title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: For advanced life, the star must also be highly stable, which is typical of middle star life, about 4.6 billion years old. Proper metallicity and size are also important to stability. The Sun has a low (0.1%) luminosity variation. To date, no solar twin star, with an exact match of the Sun's luminosity variation, has been found, though some come close. The star must also have no stellar companions, as in binary systems, which would disrupt the orbits of any planets. Estimates suggest 50% or more of all star systems are binary. The habitable zone for a main sequence star very gradually moves out over its lifespan until the star becomes a white dwarf and the habitable zone vanishes.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: The liquid water and other gases available in the habitable zone bring the benefit of the greenhouse effect. Even though the Earth's atmosphere contains a water vapor concentration from 0% (in arid regions) to 4% (in rainforest and ocean regions) and – as of February 2018 – only 408.05 parts per million of , these small amounts suffice to raise the average surface temperature by about 40 °C, with the dominant contribution being due to water vapor.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: Rocky planets must orbit within the habitable zone for life to form. Although the habitable zone of such hot stars as Sirius or Vega is wide, hot stars also emit much more ultraviolet radiation that ionizes any planetary atmosphere. Such stars may also become red giants before advanced life evolves on their planets. These considerations rule out the massive and powerful stars of type F6 to O (see stellar classification) as homes to evolved metazoan life.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: Conversely, small red dwarf stars have small habitable zones wherein planets are in tidal lock, with one very hot side always facing the star and another very cold side always facing away, and they are also at increased risk of solar flares (see Aurelia). As such, it is disputed whether they can support life. Rare Earth proponents claim that only stars from F7 to K1 types are hospitable. Such stars are rare: G type stars such as the Sun (between the hotter F and cooler K) comprise only 9% of the hydrogen-burning stars in the Milky Way.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: Such aged stars as red giants and white dwarfs are also unlikely to support life. Red giants are common in globular clusters and elliptical galaxies. White dwarfs are mostly dying stars that have already completed their red giant phase. Stars that become red giants expand into or overheat the habitable zones of their youth and middle age (though theoretically planets at much greater distances may then become habitable).


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: An energy output that varies with the lifetime of the star will likely prevent life (e.g., as Cepheid variables). A sudden decrease, even if brief, may freeze the water of orbiting planets, and a significant increase may evaporate it and cause a greenhouse effect that prevents the oceans from reforming.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: All known life requires the complex chemistry of metallic elements. The absorption spectrum of a star reveals the presence of metals within, and studies of stellar spectra reveal that many, perhaps most, stars are poor in metals. Because heavy metals originate in supernova explosions, metallicity increases in the universe over time. Low metallicity characterizes the early universe: globular clusters and other stars that formed when the universe was young, stars in most galaxies other than large spirals, and stars in the outer regions of all galaxies. Metal-rich central stars capable of supporting complex life are therefore believed to be most common in the less dense regions of the larger spiral galaxies—where radiation also happens to be weak.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: Rare Earth proponents argue that a planetary system capable of sustaining complex life must be structured more or less like the Solar System, with small, rocky inner planets and massive outer gas giants. Without the protection of such "celestial vacuum cleaner" planets with strong gravitational pulls, other planets would be subject to more frequent catastrophic asteroid collisions.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: Observations of exoplanets have shown that arrangements of planets similar to the Solar System are rare. Most planetary systems have super-Earths, several times larger than Earth, close to their star, whereas the Solar System's inner region has only a few small rocky planets and none inside Mercury's orbit. Only 10% of stars have giant planets similar to Jupiter and Saturn, and those few rarely have stable, nearly circular orbits distant from their star. Konstantin Batygin and colleagues argue that these features can be explained if, early in the history of the Solar System, Jupiter and Saturn drifted towards the Sun, sending showers of planetesimals towards the super-Earths which sent them spiralling into the Sun, and ferrying icy building blocks into the terrestrial region of the Solar System which provided the building blocks for the rocky planets. The two giant planets then drifted out again to their present positions. In the view of Batygin and his colleagues: "The concatenation of chance events required for this delicate choreography suggest that small, Earth-like rocky planets – and perhaps life itself – could be rare throughout the cosmos."


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: Rare Earth argues that a gas giant also must not be too close to a body where life is developing. Close placement of one or more gas giants could disrupt the orbit of a potential life-bearing planet, either directly or by drifting into the habitable zone.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: Newtonian dynamics can produce chaotic planetary orbits, especially in a system having large planets at high orbital eccentricity.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: The need for stable orbits rules out stars with planetary systems that contain large planets with orbits close to the host star (called "hot Jupiters"). It is believed that hot Jupiters have migrated inwards to their current orbits. In the process, they would have catastrophically disrupted the orbits of any planets in the habitable zone. To exacerbate matters, hot Jupiters are much more common orbiting F and G class stars.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: The Rare Earth hypothesis argues that life requires terrestrial planets like Earth, and since gas giants lack such a surface, that complex life cannot arise there.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: A planet that is too small cannot maintain much atmosphere, rendering its surface temperature low and variable and oceans impossible. A small planet will also tend to have a rough surface, with large mountains and deep canyons. The core will cool faster, and plate tectonics may be brief or entirely absent. A planet that is too large will retain too dense an atmosphere, like Venus. Although Venus is similar in size and mass to Earth, its surface atmospheric pressure is 92 times that of Earth, and its surface temperature is 735 K (462 °C; 863 °F). The early Earth once had a similar atmosphere, but may have lost it in the giant impact event which formed the Moon.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: Rare Earth proponents argue that plate tectonics and a strong magnetic field are essential for biodiversity, global temperature regulation, and the carbon cycle.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: The lack of mountain chains elsewhere in the Solar System is direct evidence that Earth is the only body with plate tectonics, and thus the only nearby body capable of supporting life.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: Plate tectonics depend on the right chemical composition and a long-lasting source of heat from radioactive decay. Continents must be made of less dense felsic rocks that "float" on underlying denser mafic rock. Taylor emphasizes that tectonic subduction zones require the lubrication of oceans of water. Plate tectonics also provide a means of biochemical cycling.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: Plate tectonics and as a result continental drift and the creation of separate landmasses would create diversified ecosystems and biodiversity, one of the strongest defenses against extinction. An example of species diversification and later competition on Earth's continents is the Great American Interchange. North and Middle America drifted into South America at around 3.5 to 3 Ma. The fauna of South America had already evolved separately for about 30 million years, since Antarctica separated, but after the merger many species were wiped out, mainly in South America, by competing North American animals.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: The Moon is unusual because the other rocky planets in the Solar System either have no satellites (Mercury and Venus), or only relatively tiny satellites which are probably captured asteroids (Mars). After Charon, the Moon is also the largest natural satellite in the Solar System relative to the size of its parent body, being 27% the size of Earth.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: The giant-impact theory hypothesizes that the Moon resulted from the impact of a Mars-sized body, dubbed Theia, with the young Earth. This giant impact also gave the Earth its axial tilt (inclination) and velocity of rotation. Rapid rotation reduces the daily variation in temperature and makes photosynthesis viable. The "Rare Earth" hypothesis further argues that the axial tilt cannot be too large or too small (relative to the orbital plane). A planet with a large tilt will experience extreme seasonal variations in climate. A planet with little or no tilt will lack the stimulus to evolution that climate variation provides. In this view, the Earth's tilt is "just right". The gravity of a large satellite also stabilizes the planet's tilt; without this effect the variation in tilt would be chaotic, probably making complex life forms on land impossible.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: If the Earth had no Moon, the ocean tides resulting solely from the Sun's gravity would be only half that of the lunar tides. A large satellite gives rise to tidal pools, which may be essential for the formation of complex life, though this is far from certain.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: A large satellite also increases the likelihood of plate tectonics through the effect of tidal forces on the planet's crust. The impact that formed the Moon may also have initiated plate tectonics, without which the continental crust would cover the entire planet, leaving no room for oceanic crust. It is possible that the large-scale mantle convection needed to drive plate tectonics could not have emerged if the crust had a uniform composition. A further theory indicates that such a large moon may also contribute to maintaining a planet's magnetic shield by continually acting upon a metallic planetary core as dynamo, thus protecting the surface of the planet from charged particles and cosmic rays, and helping to ensure the atmosphere is not stripped over time by solar winds.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: A terrestrial planet must be the right size, like Earth and Venus, in order to retain an atmosphere. On Earth, once the giant impact of Theia thinned Earth's atmosphere, other events were needed to make the atmosphere capable of sustaining life. The Late Heavy Bombardment reseeded Earth with water lost after the impact of Theia. The development of an ozone layer generated a protective shield against ultraviolet (UV) sunlight. Nitrogen and carbon dioxide are needed in a correct ratio for life to form. Lightning is needed for nitrogen fixation. The gaseous carbon dioxide needed for life comes from sources such as volcanoes and geysers. Carbon dioxide is preferably needed at relatively low levels (currently at approximately 400 ppm on Earth) because at high levels it is poisonous. Precipitation is needed to have a stable water cycle. A proper atmosphere must reduce diurnal temperature variation.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: Regardless of whether planets with similar physical attributes to the Earth are rare or not, some argue that life tends not to evolve into anything more complex than simple bacteria without being provoked by rare and specific circumstances. Biochemist Nick Lane argues that simple cells (prokaryotes) emerged soon after Earth's formation, but since almost half the planet's life had passed before they evolved into complex ones (eukaryotes), all of whom share a common ancestor, this event can only have happened once. According to some views, prokaryotes lack the cellular architecture to evolve into eukaryotes because a bacterium expanded up to eukaryotic proportions would have tens of thousands of times less energy available to power its metabolism. Two billion years ago, one simple cell incorporated itself into another, multiplied, and evolved into mitochondria that supplied the vast increase in available energy that enabled the evolution of complex eukaryotic life. If this incorporation occurred only once in four billion years or is otherwise unlikely, then life on most planets remains simple. An alternative view is that the evolution of mitochondria was environmentally triggered, and that mitochondria-containing organisms appeared soon after the first traces of atmospheric oxygen.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: The evolution and persistence of sexual reproduction is another mystery in biology. The purpose of sexual reproduction is unclear, as in many organisms it has a 50% cost (fitness disadvantage) in relation to asexual reproduction. Mating types (types of gametes, according to their compatibility) may have arisen as a result of anisogamy (gamete dimorphism), or the male and female sexes may have evolved before anisogamy. It is also unknown why most sexual organisms use a binary mating system, and why some organisms have gamete dimorphism. Charles Darwin was the first to suggest that sexual selection drives speciation; without it, complex life would probably not have evolved.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: While life on Earth is regarded to have spawned relatively early in the planet's history, the evolution from multicellular to intelligent organisms took around 800 million years. Civilizations on Earth have existed for about 12,000 years, and radio communication reaching space has existed for little more than 100 years. Relative to the age of the Solar System (~4.57 Ga) this is a short time, in which extreme climatic variations, super volcanoes, and large meteorite impacts were absent. These events would severely harm intelligent life, as well as life in general. For example, the Permian-Triassic mass extinction, caused by widespread and continuous volcanic eruptions in an area the size of Western Europe, led to the extinction of 95% of known species around 251.2 Ma ago. About 65 million years ago, the Chicxulub impact at the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary (~65.5 Ma) on the Yucatán peninsula in Mexico led to a mass extinction of the most advanced species at that time.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: The following discussion is adapted from Cramer. The Rare Earth equation is Ward and Brownlee's riposte to the Drake equation. It calculates formula_1, the number of Earth-like planets in the Milky Way having complex life forms, as:


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: We assume formula_5. The Rare Earth hypothesis can then be viewed as asserting that the product of the other nine Rare Earth equation factors listed below, which are all fractions, is no greater than 10 and could plausibly be as small as 10. In the latter case, formula_1 could be as small as 0 or 1. Ward and Brownlee do not actually calculate the value of formula_1, because the numerical values of quite a few of the factors below can only be conjectured. They cannot be estimated simply because we have but one data point: the Earth, a rocky planet orbiting a G2 star in a quiet suburb of a large barred spiral galaxy, and the home of the only intelligent species we know; namely, ourselves.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: The Rare Earth equation, unlike the Drake equation, does not factor the probability that complex life evolves into intelligent life that discovers technology. Barrow and Tipler review the consensus among such biologists that the evolutionary path from primitive Cambrian chordates, e.g., "Pikaia" to "Homo sapiens", was a highly improbable event. For example, the large brains of humans have marked adaptive disadvantages, requiring as they do an expensive metabolism, a long gestation period, and a childhood lasting more than 25% of the average total life span. Other improbable features of humans include:


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: The hypothesis concludes, more or less, that complex life is rare because it can evolve only on the surface of an Earth-like planet or on a suitable satellite of a planet. Some biologists, such as Jack Cohen, believe this assumption too restrictive and unimaginative; they see it as a form of circular reasoning.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: According to David Darling, the Rare Earth hypothesis is neither hypothesis nor prediction, but merely a description of how life arose on Earth. In his view, Ward and Brownlee have done nothing more than select the factors that best suit their case.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: Critics also argue that there is a link between the Rare Earth hypothesis and the unscientific idea of intelligent design.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: An increasing number of extrasolar planet discoveries are being made, with planets in planetary systems known as of . Rare Earth proponents argue life cannot arise outside Sun-like systems, due to tidal locking and ionizing radiation outside the F7–K1 range. However, some exobiologists have suggested that stars outside this range may give rise to life under the right circumstances; this possibility is a central point of contention to the theory because these late-K and M category stars make up about 82% of all hydrogen-burning stars.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: Current technology limits the testing of important Rare Earth criteria: surface water, tectonic plates, a large moon and biosignatures are currently undetectable. Though planets the size of Earth are difficult to detect and classify, scientists now think that rocky planets are common around Sun-like stars. The Earth Similarity Index (ESI) of mass, radius and temperature provides a means of measurement, but falls short of the full Rare Earth criteria.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: Some argue that Rare Earth's estimates of rocky planets in habitable zones (formula_3 in the Rare Earth equation) are too restrictive. James Kasting cites the Titius-Bode law to contend that it is a misnomer to describe habitable zones as narrow when there is a 50% chance of at least one planet orbiting within one. In 2013, astronomers using the Kepler space telescope's data estimated that about one-fifth of G-type and K-type stars (sun-like stars and orange dwarfs) are expected to have an Earth-sized or super-Earth-sized planet ( Earths wide) close to an Earth-like orbit (), yielding about 8.8 billion of them for the entire Milky Way Galaxy.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: The requirement for a system to have a Jovian planet as protector (Rare Earth equation factor formula_15) has been challenged, affecting the number of proposed extinction events (Rare Earth equation factor formula_16). Kasting's 2001 review of Rare Earth questions whether a Jupiter protector has any bearing on the incidence of complex life. Computer modelling including the 2005 Nice model and 2007 Nice 2 model yield inconclusive results in relation to Jupiter's gravitational influence and impacts on the inner planets. A study by Horner and Jones (2008) using computer simulation found that while the total effect on all orbital bodies within the Solar System is unclear, Jupiter has caused more impacts on Earth than it has prevented. Lexell's Comet, a 1770 near miss that passed closer to Earth than any other comet in recorded history, was known to be caused by the gravitational influence of Jupiter. Grazier (2017) claims that the idea of Jupiter as a shield is a misinterpretation of a 1996 study by George Wetherill, and using computer models Grazier was able to demonstrate that Saturn protects Earth from more asteroids and comets than does Jupiter.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: Ward and Brownlee argue that for complex life to evolve (Rare Earth equation factor formula_12), tectonics must be present to generate biogeochemical cycles, and predicted that such geological features would not be found outside of Earth, pointing to a lack of observable mountain ranges and subduction. There is, however, no scientific consensus on the evolution of plate tectonics on Earth. Though it is believed that tectonic motion first began around three billion years ago, by this time photosynthesis and oxygenation had already begun. Furthermore, recent studies point to plate tectonics as an episodic planetary phenomenon, and that life may evolve during periods of "stagnant-lid" rather than plate tectonic states.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: Recent evidence also points to similar activity either having occurred or continuing to occur elsewhere. The geology of Pluto, for example, described by Ward and Brownlee as "without mountains or volcanoes ... devoid of volcanic activity", has since been found to be quite the contrary, with a geologically active surface possessing organic molecules and mountain ranges like Tenzing Montes and Hillary Montes comparable in relative size to those of Earth, and observations suggest the involvement of endogenic processes. Plate tectonics has been suggested as a hypothesis for the Martian dichotomy, and in 2012 geologist An Yin put forward evidence for active plate tectonics on Mars. Europa has long been suspected to have plate tectonics and in 2014 NASA announced evidence of active subduction. Like Europa, analysis of the surface of Jupiter's largest moon Ganymede strike-strip faulting and surface materials of possible endogenic origin suggests that plate tectonics has also taken place there.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: In 2017, scientists studying the geology of Charon confirmed that icy plate tectonics also operated on Pluto's largest moon. Since 2017 several studies of the geodynamics of Venus have also found that contrary to the view that the lithosphere of Venus is static, that it is actually being deformed via active processes similar to plate tectonics, though with less subduction, implying that geodynamics are not a rare occurrence in Earth sized bodies.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: Kasting suggests that there is nothing unusual about the occurrence of plate tectonics in large rocky planets and liquid water on the surface as most should generate internal heat even without the assistance of radioactive elements. Studies by Valencia and Cowan suggest that plate tectonics may be inevitable for terrestrial planets Earth-sized or larger, that is, Super-Earths, which are now known to be more common in planetary systems.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: The hypothesis that molecular oxygen, necessary for animal life, is rare and that a Great Oxygenation Event (Rare Earth equation factor formula_12) could only have been triggered and sustained by tectonics, appears to have been invalidated by more recent discoveries.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: Ward and Brownlee ask "whether oxygenation, and hence the rise of animals, would ever have occurred on a world where there were no continents to erode". Extraterrestrial free oxygen has recently been detected around other solid objects, including Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter's four Galilean moons, Saturn's moons Enceladus, Dione and Rhea and even the atmosphere of a comet. This has led scientists to speculate whether processes other than photosynthesis could be capable of generating an environment rich in free oxygen. Wordsworth (2014) concludes that oxygen generated other than through photodissociation may be likely on Earth-like exoplanets, and could actually lead to false positive detections of life. Narita (2015) suggests photocatalysis by titanium dioxide as a geochemical mechanism for producing oxygen atmospheres.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: Since Ward & Brownlee's assertion that "there is irrefutable evidence that oxygen is a necessary ingredient for animal life", anaerobic metazoa have been found that indeed do metabolise without oxygen. "Spinoloricus cinziae", for example, a species discovered in the hypersaline anoxic L'Atalante basin at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea in 2010, appears to metabolise with hydrogen, lacking mitochondria and instead using hydrogenosomes. Studies since 2015 of the eukaryotic genus "Monocercomonoides" that lack mitochondrial organelles are also significant as there are no detectable signs that mitochondria are part of the organism. Since then further eukaryotes, particularly parasites, have been identified to be completely absent of mitochondrial genome, such as the 2020 discovery in "Henneguya zschokkei".<ref name="10.1073/pnas.1909907117"></ref> Further investigation into alternative metabolic pathways used by these organisms appear to present further problems for the premise.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: Stevenson (2015) has proposed other membrane alternatives for complex life in worlds without oxygen. In 2017, scientists from the NASA Astrobiology Institute discovered the necessary chemical preconditions for the formation of azotosomes on Saturn's moon Titan, a world that lacks atmospheric oxygen. Independent studies by Schirrmeister and by Mills concluded that Earth's multicellular life existed prior to the Great Oxygenation Event, not as a consequence of it.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: NASA scientists Hartman and McKay argue that plate tectonics may in fact slow the rise of oxygenation (and thus stymie complex life rather than promote it). Computer modelling by Tilman Spohn in 2014 found that plate tectonics on Earth may have arisen from the effects of complex life's emergence, rather than the other way around as the Rare Earth might suggest. The action of lichens on rock may have contributed to the formation of subduction zones in the presence of water. Kasting argues that if oxygenation caused the Cambrian explosion then any planet with oxygen producing photosynthesis should have complex life.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: The importance of Earth's magnetic field to the development of complex life has been disputed. The origin of Earth's magnetic field remains a mystery though the presence of a magnetosphere appears to be relatively common for larger planetary mass objects as all Solar System planets larger than Earth possess one. There is increasing evidence of present or past magnetic activity in terrestrial bodies such as the Moon, Ganymede, Mercury and Mars. Without sufficient measurement present studies rely heavily on modelling methods developed in 2006 by Olson & Christensen to predict field strength. Using a sample of 496 planets such models predict Kepler-186f to be one of few of Earth size that would support a magnetosphere (though such a field around this planet has not currently been confirmed). However current recent empirical evidence points to the occurrence of much larger and more powerful fields than those found in our Solar System, some of which cannot be explained by these models.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: Kasting argues that the atmosphere provides sufficient protection against cosmic rays even during times of magnetic pole reversal and atmosphere loss by sputtering. Kasting also dismisses the role of the magnetic field in the evolution of eukaryotes, citing the age of the oldest known magnetofossils.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: The requirement of a large moon (Rare Earth equation factor formula_14) has also been challenged. Even if it were required, such an occurrence may not be as unique as predicted by the Rare Earth Hypothesis. Work by Edward Belbruno and J. Richard Gott of Princeton University suggests that giant impactors such as those that may have formed the Moon can indeed form in planetary trojan points ( or Lagrangian point) which means that similar circumstances may occur in other planetary systems.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: The assertion that the Moon's stabilization of Earth's obliquity and spin is a requirement for complex life has been questioned. Kasting argues that a moonless Earth would still possess habitats with climates suitable for complex life and questions whether the spin rate of a moonless Earth can be predicted. Although the giant impact theory posits that the impact forming the Moon increased Earth's rotational speed to make a day about 5 hours long, the Moon has slowly "stolen" much of this speed to reduce Earth's solar day since then to about 24 hours and continues to do so: in 100 million years Earth's solar day will be roughly 24 hours 38 minutes (the same as Mars's solar day); in 1 billion years, 30 hours 23 minutes. Larger secondary bodies would exert proportionally larger tidal forces that would in turn decelerate their primaries faster and potentially increase the solar day of a planet in all other respects like Earth to over 120 hours within a few billion years. This long solar day would make effective heat dissipation for organisms in the tropics and subtropics extremely difficult in a similar manner to tidal locking to a red dwarf star. Short days (high rotation speed) cause high wind speeds at ground level. Long days (slow rotation speed) cause the day and night temperatures to be too extreme.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: Many Rare Earth proponents argue that the Earth's plate tectonics would probably not exist if not for the tidal forces of the Moon or the impact of Theia (prolonging mantle effects). The hypothesis that the Moon's tidal influence initiated or sustained Earth's plate tectonics remains unproven, though at least one study implies a temporal correlation to the formation of the Moon. Evidence for the past existence of plate tectonics on planets like Mars which may never have had a large moon would counter this argument, although plate tectonics may fade anyway before a moon is relevant to life. Kasting argues that a large moon is not required to initiate plate tectonics.


