title: 2020 Polish presidential election

text: Duda and Trzaskowski both refused to take part in debates at each other's preferred media outlet and a proposal from Duda and supported by Trzaskowski to hold a joint debate hosted by TVP, Polsat and TVN was rejected by TVP Director Jacek Kurski.


title: 2020 Polish presidential election

text: As there was no outright winner in the first round, the top two candidates - Andrzej Duda and Rafał Trzaskowski - advanced to the second round. Szymon Hołownia and Krzysztof Bosak placed third and fourth respectively. Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz and Robert Biedroń both underperformed expectations taking the fifth and sixth place.


title: 2020 Polish presidential election

text: In the second round, there was a close race between Duda and Trzaskowski. Duda had a slight lead in 9:00 pm exit polls which gave him 50.4% of the vote to Trzaskowski's 49.6%. This was within the 2% margin of error leading to the pollster Ipsos announcing the race to be too close to call. Duda's vote share eventually amounted to 51.03%, securing his reelection.


title: 2020 Polish presidential election

text: After voting had ended, Andrzej Duda invited Rafał Trzaskowski to the Presidential Palace to "shake hands" and "end the campaign". Trzaskowski rejected and said that they could meet after announcing the official election results. The next day, Trzaskowski congratulated Duda on his victory.


title: 2020 Polish presidential election

text: US President Donald Trump, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Lega Nord leader and former Italian Minister of the Interior Matteo Salvini, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Czech President Miloš Zeman, Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky congratulated Duda on his victory.


title: 2020 Polish presidential election

text: Observers viewed the election results as illustrating a divided Polish society. They also predicted that PiS would continue pursuing its policies in a number of areas and clashing with the EU. Duda performed strongest among older, rural, and eastern voters.


title: 2020 Polish presidential election

text: The Civic Platform party challenged results of the elections to the Polish Supreme Court, alleging irregularities and biased coverage by the state television. The appeal includes complaints from 2,000 people, containing accusations of problems with voter registry, ballot papers not being sent in time as well as issues with voting abroad. The TVP public broadcaster did not broadcast a single meeting of Trzaskowski with voters. Press.pl, a media-monitoring service, found that, between 3 and 16 June, nearly 97% of Wiadomości news stories devoted to Duda were positive while almost 87% of those on Trzaskowski were negative.


title: 2020 Polish presidential election

text: The Supreme Court ruled the election valid, stating that doubts about the television's honesty notwithstanding, TVP was not the only media source available for voters, and that voters were free to choose what media to watch.


title: 2020 Polish presidential election

text: The OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights investigated the election and found that it was "administered professionally despite the lack of legal clarity." The ODIHR also reported that the presidential campaign "was characterized by negative and intolerant rhetoric further polarizing an already adversarial political environment. [...] the TVP [public broadcaster] failed in its legal duty to provide balanced and impartial coverage. Instead, it acted as a campaign vehicle for the incumbent and frequently portrayed his main challenger as a threat to Polish values and national interests. Some of the reporting was charged with xenophobic and anti-Semitic undertones."


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: The 2005 United States Grand Prix (officially the 2005 Formula 1 United States Grand Prix) was a Formula One motor race held on June 19, 2005, at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and was the ninth race of the 2005 Formula One World Championship. The event is one of the most notorious motor races in motor sports history. Out of the 20 cars that entered the race, only the six cars from the teams using Bridgestone tyres (Ferrari, Jordan and Minardi) competed. The remaining fourteen entrants, all using Michelin tyres, completed the formation lap, but retired to the pit lane before the race started.


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: Following several tyre failures before the race, which caused major accidents for Ralf Schumacher's Toyota during Friday practice and then for his Toyota stand-in Ricardo Zonta, Michelin advised its seven customer teams that without a reduction in speed in Turn 13, the tyres provided for the race would only be safe for 10 laps. Michelin had been providing working tyres for the race since 2001. The situation was worsened by the 2005 Formula One rules, which forbade tyre changes during the race, and a repave of the oval portion of the course after the 2004 Brickyard 400.


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: The Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), the sport's governing body, refused a compromise proposal from Michelin to allow a chicane to be installed, maintaining that such rule changes would be grossly unfair to the Bridgestone-shod teams, who had come prepared with properly working tyres, and that a last-minute change to the track layout would be dangerous in case of crashes. The Michelin teams, unable to come to a compromise with the FIA, decided not to participate. It was later stated that the Michelin-shod teams could have potentially exposed themselves to criminal liability under Indiana state law had they competed. It was also thought that since Bridgestone also provided tyres to the two Indy Racing League series (IndyCar Series and Infiniti Pro Series) via its Firestone brand, and had encountered issues during testing that caused them to return with different IndyCar tyres, it understood better the loads the Formula One tyres would be under. Thus, Bridgestone was able to provide a safe tyre.


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: Of the six competitors, Ferrari's Michael Schumacher was the eventual winner, with his teammate Rubens Barrichello finishing second. The result moved Schumacher to third in the World Drivers' Championship—no driver above him in driver championship points took part in the race. The final race result was the lowest number of finishing entries ever seen in a major open-wheel motorsports event at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway since the institution of the 500-Mile Race (surpassing the previous record low of seven finishers in 1966, a race marred by a major first lap accident that eliminated a full third of the starting field). The situation created enormous negative publicity for the sport of Formula One, especially in the United States, a market in which Formula One had struggled to establish itself over the preceding twenty years.


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: The race was the 9th of the 19 rounds in the 2005 Formula One World Championship, and the sixth to be held at the 13-turn Indianapolis Motor Speedway infield road course, located in Speedway, Indiana. It took place on June 19, 2005, and was formally called the XXXIV Foster's United States Grand Prix. Before the event, Renault driver Fernando Alonso led the World Drivers' Championship with 59 points, ahead of McLaren's Kimi Räikkönen with 37 points and Toyota's Jarno Trulli with 27 points. Nick Heidfeld of Williams was fourth with 25 points and Ferrari's Michael Schumacher was fifth with 24 points. Renault with 76 points led McLaren in second on 63 points at the top of the World Constructors' Championships. Williams and Toyota were tied for third with 47 points each and Ferrari were fifth with 45 points.


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: The bottom 6 teams in the 2004 Constructors' Championship were entitled to run a third car in free practice on Friday. These drivers drove on Friday but did not compete in qualifying or the race.


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: The qualifying session for the United States Grand Prix was held on June 18. During the session, each competitor recorded one timed lap with the running sequence set by the results of the previous Grand Prix reversed. All non-classified drivers were sorted according to how many laps they completed, with the one with the highest number going out last. Trulli achieved pole position by posting the fastest lap time, 1 minute, 10.625 seconds. Trulli, driving for Toyota, was the team's first driver to claim a pole position for a Formula One race. The second-place qualifier was Räikkönen, followed by Jenson Button, Giancarlo Fisichella, and Michael Schumacher. Alonso qualified in sixth, while the rest of the top ten consisted of Rubens Barrichello, Takuma Sato, Mark Webber, and Felipe Massa.


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: During the afternoon's practice session on June 17, 2005, Ralf Schumacher, driving for Toyota, crashed badly in Turn 13 of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, as a result of a left-rear tyre failure. He was unable to continue racing, and was replaced for the rest of the weekend by the team's test driver, Ricardo Zonta, who himself suffered a left-rear tyre failure during practice as well. Schumacher had crashed in the same spot as a result of a tyre failure the previous year, while driving for the Williams team, which led to a broken back.


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: Turn 13 on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course was a high-speed banked turn, unique at the time in Formula One racing, which causes a greater than usual tyre loading. This section of the track had been repaved since the previous Grand Prix with a more abrasive surface which may have placed the tyres under even greater load than before. On June 18, Michelin reported that it did not understand why the tyres it had provided for its seven customer teams – BAR, McLaren, Red Bull, Renault, Sauber, Toyota, and Williams – had failed in this turn, and announced its intention to fly in tyres of a different specification from its Clermont-Ferrand headquarters. The replacement tyres flown in, which were of the type used in the earlier that year, turned out to have the same problem when tested.


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: In a letter to FIA Race Director Charlie Whiting dated June 18, Michelin representatives Pierre Dupasquier and Nick Shorrock revealed that they did not know the cause of the Toyota tyre failures, and unless the cars could be slowed down in Turn 13, they could not guarantee the tyres' safety for more than 10 laps.


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: Whiting replied on Sunday, June 19, expressing his surprise that Michelin had not brought suitable tyres, suggesting that the teams should limit their drivers to the maximum safe speed specified by Michelin in Turn 13. He also addressed several solutions which had been proposed by the teams, insisting that use of the new specification tyres flown in overnight would be "a breach of the rules to be considered by the stewards", and the placement of a chicane in the turn was "out of the question" – the race would not be sanctioned by the FIA (making it a non-championship race) if the track layout was changed. He deemed the Michelin teams' proposals to be "grossly unfair" to the Bridgestone teams.


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: In a second letter, also dated June 18, Dupasquier and Shorrock confirmed that they would not permit their teams to race on the Michelin tyres used during qualification without changes to the circuit, and reiterated their request to slow down Turn 13. Whiting's brief reply maintained that no such change would be permitted, and gave the teams the choice of limiting speeds through Turn 13, using tyres of a different specification to those used in qualifying, subject to a penalty, or changing tyres repeatedly, which would have been permitted if a driver's safety were at issue.


