title: James Whitmore

text: Whitmore was diagnosed with lung cancer in November 2008. He died from the disease at the age of 87 on February 6, 2009, at his Malibu, California home.


title: James Whitmore

text: Whitmore has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6611 Hollywood Boulevard. The ceremony was held on February 8, 1960.


title: Asuran (2019 film)

text: Asuran () is a 2019 Indian Tamil-language action drama film written and directed by Vetrimaaran and produced by Kalaipuli S. Thanu. It is based on the novel "Vekkai" () by Poomani. The film stars Dhanush, along with Manju Warrier (in her Tamil debut), Ken Karunas, and Teejay Arunasalam. G. V. Prakash Kumar composed the film's music. Cinematography was handled by Velraj, with editing by R. Ramar.


title: Asuran (2019 film)

text: "Asuran" was released in theatres on 4 October 2019. The film was a commercial success at the box office. The film won two awards at the 67th National Film Awards—Best Feature Film in Tamil and Best Actor (Dhanush). It was one among the ten Indian films to be screened at the 78th Golden Globe Awards (2021) under the Best Foreign Film category. It was also screened at the 51st International Film Festival of India in the Indian Panorama section. The film was remade in Telugu as "Narappa" (2021).


title: Asuran (2019 film)

text: In the late 1970s Tirunelveli, a man and a boy are trekking across a river, carrying homemade bombs. In another part of the village, a woman, man and a girl are also hiding from the police.


title: Asuran (2019 film)

text: Past: The narrator reveals that the man is Sivasaami and the boy is his son Chidambaram. In contrast, the woman, man, and child are Sivasaami's wife, Pachaiyamma, her brother Murugesan and daughter Lakshmi. They also had an older son called Velmurugan. They are a family of farmers living in Thekkoor (lit. southern village). Sivasaami has a close relationship with his older son but is distant, almost abusive with Chidambaram. Sivasami's family, along with most residents of Thekkoor, are Dalits. Narasimhan is an upper-caste landlord from Vadakoor (lit. northern village), who needs Sivasaami's 3 acres of land for a factory, to which the family is against selling, especially Velmurugan.


title: Asuran (2019 film)

text: Pachaiyamma is attacked by one of Narasimhan's sons, to which Velmurugan retaliates by severely injuring him and his men and gets imprisoned consequently. Sivasaami pleads with Narasimhan to get Velmurugan released, and in reply, Narasimhan asks Sivasaami to prostrate before every male resident of the landlord's village as atonement. When Velmurugan hears of his father's humiliation, he beats Narasimhan with a slipper. In revenge, Narasimhan's henchmen, led by a hunter Kariyan, behead Velmuruga and dumps his headless body naked in their field. Pachaiyamma is broken with inability to even complain because of missing head as evidence and after a year, Chidambaram is compelled to kill Narasimhan in revenge. Sivasami sees the killing, cuts the street lights there, and tells the family, where they flee with Chidambaram.


title: Asuran (2019 film)

text: Present: Kariyan is asked to find the pair, tracks them down, and almost kills Chidambaram. Sivasami defeats them all but kills none. While the two recovers, Sivasaami explains why he spared their lives.


title: Asuran (2019 film)

text: Past: 20 years before, he was a village-famous moonshine brewer and trusted servant to Viswanathan, a landlord. One day, he convinces his boss to employ Pandiyan, Viswanathan's distant relative, as a clerk. Sivasaami's brother Murugan and Venugopal Seshadri, a Brahmin Communist lawyer, are attempting to regain their community's Panchami land from landlords who had seized it illegally. Sivasami's elder sister's daughter Mariyamma proposes to Sivasami, who accepts. The family also accepts. Pandiyan slowly gains Viswanathan's trust and becomes his Mill accountant.


title: Asuran (2019 film)

text: Meanwhile, Sivasami slowly falls in love with Mariyamma. When Sivasaami gives her sandals to wear, Pandiyan hits her and forces her to walk through the village with the sandals on her head. Sivasaami retaliates by hitting him with sandals in the middle of the village and ties him up, but is reprimanded by Vishwanathan. Sivasami quits brewing and joins his brother. One night, before a meeting was conducted by Seshadri and Murugan with the other labourers, news arrives that Seshadri was arrested, and Sivasaami is sent to get the documents authorising the meeting. When Sivasami returns, Murugan and the others have been killed by Pandiyan and his men, while Sivasami's family (including Mariyamma), along with many others, are burned alive in their huts.


title: Asuran (2019 film)

text: Enraged, Sivasami brutally kills Vishwanathan, Pandiyan and their men. Sivasaami leaves his village and months later was found by Murugesan, who taught him farming. He's also introduced to Pachaiyamma, who is not getting marriage proposals. He narrates his story, and Pachaiyamma admires what he did for his family. He surrenders to the court and is given a light sentence. Afterwards, he marries Pachaiyamma.


title: Asuran (2019 film)

text: Present: Chidambaram is amazed at his father's past and starts to admire him. Sivasaami reconciles with his wife and daughter briefly, and he and his son go to Seshadri for help. Seshadri agrees to help them as long as they turn up to court the next day. The next day, the two get into the court premises but are forced to flee after Narasimhan's men ambush them. Sivasaami reluctantly sells his land to prevent Narasimhan's men from targeting his family. However, Chidambaram is abducted and tortured, in direct violation of the agreement. Sivasami kills many of the henchmen and all of Narasimhan's family male members, though he and Chidambaram sustain serious injuries.


title: Asuran (2019 film)

text: Murugesan and their village people arrive armed and defuse the situation. The two villages agreed that the conflict should end and prevented a caste clash. Sivasaami's family has gathered in the court, and he has agreed to go to prison instead of Chidambaram if necessary. He tells his son to study hard and get a powerful bureaucratic job, and that, unlike land and money, the landlords can't seize their education, where Sivasaami smiles at his family as he enters the court.


title: Asuran (2019 film)

text: After the release of "Velaiilla Pattadhari 2" (2017), producer Kalaipuli S. Thanu signed a three-film deal with Dhanush. After the success of "Vada Chennai" (2018), Vetrimaaran announced plans for making the film's sequel with Dhanush reprising his role. However, Vetrimaaran and Dhanush agreed to do another film for Thanu before working on the sequel.


title: Asuran (2019 film)

text: On 21 December 2018, Dhanush announced the film's title, with a poster. Filming was planned as to shoot in January 2019. G. V. Prakash Kumar was signed as the music compose, collaborating with the director and actor after "Polladhavan" (2007) and "Aadukalam" (2011). The film was reported to be set in 1960s to 1980s period, with Dhanush playing a man of his mid-40s.


title: Asuran (2019 film)

text: Malayalam actress Manju Warrier was cast in the female lead role in the film, which marked her debut in Tamil film industry. Ken Karunas, son of actor Karunas and singer Teejay Arunasalam was roped into essay the role of Dhanush's sons in the film, with the latter marking his acting debut. Sai Pallavi was approached for a role, which later went to Ammu Abhirami. Director Balaji Sakthivel, also made his acting debut, essaying an important role in the film. Pasupathy was cast in a supporting role. He joined the sets in February 2019. Later, Aadukalam Naren and Pawan were also cast in the film.


title: Asuran (2019 film)

text: Principal photography of the film began on 26 January 2019, with the first schedule of the shoot being held at Tirunelveli. Dhanush was reported to play a dual role of father and son in the film as per sources. Initially, the actor was reported to play a dual role in another film directed by R. S. Durai Senthilkumar, which was titled "Pattas" (2020). While the film's shoot was progressing in full swing, Dhanush was reported to kick start his shoot for "Pattas", later he took a break and resumed shooting for the film in April 2019. The final schedule of the film began in May 2019. It was revealed that the makers planned to wrap the film's shoot by June 2019.


title: Asuran (2019 film)

text: The soundtrack album and background score is composed by G. V. Prakash Kumar, collaborating with Dhanush and Vetrimaaran for the third time after "Polladhavan" and "Aadukalam". The soundtrack album consists of seven songs, with lyrics written by Ekadesi, Yugabharathi, Eknath, and Arunraja Kamaraj. The film's album was launched on 2 September 2019, coinciding with the occasion of Ganesh Chathurthi at a launch event held at Prasad Studios in Chennai, where Dhanush, Manju Warrier, Ammu Abirami, Ken Karunas, singer-turned-actor Teejay Arunasalam, director Vetrimaaran, composer G. V. Prakash Kumar, and producer S. Thanu were in attendance, and the album was released in all streaming platforms and on YouTube, the same day. The film's music, including the background score, received positive responses from both audiences as well as critics, with songs "Kathari Poovazhagi", "Yen Minukki" and "Ellu Vaya Pookalaye" were well received by audiences, benefiting to the success of the film.


title: Asuran (2019 film)

text: "Asuran" was originally planned to be released on 2 October 2019, coinciding with the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti and the weekend of the Vijayadashami festival in India. On 8 August, the makers advanced the release date by one day to 4 October.


title: Asuran (2019 film)

text: Sify rated the film 4.5 out of 5, summarising that "Asuran is a must-watch. Dhanush-Vetrimaaran combo who has once again delivered a raw, rustic, and riveting revenge drama. Don't miss this one!" S. Subhakeerthana from The Indian Express rated the film 4 out of 5 and reviewed it as "With this Dhanush starrer, Vetrimaaran proves he's one of the finest directors in Indian cinema, yet again. Only a few filmmakers like him can pull off a mainstream cinema, balancing 'realism' and commercial elements."


