Controversy is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of opinion.

The ongoing dispute has not prevented the two countries from enjoying close trade links and investment levels ( especially from Greece ), but it has generated a great deal of political and academic debate on both sides.

It is a matter for often heated debate whether this is a valid usage of the term, but ultimately it appears to be a semantic dispute.

The conflict between international law and national sovereignty is subject to vigorous debate and dispute in academia, diplomacy, and politics.

It is also sometimes held that when a semantic dispute arises, the focus of the debate should switch from the original thesis to the meaning of the terms of which there are different definitions ( understandings, concepts, etc.

Historians and journalists debate the precise meaning of this dispute.

By informally tying the Oregon boundary dispute to the more controversial Texas debate, the Democrats appealed to both Northern expansionists ( who were more adamant about the Oregon boundary ) and Southern expansionists ( who were more focused on annexing Texas as a slave state ).

The dispute came to a head in a debate between the two parties before the emperor in the Great Palace on Christmas 814, at which Theodore and his brother Joseph were present, and took the side of the iconophiles.

In the 6th century, Pseudo-Dionysius claims that a version of the omnipotence paradox constituted the dispute between St. Paul and Elmyas the Magician mentioned in Acts 13: 8, but it is phrased in terms of a debate as to whether or not God can " deny himself " ala 2 Tim 2: 13.

The meaning and morality of her cults and priesthoods were topics of debate and dispute in Greek and Roman literature, and remain so in modern scholarship.

The emperor arranged for a plethora of the best pagan philosophers and orators to dispute with her, hoping that they would refute her pro-Christian arguments, but Catherine won the debate and succeeded in converting all of them to Christianity, for which the philosophers and orators were executed by an enraged Maxentius.

However, others dispute this assertion, and a lively debate on the causes of financial crisis is still under way as of August, 2009.

In the United States, the debate over the treaty became involved in the sectional dispute over slavery, ending progress before the American Civil War in the planning or construction of a transcontinental railroad.

The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association issued an official objection to the unilateral blocking on July 26, stating " Telus is leveraging its power as a telecommunications service provider to censor a specific group, shut down debate and limit the messages conveyed about the current labour dispute ".

On April 4 of 2008, Acre won a judicial debate with the state of Amazonas in relation to the dispute surrounding the Cunha Gomes Line, which culminated in the annex of part of the municipalities of Envira, Guajará, Boca do Acre, Pauini, Eirunepé and Ipixuna.

Ousting the Danish leaders who recently conquered parts of England and provided some of the stiffest resistance to the Normans, and largely replacing the powerful English territorial magnates, while co-opting the most powerful of them, the Normans imposed a new political structure that is broadly termed " feudal " ( historians debate whether pre-Norman England should be considered a feudal government — indeed, the entire characterization of Feudalism is under some dispute ).

Only upon encountering a Buddhist monk named Revata was Buddhaghosa bested in debate, first being defeated in a dispute over the meaning of a Vedic doctrine, and then being confounded by the presentation of a teaching from the Abhidhamma.

However, because Origen's theological speculations were often proffered to stimulate further inquiry rather than to put an end to any given dispute, both Arius and his opponents were able to invoke the authority of this revered ( at the time ) theologian during their debate.

During the debate on the case of Shirley v. Fagg, a jurisdictional dispute about whether the House of Lords could hear appeals from lower courts when the case involved members of the House of Commons, Shaftesbury gave a celebrated speech on 20 October 1675.

While enormously costly and destructive, the war " rejuvenate the drive for national unity and Islamic revolution " and " inhibited fractious debate and dispute " in Iran.

The debate about Petliura's role in the pogroms has been a topic of dispute since Petliura's assassination and Schwartzbard's trial.

Although presented as a call to an ordinary scholastic dispute, the oral debate never occurred.

On May 4, 2003, at the height of a debate over whether the Missouri Baptist Convention should continue to fund the school due to a dispute concerning evolution and homosexuality, an F2 tornado that was part of the May 2003 tornado outbreak sequence hit the campus damaging several buildings, ripping roofs off dormitories, and separating the landmark clock tower from the chapel.