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: Paul Stoddart, then owner of Minardi, a team using Bridgestone tyres, published an account on June 22, of the events leading up to the race. Stoddart recorded a meeting around 10:00am on the day of the race, to which Speedway president Tony George, two senior Michelin representatives, Bernie Ecclestone (president and CEO of Formula One Management and Formula One Administration), the team principals, and the teams' Michelin technical representatives were summoned. All invited were present except Jean Todt, Team Principal of Scuderia Ferrari. The Michelin representatives stated their position that the tyres provided to the teams could not safely complete the race distance, and requested that the Bridgestone teams, represented by Stoddart and Jordan's Colin Kolles, permit the installation of a chicane in Turn 13. Those present discussed and agreed to reject the FIA's solution of speed-limiting the Michelin cars in the turn because of the potential for accidents. They likewise dismissed the possibility of making pit stops every ten laps, resolved that a chicane was the best solution, and instructed several technical representatives to prepare plans for its installation. Bernie Ecclestone offered to consult Todt, who had not come to the meeting, and the president of the FIA, Max Mosley, who was not present at the race, and reconvene the meeting when he had responses.


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: Ecclestone returned at about 10:55 to inform the group that Todt had refused to agree to the chicane, maintaining that it was an FIA and a Michelin problem and not his. By the time Stoddart's account of the meeting was published, Todt had already denied that he had ever been consulted, but stated that, if asked, he would not have agreed to the chicane. Furthermore, Ecclestone reported that Mosley had "stated that if any attempts were made to alter the circuit, he would cancel the Grand Prix forthwith".


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: The group, according to Stoddart, continued to propose alternative solutions, including "a non-championship race, or a race in which the Michelin teams could not score points, and even a race whereby only the Michelin teams used the new chicane", but eventually agreed that the best option was to install the chicane and run a non-championship race, without Ferrari if necessary. To ignore the FIA's instructions and carry on the race would have resulted in the FIA's withdrawing its staff, so the group appointed delegates to fill the various offices, including a race director to replace Charlie Whiting and a safety car driver to replace Bernd Mayländer. The team principals were instructed to convey to their teams and drivers that, in the absence of FIA scrutineers and equipment, the technical rules could not be enforced, and that they were to conduct themselves honourably and in the interest of an entertaining race.


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: They proceeded to summon the twenty drivers and present their plan. Of the drivers' opinions, Stoddart writes: "While I cannot testify that each and every driver agreed with what we were proposing, what I can say with certainty is that no driver disagreed." The Ferrari drivers expressed no opinion in the matter, leaving the decision to Todt, who was not present. The nine team principals who were present then resolved that, unless they and the FIA could come to a decision in the best interest of the sport, they would not participate in the race.


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: After a short break, the group gathered again in Ecclestone's office to find Renault team principal Flavio Briatore on the phone with Max Mosley. Mosley had apparently rejected all of their proposals, and it was stated that "Mosley had informed Mr. Martin, the FIA's most senior representative in the USA, that if any kind of non-championship race was run, or any alteration made to the circuit, the US Grand Prix, and indeed, all FIA-regulated motorsport in the US, would be under threat". On the same day that Stoddart's version of events was published, the FIA issued a statement denying that Mosley had made the reported threat, or that any such conversation had taken place.


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: Having exhausted their options, the Michelin team principals, Stoddart, and Bernie Ecclestone – but not Jordan's Colin Kolles – discussed whether their cars should proceed to the grid, and decided that they should participate in the formation lap but that they could not race. Stoddart asked Kolles if he would be allowing his cars to take part and was informed that Jordan would indeed be racing, despite having previously agreed not to. Stoddart was then approached by a Bridgestone representative and told that Bridgestone wanted him to race; he has also stated that given his "current relationship with Mr Mosley, [he] felt certain heavy sanctions would follow if [he] did not [race]." Stoddart too decided to allow his drivers to start, but reported that he would retire them if the Jordans did not finish the race.


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: At the start of the race, all the cars lined up on the grid per FIA race procedure. As Charlie Whiting signalled the green light to start the formation lap, a full field of twenty cars set off as normal for a single lap before forming the starting grid. At the banked Turn 13, the entrance to the pit lane (and the turn that was the centre of the controversy), all teams that ran Michelin tyres returned to their pit box areas, leaving just six cars from the three Bridgestone teams (Ferrari, Jordan, and Minardi) to start the race.


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: The move by the teams, to come to the grid and then pull out after the formation lap into the pit lane, infuriated the fans, who did not know about the plan. BBC Radio broadcaster Maurice Hamilton said of the event, "Without question, it was the strangest race I commentated on in F1." Because of the retirement of the drivers who qualified ahead of them, Michael Schumacher and his Ferrari teammate, Barrichello, were the foremost starters, though using the grid positions they had qualified in; the pair were followed by Tiago Monteiro and Narain Karthikeyan, both driving for Jordan. Rounding out the remaining field of six were Christijan Albers and Patrick Friesacher of Minardi. Schumacher retained the lead when the race started, and the only changes in positioning came when Albers overtook Karthikeyan but lost the position again later on in the race. The two Ferrari drivers quickly built a significant lead over their rivals. By lap 10, many of the estimated 100,000 to 130,000 attendees had begun to leave the grandstands. Thousands of fans were reported to have gone to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway ticket office to demand refunds, and police were called to keep the peace. Boos were heard throughout the race, and some upset fans threw beer cans and water bottles on the track.


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: The race was a story of pit strategy, as the only passing on the circuit was of lapped traffic. Albers was the only car to run a three pit stop race, as all other drivers chose to stop only twice. The only lead changes came on lap 26, as Schumacher's 32-second stop gave Barrichello the lead, and on lap 51, as Schumacher turned in the quickest pit stop at 23.615 seconds, giving him enough time to exit pit lane at the same time as Barrichello, with the result of forcing Barrichello into the grass of Turn One. After this incident, which was not investigated by race officials, both Ferrari drivers were reminded over their radios not to crash out of the race, and they both settled into a slower pace, comfortably ahead of the rest of the field. Schumacher ended up with the victory his 84th career win and 4th win overall in the US Grand Prix and the 3rd consecutive win in this event. He finished ahead of Barrichello who was 2nd 1.522 seconds behind. Monteiro and Karthikeyan finished 3rd and 4th respectively, more than a lap down. The Minardis of Albers and Friesacher were fifth and sixth, two laps behind the race winner. All four of the drivers for Jordan and Minardi scored their first points in Formula One at this race. Karthikeyan's points were the first for an Indian driver in Formula One. This was also the final race at which the Minardi team tallied points.


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: At the podium ceremony, at which none of the scheduled dignitaries were present, all Ferrari team members quietly accepted their awards, and quickly exited. Monteiro stayed behind to celebrate his first and only podium finish, and the first for a Portuguese driver.


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: The win, Schumacher's only victory of 2005, moved him from fifth to third in the World Drivers' Championship. Alonso and Räikkönen remained first and second in the championship standings, with 59 and 37 points respectively, while Schumacher moved up to 34 points. With his second-place finish, Barrichello went into fourth in the drivers championship, with 29 points, and Trulli dropped to fifth with 27 points. The Ferrari team moved into joint second in the Constructors' Championship, matching McLaren with 63 points; both teams trailed Renault, which retained the lead with 76 points. Both Jordan and Minardi scored points, moving out of a tie with BAR-Honda at the bottom of the constructors' standings. The result of the race were overshadowed by the withdrawal of the Michelin-shod teams, and by the inability to find a solution which would have allowed them to race.


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: Bernie Ecclestone, in answer to a question by ITV's Martin Brundle in an interview just before the start of the race, described the future of Formula One in the United States and the future of Michelin in the sport as "not good". He also said that the "incident's not the fault of the teams, to be honest with you".


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: The race was labelled a farce, and David Coulthard said that "it throws into doubt the future of the race in US". Associated Press writer Stephen Wade pointed to the boycott as an extension of previous disagreements between the teams and Max Mosley, which had led to the threatened creation of a rival series as an alternative to Formula One. "The Guardian" Richard Williams considered the prior disputes a factor in the failure to reach a compromise and felt that the events at this race had increased the risk of a complete rupture.


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: Minardi boss Paul Stoddart was noticeably angry with the FIA both during and after the race, calling the race a "farce". He would go on to say that the points battle between Jordan Grand Prix and Minardi was ruined during an interview during the race, saying "This is fucking crazy! The FIA needs to get a grip with itself and sort this sport out before there's no fucking sport to sort out... The championship's over for Minardi. We were only fighting Jordan. This bullshit race [means] that the season finishes here. We can't ever overtake the points from today!.. It's over!... It's screwed up the little fight between Minardi and Jordan that was getting quite good." After the race, Stoddart would admit immediately that nine teams – all but Ferrari – agreed not to race, and had Jordan not reversed its decision at the last minute, Minardi would also have boycotted the race. In his later, lengthier, statement, he indicated that although it had been Michelin's failure to provide a reliable tyre which had initiated the events, he laid the full blame for the failure to reach some accommodation (which would have allowed a race to happen, for the benefit of the many fans who had paid considerable money for travel and tickets) to Mosley and the FIA, with a small share of the blame going to what he characterized as the obstructionist Ferrari team leader, Jean Todt. He furthermore called for Mosley's resignation.


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: The following day, the FIA published a justification of its refusal to permit a change in tyres or the installation of a chicane. It contended that Formula One operated under "clear rules" which could not be altered when a team "brings the wrong equipment to a race". It further claimed that a chicane would have resulted in the race being run on a track that had been significantly altered "without following any of the modern safety procedures", which would have exposed FIA to significant legal liability in the event of an accident.


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: The FIA also summoned the seven Michelin-shod teams before the World Motor Sport Council at their headquarters in France, for a hearing on June 29, to explain their failure to participate, by which they had presumably violated the terms of the Concorde Agreement. It later published copies of the letters sent to each team "in the interests of transparency".


