title: Yuvraj Singh

text: He played against New Zealand in a T20I at Chennai where he scored 34 off 26 balls (1 four, 2 sixes) as his side lost by only 1 run. He started his World Twenty20 campaign with a 3/24 against Afghanistan. He took 1/16 against Australia, 2/16 against Pakistan and a 2/23 against South Africa. He ended up being the highest wicket taker for India in the tournament though he could not meet expectations with his bat.


title: Yuvraj Singh

text: He got selected for the Test series against England at home. He later played 3 test matches in the 4 match test series against England after which he was dropped. He later was selected for the India-Pakistan Series, returning to form in the second T20I by scoring a blistering 72 off just 36 balls. He could not make an impact in the One Day series against Pakistan and England, only scoring 1 half century in 7 matches.


title: Yuvraj Singh

text: In September 2013, Yuvraj made a comeback to India's limited-overs squad for the Twenty20 and first three ODIs of the home series against Australia.


title: Yuvraj Singh

text: In October 2013, Yuvraj scored 77 off 35 in the only T20I against Australia at Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Rajkot. India faced a required run rate of nearly 12 per over when at 100 for 4 in the 12th over, but Yuvraj's unbeaten 102 run partnership with Dhoni guided India to victory. However, Yuvraj had a woeful time in the ODI series that followed, scoring 19 runs in four innings, and being visibly troubled by the pace of Mitchell Johnson.


title: Yuvraj Singh

text: Yuvraj was unable to return to form in both the home ODIs against West Indies and in the subsequent tour of South Africa, and was dropped for the New Zealand tour given the conditions in that country and the hosts' pace-heavy attack. He was not selected for 2014 Asia Cup in Bangladesh but he was selected for the 2014 ICC World Twenty20 in the same place. In a Super 10 match against Pakistan he missed a full delivery and was bowled on his second ball by pacer Bilawal Bhatti. In the same match he dropped a catch that would have resulted in the wicket of Mohammad Hafeez, and later against the West Indies dropped a delivery hit by Chris Gayle.


title: Yuvraj Singh

text: Yuvraj then scored 60 off 43 balls against Australia at Mirpur, his eighth T20I fifty and third against Australia. His 84-run partnership with Mahendra Singh Dhoni is India's third-highest for the fifth wicket.


title: Yuvraj Singh

text: On 5 July 2014, he played for the Rest of the World XI against the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) in the Bicentenary Celebration match at Lord's, as he had been left out of India's ODI team. Under Shane Warne's captaincy, he struck a century at nearly a run a ball to rescue his team, who were struggling at 59 for 3. His 100 came up as he hit Sachin Tendulkar for a boundary. The Rest of the World finished on 293 for 7 after 50 overs, but the MCC went on to win the match by 7 wickets.


title: Yuvraj Singh

text: Yuvraj in an interview with Hindustan Times during his cancer treatment, said ‘Even if I die let India win World Cup’.


title: Yuvraj Singh

text: Notably, Singh was one of five senior members of India's 2011 World Cup squad who were not considered for the 2015 Cricket World Cup and was not included in India's 30-man probable list for the tournament.


title: Yuvraj Singh

text: Singh was picked in India's T20I squad for the January 2016 Australia tour on the back of strong performances in Vijay Hazare Trophy, where he was the third-highest run scorer with 341 runs at an average of 85.25. He finished the three-match series with 15 runs after getting to bat in just one innings, while also taking two wickets. He played a crucial role in India's titular run in Asia Cup 2016, often teaming up with Virat Kohli to take the team home. He was also a part of the Indian team in the ICC T20 World Cup 2016. He was not named in the T20I squad for India's tour of West Indies in August. Meanwhile, he was named captain of the India Red side for the 2016–17 Duleep Trophy.


title: Yuvraj Singh

text: Yuvraj was picked in India's ODI squad for the home series against England in January 2017. This came on the back of his fine performances in the Ranji Trophy, having scored 672 runs in five games for Punjab, which included a 260 against Baroda. In the second match of the series, he scored his career best score 150, which came off 127 balls, a knock that included 21 fours and three sixes. He put on 256 runs for the fourth wicket along with Dhoni and helped the team post a total of 381. Following the team's 15-run victory, he was named the Player of the Match.


title: Yuvraj Singh

text: Following the match, Singh revealed that he had thought of quitting after having been dropped from the team. He said, "When I came back from cancer it was hard work. I was not performing and after being dropped I thought [about] whether I wanted to continue or not."


title: Yuvraj Singh

text: Yuvraj was selected to play in the Champions Trophy 2017. He scored 53 off 32 balls in a group stage match against Pakistan and won the man of the match award. However, as a result of failing to clear the yo-yo test, Yuvraj was dropped from the squad before the tour of Sri Lanka in August 2017 which ended his international career.


title: Yuvraj Singh

text: On 10 June 2019, Yuvraj Singh announced his retirement from international cricket. Yuvraj Singh held a press conference in Mumbai where he announced his decision to retire from all formats of the game. He said that he had decided to "move on". Yuvraj recounted his best memories through his career, while also recalling his worst.


title: Yuvraj Singh

text: "I would say I am extremely lucky to play 400-plus games for India. I would've not imagined doing this when I started my career in cricket. Through this journey, some matches that remain in my memory are - the 2002 NatWest series final, my first Test hundred in Lahore in 2004, the 2007 Test series in England, of course the six sixes and the 2007 T20 World Cup. And then the most memorable one was the 2011 World Cup finals."


title: Yuvraj Singh

text: "And then, probably the worst day in my career, was the 2014 World T20 final against Lanka where I scored 11 off 21 balls. It was so shattering that I felt my career was over."


title: Yuvraj Singh

text: In September 2020, Yuvraj Singh hinted at making a return to the Punjab team and play domestic T20s for them. He said that it was on the suggestion of Punjab Cricket Association secretary Puneet Bali that he had considered to come out of retirement. However, his return was denied by the Punjab Cricket Association, as he had taken part in foreign franchise leagues.


title: Yuvraj Singh

text: Yuvraj was the icon player and captain for Indian Premier League (IPL) team Kings XI Punjab in the first two seasons; in 2010, the third season, icon player status was discontinued and the captaincy given to Kumar Sangakkara. The Kings XI Punjab came second in the round-robin phase of the tournament, but lost the semi-finals to the Chennai Super Kings. On 1 May 2009, Yuvraj registered his first hat-trick in T20 cricket against Royal Challengers Bangalore at Kingsmead in Durban, the same ground where he hit his six sixes. He dismissed Robin Uthappa, Mark Boucher and Jacques Kallis. On 17 May 2009, Yuvraj took his second Twenty20 hat-trick against Deccan Chargers at the Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg. Yuvraj dismissed Herschelle Gibbs, Andrew Symonds and Venugopal Rao.


title: Yuvraj Singh

text: The Pune Warriors were a new team introduced for the 2011 IPL. Yuvraj Singh was bought by the team and chosen as captain. Pune Warriors finished ninth, ahead of only the Delhi Daredevils. From 14 matches, Yuvraj took 11 wickets and also scored 343 runs at an average of 34.30, including two half-centuries. After much controversy, the BCCI allowed Pune Warriors to find a replacement for Yuvraj for the 2012 Indian Premier League, citing his medical condition and non-availability for 2012 IPL as the reasons for doing so.


title: Yuvraj Singh

text: In 2014, Yuvraj was bought by the Royal Challengers Bangalore for 14 crore. A Kingfisher employee union sent a letter to Yuvraj requesting him not to play for Royal Challengers Bangalore. He had a successful stint with RCB, scoring 376 runs and taking six wickets. In 2015, he was bought by Delhi Daredevils for Rs.16 Crores, the highest ever bid at an IPL auction. at the time.


title: Yuvraj Singh

text: In the 2016 IPL auction he was bought by Sunrisers Hyderabad for Rs.7 crores. He had a very successful IPL campaign with the Sunrisers Hyderabad with them winning the 2016 Indian Premier League. He played several crucial knocks at crunch moments, and some experts called him the "Unsung hero of SRH's titular run". Yuvraj scored 38 runs from 23 balls in the final.


title: Yuvraj Singh

text: In the 2018 IPL auction, he was picked by Kings XI Punjab for base price of 2 crores. He scored only 64 runs from 6 innings at a low average of 12.80. He batted at four different positions during those six innings and was not given a consistent run by the team management.


title: Yuvraj Singh

text: Yuvraj was released by Kings XI Punjab ahead of the 2019 IPL Auction, where was purchased by Mumbai Indians for his base price of ₹1 crore. He scored 53 in his debut match for Mumbai Indians, and smashed a hattrick of sixes against Yuzvendra Chahal in the next match, but he wasn't given a longer run by the team management, and was dropped after he failed in the next two matches. He was released by the Mumbai Indians ahead of the 2020 IPL auction.


title: Yuvraj Singh

text: In June 2019, Yuvraj was selected to play for the Toronto Nationals franchise team in the 2019 Global T20 Canada tournament. He also played for the Maratha Arabians in the Abu Dhabi T10 League in 2019. In 2020, Yuvraj played in the Ultimate Kricket Challenge.


title: Yuvraj Singh

text: Yuvraj is primarily a left-handed batsman but can bowl part-time left-arm orthodox spin, which he improved in the latter part of his career. He is regarded as a better batsman against fast bowling than spin bowling, and cites the Indian Oil Cup 2005 as a turning point in his career. Yuvraj is one of the athletic fielders in the Indian team, fielding primarily at point & covers with a good aim at the stumps. Yuvraj is a natural stroke player with an aggressive style of play, as seen by his strike rate of above 150 in T20 internationals & just below 90 in ODIs. Many regard him as one of the best clean strikers of the ball, with his trademark punch through the covers a treat to watch. When in good touch, he can clear the ropes quite effortlessly. A Cricinfo report published in late 2005 showed that since 1999, he was the fourth most prolific fielder in affecting ODI run outs, and of those on the list of prolific fielders, he had the second highest rate of effecting a run out.


title: Yuvraj Singh

text: Yuvraj was signed by Microsoft to be a brand ambassador for the Xbox 360 video game console when it was launched in India in 2006. He appeared in advertisements for the console alongside Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar. Codemasters' cricket video game "Brian Lara International Cricket 2007" was released with his endorsement in India, titled "Yuvraj Singh International Cricket 2007". The Bollywood animated film, Jumbo features cricketer Yuvraj Singh's voice therefore starting his career in Bollywood. The upcoming animated full-length feature film "Captain India" features Yuvraj Singh as the main protagonist.


