title: C. L. Franklin

text: Among Franklin's most famous sermons were "The Eagle Stirreth Her Nest" and "Dry Bones in the Valley". In 2011, "The Eagle Stirreth Her Nest" was added to the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress. Selected sermons and his life history in his own words are published in a volume edited by Jeff Todd Titon for the University of Illinois Press. Franklin was also known for his singing voice and for mastery of a style of musical preaching traditional in the Black Baptist church called "whooping". In an attempt to limit his audience and popularity, William Branham plagiarized Franklin's famous "The Eagle Stirreth Her Nest" sermon, presenting to white audiences as a composition of his own.


title: C. L. Franklin

text: Franklin also encouraged his daughter Aretha Franklin in her musical endeavors. During the 1950s he took her with him on speaking tours and musical engagements, and formed an a cappella group with Anthony Alexander Chamblee, his first cousin.


title: C. L. Franklin

text: In the 1950s and 1960s, Franklin became involved in the civil rights movement, and worked to end discriminatory practices against black United Auto Workers members in Detroit. Franklin was a friend and supporter of Martin Luther King Jr. He helped to lead Dr. King's freedom march down Woodward Avenue in Detroit in June 1963.


title: C. L. Franklin

text: Shortly after midnight on Sunday, June 10, 1979, Franklin was shot twice at point-blank range during what was believed to have been an attempted robbery at his home on Detroit's West Side. He was taken to Henry Ford Hospital on nearby West Grand Boulevard. He remained in a coma for the next five years.


title: C. L. Franklin

text: The Franklin children moved him back to his house six months after the shooting; he received 24-hour nursing care and remained at home until the middle of 1984. He died on July 27, 1984, aged 69, in Detroit's New Light Nursing Home. Franklin was entombed at Detroit's Woodlawn Cemetery on North Woodward Avenue. Franklin's friend, the Rev. Jasper Williams Jr., of the Salem Bible Church of Atlanta, Georgia, gave the eulogy. Rev. Williams also eulogized Rev. Franklin's daughter, Aretha, in 2018.


title: C. L. Franklin

text: In 2021, he was portrayed by Forest Whitaker in "Respect". He was portrayed by Courtney B. Vance in the anthology series "Genius".


title: C. L. Franklin

text: On October 16, 1934, Franklin married his first wife, Alene Gaines, at the age of 18 and though that marriage had ended by early 1936, the form of dissolution is unconfirmed. On June 3, 1936, Franklin married gospel singer Barbara Siggers, with whom he had four children: Erma (1938–2002), Cecil (1940–1989), Aretha (1942–2018), and Carolyn (1944–1988). As noted by his biographer, Nick Salvatore, Franklin fathered a daughter, Carol Ellan Kelley (née Jennings) (1940–2019), by Mildred Jennings, a 12-year-old member of his congregation. Carol Ellan was born November 17, 1940, during his tenure at New Salem Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee, and was the last of his children to survive him.


title: C. L. Franklin

text: Barbara had a son by a previous relationship, Vaughn (1934–2002), whom C. L. adopted shortly after the marriage. Vaughn did not learn that C. L. Franklin was not his biological father until 1951. When C. L. and Barbara separated (for the last time), Barbara moved with Vaughn to Buffalo, New York, leaving Franklin with the couple's four other children. The couple never divorced. According to biographer Nick Salvatore of Cornell University, Barbara made periodic trips to Detroit to visit her children and they traveled to New York to visit her during summer vacations. Barbara died of a heart attack in 1952 at age 34. Her husband did not attend her funeral.


title: Farro

text: Farro refers to the grains of three wheat species, which are sold dried, and cooked in water until soft. It is eaten plain or is often used as an ingredient in salads, soups, and other dishes.


title: Farro

text: Farro is an ethnobotanical term for three species of hulled wheat: spelt ("Triticum spelta"), emmer ("Triticum dicoccum"), and einkorn ("Triticum monococcum"). Hulled wheat is wheat that cannot be threshed. In Italian cuisine, the three species are sometimes distinguished as "farro grande," "farro medio," and "farro piccolo". In French the three species are sometimes distinguished as "grand épeautre", "moyen épeautre" and "petit épeautre" — being French for spelt.


title: Farro

text: Emmer is by far the most common variety of farro grown in Italy, specifically in certain mountain regions of Tuscany and Abruzzo. It is also considered to be of higher quality for cooking than the other two grains and thus is sometimes called "true" farro. Spelt is much more commonly grown in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.


title: Farro

text: Confusion about the terminology for these three wheat varieties is generated by the difficult history in the taxonomy of wheat and by colloquial and regional uses of the term "farro". For example, emmer grown in the Garfagnana region of Tuscany will be colloquially known as "farro". Also, some English speakers assume "farro" refers to steamed or boiled grain presented as salad and similar dishes rather than to the three grains themselves.


title: Farro

text: Farro is also sometimes inaccurately referred to as "spelt" in English, neglecting the fact that the term refers to all three grains – emmer, einkorn and spelt.


title: Farro

text: The Italian word "farro" derives from the presumed Latin word "farrum", from Standard Latin "far, farris n".: a kind of wheat (as in farina). "Far", in turn, derives from the Indo-European root "*bʰar-es-": (spelt), which also gave rise to the English word barley, Albanian "bar": grass, Old Church Slavonic брашьно ("brašĭno"): flour, and Greek Φήρον ("phḗron"): plant deity.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Pu'er or pu-erh is a variety of fermented tea traditionally produced in Yunnan Province, China. In the context of traditional Chinese tea production terminology, fermentation refers to microbial fermentation (called 'wet piling'), and is typically applied after the tea leaves have been sufficiently dried and rolled. As the tea undergoes controlled microbial fermentation, it also continues to oxidize, which is also controlled, until the desired flavors are reached. This process produces tea known as 黑茶 "hēichá" (lit. 'black tea') (which is different from the English-language "black tea" that is called 红茶 "hóngchá" (lit. 'red tea') in Chinese). Pu'er falls under a larger category of fermented teas commonly translated as "dark teas".


title: Pu'er tea

text: Two main styles of pu'er production exist: a traditional, longer production process known as "shēng" ("raw") pu'er; and a modern, accelerated production process known as "shóu" ("ripe") pu'er. Pu'er traditionally begins with a raw product called "rough" ("máo") "chá" (毛茶, lit. fuzzy/furry tea) and can be sold in this form or pressed into a number of shapes and sold as ""shēng chá" (生茶, lit. raw tea). Both of these forms then undergo the complex process of gradual fermentation and maturation with time. The "wòduī" (渥堆) fermentation process developed in 1973 by the Kunming Tea Factory created a new type of pu'er tea. This process involves an accelerated fermentation into "shóu" (or "shú") "chá" (熟茶, lit. ripe tea) that is then stored loose or pressed into various shapes. The fermentation process was adopted at the Menghai Tea Factory shortly after and technically developed there. The legitimacy of shóu chá is disputed by some traditionalists when compared to the traditionally, longer-aged teas, such as shēng chá.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Pu’er can be stored and permitted to age and to mature, like wine, in non-airtight containers before consumption. This is why it has long been standard practice to label all types of pu’er with the year and region of production.


title: Pu'er tea

text: "Pu'er" is the pinyin romanization of the Mandarin pronunciation of Chinese "Pu-erh" is a variant of the Wade-Giles romanization (properly "p‘u-êrh") of the same name. In Hong Kong the same Chinese characters are read as Bo-lei, and that is therefore a common alternative English term for this tea. The tea got its name from the ancient tea-trading town of Pu'er (普洱), located in today's Ning'er Town (宁洱镇) in Ning'er County, Pu'er prefecture-level city of Yunnan. Pu'er County had its name changed into Simao, after Simao Town, the new county seat in 1950 following the Communist victory. The County of Simao became a prefecture level City and had its name changed to Pu'er in 2007. Although the urban center of the modern Pu'er City remained in Simao, the whole Pu'er region is now sometimes considered the appellation for pu'er proper.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Pu'er (and all tea) terminology varies from language to language. For example, pu-er is known in Chinese as a type of 'dark tea' (heicha) while in Spanish it is considered ‘té rojo’ (red tea) and, conversely, what in Chinese is called 'red tea' (hongcha) is known in Spanish as 'té negro' (black tea).


title: Pu'er tea

text: Fermented tea leaves has a long history among ethnic groups in Southwest China. These crude teas were of various origins and were meant to be low cost. Darkened tea, or "hēichá", is still the major beverage for the ethnic groups in the southwestern borders and, until the early 1990s, was the third major tea category produced by China mainly for this market segment.


title: Pu'er tea

text: There had been no standardized processing for the darkening of "hēichá" until the postwar years in the 1950s, when there was a sudden surge in demand in Hong Kong, perhaps because of the concentration of refugees from the mainland. In the 1970s the improved process was taken back to Yunnan for further development, which has resulted in the various production styles variously referred to as "wòduī" today. This new process produced a finished product in a matter of months that many thought tasted similar to teas aged naturally for 10–15 years and so this period saw a demand-driven boom in the production of "hēichá" by the artificial ripening method.


title: Pu'er tea

text: In recent decades, demand has come full circle and it has become more common again for "hēichá", including pu'er, to be sold as the raw product without the artificial accelerated fermentation process.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Pu'er tea processing, although straightforward, is complicated by the fact that the tea itself falls into two distinct categories: the "raw" shēngchá and the "ripe" shóuchá. All types of pu'er tea are created from "máochá" (毛 茶), a mostly unoxidized green tea processed from "Camellia sinensis" var. "assamica", which is the large leaf type of Chinese tea found in the mountains of southern and western Yunnan (in contrast to the small leaf type of tea used for typical green, oolong, black, and yellow teas found in the other parts of China).