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: They were charged with violating article 151c of the International Sporting Code, which refers to "acts prejudicial to the interests of competition or motorsport generally". Specifically, it was charged that they had:


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: On June 22 the FIA produced a press release from Max Mosley, in the form of a question-and-answer session, in an effort to clarify the FIA's stand on the controversy. In it Mosley drew an analogy to a hypothetical situation where the engines from one manufacturer had oil starvation problems due to high lateral loading in one corner, and pointed out that those cars would simply have been forced to run slower as a result. He reiterated that the reason for not installing the chicane was purely that it had never been tested and was thereby deemed unsafe. He pointed out that the alternatives that the FIA suggested were feasible, and wondered why the teams did not use the pitlane as an alternative, especially when, with only six Bridgestone cars, the Michelin teams could still compete for the points scoring seventh and eighth places.


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: On June 29 the FIA World Motor Sport Council found the teams guilty of not being in possession of suitable tyres, "but with strong mitigating circumstances", and failure to allow their cars to start the race. The teams were found not guilty of the other three counts. The punishment was not decided, and was not to have been announced until September 14.


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: On July 22, the FIA World Motor Sport Council voted to overturn its previous decision, and exonerated the Michelin teams of all charges. The decision was due to "evidence previously submitted to the FIA Senate". According to BBC Sport, Dennis and Red Bull principal Christian Horner told Mosley and the FIA Senate that Indiana state law left the Michelin teams no option but to pull out of the race. They contended that had they competed, they potentially faced criminal charges for knowingly putting others at risk even if no accident actually occurred.


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: Horner later stated in an interview that whilst it was "incredibly difficult" pulling out of the race, "there were things going on that were bigger than the sport that day".


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: On June 28, Michelin announced that it would offer compensation to all race fans who had purchased tickets for the Grand Prix. The company planned to issue refund cheques through the Speedway ticket office for the price of all tickets for the race by the end of September. Additionally, Michelin purchased 20,000 tickets for the 2006 United States Grand Prix to be distributed to spectators who attended the 2005 race.


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: In addition to the refunded tickets, there was some discussion about holding a second, non-championship race at Indianapolis. On July 2, at the 2005 French Grand Prix, McLaren team principal Ron Dennis suggested that an additional race could be held at the American circuit after the last official race of the season, in Shanghai. The teams had, apparently, already discussed the idea with Bernie Ecclestone. But the next day Tony George dismissed the possibility: "There will be no race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway this fall."


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: At the 2005 Champ Car World Series Grand Prix of Cleveland, held one week after the US Grand Prix, free admission was granted to all bearers of ticket stubs of the US Grand Prix.


title: 2005 United States Grand Prix

text: Teams that were not in the top four of the 2004 Constructors' Championship standings were entitled to run a third car in free practice on Friday. These drivers drove on Friday but did not compete in qualifying or the race, with the exception of Ricardo Zonta, who replaced Ralf Schumacher after his practice accident.


title: Ziziphus mauritiana

text: Ziziphus mauritiana, also known as Indian jujube, Indian plum, Chinese date, Chinese apple, ber, and dunks is a tropical fruit tree species belonging to the family Rhamnaceae. It is often confused with the closely related Chinese jujube ("Z. jujuba"), but whereas "Z. jujuba" prefers temperate climates, "Z. mauritiana" is tropical to subtropical.


title: Ziziphus mauritiana

text: "Ziziphus mauritiana" is a spiny, evergreen shrub or small tree up to 15 m high, with trunk 40 cm or more in diameter; spreading crown; stipular spines and many drooping branches. The fruit is of variable shape and size. It can be oval, obovate, oblong or round, and can be 1-2.5 in (2.5-6.25 cm) long, depending on the variety. The flesh is white and crisp. When slightly underipe, this fruit is a bit juicy and has a pleasant aroma. The fruit's skin is smooth, glossy, thin but tight.


title: Ziziphus mauritiana

text: The species is believed to have originated in Indo-Malaysian region of South-East Asia. It is now widely naturalised throughout the Old World tropics from Southern Africa through the Middle East to the Indian Subcontinent and China, Indomalaya, and into Australasia and the Pacific Islands. It can form dense stands and become invasive in some areas, including Fiji and Australia and has become a serious environmental weed in Northern Australia. It is a fast-growing tree with a medium lifespan, that can quickly reach up to 10–40 ft (3 to 12 m) tall.


title: Ziziphus mauritiana

text: "Ziziphus mauritiana" is a medium-sized tree that grows vigorously and has a rapidly developing taproot, a necessary adaptation to drought conditions. The species varies widely in height, from a bushy shrub 1.5 to 2 m tall, to a tree 10 to 12 m tall with a trunk diameter of about 30 cm. "Z. mauritiana" may be erect or wide-spreading, with gracefully drooping thorny branches, zigzag branchlets, thornless or set with short, sharp straight or hooked spines.


title: Ziziphus mauritiana

text: The leaves are alternate, ovate or oblong elliptic with rounded apex, with 3 depressed longitudinal veins at the base. The leaves are about 2.5 to 3.2 cm long and 1.8 to 3.8 cm wide having fine tooth at margin. It is dark-green and glossy on the upper side and pubescent and pale-green to grey-green on the lower side. Depending on the climate, the foliage of the "Z. mauritiana" may be evergreen or deciduous.


title: Ziziphus mauritiana

text: The flowers are tiny, yellow, 5-petalled and are usually in twos and threes in the leaf axils. Flowers are white or greenish white and the fruits are orange to brown, 2–3 cm long, with edible white pulp surrounding a 2-locular pyrene.


title: Ziziphus mauritiana

text: This quick growing tree starts producing fruits within three years. The fruit is a soft, juicy, drupe that is 2.5 cm diameter, though in some cultivars the fruit size may reach up to 6.25 cm long and 4.5 cm wide. The form may be oval, obovate, round or oblong; the skin smooth or rough, glossy, thin but tough. The fruit ripen at different times even on a single tree. Fruits are first green, turning yellow as they ripen. The fully mature fruit is entirely red, soft, juicy with wrinkled skin and has a pleasant aroma. The ripe fruit is sweet and sour in taste. Both flesh texture and taste are reminiscent of apples. When under ripe the flesh is white and crispy, acid to subacid to sweet in taste. Fully ripe fruits are less crisp and somewhat mealy; overripe fruits are wrinkled, the flesh buff-coloured, soft, spongy and musky. At first the aroma is apple like and pleasant but it becomes peculiarly musky when overripe. There is a single, hard, oval or oblate, rough central stone which contains 2 elliptic, brown seeds, 1/4 in (6mm) long.


title: Ziziphus mauritiana

text: "Ziziphus mauritiana" is a hardy tree that copes with extreme temperatures and thrives under rather dry conditions with an annual rainfall of 6 to 88.5 in (15–225 cm). In Fiji, sometimes naturalised Ber trees grow along roadsides and in agricultural land, usually near sea level but occasionally up to an elevation of about 600 m. It also grows well on laterite, medium black soils with good drainage, or sandy, gravelly, alluvial soil of dry river-beds where it is vigorously spontaneous. In Australia, this species grows on a wide variety of soil types, including cracking clays, solodic soils and deep alluvials, in the tropics and sub-tropics where the average annual rainfall is in the range 470-1200mm. In the drier parts of this range, it grows best in riparian zones. Commercial cultivation usually extends up to 1000 m. Beyond this elevation trees do not perform well, and cultivation becomes less economical.


title: Ziziphus mauritiana

text: The tree has a high tolerance to both water-logging and drought and can grow where annual rainfall ranges from 125 to 2,225 mm, but is more widespread in areas with an annual rainfall of 300 to 500 mm. In China and India, wild trees are found up to an elevation of 5,400 ft (1,650 m). In India, the minimum shade temperature for survival is 7–13° and the maximum temperature is 50 °C. Studies report that this species flourishes in alkaline soils with a pH as high as 9.2. However, deep sandy loam to loamy soils with neutral or slightly alkaline pH are considered optimum for growth. In India, the tree grows best on sandy loam, neutral or slightly alkaline.


title: Ziziphus mauritiana

text: Some cultivars attain anthesis early in the morning, others do so later in the day. The flowers are protandrous. Hence, fruit set depends on cross-pollination by insects attracted by the fragrance and nectar. Pollen of the Indian jujube is thick and heavy. It is not airborne but is transferred from flower to flower by honeybees. The flowers are pollinated by ants and other insects, and in the wild state the trees do not set fruits by self-pollination. Best propagates by seeds, seedlings, direct sowing, root suckers as well as by cuttings. Ber seeds are spread by birds, native animals, stock, feral pigs and humans who eat the fruit and expel the seeds. Seeds may remain viable for 2½ years but the rate of germination declines with age. Cross-incompatibility occurs, and cultivars have to be matched for good fruit set; some cultivars produce good crops parthenocarpically.


title: Ziziphus mauritiana

text: "Ziziphus mauritiana" is one of the two "Ziziphus" species that have considerable horticulture importance, the other being Chinese jujube ("Z. jujuba"). Indian jujube ("Z. mauritiana") is more tropical, whereas Chinese jujube is a more cold hardy species.


title: Ziziphus mauritiana

text: In India, there are 90 or more cultivars, varying in the habit of the tree; leaf shape; fruit form, size, color, flavor and keeping quality; and fruiting season. Among the important cultivars, eleven are described in the encyclopaedic "Wealth of India": 'Banarasi (or Banarsi) Pewandi', 'Dandan', 'Kaithli' ('Patham'), 'Muria Mahrara', 'Narikelee', 'Nazuk', 'Sanauri 1', 'Sanauri 5', 'Thornless' and 'Umran' ('Umri'). The skin of most is smooth and greenish-yellow to yellow.