title: Yuvraj Singh

text: Yuvraj has also been involved in sports based e-commerce; he is a brand ambassador of sports365.in, an online store focused on selling sports goods and fitness equipment. Yuvraj is also the brand ambassador for the sports brand Puma. He was appointed as the brand ambassador of Ulysse Nardin watch in 2013.


title: Yuvraj Singh

text: Yuvraj's own charity YouWeCan has treated over hundreds of cancer patients. In April 2015, he announced the intention to invest INR 40–50 crores in online startups, expanding the YouWeCan proposition by setting up YouWeCan Ventures in order to do so. In 2015, YouWeCan also initiated the nationwide cancer awareness in association with Jayakrishnan, the founder of Heyyo Media. The campaign took cancer awareness to many students across the country.


title: Yuvraj Singh

text: Yuvraj Singh also participated in the ‘Celebrity Clásico 2016′ which was played with an objective to generate funds for charitable initiatives.


title: Omegaverse

text: Omegaverse, also known as A/B/O (an abbreviation for "alpha/beta/omega"), is a subgenre of speculative erotic fiction, and originally a subgenre of erotic slash fan fiction. Its premise is that a dominance hierarchy exists in humans, which are divided into dominant "alphas", neutral "betas", and submissive "omegas". This hierarchy determines how people interact with one another in romantic, erotic and sexual contexts.


title: Omegaverse

text: Omegaverse fiction pairs traditional genders such as male or female with a "secondary gender", or a "second dynamic", that manifests during puberty. It's usually chosen from one of the following:


title: Omegaverse

text: Since Omegaverse is a type of folksonomy, some of its aspects are included or excluded at the discretion of the story author. Sometimes Betas are absent, or other intermediate genders such as Deltas and Gammas are added.


title: Omegaverse

text: Omegaverse fiction typically focuses on wolf or other canid-like behavior in humans, especially as it pertains to sexual intercourse and sexuality, which is described as instinctual, responding to animalistic physiological stimuli. This includes rutting and heat cycles, pheromonal attraction between Alphas and Omegas, penises with knots (used to "knot", or tie, the partner to an Alpha during copulation, an action known as "knotting"), scent marking, imprinting, breeding, mating rites, pack structures and potentially permanent psychic bonds with a mate. Between Alphas and Betas, only females can carry on a pregnancy, but male Omegas are often envisaged as being able to become pregnant via an uterus connected to the rectum, and Alphas can impregnate regardless of their main gender. To make penetration and impregnation easier, male Omegas often have self-lubricating anuses.


title: Omegaverse

text: The genre often features other fantasy elements, such as the presence of werewolves or other fantastical creatures. Some works introduce a rigid caste system, where Alphas are depicted as the upper class elites while Omegas are at the bottom tier and face discrimination and oppression because of their physiology, creating an example of biological determinism. In darker stories, this results in non-consensual or dubiously consensual intercourses, forced pregnancies, Omegas kidnapping and sexual slavery.


title: Omegaverse

text: Omegaverse works are most frequently focused on male-male couples composed of an Alpha and an Omega, though heterosexual Omegaverse works have been produced, and by 2013, about 10% were labeled male/female. Some subvert the genre tropes, telling stories about illicit relationships between Alphas, Omegas who hide their smell using chemical pheromones so that they are not a victim of biological prejudices, or dominant Omegas and submissive Alphas. Non-traditional couples are often featured in Japanese Omegaverse works.


title: Omegaverse

text: While the terms "A/B/O" and "Omegaverse" can be used interchangeably, the first one often refers only to the sexual dynamics, while the second one is preferred when the story is set in a new ideological world. Some prefer to avoid use of the term "A/B/O" as its spelling resembles a racial slur towards Aboriginal Australians.


title: Omegaverse

text: Professor Kristina Busse has described Omegaverse as a "seemingly perfect storm" of tropes that already existed in fandoms. For example, the 1967 episode "Amok Time" of the American television series "" introduces the concept of "pon farr", the Vulcan mating cycle wherein Vulcan males must mate or die. "Pon farr" became a popular plot conceit for fan works in the "Star Trek" fandom, particularly fan fiction focused on the Kirk/Spock pairing. The concept of mating and heat cycles among humans was subsequently adopted by other fandoms, and later became a staple of the Omegaverse subgenre. Ursula K. Le Guin also wrote, in her 1969 novel "The Left Hand of Darkness", about an extraterrestrial androgynous world with hermaphroditic characters and mating cycles named "kemmer".


title: Omegaverse

text: The origin of the Omegaverse is typically attributed to the fandom surrounding the American television series "Supernatural", as a fusion between werewolves and the male pregnancy subgenre of erotic fan fiction. Another source of inspiration could have been the science fiction drama "Dark Angel", where "Supernatural" actor Jensen Ackles plays a soldier with feline DNA, and female characters go into heat. The first works recognized as A/B/O were published in mid-2010: that year in May, a writing prompt was shared on a LiveJournal community dedicated to "Supernatural", mentioning "alpha" males having knots on their penises, and "bitch males" without the knots, inspiring user tehdirtiestsock to write "I ain't no lady, but you'd be the tramp", a real person fiction work focused on actors Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles as an Alpha and an Omega, which was published on July 24. Despite not using the term "omega", the story created many of the characteristics later associated with the Omegaverse genre.


title: Omegaverse

text: Over the next few months, other anonymous authors shared similar stories, until on November 9 a new writing prompt mentioned Alpha, Beta and Omega men for the first time, spurring the creation of three works. By June 2011, the term "Omegaverse" and its dynamics had become commonplace; the following month, the first femslash Omegaverse work was published, and the first use of the tropes outside the "Supernatural" fandom was recorded.


title: Omegaverse

text: The genre subsequently expanded in popularity to other fan communities: first to those focused around "Sherlock" and "", then it quickly reached other fandoms like those of television series "Hannibal", "Teen Wolf", "Glee", "Doctor Who" and movie "The Avengers". In 2014 it gained strong traction in Japan.


title: Omegaverse

text: Omegaverse has become both extremely popular and controversial in fandom circles. Some condemn it as revolting and sick, affirming that it reinforces patriarchal values and a rape culture, objecting to its roots in bestiality fiction and the power imbalances between genders. Conversely, others appreciate how it deconstructs bodies and gender roles, offering subversive social commentary on queer identity and oppression.


title: Omegaverse

text: Academic opinions are equally divided between those who believe Omegaverse shows a new type of gender essentialism combined with homophobic and heteronormative elements, and those who see the space to give it a transgender reading. According to researcher Milena Popova, "the features of the A/B/O genre allow for the exploration of themes of power, desire, pleasure, intimacy, romance, control, and consent in a variety of ways", and it's used by writers and readers "as a tool to articulate and think through consent issues in unequal relationships". Similarly, Laura Campillo Arnaiz argues that dark Omegaverse works serve to gain control on the feelings of helplessness and humiliation that characterize it, creating a cathartic experience.


title: Omegaverse

text: Angie Fazekas wrote that "[i]n the omegaverse, fans use traditional tropes of gender and sexuality to imagine a universe where queer sexuality is the norm and normative gender roles are often skewed and upended", but that they fail to offer real progressiveness since, like most of the other fan fictions, their works are predominantly focused on relationships between white men.


title: Omegaverse

text: , over 39,000 Omegaverse fan works had been published on the fan fiction website Archive of Our Own, and over 70,000 as of 2020. In addition to these derivative works, Omegaverse has emerged as its own genre of original commercial erotic fiction: roughly 200 Omegaverse novels were published on Amazon from January to June 2020. It has also become a subgenre of both commercial and non-commercial (manga featuring male-male couples).


title: Omegaverse

text: Beginning in 2017, the "Dom/Sub Universe" subgenre gained popularity, particularly in "yaoi" works in Japan; it uses BDSM elements, positing dominant and submissive as secondary genders, and draws inspirations from Omegaverse in its depiction of caste systems. In the Korean "Cakeverse", a small part of the human population is divided into "forks", who have no sense of taste, and "cakes", people with a particular flavor that makes them irresistible to "forks".


title: Omegaverse

text: In 2016, author Addison Cain released "Born to be Bound", the first novel of a series adapted from one of her fan fictions that features Omegaverse genre tropes. In April 2018, Cain and her publisher Blushing Books filed a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice against author Zoey Ellis for her 2018 novel "Crave to Conquer". Cain accused Ellis of plagiarism and copyright infringement, arguing that both "Born to be Bound" and "Crave to Conquer" focus on a central couple that is an Omega female and Alpha male, and include the concepts of Omegas hiding their secondary sex by use of suppressants, and Omegas being rare and valued mates. The first two installments of Ellis' series were removed from online sellers for several months, and the pre-orders of the third installment were cancelled, as a result of the DMCA claim.


title: Omegaverse

text: Ellis and her publisher Quill Ink Books subsequently brought a lawsuit against Cain and Blushing Books for damages due to lost revenue and reputational harm, with representation from Quill Ink contending that Cain had no legitimate claim of ownership over the Omegaverse genre. Blushing Books settled in 2019, admitting that there had been no plagiarisms or copyright infringements, and paid an undisclosed monetary amount in damages to both Quill Ink and Ellis. In September 2019, Ellis and Quill Ink filed a separate civil lawsuit against Cain, arguing that the DMCA copyright claim was false and malicious; the lawsuit was dismissed by a Virginia court in 2019. The lawsuits were covered by "The New York Times", which noted that a decision in Cain's favor could have set a significant legal precedent for commercial works based on fan-generated material; the "Times" further noted the case as an example of "how easily intellectual property law can be weaponized by authors seeking to take down their rivals."


