title: Blue cheese

text: Stilton blue cheese was first sold in the village of Stilton in England but there is little evidence it was ever made there. Different from Stichelton, which is made from raw milk, Stilton cheese is made from pasteurized milk. In addition to being inoculated with "Penicillium roqueforti" to give it the blue vein characteristic, research has shown that other microbiota which are relatives of "Lactococcus lactis", "Enterococcus faecalis", "Lactobacillus plantarum", "Lactobacillus curvatus", "Leuconostoc mesenteroides", "Staphylococcus equorum", and "Staphylococcus" sp. can also be found in Stilton cheese. Some important microbiota contribute to the aromatic profile such as those of the "Lactobacillus" genus due to their production of volatile compounds. During ripening, free fatty acids increase in amount which contribute to the characteristic flavor of blue cheeses due to fat breakdown by "Penicillium roqueforti".


title: Blue cheese

text: Roquefort blue cheese originates from the village of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon, France. Its flavors come from the use of unpasteurized sheep's milk, inoculation with "Penicillium roqueforti", and the special conditions of the natural caves of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon in which they are ripened. "Penicillium roqueforti" is the cause of the blue veins in Roquefort cheese. In addition to "Penicillium roqueforti", various yeasts are present, namely "Debaryomyces hansenii" and its non-sporulating form "Candida famata", and "Kluyveromyces lactis" and its non-sporulating form "Candida sphaerica." Similarly to other kinds of blue cheeses, Roquefort's flavor and odor can be attributed to the particular mixture of methyl ketones such as 2-heptanone, 2-pentanone, and 2-nonanone.


title: Ferdinand VII of Spain

text: Ferdinand VII (; 14 October 1784 – 29 September 1833) was a King of Spain during the early 19th century. He reigned briefly in 1808 and then again from 1813 to his death in 1833. He was known to his supporters as "el Deseado" (the Desired) and to his detractors as "el Rey Felón" (the Felon/Criminal King).


title: Ferdinand VII of Spain

text: Born in Madrid at El Escorial, Ferdinand VII spent his youth as heir apparent to the Spanish throne. Following the 1808 Tumult of Aranjuez, he ascended the throne. That year Napoleon overthrew him; he linked his monarchy to counter-revolution and reactionary policies that produced a deep rift in Spain between his forces on the right and liberals on the left. Back in power in December 1813, he reestablished the absolutist monarchy and rejected the liberal constitution of 1812. A revolt in 1820 led by Rafael del Riego forced him to restore the constitution thus beginning the Liberal Triennium: a three-year period of liberal rule. In 1823 the Congress of Verona authorized a successful French intervention restoring him to absolute power for the second time. He suppressed the liberal press from 1814 to 1833, jailing many of its editors and writers.


title: Ferdinand VII of Spain

text: Under his rule, Spain lost nearly all of its American possessions, and the country entered into a large-scale civil war upon his death. His political legacy has remained contested since his passing, with some historians regarding him as incompetent, despotic, and short-sighted.


title: Ferdinand VII of Spain

text: Ferdinand was the eldest surviving son of Charles IV of Spain and Maria Luisa of Parma. Ferdinand was born in the palace of El Escorial near Madrid. In his youth Ferdinand occupied the position of an heir apparent who was excluded from all share in government by his parents and their favourite advisor and Prime Minister, Manuel Godoy. National discontent with the government produced a rebellion in 1805. In October 1807, Ferdinand was arrested for his complicity in the El Escorial Conspiracy in which the rebels aimed at securing foreign support from the French Emperor Napoleon. When the conspiracy was discovered, Ferdinand submitted to his parents.


title: Ferdinand VII of Spain

text: Following a popular riot at Aranjuez Charles IV abdicated in March 1808. Ferdinand ascended the throne and turned to Napoleon for support. He abdicated on 6 May 1808 and thereafter Napoleon kept Ferdinand under guard in France for six years at the Château de Valençay. Historian Charles Oman records that the choice of Valençay was a practical joke by Napoleon on his former foreign minister Talleyrand, the owner of the château, for his lack of interest in Spanish affairs.


title: Ferdinand VII of Spain

text: While the upper echelons of the Spanish government accepted his abdication and Napoleon's choice of his brother Joseph Bonaparte as king of Spain, the Spanish people did not. Uprisings broke out throughout the country, marking the beginning of the Peninsular War. Provincial juntas were established to control regions in opposition to the new French king. After the Battle of Bailén proved that the Spanish could resist the French, the Council of Castile reversed itself and declared null and void the abdications of Bayonne on 11 August 1808. On 24 August, Ferdinand VII was proclaimed king of Spain again, and negotiations between the council and the provincial juntas for the establishment of a Supreme Central Junta were completed. Subsequently, on 14 January 1809, the British government acknowledged Ferdinand VII as king of Spain.


title: Ferdinand VII of Spain

text: Five years later after experiencing serious setbacks on many fronts, Napoleon agreed to acknowledge Ferdinand VII as king of Spain on 11 December 1813 and signed the Treaty of Valençay, so that the king could return to Spain. The Spanish people, blaming the policies of the Francophiles ("afrancesados") for causing the Napoleonic occupation and the Peninsular War by allying Spain too closely to France, at first welcomed "Fernando". Ferdinand soon found that in the intervening years a new world had been born of foreign invasion and domestic revolution. In his name Spain fought for its independence and in his name as well "juntas" had governed Spanish America. Spain was no longer the absolute monarchy he had relinquished six years earlier. Instead he was now asked to rule under the liberal Constitution of 1812. Before being allowed to enter Spanish soil, Ferdinand had to guarantee the liberals that he would govern on the basis of the Constitution, but only gave lukewarm indications he would do so.


title: Ferdinand VII of Spain

text: On 24 March the French handed him over to the Spanish Army in Girona, and thus began his procession towards Madrid. During this process and in the following months, he was encouraged by conservatives and the Church hierarchy to reject the Constitution. On 4 May he ordered its abolition and on 10 May had the liberal leaders responsible for the Constitution arrested. Ferdinand justified his actions by claiming that the Constitution had been made by a Cortes illegally assembled in his absence, without his consent and without the traditional form. (It had met as a unicameral body, instead of in three chambers representing the three estates: the clergy, the nobility and the cities.) Ferdinand initially promised to convene a traditional Cortes, but never did so, thereby reasserting the Bourbon doctrine that sovereign authority resided in his person only.


title: Ferdinand VII of Spain

text: Meanwhile, the wars of independence had broken out in the Americas, and although many of the republican rebels were divided and royalist sentiment was strong in many areas, the Manila galleons and the Spanish treasure fleets – tax revenues from the Spanish Empire – were interrupted. Spain was all but bankrupt.


title: Ferdinand VII of Spain

text: Ferdinand's restored autocracy was guided by a small "camarilla" of his favorites, although his government seemed unstable. Whimsical and ferocious by turns, he changed his ministers every few months. "The king," wrote Friedrich von Gentz in 1814, "himself enters the houses of his prime ministers, arrests them, and hands them over to their cruel enemies;" and again, on 14 January 1815, "the king has so debased himself that he has become no more than the leading police agent and prison warden of his country."


title: Ferdinand VII of Spain

text: The king did recognize the efforts of foreign powers on his behalf. As the head of the Spanish Order of the Golden Fleece, Ferdinand made the Duke of Wellington, head of the British forces on the peninsula, the first Protestant member of the order.


title: Ferdinand VII of Spain

text: During the aftermath of the Mexican War of Independence, the general of the Army of the Three Guarantees, Agustín de Iturbide, and Jefe Superior Juan O'Donojú, signed the Treaty of Cordoba, which concluded the war of independence and established the First Mexican Empire. The imperial constitution contemplated that the monarch would be "a Spanish prince," and Iturbide and O'Donojú intended to offer the Mexican Imperial Crown to Ferdinand VII himself to rule Mexico in personal union with Spain. However, Ferdinand, refusing to recognize Mexican independence or be bound by a constitution, decreed that the Mexican constitution was "void", and in addition to declining the Mexican crown himself, stated that no European prince could accede to the Mexican throne. The imperial crown was therefore given to Iturbide himself, but the Mexican Empire collapsed and was replaced by the First Mexican Republic a few years later.


title: Ferdinand VII of Spain

text: In 1820 a revolt broke out in favor of the Constitution of 1812, beginning with a mutiny of the troops under Col. Rafael del Riego. The king was quickly taken prisoner. Ferdinand had restored the Jesuits upon his return, but now they had become identified with repression and absolutism among the liberals, who attacked them: twenty-five Jesuits were slain in Madrid in 1822. For the rest of the 19th century, expulsions and reinstatements of the Jesuits would continue to be the hallmarks of liberal and authoritarian political regimes, respectively.


title: Ferdinand VII of Spain

text: In the spring of 1823, the restored Bourbon French King Louis XVIII of France invaded Spain, "invoking the God of St. Louis, for the sake of preserving the throne of Spain to a fellow descendant of Henry IV of France, and of reconciling that fine kingdom with Europe." In May of 1823, the revolutionary party moved Ferdinand to Cádiz, where he continued to make promises of constitutional amendment until he was free.


title: Ferdinand VII of Spain

text: When Ferdinand was freed after the Battle of Trocadero and the fall of Cádiz, reprisals followed. The Duc d'Angoulême made known his protest against Ferdinand's actions by refusing the Spanish decorations Ferdinand offered him for his military services.


title: Ferdinand VII of Spain

text: During his last years, Ferdinand's political appointments became more stable. The last ten years of reign (sometimes referred to as the Ominous Decade) saw the restoration of absolutism, the re-establishment of traditional university programs and the suppression of any opposition, both of the Liberal Party and of the reactionary revolt (known as "War of the Agraviados") which broke out in 1827 in Catalonia and other regions.