title: Rare Earth hypothesis

text: Rare Earth proponents argue that simple life may be common, though complex life requires specific environmental conditions to arise. Critics consider life could arise on a moon of a gas giant, though this is less likely if life requires volcanicity. The moon must have stresses to induce tidal heating, but not so dramatic as seen on Jupiter's Io. However, the moon is within the gas giant's intense radiation belts, sterilizing any biodiversity before it can get established. Dirk Schulze-Makuch disputes this, hypothesizing alternative biochemistries for alien life. While Rare Earth proponents argue that only microbial extremophiles could exist in subsurface habitats beyond Earth, some argue that complex life can also arise in these environments. Examples of extremophile animals such as the "Hesiocaeca methanicola", an animal that inhabits ocean floor methane clathrates substances more commonly found in the outer Solar System, the tardigrades which can survive in the vacuum of space or "Halicephalobus mephisto" which exists in crushing pressure, scorching temperatures and extremely low oxygen levels 3.6 kilometres deep in the Earth's crust, are sometimes cited by critics as complex life capable of thriving in "alien" environments. Jill Tarter counters the classic counterargument that these species adapted to these environments rather than arose in them, by suggesting that we cannot assume conditions for life to emerge which are not actually known. There are suggestions that complex life could arise in sub-surface conditions which may be similar to those where life may have arisen on Earth, such as the tidally heated subsurfaces of Europa or Enceladus. Ancient circumvental ecosystems such as these support complex life on Earth such as "Riftia pachyptila" that exist completely independent of the surface biosphere.


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: criminal organisation, allegedly one of the most powerful in the United Kingdom. Media reports have credited them with wealth of up to £200 million.


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: During the 1980s Terence "Terry" George Adams formed a syndicate with his brothers Thomas "Tommy" Sean Adams and Patrick "Patsy" Daniel John Adams as its financier and enforcer respectively. The brothers were born to Irish parents, part of a large family of 11 children who grew up in Barnsbury, Islington.


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: The syndicate was based in Clerkenwell while Terry Adams, until his admission of money laundering in 2007, had lived in Barnsbury. The syndicate expanded over years to include other members of the Adams' family and close childhood friends. A number of the brothers' siblings are understood to have no involvement in crime.


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: The gang is allegedly heavily involved in drug trafficking and extortion as well as the hijacking of gold bullion shipments and security fraud. They have been linked to 25 gangland murders of informants and rival criminals. In addition to developing alleged connections to Metropolitan Police officials, they were also stated to have had a British Conservative MP in their pocket at one point.


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: The shooting of the then 68-year-old "Mad" Frankie Fraser, a former enforcer for The Richardson Gang, in July 1991 was said to have been ordered by the Adams family — though Fraser said he had been targeted by rogue police. The family is believed to have connections with various criminal organisations, specifically with South American drug cartels.


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: The BBC has asserted that their influence decreased from 2000 onwards. Police officers, speaking off-record to British newspapers, have said that the family has been credited with acts that they simply did not carry out and this could be true given the number of alleged key gang members killed or imprisoned. However the Metropolitan Police took the Adams' alleged crimes sufficiently seriously to consider the need to involve a CPS-lead team of detectives and the Security Service (MI5) in order to crack the Adams mafia-like organised crime cartel.


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: Tommy Adams was imprisoned for his involvement in money laundering and a drugs plot that was described as not having been sanctioned by his brothers. During an 18-month bugging operation by MI5, Terry Adams was recorded speaking about his brother in very strident terms and suggesting that, in 1998 at least, relations between them were kept to a minimum. It has been stated that they have a criminal fortune of up to £200 million.


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: Before Tommy and Terry Adams were convicted in 1998 and 2007 respectively, the failure of the police to secure convictions against them had led to a belief that they had undermined the justice system to become untouchables. Police, Crown Prosecution Service staff and jurors were said to have been bribed and intimidated leading to not-guilty verdicts against members of the gang that were said to be wrong.


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: The gang's alleged leader, Terry Adams, has been serving a prison sentence since February 2007, and two of his brothers are under surveillance by the Serious Organised Crime Agency and police in Spain, making other criminals reluctant to do business with them. It has been said that Terry Adams faces severe financial difficulties having been ordered, in May 2007, to repay £4.7 million in legal aid and pay prosecution costs of £800,000.


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: Sean "Tommy" Adams gained high-profile public attention during a trial in 2004, when he was described as having attended a meeting in 2002 at the request of the former football international Kenny Dalglish. Dalglish was a major shareholder in Wilmslow-based sports agency Pro Active, a leading sports management firm headed up by local businessman Paul Stretford. Dalglish was reported to have hired Adams during a protracted deal to secure Pro Active's exclusive management rights to Manchester United, and England football, striker Wayne Rooney, in circumstances where another company claimed to represent Rooney.


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: In February 2010 a 38-year-old man, claiming to be Terry Adams' nephew, was convicted in a case known as the jigsaw murder: the trial revealed that the man, Stephen Marshall, had disposed four bodies for the Adamses. He was sentenced to at least 36 years in prison.


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: In 2014, Sean "Tommy" Adams and 13 other people believed to be affiliated with the Clerkenwell Crime Syndicate were arrested in a police operation codenamed "Octopod." Designer watches, six shotguns and large sums of money were found in other addresses across the city, with a concentration in north London. The arrests were linked to conspiracy to assault, money laundering, fraud and revenue offences.


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: At the time, in December 2014, of the death of a bankrupt businessman Scot Young, who had been involved in 2013 in a high-profile divorce case, media reports that flagged Young's involvement with Patrick Adams asserted that Tommy Adams and Michael Adams faced no charges after their arrest earlier in 2014.


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: Terence George Adams (born 18 October 1954 in London) was described as having more recently "adopted an almost genteel persona, buying clothes in expensive fabrics and indulging his love of art and antiques" to appear legitimate.


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: His downfall came with the assistance of MI5 and the Inland Revenue. MI5, in a unique inter-departmental collaboration the first of its kind after the Cold War ended, played a leading part in the electronic war against organised crime—and turned its sights on Adams's international criminal cartel. Police and MI5 set up a secret squad to dismantle the Adams organisation, directed from an anonymous Hertfordshire address inside a secret bunker sited somewhere on the busy Hoddesdon commuter belt into London. Some of the recordings made over a period of 18 months suggested that Adams had retired from front line involvement in crime in 1990.