title: A Perfect Circle

text: A Perfect Circle is an American rock band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1999 by guitarist Billy Howerdel and Tool vocalist Maynard James Keenan. A Perfect Circle has released four studio albums, the first three during the early 2000s: "Mer de Noms", their debut album in 2000, and followed up by "Thirteenth Step" in 2003; then in 2004, "Emotive"—an album of radically re-worked cover songs. Shortly after "Emotive"s release, the band went on hiatus; Keenan returned to Tool and started up solo work under the band name Puscifer, while Howerdel released a solo album, "Keep Telling Myself It's Alright", under the moniker Ashes Divide. Band activity was sporadic in the following years; the band reformed in 2010, and played live shows on and off between 2010 and 2013, but fell into inactivity after the release of their greatest hits album, "Three Sixty", and a live album box set, "" in late 2013. The band reformed in 2017 to record a fourth album, "Eat the Elephant", which was released on April 20, 2018.


title: A Perfect Circle

text: Prone to downtime due to Keenan's other musical commitments, the band has featured a variety of musicians throughout alternating periods of activity and inactivity, and has changed line-ups on each album, leaving Keenan and Howerdel the only constant members. The original incarnation of the band included Paz Lenchantin on bass, Troy Van Leeuwen on guitar, and Josh Freese on drums. Primus drummer Tim Alexander had briefly stood in as a drummer prior to Freese in the band's initial live shows; however, this was prior to releasing any material. Band collaborator and producer Danny Lohner and Marilyn Manson bassist Jeordie White were also members for a short period in the early 2000s. The band's current lineup features Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha, bassist Matt McJunkins, and drummer Jeff Friedl, the latter two also being contributors to the related Puscifer and Ashes Divide projects. Despite the varied cast and numerous lineup changes, the stylistic content of A Perfect Circle's songs has remained consistent with Howerdel as music composer, and Keenan writing lyrics and vocal melodies. The band's studio albums have been generally well received critically and commercially, with their first three studio albums selling 4 million copies collectively as of 2005.


title: A Perfect Circle

text: A Perfect Circle was originally conceived by Billy Howerdel, a former guitar technician for Nine Inch Nails, The Smashing Pumpkins, Fishbone and Tool. Howerdel met singer Maynard James Keenan in 1992, when Tool was opening for Fishbone, and the two became friends. Three years later, Keenan offered Howerdel, who was looking for lodging, a room in his North Hollywood home. This provided Howerdel the opportunity to play demos of his music for Keenan. Pleased with what he heard, Keenan remarked, "I can hear myself singing [those songs]." Howerdel originally wanted Cocteau Twins lead singer Elizabeth Fraser to be A Perfect Circle's vocalist, but she was unavailable. Howerdel agreed that Keenan would be a good fit, and A Perfect Circle was formed a short time later. The two rounded out the band's initial lineup with bassist and violinist Paz Lenchantin, former Failure guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen, and Primus drummer Tim Alexander. The band played their first show at LA's Viper Club Reception in August 1999, followed by a larger-scale, more widely publicized show at the Coachella Festival that October. While initially in talks to release the album on Volcano Records – Tool's record label – Keenan stated that they instead chose to go with Virgin Records, who Keenan felt better understood that Keenan meant for the band to be an equally important band to Tool, not a minor side project. After the initial shows and securing a record deal, the band entered the studio to begin work on their first album. Alexander was soon replaced with Josh Freese, who previously worked with Howerdel on the Guns N' Roses album "Chinese Democracy", with Alexander's only studio contribution being drums on the album version of the song "The Hollow".


title: A Perfect Circle

text: The band's debut album, "Mer de Noms" (French for "Sea of Names"), was released on May 23, 2000. The album was well received commercially and critically. It debuted at number four on the "Billboard" 200, selling 188,000 copies in its first week and making it the highest selling debut album for a rock band. "Mer de Noms" was later certified platinum by the RIAA, indicating 1 million copies sold, on October 31, 2000. The release earned the band the "Best Debut Album" award from the California Music Awards. In the album review by "Rolling Stone", Pat Blashill wrote that Keenan "added an almost operatic angst to Howerdel's songs" and concluded that "A Perfect Circle sound like a desperate dream of what rock used to be. Maybe that's the point." AllMusic's review expressed that "there's little question that the addicting combination of Keenan's aching voice and Howerdel's accomplished songs and production skills made for one of 2000's best splashes in whatever was left of 'modern rock'."


title: A Perfect Circle

text: Promotions began shortly after recording for the album was finished. Initially, they served as the opening act for Nine Inch Nails on the 2000 "Fragility v2.0" tour, but subsequently embarked on a number of headlining tours all over the world, touring for around eight months straight. As Keenan was well known through his other band, he would often wear long wigs on his otherwise bald head when performing, to distinguish himself from his Tool persona. The album produced three singles as well: "Judith", "3 Libras", and "The Hollow". All three performed well commercially; peaking at fourth, twelfth, and fourteenth on the "Billboard" Mainstream Rock chart respectively.


title: A Perfect Circle

text: Activity began slowing down for the band by late 2000, with Keenan returning to Tool to finish the recording of what would be their next album, "Lateralus". Keenan returned to A Perfect Circle to tour from January to March 2001, until returning to Tool again for the rest of 2001 to release and tour in support of "Lateralus". Initial plans were for Howerdel to collaborate long-distance on writing new A Perfect Circle material with Keenan while he toured with Tool, by sending ideas back and forth to one another, though Keenan found it too difficult to balance both, eventually lessening his role while he focused on Tool. Efforts continued through mid-2002, with Howerdel primarily focusing on writing new material while sporadically working with Van Leeuwen, Lenchantin, and Freese. By June 2002, Van Leeuwen estimated that about 80% of the instrumental material was completed while they waited for Keenan's return. However, lineup changes and disagreements on the album's direction would lead to the album not being released for over a year. Both Lenchantin and Van Leeuwen had been working on solo material during the band's downtime, and then moved on to join other bands. Lenchantin would leave to join Billy Corgan's new start-up band Zwan in April 2002, while Van Leeuwen began touring with Queens of the Stone Age shortly after. Ex-Marilyn Manson bassist Jeordie White, formerly known as Twiggy Ramirez, replaced Lenchantin on bass in January 2003. Shortly after, Van Leeuwen permanently left the band, and long-time band collaborator Danny Lohner filled in temporarily as the second guitarist for wrapping up the album.


title: A Perfect Circle

text: Keenan rejoined the sessions in early 2003, and the music began taking a different direction with the new lineup and Keenan's influence. Beyond the new personnel, the dynamic had changed: With "Mer de Noms", Howerdel had already written and finalized all of the music, with Keenan just contributing the lyrics and vocals. This time around, Keenan was more active in vetoing or altering musical ideas, determined to make something different than just another hard rock album, in fear of it being redundant. Sessions became tense, with Howerdel preferring the heavier compositions written while waiting for Keenan to return to the band, and sometimes taking offense to Keenan's suggested mellower rearrangements. White would play the role of a mediator between the two; being newer to the band helped him provide an outsider's perspective, helping them to find a common ground. The band released their second album, "Thirteenth Step", on September 16, 2003. The album debuted even higher than "Mer de Noms", charting at number 2 in its opening week and selling over 233,000 copies. The album, and its accompanying new sound, fared well critically as well. The AllMusic review praised the band's new sound, describing it as "moodier, tenser, and more atmospheric (if that is possible) recording than its predecessor ... The wide dynamic swathes that were so prominent on the band's debut are all but absent here. The squalling guitars have taken a backseat to carefully crafted melodies where atmospherics are maximized and pulled taut over the listener. While not a radical departure from "Mer de Noms", there is a real progression here... Lyrically, musically, sonically, the "Thirteenth Step" is proof positive that mainstream rock has plenty of life and vision left in it."


title: A Perfect Circle

text: Touring in support of the album started in the U.S. in July 2003, and ran through the end of the year, with a brief European leg of the tour extending out to Europe with the Deftones in September. Lohner, who could not commit to touring on a full-time permanent basis, was replaced by former The Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha. In January 2004, the group left the country to play shows in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. They headed back to the U.S. in March and wrapped up touring in June, totaling to about a year straight of touring. Meanwhile, three singles were released from the album: "Weak and Powerless", "The Outsider" and "Blue". "Weak and Powerless" managed to top the "Billboard" Modern Rock Tracks and Mainstream Rock Songs, while "The Outsider" later peaked in the top 5 of both as well. "Weak and Powerless" and "The Outsider" were also the band's only songs to have substantial cross-over success, charting on the "Billboard" Hot 100 all-format chart, at 61 and 79 respectively.


title: A Perfect Circle

text: After wrapping up the touring in support of "Thirteenth Step" in the first half of 2004, the band had announced it planned to enter a long hiatus while Keenan returned to Tool and Howerdel pursued a solo career. In July 2004, Keenan performed at Serj Tankian's (System of a Down) and Tom Morello's (Rage Against the Machine) Axis of Justice concert – an event for musicians to advocate for political and social causes. At the performance, Keenan announced that A Perfect Circle would be releasing a collection of political cover songs. During the beginning of the touring cycle for "Thirteenth Step", Howerdel and Keenan discussed potential ideas for a third studio album. An early idea was to record an album of cover songs, though they were initially hesitant, feeling they needed a meaningful reason to warrant doing it. Keenan, who had been very critical of President George W. Bush during the touring cycle, proposed tying the concept together as a political-themed covers album, with Howerdel, while generally apolitical publicly, felt was worth pursuing in their post-September 11th attacks political and social climate. The two put their plans on hold temporarily and decided to move forward on the project as the band's third studio album. Keenan emphasized that, despite his personal feelings on Bush, the album was less of an "anti-Bush" album, and more of an "anti-political apathy" – encouraging people to research things and become more involved.


title: A Perfect Circle

text: The band rushed to complete the album in time to release it prior to the 2004 U.S. Presidential Elections in November, just barely a year after their prior release. Recording sessions ran from late June to early September. The sessions, largely the work of Howerdel, Keenan, and Freese, contained contributions from past and present members of the band, including Lenchantin, Lohner, White, and Iha. Keenan, aware of the time constraints and Howerdel's future intentions on doing solo albums, also encouraged Howerdel to contribute lead vocals to about a third of the album. A wide variety of different songs were chosen to be recorded, from Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" to Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks". Most songs were radical reinterpretations of the original, sometimes unrecognizable compared to the originals. Howerdel explained that it was done on purpose, to make the songs their own, and conceded that he, as of 2010, still had not even once ever heard the original version of Crucifix's "Annihilation", another song re-recorded for the album. He also stated that some songs had started as original A Perfect Circle songs musically, until the band decided to use the lyrics of other songs over the compositions, in turn converting them into cover songs.


title: A Perfect Circle

text: The band's third album, "Emotive", was released on November 2, 2004 – the actual U.S Presidential Election Day. However, the album received a much more polarizing reception than the prior two albums, with some critics and fans not appreciating the band's move into more political content, or the radical liberties they had taken with the album's cover versions. Others accused the band of rushing out a third album in order to fulfill the band's three album contractual obligation to Virgin Records, a claim refuted as false by Howerdel. The album still managed to receive a generally positive reception from critics. Sales were similarly positive, but less so than prior albums. The album debuted at number 2 on the "Billboard" 200 charts, selling 142,000 copies in its first week – matching "Thirteenth Step's" peak chart placement, but selling almost 90,000 fewer copies. The album was certified Gold by the RIAA, indicating 500,000 units sold.


title: A Perfect Circle

text: The band did not tour in support of the release, instead entering a hiatus shortly after its completion. Two singles were released in support of the album, the first of which was a somber cover of John Lennon's "Imagine" The second single, "Passive", was one of just two original songs on the album, tracing back to writing sessions for Trent Reznor's unreleased Tapeworm project. In the late 1990s, Reznor started the project for songs that did not fit Nine Inch Nails, which eventually grew into a collaborative project with a number of other musicians. One track, "Vacant", featured contributions from Keenan and Lohner in 1999, but with the project hitting development hell due to creative and legal hurdles of many of the participants in the early 2000s, A Perfect Circle began playing the track at live shows. With the project being shelved completely by 2004, Keenan decided to rework the track as "Passive" for "Emotive". Additionally, two weeks after the release of the album, on November 16, 2004, the band released the CD/DVD compilation set entitled "Amotion". The DVD part contained the music videos for band six singles; while the CD is composed entirely of remixes of the singles from "Mer de Noms" and "Thirteenth Step".


title: A Perfect Circle

text: The band entered a hiatus in January 2005, with members turning to their own separate projects. Keenan rejoined Tool to record what would be 2006's "10,000 Days", Howerdel began pursuing a solo career, and the rest joined various other touring or sessions recording roles. The band's fate remained uncertain in the following years. It was referred to as "hiatus or done until further notice" by Howerdel in October 2005, on "life-support" by Keenan in April 2006, and "done for now" by Howerdel in May 2006. Towards the end of 2007, Keenan spoke more optimistically about the band reforming someday, but felt that it would probably be in a more limited capacity – for a tour or a new single release, not another full-length studio album. Keenan explained:


title: A Perfect Circle

text: During the time, Howerdel continued to work on projects with various past A Perfect Circle members. In 2005, he wrote and composed the soundtrack to "", collaborating with Van Leeuwen, Lenchantin, and Freese on a number of tracks. Howerdel continued to work on recording a solo album from 2005 through 2007; the sessions were difficult, so he eventually began collaborating with past A Perfect Circle members, including Lohner as a producer, Freese as a drummer, and Lenchantin as a co-writer for a track. The material was eventually released under the name Ashes Divide on the album "Keep Telling Myself It's Alright" in early 2008. Meanwhile, Keenan had moved on from working with Tool, and started up a solo-project of sorts on his own, called Puscifer, of which he began releasing studio albums for in 2007. Despite both projects going, both Keenan and Howerdel released statements in 2008 that the band was not dead.


title: A Perfect Circle

text: As early as December 2008, Keenan had mentioned that he and Howerdel had passively and separately been writing new material for A Perfect Circle, although the band would officially remain in hiatus and largely out of the view of the public through mid-2010. The turning point was an unexpected collaboration between Keenan and Howerdel; Keenan was scheduled to perform a rendition of "Bohemian Rhapsody" with Queen guitarist Brian May in June at E3 2010, but May had to cancel at the last minute. In need of a guitarist, and knowing Howerdel was in the area, Keenan reached out, and had Howerdel play guitar for the performance at the last minute. Despite little time to prepare, the performance was a success, and afterwards, both felt more compelled to perform together again.


title: A Perfect Circle

text: In September, the band officially announced the end of their hiatus, indicating they would again return to live performances. Keenan, Howerdel, Freese, and Iha all returned to their respective roles, though, with Lenchantin and White unavailable, the band recruited Matt McJunkins, touring bassist for Ashes Divide and Puscifer, to join as bassist. The performances, running through the end of 2010, included traveling to five separate cities for three nights of shows in each city, with each night containing a complete, in-order performance of one of each of their three albums – "Mer de Noms", "Thirteenth Step", and "Emotive" – notably being the first time most of the material from the latter had ever been performed live. Throughout the year the band would discuss the prospect of new material, but with uncertainty. Keenan continued to insist that logistics and industry trends made recording another full album unlikely, and that single one-off songs would be more likely. Howerdel noted that he had been writing material and presenting rough demos to Keenan since 2008, but that much of the material was in a state of flux, some being accepted by Keenan as potential A Perfect Circle material, while other being rejected by Keenan, and/or saved by Howerdel for a prospective Ashes Divide release in the future.


title: A Perfect Circle

text: The band continued their live performances into 2011, including a North American tour that spanned May through August. Notable events included Rock on the Range, Edgefest, Ottawa Bluesfest, Kanrocksas Music Festival, Lollapalooza, a performance at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Freese, who had already committed to drumming for Weezer during the same time-frame, was only able to perform at the opening show, and was replaced by Jeff Friedl for the remainder of the shows, who, like McJunkins, had previously worked with both Ashes Divide and Puscifer. Keenan and Howerdel continued to allude to recording new music, but continued to state that the process was slow, the logistics of money and availability made it difficult, and that a full album was still unlikely, in favor of single songs instead. Only one new song, "By and Down", was performed at the shows. By the end of the year, Keenan revealed that none of the material was ready for release, and that moving into 2012, he and Howerdel were moving back into their respective other projects – Puscifer and Ashes Divide. The band was inactive over the course of 2012, outside of a single live show in December. However, just prior to the show, in October 2012, Freese announced he would be permanently leaving the band, with Friedl becoming his permanent replacement.


title: A Perfect Circle

text: The band played a few live shows in early 2013, including Soundwave Music Festival in Australia and Lollapalooza Chile, though Keenan reported that they had still yet to complete any new tracks due to their other commitments. Later in the year, the band announced two separate compilation releases for November 2013. The first, a greatest hits album entitled "Three Sixty", containing one new studio recording, "By and Down", and the second, a box set entitled "". The box set contained four CDs of live music: one for each of their three entire-album performances of "Mer de Noms", "Thirteenth Step", and "Emotive" done in 2010, collectively dubbed "Trifecta", and a recording of their 2011 performance at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre, dubbed "Stone and Echo". The set also came with DVD video recording of the 2011 "Stone and Echo" performance. In promoting the releases, Howerdel commented on future releases once again, stating that he felt they had "75% of the foundation of [the next] A Perfect Circle record ready", though he conceded that they were still without Keenan's lyrics or vocal melodies, and could still change depending on Keenan's reaction to the material. He also conceded that they still disagreed on the release medium; Keenan preferred smaller releases, while Howerdel preferred the format of a full album. Shortly after, the band again fell into a few years of public inactivity, with little occurring outside of Howerdel's 2015 commentary reiterating his commitment to the band, and Keenan's early 2016 commentary reiterating he still hoped to return to the band.


title: A Perfect Circle

text: The band became active again in 2017, with the announcement that they would reform to embark on a North American tour in April and May 2017, with the intention of using the live performances of new material as motivation to finish recording the album, similar to how they had embarked on their first 1999 tour to inspire the completion of "Mer de Noms". In March, the band announced they had signed a new record contract – their first in thirteen years – to release a fourth full-length studio album through BMG Rights Management. Howerdel initially gave a tentative timeframe of between November 2017 to early 2018 for the new album, while Keenan stated that the album wouldn't be out in 2017. A second North American tour began in October, and runs through December 2017. The band continued to debut new songs during the tours, including the tracks "Feathers" and "Hourglass".


title: A Perfect Circle

text: The band's fourth studio album, "Eat the Elephant", was released on April 20, 2018. Four singles were released in advance of the album; "The Doomed" in October 2017, "Disillusioned" in January 2018, "TalkTalk" in February 2018 and "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish" in April 2018. The album marks the first time the band opted to work with an outside music producer: Dave Sardy. Sardy helped Keenan and Howerdel find common ground in musical ideas in the recording process, helping them find a path to move forward in finishing the album. The band toured extensively in 2018 in support of the album, including performances at Rock on the Range and Coachella. In June 2018, the band extended their touring with a new North American leg towards the end of the year, and released a 2D hologram video for the song "The Contrarian". Iha was unavailable to perform in the April through July performances due to his commitment to the , and was temporarily replaced for the live performances by Greg Edwards of Failure, though Iha still remains a member of the band. Howerdel noted that he would like to see the band keep active beyond the "Eat the Elephant" album cycle, but that future activity, as it had historically been, is dependent on Keenan's limited availability and commitments to his other projects. When asked if there would be further albums, in June 2018, Keenan responded "Yeah, there should be". Howerdel was optimistic in November 2018 as well, agreeing that the band "will move forward for sure". In late 2021, Keenan noted that while he still saw a future for A Perfect Circle, that 2022 would be more focused on him working with Puscifer and Howerdel releasing a solo album, "What Normal Was". While supporting "What Normal Was" in 2022, Howerdel reiterated plans to make more A Perfect Circle music someday, noting that it was something he was thinking about and occasionally writing material for, but that there were no concrete plans, nor had he even began talking to Keenan about it yet.


title: A Perfect Circle

text: The band's music has been described as a number of different genres, though despite the sound changes and lineup changes, the writing process has remained the same for the band; Howerdel primarily writes the band's instrumental music, while Keenan contributes the lyrics and vocal melodies. Keenan, already very well known for his work with fronting the band Tool through the 1990s, always strove to keep the sound of two bands different:


title: A Perfect Circle

text: Howerdel has similarly described A Perfect Circle as a more emotional, vulnerable, and feminine approach to music than Tool. He has cited among his influences, several albums that had a strong effect on his way of playing: Adam Ant's "Kings of the Wild Frontier", for its "weird hybrid of pirate music and American Indian influence", Siouxsie and the Banshees' "Tinderbox" as "one of the spookiest records I've ever heard" and for its "dense atmosphere", Ozzy Osbourne's "Diary of a Madman" as "Randy Rhoads has been a huge influence for me, especially when I was starting out" and finally the Cure's "Pornography", which he described as "another spooky atmospheric record" and "one of the scariest albums I've ever heard".


title: A Perfect Circle

text: Tracy Frey of AllMusic described the band's sound as "an extension of the alt-metal-fused-with-art rock style popularized by Tool in the early to mid-'90s. While similar to Tool in intensity and melancholy, A Perfect Circle is less dark and more melodic, with a theatrical, ambient quality that incorporates occasional strings and unusual instrumentation. While Keenan referred to the band first album, "Mer de Noms", as more of a hard rock album, for subsequent albums, out of fear of redundancy, he often pushed for a more mellow, atmospheric sound, something he and Howerdel did not always see eye to eye on, creating a sound noted to be similar to merging heavy rock music with "Disintegration"-era The Cure music. In general, common genre classifications applied to labeling the band's music include alternative rock, alternative metal, hard rock, art rock, art metal, progressive rock and progressive metal. The band has also been lumped in with the nu metal genre, a label that is cited due to the band's rise to fame coinciding with the genre's movement towards more melodic heavy material similar to A Perfect Circle's sound, and its use was contested by many publications.


title: A Perfect Circle

text: Both A Perfect Circle and Tool have been widely hailed as major influences on modern rock. In a 2015 retrospective, VH1 noted that, "at some point sounding like Tool became a subgenre of rock. Although that is a little misleading as many of these bands were actually ripping off A Perfect Circle, because of its easier-to-grasp melody and simpler rhythms." Reviewers from outlets such as AllMusic and "Rolling Stone" cited "Mer de Noms" and "Thirteenth Step" as rare examples of relevance and quality in contemporary rock music. Online music magazine musicOMH asserted the band had "literally defined alternative rock as we know it."


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: Nadhim Zahawi (; ; born 2 June 1967) is an Iraqi-born British politician serving as Chairman of the Conservative Party and Minister without Portfolio since 25 October 2022. A member of the Conservative Party, he was first elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Stratford-on-Avon in 2010. He had previously served in various ministerial positions under prime ministers Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss from 2018 to 2022.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: Born in Baghdad to a Kurdish family, Zahawi was co-founder of international Internet-based market research firm YouGov of which he was chief executive until February 2010. A chemical engineer in his earlier career, he was chief strategy officer for Gulf Keystone Petroleum until January 2018. After the retirement of previous Conservative MP John Maples, he was elected for Stratford-upon-Avon at the 2010 general election.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: Zahawi joined Theresa May's government as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families in the 2018 reshuffle. Following Boris Johnson's appointment as prime minister, he was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Industry, and in 2020 he was given additional responsibility for the COVID-19 vaccination programme as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for COVID-19 Vaccine Deployment. In the 2021 cabinet reshuffle he was promoted to Johnson's cabinet as Secretary of State for Education. On 5 July 2022, he became the Chancellor of the Exchequer after the resignation of Rishi Sunak. Less than 48 hours later, Zahawi withdrew his support for Johnson and publicly called on him to resign, which Johnson did shortly afterwards.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: Zahawi was a candidate to succeed Johnson in the Conservative Party leadership election, but was eliminated from the ballot after the first round of voting, and subsequently supported Truss's bid to become Conservative leader. Truss appointed Zahawi as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Minister for Intergovernmental Relations and Minister for Equalities on 6 September 2022 following her appointment as prime minister. He was succeeded as chancellor by Kwasi Kwarteng. After Truss resigned in October 2022, Zahawi supported Sunak's bid to become Conservative leader. Sunak appointed Zahawi as the Chairman of the Conservative Party on 25 October 2022 following his appointment as prime minister.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: Zahawi was born into a Kurdish family in Baghdad, Iraq. When he was eleven years old, during Saddam Hussein's early years in power, he and his family fled to the UK. His father, Hareth, is a businessman and a director of Balshore Investments. His grandfather Nadhem Abdel-Jalil al-Zahawi was the governor of the Central Bank of Iraq from 1959 to 1960 and Minister of Trade from 1960 to 1963. Zahawi was educated at Holland Park School, before moving to Ibstock Place School and then at King's College School, an independent school in Wimbledon, London, followed by University College London, where he earned a BSc degree in chemical engineering in 1985.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: Following a career as European Marketing Director for Smith & Brooks Ltd, Zahawi co-founded YouGov in 2000 with Stephan Shakespeare, a former spokesman for Jeffrey Archer. Zahawi was YouGov's CEO from 2005 to 2010. In 2022 it emerged that, despite being one of the two key founders of YouGov, Zahawi was issued no founder shares in the company. Instead, he arranged for the founder shares that would have gone to him to go to a Gibraltar company owned by an offshore trust controlled by his parents. Zahawi denied that this was motivated by tax avoidance. He instructed libel lawyers to seek a withdrawal of allegations by tax lawyer Dan Neidle that one of Zahawi's denials of tax avoidance was based on a lie.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: In 2008, Zahawi became a non-executive director of SThree, a specialist staffing organisation. He was paid £2,917 per month in 2014. He stepped down from the role in October 2017, but maintained more than £70,000 in company shares until April 2021.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: In November 2013, it was reported by the "Birmingham Mail" newspaper that in May 2011 (one year after he became an MP) Nadhim Zahawi used as a mortgage lender Berkford Investments Limited, based in the low-tax British overseas territory of Gibraltar, to finance the purchase of his constituency home 'Oaklands' riding stables estate (worth at the time £875,000) in Upper Tysoe, near Stratford-upon-Avon, in Warwickshire.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: Berkford Investments Limited is managed by T&T Management Services Limited, who services include wealth management services. Zahawi responded to the news story by saying: "I did pay stamp duty on my property in Tysoe and have always paid stamp duty on my property purchases. I fully support the 2012 budget and all budgets of this government. I purchased my property in Tysoe with a mortgage from a Gibraltar company. This fact and the details involved are fully declared on the Land Registry and to suggest it is in any way hidden would be factually incorrect. Equally, to suggest that in any way I am using offshore to reduce my tax burden is entirely incorrect."


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: In 2015, he joined Gulf Keystone Petroleum, an oil and gas exploration and production company, as a part-time chief strategy officer. From 2015 to 2018, he was paid £1.3 million by the company.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: Zahawi's various roles resulted in his reportedly being the second highest earning MP in the UK as of 2017.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: "The Guardian" reported in early 2017 that Zahawi had spent £25m buying property around London, for both personal and commercial use. Zahawi said in response that "My first priority, before anything else, is my constituency work and I would never, or have never, let anything get in the way of this." By 2021, it was reported that Zahawi or his wife owned £100 million in property, including an industrial estate, three properties in London, a country house with stables in Warwickshire and a property in Dubai.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: In 1991, Zahawi and fellow British-Kurd Broosk Saib were aides to Jeffrey Archer during Archer's "Simple Truth" campaign to help Kurdish victims of the Gulf War. Zahawi and Saib were nicknamed "Lemon kurd" and "Bean kurd" by Archer. In 1994 Archer helped campaign for Zahawi for a seat on Wandsworth council. Zahawi also ran Archer's unsuccessful campaign for Mayor of London in 1998.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: Zahawi was elected as a Conservative councillor in Putney in the London Borough of Wandsworth, serving three terms from 1994 to 2006, and stood as a parliamentary candidate at Erith and Thamesmead in 1997, coming second to Labour.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: In 2010, Zahawi was selected by the local Conservative association for Stratford-on-Avon as a prospective parliamentary candidate in the 2010 general election and he was elected. He was subsequently re-elected in 2015, 2017 and 2019.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: In October 2013, Zahawi became a member of the Number 10 Policy Unit. Later in October, Zahawi and fellow member of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee interviewed Lazard, the Government's independent adviser on the sale of Royal Mail. Shares quickly rose to £5 following flotation at £3.30 and the "Financial Times" claimed that two investment banks had warned that it was underpriced.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: In November 2013 Zahawi apologised after it was found out that he had claimed expenses for electricity used to run the stables on his private estate.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: Zahawi is vice-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Kurdistan Region in Iraq, which receives secretarial support from Gulf Keystone Petroleum International, an oil company of which Zahawi was Chief Strategy Officer. Concerns were raised about how MPs' independence might be compromised by such links between APPGs and private companies, and specifically about how Zahawi's connections with the oil industry affect his role as MP.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: During the time he was on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee he was also chairman of the secretive trans-Atlantic group Le Cercle but did not declare his membership. In 2019 a member of his staff was listed as an administrator of Le Cercle in the Parliamentary Register of interests.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: He backed Britain's withdrawal from the European Union, arguing that the European Union will never be willing to change its rules and that the United Kingdom should take back control over a variety of issues.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: Following the 2018 cabinet reshuffle, Zahawi was appointed by Theresa May as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Education. On 26 July 2019 he was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Industry by new Prime Minister Boris Johnson.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: In October 2020, Zahawi was accused by Labour MP Tulip Siddiq of misleadingly suggesting that research from a holiday food and activities club pilot scheme had shown parents "actually prefer to pay a modest amount, £1 or £2", instead of receiving free school meals, in a debate over extending free school meals during school holidays.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: He became the first Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for COVID-19 Vaccine Deployment in November 2020. In December 2020, Zahawi stated that over 137,000 people in the UK had received a coronavirus vaccine in the first week of the UK's vaccination programme, with Zahawi describing it as a "really good start". A 90-year-old woman from the UK became the first person in the world to be given the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine on 8 December 2020. On 14 February 2021, Zahawi said that at least 15 million people in the UK had had their first COVID-19 vaccine. In January 2022, after he had left this role, Zahawi tested positive for COVID-19.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: In February 2021, Zahawi said there were no plans to introduce vaccine passports to travel abroad, describing them as "discriminatory". He said people could talk to their doctor if they needed written evidence to travel. In July 2021, the government announced plans to introduce domestic COVID-19 vaccine passports from September as a condition of entry to nightclubs and some other venues with large crowds.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: On 15 September 2021, Zahawi became Secretary of State for Education in a cabinet reshuffle, replacing Gavin Williamson.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: During the COP26 conference in 2021, Zahawi announced a youth award scheme to tackle climate change, similar to The Duke of Edinburgh's Awards. Pupils will be encouraged to boost the biodiversity of their schools by taking initiatives such as erecting bird feeders. Young people will be given a new Climate Leader's Award for any positive work on protecting the environment, with a nationwide ceremony held each year.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: Zahawi has been drawing up guidance on how to accommodate pupils with gender dysphoria with input from Suella Braverman, the attorney-general. He suggested that schools could allow, for example, children to use lavatories and changing facilities of their gender identity if it differs from their biological sex only when they are not in use by others. Braverman, however, disagrees with the idea. Zahawi also criticised a school where a female pupil had critically questioned a speaker after a talk on transphobia in October 2021. The girl was later subjected to swearing and spitting by her peers and had to leave the school, without completing her A-levels. Zahawi called the incident "hugely concerning" and "unacceptable".


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: He was promoted to Chancellor of the Exchequer on 5 July 2022 following the resignation of Rishi Sunak earlier that day.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: The following day, members of the Cabinet, including Zahawi and Home Secretary Priti Patel, had gathered inside 10 Downing Street to call on Johnson to resign. Zahawi called for Johnson's resignation in the morning of 7 July 2022, despite previously supporting Johnson and accepting an appointment as Chancellor less than 48 hours earlier. Zahawi said he had told Johnson that "the country deserves a government that is not only stable, but which acts with integrity. Prime Minister, you know in your heart what the right thing to do is, and go now."


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: On 9 July 2022, Zahawi announced his candidacy in the July 2022 Conservative Party leadership election saying he planned to "steady the ship and to stabilise the economy" by reviving low-tax Thatcherism. Former Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis endorsed him stating he "delivers and gets things done". On 13 July 2022, he was eliminated from the contest after not getting the required support of 30 MPs to reach the next round. He later endorsed Liz Truss in the election.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: On 6 September 2022, under the new Truss Ministry, Zahawi was replaced by Kwasi Kwarteng as Chancellor and instead appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Minister for Equalities (Government Equalities Office) and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations (Cabinet Office).


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: Following Truss's resignation, Zahawi initially announced his support for Boris Johnson's leadership bid, stating "I'm backing Boris. He got the big calls right…Britain needs him back. We need to unite to deliver on our manifesto". Minutes after Johnson announced he would not be running, "The Telegraph" published an article from Zahawi entitled "Get ready for Boris 2.0, the man who will make the Tories and Britain great again". The article was subsequently deleted and hours later, Zahawi announced he was backing Rishi Sunak.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: On 25 October 2022, Zahawi was made Chairman of the Conservative Party and Minister without portfolio upon Rishi Sunak becoming Prime Minister.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: In 2022 he said nurses should call off their strikes and pay demands because it risked playing into the hands of Vladimir Putin, who he said, wanted to fuel inflation. He called on unions representing nurses and other medical workers to enter into talks – though the Royal College of Nurses (RCN) pointed out that it was government ministers who were refusing to open any negotiations over the NHS pay deal.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: Zahawi was sworn in as a member of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council on 20 September 2021 at Balmoral Castle. This gave him the honorific prefix "The Right Honourable" for Life.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: A keen rider and show jumper, Zahawi and his wife Lana (married 2004) own and run a riding school. He is a member of the private members' club Soho House.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: Following then US President Donald Trump's Executive Order 13769 that banned travellers from a number of Muslim majority countries, Zahawi reported that, despite being a British citizen, he was unable to enter the United States, as he was born in Iraq. The ban also affected his wife. According to a media report, this prevented Zahawi from visiting his children attending university in the US.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: Zahawi spoke out against the policy and urged that the UK should not turn a blind eye to it. He also argued that the travel ban and then prime minister Theresa May's failure to condemn it only fuelled support for the Islamic State in Iraq and other countries.


title: Nadhim Zahawi

text: In late January 2018, it was reported in the media that Zahawi was one of the attendees at a men-only dinner event organised by the Presidents Club at the Dorchester Hotel in London. Media reports alleged that female hostesses were subjected to sexual harassment and incidents of groping and inappropriate touching. Following the revelations of his attendance at the event, Zahawi posted a tweet condemning such behaviour and stated that he felt uncomfortable at what he saw happening. He has also stated that he will never attend such a men-only event again. In response, opposition politicians, including the Shadow Secretary of State for Education, Angela Rayner, called for Zahawi to step down from his position as Parliamentary Under-Secretary in the Department of Education as he did not report his concerns about unlawful behaviour at the event to the police and because he had attended the event before on several occasions.


title: Cocoa bean

text: The cocoa bean (technically cocoa seed) or simply cocoa (), also called the cacao bean (technically cacao seed) or cacao (), is the dried and fully fermented seed of "Theobroma cacao", from which cocoa solids (a mixture of nonfat substances) and cocoa butter (the fat) can be extracted. Cocoa beans are the basis of chocolate, and Mesoamerican foods including tejate, an indigenous Mexican drink that also includes maize, and pinolillo, a similar Nicaraguan drink made from a cornmeal & cocoa powder.


title: Cocoa bean

text: The word "cocoa" comes from the Spanish word , which is derived from the Nahuatl word . The Nahuatl word, in turn, ultimately derives from the reconstructed Proto-Mixe–Zoquean word "kakawa".


title: Cocoa bean

text: The cacao tree is native to the Amazon rainforest. It was first domesticated 5,300 years ago, in equatorial South America, before being introduced in Central America by the Olmecs (Mexico). More than 4,000 years ago, it was consumed by pre-Hispanic cultures along the Yucatán, including the Maya, and as far back as Olmeca civilization in spiritual ceremonies. It also grows in the foothills of the Andes in the Amazon and Orinoco basins of South America, in Colombia and Venezuela. Wild cacao still grows there. Its range may have been larger in the past; evidence of its wild range may be obscured by cultivation of the tree in these areas since long before the Spanish arrived.


title: Cocoa bean

text: As of November 2018, evidence suggests that cacao was first domesticated in equatorial South America, before being domesticated in Central America roughly 1,500 years later. Artifacts found at Santa-Ana-La Florida, in Ecuador, indicate that the Mayo-Chinchipe people were cultivating cacao as long as 5,300 years ago. Chemical analysis of residue extracted from pottery excavated at an archaeological site at Puerto Escondido, in Honduras, indicates that cocoa products were first consumed there sometime between 1500 and 1400 BC. Evidence also indicates that, long before the flavor of the cacao seed (or bean) became popular, the sweet pulp of the chocolate fruit, used in making a fermented (5.34% alcohol) beverage, first drew attention to the plant in the Americas. The cocoa bean was a common currency throughout Mesoamerica before the Spanish conquest.


title: Cocoa bean

text: Cacao trees grow in a limited geographical zone, of about 20° to the north and south of the Equator. Nearly 70% of the world crop today is grown in West Africa. The cacao plant was first given its botanical name by Swedish natural scientist Carl Linnaeus in his original classification of the plant kingdom, where he called it "Theobroma" ("food of the gods") "cacao".


title: Cocoa bean

text: Cocoa was an important commodity in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. A Spanish soldier who was on Hernan Cortés' side during the conquest of the Aztec Empire tells that when Moctezuma II, emperor of the Aztecs, dined, he took no other beverage than chocolate, served in a golden goblet. Flavored with vanilla or other spices, his chocolate was whipped into a froth that dissolved in the mouth. No fewer than 60 portions each day reportedly may have been consumed by Moctezuma II, and 2,000 more by the nobles of his court. Also, the Aztec use of entheogens included cacao mixed with psilocybin mushrooms, a polysubstance combination referred to as "cacahua-xochitl", which literally means "chocolate-flowers".


title: Cocoa bean

text: Chocolate was introduced to Europe by the Spaniards, and became a popular beverage by the mid-17th century. Spaniards also introduced the cacao tree into the West Indies and the Philippines. It was also introduced into the rest of Asia, South Asia and into West Africa by Europeans. In the Gold Coast, modern Ghana, cacao was introduced by a Ghanaian, Tetteh Quarshie.


title: Cocoa bean

text: The three main varieties of cocoa plant are Forastero, Criollo, and Trinitario. The first is the most widely used, comprising 80–90% of the world production of cocoa. Cocoa beans of the Criollo variety are rarer and considered a delicacy. Criollo also tends to be less resistant to several diseases that attack the cocoa plant, hence very few countries still produce it. One of the largest producers of Criollo beans is Venezuela (Chuao and Porcelana). Trinitario (from Trinidad) is a hybrid between Criollo and Forastero varieties. It is considered to be of much higher quality than Forastero, has higher yields, and is more resistant to disease than Criollo.


title: Cocoa bean

text: Representing only 5% of all cocoa beans grown , Criollo is the rarest and most expensive cocoa on the market, and is native to Central America, the Caribbean islands and the northern tier of South American states. The genetic purity of cocoas sold today as Criollo is disputed, as most populations have been exposed to the genetic influence of other varieties.


title: Cocoa bean

text: Criollo is particularly difficult to grow, as they are vulnerable to a variety of environmental threats and produce low yields of cocoa per tree. The flavor of Criollo is described as delicate yet complex, low in classic chocolate flavor, but rich in "secondary" notes of long duration.


title: Cocoa bean

text: The most commonly grown bean is Forastero, a large group of wild and cultivated cocoas, most likely native to the Amazon Basin. The African cocoa crop is entirely made up of Forastero. They are significantly hardier and of higher yield than Criollo. The source of most chocolate marketed, Forastero cocoas are typically strong in classic "chocolate" flavor, but have a short duration and are unsupported by secondary flavors, producing "quite bland" chocolate. Forastero is particularly tannic and is therefore more astringent and bitter than the other varieties of cocoa.


title: Cocoa bean

text: The Nacional is a rare variety of cocoa bean found in areas of South America such as Ecuador and Peru. Some experts in the 21st century had formerly considered the Nacional bean to be extinct after an abrupt end in 1916, when an outbreak of “Witches’ Broom” disease devastated the Nacional variety throughout this countries. Pure genotypes of the bean are rare because most Nacional varieties have been interbred with other cocoa bean varieties. Ecuadorian Nacional traces its genetic lineage as far back as 5,300 years, to the earliest-known cacao trees domesticated by humanity. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Nacional was considered by many European chocolatiers to be the most coveted source of cacao in the world due to its floral aroma and complex flavor profile.


title: Cocoa bean

text: Trinitario is a natural hybrid of Criollo and Forastero. Trinitario originated in Trinidad after an introduction of Forastero to the local Criollo crop. Nearly all cocoa produced over the past five decades is of the Forastero or lower-grade Trinitario varieties.


title: Cocoa bean

text: A cocoa pod (fruit) is about long and has a rough, leathery rind about thick (this varies with the origin and variety of pod) filled with sweet, mucilaginous pulp (called "baba de cacao" in South America) with a lemonade-like taste enclosing 30 to 50 large seeds that are fairly soft and a pale lavender to dark brownish purple color.


title: Cocoa bean

text: During harvest, the pods are opened, the seeds are kept, and the empty pods are discarded and the pulp made into juice. The seeds are placed where they can ferment. Due to heat buildup in the fermentation process, cacao beans lose most of the purplish hue and become mostly brown in color, with an adhered skin which includes the dried remains of the fruity pulp. This skin is released easily by winnowing after roasting. White seeds are found in some rare varieties, usually mixed with purples, and are considered of higher value.


title: Cocoa bean

text: Cocoa trees grow in hot, rainy tropical areas within 20° of latitude from the Equator. Cocoa harvest is not restricted to one period per year and a harvest typically occurs over several months. In fact, in many countries, cocoa can be harvested at any time of the year. Pesticides are often applied to the trees to combat capsid bugs, and fungicides to fight black pod disease.


title: Cocoa bean

text: Immature cocoa pods have a variety of colours, but most often are green, red, or purple, and as they mature, their colour tends towards yellow or orange, particularly in the creases. Unlike most fruiting trees, the cacao pod grows directly from the trunk or large branch of a tree rather than from the end of a branch, similar to jackfruit. This makes harvesting by hand easier as most of the pods will not be up in the higher branches. The pods on a tree do not ripen together; harvesting needs to be done periodically through the year. Harvesting occurs between three and four times weekly during the harvest season. The ripe and near-ripe pods, as judged by their colour, are harvested from the trunk and branches of the cocoa tree with a curved knife on a long pole. Care must be used when cutting the stem of the pod to avoid damaging the junction of the stem with the tree, as this is where future flowers and pods will emerge. One person can harvest an estimated 650 pods per day.


title: Cocoa bean

text: The harvested pods are opened, typically with a machete, to expose the beans. The pulp and cocoa seeds are removed and the rind is discarded. The pulp and seeds are then piled in heaps, placed in bins, or laid out on grates for several days. During this time, the seeds and pulp undergo "sweating", where the thick pulp liquefies as it ferments. The fermented pulp trickles away, leaving cocoa seeds behind to be collected. Sweating is important for the quality of the beans, which originally have a strong, bitter taste. If sweating is interrupted, the resulting cocoa may be ruined; if underdone, the cocoa seed maintains a flavor similar to raw potatoes and becomes susceptible to mildew. Some cocoa-producing countries distill alcoholic spirits using the liquefied pulp.


title: Cocoa bean

text: A typical pod contains 30 to 40 beans and about 400 dried beans are required to make one pound (454 grams) of chocolate. Cocoa pods weigh an average of and each one yields dried beans; this yield is 9–10% of the total weight in the pod. One person can separate the beans from about 2000 pods per day.


title: Cocoa bean

text: The wet beans are then transported to a facility so they can be fermented and dried. The farmer removes the beans from the pods, packs them into boxes or heaps them into piles, then covers them with mats or banana leaves for three to seven days. Finally, the beans are trodden and shuffled about (often using bare human feet) and sometimes, during this process, red clay mixed with water is sprinkled over the beans to obtain a finer color, polish, and protection against molds during shipment to factories in other countries. Drying in the sun is preferable to drying by artificial means, as no extraneous flavors such as smoke or oil are introduced which might otherwise taint the flavor.


title: Cocoa bean

text: The beans should be dry for shipment, which is usually by sea. Traditionally exported in jute bags, over the last decade, beans are increasingly shipped in "mega-bulk" parcels of several thousand tonnes at a time on ships, or standardized to 62.5 kg per bag and 200 (12.5mt) or 240 (15mt) bags per 20-ft container. Shipping in bulk significantly reduces handling costs. Shipment in bags, either in a ship's hold or in containers, is still common.


title: Cocoa bean

text: Throughout Mesoamerica where they are native, cocoa beans are used for a variety of foods. The harvested and fermented beans may be ground to order at "tiendas de chocolate", or chocolate mills. At these mills, the cocoa can be mixed with a variety of ingredients such as cinnamon, chili peppers, almonds, vanilla, and other spices to create drinking chocolate. The ground cocoa is also an important ingredient in "tejate".


title: Cocoa bean

text: The first allegations that child slavery is used in cocoa production appeared in 1998. In late 2000, a BBC documentary reported the use of enslaved children in the production of cocoa in West Africa. Other media followed by reporting widespread child slavery and child trafficking in the production of cocoa.


title: Cocoa bean

text: The cocoa industry was accused of profiting from child slavery and trafficking. The Harkin–Engel Protocol is an effort to end these practices. In 2001, it was signed and witnessed by the heads of eight major chocolate companies, US senators Tom Harkin and Herb Kohl, US Representative Eliot Engel, the ambassador of the Ivory Coast, the director of the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labor, and others. It has, however, been criticized by some groups including the International Labor Rights Forum as an industry initiative which falls short, as the goal to eliminate the “worst forms of child labor” from cocoa production by 2005 was not reached. The deadline was extended multiple times and the goal changed to a 70% child labor reduction.


title: Cocoa bean

text: Child labour was growing in some West African countries in 2008–09 when it was estimated that 819,921 children worked on cocoa farms in Ivory Coast alone; by 2013–14, the number went up to 1,303,009. During the same period in Ghana, the estimated number of children working on cocoa farms was 957,398 children.


title: Cocoa bean

text: The 2010 documentary "The Dark Side of Chocolate" revealed that children smuggled from Mali to the Ivory Coast were forced to earn income for their parents, while others were sold as slaves for €230.


title: Cocoa bean

text: In 2010, the US Department of Labor formed the Child Labor Cocoa Coordinating Group as a public-private partnership with the governments of Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire to address child labor practices in the cocoa industry.


title: Cocoa bean

text: As of 2017, approximately 2.1 million children in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire were involved in harvesting cocoa, carrying heavy loads, clearing forests, and being exposed to pesticides. According to Sona Ebai, the former secretary general of the Alliance of Cocoa Producing Countries: "I think child labor cannot be just the responsibility of industry to solve. I think it's the proverbial all-hands-on-deck: government, civil society, the private sector. And there, you really need leadership." As Reported in 2018, a 3-year pilot program, conducted by Nestlé with 26,000 farmers mostly located in Côte d'Ivoire, observed a 51% decrease in the number of children doing hazardous jobs in cocoa farming.


title: Cocoa bean

text: In 2021, several companies were named in a class action lawsuit filed by eight former children from Mali who alleged that the companies aided and abetted their enslavement on cocoa plantations in Ivory Coast. The suit accused Barry Callebaut, Cargill, The Hershey Company, Mars, Mondelez, Nestlé, and Olam International, of knowingly engaging in forced labour, and the plaintiffs sought damages for unjust enrichment, negligent supervision, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.


title: Cocoa bean

text: In 2020, world production of cocoa beans was 5.8 million tonnes, led by Ivory Coast with 38% of the total. Secondary producers were Ghana and Indonesia (each with about 14%).


title: Cocoa bean

text: Cocoa beans are traditionally shipped and stored in burlap sacks, in which the beans are susceptible to pest attacks. Fumigation with methyl bromide was to be phased out globally by 2015. Additional cocoa protection techniques for shipping and storage include the application of pyrenoids as well as hermetic storage in sealed bags or containers with lowered oxygen concentrations. Safe long-term storage facilitates the trading of cocoa products at commodity exchanges.


title: Cocoa bean

text: Cocoa beans, cocoa butter and cocoa powder are traded on futures markets. The London market is based on West African cocoa and New York on cocoa predominantly from Southeast Asia. Cocoa is the world's smallest soft commodity market. The futures price of cocoa butter and cocoa powder is determined by multiplying the bean price by a ratio. The combined butter and powder ratio has tended to be around 3.5. If the combined ratio falls below 3.2 or so, production ceases to be economically viable and some factories cease extraction of butter and powder and trade exclusively in cocoa liquor.


title: Cocoa bean

text: Cocoa futures traded on the ICE Futures US Softs exchange, are valued at 10 Tonnes per contract with a tick size of 1 and tick value of 10 USD.


title: Cocoa bean

text: Multiple international and national initiatives collaborate to support sustainable cocoa production. These include the Swiss Platform for Sustainable Cocoa (SWISSCO), the German Initiative on Sustainable Cocoa (GISCO), and Beyond Chocolate, Belgium. A memorandum between these three initiatives was signed in 2020 to measure and address issues including child labor, living income, deforestation and supply chain transparency. Similar partnerships between cocoa producing and consuming countries are being developed, such as the cooperation between the International Cocoa Organization (ICCO) and the Ghanaian Cocoa Authority, who aim to increase the proportion of sustainable cocoa being imported from Ghana to Switzerland to 80% by 2025. The ICCO is engaged in projects around the world to support sustainable cocoa production and provide current information on the world cocoa market.


title: Cocoa bean

text: There are numerous voluntary certifications including Fairtrade and UTZ (now part of Rainforest Alliance) for cocoa which aim to differentiate between conventional cocoa production and that which is more sustainable in terms of social, economic and environmental concerns. As of 2016, at least 29% of global cocoa production was compliant with voluntary sustainability standards. However, among the different certifications there are significant differences in their goals and approaches, and a lack of data to show and compare the results on the farm level. While certifications can lead to increased farm income, the premium price paid for certified cocoa by consumers is not always reflected proportionally in the income for farmers. In 2012 the ICCO found that farm size mattered significantly when determining the benefits of certifications, and that farms an area less than 1ha were less likely to benefit from such programs, while those with slightly larger farms as well as access to member co-ops and the ability to improve productivity were most likely to benefit from certification. Certification often requires high up front costs, which are a barrier to small farmers, and particularly, female farmers. The primary benefits to certification include improving conservation practices and reducing the use of agrochemicals, business support through cooperatives and resource sharing, and a higher price for cocoa beans which can improve the standard of living for farmers.