title: Pu'er tea

text: Máochá can be sold directly to market as loose leaf tea, compressed to produce "raw" "shēngchá", naturally aged and matured for several years before being compressed to also produce "raw" "shēngchá" or undergo wòduī ripening for several months prior to being compressed to produce "ripe" "shóuchá". While unaged and unprocessed, Máochá pǔ'ěr is similar to green tea. Two subtle differences worth noting are that pǔ'ěr is not produced from the small-leaf Chinese varietal but the broad-leaf varietal mostly found in the southern Chinese provinces and India. The second is that pǔ'ěr leaves are picked as one bud and 3-4 leaves whilst green tea is picked as one bud and 1-2 leaves. This means that older leaves contribute to the qualities of pǔ'ěr tea.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Ripened or aged raw pǔ'ěr has occasionally been mistakenly categorized as a subcategory of black tea due to the dark red color of its leaves and liquor. However, pǔ'ěr in both its ripened and aged forms has undergone secondary oxidization and fermentation caused both by organisms growing in the tea and free-radical oxidation, thus making it a unique type of tea. This divergence in production style not only makes the flavor and texture of pu'er tea different but also results in a rather different chemical makeup of the resulting brewed liquor.


title: Pu'er tea

text: The fermented dark tea, hēichá (黑茶), is one of the six classes of tea in China, and "pǔ'ěr" is classified as a dark tea (defined as fermented), something which is resented by some who argue for a separate category for "pǔ'ěr" tea. As of 2008, only the large-leaf variety from Yunnan can be called a "pǔ'ěr".


title: Pu'er tea

text: Pu'er is typically made through two steps. First, all leaves must be roughly processed into "maocha" to stop oxidation. From there it may be further processed by fermentation, or directly packaged. Summarising the steps:


title: Pu'er tea

text: The intent of the "máochá " stage (青 毛 茶 or 毛 茶; literally, "light green rough tea" or "rough tea" respectively) is to dry the leaves and keep them from spoiling. It involves minimal processing and there is no fermentation involved.


title: Pu'er tea

text: The first step in making raw or ripened pu'er is picking appropriate tender leaves. Plucked leaves are handled gingerly to prevent bruising and unwanted oxidation. It is optional to wilt/wither the leaves after picking and it depends on the tea processor, as drying occurs at various stages of processing. If so, the leaves would be spread out in the sun, weather permitting, or a ventilated space to wilt and remove some of the water content. On overcast or rainy days, the leaves will be wilted by light heating, a slight difference in processing that will affect the quality of the resulting "maocha" and pu'er.


title: Pu'er tea

text: The leaves are then dry-roasted using a large wok in a process called "killing the green" (殺 青; pinyin: "shā qīng"), which arrests most enzyme activity in the leaf and prevents full oxidation. After pan-roasting, the leaves are rolled, rubbed, and shaped into strands through several steps to lightly bruise the tea and then left to dry in the sun. Unlike green tea produced in China which is dried with hot air after the pan-frying stage to completely kill enzyme activity, leaves used in the production of pu'er are not air-dried after pan-roasting, which leaves a small amount of enzymes which contribute a minor amount of oxidation to the leaves during sun-drying. The bruising of the tea is also important in helping this minimal oxidation to occur, and both of these steps are significant in contributing to the unique characteristics of pu'er tea.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Once dry, "máochá " can be sent directly to the factory to be pressed into raw pu'er, or to undergo further processing to make fermented or ripened pu'er. Sometimes "Mao Cha" is sold directly as loose-leaf "raw" Sheng Cha or it can be matured in loose-leaf form, requiring only two to three years due to the faster rate of natural fermentation in an uncompressed state. This tea is then pressed into numerous shapes and sold as a more matured "raw" Sheng Cha.


title: Pu'er tea

text: To produce pu'er, many additional steps are needed prior to the actual pressing of the tea. First, a specific quantity of dry "máochá" or ripened tea leaves pertaining to the final weight of the "bingcha" is weighed out. The dry tea is then lightly steamed in perforated cans to soften and make it more tacky. This will allow it to hold together and not crumble during compression. A ticket, called a ""nèi fēi"" (内 飞) or additional adornments, such as colored ribbons, are placed on or in the midst of the leaves and inverted into a cloth bag or wrapped in cloth. The pouch of tea is gathered inside the cloth bag and wrung into a ball, with the extra cloth tied or coiled around itself. This coil or knot is what produces the dimpled indentation at the reverse side of a tea cake when pressed. Depending on the shape of the pu'er being produced, a cotton bag may or may not be used. For instance, brick or square teas often are not compressed using bags.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Pressed pu'er is removed from the cloth bag and placed on latticed shelves, where they are allowed to air dry, which may take several weeks or months, depending on the wetness of the pressed cakes. The pu'er cakes are then individually wrapped by hand, and packed.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Pu'er is a microbially fermented tea obtained through the action of molds, bacteria and yeasts on the harvested leaves of the tea plant. It is thus truly a fermented tea, whereas teas known in the west as black teas (known in China as Red teas) have only undergone large-scale oxidation through naturally occurring tea plant enzymes. Mislabelling the oxidation process as fermentation and thus naming black teas, such as Assam, Darjeeling or Keemun, as fermented teas has long been a source of confusion. Only tea such as pu'er, that has undergone microbial processing, can correctly be called a fermented tea.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Pu'er undergoes what is known as a solid-state fermentation where water activity is low to negligible. Both endo-oxidation (enzymes derived from the tea-leaves themselves) and exo-oxidation (microbial catalysed) of tea polyphenols occurs. The microbes are also responsible for metabolising the carbohydrates and amino acids present in the tea leaves. Although the microbes responsible have proved highly variable from region to region and even factory to factory, the key organism found and responsible for almost all pu'er fermentation has been identified in numerous studies as "Aspergillus niger", with some highlighting the possibility of ochratoxins produced by the metabolism of some strains of "A.niger" having a potentially harmful effect through consumption of pu'er tea. This notion has recently been refuted through a systematic chromosome analysis of the species attributed to many East Asian fermentations, including those that involve pu'er, where the authors have reclassified the organisms involved as "Aspergillus luchuensis". It is apparent that this species does not have the gene sequence for coding ochratoxin and thus pu'er tea should be considered safe for human consumption.


title: Pu'er tea

text: "Ripened" Shu Cha (熟茶) tea is pressed "maocha" that has been specially processed to imitate aged "raw" Sheng Cha tea. Although it is also known in English as cooked pu'er, the process does not actually employ cooking to imitate the aging process. The term may be due to inaccurate translation, as "shóu" (熟) means both "fully cooked" and "fully ripened".


title: Pu'er tea

text: The process used to convert "máochá" into ripened pu'er manipulates conditions to approximate the result of the aging process by prolonged bacterial and fungal fermentation in a warm humid environment under controlled conditions, a technique called "Wò Duī" (渥 堆, "wet piling" in English), which involves piling, dampening, and turning the tea leaves in a manner much akin to composting. Studies have shown that the soil suitable for planting Pu'er tea trees is slightly acidic soil with loose soil, deep soil layer, good drainage and ventilation.


title: Pu'er tea

text: The piling, wetting, and mixing of the piled "máochá" ensures even fermentation. The bacterial and fungal cultures found in the fermenting piles were found to vary widely from factory to factory throughout Yunnan, consisting of multiple strains of "Aspergillus" spp., "Penicillium" spp., yeasts, and a wide range of other microflora. Control over the multiple variables in the ripening process, particularly humidity and the growth of "Aspergillus" spp., is key in producing ripened pu'er of high quality. Poor control in fermentation/oxidation process can result in bad ripened pu'er, characterized by badly decomposed leaves and an aroma and texture reminiscent of compost. The ripening process typically takes between 45 and 60 days on average.


title: Pu'er tea

text: The "Wò Duī" process was first developed in 1973 by Menghai Tea Factory and Kunming Tea Factory to imitate the flavor and color of aged raw pu'er, and was an adaptation of wet storage techniques used by merchants to artificially simulate ageing of their teas. Mass production of ripened pu'er began in 1975. It can be consumed without further aging, or it can be stored further to "air out" some of the less savory flavors and aromas acquired during fermentation. The tea is sold both in flattened and loose form. Some tea collectors believe "ripened" Shu Cha should not be aged for more than a decade.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Wet pile fermented pu'er has higher levels of caffeine and much higher levels of gallic acid compared with traditionally aged raw pu'er. Additionally, traditionally aged pu'er has higher levels of the antioxidant and carcinogen-trapping epigallocatechin gallate as well as (+)-catechin, (–)-epicatechin, (–)-epigallocatechin, gallocatechin gallate, and epicatechin gallate than wet pile fermented pu'er. Finally, wet pile fermented puer has much lower total levels for all catechins than traditional pu'er and other teas except for black tea which also has low total catechins.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Aside from vintage year, pu'er tea can be classified in a variety of ways: by shape, processing method, region, cultivation, grade, and season.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Pu'er is compressed into a variety of shapes. Other lesser seen forms include: stacked "melon pagodas", pillars, calabashes, "yuanbao", and small tea bricks (2–5 cm in width). Pu'er is also compressed into the hollow centers of bamboo stems or packed and bound into a ball inside the peel of various citrus fruits ("Xiaoqinggan") or sold as nuggets ("Suiyinzi" 碎银子 or "fossilized tea" 茶化石) or bundles made from tea at the center of wet piles ("Laotoucha" 老头茶).


title: Pu'er tea

text: Pu'er teas are often collectively classified in Western tea markets as post-fermentation, and in Eastern markets as black teas, but there is general confusion due to improper use of the terms "oxidation" and "fermentation". Typically black tea is termed "fully fermented", which is incorrect as the process used to create black tea is oxidation and does not involve microbial activity. Black teas are fully oxidized, green teas are unoxidized, and Oolong teas are partially oxidized to varying degrees.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Ripe pu'er is often described by its multiple layers of aroma: "duiwei" (堆味) or fermented flavour, "cangwei" (仓味) or storage flavour, "xingwei" (腥味) or fish flavour and "meiwei" (霉味) moldy flavour. The storage locations (Yunnan, Canton or Hong Kong) and storing conditions (wet vs dry storage) will result in distinct flavours. The aromas can be annotated as camphora (樟香), ginseng (参香), jujube (枣香), costus (木香), minty (荷香) or very aged (陈香). Raw pu'er is often distinguished by its floral (花香), grassy (草香), fresh (清香), herbal (药香), fruity (水果) or honey（蜜香）aroma.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Some pu'er are flavour infused, for example Sticky rice pu'er ("Nuomixiang", 糯米香) are infused with leaves of Semnostachya menglaensis native to Mengla, which gives it a young rice flavour. Bamboo roasted pu'er is encased in bamboo tubes and underwent a smoking process. Tangerine pu'er ("Xiaoqinggan", 小青柑) were made from small green tangerine stuffed with tea. Flower-infused pu'er are made in the form of tea balls (龙珠) or tea cakes.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Pu'er is produced in almost every county and prefecture in the province. Proper pu'er is sometimes considered to be limited to that produced in Pu'er City.


title: Pu'er tea

text: The best known pu'er areas are the Six Great Tea Mountains (), a group of mountains in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, renowned for their climates and environments, which not only provide excellent growing conditions for pu'er, but also produce unique taste profiles (akin to terroir in wine) in the produced pu'er tea. Over the course of history, the designated mountains for the tea mountains have either been changed or listed differently.


title: Pu'er tea

text: In the Qing dynasty government records for Pu'er (普洱府志), the oldest historically designated mountains were said to be named after six commemorative items left in the mountains by Zhuge Liang, and using the Chinese characters of the native languages (Hani and Tai) of the region. These mountains are all located northeast of the Lancang River (Mekong) in relatively close proximity to one another. The mountains' names, in the Standard Chinese character pronunciation are:


title: Pu'er tea

text: Southwest of the river there are also nine lesser known tea mountains, which are isolated by the river. They are:


title: Pu'er tea

text: For various reasons, around the end of the Qing dynasty and at the beginning of the ROC period (the early twentieth century), tea production in these mountains dropped drastically, either due to large forest fires, overharvesting, prohibitive imperial taxes, or general neglect. To revitalize tea production in the area, the Chinese government in 1962 selected a new group of six great tea mountains that were named based on the more important tea-producing mountains at the time, including Youle mountain from the original six.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Many other areas of Yunnan also produce pu'er tea. Yunnan prefectures that are major producers of pu'er include Lincang, Dehong, Simao, Xishuangbanna, and Wenshan. Other notable tea mountains famous in Yunnan include among others:


title: Pu'er tea

text: Region is only one factor in assessing a pu'er tea, and pu'er from any region of Yunnan can be as prized as any from the Six Great Tea Mountains if it meets other criteria, such as being wild growth, hand-processed tea.


title: Pu'er tea

text: While Yunnan produces the majority of pu'er, other regions of China, including Hunan and Guangdong, have also produced the tea. The Guangyun Gong cake, for example, although the early productions were composed of pure Yunnan "máochá", after the ‘60s the cakes featured a blend of Yunnan and Guangdong "máochá", and the most recent production of these cakes contains mostly from the latter.


title: Pu'er tea

text: In late 2008, the Chinese government approved a standard declaring pu'er tea as a "product with geographical indications", which would restrict the naming of tea as pu'er to tea produced within specific regions of the Yunnan province. The standard has been disputed, particularly by producers from Guangdong. Fermented tea in the pu'er style made outside of Yunnan is often branded as "dark tea" in light of this standard.


title: Pu'er tea

text: In addition to China, border regions touching Yunnan in Vietnam, Laos, and Burma are also known to produce pu'er tea, though little of this makes its way to the Chinese or international markets.


title: Pu'er tea

text: The method of cultivation can have as much of an effect on the final product as region or grade. There are three widely used methods of cultivation for pu'er:


title: Pu'er tea

text: Determining whether or not a tea is wild is a challenging task, made more difficult through the inconsistent and unclear terminology and labeling in Chinese. Terms like "yěshēng" (野 生; literally "wild" or "uncultivated"), "qiáomù" (乔 木; literally "tall tree"), "yěshēng qiáomù" (野 生 乔 木; literally "uncultivated trees"), and "gǔshù" are found on the labels of cakes of both wild and "wild arbor" variety, and on blended cakes, which contain leaves from tea plants of various cultivations. These inconsistent and often misleading labels can easily confuse uninitiated tea buyers regardless of their grasp of the Chinese language. As well, the lack of specific information about tea leaf sources in the printed wrappers and identifiers that come with the pu'er cake makes identification of the tea a difficult task. Pu'er journals and similar annual guides such as "The Profound World of Chi Tse", "Pu-erh Yearbook", and "Pu-erh Teapot Magazine" contain credible sources for leaf information. Tea factories are generally honest about their leaf sources, but someone without access to tea factory or other information is often at the mercy of the middlemen or vendor. Many pu'er aficionados seek out and maintain relationships with vendors who they feel they can trust to help mitigate the issue of finding the "truth" of the leaves.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Even in the best of circumstances, when a journal, factory information, and trustworthy vendor all align to assure a tea's genuinely wild leaf, fakes teas are common and make the issue even more complicated. Because collectors often doubt the reliability of written information, some believe certain physical aspects of the leaf can point to its cultivation. For example, drinkers cite the evidence of a truly wild old tree in a menthol effect ("camphor" in tea specialist terminology) supposedly caused by the Camphor laurel trees that grow amongst wild tea trees in Yunnan's tea forests. As well, the presence of thick veins and sawtooth-edged on the leaves along with camphor flavor elements are taken as signifiers of wild tea.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Pu'er can be sorted into ten or more grades. Generally, grades are determined by leaf size and quality, with higher numbered grades meaning older/larger, broken, or less tender leaves. Grading is rarely consistent between factories, and first grade tea leaves may not necessarily produce first grade cakes. Different grades have different flavors; many bricks blend several grades chosen to balance flavors and strength.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Harvest season also plays an important role in the flavor of pu'er. Spring tea is the most highly valued, followed by fall tea, and finally summer tea. Only rarely is pu'er produced in winter months, and often this is what is called "early spring" tea, as harvest and production follows the weather pattern rather than strict monthly guidelines.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Factories are generally responsible for the production of pu'er teas. While some individuals oversee small-scale production of high-quality tea, such as the Xizihao and Yanqinghao brands, the majority of tea on the market is compressed by factories or tea groups. Until recently factories were all state-owned and under the supervision of the "China National Native Produce & Animal Byproducts Import & Export Corporation" (CNNP), Yunnan Tea Branch. Kunming Tea Factory, Menghai Tea Factory, Pu'er Tea Factory and Xiaguan Tea Factory are the most notable of these state-owned factories. While CNNP still operates today, few factories are state-owned, and CNNP contracts out much production to privately owned factories.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Different tea factories have earned good reputations. Menghai Tea Factory and Xiaguan Tea Factory, which date from the 1940s, have enjoyed good reputations, but in the twenty-first century face competition from many of the newly emerging private factories. For example, Haiwan Tea Factory, founded by former Menghai Factory owner Zhou Bing Liang in 1999, has a good reputation, as do Changtai Tea Group, Mengku Tea Company, and other new tea makers formed in the 1990s. However, due to production inconsistencies and variations in manufacturing techniques, the reputation of a tea company or factory can vary depending on the year or the specific cakes produced during a year.


title: Pu'er tea

text: The producing factory is often the first or second item listed when referencing a pu'er cake, the other being the year of production.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Tea factories, particularly formerly government-owned factories, produce many cakes using recipes for tea blends, indicated by a four-digit "recipe number". The first two digits of recipe numbers represent the year the recipe was first produced, the third digit represents the grade of leaves used in the recipe, and the last digit represents the factory. The number 7542, for example, would denote a recipe from 19"75" using "fourth"-grade tea leaf made by Menghai Tea Factory (represented by "2").


title: Pu'er tea

text: Tea of all shapes can be made by numbered recipe. Not all recipes are numbered, and not all cakes are made by recipe. The term "recipe," it should be added, does not always indicate consistency, as the quality of some recipes change from year-to-year, as do the contents of the cake. Perhaps only the factories producing the recipes really know what makes them consistent enough to label by these numbers.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Occasionally, a three digit code is attached to the recipe number by hyphenation. The first digit of this code represents the year the cake was produced, and the other two numbers indicate the production number within that year. For instance, the seven digit sequence "8653-602", would indicate the "second" production in 200"6" of factory recipe 8653. Some productions of cakes are valued over others because production numbers can indicate if a tea was produced earlier or later in a season/year. This information allows one to be able to single out tea cakes produced using a better batch of "máochá".


title: Pu'er tea

text: Pu'er tea is specially packaged for trade, identification, and storage. These attributes are used by tea drinkers and collectors to determine the authenticity of the pu'er tea.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Recently, "nèi fēi" have become more important in identifying and preventing counterfeits. Menghai Tea Factory in particular has begun microprinting and embossing their tickets in an effort to curb the growth of counterfeit teas found in the marketplace in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Some "nèi fēi" also include vintage year and are production-specific to help identify the cake and prevent counterfeiting through a surfeit of different brand labels.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Counterfeit pu'er is common. The practices include claiming the tea is older than it actually is, misidentifying the origin of the leaf as Yunnan instead of a non-Yunnan region, labeling terrace tea as forest tea, and selling green tea instead of raw pu'er. The interpretation of the packing of pu'er is usually dependent on the consumer's knowledge and negotiation between the consumer and trader.


title: Pu'er tea

text: When bought in large quantities, pu'er tea is generally sold in stacks, referred to as a "tǒng" (筒), which are wrapped in bamboo shoot husks, bamboo stem husks, or coarse paper. Some tongs of vintage pu'er will contain a "tǒng piào" (筒 票), or tong ticket, but it is less common to find them in productions past the year 2000. The number of "bǐngchá" in a "tǒng" varies depending on the weight of individual "bǐngchá". For instance one "tǒng" can contain:


title: Pu'er tea

text: Twelve "tǒng" are referred to as being one "jiàn" (件), although some producers/factories vary how many "tǒng" equal one "jiàn". A "jiàn" of tea, which is bound together in a loose bamboo basket, will usually have a large "batch ticket" (大 票; pinyin: "dàpiào") affixed to its side that will indicate information such as the batch number of the tea in a season, the production quantities, tea type, and the factory where it was produced.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Pu'er teas of all varieties, shapes, and cultivation can be aged to improve their flavor, but the tea's physical properties will affect the speed of aging as well as its quality. These properties include:


title: Pu'er tea

text: Just as important as the tea's properties, environmental factors for the tea's storage also affect how quickly and successfully a tea ages. They include:


title: Pu'er tea

text: When preserved as part of a "tong", the material of the "tong" wrapper, whether it is made of bamboo shoot husks, bamboo leaves, or thick paper, can also affect the quality of the aging process. The packaging methods change the environmental factors and may even contribute to the taste of the tea itself.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Age is not the sole factor in determining pu'er quality. Similar to aging wine, the tea reaches a peak with age and can degrade in quality afterwards. Due to the many recipes and different processing methods used in the production of different batches of pu'er, the optimal age for each tea will vary. Some may take 10 years while others 20 or 30+ years. It is important to check the status of ageing for your teacakes to know when they have peaked so that proper care can be given to halt the ageing process.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Over time, raw pu'er acquires an earthy flavor due to slow oxidation and other, possibly microbial processes. However, this oxidation is not analogous to the oxidation that results in green, oolong, or black tea, because the process is not catalyzed by the plant's own enzymes but rather by fungal, bacterial, or autooxidation influences. Pu'er flavors can change dramatically over the course of the aging process, resulting in a brew tasting strongly earthy but clean and smooth, reminiscent of the smell of rich garden soil or an autumn leaf pile, sometimes with roasted or sweet undertones. Because of its ability to age without losing "quality", well aged good pu'er gains value over time in the same way that aged roasted oolong does.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Raw pu'er can undergo "wet storage" ("shīcāng", 湿仓) and "dry storage" ("gāncāng" 干仓), with teas that have undergone the latter ageing more slowly, but thought to show more complexity. Dry storage involves keeping the tea in "comfortable" temperature and humidity, thus allowing the tea to age slowly. Wet or "humid" storage refers to the storage of pu'er tea in humid environments, such as those found naturally in Hong Kong, Guangzhou and, to a lesser extent, Taiwan.


title: Pu'er tea

text: The practice of "Pen Shui" 喷 水 involves spraying the tea with water and allowing it dry off in a humid environment. This process speeds up oxidation and microbial conversion, which only loosely mimics the quality of natural dry storage aged pu'er. "Pen Shui" 喷 水 pu'er not only does not acquire the nuances of slow aging, it can also be hazardous to drink because of mold, yeast, and bacteria cultures.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Pu'er properly stored in different environments can develop different tastes at different rates due to environmental differences in ambient humidity, temperature, and odors. For instance, similar batches of pu'er stored in the different environments of Yunnan, Guangzhou and Hong Kong are known to age very differently. Because the process of aging pu'er is lengthy, and teas may change owners several times, a batch of pu'er may undergo different aging conditions, even swapping wet and dry storage conditions, which can drastically alter its flavor. Raw pu'er can be ruined by storage at very high temperatures, or exposure to direct contact with sunlight, heavy air flow, liquid water, or unpleasant smells.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Although low to moderate air flow is important for producing a good-quality aged raw pu'er, it is generally agreed by most collectors and connoisseurs that raw pu'er tea cakes older than 30 years should not be further exposed to "open" air since it would result in the loss of flavors or degradation in mouthfeel. The tea should instead be preserved by wrapping or hermetically sealing it in plastic wrapping or ideally glass.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Since the ripening process was developed to imitate aged raw pu'er, many arguments surround the idea of whether aging ripened pu'er is desirable. Mostly, the issue rests on whether aging ripened pu'er will, for better or worse, alter the flavor of the tea.


title: Pu'er tea

text: It is often recommended to age ripened pu'er to air out the unpleasant musty flavors and odors formed due to maocha fermentation. However, some collectors argue that keeping ripened pu'er longer than 10 to 15 years makes little sense, stating that the tea will not develop further and possibly lose its desirable flavors. Others note that their experience has taught them that ripened pu'er indeed does take on nuances through aging, and point to side-by-side taste comparisons of ripened pu'er of different ages. Aging the tea increases its value, but may be unprofitable.


title: Pu'er tea

text: The common misconception is that all types of pu'er tea will improve in taste—and therefore gain in value—as they get older. Many different factors play into what makes a tea ideal for aging and the aging process itself. Further, ripe (shu) pu'er will not evolve as dramatically as raw (sheng) pu'er will over time due to secondary oxidation and fermentation.


title: Pu'er tea

text: As with aging wine, only finely made and properly stored teas will improve and increase in value. Similarly, only a small percentage of teas will improve over a long period of time.


title: Pu'er tea

text: From 2008 Pu'er prices dropped dramatically. Investment-grade Pu'er did not drop as much as the more common varieties. Many producers made large losses, and some decided to leave the industry altogether.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Preparation of "pu'er" involves first separating a portion of the compressed tea for brewing. This can be done by flaking off pieces of the cake or by steaming the entire cake until it is soft from heat and hydration. A "pu'erh knife", which is similar to an oyster knife or a rigid letter opener, is used to pry large horizontal flakes of tea off the cake to minimize leaf breakage. Smaller cakes such as "tuocha" or mushroom "pu'erh" are often steamed until they can be rubbed apart and then dried. In both cases, a vertical sampling of the cake should be obtained since the quality of the leaves in a cake usually varies between the surface and the center.


title: Pu'er tea

text: "Pu'erh" is commonly brewed in the Gongfu style using "Yixing teaware" or a gaiwan, a Chinese brewing vessel consisting of bowl, lid, and saucer. Optimum water temperatures are generally regarded to be in the range of 85-99 °C depending on the quality and processing of the "pu'erh". The leaves are traditionally given one or more "rinses" before the first infusion, involving exposing them to hot water for 2–5 seconds and subsequently discarding the extract produced. This is done to saturate the leaf with water and allow it to decompress, as well as remove any small leaf particles that could adversely affect the outcome of the first infusion. The first infusion is steeped for 12 to 30 seconds, followed by later infusions repeatedly increasing by 2–10 seconds. The prolonged steeping sometimes used in the west can produce dark, bitter, and unpleasant brews. Quality aged "pu'erh" can yield many more infusions, with different flavor nuances when brewed in the traditional Gongfu method.


title: Pu'er tea

text: Because of the prolonged fermentation in ripened "pu'erh" and slow oxidization of aged raw "pu'erh", these teas often lack the bitter, astringent properties of other teas, and can be brewed much stronger and repeatedly, with some claiming 20 or more infusions of tea from one pot of leaves. On the other hand, young raw "pu'erh" is known and expected to be strong and aromatic, yet very bitter and somewhat astringent when brewed, since these characteristics are believed to produce better aged raw "pu'erh".


title: Pu'er tea

text: Quality of the tea can be determined through inspecting the dried leaves, the tea liquor, or the spent tea leaves. The "true" quality of a specific batch of "pu'erh" can ultimately only be revealed when the tea is brewed and tasted. Although not concrete and sometimes dependent on preference, there are several general indicators of quality:


title: Pu'er tea

text: In Cantonese, the tea is called "po-lay" (). It is often drunk during dim sum meals, as it is believed to help with digestion. It is not uncommon to add dried osmanthus flowers, pomelo rinds, or chrysanthemum flowers into brewing pu'er tea in order to add a light, fresh fragrance to the tea liquor. Pu'er with chrysanthemum is the most common pairing, and referred as "guk pou" or "guk bou" (菊 普; ; pinyin: jú pǔ).


title: Guilty Gear Strive

text: "Guilty Gear Strive" received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised its visuals, gameplay and netcode, and has sold over one million units as of August 2022.


title: Guilty Gear Strive

text: Intended as a "complete reconstruction of the franchise", "Guilty Gear Strive" retains the core essence of the series but revamps many features and mechanics, except for the removal of the series’ signature mechanic, the Instant Kill. It introduces the "Wall Break" feature, which allows for stage transitions when a combo is initiated in the corner of the arena.


title: Guilty Gear Strive

text: The story continues after the events of "Guilty Gear Xrd". It is the conclusion of Sol Badguy's story (A.K.A. The Gear Hunters Saga), set in Washington, D.C., United States of America and featuring his final confrontation with That Man, Asuka R. Kreutz.


title: Guilty Gear Strive

text: Three weeks after the events of Guilty Gear Xrd, I-No frees the powerful magic-user Happy Chaos from the body of former Sanctus Populi, Ariels, who is imprisoned inside a special holding cell in Illyria. Chaos notes that she is physically incapable of feeling desire, then offers to help her find her “other half” so he can enjoy some drama. Asuka turns himself in to the US president Colin Vernon E. Groubitz, intending to join the White House's G4 peace summit from a holding cell and ask the other nations for assistance in ridding the world of the Tome of Origin and Sol Badguy. The world's leaders fear an attack from I-No and hire knights from each country, including Sol Badguy, now the world's renowned Gear hero who remains a bounty hunter. Sol and his second lover, Jack-O', plan to refuse, but accept after noting Ariels' warning about I-No and Chaos' plot. After releasing and brainwashing the samurai, Nagoriyuki at an Illyrian town, I-No dares Axl Low to erase her, then surrenders herself to the Illyria police, convincing the world that it is safe to hold the summit. However, Sol and Jack-O notice something wrong and chase Chaos, assisted by Chipp Zanuff and Anji Mito, but are stopped by Nagoriyuki and Chaos' eerie nature, but also that Chaos created weapons from materials from Nagorriyuki's blade which can kill Gears and other immortals beings. During an interrogation, I-No says she remembers a kind blonde man but thinks the memory never happened and asks if Jack-O' will ever find her "place" in the world. In private, Jack-O' reveals to Sol and Ky Kiske that I-No is "incomplete" and needs to join with her other half to achieve godhood. She suggests sacrificing herself to turn I-No into a regular human, but Sol refuses to entertain the thought.


title: Guilty Gear Strive

text: Realizing something will happen at G4, Sol leaves for the US with the third Illyrian King Daryl, while former assassins turned leaders of reformed groups Milla Rage and Zato-1 are enlisted by Daryl to accompany the second Illyrian King Leo Whitefang in investigating the mysteries within the White House, then Ky and Jack-O' depart on an airship when the summit occurs. Chaos brainwashes the White House guards and holds the dignitaries such as Daryl hostage, though Sol and Vernon, the only ones who can open Asuka's cell, manage to escape and request reinforcements from other allied forces like Zepp and Illyria. After Chaos activated the White House's aircraft mode called "Tír na nÓg" mode, Asuka realizes Chaos is "the original," the man responsible for bringing magic to the world and Asuka's former teacher. After learning what Chaos will do with the Tome, Daryl manages to convince the fallen sorcerer to release him and the rest of the dignitaries barring Vernon, Sol, and Asuka, including US' surviving agent, Giovanna. Shortly, Chipp and Anji sneak into the Department of Defense to confirm their allies of Chaos' other identity as another That Man, and the true culprit who had been orchestrated the ongoing Crusaders since Asuka's initial firing, then theorize that Chaos intends to fly the White House into Mexico, where it will be shot down, so Chaos can dig the Tome out of the ashes. Sol confronts Nagoriyuki in an attempt to learn Chaos' weakness, but Nagoriyuki lets himself be defeated and frees from Chaos' control, and Sol learns nothing. Asuka tricks Chaos into locking himself in an escape pod and ejecting him onto the Earth below.


title: Guilty Gear Strive

text: Ky and Jack-O' arrive at the White House, where Asuka reveals he intends to take the Tome and spend the rest of his life on the moon. Though he was believed to prepare to kill Sol, it turns out that Asuka plan to remove the Flame of Corruption from Sol's body, allowing Sol to live a normal life in low profile as a regular scientist "Frederick Bulsara", and reconcile their friendships. Soldiers on the ground find that the "Chaos" in the escape pod is a brainwashed guard, and the real Chaos is still on the ship. Chaos steals the real Tome from Asuka's body and uses it to fuse with I-No, granting her godhood. I-No easily defeats the heroes and announces her intent to share her powers with the world, likely destroying it. Jack-O' attempts to sacrifice herself to stop I-No, but Sol prevents her on behalf of Aria's spirit to move on. Ky and Axl distract I-No while Vernon and Sol use the pack of Spiritas 48 from White House's president room to strengthen his Outrage sword into a laser cannon. Nagoriyuki reveals Chaos' true weakness is on his left palm and helps Sol get a powered-up shot on her, killing I-No. In her last moments, I-No realizes Axl was the blonde man from her past and dies happy having finally realized what she wanted in life. In the aftermath, "Sol" is given a funeral, having retired as a scientist under his original name, Frederick with Jack-O' and building a rocket to visit Asuka, who now hosts a radio show. Axl reunites with Megumi, his lover from the past and I-No's alternate past-self, implied to have received time travel abilities from her fallen future counterpart. A montage shows the fates of various Guilty Gear characters. In a post-credits scene, Chaos appears alone on an unknown beach.


title: Guilty Gear Strive

text: While the incident in America triggered by Asuka R. Kreutz’s surrender unfolds, Ramlethal Valentine, now a Special Brigade Commander of Illyria heads to the outskirts of the country after receiving a report of an emergency. There she finds a girl who closely resembles the late-Bedman, who once worked with the possessed Universal Will/Ariels against mankind. That girl is Delilah, Bedman's twin sister who woke up after the death of her brother, now seeking to avenge her late brother on Happy Chaos. As a one-eyed and one-armed samurai woman named Baiken learned from Anji and Chipp about who Happy Chaos was, including his involvement on murdering her family, she was entrusted to look over Delilah by Anji, much to her dismay. However, the young girl ran away from Baiken, when Chaos activated the Tir na nog mode of the White House during his invasion there.


title: Guilty Gear Strive

text: While Baiken got an unexpected reinforcement from Ramlethal, Ky Kiske and Dizzy’s son, who is also Sol Badguy’s alleged grandson, Sin is now a knight of Illyria who accompanies Ramlethal on her mission, while still retaining his royal status because of his parents’ current reputations. Baiken, Sin and Ramlethal enlists Faust, May and April to assist them stopping Delilah from endangering herself, because her power is unstable and would turn her into a suicide bomber, similar to Antimatter Gears. With the help of Bedman, whose soul now lives in his weaponized bed, Faust is able to administer a cure to permanently negate Delilah’s self destruct power. Although it cost Bedman’s final sacrifice, and Faust’s health to a weaker state.


title: Guilty Gear Strive

text: Sometimes after the White House incident ended, the G4 World Peace summit succeeds, and Delilah is now cured, the Kiske main family members (Ky, Dizzy and Sin) greets the people of Illyria during an official peaceful ceremony.


title: Guilty Gear Strive

text: The game features fifteen playable characters in its base roster. Sol Badguy, Ky Kiske, May, Axl Low, Chipp Zanuff, Potemkin, Faust, Millia Rage, Zato-1, Ramlethal Valentine, Leo Whitefang, Anji Mito and I-No return from previous installments, while two new characters make their debut: these are Nagoriyuki, a Nightless vampire samurai who can drain opponents of their blood to increase his attack power, and Giovanna, a special operations unit officer who is accompanied by her wolf spirit, Rei.


title: Guilty Gear Strive

text: More characters are planned for release as downloadable content, with five announced for Season Pass 1 on June 6, 2021, and four announced for Season Pass 2 on August 7, 2022. The first Season Pass 1 fighter, released on July 27, 2021, is Goldlewis Dickinson, the right-hand man of U.S. President Colin Vernon E. Groubitz, who fights alongside an alien spirit-filled coffin codenamed "Area 51 U.M.A.". The second fighter, released on August 27, 2021, is Jack-O', who debuted in "Xrd". The third fighter, released on November 30, 2021, is the overarching antagonist of the series who was formally introduced in "Strive", Happy Chaos. The fourth fighter, released on January 28, 2022, is Baiken, who debuted in the original "Guilty Gear" and returns as a DLC fighter from "Rev 2". The last fighter for Season Pass 1 was revealed to be Testament, whose last appearance was in "X2", released on March 31, 2022.


title: Guilty Gear Strive

text: The first Season Pass 2 fighter, announced on August 7, 2022 is Bridget, whose last appearance was in "X2"; the character was then released the day after on August 8, 2022. The second fighter, released on November 24, 2022, is Sin Kiske, who debuted in the second game "Overture".


title: Guilty Gear Strive

text: After a new installment in the "Guilty Gear" series was confirmed to be in development at EVO 2018 by Arc System Works, the game had its worldwide reveal and announcement trailer under the working title "New Guilty Gear", showcasing the new Unreal Engine 4 graphics and Wall Break mechanic in EVO 2019. Two days later, the game's main theme song, "Smell of the Game", was fully revealed as a promotional single. The title "Guilty Gear Strive" was revealed in a trailer in November 2019.


title: Guilty Gear Strive

text: According to director Akira Katano, the team aimed to appeal to more players by making the gameplay of "Strive" easier to comprehend compared to previous "Guilty Gear" games, instead of making it easier. He reasoned that with many fighting games, spectators and casual players would have a hard time understanding higher level play and lose interest in watching or improving. Unlike other entries, detailed explanations of the game's mechanics are absent from the game's tutorial as to "[...] show new players that it is possible to enjoy fighting games without knowing about the battle mechanics [...]". The game's network play also does not include a Ranked Mode, a gameplay mode in videogames that match players based on their skill level, measured by matches won, as to not force players to constantly improve against more skilled opponents and to play at their own pace.


title: Guilty Gear Strive

text: The game was delayed in May 2020 to an unspecified 2021 release date due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. After its first public beta went live during February 2021, the game was delayed from April 9, 2021, to June 11, with the development team citing adjustments to certain aspects of the game based on fan feedback for the reason behind its second delay. A second public beta was held during May 2021 to gather additional feedback.


title: Guilty Gear Strive

text: The game was initially planned to be available at Japanese arcades on the same day as the home versions. In June 2021, Arc System Works has announced that the arcade release would be delayed, as testing the game on store locations proved difficult during the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Guilty Gear Strive

text: "Guilty Gear Strive" released for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Microsoft Windows on June 11, 2021. It was also distributed via Sega to Japanese arcades on July 29, 2021. "Limited Edition" and "Ultimate Edition" editions were made available for pre-order; console players who get the latter received early access to the full game on June 8, 2021. Cross-platform play was only supported between the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 versions at launch. Cross-play with the Windows version is set to be added as an update alongside the Season Pass 2. Ver. 1.05 added Korean voices, marking the 3rd game in the franchise to have a Korean dub, alongside "Guilty Gear X Plus" and "Guilty Gear X2 #Reload". The versions for Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S were announced at Tokyo Game Show 2022, and are set to be released in Q2 2023.


title: Guilty Gear Strive

text: "Guilty Gear Strive" received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic. "IGN" said ""Guilty Gear Strive" is a milestone 2D fighting game that raises the bar for anime-like fighters in terms of its visuals, online netcode, and sheer creativity found in all aspects of its design." "GameSpot" said "If you're up for a challenge, or just want a cool, sharp-looking fighting game to mess around with, "Strive" knows all the right moves."


title: Guilty Gear Strive

text: The PlayStation 4 version of "Guilty Gear: Strive" sold 11,722 physical copies during its first week of release in Japan, making it the eighth bestselling retail game of the week in the country. During the same week, the PlayStation 5 version was the twenty-second bestselling retail game in Japan, with 3,547 physical copies being sold.


title: Guilty Gear Strive

text: The game entered the UK physical charts at number 26. On Steam, the number of concurrent players reached a peak of 30,939, surpassing both "Street Fighter V" and "Tekken 7".


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: The Iran–Israel proxy conflict, also known as the Iran–Israel proxy war or Iran–Israel Cold War, is an ongoing proxy war between Iran and Israel. The conflict involves threats and hostility by Iran's leaders against Israel, and their declared objective to dissolve the Jewish state. Iran has provided funding, weapons, and training to groups including Lebanese Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), which have vowed and carried out attacks on Israel, and which have been designated terrorist organisations by many countries. Because of Iran's hostility to Israel, Israel is also concerned by Iran's nuclear weapons program and missile program, and is seeking to downgrade Iran's allies and proxies, as well as preventing Iranian entrenchment in Syria, another sworn enemy of Israel.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: Iran's hostility towards Israel followed the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and expanded into covert Iranian support of Hezbollah during the South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000) and by 2005 developed into a proxy regional conflict. In 2006, Iran was actively involved in supporting Hezbollah during the 2006 Lebanon War and in parallel began supporting Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), especially in the Gaza Strip. Israel, on the other hand, initiated a campaign to harm the Iranian nuclear program, utilizing several anti-regime militias within Iran. Upon the onset of the Syrian Civil War, the conflict escalated and by 2018 turned into direct Iranian-Israeli warfare.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: Israel, in turn, opposes Iran's nuclear program, and maintains ties with other rivals of Iran such as Saudi Arabia and the United States. The involvement of both countries in the Syrian Civil War creates possibilities for direct conflict between the two countries. Israel has supported and conducted assassinations and attacks against Iranian targets directly. Israel has also conducted cyber warfare against Iran, and has publicly advocated for international military action against Iran.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: Israel has accused Iran of attempting to form a continuous land transport route from Iran via Iraq and Syria into Lebanon, which Israel views as a significant strategic threat. Iranian leaders have described Israel as an illegitimate "Zionist regime" and have accused Israel of being an American client state hostile to Muslims.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: Ruhollah Khomeini was critical of Israel before he became Iran's Supreme Leader in 1979. He criticized the Pahlavi dynasty Iran's ties with Israel, viewing Israel as a supporter of the Pahlavi regime. Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Khomeini's new government adopted a policy of hostility towards Israel. Iran withdrew recognition of Israel as a state, and severed all diplomatic, commercial and other ties with Israel, referring to its government as the "Zionist regime" and Israel as "occupied Palestine".


