title: Shanxi

text: In 1918 there was an outbreak of bubonic plague in northern Shanxi that lasted for two months and killed 2,664 people. Yan's interactions with the Western medical personnel he met with to discuss how to suppress the epidemic inspired him to modernize and improve Shanxi's medical infrastructure which he began by funding the Research Society for the Advancement of Chinese Medicine, based in Taiyuan, in 1921. Highly unusual in China at the time, the school had a four-year curriculum and included courses in both Chinese and Western Medicine. The main skills that Yan hoped physicians trained at the school would learn were: a standardized system of diagnosis; sanitary science, including bacteriology; surgical skills, including obstetrics; and, the use of diagnostic instruments. Yan hoped that his support of the school would eventually lead to increased revenues in the domestic and international trade of Chinese drugs, improved public health, and improved public education. Yan's promotion of a modern curriculum and infrastructure of Chinese medicine achieved limited success, but much of the teaching and publication that this school of medicine produced was limited to the area around Taiyuan: by 1949 three of the seven government-run hospitals were in the city. In 1934 the province produced a ten-year-plan that envisaged employing a hygiene worker in every village, but the Japanese invasion in 1937 and the subsequent civil war made it impossible to carry these plans out. Yan's generous support for the Research Association for the Improvement of Chinese Medicine generated a body of teaching and publication in modern Chinese medicine that became one of the foundations of the national institution of modern traditional Chinese medicine that was adopted in the 1950s.


title: Shanxi

text: Yan invested in Shanxi's industrial infrastructure, and by 1949 the area around Taiyuan was a major national producer of coal, iron, chemicals, and munitions. Yan was able to protect the province from his rivals for the period of his rule partially due to his building of an arsenal in Taiyuan that, for the entire period of his administration, remained the only center in China capable of producing field artillery. Yan's army was successful in eradicating banditry in Shanxi, allowing him to maintain a relatively high level of public order and security.


title: Shanxi

text: Yan went to great lengths to eradicate social traditions which he considered antiquated. He insisted that all men in Shanxi abandon their Qing-era queues, giving police instructions to clip off the queues of anyone still wearing them. In one instance, Yan lured people into theatres in order to have his police systematically cut the hair of the audience. He attempted to combat widespread female illiteracy by creating in each district at least one vocational school in which peasant girls could be given a primary-school education and taught domestic skills. After National Revolutionary Army military victories in the 1925 generated great interest in Shanxi for the Kuomintang's ideology, including women's rights, Yan allowed girls to enroll in middle school and college, where they promptly formed a women's association.


title: Shanxi

text: Yan attempted to eradicate the custom of foot binding, threatening to sentence men who married women with bound feet, and mothers who bound their daughters' feet, to hard labor in state-run factories. He discouraged the use of the traditional lunar calendar and encouraged the development of local boy scout organizations. Like the Communists who later succeeded Yan, he punished habitual lawbreakers to "redemption through labour" in state-run factories.


title: Shanxi

text: After the failed attempt by the Chinese Red Army to establish bases in southern Shanxi in early 1936 Yan became convinced that the Communists were lesser threats to his rule than either the Nationalists or the Japanese. He then negotiated a secret anti-Japanese "United Front" with the Communists in October 1936 and invited them to establish operations in Shanxi. Yan, under the slogan "resistance against the enemy and defense of the soil", attempted to recruit young, patriotic intellectuals to his government in order to organize a local resistance to the threat of Japanese invasion. By the end of 1936 Taiyuan had become a gathering point for anti-Japanese intellectuals from all over China.


title: Shanxi

text: The Marco Polo Bridge Incident in July 1937 led the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces to invade China, and Shanxi was one of the first areas the Japanese attacked. When it became clear to Yan that his forces might not be successful in repelling the Imperial Japanese Army, he invited Communist military forces to re-enter Shanxi. Zhu De became the commander of the Eighth Route Army active in Shanxi and was named the vice-commander of the Second War Zone, under Yan himself. Yan initially responded warmly to the re-entry of the arrival of Communist forces, and they were greeted with enthusiasm by Yan's officials and officers. Communist forces arrived in Shanxi just in time to help defeat a decisively more powerful Japanese force attempting to move through the strategic Pingxing Pass. The Battle of Pingxingguan was the largest battle won by the Communists against the Japanese.


title: Shanxi

text: After the Japanese responded to this defeat by outflanking the defenders and moving towards Taiyuan, the Communists avoided decisive battles and mostly attempted to harass Japanese forces and sabotage Japanese lines of supply and communication. The Japanese suffered, but mostly ignored the Eighth Route Army and continued to advance towards Yan's capital. The lack of attention directed at their forces gave the Communists time to recruit and propagandize among the local peasant populations (who generally welcomed Communist forces enthusiastically) and to organize a network of militia units, local guerrilla bands and popular mass organizations.


title: Shanxi

text: Genuine Communist efforts to resist the Japanese gave them the authority to carry out sweeping and radical social and economic reforms, mostly related to land and wealth redistribution, which they defended by labeling those who resisted as "hanjian". Communist efforts to resist the Japanese also won over Shanxi's small population of patriotic intellectuals, and conservative fears of resisting them effectively gave the Communists unlimited access to the rural population. Subsequent atrocities committed by the Japanese in the effort to rid Shanxi of Communist guerrillas aroused the hatred of millions in the Shanxi countryside, causing the rural population to turn to the Communists for leadership against the Japanese. All of these factors explain how, within a year of re-entering Shanxi, the Communists were able to take control of most of Shanxi not firmly held by the Japanese.


title: Shanxi

text: During the Battle of Xinkou, the Chinese defenders resisted the efforts of Japan's elite Itakagi Division for over a month, despite Japanese advantages in artillery and air support. By the end of October 1937, Japan's losses were four times greater than those suffered at Pingxingguan, and the Itakagi Division was close to defeat. Contemporary Communist accounts called the battle "the most fierce in North China", while Japanese accounts called the battle a "stalemate". In an effort to save their forces at Xinkou, Japanese forces began an effort to occupy Shanxi from a second direction, in the east. After a week of fighting, Japanese forces captured the strategic Niangzi Pass, opening the way to capturing Taiyuan. Communist guerrilla tactics were ineffective in slowing down the Japanese advance. The defenders at Xinkou, realizing that they were in danger of being outflanked, withdrew southward, past Taiyuan, leaving a small force of 6,000 men to hold off the entire Japanese army. A representative of the Japanese Army, speaking of the final defense of Taiyuan, said that "nowhere in China have the Chinese fought so obstinately".


title: Shanxi

text: The Japanese suffered 30,000 dead and an equal number wounded in their effort to take northern Shanxi. A Japanese study found that the battles of Pingxingguan, Xinkou, and Taiyuan were responsible for over half of all the casualties suffered by the Japanese army in North China. Yan himself was forced to withdraw after having 90% of his army destroyed, including a large force of reinforcements sent into Shanxi by the central government. Throughout 1937, numerous high-ranking Communist leaders, including Mao Zedong, lavished praise on Yan for waging an uncompromising campaign of resistance against the Japanese. Possibly because of the severity of his losses in northern Shanxi, Yan abandoned a plan of defense based on positional warfare, and began to reform his army as a force capable of waging guerrilla warfare. After 1938 most of Yan's followers came to refer to his regime as a "guerrilla administration".


title: Shanxi

text: After the surrender of Japan and the end of the Second World War, Yan Xishan was notable for his ability to recruit thousands of Japanese soldiers stationed in northwest Shanxi in 1945, including their commanding officers, into his army. By recruiting the Japanese into his service in the manner that he did, he retained both the extensive industrial complex around Taiyuan and virtually all of the managerial and technical personnel employed by the Japanese to run it. Yan was so successful in convincing surrendered Japanese to work for him that, as word spread to other areas of north China, Japanese soldiers from those areas began to converge on Taiyuan to serve his government and army. At its greatest strength the Japanese "special forces" under Yan totaled 15,000 troops, plus an officer corps that was distributed throughout Yan's army. These numbers were reduced to 10,000 after serious American efforts to repatriate the Japanese were partially successful. Yan's Japanese army was instrumental in helping him to retain control of most of northern Shanxi during much of the subsequent Chinese Civil War, but by 1949 casualties had reduced the number of Japanese soldiers under Yan's command to 3,000. The leader of the Japanese under Yan's command, Hosaku Imamura, committed suicide on the day that Taiyuan fell to Communist forces.


title: Shanxi

text: Yan Xishan himself (along with most of the provincial treasury) was airlifted out of Taiyuan in March 1949. Shortly afterwards Republic of China Air Force planes stopped dropping food and supplies for the defenders due to fears of being shot down by the advancing Communists. The People's Liberation Army, depending largely on their reinforcements of artillery, launched a major assault on April 20, 1949, and succeeded in taking all positions surrounding Taiyuan by April 22. A subsequent appeal to the defenders to surrender was refused. On the morning of April 22, 1949, the PLA bombarded Taiyuan with 1,300 pieces of artillery and breached the city's walls, initiating bloody street-to-street fighting for control of the city. At 10:00 am, April 22, the Taiyuan Campaign ended with the Communists in complete control of Shanxi. Total Nationalist casualties amounted to all 145,000 defenders, many of whom were taken as POWs. The Communists lost 45,000 men and an unknown number of civilian laborers they had drafted, all of whom were either killed or injured.


title: Shanxi

text: The fall of Taiyuan was one of the few examples in the Chinese Civil War in which Nationalist forces echoed the defeated Ming loyalists who had, in the 17th century, brought entire cities to ruins resisting the invading Manchus. Many Nationalist officers were reported to have committed suicide when the city fell. The dead included Yan's nephew-in-law, who was serving as governor, and his cousin, who ran his household. Liang Huazhi, the head of Yan's "Patriotic Sacrifice League", had fought for years against the Communists in Shanxi until he was finally trapped in the massively fortified city of Taiyuan. For six months Liang put up a fierce resistance, leading both Yan's remaining Republic of China Army forces and his thousands of Japanese mercenaries. When Communist troops finally broke into the city and began to occupy large sections of it, Liang barricaded himself inside a large, fortified prison complex filled with Communist prisoners. In a final act of desperation, Liang set fire to the prison and committed suicide as the entire compound burned to the ground.


title: Shanxi

text: Soon after the Chinese Communist Revolution, Mao Zedong assigned Kang Sheng to carry out land reform in Shanxi. Kang encouraged the populace to have numerous farmers from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds denounced as "landlords," beaten, arrested, and executed. In some areas of the province as many as one in five residents were denounced as landlords, and his program was copied throughout the rest of the new People's Republic of China. Shanxi became the site of Mao's "model brigade" of Dazhai: a utopian communist scheme in Xiyang County that was supposed to be the model for all other peasants in China to emulate. If the people of Dazhai were especially suited for such an experiment, it is possible that decades of Yan's socialist indoctrination may have prepared the people of Shanxi for Communist rule. After the death of Mao, the experiment was discontinued, and most peasants reverted to private farming under post-Maoist economic reforms.


title: Shanxi

text: Shanxi is located on a plateau made up of higher ground to the east (Taihang Mountains) and the west (Lüliang Mountains) and a series of valleys in the center through which the Fen River runs. The highest peak is Mount Wutai (Wutai Shan) in northeastern Shanxi with an altitude of 3,058 m. The Great Wall of China forms most of the northern border with Inner Mongolia. The Zhongtiao Mountains run along part of the southern border and separate Shanxi from the east–west part of the Yellow River. Mount Hua is to the southwest.


title: Shanxi

text: The Yellow River forms the western border of Shanxi with Shaanxi. The Fen and Qin rivers, tributaries of the Yellow River, run north-to-south through the province, and drain much of its area. The north of the province is drained by tributaries of the Hai River, such as Sanggan and Hutuo rivers. The largest natural lake in Shanxi is Xiechi Lake, a salt lake near Yuncheng in southwestern Shanxi.


title: Shanxi

text: Shanxi has a continental monsoon climate, and is rather arid. Average January temperatures are below 0 °C, while average July temperatures are around 21–26 °C. Winters are long, dry, and cold, while summer is warm and humid. Spring is extremely dry and prone to dust storms. Shanxi is one of the sunniest parts of China; early summer heat waves are common. Annual precipitation averages around , with 60% of it concentrated between June and August.


title: Shanxi

text: The outline of Shanxi's territory is a parallelogram that runs from southwest to northeast. It is a typical mountain plateau widely covered by loess. The terrain is high in the northeast and low in the southwest. The interior of the plateau is undulating, the valleys are vertical and horizontal, and the types of landforms are complex and diverse. There are mountains, hills, terraces, plains, and rivers. The area of mountains and hills accounts for 80.1% of the total area of the province, and the area of Pingchuan and river valleys accounts for 19.9% of the total area. Most of the province's altitude is above 1,500 meters, and the highest point is the Yedoufeng, the main peak of Wutai Mountain, with an altitude of 3061.1 meters, which is the highest peak in northern China.


title: Shanxi

text: Shanxi is located in the inland of the mid-latitude zone and belongs to the temperate continental monsoon climate in terms of climate type. Due to the influence of solar radiation, monsoon circulation and geographical factors, Shanxi's climate has four distinct seasons, synchronous rain and heat, sufficient sunshine, significant climate difference between north and south, wide temperature difference between winter and summer, and large temperature difference between day and night. The annual average temperature in Shanxi Province is between 4.2 and 14.2 °C. The overall distribution trend is from north to south and from basin to high mountain. The annual precipitation in the whole province is between 358 and 621 mm, and the seasonal distribution is uneven. In June–August, the precipitation is relatively concentrated, accounting for about 60% of the annual precipitation, and the precipitation distribution in the province is greatly affected by the terrain.


title: Shanxi

text: The province has a length of and a width of from east to west, with a total area of , accounting for 1.6% of the country's total area.


title: Shanxi

text: The 11 prefecture-level cities of Shanxi are subdivided into 118 county-level divisions (23 districts, 11 county-level cities, and 84 counties). Those are in turn divided into 1388 township-level divisions (561 towns, 634 townships, and 193 subdistricts). At the end of 2017, the total population of Shanxi is 37.02 million.


title: Shanxi

text: The Governor of Shanxi is the highest-ranking official in the People's Government of Shanxi. However, in the province's dual party-government governing system, the Governor is subordinate to the provincial Communist Party Committee Secretary (), colloquially termed the "Shanxi Party Committee Secretary". As is the case in almost all Chinese provinces, the provincial party secretary and Governor are not natives of Shanxi; rather, they are outsiders who are, in practice, appointed by the central party and government authorities.


title: Shanxi

text: The province went through significant political instability since 2004, due largely to the number of scandals that have hit the province on labour safety, the environment, and the interconnected nature between the provincial political establishment and big coal companies. Yu Youjun was sent by the central government in 2005 to become Governor but resigned in the wake of the Shanxi slave labour scandal in 2007. He was succeeded by Meng Xuenong, who had been previously sacked as Mayor of Beijing in the aftermath of the SARS outbreak. Meng himself was removed from office in 2008 after only a few months on the job due to the political fallout from the 2008 Shanxi mudslide. In 2008, provincial Political Consultative Conference Chair, one of the highest-ranked provincial officials, Jin Yinhuan, died in a car accident.


title: Shanxi

text: Since Xi Jinping's ascendancy to General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party at the 18th Party Congress, numerous highly ranked officials in Shanxi have been placed under investigation for corruption-related offenses, including four incumbent members Bai Yun, Chen Chuanping, Du Shanxue, Nie Chunyu of the province's highest ruling council, the provincial Communist Party Standing Committee. They were all removed from office around August 2014. The following were also removed from office:


title: Shanxi

text: Shanxi was therefore the "hardest hit" province during the anti-corruption campaign under Xi Jinping. Targeted corruption investigations on such a massive scale were unprecedented; it amounted to a wholesale 'cleansing' of Shanxi's political establishment. In the aftermath of the 'political earthquake', party secretary Yuan Chunqing was removed from his post in September 2014, with Wang Rulin 'helicoptered' into the provincial Party Secretary office.


title: Shanxi

text: The GDP per capita of Shanxi is below the national average. Compared to the provinces in east China, Shanxi is less developed for many reasons. Its geographic location limits its participation in international trade, which involves mostly eastern coastal provinces. Important crops in Shanxi include wheat, maize, millet, legumes, and potatoes. The local climate and dwindling water resources limit agriculture in Shanxi.


title: Shanxi

text: Shanxi possesses 260 billion metric tons of known coal deposits, about a third of China's total. As a result, Shanxi is a leading producer of coal in China and has more coal companies than any other province, with an annual production exceeding 300 million metric tonnes. The Datong (), Ningwu (), Xishan (), Hedong (), Qinshui (), and Huoxi () coalfields are some of the most important in Shanxi. Shanxi also contains about 500 million tonnes of bauxite deposits, about a third of total Chinese bauxite reserves. Industry in Shanxi is centered around heavy industries such as coal and chemical production, power generation, and metal refining. There are countless military-related industries in Shanxi due to its geographic location and history as the former base of the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army. Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre, one of China's three satellite launch centers, is located in the middle of Shanxi with China's largest stockpile of nuclear missiles.


title: Shanxi

text: Many private corporations, in joint ventures with the state-owned mining corporations, have invested billions of dollars in the mining industry of Shanxi . Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing made one of his largest investments ever in China in exploiting coal gas in Shanxi. Foreign investors include mining companies from Canada, the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy.


title: Shanxi

text: The mining-related companies include Daqin Railway Co. Ltd., which runs one of the busiest and most technologically advanced railways in China, connecting Datong and Qinhuangdao exclusively for coal shipping. The revenue of Daqin Railway Co. Ltd. is among the highest among Shanxi companies due to its export of coal to Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia.


title: Shanxi

text: Shanxi's nominal GDP in 2011 was 1110.0 billion yuan (US$176.2 billion), ranked 21st in China. Its per-capita GDP was 21,544 yuan (US$3,154).


title: Shanxi

text: Shanxi is affected by cases of bad working conditions in coal mining and other heavy industries. Thousands of workers have died every year in those industries. Cases of child labour abuse were discovered in 2011. The central government has responded by increasing oversight, including the suspension of four coal mines in August 2021, as well as ongoing investigations in Shanxi and neighboring Shaanxi.


title: Shanxi

text: Taiyuan Economic and Technology Development Zone is a state-level development zone approved by the State Council in 2001, with a planned area of . It is only from Taiyuan Airport and from the railway station. National Highways 208 and 307 pass through the zone. So far, it has formed a "four industrial base, a professional industry park" development pattern.


title: Shanxi

text: Established in 1991, Taiyuan Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone is the only state-level high-tech development zone in Shanxi, with total area of . It is close to Taiyuan Wusu Airport and Highway G208. The nearest port is Tianjin.


title: Shanxi

text: The transport infrastructure in Shanxi is highly developed. There are many important national highways and railways that connect the province with neighboring provinces.


title: Shanxi

text: Shanxi's road hub is in the capital, Taiyuan. The major highways in province form a road network connecting all the counties. Examples of major highways are:


title: Shanxi

text: Shanxi has extensive rail infrastructure to neighboring provinces. The rail network connects to major cities Taiyuan, Shijiazhuang, Beijing, Yuanping, Baotou, Datong, Menyuan and Jiaozuo. The province also have extensive rail network to coastal cities such as Qinhuangdao, Qingdao, Yantai and Lianyungang.


title: Shanxi

text: The province has a rail network called the Shuozhou-Huanghua Railway. It will service Shenchi county in Shanxi with Huanghua port in Hebei. It will become the second largest railway for coal transport from west to east in China.


title: Shanxi

text: Shanxi's main aviation transport hub is Taiyuan Wusu Airport . The airport has routes connecting Shanxi to 28 domestic cities including Beijing, Xi'an, Chengdu and Chongqing. There are international routes to Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and Russia. There is also another airport in Datong, which has domestic routes to other mainland cities.


title: Shanxi

text: In 2004, the birth rate was 12.36 births/1,000 population, while the death rate was 6.11 deaths/1,000 population. The sex ratio was 105.5 males/100 females.


title: Shanxi

text: The predominant religions in Shanxi are Chinese folk religions, Taoist traditions and Chinese Buddhism. According to surveys conducted in 2007 and 2009, 15.61% of the population believes and is involved in cults of ancestors, while 2.17% of the population identifies as Christian. The reports didn't give figures for other types of religion; 82.22% of the population may be either irreligious or involved in worship of nature deities, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, folk religious sects, and small minorities of Muslims.


title: Shanxi

text: Military police demolished a large Christian church known as Jindengtai ("Golden Lampstand") in Linfen, Shanxi, in early January 2018.


title: Shanxi

text: In the 2000s, the province was considered to be one of the most polluted areas in China. The pollution, caused in part by heavy coal mining, has caused significant public health challenges.


title: Shanxi

text: The dialects spoken in Shanxi have traditionally been included in the Northern or Mandarin group. Since 1985, some linguists have argued that the dialects spoken in most of the province should be treated as a top-level division called Jin, based on its preservation of the Middle Chinese entering tone (stop-final) category, unlike other dialects in northern China. These dialects are also noted for extremely complex tone sandhi systems. The dialects spoken in some areas in southwestern Shanxi near the borders with Henan and Shaanxi are classified in the Zhongyuan Mandarin subdivision of the Mandarin group.


title: Shanxi

text: Shanxi cuisine is most well known for its extensive use of vinegar as a condiment, as well as for a huge variety of noodle dishes, particularly knife-cut noodles or "daoxiao mian" (), which are served with a range of sauces. A dish originating from Taiyuan, the provincial capital, is Taiyuan Tounao (). It is a breakfast dish; a porridge-like stew made with mutton, Chinese yam (), lotus roots, "astragalus membranaceus" (), tuber onions, and yellow cooking wine for additional aroma. It can be enjoyed by dipping pieces of unleavened flatbread into the soup, and is reputed to have medicinal properties. Pingyao is famous for its unique salt beef, while the areas around Wutai Shan are known for wild mushrooms. The most popular local spirit is fenjiu, a "light fragrance" variety of baijiu that is generally sweeter than other northern Chinese spirits.


title: Shanxi

text: Shanxi Opera ( "Jinju") is the local form of Chinese opera. It was popularized during the late Qing Dynasty, with the help of the then-ubiquitous Shanxi merchants who were active across parts of China. Also called "Zhonglu Bangzi" (), it is a type of "bangzi" opera (), a group of operas generally distinguished by their use of wooden clappers for rhythm and by a more energetic singing style; Shanxi opera is also complemented by "quzi" (), a blanket term for more melodic styles from further south. Puzhou Opera ( "Puju"), from southern Shanxi, is a more ancient type of "bangzi" that makes use of very wide linear intervals.


title: Shanxi

text: Shanxi merchants ( "Jinshang") constituted a historical phenomenon that lasted for centuries from the Song to the Qing Dynasty. Shanxi merchants ranged far and wide from Central Asia to the coast of eastern China; by the Qing Dynasty they were conducting trade across both sides of the Great Wall. During the late Qing Dynasty, a new development occurred: the creation of "piaohao" (), which were essentially banks that provided services like money transfers and transactions, deposits, and loans. After the establishment of the first "piaohao" in Pingyao, the bankers in Shanxi dominated China's financial market for centuries until the collapse of Qing Dynasty and the coming of British banks.


title: Shanxi

text: Shanxi is known for its abundance of heritage sites. There are 3 World Cultural Heritage sites in the province, namely Pingyao, Yungang Grottoes and Mount Wutai, 6 places "National Key Scenic Spots" (国家重点风景名胜区), 6 "National historic and cultural cities" (国家历史文化名城), 7 "National historic and cultural towns" (国家历史文化名镇) and 23 "National historic and cultural villages" (国家历史文化名村). It also possesses 452 Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level, a number that is by far the greatest among all Chinese provinces. Some of the more notable sites are listed below.


title: Non-volatile memory

text: Non-volatile memory (NVM) or non-volatile storage is a type of computer memory that can retain stored information even after power is removed. In contrast, volatile memory needs constant power in order to retain data.


title: Non-volatile memory

text: Non-volatile memory typically refers to storage in semiconductor memory chips, which store data in floating-gate memory cells consisting of floating-gate MOSFETs (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistors), including flash memory storage such as NAND flash and solid-state drives (SSD).


title: Non-volatile memory

text: Other examples of non-volatile memory include read-only memory (ROM), EPROM (erasable programmable ROM) and EEPROM (electrically erasable programmable ROM), ferroelectric RAM, most types of computer data storage devices (e.g. disk storage, hard disk drives, optical discs, floppy disks, and magnetic tape), and early computer storage methods such as punched tape and cards.


title: Non-volatile memory

text: Non-volatile memory is typically used for the task of secondary storage or long-term persistent storage. The most widely used form of primary storage today is a volatile form of random access memory (RAM), meaning that when the computer is shut down, anything contained in RAM is lost. However, most forms of non-volatile memory have limitations that make them unsuitable for use as primary storage. Typically, non-volatile memory costs more, provides lower performance, or has a limited lifetime compared to volatile random access memory.


title: Non-volatile memory

text: Non-volatile data storage can be categorized into electrically addressed systems (read-only memory) and mechanically addressed systems (hard disks, optical disc, magnetic tape, holographic memory, and such). Generally speaking, electrically addressed systems are expensive, have limited capacity, but are fast, whereas mechanically addressed systems cost less per bit, but are slower.


title: Non-volatile memory

text: Electrically addressed semiconductor non-volatile memories can be categorized according to their write mechanism.


title: Non-volatile memory

text: Mask ROMs are factory programmable only and typically used for large-volume products which are not required to be updated after the memory device is manufactured.


title: Non-volatile memory

text: Programmable read-only memory (PROM) can be altered once after the memory device is manufactured using a PROM programmer. Programming is often done before the device is installed in its target system, typically an embedded system. The programming is permanent, and further changes require the replacement of the device. Data is stored by physically altering (burning) storage sites in the device.


title: Non-volatile memory

text: An EPROM is an erasable ROM that can be changed more than once. However, writing new data to an EPROM requires a special programmer circuit. EPROMs have a quartz window that allows them to be erased with ultraviolet light, but the whole device is cleared at one time. A one-time programmable (OTP) device may be implemented using an EPROM chip without the quartz window; this is less costly to manufacture. An electrically erasable programmable read-only memory EEPROM uses voltage to erase memory. These erasable memory devices require a significant amount of time to erase data and write new data; they are not usually configured to be programmed by the processor of the target system. Data is stored using floating-gate transistors, which require special operating voltages to trap or release electric charge on an insulated control gate to store information.


title: Non-volatile memory

text: Flash memory is a solid-state chip that maintains stored data without any external power source. It is a close relative to the EEPROM; it differs in that erase operations must be done on a block basis, and its capacity is substantially larger than that of an EEPROM. Flash memory devices use two different technologies—NOR and NAND—to map data. NOR flash provides high-speed random access, reading and writing data in specific memory locations; it can retrieve as little as a single byte. NAND flash reads and writes sequentially at high speed, handling data in blocks. However, it is slower on reading when compared to NOR. NAND flash reads faster than it writes, quickly transferring whole pages of data. Less expensive than NOR flash at high densities, NAND technology offers higher capacity for the same-size silicon.


title: Non-volatile memory

text: Ferroelectric RAM (FeRAM, F-RAM or FRAM) is a form of random-access memory similar in construction to DRAM, both use a capacitor and transistor but instead of using a simple dielectric layer the capacitor, a F-RAM cell contains a thin ferroelectric film of lead zirconate titanate , commonly referred to as PZT. The Zr/Ti atoms in the PZT change polarity in an electric field, thereby producing a binary switch. Due to the PZT crystal maintaining polarity, F-RAM retains its data memory when power is shut off or interrupted.


title: Non-volatile memory

text: Due to this crystal structure and how it is influenced, F-RAM offers distinct properties from other nonvolatile memory options, including extremely high, although not infinite, endurance (exceeding 10 read/write cycles for 3.3 V devices), ultra low power consumption (since F-RAM does not require a charge pump like other non-volatile memories), single-cycle write speeds, and gamma radiation tolerance.


title: Non-volatile memory

text: Magnetoresistive RAM stores data in magnetic storage elements called magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs). The first generation of MRAM, such as Everspin Technologies' 4 Mbit, utilized field-induced writing. The second generation is developed mainly through two approaches: Thermal-assisted switching (TAS) which is being developed by Crocus Technology, and Spin-transfer torque (STT) which Crocus, Hynix, IBM, and several other companies are developing.


title: Non-volatile memory

text: Phase-change memory stores data in chalcogenide glass, which can reversibly change the phase between the amorphous and the crystalline state, accomplished by heating and cooling the glass. The crystalline state has low resistance, and the amorphous phase has high resistance, which allows currents to be switched ON and OFF to represent digital "1" and "0" states.


title: Non-volatile memory

text: RRAM (ReRAM) works by changing the resistance across a dielectric solid-state material often referred to as a memristor. ReRAM involves generating defects in a thin oxide layer, known as oxygen vacancies (oxide bond locations where the oxygen has been removed), which can subsequently charge and drift under an electric field. The motion of oxygen ions and vacancies in the oxide would be analogous to the motion of electrons and holes in a semiconductor.


title: Non-volatile memory

text: Although ReRAM was initially seen as a replacement technology for flash memory, the cost and performance benefits of ReRAM have not been enough for companies to proceed with the replacement. Apparently, a broad range of materials can be used for ReRAM. However, the discovery that the popular high-κ gate dielectric HfO2 can be used as a low-voltage ReRAM has encouraged researchers to investigate more possibilities.


title: Non-volatile memory

text: Mechanically addressed systems use a recording head to read and write on a designated storage medium. Since the access time depends on the physical location of the data on the device, mechanically addressed systems may be sequential access. For example, magnetic tape stores data as a sequence of bits on a long tape; transporting the tape past the recording head is required to access any part of the storage. Tape media can be removed from the drive and stored, giving indefinite capacity at the cost of the time required to retrieve a dismounted tape.


title: Non-volatile memory

text: Hard disk drives use a rotating magnetic disk to store data; access time is longer than for semiconductor memory, but the cost per stored data bit is very low, and they provide random access to any location on the disk. Formerly, removable disk packs were common, allowing storage capacity to be expanded. Optical discs store data by altering a pigment layer on a plastic disk and are similarly random access. Read-only and read-write versions are available; removable media again allows indefinite expansion, and some automated systems (e.g. optical jukebox) were used to retrieve and mount disks under direct program control.


title: Non-volatile memory

text: Domain-wall memory (DWM) stores data in a magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs), which works by controlling domain wall (DW) motion in ferromagnetic nanowires.


title: Non-volatile memory

text: Thinfilm produces rewriteable non-volatile organic ferroelectric memory based on ferroelectric polymers. Thinfilm successfully demonstrated roll-to-roll printed memories in 2009. In Thinfilm's organic memory the ferroelectric polymer is sandwiched between two sets of electrodes in a passive matrix. Each crossing of metal lines is a ferroelectric capacitor and defines a memory cell.


title: Non-volatile memory

text: Non-volatile main memory (NVMM) is primary storage with non-volatile attributes. This application of non-volatile memory presents security challenges.


title: Closeted

text: Closeted and in the closet are metaphors for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and other (LGBTQ+) people who have not disclosed their sexual orientation or gender identity and aspects thereof, including sexual identity and sexual behavior. This metaphor is associated and sometimes combined with coming out, the act of revealing one's sexuality or gender to others, to create the phrase "coming out of the closet".


title: Closeted

text: Nondisclosure of one's sexual orientation or gender identity preceded the use of 'closet' as a term for the act. For example, surgeon James Barry was only discovered to be born female post-mortem, which may allow him to be defined as a closeted transgender man. Similarly, the writer Thomas Mann entered a heterosexual marriage with a woman, but discussed his attraction to men in his private diary, which by contemporary terms would have designated him a closeted homosexual man.


title: Closeted

text: D. Travers Scott claims that the phrase 'coming out of the closet', along with its derivative meanings of 'coming out' and 'closeted', has its origins in two different metaphors. 'Coming out' was first a phrase used in the early 20th century in reference to a young woman attending a debutante ball, such that she was 'coming out' into society. Later in the 1960s, the metaphor of a 'skeleton in the closet', which meant to hide a secret due to taboos or social stigmas, was also used in reference to a gender identity or sexuality that one may not wish to disclose. As such, to reveal one's LGBTQ+ identity that was previously hidden or kept secret was to allow a skeleton to come out of the closet.


title: Closeted

text: One linguistic study suggests that the transgender community may use different vocabulary to refer to the disclosure status of one's gender identity, such as "stealth" in place of "closeted".


title: Closeted

text: A 2019 study by the Yale School of Public Health estimated that 83% of LGBT people around the world do not reveal their sexual orientation.


title: Closeted

text: In 1993, Michelangelo Signorile wrote "Queer in America", in which he explored the harm caused both to a closeted person and to society in general by being closeted. The closet is difficult for any non-heterosexual, non-cisgender identified person to fully come "out" of, whether or not that person desires to do so. Scholar Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, author of the "Epistemology of the Closet", discusses the difficulty with the closet:Alternatively, Mary Lou Rasmussen argues that there exists a 'coming out imperative', where the dominant LGBTQ+ narrative offers no moral alternative to coming out, relegating the closet to "a zone of shame and exclusion". This may suggest that in the modern day, there is pressure or an expectation for an LGBTQ+ person to come out of the closet. Rasmussen further notes that there are several factors that may dictate someone's choice to remain closeted, such as ethnic or religious background, or financial dependence on family or peers that may be jeopardized if that person chooses to come out.


title: Closeted

text: Scholars also noted that people of different genders and sexual orientations often faced different experiences and stigmas, resulting in varied rates of being closeted among LGBTQ+ people of different identities. One 2015 study found that bisexual men were more often closeted than gay men, due to the possibility of negative reactions from heterosexual partners, in addition to homophobia.


title: Closeted

text: A study by Lal Zimman noted that among transgender people, coming before and after taking up their corresponding gender role is separated into distinct categories of "declaration" and "disclosure". Before occupying a different gender role, the act of coming out of the closet is one where a person declares a different gender identity than what they are perceived as. After taking up the gender role, this person is disclosing that they had previously identified with and fulfilled a different one. Zimman found that declaration of one's gender identity happened more often than disclosure of a past gender role.


title: Closeted

text: A 2016 survey found that 85% of LGBT people have not told anyone about their sexual orientation and 95% have not revealed it outside their family. A study in 2015 described homosexuality as "not socially accepted in China", noting that gay Chinese men may participate in lavender marriages with heterosexual or lesbian women, and that nondisclosure of sexuality may stem from opposition from a heterosexual spouse in addition to societal stigmas against homosexuality.


title: Closeted

text: Some scholars and activists consider the process of coming out in Japan to be extremely difficult, claiming that due to the cultural and emotional importantce of the home, the emotional honesty expressed within a household may create a "locus of homophobia" that would reinforce one's desire to remain closeted. Overall, a study in 2017 found that among members of the Japanese LGBTQ+ community, coming out of the closet was generally considered desirable, but the process may be complicated by patriarchal or heteronormative ideals held by society.


title: Closeted

text: Frank T. Y. Wang argues that among gay or bisexual Taiwanese men, the societal importance of a family or household unit is the primary reason why one may choose to remain closeted. Participants of the study often cited their family's conservatism, fear of disappointment or emotional distress, or a desire to keep their parents from the stigma of having an LGBTQ+ family member as reasons for staying closeted. Wang also notes that unmarried men in Taiwan tended to live with their parents, such that older closeted men may arouse suspicion for not having married, causing them to compensate by emotionally or spatially distancing themselves from the household, or otherwise act in certain ways to raise or lower the expectations one's family may have for them.


title: Closeted

text: According to a 2020 survey by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 30% of LGBT people in the EU are very rarely or almost never open; the highest percentages are Lithuania (60%), Bulgaria (54%) and Romania and Serbia (both 53%).


title: Closeted

text: Some scholars criticize that coming out of the closet in North America is at times associated with migration from a rural, conservative area to a progressive urban one. Lewis argues that queer migration is not usually an escape from intolerance LGBTQ+ identities, but instead driven by a desire to escape shifts in previous social networks and relationships that had occurred after coming out.


title: Closeted

text: In the United States, 4% of gay and lesbian people and 26% of bisexual people are not "out" to at least one of the important people in their lives. A 2018 report by the Human Rights Campaign found that 46% of LGBT American workers are closeted at their workplace.


title: Closeted

text: In late-20th-century America, the closet had become a central metaphor for grasping the history and social dynamics of gay life, along with the concept of coming out. The closet narrative set up an implicit dualism between being "in" or being "out." Those who were "in" are often stigmatized as living false unhappy lives. However, there are numerous social, economic, familial, and personal repercussions that may lead to someone remaining, whether consciously or unconsciously, "in" the closet. For example, the Lavender Scare led to the implementation of Executive Order 10450 in 1953, which banned all gays and lesbians from working in the US federal government, forcing employees who wished to retain their jobs to remain closeted. Sometimes, people have remained in the closet because they themselves have had difficulty understanding or accepting their sexuality. The decision to come out or remain in the closet is considered a deeply-personal one, and outing remains controversial in today's culture.


title: Closeted

text: In the 21st century, the related concept of a "glass closet" emerged in LGBT discourse. The term describes public figures, such as entertainers or politicians, who are out of the closet in their personal lives and do not engage in the tactics (such as entering a lavender marriage or publicly dating a person of the opposite sex) that were historically used by members of the LGBTQ+ community to hide their gender or sexuality, but have not formally disclosed their sexual orientation to the public. Lavender marriages had occurred throughout Hollywood to advance and maintain one's career and since the early 20th century. Examples of celebrities who were in the glass closet include Colton Haynes and Ricky Martin. Closeting is seen not only in celebrities but also in the media that is produced. Popular television shows use metaphors to show closeting that differ based on how they relate to society at a given time.


title: Closeted

text: Recent attention to bullying of LGBTQ youth and teens in the United States also gives an indication that many youth and teens remain closeted throughout their educational years and beyond for fear of disapproval from parents, friends, teachers and community members. To remain in the closet offers an individual a layer of protection against ridicule and bullying ; however, to remain in the closet typically takes a toll on the mental health of the individual, especially in the adolescent years as reflected in suicide rates among LGBTQ youths. Being closeted can also have different effects on the mental health on men and women. In a study done by John E. Pachankis from Yale University and Susan D. Cochran and Vickie M. Mays from the University of California, it was found that women who were closeted were twice as likely to report depressive episodes than women who were out. Comparatively it was found that men who were in the closet were less likely to report a depressive episode than those out of the closet. Along with effects on the mental and physical health of those who remain in the closet, it also impacts the cost of health care and the public awareness of the LGBTQ community.


title: Closeted

text: However, Seidman, Meeks and Traschen (1999) argue that "the closet" may be becoming an antiquated metaphor in the lives of modern-day Americans for two reasons.


title: Finlandization

text: Finlandization (; ; ; ; ) is the process by which one powerful country makes a smaller neighboring country refrain from opposing the former's foreign policy rules, while allowing it to keep its nominal independence and its own political system. The term means "to become like Finland", referring to the influence of the Soviet Union on Finland's policies during the Cold War.