title: Asuran (2019 film)

text: Sreedhar Pillai from Firstpost rated the film 4 out of 5 and posted a verdict "" Asuran" is one of the best films of the year and a must-watch. Vetrimaran keeps the flag of good cinema flying high." Janani K from India Today, rated the film 3.5 out of 5 and stated that "Director Vetri Maaran's Asuran is a thrilling revenge drama of an oppressed family in a village. With solid writing backed by brilliant performances, Asuran is a classic film."


title: Asuran (2019 film)

text: "The Times of India", rated 3.5 out of 5 stars, stating that "Vetri Maaran delivers yet another solid action drama that keeps us engrossed from start to finish." Behindwoods rated 3.25/5, stating that "Asuran is an engaging watch with strong performances, interesting plot and an amazing emotional connect with the audience throughout." Krupa Ge from Silverscreen said, "Asuran is a bloody revenge saga, that's also weirdly enough about the futility of violence... Watching the film, after reading the book [Vekkai], feels like dipping in and out of the novel, to wander off to the sides of the pages, filled with detours and notes. It starts where the novel starts, but goes back and forth, imagining what could have been."


title: Asuran (2019 film)

text: Gauthaman Baskaran from News18, gave contrary reviews by rating the film 2 out of 5, stating that "Coming at a time when graphic and lurid on-screen violence is being questioned and even condemned, Asuran would appear needlessly falling back to the old formula." Baradwaj Rangan of Film Companion South wrote, "None of the characters feel fully formed because the timelines feel rushed. We don't feel time and lives weigh down on us the way it did in Vada Chennai or Visaranai. Maybe it's the on/off voiceovers, which feel like hastily applied band-aids over sore spots in the storytelling. But the bigger absence is the lack of set pieces. Vetri Maaran seems to be holding back almost deliberately, as though mirroring his leading man".


title: Asuran (2019 film)

text: A critic from the "HuffPost" wrote that the film has taken inspiration from Kilvenmani massacre of 1968, using as a plot device.


title: Asuran (2019 film)

text: "Asuran" grossed approximately 16 crore in Tamil Nadu in its first weekend. The film collected in Kerala in 10 days. The film grossed over 50 crore worldwide according to "Firstpost". The film has crossed revenue which includes theatrical gross and non-theatrical revenue such as satellite, digital and music rights.


title: Asuran (2019 film)

text: "Asuran" was remade in Telugu as "Naarappa" in 2021, starring Venkatesh and directed by Srikanth Addala. Kalaipuli S. Thanu returned as the producer of the film along with Daggubati Suresh Babu under their banners V. Creations and Suresh Productions.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Muammar Gaddafi became the "de facto" leader of Libya on 1 September 1969 after leading a group of young Libyan Army officers against King Idris I in a bloodless coup d'état. After the king had fled the country, the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) headed by Gaddafi abolished the monarchy and the old constitution and established the Libyan Arab Republic, with the motto "freedom, socialism and unity".


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: After coming to power, the RCC government initiated a process of directing funds toward providing education, health care and housing for all. Public education in the country became free and primary education compulsory for both sexes. Medical care became available to the public at no cost, but providing housing for all was a task the RCC government was unable to complete. Under Gaddafi, per capita income in the country rose to more than US$11,000, the 5th highest in Africa. The increase in prosperity was accompanied by a controversial foreign policy, and there was increased domestic political repression.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: During the 1980s and 1990s, Gaddafi, in alliance with the Eastern Bloc and Fidel Castro's Cuba, openly supported rebel movements like Nelson Mandela's African National Congress, Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization, the Provisional Irish Republican Army and the Polisario Front (Western Sahara). Gaddafi's government was either known to be or suspected of participating in or aiding attacks by these and other proxy forces. Additionally, Gaddafi undertook several invasions of neighboring states in Africa, notably Chad in the 1970s and 1980s. All of his actions led to a deterioration of Libya's foreign relations with several countries, mostly Western states, and culminated in the 1986 United States bombing of Libya. Gaddafi defended his government's actions by citing the need to support anti-imperialist and anti-colonial movements around the world. Notably, Gaddafi supported anti-Zionist, pan-Arab, pan-Africanist and Arab and black civil rights movements. Gaddafi's behavior, often erratic, led some outsiders to conclude that he was not mentally sound, a claim disputed by the Libyan authorities and other observers close to Gaddafi. Despite receiving extensive aid and technical assistance from the Soviet Union and its allies, Gaddafi retained close ties to pro-American governments in Western Europe, largely by courting Western oil companies with promises of access to lucrative Libyan energy sectors. After the 9/11 attacks, strained relations between Libya and the West were mostly normalised, and sanctions against the country relaxed, in exchange for nuclear disarmament.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: In early 2011, a civil war broke out in the context of the wider "Arab Spring". The rebel anti-Gaddafi forces formed a committee named the National Transitional Council on 27 February 2011. It was meant to act as an interim authority in the rebel-controlled areas. After killings by government forces in addition to those by the rebel forces, a multinational coalition led by NATO forces intervened on 21 March 2011 in support of the rebels. The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Gaddafi and his entourage on 27 June 2011. Gaddafi's government was overthrown in the wake of the fall of Tripoli to the rebel forces on 20 August 2011, although pockets of resistance held by forces in support of Gaddafi's government held out for another two months, especially in Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte, which he declared the new capital of Libya on 1 September 2011. The fall of the last remaining sites in Sirte under pro-Gaddafi control on 20 October 2011, followed by the subsequent killing of Gaddafi, marked the end of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: The name of Libya was changed several times during Gaddafi's tenure as leader. From 1969 to 1977, the name was the Libyan Arab Republic. In 1977, the name was changed to Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. "Jamahiriya" was a term coined by Gaddafi, usually translated as "state of the masses". The country was renamed again in 1986 as the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, after the 1986 United States bombing of Libya.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: The discovery of significant oil reserves in 1959 and the subsequent income from petroleum sales enabled the Kingdom of Libya to transition from one of the world's poorest nations to a wealthy state. Although oil drastically improved the Libyan government's finances, resentment began to build over the increased concentration of the nation's wealth in the hands of King Idris. This discontent mounted with the rise of Nasserism and Arab nationalism/socialism throughout North Africa and the Middle East.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: On 1 September 1969, a group of about 70 young army officers known as the Free Officers Movement and enlisted men mostly assigned to the Signal Corps, seized control of the government and in a stroke abolished the Libyan monarchy. The coup was launched at Benghazi, and within two hours the takeover was completed. Army units quickly rallied in support of the coup, and within a few days firmly established military control in Tripoli and elsewhere throughout the country. Popular reception of the coup, especially by younger people in the urban areas, was enthusiastic. Fears of resistance in Cyrenaica and Fezzan proved unfounded. No deaths or violent incidents related to the coup were reported.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: The Free Officers Movement, which claimed credit for carrying out the coup, was headed by a twelve-member directorate that designated itself the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC). This body constituted the Libyan government after the coup. In its initial proclamation on 1 September, the RCC declared the country to be a free and sovereign state called the Libyan Arab Republic, which would proceed "in the path of freedom, unity, and social justice, guaranteeing the right of equality to its citizens, and opening before them the doors of honorable work." The rule of the Turks and Italians and the "reactionary" government just overthrown were characterized as belonging to "dark ages", from which the Libyan people were called to move forward as "free brothers" to a new age of prosperity, equality, and honor.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: The RCC advised diplomatic representatives in Libya that the revolutionary changes had not been directed from outside the country, that existing treaties and agreements would remain in effect, and that foreign lives and property would be protected. Diplomatic recognition of the new government came quickly from countries throughout the world. United States recognition was officially extended on 6 September.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: In view of the lack of internal resistance, it appeared that the chief danger to the new government lay in the possibility of a reaction inspired by the absent King Idris or his designated heir, Hasan Al-Rida, who had been taken into custody at the time of the coup along with other senior civil and military officials of the royal government. Within days of the coup, however, Hasan publicly renounced all rights to the throne, stated his support for the new government, and called on the people to accept it without violence.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Idris, in an exchange of messages with the RCC through Egypt's President Nasser, dissociated himself from reported attempts to secure British intervention and disclaimed any intention of coming back to Libya. In return, he was assured by the RCC of the safety of his family still in the country. At his own request and with Nasser's approval, Idris took up residence once again in Egypt, where he had spent his first exile and where he remained until his death in 1983.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: On 7 September 1969, the RCC announced that it had appointed a cabinet to conduct the government of the new republic. An American-educated technician, Mahmud Sulayman al-Maghribi, who had been imprisoned since 1967 for his political activities, was designated prime minister. He presided over the eight-member Council of Ministers, of whom six, like Maghrabi, were civilians and two – Adam Said Hawwaz and Musa Ahmad – were military officers. Neither of the officers was a member of the RCC.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: The Council of Ministers was instructed to "implement the state's general policy as drawn up by the RCC", leaving no doubt where ultimate authority rested. The next day the RCC decided to promote Captain Gaddafi to colonel and to appoint him commander in chief of the Libyan Armed Forces. Although RCC spokesmen declined until January 1970 to reveal any other names of RCC members, it was apparent from that date onward that the head of the RCC and new "de facto" head of state was Gaddafi.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Analysts were quick to point out the striking similarities between the Libyan military coup of 1969 and that in Egypt under Nasser in 1952, and it became clear that the Egyptian experience and the charismatic figure of Nasser had formed the model for the Free Officers Movement. As the RCC in the last months of 1969 moved vigorously to institute domestic reforms, it proclaimed neutrality in the confrontation between the superpowers and opposition to all forms of colonialism and imperialism. It also made clear Libya's dedication to Arab unity and to the support of the Palestinian cause against Israel.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: The RCC reaffirmed the country's identity as part of the "Arab nation" and its state religion as Islam. It abolished parliamentary institutions, all legislative functions being assumed by the RCC, and continued the prohibition against political parties, in effect since 1952. The new government categorically rejected communism – in large part because it was atheist – and officially espoused an Arab interpretation of socialism that integrated Islamic principles with social, economic, and political reform. Libya had shifted, virtually overnight, from the camp of conservative Arab traditionalist states to that of the radical nationalist states.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Following the formation of the Libyan Arab Republic, Gaddafi and his associates insisted that their government would not rest on individual leadership, but rather on collegial decision making.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: The first major cabinet change occurred soon after the first challenge to the government. In December 1969, Adam Said Hawwaz, the minister of defense, and Musa Ahmad, the minister of interior, were arrested and accused of planning a coup. In the new cabinet formed after the crisis, Gaddafi, retaining his post as chairman of the RCC, also became prime minister and defense minister.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Major Abdel Salam Jallud, generally regarded as second only to Gaddafi in the RCC, became deputy prime minister and minister of interior. This cabinet totaled thirteen members, of whom five were RCC officers. The government was challenged a second time in July 1970 when Abdullah Abid Sanusi and Ahmed al-Senussi, distant cousins of former King Idris, and members of the Sayf an Nasr clan of Fezzan were accused of plotting to seize power for themselves. After the plot was foiled, a substantial cabinet change occurred, RCC officers for the first time forming a majority among new ministers.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: From the start, RCC spokesmen had indicated a serious intent to bring the "defunct regime" to account. In 1971 and 1972 more than 200 former government officials—including seven prime ministers and numerous cabinet ministers—as well as former King Idris and members of the royal family, were brought to trial on charges of treason and corruption in the Libyan People's Court.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Many, who like Idris lived in exile, were tried "in absentia". Although a large percentage of those charged were acquitted, sentences of up to fifteen years in prison and heavy fines were imposed on others. Five death sentences, all but one of them "in absentia", were pronounced, among them, one against Idris. Fatima, the former queen, and Hasan ar Rida were sentenced to five and three years in prison, respectively.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Meanwhile, Gaddafi and the RCC had disbanded the Sanusi order and officially downgraded its historical role in achieving Libya's independence. He also attacked regional and tribal differences as obstructions in the path of social advancement and Arab unity, dismissing traditional leaders and drawing administrative boundaries across tribal groupings.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: The Free Officers Movement was renamed "Arab Socialist Union" (ASU) in 1971, modeled after Egypt's Arab Socialist Union, and made the sole legal party in Gaddafi's Libya. It acted as a "vehicle of national expression", purporting to "raise the political consciousness of Libyans" and to "aid the RCC in formulating public policy through debate in open forums". Trade unions were incorporated into the ASU and strikes outlawed. The press, already subject to censorship, was officially conscripted in 1972 as an agent of the revolution. Italians and what remained of the Jewish community were expelled from the country and their property confiscated in October 1970.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: In 1972, Libya joined the Federation of Arab Republics with Egypt and Syria but the intended union of pan-Arabic states never had the intended success, and was effectively dormant after 1973.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: As months passed, Gaddafi, caught up in his apocalyptic visions of revolutionary Pan-Arabism and Islam locked in mortal struggle with what he termed the encircling, demonic forces of reaction, imperialism, and Zionism, increasingly devoted attention to international rather than internal affairs. As a result, routine administrative tasks fell to Major Jallud, who in 1972 became prime minister in place of Gaddafi. Two years later Jallud assumed Gaddafi's remaining administrative and protocol duties to allow Gaddafi to devote his time to revolutionary theorizing. Gaddafi remained commander in chief of the armed forces and effective head of state. The foreign press speculated about an eclipse of his authority and personality within the RCC, but Gaddafi soon dispelled such theories by his measures to restructure Libyan society.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: After the September coup, U.S. forces proceeded deliberately with the planned withdrawal from Wheelus Air Base under the agreement made with the previous government. The foreign minister, Salah Busir, played an important role in negotiating the British and American military withdrawal from the new republic. The last of the American contingent turned the facility over to the Libyans on 11 June 1970, a date thereafter celebrated in Libya as a national holiday. On 27 March 1970, the British air base in El Adem and the naval base in Tobruk were abandoned.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: As relations with the U.S. steadily deteriorated, Gaddafi forged close links with the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries, all the while maintaining Libya's stance as a nonaligned country and opposing the spread of communism in the Arab world. Libya's army—sharply increased from the 6,000-man pre-revolutionary force that had been trained and equipped by the British—was armed with Soviet-built armor and missiles.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: The economic base for Libya's revolution has been its oil revenues. However, Libya's petroleum reserves were small compared with those of other major Arab petroleum-producing states. As a consequence, Libya was more ready to ration output in order to conserve its natural wealth and less responsive to moderating its price-rise demands than the other countries. Petroleum was seen both as a means of financing the economic and social development of a woefully underdeveloped country and as a political weapon to brandish in the Arab struggle against Israel.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: The increase in production that followed the 1969 revolution was accompanied by Libyan demands for higher petroleum prices, a greater share of revenues, and more control over the development of the country's petroleum industry. Foreign petroleum companies agreed to a price hike of more than three times the going rate (from US$0.90 to US$3.45 per barrel) early in 1971. In December, the Libyan government suddenly nationalized the holdings of British Petroleum in Libya and withdrew funds amounting to approximately US$550 million invested in British banks as a result of a foreign policy dispute. British Petroleum rejected as inadequate a Libyan offer of compensation, and the British treasury banned Libya from participation in the Sterling Area.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: In 1973, the Libyan government announced the nationalization of a controlling interest in all other petroleum companies operating in the country. This step gave Libya control of about 60 percent of its domestic oil production by early 1974, a figure that subsequently rose to 70 percent. Total nationalization was out of the question, given the need for foreign expertise and funds in oil exploration, production, and distribution.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Insisting on the continued use of petroleum as leverage against Israel and its supporters in the West, Libya strongly urged the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to take action in 1973, and Libyan militancy was partially responsible for OPEC measures to raise oil prices, impose embargoes, and gain control of production. On 19 October 1973, Libya was the first Arab nation to issue an oil embargo against the United States after US President Richard Nixon announced the US would provide Israel with a $2.2 billion military aid program during the Yom Kippur War. Saudi Arabia and other Arab oil producing nations in OPEC would follow suit the next day.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: While the other Arab nations lifted their oil embargoes on 18 March 1974, the Gaddafi regime refused to do so. As a consequence of such policies, Libya's oil production declined by half between 1970 and 1974, while revenues from oil exports more than quadrupled. Production continued to fall, bottoming out at an eleven-year low in 1975 at a time when the government was preparing to invest large amounts of petroleum revenues in other sectors of the economy. Thereafter, output stabilized at about two million barrels per day. Production and hence income declined yet again in the early 1980s because of the high price of Libyan crude and because recession in the industrialized world reduced demand for oil from all sources.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Libya's Five-Year Economic and Social Transformation Plan (1976–80), announced in 1975, was programmed to pump US$20 billion into the development of a broad range of economic activities that would continue to provide income after Libya's petroleum reserves had been exhausted. Agriculture was slated to receive the largest share of aid in an effort to make Libya self-sufficient in food and to help keep the rural population on the land. Industry, of which there was little before the revolution, also received a significant amount of funding in the first development plan as well as in the second, launched in 1981.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: The "remaking of Libyan society" contained in Gaddafi's ideological visions began to be put into practice formally in 1973, with a cultural revolution. This revolution was designed to create bureaucratic efficiency, public interest and participation in the subnational governmental system, and national political coordination. In an attempt to instill revolutionary fervor into his compatriots and to involve large numbers of them in political affairs, Gaddafi urged them to challenge traditional authority and to take over and run government organs themselves. The instrument for doing this was the people's committee. Within a few months, such committees were found all across Libya. They were functionally and geographically based, and eventually became responsible for local and regional administration.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: People's committees were established in such widely divergent organizations as universities, private business firms, government bureaucracies, and the broadcast media. Geographically based committees were formed at the governorate, municipal, and zone (lowest) levels. Seats on the people's committees at the zone level were filled by direct popular election; members so elected could then be selected for service at higher levels. By mid-1973 estimates of the number of people's committees ranged above 2,000. In the scope of their administrative and regulatory tasks and the method of their members' selection, the people's committees purportedly embodied the concept of direct democracy that Gaddafi propounded in the first volume of "The Green Book", which appeared in 1976. The same concept lay behind proposals to create a new political structure composed of "people's congresses." The centerpiece of the new system was the General People's Congress (GPC), a national representative body intended to replace the RCC.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: During this transition, on 7 April 1976, students in universities in Tripoli and Benghazi protested against human rights violations and military control "over all aspects of life in Libya" and called for free and fair elections and for power to be transferred to a civilian government. Violent counter demonstrations took place and many students were imprisoned. On 7 April 1977 anniversary of the event, students including Omar Dabob and Muhammed Ben Saoud were publicly executed in Benghazi and anti-Gaddafi military officers were executed later in the week. Friends of the executees were forced to participate or observe the executions. Regular executions continued annually on 7 April until the late 1980s.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: On 21 July 1977, there were first gun battles between troops on the border, followed by land and air strikes. Relations between the Libyan and Egyptian governments had been deteriorating ever since the end of the Yom Kippur War from October 1973, due to Libyan opposition to President Anwar Sadat's peace policy as well as the breakdown of unification talks between the two governments. There is some proof that the Egyptian government was considering a war against Libya as early as 1974. On 28 February 1974, during Henry Kissinger's visit to Egypt, President Sadat told him about such intentions and requested that pressure be put on the Israeli government not to launch an attack on Egypt in the event of its forces being occupied in war with Libya. In addition, the Egyptian government had broken its military ties with Moscow, while the Libyan government kept that cooperation going. The Egyptian government also gave assistance to former RCC members Major Abd al Munim al Huni and Omar Muhayshi, who unsuccessfully tried to overthrow Gaddafi in 1975, and allowed them to reside in Egypt. During 1976 relations were ebbing, as the Egyptian government claimed to have discovered a Libyan plot to overthrow the government in Cairo. On 26 January 1976, Egyptian Vice President Hosni Mubarak indicated in a talk with the US Ambassador Hermann Eilts that the Egyptian government intended to exploit internal problems in Libya to promote actions against Libya, but did not elaborate. On 22 July 1976, the Libyan government made a public threat to break diplomatic relations with Cairo if Egyptian subversive actions continued. On 8 August 1976, an explosion occurred in the bathroom of a government office in Tahrir Square in Cairo, injuring 14, and the Egyptian government and media claimed this was done by Libyan agents. The Egyptian government also claimed to have arrested two Egyptian citizens trained by Libyan intelligence to perform sabotage within Egypt. On 23 August, an Egyptian passenger plane was hijacked by persons who reportedly worked with Libyan intelligence. They were captured by Egyptian authorities in an operation that ended without any casualties. In retaliation for accusations by the Egyptian government of Libyan complicity in the hijacking, the Libyan government ordered the closure of the Egyptian Consulate in Benghazi. On 24 July, the combatants agreed to a ceasefire under the mediation of the President of Algeria Houari Boumediène and the Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: On 2 March 1977, the General People's Congress (GPC), at Gaddafi's behest, adopted the "Declaration of the Establishment of the People's Authority" and proclaimed the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya ( ""). In the official political philosophy of Gaddafi's state, the "Jamahiriya" system was unique to the country, although it was presented as the materialization of the Third International Theory, proposed by Gaddafi to be applied to the entire Third World. The GPC also created the General Secretariat of the GPC, comprising the remaining members of the defunct Revolutionary Command Council, with Gaddafi as general secretary, and also appointed the General People's Committee, which replaced the Council of Ministers, its members now called secretaries rather than ministers.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: The Libyan government claimed that the Jamahiriya was a direct democracy without any political parties, governed by its populace through local popular councils and communes (named Basic People's Congresses). Official rhetoric disdained the idea of a nation state, tribal bonds remaining primary, even within the ranks of the national army.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Jamahiriya ( ') is an Arabic term generally translated as "state of the masses"; Lisa Anderson has suggested "peopledom" or "state of the masses" as a reasonable approximations of the meaning of the term as intended by Gaddafi. The term does not occur in this sense in Muammar Gaddafi's "Green Book" of 1975. The nisba-adjective ' ("mass-, "of the masses") occurs only in the third part, published in 1981, in the phrase (""), translated in the English edition as "Historic movements are mass movements".


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: The word ' was derived from "," which is the usual Arabic translation of "republic". It was coined by changing the component '—"public"—to its plural form, '—"the masses". Thus, it is similar to the term People's Republic. It is often left untranslated in English, with the long-form name thus rendered as "Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya". However, in Hebrew, for instance, ' is translated as "קהילייה" ("), a word also used to translate the term "Commonwealth" when referring to the designation of a country.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: After weathering the 1986 U.S. bombing by the Reagan administration, Gaddafi added the specifier "Great" ( ") to the official name of the country.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: The changes in Libyan leadership since 1976 culminated in March 1979, when the General People's Congress declared that the "vesting of power in the masses" and the "separation of the state from the revolution" were complete. The government was divided into two parts, the "Jamahiriya sector" and the "revolutionary sector". The "Jamahiriya sector" was composed of the General People's Congress, the General People's Committee, and the local Basic People's Congresses. Gaddafi relinquished his position as general secretary of the General People's Congress, as which he was succeeded by Abdul Ati al-Obeidi, who had been prime minister since 1977.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: The "Jamahiriya sector" was overseen by the "revolutionary sector", headed by Gaddafi as "Leader of the Revolution" ("") and the surviving members of the Revolutionary Command Council. The leaders of the revolutionary sector were not subject to election, as they owed office to their role in the 1969 coup. They oversaw the "revolutionary committees", which were nominally grass-roots organizations that helped keep the people engaged. As a result, although Gaddafi held no formal government office after 1979, he retained control of the government and the country. Gaddafi also remained supreme commander of the armed forces.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: All legislative and executive authority was vested in the GPC. This body, however, delegated most of its important authority to its general secretary and General Secretariat and to the General People's Committee. Gaddafi, as general secretary of the GPC, remained the primary decision maker, just as he had been when chairman of the RCC. In turn, all adults had the right and duty to participate in the deliberation of their local Basic People's Congress (BPC), whose decisions were passed up to the GPC for consideration and implementation as national policy. The BPCs were in theory the repository of ultimate political authority and decision making, embodying what Gaddafi termed direct "people's power". The 1977 declaration and its accompanying resolutions amounted to a fundamental revision of the 1969 constitutional proclamation, especially with respect to the structure and organization of the government at both national and subnational levels.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Continuing to revamp Libya's political and administrative structure, Gaddafi introduced yet another element into the body politic. Beginning in 1977, "revolutionary committees" were organized and assigned the task of "absolute revolutionary supervision of people's power"; that is, they were to guide the people's committees, "raise the general level of political consciousness and devotion to revolutionary ideals". In reality, the revolutionary committees were used to survey the population and repress any political opposition to Gaddafi's autocratic rule. Reportedly 10% to 20% of Libyans worked in surveillance for these committees, a proportion of informants on par with Ba'athist Iraq and Juche Korea.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Filled with politically astute zealots, the ubiquitous revolutionary committees in 1979 assumed control of BPC elections. Although they were not official government organs, the revolutionary committees became another mainstay of the domestic political scene. As with the people's committees and other administrative innovations since the revolution, the revolutionary committees fit the pattern of imposing a new element on the existing subnational system of government rather than eliminating or consolidating already existing structures. By the late 1970s, the result was an unnecessarily complex system of overlapping jurisdictions in which cooperation and coordination among different elements were compromised by ill-defined authority and responsibility. The ambiguity may have helped serve Gaddafi's aim to remain the prime mover behind Libyan governance, while minimizing his visibility at a time when internal opposition to political repression was rising.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: The RCC was formally dissolved and the government was again reorganized into people's committees. A new General People's Committee (cabinet) was selected, each of its "secretaries" becoming head of a specialized people's committee; the exceptions were the "secretariats" of petroleum, foreign affairs, and heavy industry, where there were no people's committees. A proposal was also made to establish a "people's army" by substituting a national militia, being formed in the late 1970s, for the national army. Although the idea surfaced again in early 1982, it did not appear to be close to implementation.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Gaddafi also wanted to combat the strict social restrictions that had been imposed on women by the previous regime, establishing the Revolutionary Women's Formation to encourage reform. In 1970, a law was introduced affirming equality of the sexes and insisting on wage parity. In 1971, Gaddafi sponsored the creation of a Libyan General Women's Federation. In 1972, a law was passed criminalizing the marriage of any females under the age of sixteen and ensuring that a woman's consent was a necessary prerequisite for a marriage.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Remaking of the economy was parallel with the attempt to remold political and social institutions. Until the late 1970s, Libya's economy was mixed, with a large role for private enterprise except in the fields of oil production and distribution, banking, and insurance. But according to volume two of Gaddafi's Green Book, which appeared in 1978, private retail trade, rent, and wages were forms of exploitation that should be abolished. Instead, workers' self-management committees and profit participation partnerships were to function in public and private enterprises.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: A property law was passed that forbade ownership of more than one private dwelling, and Libyan workers took control of a large number of companies, turning them into state-run enterprises. Retail and wholesale trading operations were replaced by state-owned "people's supermarkets", where Libyans in theory could purchase whatever they needed at low prices. By 1981 the state had also restricted access to individual bank accounts to draw upon privately held funds for government projects. The measures created resentment and opposition among the newly dispossessed. The latter joined those already alienated, some of whom had begun to leave the country. By 1982, perhaps 50,000 to 100,000 Libyans had gone abroad; because many of the emigrants were among the enterprising and better educated Libyans, they represented a significant loss of managerial and technical expertise.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: The government also built a trans-Sahara water pipeline from major aquifers to both a network of reservoirs and the towns of Tripoli, Sirte and Benghazi in 2006–2007. It is part of the Great Manmade River project, started in 1984. It is pumping large resources of water from the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System to both urban populations and new irrigation projects around the country.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Libya continued to be plagued with a shortage of skilled labor, which had to be imported along with a broad range of consumer goods, both paid for with petroleum income. The country consistently ranked as the African nation with the highest HDI, standing at 0.755 in 2010, which was 0.041 higher than the next highest African HDI that same year. Gender equality was a major achievement under Gaddafi's rule. According to Lisa Anderson, president of the American University in Cairo and an expert on Libya, said that under Gaddafi more women attended university and had "dramatically" more employment opportunities than most Arab nations.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: As early as 1969, Gaddafi waged a campaign against Chad. Scholar Gerard Prunier claims part of his hostility was apparently because Chadian President François Tombalbaye was Christian. Libya was also involved in a sometimes violent territorial dispute with neighbouring Chad over the Aouzou Strip, which Libya occupied in 1973. This dispute eventually led to the Libyan invasion of Chad. The prolonged foray of Libyan troops into the Aozou Strip in northern Chad, was finally repulsed in 1987, when extensive US and French help to Chadian rebel forces and the government headed by former Defence Minister Hissein Habré finally led to a Chadian victory in the so-called Toyota War. The conflict ended in a ceasefire in 1987. After a judgement of the International Court of Justice on 13 February 1994, Libya withdrew troops from Chad the same year and the dispute was settled.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: In 1977, Gaddafi dispatched his military across the border to Egypt, but Egyptian forces fought back in the Libyan–Egyptian War. Both nations agreed to a ceasefire under the mediation of the President of Algeria Houari Boumediène.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: In 1972, Gaddafi created the Islamic Legion as a tool to unify and Arabize the region. The priority of the Legion was first Chad, and then Sudan. In Darfur, a western province of Sudan, Gaddafi supported the creation of the Arab Gathering (Tajammu al-Arabi), which according to Gérard Prunier was "a militantly racist and pan-Arabist organization which stressed the 'Arab' character of the province." The two organizations shared members and a source of support, and the distinction between them is often ambiguous.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: This Islamic Legion was mostly composed of immigrants from poorer Sahelian countries, but also, according to a source, thousands of Pakistanis who had been recruited in 1981 with the false promise of civilian jobs once in Libya. Generally speaking, the Legion's members were immigrants who had gone to Libya with no thought of fighting wars, and had been provided with inadequate military training and had sparse commitment. A French journalist, speaking of the Legion's forces in Chad, observed that they were "foreigners, Arabs or Africans, mercenaries in spite of themselves, wretches who had come to Libya hoping for a civilian job, but found themselves signed up more or less by force to go and fight in an unknown desert."