title: Ferdinand VII of Spain

text: As Ferdinand lay dying, his new wife Maria Christina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies had him set aside the Salic Law which would have made his brother Don Carlos heir to the throne instead of any female. Ferdinand was thus succeeded by his infant daughter Isabella II. Carlos revolted and said he was the legitimate king. Needing support, Maria Christina (as Regent for her daughter Isabella) turned to the liberals. She issued a decree of amnesty on 23 October 1833. Liberals who had been in exile returned and dominated Spanish politics for decades, and the Carlist Wars resulted.


title: Ferdinand VII of Spain

text: Ferdinand VII was married four times. In 1802, he married his first cousin Princess Maria Antonia of Naples and Sicily (1784–1806), daughter of Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies and Marie Caroline of Austria. There were no children, because her two pregnancies (in 1804 and 1805) both ended in miscarriages.


title: Ferdinand VII of Spain

text: In 1816, Ferdinand married his niece Maria Isabel of Portugal (1797–1818), daughter of his older sister Carlota Joaquina and John VI of Portugal. They had two daughters, the first of whom lived only five months and the second of whom was stillborn.


title: Ferdinand VII of Spain

text: On 20 October 1819, in Madrid, Ferdinand married Princess Maria Josepha Amalia of Saxony (1803–1829), daughter of Maximilian, Prince of Saxony, and Caroline of Parma. No children were born from this marriage.


title: Ferdinand VII of Spain

text: Lastly, on 27 May 1829, Ferdinand married another niece, Maria Christina of the Two Sicilies (1806–1878), daughter of his younger sister Maria Isabella of Spain and Francis I of the Two Sicilies, who was his first cousin and the brother of his first wife. They had two surviving daughters, the older of whom succeeded Ferdinand upon his death.


title: Ferdinand VII of Spain

text: Ferdinand VII's reign is typically criticized by historians. Historian Stanley G. Payne wrote that Ferdinand was "in many ways the basest king in Spanish history. Cowardly, selfish, grasping, suspicious, and vengeful, D. Fernando seemed almost incapable of any perception of the commonweal."


title: 3rd millennium

text: In contemporary history, the third millennium of the Anno Domini or Common Era in the Gregorian calendar is the current millennium spanning the years 2001 to 3000 (21st to 30th centuries). Ongoing futures studies seek to understand what is likely to continue and what could plausibly change in the course of this period and beyond.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies () was a kingdom in Southern Italy from 1816 to 1860. The kingdom was the largest sovereign state by population and size in Italy before Italian unification, comprising Sicily and all of the Italian Peninsula south of the Papal States, which covered most of the area of today's Mezzogiorno.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: The kingdom was formed when the Kingdom of Sicily merged with the Kingdom of Naples, which was officially also known as the Kingdom of Sicily. Since both kingdoms were named Sicily, they were collectively known as the "Two Sicilies" ("Utraque Sicilia", literally "both Sicilies"), and the unified kingdom adopted this name. The king of the Two Sicilies was overthrown by Giuseppe Garibaldi in 1860, after which the people voted in a plebiscite to join the Savoyard Kingdom of Sardinia. The annexation of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies completed the first phase of Italian unification, and the new Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed in 1861.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: The name "Two Sicilies" originated from the partition of the medieval Kingdom of Sicily. Until 1285, the island of Sicily and the Mezzogiorno were constituent parts of the Kingdom of Sicily. As a result of the War of the Sicilian Vespers (1282–1302), the King of Sicily lost the Island of Sicily (also called Trinacria) to the Crown of Aragon, but remained ruler over the peninsular part of the realm. Although his territory became known unofficially as the Kingdom of Naples, he and his successors never gave up the title "King of Sicily" and still officially referred to their realm as the "Kingdom of Sicily". At the same time, the Aragonese rulers of the Island of Sicily also called their realm the "Kingdom of Sicily". Thus, there were two kingdoms called "Sicily": hence, the Two Sicilies. This is readopted by Two Sicilies national football team, an Italian football club since December 2008.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: In 1130 the Norman king Roger II formed the Kingdom of Sicily by combining the County of Sicily with the southern part of the Italian Peninsula (then known as the Duchy of Apulia and Calabria) as well as with the Maltese Islands. The capital of this kingdom was Palermo, which is on the island of Sicily.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: During the reign of Charles I of Anjou (1266–1285), the War of the Sicilian Vespers (1282–1302) split the kingdom. Charles, who was of French origin, lost the island of Sicily to the House of Barcelona, who were from Aragon and Catalonia. Charles remained king of the peninsular region, which became informally known as the Kingdom of Naples. Officially Charles never gave up the title of "The Kingdom of Sicily"; thus there existed two separate kingdoms calling themselves "Sicily".


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: Only with the Peace of Caltabellotta (1302), sponsored by Pope Boniface VIII, did the two kings of "Sicily" recognize each other's legitimacy; the island kingdom then became the "Kingdom of Trinacria" in official contexts, though the populace still called it Sicily. In 1442, Alfonso V of Aragon, king of insular Sicily, conquered Naples and became king of both.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: Alfonso V called his kingdom in Latin ""Regnum Utriusque Siciliæ"", meaning "Kingdom of both Sicilies". At the death of Alfonso in 1458, the kingdom again became divided between his brother John II of Aragon, who kept the island of Sicily, and his illegitimate son Ferdinand, who became King of Naples. In 1501, King Ferdinand II of Aragon, the son of John II, agreed to help Louis XII of France conquer Naples and Milan. After Frederick IV was forced to abdicate, the French took power, and Louis reigned as Louis III of Naples for three years. Negotiations to divide the region failed, and the French soon began unsuccessful attempts to force the Spanish out of the peninsula.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: After the French lost the Battle of Garigliano (1503), they left the kingdom. Ferdinand II then re-united the two areas into one kingdom. From 1516, when Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, became the first king of Spain, both Naples and Sicily came under direct Holy Roman Empire rule and after that navigated between Habsburg and Spanish Rule In 1530 Charles V granted the islands of Malta and Gozo, which had been part of the Kingdom of Sicily, to the Knights Hospitaller (thereafter known as the Order of Malta). At the end of the War of the Spanish Succession, the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 granted Sicily to the Duke of Savoy, until the Treaty of Rastatt in 1714 left Naples to the Emperor Charles VI. In the 1720 Treaty of The Hague, the Emperor and Savoy exchanged Sicily for Sardinia, thus reuniting Naples and Sicily.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: The Treaty of Casalanza restored Ferdinand IV of Bourbon to the throne of Naples and the island of Sicily (where the constitution of 1812 virtually had disempowered him) was returned to him. In 1816 he annulled the constitution and Sicily became fully reintegrated into the new state, which was now officially called the Regno delle Due Sicilie (Kingdom of Two Sicilies). Ferdinand IV became Ferdinand I.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: A number of accomplishments under the administration of Kings Joseph and Joachim Murat, such as the Code Civil, the penal and commercial code, were kept (and extended to Sicily). In the mainland parts of the Kingdom, the power and influence of both nobility and clergy had been greatly reduced, though at the expense of law and order. Brigandage and the forceful occupation of lands were problems the restored Kingdom inherited from its predecessors.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: The Vienna Congress had granted Austria the right to station troops in the kingdom, and Austria, as well as Russia and Prussia, insisted that no written constitution was to be granted to the kingdom. In October 1815, Joachim Murat landed in Calabria, in an attempt to regain his kingdom. The government responded to acts of collaboration or of terrorism with severe repression and by June 1816 Murat's attempt had failed and the situation was under government control. However, the Neapolitan administration had changed from conciliatory to reactionary policies. The French novelist Henri de Stendhal, who visited Naples in 1817, called the kingdom "an absurd monarchy in the style of Philip II".


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: As open political activity was suppressed, liberals organized themselves in secret societies, such as the Carbonari, an organization whose origins date back into the French period and which had been outlawed in 1816. In 1820 a revolution planned by Carbonari and their supporters, aimed at obtaining a written constitution (the Spanish constitution of 1812), did not work out as planned. Nevertheless, King Ferdinand felt compelled to grant the constitution sought by the liberals (13 July). That same month, a revolution broke out in Palermo, Sicily, but was quickly suppressed. Rebels from Naples occupied Benevento and Pontecorvo, two enclaves belonging to the Papal States. At the Congress of Troppau (Nov. 19th), the Holy Alliance (Metternich being the driving force) decided to intervene. On 23 February 1821, in front of 50,000 Austrian troops paraded outside his capital, King Ferdinand cancelled the constitution. An attempt at Neapolitan resistance to the Austrians by regular forces under General Guglielmo Pepe, as well as by irregular rebel forces (Carbonari), was smashed and on 24 March 1821 Austrian forces entered the city of Naples.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: Political repression then only intensified. Lawlessness in the countryside was aggravated by the problem of administrative corruption. A coup attempted in 1828 and aimed at forcing the promulgation of a constitution was suppressed by Neapolitan troops (the Austrian troops had left the previous year). King Francis I (1825-1830) died after having visited Paris, where he witnessed the 1830 revolution. In 1829 he had created the Royal Order of Merit (Royal Order of Francis I. of the Two Sicilies). His successor Ferdinand II declared a political amnesty and undertook steps to stimulate the economy, including reduction of taxation. Eventually the city of Naples would be equipped with street lighting and in 1839 the railroad from Naples to Portici was put into operation, measures that were visible signs of progress. However, as to the railroad, the Church still objected to the construction of tunnels, because of their 'obscenity'.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: In 1836 the Kingdom was struck by a cholera epidemic which killed 65,000 in Sicily alone. In the following years the Neapolitan countryside saw sporadic local insurrections. In the 1840s, clandestine political pamphlets circulated, evading censorship. Moreover, in September 1847 an uprising saw insurrectionists crossing from mainland Calabria over to Sicily before government forces were able to suppress them. On 13 January 1848, an open rebellion began in Palermo and demands were made for the reintroduction of the 1812 constitution. King Ferdinand II appointed a liberal prime minister, broke off diplomatic relations with Austria and even declared war on the latter (7 April). Although revolutionaries who had risen in several mainland cities outside Naples shortly after the Sicilians approved of the new measures (April 1848), Sicily continued with her revolution. Faced with these differing reactions to his moves, King Ferdinand, using the Swiss Guard, took the initiative and ordered the suppression of the revolution in Naples (15 May) and by July the mainland was again under royal control and by September, also Messina. Palermo, the revolutionaries' capital and last stronghold, fell to the government some months later on 15 May 1849.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: The Kingdom of Two Sicilies, in the course of 1848–1849, had been able to suppress the revolution and the attempt of Sicilian secession with their own forces, hired Swiss guards included. The war declared on Austria in April 1848, under pressure of public sentiment, had been an event on paper only.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: In 1849 King Ferdinand II was 39 years old. He had begun as a reformer; the early death of his wife (1836), the frequency of political unrest, the extent and range of political expectations on the side of various groups that made up public opinion, had caused him to pursue a cautious, yet authoritarian policy aiming at the prevention of the occurrence of yet another rebellion. Over half of the delegates elected to parliament in the liberal atmosphere of 1848 were arrested or fled the country. The administration, in their treatment of political prisoners, in their observation of 'suspicious elements', violated the rights of the individual guaranteed by the constitution. Conditions were so bad that they caused international attention; in 1856 Britain and France demanded the release of the political prisoners. When this was rejected, both countries broke off diplomatic relations. The Kingdom pursued an economic policy of protectionism; the country's economy was mainly based on agriculture, the cities, especially Naples – with over 400,000 inhabitants Italy's largest – "a center of consumption rather than of production" (Santore p. 163) and home to poverty most expressed by the masses of Lazzaroni, the poorest class.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: After visiting Naples in 1850, Gladstone began to support Neapolitan opponents of the Bourbon rulers: his "support" consisted of a couple of letters that he sent from Naples to the Parliament in London, describing the "awful conditions" of the Kingdom of Southern Italy and claiming that "it is the negation of God erected to a system of government". Gladstone's letters provoked sensitive reactions in the whole of Europe and helped to cause its diplomatic isolation before the invasion and annexation of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies by the Kingdom of Sardinia, with the following foundation of modern Italy. Administratively, Naples and Sicily remained separate units; in 1858 the Neapolitan Postal Service issued her first postage stamps; that of Sicily followed in 1859.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: Until 1849, the political movement among the bourgeoisie, at times revolutionary, had been Neapolitan respectively Sicilian rather than Italian in its tendency; Sicily in 1848-1849 had striven for a higher degree of independence from Naples rather than for a unified Italy. As public sentiment for Italian unification was rather low in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the country did not feature as an object of acquisition in the earlier plans of Piemont-Sardinia's prime minister Cavour. Only when Austria was defeated in 1859 and the unification of Northern Italy (except Venetia) was accomplished in 1860, did Giuseppe Garibaldi, at the head of the Expedition of the Thousand, launch his invasion of Sicily, with the connivance of Cavour (once in Sicily, many rallied to his colours); after a successful campaign in Sicily, he crossed over to the mainland and won the battle of the Volturno with half of his army being local volunteers. King Francis II (since 1859) withdrew to the fortified port of Gaeta, where he surrendered and abdicated in February 1861 after the Siege of Gaeta. At the encounter of Teano, Garibaldi met King Victor Emmanuel, transferring to him the conquered kingdom, the Two Sicilies were annexed into the Kingdom of Sardinia, which became the Kingdom of Italy in 1861. What used to be the Kingdom of Two Sicilies became Italy's Mezzogiorno.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: The Teatro Reale di San Carlo commissioned by the Bourbon King Charles VII of Naples who wanted to grant Naples a new and larger theatre to replace the old, dilapidated, and too-small Teatro San Bartolomeo of 1621. Which had served the city well, especially after Scarlatti had moved there in 1682 and had begun to create an important opera centre which existed well into the 1700s. Thus, the San Carlo was inaugurated on 4 November 1737, the king's name day, with the performance of Domenico Sarro's opera "Achille in Sciro" and much admired for its architecture the San Carlo was now the biggest opera house in the world.On 13 February 1816 a fire broke out during a dress-rehearsal for a ballet performance and quickly spread to destroy a part of building. On the orders of King Ferdinand I, who used the services of Antonio Niccolini, to rebuild the opera house within ten months as a traditional horseshoe-shaped auditorium with 1,444 seats, and a proscenium, 33.5m wide and 30m high. The stage was 34.5m deep. Niccolini embellished in the inner of the bas-relief depicting "Time and the Hour". Stendhal attended the second night of the inauguration and wrote: "There is nothing in all Europe, I won't say comparable to this theatre, but which gives the slightest idea of what it is like..., it dazzles the eyes, it enraptures the soul...".


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: From 1815 to 1822, Gioachino Rossini was the house composer and artistic director of the royal opera houses, including the San Carlo. During this period he wrote ten operas which were "Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra" (1815), "La gazzetta", "Otello, ossia il Moro di Venezia" (1816), "Armida" (1817), "Mosè in Egitto", "Ricciardo e Zoraide" (1818), "Ermione", "Bianca e Falliero", "Eduardo e Cristina", "La donna del lago" (1819), "Maometto II" (1820), and "Zelmira" (1822), many premiered at the San Carlo. An offer in 1822 from Domenico Barbaja, the impresario of the San Carlo, which followed the composer's ninth opera, led to Gaetano Donizetti's move to Naples and his residency there which lasted until the production of "Caterina Cornaro" in January 1844. In all, Naples presented 51 of Donizetti's operas. Also Vincenzo Bellini's first professionally staged opera had its first performance at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples on 30 May 1826.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: The kingdom had a large population, its capital Naples being the biggest city in Italy, at least three times as large as any other contemporary Italian state. At its peak, the kingdom had a military 100,000 soldiers strong, and a large bureaucracy. Naples was the largest city in the kingdom and the third largest city in Europe. The second largest city, Palermo, was the third largest in Italy. In the 1800s, the kingdom experienced large population growth, rising from approximately five to seven million. It held approximately 36% of Italy's population around 1850.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: Because the kingdom did not establish a statistical department until after 1848, most population statistics before that year are estimates and censuses that were thought by contemporaries to be inaccurate.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: The Army of the Two Sicilies was the land forces of the Kingdom, it was created by the settlement of the Bourbon dynasty in southern Italy following the events of the War of the Polish Succession. The army collapsed during the Expedition of the Thousand.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: The Real Marina was the naval forces of the Kingdom. It was the most important of the pre-unification Italian navies.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: A major problem in the Kingdom was the distribution of land property - most of it concentrated in the hands of a few families, the landed oligarchy. The villages housed a large rural proletariat, desperately poor and dependent on the landlords for work. The Kingdom's few cities had little industry, thus not providing the outlet excess rural population found in northern Italy, France or Germany. The figures above show that the population of the countryside rose at a faster rate than that of the city of Naples herself, a rather odd phenomenon in a time when much of Europe experienced the Industrial Revolution.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: While underdeveloped compared to Northwest Italy and contemporary Western European countries at the time of unification in 1861, the average wage of the Two Sicilies was actually higher than Central Italy and on par with Northeast Italy. The island of Sicily, in particular, was richer than the mainland part of the kingdom and its wages were very close to the northwest's. The Divergence increased massively after unification however, due to the complete collapse of the South's economy.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: As registered in the 1827 census, for the Neapolitan (continental) part of the kingdom, 1,475,314 of the male population were listed as husbandmen which traditionally consisted of three classes the "Borgesi" (or yeomanry), the "Inquilani" (or small-farmers) and the "Contadini" (or peasantry), along with 65,225 listed as shepherds. Wheat, wine, olive oil and cotton were the chief products with an annual production, as recorded in 1844, of 67 million liters of olive oil largely produced in Apulia and Calabria and loaded for export at Gallipoli along with 191 million liters of wine that were for the most part consumed domestically. On the island of Sicily, in 1839, due to less arable lands, the output was much smaller than on the mainland yet approximately 115,000 acres of vineyards and about 260,000 acres of orchards, mainly fig, orange and citrus, were cultivated.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: Industry was the largest source of income if compared with the other preunitarian states. One of the most important industrial complexes in the kingdom was the shipyard of Castellammare di Stabia, which employed 1800 workers. The engineering factory of Pietrarsa was the largest industrial plant in the Italian peninsula, producing tools, cannons, rails, locomotives. The complex also included a school for train drivers, and naval engineers and, thanks to this school, the kingdom was able to replace the English personnel who had been necessary until then. The first steamboat with screw propulsion known in the Mediterranean Sea was the "Giglio delle Onde", with mail delivery and passenger transport purposes after 1847.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: In Calabria, the Fonderia Ferdinandea was a large foundry where cast iron was produced. The Reali ferriere ed Officine di Mongiana was an iron foundry and weapons factory. Founded in 1770, it employed 1600 workers in 1860 and closed in 1880. In Sicily (near Catania and Agrigento), sulfur was mined to make gunpowder. The Sicilian mines were able to satisfy most of the global demand for sulfur. Silk cloth production was focused in San Leucio (near Caserta). The region of Basilicata also had several mills in Potenza and San Chirico Raparo, where cotton, wool and silk were processed. Food processing was widespread, especially near Naples (Torre Annunziata and Gragnano).