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: Despite the tension between the two countries, Israel provided support to Iran during the Iran–Iraq War from 1980 to 1988. During the 8 years war, Israel was one of the main suppliers of military equipment to Iran. Israel also provided military instructors during the war and direct support to Iran's war effort, when it bombed and destroyed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor, during Operation Babylon. The nuclear reactor was considered a central component of Iraq's nuclear weapons program.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: The 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon resulted in the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) departure from Lebanon. The following creation of Security Zone in South Lebanon has benefited Israeli allies in Lebanon and civilian Israeli population, as Galilee suffered less violent attacks by Hezbollah, than previously by PLO in the 1970s (hundreds of Israeli civilian casualties). Despite this Israeli success in eradicating PLO bases and partial withdraw in 1985, the Israeli invasion had actually increased the severity of conflict with local Lebanese militias and resulted in the consolidation of several local Shia Muslim movements in Lebanon, including Hezbollah and Amal, from a previously unorganized guerrilla movement in the south. Over the years, military casualties of both sides grew higher, as both parties used more modern weaponry, and Hezbollah progressed in its tactics.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: Iran supplied the militant organization Hezbollah with substantial amounts of financial, training, weapons, explosives, political, diplomatic, and organizational aid while persuading Hezbollah to take an action against Israel. Hezbollah's 1985 manifesto listed its four main goals as "Israel's final departure from Lebanon as a prelude to its final obliteration" According to reports released in February 2010, Hezbollah received $400 million from Iran. By the early 1990s, Hezbollah, with support from Syria and Iran, emerged as the leading group and military power, monopolizing the directorship of the guerrilla activity in South Lebanon.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: In January 2014, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Iran's nuclear program would only be set back six weeks as a result of its interim agreement with the international community.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: In one of the region's oddest pairings, Israel and the Gulf Arab states led by Saudi Arabia increasingly are finding common ground — and a common political language — on their mutual dismay over the prospect of a nuclear deal in Geneva that could curb Tehran's atomic program but leave the main elements intact, such as uranium enrichment. In June 2017, former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon stated that "We and the Arabs, the same Arabs who organized in a coalition in the Six-Day War to try to destroy the Jewish state, today find themselves in the same boat with us ... The Sunni Arab countries, apart from Qatar, are largely in the same boat with us since we all see a nuclear Iran as the number one threat against all of us".


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: With the election of Iranian hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005, relations between Iran and Israel became increasingly tense as the countries engaged in a series of proxy conflicts and covert operations against each other.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: During the 2006 Lebanon War, Iranian Revolutionary Guards were believed to have directly assisted Hezbollah fighters in their attacks on Israel. Multiple sources suggested that hundreds of Revolutionary Guard operatives participated in the firing of rockets into Israel during the war, and secured Hezbollah's long-range missiles. Revolutionary Guard operatives were allegedly seen operating openly at Hezbollah outposts during the war. In addition, Revolutionary Guard operatives were alleged to have supervised Hezbollah's attack on the INS "Hanit" with a C-802 anti-ship missile. The attack severely damaged the warship and killed four crewmen. It is alleged that between six and nine Revolutionary Guard operatives were killed by the Israeli military during the war According to the Israeli media their bodies were transferred to Syria and from there, flown to Tehran. On 6 September 2007, the Israeli Air Force destroyed a suspected nuclear reactor in Syria, with ten North Koreans reportedly killed.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: During and immediately after the Gaza War, the Israeli Air Force, with the assistance of Israeli commandos, was reported to have allegedly carried out three airstrikes against Iranian arms being smuggled to Hamas through Sudan, as Iran launched an intensive effort to supply Hamas with weapons and ammunition. Israel hinted that it was behind the attacks. Two truck convoys were destroyed, and an arms-laden ship was sunk in the Red Sea.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: On 4 November 2009, Israel captured a ship in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and its cargo of hundreds of tons of weapons allegedly bound from Iran to Hezbollah.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: In 2010, a wave of assassinations targeting Iranian nuclear scientists began. The assassinations were widely believed to be the work of Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence service. According to Iran and global media sources, the methods used to kill the scientists is reminiscent of the way Mossad had previously assassinated targets. The assassinations were alleged to be an attempt to stop Iran's nuclear program, or to ensure that it cannot recover following a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. In the first attack, particle physicist Masoud Alimohammadi was killed on 12 January 2010 when a booby-trapped motorcycle parked near his car exploded. On 12 October 2010, an explosion occurred at an IRGC military base near the city of Khorramabad, killing 18 soldiers. On 29 November 2010, two senior Iranian nuclear scientists, Majid Shahriari and Fereydoon Abbasi, were targeted by hitmen on motorcycles, who attached bombs to their cars and detonated them from a distance. Shahriari was killed, while Abbasi was severely wounded. On 23 July 2011, Darioush Rezaeinejad was shot dead in eastern Tehran. On 11 January 2012, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan and his driver were killed by a bomb attached to their car from a motorcycle.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: In June 2010 Stuxnet, an advanced computer worm was discovered. It is believed that it had been developed by US and Israel to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. In a study conducted by ISIS it is estimated that Stuxnet might have damaged as many as 1,000 centrifuges (10% of all installed) in the Natanz enrichment plant. Other computer viruses and malware, including Duqu and Flame, were reportedly related to Stuxnet. Iran claims that its adversaries regularly engineer sales of faulty equipment and attacks by computer viruses to sabotage its nuclear program.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: On 15 March 2011, Israel seized a ship from Syria bringing Iranian weapons to Gaza. In addition, the Mossad was also suspected of being responsible for an explosion that reportedly damaged the nuclear facility at Isfahan. Iran denied that any explosion had occurred, but "The Times" reported damage to the nuclear plant based on satellite images, and quoted Israeli intelligence sources as saying that the blast indeed targeted a nuclear site, and was "no accident". Hours after the blast took place, Hezbollah fired two rockets into northern Israel. The Israel Defense Forces reacted by firing four artillery shells at the area from where the launch originated. It was speculated that the attack was ordered by Iran and Syria as a warning to Israel. The Israeli attack was reported to have killed 7 people, including foreign nationals. Another 12 people were injured, of whom 7 later died in hospital.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: The Mossad was suspected of being behind an explosion at a Revolutionary Guard missile base in November 2011. The blast killed 17 Revolutionary Guard operatives, including General Hassan Moqaddam, described as a key figure in Iran's missile program. Israeli journalist Ron Ben-Yishai wrote that several lower-ranked Iranian missile experts had probably been previously killed in several explosions at various sites.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: In response to Israeli covert operations, Iranian agents reportedly began trying to hit Israeli and Jewish targets; potential targets were then placed on high alert. Yoram Cohen, the head of Shin Bet, claimed that three planned attacks in Turkey, Azerbaijan and Thailand were thwarted at the last minute. On 11 October 2011, the United States claimed to have foiled an alleged Iranian plot that included bombing the Israeli and Saudi embassies in Washington DC and Buenos Aires.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: On 13 February 2012, Israeli embassy staff in Georgia and India were targeted. In Georgia, a car bomb failed to explode near the embassy and was safely detonated by Georgian police. In India, the car bomb exploded, injuring four people. Amongst the wounded was the wife of an Israeli Defense Ministry employee. Israel accused Iran of being behind the attacks. The following day, three alleged Iranian agents were uncovered in Bangkok, Thailand, thought to have been planning to kill Israeli diplomatic officials, including the ambassador, by attaching bombs to embassy cars. The cell was uncovered when one of their bombs exploded. Police responded, and the Iranian agent present at the house threw an explosive device at officers that tore his legs off, and was subsequently taken into custody. A second suspect was arrested as he tried to catch a flight out of the country, and the third escaped to Malaysia, where he was arrested by Royal Malaysian Police. Thai police subsequently arrested two people suspected of involvement. Indian police arrested a Delhi-based journalist in connection with February's car bomb, which injured four Israelis including the wife of an Israeli diplomat. Syed Mohammed Kazmi the journalist was arrested on 6 March 2012, he is said to have been in contact with a suspect police believe might have stuck a magnetic bomb to the diplomat's car. It is said Kazmi was an Indian citizen who worked for an Iranian publication.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: In late February 2012, WikiLeaks published confidential emails from Stratfor, a US-based private intelligence company, which were stolen by the hacking group Anonymous. Among the information released was a claim that Israeli commandos, in collaboration with Kurdish fighters, destroyed several underground Iranian facilities used for nuclear and defense research projects.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: On 18 July 2012, a bus carrying Israeli tourists in Bulgaria was destroyed in a bombing attack that killed five Israeli tourists and the Bulgarian driver, and injured 32 people. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Iran and Hezbollah for the attack. In July 2012, a senior Israeli defense official stated that since May 2011, more than 20 terrorist attacks planned by Iranians or suspected Hezbollah agents against Israeli targets worldwide had been foiled, including in South Africa, Azerbaijan, Kenya, Turkey, Thailand, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Nepal, Nigeria, and Peru, and that Iranian and Hezbollah operatives were incarcerated in jails throughout the world.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: On 6 October 2012, Israeli airplanes shot down a small UAV as it flew over northern Negev. Hezbollah confirmed it sent the drone and Nasrallah said in a televised speech that the drone's parts were manufactured in Iran.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: On 24 October 2012, Sudan claimed that Israel had bombed a munitions factory, allegedly belonging to Iran's Revolutionary Guard, south of Khartoum.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: In November 2012, Israel reported that an Iranian ship was being loaded with rockets to be exported to countries within range of Israel and that Israel "will attack and destroy any shipment of arms".