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: At the beginning of the 1987 Libyan offensive in Chad, it maintained a force of 2,000 in Darfur. The nearly continuous cross-border raids that resulted greatly contributed to a separate ethnic conflict within Darfur that killed about 9,000 people between 1985 and 1988.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Janjaweed, a group accused by the US of carrying out a genocide in Darfur in the 2000s, emerged in 1988 and some of its leaders are former legionnaires.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: In 1972, Gaddafi tried to buy a nuclear bomb from the People's Republic of China. He then tried to get a bomb from Pakistan, but Pakistan severed its ties before it succeeded in building a bomb. In 1978, Gaddafi turned to Pakistan's rival, India, for help building its own nuclear bomb. In July 1978, Libya and India signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate in peaceful applications of nuclear energy as part of India's Atom of Peace policy. In 1991, then Prime Minister Navaz Sharif paid a state visit to Libya to hold talks on the promotion of a Free Trade Agreement between Pakistan and Libya. However, Gaddafi focused on demanding Pakistan's Prime Minister sell him a nuclear weapon, which surprised many of the Prime Minister's delegation members and journalists. When Prime minister Sharif refused Gaddafi's demand, Gaddafi disrespected him, calling him a "Corrupt politician", a term which insulted and surprised Sharif. The Prime minister cancelled the talks, returned to Pakistan and expelled the Libyan Ambassador from Pakistan.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Thailand reported its citizens had helped build storage facilities for nerve gas. Germany sentenced a businessman, Jurgen Hippenstiel-Imhausen, to five years in prison for involvement in Libyan chemical weapons. Inspectors from the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) verified in 2004 that Libya owned a stockpile of 23 metric tons of mustard gas and more than 1,300 metric tons of precursor chemicals.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: When Libya was under pressure from international disputes, on 19 August 1981, a naval dogfight occurred over the Gulf of Sirte in the Mediterranean Sea. US F-14 Tomcat jets fired anti-aircraft missiles against a formation of Libyan fighter jets in this dogfight and shot down two Libyan Su-22 Fitter attack aircraft. This naval action was a result of claiming the territory and losses from the previous incident. A second dogfight occurred on 4 January 1989; US carrier-based jets also shot down two Libyan MiG-23 Flogger-Es in the same place.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: A similar action occurred on 23 March 1986; while patrolling the Gulf, US naval forces attacked a sizable naval force and various SAM sites defending Libyan territory. US fighter jets and fighter-bombers destroyed SAM launching facilities and sank various naval vessels, killing 35 seamen. This was a reprisal for terrorist hijackings between June and December 1985.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: On 5 April 1986, Libyan agents bombed "La Belle" nightclub in West Berlin, killing three and injuring 229. Gaddafi's plan was intercepted by several national intelligence agencies and more detailed information was retrieved four years later from Stasi archives. The Libyan agents who had carried out the operation, from the Libyan embassy in East Germany, were prosecuted by the reunited Germany in the 1990s.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: In response to the discotheque bombing, joint US Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps air-strikes took place against Libya on 15 April 1986 and code-named Operation El Dorado Canyon and known as the 1986 bombing of Libya. Air defenses, three army bases, and two airfields in Tripoli and Benghazi were bombed. The surgical strikes failed to kill Gaddafi but he lost a few dozen military officers. Gaddafi spread propaganda how it had killed his "adopted daughter" and how victims had been all "civilians". Despite the variations of the stories, the campaign was successful, and a large proportion of the Western press reported the government's stories as facts.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Following the 1986 bombing of Libya, Gaddafi intensified his support for anti-American government organizations. He financed Jeff Fort's Al-Rukn faction of the Chicago Black P. Stones gang, in their emergence as an indigenous anti-American armed revolutionary movement. Al-Rukn members were arrested in 1986 for preparing strikes on behalf of Libya, including blowing up US government buildings and bringing down an airplane; the Al-Rukn defendants were convicted in 1987 of "offering to commit bombings and assassinations on US soil for Libyan payment." In 1986, Libyan state television announced that Libya was training suicide squads to attack American and European interests. He began financing the IRA again in 1986, to retaliate against the British for harboring American fighter planes.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Gaddafi announced that he had won a spectacular military victory over the US and the country was officially renamed the "Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriyah". However, his speech appeared devoid of passion and even the "victory" celebrations appeared unusual. Criticism of Gaddafi by ordinary Libyan citizens became more bold, such as defacing of Gaddafi posters. The raids against Libyan military had brought the government to its weakest point in 17 years.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Gaddafi sent thousands of troops to fight against Tanzania on behalf of Idi Amin. About 600 Libyan soldiers lost their lives attempting to defend the collapsing regime of Amin. After the fall of Kampala, Amin was eventually exiled from Uganda to Libya before settling in Saudi Arabia.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Gaddafi also aided Jean-Bédel Bokassa, the Emperor of the Central African Empire. He also intervened militarily in the restored Central African Republic during the 2001 coup attempt, to protect his ally Ange-Félix Patassé. Patassé signed a deal giving Libya a 99-year lease to exploit all of that country's natural resources, including uranium, copper, diamonds, and oil.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Gaddafi supported Soviet protégé Mengistu Haile Mariam of Ethiopia. He also supported the Somali rebel groups, SNM and SSDF in their fight to overthrow the dictatorship of Siad Barre.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Gaddafi was a strong opponent of apartheid in South Africa and forged a friendship with Nelson Mandela. One of Mandela's grandsons is named Gaddafi, an indication of the latter's support in South Africa. Gaddafi funded Mandela's 1994 election campaign, and after taking office as the country's first democratically elected president in 1994, Mandela rejected entreaties from U.S. President Bill Clinton and others to cut ties with Gaddafi. Mandela later played a key role in helping Gaddafi gain mainstream acceptance in the Western world later in the 1990s. Over the years, Gaddafi came to be seen as a hero in much of Africa due to his revolutionary image.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Gaddafi's World Revolutionary Center (WRC) near Benghazi became a training center for groups backed by Gaddafi. Graduates in power as of 2011 include Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso and Idriss Déby of Chad.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Gaddafi trained and supported Liberian warlord-president Charles Taylor, who was indicted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the conflict in Sierra Leone. Foday Sankoh, the founder of Revolutionary United Front, was also Gaddafi's graduate. According to Douglas Farah, "The amputation of the arms and legs of men, women, and children as part of a scorched-earth campaign was designed to take over the region's rich diamond fields and was backed by Gaddafi, who routinely reviewed their progress and supplied weapons".


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Gaddafi's strong military support and finances gained him allies across the continent. He had himself crowned with the title "King of Kings of Africa" in 2008, in the presence of over 200 African traditional rulers and kings, although his views on African political and military unification received a lukewarm response from their governments. His 2009 forum for African kings was canceled by the Ugandan hosts, who believed that traditional rulers discussing politics would lead to instability. On 1 February 2009, a 'coronation ceremony' in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, was held to coincide with the 53rd African Union Summit, at which he was elected head of the African Union for the year. Gaddafi told the assembled African leaders: "I shall continue to insist that our sovereign countries work to achieve the United States of Africa."


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: In 1971 Gaddafi warned that if France opposes Libyan military occupation of Chad, he will use all weapons in the war against France including the "revolutionary weapon". On 11 June 1972, Gaddafi announced that any Arab wishing to volunteer for Palestinian militant groups "can register his name at any Libyan embassy will be given adequate training for combat". He also promised financial support for attacks. On 7 October 1972, Gaddafi praised the Lod Airport massacre, executed by the communist Japanese Red Army, and demanded Palestinian terrorist groups to carry out similar attacks.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Reportedly, Gaddafi was a major financier of the "Black September Movement" which perpetrated the Munich massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics. In 1973 the Irish Naval Service intercepted the vessel "Claudia" in Irish territorial waters, which carried Soviet arms from Libya to the Provisional IRA. In 1976 after a series of terror activities by the Provisional IRA, Gaddafi announced that "the bombs which are convulsing Britain and breaking its spirit are the bombs of Libyan people. We have sent them to the Irish revolutionaries so that the British will pay the price for their past deeds".


