title: Waldensians

text: In 1853 a group of approximately 70 Waldensians, including men, women, and children, left their homes in the Piedmont Valleys and migrated to Pleasant Green, Hunter, and Ogden, Utah, after being converted to Mormonism by Lorenzo Snow. These Waldensians maintained their cultural heritage, while passing on their mixture of Mormon and Waldensian faiths to their descendants. Their descendants still consider themselves both Mormon and Waldensian, and have met occasionally over the many decades to celebrate both heritages.


title: Waldensians

text: In 1906, through the initiative of church forces in New York City, Waldensian interest groups were invited to coalesce into a new entity, The American Waldensian Aid Society (AWS), organized "to collect funds and apply the same to the aid of the Waldensian Church in Italy and elsewhere ... and to arouse and maintain interest throughout the US in the work of said Church." Today, this organization continues as the American Waldensian Society. The American Waldensian Society recently marked its Centennial with a conference and celebrations in New York City.


title: Waldensians

text: By the 1920s most of the Waldensian churches and missions merged into the Presbyterian Church due to the cultural assimilation of the second and third generations.


title: Waldensians

text: The work of the American Waldensian Society continues in the United States today. The American Waldensian Society aims to foster dialogue and partnership among Waldensian Churches in Italy and South America and Christian churches within North America in order to promote a compelling vision of Waldensian Christian witness for North America. Thus, the American Waldensian Society makes public the contemporary and historic heritage to which Waldensian spirituality is committed: Tell the Story; Encourage "Crossings"; and Provide Financial Support.


title: Waldensians

text: The best known Waldensian Churches in America were in New York, Monett, Missouri and in Valdese, North Carolina. The church in New York City was disbanded by the mid-1990s.


title: Waldensians

text: The American Waldensian Society assists churches, organizations and families in the promotion of Waldensian history and culture. The society allies with those who work to preserve their millennial heritage among their descendants. For example, over the course of 45years, the Old Colony Players in Valdese, North Carolina, have staged "From this Day Forward", an outdoor drama telling the story of the Waldenses and the founding of Valdese.


title: Waldensians

text: The Waldensian Presbyterian churches in the United States and the American Waldensian Society have links with the Italian-based Waldensian Evangelical Church, but, unlike the South American Waldensian communities, today they are independent institutions from the European organization.


title: Waldensians

text: Several thousand Waldenses fled from Italy and France to Germany. Henri Arnaud (1641–1721), pastor and leader of the Piedmont Waldensians, rescued his co-religionists from their dispersion under the persecution of Victor Amadeus II the Duke of Savoy. Eberhard Louis, Duke of Württemberg invited the Waldensians to his territory. When the Waldensians were exiled a second time, Arnaud accompanied them in their exile to Schönenberg, and continued to act as their pastor until his death.


title: Waldensians

text: Those who remained in Germany were soon assimilated by the State Churches (Lutheran and Reformed) and they are a part of various Landeskirchen in the Evangelical Church in Germany. The new settlers were free in their religious services, and kept holding them in French till the 19th century. The Waldensian community is often overlooked, as the Huguenots were larger in number. Henri Arnaud's home in Schönenberg close to Ötisheim is a Museum today. A memorial plate refers to the introduction of potatoes in Württemberg by the Waldensians.


title: Waldensians

text: Main parts of the Waldensian refugees found a new home in Hessen-Darmstadt, Kassel, Homburg, Nassau-Dillenburg and in the then Grand Duchée Württemberg. The founded new communities in Rohrbach, Wembach und Hahn (today part of Ober-Ramstadt), Walldorf (today Mörfelden-Walldorf), Bad Homburg-Dornholzhausen, Gottstreu and Gewissenruh (Oberweser), Charlottenberg. Still today, French family names (Gille, Roux, Granget, Conle, Gillardon, Common, Jourdan, Piston, Richardon, Servay, Conte, Baral, Gay, Orcellet or Salen) show the Savoyard background. Stuttgart hosts as well an Italian Waldensian community with about 100 members.


title: Waldensians

text: Municipality names like Pinache, Serres (both now part of Wiernsheim), Großvillars (part of Oberderdingen), Kleinvillars, Perouse show the French heritage, the latter communities are close to Maulbronn and its UNESCO world heritage site monastery and school. Maulbronn was the place of the festivities for the 250th anniversary of the Waldensian emigration to Germany, which played as well an important role in German Italian reconciliation after World WarII.


title: Waldensians

text: The Waldensian community is active and has various associations maintaining the specific heritage and keep relationships with their counterparts in Italy and South America. That includes as well a close watch on the ecumene, with the Waldensian-influenced theologians being more doubtful about a stronger cooperation with the Catholic Church than others.


title: Emma Morano

text: Emma Martina Luigia Morano (29 November 1899 – 15 April 2017) was an Italian supercentenarian. She was the world's oldest living person from 13 May 2016 until her death on 15 April 2017, aged 117 years and 137 days. At the time of her death, she was also the last living person verified to have been born in the 1800s. She is the oldest Italian person ever and the third-oldest European person ever behind Jeanne Calment (1875–1997) and Lucile Randon (b. 1904).


title: Emma Morano

text: Emma Martina Luigia Morano was born on 29 November 1899 in Civiasco, Vercelli, Piedmont, to Giovanni Morano and Matilde Bresciani, the eldest of eight children (five daughters and three sons). She had a long-lived family: her mother, an aunt and some of her siblings turned 90, and one of her sisters, Angela Morano (1908–2011), died at age 102.


title: Emma Morano

text: When she was a child she moved from the Sesia Valley to Ossola for her father's job, but the climate was so unhealthy there that a physician advised her family to live somewhere with more moderate weather, so she moved to Verbania, on Lake Maggiore, where she lived the rest of her life. In October 1926, she married Giovanni Martinuzzi (1901–1978), and her only child was born in 1937 but died when he was only six months old. The marriage was not a happy one, so in 1938, Morano separated from her husband, driving him out of the house.


title: Emma Morano

text: Until 1954 Morano worked at Maioni Industry, a jute factory in her town. She subsequently worked in the kitchen of Collegio Santa Maria, a Marianist boarding school in Verbania, until her retirement at the age of 75.


title: Emma Morano

text: In December 2011 she was awarded the honour of Knight of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic by President Giorgio Napolitano.


title: Emma Morano

text: In 2013, when asked about the secret of her longevity, she said that she ate three eggs a day, occasionally drank a glass of homemade grappa, and enjoyed a chocolate sometimes, but, above all, she thought positively about the future. She was still living alone in her home on her 115th birthday. In 2016 she credited her long life to her diet of raw eggs and cookies, and to staying single.


title: Emma Morano

text: Morano became the oldest living person in Italy and Europe after the death of Maria Redaelli on 2 April 2013. On her 114th birthday, she gave a short live TV interview to a RAI show. On her 116th birthday, Morano received congratulations from Pope Francis.


title: Emma Morano

text: She surpassed the age of Venere Pizzinato in August 2014 and Dina Manfredini (who died in the United States) in August 2015, to become the oldest Italian person ever. On 13 May 2016, upon the death of American woman Susannah Mushatt Jones, Morano became the world's oldest living person and also the last living person verified to have been born before 1900. On 29 July 2016, she was presented with a certificate from "Guinness World Records" recognizing her as the oldest person alive. Festivities celebrating her 117th birthday on 29 November 2016 were broadcast live in Italy.


title: Emma Morano

text: Morano died at her home in Verbania, Italy, on 15 April 2017 at the age of 117. At the time of her death, she was the fourth-oldest person in recorded history. Upon Morano's death, Violet Brown became the world's oldest living person.


title: Vernier scale

text: A vernier scale, named after Pierre Vernier, is a visual aid to take an accurate measurement reading between two graduation markings on a linear scale by using mechanical interpolation, thereby increasing resolution and reducing measurement uncertainty by using vernier acuity to reduce human estimation error. It may be found on many types of instrument measuring linear or angular quantities, but in particular on a vernier caliper which measures internal or external diameter of hollow cylinders.


title: Vernier scale

text: The vernier is a subsidiary scale replacing a single measured-value pointer, and has for instance ten divisions equal in distance to nine divisions on the main scale. The interpolated reading is obtained by observing which of the vernier scale graduations is coincident with a graduation on the main scale, which is easier to perceive than visual estimation between two points. Such an arrangement can go to a higher resolution by using a higher scale ratio, known as the vernier constant. A vernier may be used on circular or straight scales where a simple linear mechanism is adequate. Examples are calipers and micrometers to measure to fine tolerances, on sextants for navigation, on theodolites in surveying, and generally on scientific instruments.


title: Vernier scale

text: The Vernier principle of interpolation is also used for electronic displacement sensors such as absolute encoders to measure linear or rotational movement, as part of an electronic measuring system.


title: Vernier scale

text: The first caliper with a secondary scale, which contributed extra precision, was invented in 1631 by French mathematician Pierre Vernier (1580–1637). Its use was described in detail in English in "Navigatio Britannica" (1750) by mathematician and historian John Barrow. While calipers are the most typical use of vernier scales today, they were originally developed for angle-measuring instruments such as astronomical quadrants.


title: Vernier scale

text: In some languages, the vernier scale is called a "nonius" after Portuguese mathematician, cosmographer Pedro Nunes (Latin "Petrus Nonius", 1502–1578). In English, this term was used until the end of the 18th century. "Nonius" now refers to an earlier instrument that Nunes developed.


title: Vernier scale

text: The name "vernier" was popularised by the French astronomer Jérôme Lalande (1732–1807) through his "Traité d'astronomie" (2 vols) (1764).


title: Vernier scale

text: The use of the vernier scale is shown on a vernier caliper which measures the internal and the external diameters of an object.


title: Vernier scale

text: The vernier scale is constructed so that it is spaced at a constant fraction of the fixed main scale. So for a vernier with a constant of 0.1, each mark on the vernier is spaced 9/10 of those on the main scale. If you put the two scales together with zero points aligned, the first mark on the vernier scale is 1/10 short of the first main scale mark, the second is 2/10 short, and so on up to the ninth mark, which is misaligned by 9/10. Only when a full ten marks are counted, is there alignment, because the tenth mark is 10/10—a whole main scale unit—short, and therefore aligns with the ninth mark on the main scale. (In simple words, each , so each decrement of length 0.1 adds 10 times to make one MSD only in 9 divisions of vernier scale division).


title: Vernier scale

text: Now if you move the vernier by a small amount, say, 1/10 of its fixed main scale, the only pair of marks that come into alignment are the first pair, since these were the only ones originally misaligned by 1/10. If we move it 2/10, the second pair aligns, since these are the only ones originally misaligned by that amount. If we move it 5/10, the fifth pair aligns—and so on. For any movement, only one pair of marks aligns and that pair shows the value between the marks on the fixed scale.


title: Vernier scale

text: The difference between the value of one main scale division and the value of one vernier scale division is known as the least count of the vernier, also known as the vernier constant. Let the measure of the smallest main-scale reading, that is the distance between two consecutive graduations (also called its "pitch") be "S", and the distance between two consecutive vernier scale graduations be "V", such that the length of ("n" − 1) main-scale divisions is equal to "n" vernier-scale divisions. Then


title: Vernier scale

text: Vernier scales work so well because most people are especially good at detecting which of the lines is aligned and misaligned, and that ability gets better with practice, in fact far exceeding the optical capability of the eye. This ability to detect alignment is called "vernier acuity". Historically, none of the alternative technologies exploited this or any other hyperacuity, giving the vernier scale an advantage over its competitors.


title: Vernier scale

text: Zero error is defined as the condition where a measuring instrument registers a reading when there should not be any reading. In case of vernier calipers it occurs when a zero on main scale does not coincide with a zero on vernier scale. The zero error may be of two types: when the scale is towards numbers greater than zero, it is positive; otherwise it is negative. The method to use a vernier scale or caliper with zero error is to use the formula


title: Vernier scale

text: Zero error may arise due to knocks or other damage which causes the 0.00 mm marks to be misaligned when the jaws are perfectly closed or just touching each other.


title: Vernier scale

text: Positive zero error refers to the case when the jaws of the vernier caliper are just closed and the reading is a positive reading away from the actual reading of 0.00mm. If the reading is 0.10mm, the zero error is referred to as +0.10 mm.


title: Vernier scale

text: Negative zero error refers to the case when the jaws of the vernier caliper are just closed and the reading is a negative reading away from the actual reading of 0.00mm. If the reading is 0.08mm, the zero error is referred to as −0.08mm.


title: Vernier scale

text: If positive, the error is subtracted from the mean reading the instrument reads. Thus if the instrument reads 4.39 cm and the error is +0.05, the actual length will be 4.39 − 0.05 = 4.34.


title: Vernier scale

text: If negative, the error is added to the mean reading the instrument reads. Thus if the instrument reads 4.39 cm and as above the error is −0.05 cm, the actual length will be 4.39 + 0.05 = 4.44.


title: Vernier scale

text: "Direct verniers" are the most common. The indicating scale is constructed so that when its zero point coincides with the start of the data scale, its graduations are at a slightly smaller spacing than those on the data scale and so none but the last graduation coincide with any graduations on the data scale. "N" graduations of the indicating scale cover "N" − 1 graduations of the data scale.


title: Vernier scale

text: "Retrograde verniers" are found on some devices, including surveying instruments. A retrograde vernier is similar to the direct vernier, except its graduations are at a slightly larger spacing than on the main scale. "N" graduations of the indicating scale cover "N" + 1 graduations of the data scale. The retrograde vernier also extends backwards along the data scale.


title: Vernier scale

text: This section includes references to techniques which use the Vernier principle to make fine-resolution measurements.


title: Vernier scale

text: Vernier spectroscopy is a type of cavity-enhanced laser absorption spectroscopy that is especially sensitive to trace gases. The method uses a frequency-comb laser combined with a high-finesse optical cavity to produce an absorption spectrum in a highly parallel manner. The method is also capable of detecting trace gases in very low concentration due to the enhancement effect of the optical resonator on the effective optical path length.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: Friuli-Venezia Giulia () is one of the 20 regions of Italy and one of five autonomous regions with special statute. The regional capital is Trieste on the Gulf of Trieste, a very shallow bay of the Adriatic Sea.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: The region is called in Friulian, in Slovene and in German, the three languages spoken in the region. The city of Venice ( in Italian) is not in this region, despite the name.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: Friuli-Venezia Giulia has an area of and about 1.2 million inhabitants. A natural opening to the sea for many central European countries, the region is traversed by the major transport routes between the east and west of Southern Europe. It encompasses the historical-geographical region of Friuli and a small portion of the historical region of – also known in English as the Julian March – each with its own distinct history, traditions and identity.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: In Roman times, modern Friuli Venezia Giulia was located within Regio X Venetia et Histria of Roman Italy. The traces of its Roman origin are visible all over the area. In fact, the city of Aquileia, founded in 181 BC, served as regional capital and rose to prominence in the Augustan era.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: Following the Lombard settlements in the 6th century, the historical paths of Friuli and Venezia Giulia began to diverge. In 568, Cividale del Friuli (the Roman "Forum Iulii" (from which the name Friuli is derived)) became the capital of the first Lombard dukedom in Italy. In 774, the Franks, favored the growth of the church of Aquileia and established Cividale as a march. In 1077, the Holy Roman Emperor recognized the territorial powers of the Patriarchate of Aquileia that temporarily extended its rule to areas to the east. Already in the 12th century Gorizia had become independent and Trieste, along with other coastal towns, developed into a free city-state.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: In the 6th century, the Alpine Slavs, ancestors of present-day Slovenes, settled the eastern areas of the region. They settled in the easternmost mountainous areas of Friuli known as the Friulian Slavia, as well as in the Kras Plateau and in the area north and south of Gorizia. In the 12th and 13th centuries they also moved closer to Trieste.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: Friuli became Venetian territory in 1420, while Trieste and Gorizia remained within the Holy Roman Empire. Pordenone was a "corpus separatum", under Austrian influence until 1515, when it also fell to Venetian rule. With the 1797 Peace treaty of Campoformido, the Venetian domination came to an end and Friuli was ceded to Austria. After the period of domination by Napoleon, which affected also Trieste and Gorizia, it again became part of the Austrian Empire and was included in the Lombard-Veneto Kingdom. Gorizia was assigned to the Illyrian Kingdom, whereas Trieste and Istria became part of the Austrian Coastal Region. Under the enlightened government and policies set by the Austrian Empire and continued by the Austrian-Hungarian Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries, Trieste flourished, reaching an extraordinary economic development as the main harbour of the Habsburg empire. The war of independence led to the annexation of Friuli to the Kingdom of Italy.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: During the First World War, the region was a prominent theatre for military operations and suffered serious damage and loss of lives. After the war, these borderlands were united within the Kingdom of Italy, although Venezia Giulia's borders were the subject of an international dispute.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: The Second World War led to the creation of the Anglo-American Administration in Trieste until the border was defined in the 1954 Memorandum of London. After Trieste was reassigned to Italy, the Autonomous Region of Friuli Venezia Giulia was finally established.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: The region's name was Friuli-Venezia Giulia (hyphenated) until 2001, when the official spelling "Friuli Venezia Giulia" (without hyphen) was adopted following the modification of Article No.116 of the Italian Constitution. The term "Venezia Giulia" was coined by Graziadio Isaia Ascoli.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: Friuli Venezia Giulia is Italy's north-easternmost region. It covers an area of 7,858 km and is the fifth smallest region of the country. It borders Austria to the north and Slovenia to the east. To the south it faces the Adriatic Sea and to the west the Veneto region.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: The region spans a wide variety of climates and landscapes from the mild Oceanic in the south to Alpine continental in the north. The total area is subdivided into a 42.5% mountainous-alpine terrain in the north, 19.3% is hilly, mostly to the south-east, while the remaining 38.2% comprises the central and coastal plains.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: Morphologically the region can be subdivided into four main areas. The mountainous area in the north: this part of the region includes Carnia and the ending section of the Alps (Carnic Alps and Julian Alps), of which the highest peaks exceed 2,700 m above sea level (Jôf di Montasio 2,754 m). Its landscapes are characterised by vast pine forests and pastures, mountain lakes (e.g. Sauris, Fusine and Barcis) and numerous streams and small rivers descending from the mountains.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: The area is also known for its tourist destinations, especially during the winter season (Monte Zoncolan, Tarvisio, Sella Nevea, Forni di Sopra and Piancavallo). The hilly area is situated to the south of the mountains and along the central section of the border with Slovenia. The main product of agriculture in this area is wine, whose quality, especially the white, is known worldwide. The easternmost part of the hilly area is also known as Slavia Friulana, as it is mostly inhabited by ethnic Slovenes.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: The central plains are characterised by poor, arid and permeable soil. The soil has been made fertile with an extensive irrigation system and through the adoption of modern intensive farming techniques. In this part of the region most of the agricultural activities are concentrated. The coastal area can be further subdivided in two, western-eastern, subsections separated by the river Isonzo's estuary.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: To the west, the coast is shallow and sandy, with numerous tourist resorts and the lagoons of Grado and Marano Lagunare. To the east, the coastline rises into cliffs, where the Karst Plateau meets the Adriatic, all the way to Trieste and Muggia on the border with Slovenia. The Carso has geological features and phenomena such as hollows, cave networks and underground rivers, which extend inland in the provinces of Trieste and Gorizia, with an altitude ranging between 300m and 600m.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: The rivers of the region flow from the North and from Slovenia into the Adriatic. The two main rivers are the Tagliamento, which flows west–east in its upper part in the Carnic Alps and then bends into a north–south flow that separates the Julian Alps from Alpine foothills and the Isonzo (Slovenian: Soča) which flows from Slovenia into Italy. The Timavo is an underground river that flows for 38 km from Slovenia and resurfaces near its mouth north-west of Duino.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: The region Friuli Venezia Giulia has a temperate climate. However, due to the terrain's diversity, it varies considerably from one area to another. Walled by the Alps on its northern flank, the region is exposed to air masses from the East and the West. The region receives also the southerly Sirocco from the Adriatic sea, which brings in heavy rainfall. Along the coast the climate is mild and pleasant.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: Trieste records the smallest temperature differences between winter and summer and between day and night. The climate is Alpine-continental in the mountainous areas, where, in some locations, the coldest winter temperatures in Italy can often be found. The Kras plateau has its own weather and climate, influenced, mostly during autumn and winter, by masses of cold air coming from the north-east. These generate a very special feature of the local climate: the north-easterly wind Bora, which descends onto the Gulf of Trieste with gusts occasionally exceeding speeds of 150 km/h.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: The Gross domestic product (GDP) of the region was 38 billion euros in 2018, accounting for 2.2% of Italy's economic output. GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power was 31,200 euros or 103% of the EU27 average in the same year. The GDP per employee was 106% of the EU average.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: The economy of Friuli Venezia Giulia is one of the most developed in the country. Its core is based on small and middle-size enterprises (the so-called 'North-East model'), on specialized farming and on high-quality tourism with a significant inclination towards exports.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: Agriculture and farming maintain an essential role in the economy of the region and employed in 2001 around 95,000 persons. Its products are exported not only within the country and Europe (fruit and vegetable, cheese) but have become known worldwide for their acclaimed quality (cured ham and wines, especially white ones). Noteworthy is also the production of soy (third producer in Italy with more than 37,000 hectares cultivated in 2000) and timber production in Carnia.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: The economy of the region is based on a widespread mosaic of small and medium-sized enterprises; of particular importance are the four industrial districts where a multitude of such highly specialised enterprises are concentrated. These districts are centred around the towns of Manzano, San Daniele del Friuli (cured ham), Maniago (knives), and Brugnera (furniture). Several large enterprises are also present in the region in both the industry and services sectors. Some of these companies are world leaders in their relevant sectors; such are Fincantieri (headquarters in Trieste with shipyards in Monfalcone) for the construction of the world's largest cruise ships, Zanussi-Electrolux (Pordenone) in the production of electrical appliances, Danieli, Eurotech, Illy, Rizzani de Eccher, Solari di Udine, TBS Group, Banca Generali, Genertellife, Italia Marittima, Telit, Wärtsilä, Allianz Italia and Assicurazioni Generali in Trieste, a leading insurance company in the world.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: In the services sector, the city of Trieste plays a leading role (with knock-on effects on the other provincial capitals); it is here that activities such as the regional government, large banking, and insurance companies are concentrated.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: With its commercial Free Port, Trieste also plays an essential role in the trade sector: special custom regulations ensure exclusive financial conditions to operators. The Port of Trieste is today the most important centre worldwide for the trade of coffee and plays a strategic key role in trade with northern and eastern Europe-


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: Although small in size, Friuli Venezia Giulia has always been 'in the centre of Europe' and has played an important role in connecting Italy (and the Mediterranean) to Central and Eastern Europe. Its role will become even more strategic as a logistical platform with the imminent enlargement of the European Union. Hence the importance of the infrastructure network of the region, which can today be considered first rate in quality and diversity. The motorway network consists of more than 200 km that run from North to South and from West to East, connecting the region to Austria and Slovenia.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: The railway network consists of around 500 km of track, with the two twin-line 'backbones' Venice-Trieste and Trieste-Udine-Tarvisio-Austria. The motorway and railway networks are linked to the ports of Trieste, Monfalcone and Porto Nogaro, the three most northerly ports of the Mediterranean. Trieste, in particular, has a free port for goods since 1719. It is the Italian port with the greatest capacity for covered storage, with a surface area of more than 2 million square meters and 70 km of rail tracks. Intermodality is guaranteed by the Cervignano terminal, in operation since 1988, to serve the increasing commercial traffic between Italy and Eastern European countries.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: The regional airport of Ronchi dei Legionari is situated 30 km from Trieste and 40 km from Udine and is closely connected to the motorway and railway networks. The airport offers regular national and international flights including destinations in Eastern Europe. The region is now placing much of its hopes for future economic development in the construction of a high speed European Transport Corridor n° V connecting Lyon, Turin, Venice, Trieste, Ljubljana, Budapest and Kiev, so as to improve the traffic of goods and services with new EU partners.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: Population density is lower than the national average: In 1978 there were in total only 1,224,611 inhabitants; in 2008 it was 157.5 inhabitants per km (compared to 198.8 for Italy as a whole). However, density varies from a minimum of 106 inhabitants per km in the province of Udine to a maximum of 1,144 inhabitants per km in the province of Trieste.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: The negative natural balance in the region is partly made up by the positive net migration. To some extent the migratory surplus has in fact offset the downward trend in the population since 1975. In 2008, the resident population with foreign nationality registered in the region accounted to 83,306 persons (6.7% of the total population).


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: A special Italian statute of 31 January 1963 effective 16 February 1963 constituted Friuli Venezia Giulia as an autonomous region within the Italian Republic.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: The President of Regional Government is the region's head of government. Executive power is exercised by the and legislative power is vested in both the government and the Regional Council. In the latest regional election, which took place on 4 March 2018, Massimiliano Fedriga of the Lega Nord Friuli-Venezia Giulia was elected president by a landslide.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: Like most of the rest of Italy, Friuli Venezia Giulia was previously divided into four provinces: Gorizia, Pordenone, Trieste and Udine. The first three were abolished on 30 September 2017, while the Province of Udine remained active until 22 April 2018.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: In anticipation of this 2017 and 2018 abolition of the provinces in Friuli Venezia Giulia, the Regional Council created a system of 18 Intermunicipal Territorial Unions (, or UTI). The UTIs have taken on the local services that the municipalities previously managed, extending across the larger area managed by each UTI, while also taking on some responsibilities previously managed by the provinces; this handling of "wide area local development policies" by the UTIs was conceived as a way allow more focused planning and budgeting for the 215 "comuni", divided across the 18 UTIs, than would be possible on a region-wide basis by the Regional Council.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: The Regional Council also passed a statute which allows, should it desire at some future point, for the establishment of the regional capital of Triestewith smaller surrounding townsas a metropolitan city administering wide area local development policies.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: Until 2017–18, Friuli Venezia Giulia was divided into four provinces. The Regional Council voted to abolish them effective 30 September 2017, though the provincial council of the largest, Udine, carried on some administrative responsibilities until 22 April 2018.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: Italian is the official national language. Friulian language is also spoken in most of the region – with a few exceptions, most notably Trieste and the area around Monfalcone and Grado, where a version of the Venetian language and Triestine dialect is spoken instead.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: Venetian is also spoken in western part of the Province of Pordenone, and in the city of Pordenone itself, due to its proximity with the Veneto region. Friulian and Venetian are more common in the countryside, while standard Italian is the predominant language in the larger towns (Udine, Pordenone, Gorizia). The region is also home to Italy's Slovene-speaking minority.


title: Friuli Venezia Giulia

text: A very popular symbol among the Friulian community (mostly identified with the friulian-speaking population in the provinces of Udine, Pordenone and Gorizia and the numerous expat communities around the world) is the Friulian Historical Flag, to which the official regional flag is roughly inspired, being somehow a modern interpretation of it. The official, modern "Friuli-Venezia Giulia" flag logo was issued in 1967–1968 (and adopted in 2001) to represent the region which in 1963 took the administrative setup of today. The historical symbol of the eagle dates back to (at least) the 13th century, the time of the Patriarchate of Aquileia.


title: Michael Foot

text: Michael Mackintosh Foot (23 July 19133 March 2010) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Labour Leader from 1980 to 1983. Foot began his career as a journalist on "Tribune" and the "Evening Standard". He co-wrote the 1940 polemic against appeasement of Adolf Hitler, "Guilty Men", under a pseudonym.


title: Michael Foot

text: Foot served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1945 to 1955 and again from 1960 until he retired in 1992. A passionate orator, and associated with the left wing of the Labour Party for most of his career, Foot was an ardent supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and of British withdrawal from the European Economic Community (EEC). He was appointed to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Employment under Harold Wilson in 1974, and he later served as Leader of the House of Commons (1976–1979) under James Callaghan. He was also Deputy Leader of the Labour Party under Callaghan from 1976 to 1980.


title: Michael Foot

text: Elected as a compromise candidate, Foot served as the Leader of the Labour Party, and Leader of the Opposition from 1980 to 1983. His strongly left-wing political positions and criticisms of his vacillating leadership made him an unpopular leader. Not particularly telegenic, he was nicknamed "Worzel Gummidge" for his rumpled appearance. A faction of the party broke away in 1981 to form the SDP. Foot led Labour into the 1983 general election, when the party obtained its lowest share of the vote since the 1918 general election and the fewest parliamentary seats it had had at any time since before 1945, which remained the case until Labour's defeat at the 2019 election. He resigned the party leadership following the election, and was succeeded as leader by Neil Kinnock.


title: Michael Foot

text: Books authored by Michael Foot include "Guilty Men" (1940); "The Pen and the Sword" (1957), a biography of Jonathan Swift; and a biography of Aneurin Bevan.


title: Michael Foot

text: Foot was born in Lipson Terrace, Plymouth, Devon, the fourth son and fifth of seven children of Isaac Foot (1880–1960) and of the Scotswoman Eva (née Mackintosh, died 17 May 1946).


title: Michael Foot

text: Isaac Foot was a solicitor and founder of the Plymouth law firm Foot and Bowden (which amalgamated with another firm to become Foot Anstey). Isaac Foot, an active member of the Liberal Party, served as the Liberal Member of Parliament for Bodmin in Cornwall from 1922 to 1924 and again from 1929 to 1935, and as a Lord Mayor of Plymouth.


title: Michael Foot

text: Michael Foot's siblings included: Sir Dingle Foot MP (1905–78), a Liberal and subsequently Labour MP; Hugh Foot, Baron Caradon (1907–90), Governor of Cyprus (1957–60) and representative of the United Kingdom at the United Nations from 1964–70; Liberal politician John Foot, later Baron Foot (1909–99); Margaret Elizabeth Foot (1911–65); Jennifer Mackintosh Highet (1916-2002); and Christopher Isaac Foot (1917–84). Michael Foot was the uncle of campaigning journalist Paul Foot (1937–2004) and of charity worker Oliver Foot (1946–2008).


title: Michael Foot

text: Foot was educated at Plymouth College Preparatory School, Forres School in Swanage, and Leighton Park School in Reading. When he left Forres School, the headmaster sent a letter to his father in which he said "he has been the leading boy in the school in every way". He then went on to read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Wadham College, Oxford. Foot was a president of the Oxford Union. He also took part in the ESU USA Tour (the debating tour of the United States run by the English-Speaking Union).


title: Michael Foot

text: Upon graduating with a second-class degree in 1934, he took a job as a shipping clerk in Birkenhead. Foot was profoundly influenced by the poverty and unemployment that he witnessed in Liverpool, which was on a different scale from anything he had seen in Plymouth. A Liberal up to this time, Foot was converted to socialism by Oxford University Labour Club president David Lewis, a Canadian Rhodes scholar, and others: " I knew him [at Oxford] when I was a Liberal [and Lewis] played a part in converting me to socialism."


title: Michael Foot

text: Foot joined the Labour Party and first stood for parliament, aged 22, at the 1935 general election, where he contested Monmouth. During the election, Foot criticised the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, for seeking rearmament. In his election address, Foot contended that "the armaments race in Europe must be stopped now". Foot also supported unilateral disarmament, after multilateral disarmament talks at Geneva had broken down in 1933.


title: Michael Foot

text: Foot became a journalist, working briefly on the "New Statesman", before joining the left-wing weekly "Tribune" when it was set up in early 1937 to support the Unity Campaign, an attempt to secure an anti-fascist united front between Labour and other left-wing parties. The campaign's members were Stafford Cripps's (Labour-affiliated) Socialist League, the Independent Labour Party and the Communist Party of Great Britain (CP). Foot resigned in 1938 after the paper's first editor, William Mellor, was sacked for refusing to adopt a new CP policy of backing a Popular Front, including non-socialist parties, against fascism and appeasement. In a 1955 interview, Foot ideologically identified as a libertarian socialist.


title: Michael Foot

text: He was an avid anti-imperialist and was heavily involved in the India League. As an Oxford graduate, he was influenced by the founder of the India League, Krishna Menon. The India League was the premier UK-based organisation that fought for the 'Liberation of India'. After Indian independence in 1947, Foot's interest in India continued, and he became Chair of the India League.


title: Michael Foot

text: On the recommendation of Aneurin Bevan, Foot was soon hired by Lord Beaverbrook to work as a writer on his "Evening Standard". (Bevan is supposed to have told Beaverbrook on the phone: "I've got a young bloody knight-errant here. They sacked his boss, so he resigned. Have a look at him.") At the outbreak of the Second World War, Foot volunteered for military service, but was rejected because of his chronic asthma.


title: Michael Foot

text: In 1940, under the pen-name "Cato" he and two other Beaverbrook journalists (Frank Owen, editor of the "Standard", and Peter Howard of the "Daily Express") published "Guilty Men", which attacked the appeasement policy and slow pace of British re-armament under the National Governments of Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin, and Neville Chamberlain; it became a runaway bestseller. (In so doing, Foot reversed his position of the 1935 election – when he had attacked the Conservatives as militaristic and demanded disarmament in the face of Nazi Germany.) Beaverbrook made Foot editor of the "Evening Standard" in 1942, when he was aged 28. During the war, Foot made a speech that was later featured in the documentary TV series "The World at War" broadcast in February 1974. Foot was speaking in defence of the "Daily Mirror", which had criticised the conduct of the war by the Churchill government. He mocked the notion that the Government would make no more territorial demands of other newspapers if they allowed the "Mirror" to be censored.


title: Michael Foot

text: Foot left the "Standard" in 1945 to join the "Daily Herald" as a columnist. The "Daily Herald" was jointly owned by the Trades Union Congress and Odhams Press, and was effectively an official Labour Party paper. He rejoined "Tribune" as editor from 1948 to 1952, and was again the paper's editor from 1955 to 1960. Throughout his political career he railed against the increasing corporate domination of the press.


title: Michael Foot

text: Foot fought the Plymouth Devonport constituency in the 1945 general election. His election agent was Labour activist and lifelong friend Ron Lemin. He won the seat for Labour for the first time, holding it until his surprise defeat by Dame Joan Vickers at the 1955 general election. Until 1957, he was the most prominent ally of Aneurin Bevan, who had taken Cripps's place as leader of the Labour left. He successfully urged Bevan to follow through with his threat to resign from the Cabinet in protest of the introduction of prescription charges at the National Health Service, leading to a split in the Labour Party between Bevanites and Gaitskellites. Foot and Bevan fell out after Bevan renounced unilateral nuclear disarmament at the 1957 Labour Party conference.


title: Michael Foot

text: Before the Cold War began in the late 1940s, Foot favoured a 'third way' foreign policy for Europe (he was joint author with Richard Crossman and Ian Mikardo of the pamphlet "Keep Left" in 1947), but in the wake of the communist seizure of power in Hungary and Czechoslovakia he and "Tribune" took a strongly anti-communist position, eventually embracing NATO.


title: Michael Foot

text: Foot was however a critic of the West's handling of the Korean War, an opponent of West German rearmament in the early 1950s and a founder member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Under his editorship, "Tribune" opposed both the British government's Suez campaign and the Soviet crushing of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. In this period he made regular television appearances on the current affairs programmes "In The News" (BBC Television) and subsequently "Free Speech" (ITV). "There was certainly nothing wrong with his television technique in those days", reflected Anthony Howard shortly after Foot's death.


title: Michael Foot

text: Foot returned to parliament at a by-election in Ebbw Vale, Monmouthshire, in 1960, the seat having been left vacant by Bevan's death. He had the Labour whip withdrawn in March 1961 after rebelling against the Labour leadership over Royal Air Force estimates. He only returned to the Parliamentary Labour Group in 1963, when Harold Wilson became Leader of the Labour Party after the sudden death of Hugh Gaitskell.


title: Michael Foot

text: Harold Wilson — the subject of an enthusiastic campaign biography by Foot published by Robert Maxwell's Pergamon Press in 1964 – offered Foot a place in his first government, but Foot turned it down, instead becoming the leader of Labour's left opposition from the back benches. He opposed the government's moves to restrict immigration, join the European Communities (or "Common Market" as they were referred to) and reform the trade unions, was against the Vietnam War and Rhodesia's unilateral declaration of independence, and denounced the Soviet suppression of "socialism with a human face" in Czechoslovakia in 1968. He also famously allied with the Tory right-winger Enoch Powell to scupper the government's plan to abolish the voting rights of hereditary peers and create a House of Lords comprising only life peers – a "seraglio of eunuchs" as Foot put it.


title: Michael Foot

text: After 1970, Labour moved to the left and Wilson came to an accommodation with Foot. Foot served in the Second Shadow Cabinet of Harold Wilson in various roles between 1970 and 1974. In April 1972, he stood for the Deputy Leadership of the party, along with Edward Short and Anthony Crosland. The first ballot saw Foot narrowly come second to Short winning 110 votes to the latter's 111. Crosland polled 61 votes and was eliminated. It was reported in the next day's "The Glasgow Herald" that Short was the favourite to pick up most of Crosland's votes. The second ballot saw Short increase his total to 145 votes, while Foot's only rose to 116, giving Short victory by 29 votes.


title: Michael Foot

text: When, in 1974, Labour returned to office under Wilson, Foot became Secretary of State for Employment. According to Ben Pimlott, his appointment was intended to please the left of the party and the Trade Unions. In this role, he played the major part in the government's efforts to maintain the trade unions' support. He was also responsible for the Health and Safety at Work Act, as well as the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act which repealed the Heath ministry's trade union reforms, and the Employment Protection Act, which introduced legal protections against being sacked for becoming pregnant and legislated for maternity pay. His time as Employment Secretary also saw Acas adopt its current name and modern form as a body with independence from government.


title: Michael Foot

text: Foot was one of the mainstays of the "no" campaign in the 1975 referendum on British membership of the European Communities. When Wilson retired in 1976, Foot contested the party leadership and led in the first ballot, but was ultimately defeated by James Callaghan. Later that year Foot was elected Deputy Leader, and during the Callaghan government Foot took a seat in Cabinet as Leader of the House of Commons, which gave him the unenviable task of trying to maintain the survival of the Callaghan government as its majority evaporated. However, he was able to steer numerous government proposals through the Commons, often by very narrow majorities, including increases in pension and benefit rates, the creation of the Police Complaints Board, the expansion of comprehensive schools, the establishment of a statutory responsibility to provide housing for the homeless, universal Child Benefit, the nationalisation of shipbuilding, abolishing pay beds in NHS hospitals, and housing security for agricultural workers, before the government fell in a vote of no confidence by a single vote. Whilst Leader of the Commons, Foot simultaneously held the post of Lord President of the Council.


title: Michael Foot

text: In 1975, Foot, along with Jennie Lee and others, courted controversy when they supported Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India, after she prompted the declaration of a state of emergency. In December 1975, "The Times" ran an editorial titled 'Is Mr Foot a Fascist?' — their answer was that he was — after Norman Tebbit accused him of 'undiluted fascism' when Foot said that the Ferrybridge Six deserved dismissal for defying a closed shop.


title: Michael Foot

text: Following Labour's 1979 general election defeat by Margaret Thatcher, James Callaghan remained as party leader for the next 18 months before he resigned. Foot was elected Labour leader on 10 November 1980, beating Denis Healey in the second round of the leadership election (the last leadership contest to involve only Labour MPs). Foot presented himself as a compromise candidate, capable – unlike Healey – of uniting the party, which at the time was riven by the grassroots left-wing insurgency centred around Tony Benn.