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: In January 2013, rumors were released that the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant had been hit by an explosion. Further reports by IAEA concluded that there had been no such incident.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: On 25 April 2013, Israeli aircraft shot down a drone off the coast of Haifa, allegedly belonging to Hezbollah.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: On 7 May 2013, residents of Tehran reported hearing three blasts in an area where Iran maintains its missile research and depots. Later, an Iranian website said the blasts occurred at a privately owned chemical factory.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: On 10 December, Hamas announced that they have resumed ties with Iran after a brief cut off over the Syrian conflict


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: A court in Jerusalem has sentenced an Israeli man, Yitzhak Bergel to four-and-a-half years in prison for offering to spy for Iran. Bergel belongs to the anti-Zionist Neturei Karta, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect which is vehemently opposed to the State of Israel's existence.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: On 5 March 2014, the Israeli navy intercepted the Klos-C cargo ship. Israel stated Iran was using the vessel to smuggle dozens of long-range rockets to Gaza, including Syrian-manufactured M-302 rockets. The operation, named "Full Disclosure" and carried out by Shayetet 13 special forces, took place in the Red Sea, 1,500 kilometers away from Israel and some 160 kilometers from Port Sudan.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: Iranian state media reported that on 24 August 2014, IRGC had shot down an Israeli drone near Natanz fuel enrichment plant. Israeli military did not comment on the reports.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: Two workers were killed in an explosion that took place at a military explosives factory southeast of Tehran, near the suspected nuclear reactor in Parchin. In what seemed to be a response ordered by Iran, Hezbollah set off an explosive device on the border between Lebanon and the Israeli-controlled side of the Shebaa farms, wounding two Israeli soldiers. Israel responded with artillery fire toward two Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: It was reported that the Mossad stole nuclear secrets from a secure warehouse in Tehran in January 2018. According to reports, the agents came in a truck semitrailer at midnight, cut into dozens of safes with "high intensity torches", and carted out "50,000 pages and 163 compact discs of memos, videos and plans" before leaving in time to make their escape when the guards came for the morning shift at 7 am. According to the Israelis, the documents and files (which it shared with European countries and the United States), demonstrated that the Iranian AMAD Project aimed to develop nuclear weapons, that Iran had a nuclear program when it claimed to have "largely suspended it", and that there were two nuclear sites in Iran that had been hidden from inspectors. This was followed by the Trump administration withdrawing the United States from the JCPOA and reimposing US sanctions on Iran. Shortly after retiring as head of Mossad, Yossi Cohen admitted he oversaw the operation to steal the Iranian documents during a televised interview in June 2021.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: Israel and Syria have observed a truce since Israel reaffirmed its control over most of the Golan Heights in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, but the Syrian Civil War, which began in 2011, has led to several incidents of fire exchange across the once-peaceful borders. The Israeli military is reportedly preparing itself for potential threats should there be a power vacuum in Syria. "After Assad and after establishing or strengthening their foothold in Syria, they are going to move and deflect their effort and attack Israel," an Israeli official told The Associated Press in January 2014. Some experts say that while the encroaching militant forces on Israel's border will heighten security measures, the advancements are not likely to create significant changes to Israel's policy disengagement in the Syria crisis.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: In the Syrian Civil War, hoping to bolster its logistics and force projection capabilities in the area, Tehran aims to clear a path from the Iranian capital to Damascus and the Mediterranean coast. Israeli government is convinced that Iran is interested in creating territorial contiguity from Iran to the Mediterranean and in transferring military forces – including naval vessels, fighter planes and thousands of troops – to permanent bases in Syria and is trying to "Lebanonize" Syria and take over using Shi'ite militias, as it had done with Hezbollah in Lebanon. As Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman has warned, "everything possible will be done to prevent the existence of a Shi'ite corridor from Tehran to Damascus". In 2017, Israeli intelligence discovered an Iranian base being built in Syria just 50 km from the Israeli border.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: On several occasions between 2013 and 2017 Israel reportedly carried out or supported attacks on Hezbollah and Iranian targets within Syrian territories or Lebanon. One of the first reliably reported incidents took place on 30 January 2013, when Israeli aircraft struck a Syrian convoy allegedly transporting Iranian weapons to Hezbollah. Habitually, Israel refused to comment on the incident, a stance that is believed to seek to ensure that the Syrian government did not feel obliged to retaliate.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: More incidents were attributed to IAF on May 2013, December 2014 and April 2015. Some of those reports were confirmed by the Syrian Arab Republic, whereas others were denied. Israel systematically refused to comment on alleged targeting of Hezbollah and Ba'athist Syrian targets in Syrian territory. In 2015, suspected Hezbollah militants launched a retaliatory attack on Israeli forces in Shebaa farms as a response to an Israeli airstrike in the Syrian Golan that killed Hezbollah and IRGC senior operatives. In March 2017, Syria launched anti-aircraft missiles towards the Israeli-controlled part of the Golan Heights, allegedly targeting Israeli IAF aircraft, which Syria claimed were on their way to attack targets in Palmyra in Syria. After the incident, the State of Israel stated it was targeting weapons shipments headed toward anti-Israeli forces, specifically Hezbollah, located in Lebanon. Israel denied Syria's claim that one jet fighter was shot down and another damaged. Israel has not reported any pilots or aircraft missing in Syria, or anywhere else in the Middle East following the incident. According to some sources, the incident was the first time Israeli officials clearly confirmed an Israeli strike on a Hezbollah convoy during the Syrian Civil War. As of September 2017, this was the only time such confirmation was issued.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: Beginning in January 2017, the Israeli Air Force began flying almost daily attack missions against Iranian targets in Syria, dropping about 2,000 bombs in 2018 alone. Some Iranian targets were also attacked by Israeli surface-to-surface missiles or in raids by Israeli special forces. According to former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot, the decision to strike Iranian bases in Syria was made after Iran changed its strategy in 2016 as the US-led military intervention against ISIL was drawing to an end, planning to exploit the power vacuum to establish hegemony in Syria, building bases and bringing in foreign Shiite fighters. Although the full extent of the campaign would not be revealed until 2019, by early December 2017 the Israeli Air Force confirmed it had attacked arms convoys of Ba'athist Syria and Lebanon's Hezbollah nearly 100 times during more than six years of the conflict in Syria. In January 2019, outgoing IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot claimed that up to that point, only a few dozen Iranian military personnel had been killed in the attacks, as Israel had taken care to primarily target Iranian infrastructure while sparing personnel so as not to give Iran any pretext to retaliate.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: In July 2019, it was reported that Israel had expanded its strikes against Iranian missile shipments to Iraq, with Israeli F-35 combat planes allegedly striking Iranian targets in Iraq twice.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: On September 16, 2019, air strikes, targeting three positions of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and allied Iraqi militias, killed at least 10 pro-Iranian militiamen in Albu Kamal, Syria. The strikes were allegedly blamed on Israel. According to the time, the increase of Iran-Israel tension concurs with discussion of a possible rapprochement between Iran and the U.S.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: Israeli aircraft or drones attacked a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) position in Qousaya, located in the Beqaa Valley of Lebanon, close to the border with Syria on Sunday night, 26 August 2019, according to Lebanese media reports. The attack came a day after two drones exploded in the Lebanese capital Beirut.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: According to an official from the Palestinian position in the town three air strikes hit the PFLP-GC military position in Quasaya early morning 26 August 2019 causing only material damage.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: On 27 July 2020, explosions and exchange of fire were heard during a "security incident" at the border between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Lebanon. The incident involved Israeli soldiers and four Hezbollah fighters who allegedly crossed the border, and came days after a Hezbollah member was killed by Israeli airstrikes in Syria and an Israeli drone crashed in Lebanon. The Israel Defense Forces said that there were no Israeli casualties and that the four Hezbollah fighters fled back to Lebanon after being shot at. However, Hezbollah denied that their forces attacked the Israeli army, and said that their fighters had not crossed the border in a released statement. The group said that Israel opened fire first. Two dozen explosions were heard in Lebanon; an Israeli shell smashed in a civilian home, narrowly missing a family in the house at the time, but nobody was hurt.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: On May 9, 2020, Israel was reportedly behind a cyberattack that disrupted the Shahid Rajaee port in the Strait of Hormuz, causing traffic jams of delivery trucks and delays in shipments. It was suggested the attack was a response to a failed Iranian cyberattack on an Israeli water facility of the Sharon central region in April.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: In June and July, a series of explosions targeted Iran's nuclear and missile programs and various other infrastructure. There were accidents and damages reported in the Parchin military complex near Tehran on 26 June, the Sina At'har clinic in northern Tehran on 30 June, the Natanz nuclear facility on 2 July, the Shahid Medhaj power plant (Zargan) in Ahvaz and the Karun petrochemical center in the city of Mahshahr on 4 July. It has been speculated that Israel was involved, and the damage at the centrifuge plant in Natanz alone could delay the Iranian nuclear weapons program by one or two years, according to intelligence officials. On July 6, another explosion occurred at the Sepahan Boresh factory in the city of Baqershahr. On July 9, explosions were reported at a missile depot belonging to Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps west of Tehran. On July 11, an explosion took place at the basement of an old two-story house containing gas cylinders in northern Tehran. On July 12, a fire broke out at the Shahid Tondgooyan Petrochemical Company in southwest Iran. On July 13, an explosion occurred at a gas condensate plant of the Kavian Fariman industrial zone in the Razavi Khorasan Province. On July 15, a large fire broke out at a shipyard in the city of Bushehr, spreading to seven wooden boats. On July 18, an oil pipeline exploded in the Ahvaz region in southern Iran. On July 19, another explosion took place in a power station in Isfahan. Later in the day, a large fire was registered at a cellophane or yarn factory near the city of Tabriz in northwest Iran.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, head of Iran's nuclear weapons program, was assassinated on 27 November 2020 in Absard.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: Israeli commandos carried out attacks which damaged numerous Iranian cargo ships carrying oil and weapons to Syria from late 2019 to 2021. Israeli-owned ships were attacked in the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea, allegedly by Iran. Israel was also reportedly behind an attack on an Iranian intelligence ship of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy in the Red Sea, which was heavily damaged by a limpet mine in April 2021.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: On 10 April 2021, Iran began injecting uranium hexafluoride gas into advanced IR-6 and IR- 5 centrifuges at Natanz, but an accident occurred in the electricity distribution network the next day due to Mossad activity, according to Western and Iranian sources. In what seemed to be an Iranian response, an Israeli-owned ship was attacked by a missile or a drone near the shores of the Fujairah emirate in the United Arab Emirates on April 13, causing light damage to the vessel. On 24 April, an Iranian fuel tanker was reportedly attacked off the Syrian coast by an Israeli drone, causing damages but no casualties. On May 7, a massive fire broke out in Iran's southwestern city of Bushehr near the only functioning nuclear power plant of the country. The IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News Agency reported that the fire was intentional, although its cause was unknown. On May 9, an explosion occurred at an oil tanker off the coast of Syria, causing a small fire in one of its engines. On May 23, at least nine people were injured in a blast at an Iranian plant that reportedly produces UAVs in Isfahan. The blast occurred after Prime Minister Netanyahu said a drone armed with explosives that was downed by Israeli forces earlier in the week was launched by Iran toward Israel from either Syria or Iraq, amid the fighting in Gaza. On May 26, an explosion took place at a petrochemical complex in the city of Asaluyeh in southern Iran, killing a worker and injuring two. On June 2, a fire broke out at an Iranian navy vessel, the IRIS Kharg, near the port of Jask in the Gulf of Oman, although the entire crew was able to safely disembark before the ship sank. Later in the day there was a gas leak at an oil refinery in Tehran which caused a massive fire. No injuries were reported. An explosion took place at the Zarand Iranian Steel Company in eastern Iran on June 5. No injuries were reported. On June 20, it was reported that Iran's sole nuclear power plant at Bushehr underwent an emergency shutdown that would last between three and four days. On June 23, a major damage was caused to one of the buildings of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, although Iranian authorities denied there was any damage or casualties as a result of the sabotage attempt. On July 3, an Israeli-owned cargo ship was struck by an "unknown weapon" in the northern Indian Ocean, causing a fire to erupt onboard the vessel, although no injuries were reported. Israeli sources suspect that Iran was behind the attack. On July 5, a large fire was reported at a warehouse or factory near the city of Karaj, where an alleged previous attack targeted a nuclear facility reportedly used to produce centrifuges. Iranian media reported an explosion on 14 July at an office building in western Tehran, causing heavy damage to part of the building. On 29 July, an Israeli-operated oil tanker was attacked near the coast of Oman. According to senior Israeli officials, the attack was conducted by Iran. On 10 August, a major explosion took place on a commercial ship docked at the Latakia port in Syria. Some reports identified the targeted ship as Iranian. The same day a fire broke out at an Iranian petrochemical factory on Khark Island in the Persian Gulf. On 26 September, three people were injured in a fire at an IRGC research center west of Tehran. On October 26, a cyberattack crippled gas stations across Iran. It was reported that some hacked systems displayed messages addressing Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, demanding to know "where is the gas." On November 7, it was reported that Mossad thwarted multiple Iranian attacks on Israelis in Tanzania, Senegal and Ghana. African authorities arrested five suspects. Iran has also attempted to strike Israel overseas and using cyberattacks. On November 17, Iranian media reported an explosion at an oil pipeline in the south of the country.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: In March 2022 Reuters reported that Israel was carrying out airstrikes against Iranian personnel and militias in Syria backed by Iran. The report said that Israel "seeks to prevent Iran from transferring weapons to Hezbollah".