Between 1945 and 1990, the dispute over the final disposition of these territories was the subject of international debate.

The North and the South were in greater agreement on sovereignty, through all their dispute about it, than were the Founding Fathers.

A reporter restricted to the competing propaganda statements of both sides in a major labor dispute, for instance, is unable to tell his readers half of what he knows about the causes of the dispute.

The accused did not object to the trial court's charge to the jury that discourse `` may constitute a breach of the peace if it stirs the public to anger, invites dispute, brings about a condition of unrest.

This is generally considered the end of the dispute about the Trinity and the end of Arianism among the Roman, non-Germanic peoples.

Homer is somewhat vague about the precise manner of Ajax's death but does ascribe it to his loss in the dispute over Achilles's shield: when Odysseus visits Hades, he begs the soul of Ajax to speak to him, but Ajax, still resentful over the old quarrel, refuses and descends silently back into Erebus.

He traces the hostility of the two states back to a dispute about the images of the goddesses Damia and Auxesia, which the Aeginetes had carried off from Epidauros, their parent state.

There was much dispute about the questionability of the reason why there was another AMD treaty when one had failed not many years before.

Whether Henry actually intended to bring about the assassination of Becket is debatable, but there is no question that at the time of the murder, the two men were embroiled in a bitter dispute regarding the power of Royal Courts to exercise jurisdiction over former clergymen.

As noted earlier, even among writers who consider consciousness to be a well-defined thing, there is widespread dispute about which animals other than humans can be said to possess it.

In the 4th century, an Alexandrian presbyter named Arius began a theological dispute about the nature of Christ that spread throughout the Christian world and is now known as Arianism.

This quarrel ( or this dispute ) is well configured by Umberto Eco when, exposing the example of divergences about the concept of " Denotation " in Staurt Mill and Hjelmslev, concluded that:

: Verse 9 refers to a dispute between Michael the Archangel and the devil about the body of Moses.

There is some dispute among scholars about where along the left / right spectrum that fascism resides.

An immediate dispute broke out between the House of Medina Sidonia ( the Guzmán family ) and the House of Arcos ( the Ponce de León family ) about the possession of the town.

The first Governor-General, Lord Hopetoun, asked to be recalled to Britain in 1903 over a dispute about funding for the post.

He remained there while various of his English companions travelled to the other colonies, because he wished to meet some Native Americans who were interested in Quaker ways — though he relates that they had " a great dispute " among themselves about whether to participate in the meeting.

Underlying the dispute among historians are the different assumptions made about the definition or concept of " history " and " historiography ".

To add to the failing relations, a dispute arose between Attila and Aetius about the rightful heir to the kingdom of the Salian Franks.

However, there is wide dispute whether Popper's description of " historicism " is an accurate description of Hegel, or more a reflection of his own philosophical antagonists, including Marxist-Leninist thought, then widely held as posing a challenge to the philosophical basis of the West, as well as theories such as Spengler's which drew predictions about the future course of events from the past.

The central question regarding the Constitutional dispute about the impeachment of members of the legislature is whether members of Congress are officers of the United States.

In an address to the Indian parliament, Kaifu stressed the role of free markets and democracy in bringing about " a new international order ," and he emphasized the need for a settlement of the Kashmir territorial dispute between India and Pakistan and for economic liberalization to attract foreign investment and promote dynamic growth.

In all, he brought about more than 50 treaties, including the settlement of the Samoan dispute, as a result of which the United States secured Tutuila, with a harbor in the Pacific ; a definitive Alaskan boundary treaty in 1903 ; the negotiation of reciprocity treaties with Argentina, France, Germany, Cuba, and the British West Indies ; the negotiation of new treaties with Spain ; and the negotiation of a treaty with Denmark for the cession of the Danish West India Islands.

While archbishop, he attempted unsuccessfully to resolve differences with the native British bishops by corresponding with them about points of dispute.