title: Cocoa bean

text: Fair trade cocoa producer groups are established in Belize, Bolivia, Cameroon, the Congo, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Ghana, Haiti, India, Ivory Coast, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Sierra Leone, and São Tomé and Príncipe.


title: Cocoa bean

text: In 2018, the Beyond Chocolate partnership was created between multiple stakeholders in the global cocoa industry to decrease deforestation and provide a living income for cocoa farmers. The many international companies are currently participating in this agreement and the following voluntary certification programs are also partners in the Beyond Chocolate initiative: Rainforest Alliance, Fairtrade, ISEAL, BioForum Vlaanderen.


title: Cocoa bean

text: Many major chocolate production companies around the world have started to prioritize buying fair trade cocoa by investing in fair trade cocoa production, improving fair trade cocoa supply chains and setting purchasing goals to increase the proportion of fair trade chocolate available in the global market.


title: Cocoa bean

text: The UTZ Certified-program (now part of Rainforest Alliance) included counteracting against child labor and exploitation of cocoa workers, requiring a code of conduct in relation to social and environmentally friendly factors, and improvement of farming methods to increase profits and salaries of farmers and distributors.


title: Cocoa bean

text: The relative poverty of many cocoa farmers means that environmental consequences such as deforestation are given little significance. For decades, cocoa farmers have encroached on virgin forest, mostly after the felling of trees by logging companies. This trend has decreased as many governments and communities are beginning to protect their remaining forested zones. However, deforestation due to cocoa production is still a major concern in parts of West Africa. In Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, barriers to land ownership have led migrant workers and farmers without financial resources to buy land to illegally expand their cocoa farming in protected forests. Many cocoa farmers in this region continue to prioritize expansion of their cocoa production, which often leads to deforestation.


title: Cocoa bean

text: Sustainable agricultural practices such as utilizing cover crops to prepare the soil before planting and intercropping cocoa seedlings with companion plants can support cocoa production and benefit the farm ecosystem. Prior to planting cocoa, leguminous cover crops can improve the soil nutrients and structure, which are important in areas where cocoa is produced due to high heat and rainfall which can diminish soil quality. Plantains are often intercropped with cocoa to provide shade to young seedlings and improve drought resilience of the soil. If the soil lacks essential nutrients, compost or animal manure can improve soil fertility and help with water retention.


title: Cocoa bean

text: In general, the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides by cocoa farmers is limited. When cocoa bean prices are high, farmers may invest in their crops, leading to higher yields which, in turn tends to result in lower market prices and a renewed period of lower investment.


title: Cocoa bean

text: While governments and NGOs have made efforts to help cocoa farmers in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire sustainably improve crop yields, many of the educational and financial resources provided are more readily available to male farmers versus female farmers. Access to credit is important for cocoa farmers, as it allows them to implement sustainable practices, such as agroforestry, and provide a financial buffer in case disasters like pest or weather patterns decrease crop yield.


title: Cocoa bean

text: Cocoa production is likely to be affected in various ways by the expected effects of global warming. Specific concerns have been raised concerning its future as a cash crop in West Africa, the current centre of global cocoa production. If temperatures continue to rise, West Africa could simply become unfit to grow the beans.


title: Cocoa bean

text: Cocoa beans also have a potential to be used as a bedding material in farms for cows. Using cocoa bean husks in bedding material for cows may contribute to udder health (less bacterial growth) and ammonia levels (lower ammonia levels on bedding).


title: Cocoa bean

text: Cocoa beans may be cultivated under shade, as done in agroforestry. Agroforestry can reduce the pressure on existing protected forests for resources, such as firewood, and conserve biodiversity. Integrating shade trees with cocoa plants reduces risk of soil erosion and evaporation, and protects young cocoa plants from extreme heat. Agroforests act as buffers to formally protected forests and biodiversity island refuges in an open, human-dominated landscape. Research of their shade-grown coffee counterparts has shown that greater canopy cover in plots is significantly associated with greater mammal species diversity. The amount of diversity in tree species is fairly comparable between shade-grown cocoa plots and primary forests.


title: Cocoa bean

text: Cocoa contributes significantly to Nigerian economic activity, comprising the largest part of the country's foreign exchange, and providing income for farmers. Farmers can grow a variety of fruit-bearing shade trees to supplement their income to help cope with the volatile cocoa prices. Although cocoa has been adapted to grow under a dense rainforest canopy, agroforestry does not significantly further enhance cocoa productivity. However, while growing cocoa in full sun without incorporating shade plants can temporarily increase cocoa yields, it will eventually decrease the quality of the soil due to nutrient loss, desertification and erosion, leading to unsustainable yields and dependency on inorganic fertilizers. Agroforestry practices stabilize and improve soil quality, which can sustain cocoa production in the long term.


title: Cocoa bean

text: Over time, cocoa agroforestry systems become more similar to forest, although they never fully recover the original forest community within the life cycle of a productive cocoa plantation (approximately 25 years). Thus, although cocoa agroforests cannot replace natural forests, they are a valuable tool for conserving and protecting biodiversity while maintaining high levels of productivity in agricultural landscapes.


title: Cocoa bean

text: In West Africa, where about 70% of global cocoa supply originates from smallholder farmers, recent public–private initiatives such as the Cocoa Forest Initiatives in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire (World Cocoa Foundation, 2017) and the Green Cocoa Landscape Programme in Cameroon (IDH, 2019) aim to support the sustainable intensification and climate resilience of cocoa production, the prevention of further deforestation and the restoration of degraded forests. They often align with national REDD+ policies and plans.


title: Cocoa bean

text: People around the world enjoy cocoa in many different forms, consuming more than 3 million tons of cocoa beans yearly. Once the cocoa beans have been harvested, fermented, dried and transported they are processed in several components. Processor grindings serve as the main metric for market analysis. Processing is the last phase in which consumption of the cocoa bean can be equitably compared to supply. After this step all the different components are sold across industries to many manufacturers of different types of products.


title: Cocoa bean

text: Global market share for processing has remained stable, even as grindings increase to meet demand. One of the largest processing country by volume is the Netherlands, handling around 13% of global grindings. Europe and Russia as a whole handle about 38% of the processing market. Average year after year demand growth has been just over 3% since 2008. While Europe and North America are relatively stable markets, increasing household income in developing countries is the main reason of the stable demand growth. As demand is awaited to keep growing, supply growth may slow down due to changing weather conditions in the largest cocoa production areas.


title: Cocoa bean

text: To make 1 kg (2.2 lb) of chocolate, about 300 to 600 beans are processed, depending on the desired cocoa content. In a factory, the beans are roasted. Next, they are cracked and then deshelled by a "winnower". The resulting pieces of beans are called nibs. They are sometimes sold in small packages at specialty stores and markets to be used in cooking, snacking, and chocolate dishes. Since nibs are directly from the cocoa tree, they contain high amounts of theobromine. Most nibs are ground, using various methods, into a thick, creamy paste, known as chocolate liquor or cocoa paste. This "liquor" is then further processed into chocolate by mixing in (more) cocoa butter and sugar (and sometimes vanilla and lecithin as an emulsifier), and then refined, conched and tempered. Alternatively, it can be separated into cocoa powder and cocoa butter using a hydraulic press or the Broma process. This process produces around 50% cocoa butter and 50% cocoa powder. Cocoa powder may have a fat content of about 12%, but this varies significantly. Cocoa butter is used in chocolate bar manufacture, other confectionery, soaps, and cosmetics.


title: Cocoa bean

text: Treating with an alkali produces Dutch process cocoa, which is less acidic, darker, and more mellow in flavor than untreated cocoa. Regular (nonalkalized) cocoa is acidic, so when cocoa is treated with an alkaline ingredient, generally potassium carbonate, the pH increases. This process can be done at various stages during manufacturing, including during nib treatment, liquor treatment, or press cake treatment.


title: Cocoa bean

text: Another process that helps develop the flavor is roasting, which can be done on the whole bean before shelling or on the nib after shelling. The time and temperature of the roast affect the result: A "low roast" produces a more acid, aromatic flavor, while a high roast gives a more intense, bitter flavor lacking complex flavor notes.


title: Cocoa bean

text: Cocoa contains various phytochemicals, such as flavanols (including epicatechin), procyanidins, and other flavanoids. A systematic review presented moderate evidence that the use of flavanol-rich chocolate and cocoa products causes a small (2 mmHg) blood pressure lowering effect in healthy adults—mostly in the short term.


title: Cocoa bean

text: The highest levels of cocoa flavanols are found in raw cocoa and to a lesser extent, dark chocolate, since flavonoids degrade during cooking used to make chocolate.


title: Cocoa bean

text: The beans contain theobromine, and between 0.1% and 0.7% caffeine, whereas dry coffee beans are about 1.2% caffeine.


title: Hooke's law

text: In physics, Hooke's law is an empirical law which states that the force () needed to extend or compress a spring by some distance () scales linearly with respect to that distance—that is, where is a constant factor characteristic of the spring (i.e., its stiffness), and is small compared to the total possible deformation of the spring. The law is named after 17th-century British physicist Robert Hooke. He first stated the law in 1676 as a Latin anagram. He published the solution of his anagram in 1678 as: ("as the extension, so the force" or "the extension is proportional to the force"). Hooke states in the 1678 work that he was aware of the law since 1660.


title: Hooke's law

text: Hooke's equation holds (to some extent) in many other situations where an elastic body is deformed, such as wind blowing on a tall building, and a musician plucking a string of a guitar. An elastic body or material for which this equation can be assumed is said to be linear-elastic or Hookean.


title: Hooke's law

text: Hooke's law is only a first-order linear approximation to the real response of springs and other elastic bodies to applied forces. It must eventually fail once the forces exceed some limit, since no material can be compressed beyond a certain minimum size, or stretched beyond a maximum size, without some permanent deformation or change of state. Many materials will noticeably deviate from Hooke's law well before those elastic limits are reached.