, and for other purposes such as ultrasonic sensors or knock sensors. Several types of microphone are used today, which employ different methods to convert the air pressure variations of a sound wave to an electrical signal. The most common are the dynamic microphone, which uses a coil of wire suspended in a magnetic field; the condenser microphone, which uses the vibrating diaphragm as a capacitor plate; and the contact microphone, which uses a crystal of piezoelectric material. Microphones typically n ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Video Camera
A video camera is an optical instrument that captures videos (as opposed to a movie camera, which records images on film). Video cameras were initially developed for the television industry but have since become widely used for a variety of other purposes. Video cameras are used primarily in two modes. The first, characteristic of much early broadcasting, is live television, where the camera feeds real time images directly to a screen for immediate observation. A few cameras still serve live television production, but most live connections are for security, military/tactical, and industrial operations where surreptitious or remote viewing is required. In the second mode the images are recorded to a storage device for archiving or further processing; for many years, videotape was the primary format used for this purpose, but was gradually supplanted by optical disc, hard disk, and then flash memory. Recorded video is used in television production, and more often surveillance and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dutch People
The Dutch (Dutch: ) are an ethnic group and nation native to the Netherlands. They share a common history and culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Aruba, Suriname, Guyana, Curaçao, Argentina, Brazil, Canada,Based on Statistics Canada, Canada 2001 Censusbr>Linkto Canadian statistics. Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and the United States.According tFactfinder.census.gov The Low Countries were situated around the border of France and the Holy Roman Empire, forming a part of their respective peripheries and the various territories of which they consisted had become virtually autonomous by the 13th century. Under the Habsburgs, the Netherlands were organised into a single administrative unit, and in the 16th and 17th centuries the Northern Netherlands gained independence from Spain as the Dutch Republic. The high degree of urbanization characteristic of Dutch society was attained at a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Stamford Road
Stamford Road (Chinese: 史丹福路; ms, Jalan Stamford) is a one-way road in Singapore within the planning areas of Downtown Core and Museum. The road continues after the traffic light junction of Nicoll Highway, Esplanade Drive and Raffles Avenue towards Orchard Road. It then ends at the junction of Fort Canning Road, Bencoolen Street and Orchard Road, which it continues to be Orchard Road. Stamford Road is home to several landmarks, including Swissôtel The Stamford and the National Museum of Singapore. Etymology and history Stamford Road was named after the modern founder of Singapore, Thomas Stamford Raffles. The road used to house the Saint Andrew's School from the late 19th century till 1941 when it moved to Woodsville Hill. The site was taken by the now demolished National Library in 1960 until it was demolished in 2005 to make way for the new Fort Canning Tunnel. Landmarks This is a list of landmarks, from east to west. *Civilian War Memorial * Saint Andrew's Cathe ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Swissôtel The Stamford
Swissôtel The Stamford, formerly known as The Westin Stamford, is a hotel in Singapore managed by Accor. Designed by architect I.M. Pei, at a height of it was the tallest hotel in the world when opened in 1986 and remains one of Southeast Asia's tallest hotels. It is part of the Raffles City complex comprising two hotels, the Raffles City Convention Centre, Raffles City shopping centre, and an office tower. Situated at 2 Stamford Road, the hotel sits above City Hall MRT station and Esplanade MRT station. The 5-star hotel is a sister hotel of Fairmont Singapore and has 1,252 rooms and suites, 15 restaurants and bars, Raffles City Convention Centre, and one of Asia's largest spas, Willow Stream Spa. A major renovation of the hotel was completed in 2019. History The hotel was designed by architect I.M. Pei as The Westin Stamford, along with its adjacent smaller sister hotel, The Westin Plaza. When completed by the South Korean firm SsangYong Group in 1986, the Westin Stam ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |