title: Berkshire

text: Newbury is home to the world headquarters of the mobile network operator Vodafone, which is the town's largest employer with over 6,000 people. Before moving to their £129 million headquarters in the outskirts of the town in 2002, Vodafone used 64 buildings spread across the town centre. As well as Vodafone, Newbury is also home to National Instruments, Micro Focus, EValue, NTS Express Road Haulage, Jokers' Masquerade and Quantel. It also is home to the Newbury Building Society, which operates in the region.


title: Berkshire

text: In Compton, a small village, roughly 10 miles from Newbury, a chemical manufacturing company called Carbosynth was founded, in 2006. Since 2019, it has merged with a Swiss company called Biosynth AG to form a key global organisation within the fine chemical industry and operates under name Biosynth Carbosynth.


title: Berkshire

text: London Heathrow Airport, in the neighbouring London Borough of Hillingdon, is a major contributor to the economy of Slough in east Berkshire.


title: Berkshire

text: Abingdon Abbey once had dairy-based granges in the south-east of the county, Red Windsor cheese was developed with red marbling. Some Berkshire cheeses are Wigmore, Waterloo and Spenwood (named after Spencers Wood) in Riseley; and Barkham Blue, Barkham Chase and Loddon Blewe at Barkham.


title: Berkshire

text: Local news is covered by BBC South and ITV Meridian; however, most eastern parts of the county, such as Maidenhead, Windsor and Slough, receive BBC London and ITV London.


title: Berkshire

text: Berkshire hosts more Group 1 flat horse races than any other county. Ascot Racecourse is used for thoroughbred horse racing. It is one of the leading racecourses in the United Kingdom, hosting 13 of the UK's 35 annual Group 1 races. The course is closely associated with the British Royal Family, being approximately from Windsor Castle, and owned by the Crown Estate.


title: Berkshire

text: Ascot today stages twenty-five days of racing over the course of the year, comprising sixteen flat meetings held between May and October. The Royal Meeting, held in June, remains a major draw; the highlight is the Ascot Gold Cup. The most prestigious race is the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes run in July.


title: Berkshire

text: Newbury Racecourse is in the civil parish of Greenham, adjoining the town of Newbury. It has courses for flat races and over jumps. It hosts one of Great Britain's 32 Group 1 races, the Lockinge Stakes. It also hosts the Ladbrokes Trophy, which is said to be the biggest handicap race of the National Hunt season apart from the Grand National.


title: Berkshire

text: Windsor Racecourse, also known as Royal Windsor Racecourse is a thoroughbred horse racing venue located in Windsor. It is one of only two figure-of-eight courses in the United Kingdom. (The other is at Fontwell Park). It abandoned National Hunt jump racing in December 1998, switching entirely to flat racing.


title: Berkshire

text: Lambourn also has a rich history in horse racing, the well drained, spongy grass, open downs and long flats make the Lambourn Downs ideal for training racehorses. This area of West Berkshire is the largest centre of racehorse training in the UK after Newmarket, and is known as the 'Valley of the Racecourse'.


title: Berkshire

text: Reading F.C. is the only Berkshire football club to play professional football. Despite being founded in 1871, the club did not join the Football League until 1920, and first played in the top tier of English football in the 2006–07 season.


title: Berkshire

text: Newbury was home to A.F.C. Newbury, which was for a period one of only two football clubs to be sponsored by Vodafone (the other being Manchester United). In May 2006 Vodafone ended its sponsorship of the club, following which the club collapsed. A local pub team from the Old London Apprentice took over the ground temporarily and now compete in the Hellenic Football League as Newbury F.C.


title: Berkshire

text: There are several amateur and semi-professional football clubs in the county. These include Maidenhead United, Slough Town, Hungerford Town, Thatcham Town, Ascot United, A.F.C. Aldermaston, Sandhurst Town, Windsor F.C., Wokingham & Emmbrook F.C., Bracknell Town F.C. and Reading City.


title: Berkshire

text: Reading is a centre for rugby union football. The Premiership team London Irish were for 20 years tenants at the Madejski Stadium before their move back to SW London at a new stadium in Brentford.


title: Berkshire

text: Newbury's rugby union club, Newbury R.F.C. (the Newbury 'Blues'), is based in the town. In the 2004–05 season, the club finished second in the National Two division earning promotion to National One. Newbury had previously won National Four South (now renamed as National Three South) in 1996–97 with a 100% win record. In 2010–11 the club finished bottom of National League 2S, with a single win and twenty-nine defeats. The club was founded in 1928 and in 1996 moved to a new purpose-built ground at Monks Lane, which has since hosted England U21 fixtures.


title: Berkshire

text: The Bracknell Bees Ice Hockey Club are former national champions, who play in the English Premier League.


title: Berkshire

text: Slough Jets also play in the English Premier League winning the title in 2007. Slough Jets also won the play-offs in 2005–06, 2007–08, 2009–10 & 2011–12. they have finished in the top 4 in the last 9 seasons. They also won the EPIH Cup in 2010–11. Slough Jets have been in the EPIHL since 1999.


title: Berkshire

text: Slough Hockey Club is home to the Slough Ladies 1XI who play in the Women's Premier League. Slough Hockey club has 5 adult teams; the Ladies 1XI play in the top tier of English Hockey, the Ladies 2XI play in the TrySports League, the Men's 1XI play in MBBO Regional 1, the Men's 2XI play in MBBO Division 3 & the Men's Swifts (3XI) in MBBO Division 6. There are other hockey teams in the county: Reading Hockey Club, Sonning Hockey Club, Maidenhead Hockey Club, Windsor Hockey Club, Newbury & Thatcham Hockey Club and Reading University Hockey Club. In 2016 Bracknell and Wokingham Hockey Clubs merged to form South Berkshire Hockey Club. The team is based on Cantley Park, Wokingham whilst also playing occasional games at Birch Hill in Bracknell.


title: Berkshire

text: Berkshire is home to the following universities: the University of Reading (which includes the Henley Business School), Imperial College (Silwood Park Campus), and the University of West London. It is also home to The Chartered Institute of Marketing, prestigious independent schools Ludgrove School, Eton College and Wellington College, and several grammar schools including Reading School, Kendrick School and Herschel Grammar School.


title: Berkshire

text: "See the List of places in Berkshire, List of settlements in Berkshire by population and the List of civil parishes in Berkshire"


title: Mitosis

text: In cell biology, mitosis () is a part of the cell cycle in which replicated chromosomes are separated into two new nuclei. Cell division by mitosis gives rise to genetically identical cells in which the total number of chromosomes is maintained. Therefore, mitosis is also known as equational division. In general, mitosis is preceded by S phase of interphase (during which DNA replication occurs) and is often followed by telophase and cytokinesis; which divides the cytoplasm, organelles and cell membrane of one cell into two new cells containing roughly equal shares of these cellular components. The different stages of mitosis altogether define the mitotic (M) phase of an animal cell cycle—the division of the mother cell into two daughter cells genetically identical to each other.


title: Mitosis

text: The process of mitosis is divided into stages corresponding to the completion of one set of activities and the start of the next. These stages are preprophase (specific to plant cells), prophase, prometaphase, metaphase, anaphase, and telophase. During mitosis, the chromosomes, which have already duplicated, condense and attach to spindle fibers that pull one copy of each chromosome to opposite sides of the cell. The result is two genetically identical daughter nuclei. The rest of the cell may then continue to divide by cytokinesis to produce two daughter cells. The different phases of mitosis can be visualized in real time, using live cell imaging. Producing three or more daughter cells instead of the normal two is a mitotic error called tripolar mitosis or multipolar mitosis (direct cell triplication / multiplication). Other errors during mitosis can induce mitotic catastrophe, apoptosis (programmed cell death) or cause mutations. Certain types of cancer can arise from such mutations.


title: Mitosis

text: Mitosis occurs only in eukaryotic cells. Prokaryotic cells, which lack a nucleus, divide by a different process called binary fission. Mitosis varies between organisms. For example, animal cells undergo an "open" mitosis, where the nuclear envelope breaks down before the chromosomes separate, whereas fungi undergo a "closed" mitosis, where chromosomes divide within an intact cell nucleus. Most animal cells undergo a shape change, known as mitotic cell rounding, to adopt a near spherical morphology at the start of mitosis. Most human cells are produced by mitotic cell division. Important exceptions include the gametes – sperm and egg cells – which are produced by meiosis.


title: Mitosis

text: Numerous descriptions of cell division were made during 18th and 19th centuries, with various degrees of accuracy. In 1835, the German botanist Hugo von Mohl, described cell division in the green algae "Cladophora glomerata", stating that multiplication of cells occurs through cell division. In 1838, Matthias Jakob Schleiden affirmed that "formation of new cells "in their interior" was a general rule for cell multiplication in plants", a view later rejected in favour of Mohl's model, due to contributions of Robert Remak and others.


title: Mitosis

text: In animal cells, cell division with mitosis was discovered in frog, rabbit, and cat cornea cells in 1873 and described for the first time by the Polish histologist Wacław Mayzel in 1875.


title: Mitosis

text: Bütschli, Schneider and Fol might have also claimed the discovery of the process presently known as "mitosis". In 1873, the German zoologist Otto Bütschli published data from observations on nematodes. A few years later, he discovered and described mitosis based on those observations.


title: Mitosis

text: The term "mitosis", coined by Walther Flemming in 1882, is derived from the Greek word μίτος ("mitos", "warp thread"). There are some alternative names for the process, e.g., "karyokinesis" (nuclear division), a term introduced by Schleicher in 1878, or "equational division", proposed by August Weismann in 1887. However, the term "mitosis" is also used in a broad sense by some authors to refer to karyokinesis and cytokinesis together. Presently, "equational division" is more commonly used to refer to meiosis II, the part of meiosis most like mitosis.


title: Mitosis

text: The primary result of mitosis and cytokinesis is the transfer of a parent cell's genome into two daughter cells. The genome is composed of a number of chromosomes—complexes of tightly coiled DNA that contain genetic information vital for proper cell function. Because each resultant daughter cell should be genetically identical to the parent cell, the parent cell must make a copy of each chromosome before mitosis. This occurs during the S phase of interphase. Chromosome duplication results in two identical "sister chromatids" bound together by cohesin proteins at the "centromere".


title: Mitosis

text: When mitosis begins, the chromosomes condense and become visible. In some eukaryotes, for example animals, the nuclear envelope, which segregates the DNA from the cytoplasm, disintegrates into small vesicles. The nucleolus, which makes ribosomes in the cell, also disappears. Microtubules project from opposite ends of the cell, attach to the centromeres, and align the chromosomes centrally within the cell. The microtubules then contract to pull the sister chromatids of each chromosome apart. Sister chromatids at this point are called "daughter chromosomes". As the cell elongates, corresponding daughter chromosomes are pulled toward opposite ends of the cell and condense maximally in late anaphase. A new nuclear envelope forms around the separated daughter chromosomes, which decondense to form interphase nuclei.


title: Mitosis

text: During mitotic progression, typically after the anaphase onset, the cell may undergo cytokinesis. In animal cells, a cell membrane pinches inward between the two developing nuclei to produce two new cells. In plant cells, a cell plate forms between the two nuclei. Cytokinesis does not always occur; coenocytic (a type of multinucleate condition) cells undergo mitosis without cytokinesis.


title: Mitosis

text: The mitotic phase is a relatively short period of the cell cycle. It alternates with the much longer "interphase", where the cell prepares itself for the process of cell division. Interphase is divided into three phases: G (first gap), S (synthesis), and G (second gap). During all three parts of interphase, the cell grows by producing proteins and cytoplasmic organelles. However, chromosomes are replicated only during the S phase. Thus, a cell grows (G), continues to grow as it duplicates its chromosomes (S), grows more and prepares for mitosis (G), and finally divides (M) before restarting the cycle. All these phases in the cell cycle are highly regulated by cyclins, cyclin-dependent kinases, and other cell cycle proteins. The phases follow one another in strict order and there are "checkpoints" that give the cell cues to proceed from one phase to another. Cells may also temporarily or permanently leave the cell cycle and enter G phase to stop dividing. This can occur when cells become overcrowded (density-dependent inhibition) or when they differentiate to carry out specific functions for the organism, as is the case for human heart muscle cells and neurons. Some G cells have the ability to re-enter the cell cycle.


title: Mitosis

text: DNA double-strand breaks can be repaired during interphase by two principal processes. The first process, non-homologous end joining (NHEJ), can join the two broken ends of DNA in the G1, S and G2 phases of interphase. The second process, homologous recombinational repair (HRR), is more accurate than NHEJ in repairing double-strand breaks. HRR is active during the S and G2 phases of interphase when DNA replication is either partially accomplished or after it is completed, since HRR requires two adjacent homologs.


title: Mitosis

text: Interphase helps prepare the cell for mitotic division. It dictates whether the mitotic cell division will occur. It carefully stops the cell from proceeding whenever the cell's DNA is damaged or has not completed an important phase. The interphase is very important as it will determine if mitosis completes successfully. It will reduce the amount of damaged cells produced and the production of cancerous cells. A miscalculation by the key Interphase proteins could be crucial as the latter could potentially create cancerous cells. Today, more research is being done to understand specifically how the phases stated above occur.


title: Mitosis

text: In plant cells only, prophase is preceded by a pre-prophase stage. In highly vacuolated plant cells, the nucleus has to migrate into the center of the cell before mitosis can begin. This is achieved through the formation of a phragmosome, a transverse sheet of cytoplasm that bisects the cell along the future plane of cell division. In addition to phragmosome formation, preprophase is characterized by the formation of a ring of microtubules and actin filaments (called preprophase band) underneath the plasma membrane around the equatorial plane of the future mitotic spindle. This band marks the position where the cell will eventually divide. The cells of higher plants (such as the flowering plants) lack centrioles; instead, microtubules form a spindle on the surface of the nucleus and are then organized into a spindle by the chromosomes themselves, after the nuclear envelope breaks down. The preprophase band disappears during nuclear envelope breakdown and spindle formation in prometaphase.


title: Mitosis

text: During prophase, which occurs after G interphase, the cell prepares to divide by tightly condensing its chromosomes and initiating mitotic spindle formation. During interphase, the genetic material in the nucleus consists of loosely packed chromatin. At the onset of prophase, chromatin fibers condense into discrete chromosomes that are typically visible at high magnification through a light microscope. In this stage, chromosomes are long, thin, and thread-like. Each chromosome has two chromatids. The two chromatids are joined at the centromere.


title: Mitosis

text: Gene transcription ceases during prophase and does not resume until late anaphase to early G phase. The nucleolus also disappears during early prophase.


title: Mitosis

text: Close to the nucleus of animal cells are structures called centrosomes, consisting of a pair of centrioles surrounded by a loose collection of proteins. The centrosome is the coordinating center for the cell's microtubules. A cell inherits a single centrosome at cell division, which is duplicated by the cell before a new round of mitosis begins, giving a pair of centrosomes. The two centrosomes polymerize tubulin to help form a microtubule spindle apparatus. Motor proteins then push the centrosomes along these microtubules to opposite sides of the cell. Although centrosomes help organize microtubule assembly, they are not essential for the formation of the spindle apparatus, since they are absent from plants, and are not absolutely required for animal cell mitosis.


title: Mitosis

text: At the beginning of prometaphase in animal cells, phosphorylation of nuclear lamins causes the nuclear envelope to disintegrate into small membrane vesicles. As this happens, microtubules invade the nuclear space. This is called "open mitosis", and it occurs in some multicellular organisms. Fungi and some protists, such as algae or trichomonads, undergo a variation called "closed mitosis" where the spindle forms inside the nucleus, or the microtubules penetrate the intact nuclear envelope.


title: Mitosis

text: In late prometaphase, "kinetochore microtubules" begin to search for and attach to chromosomal kinetochores. A "kinetochore" is a proteinaceous microtubule-binding structure that forms on the chromosomal centromere during late prophase. A number of "polar microtubules" find and interact with corresponding polar microtubules from the opposite centrosome to form the mitotic spindle. Although the kinetochore structure and function are not fully understood, it is known that it contains some form of molecular motor. When a microtubule connects with the kinetochore, the motor activates, using energy from ATP to "crawl" up the tube toward the originating centrosome. This motor activity, coupled with polymerisation and depolymerisation of microtubules, provides the pulling force necessary to later separate the chromosome's two chromatids.


title: Mitosis

text: After the microtubules have located and attached to the kinetochores in prometaphase, the two centrosomes begin pulling the chromosomes towards opposite ends of the cell. The resulting tension causes the chromosomes to align along the "metaphase plate" or "equatorial plane", an imaginary line that is centrally located between the two centrosomes (at approximately the midline of the cell). To ensure equitable distribution of chromosomes at the end of mitosis, the "metaphase checkpoint" guarantees that kinetochores are properly attached to the mitotic spindle and that the chromosomes are aligned along the metaphase plate. If the cell successfully passes through the metaphase checkpoint, it proceeds to anaphase.


title: Mitosis

text: During "anaphase A", the cohesins that bind sister chromatids together are cleaved, forming two identical daughter chromosomes. Shortening of the kinetochore microtubules pulls the newly formed daughter chromosomes to opposite ends of the cell. During "anaphase B", polar microtubules push against each other, causing the cell to elongate. In late anaphase, chromosomes also reach their overall maximal condensation level, to help chromosome segregation and the re-formation of the nucleus. In most animal cells, anaphase A precedes anaphase B, but some vertebrate egg cells demonstrate the opposite order of events.


title: Mitosis

text: Telophase (from the Greek word "τελος" meaning "end") is a reversal of prophase and prometaphase events. At telophase, the polar microtubules continue to lengthen, elongating the cell even more. If the nuclear envelope has broken down, a new nuclear envelope forms using the membrane vesicles of the parent cell's old nuclear envelope. The new envelope forms around each set of separated daughter chromosomes (though the membrane does not enclose the centrosomes) and the nucleolus reappears. Both sets of chromosomes, now surrounded by new nuclear membrane, begin to "relax" or decondense. Mitosis is complete. Each daughter nucleus has an identical set of chromosomes. Cell division may or may not occur at this time depending on the organism.


title: Mitosis

text: Cytokinesis is not a phase of mitosis, but rather a separate process necessary for completing cell division. In animal cells, a cleavage furrow (pinch) containing a contractile ring, develops where the metaphase plate used to be, pinching off the separated nuclei. In both animal and plant cells, cell division is also driven by vesicles derived from the Golgi apparatus, which move along microtubules to the middle of the cell. In plants, this structure coalesces into a cell plate at the center of the phragmoplast and develops into a cell wall, separating the two nuclei. The phragmoplast is a microtubule structure typical for higher plants, whereas some green algae use a phycoplast microtubule array during cytokinesis. Each daughter cell has a complete copy of the genome of its parent cell. The end of cytokinesis marks the end of the M-phase.


title: Mitosis

text: There are many cells where mitosis and cytokinesis occur separately, forming single cells with multiple nuclei. The most notable occurrence of this is among the fungi, slime molds, and coenocytic algae, but the phenomenon is found in various other organisms. Even in animals, cytokinesis and mitosis may occur independently, for instance during certain stages of fruit fly embryonic development.


title: Mitosis

text: Mitosis's "function" or significance relies on the maintenance of the chromosomal set; each formed cell receives chromosomes that are alike in composition and equal in number to the chromosomes of the parent cell.