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: Police sources believe Adams knew he was being monitored and had "stage managed" many conversations for the benefit of his defence. He, for example, was allegedly caught on tape, in 1998, telling his adviser Solly Nahome that he did not want to be involved with a particular illegal deal, which would affect his legitimate business. The Inland Revenue was suspicious enough to ask Adams to explain how he had amassed his personal fortune including his £2 million house and his collection of valuable antiques. Adams invented a range of unlikely occupations, including jeweller and public relations executive. Transcripts of the surveillance and investigations into several front companies Adams set up proved he was lying.


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: He was arrested in April 2003 detectives found art and antiques valued at £500,000, £59,000 in cash and jewellery worth more than £40,000 in his home. On 9 March 2007 at a hearing at the Old Bailey, Andrew Mitchell QC summed up the prosecution's case in saying, "It is suggested that Terry Adams was one of the country’s most feared and revered organised criminals. He comes with a pedigree, as one of a family whose name had a currency all of its own in the underworld. A hallmark of his career was the ability to keep his evidential distance from any of the violence and other crime from which he undoubtedly profited." The former Scottish gangster Paul Ferris asserted that none of the brothers is "primus inter pares" (first among equals or in sole charge).


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: On 18 May 2007 Adams was ordered to pay £4.8 million in legal fees to three law firms who had initially represented him under the UK's free legal aid scheme. He was also required to pay £800,000 in prosecution costs.


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: He admitted a single specimen money-laundering offence on 7 February 2007, and was jailed for seven years; he was released on 24 June 2010, but was recalled to prison in August 2011 for breaching his licence. Also, on 21 May 2007, he was ordered to file reports of his income for the next ten years. Open case files remain untried on Operation Trinity records and rumour still exists that several further prosecutions may eventually come to trial.


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: In August 2011 he appeared before City of London Magistrates court charged with 8 breaches of his Financial Reporting Order imposed upon him in 2007.


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: District Judge Quentin Purdy said he was "shrewd and calculating"...You wilfully and, in my judgment, arrogantly sought to frustrate the effect of a financial reporting order, well knowing that a significant confiscation order remains largely unpaid."


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: In July 2014 Adams appeared before a High Court judge in London where he claimed that he was penniless and living in a one bedroom apartment. Adams was ordered to pay £650,000 under the Proceeds of Crime Act.


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: In March 2017 Adams lost his appeal against the order to pay £700,000 under the Proceeds of Crime Act. In November 2017 a district judge sitting in Weston-super-Mare ordered Terry Adams to pay the remaining amount within 30 days or return to prison for at least 2.5 years. In December 2017 Adams repaid the entire confiscation order (around £725,000) despite his repeated claims of poverty. He also attempted to gag the press to stop people knowing that he had repaid the confiscation rather than return to jail. A source close to the investigation said that he must have found nearly three-quarters of a million pounds "down the back of the sofa."


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: In February 2019, media reports suggested that Terry Adams and his wife were living in a housing association flat. Later that month Terry Adams paid back an additional £50,000 to Westminster Magistrates Court despite claiming poverty to avoid returning to prison for non payment of court costs.


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: Thomas Sean Adams (born in 1958 in London) is allegedly financier for his brothers Terry and Patrick. A married father of four, he still has a home near the family's traditional Islington base, but was understood to be mainly living in Spain before he was jailed in 2017.


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: Tommy Adams was charged with involvement in the handling of Brink's-MAT gold bullion but in 1985 was cleared of involvement in the laundering of the proceeds during a high-profile Old Bailey trial with co-defendant Kenneth Noye.


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: Tommy Adams is suspected of establishing connections to other international criminal organisations including numerous Yardie gangs as well as gaining an $80 million credit line from Colombian drug cartels. In 1998, Adams was convicted of masterminding a £8 million hashish smuggling operation into Britain for which he was jailed for seven years. At trial he was also ordered to pay an unprecedented £6 million criminal assets embargo, or face an additional five years' imprisonment on top of his seven-year term. On appeal the criminal assets embargo was later reduced by appeal judges to £1m largely due to the CPS not having sufficient material evidence, bank accounts or traceable assets to locate and verify Adams' criminal wealth. Adams' wife, Androulla, paid his £1m criminal assets embargo in cash just two days before the CPS deadline.


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: Tommy was further convicted of money laundering and sentenced to 7 years in 2017 after a number of significant cash seizures of criminal money where linked to him. Money from crime in Manchester was collected and sent to Tommy via trusted associates.


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: Patrick Daniel John Adams (born 2 February 1956 in London) gained an early reputation in London's underworld by using high-speed motorcycles in gangland murders and was a suspect in at least 25 organised-crime related deaths over a three-year period. He was sentenced to seven years in prison in the 1970s for an armed robbery.


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: Although subordinate to Terry Adams, Patrick — sometimes known as Patsy — has participated in individual criminal activities. Most notably he is suspected of the 1991 murder attempt on Frankie Fraser; also, according to one account, he assaulted Fraser's son David Fraser with a knife, cutting off part of his ear during a drug deal. During the late 1990s, he was reported to spend much of his time in Spain. "The Independent" stated in 2001 that he was “living in exile in Spain in a walled villa bristling with security cameras a few miles south of Torremolinos”. Patrick Adams and his wife were wanted in connection with an attempted murder in Clerkenwell, London on 22 December 2013 and were arrested in Amsterdam on 7 August 2015.


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: Adams admitted shooting Paul Tiernan but he was cleared of attempted murder after the victim refused to cooperate with police because he believed 'loyalty is everything' and said that being called a 'grass' hurt more than being shot. Adams admitted causing grievous bodily harm with intent at Woolwich Crown Court and was sentenced to nine years in 2016.


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: Police who searched Adams's flat in the days after the shooting found a handwritten note from Mr Tiernan, 54, which said 'I ain't no f****** grass' and urged his former friend to 'face me'. In an interview in 2020 Paul Tiernan stated that Adams was released from prison earlier in the year.


title: Clerkenwell crime syndicate

text: The Adams family have long been connected to the Brink's-Mat robbery and other individuals who helped sell the stolen gold, including Kenneth Noye.


title: David Axelrod (political consultant)

text: David M. Axelrod (born February 22, 1955) is an American political consultant and analyst and former White House official. He is best known for being the chief strategist for Barack Obama's presidential campaigns. After Obama's election, Axelrod was appointed as Senior Advisor to the President. He left the position in early 2011 and became the Senior Strategist for Obama's successful re-election campaign in 2012. Axelrod wrote for the "Chicago Tribune", and joined CNN as Senior Political Commentator in 2015. Currently, Axelrod serves as the director of the non-partisan University of Chicago Institute of Politics. His memoir is titled "Believer: My Forty Years in Politics".


title: David Axelrod (political consultant)

text: Axelrod was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City, and grew up in its Stuyvesant Town area. He was raised in a liberal Jewish family and had his bar mitzvah ceremony at the Brotherhood Synagogue in Manhattan. His mother, Myril Bennett (née Davidson), was a journalist at "PM," a liberal-leaning 1940s newspaper, and later an advertising executive at Young & Rubicam. His father, Joseph Axelrod, was a psychologist and avid baseball fan, who migrated from Eastern Europe to the United States at the age of eleven. He attended Public School 40 in Manhattan. Axelrod's parents separated when he was eight years old. In 2021, Axelrod disclosed in a CNN op-ed that his father suffered from severe clinical depression, unbeknownst at the time to the family, which led to his suicide when the younger Axelrod was 20.


title: David Axelrod (political consultant)

text: Describing the appeal of politics, he told the "Los Angeles Times", "I got into politics because I believe in idealism. Just to be a part of this effort that seems to be rekindling the kind of idealism that I knew when I was a kid, it's a great thing to do. So I find myself getting very emotional about it." At thirteen years old, he was selling campaign buttons for Robert F. Kennedy. After graduating from New York's Stuyvesant High School in 1972, Axelrod attended the University of Chicago, where he majored in political science. Axelrod described his childhood as "very turbulent", although he did not specify the exact details that elicited this characterization.


title: David Axelrod (political consultant)

text: As an undergraduate, Axelrod wrote for the "Hyde Park Herald", covering politics, and earned an internship at the "Chicago Tribune".


title: David Axelrod (political consultant)

text: While at the University of Chicago he met his future wife, business student Susan Landau (daughter of research doctor Richard L. Landau), and they married in 1979.


title: David Axelrod (political consultant)

text: In June 1981, they had their first child, a daughter. She was diagnosed with epilepsy at seven months of age. Axelrod describes Lauren as having had brutal seizures, requiring a constantly changing regimen of medications for some time. This left her developmentally disabled, but nevertheless mainstreamed in school. For a few years after high school, the family struggled to find programs that would keep her happy and fulfilled, but were able to place her in Misericordia, a large dormitory-style group home in 2002, where she leads an active life. , Axelrod advocates for a flexible, mixed approach to group homes and support environments for people like his daughter, in contrast to the common approach of exclusively moving toward smaller group homes.


title: David Axelrod (political consultant)

text: The "Chicago Tribune" hired Axelrod after his graduation from college. He worked there for eight years, covering national, state and local politics, becoming their youngest political writer in 1981. At 27, he became the City Hall Bureau Chief and a political columnist for the paper. He left the "Tribune" and joined the campaign of U.S. Senator Paul Simon as communications director in 1984. Within weeks he was promoted to co-campaign manager.


title: David Axelrod (political consultant)

text: In 1985, Axelrod formed the political consultancy firm, Axelrod & Associates. In 1987 he worked on the successful reelection campaign of Harold Washington, Chicago's first black mayor, while spearheading Simon's campaign for the 1988 Democratic Presidential nomination. This established his experience in working with black politicians; he later became a key player in similar mayoral campaigns of black candidates, including Dennis Archer in Detroit, Michael R. White in Cleveland, Anthony A. Williams in Washington, D.C., Lee P. Brown in Houston, and John F. Street in Philadelphia. Axelrod is a longtime strategist for the former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and styles himself a "specialist in urban politics." "The Economist" notes he also specializes in "packaging black candidates for white voters".