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: The kingdom maintained a large sulfur mining industry. In the increasingly industrialized Great Britain, with the repeal of tariffs on salt in 1824, demand for sulfur from Sicily surged. The growing British control and exploitation of the mining, refining, and transportation of sulfur, combined with the failure of this lucrative export to transform Sicily's backward and impoverished economy, led to the 'Sulfur Crisis' of 1840. This was precipitated when King Ferdinand II granted a monopoly of the sulfur industry to a French company, in violation of an 1816 trade agreement with Britain. A peaceful solution was eventually negotiated by France.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: With all of its major cities boasting successful ports, transport and trade in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was most efficiently conducted by sea. The kingdom possessed the largest merchant fleet in the Mediterranean. Urban road conditions were to the best European standards; by 1839, the main streets of Naples were gas-lit. Efforts were made to tackle the tough mountainous terrain; Ferdinand II built the cliff-top road along the Sorrentine peninsula. Road conditions in the interior and hinterland areas of the kingdom made internal trade difficult. The first railways and iron-suspension bridges in Italy were developed in the south, as was the first overland electric telegraph cable.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: The kingdom achieved several scientific and technological accomplishments, such as the first steamboat in the Mediterrean Sea (1818), built in the shipyard of Stanislao Filosa al ponte di Vigliena, near Naples, and the first railway in the Italian peninsula (1839), which connected Naples to Portici. However, until the Italian unification, the railway development was highly limited. In the year 1859, the kingdom had only 99 kilometers of rail, compared to the 850 kilometers of Piedmont. Southern landscape was mainly mountainous so making the process of building railways was quite difficult, as building railway tunnels was much harder at the time. Other achievements included the first volcano observatory in the world, l'Osservatorio Vesuviano (1841). The rails for the first Italian railways were built in Mongiana as well. All the rails of the old railways that went from the south to as far as Bologna were built in Mongiana.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: The kingdom was home to three universities namely those in Naples founded in 1224, Catania founded in 1434 and Palermo founded in 1806. Also in Naples, established by Matteo Ripa in 1732, was the "Collegio dei Cinesi" today the University of Naples "L'Orientale teaching Sinology and Oriental studies. Despite these institutions of higher learning the kingdom however had no obligation for school attendance nor a recognizable school system. Clerics could inspect schools and had a veto power over appointments of teachers who were for the most part from the clergy anyhow. The literacy rate was just 14.4% in 1861.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: The situation of the time in terms of social expenditure and public hygiene is mainly known today thanks to the writings of the historian and journalist Raffaele De Cesare. It is well known that public hygiene conditions in the regions of the Kingdom of the Two-Siciles are very poor and especially in the central and rural regions. Most small municipalities do not have sewers and have a low water supply due to the lack of public investment in the construction of pipes, which also means that most private houses do not have toilets. Paved roads are rare, except in the area around Naples or on the main roads of the country, and they are often flooded and have many potholes.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: Moreover, most rural inhabitants often live in small old towns which, due to lack of social expenditure, become unhealthy, allowing many infectious diseases to spread rapidly. While the municipal administration has few economic means to remedy the situation, the gentlemen often have whole sections of streets paved in front of the entrance of their home


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: The peninsula was divided into fifteen departments and Sicily was divided into seven departments. The island itself had a special administrative status, with its base at Palermo. In 1860, when the Two Sicilies were conquered by the Kingdom of Sardinia, the departments became provinces of Italy, according to the Urbano Rattazzi law.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: In 1860–61 with influence from Great Britain and William Ewart Gladstone's propaganda, the kingdom was absorbed into the Kingdom of Sardinia, and the title dropped. It is still claimed by the head of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies.


title: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

text: Francis I or Francis II, King of the Two Sicilies, of Jerusalem, etc., Duke of Parma, Piacenza, Castro, etc., Hereditary Grand Prince of Tuscany, etc.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: Mahmoud Abbas (; born 15 November 1935), also known by the kunya Abu Mazen (, ), is the president of the State of Palestine and the Palestinian National Authority. He has been the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) since 11 November 2004, PNA president since 15 January 2005, and State of Palestine president since 8 May 2005. Abbas is also a member of the Fatah party and was elected chairman in 2009.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: Abbas was elected on 9 January 2005 to serve as President of the Palestinian National Authority until 15 January 2009, but extended his term until the next election in 2010, citing the PLO constitution, and on 16 December 2009 was voted into office indefinitely by the PLO Central Council. As a result, Fatah's main rival, Hamas, initially announced that it would not recognize the extension or view Abbas as the rightful president. Nonetheless, Abbas is internationally recognized in his position(s) and Hamas and Fatah conducted numerous negotiations in the following years, leading to an agreement in April 2014 for a Unity Government (which lasted until October 2016) and to the recognition of his office by Hamas. Abbas was also chosen as the president of the State of Palestine by the PLO Central Council on 23 November 2008, a position he had held unofficially since 8 May 2005.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: Abbas served as the first prime minister of the Palestinian Authority from March to September 2003. Before being named Prime Minister, Abbas led the PLO Negotiations Affairs Department.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: Mahmoud Abbas was born on 15 November 1935 in Safed, in the Galilee region of Mandatory Palestine (now Israel). His family fled to Syria during the 1948 Palestine war. Before going to Egypt, Abbas graduated from the University of Damascus, where he studied law.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: Abbas later entered graduate studies at the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, where he earned a Candidate of Sciences degree (the Soviet equivalent of a PhD). His doctoral dissertation was "".


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: He is married to Amina Abbas and they had three sons. The eldest, Mazen Abbas, ran a building company in Doha and died in Qatar of a heart attack in 2002 at the age of 42. The kunya of Abu Mazen means "father of Mazen." Their second son is Yasser Abbas, a Canadian businessman who was named after former PA leader Yasser Arafat. The youngest son is Tareq, a business executive. Abbas has eight grandchildren, six of whom are part of the Seeds of Peace initiative bringing them in touch with young Israelis.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: In the mid-1950s, Abbas became heavily involved in underground Palestinian politics, joining a number of exiled Palestinians in Qatar, where he was Director of Personnel in the emirate's Civil Service. While there in 1961, he was recruited to become a member of Fatah, founded by Yasser Arafat and five other Palestinians in Kuwait in the late 1950s. At the time, Arafat was establishing the groundwork of Fatah by enlisting wealthy Palestinians in Qatar, Kuwait, and other Gulf States.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: According to Abu Daoud, part of the funds raised by Abbas were used, without the latter's knowledge, to implement the 1972 Munich massacre. He was among the first members of Fatah to call for talks with moderate Israelis, doing so in 1977. In a 2012 interview, he recalled, "[...] because we took up arms, we were in a position to put them down with credibility."


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: Abbas has performed diplomatic duties, presenting a moderating contrast to the PLO's "revolutionary" policies. Abbas was the first PLO official to visit Saudi Arabia after the Gulf War in January 1993 to mend fences with the Gulf countries after the PLO's support of Iraq during the Persian Gulf War strained relations. In the Oslo I Accord, Abbas was the signatory for the PLO on 13 September 1993. He published a memoir, "Through Secret Channels: The Road to Oslo" (1995).


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: In 1995, he and Israeli negotiator Yossi Beilin wrote the Beilin–Abu Mazen agreement, which was meant to be the framework for a future Israeli–Palestinian peace deal.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: It emerged in September 2016 that Abbas may have once worked for the KGB, as early as 1985 in Damascus, according to a document uncovered in the Mitrokhin Archive, where he is registered as agent "Krotov". Palestinian officials replied that at the time in question, the PLO collaborated with Moscow, and that Abbas was their liaison man in the Palestinian-Soviet friendship foundation.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: By early 2003, as Israel and the United States refused to negotiate with Yasser Arafat, it was thought that Abbas would be a candidate for the kind of leadership role envisaged by both countries. As one of the few remaining founding members of Fatah, he had some degree of credibility within the Palestinian cause, and his candidacy was bolstered by the fact that other high-profile Palestinians were for various reasons not suitable (the most notable, Marwan Barghouti, was a prisoner in Israeli jail after having been convicted on charges of being responsible for multiple murders by an Israeli court). Abbas's reputation as a pragmatist garnered him favor with the West and some members of the Palestinian legislature. Under international pressure, on 19 March 2003, Arafat appointed Abbas Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority. According to Gilbert Achcar, the United States imposed Abbas on Arafat, the democratically elected leader, though the majority of Palestinians thought of the former as a Quisling.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: A struggle for power between Arafat and Abbas ensued. Abbas's term as prime minister was characterised by numerous conflicts between him and Arafat over the distribution of power. The United States and Israel accused Arafat of undermining Abbas and his government. Abbas hinted he would resign if not given more control over the administration. In early September 2003, he confronted the Palestinian parliament over this issue.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: Abbas came into conflict with Palestinian militant groups, notably the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement and Hamas because his pragmatic policies were opposed to their hard-line approach. Initially, he pledged not to use force against the militants in the interest of avoiding a civil war, and attempted negotiation. This was partially successful, resulting in a pledge from the two groups to honor a unilateral Palestinian cease-fire. However, continuing violence and Israeli "targeted killings" of known leaders forced Abbas to pledge a crackdown in order to uphold the Palestinian Authority's side of the Road map for peace. This led to a power struggle with Arafat over control of the Palestinian Security Services; Arafat refused to release control to Abbas, thus preventing him from using them on the militants. Abbas resigned as prime minister in September 2003, citing lack of support from Israel and the United States as well as "internal incitement" against his government.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: After Yasser Arafat's death, Abbas was seen, at least by Fatah, as his natural successor. On 25 November 2004, Abbas was endorsed by Fatah's Revolutionary Council as its preferred candidate for the presidential election, scheduled for 9 January 2005. On 14 December, Abbas called for an end to violence in the Second Intifada and a return to peaceful resistance. Abbas told the Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that "the use of arms has been damaging and should end." However, he refused, or was not able, to disarm Palestinian militants and use force against groups designated (by the Israeli government) as terrorist organisations.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: With Israeli forces arresting and restricting the movement of other candidates, Hamas's boycott of the election, and his campaign being given 94% of the Palestinian electoral campaign coverage on TV, Abbas's election was virtually ensured, and on 9 January Abbas was elected with 62% of the vote as President of the Palestinian National Authority.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: In his speech, he addressed a crowd of supporters chanting "a million shahids", stating: "I present this victory to the soul of Yasser Arafat and present it to our people, to our martyrs and to 11,000 prisoners". He also called for Palestinian groups to end the use of arms against Israelis.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: Despite Abbas's call for a peaceful solution, attacks by militant groups continued after his election, in a direct challenge to his authority. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine launched a raid in Gaza on 12 January 2005, that killed one and wounded three Israeli military personnel. On 13 January, Palestinians from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, Hamas, and the Popular Resistance Committees launched a suicide attack on the Karni crossing, killing six Israelis. As a result, Israel shut down the damaged terminal and broke off relations with Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, stating that Abbas must now show a gesture of peace by attempting to stop such attacks. Abbas was formally sworn in as the President of the Palestinian National Authority in a ceremony held on 15 January, in the West Bank town of Ramallah.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: On 8 February 2005, Abbas met with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at the Sharm el-Sheikh Summit to end the Second Intifada, and they both reaffirmed their commitment to the Roadmap for peace process. Sharon also agreed to release 900 Palestinian prisoners of the 7,500 being held at the time, and to withdraw from West Bank towns.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: On 9 August 2005, Abbas announced that legislative elections, originally scheduled for 17 July 2005, would take place in January 2006. On 20 August, he set the elections for 25 January. On 15 January 2006, Abbas declared that, despite unrest in Gaza, he would not change the election date, unless Israel were to prevent Palestinians in East Jerusalem from voting. The elections took place on 25 January 2006, and resulted in a decisive Hamas victory.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: On 16 January 2006, in the context of Fatah's election loss and Hamas' presumed future one party government, Abbas said that he would not run for office again at the end of his term. However, following international sanctions against a Hamas one party government, political and military conflicts between Hamas and Fatah, and the division of the country, which made new elections impossible, Abbas stayed president after the expiration of his four-year term on 15 January 2009. He extended his term for another year, using another interpretation of the Basic Law and the Election Law, so he could align the next presidential and parliamentary elections. Pointing to the Palestinian constitution, Hamas disputed the validity of this move, and considered Abbas's term to have ended, in which case Abdel Aziz Duwaik, Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, would have become acting president.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: On 16 December 2009, the leadership of the Palestinian Central Council announced an indefinite extension of Abbas's term as president. Since then, Abbas has remained president of the Fatah-controlled areas of the Palestinian territories. In April 2014, Hamas withdrew its objection, in order to form a Unity Government with Fatah.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: As of December 2015, he was still acting as Chairman, pending approval by the Palestinian National Council.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: In 2021, local elections in Palestine were held amidst a rift between Abbas and Hamas. This was after he had indefinitely postponed the presidential election and parliamentary elections.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: There are frequent allegations that officials of the Palestinian Authority, including Abbas, have systematically embezzled public funds.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: Abbas's mentor and predecessor, Yasser Arafat, was accused of embezzling billions of dollars of Palestinian money. This perceived corruption of the Fatah leadership is believed to have contributed to a convincing win by Hamas in the January 2006 parliamentary election. Fatah leaders were accused of siphoning funds from ministry budgets, passing out patronage jobs, accepting favors and gifts from suppliers and contractors.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: The source for specific allegations against Abbas was one of Arafat's most trusted aides, Mohammed Rashid, accused by the PA of embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars, who threatened to expose corruption scandals in the Palestinian Authority. For many years, Rashid served as Arafat's financial advisor and was given a free hand to handle hundreds of millions of dollars that were poured on the Palestinian Authority and the PLO by US, EU and Arab donors. According to Rashid, Abbas's net worth was $US100 million.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: On 10 July 2012, Abbas and his sons were attacked, in the US Congress, for their alleged corruption. The debate was entitled "Chronic Kleptocracy: Corruption Within the Palestinian Political Establishment" In his testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Middle East and South Asia, Elliott Abrams stated that "Corruption is an insidious destroyer not only of Palestinian public finance but of faith in the entire political system. And it has certainly had an impact on potential donors. I can tell you from my own experience, as an American official seeking financial assistance for the PA from Gulf Arab governments, that I was often told "why should we give them money when their officials will just steal it?""


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: The conspicuous wealth of Abbas's own sons, Yasser and Tarek, has been noted in Palestinian society since at least 2009, when Reuters first published a series of articles tying the sons to several business deals, including a few that had U.S. taxpayer support. In a "Foreign Policy" article, author Jonathan Schanzer suggested four ways in which the Abbas family has become rich. They include monopolies on American made cigarettes sold in the territories; USAID funding; public works projects, such as road and school construction, on behalf of the Palestinian Authority and special preferences for retail enterprises. It was strongly implied that the sons lineage was the main credential in receiving these contracts.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: One of his sons, Yasser Abbas, (but not brother Tarek or father Mahmoud) filed a $10 million libel lawsuit in the United States District Court, District of Columbia, in September 2012 against Foreign Policy Group LLC and Schanzer alleging "false and defamatory statements. It seems every statement will be challenged, in a jury trial, if the court accepts jurisdiction." Abbas also accused Schanzer of not contacting him for comment and of relying on untrustworthy sources of information. Abbas accused Schanzer of acting with malice and pursuing an agenda against the brothers, even though he also contended that he's a private citizen and not a public figure, so we wouldn't need to prove actual malice to win. In reply, the magazine has argued that Abbas's suit is aimed at intimidating his critics and stopping debate. "In the final analysis, the commentary falls well within the protections of both the First Amendment and the common law," lawyers for the magazine assert.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: Some analysts believed the Abbas family would not proceed with the case as it would allow "Foreign Policy" and Schanzer to dig in too deep into the PA's secret finances and records. However, the case proceeded.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: In September, 2013, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan dismissed the suit using D.C.'s anti-SLAPP measure. Sullivan determined the lawsuit intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandoned their criticisms or opposition. The decision has been appealed.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: As part of the 2016 Panama Papers data leak, it was revealed that Abbas's son Tareq Abbas holds $1 million in shares of an offshore company associated with the Palestinian Authority.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: In June 2021, hundreds of Palestinians held protests against the Abbas administration's corruption and brutality at central Ramallah (including one held at the president's headquarters) after anti-corruption activist Nizar Banat died in government custody.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: On 23 January 2005, Israeli radio reported that Abbas had secured a thirty-day ceasefire from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. On 12 February, lone Palestinians attacked Israel settlements and Abbas quickly fired some of his security officers for not stopping the attacks during the ceasefire.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: On 9 April 2005, Abbas said that the killing of three Palestinians in southern Gaza by Israeli soldiers was a deliberate violation of the declared ceasefire deal. "This violation is made on purpose," Abbas said in a written statement sent to reporters in the West Bank capital of Ramallah. Abbas made the statement shortly after three Palestinian teenage boys were shot dead by Israeli troops in the southern Gaza town of Rafah. Israel claimed they thought the boys were attempting to smuggle weapons, while Palestinians claimed a group of boys were playing soccer and three of them went to retrieve the ball near the border fence.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: On 25 July 2005, he announced that he would move his office to Gaza until the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops in order to coordinate the Palestinian side of the withdrawal, mediating between the different factions.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: Efraim Sneh, a former minister in the Israeli cabinet, has called Abbas the most "courageous partner we have had." He wrote that on 19 April 2006, following the elections in Israel but before Ehud Olmert was sworn in, he met with Abbas, and Abbas requested that negotiations resume immediately with the new Israeli government and that he be put in touch right away with a contact person to be appointed by the prime minister. Sneh reported that he immediately conveyed the substance of their meeting to the prime minister's office, but was told that the prime minister had no interest in the matter. Despite this, Sneh mentions that the Annapolis Conference convened a year and a half later, and that in September 2008, Prime Minister Olmert and Abbas came to understandings that would lead to an actual agreement.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: On 2 March 2008, Abbas stated he was suspending peace talks with Israel, while Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed to press on with military operations against militants who have been launching home-made rockets into southern Israel.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: On 20 May 2008 Abbas said he would resign from his office if the current round of peace talks had not yielded an agreement in principle "within six months". He also said that the current negotiations were, in effect, deadlocked: "So far, we have not reached an agreement on any issue. Any report indicating otherwise is simply not true."


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: Abbas has since confirmed that he turned down an Israeli offer for a Palestinian state on nearly 95% of the West Bank. In September 2008, Olmert had presented him with a map that delineated the borders of the proposed PA state, for which Israel would annex 6.3 percent of the West Bank and compensate the Palestinians with 5.8 percent (taken from pre-1967 Israel), which Abbas stated he rejected out of hand, insisting instead to demarcate the 4 June 1967 borders of Palestine. He said that Olmert did not give a map of the proposal and that he could not sign without seeing the proposal. Abbas also said that he was not an expert on maps and pointed to Olmert's corruption investigation (he was later convicted). Abbas said in October 2011 that he made a counteroffer to let Israel annex 1.9% of the West Bank.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: In 2012, Abbas floated the idea of accepting a two-state solution which outlined Palestine as existing within the 1967 borders with a capital in East Jerusalem. In an interview with Israeli Channel 2 TV, Abbas said, "It is my right to see [the Israeli city of Safed], but not to live there." The negative reaction to these words forced Abbas to backpedal.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: According to an International Crisis Group report, most Israeli officials "do not see [Abbas] as a peace partner but consider [him] a nonthreatening, violence-abhorring, strategic asset."


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: On 23 June 2016, Abbas repeated to the European Parliament a false press report that rabbis in Israel were calling for Palestinian wells to be poisoned. Abbas retracted the statement the following day, acknowledging that the claim was not true and stating that he 'didn't intend to do harm to Judaism or to offend Jewish people around the world'. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Abbas's statement spread a "blood libel".