title: Mitosis

text: The mitosis process in the cells of eukaryotic organisms follows a similar pattern, but with variations in three main details. "Closed" and "open" mitosis can be distinguished on the basis of nuclear envelope remaining intact or breaking down. An intermediate form with partial degradation of the nuclear envelope is called "semiopen" mitosis. With respect to the symmetry of the spindle apparatus during metaphase, an approximately axially symmetric (centered) shape is called "orthomitosis", distinguished from the eccentric spindles of "pleuromitosis", in which mitotic apparatus has bilateral symmetry. Finally, a third criterion is the location of the central spindle in case of closed pleuromitosis: "extranuclear" (spindle located in the cytoplasm) or "intranuclear" (in the nucleus).


title: Mitosis

text: Nuclear division takes place only in cells of organisms of the eukaryotic domain, as bacteria and archaea have no nucleus. Bacteria and archaea undergo a different type of division. Within each of the eukaryotic supergroups, mitosis of the open form can be found, as well as closed mitosis, except for Excavata, which show exclusively closed mitosis. Following, the occurrence of the forms of mitosis in eukaryotes:


title: Mitosis

text: Errors can occur during mitosis, especially during early embryonic development in humans. During each step of mitosis, there are normally checkpoints as well that control the normal outcome of mitosis. But, occasionally to almost rarely, mistakes will happen. Mitotic errors can create aneuploid cells that have too few or too many of one or more chromosomes, a condition associated with cancer. Early human embryos, cancer cells, infected or intoxicated cells can also suffer from pathological division into three or more daughter cells (tripolar or multipolar mitosis), resulting in severe errors in their chromosomal complements.


title: Mitosis

text: In "nondisjunction", sister chromatids fail to separate during anaphase. One daughter cell receives both sister chromatids from the nondisjoining chromosome and the other cell receives none. As a result, the former cell gets three copies of the chromosome, a condition known as "trisomy", and the latter will have only one copy, a condition known as "monosomy". On occasion, when cells experience nondisjunction, they fail to complete cytokinesis and retain both nuclei in one cell, resulting in binucleated cells.


title: Mitosis

text: "Anaphase lag" occurs when the movement of one chromatid is impeded during anaphase. This may be caused by a failure of the mitotic spindle to properly attach to the chromosome. The lagging chromatid is excluded from both nuclei and is lost. Therefore, one of the daughter cells will be monosomic for that chromosome.


title: Mitosis

text: "Endoreduplication" (or endoreplication) occurs when chromosomes duplicate but the cell does not subsequently divide. This results in polyploid cells or, if the chromosomes duplicates repeatedly, polytene chromosomes. Endoreduplication is found in many species and appears to be a normal part of development. Endomitosis is a variant of endoreduplication in which cells replicate their chromosomes during S phase and enter, but prematurely terminate, mitosis. Instead of being divided into two new daughter nuclei, the replicated chromosomes are retained within the original nucleus. The cells then re-enter G and S phase and replicate their chromosomes again. This may occur multiple times, increasing the chromosome number with each round of replication and endomitosis. Platelet-producing megakaryocytes go through endomitosis during cell differentiation.


title: Mitosis

text: "Amitosis" in ciliates and in animal placental tissues results in a random distribution of parental alleles.


title: Mitosis

text: In histopathology, the mitosis rate (mitotic count or mitotic index) is an important parameter in various types of tissue samples, for diagnosis as well as to further specify the aggressiveness of tumors. For example, there is routinely a quantification of mitotic count in breast cancer classification. The mitoses must be counted in an area of the highest mitotic activity. Visually identifying these areas, is difficult in tumors with very high mitotic activity. Also, the detection of atypical forms of mitosis can be used both as a diagnostic and prognostic marker. For example, "lag-type mitosis" (non-attached condensed chromatin in the area of the mitotic figure) indicates high risk human papillomavirus infection-related Cervical cancer. In order to improve the reproducibility and accuracy of the mitotic count, automated image analysis using deep learning-based algorithms have been proposed. However, further research is needed before those algorithms can be used to routine diagnostics.


title: Mitosis

text: In animal tissue, most cells round up to a near-spherical shape during mitosis. In epithelia and epidermis, an efficient rounding process is correlated with proper mitotic spindle alignment and subsequent correct positioning of daughter cells. Moreover, researchers have found that if rounding is heavily suppressed it may result in spindle defects, primarily pole splitting and failure to efficiently capture chromosomes. Therefore, mitotic cell rounding is thought to play a protective role in ensuring accurate mitosis.


title: Mitosis

text: Rounding forces are driven by reorganization of F-actin and myosin (actomyosin) into a contractile homogeneous cell cortex that 1) rigidifies the cell periphery and 2) facilitates generation of intracellular hydrostatic pressure (up to 10 fold higher than interphase). The generation of intracellular pressure is particularly critical under confinement, such as would be important in a tissue scenario, where outward forces must be produced to round up against surrounding cells and/or the extracellular matrix. Generation of pressure is dependent on formin-mediated F-actin nucleation and Rho kinase (ROCK)-mediated myosin II contraction, both of which are governed upstream by signaling pathways RhoA and ECT2 through the activity of Cdk1. Due to its importance in mitosis, the molecular components and dynamics of the mitotic actomyosin cortex is an area of active research.


title: Mitosis

text: Mitotic cells irradiated with X-rays in the G1 phase of the cell cycle repair recombinogenic DNA damages primarily by recombination between homologous chromosomes. Mitotic cells irradiated in the G2 phase repair such damages preferentially by sister-chromatid recombination. Mutations in genes encoding enzymes employed in recombination cause cells to have increased sensitivity to being killed by a variety of DNA damaging agents. These findings suggest that mitotic recombination is an adaptation for repairing DNA damages including those that are potentially lethal.


title: Mitosis

text: There are prokaryotic homologs of all the key molecules of eukaryotic mitosis (e.g., actins, tubulins). Being a universal eukaryotic property, mitosis probably arose at the base of the eukaryotic tree. As mitosis is less complex than meiosis, meiosis may have arisen after mitosis. However, sexual reproduction involving meiosis is also a primitive characteristic of eukaryotes. Thus meiosis and mitosis may both have evolved, in parallel, from ancestral prokaryotic processes.


title: Mitosis

text: While in bacterial cell division, after duplication of DNA, two circular chromosomes are attached to a special region of the cell membrane, eukaryotic mitosis is usually characterized by the presence of many linear chromosomes, whose kinetochores attaches to the microtubules of the spindle. In relation to the forms of mitosis, closed intranuclear pleuromitosis seems to be the most primitive type, as it is more similar to bacterial division.


title: Mitosis

text: Mitotic cells can be visualized microscopically by staining them with fluorescent antibodies and dyes.


title: Brooke Burns

text: Brooke Elizabeth Burns (born March 16, 1978) is an American fashion model, game show host, actress, and television personality. Burns began her television career in 1995, portraying the supporting character Peg in the Spanish-American teen sitcom "Out of the Blue" (1995–1996), appearing in all episodes. Burns joined the cast of the action drama series "Baywatch" in 1998 and subsequently starred in "Baywatch"s second rendition, "Baywatch: Hawaii", until she left the show owing to her first pregnancy. She appeared in 33 episodes.


title: Brooke Burns

text: After her hiatus, Burns returned to television. She appeared in several guest roles, including in the NBC sitcom "Just Shoot Me!", and played a major role in the American soap opera "North Shore", appearing in all 21 episodes.


title: Brooke Burns

text: Burns hosted all episodes of the NBC game show "Dog Eat Dog", which aired from 2002 to 2003. She hosted 18 episodes of the Fox game show "Hole in the Wall", as well as the GSN quiz show "The Chase". "The Chase" was nominated at the 41st Daytime Emmy Awards for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Game Show, and two years later Burns was nominated for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Game Show Host. In addition to television, Burns has also appeared in minor roles in several films. She appeared in the romantic comedy "Shallow Hal", the mockbuster disaster "Titanic II", and the drama "Where Hope Grows" (2014).


title: Brooke Burns

text: Burns was born in Dallas, Texas, the daughter of Brad and Betsy Burns. She has two sisters. She was a ballet dancer for 12 years during childhood and started modeling at age 15 after tearing her anterior cruciate ligament in a skiing accident. At age 16, Burns moved with her family to Europe, living later in Paris, Milan, and Munich.


title: Brooke Burns

text: From 1998 to 2001, Burns starred in "Baywatch" and "Baywatch: Hawaii" as the character Jessie Owens. In 2001, she appeared as Vicki Vale in one of several "Batman" commercials for OnStar opposite Bruce Thomas's Batman. Burns hosted NBC's "Dog Eat Dog" from June 2002 to August 2003 and was nominated for a Teen Choice Award. Burns starred in "North Shore", a prime-time soap opera that ran for 21 episodes in 2004 and 2005. In 2006, she starred in the WB series "Pepper Dennis", playing Kathy Dinkle. In 2009, Burns appeared in the first 12 episodes of the updated "Melrose Place", playing Vanessa, the most recent wife of Dr. Michael Mancini (Thomas Calabro) and mother of his older son's five-year-old son, Noah. Burns was given the chance to participate in the first season of the ABC celebrity diving reality competition "Splash" but turned it down because of an injury she had received when diving a few years before.


title: Brooke Burns

text: Burns has also appeared on "Ally McBeal", "Drop Dead Diva", "", "To Tell the Truth", and "Average Joe: Hawaii". She was nominated for an Emmy in 2016 for best game show host on the GSN game show "The Chase" with Mark Labbett and is currently host of "Master Minds".


title: Brooke Burns

text: For her role in the 2001 film "Shallow Hal", the Farrelly brothers wrote a specific part for Burns after deciding during her audition that she was the "prettiest dorky girl" they'd met. She appeared in a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie, "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year", co-starring Henry Winkler, on December 13, 2008. Other films include "Smokejumpers", "Dancing Trees", "Trophy Wife", "Art of Travel", and "Time and Again". Burns appears in the Nickelback video "Trying Not to Love You" opposite Jason Alexander. Burns and Alexander both appeared in "Shallow Hal".


title: Brooke Burns

text: Burns grew up in Texas in a Christian family. Her father was in the oil business and also did missionary work. Burns was married to actor Julian McMahon from 1999 to 2001. McMahon is the son of the former Prime Minister of Australia Sir William McMahon. They have a daughter, Madison Elizabeth McMahon, who was born in June 2000.


title: Brooke Burns

text: Burns began dating actor Bruce Willis in April 2003. Rumoured to have become engaged in April 2004, they broke up in June 2004 after 10 months together.


title: Brooke Burns

text: In October 2016, it was announced that Burns was expecting her second child, a girl; Burns announced that her daughter, Declan Welles O'Connor, was born January 22, 2017.


title: Brooke Burns

text: On November 10, 2005, Burns broke her neck in a diving accident. Although she made a full recovery, she has a titanium fusion in her neck consisting of a plate, rod, and 10 screws. In May 2014, Burns was involved in a car crash in Los Angeles.


title: Brooke Burns

text: When Burns was filming "Baywatch", she was involved with Camp Baywatch, teaching inner-city children to swim and lifeguard. She also supports the Life Rolls On Foundation, an organization that aims to help people with spinal cord injuries return to an active lifestyle. In 2006, as a result of her diving injury, she became involved with the Think First National Injury Prevention Foundation and the North American Spine Society, which aim to raise awareness of spinal injuries. In 2022, Burns appeared on "Celebrity Wheel of Fortune", playing for the Just Keep Livin' Foundation. The organization helps teenagers across the country.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: The controversy involves data from a laptop of Hunter Biden that was abandoned at a Delaware computer shop. The data was subsequently shared with the FBI, Republican operatives, and the press. Forensic analysis of the data showed that only some of it could be authenticated but, in particular, only one of two key emails used by the "New York Post" in the initial reporting could be forensically verified. No evidence of illegality by the Bidens has been shown from the laptop contents.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: Three weeks before the 2020 United States presidential election, the "New York Post" published a story presenting emails from the laptop and stating that they showed corruption by Joe Biden. Incumbent president and presidential candidate Donald Trump tried to turn the story into an October surprise to hurt Joe Biden's campaign, with Trump falsely asserting that Joe Biden had acted corruptly regarding Ukraine while in office.<ref name="Padden_10/28/2020"></ref> PolitiFact wrote in June 2021 that, while "over time, there has been less doubt that the laptop did in fact belong to Hunter Biden", the laptop "was real in the sense that it exists, but it didn't prove much", as "[n]othing from the laptop has revealed illegal or unethical behavior by Joe Biden as vice president with regard to his son's tenure as a director for Burisma".


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: The laptop lacked a clear chain of custody, and was considered "a mess" from a forensic standpoint by analysts. The drive contained emails marked to and from Hunter Biden and other digital files relating to him. "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post" reported that their sources had authenticated a number of emails, including one that was the subject of the "New York Post" reporting. Two forensic analysts who independently examined the data for "The Washington Post" authenticated 1,828 and 22,000, respectively, of the almost 129,000 emails on the hard drive in 2022. Neither analyst could verify the vast majority of the data. The unverifiable emails included some prominently reported previously by other news outlets.<ref name="Timberg_Viser_Hamburger_3/30/2022"></ref> The analysis found that people other than Biden had written files and folders to the drive before and after the original report by the "New York Post", but only after it had been taken into FBI custody. It also found that data had been accessed and copied off the drive by people other than Biden over nearly three years. In November 2022, CBS News published a forensic analysis it commissioned, which examined a "clean" copy of the data obtained directly from the repair shop operator. That analysis concluded that the "clean" data originated with Hunter Biden and had not been altered, contrasting that to modified copies which had been circulated by Republican political operatives in an effort to discredit Joe Biden's presidential campaign, which showed evidence of tampering.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: The media coverage of the laptop spurred speculation about the Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory, which falsely alleged that then vice president Joe Biden acted in Ukraine to protect his son from a corruption investigation by Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin. On October 14, 2020, the "New York Post" published an article based on an email from the laptop about a purported meeting between then vice president Joe Biden and the Burisma advisor Vadym Pozharskyi. The Biden campaign denied Joe Biden had any meeting with Pozharskyi and said that if they had ever met, it would have been a brief encounter. Witnesses at the dinner where they allegedly met said Joe Biden briefly passed by to see an old friend. The "Post" reported in its story that Pozharskyi declined to comment, and he did not comment to a "Politico" journalist who reported extensively on the story a year later.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: The "Post" reported that the email was found in a cache of data extracted from the external hard drive of the laptop computer that purportedly belonged to Hunter Biden. The "Post" reported that the owner of the repair shop had made a copy of the external hard drive before it was seized by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and that the copy was later provided to the "Post" by Donald Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani. The subpoena to seize the laptop was issued by a grand jury on behalf of the U.S. attorney's office in Wilmington, which was later reported to have been investigating Hunter Biden about lobbying and financial matters since at least 2018.<ref name="Goldman_10/22/2020"></ref>


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: The veracity of the "Post"'s reporting was strongly questioned by many mainstream media outlets, analysts, and intelligence officials due to the unknown origin and chain of custody of the laptop and the provenance of its contents and also due to suspicion it possibly may have been used as part of a disinformation campaign by Russian intelligence or its proxies.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: On October 14, 2020, the "New York Post" published articles containing purported emails of unknown authorship which suggested that Hunter Biden provided an "opportunity" to Vadym Pozharskyi, an advisor to the board of Burisma, to meet his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden. Joe Biden stated in September 2019 that he had never spoken to his son about his foreign business dealings. His presidential campaign denied such a meeting took place and stated the "New York Post" had never contacted them "about the critical elements of this story". Michael Carpenter, Vice President Biden's foreign policy adviser in 2015, told "The Washington Post" that he had accompanied Joe Biden during all of his meetings about Ukraine and that, "He never met with [Pozharskyi]." He added, "In fact, I had never heard of this guy until the "New York Post" story broke." One of the purported emails showed Pozharskyi saying he would share information with Amos Hochstein, a State Department advisor close to Vice President Biden, though Hochstein stated, "The Republican Senate investigation subpoenaed all my records, including emails and calendars and found no mention of this man. I led the US energy efforts in Ukraine and never even heard of him before yesterday."