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: In February 2022, an Israeli attack against an Iranian base destroyed hundrends of drones, which prompted Iran to fire missiles on an American consulate in Ibril (Iraqi Kurdistan) the following month. An Iranian cyberattack on Israeli websites was also reported.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: On May 22, Col. Hassan Sayyad Khodaei, a senior member of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was shot dead in his car in Tehran. He was among those responsible within the Guard's elite Quds Force for carrying out Iranian operations in Iraq and Syria. On May 25, an engineer was killed and another employee was wounded during an incident at the Parchin military facility south of Tehran. Also in May, Israeli and Turkish security agencies foiled an Iranian plot to kidnap Israeli tourists in Turkey. Another plot was foiled in June following a Mossad rescue operation in Istanbul.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: On June 12, Argentinian authorities immobilized an Iranian Mahan Air cargo plane that was leased to a Venezuelan state-owned airline. The passports of five Iranian passengers traveling on the plane were confiscated, some of whom were purportedly linked to the IRGC. On June 13, Mohammad Abdous, an Iranian Air Force scientist from the Aerospace Unit working on several projects, was killed during a mission at a base in northern Iran. The incident occurred less than 24 hours after Ali Kamani, another member of the air force's Aerospace Unit, died in a car accident in the city of Khomein. The New York Times reported that Iranian officials suspect Israel poisoned engineer Ayoob Entezari and geologist Kamran Aghamolaei. On June 14, an explosion at a chemical factory in the southern city of Firouzabad injured over 100 Iranian workers, most of them lightly. On June 15, another IRGC officer of the aerospace division, Wahab Premarzian, died in the city of Maragheh.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: On June 19, an explosion was reported at an IRGC missile base in west Tehran. The site had been targeted last year as well.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: A large cyberattack forced the Iranian state-owned Khuzestan Steel Company to halt production, with two other major steel producers also being targeted. Israeli military correspondents hinted that Israel was responsible for the assault in retaliation for a suspected Iranian cyberattack that caused rocket sirens to be heard in Jerusalem and Eilat the previous week.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: In July, IRGC engineer Said Thamardar Mutlak was killed in a suspected Mossad assassination in Shiraz, while Iranian state-media reported that a Mossad-linked spy network planning to carry out "unprecedented acts of sabotage and terrorist operations" in Iran was captured by IRGC intelligence. On August 22, IRGC Brigadier General Abolfazal Alijani was killed in the Aleppo region of Syria. On September 1, an explosion occurred at a key oil refinery in Abadan that supplies 25% of Iran's fuel needs. No injuries were reported. On November 15, an oil tanker owned by an Israeli billionaire was attacked off the coast of Oman by an Iranian drone belonging to the IRGC, causing damage but no injuries. The same day security services in Georgia announced they foiled an Iranian plot to assassinate an Israeli businessman in that country, which was supposed to have been carried out by a Pakistani hit squad hired by Iran and assisted by the IRGC. On november 23, Iran blamed Israel for the death of a senior adviser of the IRGC's aerospace division who was killed by a roadside bomb near Damascus.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: Iran and Syria are close strategic allies, and Iran has provided significant support for the Syrian government in the Syrian Civil War, including logistical, technical and financial support, as well as training and some combat troops. Iran sees the survival of the Syrian government as being crucial to its regional interests. The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, was reported in September 2011 to be vocally in favor of the Syrian government. When the uprising developed into the Syrian Civil War, there were increasing reports of Iranian military support, and of Iranian training of NDF (National Defence Forces) both in Syria and Iran.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: Iranian security and intelligence services are advising and assisting the Syrian military in order to preserve Bashar al-Assad's hold on power. Those efforts include training, technical support, and combat troops. Thousands of Iranian operatives – as many as 10,000 by the end of 2013 – have fought in the Syrian civil war on the pro-government side, including regular troops and militia members. In 2018, Tehran said that 2,100 Iranian soldiers have been killed in Syria and Iraq over the past seven years. Iran has also sponsored and facilitated the involvement of Shia militias from across the region to fight in Syria, including Lebanese Hezbollah, Afghan Liwa Fatemiyoun, Pakistani Liwa Zainebiyoun, Iraqi Harakat al-Nujaba, Kataib Seyyed al-Shuhada and Kataib Hezbollah, and Bahraini Saraya Al Mukhtar.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: Hezbollah has grown to an organization with seats in the Lebanese government, a radio and a satellite television-station, programs for social development and large-scale military deployment of fighters beyond Lebanon's borders. The organization has been called a "state within a state". Hezbollah is part of the March 8 Alliance within Lebanon, in opposition to the March 14 Alliance. Hezbollah maintains strong support among Lebanon's Shi'a population, while Sunnis have disagreed with the group's agenda. Following the end of the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon in 2000, its military strength grew significantly, such that its paramilitary wing is considered more powerful than the Lebanese Army. Hezbollah receives military training, weapons, and financial support from Iran, and political support from Syria. Hezbollah also fought against Israel in the 2006 Lebanon War.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: Hezbollah has been a major combatant in the Syrian Civil War, helping to ensure the survival of the Iran-backed Assad government. Active support and troop deployment began in 2012, steadily increasing thereafter. Hezbollah deployed several thousand fighters in Syria and by 2015 lost up to 1,500 fighters in combat. Hezbollah has also been very active to prevent rebel penetration from Syria to Lebanon, being one of the most active forces in the Syrian Civil War spillover in Lebanon. By March 2019, 1,677 Lebanese Hezbollah fighters had reportedly been killed in the Syria.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: Between 2005 and 2011, Iran was one of the main funders and suppliers of Hamas. Israel estimates the Hamas' Brigades have a core of several hundred members, who received military training, including training in Iran and in Syria (before the Syrian Civil War). In 2011, after the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War, Hamas distanced itself from the Syrian government and its members began leaving Syria. Since 2012, Hamas ceased receiving any support from Iran due to Hamas' support of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria. In a speech for the spokesman of the Qassam brigades in 2014 on Hamas's 27 anniversary he thanked Iran for aid in finance and weapons.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: In 2008, Sudan and Iran signed a military cooperation agreement. The agreement was signed by Iran's Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar and his Sudanese counterpart Abdelrahim Mohamed Hussein.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: In 2015, Sudan completely severed its ties with Iran, by participating in the Saudi-led intervention in the Yemeni Crisis on behalf of the Sunni Arab alliance.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: Iran is a major financial supporter of the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine (PIJ). Following the Israeli and Egyptian squeeze on Hamas in early 2014, PIJ has seen its power steadily increase with the backing of funds from Iran. Its financial backing is believed to also come from Syria.


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: Israel's closest military ally, the United States, has a long history of violence against Iran, including the August 1953 overthrow of the


title: Iran–Israel proxy conflict

text: Mossadegh government by U.S. and U.K. covert operatives, and the decades long U.S. support for the authoritarian rule of the Shah. The U.S. provided major military and other support to Saddam Hussein's Iraq for decades after Iraq attack Iran, and in 1988, the United States launched Operation Praying Mantis against Iran, the largest American naval combat operation since World War II. The United States has military bases that virtually encircle Iran.