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: On 2 June 2006, Abbas again announced that if Hamas did not approve the prisoners' document—which calls for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict according to the 1967 borders—within two days, he would present the initiative as a referendum. This deadline was subsequently extended until 10 June 2006. Hamas spokesmen stated that their stance would not change, and that Abbas is not constitutionally permitted to call a referendum, especially so soon after the January elections.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: Abbas warned Hamas on 8 October 2006, that he would call new legislative elections if it did not accept a coalition government. To recognize Israel was a condition he has presented for a coalition. But it was not clear if Abbas had the power to call new elections.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: On 16 December 2006, Abbas called for new legislative elections, to bring an end to the parliamentary stalemate between Fatah and Hamas in forming a national coalition government.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: On 17 March 2007, a unity government was formed incorporating members of both Hamas and Fatah, with Ismail Haniyeh as Prime Minister and independent politicians taking many key portfolios.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: On 14 June 2007, Abbas dissolved the Hamas-led unity government of Haniyeh, declared a state of emergency, and appointed Salam Fayyad in his place. This followed action by Hamas armed forces to take control of Palestinian Authority positions controlled by Fatah militias. The appointment of Fayyad to replace Haniyeh has been challenged as illegal, because under the Palestinian Basic Law, the president may dismiss a sitting prime minister, but may not appoint a replacement without the approval of the Palestinian Legislative Council. According to the law, until a new prime minister is thus appointed, the outgoing prime minister heads a caretaker government. Fayyad's appointment was never placed before, or approved by the Legislative Council. For this reason, Haniyeh, the Hamas prime minister has continued to operate in Gaza, and is recognised by a large number of Palestinians as the legitimate acting prime minister. Anis al-Qasem, a constitutional lawyer who drafted the Basic Law, is among those who publicly declared Abbas's appointment of Fayyad to be illegal.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: On 18 June 2007, the European Union promised to resume direct aid to the Palestinian Authority, and Abbas dissolved the National Security Council, a sticking point in the defunct unity government with Hamas. That same day, the United States decided to end its fifteen-month embargo on the Palestinian Authority and resume aid, attempting to strengthen Abbas's West Bank government. A day later, the Fatah Central Committee cut off all ties and dialogue with Hamas, pending the return of Gaza.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: In May 2009, he welcomed Pope Benedict XVI to the West Bank, who supported Abbas's goal of a Palestinian State. Also in May 2009, Abbas made a visit to Canada, where he met with foreign affairs minister Lawrence Cannon and Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The same year Abbas visited Venezuela and met Hugo Chávez.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: In February 2010, Abbas visited Japan for the third time as Palestinian President. In this visit he met Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. He also visited Hiroshima, the first such visit by a Palestinian leader, and spoke about the suffering of Hiroshima, which he compared to the suffering of the Palestinians.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: In July 2012, Abbas accused former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of fabricating a conversation between them and denied such a conversation took place. The specific quote he denied was, "I can't tell four million Palestinians only five thousand of them can go home," regarding the issue of Palestinian refugees. Abbas further said, "I'm not calling her a liar... I am saying we never had that conversation." In response, Rice denied that she fabricated it. Her chief of staff, Georgia Godfrey, wrote, "Dr. Rice stands by her account of the conversation and what she wrote in her book."


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: In January 2019, Abbas accepted the chairmanship of the United Nations' Group of 77, a coalition of 134 mainly developing nations and China, on behalf of Palestine, which is a non-member observer state of the UN. He was handed the gavel by Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, the outgoing chairman. (Guyana holds the chairmanship as of 2020.)


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: "The Connection between the Nazis and the Leaders of the Zionist Movement 1933–1945" is the title of Abbas's CandSc thesis, which was completed in 1982 at the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, and defended at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. In 1984 it was published as a book in Arabic titled "The Other Side: the Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism" (Arabic: "Al-Wajh al-Ākhar: Al-'Alāqat aL-Sirriyya bayn al-Nāzīyya wa al-Sahyūniyya").


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: The dissertation and book discussed topics such as the Haavara Agreement, in which the Jewish Agency signed a pact with Nazi Germany to facilitate Jewish emigration to Palestine. Some content of his thesis has been considered as Holocaust denial by some Jewish groups, especially where he disputed the accepted number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust and claimed Zionist agitation had been the cause of the Holocaust.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: In his 1984 book, based on the dissertation, Abbas dismissed as a "myth" and "fantastic lie" that six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, writing that the real figure was at most "890,000" or "a few hundred thousand". The number of such deaths, he claimed, had been exaggerated for political purposes, since:


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: it seems that the interest of the Zionist movement ... is to inflate this figure so that their gains will be greater. This led them to emphasize this figure [six million] in order to gain the solidarity of international public opinion with Zionism. Many scholars have debated the figure of six million and reached stunning conclusions—fixing the number of Jewish victims at only a few hundred thousand.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: According to the Anti-Defamation League, when asked about this assertion in his book, Abbas replied some 10 years later that he had written the book when the Palestinians were at war with Israel, adding that "today I would not have made such remarks." In a March 2006 interview with "Haaretz", Abbas stated,


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: I wrote in detail about the Holocaust and said I did not want to discuss numbers. I quoted an argument between historians in which various numbers of casualties were mentioned. One wrote there were 12 million victims and another wrote there were 800,000. I have no desire to argue with the figures. The Holocaust was a terrible, unforgivable crime against the Jewish nation, a crime against humanity that cannot be accepted by humankind. The Holocaust was a terrible thing and nobody can claim I denied it.


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: In 2012, Abbas told Al Mayadeen, a Beirut television station affiliated with Iran and Hezbollah, that he "challenges anyone who can deny that the Zionist movement had ties with the Nazis before World War II". In 2013, he reasserted that "the Zionist movement had ties with the Nazis". The following year, he described the Holocaust as "the most heinous crime in modern history."


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: During a meeting of the Palestinian National Council in 2018, Abbas stated that Jews in Europe were massacred for centuries because of their "social role related to usury and banks." The speech was widely condemned by Israel, the United Nations, the European Union, Germany, Sweden, United States, former officials of the Obama administration, Peace Now and the Anti-Defamation League. A "New York Times" editorial said "Let Abbas's vile words be his last as Palestinian leader."


title: Mahmoud Abbas

text: In August 2022, during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin, Abbas was asked by an attending journalist if he would apologize for the 1972 Munich massacre of Israeli Olympic athletes by Palestinian terrorists. He responded that "If we want to go over the past, go ahead. I have 50 slaughters that Israel committed… 50 massacres, 50 slaughters, 50 holocausts." In an interview afterwards with the "Bild" tabloid, Scholz condemned Abbas' statements as a trivialization of the Holocaust. The remarks were also condemned by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Following an offense report for "relativizing the Shoah", in Berlin a criminal investigation was opened by police to determine if Abbas is guilty of Volksverhetzung.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: Para (Special Forces), also known as Para SF, are a group of special forces battalions of the Parachute Regiment in the Indian Army. These units specialize in various roles including hostage rescue, counter-terrorism, unconventional warfare, special reconnaissance, foreign internal defence, counter-proliferation, counter-insurgency, seek and destroy and personnel recovery.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: The unit's heritage stems from World War II, with the creation of the 50th Parachute Brigade in October 1941 under the British Indian Army. 9 Para SF was raised in 1966 as 9th Parachute Commando Battalion as part of the Parachute Regiment and is the oldest among the fifteen Para SF units of the Indian Army. It has been involved in various operations including the Indo-Pakistan war of 1971, Operation Bluestar, Operation Pawan, Operation Cactus, Kargil War, Operation Ginger, 2015 Indian counter-insurgency operation in Myanmar, 2016 Pampore stand-off, 2016 Indian Line of Control strike and in several anti-terror operations.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: The parachute units of the Indian Army are among the oldest airborne units in the world. The 50th Indian Parachute Brigade was formed on 27 October 1941, comprising the British 151st Parachute Battalion, the British Indian Army 152nd Indian Parachute Battalion, and the 153rd Gurkha Parachute Battalion. The Parachute Regiment was formed from these and several other units in 1952.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: In 1944, the 50th was allocated to the newly founded 44th Airborne Division. In the post-independence restructuring, India retained only one parachute brigade—the 50th. This brigade consisted of three distinguished battalions personally nominated by the then Commander-in-Chief, namely 1 PARA (Punjab), 2 PARA (Maratha) and 3 PARA (Kumaon). During the Jammu and Kashmir operations of 1947-48 these battalions distinguished themselves with glory in the battles of Shelatang, Naushera, Jhangar and Poonch, and were awarded the respective Battle Honours.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: On 15 April 1952, the three battalions serving with the Parachute Brigade were removed from their respective Infantry Regiments to form the Parachute Regiment. Since then the Parachute Regiment has grown to comprise ten battalions including Parachute (Special Forces) battalions. In 1986, 8 PARA became 12 Battalion, Mechanised Infantry Regiment, while 21 Maratha LI converted to PARA (Special Forces). During their short but eventful existence so far, the regiment's battalions have had extensive operational experience, and singular achievements, to speak of their level of professionalism.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: During the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, an "ad hoc" commando unit, named Meghdoot Force, consisting of volunteers from various infantry units was organized by then Major Megh Singh of the Brigade of the Guards. The unit performed exceptionally well during the war destroying many strategic bridges and killing many Pakistani soldiers, and thus the Government authorized the formal raising of a commando unit. Lt Col Megh Singh was selected to raise the unit which was originally intended to be a part of the Brigade of the Guards. However, recognizing parachute qualification as an integral element of special operations, the unit was transferred to the Parachute Regiment and raised as its 9th Battalion (Commando) on 1 July 1966. The erstwhile members of the Meghdoot Force formed the nucleus, and the new unit was based in Gwalior. In June 1967 the unit was split equally into two to form a second commando unit, designated as 10th Battalion, each with three Companies. 10th Battalion was mandated to operate in the Western Desert and 9th Battalion in the northern mountains. In 1969, these battalions were re-designated as 9 and 10 Para (Commando) battalions.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: In 1978, the 1 Para, as an experiment, was converted to become the first special forces unit of the Indian army, and was kept as the tactical reserve. Already a recipient of the Chief of Army Staff Unit Citation twice, and the GOC-in-C Eastern Command Unit Citation once, the unit was originally 1 Punjab, which was later re-designated as 1 PARA (Punjab) and in 1978 was converted to 1 PARA (SF).


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: On 15 January 1992, the Parachute Regiment Training Centre along with the Records and PAO (OR), and the Para Regiment, moved to Bangalore and occupied the erstwhile location of Pioneer Corps and Training Centre. Bangalore is the new Key Location Project of the centre.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: 1995 saw the formation of the fourth commando battalion when 21 Maratha Light Infantry was selected to convert to special forces and slated for the Eastern Command. After a stringent selection and training process that spanned more than a year, on 1 February 1996, the unit under Colonel VB Shinde, was formally inducted as the 21st Battalion (Special Forces), The Parachute Regiment. The unit has done well in its short lifespan and is the proud recipient of the Chief of Army Staff Unit Citation thrice (1992, 2006 and 2011) and the GOC-in-C Eastern Command Unit Citation twice (2008 and 2016), as well as a host of individual gallantry awards. Most notable operations being in the Loktak Lake of Manipur. With the changing scenario in military operations and the need for more special forces units, 2 Para began the conversion process from parachute to special forces role, followed closely by the 3rd Para and the 4th Para in the year 2004 and 2005. Further 11th Para (SF) in 2011, 12th Para (SF) in 2013 and 13th Para (SF) in 2022 were raised from within the strength of the regiment to augment the strength of the existing Special Forces battalions. In 2022, 5th Para, 6th Para, 7th Para, 23rd Para and 29th Para, the airborne punch of Indian Army was redesignated and were given the specialist role with dual tasking of Airborne as well as the special tasks giving a significant boost to operational capability of Indian Army.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: The unit first saw action in the 1971 Indo-Pakistani war, the first six-man assault team was inserted deep into Indus and Chachro, where they carried out raids. The assault team killed 73 and wounded 140 on the Pakistani side. In addition, they also destroyed 35mm artillery guns of the Pakistan independent battery. They also destroyed an airfield. In Bangladesh 2 PARA (Airborne), which was a part of 50 (Independent) Parachute Brigade, carried out India's first airborne assault operation to capture Poongli Bridge in Mymensingh District near Dhaka. Subsequently, they were the first unit to enter Dhaka. For this action 2 PARA were given the Battle Honour of Poongli Bridge and the Theatre Honour Dhaka. In the Western Sector the unit was also involved in the Battle of Chamb.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: Operation Mandhol was a raid carried out by soldiers from the 9 Para (SF) to seek and destroy Pakistani artillery located in hostile territory near a village called Mandole. During the operation, aided by an artillery officer Capt. D Tyagi from 195 Mountain Regiment, six artillery guns were destroyed by a raiding team composed of six officers and around 120 soldiers led by Major C. M. Malhotra. The special forces raiders began their operation at 5.30 PM on 13 December 1971. They started off from Poonch and crossed the Poonch River. After they reached the Mandole village, they started searching for the artillery guns and eventually located them. The raiders divided themselves into six teams. Each one of the six team was tasked to destroy one of the six guns. Subsequently, an intense gunfight took place between the Indian raiders and Pakistan Army soldiers. The gunfight resulted in two Indian casualties and many Pakistani casualties, with some Pakistani soldiers escaping from the battle. Finally, the raiders destroyed all the artillery using explosives and returned to their base at 6.30 AM on 14 December 1971.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: This operation caused the Pakistan military to tweak its military doctrine by assigning additional soldiers for defending artillery guns. Pakistan Army officials, who came to India as a delegation after the war had ended, acknowledged the raid. Operation Mandhol is now a part of the syllabus at the Indian Military Academy.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: A series of raids were conducted by soldiers from the 10 Para (also known as "The Desert Scorpions") at Chachro, Virawah, Nagarparkar and Islamkot during the 1971 Indo-Pakistani war. The main objective of these raids were to hit Pakistan military installations located 80 kilometres inside hostile territory, disrupting supply lines, creating confusion and undertake important inroads into hostile territory. Two teams, codenamed Alpha and Charlie, trained for a duration of five months in skills such as desert warfare.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: During the raids, the Indian commandos inserted themselves 80 kilometres deep into Pakistani territory and traversed a distance of over 500 kilometres, attacking Pakistan military installations and positions. They completed the raids with zero Indian casualties.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: The raids began on 5 December 1971, when commandos from the 10 Para penetrated 70 kilometres inside hostile territory. The soldiers went into a defensive posture as they encountered heavy firing from Pakistani posts. The Indian raiders sent one of their vehicles rushing towards Pakistani positions, firing a LMG, to distract gunfire. This tactic was successful because of the cover provided by nighttime. Subsequently, the other raiders too opened fire and overpowered the Pakistani posts.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: Soon, a pathfinder team was assigned the task of charting a route for the Alpha team to attack the wing headquarters of the Pakistan Rangers in Chachro. The pathfinders used the cover of darkness to chart a suitable route and green-lighted the raid before the dawn of 7 December. Within a few hours, the team killed 17 Pakistani soldiers, took 12 prisoners and captured Chachro. After this raid, the Charlie team exfiltrated out of the battlefield. Chachro was subsequently handed over to Indian infantrymen and the Alpha team proceeded further.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: The Alpha team moved towards their next targets: Virawah and Nagarparkar. They reached Virawah before the dawn of 8 December, moving in broad daylight the preceding day. The first contact made by the raiders with the Pakistani soldiers was at 1:30 AM. Hand-to-hand combat between the Indian raiders and the Pakistanis ensued, followed by gunfights. Soon, Virawah was captured by the Indian raiders. The raiders then proceeded to Nagarparkar and captured it by the morning of 8 December.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: Following this, the Indian raiders had returned to their base in India but were again tasked to attack an ammunition dump in Islamkot. The raiders reached their target at 5:30 AM on 17 December but found the target empty. Subsequently, while retreating, the raiders ambushed a Pakistani convoy, killing 18-20 Pakistani troops and imprisoning survivors.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: In 1984 the Para (SF) were involved in Operation Blue Star. They were charged to lead an attack to evict Sikh militants hiding inside the Holy Site of the Sikh religion the Golden Temple Punjab. 80 members of 1 Para (SF) were given the task of assaulting two areas of the temple, one of which required divers. However, there were a number of setbacks as a result of inaccurate intelligence on the strength of the militants who were trained by Gen. Shabeg Singh (ex-1 Para himself), operating in low light, the conventional manner of the raid, and the lack of incentive, all of which resulted in a mission failure. The diver mission was aborted after the first team got bogged down. The commandos accompanied by Raghunath Dubey achieved their aims after a gunfight with militants that lasted hours.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: The late 1980s saw the Para (SF) in action in Sri Lanka, as part of Operation Pawan. However, the lack of proper planning by the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPF), and insufficient intelligence on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's (LTTE) whereabouts, caused the initial heli-borne assault on Jaffna University on 11 October 1987 to be a tragic failure. However it was because of the efforts of the Para (SF) that later led to the capture of the Jaffna peninsula, forcing the LTTE militants to take refuge in the forests.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: Six soldiers lost their lives in that mission. Due to their superior training, the Para (SF) took refuge under a house, after they were misled by a youth who offered his services to help the commandos track Velupillai Prabhakaran but instead took them on a wild goose chase. They engaged the enemy for 24 hours and picked up all their dead with their weapons after reinforcements arrived the next morning.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: After the failed assault on Jaffna City, the 10 Para (SF) participated in a heli-borne assault on the town of Moolai to the north west in November 1987. More than 200 LTTE guerrillas were killed and an arms depot seized. In order to give the commandos battle experience, 1 Para (SF) was rotated home in early 1988 and replaced by 9 Para (SF).


