title: Sintra

text: These projects benefited town and region, increased tourism and attracted as residents many notable Portuguese: historian Francisco Costa; writer Ferreira de Castro; sculptor Anjos Teixeira; architects Norte Júnior and Raul Lino; painters Eduardo Viana, Mily Possoz and Vieira da Silva; poet Oliva Guerra; composer and maestro Frederico de Freitas; historians Felix Alves Pereira and João Martins da Silva Marques.


title: Sintra

text: In 1944, prior to his arrest, Vichy France Prime Minister Pierre Laval had planned to move to an estate in Sintra, where a house had been leased for him.


title: Sintra

text: The 1949 municipal plan by De Groer was devised to protect the town and its neighbourhood from uncontrolled urbanization, and resulted in the maintenance of an environment comparable to 19th century Sintra. Urban anarchy predominated until the middle of the 1980s in the areas adjacent to the main town of Sintra, resulting in the development of new neighbourhoods.


title: Sintra

text: The Sintra Mountains, a granite massif ten kilometres long - considered the "Monte da Lua" ("Mountain of the Moon"), or "Promontorium Lunae" by the strong local tradition of astral cults - emerge abruptly between a vast plain to the north and the northern margin of the Tagus River estuary, winding in a serpentine cordillera towards the Atlantic Ocean and Cabo da Roca, the most westerly point of continental Europe.


title: Sintra

text: The São João platform, along the northern flank of the Sintra Mountains, has altitudes between and , while the southern part of the mountains, the Cascais platform, is lower: sloping from to the sea, terminating along the coast, around above sea level. The spectacular relief results from the east-west orientation of the massif's axis, its terminus at the coast, and the nature of igneous rocks, which are resistant to erosion. The Eruptive Massif of Sintra (MES) is a dome structure, formed by layers of sedimentary rocks (limestones and sandstones) from the Upper Jurassic and early Cretaceous periods. A metamorphosed igneous intrusion resulted in a narrow halo of metamorphic rocks, but also strongly deformed these sedimentary layers causing a vertical exposure. While in the south there are enclosed sedimentary layers, to the north (around Praia Grande) the massif is steep. The sedimentary formations, until the beginning of the Upper Cretaceous, are deformed by the intrusion which limits the MES to the end the Cretaceous. Radiometric aging of different rocks from the massif has indicated an age between 80 and 75 million years (confirming the installation of the massive Upper Cretaceous).


title: Sintra

text: The geodynamic conditions that controlled the formation of the MES (correlated with the development of the Sines and Monchique Eruptive Massifs) are associated with the progressive northern expansion of the Atlantic Ocean and the consequent opening of the Bay of Biscay. The Bay of Biscay's expansion resulted in complex tensions responsible for profound fractures in the earth's crust that were conduits for the ascension of magma. Around 80 million years ago this magma spread across the surface as a superficial crust with a depth of 5 kilometres between sedimentary layers (160 to 9 million years old) that were chemically metamorphosed. Over time the magma chamber cooled and crystallized, resulting in conditions that caused the granular textures that characterize the MES. The weaker sedimentary layers were susceptible to erosion, and their products were deposited around their base. Consequently, the massif likely became exposed during the Paleogenic epoch (30 million years ago), known as the Benfica Complex.


title: Sintra

text: The Mediterranean climate, influenced by the Atlantic and characterized by moderate temperatures and wet winters, is typical of mainland Portugal. Although the climate in the area of Cabo da Roca is close to semi-arid, the Sintra Mountains are considered moderately humid: precipitation in the mountains is higher than in the surrounding areas. The position of the town in the natural landscape of the Sintra Mountains (consisting of an exuberant natural patrimony), is influenced by the existence of a micro-climate. For different reasons (the climate here has been moderated by the Sintra Mountains; the fertility of the soils; and its relative proximity to the Tagus estuary) the region attracted considerable early settlement. Due to its micro-climate, a huge park has developed full of dense foliage with a rich botanical diversity.


title: Sintra

text: The temperate climate and humidity resulting from proximity to the coast favour the growth of a rich mat of forest including Atlantic and Mediterranean species, marking the transition in Portugal from northern to southern vegetation. The Pyrenean oak ("Quercus pyrenaica") predominates over great expanses of the rocky heights and sheltered slopes. On moist shady slopes, normally facing north, or in sheltered places, the common oak ("Quercus robur") is widespread. In lowland areas and warm places the cork oak ("Quercus suber") is common and in limestone areas the Portuguese oak ("Quercus faginea") is found. Other species scattered throughout the mountains of Sintra include: maple ("Acer pseudoplatanus"), common hazel ("Corylus avellana"), common hawthorn ("Crataegus monogyna"), European holly ("Ilex aquifolium"), Portuguese laurel ("Prunus lusitanica"), Bay laurel ("Laurus nobilis"), strawberry tree ("Arbutus unedo"), laurestine ("Viburnum tinus"), Kermes oak ("Quercus coccifera"), and Italian buckthorn ("Rhamnus alaternus"). In the valleys, near watercourses, grow narrow-leaf ash ("Fraxinus angustifolia"), Grey willow ("Salix atrocinerea"), European alder ("Alnus glutinosa"), alder buckthorn ("Frangula alnus") and black elderberry ("Sambucus nigra").


title: Sintra

text: Since 1966, the Sintra Mountains have been affected by fires that have destroyed a major part of the original forest, which has been substituted by acacia and other fast-growing exotic species. The forested area of the Sintra mountains is about , of which 26% () is maintained by the State through the "Direcção Geral de Florestas - Núcleo Florestal de Sintra" ("General Directorate of Forests - Sintra Forestry Service").


title: Sintra

text: The municipality is administered by 11 civil parish () councils, with local authority to administer services and provide local governance, which are:


title: Sintra

text: Sintra's population grew considerably in the late 20th century, rising from about 14% of the Lisbon region to 19%, with the main concentration of resident population found in the important Queluz-Portela corridor, along the southeast corner of the municipality. In this area were concentrated approximately 82% of the municipality's population, the most attractive parishes to live in being São Pedro de Penaferrim, Rio de Mouro, Belas and Algueirão-Mem Martins.


title: Sintra

text: With the decrease in mortality rates, the region has undergone a general increase in infant births, primarily associated with late births, but also an increase in seniors in the community (56.5% in 2001). Yet Sintra is still considered to have a structurally young population, the youngest in the Greater Metropolitan Area of Lisbon. Young adults (30- to 39-year-olds) dominate Sintra's communities, with the parishes of Pêro Pinheiro, Terrugem, São Martinho, São João das Lampas, Santa Maria e São Miguel, Montelavar, Colares, Queluz and Almargem do Bispo all having higher rates of seniors in the population. Approximately 80% of the population are born outside the town, 21% of these being foreign born residents. While the resident population in Lisbon has seen a gentle decrease since the mid-1960s, Sintra has grown comparably.


title: Sintra

text: Urban areas represent of the municipality, or approximately 17.4% of Sintra's territory; 35% of the population reside in places of between 50,000 and 100,000 inhabitants. Many of these areas are anchored to lines of access, in particular, the "Sintra Line" and the IC19 motorway which connects the principal towns of Queluz, Agualva-Cacém, Algueirão/Mem Martins, Rio de Mouro and Belas). Many of these urban areas are composed of a fabric of building projects that have historically resulted in dense buildings of concrete, normally seven or more floors in height. The greatest growth in residential homes has occurred in the south of the municipality, in the triangle of São Pedro de Penaferrim, Santa Maria e São Miguel and Casal de Cambra. In addition, there is a major concentration and growth in family dwellings of a seasonal nature, or second homes, in this region, and a proliferation of illegal construction in the parishes of São João das Lampas, São Pedro de Penaferrim, Belas, Agualva-Cacém and Casal de Cambra.


title: Sintra

text: The growth in tertiary activities has played an important part in the pattern of employment in the region, with commercial, retail and support services predominating. This has been to the detriment of industry, although continuing industrial activities include the transport of materials, mineral processing, the manufacture of machinery and equipment, food-processing, beverage and tobacco companies as well as publishing and printing services. There has also been a dramatic growth in the civil construction industry.


title: Sintra

text: Tourism is also significant, with the parks and monuments operated by the Parques de Sintra accounting for 3.2 million visitors in 2017, for example.


title: Sintra

text: Lisbon's commuter railway network (CP Urban Services) provides direct services to Sintra. The journey to Lisbon takes 35–45 minutes. There is alternative transport, taxis, car-sharing services and buses, covering a large area of the district.


title: Sintra

text: The Sintra tramway links Sintra with the Atlantic coast at Praia das Maçãs, providing a beautiful scenic ride along the way and covering a distance of some . , the heritage line runs Wednesday to Sunday in summer months.


title: Sintra

text: The municipality of Sintra has several sports venues and a wide range of sports facilities for the practice of sports like tennis, golf, swimming, surfing, and equestrianism.


title: Raaz (2002 film)

text: Raaz () is a 2002 Indian supernatural horror film directed by Vikram Bhatt. The film stars Bipasha Basu in the lead along with Dino Morea and Malini Sharma. Aditya and Sanjana as a couple who have moved to Ooty to save their failing marriage. However, what they find in their new home is more than they expected when a ghost starts haunting the place. The wife, Sanjana, suddenly finds that her husband is part of the ghostly conspiracy, which she must fix to escape. The film is an unofficial adaptation of the Hollywood film "What Lies Beneath" (2000).


title: Raaz (2002 film)

text: It was the second-highest-grossing film of the year 2002 being the most profitable venture and the first instalment in the "Raaz". Basu's performance was highly praised and earned her a Best Actress nomination at the 48th Filmfare Awards. Nadeem-Shravan's music also earned them several Filmfare Award nominations. A sequel to the film was released on 23 January 2009, under the title of "" and the third installment of the series titled "Raaz 3" was released on 7 September 2012. A fourth film, "Raaz Reboot", was released on 16 September 2016.