title: Finlandization

text: The term is often considered pejorative. It originated in the West German political debate of the late 1960s and 1970s. As the term was used in West Germany and other NATO countries, it referred to the decision of a country not to challenge a more powerful neighbour in foreign politics, while maintaining national sovereignty. It is commonly used in reference to Finland's policies in relation to the Soviet Union during the Cold War, but it can refer more generally to similar international relations, such as Denmark's attitude toward Germany between 1871 and 1940, or the policies of the Swiss government towards Nazi Germany until the end of World War II.


title: Finlandization

text: In Germany, the term was used mainly by proponents of closer adaptation to US policies, chiefly Franz Josef Strauss, but was initially coined in scholarly debate, and made known by the German political scientists Walter Hallstein and Richard Löwenthal, reflecting feared effects of withdrawal of US troops from Germany. It came to be used in the debate of the NATO countries in response to Willy Brandt's attempts to normalise relations with East Germany, and the following widespread scepticism in Germany against NATO's Dual-Track Decision. Later, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the term has been used in Finland for the post-1968 radicalisation in the latter half of the Urho Kekkonen era.


title: Finlandization

text: In the 1990s, Finlandization was also discussed as a potential strategy that the Soviet Union under Gorbachev may have attempted to revise its relationship with the Warsaw Pact states from 1989 to 1991, as a way to transition from informal empire to a looser sphere of influence model, which was precluded by the fall of the USSR.


title: Finlandization

text: United States foreign policy experts consistently feared that Western Europe and Japan would be Finlandized by the Soviet Union, leading to a situation in which these key allies would no longer support the United States against the Soviet Union. The theory of bandwagoning provided support for the idea that if the United States was not able to provide strong and credible support for the anti-communist positions of its allies, NATO and the U.S.–Japan alliance could collapse.


title: Finlandization

text: The term has also been used in discussing other countries, for example as a potential outcome of the Russo-Ukrainian War.


title: Finlandization

text: Finns have, and had, a wide variety of reactions to the term "Finlandization". Some have perceived the term as blunt criticism, stemming from an inability to understand the practicalities of how a small nation needs to deal with an adjacent superpower without losing its sovereignty. These practicalities existed primarily because of the lingering effect of Russian rule in the time before the Finns first gained sovereignty; and because of the precarious power balance eastwards, springing from a geographically extended yet sparsely populated state with a traditionally imperialist superpower right across the border.


title: Finlandization

text: The reason Finland engaged in Finlandization was primarily Realpolitik: to survive. On the other hand, the threat of the Soviet Union was used also in Finland's domestic politics in a way that possibly deepened Finlandization (playing the so-called ). Finland made such a deal with Joseph Stalin's government in the late 1940s, and it was largely respected by both parties—and to the gain of both parties—until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. While the Finnish political and intellectual elite mostly understood the term to refer more to the foreign policy problems of other countries, and meant mostly for domestic consumption in the speaker's own country, many ordinary Finns considered the term highly offensive. The Finnish political cartoonist Kari Suomalainen once explained Finlandization as "the art of bowing to the East without mooning the West".


title: Finlandization

text: Finland's foreign politics before this deal had been varied: independence from Imperial Russia with support of Imperial Germany in 1917; participation in the Russian Civil War (without official declaration of war) alongside the Triple Entente 1918–1920; a non-ratified alliance with Poland in 1922; association with the neutralist and democratic Scandinavian countries in the 1930s ended by the Winter War (1939) which ended in the Soviet Union's pyrrhic victory; and finally in 1940, a rapprochement with Nazi Germany, the only power able and willing to help Finland against the expansionist Soviet Union, which led to Finland's re-entry into the Second World War in 1941.


title: Finlandization

text: The Wehrmacht's defeat in the Battle of Stalingrad led Finland to basically revert to its 19th-century traditions, which had been perceived as highly successful until the Russification of Finland (1899–1905). Finland's leaders realised that opposing the Soviets head-on was no longer feasible. No international power was able to give the necessary support. Nazi Germany, Finland's chief supporter against Russia, was losing the war. Sweden was not big enough, and its leadership was wary of confronting Russia. The western powers were allied with the Soviet Union. Thus Finland had to face its bigger neighbour on its own, without any great power's protection. As in the 19th century, Finland chose not to challenge Soviet Russia's foreign policy, but exerted caution to keep its independence.


title: Finlandization

text: After the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947, Finland succeeded in retaining democracy and parliamentarism, despite the heavy political pressure on Finland's foreign and internal affairs by the Soviet Union. Finland's foreign relations were guided by the doctrine formulated by Juho Kusti Paasikivi, emphasising the necessity to maintain a good and trusting relationship with the Soviet Union.


title: Finlandization

text: Finland signed an Agreement of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance with the Soviet Union in April 1948, under which Finland was obliged to resist armed attacks by "Germany or its allies" against Finland, or against the Soviet Union through Finland, and, if necessary, ask for Soviet military aid to do so. At the same time, the agreement recognised Finland's desire to remain outside great power conflicts, allowing the country to adopt a policy of neutrality during the Cold War.


title: Finlandization

text: As a consequence, Finland did not participate in the Marshall Plan and took neutral positions on Soviet overseas initiatives. By keeping very cool relations to NATO and western military powers in general, Finland could fend off Soviet pressure for affiliation to the Warsaw Pact.


title: Finlandization

text: From the political scene following the post-1968 radicalisation, the Soviet adaptation spread to the editors of mass media, sparking strong forms of self-control, self-censorship and pro-Soviet attitudes. Most of the elite of media and politics shifted their attitudes to match the values that the Soviets were thought to favor and approve.


title: Finlandization

text: Only after the ascent of Mikhail Gorbachev to Soviet leadership in 1985 did mass media in Finland gradually begin to criticise the Soviet Union more. When the Soviet Union allowed non-communist governments to take power in Eastern Europe, Gorbachev suggested they could look to Finland as an example to follow.


title: Finlandization

text: Between 1944 and 1946, the Soviet part of the allied control commission demanded that Finnish public libraries should remove from circulation more than 1,700 books that were deemed anti-Soviet, and bookstores were given catalogs of banned books. The Finnish Board of Film Classification likewise banned movies that it considered to be anti-Soviet. Banned movies included "One, Two, Three" (1961), directed by Billy Wilder, "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962), directed by John Frankenheimer, "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" (1970), by Finnish director Caspar Wrede, and "Born American" (1986), by Finnish director Renny Harlin.


title: Finlandization

text: The censorship never took the form of purging. Possession or use of anti-Soviet books was not banned, but the reprinting and distribution of such materials was prohibited. Especially in the realm of radio and television self-censorship, it was sometimes hard to tell whether the motivations were even political. For example, once a system of blacklisting recordings had been introduced, individual policy makers within the national broadcaster, Yleisradio, also utilized it to censor songs they deemed inappropriate for other reasons, such as some of those featuring sexual innuendo or references to alcohol.


title: MacGruber (TV series)

text: MacGruber is an American action comedy streaming television series based on the recurring "Saturday Night Live" sketch of the same name, a parody of the action-adventure series "MacGyver". Produced as a sequel to the 2010 film of the same name, the series stars Will Forte as the title character, who goes up against Brigadier Commander Enos Queeth, a villain from his past. Kristen Wiig, Ryan Phillippe, Sam Elliott, Laurence Fishburne, Billy Zane, and Timothy V. Murphy also star. Co-produced by Universal Television and Broadway Video, filming took place in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The series was released on Peacock on December 16, 2021.


title: MacGruber (TV series)

text: "MacGruber" was a recurring sketch on "Saturday Night Live" from 2007 to 2010, co-created by comedian Will Forte and writers Jorma Taccone and John Solomon. Forte starred as the title character, an absurdist parody of the "MacGyver" television franchise. The sketches proved popular enough for a 2010 film adaptation of the character. Though the film was a box-office bomb in its original theatrical release, a growing cult following in the ensuing years, and continued enthusiasm from the creative team, led to development of a sequel. Focus shifted to a television project when another film was not seen to be financially viable.


title: MacGruber (TV series)

text: Following the cancelation of the sitcom "The Last Man on Earth", which Forte created and starred in and Solomon wrote and directed, their focus returned to a "MacGruber" revival, which was pitched with Taccone to television networks in early 2019. In November 2019, Forte mentioned the possibility of Kristen Wiig and Ryan Phillippe returning to reprise their roles from the film.


title: MacGruber (TV series)

text: The "MacGruber" series was officially announced on January 16, 2020 when NBCUniversal, the distributor of both "Saturday Night Live" and the 2010 film, revealed the inaugural development slate for their then-upcoming streaming service Peacock. By April 2020, the scripts for all eight episodes were near completion. In August 2020, production was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On August 10, 2020, the series was officially given a series order, with Wiig and Phillippe in negotiations to star.


title: MacGruber (TV series)

text: Taccone invited director Christopher Nolan, who had publicly discussed his enjoyment of the 2010 film, to the initial table read for the series. Nolan was unable to attend, but sent an email regarding his anticipation for the project, including that "the world is waiting, the world is watching," which Taccone said was "an amazing way to start the read-through." In June 2021, production began in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and it was confirmed that Wiig and Phillippe would reprise their roles, with Sam Elliott, Laurence Fishburne, and Mickey Rourke being added to the cast. By August 2021, Rourke left the series and was replaced by Billy Zane. Joseph Lee Anderson would join the cast in a recurring role, with Timothy V. Murphy reprising his role from the film. Filming concluded on August 23, 2021.


title: MacGruber (TV series)

text: On Metacritic, the series has a score of 62 out of 100 based on 10 critic reviews indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts

text: Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts () is a multinational hospitality company. Founded in 1971 by tycoon Robert Kuok in Malaysia, the company now has over 100 luxury hotels and resorts with over 40,000 rooms in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North America and Australia.


title: Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts

text: Shangri-La has 4 brands across different market segments: Shangri-La, Traders Hotels, Kerry Hotels and Hotel Jen. The company's head office is in (嘉里中心), Quarry Bay, Hong Kong. The current chairman is Kuok Hui-kwong.


title: Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts

text: The first hotel of the luxury Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts Group was the Shangri-La Hotel Singapore, opened on 23 April 1971. The name derives from the mythical place Shangri-La, described in the 1933 novel "Lost Horizon" by British author James Hilton.


title: Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts

text: The Shangri-La Hotel Singapore was managed by Westin Hotels & Resorts, until Shangri-La International Hotel Management Limited was founded in 1979, and management of the Singapore Shangri-La was taken back over from Westin in 1984. However, it would not be until 1991 that Shangri-La assumed control of the rest of the hotels.


title: Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts

text: This hotel has also become a prominent inter-governmental security conference known as the Shangri-La Dialogue.