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: This battalion was scheduled to return home in June 1988, but the tour of duty was extended due to a planned air assault into the coastal swamps around Mullaittivu. The mission was a success, in that it located several arms caches. The 9 Para (SF) also provided 12 men for the security of the Indian High Commission in Sri Lanka.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: With the capture of Maldives, an island nation off the south western coast of India, on 3 November 1988 by the People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) mercenaries, the army turned to the 50 (Independent) Parachute Brigade to carry out an airborne/air attempt transported operation to liberate the country and return power to the legal government. This operation had 6 Para spearheading the mission. 6 Para flew in on 4 November 1988 in a fleet of IL-76, An-32 and An-12 transport aircraft. One team rescued the president, another took over the airfield, and a third rescued Maldivian security personnel besieged in the National Security Service HQ. Later 7 Para and part of 17 Para Field Regiment were also deployed to the Maldives. When mercenaries tried to escape by sea along with hostages, they were intercepted by the Indian Navy. Thus, 6 Para, and the 17 Para Field Regiment conducted the first-ever international intervention by the Indian Army without any loss of life.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: In 1999 nine out of ten Parachute battalions were deployed for Operation Vijay in Kargil, which bears testimony to the operational profile of the Regiment. While the Parachute Brigade cleared the Mushkoh Valley intrusions, 5 PARA was actively involved in the forgotten sector of Batalik, and was awarded the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Unit Citation.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: Operation Khukri was a rescue mission conducted by the 2 PARA (SF) in Sierra Leone in June 2000. About 90 operators commanded by Major (now Lt. Col.) Harinder Sood were airlifted from New Delhi to spearhead the mission to rescue 223 men of the 5/8 Gurkha Rifles who were surrounded and held captive by Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels for over 75 days. Just 90 Para (SF) forced 2000-5000 members of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) divided into 5 battalions to surrender. This ultimately led to the liberation of Freetown.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: On 11 April 2009, the 57 Mountain Division of the Indian Army based in Manipur, 21 Para (SF) along with the Para-military Assam Rifles and State Police, launched a counter insurgency operation, code-named "Operation Summer Storm" in the Loktak Lake region and adjoining Loktak Lake in Bishnupur District, located south of State capital of Imphal. The first major mobilization of troops in 2009 ended on 21 April. As the troops began pulling out, an Army spokesperson described the operation as a success, disclosing that 129 militants, all belonging to the People's Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK) were killed. The Forces also claimed to have located and destroyed five militant camps during the Operation and more than 117 weapons, including sixty nine AK-series rifles, forty-eight rocket launchers, and an unspecified quantity of explosives and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). No militant was arrested. No fatality among the Special Force (SF) personnel or civilians was reported.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: Paratroopers and Para (SF) have conducted thousands of counter-insurgency (COIN) operations in Jammu and Kashmir, Assam and the eastern states in India. Sometimes these units work with the Rashtriya Rifles (COIN force) in complicated operations. Since the mid-1990s, the role of Paratroopers and Para (SF) as a counter-terrorism force has increased substantially. They are now actively involved in counter terrorist (CT) and COIN operations in Kashmir as an essential part of the Home Ministry's decision to conduct pro-active raids against militants in the countryside and mountains. Personnel include Para (SF), Paratroopers (Airborne), and special units of the Rashtriya Rifles – a paramilitary unit created for counter-insurgency operations in Kashmir. They have also included MARCOS personnel, many of whom are seconded to the Army for CT operations.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: On 26 September 2013, terrorists dressed in Army fatigues stormed a police station and then an Army camp in the Jammu region killing 10 people, including an Army officer, in twin "fidayeen" attacks. The terrorists sneaked across the border early on Thursday, barely three days ahead of a meeting between the prime ministers of India and Pakistan. The attack was on a police station. The 16 Cavalry unit of the Army in Samba district falls under the jurisdiction of 9 corps, headquartered at Yol Cantonment in Himachal Pradesh. The three heavily armed terrorists, believed to be from the group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), were holed up in the cavalry armored unit's camp at Samba for several hours after they barged into the Officers mess, until they were killed during a fierce gunfight with 1 Para (SF) of the army. The bodies of the three terrorists aged between 16 and 19 were in the custody of the Army.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: Authorities moved commandos of 1 Para (SF) in helicopters to the shootout site. The Para (SF) commandos first carried out an aerial reconnaissance of the camp before landing to neutralize the three terrorists. The 1 Para (SF) had identified the exact spot during the aerial reconnaissance from where the intruders were returning the army fire. After landing, the commandos started engaging the terrorists in a direct gunfight, but in order to give them an impression that their exact hiding location had still not been identified, an abandoned building inside the camp was blasted. This made the terrorists complacent thinking that their hiding spot had not been yet been pin-pointed. They kept on intermittently returning army fire until all three of them were eliminated. The entire operation, from the moment the terrorists entered the camp until they were gunned down, took nearly nine hours to complete. The main worry of the soldiers tasked to eliminate the terrorists was the Army Public School situated some distance from the place where the terrorists had been engaged in a sustained firefight. Army men were worried about the possibility of the terrorists moving into the school and taking children and staff as hostage. For this reason, the operation to eliminate the terrorists was carried out with extreme caution and patience.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: Based on precise intelligence inputs, the Indian Air Force and 21 Para (SF) carried a cross-border operation along the Indo-Myanmar border and destroyed two militant camps one each of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (K) (NSCN) and the Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup (KYKL). The operations were carried out inside Myanmar, along the Nagaland and Manipur border at two locations. One of the locations was near Ukhrul in Manipur. The army attacked two militants' transit camps.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: 70 commandos were reportedly involved in the operation. The commandos, equipped with assault rifles, rocket launchers, grenades and night vision goggles, were divided into two groups. The teams trekked through the thick jungles for at least before they reached training camps. Each of the teams was further divided into two sub-groups. While one was responsible for the direct assault, the second formed an outer ring to prevent any of insurgents from running and escaping. The actual operation (hitting the camp and destroying it) took about 40 minutes. Indian Air Force Mil Mi-17 helicopters were put on standby, ready to be pressed into service to evacuate the commandos in case anything went wrong. In its statement after the operation, the Indian Army said it was in communication with Myanmar and that, "There is a history of close cooperation between our two militaries. We look forward to working with them to combat such terrorism."


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: The Indian Army claimed to have inflicted heavy casualties (158 reported) on the attackers behind the ambush of the Army on 4 June, which claimed the lives of 18 Army jawans (soldiers) of 6 Dogra Regiment from the Chandel district of Manipur. This has been noted as the largest attack on the Indian Army after the Kargil war of 1999.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: Intelligence gathering had started a few weeks prior, through drones, satellites and various other Indian assets, on 26 September 2016, small recon teams were given the task to infiltrate across the LoC, to carry out a 24 hour surveillance of the targets and to put together the best possible infiltration and exfiltration routes through the heavily mined and manned border in the world, the LoC. The intelligence was so strong that it's reported that the hit squads knew the names of the fidayeens at the launch pads. On return of the recon team, plans were laid down for the assault, and on 29 September 2016, India attacked the strike targeted areas across the Line of Control (LoC), where militants congregate for their final briefings before sneaking across into India. An Indian security source said the operation began with Indian forces firing artillery across the frontier to provide cover for three to four teams of 70–80 para SF commandos from 4 and 9 Para (Special Forces) to cross the LoC at several points shortly after midnight IST on 29 September (18:30 hours UTC, 28 Sept.). Teams from 4 Para SF crossed the LoC in the Nowgam sector of Kupwara district, with teams from 9 Para SF simultaneously crossing the LoC in Poonch district. By 2 a.m. IST, according to army sources, the special forces teams had travelled – on foot, the teams began the assault, with hand-held grenades and 84 mm rocket launchers destroying the ammo and the fuel dumps at the launch pads. Simultaneously, the sniping and assault teams opened fire, killing the terrorists at sight and those who tried to make a run. At first light, the teams swiftly returned to the Indian side of the LoC, suffering only one injury, a soldier wounded after tripping a land mine.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: The Indian army said the strike was a pre-emptive attack on the militants' bases, claiming that it had received intelligence that the militants were planning "terrorist strikes" against India. India said that, in destroying "terrorist infrastructure" it also attacked "those who are trying to support them," indicating it also attacked Pakistani soldiers. India later briefed opposition parties and foreign envoys, but did not disclose operational details. The footage from the strike captured by overhead drones and thermal imaging was released to the media afterwards. It was also informed that around 40-50 militants were killed and many more injured in one of the surgical strikes.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: However, the Pakistan army dismissed India's claim, and instead claimed that Indian troops had not crossed the LoC but had only skirmished with Pakistani troops at the border, resulting in the deaths of two Pakistani soldiers and the wounding of nine.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: The Para SF reportedly conducted reconnaissance against Chinese military posts near the Pangong Tso during the 2020 China–India skirmishes. They participated alongside the Special Frontier Force in occupying dominating positions of 'Black top', 'Gurung hill' ,'Helmet' and various other peaks and ridges on the southern bank of Pangong Tso, west of the Kailash Range in August 2020.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: The Parachute Regiment presently has fifteen Special Forces, two Territorial Army, and one Counter-Insurgency (Rashtriya Rifles) battalion in its fold. Due to the absence of centralized command and lack of a centralized and standardized procedure for selection, even among the Para (SF) battalions, selection procedures vary. Meaning there is a different standard to get into different Para (SF) battalions.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: In the mid-1980s, there were plans to take the three para commando battalions from the Parachute Regiment and bring them together under an individual special organization, the Special Forces Regiment. However, after several logistic and administrative obstacles, these plans were abandoned, and they continue to be trained and recruited by the Parachute Regiment.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: Para (SF) operates in assault teams, which work individually behind enemy lines. The total strengh of the regiment stands at about 8,000-10,000 this includes one Rashtriya Rifles and two Territorial Army battalion personnel, while the Para (SF) includes between 5,000-6,000 personnel or maybe more currently, as some articles suggest there may be about 600-700 men per battalion and there are now 15 battalions of special forces. They have to hide their identity from the general public.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: The Special Group (aka 4 Vikas/22 SF/22 SG), a clandestine special forces unit which operates under Research and Analysis Wing, recruits from the PARA SF, MARCOS, Garud Commando Force. Currently the Para Special Forces consists of 15 battalions:


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: The unit is tasked with missions such as special operations, direct action, hostage rescue, counter-terrorism, special reconnaissance, foreign internal defence, counter-proliferation, counter-insurgency, seek and destroy, and personnel recovery.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: All Indian Special Forces operatives are volunteers. Some enter the Para regiments fresh from recruitment, while others transfer in from regular army units. They are put through a probationary period/selection process of three months for Para (Special Forces) battalions (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 21, 23 and 29 PARA SF). In order to be a Para (Special Forces) operator, all personnel are first required to qualify as Paratroopers; once selected the candidates may choose to advance to the SF selection, which takes place twice a year in the spring and the autumn term.


title: Para (Special Forces)

text: There are fifteen Para (SF) battalions and soldiers are selected accordingly. An example of this would be the 10 Para (SF) who are also known as Desert Scorpions. The probation period for this unit is three-months and the probationers are selected accordingly for desert warfare. The 9 Para (SF) who specialise in Mountain warfare go through a nine-month course at the Special Forces training centre in Nahan, Himachal Pradesh, which is followed by further specialised selection.This concept of geographical specialisation was eventually modified and each Para (SF) battalion is now trained to operate in various terrains and climatic conditions.