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: The "New York Post" published images and PDF copies of the alleged emails, but their authenticity and origin have not been determined.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: According to an investigation by "The New York Times," editors at the "New York Post" "pressed staff members to add their bylines to the story", and at least one refused, in addition to the original author, reportedly because of a lack of confidence in its credibility. Of the two writers eventually credited on the article, the second did not know her name was attached to it until after "The Post" published it. In its opening sentence, the "New York Post" story misleadingly asserted "the elder Biden pressured government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating" Burisma, despite the fact that Shokin had not pursued an investigation into Burisma's founder. The opening sentence also misleadingly stated that Hunter Biden introduced his father to Pozharskyi, but the purported email from Pozharskyi only mentioned an invitation and "opportunity" for the men to meet.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: On October 15, the "Post" published another article regarding a business venture relating to CEFC China Energy that Hunter Biden was negotiating with potential investment partners in May 2017, when his father was a private citizen. The "Post" published a purported email it said came from the laptop, written by one of the prospective investors, on which Hunter Biden was copied. The email described the proposed equity shares of each of the investors in the venture, ending with a reference to "10 held by H for the big guy?" The "Post" reported the "H" apparently referred to Hunter Biden, and one of his former business partners soon came forward to assert "the big guy" referred to Joe Biden. The former business partner also tweeted a copy of the email that had been addressed to him. In a subsequent email, Hunter Biden said his "Chairman" gave him "an emphatic no", with a later email identifying the "chairman" as his father. The "Post" also reported on an August 2017 venture Hunter Biden was seeking with Ye Jianming, the chairman of CEFC, but the paper did not associate Joe Biden with that deal. Neither of the two ventures came to fruition.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: On May 26, 2021, the "New York Post" published another article focused on purported emails, suggesting that Joe Biden had met with Vadym Pozharskyi at a dinner in Cafe Milano in Washington. "The Washington Post" investigated the April 16, 2015, dinner. According to dinner attendee Rick Leach, who like Hunter Biden was one of the leaders of the World Food Program USA fundraising organization, the discussions at the dinner were about food security, not "politics or business". Leach said that Joe Biden briefly dropped by the dinner to meet Alex Karloutsos. According to Leach, Joe Biden "didn't even sit down. He was not part of the dinner or part of the dinner discussion." Karloutsos, a longtime friend of Joe Biden, had an influential role in the Greek Orthodox Church that Joe Biden long worked with. Karloutsos corroborated Leach's account. Also, according to "The Washington Post", the tentative guest list for the dinner included the name "Vadym" with no surname listed.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: Rudy Giuliani provided the materials to the "New York Post" after they were allegedly found on a water-damaged MacBook Pro left at a Delaware computer repair shop owned by John Paul Mac Isaac. Mac Isaac obtained the laptop in April 2019, claiming it had been dropped off by a man who identified himself as Hunter Biden and requested that the data on the damaged laptop be recovered.<ref name="Bump_4/12/2022"></ref> Mac Isaac eventually brought the laptop to the attention of the FBI, who seized it in December 2019, under the authority of a subpoena issued by a Wilmington grand jury that had been investigating Hunter Biden for financial matters since 2018.<ref name="Goldman_Benner_Vogel_8/13/2020"></ref> He asserted three years later that while he was copying individual files and folders from the laptop's hard drive to another device, he "saw some content that was disturbing and then also raised some red flags", including "criminality ... related to foreign business dealings, to potential money laundering and, more importantly, national security issues and concerns." This caused him "to do a deep dive into the laptop once it became my property". Mac Isaac contacted Giuliani, who he said was his "lifeguard"—voicing credence to the conspiracy theory that the Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign was behind the murder of campaign worker Seth Rich. Steve Bannon informed the "New York Post" of the laptop, and he and Giuliani delivered a copy of the supposed laptop hard drive to the publication. Weeks before, Bannon had boasted on Dutch television that he had Hunter Biden's hard drive.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: Giuliani was later quoted as saying he had given the copy to the "New York Post" because "either nobody else would take it, or if they took it, they would spend all the time they could to try to contradict it before they put it out". According to the "New York Post" story, a person—who Mac Isaac could not identify because he is legally blind—left the computer at the repair shop to repair water damage, but once this was completed, the shop had no contact information for its owner, and nobody ever paid for it or came to pick it up. Criticism has been focused on Mac Isaac over inconsistencies in his accounts of how the laptop came into his possession and how he passed it on to Giuliani and the FBI. When interviewed by CBS News, Mac Isaac offered contradictory statements about his motivations. Thomas Rid, a political scientist and disinformation expert at Johns Hopkins University, noted that the emails could have been forged or that forged material could have been mixed with genuine materials, a "common feature" of disinformation operations. "The Daily Beast" reported that according to two "individuals with direct knowledge", multiple senior officials in the Trump administration and reelection campaign were aware of the laptop hard drive "several weeks" prior to the "New York Post" story. Giuliani later confirmed to "The Daily Beast" that he had informed Trump about the material before the "New York Post" story.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: The "New York Post" reported it had been shown an image purporting to show a federal subpoena that resulted in the computer and an external hard drive being seized by the FBI in December 2019. NBC News reported the FBI had acquired the devices via a grand jury subpoena, though it was unclear if this was the subpoena cited by the "New York Post", and was investigating whether the contents were linked to a foreign intelligence operation. The Associated Press confirmed the existence of the FBI investigation into possible foreign-intelligence activity. Citing a "US official and a congressional source briefed on the matter", CNN reported the FBI was specifically investigating possible connections to ongoing Russian disinformation efforts against Joe Biden. In 2022, Mark Zuckerberg stated that an FBI warning about a possible Russian disinformation campaign prompted Facebook to remove content purporting to convey facts concerning the laptop story.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: According to "The Washington Post", Mac Isaac was alarmed that the laptop was not mentioned during Donald Trump's first impeachment trial in early 2020.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: Hunter Biden stated in an interview published April 2021 that he was not sure whether the laptop belonged to him; he said there "could be a laptop out there that was stolen from" him, or he could have been "hacked" by Russian intelligence. PolitiFact wrote in June 2021: "Over time, there has been less doubt that the laptop did in fact belong to Hunter Biden", concluding that the laptop "was real in the sense that it exists, but it didn't prove much", as "Nothing from the laptop has revealed illegal or unethical behavior by Joe Biden as vice president with regard to his son's tenure as a director for Burisma". PolitiFact states that it is possible that "copies of a laptop" were obtained, instead of the actual laptop. PolitiFact states that the "Daily Mail" published nude photos of Hunter Biden from the laptop, as well as other content focused on Hunter Biden's drug use and legal issues, but notes that Hunter Biden had already publicized his own drug issues.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: Material similar to the alleged hard-drive contents was reportedly circulating in Ukraine during 2019. One individual interviewed by "Time" magazine stated that he had been approached in late May 2019, and a second person stated that he had been approached in mid-September. The seller, according to the second individual, wished to sell compromising information about Hunter Biden to Republican Party allies of Donald Trump for $5 million. "I walked away from it, because it smelled awful", he told "Time". Igor Novikov, a former advisor to the Ukrainian president and a disinformation researcher, said that the market for "kompromat" (damaging material) had been very active in the past year in reaction to political events in the United States, with political operatives rushing to respond to Giuliani's call for damaging information on the Bidens. Novikov characterized the materials available on the market as "extremely hard to verify, yet very easy to fake". On October 19, Ukrainian legislator Andrii Derkach posted on social media that he had a second Hunter Biden laptop, stating, "The facts confirming international corruption are stored on a second laptop. These are not the last witnesses or the last laptop." Derkach had worked with Giuliani in Ukraine and was later sanctioned by the United States Treasury Department for his involvement in disinformation about Joe Biden; the Treasury concluded Derkach had been an active Russian intelligence agent for over a decade; the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) have also said that Derkach received funds from the Russian GRU, and initiated an investigation into his role. Lev Parnas told "Politico" that Giuliani had been told about compromising material regarding Hunter Biden on May 30, 2019, during a visit with Vitaly Pruss. Pruss was an associate of Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky, who was then being investigated for corruption by Ukraine.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: Earlier in the month and before the "Post" report, a White House lawyer and two others affiliated with Trump had already pitched a story about Hunter Biden's business dealings in China to "The Wall Street Journal", which the Trump team saw as an ideal outlet due to its combination of conservatism and industry credibility. However, without warning to the Trump team and while the "Journal" was exercising due diligence in investigating the story, the "New York Post" went ahead and published a version of the story based on documents and emails with "questionable provenance" that alleged, but did not prove, Joe Biden's involvement in his son's affairs. Bannon had anticipated the "Journal" story would appear on October 19, and Trump told reporters to expect a major story in the "Journal". The resulting possible insinuation that their journalism was affiliated with or working on behalf of Trump irritated the "Journal" editors. Tony Bobulinski, a business partner of Hunter Biden who was interviewed for the "Journal" report, was afraid that the "Journal" would not run the piece and therefore issued his own statement on October 21, which "Breitbart News" published unedited. During the next day's presidential debate, Trump made a vague reference to the emails and hosted Bobulinski as his special guest. After the debate, the "Journal" published its brief story that Bobulinski and corporate records assessed by the "Journal" "show no role for Joe Biden".<ref name="Smith_10/25/2020"></ref>


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: "The New York Times" reported in May 2021 that federal investigators in Brooklyn had begun a criminal investigation late in the Trump administration into possible efforts by several current and former Ukrainian officials to spread unsubstantiated allegations about Joe Biden concerning corruption. The investigators had been examining whether the Ukrainians used Giuliani as a channel for the allegations, though he was not a specific subject of the investigation, in contrast to a long-running investigation of Giuliani by the US attorney's office in Manhattan.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: "The New York Times" reported in March 2022 that they found emails "from a cache of files that appears to have come from a laptop abandoned by Mr. Biden in a Delaware repair shop."


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: In March 2022, "Vox" reported that no evidence had ever emerged "that the laptop's leak was a Russian plot." That month, "The New York Times" reported that sources familiar with the emails and an investigation of Hunter Biden related to possible financial impropriety said some emails between Biden, his business partner and others regarding Burisma and other foreign business activity had been authenticated. Emails showed Biden and his business partner discussed inviting foreign business associates to the April 2015 dinner in Washington, including Pozharskyi.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: In April 2022, "The Washington Post" reported that Mac Isaac said that he had seen claims about what the laptop contained that did not reflect what he had seen on the laptop: "I do know that there have been multiple attempts over the past year-and-a-half to insert questionable material into the laptop as in, not physically, but passing off this misinformation or disinformation as coming from the laptop. ... And that is a major concern of mine because I have fought tooth and nail to protect the integrity of this drive and to jeopardize that is going to mean that everything that I sacrificed will be for nothing."


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: In May 2022, NBC News published an analysis of a copy of the hard drive they received from Giuliani and documents released by Republicans on two Senate committees. The analysis found that Hunter Biden's firm took in $11 million from 2013 to 2018 and spent the money quickly. The analysis also found that few of Hunter Biden's deals ever came to fruition.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: In March 2022, "The Washington Post" published the findings of two forensic information analysts it had retained to examine 217 gigabytes of data provided to the paper on a hard drive by Republican activist Jack Maxey, who represented that its contents came from the laptop. One of the analysts characterized the data as a "disaster" from a forensics standpoint. The analysts found that people other than Hunter Biden had repeatedly accessed and copied data for nearly three years; they also found evidence that people other than Biden had accessed and written files to the drive, both before and after the New York Post story. In September 2020, someone created six new folders on the drive, including with the names "Biden Burisma," "Big Guy File," "Salacious Pics Package" and "Hunter. Burisma Documents." One of the analysts found evidence someone may have accessed the drive contents from a West Coast location days after "The New York Post" published their stories about the laptop.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: Using cryptographic signatures to analyze the roughly 129,000 emails on the drive, one analysis was able to verify that 1,828 of the emails came from the indicated email accounts of origin, suggesting they were authentic and had not been tampered with; the other analysis was able to verify nearly 22,000 emails using similar methods, after overcoming technical issues the first analysis could not resolve. The analysts said emails from Burisma, where Pozharskyi was an advisor, were likely authentic, but cautioned that if Burisma had been hacked, it would be possible for hackers to use stolen cryptographic signatures to forge emails that would pass as authentic. "The New York Times" reported in January 2020 that Russian military intelligence had hacked Burisma beginning in November 2019; a co-founder of the firm that discovered the hacking said Russians were stealing email credentials. Both analysts acknowledged that cryptographic signatures are not a perfect way to authenticate emails, as some email services do not implement the technology as rigorously as others. About 16,000 of the 22,000 emails carrying cryptographic signatures came via Google, which rigorously implements the technology. The analysts noted that cryptographic signatures can only verify that an email originated from a certain email account, but not who controlled that account; there are other means for hackers to commandeer email accounts. According to the "Washington Post", "Some other emails on the drive that have been the foundation for previous news reports could not be verified because the messages lacked verifiable cryptographic signatures."


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: Among the emails that "The Washington Post" was able to authenticate was the Pozharskyi email that formed the basis of the "New York Post"'s original article. An email referencing "10 held by H for the big guy?," an apparent reference to a rejected proposal to give Joe Biden a 10% share of a Chinese deal his son was negotiating, was not authenticated, though a recipient of the email publicly vouched for its authenticity.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: One of the analysts found that timestamps on documents and in operating system indexes matched, though he noted hackers could forge timestamps in undetectable ways. The analysts also noted that repeated access to the drive resulted in logs and other files used by forensic analysts to examine system activity to be deleted. Neither analyst found evidence emails or other files had been manipulated by hackers, nor could they rule out that possibility.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: An analysis by Distributed Denial of Secrets of 128,755 emails allegedly copied from the laptop and circulated by allies and former staff of President Donald Trump showed "signs of tampering" including 145 modification dates and emails created more than a year after Hunter Biden had the laptop. Matt Tait, a cybersecurity expert and former information security specialist for the U.K.'s Government Communications Headquarters, reviewed the analysis and said "it is clear the cache isn't in its original form."


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: In November 2022, CBS News published the results of a forensic analysis they commissioned of a copy of the laptop data Mac Isaac initially handed to federal investigators in 2019. The analysis, conducted by Computer Forensics Services, found data "consistent with normal, everyday use of a computer", found "no evidence that the user data had been modified, fabricated or tampered with", and found no new files created on the laptop after April 2019, when Mac Isaac received the laptop. The chief technology officer of Computer Forensics Services added: "I have no doubt in my mind that this data was created by Hunter Biden, and that it came from a computer under Mr. Biden's control". Also on November 21, CBS News published the first photograph of the damaged Macbook Pro, which had been provided to them by Hunter Biden's legal team.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: During a 2021 interview with CBS correspondent Tracy Smith, when asked if the laptop was his, Hunter Biden replied that he didn't know, later adding that he didn't remember dropping off a laptop in Delaware for repairs. I don't have any idea...There could be a laptop out there that was stolen from me. It could be that I was hacked. It could be that it was Russian intelligence. It could be that it was stolen from me.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: In May 2021, Hunter enlisted the counsel of lawyer Kevin Morris to investigate the circumstances of the laptop's release to the public


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: On October 19, 2020, a group of 51 former senior intelligence officials, who had served in the Trump administration and those of the three previous presidents, released an open letter stating that the release of the alleged emails "has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation," adding:


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post by President Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement – just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: During an interview with Fox News on October 19, 2020, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said the laptop was "not part of some Russian disinformation campaign" and accused Adam Schiff of mischaracterizing the views of the intelligence community by describing the alleged emails as part of a smear campaign against Biden. Schiff's spokesman accused Ratcliffe of "purposefully misrepresenting" the congressman's words. Ratcliffe had previously made public assertions that contradicted professional intelligence assessments. Several security officials criticized Ratcliffe for appearing to pre-judge its outcome. The FBI has publicly stated they had "nothing to add" to Ratcliffe's remarks in response to a request for more information made by Sen. Ron Johnson. "The New York Times" reported days after the "Post" story that no solid evidence had emerged that the laptop contained Russian disinformation. An FBI probe seeking to determine whether the laptop was used as part of a foreign intelligence operation is still ongoing.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: After the 2016 election, social media companies were criticized for allowing false political information to proliferate on their platforms, including from Russian intelligence, suggesting it may have assisted Trump's election. Twitter and Facebook both implemented measures on their platforms to prevent sharing of the "New York Post" article. Twitter first deprecated the story (prevented its algorithm from highlighting it due to its popularity) but eventually banned links to the story from being posted. It did so according to their Hacked Materials Policy and Facebook per a policy that "in many countries, including in the U.S., if we have signals that a piece of content is false, we temporarily reduce its distribution pending review by a third-party fact-checker." Facebook's decision had been informed by an FBI warning to watch for disinformation spread by foreign actors. "The Hill" reported on the Facebook action, "it is unclear what "signals" triggered the limit on the "New York Post" article". Twitter briefly locked President Donald Trump's presidential campaign Twitter account for sharing a controversial Hunter Biden video earlier on October 15. The account was unlocked later that day. Between October 14 and 23, the original "New York Post" story received over 54 million Facebook views.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: Commentators from varied political backgrounds criticized the actions taken by Facebook and Twitter, arguing that they could have amplified disinformation thanks to the Streisand effect. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey noted, "Our communication around our actions on the @nypost article was not great", adding that "blocking URL sharing via tweet or [direct message]" without explaining the context was "unacceptable".


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: On October 14, President Donald Trump tweeted expressing "outrage" at Facebook and Twitter's actions, including a threat to repeal the safe harbor provisions of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, under which they operate.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: Congressional Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee called on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to testify before the committee in response to their platforms' actions. Senators Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, and Josh Hawley announced that the committee would vote on subpoenaing Dorsey to appear on October 23. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell described the restrictions made by Facebook and Twitter as "absolutely reprehensible" and stated that the companies were acting as "speech police".


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: Dorsey stated that "Straight blocking of URLs was wrong, and we updated our policy and enforcement to fix," adding, "Our goal is to attempt to add context, and now we have capabilities to do that." In March 2021, Dorsey told Congress, "It was literally just a process error. This was not against them [the Post] in any particular way." Facebook also said that it was restricting spread pending input from third-party fact-checkers. Associated Press noted that the story had, as of October 17, 2020, "not been confirmed by other publications". In an August 2022, Mark Zuckerberg interview on the Joe Rogan podcast, Zuckerberg said that Facebook thought the story fit the pattern of Russian propaganda and called it a "hyper-political issue". Zuckerberg also said that the FBI had previously told Facebook to be aware of potential propaganda about the 2020 presidential election and was told by them that "there's about to be some kind of dump." When the "New York Post" story was published, Facebook thought that it "fit that pattern" the FBI told Facebook about. In October 2022, "The Intercept" reported that records filed in federal court as part of a lawsuit revealed that two FBI agents were involved in communications with Facebook that allegedly "led to Facebook's suppression" of the "New York Post" story, although "The Intercept" also noted that the lawsuit has a "partisan slant". Biden administration attorneys responded by saying that the plaintiffs related to the lawsuit lacked standing and that social media companies pursued content moderation policies on their own without "coercive" influence from the U.S. government.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: "The New York Times" reported in September 2021 that a Federal Election Commission inquiry into a complaint about Twitter's exclusion of the article had dismissed the complaint, saying the social media company had legitimate commercial reasons for their actions, and that it could not be determined that Twitter had acted on purely political grounds.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: Ross Douthat has pointed out similarities between social media reactions to the Biden-laptop-and-emails situation and the Steele dossier. He did not see the "New York Post" story as Russian disinformation, but "a more normal example of late-dropping opposition research... weaving genuine facts into contestable conclusions. It was, in other words, analogous to all kinds of contested anti-Trump stories that various media outlets have run with across the last four crazy years — from the publicity around the Steele dossier's wilder rumors to the tales of Michael Cohen's supposed Prague rendezvous to the claims that Russians hacked Vermont's power grid or even C-SPAN." He therefore criticized the widely different reactions of social media companies where they, in a "don't let 2016 happen again" reaction, totally shut down coverage of the laptop, but did not do the same to protect the public when the dossier was published.<ref name="Douthat_10/27/2020"></ref>


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: Ben Smith, who felt that social media should have treated the laptop and dossier stories in the same way, described how he published the dossier for "BuzzFeed News" in 2017 when he saw that media gatekeepers were "keeping [the dossier] from their audience". He saw the media's refusal to cover the laptop as a "revenge of the gatekeepers".


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: The Hunter Biden laptop story resulted in increased scrutiny of Twitter's and Facebook's actions in supposedly limiting the dissemination of the story by conservatives; according to conservative news tabloid, the Washington Examiner, their actions "proves Big Tech's bias".


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: In December 2022, Twitter's CEO, Elon Musk, who had recently purchased the company, gave three writers access to internal company documents from October 2020 that showed Twitter executives' discussion of its content moderation relating to the NY Post's story. On December 2, writer Matt Taibbi presented some of the materials in a series of tweets.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: The Joe Biden 2020 presidential campaign press secretary Jamal Brown stated that Twitter's action with regard to the "New York Post" story indicated that the allegations in the story were false. They specifically denied that Joe Biden ever had a formal meeting with Pozharskyi, and said that if they had ever met, it would have been a brief encounter.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: On January 21, 2021, the day after Biden's inauguration, Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia filed articles of impeachment against Joe Biden that cited the claims. No fellow members of Congress co-sponsored the articles.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: "The New York Times", "The Washington Post" and "The Wall Street Journal" stated that they could not independently verify the data provided by the "New York Post". NBC News requested a copy of the hard drive from Giuliani, who told them that he would not provide one; they said Giuliani offered them copies of a small number of emails but would not give them the full set. In May 2022, NBC News published an analysis of a copy of the hard drive they received from Giuliani and documents released by Republicans on two Senate committees. The analysis found that Hunter Biden's firm took in $11 million from 2013 to 2018 and spent the money fast. The analysis also found that few of Hunter Biden's deals ever came to fruition.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: David Folkenflik of NPR observed that the "New York Post" story asserted as facts things it presumed to be true. He also noted that the credited lead author of the story, deputy political editor Emma-Jo Morris, had virtually no previous bylines in reporting, and her most significant prior employment was a nearly four-year position as a producer on Sean Hannity's Fox News program. Hannity, a close Trump advisor, has repeatedly suggested wrongdoing by Biden in Ukraine.


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: "Vanity Fair" observed the story had exposed an ongoing journalistic "cold war" within Rupert Murdoch's media empire, which includes "The New York Post", Fox News, and "The Wall Street Journal". In particular, it described an internal rift over coverage by the "Journal" which published an opinion article by conservative columnist Kimberley Strassel inflating the claims, only to have the news section publish an article which "swept the legs out from under their Opinion colleague's argument" four hours later. Ryan Lizza, reporter for "Politico", was quoted as saying "reporters at the "WSJ", Fox News, and "NYP" have all come to the same conclusion about these documents but they are being drowned out by bad faith activists on the opinion side at these Murdoch companies who favor Trump's re-election."


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: In April 2022, the Editorial Board of "The Washington Post" wrote the Hunter Biden laptop story provided "an opportunity for a reckoning" by American media to ensure "accurate and relevant" stories are covered. They noted that:


title: Hunter Biden laptop controversy

text: "The investigation adds new details and confirms old ones about the ways in which Joe Biden's family has profited from trading overseas on his name — something for which the president deserves criticism for tacitly condoning. What it does not do, despite some conservatives' insistence otherwise, is prove that President Biden acted corruptly."<ref name="Board_4/3/2022"></ref>Joan Donovan, the research director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard University, said that "This is arguably the most well-known story the "New York Post" has ever published and it endures as a story because it was initially suppressed by social media companies and jeered by politicians and pundits alike".


title: History of slavery

text: The history of slavery spans many cultures, nationalities, and religions from ancient times to the present day. Likewise, its victims have come from many different ethnicities and religious groups. The social, economic, and legal positions of enslaved people have differed vastly in different systems of slavery in different times and places.


title: History of slavery

text: Slavery has been found in some hunter-gatherer populations, particularly as hereditary slavery, but the conditions of agriculture with increasing social and economic complexity offer greater opportunity for mass chattel slavery. Slavery was already institutionalized by the time the first civilizations emerged (such as Sumer in Mesopotamia, which dates back as far as 3500 BC). Slavery features in the Mesopotamian "Code of Hammurabi" (c. 1750 BC), which refers to it as an established institution.


title: History of slavery

text: Slavery was widespread in the ancient world in Europe, Asia, Middle East, and Africa. It became less common throughout Europe during the Early Middle Ages, although it continued to be practised in some areas. Both Christians and Muslims captured and enslaved each other during centuries of warfare in the Mediterranean. Islamic slavery encompassed mainly Western and Central Asia, Northern and Eastern Africa, India, and Europe from the 7th to the 20th century.


title: History of slavery

text: Beginning in the 16th century, European merchants, starting with Portugal, initiated the transatlantic slave trade, purchasing enslaved Africans from West African kingdoms and transporting them to Europe's colonies in the Americas. The transatlantic slave trade was eventually curtailed due to European and American governments passing legislation abolishing their nation's involvement in it.


title: History of slavery

text: Although slavery is no longer legal anywhere in the world, human trafficking remains an international problem. An estimated 25-40 million people were enslaved , the majority of these in Asia. During the 1983–2005 Second Sudanese Civil War, people were taken into slavery. Evidence emerged in the late 1990s of systematic child slavery and trafficking on cacao plantations in West Africa.


title: History of slavery

text: Slavery in the 21st century continues and generates $150 billion in annual profits. Populations in regions with armed conflict are especially vulnerable, and modern transportation has made human trafficking easier. In 2019, there were an estimated 40 million people worldwide subject to some form of slavery - 25% were children. Sixty-one percent are used for forced labor, mostly in the private sector. Thirty-eight percent live in forced marriages. Other types of modern slavery are child soldiers, sex trafficking, and sexual slavery.


title: History of slavery

text: Evidence of slavery predates written records; the practice has existed in many cultures. and can be traced back 11,000 years ago due to the conditions created by the invention of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution. Economic surpluses and high population densities were conditions that made mass slavery viable.


title: History of slavery

text: Slavery occurred in civilizations including ancient Egypt, ancient China, the Akkadian Empire, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, ancient Israel, ancient Greece, ancient India, the Roman Empire, the Arab Islamic Caliphate and Sultanate, Nubia and the pre-Columbian civilizations of the Americas. Ancient slavery consists of a mixture of debt-slavery, punishment for crime, prisoners of war, child abandonment, and children born to slaves.


title: History of slavery

text: Writing in 1984, French historian Fernand Braudel noted that slavery had been endemic in Africa and part of the structure of everyday life throughout the 15th to the 18th century. "Slavery came in different guises in different societies: there were court slaves, slaves incorporated into princely armies, domestic and household slaves, slaves working on the land, in industry, as couriers and intermediaries, even as traders". During the 16th century, Europe began to outpace the Arab world in the export traffic, with its trafficking of enslaved people from Africa to the Americas. The Dutch imported enslaved people from Asia into their colony at the Cape of Good Hope (now Cape Town) in the 17th century. In 1807 Britain (which already held a small coastal territory, intended for the resettlement of formerly enslaved people, in Freetown, Sierra Leone) made the slave trade within its empire illegal with the Slave Trade Act 1807, and worked to extend the prohibition to other territory, as did the United States in 1808.


title: History of slavery

text: In Senegambia, between 1300 and 1900, close to one-third of the population was enslaved. In early Islamic states of the Western Sudan, including Ghana (750–1076), Mali (1235–1645), Segou (1712–1861), and Songhai (1275–1591), about a third of the population was enslaved. The earliest Akan state of Bonoman which had third of its population being enslaved in the 17th century. In Sierra Leone in the 19th century about half of the population consisted of enslaved people. In the 19th century at least half the population was enslaved among the Duala of the Cameroon, the Igbo and other peoples of the lower Niger, the Kongo, and the Kasanje kingdom and Chokwe of Angola. Among the Ashanti and Yoruba a third of the population consisted of enslaved people as well as Bono. The population of the Kanem was about one third enslaved. It was perhaps 40% in Bornu (1396–1893). Between 1750 and 1900 from one- to two-thirds of the entire population of the Fulani jihad states consisted of enslaved people. The population of the Sokoto caliphate formed by Hausas in northern Nigeria and Cameroon was half-slave in the 19th century. It is estimated that up to 90% of the population of Arab-Swahili Zanzibar was enslaved. Roughly half the population of Madagascar was enslaved.


title: History of slavery

text: Slavery in Ethiopia persisted until 1942. The Anti-Slavery Society estimated that there were 2,000,000 enslaved people in the early 1930s, out of an estimated population of between 8 and 16 million. It was finally abolished by order of emperor Haile Selassie on 26 August 1942.


title: History of slavery

text: When British rule was first imposed on the Sokoto Caliphate and the surrounding areas in northern Nigeria at the turn of the 20th century, approximately 2 million to 2.5 million people living there were enslaved. Slavery in northern Nigeria was finally outlawed in 1936.


title: History of slavery

text: Writing in 1998 about the extent of trade coming through and from Africa, the Congolese journalist Elikia M'bokolo wrote "The African continent was bled of its human resources via all possible routes. Across the Sahara, through the Red Sea, from the Indian Ocean ports and across the Atlantic. At least ten centuries of slavery for the benefit of the Muslim countries (from the ninth to the nineteenth)." He continues: "Four million slaves exported via the Red Sea, another four million through the Swahili ports of the Indian Ocean, perhaps as many as nine million along the trans-Saharan caravan route, and eleven to twenty million (depending on the author) across the Atlantic Ocean"


title: History of slavery

text: Zanzibar was once East Africa's main slave-trading port, during the East African slave trade and under Omani Arabs in the 19th century, as many as 50,000 enslaved people were passing through the city each year.


title: History of slavery

text: Prior to the 16th century, the bulk of enslaved people exported from Africa were shipped from East Africa to the Arabian peninsula. Zanzibar became a leading port in this trade. Arab traders of enslaved people differed from European ones in that they would often conduct raiding expeditions themselves, sometimes penetrating deep into the continent. They also differed in that their market greatly preferred the purchase of enslaved females over male.


title: History of slavery

text: The increased presence of European rivals along the East coast led Arab traders to concentrate on the overland slave caravan routes across the Sahara from the Sahel to North Africa. The German explorer Gustav Nachtigal reported seeing slave caravans departing from Kukawa in Bornu bound for Tripoli and Egypt in 1870. The trade of enslaved people represented the major source of revenue for the state of Bornu as late as 1898. The eastern regions of the Central African Republic have never recovered demographically from the impact of 19th-century raids from the Sudan and still have a population density of less than 1 person/km. During the 1870s, European initiatives against the trade of enslaved people caused an economic crisis in northern Sudan, precipitating the rise of Mahdist forces. Mahdi's victory created an Islamic state, one that quickly reinstituted slavery.


title: History of slavery

text: European involvement in the East African trade of enslaved people began when Portugal established Estado da Índia in the early 16th century. From then until the 1830s, c. 200 enslaved people were exported from Portuguese Mozambique annually and similar figures has been estimated for enslaved people brought from Asia to the Philippines during the Iberian Union (1580–1640).


title: History of slavery

text: The Middle Passage, the crossing of the Atlantic to the Americas, endured by enslaved people laid out in rows in the holds of ships, was only one element of the well-known triangular trade engaged in by Portuguese, American, Dutch, Danish-Norwegians, French, British and others. Ships having landed with enslaved people in Caribbean ports would take on sugar, indigo, raw cotton, and later coffee, and make for Liverpool, Nantes, Lisbon or Amsterdam. Ships leaving European ports for West Africa would carry printed cotton textiles, some originally from India, copper utensils and bangles, pewter plates and pots, iron bars more valued than gold, hats, trinkets, gunpowder and firearms and alcohol. Tropical shipworms were eliminated in the cold Atlantic waters, and at each unloading, a profit was made.


title: History of slavery

text: The Atlantic slave trade peaked in the late 18th century when the largest number of people were captured and enslaved on raiding expeditions into the interior of West Africa. These expeditions were typically carried out by African states, such as the Bono State, Oyo empire (Yoruba), Kong Empire, Kingdom of Benin, Imamate of Futa Jallon, Imamate of Futa Toro, Kingdom of Koya, Kingdom of Khasso, Kingdom of Kaabu, Fante Confederacy, Ashanti Confederacy, Aro Confederacy and the kingdom of Dahomey. Europeans rarely entered the interior of Africa, due to fear of disease and moreover fierce African resistance. The enslaved people were brought to coastal outposts where they were traded for goods. The people captured on these expeditions were shipped by European traders to the colonies of the New World. It is estimated that over the centuries, twelve to twenty million enslaved people were shipped from Africa by European traders, of whom some 15 percent died during the terrible voyage, many during the arduous journey through the Middle Passage. The great majority were shipped to the Americas, but some also went to Europe and Southern Africa.


title: History of slavery

text: While talking about the trade of enslaved people in East Africa in his journals, David Livingstone said


title: History of slavery

text:
19th June 1866 – We passed a woman tied by the neck to a tree and dead, the people of the country explained that she had been unable to keep up with the other slaves in a gang, and her master had determined that she should not become anyone's property if she recovered.
26th June. – ...We passed a slave woman shot or stabbed through the body and lying on the path: a group of men stood about a hundred yards off on one side, and another of the women on the other side, looking on; they said an Arab who passed early that morning had done it in anger at losing the price he had given for her, because she was unable to walk any longer.


title: History of slavery

text: 27th June 1866 – To-day we came upon a man dead from starvation, as he was very thin. One of our men wandered and found many slaves with slave-sticks on, abandoned by their masters from want of food; they were too weak to be able to speak or say where they had come from; some were quite young.


title: History of slavery

text: African states played a key role in the trade of enslaved people, and slavery was a common practice among Sub Saharan Africans even before the involvement of the Arabs, Berbers and Europeans. There were three types: those who were enslaved through conquest, in lieu of unpaid debts, or those whose parents gave them as property to tribal chiefs. Chieftains would barter their enslaved people to Arab, Berber, Ottoman or European buyers for rum, spices, cloth or other goods. Selling captives or prisoners was a common practice among Africans, Turks, Berbers and Arabs during that era. However, as the Atlantic trade of enslaved people increased its demand, local systems which primarily serviced indentured servitude expanded. European trading of enslaved people, as a result, was the most pivotal change in the social, economic, cultural, spiritual, religious, political dynamics of the concept of trading in enslaved people. It ultimately undermined local economies and political stability as villages' vital labour forces were shipped overseas as slave raids and civil wars became commonplace. Crimes which were previously punishable by some other means became punishable by enslavement.


title: History of slavery

text: Slavery already existed in Kingdom of Kongo prior to the arrival of the Portuguese. Because it had been established within his kingdom, Afonso I of Kongo believed that the slave trade should be subject to Kongo law. When he suspected the Portuguese of receiving illegally enslaved persons to sell, he wrote letters to the King João III of Portugal in 1526 imploring him to put a stop to the practice.


title: History of slavery

text: The kings of Dahomey sold their war captives into transatlantic slavery, who otherwise may have been killed in a ceremony known as the Annual Customs. As one of West Africa's principal slave states, Dahomey became extremely unpopular with neighbouring peoples. Like the Bambara Empire to the east, the Khasso kingdoms depended heavily on the slave trade for their economy. A family's status was indicated by the number of enslaved people it owned, leading to wars for the sole purpose of taking more captives. This trade led the Khasso into increasing contact with the European settlements of Africa's west coast, particularly the French. Benin grew increasingly rich during the 16th and 17th centuries on the trade of enslaved people with Europe; enslaved people from enemy states of the interior were sold, and carried to the Americas in Dutch and Portuguese ships. The Bight of Benin's shore soon came to be known as the "Slave Coast".


title: History of slavery

text: "The slave trade is the ruling principle of my people. It is the source and the glory of their wealth...the mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery."


title: History of slavery

text: In 1807 the United Kingdom made the international trade of enslaved people illegal with the Slave Trade Act. The Royal Navy was deployed to prevent slavers from the United States, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, West Africa and Arabia. The King of Bonny (now in Nigeria) allegedly became dissatisfied of the British intervention in stopping the trade of enslaved people:


title: History of slavery

text: "We think this trade must go on. That is the verdict of our oracle and the priests. They say that your country, however great, can never stop a trade ordained by God himself."


title: History of slavery

text: Joseph Miller states that African buyers would prefer males, but in reality, women and children would be more easily captured as men fled. Those captured would be sold for various reasons such as food, debts, or servitude. Once captured, the journey to the coast killed many and weakened others. Disease engulfed many, and insufficient food damaged those who made it to the coasts. Scurvy was so common that it was known as "mal de Luanda" (Luanda sickness). The assumption for those who died on the journey died from malnutrition. As food was limited, water may have been just as bad. Dysentery was widespread and poor sanitary conditions at ports did not help. Since supplies were poor, enslaved people were not equipped with the best clothing, meaning they were even more exposed to diseases.


title: History of slavery

text: On top of the fear of disease, people were afraid of why they were being captured. The popular assumption was that Europeans were cannibals. Stories and rumours spread that whites captured Africans to eat them. Olaudah Equiano accounts his experience about the sorrow enslaved people encountered at the ports. He talks about his first moment on a slave ship and asked if he was going to be eaten. Yet, the worst for slaves has only begun, and the journey on the water proved to be more harrowing. For every 100 Africans captured, only 64 would reach the coast, and only about 50 would reach the New World.


title: History of slavery

text: Others believe that slavers had a vested interest in capturing rather than killing, and in keeping their captives alive; and that this coupled with the disproportionate removal of males and the introduction of new crops from the Americas (cassava, maize) would have limited general population decline to particular regions of western Africa around 1760–1810, and in Mozambique and neighbouring areas half a century later. There has also been speculation that within Africa, females were most often captured as brides, with their male protectors being a "bycatch" who would have been killed if there had not been an export market for them.


title: History of slavery

text: British explorer Mungo Park encountered a group of enslaved people when traveling through Mandinka country:


title: History of slavery

text: During the period from the late 19th century and early 20th century, demand for the labour-intensive harvesting of rubber drove frontier expansion and forced labour. The personal monarchy of Belgian King Leopold II in the Congo Free State saw mass killings and slavery to extract rubber.


title: History of slavery

text: Stephanie Smallwood in her book Saltwater Slavery uses Equiano's account on board ships to describe the general thoughts of most slaves:"Then," said I, "how comes it in all our country we never heard of them?" They told me because they lived so very far off. I then asked where were their women? Had they any like themselves? I was told that they had. "And why," said I, "do we not see them?" They answered, because they were left behind. I asked how the vessel could go? They told me they could not tell; but that there was cloth put upon the masts by the help of the ropes I saw, and then the vessel went on; and the white men had some spell or magic they put in the water when they liked, in order to stop the vessel. I was exceedingly amazed at this account, and really thought they were spirits. I there-fore wished much to be from amongst them, for I expected they would sacrifice me; but my wishes were vain—for we were so quartered that it was impossible for any of us to make our escape.


title: History of slavery

text: These accounts raised many questions as some slaves grew philosophical with their journey. Smallwood points out the challenges for slaves were physical and metaphysical. The physical would be obvious as the challenge to overcome capacity, lack of ship room, and food. The metaphysical was unique, as the open sea would challenge African slaves' vision of the ocean as habitable. The journey on the ocean would prove to be an African's biggest fear that would keep them in awe. Because of the lack of knowledge of the sea, Africans would experience feelings of extreme anxiety. Europeans were also fearful of the sea due to diseases, but not to the extent of Africans. Part of their fear came with the lack of a sense of time, as Africans used seasonal weather to predict time and days. The moon was a sense of time, but used like in other cultures and not very accurate. Africans used the moon to count their days on the sea, but this did not provide seasonal changes.


title: History of slavery

text: Surviving the voyage was the main struggle. Close quarters meant everyone was infected by any diseases that spread, including the crew. Death was so common that ships were called "tumbeiros," or floating tombs. What shocked Africans the most was how death was handled in the ships. Smallwood says the traditions for an African death was delicate and community-based. On ships, bodies would be thrown into the sea. Because the sea represented bad omens, bodies in the sea represented a form of purgatory and the ship a form of hell. Any Africans who made the journey would have survived extreme disease and malnutrition, as well as trauma from being on the open ocean and the death of their friends.


title: History of slavery

text: In Algiers during the time of the Regency of Algiers in North Africa in the 19th century, up to 1.5 million Christians and Europeans were captured and forced into slavery. This eventually led to the Bombardment of Algiers in 1816 by the British and Dutch, forcing the Dey of Algiers to free many slaves.


title: History of slavery

text: The trading of children has been reported in modern Nigeria and Benin. In parts of Ghana, a family may be punished for an offense by having to turn over a virgin female to serve as a sex slave within the offended family. In this instance, the woman does not gain the title or status of "wife". In parts of Ghana, Togo, and Benin, shrine slavery persists, despite being illegal in Ghana since 1998. In this system of ritual servitude, sometimes called "trokosi" (in Ghana) or "voodoosi" in Togo and Benin, young virgin girls are given as slaves to traditional shrines and are used sexually by the priests in addition to providing free labor for the shrine.


title: History of slavery

text: An article in the "Middle East Quarterly" in 1999 reported that slavery is endemic in Sudan. Estimates of abductions during the Second Sudanese Civil War range from 14,000 to 200,000 people.


title: History of slavery

text: During the Second Sudanese Civil War people were taken into slavery; estimates of abductions range from 14,000 to 200,000. Abduction of Dinka women and children was common. In Mauritania it is estimated that up to 600,000 men, women and children, or 20% of the population, are currently enslaved, many of them used as bonded labor. Slavery in Mauritania was criminalized in August 2007.


title: History of slavery

text: During the Darfur conflict that began in 2003, many people were kidnapped by Janjaweed and sold into slavery as agricultural labor, domestic servants and sex slaves.


title: History of slavery

text: In Niger, slavery is also a current phenomenon. A Nigerien study has found that more than 800,000 people are enslaved, almost 8% of the population. Niger installed an anti-slavery provision in 2003. In a landmark ruling in 2008, the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice declared that the Republic of Niger failed to protect Hadijatou Mani Koraou from slavery, and awarded Mani CFA 10,000,000 (approximately ) in reparations.