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: Moody's Investors Service, often referred to as Moody's, is the bond credit rating business of Moody's Corporation, representing the company's traditional line of business and its historical name. Moody's Investors Service provides international financial research on bonds issued by commercial and government entities. Moody's, along with Standard & Poor's and Fitch Group, is considered one of the Big Three credit rating agencies. It is also included in the Fortune 500 list of 2021.


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: The company ranks the creditworthiness of borrowers using a standardized ratings scale which measures expected investor loss in the event of default. Moody's Investors Service rates debt securities in several bond market segments. These include government, municipal and corporate bonds; managed investments such as money market funds and fixed-income funds; financial institutions including banks and non-bank finance companies; and asset classes in structured finance. In Moody's Investors Service's ratings system, securities are assigned a rating from Aaa to C, with Aaa being the highest quality and C the lowest quality.


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: Moody's was founded by John Moody in 1909 to produce manuals of statistics related to stocks and bonds and bond ratings. In 1975, the company was identified as a Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organization (NRSRO) by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Following several decades of ownership by Dun & Bradstreet, Moody's Investors Service became a separate company in 2000. Moody's Corporation was established as a holding company.


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: Together, they are sometimes referred to as the Big Three credit rating agencies. While credit rating agencies are sometimes viewed as interchangeable, Moody's, S&P and Fitch in fact rate bonds differently; for example, S&P and Fitch Ratings measure the probability that a security will default, while Moody's ratings seek to measure the expected losses in the event of a default. All three operate worldwide, maintaining offices on six continents, and rating tens of trillions of dollars in securities. However, only Moody's Corporation is a free-standing company.


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: Moody's Investors Service and its close competitors play a key role in global capital markets as three supplementary credit analysis provider for banks and other financial institutions in assessing the credit risk of particular securities. This form of third party analysis is particularly useful for smaller and less sophisticated investors, as well as for all investors to use as an external comparison for their own judgments.


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: Credit rating agencies also play an important role in the laws and regulations of the United States and several other countries, such as those of the European Union. In the United States their credit ratings are used in regulation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations (NRSROs) for a variety of regulatory purposes. Among the effects of regulatory use was to enable lower-rated companies to sell bond debt for the first time; their lower ratings merely distinguished them from higher-rated companies, rather than excluding them altogether, as had been the case. However, another aspect of mechanical use of ratings by regulatory agencies has been to reinforce "pro-cyclical" and "cliff effects" of downgrades. In October 2010, the Financial Stability Board (FSB) created a set of "principles to reduce reliance" on credit rating agencies in the laws, regulations and market practices of G-20 member countries. Since the early 1990s, the SEC has also used NRSRO ratings in measuring the commercial paper held by money market funds.


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: The SEC has designated seven other firms as NRSROs, including, for example, A. M. Best, which focuses on obligations of insurance companies. Companies with which Moody's competes in specific areas include investment research company Morningstar, Inc. and publishers of financial information for investors such as Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg L.P.


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: Especially since the early 2000s, Moody's frequently makes its analysts available to journalists, and issues regular public statements on credit conditions. Moody's, like S&P, organizes public seminars to educate first-time securities issuers on the information it uses to analyze debt securities.


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: According to Moody's, the purpose of its ratings is to "provide investors with a simple system of gradation by which future relative creditworthiness of securities may be gauged". To each of its ratings from Aa through Caa, Moody's appends numerical modifiers 1, 2 and 3; the lower the number, the higher-end the rating. Aaa, Ca and C are not modified this way. As Moody's explains, its ratings are "not to be construed as recommendations", nor are they intended to be a sole basis for investment decisions. In addition, its ratings don't speak to market price, although market conditions may impact credit risk.


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: Moody's traces its history back to two publishing companies established by John Moody, the inventor of modern bond credit ratings. In 1900, Moody published his first market assessment, called "Moody's Manual of Industrial and Miscellaneous Securities", and established John Moody & Company. The publication provided detailed statistics relating to stocks and bonds of financial institutions, government agencies, manufacturing, mining, utilities, and food companies. It experienced early success, selling out its first print run in its first two months. By 1903, "Moody's Manual" was a nationally recognized publication. Moody was forced to sell his business, due to a shortage of capital, when the 1907 financial crisis fueled several changes in the markets.


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: Moody returned in 1909 with a new publication focused solely on railroad bonds, "Analysis of Railroad Investments", and a new company, Moody's Analyses Publishing Company. While Moody acknowledged that the concept of bond ratings "was not entirely original" with him—he credited early bond rating efforts in Vienna and Berlin as inspiration—he was the first to publish them widely, in an accessible format. Moody was also the first to charge subscription fees to investors. In 1913 he expanded the manual's focus to include industrial firms and utilities; the new "Moody's Manual" offered ratings of public securities, indicated by a letter-rating system borrowed from mercantile credit-reporting firms. The following year, Moody incorporated the company as Moody's Investors Service. Other rating companies followed over the next few years, including the antecedents of the "Big Three" credit rating agencies: Poor's in 1916, Standard Statistics Company in 1922, and the Fitch Publishing Company in 1924.


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: Moody's expanded its focus to include ratings for U.S. state and local government bonds in 1919 and, by 1924, Moody's rated nearly the entire U.S. bond market.


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: The relationship between the U.S. bond market and rating agencies developed further in the 1930s. As the market grew beyond that of traditional investment banking institutions, new investors again called for increased transparency, leading to the passage of new, mandatory disclosure laws for issuers, and the creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In 1936 a new set of laws were introduced, prohibiting banks from investing in "speculative investment securities" ("junk bonds", in modern terminology) as determined by "recognized rating manuals". Banks were permitted only to hold "investment grade" bonds, following the judgment of Moody's, along with Standard, Poor's and Fitch. In the decades that followed, state insurance regulators approved similar requirements.


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: In 1962, Moody's Investors Service was bought by Dun & Bradstreet, a firm engaged in the related field of credit reporting, although they continued to operate largely as independent companies.


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: In the late 1960s and 1970s, commercial paper and bank deposits began to be rated. As well, the major agencies began charging the issuers of bonds as well as investors — Moody's began doing this in 1970 — thanks in part to a growing free rider problem related to the increasing availability of inexpensive photocopy machines, and the increased complexity of the financial markets. Rating agencies also grew in size as the number of issuers grew, both in the United States and abroad, making the credit rating business significantly more profitable. In 2005 Moody's estimated that 90% of credit rating agency revenues came from issuer fees.


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: The end of the Bretton Woods system in 1971 led to the liberalization of financial regulations, and the global expansion of capital markets in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1975, the SEC changed its minimum capital requirements for broker-dealers, using bond ratings as a measurement. Moody's and nine other agencies (later five, due to consolidation) were identified by the SEC as "nationally recognized statistical ratings organizations" (NRSROs) for broker-dealers to use in meeting these requirements.


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: The 1980s and beyond saw the global capital market expand; Moody's opened its first overseas offices in Japan in 1985, followed by offices in the United Kingdom in 1986, France in 1988, Germany in 1991, Hong Kong in 1994, India in 1998 and China in 2001. The number of bonds rated by Moody's and the Big Three agencies grew substantially as well. As of 1997, Moody's was rating about $5 trillion in securities from 20,000 U.S. and 1,200 non-U.S. issuers. The 1990s and 2000s were also a time of increased scrutiny, as Moody's was sued by unhappy issuers and investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as criticism following the collapse of Enron, the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis and subsequent late-2000s financial crisis.


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: In 1998, Dun & Bradstreet sold the Moody's publishing business to Financial Communications (later renamed Mergent). Following several years of rumors and pressure from institutional shareholders, in December 1999 Moody's parent Dun & Bradstreet announced it would spin off Moody's Investors Service into a separate publicly traded company. Although Moody's had fewer than 1,500 employees in its division, it represented about 51% of Dun & Bradstreet profits in the year before the announcement. The spin-off was completed on September 30, 2000, and, in the half decade that followed, the value of Moody's shares improved by more than 300%.


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: Structured finance went from 28% of Moody's revenue in 1998 to almost 50% in 2007, and "accounted for pretty much all of Moody's growth" during that time. According to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, during the years 2005, 2006, and 2007, rating of structured finance products such as mortgage-backed securities made up close to half of Moody's rating revenues. From 2000 to 2007, revenues from rating structured financial instruments increased more than fourfold. However, there was some question about the models Moody's used to give structured products high ratings. In June 2005, shortly before the subprime mortgage crisis, Moody's updated its approach for estimating default correlation of non-prime/nontraditional mortgages involved in structured financial products like mortgage-backed securities and Collateralized debt obligations. Its new model was based on trends from the previous 20 years, during which time housing prices had been rising, mortgage delinquencies very low, and nontraditional mortgage products a very small niche of the market.


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: On July 10, 2007, in "an unprecedented move", Moody's downgraded 399 subprime mortgage-backed securities that had been issued the year before. Three months later, it downgraded another 2506 tranches ($33.4 billion). By the end of the crisis, Moody's downgraded 83% of all the 2006 Aaa mortgage backed security tranches and all of the Baa tranches.


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: In June 2013, Moody's Investor Service has warned that Thailand's credit rating may be damaged due to an increasingly costly rice-pledging scheme which lost 200 billion baht ($6.5 billion) in 2011–2012.