title: David Axelrod (political consultant)

text: In January 1990, Axelrod was hired to be the media consultant for the all but official re-election campaign of Oregon Governor Neil Goldschmidt. However, Goldschmidt announced in February that he would not seek re-election. Axelrod was retained by the Liberal Party of Ontario to help Dalton McGuinty and his party in 2002 to be elected into government in the October 2003 election. Axelrod's effect on Ontario was heard through the winning Liberal appeal to "working families" and placing an emphasis on positive policy contrasts like canceling corporate tax breaks to fund education and health.


title: David Axelrod (political consultant)

text: In 2004, Axelrod worked for John Edwards' presidential campaign. He lost responsibility for making ads, but continued as the campaign's spokesman. Regarding Edwards' failed 2004 presidential campaign, Axelrod has commented, "I have a whole lot of respect for John, but at some point the candidate has to close the deal and—I can't tell you why—that never happened with John."


title: David Axelrod (political consultant)

text: Axelrod worked as a consultant for Exelon, an Illinois-area utility which operated the largest fleet of nuclear reactors in the United States.


title: David Axelrod (political consultant)

text: Axelrod contributed an op-ed to the "Chicago Tribune" in defense of patronage after two top officials in the administration of longtime client Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley were arrested for what federal prosecutors described as "pervasive fraud" in City Hall hiring and promotions. In 2006, he consulted for several campaigns, including the successful campaigns of Eliot Spitzer in New York's gubernatorial election and Deval Patrick in Massachusetts's gubernatorial election. Also in 2006, Axelrod served as the chief political adviser for Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair U.S. Representative Rahm Emanuel for the U.S. House of Representatives elections, in which the Democrats gained 31 seats.


title: David Axelrod (political consultant)

text: He was an Adjunct Professor of Communication Studies at Northwestern University, where, along with Professor Peter Miller, he taught an undergraduate class titled Campaign Strategy, analyzing political campaigns, and their strategies. On June 14, 2009 he received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from DePaul University, speaking at the commencement exercises of the College of Communication and College of Computing and Digital Media.


title: David Axelrod (political consultant)

text: Axelrod first met Obama in 1992, when Bettylu Saltzman, a Chicago Democrat, introduced the two of them after Obama had impressed her at a black voter registration drive that he ran. Obama consulted Axelrod before he delivered a 2002 anti-war speech, and asked him to read drafts of his book "The Audacity of Hope".


title: David Axelrod (political consultant)

text: Axelrod contemplated taking a break from politics during the 2008 presidential campaign, as five of the candidates—Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Chris Dodd and Tom Vilsack—were past clients. Personal ties between Axelrod and Hillary Clinton made it difficult, as she had raised significant funds for epilepsy on behalf of a foundation co-founded by Axelrod's wife and mother, Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy (CURE). (Axelrod's daughter suffers from developmental disabilities associated with chronic epileptic seizures.) Axelrod's wife even said that a 1999 conference Clinton convened to find a cure for the condition was "one of the most important things anyone has done for epilepsy." Axelrod ultimately decided to participate in the Obama campaign, and served as chief strategist and media advisor for Obama. He told "The Washington Post", "I thought that if I could help Barack Obama get to Washington, then I would have accomplished something great in my life."


title: David Axelrod (political consultant)

text: Axelrod contributed to the initial announcement of Obama's campaign by creating a five-minute Internet video released January 16, 2007. He continued to use "man on the street"-style biographical videos to create a sense of intimacy and authenticity in the political ads.


title: David Axelrod (political consultant)

text: While the Clinton campaign chose a strategy that emphasized experience, Axelrod helped to craft the Obama campaign's main theme of "change." He was critical of the Clinton campaign's positioning, and said that "being the consummate Washington insider is not where you want to be in a year when people want change...[Clinton's] initial strategic positioning was wrong and kind of played into our hands." The change message played a factor in Obama's victory in the Iowa caucuses. "Just over half of [Iowa's] Democratic caucus-goers said change was the No. 1 factor they were looking for in a candidate, and 51 percent of those voters chose Barack Obama," said CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider. "That compares to only 19 percent of 'change' caucus-goers who preferred Clinton." Axelrod also believed that the Clinton campaign underestimated the importance of the caucus states. "For all the talent and the money they had over there," says Axelrod, "they—bewilderingly—seemed to have little understanding for the caucuses and how important they would become." In the 2008 primary season, Obama won a majority of the states that use the caucus format.


title: David Axelrod (political consultant)

text: Axelrod is credited with implementing a strategy that encourages the participation of people, a lesson drawn partly from Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign as well as a personal goal of Barack Obama. Axelrod explained to "Rolling Stone", "When we started this race, Barack told us that he wanted the campaign to be a vehicle for involving people and giving them a stake in the kind of organizing he believed in". According to Axelrod, getting volunteers involved became the legacy of the campaign. This includes drawing on "Web 2.0" technology and viral media to support a grassroots strategy. Obama's web platform allows supporters to blog, create their own personal page, and even phonebank from home. Axelrod's elaborate use of the Internet helped Obama to organize under-30 voters and build over 475,000 donors in 2007, most of whom were Internet donors contributing less than $100 each. The Obama strategy stood in contrast to Hillary Clinton's campaign, which benefited from high name recognition, large donors and strong support among established Democratic leaders.


title: David Axelrod (political consultant)

text: "Politico" described Axelrod as 'soft-spoken' and 'mild-mannered' and it quoted one Obama aide in Chicago as saying, "Do you know how lucky we are that he is our Mark Penn?" Democratic consultant and former colleague Dan Fee said of Axelrod, "He's a calming presence." "He's not a screamer, like some of these guys," political advisor Bill Daley said of Axelrod in the "Chicago Tribune". "He has a good sense of humor, so he's able to defuse things." In June 2008, "The New York Times" described Axelrod as a "campaign guru" with an "appreciation for Chicago-style politics."


title: David Axelrod (political consultant)

text: On November 20, 2008, Obama named Axelrod as a senior advisor to his administration. His role included crafting policy and communicating the President's message in coordination with President Obama, the Obama Administration, speechwriters, and the White House communications team.


title: David Axelrod (political consultant)

text: When details of the 2010 United States foreclosure crisis were publicized in 2010, notably robo-signing, Axelrod was widely criticized for downplaying the magnitude of the crisis in his comments to the press, telling the audience of CBS News' "Face the Nation" that the Obama administration's "hope is this moves rapidly and that this gets unwound very, very quickly" and that he's "not sure that a national moratorium" is called for since "there are in fact valid foreclosures that probably should go forward." Notably, Axelrod made this statement after several banks had voluntarily suspended foreclosures and evictions in order to investigate improprieties.


title: David Axelrod (political consultant)

text: Axelrod left his White House senior advisor post on January 28, 2011. He was a top aide to Obama's 2012 re-election campaign. Axelrod stated that his job as Obama's chief campaign strategist in the 2012 campaign would be his final job as a political operative.


title: David Axelrod (political consultant)

text: In January 2013, Axelrod established a bipartisan Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago, where he serves as director. On January 23, 2013, La Stampa reported that Axelrod was helping Italian prime minister Mario Monti with his election campaign and had flown to Italy to meet with Monti ten days earlier. Monti's coalition went on to come fourth with 10.5% of the vote in the Italian general election, 2013. On February 19, 2013, Axelrod joined NBC News and MSNBC as a senior political analyst, a position he held until September 2015 when he moved to CNN.


title: David Axelrod (political consultant)

text: In 2014 Axelrod was appointed senior strategic adviser to the British Labour Party to assist party leader Ed Miliband in the run-up to the 2015 general election.


title: David Axelrod (political consultant)

text: He is the co-founder of AKPD Message and Media, along with Eric Sedler, and operated ASK Public Strategies, now called ASGK Public Strategies, which were sold in 2009. In February 2015 Axelrod's book "Believer: My Forty Years in Politics" was published.


title: David Axelrod (political consultant)

text: In 2015, Axelrod began hosting a podcast titled "The Axe Files," a series of in-depth discussions and interviews with various political figures"." In June 2019 he started the podcast "Hacks on Tap" with co-host Mike Murphy, a show where the two discuss news and updates from the 2020 presidential campaign trail. He also joined CNN as a senior political commentator in September, 2015.


title: David Axelrod (political consultant)

text: In 2018, Axelrod vocally opposed Democratic support for impeachment, arguing that if "we “normalize” impeachment as a political tool, it will be another hammer blow to our democracy".


title: David Axelrod (political consultant)

text: In 2022, he announced his intention to retire as director of the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, and become a senior fellow and chair of its advisory board, effective January 2023. UChicago President Paul Alivisatos said of his tenure that "David’s leadership of the IOP has driven its incredible growth and success over the past decade."


title: D Ream

text: D:Ream is a Northern Irish/English pop rock and dance group. They had a UK No. 1 hit with "" in 1994. Eight more top 40 hits followed, including "U R the Best Thing" and "Shoot Me with Your Love". They released three albums, two of which reached the UK top five. The group had an all-male line-up which varied in number, but mainly centred on lead singer Peter Cunnah. The live band included keyboard player Brian Cox, who is now a renowned physicist and television presenter; although Cunnah, as the only official member, normally played keyboards (along with all other instruments) on studio recordings.


title: D Ream

text: D:Ream first came to prominence with the euphoric single "U R the Best Thing" in the summer of 1992, an anthemic piano-house tune which did not chart but thanks to a Sasha remix was Pete Tong's Essential Tune of 1992. "Things Can Only Get Better", released in the spring of 1993, gave the group their first chart success. "U R The Best Thing" was eventually re-released in April 1993 and gave the group their second chart hit. The band were nominated for Best Dance act in the MTV Europe music awards in 1994 and for Best Single in the Brit Awards in 1995.


title: D Ream

text: The band's first album, "D:Ream on Volume 1", which was promoted for almost two years, produced seven singles ("Star" and "I Like It" came on a joint release as a double A-side). It was the track "" that gave them UK success and international fame. After they supported Take That on their tour, "Things Can Only Get Better" topped the UK Singles Chart, in early 1994. Originally released in early 1993, when the track reached No. 24 in the UK, it was later adopted by the Labour Party as their theme for the 1997 UK General Election, and consequently released for the third time; this time reaching No. 19 on the UK chart.


title: D Ream

text: Between 1992 and 1997, the band released two studio albums, ("D:Ream on Volume 1" and "World"), ten different singles (two of which were released three times), and an official greatest hits album, (""). The group's record label released their first compilation, "", in 1997 instead of their third studio album, which remains unreleased. In 2006, a second collection was released, for "" series.


title: D Ream

text: When D:Ream broke through into the charts, the band's main touring line-up consisted of core member Peter Cunnah (vocalist, songwriter), Al Mackenzie (musician), and Cian McCarthy. Other main performers included physicist Brian Cox who played keyboards for several years while working towards his physics PhD before being replaced by Richard Garbutt, Derek Chai on bass, and drummer Mark Roberts. The group also used a number of guest vocalists – such as T.J. Davis, who is featured as co-lead vocalist on "The Power (Of All the Love in the World)", one of the singles taken from their second album, as well as providing backing vocals on many other songs.


title: D Ream

text: In 2008 D:Ream reformed after a chance meeting by Cunnah and Mackenzie. They recorded a new album released in 2011 on their own label User Records and their single, "All Things to All Men" was released on 7 September 2009. They also planned concert dates to follow. Meanwhile, Brian Cox became a physics professor and science broadcaster and is currently working on the Large Hadron Collider project. In late 2010 he announced that he was to provide some keyboard work for the new album, but would not be re-joining the band full-time. As part of their 2012 commitments, the band played main support to Wheatus at the LeeStock Music Festival in Sudbury, Suffolk.


title: D Ream

text: On July 23, 2021 Cunnah and Mackenzie released a new studio album “Open Hearts Open Minds” marking their first album since 2011’s “In Memory Of…”.


title: Hollywood accounting

text: Hollywood accounting (also known as Hollywood bookkeeping) is the opaque or creative accounting methods used by the film, video, television and music industry to budget and record profits for creative projects. Expenditures can be inflated to reduce or eliminate the reported profit of the project, thereby reducing the amount which the corporation must pay in taxes and royalties or other profit-sharing agreements, as these are based on net profit.


title: Hollywood accounting

text: Hollywood accounting gets its name from its prevalence in the entertainment industry—that is, in the movie studios of Hollywood at a time when most studios were located in Hollywood. Those affected can include writers and actors, but also production companies, producers and investors. A number of cases of creative accounting have been successfully pursued in court and resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in awarded damages.


title: Hollywood accounting

text: Hollywood accounting can take several forms. In one form, a subsidiary is formed to perform a given activity and the parent entity will extract money out of the film's revenue in the form of charges for certain "services". For example, a film studio has a distribution arm as a sub-entity, which will then charge the studio a "distribution fee"—essentially, the studio charging itself a sum it has total control over and hence control the profitability report of a project.


title: Hollywood accounting

text: Another form of Hollywood accounting is a reverse tobashi scheme, in which the studio unjustly cross-collateralizes the accounting of two projects and shifts losses from a flop onto a profitable project by shifting costs involving internal operations. This way, two unprofitable projects are created out of one on paper alone, primarily for the purpose of eliminating net participation liabilities. The specific schemes can range from the simple and obvious to the extremely complex. Generally, Hollywood accounting uses permanent creative accounting practices (such as charging an arbitrary distribution fee from one sub-entity to another) rather than temporary ones (like the Repo 105 scheme) since the measures are meant to permanently distort the bottom line of a film project.


title: Hollywood accounting

text: Three main factors in Hollywood accounting reduce the reported profit of a movie, and all have to do with the calculation of overhead:


title: Hollywood accounting

text: All of the above means of calculating overhead are highly controversial, even within the accounting profession. Namely, these percentages are assigned without much regard to how, in reality, these estimates relate to actual overhead costs. In short, this method does not, by any rational standard, attempt to adequately trace overhead costs.


title: Hollywood accounting

text: Because of the studio's ability to place arbitrary charges along the value chain, net participation "points" (a percentage of the net income as opposed to a percentage of the gross income of a film) are sometimes referred to as "monkey points". The term is attributed to Eddie Murphy, who is said to have also stated that only a fool would accept net points in their contract.


title: Hollywood accounting

text: Actress Lynda Carter on "The Late Show with Joan Rivers" commented "Don't ever settle for net profits. It's called 'creative accounting'."


title: Hollywood accounting

text: Many insist on "gross points" (a percentage of some definition of gross revenue) rather than net profit participation. This practice reduces the likelihood of a project showing a profit, as a production company will claim a portion of the reported box-office revenue was diverted directly to gross point participants. The studios rarely agree to gross participation, generally only when the person has considerable leverage, such an A-list star, producer, or director whose participation is vital to the project.


title: Hollywood accounting

text: According to Lucasfilm, "Return of the Jedi" (1983), despite having earned $475 million at the box office against a budget of $32.5 million, "has never gone into profit".


title: Hollywood accounting

text: Art Buchwald received a settlement from Paramount after his lawsuit "Buchwald v. Paramount" (1990). The court found Paramount's actions "unconscionable", noting that it was impossible to believe that Eddie Murphy's 1988 comedy "Coming to America", which grossed $288 million, failed to make a profit, especially since the actual production costs were less than a tenth of that. Paramount settled for $900,000, rather than have its accounting methods closely scrutinized.


title: Hollywood accounting

text: Producers Michael Uslan and Benjamin Melniker filed a breach of contract lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court on March 26, 1992. Uslan and Melniker claimed to be "the victims of a sinister campaign of fraud and coercion that has cheated them out of continuing involvement in the production of the 1989 film "Batman" and its sequels. We were denied proper credits, and deprived of any financial rewards for our indispensable creative contribution to the success of "Batman"." A superior court judge rejected the lawsuit. Total revenues of "Batman" have topped $2 billion, with Uslan claiming to have "not seen a penny more than that since our net profit participation has proved worthless." Warner Bros. offered the pair an out-of-court pay-off, a sum described by Uslan and Melniker's attorney as "two popcorns and two Cokes".


title: Hollywood accounting

text: The estate of Jim Garrison sued Warner Bros. for their share of the profits from the movie "JFK" (1991), which was based on Garrison's book "On the Trail of the Assassins". The case was settled in 1999, with Garrison's estate receiving a "very small settlement."


title: Hollywood accounting

text: Winston Groom's price for the screenplay rights to his 1986 novel "Forrest Gump" included a 3% share of the profits; however, due to Hollywood accounting, the 1994 film's commercial success was converted into a net loss, and Groom received only $350,000 for the rights and an additional $250,000 from the studio.


title: Hollywood accounting

text: Screenwriter Ed Solomon says that Sony claims "Men in Black" (1997) has never broken even, despite grossing nearly $600 million against a $90 million budget.


title: Hollywood accounting

text: "Gone in 60 Seconds" (2000) grossed $240 million at the box office, but the studio declared a $212 million loss, primarily through Hollywood accounting as explained on NPR. The real figure is likely closer to $90 million.


title: Hollywood accounting

text: Stan Lee, co-creator of the character Spider-Man, had a contract awarding him 10% of the net profits of anything based on his characters. The film "Spider-Man" (2002) made more than $800 million in revenue, but the producers claim that it did not make any profit as defined in Lee's contract, and Lee received nothing. In 2002 he filed a lawsuit against Marvel Comics. The case was settled in January 2005, with Marvel paying $10 million to "finance past and future payments claimed by Mr. Lee."


title: Hollywood accounting

text: The 2002 film "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" was considered hugely successful for an independent film, yet according to the studio, the film lost money. Accordingly, the cast (with the exception of Nia Vardalos who had a separate deal) sued the studio for their part of the profits. The original producers of the film sued Gold Circle Films in 2007 due to Hollywood accounting practices because the studio has claimed the film, which cost less than $6 million to make and made over $350 million at the box office, lost $20 million.


title: Hollywood accounting

text: Peter Jackson, director of "The Lord of the Rings" (2001-03), and his studio Wingnut Films, brought a lawsuit in 2007 against New Line Cinema after an audit. Jackson stated this is regarding "certain accounting practices". In response, New Line stated that their rights to a film of "The Hobbit" were time-limited, and since Jackson would not work with them again until the suit was settled, he would not be asked to direct "The Hobbit", as had been anticipated. Fifteen actors sued New Line Cinema, claiming that they have never received their 5% of revenue from merchandise sold in relation to the movie, which contained their likenesses. Similarly, the Tolkien estate sued New Line, claiming that their contract entitled them to 7.5% of the gross receipts of the $6 billion hit. According to New Line's accounts, the trilogy made "horrendous losses" and no profit at all.


title: Hollywood accounting

text: Michael Moore sued Bob and Harvey Weinstein in February 2011, claiming that they had used creative accounting to deprive him of his share of profits for the film "Fahrenheit 9/11" (2004). Eventually, Moore reached a settlement with the Weinsteins and the lawsuit was dropped in 2012.


title: Hollywood accounting

text: The 2005 film "Sahara" grossed $119 million against a production budget of $160 million, resulting in a $105 million loss for the studio. However, due to Hollywood accounting tactics, the loss was only reported as $78.3 million.


title: Hollywood accounting

text: A Warner Bros. receipt was leaked online in 2010, showing that the hugely successful movie "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" (2007) ended up with a $167 million loss on paper after grossing nearly $1 billion. This is especially egregious given that, without inflation adjustment, the "Wizarding World" film series is the third highest-grossing film series of all time both domestically and internationally, after Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2" (2011) remains the highest-grossing movie ever for Warner Bros. The Hollywood accounting in the Harry Potter case included a $60 million interest charge on a $400 million budget over two years – an interest rate far higher than industry standard—as well as high distribution and advertising fees paid out to Warner Bros. subsidiaries and sister companies.