title: Ziziphus mauritiana

text: Propagation is most commonly from seed, where pretreatment is beneficial. Storage of the seed for 4 months to let it after-ripen improves germination. The hard stone restricts germination and cracking the shell or extraction of seeds hastens germination. Without pretreatment the seeds normally germinate within six weeks whereas extracted seeds only need one week to germinate.


title: Ziziphus mauritiana

text: Seedlings to be used as rootstock can be raised from seed. Several studies indicate that germination can be improved by soaking seeds in sulfuric acid. Germination time can also be shortened to 7 days by carefully cracking the endocarp. Ber seedlings do not tolerate transplanting, therefore the best alternatives are to sow the seeds directly in the field or to use polythene tubes placed in the nursery bed. Seedlings are ready for budding in 3 to 4 months. In addition, seedlings from the wild cultivars can be converted into improved cultivars by top-working and grafting. Nurseries are used for large scale seedling multiplication and graft production. The seedlings should also be given full light. The seedlings may need as long as 15 months in the nursery before planting in the field.


title: Ziziphus mauritiana

text: Scientists in India have standardised propagation techniques for Ber establishment. Budding is the easiest method of vegetative propagation used for improved cultivars. Different types of budding techniques have been utilised with ring-budding and shield-budding being the most successful. Wild varieties of ber are usually used as the root-stock. The most common being Z. rotundifolia in India and Z. spina-christi in Africa.


title: Ziziphus mauritiana

text: Plants are capable of seed production once they reach a height of about 1 metre. Wild-growing plants in northern Australia may take 8 years to reach this size. In Australia, plants growing under natural conditions are capable of producing seeds once they reach a height of about 1m. Plants between 1 and 2m high produce, on average, less than five fruits per season. Large plants (>5m high) can produce 5000 or more fruits in a single season.


title: Ziziphus mauritiana

text: In India, some types ripen as early as October, others from mid-February to mid-March, others in March, or mid-March, to the end of April. In the Assiut Governorate, there are 2 crops a year, the main in early spring, the second in the fall. In India the trees flower in July to October and fruits are formed soon after. In February–March the fruits are mature and in some places a second crop is produced in the fall. Pickings are done by hand from ladders and about 110 lbs (50 kg)is harvested per day. The fruits remaining on the tree are shaken down. Only fully mature fruits are picked directly from the tree. They are transported in open bags to avoid fermentation.


title: Ziziphus mauritiana

text: Seedling trees bear 5,000 to 10,000 small fruits per year in India. Superior grafted trees may yield as many as 30,000 fruits. The best cultivar in India, with fruits normally averaging 30 to the lb (66 to the kg), yields 175 lbs (77 kg) annually. Special cultural treatment increases both fruit size and yield.


title: Ziziphus mauritiana

text: The major production regions for Indian jujube are the arid and semi arid regions of India. From 1984 to 1995 with improved cultivars the production was 0.9 million tonnes on a land of 88,000 ha. The crop is also grown in Pakistan, Bangladesh and parts of Africa. Trees in northern India yield 80 to 200 kg of fresh fruit/tree/year when the trees are in their prime bearing age of 10–20 years.


title: Ziziphus mauritiana

text: The fruit is eaten raw, pickled or used in beverages. It is quite nutritious and rich in vitamin C. It is second only to guava and much higher than citrus or apples. In India, the ripe fruits are mostly consumed raw, but are sometimes stewed. Slightly underripe fruits are candied by a process of pricking, immersing in a salt solution. Ripe fruits are preserved by sun-drying and a powder is prepared for out-of-season purposes. It contains 20 to 30% sugar, up to 2.5% protein and 12.8% carbohydrates. Fruits are also eaten in other forms, such as dried, candied, pickled, as juice, or as ber butter. In Ethiopia, the fruits are used to stupefy fish.


title: Ziziphus mauritiana

text: In India and Queensland, the flowers are rated as a minor source of nectar for honeybees. The honey is light and of fair flavor.


title: Ziziphus mauritiana

text: Ber timber is hard, strong, fine-grained, fine-textured, tough, durable, and reddish in colour. It has been used to line wells, to make legs for bedsteads, boat ribs, agricultural implements, tool handles, and other lathe-turned items. The branches are used as framework in house construction and the wood makes good charcoal with a heat content of almost 4,900 kcal per kg. In addition, this species is used as firewood in many areas. In tropical Africa, the flexible branches are wrapped as retaining bands around conical thatched roofs of huts, and are twined together to form thorny corral walls to retain livestock.


title: Ziziphus mauritiana

text: The fruits are applied on cuts and ulcers; are employed in pulmonary ailments and fevers; and, mixed with salt and chili peppers, are given in indigestion and biliousness. The dried ripe fruit is a mild laxative. The seeds are sedative and are taken, sometimes with buttermilk, to halt nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pains in pregnancy. They check diarrhea, and are poulticed on wounds. Mixed with oil, they are rubbed on rheumatic areas. The leaves are applied as poultices and are helpful in liver troubles, asthma and fever and, together with catechu, are administered when an astringent is needed, as on wounds. The bitter, astringent bark decoction is taken to halt diarrhea and dysentery and relieve gingivitis. The bark paste is applied on sores. The root is purgative. A root decoction is given as a febrifuge, taenicide and emmenagogue, and the powdered root is dusted on wounds. Juice of the root bark is said to alleviate gout and rheumatism. Strong doses of the bark or root may be toxic. An infusion of the flowers serves as an eye lotion.


title: Ziziphus mauritiana

text: The fatty-acid methyl ester of "Z. mauritiana" seed oil meets all of the major biodiesel requirements in the USA (ASTM D 6751-02, ASTM PS 121-99), Germany (DIN V 51606) and European Union (EN 14214). The average oil yield is 4.95 kg oil/tree or 1371 kg oil/hectare, and arid or semi-arid regions may be utilised due to its drought resistance.


title: Ziziphus mauritiana

text: The greatest enemies of the jujube are fruit flies. Some cultivars are much more susceptible than others, the flies preferring the largest, sweetest fruits. 100% of those may be attacked, while on a neighbouring tree bearing a smaller, less-sweet type, only 2% of the crop may be damaged. The larvae pupate in the soil and it has been found that treatment of the ground beneath the tree helps reduce the problem. Control is possible with regular and effective spraying of insecticide.


title: Ziziphus mauritiana

text: A leaf-eating caterpillar and the green slug caterpillar attack the foliage. Mites form scale-like galls on twigs, retarding growth and reducing the fruit crop. Lesser pests include a small caterpillar, "Meridarches scyrodes", that bores into the fruit.


title: Ziziphus mauritiana

text: The tree is subject to shrouding by a parasitic vine . Powdery mildew causes defoliation and fruit-drop, but it can be adequately controlled. Lesser diseases are sooty mould, brown rot and leaf-spot. Leafspot results from infestation by "Cercospora" spp. and "Isariopsis indica" var. "zizyphi". In 1973, a witches'-broom disease caused by a mycoplasma-like organism was found in jujube plants near Poona University. It proved to be transmitted by grafting or budding diseased scions onto healthy "Z. mauritiana" seedlings. Leaf rust, caused by "Phakopsora zizyphivulgaris", ranges from mild to severe on all commercial cultivars in the Punjab.


title: Ziziphus mauritiana

text: In storage, the fruits may be spotted by fungi. Fruit rots are caused by "Fusarium" spp., "Nigrospora oryzae", "Epicoccum nigrum", and "Glomerella cingulata".


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: The United States diplomatic cables leak, widely known as Cablegate, began on Sunday, 28 November 2010 when WikiLeaks began releasing classified cables that had been sent to the U.S. State Department by 274 of its consulates, embassies, and diplomatic missions around the world. Dated between December 1966 and February 2010, the cables contain diplomatic analysis from world leaders, and the diplomats' assessment of host countries and their officials.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: On 30 July 2013, Chelsea Manning was convicted for theft of the cables and violations of the Espionage Act in a court martial proceeding and sentenced to thirty-five years imprisonment. She was released on 17 May 2017, after seven years total confinement, after her sentence had been commuted by President Barack Obama earlier that year.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: The first document, the so-called Reykjavik 13 cable, was released by WikiLeaks on 18 February 2010, and was followed by the release of State Department profiles of Icelandic politicians a month later. Later that year, Julian Assange, WikiLeaks' editor-in-chief, reached an agreement with media partners in Europe and the United States to publish the rest of the cables in redacted form, removing the names of sources and others in vulnerable positions. On 28 November, the first 220 cables were published under this agreement by "El País" (Spain), "Der Spiegel" (Germany), "Le Monde" (France), "The Guardian" (United Kingdom), and "The New York Times" (United States). WikiLeaks had planned to release the rest over several months, and as of 11 January 2011, 2017 had been published.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: The remaining cables were published in September 2011 after a series of events compromised the security of a WikiLeaks file containing the cables. This included WikiLeaks volunteers placing an encrypted file containing all WikiLeaks data online as "insurance" in July 2010, in case something happened to the organization. In February 2011 David Leigh of "The Guardian" published the encryption passphrase in a book; he had received it from Assange so he could access a copy of the Cablegate file, and believed the passphrase was a temporary one, unique to that file. In August 2011, German weekly Der Freitag published some of these details, enabling others to piece the information together and decrypt the Cablegate files. The cables were then available online, fully unredacted. In response, WikiLeaks decided on 1 September 2011 to publish all 251,287 unedited documents.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: The publication of the cables was the third in a series of U.S. classified document leaks distributed by WikiLeaks in 2010, following the Afghan War documents leak in July, and the Iraq War documents leak in October. Over 130,000 of the cables are unclassified, some 100,000 are labeled "confidential", around 15,000 have the higher classification "secret", and none are classified as "top secret" on the classification scale.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: Reactions to the leak in 2010 varied. Western governments expressed strong disapproval, while the material generated intense interest from the public and journalists. Some political leaders referred to Assange as a criminal, while blaming the U.S. Department of Defense for security lapses. Supporters of Assange referred to him in November 2010 as a key defender of free speech and freedom of the press. Reaction to the release in September 2011 of the unredacted cables attracted stronger criticism, and was condemned by the five newspapers that had first published the cables in redacted form in November 2010.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: In June 2010, the magazine "Wired" reported that the U.S. State Department and embassy personnel were concerned that Chelsea Manning, a United States Army soldier charged with the unauthorized download of classified material while stationed in Iraq, had leaked diplomatic cables. WikiLeaks rejected the report as inaccurate: "Allegations in "Wired" that we have been sent 260,000 classified U.S. embassy cables are, as far as we can tell, incorrect".