title: Raaz (2002 film)

text: In Ooty, a group of college students enjoy a picnic in a forest. One of the girls, Nisha, dies under paranormal circumstances. She had inexplicably attacked her boyfriend like a monster and was rushed to the hospital, where just before dying, her face and voice changed completely, confusing the doctors. Professor Agni Swaroop, who is supposedly an expert in the supernatural is called by police to look into the matter. After investigating, Swaroop declares that she was possessed by an evil spirit. He reveals that this spirit has awakened for a purpose and will not stop until that purpose is fulfilled.


title: Raaz (2002 film)

text: The story turns to Sanjana Dhanraj and Aditya Dhanraj in Mumbai. During a business party, Aditya seems too busy to pay attention to his wife. She leaves the party and on her frantic drive home, she hears a voice in her head and loses control of the car. She manages to escape the accident unscathed. After her recovery, Sanjana asks her husband for a divorce; Aditya, however, realises his fault and suggests a vacation to work out their problems. Sanjana chooses to return to Ooty (where their relationship first began) to save their failing marriage. They stay in the same bungalow behind which Nisha was attacked. Initially, the couple enjoys their stay but Sanjana starts experiencing mysterious things, such as hearing a woman screaming in the forest. On the other hand, Aditya brushes her concern away blaming it all on the sleeping pills that Sanjana is addicted to. From another cleaning staff who visits the house on Aditya's order, she learns that their previous caretaker Robert has not been visiting the home to clean and has disappeared without a trace. Sanjana decides to visit Robert's wife who tells her that he changed and became scared whenever anyone used to mention the guest house. She also told her that he used to hear strange voices from the forest, just like Sanjana, and then suddenly disappeared one day. With the help of their friends, Aditya and Sanjana reconcile.


title: Raaz (2002 film)

text: Sanjana's friend Priya advises her to visit Professor Swaroop after she tells her about these strange incidents. Swaroop arrives and announces the presence of a spirit in the house. Before leaving, he gives Sanjana a lemon and advises her to check upon it after the sunset. If the color does not change, then it means that there is nothing to be worried about, however, if the color changes to red, then there is an evil spirit lurking around. A hysterical Sanjana, upon seeing the lemon turned red, rushes to Aditya who is in mid of a meeting and tells him about their home being haunted. However, Aditya is far from believing this and thrashes the Professor for playing with his wife's sentiments and fear. An urgent phone call from Mumbai forces the couple to go back, but because of the landslide, they get stuck on the highway. Later, they decide that Aditya will fly back to Mumbai alone and will come later to take Sanjana away. After he leaves, Priya insists Sanjana to come with her but she stubbornly denies as she wants to know the truth. The night ends in a horror for her.


title: Raaz (2002 film)

text: The next night, Professor Swaroop revisits the same spot in the forest where Nisha was attacked, accompanied by Priya and Sanjana. On his advice, Sanjana goes alone to talk to the spirit and discovers a revolver. They go to an arms store and are told by the shopkeeper that the revolver was licensed to a retired colonel named Arjun Malik. They visit the colonel's house and learn that the spirit is his daughter, Malini, who was mentally ill and had escaped from the mental asylum several times before suddenly disappearing one day. The colonel tells them that from that day, his revolver had also disappeared.


title: Raaz (2002 film)

text: Sanjana summons the spirit, believing that it wants to tell her something. She learns that Aditya and Malini had an extramarital affair; upon confronting Aditya, he admits the affair and that he had stayed at this very cottage. Aditya had rebuked Malini's demands that he leave his wife and an enraged Malini committed suicide in front of Aditya in order to frame him for murder. Aditya, with the help of Robert, buried the body in the forest.


title: Raaz (2002 film)

text: Sanjana breaks up with Aditya. Swaroop tells her that this was an attempt by Malini's spirit to separate Sanjana and Aditya to take him with her into the afterlife. He believes that the spirit's next step would be to kill Aditya and that they should go to him before Malini attacks him.


title: Raaz (2002 film)

text: Sanjana goes to Aditya and tells him that she is doing this just to save him and that they should leave for Mumbai immediately. It is then revealed that Sanjana is Malini's spirit in disguise. The real Sanjana, Priya, and Swaroop arrive at the cottage, where the bewildered maid tells them that Aditya had just left with her.


title: Raaz (2002 film)

text: Malini's spirit causes their car to fall off a cliff and Aditya is hospitalized. To stop the spirit, Sanjana, Priya and Swaroop enter the forest to locate the girl's body to burn it. Swaroop uses lemon tied to a thread to locate the body, believing that it will turn red when they reach the right spot. Once located, Swaroop returned to the car to get kerosene and matchstick, however, Malini's spirit kills him and takes his form, attacking the two girls. While being pursued, Sanjana finds the dead body of Robert hung on a tree.


title: Raaz (2002 film)

text: "Webindia123.com" said that "Raaz" is "something different from the current trend..."Raaz" is a psycho-thriller worth a look". The film was praised because of its unique story.


title: Raaz (2002 film)

text: The music of "Raaz" was composed by the duo Nadeem-Shravan, while the lyrics were penned by Sameer. Singers Udit Narayan, Alka Yagnik, Abhijeet, Sunidhi Chauhan, Sarika Kapoor, Jolly Mukherjee and Bali Brahmbhatt lent their voices for the songs.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: The Sabra and Shatila massacre (also known as the Sabra and Chatila massacre) was the killing of between 460 and 3,500 civilians, mostly Palestinians and Lebanese Shiites, by the militia of the Lebanese Forces, a Maronite Christian Lebanese right-wing party, under the command of Elie Hobeika, in the Sabra neighborhood and the adjacent Shatila refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon. President Bachir Gemayel had been assassinated two days earlier and the Phalangists sought revenge. From approximately 18:00 on 16 September to 08:00 on 18 September 1982, a widespread massacre was carried out by the militia, while the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) had the camp surrounded. The militia had been ordered by the IDF to clear Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) fighters out of Sabra and Shatila, as part of the IDF's maneuvering into West Beirut. As the massacre unfolded, the IDF received reports of atrocities but did not take any action to prevent or stop the massacre.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: In June 1982, the IDF had invaded Lebanon with the intention of rooting out the PLO. By 30 August 1982, under the supervision of the Multinational Force, the PLO withdrew from Lebanon following weeks of battles in West Beirut and shortly before the massacre took place. Various forces — Israeli, Lebanese Forces and possibly also the South Lebanon Army (SLA) — were in the vicinity of Sabra and Shatila at the time of the slaughter, taking advantage of the fact that the Multinational Force had removed barracks and mines that had encircled Beirut's predominantly Muslim neighborhoods and kept the Israelis at bay during the Beirut siege. The Israeli advance over West Beirut in the wake of the PLO withdrawal, which enabled the Lebanese Forces raid, was in violation of the ceasefire agreement between the various forces. The Israeli Army surrounded Sabra and Shatila and stationed troops at the exits of the area to prevent camp residents from leaving and, at the request of the Lebanese Forces, fired illuminating flares at night.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: According to Alain Menargues, the direct perpetrators of the killings were the "Young Men", a gang recruited by Elie Hobeika (the Lebanese Forces intelligence chief and liaison officer with Mossad), from men who had been expelled from the Lebanese Forces for insubordination or criminal activities. The killings are widely believed to have taken place under Hobeika's direct orders. Hobeika's family and fiancée had been murdered by Palestinian militiamen and their Lebanese allies during the 1976 Damour massacre, itself a response to the Karantina massacre of Palestinians and Lebanese Muslims at the hands of Christian militants two days before. In all 300–400 militiamen were involved, including some from Sa'ad Haddad's South Lebanon Army.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: In February 1983, a commission chaired by Seán MacBride, the assistant to the UN Secretary General and President of United Nations General Assembly at the time, looking into reported violations of International Law by Israel concluded that Israel, as the camp's occupying power, bore responsibility for the violence. The commission also concluded that the massacre was a form of genocide.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: In February 1983, the Israeli Kahan Commission, appointed to investigate the incident, found that Israeli military personnel, aware that a massacre was in progress, had failed to take serious steps to stop it. The commission deemed Israel indirectly responsible, and Ariel Sharon, then Defense Minister, bore personal responsibility "for ignoring the danger of bloodshed and revenge", forcing him to resign.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: From 1975 to 1990, groups in competing alliances with neighboring countries fought against each other in the Lebanese Civil War. Infighting and massacres between these groups claimed several thousand victims. Examples: the Syrian-backed Karantina massacre (January 1976) by the Kataeb and its allies against Kurds, Syrians and Palestinians in the predominantly Muslim slum district of Beirut; Damour (January 1976) by the PLO against Christian Maronites, including the family and fiancée of the Lebanese Forces intelligence chief Elie Hobeika; and Tel al-Zaatar (August 1976) by Phalangists and their allies against Palestinian refugees living in a camp administered by UNRWA. The total death toll in Lebanon for the whole civil war period was around 150,000 victims.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: The PLO had been attacking Israel from southern Lebanon and Israel had been bombing PLO positions in southern Lebanon since the early 1970s until early 1980s.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: The casus belli cited by the Israeli side to declare war, however, was an assassination attempt, on 3 June 1982, made upon Israeli Ambassador to Britain Shlomo Argov. The attempt was the work of the Iraq-based Abu Nidal, possibly with Syrian or Iraqi involvement. Historians and observers such as David Hirst and Benny Morris have commented that the PLO could not have been involved in the assault, or even approved of it, as Abu Nidal's group was a bitter rival to Arafat's PLO and even murdered some of its members. The PLO issued a condemnation of the attempted assassination of the Israeli ambassador. Nonetheless, Israel used the event as a justification to break the ceasefire with the PLO, and as a casus belli for a full-scale invasion of Lebanon. After the war, Israel presented its actions as a response to terrorism being carried out by the PLO from several fronts, including the border with Lebanon. However, these historians have argued that the PLO was respecting the ceasefire agreement then in force with Israel and keeping the border between the Jewish state and Lebanon more stable than it had been for over a decade. During that ceasefire, which lasted eight months, UNIFIL—the UN peacekeeping forces in Lebanon—reported that the PLO had launched not a single act of provocation against Israel. The Israeli government tried out several justifications to ditch the ceasefire and attack the PLO, even eliciting accusations from the Israeli opposition that "demagogy" from the government threatened to pull Israel into war. Before the attempted assassination of the ambassador, all such justifications had been shot down by its ally, the United States, as an insufficient reason to launch a war against the PLO.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: On 6 June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon moving northwards to surround the capital, Beirut. Following an extended siege of the city, the fighting was brought to an end with a U.S.-brokered agreement between the parties on 21 August 1982, which allowed for safe evacuation of the Palestinian fighters from the city under the supervision of Western nations and guaranteed the protection of refugees and the civilian residents of the refugee camps.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: On 15 June 1982, 10 days after the start of the invasion, the Israeli Cabinet passed a proposal put forward by the Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, that the IDF should not enter West Beirut but this should be done by Lebanese Forces. Chief of Staff, Rafael Eitan, had already issued orders that the Lebanese predominantly Christian, right-wing militias should not take part in the fighting and the proposal was to counter public complaints that the IDF were suffering casualties whilst their allies were standing by. The subsequent Israeli inquiry estimated the strength of militias in West Beirut, excluding Palestinians, to be around 7,000. They estimated the Lebanese Forces to be 5,000 when fully mobilized of whom 2,000 were full-time.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: On 23 August 1982, Bachir Gemayel, leader of the right-wing Lebanese Forces, was elected President of Lebanon by the National Assembly. Israel had relied on Gemayel and his forces as a counterbalance to the PLO, and as a result, ties between Israel and Maronite groups, from which hailed many of the supporters of the Lebanese Forces, had grown stronger.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: By 1 September, the PLO fighters had been evacuated from Beirut under the supervision of Multinational Force. The evacuation was conditional on the continuation of the presence of the MNF to provide security for the community of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Two days later the Israeli Premier Menachem Begin met Gemayel in Nahariya and strongly urged him to sign a peace treaty with Israel. Begin also wanted the continuing presence of the SLA in southern Lebanon (Haddad supported peaceful relations with Israel) in order to control attacks and violence, and action from Gemayel to move on the PLO fighters which Israel believed remained a hidden threat in Lebanon. However, the Phalangists, who were previously united as reliable Israeli allies, were now split because of developing alliances with Syria, which remained militarily hostile to Israel. As such, Gemayel rejected signing a peace treaty with Israel and did not authorize operations to root out the remaining PLO militants.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: On 11 September 1982, the international forces that were guaranteeing the safety of Palestinian refugees left Beirut. Then on 14 September, Gemayel was assassinated in a massive explosion which demolished his headquarters. Eventually, the culprit, Habib Tanious Shartouni, a Lebanese Christian, confessed to the crime. He turned out to be a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party and an agent of Syrian intelligence. Palestinian and Lebanese Muslim leaders denied any connection to him.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: On the evening of 14 September, following the news that Bashir Gemayel had been assassinated, Prime Minister Begin, Defense Minister Sharon and Chief of Staff Eitan agreed that the Israeli army should invade West Beirut. The public reason given was to be that they were there to prevent chaos. In a separate conversation, at 20:30 that evening, Sharon and Eitan agreed that the IDF should not enter the Palestinian refugee camps but that the Phalange should be used. The only other member of the cabinet who was consulted was Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir. Shortly after 6.00 am 15 September, the Israeli army entered West Beirut, This Israeli action breached its agreement with the United States not to occupy West Beirut and was in violation of the ceasefire.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: Fawwaz Traboulsi writes that while the massacre was presented as a reaction to the assassination of Bachir, it represented the posthumous achievement of his "radical solution" to Palestinians in Lebanon, who he thought of as "people too many" in the region. Later, the Israeli army's monthly journal "Skira Hodechith" wrote that the Lebanese Forces hoped to provoke "the general exodus of the Palestinian population" and aimed to create a new demographic balance in Lebanon favouring the Christians.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: On the night of 14/15 September 1982 the IDF chief of staff Raphael Eitan flew to Beirut where he went straight to the Phalangists' headquarters and instructed their leadership to order a general mobilisation of their forces and prepare to take part in the forthcoming Israeli attack on West Beirut. He also ordered them to impose a general curfew on all areas under their control and appoint a liaison officer to be stationed at the IDF forward command post. He told them that the IDF would not enter the refugee camps but that this would be done by the Phalangist forces. The militia leaders responded that the mobilisation would take them 24 hours to organise.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: On morning of Wednesday 15 September Israeli Defence Minister, Sharon, who had also travelled to Beirut, held a meeting with Eitan at the IDF's forward command post, on the roof of a five-storey building 200 metres southwest of Shatila camp. Also in attendance were Sharon's aide Avi Duda'i, the Director of Military Intelligence -Yehoshua Saguy, a senior Mossad officer, General Amir Drori, General Amos Yaron, an Intelligence officer, the Head of GSS – Avraham Shalom, the Deputy Chief of Staff – General Moshe Levi and other senior officers. It was agreed that the Phalange should go into the camps. According to the Kahan Commission report throughout Wednesday, R.P.G. and light-weapons fire from the Sabra and Shatilla camps was directed at this forward command post, and continued to a lesser degree on Thursday and Friday (16–17 September). It also added that by Thursday morning, the fighting had ended and all was 'calm and quiet'.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: Following the assassination of Lebanese Christian President Bachir Gemayel, the Phalangists sought revenge. By noon on 15 September, Sabra and Shatila had been surrounded by the IDF, which set up checkpoints at the exits and entrances, and used a number of multi-story buildings as observation posts. Amongst them was the seven-story Kuwaiti embassy which, according to TIME magazine, had "an unobstructed and panoramic view" of Sabra and Shatila. Hours later, IDF tanks began shelling Sabra and Shatila.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: The following morning, 16 September, the sixth IDF order relating to the attack on West Beirut was issued. It specified: "The refugee camps are not to be entered. Searching and mopping up the camps will be done by the Phalangists/Lebanese Army".


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: According to Linda Malone of the Jerusalem Fund, Ariel Sharon and Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan met with Phalangist militia units and invited them to enter Sabra and Shatila, claiming that the PLO was responsible for Gemayel's assassination. The meeting concluded at 15:00 on 16 September.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: Shatila had previously been one of the PLO's three main training camps for foreign fighters and the main training camp for European fighters. The Israelis maintained that 2,000 to 3,000 terrorists remained in the camps, but were unwilling to risk the lives of more of their soldiers after the Lebanese army repeatedly refused to "clear them out." No evidence was offered for this claim. There were only a small number of forces sent into the camps and they suffered minimal casualties. Two Phalangists were wounded, one in the leg and another in the hand. Investigations after the massacre found few weapons in the camps. Thomas Friedman, who entered the camps on Saturday, mostly found groups of young men with their hands and feet bound, who had been then lined up and machine-gunned down gang-land style, not typical he thought of the kind of deaths the reported 2,000 terrorists in the camp would have put up with.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: An hour later, 1,500 militiamen assembled at Beirut International Airport, then occupied by Israel. Under the command of Elie Hobeika, they began moving towards the area in IDF-supplied jeeps, some bearing weapons provided by Israel, following Israeli guidance on how to enter it. The forces were mostly Phalangist, though there were some men from Saad Haddad's "Free Lebanon forces". According to Ariel Sharon and Elie Hobeika's bodyguard, the Phalangists were given "harsh and clear" warnings about harming civilians. However, it was by then known that the Phalangists presented a special security risk for Palestinians. It was published in the edition of 1 September of "Bamahane", the IDF newspaper, that a Phalangist told an Israeli official: "[T]he question we are putting to ourselves is—how to begin, by raping or killing?" A US envoy to the Middle East expressed horror after being told of Sharon's plans to send the Phalangists inside the camps, and Israeli officials themselves acknowledged the situation could trigger "relentless slaughter".


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: The first unit of 150 Phalangists entered Sabra and Shatila at 18:00. A battle ensued that at times Palestinians claim involved lining up Palestinians for execution. During the night, the Israeli forces fired illuminating flares over the area. According to a Dutch nurse, the camp was as bright as "a sports stadium during a football game".


