title: Alexander De Croo

text: After a disagreement within the government over the UN Global Compact for Migration, the N-VA left the governing coalition, causing the administration to become a minority government on 9 December 2018, known as Michel II. De Croo became Minister of Finance, replacing Johan Van Overtveldt.


title: Alexander De Croo

text: In December 2018, De Croo took the stage during the Global Citizen Festival Mandela 100 concert in Johannesburg, South Africa. It was the final event of the international campaign #SheIsEqual for women's rights which attracted €780 million in commitments.


title: Alexander De Croo

text: Under the caretaker administration of Prime Minister Sophie Wilmès, he oversaw a financial stimulus package to tackle the COVID-19 crisis and a deal to save Brussels Airlines in 2020. He was elected joint deputy chairman of Open VLD, together with Egbert Lachaert.


title: Alexander De Croo

text: On 23 September 2020, Alexander De Croo and Paul Magnette (PS) were appointed by the King to form a government. On 30 September 2020, it was announced that De Croo would take over the position of prime minister, succeeding Wilmès.


title: Alexander De Croo

text: The formation of the Belgian government (Vivaldi) took a considerable amount of time. The book "De doodgravers van België" by states that the main reason for the prolonged negotiations was a scandal about communication between De Croo and an Italian pornographic film actress. In August 2021, "Corriere della Sera" quoted statements by the implicated actress, claiming that De Croo had messaged her seeking a meeting and that they had not met, but had continued to exchange messages.


title: Alexander De Croo

text: De Croo's government has a higher proportion of women ministers than any previous Belgian government: half of the ministers are women.


title: Alexander De Croo

text: In June 2021, he visited the site of the Antwerp building collapse with King Philippe of Belgium and spoke with emergency workers.


title: Alexander De Croo

text: In February 2022, the government adopted a law to make the labour market more flexible: employees will have the possibility, provided that their company agrees, of switching to a four-day week. In return, their working days will be extended to 9.5 hours (corresponding to a 38-hour week). The law also makes working hours between 8 p.m. and midnight more flexible, as they will no longer be considered as night work and will not entitle employees to any compensation


title: Alexander De Croo

text: The government wants to increase military spending to 2 per cent of GDP in order to comply with the demands of NATO and the U.S. government, which is causing tension within its coalition. The right-wing supports the plan, but the ecologists are opposed, arguing that the government should have other priorities than the military, while the socialists remain undecided.


title: Alexander De Croo

text: On 26 November 2022, De Croo and foreign minister Hadja Lahbib visited Ukraine, meeting president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy and pledging continued Belgian support to Ukraine.


title: Alexander De Croo

text: Like the majority of party leaders in Belgium, De Croo is in favour of greater limits on the political power of the Belgian monarch. He is of the opinion that the monarch's power should be ceremonial, similar to that of other Western European monarchs.


title: Alexander De Croo

text: De Croo is married to Annik Penders and they have two children. He is a keen equestrian and takes part in a formal event each year together with his father; in 2010 he broke a foot and an elbow when he fell from his horse. He is fluent in Dutch and English, as well as French, the native language of his mother.


title: Burak Yılmaz

text: Burak Yılmaz (born 15 July 1985) is a Turkish professional footballer who plays as a forward for Eredivisie club Fortuna Sittard.


title: Burak Yılmaz

text: Yılmaz is one of nine players to play for each of the Big Three clubs of Turkey, and one of only two players who have played for these three clubs as well as Trabzonspor (also referred as the "Big Four"), along with Sergen Yalçın.


title: Burak Yılmaz

text: Born in Antalya, Turkey, son of former Antalyaspor goalkeeper Fikret Yılmaz, Burak Yılmaz started to play football at Antalyaspor, where he signed his first professional contract in July 2002 and made his professional debut in the 2002–03 season of the TFF First League. Following four seasons at Antalyaspor, Yılmaz joined Beşiktaş prior to the 2006–07 season, where he played one and a half seasons and was primarily deployed as a winger. Yılmaz had a short spell in Manisaspor before he joined Fenerbahçe for the 2008–09 Süper Lig season. Loaned out to Eskişehirspor for the following season, Yılmaz was transferred to Trabzonspor in the winter transfer window of 2009–10 season, where he made his major career breakthrough under the management of Şenol Güneş, becoming Süper Lig top scorer with 33 goals in the 2011–12 season.


title: Burak Yılmaz

text: Following three seasons spent in Trabzonspor, where he won a Turkish Cup and Turkish Super Cup, Yılmaz joined Galatasaray, staying for four seasons and winning two Süper Lig titles in 2012–13 and 2014–15, as well as being Süper Lig top scorer for the second time in his career in the 2012–13 season. In 2016, Yılmaz joined Chinese Super League club Beijing Guoan for two seasons, where he scored 28 goals in total. Yılmaz then returned to Trabzonspor for a second spell which lasted two seasons. For the 2018–19 season, Yılmaz returned to Beşiktaş for another spell, scoring eleven and thirteen goals respectively in his two seasons back, before joining French Ligue 1 club Lille in 2020, helping the side win its first league title for ten years.


title: Burak Yılmaz

text: Representing Turkey in different youth age groups between 2001 and 2006, Yılmaz made his senior debut in a friendly game against Azerbaijan in 2006. With 31 goals, Yılmaz is Turkey's second all-time highest goalscorer after Hakan Şükür. He played his last game for the national team in 2022.


title: Burak Yılmaz

text: Yılmaz started his professional career in Antalyaspor, where he was promoted to the senior team at the age of 16. He scored his first two goals at professional level in the 2004–05 season against Karşıyaka at Izmir Alsancak Stadium on 29 August 2004. In the same season, Yılmaz played 29 league matches, scoring 8 goals, thus helping his team avoid relegation. He contributed to the success of the team's promotion to the Süper Lig after finishing second in Division 1 in the 2005–06 season, scoring 9 goals in 24 matches. During his stint at Antalyaspor, Yılmaz played 70 league games and scored 17 league goals in total.


title: Burak Yılmaz

text: Yılmaz joined Beşiktaş in the 2006–07 summer transfer window. He made his Süper Lig debut on 6 August 2006 against Manisaspor, and scored his first goal against Konyaspor in a 3–1 win for Beşiktaş. He also scored against Trabzonspor. In his first season, he scored 5 goals in 30 league appearances as Beşiktaş finished the season in second place. In the same season, he made seven appearances in the Turkish Cup, scoring once. His form dropped dramatically during the 2007–08 season. In January 2008, Yılmaz joined Manisaspor as part of an exchange deal, and later to Fenerbahçe on 29 June 2008.


title: Burak Yılmaz

text: On 29 June 2008, Yılmaz was transferred to Fenerbahçe and was presented at a news conference wearing the number 7 shirt. On the contrary to his "promising youngster" image in Manisaspor and Beşiktaş, he had been a disappointment during his spell in Fenerbahçe, only playing six games and failing to score in the 2008–09 season.


title: Burak Yılmaz

text: In February 2010, Yılmaz joined Trabzonspor on a permanent deal. Following the arrival of Şenol Güneş as team manager, Yılmaz made his Trabzonspor debut on 15 February 2010, playing last 15 minutes against Bursaspor on a 1–1 draw. On 26 February 2013, he scored against his previous team Antalyaspor. Yılmaz played at Turkish Cup final where Trabzonspor defeated Fenerbahçe by 3–1, on 5 May 2010. Ten days later, Trabzonspor played against Fenerbahçe again in lask week of Süper Lig fixtures in which Yılmaz scored in 23rd minute, as parties shared points after a 1–1 draw, causing Fenerbahçe to jeopardise their title chances in contention with Bursaspor. Yılmaz became leading goalscorer of Trabzonspor with 19 goals in 30 league games and July 2011 he signed a new four-year contract with the club.


title: Burak Yılmaz

text: In 2010–11 season, Yılmaz displayed a high-level attacking attributes, scoring the winners against Beşiktaş and Galatasaray and Bursaspor, where Trabzonspor finalised the fixtures on second spot. In 2011–12 season, where a play-off stage applied after 34-weeks-regular-fixtures, Yılmaz scored 33 goals in 34 appearances at regular season, setting a new club record previously held by Fatih Tekke who scored 31 goals in the 2004–05 season.


title: Burak Yılmaz

text: In July 2012, Yılmaz joined Galatasaray from Trabzonspor for €5m transfer fee, with a four-year-contract with an additional one-season-option. His contract consisted of €2.3 million seasonal wage with a €20,000 bonus per-appearance.


title: Burak Yılmaz

text: On 2 September 2012, he scored his first goal for Galatasaray against Bursaspor, as the game finished 3–2, making it Galatasaray's historic 1000th league win.


title: Burak Yılmaz

text: Yılmaz scored the only goal for Galatasaray as the game ended in a 1–1 home draw against Eskişehirspor. On 23 October 2012, he scored a goal from a header against CFR Cluj as the game ended in a 1–1 draw at third match-week in Group H of the 2012–13 UEFA Champions League group stage. On 28 October 2012, Yılmaz scored his 100th career goal, during a 3–0 win against Kayserispor, maintaining their position as league leaders.


title: Burak Yılmaz

text: On 7 November 2012, Burak netted a hat-trick in a 3–1 away win over CFR Cluj in the Champions League,


title: Burak Yılmaz

text: becoming the first Turkish player to score three goals in a Champions League game since Tuncay Şanlı. At Champions League group stage, he scored once again, this time against Manchester United in which Galatasaray won 1–0. Yılmaz finished group stage of the as top scorer with 6 goals in total 501 minutes played, ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo, who scored the same number of goals in 540 minutes. In the Champions League round of 16, he scored in both legs against Schalke 04, before his team was eliminated by Real Madrid in the quarter-finals.


title: Burak Yılmaz

text: On 5 February 2016, Galatasaray announced the transfer of Yılmaz to Chinese Super League club Beijing Guoan for €8 million transfer fee. Trabzonspor was to receive €2 million from Galatasaray, following the transaction agreement.


title: Burak Yılmaz

text: On 2 August 2017, Yılmaz returned to Trabzonspor, for family reasons. He managed to score 23 goals in 25 matches during the 2017–18 season.


title: Burak Yılmaz

text: Lille announced the arrival of Yılmaz on 1 August 2020. The parties agreed upon a two-season-long contract. Substituted with Jonathan David in 64th minute, Yılmaz made his Ligue 1 debut against Rennes at first week encounter of 2020–21 season, ended 1–1, held at Stade Pierre-Mauroy, on 22 August 2020. On week 6, Yılmaz scored his first league goal against Strasbourg as Lille beat their opponents with 3–0 being the final score, on 4 October 2020. On 25 April 2021, he scored a brace in a 3–2 comeback away win over fellow title challengers Lyon. On 23 May 2021, he scored a penalty in a 2–1 away win over Angers, to secure the fourth Ligue 1 title for Lille in their history. He became the first player to score at least 15 goals in his first Ligue 1 season with Lille since Moussa Sow hit 25 in their title-winning campaign a decade prior.


title: Burak Yılmaz

text: On 21 June 2022, Yılmaz signed a five-year contract with Fortuna Sittard in the Netherlands, the first two years of the contract are in a player role, and the last three are as a coach.


title: Burak Yılmaz

text: On 12 April 2006, Yılmaz made his international debut for Turkey under coach Fatih Terim in a 1–1 away draw with Azerbaijan in a friendly match. On 3 June 2011, he scored his first goal in a 1–1 away draw with Belgium during the UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying. Later on, he was part of Turkey squad in the UEFA Euro 2016 and UEFA Euro 2020.


title: Burak Yılmaz

text: On 24 March 2021, he scored his first international hat-trick in a 4–2 win over the Netherlands in the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification. On 24 March 2022, he played his last match for Turkey against Portugal in the second round of same qualifications, in which he scored a goal but missed a crucial penalty to equalise, in a match which ended in a 3–1 defeat. He announced his retirement from international football following the match.


title: Burak Yılmaz

text: Yılmaz is the son of former professional footballer and manager Fikret Yılmaz. Yılmaz has two daughters from his marriage to İstem Atilla, which lasted for four years between 2014 and 2018. In 2020, the couple decided to get together again and remarried.


title: Band of Horses

text: Band of Horses is an American rock band formed in 2004 in Seattle, Washington. Led by singer-songwriter Ben Bridwell, who has served as the band's sole constant member throughout numerous line-up changes, the band's current line-up also includes longtime members Creighton Barrett (drums) and Ryan Monroe (keyboards, guitar, backing vocals), alongside Matt Gentling (bass, backing vocals) and Brett Nash (guitar, backing vocals).


title: Band of Horses

text: For ten years, the band's most stable line-up featured guitarist Tyler Ramsey and bassist Bill Reynolds, who recorded and performed with the band between 2007 and 2017, before acrimoniously departing.


title: Band of Horses

text: To date, the band has released six studio albums: "Everything All the Time" (2006), "Cease to Begin" (2007), "Infinite Arms" (2010), "Mirage Rock" (2012), "Why Are You OK" (2016) and "Things Are Great" (2022), with "Infinite Arms" being nominated for a Grammy Award in 2011.


title: Band of Horses

text: Ben Bridwell (vocals, guitar) formed Band of Horses, who were originally briefly known as Horses in 2004 after the break-up of his previous band, Carissa's Wierd, along with bassist Chris Early and drummer Tim Meinig. They were soon joined by former Carissa's Wierd bandleader Mat Brooke (guitar, vocals). The band initially received attention from Sub Pop after opening for Iron & Wine during Seattle area shows. In 2005, the band released the "Tour EP", which was sold at shows and on Sub Pop's website.


title: Band of Horses

text: Their first full-length album, "Everything All the Time", was recorded in 2005 with producer Phil Ek and released by Sub Pop on March 21, 2006. It features the band's original four-piece lineup, although both Tim Meinig and Sera Cahoone receive drumming credits. The album included new versions of five of the six songs from the "Tour EP" along with five brand new songs. It was a minor hit in Scandinavia, entering the lower reaches of the Sweden and Norway album charts. Ben Bridwell explained the sound of the album, "I thought before recording that I really wanted an ELO-sounding record, with strings and keyboards and synths, but then, as we got closer to it, we wanted to take a more raw approach."


title: Band of Horses

text: Bridwell found that there was a personality clash between himself and Meinig and Early and the two left soon after the recording of the album. Ben explained his side of the story, "All of a sudden I was...with two guys I didn't really even know...they were nice guys, there just wasn't a personality match." For the subsequent tour, Joe Arnone (guitar and keyboards), Rob Hampton (bass and guitar) and Creighton Barrett (drums) were brought in to play with Bridwell and Brooke.


title: Band of Horses

text: "Everything All the Time"s first single was "The Funeral", which has been used in numerous television series, films, video games, and advertisements. On July 13, 2006, the band performed the song on the "Late Show with David Letterman" without Brooke, who had left the band. Subsequently, he formed Grand Archives, who have since signed to Sub Pop and released two albums. Brooke explained how he joined Band of Horses, "So they ended up getting a show opening up for Iron and Wine in Seattle and Ben asked if I would just come up and do a couple songs, just 'cause we're friends. So...I did that. It was fun and then a couple of Iron and Wine tours came up...and then next thing I knew, we were in the studio making a record for Sub Pop." On why he left, he said, "I'd never really given the commitment to be a formal member. It was just a spur of the moment...and "Everything All the Time" took off really fast...I still didn't feel quite committed. It was still 100 percent Ben's project and I kinda wanted to see what else I could do."


title: Band of Horses

text: Before recording their second album, Bridwell decided to relocate the band from Seattle to his native South Carolina. He said, "We were touring so much that nowhere was really home, so I figured...if I'm gonna come home after these long stretches of traveling, it would nice to be around my family."


title: Band of Horses

text: Band of Horses toured Europe and North America in 2007, prior to the release of their second album. Joe Arnone was no longer part of the band, which now toured as a six-piece band following the addition of Matt Gentling (Archers of Loaf – bass), Robin Peringer (Modest Mouse, Carissa's Wierd – guitar) and Ryan Monroe (keyboards) to the line up. The album, "Cease to Begin", was recorded in North Carolina and produced by Phil Ek. It was released by Sub Pop Records on October 9, 2007. The album features the core trio of Ben Bridwell, Creighton Barrett and Rob Hampton, with keyboards played by Ryan Monroe. "Cease to Begin" gave Band of Horses their first hit in the U.S. by reaching number 35 on the "Billboard" 200 and was also a hit in Norway, Denmark, France and Sweden. It was voted ninth best album of 2007 by "Paste" magazine and 47th best by "Rolling Stone". The single "No One's Gonna Love You" gave Band of Horses their first European hit single, reaching number 22 in Denmark.


title: Band of Horses

text: Following the release of "Cease to Begin", Monroe became a permanent member of the band, along with new recruits Tyler Ramsey (guitar and vocals) and Bill Reynolds (bass). This once again made Band of Horses a six-piece band. In addition to his role in the band, Ramsey often performed solo as the opening act before the band play live.


title: Band of Horses

text: In 2008, Band of Horses played at the Glastonbury Festival, T in the Park, the Bridge School Benefit concert, and the Roskilde Festival.


title: Band of Horses

text: In May 2009, producer Phil Ek stated that he was recording the third Band of Horses album in North Carolina. Ben Bridwell mentioned that the new album was titled "Night Rainbows" several times while introducing new songs during the band's summer 2009 tour, but in a March 2, 2010 interview, the band revealed that the album was to be called "Infinite Arms". Prior to the recording of the album, Rob Hampton left the band. He was later replaced by Swedish guitarist Ludwig Böss, although Böss does not appear on the album and on March 19, 2010, it was revealed that he too had left. The album was recorded by the five-piece lineup of Bridwell, Ramsey, Reynolds, Barrett, and Monroe.


title: Band of Horses

text: "Infinite Arms" was released worldwide between May 14 and 19, 2010 on the Columbia, Brown, and Fat Possum labels. Aside from the North Carolina sessions at Echo Mountain Studios, parts of the album were recorded in Los Angeles at Perfect Sound Studios. The album was self-produced by the band, with additional production from Phil Ek. On April 14, the band performed a full set for the WDR TV show "Rockpalast". On April 20, the band appeared on the BBC television series "Later... with Jools Holland", promoting "Infinite Arms" by playing new songs "Compliments", "Factory", and "NW Apt". Following this appearance, the band's two earlier albums entered the UK Albums Chart for the first time. "Infinite Arms" entered the UK chart at number 21, giving Band of Horses their first top 100 UK chart hit and debuted at number 7 on the Billboard 200, far exceeding the performance of "Cease to Begin". An outtake from the album, "Life on Earth" has been used on the soundtrack of the "Twilight Saga" film "", which was released on June 7, 2010.


title: Band of Horses

text: Band of Horses toured Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand and Japan in 2010. They opened for Pearl Jam on their tour of the Midwest and East Coast and for Snow Patrol at their concerts in Bangor and Glasgow in June. They played the SXSW, Sasquatch, Splendour in the Grass, Summer Sonic, Pukkelpop, Highfields, Malmo, Rock en Seine, Reading, Leeds, ACL and Farm Aid festivals in 2010.


title: Band of Horses

text: On October 7, 2010, Band of Horses released a cover of Cee Lo Green's "Georgia" via their official website. Ben Bridwell said, "This began as a very random idea I had on my dad's patio after we watched our beloved Georgia Bulldogs football team get robbed of a win at the hands of the referees and LSU last year. This song is so nostalgic to me as my parents grew up in Atlanta and have so many family members in the great state of Georgia. It's always been a second home of sorts. We've played some great shows there as well, including our run of annual New Year's Eve shows in Atlanta from 2007–2009." The cover version Bridwell referred to is Cee Lo's version of "No One's Gonna Love You". The two tracks were released together as a 7-inch vinyl split single.


title: Band of Horses

text: Band of Horses released a video for their song "Dilly" on November 16, 2010. Previous videos for songs from "Infinite Arms" had been collections of still photographs by the band's longtime collaborator Christoper Wilson, merged to make movies. "Dilly" was shot in the Mojave Desert by director Phil Andelman and was exclusively premiered on the movie website IMDb. The video features the exploits of a trouble-making motorcycle gang, and includes surreal sequences of the gang dancing in formation, as well as them killing people by shooting them with nothing more than a pointed finger. The collaboration with IMDb represents the first occasion that the website has premiered a music video. "Dilly" was released as a single on February 14, 2011, and includes the band's cover version of Cee-Lo Green's "Georgia". The single was a minor hit on the Belgian (Flanders) singles chart.


title: Band of Horses

text: "Infinite Arms" was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Alternative Album category and featured in several end of year "Best Albums of 2010" lists, including "Q Magazine" (#21), "NPR" Listeners (#15), "Filter Magazine" (#10) and "Paste Magazine" (#14). The song "Laredo" was placed at number 28 in "Rolling Stone" Magazine's top 50 songs of 2010.


title: Band of Horses

text: In 2011, Band of Horses returned to Europe for a tour in January and February, which included a show with Foo Fighters at Wembley Arena on February 25. They undertook a brief US tour in early April before returning to Europe for several festivals in June. The band were scheduled to support Kings Of Leon on their US tour from July to September 2011 and their eight Australian concerts in November 2011, but Kings of Leon cancelled their US tour after just 3 shows. In 2012 the band toured for the first time in South America.


title: Band of Horses

text: In April 2012, Ben Bridwell said that Band Of Horses' fourth studio album was scheduled for release in late 2012 and would be produced by Glyn Johns. In June the band shared a video preview, via Facebook and YouTube, of a new song, "Dumpster World", and announced a September release for the album. On July 10 the album's title was confirmed as "Mirage Rock" and the track listing and artwork were revealed. A debut single from the fourth album, "Knock Knock", was released on July 9, 2012 and the album was released on September 18. "Knock Knock" and the subsequent single from "Mirage Rock", "Slow Cruel Hands of Time", were both minor hits in Belgium.


title: Band of Horses

text: In late August 2012, a music video for "Knock Knock" was released on the internet. Directed by Jared Eberhardt, the video simulates old fashioned nature documentaries and features members of the band being captured, like animals, to be studied. Bridwell revealed that the footage was taken in the Salt Lake City area, "It seems fitting that we'd finally get to shoot a video around Salt Lake City, as we've got a song that pays tribute to the area called 'The Great Salt Lake' from our first album. Better late than never."


title: Band of Horses

text: On February 24, 2014, Band of Horses released a ten track live album, "Acoustic at the Ryman", featuring stripped-down versions of some of their best known songs. The album was recorded over two nights in April 2013 at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. The band played a 13-date run of acoustic performances across the U.S., which commenced on February 11 at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre and concluded on March 5 at The Ryman itself.


title: Band of Horses

text: On July 17, 2015, Ben Bridwell and Sam Beam of Iron and Wine released a covers album titled "Sing into My Mouth". The fifth Band of Horses studio album, "Why Are You OK" is produced by Jason Lytle of the band Grandaddy and was released on June 10, 2016, through Rick Rubin's American Recordings and Interscope Records.


title: Band of Horses

text: On May 1, 2017, Tyler Ramsey announced his departure from Band of Horses on his personal Instagram account. A day later, Bill Reynolds made a similar announcement via his Facebook page. When touring resumed on May 18 in Tallahassee, Band of Horses was joined by Richard Fitzpatrick on guitar and saw the return of bassist Matt Gentling, who had previously toured with the band prior to the recording of "Cease to Begin". Fitzpatrick was subsequently replaced by guitarist Ian MacDougall. In 2022, Bridwell disputed Ramsey's and Reynolds's claims that they quit Band of Horses, saying that they had instead both been fired from the group.


title: Band of Horses

text: On October 12, 2021, Band of Horses issued the single "Crutch" and announced the release of "Things Are Great", their first album with Matt Gentling and Ian MacDougall, and sixth overall. Calling it "a return to their earlier work and the kind of raw ethos that lies at the heart of Band of Horses", "Things Are Great" was released on March 4, 2022. Prior to the album's release, MacDougall exited the band and in late January 2022 was replaced by Brett Nash as lead guitarist.


title: Middleweight (MMA)

text: For the sake of uniformity, many mixed martial arts websites refer to competitors between 171 and 185 lb (77.5 and 84 kg) as middleweights. This encompasses Shooto's light heavyweight division of the same weight limit.


title: Middleweight (MMA)

text: The middleweight limit, as defined by the Nevada State Athletic Commission and the Association of Boxing Commissions is 185 lb (84 kg).


title: Californium

text: Californium is a radioactive chemical element with the symbol Cf and atomic number 98. The element was first synthesized in 1950 at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (then the University of California Radiation Laboratory), by bombarding curium with alpha particles (helium-4 ions). It is an actinide element, the sixth transuranium element to be synthesized, and has the second-highest atomic mass of all elements that have been produced in amounts large enough to see with the naked eye (after einsteinium). The element was named after the university and the U.S. state of California.


title: Californium

text: Two crystalline forms exist for californium at normal pressure: one above and one below . A third form exists at high pressure. Californium slowly tarnishes in air at room temperature. Californium compounds are dominated by the +3 oxidation state. The most stable of californium's twenty known isotopes is californium-251, with a half-life of 898 years. This short half-life means the element is not found in significant quantities in the Earth's crust. Cf, with a half-life of about 2.645 years, is the most common isotope used and is produced at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the United States and Research Institute of Atomic Reactors in Russia.


title: Californium

text: Californium is one of the few transuranium elements with practical applications. Most of these applications exploit the property of certain isotopes of californium to emit neutrons. For example, californium can be used to help start up nuclear reactors, and it is employed as a source of neutrons when studying materials using neutron diffraction and neutron spectroscopy. Californium can also be used in nuclear synthesis of higher mass elements; oganesson (element 118) was synthesized by bombarding californium-249 atoms with calcium-48 ions. Users of californium must take into account radiological concerns and the element's ability to disrupt the formation of red blood cells by bioaccumulating in skeletal tissue.


title: Californium

text: Californium is a silvery-white actinide metal with a melting point of and an estimated boiling point of . The pure metal is malleable and is easily cut with a razor blade. Californium metal starts to vaporize above when exposed to a vacuum. Below californium metal is either ferromagnetic or ferrimagnetic (it acts like a magnet), between 48 and 66 K it is antiferromagnetic (an intermediate state), and above it is paramagnetic (external magnetic fields can make it magnetic). It forms alloys with lanthanide metals but little is known about the resulting materials.


title: Californium

text: The element has two crystalline forms at standard atmospheric pressure: a double-hexagonal close-packed form dubbed alpha (α) and a face-centered cubic form designated beta (β). The α form exists below 600–800 °C with a density of 15.10 g/cm and the β form exists above 600–800 °C with a density of 8.74 g/cm. At 48 GPa of pressure the β form changes into an orthorhombic crystal system due to delocalization of the atom's 5f electrons, which frees them to bond.


title: Californium

text: The bulk modulus of a material is a measure of its resistance to uniform pressure. Californium's bulk modulus is , which is similar to trivalent lanthanide metals but smaller than more familiar metals, such as aluminium (70 GPa).


title: Californium

text: Californium exhibits oxidation states of 4, 3, or 2. It typically forms eight or nine bonds to surrounding atoms or ions. Its chemical properties are predicted to be similar to other primarily 3+ valence actinide elements and the element dysprosium, which is the lanthanide above californium in the periodic table. Compounds in the +4 oxidation state are strong oxidizing agents and those in the +2 state are strong reducing agents.


title: Californium

text: The element slowly tarnishes in air at room temperature, with the rate increasing when moisture is added. Californium reacts when heated with hydrogen, nitrogen, or a chalcogen (oxygen family element); reactions with dry hydrogen and aqueous mineral acids are rapid.


title: Californium

text: Californium is only water-soluble as the californium(III) cation. Attempts to reduce or oxidize the +3 ion in solution have failed. The element forms a water-soluble chloride, nitrate, perchlorate, and sulfate and is precipitated as a fluoride, oxalate, or hydroxide. Californium is the heaviest actinide to exhibit covalent properties, as is observed in the californium borate.


title: Californium

text: Twenty isotopes of californium are known (mass number ranging from 237 to 256); the most stable are Cf with half-life 898 years, Cf with half-life 351 years, Cf with half-life 13.08 years, and Cf with half-life 2.645 years. All other isotopes have half-life shorter than a year, and most of these have half-life less than 20 minutes.


title: Californium

text: Cf is formed from beta decay of berkelium-249, and most other californium isotopes are made by subjecting berkelium to intense neutron radiation in a nuclear reactor. Though californium-251 has the longest half-life, its production yield is only 10% due to its tendency to collect neutrons (high neutron capture) and its tendency to interact with other particles (high neutron cross section).


title: Californium

text: Californium-252 is a very strong neutron emitter, which makes it extremely radioactive and harmful. Cf, 96.9% of the time, alpha decays to curium-248; the other 3.1% of decays are spontaneous fission. One microgram (μg) of Cf emits 2.3 million neutrons per second, an average of 3.7 neutrons per spontaneous fission. Most other isotopes of californium, alpha decay to curium (atomic number 96).


title: Californium

text: Californium was first made at University of California Radiation Laboratory, Berkeley, by physics researchers Stanley Gerald Thompson, Kenneth Street Jr., Albert Ghiorso, and Glenn T. Seaborg, about February 9, 1950. It was the sixth transuranium element to be discovered; the team announced its discovery on March 17, 1950.


title: Californium

text: To produce californium, a microgram-size target of curium-242 () was bombarded with 35 MeV alpha particles () in the cyclotron at Berkeley, which produced californium-245 () plus one free neutron ().


title: Californium

text: To identify and separate out the element, ion exchange and adsorsion methods were undertaken. Only about 5,000 atoms of californium were produced in this experiment, and these atoms had a half-life of 44 minutes.


title: Californium

text: The discoverers named the new element after the university and the state. This was a break from the convention used for elements 95 to 97, which drew inspiration from how the elements directly above them in the periodic table were named. However, the element directly above #98 in the periodic table, dysprosium, has a name that means "hard to get at", so the researchers decided to set aside the informal naming convention. They added that "the best we can do is to point out [that] ... searchers a century ago found it difficult to get to California".


title: Californium

text: Weighable amounts of californium were first produced by the irradiation of plutonium targets at Materials Testing Reactor at National Reactor Testing Station, eastern Idaho; these findings were reported in 1954. The high spontaneous fission rate of californium-252 was observed in these samples. The first experiment with californium in concentrated form occurred in 1958. The isotopes Cf to Cf were isolated that same year from a sample of plutonium-239 that had been irradiated with neutrons in a nuclear reactor for five years. Two years later, in 1960, Burris Cunningham and James Wallman of Lawrence Radiation Laboratory of the University of California created the first californium compounds—californium trichloride, californium(III) oxychloride, and californium oxide—by treating californium with steam and hydrochloric acid.


title: Californium

text: The High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, started producing small batches of californium in the 1960s. By 1995, HFIR nominally produced of californium annually. Plutonium supplied by the United Kingdom to the United States under the 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement was used for making californium.


title: Californium

text: The Atomic Energy Commission sold Cf to industrial and academic customers in the early 1970s for $10 per microgram, and an average of of Cf were shipped each year from 1970 to 1990. Californium metal was first prepared in 1974 by Haire and Baybarz, who reduced californium(III) oxide with lanthanum metal to obtain microgram amounts of sub-micrometer thick films.


title: Californium

text: Traces of californium can be found near facilities that use the element in mineral prospecting and in medical treatments. The element is fairly insoluble in water, but it adheres well to ordinary soil; and concentrations of it in the soil can be 500 times higher than in the water surrounding the soil particles.


title: Californium

text: Nuclear fallout from atmospheric nuclear weapons testing prior to 1980 contributed a small amount of californium to the environment. Californium isotopes with mass numbers 249, 252, 253, and 254 have been observed in the radioactive dust collected from the air after a nuclear explosion. Californium is not a major radionuclide at United States Department of Energy legacy sites since it was not produced in large quantities.


title: Californium

text: Californium was once believed to be produced in supernovas, as their decay matches the 60-day half-life of Cf. However, subsequent studies failed to demonstrate any californium spectra, and supernova light curves are now thought to follow the decay of nickel-56.


title: Californium

text: The transuranium elements from americium to fermium, including californium, occurred naturally in the natural nuclear fission reactor at Oklo, but no longer do so.


title: Californium

text: Spectral lines of californium, along with those of several other non-primordial elements, were detected in Przybylski's Star in 2008.


title: Californium

text: Californium is produced in nuclear reactors and particle accelerators. Californium-250 is made by bombarding berkelium-249 () with neutrons, forming berkelium-250 () via neutron capture (n,γ) which, in turn, quickly beta decays (β) to californium-250 () in the following reaction:


title: Californium

text: Prolonged irradiation of americium, curium, and plutonium with neutrons produces milligram amounts of californium-252 and microgram amounts of californium-249. As of 2006, curium isotopes 244 to 248 are irradiated by neutrons in special reactors to produce primarily californium-252 with lesser amounts of isotopes 249 to 255.


title: Californium

text: Microgram quantities of californium-252 are available for commercial use through the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Only two sites produce californium-252: the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the United States, and the Research Institute of Atomic Reactors in Dimitrovgrad, Russia. As of 2003, the two sites produce 0.25 grams and 0.025 grams of californium-252 per year, respectively.


title: Californium

text: Three californium isotopes with significant half-lives are produced, requiring a total of 15 neutron captures by uranium-238 without nuclear fission or alpha decay occurring during the process. Californium-253 is at the end of a production chain that starts with uranium-238, includes several isotopes of plutonium, americium, curium, berkelium, and the californium isotopes 249 to 253 (see diagram).


title: Californium

text: Californium-252 has a number of specialized uses as a strong neutron emitter; it produces 139 million neutrons per microgram per minute. This property makes it useful as a startup neutron source for some nuclear reactors and as a portable (non-reactor based) neutron source for neutron activation analysis to detect trace amounts of elements in samples. Neutrons from californium are used as a treatment of certain cervical and brain cancers where other radiation therapy is ineffective. It has been used in educational applications since 1969 when Georgia Institute of Technology got a loan of 119 μg of Cf from the Savannah River Site. It is also used with online elemental coal analyzers and bulk material analyzers in the coal and cement industries.


title: Californium

text: Neutron penetration into materials makes californium useful in detection instruments such as fuel rod scanners; neutron radiography of aircraft and weapons components to detect corrosion, bad welds, cracks and trapped moisture; and in portable metal detectors. Neutron moisture gauges use Cf to find water and petroleum layers in oil wells, as a portable neutron source for gold and silver prospecting for on-the-spot analysis, and to detect ground water movement. The main uses of Cf in 1982 were, reactor start-up (48.3%), fuel rod scanning (25.3%), and activation analysis (19.4%). By 1994, most Cf was used in neutron radiography (77.4%), with fuel rod scanning (12.1%) and reactor start-up (6.9%) as important but secondary uses. In 2021, fast neutrons from Cf were used for wireless data transmission.


title: Californium

text: Cf has a very small calculated critical mass of about , high lethality, and a relatively short period of toxic environmental irradiation. The low critical mass of californium led to some exaggerated claims about possible uses for the element.


title: Californium

text: In October 2006, researchers announced that three atoms of oganesson (element 118) had been identified at Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, from bombarding Cf with calcium-48, making it the heaviest element ever made. The target contained about 10 mg of Cf deposited on a titanium foil of 32 cm area. Californium has also been used to produce other transuranium elements; for example, element 103 (later named lawrencium) was first synthesized in 1961 by bombarding californium with boron nuclei.


title: Californium

text: Californium that bioaccumulates in skeletal tissue releases radiation that disrupts the body's ability to form red blood cells. The element plays no natural biological role in any organism due to its intense radioactivity and low concentration in the environment.


title: Californium

text: Californium can enter the body from ingesting contaminated food or drinks or by breathing air with suspended particles of the element. Once in the body, only 0.05% of the californium will reach the bloodstream. About 65% of that californium will be deposited in the skeleton, 25% in the liver, and the rest in other organs, or excreted, mainly in urine. Half of the californium deposited in the skeleton and liver are gone in 50 and 20 years, respectively. Californium in the skeleton adheres to bone surfaces before slowly migrating throughout the bone.


title: Californium

text: The element is most dangerous if taken into the body. In addition, californium-249 and californium-251 can cause tissue damage externally, through gamma ray emission. Ionizing radiation emitted by californium on bone and in the liver can cause cancer.


title: Hollywoodland

text: Hollywoodland is a 2006 American film directed by Allen Coulter and written by Paul Bernbaum. The story presents a fictionalized account of the circumstances surrounding the death of actor George Reeves (played by Ben Affleck), the star of the 1950s film "Superman and the Mole Men" and television series "Adventures of Superman". Adrien Brody stars as a fictional character, Louis Simo, a private detective investigating Toni Mannix (Diane Lane), who was involved in a long romantic relationship with Reeves and was the wife of MGM studio executive Eddie Mannix (Bob Hoskins). Reeves had ended the affair and had become engaged to a younger woman, aspiring actress Leonore Lemmon (Robin Tunney).


title: Hollywoodland

text: Development for "Hollywoodland" began in 2001 when Focus Features purchased Bernbaum's script, titled "Truth, Justice, and the American Way". Michael and Mark Polish were set to direct with Benicio del Toro in the lead role, but Focus Features placed the film in turnaround to Miramax Films the following year. Ultimately, "Truth, Justice, and the American Way" became a joint production between the two studios and filming commenced in May 2005, with veteran television director Coulter making his feature film directorial debut. Due to copyright issues with DC Comics, the film was retitled "Hollywoodland" and released to generally positive reviews.


title: Hollywoodland

text: In June 1959, Louis Simo, a Los Angeles private investigator more interested in generating an income than in devotion to his clients, is spying on the wife of a man named Chester Sinclair to find if she is cheating. On a visit to his own ex-wife Laurie, Simo learns that his son is upset over the recent death of actor George Reeves, who played Superman on television. Reeves was found dead inside his Beverly Hills home with a gunshot wound to the head, which the police ruled as a suicide.


title: Hollywoodland

text: Simo learns from a former police colleague that the Reeves suicide has aspects that the cops do not want to touch. Sensing the potential for making a name for himself, Simo begins investigating and notes several apparent conflicts with the official version of Reeves' death. He also bickers with Laurie over his failures as a father, particularly now when his son seems so troubled.


title: Hollywoodland

text: Years before, in 1951, Reeves, whose acting career has stalled since appearing in "Gone with the Wind", catches the eye of a beautiful woman and they end the night in each other's arms. In the morning, a newspaper photo reveals to Reeves that the woman is Toni Mannix, the wife of Eddie Mannix, a fixer and the general manager of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.


title: Hollywoodland

text: Frightened that an affair with a studio boss's wife will destroy what is left of his career, Reeves is angry that Toni did not tell him. She claims to have an open relationship with Mannix and tells him not to worry. The much wealthier Toni begins to buy Reeves expensive gifts such as a house, a car and jewelry.


title: Hollywoodland

text: Reeves lands the starring role in the television series "Adventures of Superman", based on the comic book hero. The role makes Reeves famous and gives him a steady income, but he longs for more "serious" work and is uncomfortable with the public's stereotype of him as Superman, resulting in snickers from the audience when he is seen on screen in a sneak preview of the war film "From Here to Eternity". After film executives attending the preview heard the snickers, his formerly prominent role in the film was drastically reduced.


title: Hollywoodland

text: As the years pass, Reeves becomes bitter at being a kept man and at Toni for not using her clout to help out his career. He barbecues his Superman costume to "celebrate" the program's cancellation in 1958. He also meets a young woman in New York City, actress Leonore Lemmon, and leaves Toni for her. Toni is brokenhearted and furious and seethes at her "mistreatment" by Reeves.


title: Hollywoodland

text: Simo initially suspects that Leonore might have accidentally shot Reeves during an argument and imagines how the scenario might have played out. Simo is beaten at his home by thugs, apparently working for Mannix, who are trying to scare him off the case. This, and other evidence, leads Simo to suspect that Mannix was the one who had Reeves murdered. Simo has a vision of how that killing would have occurred.


title: Hollywoodland

text: Sinclair murders his wife, having grown impatient waiting for Simo's report. A guilt-plagued Simo gets drunk, then visits his son's school, where his inebriation scares the boy. Simo visits Reeves' manager, Arthur Weissman, who has a home movie that Reeves shot in order to promote some wrestling work. Reeves' sadness and disappointment with his life are evident in the footage. Simo's final imagined variation on Reeves' death concludes with the actor shooting himself. This is the most vivid of the three scenarios, and Simo imagines himself in the upstairs bedroom, watching the suicide.


title: Hollywoodland

text: Each of the scenes imagined by Simo begins with Reeves playing a guitar and singing "Green Eyes (Aquellos Ojos Verdes)" in Spanish for his house guests. After each of the three imagined renditions, Reeves says good night to his guests, then retires to his bedroom upstairs, just before the gunshot.


title: Hollywoodland

text: Reeves' quest for success and Simo's realization of parallels to his own existence cause the detective to reevaluate his life. Simo watches another home movie, this one of himself and Laurie and their son in happier days. He goes to Laurie's house wearing a suit and tie, greeting his son hopefully.


title: Hollywoodland

text: Focus Features acquired a spec script written by Paul Bernbaum in December 2001 titled "Truth, Justice, and the American Way". They courted Michael and Mark Polish to direct, with Diane Lane attached to costar, but Focus placed the film in turnaround in June 2002. Miramax Films picked up the rights and hoped for the Polish brothers to begin filming that year with Benicio del Toro as the potential lead, a role also considered for Joaquin Phoenix. Kyle MacLachlan was in the running to play George Reeves, after an audition and having worked with the Polish brothers on "Northfork", while Hugh Jackman, Colin Firth and Mark Ruffalo were reportedly the top contenders. However, the Polish brothers were replaced with television director Allen Coulter over creative differences. Filming was pushed back to April 2004, and Del Toro was still attached to the lead role, pending script revisions. Ben Affleck, Dennis Quaid and Viggo Mortensen were added to the list of actors under consideration for George Reeves, alongside Sharon Stone and Annette Bening for Toni Mannix. The film was finally greenlit when the project moved back to Focus Features in 2005, and Howard Korder was brought on to an unaccredited rewrite of Bernbaum's script.


title: Hollywoodland

text: Adrien Brody was cast as Louis Simo and Affleck eventually won the supporting role of Reeves. He saw "Truth, Justice, and the American Way" as an opportunity to disassociate himself from the many big budget action films he had been starring in. It marked his first leading or supporting role in a film in two years. "I was really unhappy finding myself perpetually in the sights of paparazzi cameras and in the gossip magazines. This character was broken, but he’s also the archetype of all those kinds of guys I had played — the actual, real version, which is damaged and somehow unhappy and trying to be something other than what he is. And to me that made it infinitely more interesting." Affleck watched all 108 episodes of the "Adventures of Superman", met with Jack Larson, the actor who portrayed Jimmy Olsen in the TV show, read various books about Reeves' life and death, and gained 20 pounds to closely resemble the actor with contact lenses and subtle use of facial prosthesis. In addition he listened to hours of Reeves' voice on CD so he could get the same intonations and timbre. Filming began in Toronto, Canada in May 2005.


title: Hollywoodland

text: During its production, "Hollywoodland" went through many rounds of getting clearance from Warner Bros. Pictures to use different aspects of Reeves' Superman persona to reflect the actual nature of his career. Time Warner is the parent company of both Warner Bros. and DC Comics and, as such, has the final say in the depiction of characters relating to their properties. The film's first title was "Truth, Justice, and the American Way", Superman's well-known patriotic catchphrase, but Warner Bros. threatened legal action unless the film's title was changed so as not to associate the classic slogan with Reeves' death—especially since Warner Bros. was banking the film "Superman Returns", which was released a few months earlier in June 2006. The filmmakers changed the title to "Hollywoodland", not as a reflection of the ailing Hollywood Sign, but in reference to the general milieu of "movieland" itself. The filmmakers wished to use the familiar filmed opening of "Adventures of Superman" in context within "Hollywoodland", but Warner Bros. refused to license clips from the show itself. The movie recreated the show's opening and substituted a re-recorded version of the opening theme.


title: Hollywoodland

text: "Hollywoodland" takes liberties with actual historical events for dramatic purposes. Several events and places are condensed to fit into the film, including:


title: Hollywoodland

text: On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 68% based on 186 reviews, with an average rating of 6.5/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "More than a movie star murder mystery, "Hollywoodland" takes it slow in order to reveal the intriguing details of the rise and fall of superstar fame." According to Metacritic, which assigned a weighted average score of 62 out of 100 based on 33 critics, the film received "generally favorable reviews".


title: Hollywoodland

text: Ben Affleck earned the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival for his portrayal as George Reeves. He was also nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture, but lost to Eddie Murphy for his performance in "Dreamgirls". Hoskins and Lane were also applauded for their performances. Critics at "The Wall Street Journal" and "Vanity Fair" called "Hollywoodland" a possible Academy Award contender, but the film received no Oscar nominations.


title: Hollywoodland

text: "Hollywoodland" grossed $14.4 million in the United States and $2.4 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $16.8 million.


title: Hollywoodland

text: The film made $9.1 million in DVD rentals and a spot in the top ten DVD sales for its first three weeks of release.


title: U Thant

text: Thant (; ; January 22, 1909 – November 25, 1974), known honorifically as U Thant (), was a Burmese diplomat and the third secretary-general of the United Nations from 1961 to 1971, the first non-Scandinavian to hold the position. He held the office for a record 10 years and one month.


title: U Thant

text: A native of Pantanaw, Thant was educated at the National High School and at Rangoon University. In the days of tense political climate in Burma, he held moderate views positioning himself between fervent nationalists and British loyalists. He was a close friend of Burma's first Prime Minister U Nu and served in various positions in Nu's cabinet from 1948 to 1961. Thant had a calm and unassuming demeanor that won his colleagues' respect.


title: U Thant

text: He was appointed as Secretary-General in 1961, six weeks after his predecessor, Dag Hammarskjöld, had died in an air crash. In his first term, Thant facilitated negotiations between U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, helping to avert a global catastrophe. Later, in December that year, Thant ordered Operation Grandslam, which ended a secessionist insurgency in Congo. He was reappointed as Secretary-General on December 2, 1966, by a unanimous vote of the Security Council. During his second term Thant was well known for publicly criticizing U.S. conduct in the Vietnam War. He oversaw the entry of several newly independent African and Asian states into the UN. He refused to serve a third term, and retired in 1971.


title: U Thant

text: Thant died of lung cancer in 1974. A devout Buddhist and the foremost Burmese diplomat on the international stage, he was widely admired and held in great respect by the Burmese populace. When the military government refused him any honours, riots erupted in Rangoon; these were violently crushed by the government, leaving scores of casualties.


title: U Thant

text: Thant, the eldest of four sons, was born in Pantanaw, Colonial Burma, to a moderately-wealthy family of landowners and rice merchants. His father Po Hnit, who had been educated in Calcutta, was the only person in the town who could communicate well in English. He was a founding member of the Burma Research Society and had helped establish "The Sun" ("Thuriya") newspaper in Rangoon. Although his family members were ethnic Bamars and devout Buddhists, Thant's father, according to Thant Myint-U (U Thant's grandson), had distant ancestors who were "people from both India and China, Buddhists and Muslims, as well as Shans and Mons". He hoped that all his four sons would each earn a degree. His other sons, Khant, Thaung, and Tin Maung went on to become politicians and scholars.


title: U Thant

text: Po Hnit had collected a personal library of various American and British books and cultivated a reading habit among his children. As a result, Thant became an avid reader and his school friends nicknamed him "The Philosopher". Apart from reading, he enjoyed various sports including hiking, swimming and playing chinlone. He went to the National High School in Pantanaw. At the age of eleven Thant participated in strikes against the University Act of 1920. He dreamed of becoming a journalist and surprised the family by writing an article for the "Union of Burma Boy Scouts" magazine. When Thant was fourteen, his father died and a series of inheritance disputes forced Thant's mother, Nan Thaung, and her four children into difficult financial times.


title: U Thant

text: After the death of his father, Thant believed he would not be able to complete a four-year degree and instead worked for a two-year teaching certificate at Rangoon University in 1926. As the eldest son he had to fulfill his filial duties and responsibilities to the family. At university, Thant, together with Nu, the future Prime Minister of Burma, studied history under D. G. E. Hall. Nu was told by a distant mutual relative to take care of Thant and the two soon became close friends. Thant was elected joint secretary of the University Philosophical Association and secretary of the Literary and Debating Society. In Rangoon, Thant met J.S. Furnivall, the founder of The Burma Book Club and "The World of Books" magazine, to which Thant regularly contributed. Promising a good post, Furnivall urged Thant to complete a four-year university course and join the Civil Service, but Thant refused. After earning the certificate, he returned to Pantanaw to teach at the National High School as a senior teacher in 1928. He contacted Furnivall and Nu regularly, writing articles and participating in "The World of Books" translation competitions.


title: U Thant

text: In 1931, Thant won first place in All Burma Teachership Examination and became the school's headmaster by the age of twenty-five. Urged by Thant, his friend Nu took the local superintendent of schools position. Thant regularly contributed to several newspapers and magazines under the pen name "Thilawa" and translated a number of books, including one on the League of Nations. His major influences were Sir Stafford Cripps, Sun Yat-sen and Mahatma Gandhi. In the days of tense political climate in Burma, Thant stood moderate grounds between fervent nationalists and British loyalists.


title: U Thant

text: During World War II, the Japanese occupied Burma from 1942 to 1945. They brought Thant to Rangoon to lead the Educational Reorganizing Committee. However, Thant did not have any real power, and returned to Pantanaw. When teaching the Japanese language was made compulsory in Pantanaw high schools, Thant defied the orders and cooperated with the growing anti-Japanese resistance.


title: U Thant

text: In 1948, Burma gained independence from the United Kingdom. Nu became the prime minister of the newly independent Burma and appointed Thant as director of broadcasting in 1948. By then, civil war had broken out. The Karen insurgency began and Thant risked his life to go to Karen camps to negotiate for peace. The negotiations broke down, and in 1949 the advancing insurgents burned his hometown, including his house. The insurgents pushed the front to within four miles of the capital Rangoon before they were beaten back. In the following year, Thant was appointed secretary to the government of Burma in the Ministry of Information. From 1951 to 1957, Thant was secretary to the prime minister, writing speeches for U Nu, arranging his foreign travel, and meeting foreign visitors. During this entire period, he was U Nu's closest confidant and advisor.


title: U Thant

text: He also took part in a number of international conferences and was the secretary of the 1955 Bandung Conference in Indonesia, which gave birth to the Non-Aligned Movement. From 1957 to 1961, he was Burma's permanent representative to the United Nations and became actively involved in negotiations over Algerian independence. In 1961, Thant was named Chairman of the UN Congo Commission. The Burmese government awarded him the title "Maha Thray Sithu" as a commander in the order of Pyidaungsu Sithu.


title: U Thant

text: In September 1961, United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld was killed in a plane crash "en route" to Congo. Within two weeks, the United States and the Soviet Union had agreed to appoint Thant as the Acting Secretary-General for the remainder of Hammarskjöld's term. However, the two superpowers spent another four weeks arguing over the details of his appointment. On November 3, 1961, the Security Council recommended Thant in Resolution 168, and the General Assembly voted unanimously to appoint Thant to a term of office ending on April 10, 1963.


title: U Thant

text: During his first term, he was widely credited for his role in defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis and for ending the civil war in the Congo. He also said that he wanted to ease tensions between major powers while serving at the UN.


title: U Thant

text: In less than one year in office, Thant faced a critical challenge to defuse the Cuban Missile Crisis, the moment when the world came closest to a nuclear war. On October 20, 1962, two days before public announcements were made, U.S. President John F. Kennedy showed Thant U-2 aerial reconnaissance photographs of Soviet missile installations in Cuba. The president then ordered a naval "quarantine" to remove all offensive weapons from Soviet ships bound for Cuba. Meanwhile, Soviet ships were approaching the quarantine zone. To avoid a naval confrontation, Thant proposed that the U.S. should make non-invasion guarantees in exchange for missile withdrawal from the Soviet Union. Soviet Premier Khrushchev welcomed the proposal, which formed the basis of further negotiations. Khrushchev further agreed to suspend missile shipments while the negotiations were ongoing. However, on October 27, 1962, a U-2 plane was shot down over Cuba, deepening the crisis. Kennedy was under intense pressure to invade from the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Executive Committee (ExComm). Kennedy hoped Thant would play the role of mediator and subsequently replied to ExComm and the Joint Chiefs, "On the other hand we have U Thant, and we don't want to sink a ship...right in the middle of when U Thant is supposedly arranging for the Russians to stay out."


title: U Thant

text: Negotiations continued. The U.S. agreed to dismantle missiles in Turkey and guaranteed never to invade Cuba in exchange for removal of Soviet missiles in Cuba. Thant flew to Cuba and discussed with Fidel Castro allowing UN missile inspectors and the return of the body of the downed U-2 pilot. Castro, furious that the Soviets had agreed to remove missiles without his knowledge, categorically rejected any UN inspectors, although he did return the pilot's body. The inspection was done at sea by US reconnaissance aircraft and warships. The crisis was resolved and a war between superpowers was averted.


title: U Thant

text: Thant's reappointment was assured when Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev made several favorable references to Thant in letters to U.S. President John F. Kennedy. In November 1962, the General Assembly voted unanimously to promote Thant from Acting Secretary-General to Secretary-General for a term ending on November 3, 1966. For personal reasons, Thant wanted his term to end five years from his initial appointment, and he would henceforth consider his first five years in office to be a single term.


title: U Thant

text: Although a manifest pacifist and a devout Buddhist, Thant did not hesitate to use force when required. During the Congo Civil War in 1962, Katangan secessionists led by Moise Tshombe repeatedly attacked UN Operation in the Congo forces (ONUC). In December 1962, after ONUC suffered a sustained four-day attack in Katanga, Thant ordered the "Operation Grandslam" to gain "complete freedom of movement for ONUC all over Katanga." The operation proved to be decisive and ended the secessionist insurgency once and for all. By January 1963, the secessionist capital Elizabethville was under full UN control. In his speech at Columbia University Thant expressed expectation of completion of the United Nations Operation in the Congo in mid 1964.


title: U Thant

text: For his role in defusing the Cuban crisis and other peacekeeping efforts, the Norwegian Permanent Representative of the United Nations informed Thant that he would be awarded the 1965 Nobel Peace Prize. He humbly replied, "Is not the Secretary-General merely doing his job when he works for peace?" On the other hand, Chairman Gunnar Jahn of the Nobel Peace Prize committee lobbied heavily against giving Thant the prize, which was, at the last minute, awarded to UNICEF. The rest of the committee all wanted the prize to go to Thant. The disagreement lasted three years, and in 1966 and 1967 no prize was given, with Gunnar Jahn effectively vetoing an award to Thant. Outraged, Thant's undersecretary and Nobel Prize laureate Ralph Bunche called Gunnar Jahn's decision "gross injustice to U Thant."


title: U Thant

text: In April 1964, Thant accepted the Holy See's designation of itself as a UN permanent observer. There appeared to be no involvement of the General Assembly or the UN Security Council in the decision.


title: U Thant

text: Thant announced in 1966 that he would not stand for a second term, but he accepted a draft when the Security Council assured him that he would not be a "glorified clerk." On December 2, 1966, the General Assembly re-appointed Thant to a term ending on December 31, 1971, on the unanimous recommendation of the Security Council. During his second term, he oversaw the entry into the UN of dozens of new Asian and African states, and was a firm opponent of apartheid in South Africa. He also established many of the UN's development and environmental agencies, funds and programmes, including the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN University, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), and the UN Environmental Programme. The Six-Day War between Arab countries and Israel, the Prague Spring and subsequent Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the Indo–Pakistani War of 1971 leading to the birth of Bangladesh all took place during his tenure as secretary-general.


title: U Thant

text: He was criticized in the US and Israel for agreeing to pull UNEF troops out of the Sinai in 1967 in response to a request from Egyptian president Nasser. The Permanent Representative of Egypt had informed Thant that the Egyptian government had decided to terminate UNEF's presence in the Sinai and the Gaza Strip, and requested steps that would withdraw the force as soon as possible, which Thant was obligated to accept. The UN afterwards stated, "Because Israel refused to accept UNEF on its territory, the Force had to be deployed only on the Egyptian side of the border, and thus its functioning was entirely contingent upon the consent of Egypt as the host country. Once that consent was withdrawn, its operation could no longer be maintained." Thant, by flying to Cairo in a last-minute peace effort, tried to persuade Nasser not to go to war with Israel.


title: U Thant

text: In Israel, his abrupt unilateral withdrawal of UNEF without any diplomatic process or wider consultation was regarded as a violation of United Nations assurances and commitments given to Israel in 1957, on the basis of which Israel had withdrawn from Sinai and Gaza at that time, and it "thereafter inspired Israel's refusal to place her vital interests again in United Nations hands".


title: U Thant

text: Thant's once good relationship with the US government deteriorated rapidly when he publicly criticized American conduct of the Vietnam War. His secret attempts at direct peace talks between Washington and Hanoi were eventually rejected by the Johnson Administration.


title: U Thant

text: In 1971, the participation of the People's Republic of China in the United Nations, which was a long-standing problem, was realized. Thant sent a message to the Chinese government asking China to send a delegation.


title: U Thant

text: On January 23, 1971, Thant categorically announced that he would "under no circumstances" be available for a third term as secretary-general. The 1971 United Nations Secretary-General selection was delayed by the anticipated arrival of the People's Republic of China, and the Security Council did not begin voting until two weeks before the end of Thant's term. After every candidate was vetoed in the second round, Kurt Waldheim accidentally won in the third round when the US, UK, and China failed to coordinate their vetoes and all abstained.


title: U Thant

text: Unlike his two predecessors, Thant retired after ten years on speaking terms with all the big powers. In 1961, when he was first appointed, the Soviet Union tried to insist on a "troika" formula of three secretaries-general, one representing each Cold War bloc, to maintain equality in the United Nations between the superpowers. By 1966, when Thant was reappointed, all the big powers, in a unanimous vote of the Security Council, affirmed the importance of the secretary-generalship and his good offices, a clear tribute to Thant's work.


title: U Thant

text: In his farewell address to the United Nations General Assembly, Secretary-General Thant stated that he felt a "great sense of relief bordering on liberation" on relinquishing the "burdens of office". In an editorial published around December 27, 1971, praising Thant, "The New York Times" stated that "the wise counsel of this dedicated man of peace will still be needed after his retirement". The editorial was titled "The Liberation of U Thant".


title: U Thant

text: After his retirement, Thant was appointed a senior fellow of the Adlai Stevenson Institute of International Affairs. He spent the last years of his life writing and advocating the development of a true global community and other general themes he had tried to promote while he was secretary-general. While serving as secretary-general, Thant lived in Riverdale, Bronx, on a estate near 232nd Street, between Palisade and Douglas Avenues.


title: U Thant

text: Thant died of lung cancer in New York on November 25, 1974. By that time, Burma was ruled by a military junta which refused him any honours. The then-Burmese president Ne Win was envious of Thant's international stature and the respect that was accorded him by the Burmese populace. Ne Win also resented Thant's close links with the democratic government of U Nu which Win had overthrown in 1962.


title: U Thant

text: However, Thant's grandson, Thant Myint-U, wrote in the book "The River of Lost Footsteps: Histories of Burma" that intense animosity between Thant and Ne Win went back only to 1969, when Ne Win believed Thant was conniving with Nu after Nu denounced Ne Win at a press corps meeting at the UN headquarters. Ne Win told his men to consider Thant as an enemy of the state, despite Thant denouncing Nu's action as inappropriate.


title: U Thant

text: Regardless of the reasons, Ne Win ordered that Thant be buried without any official involvement or ceremony.


title: U Thant

text: From the United Nations headquarters in New York where he was laid in state, Thant's body was flown back to Rangoon, but no guard of honour or high-ranking officials were on hand at the airport when the coffin arrived except for U Aung Tun, deputy minister of education, who was subsequently dismissed from office. On the day of Thant's funeral on December 5, 1974, tens of thousands of people lined the streets of Rangoon to pay their last respects. Thant's coffin was displayed at Rangoon's Kyaikasan race course for a few hours before the scheduled burial. The coffin of Thant was then snatched by a group of students just before it was scheduled to leave for burial in an ordinary Rangoon cemetery. The student demonstrators buried Thant on the former grounds of the Rangoon University Students Union (RUSU), which Ne Win had dynamited and destroyed on July 8, 1962.


title: U Thant

text: During the period of December 5–11, the student demonstrators also built a temporary mausoleum for Thant on the grounds of the RUSU and gave anti-government speeches. In early morning on December 12, 1974, government troops stormed the campus, killed some of the students guarding the makeshift mausoleum, removed Thant's coffin, and reburied it in Kandawmin Garden Mausolea near the Shwedagon Pagoda, where it has continued to lie. Upon hearing of the storming of the Rangoon University campus and the forcible removal of Thant's coffin, many people rioted in the streets of Rangoon. Martial law was declared in Rangoon and the surrounding metropolitan areas. What has come to be known as the U Thant crisis—the student-led protests over the shabby treatment of Thant by the Ne Win government—was crushed by the Burmese government.


title: U Thant

text: In April 2012, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon paid his respects at U Thant's mausoleum during a visit to Yangon.


title: U Thant

text: U Thant is held in esteem in Malaysia, as he helped to endorse the formation of the country in 1963. Among others, a road in Kuala Lumpur and the residential estate of Taman U-Thant are named after him.


title: U Thant

text: Thant had three brothers: Khant, Thaung, and Tin Maung. He was married to Daw Thein Tin. They had two sons, but lost both; Maung Bo died in infancy, and Tin Maung Thant fell from a bus during a visit to Yangon. Tin Maung Thant's funeral procession, which was attended by dignitaries, was grander than that of the state funeral of Commodore Than Pe, a member of the 17-man Revolutionary Council and minister of health and education. Thant was survived by a daughter, an adopted son, five grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren (three girls and two boys). His only grandson, Thant Myint-U, is a historian and a former senior official in the UN's Department of Political Affairs and the author of "The River of Lost Footsteps", in part a biography of Thant.


title: U Thant

text: Thant was generally reluctant to receive prizes and honors due to his own humility as well as publicity associated with them. He declined Burma's second highest honor awarded to him by U Nu's government in 1961. When he was informed that the 1965 Nobel Prize would instead go to UNICEF due to Chairman Gunnar Jahn's veto, Thant, according to Walter Dorn, "recorded his pleasure". However, he did accept the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding in 1965 and the United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights in 1973.


title: U Thant

text: Thant received honorary degrees (LL.D) from Carleton University, Williams College, Princeton University, Mount Holyoke College, Harvard University, Dartmouth College, University of California at Berkeley, University of Denver, Swarthmore College, New York University, Moscow University, Queen's University, Colby College, Yale University, University of Windsor, Hamilton College, Fordham University, Manhattan College, University of Michigan, Delhi University, University of Leeds, Louvain University, University of Alberta, Boston University, Rutgers University, University of Dublin (Trinity College), Laval University, Columbia University, the University of the Philippines Diliman, and Syracuse University. He also received the Doctor of Divinity from The First Universal Church; Doctor of International Law from Florida International University; Doctor of Laws from University of Hartford; Doctor of Civil Laws degree, honoris causa from Colgate University; Doctor of Humane Letters from Duke University.


title: U Thant

text: In his memory, Sri Chinmoy, the leader of the UN Meditation Group founded by Thant, established the U Thant Peace Award which acknowledges and honors individuals or organizations for distinguished accomplishments toward the attainment of world peace. The meditation team also named a tiny island in the East River opposite the headquarters of the United Nations U Thant Island. The road Jalan U-Thant (U-Thant Road) and the township Taman U-Thant in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia are also named in his honor.


title: U Thant

text: In December 2013, in an effort spearheaded by his daughter Aye Aye Thant and his grandson Thant Myint-U, Thant's house in Yangon was being converted into a museum which would feature his photos, works and personal belongings. In October 2013, the building of an U Thant library near his Pantanaw house was underway.


title: Ben Robson

text: Robson was born and grew up in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. His father worked in manufacturing. He has one younger brother and one younger sister. His sister works as an agent for directors and voice coaches. His brother works in wealth management. His grandmother was born in a Ukrainian orphanage and she moved to Germany during the war.


title: Ben Robson

text: In August 2015, Ben Robson was cast as 'Craig Cody' in the pilot of "Animal Kingdom" based on the Australian film of the same name.


title: Ben Robson

text: In 2016, Robson appeared in the horror film "The Boy" as 'Cole'. The film also starred Lauren Cohan and Rupert Evans. The film had moderate success but received negative reviews from critics. It grossed $64 million.


title: Order of the Solar Temple

text: The Order of the Solar Temple (, OTS) and the International Chivalric Organization of the Solar Tradition, or simply The Solar Temple, is a cult and religious sect that claims to be based upon the ideals of the Knights Templar. OTS was founded by Joseph di Mambro and Luc Jouret in 1984 in Geneva, as "l'Ordre International Chevaleresque de Tradition Solaire" (OICTS), and later it was renamed "Ordre du Temple Solaire". It is associated with a series of murders and mass suicides that claimed several dozen lives in France, Switzerland, and Canada in 1994 and 1995.


title: Order of the Solar Temple

text: Some historians allege that the Solar Temple was founded by the French author Jacques Breyer, who established a "Sovereign Order of the Solar Temple" in 1952. In 1968, a schismatic order was renamed the "Renewed Order of the Solar Temple" (ROTS) under the leadership of the French right-wing political activist Julien Origas.


title: Order of the Solar Temple

text: According to "Peronnik" (a pseudonym of temple member Robert Chabrier) in his book, ""Pourquoi la Résurgence de l'Ordre du Temple? Tome Premier: Le Corps"" (""Why a Revival of the Order of the Solar Temple? Vol. One: The Body"") 1975, pp. 147–149, the aims of the Order of the Solar Temple included: establishing "correct notions of authority and power in the world"; an affirmation of the primacy of the spiritual over the temporal; assisting humanity through a great "transition"; preparing for the Second Coming of Christ as a solar god-king; and furthering a unification of all Christian churches and Islam. The group reportedly drew some inspiration for its teachings from British occultist Aleister Crowley, who headed the Ordo Templi Orientis from 1923 until his death in 1947, and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a 19th-century Rosicrucian Order Crowley belonged to briefly. Both occult groups had a grade system somewhat similar to the Solar Temple.


title: Order of the Solar Temple

text: There were Solar Temple lodges in Morin Heights and Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pérade, Quebec, Canada, as well as in Australia, Switzerland, Martinique and other countries. The Temple's activities were a mix of early Christian Identity, UFO religion and New Age philosophy using variously adapted Freemason rituals. Jouret was interested in attractive, wealthy and influential members, and it was reputed that several affluent Europeans were secret members of the group.


title: Order of the Solar Temple

text: According to the literature of the OTS, the central authority was the "Synarchy of the Temple", whose membership was secret. Its top 33 members were known as the "Elder Brothers of the Rosy Cross" (an alternative name for the Rosicrucians), and were headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland. The Council of the Order formed Lodges that were run by a Regional Commander and three Elders. Progression in the Order was by levels and grades, with three grades per level — the levels being "The Brothers of Parvis", "The Knights of the Alliance" and the "Brothers of the Ancient Times," in ascending order. There were many organizations associated with the OTS, including the "International Archedia Sciences and Tradition", "Archedia Clubs", "Menta Clubs", "Agata Clubs" and "Atlanta Clubs", all of which offered the teachings of Luc Jouret both to the general public and privately to OTS members. The Lodges had altars, rituals and costumes. Members were initiated at each stage of advancement in ceremonies which included expensive purchases, jewellery, costumes, regalia, and the payment of initiation fees. During ceremonies, members wore Crusader-type robes and were to hold in awe a sword, which Di Mambro said was an authentic Templar artifact, given to him a thousand years ago in a previous life.


title: Order of the Solar Temple

text: In October 1994, Tony Dutoit's infant son (Emmanuel Dutoit), aged three months, was killed at the group's centre in Morin-Heights, Quebec. The baby had been stabbed repeatedly with a wooden stake. It is believed that Di Mambro ordered the murder, because he identified the baby as the Antichrist described in the Bible. He believed that the Antichrist was born into the order to prevent Di Mambro from succeeding in his spiritual aim.


title: Order of the Solar Temple

text: Some time afterwards, Di Mambro and twelve followers performed a ritual Last Supper. Subsequently, apparent mass suicides and murders were conducted at Cheiry and Salvan, two villages in Western Switzerland, and at Morin Heights—15 inner circle members committed suicide with poison, 30 were killed by bullets or smothering, and 8 others were killed by other means. In Switzerland, many of the victims were found in a secret underground chapel lined with mirrors and other items of Templar symbolism. The bodies were dressed in the order's ceremonial robes and were in a circle, feet together, heads outward, most with plastic bags tied over their heads; they had each been shot in the head. The plastic bags may have been a symbol of the ecological disaster that would befall the human race after the OTS members moved on to Sirius; it's also possible that these bags were used as part of the OTS rituals, and that members would have voluntarily worn them without being placed under duress. There was also evidence that many of the victims in Switzerland were drugged before they were shot. Other victims were found in three ski chalets; several dead children were lying together. The tragedy was discovered when officers rushed to the sites to fight the fires that had been ignited by remote-control devices. Farewell letters left by the believers stated that they believed they were leaving to escape the "hypocrisies and oppression of this world."


title: Order of the Solar Temple

text: A mayor, a journalist, a civil servant, and a sales manager were found among the dead in Switzerland. Records seized by the Quebec police showed that some members had personally donated over C$1 million to Di Mambro. Another attempted mass suicide of the remaining members was thwarted in the late 1990s. All the suicide/murders and attempts occurred around the dates of the equinoxes and solstices in some relation to the beliefs of the group.


title: Order of the Solar Temple

text: Another mass-death incident related to the OTS took place during the night between the 15 and 16 December 1995. On 23 December 1995, 16 bodies were discovered in a star-formation in the Vercors mountains of France. It was found later that two of them shot the others and then committed suicide by firearm and immolation. One of the dead included Olympian Edith Bonlieu, who had competed in the women's downhill at the 1956 Winter Olympics.


title: Order of the Solar Temple

text: On the morning of 23 March 1997, five members of the OTS took their own lives in Saint-Casimir, Quebec. A small house erupted in flames, leaving behind five charred bodies for the police to pull from the rubble. Three teenagers, aged 13, 14 and 16, the children of one of the couples that died in the fire, were discovered in a shed behind the house, alive but heavily drugged.


title: Order of the Solar Temple

text: Michel Tabachnik, an internationally renowned Swiss musician and conductor, was arrested as a leader of the Solar Temple in the late 1990s. He was indicted for "participation in a criminal organization" and murder. He came to trial in Grenoble, France, during the spring of 2001 and was acquitted. French prosecutors appealed against the verdict and an appellate court ordered a second trial beginning 24 October 2006. He was again cleared less than two months later in December 2006.


title: Order of the Solar Temple

text: The Order of the Solar Temple was also based in Spain, especially in the Canary Islands. In 1984, the founder of the OTS, Luc Jouret, lectured on the island of Tenerife. The leader of the order's branch in Spain lived on the south of the island. The only Spaniard who died in the suicide of the Order of the Solar Temple was a barber from Tenerife. In 1998, a sect was suspected of plotting ritual suicide in the Teide National Park. Both Spanish and German police initially linked the group to the Order of the Solar Temple.


title: Islamic extremism

text: Islamic extremism, Islamist extremism, or radical Islam, is used in reference to extremist beliefs and behaviors which are associated with the Islamic religion. These are controversial terms with varying definitions, ranging from academic understandings to the idea that all ideologies other than Islam have failed and are inferior to Islam. These terms can also be used in reference to other sects of Islam that do not share such beliefs. Political definitions of Islamic extremism include the one which is used by the government of the United Kingdom, which understands Islamic extremism as any form of Islam that opposes "democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs". In 2019, the U.S. Institute for Peace released an important report on extremism in fragile states that developed recommendations focused on adopting a shared understanding, operationalize a prevention framework, and rallying the international community.


title: Islamic extremism

text: Islamic extremism should not be equated with Islamic fundamentalism or Islamism, the former is defined as a movement of Muslims who believe that Muslim-majority countries should return to the fundamentals of an Islamic state and the latter movement is defined as a form of political Islam, but some experts consider both Islamic fundamentalism and Islamism to be forms of Islamic extremism. Acts of violence which are committed by Islamic terrorists and jihadists are frequently blamed on Islamic extremism, but Islamic extremism is not the root cause of every act of violence.


title: Islamic extremism

text: Aside from those, two major definitions have been offered for Islamic extremism, sometimes using overlapping but also distinct aspects of extreme interpretations and pursuits of Islamic ideology:


title: Islamic extremism

text: The judge refers to several grounds: section 20 of the 2006 Act; the definition of "terrorism" in section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2000 and the decision of the Supreme Court in "R v Gul".


title: Islamic extremism

text: Begg, a prominent Muslim public figure and Imam at Lewisham Islamic Centre since 1998 lost his 2016 court case of Libel against the BBC. This case is noteworthy because the judge lists a 10-point definition of Islamic extremism that he used to determine the case:


title: Islamic extremism

text: According to the academic definition of radical Islam, the second condition for something to be called radical Islam, is that it is antigovernmental. Consequently, a government is a condition for radical Islam. However, even though the peace of Westphalia was established in 1648 and thus introduced the nation state, the writings of the formative centuries of Islamic history are influential to the contemporary writings that were coined radical after the concept of the nation state was established in the Muslim world as well. Key influences of radical Islam that stem from early Islam include:


title: Islamic extremism

text: Islamic extremism dates back to the early history of Islam with the emergence of the Kharijites in the 7th century CE. The original schism between Kharijites, Sunnīs, and Shīʿas among Muslims was disputed over the political and religious succession to the guidance of the Muslim community ("Ummah") after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. From their essentially political position, the Kharijites developed extreme doctrines that set them apart from both mainstream Sunnī and Shīʿa Muslims. Shīʿas believe ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib is the true successor to Muhammad, while Sunnīs consider Abu Bakr to hold that position. The Kharijites broke away from both the Shīʿas and the Sunnīs during the First Fitna (the first Islamic Civil War); they were particularly noted for adopting a radical approach to "takfīr" (excommunication), whereby they declared both Sunnī and Shīʿa Muslims to be either infidels ("kuffār") or false Muslims ("munāfiḳūn"), and therefore deemed them worthy of death for their perceived apostasy ("ridda").


title: Islamic extremism

text: The Islamic tradition traces the origin of the Kharijities to the battle between ʿAlī and Mu'awiya at Siffin in 657 CE. When ʿAlī was faced with a military stalemate and agreed to submit the dispute to arbitration, some of his party withdrew their support from him. "Judgement belongs to God alone" (لاَ حُكْكْ إلَا لِلّهِ) became the slogan of these secessionists. They also called themselves "al-Shurat" ("the Vendors"), to reflect their willingness to sell their lives in martyrdom.


title: Islamic extremism

text: These original Kharijites opposed both ʿAlī and Mu'awiya, and appointed their own leaders. They were decisively defeated by ʿAlī, who was in turn assassinated by a Kharijite. Kharijites engaged in guerilla warfare against the Umayyads, but only became a movement to be reckoned with during the Second Fitna (the second Islamic Civil War) when they at one point controlled more territory than any of their rivals. The Kharijites were, in fact, one of the major threats to Ibn al-Zubayr's bid for the caliphate; during this time they controlled Yamama and most of southern Arabia, and captured the oasis town of al-Ta'if.


title: Islamic extremism

text: The Azariqa, considered to be the extreme faction of the Kharijites, controlled parts of western Iran under the Umayyads until they were finally put down in 699 CE. The more moderate Ibadi Kharijites were longer-lived, continuing to wield political power in North and East Africa and in eastern Arabia during the 'Abbasid period. Because of their readiness to declare any opponent as apostate, the extreme Kharijites tended to fragment into small groups. One of the few points that the various Kharijite splinter groups held in common was their view of the caliphate, which differed from other Muslim theories on two points.


title: Islamic extremism

text: By the time that Ibn al-Muqaffa' wrote his political treatise early in the 'Abbasid period, the Kharijites were no longer a significant political threat, at least in the Islamic heartlands. The memory of the menace they had posed to Muslim unity and of the moral challenge generated by their pious idealism still weighed heavily on Muslim political and religious thought, however. Even if the Kharijites could no longer threaten, their ghosts still had to be answered. The Ibadis are the only Kharijite group to survive into modern times.


title: Islamic extremism

text: The "Salafiyya" movement is a conservative, "Islahi" (reform) movement within Sunnī Islam that emerged in the second half of the 19th century and advocate a return to the traditions of the "devout ancestors" ("Salaf al-Salih"). It has been described as the "fastest-growing Islamic movement"; with each scholar expressing diverse views across social, theological, and political spectrum. Salafis follow a doctrine that can be summed up as taking "a fundamentalist approach to Islam, emulating the Prophet Muhammad and his earliest followers—"al-salaf al-salih", the 'pious forefathers'...They reject religious innovation, or "bidʻah", and support the implementation of "Sharia" (Islamic law)." The Salafi movement is often divided into three categories: the largest group are the purists (or quietists), who avoid politics; the second largest group are the militant activists, who get involved in politics; the third and last group are the jihadists, who constitute a minority. Most of the violent Islamist groups come from the Salafi-Jihadist movement and their subgroups. In recent years, Jihadi-Salafist doctrines have often been associated with the armed insurgencies of Islamic extremist movements and terrorist organizations targeting innocent civilians, both Muslims and Non-Muslims, such as al-Qaeda, ISIL/ISIS/IS/Daesh, Boko Haram, etc. The second largest group are the Salafi activists who have a long tradition of political activism, such as those that operate in organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood, the Arab world's major Islamist movement. In the aftermath of widescale repressions after the Arab spring, accompanied by their political failures, the activist-Salafi movements have undergone a decline. The most numerous are the quietists, who believe in disengagement from politics and accept allegiance to Muslim governments, no matter how tyrannical, to avoid "fitna" (chaos).


title: Islamic extremism

text: The Wahhabi movement was founded and spearheaded by the Ḥanbalī scholar and theologian Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab, a religious preacher from the Najd region in central Arabia, and was instrumental in the rise of the House of Saud to power in the Arabian peninsula. Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab sought to revive and purify Islam from what he perceived as non-Islamic popular religious beliefs and practices by returning to what, he believed, were the fundamental principles of the Islamic religion. His works were generally short, full of quotations from the Quran and "Hadith" literature, such as his main and foremost theological treatise, "Kitāb at-Tawḥīd" (; "The Book of Oneness"). He taught that the primary doctrine of Islam was the uniqueness and oneness of God ("tawḥīd"), and denounced what he held to be popular religious beliefs and practices among Muslims that he considered to be akin to heretical innovation ("bidʿah") and polytheism ("shirk").


title: Islamic extremism

text: Wahhabism has been described as a conservative, strict, and fundamentalist branch of Sunnī Islam, with puritan views, believing in a literal interpretation of the Quran. The terms "Wahhabism" and "Salafism" are sometimes evoked interchangeably, although the designation "Wahhabi" is specifically applied to the followers of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab and his reformist doctrines. The label "Wahhabi" was not claimed by his followers, who usually refer themselves as "al-Muwaḥḥidūn" ("affirmers of the singularity of God"), but is rather employed by Western scholars as well as his critics. Starting in the mid-1970s and 1980s, the international propagation of Salafism and Wahhabism within Sunnī Islam favored by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other Arab states of the Persian Gulf has achieved what the French political scientist Gilles Kepel defined as a "preeminent position of strength in the global expression of Islam."


title: Islamic extremism

text: 22 months after the September 11 attacks, when the FBI considered al-Qaeda as "the number one terrorist threat to the United States", journalist Stephen Schwartz and U.S. Senator Jon Kyl have explicitly stated during a hearing that occurred in June 2003 before the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology, and Homeland Security of the U.S. Senate that "Wahhabism is the source of the overwhelming majority of terrorist atrocities in today's world". As part of the global "War on Terror", Wahhabism has been accused by the European Parliament, various Western security analysts, and think tanks like the RAND Corporation, as being "a source of global terrorism". Furthermore, Wahhabism has been accused of causing disunity in the Muslim community ("Ummah") and criticized for its followers' destruction of many Islamic, cultural, and historical sites associated with the early history of Islam and the first generation of Muslims (Muhammad's family and his companions) in Saudi Arabia.


title: Islamic extremism

text: The contemporary period begins after 1924. With the defeat and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire (1908–1922), the Ottoman Caliphate was also abolished. This event heavily influenced Islamic thinking in general, but also what would later be coined radical Islamic thought. Key thinkers that wrote about Islam in the 20th century, and especially about "jihad", include:


title: Islamic extremism

text: Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian Islamist ideologue and prominent figurehead of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, was influential in promoting the Pan-Islamist ideology in the 1960s. When he was executed by the Egyptian government under the regime of Gamal Abdel Nasser, Ayman al-Zawahiri formed the organization Egyptian Islamic Jihad to replace the government with an Islamic state that would reflect Qutb's ideas for the Islamic revival that he yearned for. The Qutbist ideology has been influential on jihadist movements and Islamic terrorists that seek to overthrow secular governments, most notably Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri of al-Qaeda, as well as the Salafi-jihadi terrorist group ISIL/ISIS/IS/Daesh. Moreover, Qutb's books have been frequently been cited by Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki.


title: Islamic extremism

text: Sayyid Qutb could be said to have founded the actual movement of radical Islam. Unlike the other Islamic thinkers that have been mentioned above, Qutb was not an apologist. He was a prominent leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and a highly influential Islamist ideologue, and the first to articulate these anathemizing principles in his magnum opus "Fī ẓilāl al-Qurʾān" ("In the shade of the Qurʾān") and his 1966 manifesto "Maʿālim fīl-ṭarīq" ("Milestones"), which lead to his execution by the Egyptian government. Other Salafi movements in the Middle East and North Africa and across the Muslim world adopted many of his Islamist principles.