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: However, during that same month (June 2010), "The Guardian" had been offered "half a million military dispatches from the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq. There might be more after that, including an immense bundle of confidential diplomatic cables", and Alan Rusbridger, the editor of "The Guardian" had contacted Bill Keller, editor of "The New York Times", to see if he would be interested in sharing the dissemination of the information.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: Manning was suspected to have uploaded all that was obtained to WikiLeaks, which chose to release the material in stages so as to have the greatest possible impact.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: According to "The Guardian", all the diplomatic cables were marked "Sipdis", denoting "secret internet protocol distribution", which means they had been distributed via the closed U.S. SIPRNet, the U.S. Department of Defense's classified version of the civilian internet. More than three million U.S. government personnel and soldiers have access to this network. Documents marked "top secret" are not included in the system. Such a large quantity of secret information was available to a wide audience because, as "The Guardian" alleged, after the 11 September attacks an increased focus had been placed on sharing information since gaps in intra-governmental information sharing had been exposed. More specifically, the diplomatic, military, law enforcement, and intelligence communities would be able to do their jobs better with this easy access to analytic and operative information. A spokesman said that in the previous weeks and months additional measures had been taken to improve the security of the system and prevent leaks.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: On 22 November, an announcement was made via WikiLeaks' "Twitter" feed that the next release would be "7× the size of the Iraq War Logs". U.S. authorities and the media had speculated, at the time, that they could contain diplomatic cables. Prior to the expected leak, the government of the United Kingdom (UK) sent a DA-Notice to UK newspapers, which requested advance notice from newspapers regarding the expected publication. Index on Censorship pointed out that "there is no obligation on [the] media to comply". Under the terms of a DA-Notice, "[n]ewspaper editors would speak to [the] Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee prior to publication". "The Guardian" was revealed to have been the source of the copy of the documents given to "The New York Times" in order to prevent the British government from obtaining any injunction against its publication. The Pakistani newspaper "Dawn" stated that the U.S. newspapers "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post" were expected to publish parts of the diplomatic cables on 28 November, including 94 Pakistan-related documents.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: On 26 November, Assange sent a letter to the U.S. Department of State, via his lawyer Jennifer Robinson, inviting them to "privately nominate any specific instances (record numbers or names) where it considers the publication of information would put individual persons at significant risk of harm that has not already been addressed". Harold Koh, the Legal Adviser of the Department of State, rejected the proposal, stating: "We will not engage in a negotiation regarding the further release or dissemination of illegally obtained U.S. Government classified materials". Assange responded by writing back to the U.S. State Department that "you have chosen to respond in a manner which leads me to conclude that the supposed risks are entirely fanciful and you are instead concerned to suppress evidence of human rights abuse and other criminal behaviour". Ahead of the leak, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other American officials contacted governments in several countries about the impending release.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: The five newspapers that had obtained an advance copy of all leaked cables began releasing the cables on 28 November 2010, and WikiLeaks made the cables selected by these newspapers and redacted by their journalists available on its website. "They are releasing the documents we selected", "Le Monde"s managing editor, Sylvie Kauffmann, said in an interview.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: WikiLeaks aimed to release the cables in phases over several months due to their global scope and significance. The first batch of leaks released comprised 220 cables. Further cables were subsequently made available on the WikiLeaks website. The full set of cables published by WikiLeaks can be browsed and searched by a variety of websites.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: The contents of the U.S. diplomatic cables leak describe in detail events and incidents surrounding international affairs from 274 embassies dating from 28 December 1966 to 28 February 2010. The diplomatic cables revealed numerous unguarded comments and revelations: US diplomats gathering personal information about Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, and other top UN officials; critiques and praises about the host countries of various U.S. embassies, discussion and resolutions towards ending ongoing tension in the Middle East, efforts for and resistance against nuclear disarmament, actions in the War on Terror, assessments of other threats around the world, dealings between various countries, U.S. intelligence and counterintelligence efforts, U.S. support of dictatorship and other diplomatic actions.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: The leaked cables revealed that diplomats of the U.S. and Britain eavesdropped on Secretary General Kofi Annan in the weeks before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, in apparent violation of international treaties prohibiting spying at the UN. The intelligence information the diplomats were ordered to gather included biometric information (which apparently included DNA, fingerprints, and iris scans), passwords, and personal encryption keys used in private and commercial networks for official communications. It also included Internet and intranet usernames, e-mail addresses, web site URLs useful for identification, credit card numbers, frequent flier account numbers, and work schedules. The targeted human intelligence was requested in a process known as the National Humint Collection Directive, and was aimed at foreign diplomats of US allies as well. WikiLeaks released the cable on 28 November 2010.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: The Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative was contained in a February 2009 diplomatic cable to the U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, which was leaked, redacted and released by WikiLeaks in 2010. On 6 December 2010, the BBC called it "one of the most sensitive" leaks. WikiLeaks removed only a minority of the details of names and locations, and left the rest uncensored; details of the exact location of the assets were not included in the list. The list included critical facilities for the global supply chain, global communications, and economically important goods and services.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: An investigation into two senior Zimbabwe army commanders who communicated with US Ambassador Charles A. Ray was launched, with the two facing a possible court martial. On 14 September the Committee to Protect Journalists said that an Ethiopian journalist named in the cables was forced to flee the country but WikiLeaks accused the CPJ of distorting the situation "for marketing purposes". Al Jazeera replaced its news director, Wadah Khanfar, on 20 September after he was identified in the cables. The naming of mainland China residents reportedly "sparked an online witch-hunt by Chinese nationalist groups, with some advocating violence against those now known to have met with U.S. Embassy staff." US officials said the damage caused was limited.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: One of the leaked documents included comments sent to the US State Department by Philip Alston, United Nations special rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions regarding the Ishaqi incident. Alston stated that US forces handcuffed and executed the residents of a house on 15 March 2006. The residents included five children under 5 years of age. Autopsies later confirmed that "all the corpses were shot in the head and handcuffed". The US said their troops had been fired on when they approached the house and the people were killed by a support air raid. A US inquiry three months later determined that the soldiers had acted according to the rules of engagement in taking down a safe house. The Iraqi government then said they would open an inquiry. In September 2011, the Iraqi government said they would reopen their investigation into the incident as a result of the publication of the cable. Iraqi officials said that the cable was sufficient cause to deny the Americans any bases and demand that all troops leave.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: "The Guardian" released its coverage of the leaked cables in numerous articles, including an interactive database, starting on 28 November.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: "Der Spiegel" also released its preliminary report, with extended coverage promised for the next day. Its cover for 29 November was also leaked with the initial report.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: "The New York Times" initially covered the story in a nine-part series spanning nine days, with the first story published simultaneously with the other outlets. "The New York Times" was not originally intended to receive the leak, allegedly due to its unflattering portrayal of the site's founder, but "The Guardian" decided to share coverage, citing earlier cooperation while covering the Afghan and Iraqi war logs.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: "The Washington Post" reported that it also requested permission to see the documents, but was rejected for undisclosed reasons.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: "El País" released its report saying there was an agreement between the newspapers for simultaneous publication of the "internationally relevant" documents, but that each newspaper was free to select and treat those documents that primarily relate to its own country.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: Several of the newspapers coordinating with WikiLeaks have published some of the cables on their own websites.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: The Swedish newspapers "Svenska Dagbladet" and "Aftonbladet" started reporting on the leaks in early December 2010. In Norway "Verdens Gang" ("VG") brought the first leaks concerning the United States and the Norwegian government on 7 December.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: "Aftenposten", a Norwegian daily newspaper, reported on 17 December 2010 that it had gained access to the full cable set of 251,287 documents. While it is unclear how it received the documents, they were apparently not obtained directly from WikiLeaks. "Aftenposten" started releasing cables that are not available in the official WikiLeaks distribution. , it had released just over one hundred cables unpublished by WikiLeaks, with about a third of these related to Sri Lanka, and many related to Norway.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: "Politiken", a Danish daily newspaper, announced on 8 January 2011 that it had obtained access to the full set of cables.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: "NRC", a Dutch daily newspaper, and RTL Nieuws, a Dutch television news service, announced on 14 January 2011 that they had gained access to the about 3,000 cables sent from The Hague, via Aftenposten. "NOS" announced on the same day that it had obtained these same cables from WikiLeaks.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: "Die Welt", a German daily newspaper, announced on 17 January 2011 that they had gained access to the full set of cables, via Aftenposten.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: Australian-based Fairfax Media obtained access to the cables under a separate arrangement. Fairfax newspapers began releasing their own stories based on the leaked cables on 7 December 2010. Unlike other newspapers given access, Fairfax originally had not posted any of the original cables online, citing the need to maintain its competitive advantage over other Australian newspapers. However, on 16 December 2010, Fairfax reversed its position, and began publishing the cables used in its stories.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: The Russian weekly newspaper "Russky Reporter" ("") has published a large number of cables, both in English and in Russian translation.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: The Cuban government-run website Razones de Cuba started publishing Spanish translations of WikiLeaks documents on 23 December 2010.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: The Costa Rican newspaper "La Nación" announced on 1 March 2011 it had received 827 cables from WikiLeaks which it started publishing the next day. 764 of these were sent from the U.S. Embassy in San José while 63 were sent from other embassies and deal with Costa Rican affairs.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: CNN was originally supposed to receive an advance copy of the documents as well, but did not after it refused to sign a confidentiality agreement with WikiLeaks. "The Wall Street Journal" also refused advance access, apparently for similar reasons as CNN.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: The Ecuadorian newspaper "El Universo" started releasing 343 cables related to the Ecuadorian government and institutions on 6 April 2011. The publication was done the day after the Spanish newspaper "El País" published a cable in which the ambassador Heather Hodges showed concerns regarding corruption in the Ecuadorian National Police, especially of Gral. Jaime Hurtado Vaca, former Police commander. The ambassador was later declared "persona non grata" and was requested to leave the country as soon as possible.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: In August 2010, Assange gave "Guardian" journalist David Leigh an encryption key and a URL where he could locate the full Cablegate file. In February 2011, shortly before Domscheit-Berg's book appeared, Leigh and Luke Harding, another "Guardian" journalist, published "" via Guardian Books. In it, Leigh revealed the encryption key Assange had given him.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: The encrypted file was placed in a hidden sub-folder on the WikiLeaks web server on which it had been placed to aid in transferring the file from WikiLeaks to Leigh and not removed due to oversight. When the WikiLeaks website experienced denial-of-service attacks, mirror sites were setup and supporters created and shared a compressed BitTorrent of the entire site, including the hidden sub-folder. On 25 August 2011, the German magazine "Der Freitag" published an article about it, and while it left out the crucial details, there was enough to allow others to begin piecing the information together. The story was also published in the Danish newspaper "Dagbladet Information" and the US Embassy in London and the US State Department were notified the same day.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: On 29 August, WikiLeaks published over 130,000 unredacted cables. On 31 August, WikiLeaks tweeted a link to a torrent of the encrypted data. By 1 September, the encrypted Cablegate file had been decrypted and published by Cryptome. On 2 September, WikiLeaks published unredacted copies of all of the cables on their website.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: According to Glenn Greenwald, WikiLeaks decided that the "safest course was to release all the cables in full, so that not only the world's intelligence agencies but everyone had them, so that steps could be taken to protect the sources and so that the information in them was equally available." According to "The Guardian", it includes more than 1,000 cables containing the names of individual activists, and around 150 identifying whistleblowers.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: At Julian Assange's extradition hearing, Professor Christian Grothoff said that the unredacted cables were published by Cryptome a day before WikiLeaks, so WikiLeaks was not the primary publisher. In a statement introduced by Assange's lawyers, Cryptome's owner, John Young, stated that Cryptome has never been asked by US law enforcement to remove the unredacted cables and that they remain online.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: On 2 September 2011, Australia's attorney general, Robert McClelland released a statement that the unredacted cables identified at least one ASIO officer, and that it was a crime in Australia to publish information which could identify an intelligence officer. McClelland said that "On occasions before this week, WikiLeaks redacted identifying features where the safety of individuals or national security could be put at risk. It appears this hasn't occurred with documents that have been distributed across the internet this week." According to The Guardian at the time, this meant "Julian Assange could face prosecution in Australia."