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: At 19:30, the Israeli Cabinet convened and was informed that the Phalangist commanders had been informed that their men must participate in the operation and fight, and enter the extremity of Sabra, while the IDF would guarantee the success of their operation though not participate in it. The Phalangists were to go in there "with their own methods". After Gemayel's assassination there were two possibilities, either the Phalange would collapse or they would undertake revenge, having killed Druze for that reason earlier that day. With regard to this second possibility, it was noted, 'it will be an eruption the likes of which has never been seen; I can already see in their eyes what they are waiting for.' 'Revenge' was what Bashir Gemayel's brother had called for at the funeral earlier. Levy commented: 'the Phalangists are already entering a certain neighborhood – and I know what the meaning of revenge is for them, what kind of slaughter. Then no one will believe we went in to create order there, and we will bear the blame. Therefore, I think that we are liable here to get into a situation in which we will be blamed, and our explanations will not stand up ... " The press release that followed reads:


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: In the wake of the assassination of the President-elect Bashir Jemayel, the I.D.F. has seized positions in West Beirut in order to forestall the danger of violence, bloodshed and chaos, as some 2,000 terrorists, equipped with modern and heavy weapons, have remained in Beirut, in flagrant violation of the evacuation agreement.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: An Israeli intelligence officer present in the forward post, wishing to obtain information about the Phalangists' activities, ordered two distinct actions to find out what was happening. The first failed to turn up anything. The second resulted in a report at 20:00 from the roof, stated that the Phalangists' liaison officer had heard from an operative inside the camp that he held 45 people and asked what he should do with him. The liaison officer told him to more or less "Do the will of God." The Intelligence Officer received this report at approximately 20:00 from the person on the roof who heard the conversation. He did not pass on the report.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: At roughly the same time or a little earlier at 19:00, Lieutenant Elul testified that he had overheard a radio conversation between one of the militia men in the camp and his commander Hobeika in which the former asking what he was to do with 50 women and children who had been taken prisoner. Hobeika's reply was: "This is the last time you're going to ask me a question like that; you know exactly what to do." Other Phalangists on the roof started laughing. Amongst the Israelis there was Brigadier General Yaron, Divisional Commander, who asked Lieutenant Elul, his Chef de Bureau, what the laughter was about; Elul translated what Hobeika had said. Yaron then had a five-minute conversation, in English, with Hobeika. What was said is unknown.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: The Kahan Commission determined that the evidence pointed to 'two different and separate reports', noting that Yaron maintained that he thought they referred to the same incident, and that it concerned 45 "dead terrorists". At the same time, 20:00, a third report came in from liaison officer G. of the Phalangists who in the presence of numerous Israeli officers, including general Yaron, in the dining room, stated that within 2 hours the Phalangists had killed 300 people, including civilians. He returned sometime later and changed the number from 300 to 120.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: At 20:40, General Yaron held a briefing, and after it the Divisional Intelligence Officer stated that it appeared no terrorists were in the Shatila camp, and that the Phalangists were in two minds as to what to do with the women, children and old people they had massed together, either to lead them somewhere else or that they were told, as the liaison officer was overheard saying, to 'do what your heart tells you, because everything comes from God.' Yaron interrupted the officer and said he'd checked and that 'they have no problems at all,' and that with regard to the people, 'It will not, will not harm them.' Yaron later testified he had been skeptical of the reports and had in any case told the Phalangists not to harm civilians. At 21:00 Maj. Amos Gilad predicted during a discussion at Northern Command that, rather than a cleansing of terrorists, what would take place was a massacre, informing higher commanders that already between 120 and 300 had already been killed by that time.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: At 23:00 the same evening, a report was sent to the IDF headquarters in East Beirut, reporting the killings of 300 people, including civilians. The report was forwarded to headquarters in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and to the office of the Bureau Chief of the director of Military Intelligence, Lt. Col. Hevroni, at 05:30 the following day where it was seen by more than 20 senior Israeli officers. It was then forwarded to his home by 06:15. That same morning an IDF historian copied down a note, which later disappeared, which he had found in the Northern Command situation room in Aley.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: During the night the Phalangists entered the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps. Even though it was agreed that they would not harm civilians, they 'butchered.' They did not operate in orderly fashion but dispersed. They had casualties, including two killed. They will organize to operate in a more orderly manner – we will see to it that they are moved into the area."


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: Early on that morning, between 08:00 and 09:00, several IDF soldiers stationed nearby noted killings were being conducted against the camp refugees. A deputy tank commander some away, Lieutenant Grabowski, saw two Phalangistists beating two young men, who were then taken back into the camp, after which shots rang out, and the soldiers left. Sometime later, he saw the Phalangists had killed a group of five women and children. When he expressed a desire to make report, the tank crew said they had already heard a communication informing the battalion commander that civilians had been killed, and that the latter had replied, "We know, it's not to our liking, and don't interfere."


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: At around 08:00, military correspondent Ze'ev Schiff received a tip-off a source in the General Staff in Tel Aviv that there had been a slaughter in the camps. Checking round for some hours, he got no confirmation other than that there "there's something." At 11:00 he met with Mordechai Tzipori, Minister of Communications and conveyed his information. Unable to reach Military Intelligence by phone, he got in touch with Yitzhak Shamir at 11:19 asking him to check reports of a Phalangist slaughter in the camps. Shamir testified that from his recollection the main thing Tzipori had told him of was that 3/4 IDF soldiers killed, no mention of a massacre or slaughter, as opposed to a "rampage" had been made. He made no check because his impression was that the point of the information was to keep him updated on IDF losses. At a meeting with American diplomats at 12:30 Shamir made no mention of what Tzipori told him, saying he expected that he would hear from Ariel Sharon, the Military Intelligence chief and the American Morris Draper about the situation in West Beirut,At that noontime meeting Sharon insisted that "terrorists" needed "mopping up." Americans pressed for the intervention of the Lebanese National Army, and for an IDF withdrawal immediately. Sharon replied:


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: I just don't understand, what are you looking for? Do you want the terrorists to stay? Are you afraid that somebody will think that you were in collusion with us? Deny it. We denied it,


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: adding that nothing would happen except perhaps for a few more terrorists being killed, which would be a benefit to all. Shamir and Sharon finally agreed to a gradual withdrawal, at the end of Rosh Hashana, two days later. Draper then warned them:


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: Sure, the I.D.F. is going to stay in West Beirut and they will let the Lebanese go and kill the Palestinians in the camps.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: So, we'll kill them. They will not be left there. You are not going to save them. You are not going to save these groups of the international terrorism.. . If you don't want the Lebanese to kill them, we will kill them.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: In the afternoon, before 16:00, Lieutenant Grabowski had one of his men ask a Phalangist why they were killing civilians, and was told that pregnant women will give birth to children who will grow up to be terrorists.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: At Beirut airport at 16:00 journalist Ron Ben-Yishai heard from several Israeli officers that they had heard that killings had taken place in the camps. At 11:30 he telephoned Ariel Sharon to report on the rumours, and was told by Sharon that he had already heard of the stories from the Chief of Staff.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: At 16:00 in a meeting with the Phalangist staff, with Mossad present, the Israeli Chief of Staff said he had a "positive impression" of their behavior in the field and from what the Phalangists reported, and asked them to continue 'mopping up the empty camps' until 5 am, whereupon they must desist due to American pressure. According to the Kahan Commission investigation, neither side explicitly mentioned to each other reports or rumours about the way civilians were being treated in the camp. Between 18:00 and 20:00, Israeli Foreign Ministry personnel in Beirut and in Israel began receiving various reports from U.S. representatives that the Phalangists had been observed in the camps and that their presence was likely to cause problems. On returning to Israel, the Chief of Staff spoke to Ariel Sharon between 20:00 and 21:00, and according to Sharon, informed him that the "Lebanese had gone too far", and that "the Christians had harmed the civilian population more than was expected." This, he testified, was the first he had ever heard of Phalangist irregularities in the camps. The Chief of Staff denied they had discussed any killings "beyond what had been expected".


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: Later in the afternoon, a meeting was held between the Israeli Chief of Staff and the Phalangist staff.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: On the morning of Friday, 17 September, the Israeli Army surrounding Sabra and Shatila ordered the Phalange to halt their operation, concerned about reports of a massacre.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: On 17 September, while Sabra and Shatila still were sealed off, a few independent observers managed to enter. Among them were a Norwegian journalist and diplomat Gunnar Flakstad, who observed Phalangists during their cleanup operations, removing dead bodies from destroyed houses in the Shatila camp.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: Many of the bodies found had been severely mutilated. Young men had been castrated, some were scalped, and some had the Christian cross carved into their bodies.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: Janet Lee Stevens, an American journalist, later wrote to her husband, Dr. Franklin Lamb, "I saw dead women in their houses with their skirts up to their waists and their legs spread apart; dozens of young men shot after being lined up against an alley wall; children with their throats slit, a pregnant woman with her stomach chopped open, her eyes still wide open, her blackened face silently screaming in horror; countless babies and toddlers who had been stabbed or ripped apart and who had been thrown into garbage piles."


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: Before the massacre, it was reported that the leader of the PLO, Yasir Arafat, had requested the return of international forces, from Italy, France and the United States, to Beirut to protect civilians. Those forces had just supervised the departure of Arafat and his PLO fighters from Beirut. Italy expressed 'deep concerns' about 'the new Israeli advance', but no action was taken to return the forces to Beirut. "The New York Times" reported in September 1982:


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: Yasir Arafat, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, demanded today that the United States, France and Italy send their troops back to Beirut to protect its inhabitants against Israel..."The dignity of three armies and the honor of their countries is involved," Mr. Arafat said at his news conference. "I ask Italy, France and the United States: What of your promise to protect the inhabitants of Beirut?"


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: The Lebanese army's chief prosecutor, Assad Germanos, investigated the killings, but following orders from above, did not summon Lebanese witnesses. Also Palestinian survivors from the camps were afraid to testify, and Phalangist fighters were expressly forbidden to give testimony. Germanos' report determined that 460 people had been killed (including 15 women and 12 children.) Israeli intelligence estimated 700–800 dead, and the Palestinian Red Crescent claimed 2,000 dead. 1,200 death certificates were issued to anyone who produced three witnesses claiming a family member disappeared during the time of the massacre.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: Lokhman Slim and Monika Borgman's "Massaker", based on 90 hours of interviews with the LF soldiers who participated in the massacre, gives the participants' memories of how they were drawn into the militia, trained with the Israeli army and unleashed on the camps to take revenge for the murder of Bashir Gemayel. The motivations are varied, from blaming beatings from their fathers in childhood, the effects of the brutalization of war, obedience to one's leaders, a belief that the camp women would breed future terrorists, and the idea three quarters of the residents were terrorists. Others spoke of their violence without traces of repentance.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: On 16 December 1982, the United Nations General Assembly condemned the massacre and declared it to be an act of genocide.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: The voting record on section D of Resolution 37/123 was: yes: 123; no: 0; abstentions: 22; non-voting: 12.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: The delegate for Canada stated: "The term genocide cannot, in our view, be applied to this particular inhuman act". The delegate of Singapore – voting 'yes' – added: "My delegation regrets the use of the term 'an act of genocide' ... [as] the term 'genocide' is used to mean acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group." Canada and Singapore questioned whether the General Assembly was competent to determine whether such an event would constitute genocide. The Soviet Union, by contrast, asserted that: "The word for what Israel is doing on Lebanese soil is genocide. Its purpose is to destroy the Palestinians as a nation." The Nicaragua delegate asserted: "It is difficult to believe that a people that suffered so much from the Nazi policy of extermination in the middle of the twentieth century would use the same fascist, genocidal arguments and methods against other peoples."