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: In the Philippines, Libya backed the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which continues to carry out acts of violence in an effort to establish a separatist Islamic state in the southern Philippines. Libya has also supported the New People's Army and Libyan agents were seen meeting with the Communist Party of the Philippines. Islamist terrorist group Abu Sayyaf has also been suspected of receiving Libyan funding.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Gaddafi also became a strong supporter of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which support ultimately harmed Libya's relations with Egypt, when in 1979 Egypt pursued a peace agreement with Israel. As Libya's relations with Egypt worsened, Gaddafi sought closer relations with the Soviet Union. Libya became the first country outside the Soviet bloc to receive the supersonic MiG-25 combat fighters, but Soviet-Libyan relations remained relatively distant. Gaddafi also sought to increase Libyan influence, especially in states with an Islamic population, by calling for the creation of a Saharan Islamic state and supporting anti-government forces in sub-Saharan Africa.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: In the 1970s and the 1980s, this support was sometimes so freely given that even the most unsympathetic groups could obtain Libyan support; often the groups represented ideologies far removed from Gaddafi's own. Gaddafi's approach often tended to confuse international opinion.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: In October 1981 Egypt's President Anwar Sadat was assassinated. Gaddafi applauded the murder and remarked that it was a "punishment".


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: In December 1981, the US State Department invalidated US passports for travel to Libya, and in March 1982, the U.S. declared a ban on the import of Libyan oil.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Gaddafi reportedly spent hundreds of millions of the government's money on training and arming Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Daniel Ortega, the President of Nicaragua, was his ally.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: In April 1984, Libyan refugees in London protested against execution of two dissidents. Communications intercepted by MI5 show that Tripoli ordered its diplomats to direct violence against the demonstrators. Libyan diplomats shot at 11 people and killed British policewoman Yvonne Fletcher. The incident led to the breaking off of diplomatic relations between the United Kingdom and Libya for over a decade.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: After December 1985 Rome and Vienna airport attacks, which killed 19 and wounded around 140, Gaddafi indicated that he would continue to support the Red Army Faction, the Red Brigades, and the Irish Republican Army as long as European countries support anti-Gaddafi Libyans. The Foreign Minister of Libya also called the massacres "heroic acts".


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: In 1986, Libyan state television announced that Libya was training suicide squads to attack American and European interests.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: On 5 April 1986, Libyan agents were alleged with bombing the "La Belle" nightclub in West Berlin, killing three people and injuring 229 people who were spending evening there. Gaddafi's plan was intercepted by Western intelligence. More-detailed information was retrieved years later when Stasi archives were investigated by the reunited Germany. Libyan agents who had carried out the operation from the Libyan embassy in East Germany were prosecuted by reunited Germany in the 1990s.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: In May 1987, Australia broke off relations with Libya because of its role in fueling violence in Oceania.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Under Gaddafi, Libya had a long history of supporting the Irish Republican Army. In late 1987 French authorities stopped a merchant vessel, the "MV Eksund", which was delivering a 150-ton Libyan arms shipment to the IRA. In Britain, Gaddafi's best-known political subsidiary is the Workers Revolutionary Party.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Gaddafi fueled a number of Islamist and communist groups in the Philippines, including the New People's Army of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: In Indonesia, the Free Aceh Movement was a Libyan-backed militant group. Vanuatu's ruling party enjoyed Libyan support.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: In Australia, there were several cases of attempted radicalisation of Australian Aborigines, with individuals receiving paramilitary training in Libya. Libya put several left-wing unions on the Libyan payroll, such as the Food Preservers Union (FPU) and the Federated Confectioners Association of Australia (FCA). Labour Party politician Bill Hartley, the secretary of Libya-Australia friendship society, was long-term supporter of Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: In the 1980s, the Libyan government purchased advertisements in Arabic-language newspapers in Australia asking for Australian Arabs to join the military units of his worldwide struggle against imperialism. In part, because of this, Australia banned recruitment of foreign mercenaries in Australia.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Gaddafi developed a relationship with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, becoming acquainted with its leaders in meetings of revolutionary groups regularly hosted in Libya.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Some publications were financed by Gaddafi. The Socialist Labour League's "Workers News" was one such publication: "in among the routine denunciations of uranium mining and calls for greater trade union militancy would be a couple of pages extolling Gaddafi's fatuous and incoherent green book and the Libyan revolution."


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Gaddafi was a lifelong supporter of Kurdish independence. In 2011, Jawad Mella, the president of the Kurdistan National Congress referred to Gaddafi as the "only world leader who truly supports the Kurds".


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Libya was accused in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland; UN sanctions were imposed in 1992. UN Security Council resolutions (UNSCRs) passed in 1992 and 1993 obliged Libya to fulfill requirements related to the Pan Am 103 bombing before sanctions could be lifted, leading to Libya's political and economic isolation for most of the 1990s. The UN sanctions cut airline connections with the outer world, reduced diplomatic representation and prohibited the sale of military equipment. Oil-related sanctions were assessed by some as equally significant for their exceptions: thus sanctions froze Libya's foreign assets (but excluded revenue from oil and natural gas and agricultural commodities) and banned the sale to Libya of refinery or pipeline equipment (but excluded oil "production" equipment).


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Under the sanctions Libya's refining capacity eroded. Libya's role on the international stage grew less provocative after UN sanctions were imposed. In 1999, Libya fulfilled one of the UNSCR requirements by surrendering two Libyans suspected in connection with the bombing for trial before a Scottish court in the Netherlands. One of these suspects, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, was found guilty; the other was acquitted. UN sanctions against Libya were subsequently suspended. The full lifting of the sanctions, contingent on Libya's compliance with the remaining UNSCRs, including acceptance of responsibility for the actions of its officials and payment of appropriate compensation, was passed 12 September 2003, explicitly linked to the release of up to $2.7 billion in Libyan funds to the families of the 1988 attack's 270 victims.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: In 2002, Gaddafi paid a ransom reportedly worth tens of millions of dollars to Abu Sayyaf, a Filipino Islamist militancy, to release a number of kidnapped tourists. He presented it as an act of goodwill to Western countries; nevertheless the money helped the group to expand its operation.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: In December 2003, Libya announced that it had agreed to reveal and end its programs to develop weapons of mass destruction and to renounce terrorism, and Gaddafi made significant strides in normalizing relations with western nations. He received various Western European leaders as well as many working-level and commercial delegations, and made his first trip to Western Europe in 15 years when he traveled to Brussels in April 2004. Libya responded in good faith to legal cases brought against it in U.S. courts for terrorist acts that predate its renunciation of violence. Claims for compensation in the Lockerbie bombing, LaBelle disco bombing, and UTA 772 bombing cases are ongoing. The U.S. rescinded Libya's designation as a state sponsor of terrorism in June 2006. In late 2007, Libya was elected by the General Assembly to a nonpermanent seat on the United Nations Security Council for the 2008–2009 term. In the intercession between normalization and the Libyan Civil War in 2011, Operation Enduring Freedom – Trans Sahara was fought in Libya's portion of the Sahara Desert. This involved usage of American military assets, such as C-130s in combination with Libyan military infrastructure, namely the Al-Watiya Air Base.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: In 1994, the General People's Congress approved the introduction of "purification laws" to be put into effect, punishing theft by the amputation of limbs, and fornication and adultery by flogging. Under the Libyan constitution, homosexual relations are punishable by up to five years in jail.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Throughout his long rule, Gaddafi had to defend his position against opposition and coup attempts, emerging both from the military and from the general population. He reacted to these threats on one hand by maintaining a careful balance of power between the forces in the country, and by brutal repression on the other. Gaddafi successfully balanced the various tribes of Libya one against the other by distributing his favours. To forestall a military coup, he deliberately weakened the Libyan Armed Forces by regularly rotating officers, relying instead on loyal elite troops such as his Revolutionary Guard Corps, the special-forces Khamis Brigade and his personal Amazonian Guard, even though emphasis on political loyalty tended, over the long run, to weaken the professionalism of his personal forces. This trend made the country vulnerable to dissension at a time of crisis, as happened during early 2011.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: The term "Green Terror" is used to describe campaigns of violence and intimidation against opponents of Gaddafi, particularly in reference to wave of oppression during Libya's cultural revolution, or to the wave of highly publicized hangings of regime opponents that began with the Execution of Al-Sadek Hamed Al-Shuwehdy. Dissent was illegal under Law 75 of 1973. Reportedly 10 to 20 percent of Libyans worked in surveillance for Gaddafi's Revolutionary Committees, a proportion of informants on par with Saddam Hussein's Iraq or Kim Jong Il's North Korea. The surveillance took place in government, in factories, and in the education sector.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Following an abortive attempt to replace English foreign language education with Russian, in recent years English has been taught in Libyan schools from a primary level, and students have access to English-language media. However, one protester in 2011 described the situation as: "None of us can speak English or French. He kept us ignorant and blindfolded".