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: About an hour prior to the planned release of the initial documents, WikiLeaks announced it was experiencing a massive distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS), but vowed to still release the cables and documents via pre-agreed prominent media outlets "El País", "Le Monde", "Der Spiegel", "The Guardian", and "The New York Times".


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: According to Arbor Networks, an Internet-analyst group, the DDoS attack accounted for between two and four gigabits per second (Gbit/s) of additional traffic to the WikiLeaks host network, compared to an average traffic of between twelve and fifteen Gbit/s under ordinary conditions. The attack was slightly more powerful than ordinary DDoS attacks, though well below the maximum of 60 to 100 Gbit/s of other major attacks during 2010. The attack was claimed to have been carried out by a person by the name of "Jester", who describes himself as a "hacktivist". Jester took credit for the attack on Twitter, stating that WikiLeaks "threaten[ed] the lives of our troops and 'other assets'".


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: On 2 December 2010, EveryDNS, who provide a free DNS hosting service, dropped WikiLeaks from its entries, citing DDoS attacks that "threatened the stability of its infrastructure", but the site was copied and made available at many other addresses, an example of the Streisand effect.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: John Perry Barlow, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, wrote a tweet saying: "The first serious infowar is now engaged. The field of battle is WikiLeaks. You are the troops."


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: Amazon.com removed WikiLeaks from its servers on 1 December 2010 at 19:30 GMT, and the latter website was unreachable until 20:17 GMT when the site had defaulted to its Swedish servers, hosted by Bahnhof.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman, among the members of the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee who had questioned Amazon in private communication on the company's hosting of WikiLeaks and the illegally obtained documents, commended Amazon for the action; WikiLeaks, however, responded by stating on its official Twitter page that "WikiLeaks servers at Amazon ousted. Free speech the land of the free—fine our $ are now spent to employ people in Europe", and later that "If Amazon are so uncomfortable with the first amendment, they should get out of the business of selling books".


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: On 2 December 2010, Tableau Software withdrew its visualizations from the contents of the leak, stating that it was directly due to political pressure from Joe Lieberman.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: On 6 December, the Swiss bank PostFinance announced that it had frozen the assets of Assange; on the same day, MasterCard stopped payments to WikiLeaks, with Visa following them on 7 December.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: Official efforts by the U.S. government to limit access to, conversation about, and general spread of the cables leaked by WikiLeaks were revealed by leading media organizations. A 4 December 2010 article by MSNBC reported that the Obama administration had warned federal government employees and students in educational institutions studying towards careers in public service that they must refrain from downloading or linking to any WikiLeaks documents. However, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley denied ordering students, stating, "We do not control private networks. We have issued no authoritative instructions to people who are not employees of the Department of State." He said the warning was from an "overzealous employee." According to a 3 December 2010 article in "The Guardian", access to WikiLeaks has been blocked for federal workers. The U.S. Library of Congress, the U.S. Commerce Department and other government agencies have confirmed that the ban is already in place.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: A spokesman for Columbia University confirmed on 4 December that its Office of Career Services sent an e-mail warning students at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs to refrain from accessing WikiLeaks cables and discussing this subject on the grounds that "discourse about the documents would call into question your ability to deal with confidential information". However, this was quickly retracted on the following day. SIPA Dean John Henry Coatsworth wrote that "Freedom of information and expression is a core value of our institution, ... thus, SIPA's position is that students have a right to discuss and debate any information in the public arena that they deem relevant to their studies or to their roles as global citizens, and to do so without fear of adverse consequences."


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: "The New York Times" reported on 14 December that the U.S. Air Force bars its personnel from access to news sites (such as those of "The New York Times" and "The Guardian") that publish leaked cables.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: In response to perceived federal and corporate censorship of the cable leaks, internet group Anonymous launched DDoS attacks on several websites. So far, the websites of the Swedish prosecutor, PostFinance (the Swiss post-office banking company), MasterCard and Visa have all been targeted.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: The websites of the government of Zimbabwe were targeted by Anonymous with DDoS attacks due to censorship of the WikiLeaks documents. The websites of the government of Tunisia were targeted by Anonymous due to censorship of the WikiLeaks documents and the Tunisian revolution. Tunisians were reported to be assisting in these denial-of-service attacks launched by Anonymous. Anonymous's role in the DDoS attacks on the Tunisian government's websites has led to an upsurge of internet activism among Tunisians against the government. Anonymous released an online message denouncing the government clampdown on recent protests and posted it on the Tunisian government website. Anonymous has named their attacks "Operation Tunisia". Anonymous successfully DDoSsed eight Tunisian government websites. They plan attacks in Internet Relay Chat networks. Someone attacked Anonymous's website with a DDoS on 5 January.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: On 9 December 2010, major Pakistani newspapers (such as "The News International", "The Express Tribune" and the "Daily Jang") and television channels carried stories that claimed to detail U.S. diplomats' assessments of senior Indian generals as "vain, egotistical and genocidal", also saying "India's government is secretly allied with Hindu fundamentalists", and that "Indian spies are covertly supporting Islamist militants in Pakistan's tribal belt and Balochistan." However, none of the cables revealed any such assessments. The claims were credited to an Islamabad-based news service agency that frequently ran pro-Pakistan Army stories.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: Later, "The News International" admitted the story "was dubious and may have been planted", and "The Express Tribune" offered "profuse" apologies to readers. Urdu-language papers such as the "Daily Jang", however, declined to retract the story.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: On 14 December 2010, a U.S. federal court subpoenaed Twitter for extensive information regarding WikiLeaks, but also put on a gagging order. The order was said to be part of an "ongoing criminal investigation", and required information regarding the Twitter accounts of WikiLeaks, Assange, Manning, Rop Gonggrijp, Jacob Appelbaum, and Birgitta Jonsdottir. According to Glenn Greenwald, the court "gave Twitter three days to respond and barred the company from notifying anyone, including the users, of the existence of the Order." Twitter requested that it be allowed to notify the users, giving them ten days to object. The court order was unsealed on 5 January 2011, and Jonsdottir decided to publicly fight the order.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: Elected representatives of Iceland have declared such actions by the U.S. government "serious", "peculiar", "outlandish", and akin to heavy breathing on the telephone. The published subpoena text demands "you are to provide ... subscriber names, user names ... mailing addresses, residential addresses, business addresses ... telephone number[s] ... credit card or bank account number[s] ... billing records", "as well as 'destination email addresses and IP addresses". As of 10 January 2011, there were 636,759 followers of the WikiLeaks Twitter feed with destination email addresses and IP addresses.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: The cable leaks have been pointed to as a catalyst for the 2010–2011 Tunisian revolution and government overthrow. "Foreign Policy" magazine said, "We might also count Tunisia as the first time that WikiLeaks pushed people over the brink." Additionally, "The New York Times" said, "The protesters ... found grist for the complaints in leaked cables from the United States Embassy in Tunisia, released by WikiLeaks, that detailed the self-dealing and excess of the president's family."