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: The United States commented that "While the criminality of the massacre was beyond question, it was a serious and reckless misuse of language to label this tragedy genocide as defined in the 1948 Convention".


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: William Schabas, director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the National University of Ireland, stated: "the term genocide ... had obviously been chosen to embarrass Israel rather than out of any concern with legal precision".


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: The independent commission headed by Seán MacBride looking into reported violations of International Law by Israel, however, did find that the concept of genocide applied to the case as it was the intention of those behind the massacre "the deliberate destruction of the national and cultural rights and identity of the Palestinian people". Individual Jews throughout the world also denounced the massacre as genocide.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: The MacBride commission's report, "Israel in Lebanon," concluded that the Israeli authorities or forces were responsible in the massacres and other killings that have been reported to have been carried out by Lebanese militiamen in Sabra and Shatila in the Beirut area between 16 and 18 September. Unlike the Israeli commission, the McBride commission did not work with the idea of separate degrees of responsibility, viz., direct and indirect.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: Israel's own Kahan commission found that only "indirect" responsibility befitted Israel's involvement. For British journalist David Hirst, Israel crafted the concept of indirect responsibility so as to make its involvement and responsibility seem smaller. He said of the commission's verdict that it was only by means of errors and omissions in the analysis of the massacre that the commission was able to reach the conclusion of indirect responsibility.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: The Kahan Commission concluded Israeli Defense minister Sharon bore personal responsibility "for ignoring the danger of bloodshed and revenge" and "not taking appropriate measures to prevent bloodshed". Sharon's negligence in protecting the civilian population of Beirut, which had come under Israeli control, amounted to a non-fulfillment of a duty with which the Defense Minister was charged, and it was recommended that Sharon be dismissed as Defense Minister.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: At first, Sharon refused to resign, and Begin refused to fire him. It was only after the death of Emil Grunzweig after a grenade was tossed by a right-wing Israeli into the dispersing crowd of a Peace Now protest march, which also injured ten others, that a compromise was reached: Sharon would resign as Defense Minister, but remain in the Cabinet as a minister without portfolio. Notwithstanding the dissuading conclusions of the Kahan report, Sharon would later become Prime Minister of Israel.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: An opinion poll indicated that 51.7% of the Israeli public thought the commission was too harsh, and only 2.17% too lenient.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: The Kahan commission also recommended the dismissal of Director of Military Intelligence Yehoshua Saguy, and the effective promotion freeze of Division Commander Brig. Gen. Amos Yaron for at least three years.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: The primary responsibility for the massacre is generally attributed to Elie Hobeika. Robert Maroun Hatem, Elie Hobeika's bodyguard, stated in his book "From Israel to Damascus" that Hobeika ordered the massacre of civilians in defiance of Israeli instructions to behave like a "dignified" army.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: Hobeika was assassinated by a car bomb in Beirut on 24 January 2002. Lebanese and Arab commentators blamed Israel for the murder of Hobeika, with alleged Israeli motive that Hobeika would be 'apparently poised to testify before the Belgian court about Sharon's role in the massacre (see section above). Prior to his assassination, Elie Hobeika had stated "I am very interested that the [Belgian] trial starts because my innocence is a core issue."


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: According to Alain Menargues, on 15 September, an Israeli special operations group of Sayeret Matkal entered the camp to liquidate a number of Palestinian cadres, and left the same day. It was followed the next day, by "killers" from the Sa'ad Haddad's South Lebanon Army, before the Lebanese Forces units of Elie Hobeika entered the camps.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: The US responsibility was considerable; indeed the Arab states and the PLO blamed the US. The negotiations under the mediation of US diplomat Philip Habib, which oversaw the withdrawal of the PLO from Beirut, had assigned responsibility to the American-led Multi National Force for guaranteeing the safety of those non-combatant Palestinians who remained. The US administration was criticized for the early withdrawal of the Multi National Force, a criticism which George Shultz accepted later. Shultz recounted in his memoirs that "The brutal fact is that we are partially responsible. We took the Israelis and Lebanese at their word". On 20 September the Multi National Force was redeployed to Beirut.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: Ariel Sharon sued "Time" magazine for libel in American and Israeli courts in a $50 million libel suit, after "Time" published a story in its 21 February 1983, issue, implying that Sharon had "reportedly discussed with the Gemayels the need for the Phalangists to take revenge" for Bachir's assassination. The jury found the article false and defamatory, although "Time" won the suit in the U.S. court because Sharon's defense failed to establish that the magazine's editors and writers had "acted out of malice", as required under U.S. libel law.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: After Sharon's 2001 election as Israeli Prime Minister, relatives of the victims of the massacre filed a lawsuit On 24 September 2003, Belgium's Supreme Court dismissed the war crimes case against Ariel Sharon, since none of the plaintiffs had Belgian nationality at the start of the case.


title: Sabra and Shatila massacre

text: According to Robert Fisk, Osama bin Laden cited the Sabra and Shatila massacre as one of the motivations for the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, in which al-Qaeda attacked an American Air Force housing complex in Saudi Arabia.


title: Makenzie Vega

text: Makenzie Jade Vega Norfolk (born February 10, 1994), known professionally as Makenzie Vega, is an American actress. She is known for her role as Grace Florrick on "The Good Wife" and as the 11-year-old counterpart of Nancy Callahan in "Sin City".


title: Makenzie Vega

text: Vega was born in Los Angeles, California. Her father, Baruch Vega, is a Colombian fashion photographer who was an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration, and her mother, Gina Rue, is an American former model. She is the younger sister of actress Alexa Vega.


title: Makenzie Vega

text: At the age of five, Vega played one of the children of Teddie Cochran (Geena Davis) in "The Geena Davis Show". In 2000, she was cast as Annie, the Campbells' precocious daughter in "The Family Man". The following year, Vega was seen again playing Chloe in "Made" which starred Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau and Famke Janssen. In 2004, she played Diana Gordon, daughter of Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) and Alison Gordon (Monica Potter) in the horror film "Saw". Her next movie was "Sin City", in which she played young Nancy Callahan, alongside Bruce Willis. Vega then appeared in "Just My Luck" as Katy, starring Lindsay Lohan and Chris Pine, and also in the summer blockbuster "" as the Prison Truck Little Girl, which was one of the forms that the shapeshifter Mystique took in the film.


title: Makenzie Vega

text: Vega played Grace Florrick, the daughter of Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies), in the CBS drama "The Good Wife"; she was a regular cast member through six of the show's seven seasons, and was recurring cast member in the seventh and final season, with Grace providing critical plot elements to the series' finale. In 2015, Vega was cast in the lead role in the thriller film "Fender Bender", which premiered on the Chiller channel in June 2016.


title: Makenzie Vega

text: Vega married Australian model Blair Norfolk on February 4, 2017 in a secret wedding which the couple announced publicly three weeks after.


title: Jimmy Cliff

text: James Chambers OM (born 30 July 1944), known professionally as Jimmy Cliff, is a Jamaican ska, rocksteady, reggae and soul musician, multi-instrumentalist, singer, and actor. He is the only living reggae musician to hold the Order of Merit, the highest honour that can be granted by the Jamaican government for achievements in the arts and sciences.


title: Jimmy Cliff

text: Cliff is best known among mainstream audiences for songs such as "Many Rivers to Cross", "You Can Get It If You Really Want", "The Harder They Come", "Reggae Night", and "Hakuna Matata", and his covers of Cat Stevens's "Wild World" and Johnny Nash's "I Can See Clearly Now" from the film "Cool Runnings". He starred in the film "The Harder They Come", which helped popularize reggae around the world, and "Club Paradise". Cliff was one of five performers inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010.


title: Jimmy Cliff

text: Jimmy Cliff was born James Chambers on 30 July 1944 in Saint James, Colony of Jamaica. He began writing songs while still at primary school in St. James, listening to a neighbour's sound system. When Chambers was 14, his father took him to Kingston, where he would take up the stage name Jimmy Cliff.


title: Jimmy Cliff

text: Cliff sought out many producers while still going to school, trying to get his songs recorded without success. He also entered talent contests. "One night I was walking past a record store and restaurant as they were closing, pushed myself in and convinced one of them, Leslie Kong, to go into the recording business, starting with me," he writes in his own website biography. After two singles that failed to make much impression, his career took off when "Hurricane Hattie" became a hit while he was aged 14. It was produced by Kong, with whom Cliff remained until Kong's death from a heart attack in 1971.


title: Jimmy Cliff

text: Cliff's later local hit singles included "King of Kings", "Dearest Beverley", "Miss Jamaica", and "Pride and Passion". In 1964, Cliff was chosen as one of Jamaica's representatives at the World's Fair in New York; and in the same year Cliff was featured in a program called "This is Ska!" alongside Prince Buster, Toots and the Maytals, and Byron Lee and the Dragonaires.


title: Jimmy Cliff

text: He soon signed to Island Records and moved to the United Kingdom. Island Records initially (and unsuccessfully) tried to sell Cliff to the rock audience, but his career took off in the late 1960s. His international debut album was "Hard Road to Travel", released in 1967. It received excellent reviews and included "Waterfall" (composed by Nirvana's Alex Spyropoulos and Patrick Campbell-Lyons), which became a hit in Brazil and won the International Song Festival.