title: Hollywood accounting

text: The Walt Disney Company lost a $270 million lawsuit in 2010 to Celador over accounting tricks used to mask profits on the "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" (1999-07) licensed franchise in the United States: "ABC artificially deflated fees the network should have paid the production company BVT and Disney-owned Valleycrest, which in turn decreased Celador's share of revenue. Loss of merchandising revenue was also claimed."


title: Hollywood accounting

text: Don Johnson won a lawsuit in 2010 against Rysher Entertainment which had attempted to wipe profits for the show "Nash Bridges" (1996-01) off the books in order to reduce Johnson's 50% backend stake to zero; the jury awarded Johnson $23.2 million in damages.


title: Hollywood accounting

text: 21st Century Fox was found guilty of using Hollywood accounting practices to defraud the producers and stars of the procedural drama "Bones" (2005-17) and ordered to pay $179 million in missing profits, with the arbitration ruling made public in 2019. Fox subsequently contested the $128 million punitive damages component in Los Angeles County Superior Court, whereas it declared it would pay the $51 million in actual damages awarded by the arbitrator. In September 2019, the lawsuit was settled on confidential terms.


title: Hollywood accounting

text: Despite grossing $911 million against its $55 million budget, the 2018 Freddie Mercury biopic "Bohemian Rhapsody" was written down as a $51 million loss by the studio.


title: Hollywood accounting

text: Despite grossing $153 million against a $26 million budget, the 2019 romantic-comedy "Yesterday" reportedly lost $87.8 million, according to Universal Pictures accounting sheets.


title: Hollywood accounting

text: In July 2021, a lawsuit brought by developer and executive producer Frank Darabont along with Creative Artists Agency against AMC Networks over profits from TV series "The Walking Dead" was settled for $200 million, plus sharing of certain future revenues. The plaintiffs had alleged that AMC had deliberately set the imputed fees "paid" by the eponymous AMC Networks cable TV channel to AMC Studios—both subsidiaries of AMC Networks—far below fair market value, and thus illegitimately curtailed the payments due to the plaintiffs under their profit-sharing agreements.


title: Russian Railways

text: Russian Railways () is a Russian fully state-owned vertically integrated railway company, both managing infrastructure and operating freight and passenger train services.


title: Russian Railways

text: The company was established on 18 September 2003, when a decree was passed to separate the upkeep and operation of the railways from the . RZhD is based in Moscow at Novaya Basmannaya str., 2. The operating units of the central part of the staff are at Kalanchevskaya str., 35.


title: Russian Railways

text: After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian Federation inherited 17 of the 32 regions of the former Soviet Railways (SZD).


title: Russian Railways

text: By 1998, total freight traffic was half the 1991 figure. Government investment in the railway system was greatly curtailed, and passenger fares were no longer subsidized. Though increasingly inefficient, the Russian railway system avoided major reform into the 1990s. A Structural Reform Program, focused on restructuring the railway sector within 10 years, was ultimately approved in 2001.


title: Russian Railways

text: In 2003, the Federal Law on Railway Transport divided the Ministry of Railways into the Federal Railway Transport Agency (FRTA) and Russian Railways (RZD). The reform also required RZD to provide access to railway infrastructure to other carriers and operators. As the law requires carriers to provide service to customers anywhere in Russia, RZD retained its dominant position.


title: Russian Railways

text: Later in 2003, the Decree No. 585 established RZD as a joint stock company, making it a holding in charge of 63 subsidiaries, including TransContainer, RailTranAuto, Rail Passenger Directorate, Russian Troika, TransGroup, and Refservis. RZD acquired 987 companies (95% in asset value) out of the 2046 that had formed the MR system. Gennady Fadeyev, the Railways Minister, became the company's first president.


title: Russian Railways

text: The reform saw the creation of a new market segment following the privatization of the network's rolling stock. The company divided the bulk of its wagon fleet between two new operating companies, Freight One (which was later privatised) and Freight Two (renamed Federal Freight in 2012), and private players such as GlobalTrans also entering the market.


title: Russian Railways

text: In 2003, RZD launched a project to replace the narrow gauge on Sakhalin Railway to the broad gauge used in the rest of Russia, which it formally completed in August 2019. The share of privately owned wagons in the freight transport increased to one-third of the total by 2005. On 18 May 2006, the company signed an agreement with Siemens for the delivery of eight high-speed trains.


title: Russian Railways

text: On 23 May 2007, Russian Railways adopted a new corporate style which changed fundamentally the way the Company presented itself visually to the outside world. The change of corporate identity underwent several stages during the 2007–2010 period. The final version of the logo was designed by BBDO Branding.


title: Russian Railways

text: Also, commissioned by BBDO Branding The Agency HardCase Design created a family of corporate fonts RussianRail, consisting of 15 fonts. In the new company logo Sans-serif RussianRail Grotesque Medium was used. In 2008, the new logo of Russian Railways became a runner-up for the international design competition WOLDA '08 award.


title: Russian Railways

text: Strategy 2030, an investment plan to expand and modernize the railway network, was approved by the Russian government in 2008. Since 2008, as part of the structural reform of rail transport, with separation of the services infrastructure of transportation activity and the emergence of a competitive environment, Russian Railways has been transformed into a vertically oriented holding company.


title: Russian Railways

text: In 2009, the investment budget was 262.8 billion rubles (excluding VAT), of which 47.4 billion for projects related to the preparation and staging of the Olympic Games in Sochi; 58.7 billion for the renovation of the rolling stock (including supply of "Sapsan" trains).


title: Russian Railways

text: In 2010, Federal Passenger Company was established as a fully owned subsidiary of Russian Railways, providing long-distance passenger services both in Russia and abroad. By the end of 2013, it operated all long-distance routes, except for high-speed "Sapsan" lines, which are operated by RZD.


title: Russian Railways

text: RZD issued its first dollar-denominated bond in 2010, raising $1.5 billion. On 28 October 2011, the Joint Stock Company Freight One, a subsidiary of Russian Railways, sold 75% of its shares minus two shares for 125.5 billion rubles (about 4 billion $) to Independent Transport Company owned by Vladimir Lisin. Thus, Lisin as Russia's largest operator of rolling stock acquired control of a quarter of the freight market.


title: Russian Railways

text: As part of its reform efforts, RZD massively reduced its workforce, from 2.2 million in the 1990s to 934,000 people in 2012. In 2012, it became one of the three largest transport companies in the world.


title: Russian Railways

text: According to a Reuters inquiry, RZD procurement activities in 2012 amounted to $22.5 billion; part of this was awarded to private contractors with no genuine operations in de facto noncompetitive tenders. Some of the company addresses listed on the tenders turned out to be private apartments, car repair shops or department stores. It was alleged that the contractors were actually shell companies, used to convey billions of dollars in tenders to close associates of Yakunin, president of RZD.


title: Russian Railways

text: Zheldoripoteka, RZD's real estate arm, was revealed to have sold land plots located close to railway stations in major cities to the son of Russian Railways president Vladimir Yakunin. Far East Land Bridge, a company partnered with a Russian Railways subsidiary, was also linked to Yakunin's son.


title: Russian Railways

text: On 16 October 2012, Russian Railways has completed competitive negotiations with potential buyers of the remaining 25-percent plus 1 share stake in JSC Freight One. The best binding offer was received from the Independent Transport Company LLC. The assets were sold for 50 billion rubles.


title: Russian Railways

text: In early November 2012, Russian Railways announced the purchase of 75% of the French logistics company Gefco SA. The total value of the transaction was 800 million euros, the seller being PSA Peugeot Citroen, the parent company of Gefco. A program to modernize the Baikal–Amur Mainline was launched in 2013, costing the equivalent of £4 billion by 2018.


title: Russian Railways

text: In 2015, RZD International won a €1.2 billion contract to electrify the Garmsar–Inche Bourun line in Iran.


title: Russian Railways

text: In August 2015, company president Vladimir Yakunin was dismissed, allegedly because of poor performance and mismanagement. Yakunin was replaced by Oleg Belozyorov.


title: Russian Railways

text: RZD International began works on the reconstruction of the Serbian Vinarci – Djordjevo line in 2016. The Moscow Central Circle railway, designed and managed by Roszheldorproject, an RZD subsidiary, opened in September 2016. In July 2018, the company announced plans to phase out third-class carriages on long-distance trains by 2025.


title: Russian Railways

text: On 24 February 2022, in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, US President Joe Biden announced economic sanctions against several Russian companies, including Russian Railways.


title: Russian Railways

text: On 8 April 2022, the shipping company CMA CGM announced to be acquiring the French logistics company Gefco SA from Russian Railways and minority shareholder Stellantis.


title: Russian Railways

text: On 11 April 2022, the "Wall Street Journal" and Reuters reported that the International Swaps and Derivatives Association had determined a "failure to pay" credit event occurred on 250 million CHF worth of Swiss franc loan participation notes linked to an entity related to Russian Railways, RZD Capital. The determination is considered the first step to triggering a credit default swap.


title: Russian Railways

text: In March 2016, RZD approved an updated version of high-speed rail development program until 2030. The 5 trillion ruble program includes the construction of Moscow–Kazan–Yekaterinburg, Moscow–Adler and Moscow–Saint Petersburg high-speed lines, as well as other high-speed lines connecting regional cities.


title: Russian Railways

text: The construction program is divided into three stages. Until 2020 Russian Railways plans to put into operation the high-speed rail sections linking Moscow–Kazan (1.2 trillion rubles), Moscow–Tula (268.6 billion rubles), Chelyabinsk–Yekaterinburg (122.6 billion rubles), Tula–Belgorod (86.8 billion rubles), Yekaterinburg–Nizhny Tagil (12.9 billion rubles) and Novosibirsk–Barnaul (62.3 billion rubles). The project design of the largest container port in Ust-Luga for reception and distribution of containerized freight on China–Europe route is also part of the program.


title: Russian Railways

text: Between 2021 and 2025 RZD plans to build Rostov–Krasnodar–Adler, Tula–Voronezh high-speed rail and the extension of Kazan-Yelabuga high-speed rail, as well as other regional high-speed rail links.


title: Russian Railways

text: During the 2026–2030 third phase of the program, Russian Railways will build Moscow–Saint Petersburg high-speed rail section; the railway line will be extended from Yelabuga to Yekaterinburg, and from Voronezh to Rostov-on-Don.


title: Russian Railways

text: In March 2015, at a meeting of the Russian Academy of Science, Vladimir Yakunin presented an ambitious new transport route called the Trans-Eurasian Belt Development (TEPR) which would go "through Russia with a mega road and high-speed rail network to link Asia with Europe' and with the opportunity to go to Chukotka and Bering Strait and then to the American continent" to Alaska, "making overland trips from Britain to the US (via the Channel Tunnel) a possibility."


title: Russian Railways

text: The Russian Federation is the founder and sole shareholder of JSC Russian Railways. On behalf of its shareholders the powers are exercised by the Government of the Russian Federation. It approves the president of the company, forms the board of directors annually and approves the annual reports.


title: Russian Railways

text: The Chairman of the Board of Directors of JSC Russian Railways is Oleg Belozerov. Before him, the position was occupied by Kirill Androsov from September 2011 till June 2015., and previously by Alexander Zhukov – from 20 July 2004 to September 2011 and Viktor Khristenko – from 16 October 2003 – 20 July 2004.


title: Russian Railways

text: Gennady Fadeev was President of JSC Russian Railways from 23 September 2003 – 14 June 2005. He was succeeded by Vladimir Yakunin – from 14 June 2005 to 20 August 2015. Oleg Belozyorov has been president of the company since 20 August 2015.


title: Russian Railways

text: The main activities of Russian Railways involve freight and passenger traffic. In Russia, railways carry 42% of the total cargo traffic, and about 33% of passenger traffic. Some passenger categories, such as pensioners, members of parliament, and holders of Soviet and Russian state decorations, receive free or subsidized tickets.


title: Russian Railways

text: In 2013 railways carried nearly 90% of Russia's freight, excluding pipelines. In 2014, railway infrastructure and locomotive services accounted for 74% of the company's total revenue.


title: Russian Railways

text: Russian Railways has a near-monopoly on long-distance train travel, with its subsidiary, Federal Passenger Company, accounting for 90% of total passenger turnover in 2017. Passenger transportation accounted for 10.6% of the company's revenue in 2017. The long-distance passenger fleet includes 19,386 rail cars as of 2017, with an average age of 19.1 years. Over 60% of long-distance passengers travel in third-class sleeping carriages.


title: Russian Railways

text: The long-distance rail passenger business is under increasing competition from airlines, due to their aggressive domestic pricing policies and generally shorter travel times for routes under 1,000 km. International rail passenger traffic dropped from 19.4 million passengers in 2013 to 6.8 million in 2017.


title: Russian Railways

text: In 2005–2010, JSC Russian Railways has launched a program to introduce new high-speed trains. The first train, "Sapsan", commenced service in December 2009 and connects Saint Petersburg, Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod and is operated with trains manufactured by the German company Siemens.


title: Russian Railways

text: The second train, "Allegro", has run from Saint Petersburg to Helsinki via Vyborg since December 2010 and is owned and operated together with the Finnish VR Group.


title: Russian Railways

text: "Sapsan" was the most successful passenger train of JSC Russian Railways with occupancy rate of 84.5% (according to RZD in 2010) and profitability of 30% (although capital costs were not included in its calculation).


title: Russian Railways

text: Passenger tariffs (except for travelling in the stateroom, sleeping and VIP-cars) are approved by the State, represented by the Federal Tariff Service with social orientation of its traffic operations below cost. Passenger fare is divided into two components: «ticket» (which includes the cost of transport infrastructure, locomotive traction and the Station component) and «reserved seat» (service of transport company, which is the owner of the car). Since 2003, the flexible schedule tariffs (FST) to travel on long-distance trains is used:


title: Russian Railways

text: FST is calculated in such a way as to stimulate passengers to undertake a trip on the date with the lowest index. In 2010 and 2011, the average weighted index for calendar periods was 0.97 and the average volume of passenger traffic – 1.00.


title: Russian Railways

text: According to the JSC Russian Railways statement, the passenger transportation – except for some highly profitable directions – is unprofitable. These losses are partly compensated from the budget, and for the most part – with the help of cross-subsidies by income from freight.


title: Russian Railways

text: Since 2009, the company is not a direct carrier of suburban passengers. Suburban transport is now operated by passenger companies founded by the executive agencies of the Russian Federation, Russian Railways and private investors. As of 2016, there are 25 suburban passenger companies (SPC), and Russian Railways owns a majority stake in 19 of them.


title: Russian Railways

text: Especially for the SPC a zero tariff for the use of railway infrastructure was introduced. Russian Railways receives 25 billion rubles subsidies as compensation annually from the State. Commuter traffic in the whole network increased in 2011 on 5.6% and is about 878.33 million people. Passenger turnover rail in the Russian regions ranges from 5% to 30% in total passenger traffic.


title: Russian Railways

text: Since its establishment in 2003, Russian Railways sponsoring FC Lokomotiv Moscow in the Russian Premier League.


title: Russian Railways

text: Since February 2016 Russian Railways is the sponsor of Rodina Kirov, a bandy team in the Russian Bandy Super League.


title: Russian Railways

text: As of 31 December 2009, the total operational length of railway is 85 281 km, including the track gauge of – 84 446 km, the length of continuous welded rails 74.4 thousand km, the railway network operated by 166 975 switches, 138 tunnels and 30,727 bridges.


title: Russian Railways

text: The length of lines equipped with automatic block (AB) and centralized control, is 62,055 km, or 72.9%. Devices of railway automation and remote control on the Russian railway network served with 203 distance signaling, centralization and blocking and with one technical center of automation and remote control.


title: Russian Railways

text: Traction rolling stock includes diesel locomotives, electric locomotives, electric trains, diesel trains, railcars, railway handcar, other self-propelled equipment and non-tractive rolling stock – different cars (passenger, freight) and a special rolling stock.


title: Russian Railways

text: At the end of 2012, the rolling stock inventory included 20,618 locomotives, including 2,543 electric passenger locomotives, 578 diesel passenger locomotives, 7,837 electric freight locomotives, 3,556 diesel freight locomotives, 6,104 shunting locomotives.


title: Russian Railways

text: In 2017 RZD purchased 459 locomotives, including four EP1M, 13 EP2K, 19 TEP70BS and four EP20 passenger units, as well as 84 2ES6, 10 2ES10, 51 2ES5K, 45 3ES5K, four 3ES4K, 86 2TE25KM, and five 4ES5K freight units.


title: Russian Railways

text: In 2013, the RZD holding owned 252,900 freight cars, including 54,200 owned directly by Russian Railways, with the rest owned by company subsidiaries and affiliates, such as Federal Freight and TransContainer.


title: Russian Railways

text: In 2011, freight traffic of Russian Railways totaled about 1.4 billion tons. Passenger traffic for the year 2011 reached 992.4 million people.


title: Russian Railways

text: The average salary on the network in October 2011 – 31 thousand rubles a month. Loading volume for the year 2012 amounted to 1 billion 274.7 million tons (+2.7% compared to 2011), the share in the total turnover of the country (except pipelines) — 85.5%. In 2012, the network carried 1 bln 56.7 million passengers (+6.4% compared to 2011). Net income from the basic activities using Russian GAAP was in 2012 almost 5.3 billion rubles, which is a decrease compared to 2011 (13.7 billion rubles) of almost 3 times.


title: Russian Railways

text: In total, Russian Railways receives 112 billion roubles (around US$1.5 billion) annually from the government.


title: Vivendi Games

text: Vivendi Games was an American video game publisher and holding company based in Los Angeles. It was founded in 1996 as CUC Software, the publishing subsidiary of CUC International, after the latter acquired video game companies Davidson & Associates and Sierra On-Line. Between 1997 and 2001, the company switched parents and names multiple times before ending up organized under Vivendi Universal (later renamed Vivendi). On July 10, 2008, Vivendi Games merged with Activision to create Activision Blizzard.


title: Vivendi Games

text: On February 21, 1996, CUC International announced its intention to acquire Davidson & Associates (including Blizzard Entertainment) and Sierra On-Line, two American video game companies, in a stock swap. The deal closed on July 24, 1996. CUC International previously only operated membership shopping clubs, wherefore analysts were surprised by the company's move into the software industry.


title: Vivendi Games

text: Subsequently, following the acquisitions, CUC International established CUC Software around the Torrance, California-based operations of Davidson & Associates to oversee the new video game properties. Under that new umbrella, both Davidson & Associates and Sierra On-Line would act independently from CUC International. Bod Davidson, co-founder of Davidson & Associates, became chairman and chief executive of the new establishment. On November 5 that year, CUC International announced that they would additionally acquire Knowledge Adventure, another developer, in a stock deal valued between and . The acquisition was completed on February 3, 1997. On February 10, Davidson announced that he had stepped down from his positions at CUC Software, and that his wife, Jan, ceased as president of Davidson & Associates, while both Davidsons stayed on CUC International's board of directors. Christopher McLeod, an executive vice-president for CUC International, took over CUC Software in Bob Davidson's place. In April 1997, CUC International acquired Berkeley Systems for an undisclosed sum.


title: Vivendi Games

text: On May 28, 1997, CUC International announced plans to merge with Hospitality Franchise Systems to create a single, "one-stop" entity. The merger was finalized in December that year and created Cendant. As a result of the merger, CUC Software was renamed Cendant Software.