title: Michael Foot

text: The Bennites were demanding revenge for what they considered to be the betrayals of the Callaghan government. They called for MPs who had acquiesced in Callaghan's policies to be replaced by left-wingers who would support unilateral nuclear disarmament, withdrawal from the European Communities, and widespread nationalisation. Benn did not stand for the leadership; apart from Foot and Healey, the other candidates (both eliminated in the first round) were John Silkin, a Tribunite like Foot, and Peter Shore, a Eurosceptic.


title: Michael Foot

text: As Steve Richards notes in 1980 Healey, not Foot, was widely expected by the media and many political figures to be the next Labour leader. However he notes that while "Healey was widely seen as the obvious successor to Callaghan", and that sections of the media ultimately reacted with "disbelief" at Labour not choosing him, to be leader the "choice of Foot was not as perverse as it seemed". He argues Labour MPs were looking for a figure from the left who could unite the wider party with the leadership which Healey could not do. Richards states that despite being on the left of the party Foot was not a "tribal politician" and had proved he could work with those of different ideologies and had been a loyal deputy to Callaghan. Thus Foot "was seen as the unity candidate" and won the election.


title: Michael Foot

text: When he became leader, Foot was already 67 years old; and frail. Following the 1979 energy crisis, Britain went into recession in 1980, which was blamed on the Conservative government's controversial monetarist policy against inflation, which had the effect of increasing unemployment. As a result, Labour had moved ahead of the Conservatives in the opinion polls. Following Foot's election as leader, opinion polls showed a double-digit lead for Labour, boosting his hopes of becoming prime minister at the next general election, which had to be held by May 1984.


title: Michael Foot

text: When Foot became leader, the Conservative politician Kenneth Baker commented: "Labour was led by Dixon of Dock Green under Jim Callaghan. Now it is led by Worzel Gummidge." Foot's nickname in the press gradually became "Worzel Gummidge", or "Worzel". This became particularly common after Remembrance Day 1981, when he attended the Cenotaph observance wearing a coat that some said resembled a donkey jacket. After his tenure as leader, Foot would be "depicted as a scarecrow on ITV’s satirical puppet show "Spitting Image"."


title: Michael Foot

text: Almost immediately following his election as leader, he was faced with a serious crisis. On 25 January 1981, four senior politicians on the right-wing of the Labour Party (Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, David Owen and William Rodgers, the so-called "Gang of Four") left Labour and formed the Social Democratic Party, which was launched on 26 March 1981. This was largely seen as the consequence of the Labour Party's swing to the left, polarising divisions in an already divided party.


title: Michael Foot

text: The SDP won the support of large sections of the British media. For most of 1981 and early-1982 its opinion poll ratings suggested that it could at least overtake Labour and possibly win a general election. The Conservatives were then unpopular because of the economic policies of Margaret Thatcher, which had seen unemployment reach a postwar high.


title: Michael Foot

text: The Labour left was still strong. In 1981, Benn decided to challenge Healey for the Deputy Leadership of the Labour Party, a contest Healey won, albeit narrowly. Foot struggled to make an impact, and was widely criticised for his ineffectiveness, though his performances in the Commons — most notably on the Falklands War of 1982 – won him widespread respect from other parliamentarians. He was criticised by some on the left for supporting Thatcher's immediate resort to military action. The right-wing newspapers nevertheless lambasted him consistently for what they saw as his bohemian eccentricity, attacking him for wearing what they described as a "donkey jacket" (actually he wore a type of duffel coat) at the wreath-laying ceremony at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Day in November 1981, for which he was likened to an "out-of-work navvy" by a fellow Labour MP. Foot did not make it generally known that the Queen Mother had described it as a "sensible coat for a day like this", which could be considered a slight or a compliment depending on whether irony was intended. He later donated the coat to the People's History Museum in Manchester, which holds a collection that spans Foot's entire political career from 1938 to 1990, and his personal papers dating back to 1926.


title: Michael Foot

text: The formation of the SDP – which formed an alliance with the Liberal Party in June 1981 – contributed to a fall in Labour support. The double-digit lead which had still been intact in opinion polls at the start of 1981 was swiftly wiped out, and by the end of October the opinion polls were showing the Alliance ahead of Labour. Labour briefly regained their lead of most opinion polls in early 1982, but when the Falklands conflict ended on 14 June 1982 with a British victory over Argentina, opinion polls showed the Conservatives firmly in the lead. Their position at the top of the polls was strengthened by the return to economic growth later in the year. It was looking certain that the Conservatives would be re-elected, and the only key issue that the media were still speculating by the end of 1982 was whether it would be Labour or the Alliance who formed the next opposition.


title: Michael Foot

text: Through late 1982 and early 1983, there was constant speculation that Labour MPs would replace Foot with Healey as leader. Such speculation increased after Labour lost the 1983 Bermondsey by-election, in which Peter Tatchell was Labour candidate, standing against a Conservative, a Liberal (eventual winner Simon Hughes) and John O'Grady, who had declared himself the Real Bermondsey Labour candidate. Critically, Labour held on in a subsequent by-election in Darlington, and Foot remained leader for the 1983 general election.


title: Michael Foot

text: The 1983 Labour manifesto, strongly socialist in tone, advocated unilateral nuclear disarmament, higher personal taxation and a return to a more interventionist industrial policy. The manifesto also pledged that a Labour government would abolish the House of Lords, nationalise banks and immediately withdraw from the then-European Economic Community. Gerald Kaufman, once Harold Wilson's press officer and during the 1980s a prominent figure on the Labour right-wing, described the 1983 Labour manifesto as "the longest suicide note in history."


title: Michael Foot

text: As a statement on internal democracy, Foot passed the edict that the manifesto would consist of all resolutions arrived at conference. The party also failed to master the medium of television, while Foot addressed public meetings around the country, and made some radio broadcasts, in the same manner as Clement Attlee did in 1945.


title: Michael Foot

text: The "Daily Mirror" was the only major newspaper to back Foot and the Labour Party at the 1983 general election, urging its readers to vote Labour and "Stop the waste of our nation, for your job your children and your future" in response to the mass unemployment which followed Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's monetarist economic policies to reduce inflation. Most other newspapers urged their readers to vote Conservative.


title: Michael Foot

text: The Labour Party, led by Foot, lost to the Conservatives in a landslide – a result which had been widely predicted by the opinion polls since the previous summer. The only consolation for Foot and Labour was that they did not lose their place in opposition to the SDP–Liberal Alliance, who came close to them in terms of votes but were still a long way behind in terms of seats. Despite this, Foot was very critical of the Alliance, accusing them of "siphoning" Labour support and enabling the Tories to win more seats.


title: Michael Foot

text: Foot resigned days following the bitter election defeat, and was succeeded as leader on 2 October by Neil Kinnock; who had been tipped from the outset to be Labour's choice of new leader.


title: Michael Foot

text: Foot took a back seat in Labour politics following 1983 and retired from the House of Commons at the 1992 general election, when Labour lost to the Conservative Party (led by John Major) for the fourth election in succession, but remained politically active. From 1987 to 1992, he was the oldest sitting British MP (preceding former Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath). He defended Salman Rushdie, after Ayatollah Khomeini advocated killing the novelist in a fatwā, and took a strongly pro-interventionist position against Serbia and Montenegro during the Yugoslav Wars, supporting NATO forces whilst citing defence of civilian populations in Croatia and Bosnia. In addition, he was among the Patrons of the British-Croatian Society. "The Guardian"s political editor Michael White criticised Foot's "overgenerous" support for Croatian President Franjo Tuđman.


title: Michael Foot

text: Foot remained a high-profile member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). He wrote several books, including highly regarded biographies of Aneurin Bevan and H. G. Wells. Indeed, he was a distinguished Vice-president of the H. G. Wells Society. Many of his friends have said publicly that they regret that he ever gave up literature for politics.


title: Michael Foot

text: Foot was an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society and a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association. In 1988, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.


title: Michael Foot

text: In a poll of Labour Party activists he was voted the worst post-war Labour Party leader. Though Foot is considered by many right-wingers to be a failure as Labour leader, his biographer Mervyn Jones strongly makes the case that no one else could have held Labour together at the time, particularly in the face of the controversy over the infiltration of the party by Militant. Foot is remembered with affection in Westminster as a great parliamentarian. He was widely liked, and admired for his integrity, habitual courtesy, and generosity of spirit, by both his colleagues and opponents.


title: Michael Foot

text: A portrait of Foot by the artist Robert Lenkiewicz now permanently hangs in Portcullis House, Westminster.


title: Michael Foot

text: Oleg Gordievsky, a high-ranking KGB officer who defected from the Soviet Union to the UK in 1985, made allegations against Foot in his 1995 memoirs. Essentially, the allegations claimed that, up until 1968, Foot had spoken to KGB agents "dozens of times", passing information about politics and the trade unions, and Foot had been paid a total of around £1,500 for his information (said to be worth £37,000 in 2018). "The Sunday Times", which serialised Gordievsky's book under the headline "KGB: Michael Foot was our agent", claimed in an article of 19 February that the Soviet intelligence services regarded Foot as an "agent of influence" (and a "useful idiot"), codenamed "Agent BOOT", and that he was in the pay of the KGB for many years. Crucially, the newspaper used material from the original manuscript of the book which mentioned Foot by name, something excluded from the published book.


title: Michael Foot

text: At the time a leading article in "The Independent" newspaper asserted: "It seems extraordinary that such an unreliable figure should now be allowed, given the lack of supporting evidence, to damage the reputation of figures such as Mr Foot." In a February 1992 interview, Gordievsky declared that he had no further revelations to make about the Labour Party. Foot successfully sued the "Sunday Times", winning "substantial" damages.


title: Michael Foot

text: Following Foot's death, Charles Moore writing in "The Daily Telegraph" in 2010, gave an account which he said had been provided to him by Gordievsky, providing additional uncorroborated information concerning his allegations. Moore said there was no evidence to show that Foot gave away state secrets.


title: Michael Foot

text: Foot was a passionate supporter of Plymouth Argyle Football Club from his childhood and once remarked that he was not going to die until he had seen them play in the Premier League.


title: Michael Foot

text: For his 90th birthday, Foot was registered with the Football League as an honorary player and given the shirt number 90. This made him the oldest registered professional player in the history of football.


title: Michael Foot

text: Foot was married to the film-maker, author and feminist historian Jill Craigie (1911–1999) from 1949 until her death fifty years later. He had no children.


title: Michael Foot

text: In February 2007, it was revealed that Foot had an extramarital affair with a woman around 35 years his junior in the early 1970s. The affair, which lasted nearly a year, put a considerable strain on his marriage. The affair is detailed in Foot's official biography, published in March 2007.


title: Michael Foot

text: On 23 July 2006, his 93rd birthday, Michael Foot became the longest-lived leader of a major British political party, passing Lord Callaghan's record of 92 years, 364 days.


title: Michael Foot

text: A staunch republican (though well liked by the Royal Family on a personal level), Foot rejected honours from the Queen and the government, including a knighthood and a peerage, on more than one occasion.


title: Michael Foot

text: He was also an atheist. , he was one of four leaders of the Labour Party to declare that they did not follow any religion.


title: Michael Foot

text: In October 1963, he was involved in a car crash, suffering pierced lungs, broken ribs, and a broken left leg. Foot used a walking stick for the rest of his life. According to former MP Tam Dalyell, Foot had, up until the accident, been a chain-smoker, but he gave up the habit thereafter. Jill Craigie also suffered a crushed hand in this car crash.


title: Michael Foot

text: Foot died at his Hampstead, north London home on the morning of 3 March 2010 at the age of 96. The House of Commons was informed of the news later that day by Justice Secretary Jack Straw, who told the House: "I am sure that this news will be received with great sadness not only in my own party but across the country as a whole." Foot's funeral was a non-religious service, held on 15 March 2010 at Golders Green Crematorium in North-West London.


title: Michael Foot

text: On 22 June 1978, "The Guardian" ran an article with the headline "Foot hits back on Nazi comparison". Reader David C. Allan of Edinburgh responded with a letter to the editor, which the paper ran on 27 June. Decrying the headline's apparent pun, Allen suggested that, if Foot were in future to be appointed Secretary of State for Defence, The Guardian might cover it under the headline "Foot Heads Arms Body". The belief later gained currency that "The Times" actually had run the headline. Some decades later, Martyn Cornell recalled the story as true, saying he had written the headline himself as a "Times" subeditor around 1986. The headline does not, however, appear in The Times Digital Archive, which includes every day's newspaper from 1785 into the 21st century.


title: Michael Foot

text: Foot was portrayed by Patrick Godfrey in the 2002 BBC production of Ian Curteis's long unproduced "The Falklands Play" and by Michael Pennington in the film "The Iron Lady".


title: Corn syrup

text: Corn syrup is a food syrup which is made from the starch of corn (called maize in many countries) and contains varying amounts of sugars: glucose, maltose and higher oligosaccharides, depending on the grade. Corn syrup is used in foods to soften texture, add volume, prevent crystallization of sugar, and enhance flavor. Corn syrup is not the same as from high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which is manufactured from corn syrup by converting a large proportion of its glucose into fructose using the enzyme D-xylose isomerase, thus producing a sweeter substance.


title: Corn syrup

text: The more general term glucose syrup is often used synonymously with corn syrup, since glucose syrup in the United States is most commonly made from corn starch. Technically, glucose syrup is any liquid starch hydrolysate of mono-, di-, and higher-saccharides and can be made from any source of starch: wheat, tapioca and potatoes are the most common other sources.


title: Corn syrup

text: Historically, corn syrup was produced by combining corn starch with dilute hydrochloric acid, and then heating the mixture under pressure. The process was invented by the German chemist Gottlieb Kirchhoff in 1811. Currently, corn syrup is obtained through a multi-step bioprocess. First, the enzyme α-amylase is added to a mixture of corn starch and water. α-amylase is secreted by various species of the bacterium genus "Bacillus" and the enzyme is isolated from the liquid in which the bacteria were grown. The enzyme breaks down the starch into oligosaccharides, which are then broken into glucose molecules by adding the enzyme glucoamylase, known also as "γ-amylase". Glucoamylase is secreted by various species of the fungus "Aspergillus"; the enzyme is isolated from the liquid in which the fungus is grown. The glucose can then be transformed into fructose by passing the glucose through a column that is loaded with the enzyme D-xylose isomerase, an enzyme that is isolated from the growth medium of any of several bacteria.


title: Corn syrup

text: Corn syrup is produced from number 2 yellow dent corn. When wet milled, about 2.3 litres of corn are required to yield an average of 947g of starch, to produce 1 kg of glucose syrup. A bushel (25 kg) of corn will yield an average of 31.5 pounds (14.3 kg) of starch, which in turn will yield about 33.3 pounds (15.1 kg) of syrup. Thus, it takes about 2,300 litres of corn to produce a tonne of glucose syrup, or 60 bushels (1524 kg) of corn to produce one short ton.


title: Corn syrup

text: The viscosity and sweetness of the syrup depends on the extent to which the hydrolysis reaction has been carried out. To distinguish different grades of syrup, they are rated according to their dextrose equivalent (DE). Most commercially available corn syrups are approximately 1/3 glucose by weight.


title: Corn syrup

text: Corn syrup's major uses in commercially prepared foods are as a thickener, a sweetener, and a humectant (an ingredient that retains moisture and thus maintains a food's freshness). The primary ingredient in most brands of commercial "pancake syrup" is either regular corn syrup or high-fructose corn syrup, both of which are less expensive than maple syrup.


title: Corn syrup

text: In the United States, cane sugar quotas raise the price of sugar; hence, domestically produced corn syrup and high-fructose corn syrup are less costly alternatives that are often used in American-made processed and mass-produced foods, candies, soft drinks, and fruit drinks.


title: Corn syrup

text: Glucose syrup was the primary corn sweetener in the United States prior to the expanded use of high fructose corn syrup production in 1964. HFCS is a variant in which other enzymes are used to convert some of the glucose into fructose. The resulting syrup is sweeter and more soluble.


title: Corn syrup

text: Corn syrup was available at grocery stores in the 19th century, as a generic product sold from a barrel. In 1902, the Corn Products Refining Company introduced clear, bottled corn syrup under the brand name of Karo Syrup. In 1910, the company launched one of the largest advertising campaigns ever seen. This included full-page advertisements in women's magazines and free cookbooks full of recipes that called for Karo brand corn syrup. In the 1930s, they promoted a new pecan pie recipe that featured corn syrup, followed by a similar, nut-free chess pie recipe, in a bid to drive sales. Later, they promoted it as an alternative to maple syrup for waffles. As cooking in the home declined in the 21st century, so that fewer people made candies or pies at home, commercial sales of Karo tended to dominate over the retail sales.


title: Phased array

text: In antenna theory, a phased array usually means an electronically scanned array, a computer-controlled array of antennas which creates a beam of radio waves that can be electronically steered to point in different directions without moving the antennas.


title: Phased array

text: In a simple array antenna, the radio frequency current from the transmitter is fed to multiple individual antenna elements with the proper phase relationship so that the radio waves from the separate elements combine (superpose) to form beams, to increase power radiated in desired directions and suppress radiation in undesired directions. In a phased array, the power from the transmitter is fed to the radiating elements through devices called "phase shifters", controlled by a computer system, which can alter the phase or signal delay electronically, thus steering the beam of radio waves to a different direction. Since the size of an antenna array must extend many wavelengths to achieve the high gain needed for narrow beamwidth, phased arrays are mainly practical at the high frequency end of the radio spectrum, in the UHF and microwave bands, in which the operating wavelengths are conveniently small.


title: Phased array

text: Phased arrays were originally conceived for use in military radar systems, to steer a beam of radio waves quickly across the sky to detect planes and missiles. These systems are now widely used and have spread to civilian applications such as 5G MIMO for cell phones. The phased array principle is also used in acoustics, and phased arrays of acoustic transducers are used in medical ultrasound imaging scanners (phased array ultrasonics), oil and gas prospecting (reflection seismology), and military sonar systems.


title: Phased array

text: The term "phased array" is also used to a lesser extent for unsteered array antennas in which the phase of the feed power and thus the radiation pattern of the antenna array is fixed. For example, AM broadcast radio antennas consisting of multiple mast radiators fed so as to create a specific radiation pattern are also called "phased arrays".


title: Phased array

text: Phased arrays take multiple forms. However, the four most common are the passive electronically scanned array (PESA), active electronically scanned array (AESA), hybrid beam forming phased array, and digital beam forming (DBF) array.


title: Phased array

text: A "passive phased array" or "passive electronically scanned array" (PESA) is a phased array in which the antenna elements are connected to a single transmitter and/or receiver, as shown in the first animation at top. PESAs are the most common type of phased array. Generally speaking, a PESA uses one receiver/exciter for the entire array.


title: Phased array

text: An "active phased array" or "active electronically scanned array" (AESA) is a phased array in which each antenna element has an analog transmitter/receiver (T/R) module which creates the phase shifting required to electronically steer the antenna beam. Active arrays are a more advanced, second-generation phased-array technology which are used in military applications; unlike PESAs they can radiate several beams of radio waves at multiple frequencies in different directions simultaneously. However, the number of simultaneous beams is limited by practical reasons of electronic packaging of the beam formers to approximately three simultaneous beams for an AESA. Each beam former has a receiver/exciter connected to it.


title: Phased array

text: A "hybrid beam forming phased array" can be thought of as a combination of an AESA and a digital beam forming phased array. It uses subarrays that are active phased arrays (for instance, a subarray may be 64, 128 or 256 elements and the number of elements depends upon system requirements). The subarrays are combined to form the full array. Each subarray has its own digital receiver/exciter. This approach allows clusters of simultaneous beams to be created.


title: Phased array

text: A "digital beam forming (DBF) phased array" has a digital receiver/exciter at each element in the array. The signal at each element is digitized by the receiver/exciter. This means that antenna beams can be formed digitally in a field programmable gate array (FPGA) or the array computer. This approach allows for multiple simultaneous antenna beams to be formed.


title: Phased array

text: A "conformal antenna" is a phased array in which the individual antennas, instead of being arranged in a flat plane, are mounted on a curved surface. The phase shifters compensate for the different path lengths of the waves due to the antenna elements' varying position on the surface, allowing the array to radiate a plane wave. Conformal antennas are used in aircraft and missiles, to integrate the antenna into the curving surface of the aircraft to reduce aerodynamic drag.


title: Phased array

text: Phased array transmission was originally shown in 1905 by Nobel laureate Karl Ferdinand Braun who demonstrated enhanced transmission of radio waves in one direction. During World War II, Nobel laureate Luis Alvarez used phased array transmission in a rapidly steerable radar system for "ground-controlled approach", a system to aid in the landing of aircraft. At the same time, the GEMA in Germany built the Mammut 1. It was later adapted for radio astronomy leading to Nobel Prizes for Physics for Antony Hewish and Martin Ryle after several large phased arrays were developed at the University of Cambridge Interplanetary Scintillation Array. This design is also used for radar, and is generalized in interferometric radio antennas.


title: Phased array

text: In 2004, Caltech researchers demonstrated the first integrated silicon-based phased array receiver at 24 GHz with 8 elements. This was followed by their demonstration of a CMOS 24 GHz phased array transmitter in 2005 and a fully integrated 77 GHz phased array transceiver with integrated antennas in 2006 by the Caltech team. In 2007, DARPA researchers announced a 16 element phased array radar antenna which was also integrated with all the necessary circuits on a single silicon chip and operated at 30–50 GHz.


title: Phased array

text: The relative amplitudes of—and constructive and destructive interference effects among—the signals radiated by the individual antennas determine the effective radiation pattern of the array. A phased array may be used to point a fixed radiation pattern, or to scan rapidly in azimuth or elevation. Simultaneous electrical scanning in both azimuth and elevation was first demonstrated in a phased array antenna at Hughes Aircraft Company, California in 1957.


title: Phased array

text: In broadcast engineering, the term 'phased array' has a meaning different from its normal meaning, it means an ordinary array antenna, an array of multiple mast radiators designed to radiate a directional radiation pattern, as opposed to a single mast which radiates an omnidirectional pattern. Broadcast phased arrays have fixed radiation patterns and are not 'steered' during operation as are other phased arrays.


title: Phased array

text: Phased arrays are used by many AM broadcast radio stations to enhance signal strength and therefore coverage in the city of license, while minimizing interference to other areas. Due to the differences between daytime and nighttime ionospheric propagation at mediumwave frequencies, it is common for AM broadcast stations to change between day (groundwave) and night (skywave) radiation patterns by switching the phase and power levels supplied to the individual antenna elements (mast radiators) daily at sunrise and sunset. For shortwave broadcasts many stations use arrays of horizontal dipoles. A common arrangement uses 16 dipoles in a 4×4 array. Usually this is in front of a wire grid reflector. The phasing is often switchable to allow beam steering in azimuth and sometimes elevation.


title: Phased array

text: Phased arrays were invented for radar tracking of ballistic missiles, and because of their fast tracking abilities phased array radars are widely used in military applications. For example, because of the rapidity with which the beam can be steered, phased array radars allow a warship to use one radar system for surface detection and tracking (finding ships), air detection and tracking (finding aircraft and missiles) and missile uplink capabilities. Before using these systems, each surface-to-air missile in flight required a dedicated fire-control radar, which meant that radar-guided weapons could only engage a small number of simultaneous targets. Phased array systems can be used to control missiles during the mid-course phase of the missile's flight. During the terminal portion of the flight, continuous-wave fire control directors provide the final guidance to the target. Because the antenna pattern is electronically steered, phased array systems can direct radar beams fast enough to maintain a fire control quality track on many targets simultaneously while also controlling several in-flight missiles.


title: Phased array

text: The AN/SPY-1 phased array radar, part of the Aegis Combat System deployed on modern U.S. cruisers and destroyers, "is able to perform search, track and missile guidance functions simultaneously with a capability of over 100 targets." Likewise, the Thales Herakles phased array multi-function radar used in service with France and Singapore has a track capacity of 200 targets and is able to achieve automatic target detection, confirmation and track initiation in a single scan, while simultaneously providing mid-course guidance updates to the MBDA Aster missiles launched from the ship. The German Navy and the Royal Dutch Navy have developed the Active Phased Array Radar System (APAR). The MIM-104 Patriot and other ground-based antiaircraft systems use phased array radar for similar benefits.


title: Phased array

text: Phased arrays are used in naval sonar, in active (transmit and receive) and passive (receive only) and hull-mounted and towed array sonar.


title: Phased array

text: The "MESSENGER" spacecraft was a space probe mission to the planet Mercury (2011–2015). This was the first deep-space mission to use a phased-array antenna for communications. The radiating elements are circularly-polarized, slotted waveguides. The antenna, which uses the X band, used 26 radiative elements and can gracefully degrade.


title: Phased array

text: The National Severe Storms Laboratory has been using a SPY-1A phased array antenna, provided by the US Navy, for weather research at its Norman, Oklahoma facility since April 23, 2003. It is hoped that research will lead to a better understanding of thunderstorms and tornadoes, eventually leading to increased warning times and enhanced prediction of tornadoes. Current project participants include the National Severe Storms Laboratory and National Weather Service Radar Operations Center, Lockheed Martin, United States Navy, University of Oklahoma School of Meteorology, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Atmospheric Radar Research Center, Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, the Federal Aviation Administration, and Basic Commerce and Industries. The project includes research and development, future technology transfer and potential deployment of the system throughout the United States. It is expected to take 10 to 15 years to complete and initial construction was approximately $25 million. A team from Japan's RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science (AICS) has begun experimental work on using phased-array radar with a new algorithm for instant weather forecasts.


title: Phased array

text: Within the visible or infrared spectrum of electromagnetic waves it is possible to construct optical phased arrays. They are used in wavelength multiplexers and filters for telecommunication purposes, laser beam steering, and holography. Synthetic array heterodyne detection is an efficient method for multiplexing an entire phased array onto a single element photodetector. The dynamic beam forming in an optical phased array transmitter can be used to electronically raster or vector scan images without using lenses or mechanically moving parts in a lensless projector. Optical phased array receivers have been demonstrated to be able to act as lensless cameras by selectively looking at different directions.


title: Phased array

text: Starlink is a low Earth orbit satellite constellation that is under construction . It is designed to provide broadband internet connectivity to consumers; the user terminals of the system will use phased array antennas.


title: Phased array

text: By 2014, phased array antennas were integrated into RFID systems to increase the area of coverage of a single system by 100% to while still using traditional passive UHF tags.


title: Phased array

text: A phased array of acoustic transducers, denominated airborne ultrasound tactile display (AUTD), was developed in 2008 at the University of Tokyo's Shinoda Lab to induce tactile feedback. This system was demonstrated to enable a user to interactively manipulate virtual holographic objects.


title: Phased array

text: Phased Array Feeds (PAF) have recently been used at the focus of radio telescopes to provide many beams, giving the radio telescope a very wide field of view. Two examples are the ASKAP telescope in Australia and the Apertif upgrade to the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope in The Netherlands.


title: Phased array

text: Mathematically a phased array is an example of "N"-slit diffraction, in which the radiation field at the receiving point is the result of the coherent addition of "N" point sources in a line. Since each individual antenna acts as a slit, emitting radio waves, their diffraction pattern can be calculated by adding the phase shift φ to the fringing term.


title: Phased array

text: We will begin from the "N"-slit diffraction pattern derived on the diffraction formalism page, with formula_1 slits of equal size formula_2 and spacing formula_3.


title: Phased array

text: Now space the emitters a distance formula_8 apart. This distance is chosen for simplicity of calculation but can be adjusted as any scalar fraction of the wavelength.


title: Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany

text: is an international agreement that allowed the reunification of Germany in the early 1990s. It was negotiated in 1990 between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic (the eponymous "Two"), and the Four Powers which had occupied Germany at the end of World War II in Europe: France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States; it also replaced the 1945 Potsdam Agreement before. In the treaty, the Four Powers renounced all rights they held in Germany, allowing a reunited Germany to become fully sovereign the following year. At the same time, the two German states agreed to confirm their acceptance of the existing border with Poland, and accepted that the borders of Germany after unification would correspond only to the territories then administered by West and East Germany, with the exclusion and renunciation of any other territorial claims (e.g., to the Kaliningrad Oblast).


text: On 1 August 1945, the Potsdam Agreement, promulgated in the Potsdam Conference, among other things agreed on the initial terms under which the Allies of World War II would govern Germany. A provisional German–Polish border known as the Oder–Neisse line awarded, in theory within the context of that "provisional border", most of Germany's former eastern provinces to Poland and the Soviet Union. The German populations of these areas either fled or were expelled. Although the German Democratic Republic formally accepted the border in the 1950 Treaty of Zgorzelec with Poland, West Germany initially entirely rejected it, declaring the treaty ″null and void″ in line with the Hallstein Doctrine, and later reluctantly recognised the border in the 1970 Treaty of Warsaw as provisional only, to be finalised by "a peace settlement for Germany to be accepted by the Government of Germany when a government adequate for the purpose is established" (Potsdam Agreement 1.3.1). Parts of those above-mentioned agreements were burdened with controversy from several sources e.g., Churchill's comment about "stuffing the Polish goose too full" (of German lands). The overall "German Question" became one of the salient and crucial issues of the long-running Cold War, and until it ended in the late 1980s, little progress had been made in the establishment of a single government of Germany adequate for the purpose of agreeing to a final settlement. This meant that in some respects (largely, but not only, technical), Germany did not have full national sovereignty.


text: Several developments in 1989 and 1990, collectively termed "Die Wende" and the Peaceful Revolution, led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the SED party in East Germany (GDR).


text: In a 9 February 1990 conversation with Mikhail Gorbachev held in Moscow, US Secretary of State James Baker argued in favor of holding the Two-Plus-Four talks. According to Moscow as well as Baker's notes, the famous "not one inch eastward" promise about NATO's eastward expansion was made during this conversation.


text: The concession essentially meant that the western half of the unified Germany would be part of NATO but the eastern half would not. The US National Security Council pointed out that it would be unworkable, and the concession was later amended to state that NATO troops would not be stationed in East Germany.


text: On 18 March 1990, a national election was held in the GDR, leading to an alliance of parties that favored German reunification winning a plurality. To achieve unity and full sovereignty, both German states were willing to accept the terms of the Potsdam Agreement that affected Germany. On 31 August 1990, the FRG and GDR signed the Unification Treaty, which describes the manner and specifics of the GDR's accession to the Federal Republic. It was then possible for all international parties to negotiate a final settlement.


text: The Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany was signed in Moscow on 12 September 1990, and paved the way for German reunification on 3 October 1990. Under the terms of the treaty, the Four Powers renounced all rights they formerly held in Germany, including those regarding the city of Berlin. Upon deposit of the last instrument of ratification, united Germany became fully sovereign on 15 March 1991.


text: The treaty allows Germany to make and belong to alliances, without any foreign influence in its politics.


text: All Soviet forces in Germany were to leave the country by the end of 1994. Before the Soviets withdrew, Germany would only deploy territorial defense units not integrated into the alliance structures. German forces in the rest of Germany were assigned to areas where Soviet troops were stationed. After the Soviets withdrew, the Germans could freely deploy troops in those areas, with the exception of nuclear weapons. For the duration of the Soviet presence, Allied troops would remain stationed in Berlin upon Germany's request.


text: Germany undertook efforts to reduce its armed forces to no more than 370,000 personnel, no more than 345,000 of whom were to be in the Army and the Air Force. These limits would commence at the time that the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe would enter into force, and the treaty also took note that it was expected that the other participants in the negotiations would "render their contribution to enhancing security and stability in Europe, including measures to limit personnel strengths". Germany also reaffirmed its renunciation of the manufacture, possession of, and control over nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, and in particular, that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty would continue to apply in full to the unified Germany (the Federal Republic of Germany). No foreign armed forces, nuclear weapons, or the carriers for nuclear weapons would be stationed or deployed in six states (the area of Berlin and the former East Germany), making them a permanent Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone. The German Army could deploy conventional weapons systems with nonconventional capabilities, provided that they were equipped and designed for a purely conventional role. Germany also agreed to use military force only in accordance with the United Nations Charter.


text: Another of the treaty's important provisions was Germany's confirmation of the by now internationally recognised border with Poland, and other territorial changes in Germany that had taken place since 1945, preventing any future claims to lost territory east of the Oder–Neisse line (see also Former eastern territories of Germany). The treaty defined the territory of a 'united Germany' as being the territory of East Germany, West Germany and Berlin, prohibiting Germany from making any future territorial claims. Germany also agreed to sign a separate treaty with Poland reaffirming the present common border, binding under international law, effectively relinquishing these territories to Poland. This was done on 14 November 1990 with the signing of the German–Polish Border Treaty. Furthermore, the Federal Republic was required by the treaty to amend its Basic Law so as to be constitutionally prohibited from accepting any application for incorporation into Germany from territories outside the territories of East Germany, West Germany and Berlin.


text: Although the treaty was signed by West and East Germany as separate sovereign states, it was subsequently ratified by united Germany (the Federal Republic of Germany).


text: After the Soviet Union dissolved itself in December 1991, the command unit of the Soviet Group of Soviet Forces in Germany devolved to the Russian Federation. The German government subsequently recognized the Russian Federation's claim to be the successor state of the Soviet Union, including the right to maintain troops in Germany until the end of 1994. However, with post-Soviet Russia facing severe economic hardship, President Boris Yeltsin ordered Russian troop deployment in Germany to be reduced to levels significantly below those permitted in the Treaty. The last Russian troops left Germany at the end of August 1994, four months before the treaty deadline.


text: In the first decade of the 21st century, the Bundeswehr underwent a gradual transformation to a fully professional force. By 2011, the year Germany voluntarily suspended conscription, the Bundeswehr had retained fewer than 250,000 active duty personnel – barely two thirds of the country's treaty limit of 370,000.


text: Article 5, paragraph 3 of the treaty concerning the area of the former East Germany states: "Foreign armed forces and nuclear weapons or their carriers will not be stationed in that part of Germany or deployed there." In 2010, the newspaper "Junge Welt" alleged this to have been violated by NATO troops during a 2009 exercise in the former East German Trollenhagen, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. According to the German Air Force, NATO was merely making an inspection there on that occasion; however, the inspection included a unit from the Finnish Air Force.


text: In September 2007, France offered Germany joint control over its nuclear arsenal, but the Germans rejected this.


text: Russia and the Western countries signed in 1990 the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe and in 1991 the Energy Charter Treaty, establishing a multilateral framework for cross-border cooperation in the energy industry, principally the fossil fuel industry; Russia postponed ratification of the latter treaty, linking it to the adoption of the Energy Charter Treaty Transit Protocol. In 1997, NATO and Russia signed the Russia–NATO Founding Act, which stated that each country had a sovereign right to seek alliances. In the same year, the Budapest Memorandum was signed where Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States made security assurances to Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine, in return for handing over by these three countries of their post-Soviet nuclear arsenal. NATO ended up expanding to fourteen Eastern countries (apart from the GDR in 1990): Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland in 1999; Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia in 2004; Albania and Croatia in 2009; Montenegro in 2017; and North Macedonia in 2020, four of them on the border with Russia.


text: The Russia–NATO relations started to deteriorate rapidly following the Ukrainian Orange Revolution in 2004–2005. In December 2006, Russia indicated that the ratification of the Energy Charter Treaty was unlikely due to the provisions requiring third-party access to Russia's pipelines. Russia suspended in 2007 its participation in the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. In 2008, the relations deteriorated further and became almost openly hostile, following the 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence from Russia′s ally Serbia and its partial recognition by the West, to which Russia responded in August 2008 with launching the Russo-Georgian War. On 20 August 2009, Russia officially informed the depository of the Energy Charter Treaty (the Government of Portugal) that it did not intend to become a contracting party to the treaty. On 1 April 2014, NATO unanimously decided to suspend all practical co-operation with the Russian Federation in response to the annexation of Crimea, but the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) was not suspended. In 2015, Russia entirely terminated its participation in the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. On 18 February 2017, Russia's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov, said he supported the resumption of military cooperation with the NATO alliance. In late March 2017, the Council met in advance of a NATO Foreign Ministers conference in Brussels, Belgium.


text: After the subsequent 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Founding Act has been considered by the NATO member states as definitively abrogated in its entirety by Russia, while the latter has been declared at the 2022 NATO Madrid summit "a direct threat" to Euro-Atlantic security. In the same year, Russia withdrew from the European Convention on Human Rights and was expelled from the Council of Europe.


text: The treaty does not mention NATO membership prospects of any other countries, as none of them has been a party to the treaty, while only 4 out of the 15 NATO member states at the time have been parties to it. Some commentators, such as Stephen F. Cohen, as well as Mikhail Gorbachev in 2008, have advanced in later years the interpretation of a comment allegedly made by US Secretary of State, James Baker, to the effect that NATO would expand "not one inch eastward" in a unified Germany, as applying instead to Eastern Europe; neither has such a provision been included in the treaty, nor any of the parties has proposed or demanded its inclusion, and neither a recording nor written minutes of the Baker's comment exist. In 2014, Gorbachev said that the assurance only pertained to East Germany, and that the resulting agreement was upheld by NATO. His main aide in these negotiations, Eduard Shevardnadze, likewise agreed that NATO never made any such commitment regarding other countries in Eastern Europe, and that "the question never came up" in the talks on German reunification. That is presumably because all of the countries in question were still in the Warsaw Pact at the time and hosted large Soviet garrisons. Gorbachev and his successor, Boris Yeltsin, felt that NATO's later acceptance of countries like Poland violated the spirit of the earlier agreements.


text: In December 2017, researchers Tom Blanton and Svetlana Savranskaya argued that declassified documents challenged this narrative. They commented: "The documents show that multiple national leaders were considering and rejecting Central and Eastern European membership in NATO as of early 1990 and through 1991, that discussions of NATO in the context of German unification negotiations in 1990 were not at all narrowly limited to the status of East German territory, and that subsequent Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled about NATO expansion were founded in written contemporaneous memcons and telcons at the highest levels." They further said that "the view of the State Department was that NATO expansion was not on the agenda, because it was not in the interest of the U.S. to organize 'an anti-Soviet coalition' that extended to the Soviet borders, not least because it might reverse the positive trends in the Soviet Union. (See Document 26) The Bush administration took the latter view. And that's what the Soviets heard."


text: In 2018, Hannes Adomeit disputed the conclusions by Blanton and Savranskaya, saying that those documents were already known, and that "it is inadmissible to conclude that assurances concerning the expansion of NATO command structures and the stationing of NATO forces on the territory of the former GDR had anything to do with promises concerning the enlargement of the Alliance east of a unified Germany." Additionally, he stated that "a distinction must be drawn between informal or exploratory talks of this nature on the one hand and negotiations, promises, commitments or indeed guarantees on the other." An analysis by Marc Trachtenberg in 2021 concluded that "the Russian allegations are by no means baseless ... But the Soviets were not deliberately misled." In her 2021 book "Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of the Cold War Stalemate", Mary Elise Sarotte balanced out these different interpretations, concluding that Russian claims of betrayal are in fact untrue in law but have psychological truth.