title: Jimmy Cliff

text: "Waterfall" was followed in 1969 by "Wonderful World, Beautiful People" and "Vietnam" in 1970, both popular throughout most of the world. Bob Dylan called "Vietnam" the best protest song he had ever heard. Also during this period, Cliff released a cover of Cat Stevens' "Wild World" as a single, but it was not included on his "Wonderful World, Beautiful People" album.


title: Jimmy Cliff

text: In 1972, Cliff starred as Ivanhoe "Ivan" Martin in the classic reggae film, "The Harder They Come", directed by Perry Henzell. As the film tells Martin's story, he is a young man without funds. Arriving in Kingston from the country, he tries to make it in the recording business, but without success. Eventually, he turns to a life of crime. The soundtrack album of the film was a huge success that sold well around the world, bringing reggae to an international audience for the first time. It remains one of the most internationally significant films to have come out of Jamaica since independence. The film made its debut at London's Gaumont cinema in Notting Hill on 1 September 1972.


title: Jimmy Cliff

text: In 1975, Cliff sang on the first season of "Saturday Night Live", episode 12, hosted by Dick Cavett. After a series of albums, Cliff took a break and traveled to Africa (the Nigeria-based Jamaican writer Lindsay Barrett was instrumental in Cliff's first trip there), and subsequently converted to Islam, taking the name of El Hadj Naïm Bachir.


title: Jimmy Cliff

text: Cliff quickly returned to music, touring for several years before he recorded with Kool & the Gang. In 1984, Cliff appeared at the Pinkpop Festival in Landgraaf, Netherlands. During The River Tour, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band added Cliff's previously little-known song "Trapped" to their live set; it achieved great prominence when included on 1985's "We Are the World" benefit album. The follow-up, "Cliff Hanger" (1985), won a Grammy Award for 'Best Reggae Album', though it was his last major success in the United States until 1993. Also in 1985, Cliff contributed to the song "Sun City", a protest song written and composed by Steven Van Zandt and recorded by Artists United Against Apartheid to convey opposition to the South African policy of apartheid.


title: Jimmy Cliff

text: Cliff then provided backing vocals on The Rolling Stones' 1986 album "Dirty Work", and appeared in the comedy "Club Paradise", co-starring with Robin Williams and Peter O'Toole, and contributed several songs to the soundtrack, including "Seven Day Weekend", which he sang with Elvis Costello. In 1988, his song "Shelter of Your Love" was featured in the 1988 film "Cocktail".


title: Jimmy Cliff

text: Cliff appeared in the film "Marked for Death" in 1990, performing "John Crow" with the Jimmy Cliff Band. His recording of "You Can Get It If You Really Want" was used as a campaign anthem by the Sandinista National Liberation Front in the 1990 election in Nicaragua. In 1991, he performed at the second Rock in Rio festival in Estádio do Maracanã in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He continued to sell well in Jamaica and, to a lesser extent, the UK, returning to the mainstream pop charts in the U.S. and elsewhere (#1 in France) with a version of Johnny Nash's "I Can See Clearly Now" on the "Cool Runnings" film soundtrack in 1993. In 1995, Cliff released the single "Hakuna Matata", a collaboration with Lebo M, a song from the soundtrack of the film "The Lion King". In 1997, Cliff was a guest star in an episode of the Cartoon Network talk show "Space Ghost Coast to Coast".


title: Jimmy Cliff

text: In 2001, Cliff became an inaugural member of the Independent Music Awards' judging panel to support independent artists. In 2002, Cliff released the album "Fantastic Plastic People" in Europe, after first providing free downloads using p2p software. This album featured collaborations with Joe Strummer, Annie Lennox, and Sting as well as new songs that were very reminiscent of Cliff's original hits. In 2004, Cliff completely reworked the songs, dropping the traditional reggae in favour of an electronic sound, for inclusion in "Black Magic". The album also included a recording of "Over the Border" with Joe Strummer. Cliff performed at the closing ceremony to the 2002 Commonwealth Games and in 2003, his song "You Can Get It If You Really Want" was included in the soundtrack to the film, "Something's Gotta Give". He also appeared in July 2003 at the Paléo Festival in Nyon, Switzerland. The Jamaican government under P. J. Patterson honoured Cliff on 20 October 2003, by awarding him The Order of Merit, the nation's fourth-highest honour, in recognition of his contributions to the film and music of Jamaica. Cliff and Mervyn Morris are the only currently living figures from the arts to hold this distinction and Cliff is the only living musician to do so.


title: Jimmy Cliff

text: In 2007, Cliff performed at the opening ceremony at cricket's World Cup. In the spring and summer of 2010, Cliff embarked on an extensive tour of the U.S. and Canada. In 2007, "You Can Get It If You Really Want" was adopted by the British Conservative Party during their annual conference. He was quoted in "The Independent" as saying, "One of my band mates called me this morning to tell me the news. I can't stop them using the song, but I'm not a supporter of politics. I have heard of Cameron, but I'm not a supporter. I don't support any politician. I just believe in right or wrong."


title: Jimmy Cliff

text: In September 2009, he was nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, following a campaign on his behalf by the American Charles Earle. Cliff reacted to the news by saying, "This is good for Cliff, good for Jamaican music and good for my country." On 15 December 2009, he was officially announced as an inductee and was inducted on 15 March 2010 by Wyclef Jean.


title: Jimmy Cliff

text: Cliff appeared in the 2011 documentary "Reggae Got Soul: The Story of Toots and the Maytals" which was featured on BBC and described as "The untold story of one of the most influential artists ever to come out of Jamaica".


title: Jimmy Cliff

text: In 2011, Cliff worked with producer Tim Armstrong, lead singer of American punk band Rancid, on the EP "The Sacred Fire" and the full-length album "Rebirth". "Rebirth" won a Grammy Award for 'Best Reggae Album'. The album was listed at #12 on "Rolling Stone"'s list of the top 50 albums of 2012, saying "There's ska, rock steady, roots reggae, a revelatory cover of The Clash's "Guns of Brixton" delivered in Cliff's trademark soulful tenor, grittier but still lovely more than 40 years after his debut."


title: Jimmy Cliff

text: In December 2012, Cliff was named 'Artist of the Year' by digital newspaper the Caribbean Journal, citing his work on "Rebirth".


title: Jimmy Cliff

text: Cliff was briefly a member of the Rastafari movement before converting to Islam from Christianity. He now describes himself as having a "universal outlook on life", and does not align himself with any particular movement or religion, saying, "now I believe in science". He is married and has a daughter, Lilty Cliff, and a son, Aken Cliff. He is also the father of the actress/singer Nabiyah Be.


title: Emcure Pharmaceuticals

text: Emcure Pharmaceuticals Limited is an Indian multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in Pune. Emcure's product portfolio includes tablets, capsules (both softgel capsules and hard-gel capsules) and injectables.


title: Emcure Pharmaceuticals

text: Emcure voices its concerns on HIV/AIDS through its "Let's fight AIDS together" initiative and supplies Antiretroviral drugs to Africa, Asia Pacific and CIS. As a part of its corporate social responsibility it supports 'Taal', a pharmacy for HIV/AIDS patients run by HIV/AIDS patients.


title: Emcure Pharmaceuticals

text: Emcure has license agreements with Bristol-Myers Squibb for Atazanavir and Gilead Sciences for Tenofovir as part of their Global Access Programs.


title: Emcure Pharmaceuticals

text: Roche has signed a deal with Emcure for manufacturing its blockbuster anticancer drugs Herceptin and Mabthera in India. Under this programme the cancer drugs shall be made available to the developing world at an affordable 'cut-price' version.


title: Emcure Pharmaceuticals

text: Heritage Pharmaceuticals, a division of Emcure has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the United States Department of Justice, Antitrust Division ("DOJ") relating to a one-count Information for a conspiracy involving glyburide. In conjunction with the DPA, Heritage will pay a $225,000 fine.


title: Emcure Pharmaceuticals

text: In addition, the Company separately agreed to a settlement with the United States Department of Justice, Civil Division to resolve potential civil liability under the False Claims Act in connection with the antitrust conduct. Under the terms of the settlement, the Company has agreed to pay $7.1 million. Heritage has agreed to pay $7.1 million as part of a settlement with DOJ's Civil Division to resolve allegations of selling drugs at the artificially inflated prices, which resulted in claims submitted to or purchases by federal healthcare programs.


title: Emcure Pharmaceuticals

text: After the scandal, Emcure renamed Heritage to Avet Pharma - opposite of Teva, since many new executives joined after stepping down from Teva.


title: Emcure Pharmaceuticals

text: There are allegations that Emcure (through its sister company Gennova) stole the technology of vaccine production by breaching contract with HDT Bio. Earlier Emcure broke ties with Roche in similar way. In the Drug Price Fixing case, Emcure CEO Satish Mehta was alleged to collude and conspire with Rajiv Malik to jack up prices of essential drugs.


title: Emcure Pharmaceuticals

text: In 2010, Pfizer had to recall three batches of an anti-bacterial product from the US market due to presence of "Bacillus anthracis", "Penicillium chrysogenum" & "E. coli" in some samples. Teva recalled several batches of two products due to white tablets showing presence of "Yersinia pestis" in 2011.


title: Emcure Pharmaceuticals

text: Even in the domestic market, Maharashtra FDA issued a circular to recall all the injections (500 mg /10 ml) manufactured by Emcure Pharmaceuticals Ltd, from across the country.


title: Emcure Pharmaceuticals

text: Two injected drugs manufactured by Emcure, with a history of sterility problems were recalled because of microbial contamination. The drugs were both manufactured by Emcure Pharmaceuticals but were distributed in the U.S. by Heritage Pharmaceuticals (now renamed Avet).