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: Moody's, along with the other major credit rating agencies, is often the subject of criticism from countries whose public debt is downgraded, generally claiming increased cost of borrowing as a result of the downgrade. Examples of sovereign debt downgrades that attracted significant media attention at the time include Australia in the 1980s, Canada and Japan in the 1990s, Thailand during the 1997 Asian financial crisis, and Portugal in 2011 following the European sovereign debt crisis.


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: Moody's has occasionally faced litigation from entities whose bonds it has rated on an unsolicited basis, and investigations concerning such unsolicited ratings. In October 1995, the school district of Jefferson County, Colorado sued Moody's, claiming the unsolicited assignment of a "negative outlook" to a 1993 bond issue was based on Jefferson County having selected S&P and Fitch to do its rating. Moody's rating raised the issuing cost to Jefferson County by $769,000. Moody's argued that its assessment was "opinion" and therefore constitutionally protected; the court agreed, and the decision was upheld on appeal.


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: In the mid-1990s, the U.S. Justice Department's antitrust division opened an investigation to determine whether unsolicited ratings amounted to an illegal exercise of market power, however the investigation was closed with no antitrust charges filed. Moody's has pointed out that it has assigned unsolicited ratings since 1909, and that such ratings are the market's "best defense against rating shopping" by issuers. In November 1999, Moody's announced it would begin identifying which ratings were unsolicited as part of a general move toward greater transparency. The agency faced a similar complaint in the mid-2000s from Hannover Re, a German insurer that lost $175 million in market value when its bonds were lowered to "junk" status. In 2005, unsolicited ratings were at the center of a subpoena by the New York Attorney General's office under Eliot Spitzer, but again no charges were filed.


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: Following the 2008 financial crisis, the SEC adopted new rules for the rating agency industry, including one to encourage unsolicited ratings. The intent of the rule is to counteract potential conflicts of interest in the issuer-pays model by ensuring a "broader range of views on the creditworthiness" of a security or instrument.


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: The "issuer pays" business model adopted in the 1970s by Moody's and other rating agencies has been criticized for creating a possible conflict of interest, supposing that rating agencies may artificially boost the rating of a given security in order to please the issuer. The SEC recently acknowledged, however, in its September 30, 2011 summary report of its mandatory annual examination of NRSROs that the subscriber-pays model under which Moody's operated prior to adopting the issuer pays model also "presents certain conflicts of interest inherent in the fact that subscribers, on whom the NRSRO relies, have an interest in ratings actions and could exert pressure on the NRSRO for certain outcomes". Other alleged conflicts of interest, also the subject of a Department of Justice investigation the mid-1990s, raised the question of whether Moody's pressured issuers to use its consulting services upon threat of a lower bond rating. Moody's has maintained that its reputation in the market is the balancing factor, and a 2003 study, covering 1997 to 2002, suggested that "reputation effects" outweighed conflicts of interest. Thomas McGuire, a former executive vice president, said in 1995 that: "[W]hat's driving us is primarily the issue of preserving our track record. That's our bread and butter".


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: In March 2021, Moody's reached a settlement with the European Union regarding alleged conflicts of interest. Moody's was fined 3.7 million euros ($4.35 million).


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: The global financial crisis of the late 2000s brought increased scrutiny to credit rating agencies' assessments of complex structured finance securities. Moody's and its close competitors were subject to criticism following large downgrade actions beginning in July 2007. According to the "Financial Crisis Inquiry Report," 73% of the mortgage-backed securities Moody's had rated triple-A in 2006 were downgraded to junk by 2010. In its "Conclusions on Chapter 8", the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission stated: "There was a clear failure of corporate governance at Moody's, which did not ensure the quality of its ratings on tens of thousands of mortgage-backed securities and CDOs."


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: Faced with having to put more capital against lower rated securities, investors such as banks, pension funds and insurance companies sought to sell their residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) and collateralized debt obligation (CDO) holdings. The value of these securities held by financial firms declined, and the market for new subprime securitizations dried up. Some academics and industry observers have argued that the rating agencies' mass downgrades were part of the "perfect storm" of events leading up to the financial crisis in 2008.


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: In 2008, a study group established by the Committee on the Global Financial System (CGFS), a committee of the Bank for International Settlements, found that rating agencies had underestimated the severity of the subprime mortgage crisis, as had "many market participants". According to the CGFS, significant contributing factors included "limited historical data" and an underestimation of "originator risk" factors. The CGFS also found that agency ratings should "support, not replace, investor due diligence" and that agencies should provide "better information on the key risk factors" of structured finance ratings. In October 2007, Moody's further refined its criteria for originators, "with loss expectations increasing significantly from the highest to the lowest tier". In May 2008, Moody's proposed adding "volatility scores and loss sensitivities" to its existing rankings. Although the rating agencies were criticized for "technical failings and inadequate resources", the FSB stated that the agencies' "need to repair their reputation was seen as a powerful force" for change. Moody's has in fact lost market share in certain sectors due to its tightened rating standards on some asset-backed securities, for example the commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) market in 2007.


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: In April 2013, Moody's, along with Standard & Poor's and Morgan Stanley, settled fourteen lawsuits filed by groups including Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank and King County, Washington. The lawsuits alleged that the agencies inflated their ratings on purchased structured investment vehicles.


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: In January 2017, Moody's agreed to pay nearly $864 million to settle with the Department of Justice, other state authorities and Washington. A fine of $437.5 million would be paid to the DOJ, and the remaining $426.3 million penalty would be split among 21 states and the District of Columbia. Then California Attorney General Kamala Harris and then Missouri Attorney General Joshua Hawley were among the state signatories to the settlement.


title: Moody's Investors Service

text: In March 2013 Moody's Investors Service published their report entitled "Cash Pile Grows 10% to $1.45 Trillion; Overseas Holdings Continue to Expand" in their Global Credit Research series, in which they examined companies they rate in the US non-financial corporate sector (NFCS). According to their report, by the end of 2012 the US NFCS held "$1.45 trillion in cash", 10% more than in 2011. At the end of 2011, US NFCS held $1.32 trillion in cash which was already a record level. "Of the $1.32 trillion for all the rated companies, Moody's estimates that $840 billion, or 58% of the total cash, is held overseas."


title: Communist Party of Ukraine

text: The Communist Party of Ukraine is a banned political party in Ukraine. It was founded in 1993 as the successor to the Soviet-era Communist Party of Ukraine which was banned in 1991 (according to the party's statute). The party has been a member of the Union of Communist Parties – Communist Party of the Soviet Union since its establishment in 1993 as an umbrella organisation for all communist parties of the dissolved Soviet Union.


title: Communist Party of Ukraine

text: Communist parties have a long history in Ukraine. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the party's predecessor Communist Party of Ukraine was banned in 1991, reforming into Socialist Party of Ukraine and other smaller parties. After being revived in 1993, the Communist Party was represented in the Ukrainian parliament from 1994 until the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election which resulted in national representation for Communists in Ukraine ending for the first time since 1918. The Communist Party and its immediate predecessor emerged as the largest political force after each Ukrainian parliamentary election from 1990 until 1998.


title: Communist Party of Ukraine

text: In the aftermath of the 2013–2014 Euromaidan protests, the General Prosecutor of Ukraine and the Security Service of Ukraine have both filed charges against the party. The charges include supporting the 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russia and "financing terrorism" (i.e. providing support to separatists in Donbas), both acts of treason against the Ukrainian state. In particular, regional party cells in Donetsk Oblast formed the Communist Party of the Donetsk People's Republic, which actively supports separatist efforts.


title: Communist Party of Ukraine

text: In May 2015, laws that ban communist symbols came into effect in Ukraine. Because of these laws, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry stripped the party of its right to participate in elections on 24 July 2015. On 16 December 2015, Kyiv District Administrative Court validated the claim of the Ministry of Justice in full, banning the activities of the party in Ukraine. The party appealed the ban to the European Court of Human Rights.


title: Communist Party of Ukraine

text: The Central Election Commission of Ukraine prohibited the candidacy of Petro Symonenko for the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election due to the fact that the statute, name and symbolism of his party did not comply with the 2015 decommunisation laws.


title: Communist Party of Ukraine

text: During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Communist Party of Ukraine took a pro-Russian stance, and as a result has had its ban re-affirmed by the Ukrainian government.


title: Communist Party of Ukraine

text: The KPU considers itself to be the direct successor to the original Communist Party of Ukraine, a branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) which was founded on 5 July 1918 in Moscow. The original communist party existed until 30 August 1991, when the CPSU and its branch in Ukraine were banned. Between 1991 and 1993, several small communist organizations were created throughout Ukraine. "Without clear legality", communists from all over Ukraine convened on 6 March 1993 for the All-Ukrainian Conference for Communists in an attempt to reestablish the KPU. In reaction, the Verkhovna Rada (thr Ukrainian parliament) legalized the establishment of communist parties two months later. On 19 June 1993, the 1st Congress of the newly founded KPU was convened. Officially, it was designated as the 29th Congress to denote it as a direct successor to the Soviet KPU and it elected Petro Symonenko as First Secretary.


title: Communist Party of Ukraine

text: In the 1994 presidential election, the KPU supported the candidacy of Oleksandr Moroz from the Socialist Party of Ukraine (SPU). The relationship between the KPU and SPU was strong throughout the 1990s, with Moroz even speaking to the 22nd KPU Congress (held in 1999).


title: Communist Party of Ukraine

text: In the 1998 Ukrainian parliamentary election the party gained 24.65% of the vote and 123 seats, becoming the largest party in Parliament. The first ten members on the party list were Petro Symonenko (MP), Omelian Parubok (MP), Anatoliy Nalyvaiko (tunneler of the Karl Marks Mine (Yenakieve)), Borys Oliynyk (MP), Valeria Zaklunna-Myronenko (actress of the Lesya Ukrainka Theater (Kyiv)), Adam Martynyuk (the 2nd secretary of the Central Committee of CPU), Anatoliy Draholyuntsev (mechanic-electrician at Luhanskteplovoz), Vasyl Sirenko (Koretsky Institute of State and Law (NANU), unaffiliated), Borys Molchanov (tool craftsman at Dniproshyna) and Anatoliy Strohov (pensioner). The KPU won 121 seats, constituting 19.5% of the seats in the Verkhovna Rada.


title: Communist Party of Ukraine

text: The good result in the 1998 election led the KPU to field their own candidate in the 1999 presidential election as they nominated party leader Symonenko. Symonenko received 23.1 percent of the votes in the first round, trailing behind Leonid Kuchma who received 38,0 percent of the votes. In the second round Symonenko received 38,8 percent, losing to Kuchma who received 57,7 percent of the vote.


title: Communist Party of Ukraine

text: In 2000, two parties split from the party, namely the Communist Party of Ukraine (renewed) and the Communist Party of Workers and Peasants. The KPU argued that the creation of parties was encouraged by President Leonid Kuchma in order to syphon votes away from their party.


title: Communist Party of Ukraine

text: The Constitutional Court of Ukraine recognized in 2001 that the ban on the Communist Party of Ukraine violated the Constitution of Ukraine.


title: Communist Party of Ukraine

text: At the parliamentary election on 30 March 2002, the party won 19.98% of the popular vote and 66 out of 450 seats in the Verkhovna Rada. The first ten members on the party list were Petro Symonenko (MP), Omelian Parubok (MP), Ivan Herasymov (Head of the Veterans of Ukraine Organization, unaffiliated), Borys Oliynyk (MP), Valeria Zaklunna-Myronenko (MP), Adam Martynyuk (MP), Stanislav Hurenko (MP), Oleksandr Tkachenko (MP), Anatoliy Nalyvaiko (MP) and Oleh Blokhin (MP, unaffiliated).


title: Communist Party of Ukraine

text: Symonenko's support sharply declined at the time of the 2004 presidential election. Symonenko received 5% of the votes and came in fourth place, unable to get into the controversial runoff which caused the Orange Revolution.


title: Communist Party of Ukraine

text: Since then, the party lost much support, particularly after the Orange Revolution. In the 2006 parliamentary election, the party won 3.66% and 21 seats. The first ten members on the party list were Petro Symonenko (MP), Adam Martynyuk (MP), Ivan Herasymov (MP), Kateryna Samoilyk (MP), Omelian Parubok (MP), Valeria Zaklunna-Myronenko (MP), Oleksandr Holub (MP), Valentyn Matvyeyev (MP), Oleksandr Tkachenko (MP) and Petro Tsybenko (MP).


title: Communist Party of Ukraine

text: No later than 2006, the Communist Party office in Donetsk on regular basis provided material and logistical assistance to the separatist organization Donetsk Republic (banned in 2007) which with the assistance of the Communist Party was spreading printed information materials of separatist orientation in authorship of the ideologist of Donetsk internationalism Dmitriy Kornilov as well as by collecting signatures for "independence of Donbass" agitated for violation of territorial integrity of Ukraine through seceding several oblasts of Ukraine from Ukraine and uniting them into one quasi state formation based on Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson "republics". Even after the Donetsk Republic Party was banned for separatism on 6 November 2007 by the Donetsk district administrative court on the suit of the Chief Justice Administration of Donetsk Oblast based on materials of the Security Service of Ukraine, the Donetsk branch of Communists did not cease to assists separatists with its tents and printing capabilities periodically conducting joint campaigns with them.


title: Communist Party of Ukraine

text: In the parliamentary election on 30 September 2007, the party won 5.39% of the popular vote and 27 out of 450 seats. The first ten members on the party list were Petro Symonenko (MP), Yevhen Volynets (tunneler of the Vasily Chapayev Mine (Shakhtarsk)), Maryna Perestenko (Head of the Mars farm (Simferopol Raion)), Ivan Herasymov (MP), Yuriy Haidayev (Minister of Healthcare, unaffiliated), Adam Martynyuk (1st deputy Chairman of parliament), Valeriy Bevz (Deputy Minister of Emergencies), Oleksandr Tkachenko (MP), Oleksandr Holub (MP) and Ihor Aleksyeyev (MP). The party participated in the 2010 presidential election as part of the Election bloc of left and central left political forces.


title: Communist Party of Ukraine

text: The party participated in the 2010 presidential election as part of the Election bloc of left and central left political forces.


title: Communist Party of Ukraine

text: The Communist Party was part of the parliamentary coalition called "Stability and Reforms" that supported the First Azarov government.


title: Communist Party of Ukraine

text: On 28 November 2006, the Ukrainian Parliament adopted the Law of Ukraine "About 1932–1933 Holodomor in Ukraine". The first article of the document states: "The Holodomor is a genocide against the Ukrainian people". The second article states that the public denial of the Holodomor as a genocide is recognized as desecration of the memory of millions of victims, disparaging of Ukrainian people and is unlawful. On 13 January 2010, the Kyiv Appellate Court reviewed the criminal case on the fact of committing genocide (crime against humanity) and agreed with the conclusions of the investigation that the leadership of the Soviet Union, including Joseph Stalin and others, had purposely created such living conditions designed to physically eliminate a part of the Ukrainian national group. The court found Stalin and others guilty of indirectly committing the crime. Less than four months after the ruling, on 5 May 2010, the Communist Party branch office in Zaporizhzhia Oblast publicly unveiled a monument of Stalin in Zaporizhzhia. Members of the Communist Party were criticized for hindering journalist activity and cursing at protesters during the event. Three people also reportedly fainted from the heat during the unveiling ceremony, and one woman later died from a heatstroke. The Communist Party was criticized for a statement it later issued in memory of the woman who died, which said, "She died a worthy death in front of Stalin."


title: Communist Party of Ukraine

text: In the 2010 local elections, the party scored between 5% and 12% of the votes in all Ukrainian Oblasts, except in Western Ukraine and Kyiv Oblast, where they almost had no voters.


title: Communist Party of Ukraine

text: In the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election, the party won 13.18% of the national votes and no constituencies (it had competed in 220 of the 225 constituencies) and thus 32 seats. The party did win about one and a half million more votes compared with the results of the previous election. Independent candidate Oksana Kaletnyk joined the Communist parliamentary faction on 12 December 2012. Importance of Kaletnyk joining the Communists was due to parliamentary regulations on obtaining its own parliamentary factions which required to have at least one deputy who came to parliament by winning a constituency. Oleh Tyahnybok tried to challenge the creation of Communist faction, but on 30 January 2013 the Higher Administrative Court of Ukraine declined his petition. Kaletnyk left the faction (at her own request) on 29 May 2014. The first ten members on the party list were Petro Symonenko (MP), Petro Tsybenko (MP), Iryna Spirina (Head of Psychiatric Department (Dnipropetrovsk Medical Academy)), Spiridon Kilinkarov (MP), Oleksandr Prysyazhnyuk (unemployed), Ihor Aleksyeyev (MP), Ihor Kalyetnik (Head of the State Customs Service of Ukraine), Adam Martynyuk (1st deputy Chairman of parliament), Valentyn Matvyeyev (MP) and Yevhen Marmazov (MP). In 2007 and 2012, the electorate of the party was estimated to be very loyal to the party.


title: Communist Party of Ukraine

text: The party supported the vote of Mykola Azarov's candidacy for the post of Prime Minister that created the Second Azarov government. Symonenko stated on 28 December 2012 that the Communist Party of Ukraine and Azarov's (and President Viktor Yanukovych's) Party of Regions had not concluded any agreements concerning the Communist support, but that his party had supported Azarov's nomination because Azarov had told them his government was ready to implement the program on Ukraine's accession to the Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia. Symonenko added that should Azarov fail to fulfill the promise of Ukraine's joining this customs union, the Communists would initiate his resignation. The government continued to negotiate with the European Union for Ukraine's integration in the European Union while (according to President Yanukovych) it was also in negotiations with Russia to "find the right model" for cooperation with the Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia.


title: Communist Party of Ukraine

text: In January 2014 the party supported the so-called "Anti-protest laws" amidst the Euromaidan protests (pro-Ukrainian EU integration and anti-President Yanukovych protests) that had started in November 2013.


title: Communist Party of Ukraine

text: In February 2014, the party came out in firm opposition to the Euromaidan violence and identified the movement as a "coup" to overthrow the elected government and replace it with a pro-NATO regime and in an open plea from the First Secretary called for all communist and left-wing movements around the world to condemn the events as such. However, the party did vote in favour of the impeachment of Yanukovych.


title: Communist Party of Ukraine

text: After President Yanukovych's ouster on 25 February 2014, several legislators have talked about the possibility of outlawing the KPU due to its alleged cooperation with pro-Russian separatists. On 6 May, the party was outraged when its parliamentary representatives were expelled from the parliamentary session hall. A week later, Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov threatened to ban the KPU for alleged involvement in the ongoing pro-Russian unrest in the east of the country. On 8 July, the Ministry of Justice asked Kyiv's District Administrative Court to ban the activity of the party as a result of "a large amount of evidence regarding illegal activities and illegal actions on the part of the Communist Party" (according to Justice Minister Pavlo Petrenko). The Party of the European Left and the European United Left–Nordic Green Left grouping in the European Parliament condemned the possible ban and declared their solidarity with the KPU. Russia's State Duma denounced the ban too and believed it was "an attempt by the new Kyiv authorities to force political and civil forces that do not agree with the path taken by the ultranationalist powers to shut up". The KPU also received solidarity from the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) in Britain.


title: Communist Party of Ukraine

text: On 11 April, a scuffle started in the Verkhovna Rada between KPU leader Petro Symonenko and two MPs from the far-right All Ukrainian Union "Svoboda", after Symonenko blamed them for the Russian annexation of Crimea and the pro-Russian unrest in Eastern and Southern Ukraine. After repeatedly calling for calm, the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Oleksandr Turchynov suspended the session for fifteen minutes.