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: It is widely believed that the Tunisian revolution then spread to other parts of the Middle East, turning into the Arab Spring.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: After the unredacted cables became available online, WikiLeaks added them to their searchable database. The release was condemned by WikiLeaks' media partners, the Guardian, New York Times, El Pais, Der Spiegel and Le Monde, who said it put sources at risk of dismissal, detention and physical harm. The organisations published a joint statement that WikiLeaks disputed.We deplore the decision of WikiLeaks to publish the unredacted state department cables, which may put sources at risk. Our previous dealings with WikiLeaks were on the clear basis that we would only publish cables which had been subjected to a thorough joint editing and clearance process. We will continue to defend our previous collaborative publishing endeavour. We cannot defend the needless publication of the complete data – indeed, we are united in condemning it. The decision to publish by Julian Assange was his, and his alone.The publication was also condemned by Reporters Without Borders and the Index On Censorship. After the publication, Reporters Without Borders temporarily suspended their WikiLeaks mirror and criticized the group, saying the decision could put journalists in danger.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: Glenn Greenwald commented that it was "a disaster from every angle" and criticised WikiLeaks, "The Guardian" 's David Leigh, and Open Leaks' Daniel Domscheit-Berg. According to Greenwald, "it's possible that diplomatic sources identified in the cables (including whistleblowers and human rights activists) will be harmed; this will be used by enemies of transparency and WikiLeaks to disparage both and even fuel efforts to prosecute the group; it implicates a newspaper, The Guardian, that generally produces very good and responsible journalism; it likely increases political pressure to impose more severe punishment on Bradley Manning if he's found guilty of having leaked these cables; and it will completely obscure the already-ignored, important revelations of serious wrongdoing from these documents." Greenwald and other commentators have agreed with WikiLeaks' rationale for the release of unredacted cables.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: Leigh was criticized by several commentators, including Glenn Greenwald, who called the publication of the password "reckless", arguing that, even if it had been a temporary one, publishing it divulged the type of passwords WikiLeaks was using. WikiLeaks said it was pursuing pre-litigation action against "The Guardian" for an alleged breach of a confidentiality agreement. Leigh disclaimed responsibility for the release, saying Assange had assured him the password would expire hours after it was disclosed to him. Mark Davis, a journalist who was present while Assange worked with the media during the publication of the Afghan War logs, said that claims that Assange was callous about harm that might be caused by disclosures were lies, and that if there was a cavalier attitude it was the Guardian journalists who had a disdain for the impact of the material.


title: United States diplomatic cables leak

text: A Defense Department spokesman criticised WikiLeaks over it, saying "what we have said all along about the danger of these types of things is reinforced by the fact that there are now documents out there in unredacted form containing the names of individuals whose lives are at risk because they are named. Once WikiLeaks has these documents in its possession, it loses control and information gets out whether they intend [it] to or not."


title: In flagrante delicto

text: In flagrante delicto (Latin for "in blazing offence") or sometimes simply in flagrante ("in blazing") is a legal term used to indicate that a criminal has been caught in the act of committing an offence (compare ). The colloquial "caught " and "caught rapid" are English equivalents.


title: In flagrante delicto

text: Aside from the legal meaning, the Latin term is often used colloquially as a euphemism for someone being caught in the midst of sexual activity.


title: In flagrante delicto

text: The phrase combines the present active participle "flagrāns" (flaming or blazing) with the noun "dēlictum" (offence, misdeed, or crime). In this term the Latin preposition "in", not indicating motion, takes the ablative. The closest literal translation would be "in blazing offence", where "blazing" is a metaphor for vigorous, highly visible action.


title: In flagrante delicto

text: In many Latin American countries, being caught "in flagrante" () is a common legal requirement for both detention and search and seizure. Naturally, being caught "in flagrante" makes convictions easier to obtain; in some jurisdictions where the police are not adept at investigation and the use of forensic science is not widespread, it may be difficult to get a conviction any other way. On occasion, governments with such constitutional requirements have been accused of stretching the definition of "in flagrante" in order to carry out illegal arrests. In Brazil, a member of the National Congress cannot be arrested unless caught "in flagrante delicto" of a non-bailable crime, and whether or not a member's detention should continue is decided by their parliamentary peers.


title: In flagrante delicto

text: In Japan, the phrase's translation, , is used to refer to citizen's arrest, and is listed under Section 213 of the Code of Criminal Procedure as such.


title: Nicole Holofcener

text: Nicole Holofcener (; born March 22, 1960) is an American film and television director and screenwriter. She has directed six feature films, including "Walking and Talking", "Friends with Money" and "Enough Said", as well as various television series. Along with Jeff Whitty, Holofcener received a 2019 Academy Award nomination for Adapted Screenplay and won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the film "Can You Ever Forgive Me?" (2018).


title: Nicole Holofcener

text: Holofcener was born to a culturally Jewish family in New York City, the younger of two daughters of artist Lawrence Holofcener and set decorator Carol Joffe (née Shapiro). Her elder sister is Suzanne Holofcener. Nicole's parents divorced when she was a year old. When she was eight, her mother married film producer Charles H. Joffe, who moved the family to Hollywood.


title: Nicole Holofcener

text: Since her stepfather produced Woody Allen's films, Holofcener spent enough time on Allen's sets to be an extra in "Take the Money and Run" and "Sleeper". Joffe was responsible for Holofcener's first "real" job in the movie industry: a production assistant on Woody Allen's "A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy" in 1982. She moved up to apprentice editor for "Hannah and Her Sisters" (1986).


title: Nicole Holofcener

text: Holofcener's first experiences with film as a child left her either frightened or sad; she recalled her fright at Jerry Lewis's "The Nutty Professor". Holofcener originally wanted to become an artist like her father, but felt she wasn't as talented as others in her classes at Sonoma State University. From there, she gravitated into taking film courses. She studied film at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and at Columbia University, and made two shorts titled "Angry" and "It's Richard I Love". While at Columbia, she was taught by Martin Scorsese.


title: Nicole Holofcener

text: After viewing one of her NYU films, her stepfather wondered aloud if she shouldn't make a career change. Disappointed, she became a clerk at a video store for a while, then entered Columbia's graduate film program. At the time of his death in 2008, Charles Joffe had become one of the most ardent fans of his stepdaughter's work. "Angry" received critical praise at Sundance. Holofcener has been viewed as an indie filmmaker despite the financial and critical success of her feature-length films. Many of the conventions of independent film are found in her movies. Many of Holofcener's films are shot on location during their production.


title: Nicole Holofcener

text: Much of Holofcener's work has a realistic style, but her films do not always have a typical plot structure and are sometimes obscure. Holofcener portrays typical, "everyday" middle-class people and their actions, like the characters in "Please Give". Holofcener's films almost always feature a female character in the lead.


title: Nicole Holofcener

text: Holofcener made her feature film writing and directing debut in 1996 with "Walking and Talking", which starred Catherine Keener, Anne Heche, Todd Field, Liev Schreiber, and Kevin Corrigan. The film was critically acclaimed. Her understanding of modern, professional women made her an ideal choice to direct female-centric television shows like "Sex and the City", "Leap of Faith" and "Gilmore Girls". Holofcener also worked on an episode of the U.S. adaptation of "Cold Feet".


title: Nicole Holofcener

text: She followed in 2001 with her second feature, "Lovely and Amazing". Featuring performances by Catherine Keener, Brenda Blethyn, Emily Mortimer and newcomer Raven Goodwin, the film was not only critically acclaimed but did well at the box office.


title: Nicole Holofcener

text: After directing two episodes of the series "Six Feet Under", Holofcener began work on her third film, "Friends with Money", which featured Jennifer Aniston, Joan Cusack, Frances McDormand, and Catherine Keener. The film opened the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, and its screenplay was nominated for the 2006 Independent Spirit Award, while McDormand won the award for Best Supporting Female. The film received a limited release on April 7, 2006.


title: Nicole Holofcener

text: Holofcener's fourth feature, "Please Give", premiered at Sundance and was screened at the Berlin International Film Festival and the Tribeca Film Festival. The film also won Holofcener the Robert Altman Award. The film also gained Holofcener a nomination with the Writers Guild of America Awards for Best Original Screenplay. It stars Keener in the duo's fourth collaboration and was released in 2010. The film also features Oliver Platt, Rebecca Hall, Amanda Peet, and Sarah Steele.


title: Nicole Holofcener

text: Holofcener followed this up with "Enough Said" starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, James Gandolfini, and Catherine Keener. The film premiered at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. The romantic comedy follows the character Eva, a recent divorcée. Eva falls in love unexpectedly and discovers her new love interest is the ex-husband of her friend. To date, "Enough Said" is Holofcener's most financially successful film. The film was officially released on September 20, 2013, a few months after Gandolfini's death.