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: In the United States, the opioid epidemic (also known as the opioid crisis) is an extensive ongoing overuse of opioid medications, both from medical prescriptions and from illegal sources. The epidemic began in the United States in the late 1990s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), when opioids were increasingly prescribed for pain management and resulted in a rise in overall opioid use throughout subsequent years. The great majority of Americans who use prescription opioids do not believe that they are misusing them.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: There were around 100,300 drug overdose deaths in the US in the 12-month period ending April 30, 2021. From 1999 to 2020, nearly 841,000 people died from drug overdoses, with prescription and illicit opioids being responsible for more than 500,000 of those deaths, up to 2019. In 2017 alone, there were 70,237 recorded drug overdose deaths, and of those deaths, 47,600 involved an opioid. A report from December 2017 estimated 130 people every day in the United States die from an opioid-related drug overdose.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: Those addicted to opioids, both legal and illegal, are increasingly young, white, and female, with 1.2 million women addicted compared to 0.9 million men in 2015. The problem is significantly worse in rural areas, where social and economic variables, health behaviors, and accessibility to health care resources are responsible for a higher death rate. Teen use of opioids has been noticeably increasing, using prescription drugs more than any illicit drug except cannabis; more than cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine combined.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: Opioids are a diverse class of strong, addictive, and inexpensive drugs, which include opiates (i.e., morphine and codeine), oxycodone (OxyContin, Percocet), hydrocodone (Vicodin, Norco), and fentanyl. Traditionally, opioids have been prescribed for pain management, as they are effective for treating acute pain but are less effective for treating chronic pain. Clinical guidelines advise that opioids should only be used for chronic pain if safer alternatives are not feasible, as their risks often outweigh their benefits.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: The potency and availability of opioids have made them popular as both medical treatments and recreational drugs. In 2018, the U.S. opioid prescription rate was 51.4 prescriptions per 100 people, which is equivalent to more than 168 million total opioid prescriptions. However, these substances also have high risks of addiction and overdose, and long-term use can cause tolerance and physical dependence. When people continue to use opioid medications beyond what a doctor prescribes, whether to minimize pain or induce euphoric feelings, it can mark the beginning stages of an opioid addiction. Also in 2018, after being prescribed an opioid medication, about 10.3 million people ended up misusing it and 47,600 people died from an overdose.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describe the U.S. opioid epidemic to have arrived in three waves.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: The first wave, which marked the start of the epidemic, began in the 1990s due to the push towards using opioid medications for chronic pain management and the increased promotion by pharmaceutical companies for medical professionals to use their opioid medications. During this time, around 100 million people in the United States were estimated to be affected by chronic pain; however, opioids were only reserved for acute pain experienced secondary to cancer or terminal illnesses. Physicians avoided prescribing opioids for other medical conditions because of the lack of evidence supporting their use, the concern of opioids having addictive properties, and the fear of being investigated or disciplined for liberal opioid practices. However, in 1980, a letter to the editor featured in the "New England Journal of Medicine" (NEJM) challenged these notions and advocated for more liberal use of opioids in pain management, which was eventually supported by the World Health Organization. In addition to this, medical organizations began to push for more attentive physician response to pain, referring to pain as the "fifth vital sign". This was coupled with the promotion of opioids by pharmaceutical companies who insisted that patients could not become addicted. Opioids became an acceptable form of treatment for a wide variety of conditions, and this led to a consistent increase in opioid prescriptions. From 1990 to 1999, the total number of opioid prescriptions grew from 76 million to approximately 116 million, which led to them becoming the most prescribed class of medications in the United States.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: Mirroring the positive trend in the volume of opioid pain relievers prescribed is an increase in the admissions for substance use disorder treatments and increase in opioid-related deaths. This illustrates how legitimate clinical prescriptions of pain relievers are being diverted through an illegitimate market, leading to misuse, addiction and death. With the increase in volume, the potency of opioids also increased. By 2002, one in six drug users were being prescribed drugs more powerful than morphine; by 2012, the ratio had doubled to one-in-three. The most commonly prescribed opioids have been oxycodone and hydrocodone.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: The second wave of the opioid epidemic started around 2010 and is characterized by the rise in heroin use and overdose deaths. Between 2005 and 2012, the number of people who used heroin almost doubled from 380,000 to 670,000, and in 2010, there were a total of 2,789 fatal heroin overdoses, an almost 50% increase from the years prior. This spike is a reflection of the increase in heroin supplies in the United States and the decrease in prices, which encouraged a large proportion of individuals with an established dependency and tolerance on opioids to transition towards a more concentrated and cheaper alternative. During this same time period, there was also a reformulation of OxyContin that made it more difficult to be able to crush it and use it; however, the effect of this formulation on the rise in heroin use is still unclear.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: The third and most recent wave of the opioid epidemic began in 2013 and is ongoing. This wave coincides with the steep rise in overdose deaths that involved synthetic opioids, particularly illegally produced fentanyl.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: The epidemic has been described as a "uniquely American problem". The structure of the U.S. healthcare system, in which people not qualifying for government programs are required to obtain private insurance, favors prescribing drugs over more expensive therapies. According to Professor Judith Feinberg, "Most insurance, especially for poor people, won't pay for anything but a pill." Prescription rates for opioids in the United States are 40 percent higher than the rate in other developed countries such as Germany or Canada. While the rates of opioid prescriptions increased between 2001 and 2010, the prescription of non-opioid pain relievers (aspirin, ibuprofen, etc.) decreased from 38% to 29% of ambulatory visits in the same time period, and there has been no change in the amount of pain reported in the United States. This has led to differing medical opinions, with some noting that there is little evidence that opioids are effective for chronic pain not caused by cancer.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: The annual opioid prescribing rates has been slowly decreasing since 2012, but the number is still high. There were about 58 opioid prescriptions per 100 Americans in 2017. Characteristics of jurisdictions with a greater number of opioid prescriptions per resident include: small cities or large towns; cities with more dentists and primary care doctors per capita; cities with a higher percentage of white residents; cities with a higher uninsured/unemployment rate; and cities with more residents who have diabetes, arthritis, or a disability.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: Several studies have been conducted to find out how opioids were primarily acquired, with varying findings. A 2013 national survey indicated that 74% of people who recreationally use opioids acquired their opioids directly from a single doctor, or a friend or relative, who in turn received their opioids from a clinician. Among pharmacies, the most prolific distributor was Walgreens, which bought 13 billion oxycodone and hydrocodone pills from 2006 through 2012 (about twenty percent of all such pills in US pharmacies). Though aggressive opioid prescription practices played the biggest role in creating the epidemic, the popularity of illegal substances such as potent heroin and illicit fentanyl have become an increasingly large factor. It has been suggested that decreased supply of prescription opioids caused by opioid prescribing reforms turned people who were already addicted to opioids towards illegal substances.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: In 2015, approximately 50% of drug overdoses were not the result of an opioid product from a prescription, though most recreational users' first exposure had still been by lawful prescription. By 2018, another study suggested that 75% of people who use opioids recreationally started their opioid use by taking drugs which had been obtained in a way other than by legitimate prescription.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: Opiates such as morphine have been used for pain relief in the United States since the 1800s, and were used during the American Civil War. Opiates soon became known as a wonder drug and were prescribed for a wide array of ailments, even for relatively minor treatments such as cough relief. Bayer began marketing heroin commercially in 1898. Beginning around 1920, however, the addictiveness was recognized, and doctors became reluctant to prescribe opiates. Heroin was made an illegal drug with the Anti-Heroin Act of 1924, in which the US Congress banned the sale, importation, or manufacture of heroin.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: In the 1950s heroin addiction was still fairly uncommon among average Americans, many of whom saw it as a frightening condition. The fear extended into the 1960s and 1970s, although it became common to hear or read about drugs such as cannabis and psychedelics, which were widely used at rock concerts like Woodstock.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: Heroin addiction began to make the news around 1970 when rock star Janis Joplin died from an overdose. During and after the Vietnam War, addicted soldiers returned from Vietnam, where heroin was easily bought. Heroin addiction grew within low-income housing projects during the same time period. In 1971, congressmen released an explosive report on the growing heroin epidemic among US servicemen in Vietnam, finding that ten to fifteen percent were addicted to heroin. "The Nixon White House panicked," wrote political editor Christopher Caldwell, and declared drug abuse "public enemy number one". By 1973, there were 1.5 overdose deaths per 100,000 people.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: Modern prescription opiates such as Vicodin and Percocet entered the market in the 1970s, but acceptance took several years and doctors were apprehensive about prescribing them. Until the 1980s, physicians had been taught to avoid prescribing opioids because of their addictive nature. A brief letter published in the "New England Journal of Medicine" (NEJM) in January 1980, titled "Addiction Rare in Patients Treated with Narcotics", generated much attention and changed this thinking. A group of researchers in Canada claim that the letter may have originated and contributed to the opioid crisis. The "NEJM" published its rebuttal to the 1980 letter in June 2017, pointing out among other things that the conclusions were based on hospitalized patients only, and not on patients taking the drugs after they were sent home. The original author, Dr. Hershel Jick, has said that he never intended for the article to justify widespread opioid use.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: In the mid-to-late 1980s, the crack epidemic followed widespread cocaine use in American cities. The death rate was worse, reaching almost 2 per 100,000. In 1982, Vice President George H. W. Bush and his aides began pushing for the involvement of the CIA and the US military in drug interdiction efforts, the so-called War on Drugs. The initial promotion and marketing of OxyContin was an organized effort throughout 1996–2001, to dismiss the risk of opioid addiction.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: Purdue Pharma hosted over forty promotional conferences at three select locations in the southwest and southeast of the United States. Coupling a convincing "Partners Against Pain" campaign with an incentivized bonus system, Purdue trained its salesforce to convey the message that the risk of addiction was under one percent, ultimately influencing the prescribing habits of the medical professionals that attended these conferences. Consulting firm McKinsey & Company reached a nearly $600 million settlement with 49 of 50 U.S. states in 2021 over the firm's role in driving opioid sales for Purdue Pharma and other pharmaceutical companies. In 2016, the opioid epidemic was killing on average 10.3 people per 100,000, with the highest rates including over 30 per 100,000 in New Hampshire and over 40 per 100,000 in West Virginia.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's National Survey on Drug Use and Health, in 2016 more than 11million Americans misused prescription opioids, nearly 1million used heroin, and 2.1million had an addiction to prescription opioids or heroin.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: While rates of overdose of legal prescription opiates have leveled off in the past decade, overdoses of illicit opiates have surged since 2010, nearly tripling.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: In a 2015 report, the US Drug Enforcement Administration stated that "overdose deaths, particularly from prescription drugs and heroin, have reached epidemic levels." Nearly half of all opioid overdose deaths in 2016 involved prescription opioids. From 1999 to 2008, overdose death rates, sales, and substance use disorder treatment admissions related to opioid pain relievers all increased substantially. By 2015, there were more than 50,000 annual deaths from drug overdose, causing more deaths than either car accidents or guns.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: In 2016, around 64,000 Americans died from overdoses, 21 percent more than the approximately 53,000 in 2015. By comparison, the figure was 16,000 in 2010, and 4,000 in 1999. While death rates varied by state, in 2017 public health experts estimated that nationwide over 500,000 people could die from the epidemic over the next 10 years. In Canada, half of the overdoses were accidental, while a third were intentional. The remainder were unknown. Many of the deaths are from an extremely potent opioid, fentanyl, which is trafficked from Mexico. The epidemic cost the United States an estimated $504billion in 2015.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: In 2017, around 70,200 Americans died from drug overdose. 28,466 deaths were associated with such as fentanyl and fentanyl analogs, 15,482 were associated with heroin use, 17,029 with prescription opioids (including methadone), 13,942 with cocaine use, and 10,333 with psychostimulants (including methamphetamine).