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: According to the 2009 Freedom of the Press Index, Libya was the most censored country in the Middle East and North Africa. Prisons were run with little or no documentation of inmate population, and often neglected even such basic data as a prisoner's crime and sentence.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: During the late 1970s, some exiled Libyans formed active opposition groups. In early 1979, Gaddafi warned opposition leaders to return home immediately or face "liquidation." When caught, they could face being sentenced and hanged in public.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Gaddafi employed his network of diplomats and recruits to assassinate dozens of his critics around the world. Amnesty International listed at least twenty-five assassinations between 1980 and 1987.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Gaddafi's agents were active in the UK, where many Libyans had sought asylum. After Libyan diplomats shot at 15 anti-Gaddafi protesters from inside the Libyan embassy's first floor and killed a British policewoman, the UK broke off relations with Gaddafi's government as a result of the incident.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Even the U.S. could not protect dissidents from Libya. In 1980, a Libyan agent attempted to assassinate dissident Faisal Zagallai, a doctoral student at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The bullets left Zagallai partially blinded. A defector was kidnapped and executed in 1990 just before he was about to receive U.S. citizenship.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Gaddafi asserted in June 1984 that killings could be carried out even when the dissidents were on pilgrimage in the holy city of Mecca. In August 1984, one Libyan plot was thwarted in Mecca.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: As of 2004, Libya still provided bounties for heads of critics, including 1 million dollars for Ashur Shamis, a Libyan-British journalist.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: There is indication that between the years of 2002 and 2007, Libya's Gaddafi-era intelligence service had a partnership with western spy organizations including MI6 and the CIA, who voluntarily provided information on Libyan dissidents in the United States and Canada in exchange for using Libya as a base for extraordinary renditions. This was done despite Libya's history of murdering dissidents abroad, and with full knowledge of Libya's brutal mistreatment of detainees.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: In the 1990s, Gaddafi's rule was threatened by militant Islamism. In October 1993, there was an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Gaddafi by elements of the Libyan army. In response, Gaddafi used repressive measures, using his personal Revolutionary Guard Corps to crush riots and Islamist activism during the 1990s. Nevertheless, Cyrenaica between 1995 and 1998 was politically unstable, due to the tribal allegiances of the local troops.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: A renewed serious threat to the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya came in February 2011, with the Libyan Civil War. Inspiration for the unrest is attributed to the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, connecting it with the wider Arab Spring. In the east, the National Transitional Council was established in Benghazi. The novelist Idris Al-Mesmari was arrested hours after giving an interview with Al Jazeera about the police reaction to protests in Benghazi on 15 February.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Some Libyan officials had sided with the protesters and requested help from the international community to bring an end to the massacres of civilians. The government in Tripoli had lost control of half of Libya by the end of February, but as of mid-September Gaddafi remained in control of several parts of Fezzan. On 21 September, the forces of NTC captured Sabha, the largest city of Fezzan, reducing the control of Gaddafi to limited and isolated areas.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Many nations condemned Gaddafi's government over its use of force against civilians. Several other nations allied with Gaddafi called the uprising and intervention a "plot" by Western powers to loot Libya's resources. The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution to enforce a no-fly zone over Libyan airspace on 17 March 2011.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: The UN resolution authorised air-strikes against Libyan ground troops and warships that appeared to threaten civilians. On 19 March, the no-fly zone enforcement began, with French aircraft undertaking sorties across Libya and a naval blockade by the British Royal Navy. Eventually, the aircraft carriers and "Charles de Gaulle" arrived off the coast and provided the enforcers with a rapid-response capability. U.S. forces named their part of the enforcement action Operation Odyssey Dawn, meant to "deny the Libyan regime from using force against its own people" according to U.S. Vice Admiral William E. Gortney. More than 110 "Tomahawk" cruise missiles were fired in an initial assault by U.S. warships and a British submarine against Libyan air defences.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: The last government holdouts in Sirte finally fell to anti-Gaddafi fighters on 20 October 2011, and, following the controversial death of Muammar Gaddafi, Libya was officially declared "liberated" on 23 October 2011, ending 42 years of Gaddafi's leadership in Libya.


title: History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

text: Political scientist Riadh Sidaoui suggested in October 2011 that Gaddafi "has created a great void for his exercise of power: there is no institution, no army, no electoral tradition in the country", and as a result, the period of transition would be difficult in Libya.


title: Oxfordshire

text: Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primarily due to the work of the University of Oxford and several notable science parks. These include the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus and Milton Park, both situated around the towns of Didcot and Abingdon-on-Thames.


title: Oxfordshire

text: It is a landlocked county, bordered by six counties: Berkshire to the south, Buckinghamshire to the east, Wiltshire to the south west, Gloucestershire to the west, Warwickshire to the north west, and Northamptonshire to the north east.


title: Oxfordshire

text: Oxfordshire is locally governed by Oxfordshire County Council, together with local councils of its five non-metropolitan districts: City of Oxford, Cherwell, South Oxfordshire, Vale of White Horse, and West Oxfordshire.


title: Oxfordshire

text: Present-day Oxfordshire spanning the area south of the Thames was historically part of the neighbouring county of Berkshire, including the county's highest point the White Horse Hill.


title: Oxfordshire

text: Oxfordshire was recorded as a county in the early years of the 10th century and lies between the River Thames to the south, the Cotswolds to the west, the Chilterns to the east and the Midlands to the north, with spurs running south to Henley-on-Thames and north to Banbury.


title: Oxfordshire

text: Although it had some significance as an area of valuable agricultural land in the centre of the country, it was largely ignored by the Romans and did not grow in importance until the formation of a settlement at Oxford in the 8th century. Alfred the Great was born across the Thames in Wantage, Vale of White Horse. The University of Oxford was founded in 1096, although its collegiate structure did not develop until later on. The university in the county town of Oxford (whose name came from Anglo-Saxon "Oxenaford" = "ford for oxen") grew in importance during the Middle Ages and early modern period. The area was part of the Cotswolds wool trade from the 13th century, generating much wealth, particularly in the western portions of the county in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds. Morris Motors was founded in Oxford in 1912, bringing heavy industry to an otherwise agricultural county. The importance of agriculture as an employer declined rapidly in the 20th century; currently under one percent of the county's population are involved due to high mechanisation. Nevertheless, Oxfordshire remains a very agricultural county by land use, with a lower population than neighbouring Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, which are both smaller.


title: Oxfordshire

text: During most of its history, the county was partitioned as fourteen divisions called hundreds, namely Bampton, Banbury, Binfield, Bloxham, Bullingdon, Chadlington, Dorchester, Ewelme, Langtree, Lewknor, Pyrton, Ploughley, Thame and Wootton.


title: Oxfordshire

text: The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, the main army unit in the area, was based at Cowley Barracks on Bullingdon Green, Cowley.


title: Oxfordshire

text: The Vale of White Horse district and parts of the South Oxfordshire administrative district south of the River Thames were historically part of Berkshire, but, in 1974, Abingdon, Didcot, Faringdon, Wallingford and Wantage were added to the administrative county of Oxfordshire under the Local Government Act 1972. Conversely, the Caversham area of Reading, now administratively in Berkshire, was historically part of Oxfordshire, as was the parish of Stokenchurch, now administratively in Buckinghamshire. The areas of Oxford city south of the Thames, such as Grandpont, were transferred much earlier, in 1889.


title: Oxfordshire

text: Oxfordshire includes parts of three Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. In the north-west lie the Cotswolds; to the south and south-east are the open chalk hills of the North Wessex Downs and the wooded hills of the Chilterns. The north of the county contains the ironstone of the Cherwell uplands. Long-distance walks within the county include the Ridgeway National Trail, Macmillan Way, Oxfordshire Way and the D’Arcy Dalton Way.


title: Oxfordshire

text: From the mid-point western edge to the southeast corner of Oxfordshire, via the city in the middle, runs the Thames with its flat floodplains. This river forms the historic limit with Berkshire, remaining so on some lowest reaches. The Thames Path National Trail follows the river from upper estuary to a source.


title: Oxfordshire

text: Many smaller rivers in the county feed into the Thames, such as the Thame, Windrush, Evenlode and Cherwell. Some of these have trails running along their valleys. The Oxford Canal links to the Midlands and follows the Cherwell from Banbury via Kidlington into the city of Oxford, where these join the navigable Thames. About 15% of the historically named Wilts & Berks Canal, in sporadic sections, has been restored to navigability, including the county-relevant 140 metres near Abingdon-on-Thames where it could, if restored, meet the Thames.


title: Oxfordshire

text: Oxfordshire contains a green belt area that fully envelops the city of Oxford and extends for some miles to protect surrounding towns and villages from inappropriate development and urban growth. Its border in the east extends to the Buckinghamshire county boundary, while part of its southern border is shared with the North Wessex Downs AONB. It was first drawn up in the 1950s, and all of the county's districts contain some portion of the belt.


title: Oxfordshire

text: This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added of Oxfordshire at current basic prices published by the Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British pounds sterling.


title: Oxfordshire

text: The Oxfordshire County Council, since 2013 under no overall control, is responsible for the most strategic local government functions, including schools, county roads and social services. The county is divided into five local government districts: Oxford, Cherwell, Vale of White Horse (after the Uffington White Horse), West Oxfordshire and South Oxfordshire, which deal with such matters as town and country planning, waste collection and housing.


title: Oxfordshire

text: In the 2016 European Union referendum, Oxfordshire was the only English county as a whole to vote to remain in the European Union by a significant margin, at 57.06% (70.27% in the City of Oxford), despite Cherwell (barely) voting to leave at 50.31%.


title: Oxfordshire

text: Oxfordshire has a completely comprehensive education system with 23 independent schools and 35 state secondary schools. Only eight schools do not have a sixth form; these are mostly in South Oxfordshire and Cherwell districts. Oxfordshire has a large number of leading independent schools, including public schools such as Radley College.