title: Nicole Holofcener

text: In 2015, it was announced that Holofcener was set to direct an adaptation of Lee Israel's memoir "Can You Ever Forgive Me?", with Julianne Moore in the lead role. However, later that year, Moore was fired by Holofcener, who would later leave her directing role. Eventually Melissa McCarthy was selected for the lead role. The film, ultimately directed by Marielle Heller, was well received by critics after being released on October 19, 2018, garnering Holofcener a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.


title: Nicole Holofcener

text: Amazon's "One Mississippi" featured Holofcener as the director for the pilot. The series was written by Tig Notaro and Diablo Cody. Notaro also starred in the series, which was produced by Louis C.K.


title: Bill Anderson (singer)

text: James William Anderson III (born November 1, 1937), known professionally as Bill Anderson, is an American country music singer, songwriter, and television host. His soft-spoken singing voice was given the nickname "Whispering Bill" by music critics and writers. As a songwriter, his compositions have been covered by various music artists since the late 1950s, including Ray Price and George Strait.


title: Bill Anderson (singer)

text: Anderson was raised in Decatur, Georgia, and began composing songs while in high school. While enrolled in college, he wrote the song "City Lights", which later became a major hit for Ray Price in 1958. His songwriting led to his first recording contract with Decca Records the same year. Anderson began having major hits shortly thereafter. In 1963, he had released his most successful single in his recording career, "Still". The song became a major country pop crossover hit and was followed by a series of top ten hits. These songs included "I Love You Drops", "I Get the Fever" and "Wild Week-End". His songs were being notably recorded by other artists. In 1964, Connie Smith had her first major hit with his composition "Once a Day". In 1971, Cal Smith had a number one single with Anderson's "The Lord Knows I'm Drinking".


title: Bill Anderson (singer)

text: In the 1970s, Anderson continued having major hits as a recording artist as well. Songs including "Love Is a Sometimes Thing", "All the Lonely Women in the World" and "World of Make Believe" became major hits. As the decade progressed his style moved towards the Countrypolitan sub-genre of country music, with songs such as "I Can't Wait Any Longer". He was dropped from his record label in the early 1980s and began a brief career in television which included hosting the game shows "The Better Sex" and "Fandango." Anderson began writing songs again in the early 1990s for the next generation of country performers. Collaborating with other writers, he wrote material that would go on to become hits for Vince Gill, George Strait, Kenny Chesney, and Steve Wariner in the next two decades.


title: Bill Anderson (singer)

text: Anderson also continued recording into the 1990s. In 1998, he released his first major label album in over a decade, entitled "Fine Wine." He continued releasing music through his own TWI record label. This included projects of gospel and bluegrass material. His most recent studio album was released in 2020. In his career as both a writer and performer, he has received awards from the Academy of Country Music, Country Music Association, Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.


title: Bill Anderson (singer)

text: Anderson was born James William Anderson III to Elizabeth and James William Anderson Jr. in Columbia, South Carolina. He was the oldest of two children. His sister, Elizabeth Anderson, was born two years after. Anderson's father was an insurance agent while his mother was a homemaker. He spent his early childhood with his family in Columbia. The family moved to his grandparents' home in Griffin, Georgia, while Anderson was in the third grade. Shortly afterward, the family relocated into their own home in Decatur, Georgia, where he spent the remainder of his childhood. In Decatur, his father opened his own insurance agency firm, which he continued to own until his retirement. In his 2016 autobiography, Anderson described his childhood as "average", recalling that he "never went to bed hungry" even though the family did not have many material possessions.


title: Bill Anderson (singer)

text: In school, Anderson was active in 4-H organizations and played both baseball and football. However, he was most interested in music, having been inspired by his grandparents who played instruments. His interest grew further after watching country musicians perform on a radio station, located directly above his father's insurance company. Anderson soon saved enough money to purchase his own guitar. At age ten, he wrote his first song called "Carry Me Home Texas".


title: Bill Anderson (singer)

text: In high school, Anderson and his friends formed their own band and won a school talent contest. The band began performing around the local area, eventually performing on local radio as "The Avondale Playboys". Anderson's strong interest in baseball continued through high school as well. He became his high school team's pitcher and was scouted to go to the Chicago Cubs training camp. However, Anderson declined the offer after realizing that his family would be upset if he did not attend college. Upon graduating high school, he enrolled at the University of Georgia and majored in journalism.


title: Bill Anderson (singer)

text: Anderson had dabbled with journalism before enrolling in university. While still in high school, he wrote for his school's newspaper and also obtained a job covering sports events for "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution." In his freshman year, he pledged the Kappa Sigma Fraternity. He and several students formed a country band called the "Classic City Playboys" and began playing local events. He also became interested in radio station work after a DJ friend introduced him to some of the controls. "I thought I was Superman. I knew that night I had to get a job as a disc jockey", he recalled.


title: Bill Anderson (singer)

text: Anderson graduated from college in 1959. During his first summer out of college, he got a job working as a rock and roll DJ at WGAU in Athens, Georgia. However, he was fired after playing country records over the air and was then hired at WJJC in Commerce, Georgia. Anderson began songwriting again after obtaining the new position. In Commerce, Anderson wrote the song "City Lights". The song ultimately brought him to Nashville where both his songwriting and recording career began.


title: Bill Anderson (singer)

text: Anderson's own recording career began in 1957 after releasing two singles for the independent label, TNT. Both songs (including his own version of "City Lights") attracted little attention. However, the success brought by Ray Price's version of "City Lights" led Anderson to frequent Nashville, Tennessee. In the city, he brought compositions for artists and producers to record. Owen Bradley of Decca Records was impressed by Anderson's writing and decided to sign him as a recording artist to the label. Anderson officially signed with Decca in the summer of 1958. His early Decca singles were entirely self-composed. Anderson's first Decca released was issued in December 1958 called "That's What It's Like to Be Lonesome". The song became a major hit the following year when it climbed to the number 12 position on the "Billboard" Hot Country and Western Sides chart. He followed this in 1959 with the top 20 hits "Ninety Nine" and "Dead or Alive".


title: Bill Anderson (singer)

text: In 1960, "The Tip of My Fingers" became his first top ten hit on the country chart, reaching number seven in August 1960. The song would later be recorded and made hits individually by Eddy Arnold, Roy Clark, Jean Shepard and Steve Wariner. In 1961, the single "Po' Folks" reached number nine on the "Billboard" country songs chart. The success of "Po' Folks" led Anderson to receive an invitation to join the Grand Ole Opry cast. Anderson accepted and joined the program the same year. He is, as of 2022, the longest-standing active Opry member. This was followed by his first number-one hit, "Mama Sang a Song". It was also his first single to chart on the "Billboard" Hot 100, reaching number 89. Although successful, Anderson's early singles were not initially included on studio album releases. Instead, Decca issued his early hits on the 1962 compilation "Bill Anderson Sings Country Heart Songs."


title: Bill Anderson (singer)

text: By 1963, Anderson's recording career was expanding further. He was frequently touring and making public appearances to promote his music. Anderson was inspired to write his 1963 composition, "Still", after encountering an ex-girlfriend while promoting a song. The same night, he wrote the lyrics to the track on an Underwood typewriter at three o'clock in the morning. "Still" became the biggest single of his recording career. In April 1963, it reached number one on the "Billboard" country and western songs chart. It also became his second single to reach the "Billboard" Hot 100, but was his first (and only) successful crossover hit there, reaching number eight in June 1963. The track was also his first single to become a hit on the "Billboard" easy listening chart, reaching number three that June. The song's success led to the 1963 release of Anderson's debut studio album of the same name. The LP reached number ten on the "Billboard" country albums chart in January 1964 and the top 40 of the Billboard 200 in late 1963.


title: Bill Anderson (singer)

text: The success of "Still" further elevated Anderson's recording career. This included making national television appearances on shows such as "American Bandstand," where he performed his follow-up crossover hit "8×10". He won awards from several major music publications including "Billboard," "Cashbox" and "Music Reporter." He scheduled more concert engagements and made as much as $500 per gig. His success led Decca to record and release studio albums with more frequency. These albums were also successful. His second studio LP, "Bill Anderson Sings" (1964), reached the top ten of the country albums chart. His 1966 studio release reached number one on the same chart. Album releases were fueled by further hit singles, including "Bright Lights and Country Music", "Five Little Fingers" and "Three A.M." Music writers took notice of Anderson's music success as well. "Billboard" magazine called his 1964 album, "Showcase," "a powerful set of performances". Kurt Wolff of the book "Country Music: The Rough Guide" credited his success to a "fairly safe and suburban" musical style.


title: Bill Anderson (singer)

text: His chart hits continued through the 1960s and many of these songs were self-composed. His 1966 release, "I Love You Drops", was inspired by the Chuck Berry hit "Memphis Tennessee". His next self-written release would also become his third number one hit, entitled "I Get the Fever". He had further top ten hits with "Get While the Gettin's Good" and "No One's Gonna Hurt You Anymore". During this time, Anderson formed his own touring band which he named "The Po' Boys" after his 1961 hit. The band frequently received credit on his studio albums and single releases. He also started his own television program called "The Bill Anderson Show," which was taped in Canada and Nashville. In the mid 1960s, he began performing duets with country artist Jan Howard, who was also on Decca Records. Believing they could be a successful recording partnership, the pair approached producer Owen Bradley with the idea of recording together. Bradley agreed and the duo released their first single in 1965. In 1968, the pair had their first major hit with the duet "For Loving You". The song became a number one hit on the "Billboard" country chart and led to several more successful collaborations.