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: Between 2017 and 2019, rappers Lil Peep, Mac Miller, and Juice Wrld died of drug overdoses related to opioids. William D. Bodner of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Los Angeles field division and special agent in charge of the investigation into Miller's death said in a statement, “The tragic death of Mac Miller is a high-profile example of the tragedy that is occurring on the streets of America every day.”


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: Between 4–6% of people who misuse prescription opioids turn to heroin, and 80% of heroin addicts began abusing prescription opioids. Many people addicted to opioids switch from taking prescription opioids to heroin because heroin is less expensive and more easily acquired on the black market.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: Women are at a higher risk of overdosing on heroin than men. Overall, opioids are among the biggest killers of every race.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: Heroin use has been increasing over the years. An estimated 374,000 Americans used heroin in 2002–2005, and this estimate grew to nearly double where 607,000 of Americans had used heroin in 2009–2011. In 2014, it was estimated that more than half a million Americans had an addiction to heroin.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: Oxycodone is the most widely used recreational opioid in the United States. The US Department of Health and Human Services estimates that about 11million people in the US consume oxycodone in a non-medical way annually.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: Oxycodone was first made available in the United States in 1939. In the 1970s, the FDA classified oxycodone as a Schedule II drug, indicating a high potential for non-medical use and addiction. After its 1995 approval by the FDA by Deputy Director Curtis Wright IV, Purdue Pharma introduced OxyContin, a controlled release formulation of oxycodone in 1996. However, drug users quickly learned how to simply crush the controlled release tablet to swallow, inhale, or inject the high-strength opioid for a powerful morphine-like high. In fact, Purdue's private testing conducted in 1995 determined that 68% of the oxycodone could be extracted from an OxyContin tablet when crushed.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: In 2007, Purdue paid $600million in fines after being prosecuted for making false claims about the risk of opioid use disorder associated with oxycodone. In 2010, Purdue Pharma reformulated OxyContin, using a polymer to make the pills extremely difficult to crush or dissolve in water to reduce non-medical use of OxyContin. The FDA approved relabeling the reformulated version as abuse-resistant. OxyContin use following the 2010 reformulation declined slightly while no changes were observed in the use of other opioids.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: In June 2017, the FDA asked the manufacturer to remove its long-acting form of oxymorphone (Opana ER) from the US market, because the drug's benefits may no longer outweigh its risks, this being the first time the agency has asked to remove a currently marketed opioid pain medication from sale due to public health consequences of non-medical use.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: Hydrocodone is second among the list of top prescribed opioid painkillers, but it is also high on the list of most frequently used for recreational use. In 2011, the non-medical use of hydrocodone was responsible for more than 97,000 visits to the emergency room. In 2012, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rescheduled it from a Schedule III drug to a Schedule II drug, recognizing its high potential for non-medical use and addiction.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: Hydrocodone can be prescribed under a different brand name. These brand names include Norco, Lortab, and Vicodin. Hydrocodone can also exist in other formulations where it is combined with another non-opioid pain reliever such as acetaminophen, or even a cough suppressant.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: When opioids like hydrocodone are taken as prescribed, for the indication prescribed, and for a short period of time, then the risk of non-medical use and addiction is small. Problems have surfaced over the last decade however, due to its wide overuse and misuse in the setting of chronic pain.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: The elderly are at an increased risk for opioid related overdose because several different classes of medications can interact with opioids and older patients are often taking multiple prescribed medications at a single time. One class of drug that is commonly prescribed in this patient population is benzodiazepines. Benzodiazepines by themselves put older people at risk for falls and fractures due to associated side effects related to dizziness and sedation. Opioids by themselves put older people at risk of respiratory depression and impaired ability to operate vehicles and other machinery. Combining these two drugs together not only increases a person's risk of the aforementioned adverse effects, but it can increase a person's risk of overdose and death.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: Statistics show that hydrocodone ranks in at number 4 on the list of the most common drugs used recreationally in the United States and that more than 40% of drug-related emergencies occur due to opioid use disorder. Twenty percent of people who use opioids recreationally, another statistic reports, were prescribed the medication they used.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: Hydrocodone was declared the most widely prescribed opioid between 2007 and 2016, and in 2015 the International Narcotics Control Board reported that greater than 98% of the hydrocodone consumed in the entire world was consumed by Americans.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: Codeine is a prescription opiate used to treat mild to moderate pain. It is available as a tablet and cough syrup. Approximately 33million people use codeine each year. A 2013 study on the concoction of codeine with alcohol or soda, also known as "purple drank," discovered that codeine is most widely used in a recreational way by men, Native Americans and Hispanics, urban students, and LGBT persons. The study also noted that all people who used "purple drank" reported using alcohol within the past month, and roughly 10 percent of cannabis users reported abusing "purple drank".


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: Adolescent use of prescription codeine for recreational use raises concerns. In 2008, the SAMHSA reported 3million young adults, ranging from ages 12 to 25, had used codeine-based cough syrup to get high. In 2014, 467,000 American adolescents used these opiates for non-medical purposes, and 168,000 of these were considered to have an addiction. Due to its high rates of non-medical use, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reclassified codeine as Schedule III for increased meticulous monitoring.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: America's drug epidemic is the deadliest it has ever been, new federal data suggests. More than 100,000 people died of drug overdoses in the United States during the 12-month period ending April 2021, according to provisional data published Wednesday November 17, 2021 by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That's a new record high, with overdose deaths jumping 28.5% from the same period a year earlier and nearly doubling over the past five years. Opioids continue to be the driving cause of drug overdose deaths. Synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, caused nearly two-thirds (64%) of all drug overdose deaths in the 12-month period ending April 2021, up 49% from the year before, the CDC's 's National Center for Health Statistics found.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: Over a two-year period, close to $800million worth of fentanyl pills were illegally sold online to the US by Chinese distributors. The drug is usually manufactured in China, then shipped to Mexico, where it is processed and packaged, which is then smuggled into the US by drug cartels. A large amount is also purchased online and shipped through the US Postal Service. It can also be purchased directly from China, which has become a major manufacturer of various synthetic drugs illegal in the US. AP reporters found multiple sellers in China willing to ship carfentanyl, an elephant tranquilizer that is so potent it has been considered a chemical weapon. The sellers also offered advice on how to evade screening by US authorities. According to Assistant US Attorney, Matt Cronin:


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: Deaths from fentanyl in 2016 increased by 540 percent across the United States since 2015. This accounts for almost "all the increase in drug overdose deaths from 2015 to 2016", according to a study published in the "Journal of the American Medical Association".


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: Fentanyl-laced heroin has become a big problem for major cities, including Philadelphia, Detroit and Chicago. Its use has caused a spike in deaths among users of heroin and prescription painkillers, while becoming easier to obtain and conceal. Some arrested or hospitalized users are surprised to find that what they thought was heroin was actually fentanyl. According to former CDC director Tom Frieden:


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), death rates from synthetic opioids, including fentanyl, increased over 72% from 2014 to 2015. In addition, the CDC reports that the total deaths from opioid overdoses may be under-counted, since they do not include deaths that are associated with synthetic opioids which are used as pain relievers. The CDC presumes that a large proportion of the increase in deaths is due to illegally-made fentanyl; as the statistics on overdose deaths (as of 2015) do not distinguish pharmaceutical fentanyl from illegally-made fentanyl, the actual death rate could, therefore, be much higher than reported.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: Those taking fentanyl-laced heroin are more likely to overdose because they do not know they also are ingesting the more powerful drug. The most high-profile death involving an accidental overdose of fentanyl was singer Prince.


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: Fentanyl has surpassed heroin as a killer in several locales: in all of 2014 the CDC identified 998 fatal fentanyl overdoses in Ohio, which is the same number of deaths recorded in just the first five months of 2015. The US Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio stated:


title: Opioid epidemic in the United States

text: In 2016, the medical news site "STAT" reported that while Mexican cartels are the main source of heroin smuggled into the US, Chinese suppliers provide both raw fentanyl and the machinery necessary for its production. In Southern California, a home-operated drug lab with six pill presses was uncovered by federal agents; each machine was capable of producing thousands of pills an hour.