title: Oxfordshire

text: The county has two universities: the ancient University of Oxford and the modern Oxford Brookes University, which are both located in Oxford. In addition, Wroxton College, located in Banbury, is affiliated with Fairleigh Dickinson University of New Jersey.


title: Oxfordshire

text: The "dreaming spires" of the University of Oxford are among the reasons for which Oxford is the sixth most visited city in the United Kingdom by international visitors. Among many notable University buildings are the Sheldonian Theatre, built 1664–68 to the design of Sir Christopher Wren, and the Radcliffe Camera, built 1737–49 to the design of James Gibbs.


title: Oxfordshire

text: Blenheim Palace, close to Woodstock, was designed and partly built by the architect John Vanbrugh for John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, after he had won the battle of Blenheim. The gardens, which can be visited, were designed by the landscape gardener "Capability" Brown, who planted the trees in the battle formation of the victorious army. Sir Winston Churchill was born in the palace in 1874. It is open to the public.


title: Oxfordshire

text: Chastleton House, on the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire borders, is a great country mansion built on property bought from Robert Catesby, who was one of the men involved in the Gunpowder Plot with Guy Fawkes. Stonor Park, another country mansion, has belonged to the recusant Stonor family for centuries.


title: Oxfordshire

text: The Abbey in Sutton Courtenay is a medieval courtyard house. It has been recognised by the Historic Building Council for England (now Historic England) as a building of outstanding historic and architectural interest. It is considered to be a ‘textbook’ example of the English medieval manor house and is a Grade I-listed building.


title: Sasha Spielberg

text: Sasha Rebecca Spielberg (born May 14, 1990), also known by her stage name Buzzy Lee, is an American actress and musician.


title: Sasha Spielberg

text: Spielberg was born at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, the daughter of film director Steven Spielberg and actress Kate Capshaw. Her father is from an Orthodox Jewish family, whereas her mother is a Jewish convert. She is their first child together, although each have children from previous relationships. She has three sisters: Mikaela Spielberg, Destry Spielberg, and half-sister, actress Jessica Capshaw, as well as three brothers: Sawyer Spielberg, Theo Spielberg, and half-brother Max Spielberg. She graduated from Brown University.


title: Sasha Spielberg

text: She has appeared as an actress in several of her father's movies, including "The Terminal", "Munich", "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", and "The Post".


title: Sasha Spielberg

text: She performed in a band called Wardell (previously known as Brother/Sister), with her brother Theo. Their Brother/Sister EP, "The Accidental Zoo", was released April 4, 2011. Their album "Love/Idleness" was released in 2015.


title: Sasha Spielberg

text: Spielberg has collaborated with composer and fellow Brown University alumnus Nicolas Jaar under the name of Just Friends. They released a cover of Leonard Cohen's "Avalanche" and an original song, "Don't Tell Me."


title: Sasha Spielberg

text: In 2015, Spielberg produced, wrote for, and starred in Snapchat's first mobile series, "Literally Can't Even." She also shares her mini-improv sketches on Instagram. On April 27, 2018, she released her solo EP "Facepaint," with 5 songs.


title: Sasha Spielberg

text: Spielberg has also collaborated with rapper and producer JPEGMafia on several occasions, the first being in 2019 on JPEGMafia's song, "Dots Freestyle Remix" on his third studio album, "All My Heroes Are Cornballs", where Spielberg was a featured artist. They would collaborate once again on the song "Nemo!" on JPEGMafia's fourth studio album, "LP!". She has also collaborated with rapper Denzel Curry on the song "John Wayne" on Curry's fourth studio album "Melt My Eyez See Your Future". The song was also produced by JPEGMafia.


title: Sasha Spielberg

text: In 2022, Spielberg became engaged to Harry McNally, son of restaurateur Keith McNally. They married in May 2022.


title: Cola

text: Cola is a carbonated soft drink flavored with vanilla, cinnamon, citrus oils and other flavorings. Cola became popular worldwide after the American pharmacist John Stith Pemberton invented Coca-Cola, a trademarked brand, in 1886, which was imitated by other manufacturers. Most colas contain caffeine originally from the kola nut, leading to the drink's name, though other sources have since been used. The Pemberton cola drink also contained a coca plant extract. His non-alcoholic recipe was inspired by the coca wine of pharmacist Angelo Mariani, created in 1863.


title: Cola

text: Most modern colas have a dark caramel color, and are sweetened with sugar and/or high-fructose corn syrup. They come in numerous different brands. with Coca-Cola and Pepsi being among the most popular. These two companies have been competing since the 1890s, a rivalry that has intensified since the 1980s.


title: Cola

text: The primary modern flavorings in a cola drink are citrus oils (from orange, lime, and lemon peels), cinnamon, vanilla, and an acidic flavorant. Manufacturers of cola drinks add trace flavorings to create distinctive tastes for each brand. Trace flavorings may include a wide variety of ingredients, such as spices like nutmeg or coriander. Acidity is often provided by phosphoric acid, sometimes accompanied by citric or other isolated acids. Coca-Cola's recipe is maintained as a corporate trade secret.


title: Cola

text: A variety of different sweeteners may be used in cola, often influenced by local agricultural policy. High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is predominantly used in the United States and Canada due to the lower cost of government-subsidized corn. In Europe, however, HFCS is subject to production quotas designed to encourage the production of sugar; sugar is thus preferentially used to sweeten sodas. In addition, stevia or an artificial sweetener may be used; "sugar-free" or "diet" colas typically contain artificial sweeteners only.


title: Cola

text: In Japan, there is a burgeoning craft cola industry, with small-scale local production methods and highly unique cola recipes using locally-sourced fruits, herbs and spices.


title: Cola

text: In the 1940s, Coca-Cola produced White Coke at the request of Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov.


title: Cola

text: Clear colas were again produced during the Clear Craze of the early 1990s. Brands included Crystal Pepsi, Tab Clear, and 7 Up Ice Cola. Crystal Pepsi has been repeatedly reintroduced in the 2010s.


title: Cola

text: In Denmark, a popular clear cola was made by the Cooperative FDB in 1976. It was especially known for being the "Hippie Cola" because of the focus of the harmful effects the color additive could have on children and the boycott of multinational brands. It was inspired by a campaign on harmful additives in Denmark by the Environmental-Organisation NOAH, an independent Danish division of Friends of the Earth. This was followed up with a variety of sodas without artificial coloring. Today many organic colas are available in Denmark, but, for nostalgic reasons, clear cola has still maintained its popularity to a certain degree.


title: Cola

text: A 2007 study found that consumption of colas, both those with natural sweetening and those with artificial sweetening, was associated with increased risk of chronic kidney disease. The phosphoric acid used in colas was thought to be a possible cause.


title: Cola

text: One 2005 study indicated soda and sweetened drinks are the main source of calories in the American diet and that of those who drink more sweetened drinks, obesity rates were higher. Most nutritionists advise that Coca-Cola and other soft drinks can be harmful if consumed excessively, particularly to young children whose soft drink consumption competes with, rather than complements, a balanced diet. Studies have shown that regular soft drink users have a lower intake of calcium, magnesium, vitamin C, riboflavin, and vitamin A.


title: Cola

text: The drink has also aroused criticism for its use of caffeine, which can cause physical dependence (caffeine dependence), and can reduce sleep quality. A link has been shown between long-term regular cola intake and osteoporosis in older women (but not men). This was thought to be due to the presence of phosphoric acid, and the risk for women was found to be greater for sugared and caffeinated colas than diet and decaffeinated variants, with a higher intake of cola correlating with lower bone density.


title: Cola

text: Many soft drinks in North America are sweetened mostly or entirely with high-fructose corn syrup, rather than sugar. Some nutritionists caution against consumption of corn syrup because it may aggravate obesity and type-2 diabetes more than cane sugar.


title: Parler

text: Parler () is an American alt-tech social networking service associated with conservatives. Journalists have described Parler as an alt-tech alternative to Twitter, and users include those banned from mainstream social networks or who oppose their moderation policies. Launched in August 2018, Parler markets itself as a free speech-focused and unbiased alternative to mainstream social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.


title: Parler

text: Parler's userbase grew exponentially during 2020 with minimal content moderation. After reports that Parler was used to coordinate the 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol, several companies denied it their services. Apple and Google removed Parler's mobile app from their app stores, and Parler went offline on January 10, 2021, when Amazon Web Services canceled its hosting services. Before it went offline in January 2021, according to Parler, the service had about 15 million users. Parler called the removals "a coordinated attack by the tech giants to kill competition in the marketplace". Parler resumed service on February 15, 2021, after moving domain registration to Epik. A version of the app with added content filters was released on the Apple App Store on May 17, 2021. Parler returned to Google Play on September 2, 2022.


title: Parler

text: Founder and CEO John Matze was Parler's chief executive officer until January 29, 2021, at which point he said he had been fired by the company's board, which he asserted was controlled by co-founder and investor Rebekah Mercer. Former Tea Party activist Mark Meckler served as interim CEO from February to May 2021, when the Brexit Party donor and former candidate George Farmer (husband of conservative activist Candace Owens) was named CEO. In September 2022, Parler announced they would be restructuring under a new parent company, Parlement Technologies Inc., to focus on powering an "uncancellable economy". In October 2022, Parler's parent company agreed in principle to a purchase of Parler by American rapper Kanye West, a deal that was rescinded in December.


title: Parler

text: Parler has received criticism for its content policies, which some journalists and users argue are more restrictive than the company portrays and sometimes more restrictive than those of its competitors. Conservatives have praised Parler as offering an alternative to censorship they claim to endure on more mainstream platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter.