title: Wonderwall Music

text: Reviewing the 2014 "Apple Years" remaster for "Uncut", Richard Williams writes that "Wonderwall Music" represents "an exploded diagram of a Beatles album", which includes "[d]reamy miniature ragas", "a pub knees-up gatecrashed by a Dixieland band ('Drilling A Home')" and "the bones of early acid-rock songs ('Red Lady Too' and 'Party Seacombe')". Williams describes the album as "a treat from start to finish" offering "an innocent optimism that will always be worth a listen".<ref name="Williams/Uncut">Richard Williams, "George Harrison "The Apple Years 1968–75"", "Uncut", November 2014, p. 93.</ref> "New Zealand Herald" critic Graham Reid considers "Dream Scene" to be "by far the most psychedelic and out-there piece by any Beatle to that time", adding that "towards the end you can almost anticipate Lennon's Revolution 9 coming in." Reid describes the album as, variously, "peculiar and terrific" and "one of the most interesting and courageously different of [Harrison's] solo albums". In a review for "Uncut"s "Ultimate Music Guide" issue on Harrison, Jon Dale describes "Wonderwall Music" as "a beguiling, charming snapshot of a moment in time". He says that, in response to the soundtrack restrictions, Harrison skilfully abbreviates the Indian raga form, "somehow capturing an essence, and condensing it to the fleeting, the elemental", while similarly presenting Western experimentalism "cloaked in a velvet glove".


title: Wonderwall Music

text: Author Robert Rodriguez writes that, although the brevity of each selection allowed little opportunity for progression beyond a basic motif, "sonically, the range explored even within the Western cues was astonishing". He adds: "The Indian cuts too were quite varied stylistically, showing open-minded listeners that there was more to the country's music than twanging sitars and thumping tablas." Simon Leng considers "Wonderwall Music" to be "a companion in spirit" to Bill Evans' "Conversations with Myself", due to the doubling of the lead instrument in some of the Indian pieces; he comments on the significance of Harrison recording in India in January 1968: "There were now three Beatles who held firm artistic visions. The group was unraveling in earnest." Leng praises "Dream Scene" in particular, describing it as a "musical acid trip" that "rivals anything on "Sgt. Pepper" for sheer freak-out effect".


title: Wonderwall Music

text: Ian Inglis views "Wonderwall Music" as "an assured and varied collection of music that ... perfectly complemented the juxtaposition of the exotic and the ordinary that Massot's film depicted". Among the selections he highlights as transcending their soundtrack role, Inglis describes "Microbes" as "a beautiful example of Harrison's ability to create forlorn, mournful, yearning soundscapes" and "Greasy Legs" as "a delicate and charming composition". Inglis concludes of Harrison's debut solo album: "it provides a fascinating summary of the myriad patterns of musical activity whose fusions stimulated the growth of psychedelic, underground, and progressive scenes in the late 1960s, and it is a key moment in the development of his preparations for life after the Beatles."


title: Wonderwall Music

text: According to Dale, as the first solo release by a member of the band, "Wonderwall Music" is widely viewed as "the Marco Polo of Beatle solo albums", yet its true historical significance lies in its standing as "one of the first records to really bring Indian classical music into pop and rock, across the entire narrative of an album". Shambhu Das, who subsequently became a teacher and ambassador of Indian music in Canada, recognises the album as having helped inspire Indo–jazz fusion. American film-score composer Quincy Jones once described it as "the greatest soundtrack he had heard", according to Massot's recollection to BBC Radio presenter Spencer Leigh.


title: Wonderwall Music

text: Leng credits "Wonderwall Music" with having established Harrison as "a pioneer in fusing global music", and Madinger and Easter similarly view it as "an early example of what would eventually become known as 'World Music': the mixing of Western music with other types from around the globe". In his book "The Dawn of Indian Music in the West", Peter Lavezzoli describes the album as "a charming potpourri of Indian and Western sounds"; he considers Harrison to be a principal figure in the introduction of Indian music to Western audiences, along with Yehudi Menuhin and John Coltrane, and groups him with Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel and Mickey Hart as the rock musicians most responsible for popularising world music. Writing for "Mojo" in 2011, Michael Simmons described "Wonderwall Music" as a "groundbreaking blend of Bombay and London", while Kevin Howlett comments in his 2014 liner-note essay that Harrison's decision to "travel to the source" and professionally record non-Western music was "unprecedented for a pop musician". Graeme Thomson, writing in "The Guardian" in March 2017, called "Wonderwall Music" "a world music crossover before such a notion even existed".


title: Wonderwall Music

text: Clayson says that the album's influence was evident on mid-1990s Britpop acts such as Oasis, Supergrass and Ocean Colour Scene. Of these bands, Oasis took the title of their international hit "Wonderwall" from that of Harrison's album. Like Clayson, music journalist Chris Ingham sees the most obvious example of "Wonderwall Music"s legacy in the raga rock sound of Kula Shaker, who also adopted lyrical influences from Harrison's work. The band's 1996 single "Govinda" was a cover of a Harrison-produced song by the Radha Krishna Temple, and its B-side, "Gokula", used an identical guitar riff to the one on "Ski-ing", resulting in a co-writing credit for Harrison.


title: Bulgarian Empire

text: In the medieval history of Europe, Bulgaria's status as the Bulgarian Empire (, "Balgarsko tsarstvo" ) occurred in two distinct periods: between the seventh and the eleventh centuries and again between the twelfth and the fourteenth centuries. The two "Bulgarian Empires" are treated not as separate entities but rather as one state that was restored after a period of Byzantine rule over its territory.


title: Bulgarian Empire

text: Moesia was repeatedly invaded by both Slavs and Bulgars during the 5th, 6th and 7th centuries. In 499, the Bulgars crossed Danube and reached Thrace where on the banks of the river Tzurta (considered a tributary of Maritsa) defeated 15,000 men strong Roman army led by magister militum Aristus.


title: Bulgarian Empire

text: In the 670s under the rule of Asparukh the Bulgars settled further south on territories of the Eastern Roman Empire in Scythia Minor near the Danube Delta in a region called Ongal and allied with the local Slavs. Their horde was a remnant of Old Great Bulgaria, an extinct tribal confederacy or rudimentary state situated north of the Black Sea in what are now parts of Ukraine and Russia. There was a major battle between Asparukh and the Byzantine Emperor in Moesia in 680.


title: Bulgarian Empire

text: A peace treaty with the Byzantine Empire was signed in 681, marking the foundation of the First Bulgarian Empire on the territory both north and south of the lower course of the Danube River as an alliance between the ruling Bulgars and the numerous Slavs in the area, becoming the oldest still existing Slavic state. The minority Bulgars formed a close-knit ruling caste. It is usually described as having lasted between 681 and 1018, when it was subjugated by the Byzantine Empire despite Emperor Samuel's fierce resistance.


title: Bulgarian Empire

text: Tervel of Bulgaria, son of Asparukh, was the ruler at the beginning of the 8th century. In 705, Emperor Justinian II named him Caesar, the first foreigner to receive this title. Tervel played an important role in defeating the Arabs during the Siege of Constantinople in 717–718. During Krum’s reign in the early 9th century, Bulgarian territory doubled in size, spreading from the middle Danube to the Dnieper and from Odrin to the Tatra Mountains. His able and energetic rule brought law and order to Bulgaria and developed the rudiments of state organization.


title: Bulgarian Empire

text: Bulgaria gradually reached its cultural and territorial apogee in the 9th century and early 10th century under Prince Boris I and Emperor Simeon the Great, when its early Christianization in 864 allowed it to develop into the cultural and literary center of Slavic Europe, as well as one of the largest states in Europe, thus the period is considered the Golden Age of medieval Bulgarian culture. Major events included the development of the Cyrillic script at the Preslav Literary School, declared official in 893, and the establishment of the liturgy in Old Bulgarian, also called Old Church Slavonic.


title: Bulgarian Empire

text: In 971, the capital city of Preslav was occupied by the Kievan Rus' and the Eastern Roman Empire consequently. In 1018, the First Bulgarian Empire ended and Bulgaria became a province of the Byzantine Empire, the Theme of Bulgaria (1018-1185).


title: Bulgarian Empire

text: The medieval Bulgarian state was restored as the Second Bulgarian Empire after a successful uprising of two nobles from Tarnovo, Asen and Peter, in 1185, and existed until it was conquered during the Ottoman invasion of the Balkans in the late 14th century, with the date of its subjugation usually given as 1396, although some fringe views place it at 1422.


title: Bulgarian Empire

text: Until 1256, the Second Bulgarian Empire was the dominant power in the Balkans, defeating the Byzantine Empire in several major battles.


title: Bulgarian Empire

text: In 1205, Emperor Kaloyan defeated the newly established Latin Empire in the Battle of Adrianople. His nephew Ivan Asen II defeated the Despotate of Epiros and made Bulgaria a regional power again. During his reign, Bulgaria spread from the Adriatic to the Black Sea and the economy flourished. Under Ivan Asen II in the first half of the 13th century the country gradually recovered much of its former power, though this did not last long due to internal problems and foreign invasions.


title: Bulgarian Empire

text: Bulgarian artists and architects created their own distinctive style. Until the 14th century, during the period known as the Second Golden Age of Bulgarian culture, literature, art and architecture flourished. The capital city Tarnovo, which was considered a "New Constantinople", became the country's main cultural hub and the centre of the Eastern Orthodox world.


title: Bulgarian Empire

text: The Empire became tributary to the Golden Horde, a successor state of the Mongol Empire in the 13th to 14th centuries. After the death of Emperor Ivan Alexander in 1371 Bulgaria was split into three countries and in the following decades fell under the domination of the Ottomans. In 1393 after siege Tarnovo was conquered by the Ottoman Empire and in 1396 Vidin (Бъдин) kingdom was defeated. After the Ottoman conquest, many Bulgarian clerics and scholars emigrated to Serbia, Wallachia, Moldavia, and Russian principalities, where they introduced Bulgarian culture, books, and hesychastic ideas.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: Humanitarian aid is material and logistic assistance to people who need help. It is usually short-term help until the long-term help by the government and other institutions replaces it. Among the people in need are the homeless, refugees, and victims of natural disasters, wars, and famines. Humanitarian relief efforts are provided for humanitarian purposes and include natural disasters and man-made disasters. The primary objective of humanitarian aid is to save lives, alleviate suffering, and maintain human dignity. It may, therefore, be distinguished from development aid, which seeks to address the underlying socioeconomic factors which may have led to a crisis or emergency. There is a debate on linking humanitarian aid and development efforts, which was reinforced by the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016. However, the conflation is viewed critically by practitioners.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: Humanitarian aid is seen as "a fundamental expression of the universal value of solidarity between people and a moral imperative". Humanitarian aid can come from either local or international communities. In reaching out to international communities, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) of the United Nations (UN) is responsible for coordination responses to emergencies. It taps to the various members of Inter-Agency Standing Committee, whose members are responsible for providing emergency relief. The four UN entities that have primary roles in delivering humanitarian aid are United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme (WFP).


title: Humanitarian aid

text: The International Committee of the Red Cross understands humanitarian relief as a norm in both international and non-international armed conflicts, and countries or war parties that prevent humanitarian relief are generally widely criticized. According to The Overseas Development Institute, a London-based research establishment, whose findings were released in April 2009 in the paper "Providing aid in insecure environments: 2009 Update", the most lethal year for aid providers in the history of humanitarianism was 2008, in which 122 aid workers were murdered and 260 assaulted. The countries deemed least safe were Somalia and Afghanistan. In 2014, Humanitarian Outcomes reported that the countries with the highest incidents were: Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and Kenya.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: According to the "Global Humanitarian Overview" of OCHA, 274 million people need humanitarian assistance and protection in 2022, or 1 out of 29 people worldwide.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: The beginnings of organized international humanitarian aid can be traced to the late 19th century. Early campaigns include British aid to distressed populations on the continent and in Sweden during the Napoleonic Wars, and the international relief campaigns during the Great Irish Famine in the 1840s.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: In 1854, when the Crimean War began Florence Nightingale and her team of 38 nurses arrived to Barracks Hospital of Scutari where there were thousands of sick and wounded soldiers. Nightingale and her team watched as the understaffed military hospitals struggled to maintain hygienic conditions and meet the needs of patients. Ten times more soldiers were dying of disease than from battle wounds. Typhus, typhoid, cholera and dysentery were common in the army hospitals. Nightingale and her team established a kitchen, laundry and increased hygiene. More nurses arrived to aid in the efforts and the General Hospital at Scutari was able to care for 6,000 patients.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: Nightingale's contributions still influence humanitarian aid efforts. This is especially true in regard to Nightingale's use of statistics and measures of mortality and morbidity. Nightingale used principles of new science and statistics to measure progress and plan for her hospital. She kept records of the number and cause of deaths in order to continuously improve the conditions in hospitals. Her findings were that in every 1,000 soldiers, 600 were dying of communicable and infectious diseases. She worked to improve hygiene, nutrition and clean water and decreased the mortality rate from 60% to 42% to 2.2%. All of these improvements are pillars of modern humanitarian intervention. Once she returned to Great Britain she campaigned for the founding of the Royal Commission on the Health of the Army. She advocated for the use of statistics and coxcombs to portray the needs of those in conflict settings.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: The most well-known origin story of formalized humanitarian aid is that of Henri Dunant, a Swiss businessman and social activist, who upon seeing the sheer destruction and inhumane abandonment of wounded soldiers from the Battle of Solferino in June 1859, canceled his plans and began a relief response. Despite little to no experience as a medical physician, Dunant worked alongside local volunteers to assist the wounded soldiers from all warring parties, including Austrian, Italian and French casualties, in any way he could including the provision of food, water, and medical supplies. His graphic account of the immense suffering he witnessed, written in his book "A Memory of Solferino", became a foundational text to modern humanitarianism.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: "A Memory of Solferino" changed the world in a way that no one, let alone Dunant, could have foreseen nor truly appreciated at the time. To start, Dunant was able to profoundly stir the emotions of his readers by bringing the battle and suffering into their homes, equipping them to understand the current barbaric state of war and treatment of soldiers after they were injured or killed; in of themselves these accounts altered the course of history. Beyond this, in his two-week experience attending to the wounded soldiers of all nationalities, Dunant inadvertently established the vital conceptual pillars of what would later become the International Committee of the Red Cross and International Humanitarian Law: impartiality and neutrality. Dunant took these ideas and came up with two more ingenious concepts that would profoundly alter the practice of war; first Dunant envisioned a creation of permanent volunteer relief societies, much like the ad hoc relief group he coordinated in Solferino, to assist wounded soldiers; next Dunant began an effort to call for the adoption of a treaty which would guarantee the protection of wounded soldiers and any who attempted to come to their aid.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: After publishing his foundational text in 1862, progress came quickly for Dunant and his efforts to create a permanent relief society and International Humanitarian Law. The embryonic formation of the International Committee of the Red Cross had begun to take shape in 1863 when the private Geneva Society of Public Welfare created a permanent sub-committee called "The International Committee for Aid to Wounded in Situations of War". Composed of five Geneva citizens, this committee endorsed Dunant's vision to legally neutralize medical personnel responding to wounded soldiers. The constitutive conference of this committee in October 1863 created the statutory foundation of the International Committee of the Red Cross in their resolutions regarding national societies, caring for the wounded, their symbol, and most importantly the indispensable neutrality of ambulances, hospitals, medical personnel and the wounded themselves. Beyond this, in order to solidify humanitarian practice, the Geneva Society of Public Welfare hosted a convention between 8 and 22 August 1864 at the Geneva Town Hall with 16 diverse States present, including many governments of Europe, the Ottoman Empire, the United States of America (USA), Brazil and Mexico. This diplomatic conference was exceptional, not due to the number or status of its attendees but rather because of its very raison d'être. Unlike many diplomatic conferences before it, this conference's purpose was not to reach a settlement after a conflict nor to mediate between opposing interests; indeed this conference was to lay down rules for the future of conflict with aims to protect medical services and those wounded in battle.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: The first of the renowned Geneva Conventions was signed on 22 August 1864; never before in history has a treaty so greatly impacted how warring parties engage with one another. The basic tenents of the convention outlined the neutrality of medical services, including hospitals, ambulances, and related personnel, the requirement to care for and protect the sick and wounded during the conflict and something of particular symbolic importance to the International Committee of the Red Cross: the Red Cross emblem. For the first time in contemporary history, it was acknowledged by a representative selection of states that war had limits. The significance only grew with time in the revision and adaptation of the Geneva Convention in 1906, 1929 and 1949; additionally, supplementary treaties granted protection to hospital ships, prisoners of war and most importantly to civilians in wartime.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: The International Committee of the Red Cross exists to this day as the guardian of International Humanitarian Law and as one of the largest providers of humanitarian aid in the world.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: Another such examples occurred in response to the Northern Chinese Famine of 1876–1879, brought about by a drought that began in northern China in 1875 and led to crop failures in the following years. As many as 10 million people may have died in the famine. British missionary Timothy Richard first called international attention to the famine in Shandong in the summer of 1876 and appealed to the foreign community in Shanghai for money to help the victims. The Shandong Famine Relief Committee was soon established with the participation of diplomats, businessmen, and Protestant and Roman Catholic missionaries. To combat the famine, an international network was set up to solicit donations. These efforts brought in 204,000 silver taels, the equivalent of $7–10 million in 2012 silver prices.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: A simultaneous campaign was launched in response to the Great Famine of 1876–78 in India. Although the authorities have been criticized for their laissez-faire attitude during the famine, relief measures were introduced towards the end. A Famine Relief Fund was set up in the United Kingdom and had raised £426,000 within the first few months.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: Early attempts were in private hands and were limited in their financial and organizational capabilities. It was only in the 1980s, that global news coverage and celebrity endorsement were mobilized to galvanize large-scale government-led famine (and other forms of) relief in response to disasters around the world. The 1983–85 famine in Ethiopia caused upwards of 1 million deaths and was documented by a BBC news crew, with Michael Buerk describing "a biblical famine in the 20th Century" and "the closest thing to hell on Earth".


title: Humanitarian aid

text: Live Aid, a 1985 fund-raising effort headed by Bob Geldof induced millions of people in the West to donate money and to urge their governments to participate in the relief effort in Ethiopia. Some of the proceeds also went to the famine hit areas of Eritrea.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: A 2004 reform initiative by Jan Egeland, resulted in the creation of the Humanitarian Cluster System, designed to improve coordination between humanitarian agencies working on the same issues.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: The first global summit on humanitarian diplomacy was held in 2016 in Istanbul, Turkey. An initiative of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the World Humanitarian Summit included participants from governments, civil society organizations, private organizations, and groups affected by humanitarian need. Issues that were discussed included: preventing and ending conflict, managing crises, and aid financing.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: Attendees at the summit agreed a series of reforms on aid spending called the Grand Bargain, including a commitment to spend 25% of aid funds directly through local and national humanitarian aid organizations.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: Aid is funded by donations from individuals, corporations, governments and other organizations. The funding and delivery of humanitarian aid is increasingly international, making it much faster, more responsive, and more effective in coping to major emergencies affecting large numbers of people (e.g. see Central Emergency Response Fund). The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) coordinates the international humanitarian response to a crisis or emergency pursuant to Resolution 46/182 of the United Nations General Assembly. The need for aid is ever-increasing and has long outstripped the financial resources available.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: The Central Emergency Response Fund was created at the 2005 Central Emergency Response Fund at the United Nations General Assembly.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: Humanitarian aid spans a wide range of activities, including providing food aid, shelter, education, healthcare or protection. The majority of aid is provided in the form of in-kind goods or assistance, with cash and vouchers constituting only 6% of total humanitarian spending. However, evidence has shown how cash transfers can be better for recipients as it gives them choice and control, they can be more cost-efficient and better for local markets and economies.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: It is important to note that humanitarian aid is not only delivered through aid workers sent by bilateral, multilateral or intergovernmental organizations, such as the United Nations. Actors like the affected people themselves, civil society, local informal first-responders, civil society, the diaspora, businesses, local governments, military, local and international non-governmental organizations all play a crucial role in a timely delivery of humanitarian aid.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: How aid is delivered can affect the quality and quantity of aid. Often in disaster situations, international aid agencies work in hand with local agencies. There can be different arrangements on the role these agencies play, and such arrangement affects that quality of hard and soft aid delivered.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: Securing access to humanitarian aid in post-disasters, conflicts, and complex emergencies is a major concern for humanitarian actors. To win assent for interventions, aid agencies often espouse the principles of humanitarian impartiality and neutrality. However, gaining secure access often involves negotiation and the practice of humanitarian diplomacy. In the arena of negotiations, humanitarian diplomacy is ostensibly used by humanitarian actors to try to persuade decision makers and leaders to act, at all times and in all circumstances, in the interest of vulnerable people and with full respect for fundamental humanitarian principles. However, humanitarian diplomacy is also used by state actors as part of their foreign policy.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: The UN implements a multifaceted approach to assist migrants and refugees throughout their relocation process. This includes the integration of their children into local education systems, maintenance of food security at the familial level, and provision of access to health services. The approach also encompasses humanitarian transportation, the goal of which is to ensure migrants and refugees retain access to basic goods and services and the labor market. Basic needs, including access to shelter, clean water, and child protection, are supplemented by the UN's efforts to facilitate social integration and legal regularization for displaced individuals.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: Traditionally, humanitarian organizations have concentrated their efforts in the delivery of human, medical, food, shelter and water sanitation and hygiene resources during humanitarian emergencies.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: Nevertheless, since the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, the institutional and operational focus of humanitarian aid has been on leveraging technology to enhance humanitarian action, ensuring that more formal relationships are established, and improving the interaction between formal humanitarian organizations such as the United Nations (UN) Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and informal volunteer and technological communities known as digital humanitarians.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: The recent rise in Big Data, high-resolution satellite imagery and new platforms powered by advanced computing have already prompted the development of crisis mapping to help humanitarian organizations make sense of the vast volume and velocity of information generated during disasters. For example, crowdsourcing maps (such as Open Street Maps) and social media messages in Twitter were used during the 2010 Haiti Earthquake and Hurricane Sandy to trace leads of missing people, infrastructure damages and rise new alerts for emergencies.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: Satellite imagery is now used to predict how many people will be displaced from their homes and where they will likely move. Such insights helps emergency personnel to identify how much aid in terms of water, food and medical care will be needed and where to send it before they conduct a Rapid Needs Assessment on the field, and at the same time it helps prevent putting the humanitarian organization personnel at risk. Artificial intelligence algorithms may instantaneously assess flooding, building and road damage based on satellite images and weather forecasts, allowing rescuers to distribute emergency aid more effectively and identify those still in danger and isolated from escape routes.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: Another example that illustrates technology used for humanitarian purposes is the Artificial Intelligence for Digital Response platform which is a free and open source software that automatically collects and classifies tweets that are posted during emergencies, humanitarian crises and disasters. AIDR uses human and machine intelligence to automatically tag up to thousands of messages per minute so humanitarian organizations are able to make faster decisions depending on the trends from the data collected during a specific kind of emergency.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: Big data for humanitarian operations provides a unique opportunity to access instantaneously contextual information about pending and ongoing humanitarian crises. The development of rigorous information management systems may lead to feasible mechanisms for forecasting and preventing crises. Nevertheless, there are important issues to be discussed concerning the veracity and validity of data. Data that are collected or generated through digital or mobile mechanisms will often pose additional challenges, especially regarding the verification when the information comes from social media. Though a significant amount of work is under way to develop software and algorithms for verifying crowdsourced or anonymously provided data, such tools are not yet operational or widely available. Also, multiple data transactions and increased complexity in data structures raise the potential for error in humanitarian data entry and interpretation, and this raises concerns about the accuracy and representativeness of data that is used for policy decisions in highly pressurized situations that demand quick decision-making.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: Even prior to a humanitarian crisis, gender differences exist. Women have limited access to paid work, are at risk of child marriage, and are more exposed to Gender based violence, such as rape and domestic abuse. Conflict and natural disasters exacerbate women's vulnerabilities. When delivering humanitarian aid, it is thus important for humanitarian actors, such as the United Nations, to include challenges specific to women in their humanitarian response. The Inter-Agency Standing Committee provides guidelines for humanitarian actors on how be inclusive of gender when delivering humanitarian aid. It recommends agencies to collect data disaggregated by sex and age to better understand which group of the population is in need of what type of aid. In recent years, the United Nations have been using sex and age disaggregated data more and more, consulting with gender specialists. In the assessment phase, several UN agencies meet to compile data and work on a humanitarian response plan. Throughout the plans. women specific challenges are listed and sex and age disaggregated data are used so when they deliver aid to a country facing a humanitarian crisis, girls and women can have access to the aid they need.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: In addition to post-conflict settings, a large portion of aid is often directed at countries currently undergoing conflicts. However, the effectiveness of humanitarian aid, particularly food aid, in conflict-prone regions has been criticized in recent years. There have been accounts of humanitarian aid being not only inefficacious, but actually fuelling conflicts in the recipient countries. Aid stealing is one of the prime ways in which conflict is promoted by humanitarian aid. Aid can be seized by armed groups, and even if it does reach the intended recipients, "it is difficult to exclude local members of local militia group from being direct recipients if they are also malnourished and qualify to receive aid." Furthermore, analyzing the relationship between conflict and food aid, a recent research shows that the United States' food aid promoted civil conflict in recipient countries on average. An increase in United States' wheat aid increased the duration of armed civil conflicts in recipient countries, and ethnic polarization heightened this effect. However, since academic research on aid and conflict focuses on the role of aid in post-conflict settings, the aforementioned finding is difficult to contextualize. Nevertheless, research on Iraq shows that "small-scale [projects], local aid spending ... reduces conflict by creating incentives for average citizens to support the government in subtle ways." Similarly, another study also shows that aid flows can "reduce conflict because increasing aid revenues can relax government budget constraints, which can [in return] increase military spending and deter opposing groups from engaging in conflict." Thus, the impact of humanitarian aid on conflict may vary depending upon the type and mode in which aid is received, and, "inter alia," the local socio-economic, cultural, historical, geographical and political conditions in the recipient countries.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: Waste and corruption are hard to quantify, in part because they are often a taboo subject, but they appear to be significant in humanitarian aid. For example, it has been estimated that over $8.75 billion was lost to waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement in the Hurricane Katrina relief effort. Non-governmental organizations have in recent years made great efforts to increase participation, accountability and transparency in dealing with aid, yet humanitarian assistance remains a poorly understood process to those meant to be receiving it—much greater investment needs to be made into researching and investing in relevant and effective accountability systems.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: However, there is little clear consensus on the trade-offs between speed and control, especially in emergency situations when the humanitarian imperative of saving lives and alleviating suffering may conflict with the time and resources required to minimise corruption risks. Researchers at the Overseas Development Institute have highlighted the need to tackle corruption with, but not limited to, the following methods:


title: Humanitarian aid

text: Countries or war parties that prevent humanitarian relief are generally under unanimous criticism. Such was the case for the Derg regime, preventing relief to the population of Tigray in the 1980s, and the prevention of relief aid in the Tigray War of 2020–2021 by the Abiy Ahmed Ali regime of Ethiopia was again widely condemned.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: The total number of humanitarian aid workers around the world has been calculated by ALNAP, a network of agencies working in the Humanitarian System, as 210,800 in 2008. This is made up of roughly 50% from NGOs, 25% from the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement and 25% from the UN system. In 2010, it was reported that the humanitarian fieldworker population increased by approximately 6% per year over the previous 10 years.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: Aid workers are exposed to tough conditions and have to be flexible, resilient, and responsible in an environment that humans are not psychologically supposed to deal with, in such severe conditions that trauma is common. In recent years, a number of concerns have been raised about the mental health of aid workers.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: The most prevalent issue faced by humanitarian aid workers is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Adjustment to normal life again can be a problem, with feelings such as guilt being caused by the simple knowledge that international aid workers can leave a crisis zone, whilst nationals cannot.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: A 2015 survey conducted by "The Guardian", with aid workers of the Global Development Professionals Network, revealed that 79 percent experienced mental health issues.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: Reports of sexual exploitation in sexual exploitation and abuse in humanitarian response have been reported following humanitarian interventions in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone in 2002, in Central African Republic and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: 2021 reporting on a Racial Equity Index report indicated that just under two-thirds of aid workers have experienced racism and 98% of survey respondents witnessed racism.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: The humanitarian community has initiated a number of interagency initiatives to improve accountability, quality and performance in humanitarian action. Four of the most widely known initiatives are, ALNAP, the CHS Alliance, the Sphere Project and the Core Humanitarian Standard on Quality and Accountability (CHS). Representatives of these initiatives began meeting together on a regular basis in 2003 in order to share common issues and harmonise activities where possible.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: The Sphere Project handbook, "Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response," which was produced by a coalition of leading non-governmental humanitarian agencies, lists the following principles of humanitarian action:


title: Humanitarian aid

text: Another humanitarian standard used is the Core Humanitarian Standard on Quality and Accountability (CHS). It was approved by the CHS Technical Advisory Group in 2014, and has since been endorsed by many humanitarian actors such as "the Boards of the Humanitarian Accountability Partnership (HAP), People in Aid and the Sphere Project". It comprises nine core standards, which are complemented by detailed guidance notes and indicators.


title: Humanitarian aid

text: While some critics were questioning whether the sector will truly benefit from the implementation of yet another humanitarian standard, others have praised it for its simplicity. Most notably, it has replaced the core standards of the Sphere Handbook and it is regularly referred to and supported by officials from the United Nations, the EU, various NGOs and institutes.


title: Kathleen Folbigg

text: Kathleen Megan Folbigg (née Donovan; born 14 June 1967) is an Australian woman who was convicted of murdering her three infant children, Patrick Allen (at age eight months), Sarah Kathleen (at age ten months) and Laura Elizabeth (at age nineteen months). She was also convicted of the manslaughter of her fourth child, Caleb Gibson (at age nineteen days). The deaths took place between 1989 and 1999. Her husband contacted the police after discovering her personal diary.


title: Kathleen Folbigg

text: Folbigg is presently imprisoned, sentenced to forty years with a parole period of 25 years. She will be eligible for parole in 2028.


title: Kathleen Folbigg

text: Scientific and medical research suggesting the daughters may have died of natural causes was rejected by a judicial inquiry in 2019. Subsequent research published in 2020 has led ninety prominent Australian scientists and medical professionals, in March 2021, to petition the NSW Governor to pardon Folbigg, alleging all the deaths may be explained with genetics.


title: Kathleen Folbigg

text: On 8 January 1969, Kathleen Folbigg's biological father, Thomas John "Taffy" Britton, murdered her mother, Kathleen May Donovan, by stabbing her twenty-four times. Kathleen was 18 months old. Her father was arrested on the day after the murder, and would go on to serve 15 years in prison for murder before being deported to England. Folbigg was made a ward of the state and placed into foster care with a couple. On 18 July 1970, she was removed from their care and placed into Bidura Children's Home. Two months later, Folbigg moved into a permanent foster care placement. This arrangement lasted until she was a young adult. She left school at the age of fifteen, and married Craig Gibson Folbigg in 1987.


title: Kathleen Folbigg

text: Caleb Gibson Folbigg, born on 1 February 1989, was known to breathe noisily and was diagnosed by a paediatrician to be suffering from a mild case of laryngomalacia, something he would eventually outgrow; he was otherwise born healthy. On 20 February, Folbigg put Caleb to sleep in a room adjoining the bedroom she shared with her husband. During the night, Caleb stirred from midnight until 2 a.m. Found by Folbigg, the death was attributed to cot death. Caleb was 19 days old.


title: Kathleen Folbigg

text: Patrick Allen Folbigg was born on 3 June 1990. Craig remained at home to help care for his wife and baby for three months after the birth. On 18 October, Folbigg put Patrick to bed. Craig was awakened by the sounds of his wife screaming and found her standing at the baby's cot. He noticed the child wasn't breathing and attempted to revive him by cardiopulmonary resuscitation. An ambulance was called and Patrick was taken to hospital. He would later be diagnosed to be suffering from epilepsy and cortical blindness, though the apparent life-threatening event would go unexplained. He died four months later due to seizures. On 18 February 1991, Folbigg telephoned her husband at work to report Patrick's death, saying "It's happened again!"


title: Kathleen Folbigg

text: Following their second loss, the couple moved to Thornton, New South Wales, a suburb of Maitland. Sarah Kathleen Folbigg was born on 14 October 1992, and died on 29 August 1993, aged 10 months.


title: Kathleen Folbigg

text: In 1996, the couple moved to Singleton. On 7 August 1997, Laura Elizabeth Folbigg was born. On 27 February 1999, Laura died, at the age of 18 months.


title: Kathleen Folbigg

text: Folbigg's trial lasted seven weeks. The prosecution alleged Folbigg murdered her four children by smothering them during periods of frustration. Their case relied on the improbability of all four children dying of natural causes, citing the now-dubious Meadow's law, a maxim attributed to British paediatrician Roy Meadow: "One sudden infant death is a tragedy, two is suspicious and three is murder, until proven otherwise."


title: Kathleen Folbigg

text: The defense made the case that Folbigg did not kill or harm her children and that she did not think that Craig was responsible either. Although prosecution witnesses were concerned about the lack of prodromal (early-warning) symptoms in any of the children, the defence posed natural explanations for the events such as cot death and, in the case of Laura's death, myocarditis. The defence highlighted that Folbigg was a caring mother, pointing to journal entries that showed the care and concern that she gave her children. Some of her acquaintances gave statements to investigators about her caring nature.


title: Kathleen Folbigg

text: The defense pointed out that there were no direct admissions to the killings in Folbigg's journal entries, and that any entries indirectly suggesting her responsibility could be chalked up to a typical grieving mother's guilt. Folbigg appeared genuinely distraught to ambulance and police responders to the scene. They pointed out that no physical evidence could link Folbigg to murder; it was an entirely circumstantial case with very little consensus among the scientific experts who testified at trial.


title: Kathleen Folbigg

text: On 21 May 2003, Folbigg was found guilty by the Supreme Court of New South Wales jury of the following crimes: three counts of murder, one count of manslaughter and one count of maliciously inflicting grievous bodily harm. On 24 October 2003, Folbigg was sentenced to forty years' imprisonment with a non-parole period of thirty years.


title: Kathleen Folbigg

text: On 17 February 2005, the court reduced her sentence to thirty years' imprisonment with a non-parole period of twenty-five years on appeal. Due to the nature of her crimes, Folbigg resides in protective custody to prevent possible violence by other inmates. Nevertheless, after a transfer of prisons, Folbigg was savagely beaten by another inmate on 1 January 2021.


title: Kathleen Folbigg

text: On 22 August 2018, New South Wales Attorney-General Mark Speakman announced there would be an inquiry into the convictions, to "ensure public confidence in the administration of justice". It was in response to a petition presented by her supporters. "The petition appears to raise a doubt or question concerning the evidence as to the incidence of reported deaths of three or more infants in the same family attributed to unidentified natural causes in the proceedings leading to Ms Folbigg's convictions," he said.


title: Kathleen Folbigg

text: However, in the 500-page report, released in July 2019, a former chief judge of the District Court found he did not have "any reasonable doubt as to the guilt of Kathleen Megan Folbigg for the offences of which she was convicted".


title: Kathleen Folbigg

text: Folbigg's legal team promptly called for a review of the inquiry, citing "bias". The new evidence was presented to the appeal to the New South Wales Court of Appeal. The appeal was rejected on 24 March 2021. The appeal did not consider the new scientific evidence.


title: Kathleen Folbigg

text: On 4 March 2021, a petition signed by more than 100 eminent scientists, including Dr. Carola Garcia de Vinuesa, was published by the Australian Academy of Science, calling for the NSW Governor to pardon Folbigg,


title: Kathleen Folbigg

text: Genetic evidence published in November 2020 showed that at least two of the children had genetic mutations that predisposed them to sudden cardiac death. The researchers concluded that the CALM2 mutation carried by Kathleen and her two girls altered their heart rhythm, predisposing them to sudden unexpected death possibly precipitated by their intercurrent infections (respiratory tract infection in Sarah; myocarditis in Laura) and/or by medications such as Laura's pseudoephedrine.


title: Kathleen Folbigg

text: The other two children, Caleb and Patrick, each carried two potentially lethal genetic mutations in the gene BSN (Bassoon Presynaptic Cytomatrix Protein), which is linked to early onset lethal epilepsy in mice, with one mutation inherited from their mother and the second one likely inherited from their father Craig. None of the four showed signs of smothering in the autopsy.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: USS "The Sullivans" (DD-537) is a retired United States Navy . The ship was named in honor of the five Sullivan brothers (George, Francis, Joseph, Madison, and Albert) aged 20 to 27 who lost their lives when their ship, , was sunk by a Japanese submarine during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal on 13 November 1942. This was the greatest military loss by any one American family during World War II. She was also the first ship commissioned in the Navy that honored more than one person.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: After service in both World War II and the Korean War, "The Sullivans" was assigned to the 6th Fleet and was a training ship until she was decommissioned on 7 January 1965.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: In 1977, she and cruiser were processed for donation to the Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park in Buffalo, New York. The ship now serves as a memorial museum ship and is open for public tours. On 13 April 2022, the USS "The Sullivans" partially sank from a severe hull breach.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: "The Sullivans" was originally laid down as "Putnam" on 10 October 1942, at San Francisco by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation. She was initially renamed "Sullivan" until President Franklin Roosevelt changed the name to "The Sullivans" to clarify that the name honored all five Sullivan brothers. The name was made official on 6 February 1943, and launched 4 April 1943. The ship was sponsored by Mrs. Thomas F. Sullivan, the mother of the five Sullivan brothers. "The Sullivans" was commissioned on 30 September 1943.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: Following a shakedown cruise, "The Sullivans" got underway with sister ships and on 23 December 1943. The group arrived at Pearl Harbor five days later. During training operations in Hawaiian waters, the ship was assigned to Destroyer Squadron (DesRon) 52. On 16 January 1944, she steamed out of Pearl Harbor with Task Group 58.2 (TG 58.2) bound for the Marshall Islands. En route to Kwajalein Atoll the group was joined by Battleship Division 9 (BatDiv 9). Two days later, as the American warships neared their target, picket destroyers were sent ahead to protect the main force from the enemy. On 24 January, TG 58.2 arrived at the dawn launching point for air strikes against Roi. For two days, "The Sullivans" screened , , and as they launched nearly continuous aerial raids. Thereafter, the destroyer continued her operations to the north and northwest of Roi and Namur Islands throughout the Battle of Kwajalein until 4 February, when TG 58.2 retired to Majuro to refuel and replenish.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: Underway at noon on the 12th, "The Sullivans" screened (protected) the sortie of Task Group 58.2, as part of Task Force 58's raid on Truk. The same carriers—"Essex", "Intrepid", and "Cabot"—whose planes had attacked Roi and Namur steamed in the van now headed for the Japanese fortress-base in the Central Pacific. From the time the group arrived at its launching point on 16 February, the carriers launched what seemed to be nearly continuous air strikes against Truk. "No enemy opposition of any kind was encountered," wrote "The Sullivans" commander, "indicating that the initial attacks came as a complete surprise."


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: While the enemy may have been slow to react at the outset, they soon struck back—torpedoing "Intrepid" at 00:10 on the 17th. The carrier slowed to and lost steering control. "The Sullivans", , and stood by the stricken carrier and escorted her to Majuro for repairs. Reaching Majuro on 21 February, the destroyer soon sailed on to Hawaii, arriving at Pearl Harbor on 4 March for drydocking and upkeep.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: Underway again on the 22nd, "The Sullivans" covered the sortie of Task Groups 58.2, 58.9, and 50.15 from Majuro, bound for the Palaus, Yap, and Woleai Islands. On the evening of the 29th, while the American warships were approaching the target area, enemy aircraft attacked but were driven off by the anti-aircraft fire from the ships. The next day, "The Sullivans" screened the carriers during air strikes and that evening helped to beat off a Japanese air attack.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: After returning to Majuro for replenishment, the warship screened TG 58.2 during air strikes on Hollandia (currently known as Jayapura), Tanahmerah, Wakde, and Aitape to support amphibious operations on New Guinea. Late in April, "The Sullivans" participated in support of air strikes on the Japanese base at Truk. On the 29th during one of these raids, the Japanese retaliated with a low-level air attack. American radar picked up four Japanese planes away, coming in fast at altitudes varying from 10 to . When the planes came within range, "The Sullivans" opened up with one 40-millimeter twin mount and all five guns. Two aircraft splashed into the sea due to the firing of the American ships, and one crossing ahead of "The Sullivans" was taken under fire and crashed in flames off her port beam.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: "The Sullivans" arrived off the northwest coast of Ponape on the afternoon of 1 May and provided cover for the battleships led by which bombarded the island. From the disengaged side of the screen, "The Sullivans" fired 18 rounds from extreme range at Tumu Point. She then noted three beached Japanese landing barges and shifted her fire to them. However, she received the general cease-fire order shortly thereafter.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: During the task unit's retirement, "The Sullivans" refueled from and arrived at Majuro on 4 May. Ten days later, TG 58.2 sortied again, bound for Marcus and Wake Islands. Launching the first raid at 08:00 on the 19th, the American carriers kept up nearly continuous air strikes with no enemy interruptions for three days. En route back to Majuro, "The Sullivans" and her sister destroyers conducted a thorough but unsuccessful search for a suspected submarine.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: On 6 June, "The Sullivans" got underway again, bound for Saipan, Tinian, and Guam to screen carriers in conducting air strikes. On occasion while in the screen, "The Sullivans" radar picked up enemy "snoopers" around the periphery of the formation—and before dawn at 03:15 on the 12th, TG 58.2 shot down one in flames.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: The second day's strikes against Saipan took place on the 13th to support the American landings there. Assigned to the duty of communication-linking station between task forces, "The Sullivans" remained within visual sighting distance of both TG's 58.1 and 58.2 during the day. That day, she picked up 31 Japanese merchant seamen after their ship had been sunk offshore and transferred these prisoners to flagship .


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: On 19 June 1944, during the first day of the Battle of the Philippine Sea, Japanese aircraft attacked the task group. "The Sullivans" picked up a plane visually at a range of less than . "Judies," diving from , pressed home their attacks. One, taken under fire by "The Sullivans", took tracer fire from the ship's 20- and 40-millimeter batteries and, moments later, crashed just short of the horizon. American air attacks against Pagan Island, made without enemy retaliation, topped off the Saipan-Tinian-Guam strikes; and "The Sullivans" proceeded with TG 58.2 to Eniwetok for upkeep.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: Underway on 30 June, "The Sullivans" resumed work in the screen of carriers launching air strikes to support operations against Saipan and Tinian. During this action, "The Sullivans" served as fighter-direction ship for TU 58.2.4.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: On Independence Day, "The Sullivans" joined Bombardment Unit One (TU 58.2.4) to conduct a shore bombardment of airfields, shore batteries, and other installations on the west coast of Iwo Jima. The heavy ships in the group opened fire at 15:00, and smoke and dust soon obscured targets along the western shore of the island, making spotting difficult. "The Sullivans", second ship in a column of destroyers, opened fire at 15:48 on planes parked on the southern airstrip. After three ranging salvos, the ship commenced hitting twin-engined "Bettys" parked in revetments along the strip. Five planes blew up, and eight other planes were probably damaged by shrapnel and burning gasoline. Minutes later, an enemy ship resembling an LST came under "The Sullivans" gunfire and caught fire astern. While closed to complete the destruction of the enemy vessel, "The Sullivans" and the remainder of the bombardment unit retired and rejoined TG 58.2.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: From 7 to 22 July, TG 58.2 operated south and west of the Marianas, conducting daily air strikes on Guam and Rota Islands before returning to Garapan Anchorage, Saipan, to allow the carriers to replenish bombs. Underway at dawn on the 23d, "The Sullivans" accompanied the task group as it sped towards the Palaus for air strikes on the 26th and 27th. She joined TG 58.4 for temporary duty on 30 July and continued air strikes until 6 August, when she joined TG 58.7, the heavy bombardment group, and operated with TP 34 until 11 August, when the group returned to Eniwetok for replenishment.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: Early in September, as the Navy prepared to take the Palaus, "The Sullivans" supported neutralizing air strikes against Japanese air bases in the Philippines. At dawn on the 7th, she began radar picket duty for TG 38.2 and continued the task through the strikes of the 9th and 10th. From 18:00 on 12 September, the ships noted an increase in air activity—observing many bogies that merely orbited the formations as snoopers. The carriers conducted further raids on the central Philippines on the 13th and 14th and then shifted course to the north to subject Manila to air attacks commencing on the 21st. Three days later, American planes again hit the central Philippines.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: Returning to Tanapag Harbor, Saipan, at dawn on the 28th, "The Sullivans" went alongside for ammunition, provisions, and routine upkeep. However, the cross-swells in the anchorage swept "The Sullivans" hard against the battleship's steel hide, damaging the destroyer's hull and superstructure. Following brief antisubmarine patrol duty, she proceeded to Ulithi on 1 October.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: While undergoing tender repairs alongside , "The Sullivans" formed part of a nest of destroyers blown away from the tender during a heavy storm that lashed the anchorage. "The Sullivans" drifted free downwind and got up steam 'in a hurry'. However, she collided with . Many small boats were being tossed about, and "The Sullivans" rescued four men from 's gig before it disappeared beneath the waves. As the storm abated on the 4th, the warship returned to Ulithi to complete the abbreviated tender overhaul alongside "Dixie".


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: At 16:15 on 6 October, "The Sullivans" sortied with the carriers and protected them during raids against targets on Formosa and the Ryukyus. On the evening of the 12th, as the planes returned to the carriers, radar spotted the first of many Japanese aircraft coming down from the north. For the next six hours, approximately 50 to 60 Japanese aircraft subjected the American task force to continuous air attacks. Nearly 45 minutes after sunset, "The Sullivans" sighted a "Betty," coming in low on the starboard side, and took it under fire. During the next 15 minutes, the formation to which "The Sullivans" was attached shot down three planes; between 18:56 and 19:54, the destroyer herself took five planes under fire. Varying speed between 18 and , the formation undertook eight emergency maneuvers. Again and again, timely turns and the great volume of gunfire thrown up by the ships repulsed the enemy air attacks.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: The second phase of the attack began at 21:05 on the 12th and continued through 02:35 on the 13th. The Japanese increased the use of "window" to jam American radar transmissions while their flares lit up the evening with ghostly light. The formation made smoke whenever enemy flare-dropping planes approached, creating an eerie haze effect which helped baffle the enemy pilots. Meanwhile, "The Sullivans" and the other ships in formation executed 38 simultaneous turn movements at speeds between 22 and as their guns kept up a steady fire to repel the attackers.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: The next day, the carriers again launched successful strikes on Formosa. During the ensuing night retirement, the formation again came under attack by Japanese torpedo-carrying "Betties" which struck home this time and damaged . "The Sullivans" then helped to protect the damaged cruiser. On the 14th, "Betty" torpedo bombers scored against ."The Sullivans" soon joined the screen which guarded the two battle-battered cruisers—nicknamed "CripDiv 1"—as they retired toward Ulithi.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: Things progressed well until the 16th, when the Japanese mounted a heavy air attack to attempt to finish off cruisers. "Houston" reeled under the impact of a second hit astern, and "The Sullivans" opened fire on the "Frances" which had made the attack and splashed the Japanese plane. "The Sullivans" and then took a second "Frances" under fire and knocked it down off the bow of .


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: "The Sullivans" rescued 118 "Houston" men and kept them on board until the 18th, when she transferred them to . While the damaged cruisers were making their way to Ulithi, a Japanese surface force attempted to close the formation before TF 38 intervened to drive them back. "The Sullivans" transferred salvage gear to "Houston" and helped with the ship's many wounded. For his part in directing the destroyer's rescue and salvage attempts, Comdr. Ralph J. Baum received his first Silver Star.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: On 20 October, "The Sullivans" joined TG 38.2 for scheduled air strikes on the central Philippines in support of the Leyte landings. At dawn of the 24th, reconnaissance located a Japanese surface force south of Mindoro, and the American carriers launched air strikes all day against the enemy warships. That morning, a Japanese air attack developed, and "The Sullivans" downed an "Oscar" fighter plane.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: By 25 October, enemy forces were sighted coming down from the north; TF 34, including "The Sullivans", was formed and headed north, following the carrier groups in TF 38. At dawn on the 25th, the carriers launched air strikes to harass the Japanese surface units, now some north. At 11:00, TF 34 reversed course, topped-off the destroyers with fuel, and formed fast striking group TG 34.5, with "Iowa", , three light cruisers, "The Sullivans", and seven other destroyers. The American force missed the Japanese by three hours, but ran across a straggler and reported sinking an . Japanese records fail to confirm the claim.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: After sweeping south along the coast of Samar hunting for enemy "cripples," "The Sullivans" and other units of TG 34.5 reported back to TG 38.2. The destroyer then remained in the Philippine area, screening the fast carriers and standing by on plane guard duties, through mid-November. At dusk on the 19th, during one of the many air attacks fought off by "The Sullivans", the destroyer damaged a "Betty" by gunfire and watched it disappear over the horizon, smoking but stubbornly remaining airborne. Six days later, she had better luck when her guns set a Japanese plane afire and splashed it into the sea. Two days later, her task group returned to Ulithi.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: The destroyer undertook training exercises from 8 to 11 December before rejoining TG 38.2 to screen its warships during air strikes on Manila and southern Luzon beginning on 14 December. On the 17th, running low on fuel, "The Sullivans" commenced refueling but, with the weather worsening minute by minute, she broke off the operation. Typhoon Cobra swept through the Fleet, with the wind clocked at an estimated on the morning of 18 December. Three destroyers were sunk and several ships damaged by the winds and waves. "The Sullivans", her "lucky shamrock" painted on her funnel, emerged from the typhoon undamaged and, on the 20th began searching for men lost overboard from other ships. The lingering bad weather resulted in cancellation of air strikes, and "The Sullivans" retired to Ulithi on Christmas Eve.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: After a brief run to Manus and back, escorting "Iowa", "The Sullivans" sortied from Ulithi on 30 December to screen TG 38.2's air strikes on Formosa in support of the American landings on Luzon. Heavy seas forced a three-day postponement of a high-speed thrust toward the target originally planned for the night of 6 January 1945. During the evening of the 9th, the task force passed through the Bashi Channel and entered the South China Sea. Three days later, carrier planes from TG 38.2 swept over Saigon and Camranh Bay, Indochina, hammering at whatever enemy merchantmen they found.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: Soon after the conclusion of the air strikes, a bombardment group, TG 34.5, was formed to go after possible "cripples" and dispatch them by surface gunfire. Accordingly, two battleships, two heavy cruisers, three light cruisers, and 15 destroyers raced into Camranh Bay but found it devoid of Japanese shipping. Throughout the day, however, carrier pilots had better luck and enjoyed a veritable "field day" with coastal "marus". During subsequent air strikes on Hainan Island, Hong Kong, and Formosa, "The Sullivans" served on radar picket duty ahead of the task group.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: A brief respite for upkeep at Ulithi in late January preceded the ship's deployment with TG 58.2, covering the carriers as they launched devastating air strikes against the Japanese homeland itself, hitting Tokyo and other targets on Honshū on 16 and 17 February. From the 18th through the 21st, American carrier-based air power struck at Japanese positions contesting the landings on Iwo Jima. More strikes were scheduled for Tokyo four days later, but bad weather forced their cancellation. Retiring from the area, TF 58 fueled and commenced a high-speed run at Okinawa at noon on 28 February. Later that day, "The Sullivans" sighted and destroyed a drifting mine. At dawn on 1 March, Hellcats, Avengers, Dauntlesses, and Helldivers attacked Japanese positions on Okinawa. The ships of the task force encountered no enemy opposition from sea or sky and soon retired towards Ulithi.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: "The Sullivans" sortied 12 days later, bound for Kyushu and southern Honshū to support the invasion of Okinawa. Once again screening for TG 58.2, "The Sullivans" stood by as the carriers launched air strikes on 14 March. On 20 March, "The Sullivans" fueled from at 11:52, clearing the carrier's side five minutes later when a kamikaze alert sent the ships scurrying.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: At 14:39, "The Sullivans" commenced maneuvering to go alongside "Enterprise" again—this time to pick up a part for her FD radar antenna. Soon, however, another enemy air attack scattered the ships. As a line had not yet been thrown across to the carrier, "The Sullivans" bent on speed and cleared her as other ships in the task group opened fire on the attackers. A Japanese plane came through the antiaircraft fire and crashed into astern as that destroyer was fueling alongside . The stricken destroyer lost steering control and started to veer across the big carrier's bow, and only rapid and radical maneuvering on "Hancock"s part averted a collision.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: "The Sullivans" soon closed "Halsey Powell" to render emergency assistance. She slowed to a stop 11 minutes later and lowered her motor whaleboat to transfer her medical officer and a pharmacist's mate to "Halsey Powell", when another kamikaze came out of the skies, apparently bent on crashing into "The Sullivans". At 16:10, the destroyer's radar picked up the "Zeke" on its approach; and, as soon as the motor whaler was clear of the water, "The Sullivans" leapt ahead with all engines thrusting at flank speed.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: Bringing right full rudder, "The Sullivans" maneuvered radically while her 20- and 40-millimeter guns sent streams of shells at the "Zeke," which passed over the masthead and escaped. Meanwhile, "Halsey Powell" managed to achieve a steady course at five knots; and, with "The Sullivans", she retired toward Ulithi. However, their troubles were not yet over. At 10:46 on the following day, 21 March, "The Sullivans" picked up a plane, closing from . Visually identified as a twin-engined "Frances," the aircraft was taken under fire at by "The Sullivans" 5-inch battery. "Halsey Powell" joined in too; and, within a few moments, the "Frances" crashed into the sea about abeam of "The Sullivans". At 12:50, a combat air patrol (CAP) Hellcat from "Yorktown", under direction by "Halsey Powell", splashed another "Frances." At 13:20, a CAP Hellcat from "Intrepid", directed by "The Sullivans", downed a "Nick" or "Dinah."


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: On 25 March, "The Sullivans" and "Halsey Powell" arrived at Ulithi, the former for upkeep prior to training exercises and the latter for battle repairs.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: The warship next rendezvoused with TF 58 off Okinawa and guarded the carriers supporting the landings on the island. While operating on radar picket duty on the 15th, the ship came under enemy air attack, but downed one plane and emerged unscathed. She continued conducting radar picket patrols for the task group, ranging some 12 to out from the main body of the force. On the afternoon of 29 April, she commenced fueling from , but a kamikaze alert interrupted the replenishment, forcing "The Sullivans" to break away from the carrier's side. During the ensuing action, and were both crashed by kamikazes but survived.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: Kamikazes continued to plague the ships of TG 58.3 as they supported the troops fighting ashore on Okinawa. Everything from landing craft to battleships were targeted. On the morning of 11 May, a kamikaze crashed into "Bunker Hill". "The Sullivans" promptly closed the carrier to render assistance and picked up 166 men forced over the side by the fires that at one point ravaged the ship. After transferring them to ships in TG 50.8 and replenishing her fuel bunkers, she helped to screen TG 58.3 during air strikes on Kyushu.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: In a morning air attack three days later, "Enterprise" was hit by a kamikaze. Four enemy planes were shot down in the melee—one by "The Sullivans" in what proved to be her last combat action during World War II.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: "The Sullivans" anchored at San Pedro Bay, Leyte Gulf, on 1 June for recreation and upkeep. She departed Leyte on the 20th, bound, via Eniwetok and Pearl Harbor, for the west coast. The destroyer arrived at Mare Island, Calif., on 9 July and, two days later, commenced her overhaul. She thus missed the final fleet activity that closed the war.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: Meanwhile, since the return of peace greatly reduced the Navy's need for warships, "The Sullivans" was decommissioned at San Diego on 10 January 1946—soon after her overhaul was completed—and she was placed in the Pacific Reserve Fleet.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: "The Sullivans" remained decommissioned at San Diego until May 1951, when she began to undergo reactivation. This was due to naval fleet expansion because of the Korean War. She was recommissioned on 6 July 1951. "The Sullivans" soon headed to her home port in Newport, R.I. by way of the Panama Canal. During the winter of 1951–52, the ship conducted training exercises off the east coast and in the Caribbean. "The Sullivans" departed Newport on 6 September 1952 bound for Japan. Proceeding via the Panama Canal, San Diego, Pearl Harbor, and Midway she arrived at Sasebo, Japan on 10 October 1952. The next day she got underway to join Task Force 77 off the eastern shores of Korea. Her duties included screening the fast carriers which were launching repeated air strikes to interdict enemy supply lines. She also supported United Nations ground forces who were battling communist forces. "The Sullivans" remained on this duty until 20 October 1952 when she steamed to Yokosuka, Japan for a brief refit.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: Following the refit, "The Sullivans" stopped at Buckner Bay, Okinawa and then proceeded to rejoin Task Force 77. Upon her arrival on 16 November 1952 she resumed screening activities and plane guard duty. She supported the carriers as they made the northernmost stab at North Korean supply lines, approaching within of the Soviet base at Vladivostok, Russia. MiG-15 fighters approached the task force, but combat air patrol Grumman F9F Panthers downed two of the attackers and damaged a third in history's first engagement between jet fighters over water. The destroyer arrived back at Sasebo, Japan on 5 December 1952. From Sasebo she joined United Nations forces on 14 December 1952 in blockading the Korean coasts. Her mission was to interdict seaborne traffic and bombard shore targets to support United Nations ground troops and interdict enemy supply operations. Arriving in Area "G" the following day, "The Sullivans" made contact with the enemy on the 16th off Songjin, North Korea which was an important rail terminus and supply center. For the next few days, she bombarded railroad trains and tunnels. She frequently opened fire to destroy railroad rolling stock, depots and prevented repairs to railroad tracks and buildings.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: On Christmas Day 1952, "The Sullivans" scored direct hits on a railroad bridge while under fire from enemy artillery positions on shore. Fifty rounds from enemy guns failed to touch the ship, although near-misses showered the warship's decks with shell fragments. Counter-battery fire from the ship destroyed at least one of the enemy artillery positions.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: "The Sullivans" was ordered home and departed Yokosuka, Japan on 26 January 1953. On the voyage home the ship called at Buckner Bay, Okinawa; Hong Kong; Subic Bay; Singapore, Colombo, Ceylon; Bombay, India; Bahrain and Aden. "The Sullivans" then steamed through the Red Sea, transited the Suez Canal, and proceeded to Cannes, France, via Naples. After a brief fueling stop at Gibraltar the warship reached Newport, R.I. on 11 April 1953.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: The destroyer operated out of her home port well into the summer of 1953, before deploying to the Mediterranean for a tour of duty with the 6th Fleet. She remained on this duty through the end of the year and returned to Newport on 3 February 1954 for operations off the east coast and into the Caribbean through May 1955. She again deployed to European and Mediterranean waters from May to August of that year before returning to Newport late in the summer.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: In the years that followed, "The Sullivans" continued alternating east coast operations with Mediterranean deployments. The summer of 1958 saw a communist threat to the security of Lebanon, and president Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered American ships to land troops there to protect Americans and to help stabilize the tense situation. "The Sullivans" supported the landings of Marines at Beirut. After their presence had dispelled the crisis, she returned to the United States for a three-month navy yard overhaul and subsequent refresher training at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: Back at Newport in March 1959, "The Sullivans" joined a hunter/killer group formed around the aircraft carrier . Then, after making a midshipman training cruise for USNA and NROTC midshipmen in which she also conducted antisubmarine warfare operations, the destroyer sailed for another Mediterranean deployment which lasted until she returned home in the autumn.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: Operations out of Newport occupied "The Sullivans" until early spring of 1960 when she headed south for ASROC evaluations off Key West, Florida. During this deployment to southern climes, on 31 March and 1 April, the warship helped to rescue five of eleven survivors from a U.S. Air Force KC-97 Stratofreighter(Model F Stratotanker) that had ditched 40 miles off the Florida coast near Cape Canaveral.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: Following NATO exercises in September, "The Sullivans" visited Lisbon, Portugal, prior to a quick trip through the Mediterranean, Suez Canal, and Red Sea, to Karachi, West Pakistan. In late October and into November, she participated in Operation "Midlink III," joint operations with Pakistani, Iranian, and British warships. After returning to the Mediterranean, "The Sullivans" conducted exercises with the French Navy and with the 6th Fleet and reached home in time for Christmas.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: In January 1961, "The Sullivans" assisted in the sea trials of the nuclear-powered fleet ballistic missile submarine off Portsmouth, New Hampshire, before steaming south and taking part in Operation Springboard. While in the Caribbean, she visited Martinique. Briefly back at Newport early in March, "The Sullivans" soon returned to the West Indies to support marine landing exercises at Vieques, Puerto Rico.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: In April, the ship began intensive training in the waters off Florida to prepare to cover a Project Mercury spaceshot. "The Sullivans" joined "Lake Champlain" at Naval Station Mayport, Florida, and took station. On 5 May 1961, Commander Alan Shepard's Mercury space capsule, Freedom 7, passed overhead and splashed down near "Lake Champlain" and was speedily rescued by helicopters from the carrier. "The Sullivans" then made a midshipman cruise in June, visiting New York and Halifax, Nova Scotia.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: From September 1961 to February 1962, "The Sullivans" underwent a major overhaul in the Boston Naval Shipyard. She proceeded to Guantanamo Bay soon thereafter to train for duty as a school ship. She subsequently served as a model destroyer in which officer students could see and learn the fundamentals of destroyer operation. In May and again in August, "The Sullivans" made training cruises to the Caribbean for the Destroyer School.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: In October 1962, after Soviet missiles were discovered in Cuba, "The Sullivans" joined American naval forces blockading the island during negotiations with the Soviet Union over the issue. When the Soviet Government withdrew the strategic weapons, the destroyer returned to Newport.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: On 7 January 1963, "The Sullivans" got underway from Newport bound for the Caribbean and another training cruise. Following her return to Newport, she conducted local operations for the Destroyer School. The tragic loss of nuclear submarine off Boston on 10 April 1963 caused the destroyer to support emergency investigations of the disaster.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: For the remainder of 1963 and into the first few months of 1964, "The Sullivans" continued to train officer students. On 1 April 1964, the destroyer was transferred to the Naval Reserve Force, and her homeport was changed to New York City. Departing Newport on 13 April, the warship proceeded to New York and took on her selected reserve crew. Her cruises with the reserves embarked were devoted mostly to ASW exercises and took the ship to Canadian ports such as Halifax, Nova Scotia; Saint John, New Brunswick; and Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, in the north; and to Palm Beach, Florida, in the south.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: After the collision of the Australian aircraft carrier and destroyer , which resulted in the sinking of "Voyager" on 10 February 1964, the United States offered "The Sullivans" to Australia along with sister ship as a temporary replacement. The Royal Australian Navy instead accepted the British Royal Navy's offer of the "Daring"-class destroyer , which was of the same class as "Voyager".


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: "The Sullivans" received nine battle stars for World War II service and two for Korean service. On 7 January 1965, "The Sullivans" was decommissioned at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard and she remained in reserve into the 1970s. In 1977, she and cruiser were processed for donation to the Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park in Buffalo, New York. The ship now serves as a memorial and is open for public tours.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: The ship was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1986. On 26 February 2021 it was reported that "The Sullivans" was taking on water and listing. It was stated that the ship's age and possible weather damage were the most likely cause for the leak below the waterline.


title: USS The Sullivans (DD-537)

text: On 14 April 2022, the ship began to list and appeared to sit lower in the water than usual; crews told a reporter that electrical power to the ship had been lost. A later public statement reported "a serious hull breach" that was under investigation, with part of the ship resting on the riverbed, but still mostly above water. An assessment below deck in May called the damage to the ship's interior considerable.


title: Once Upon a Time in China

text: Once Upon a Time in China (released in the Philippines as Enter the New Game of Death) is a 1991 Hong Kong martial arts film written and directed by Tsui Hark, starring Jet Li as Chinese martial arts master and folk hero of Cantonese ethnicity, Wong Fei-hung. It is the first instalment in the "Once Upon a Time in China" film series.


title: Once Upon a Time in China

text: The film is set in Foshan, China sometime in the late 19th century during the Qing dynasty. Liu Yongfu, the commander of the Black Flag Army, invites Wong Fei-hung on board his ship to watch a lion dance. Sailors on board a nearby French ship hear the sound of firecrackers and mistakenly think that Liu's ship is firing at them so they return fire and injure the dancers. Wong picks up the lion head and finishes the performance. Liu comments about the perilous situation China is in, and then gives Wong a hand fan inscribed with all the unequal treaties signed between China and other countries.


title: Once Upon a Time in China

text: Wong is the martial arts instructor of the local militia in Foshan. He also runs his own traditional Chinese medicine clinic, Po-chi-lam, and has three apprentices: "Porky Wing", "Bucktooth" So, and Kai. He meets Siu-kwan, the daughter of a sworn brother of his grandfather. Even though she is around the same age as him, he still has to address her as "13th Aunt" as she is considered more "senior" than him. They have romantic feelings for each other but their relationship is restrained because it is taboo in the conservative Chinese society of their time.


title: Once Upon a Time in China

text: Leung Foon arrives in Foshan with an opera troupe to stage performances. He encounters 13th Aunt by chance, has a few clumsy encounters with her, and develops a crush on her. He also runs into trouble with the Shaho Gang, which terrorises and extorts money from local businesses. A fight breaks out between the gang and the local militia while Wong is meeting the Governor of Foshan in a restaurant. The gangsters flee when they realise they are no match for Wong. The Governor blames Wong for the disturbance, and disbands and arrests the militia members. Wong confronts the Shaho Gang's leader, defeats him and captures him, but the authorities release him because no one wants to help Wong by testifying as a witness in court.


title: Once Upon a Time in China

text: In the meantime, Leung Foon meets a northern martial artist, "Iron Vest" Yim, and decides to follow him. Yim wants to become famous and start a martial arts school in Foshan, but he needs to prove himself first. One night, the Shaho Gang sets fire to Po-chi-lam in revenge, after which they flee and take shelter under Jackson, an American official. In return for protection from the authorities, the Shaho Gang helps Jackson run his underground human trafficking ring by kidnapping Chinese women to be sent to America as prostitutes. When Wong and the Governor are watching an opera performance, the Shaho Gang and Jackson's men ambush them and try to assassinate the Governor and kill Wong. Their plan fails but many innocent people at the theatre are wounded. The Governor blames Wong and threatens to arrest and execute him, but allows him to give medical attention to the injured.


title: Once Upon a Time in China

text: While tending to the injured people in his clinic, Wong meets an escaped Chinese labourer from America who relates his story of how he and his fellow labourers were treated in America. Just then, Yim arrives at Po-chi-lam and insists on challenging Wong to a fight to prove he is the better fighter. Yim leaves with Leung Foon, who was fired from the opera troupe, after he was defeated by Wong but later joins the Shaho Gang instead – even though Leung strongly objects to Yim working with the gang. Shortly after Yim left, the Governor shows up and orders his men to search Po-chi-lam for fugitives. While buying time for the labourer, 13th Aunt and "Bucktooth" So to escape, Wong and his apprentices fight with the Governor's men until 13th Aunt, "Bucktooth" So and the labourer have escaped. Wong then surrenders himself and is imprisoned along with his apprentices. In the meantime, the Shaho Gang kills the labourer, abducts 13th Aunt and takes her to their base. "Bucktooth" So escapes and goes to the prison to inform Wong. The prison guards release Wong and his apprentices out of respect for him.


title: Once Upon a Time in China

text: Wong and his apprentices disguise themselves and infiltrate Jackson's base to find and rescue 13th Aunt. Yim engages Wong in a one-on-one fight and again, Wong defeats Yim for the second time in a row, and realises that he has been cheating in fights; there is a small spearhead tied onto the tip of Yim's queue (which Wong uses to tear Yim's queue in retaliation for cheating) at the same time, Wong's apprentices and Leung Foon overcome the Shaho Gang and Jackson's men, and save 13th Aunt and the kidnapped women. Just as Wong is about to board Jackson's ship, Yim shows up, wanting to resume his fight with Wong, and gets fatally shot by Jackson's men. With his dying breath, he tells Wong that "martial arts stand no chance against guns". During the fight on the ship, the Shaho Gang's leader meets his end after being pushed into a furnace. At the critical moment, Jackson takes the Governor hostage at gunpoint, but Wong kills Jackson by using his fingers to flick an unused bullet into Jackson's forehead, and saves the Governor. At the end of the film, Wong accepts Leung as his fourth apprentice and they take a group photo in Po-chi-lam.


title: Once Upon a Time in China

text: "Once Upon a Time in China" was released in Hong Kong on 15 August 1991. The film was a box office hit and is largely credited with starting the period martial arts craze of the early to mid 1990s. It ran for almost two months, the longest duration for any of the series, and grossed HK$29,672,278 in Hong Kong. In the Philippines, the film was released as "Enter the New Game of Death" by First Films on 15 October 1992.


title: Once Upon a Time in China

text: "Once Upon a Time in China" was given highly favorable reviews from film critics. Rotten Tomatoes reported a score of 88%.


title: MS Iona

text: MS "Iona" is an "Excellence"-class cruise ship in service for P&O Cruises, a subsidiary of Carnival Corporation & plc. Built by Meyer Werft in Papenburg, Germany, she was delivered in October 2020, becoming the line's newest ship at a cost of £730 million. At , the ship is the largest to ever operate for P&O Cruises, and to operate specifically for the British market. She is the first of two identical ships built by Meyer Werft for P&O Cruises, with the second, "Arvia", due to enter service in 2022.


title: MS Iona

text: "Iona" has 17 different eateries, including eight restaurants designated as 'select dining', and 12 different bars. She also has 16 whirlpools and 4 swimming pools, one of which is housed under SkyDome, an entertainment venue topped by a 105-ton, 340-pane, 970-square-metre glass dome with a retractable stage for shows. The ship's centre also includes a three-deck atrium flanked by triple-deck glass panels projecting outwards.


title: MS Iona

text: "Iona" has 18 total decks, a length of , and a beam of . Maximum power is rated at . Total propulsion power is rated at . Together, the power system gives the vessel a service speed of . "Iona" will have a passenger capacity of 5,206 guests and 1,762 crew. Powered by liquefied natural gas (LNG), "Iona" is designed to not emit sulphur dioxide emissions and soot particles.


title: MS Iona

text: On 6 September 2016, Carnival Corporation announced that it had signed an agreement with Meyer Werft for a 5,200-passenger vessel for P&O, scheduled for a 2020 debut. The vessel, planned to be the largest in P&O's history, at approximately , would also be powered by LNG, making her the first LNG-powered ship dedicated for the British market. It was later reported that the engine room unit for the LNG tanks for "Iona" was constructed separately at Meyer Werft's sister yard, Neptun Werft, in Rostock. On 27 October 2016, P&O announced that the public would be invited to name the new ship. On 24 May 2018, it was announced that the name "Iona", after the Scottish island of Iona, had been chosen from 30,000 submissions.


title: MS Iona

text: On 25 April 2018, construction for the ship began with the steel-cutting ceremony in Papenburg. On 29 May 2019, the ship's keel was laid to mark the official assembly of the hull. At the ceremony, a bronze coin from Iona Abbey and a piece of green marble from Iona was laid under a keel block that measured long, wide, and high, and weighed . The block was then lowered into the building dock. In August 2019, the 105-ton, 340-pane glass dome set to become the "Skydome" was raised onto the ship. By the end of the month, the bow and midsections were joined together.


title: MS Iona

text: "Iona" was floated out of the dry dock on 14 February 2020. She went through final outfitting in wet dock before her River Ems conveyance to Eemshaven on 18 March 2020 and her sea trials in the North Sea were set to follow shortly after. However, on 20 March 2020, Meyer Werft announced that the ship had been moored in Bremerhaven and all interior work and trials would be halted, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Later, on 26 March 2020, following discussions with Bremerhaven port and medical authorities, Meyer Werft explained that work would resume, but at a reduced pace, given the reduction in crew and resources. On 30 May 2020, "Iona" departed from Bremerhaven for Rotterdam for a sea trial and entered dry dock at Damen's Rotterdam shipyard on 2 June for continued inspection work. A second round of sea trials was later performed along the Norwegian coast following the dry dock. Originally scheduled for spring 2020, the delivery date was further postponed to June 2020 and August 2020 before "Iona" was ultimately delivered on 9 October 2020.


title: MS Iona

text: "Iona" was originally scheduled to perform her maiden voyage on 14 May 2020. The nine-night round-trip voyage from Southampton was to sail to the Norwegian fjords, calling in Stavanger, Olden, Hellesylt, Geiranger, and Bergen. The ship was scheduled to be christened on 4 July 2020 in Southampton before inaugurating a week-long celebration on the ship. However, on 23 April 2020, P&O announced that the pandemic forced the suspension of its operations and postponed the ship's debut and inaugural festivities. A year later, "Iona" was christened by Dame Irene Hays on 16 May 2021 in Southampton at a ceremony led by Gary Barlow and Jo Whiley.


title: MS Iona

text: "Iona" was originally scheduled to sail cruises to the Norwegian fjords from Southampton for her maiden season. P&O announced in March 2021 that the ship's maiden voyage would be 7 August 2021 to Iona before she begins operating week-long voyages through September, visiting the Scottish isles and the Channel Islands. Due to the United Kingdom's pandemic travel restrictions, all voyages during the inaugural season would be exclusive to UK residents.


title: The Prestige

text: The Prestige is a 1995 fantasy novel by British writer Christopher Priest. It tells the story of a prolonged feud between two stage magicians in late 1800s England. It is epistolary in structure; that is, it purports to be a collection of real diaries that were kept by the protagonists and later collated. The title derives from the novel's fictional practice of stage illusions having three parts: the setup, the performance, and the prestige (effect).


title: The Prestige

text: The novel received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for best fiction and the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel.


title: The Prestige

text: The events of the past are told through the diaries of nineteenth century magicians Rupert Angier and Alfred Borden. The diaries are read by their great-grandchildren, Kate Angier and Andrew Westley (born Nicholas Borden) who meet in the present day, with the two diary accounts being interspersed with events of Kate's and Andrew's framing story throughout the novel. Andrew's story is related to his childhood, being adopted and his current job as a journalist. Kate's story is related to a traumatic event that happened when she was five years old where she witnessed a small boy murdered by her father. This leads her to search for Andrew who she believes is a key to the mystery. Kate believes that Andrew was the twin of the boy she witnessed die. As the diaries are read, the truth of the what happened to Andrew's twin is explained by the history of Angier and Borden.


title: The Prestige

text: The central plot focuses on a feud between the magicians, begun in the fledgling years of their careers when Borden disrupts a fake seance being conducted by Angier and his wife after having conducted a previous one for one of Borden's relatives (Borden was upset that they were presenting it as real when he realized it was in truth an illusion). During a scuffle, Angier's pregnant wife Julia is thrown to the ground, resulting in a miscarriage. The two men are mutually antagonistic for many years afterwards as they rise to become world-renowned stage magicians, with the feud affecting the later generations of their families to come, specifically Kate and Andrew.


title: The Prestige

text: Borden develops a teleportation act called "The Transported Man", and later creates an improved version named "The New Transported Man", which appears to move him from one closed cabinet to another in the blink of an eye without appearing to pass through the intervening space. The act seems to defy physics and puts all previous magic acts to shame. The reader learns that Alfred Borden is actually not one man but two: identical twins named Albert and Frederick who share the identity of "Alfred Borden" secretly to ensure their professional success with "The New Transported Man". Angier suspects that Borden uses a double, but dismisses the idea because he thinks it is too easy.


title: The Prestige

text: Angier desperately tries to equal Borden's success. With the help of the acclaimed inventor Nikola Tesla, Angier develops an act called "In a Flash", which produces a similar result through a starkly different method. Tesla's device teleports a human being from one place to another by creating an exact physical duplicate at the required destination, into which the person's consciousness is instantly transmitted thus leaving the original physical subject behind. Because of this method, Angier is forced to devise a way to conceal the original (in order to preserve the illusion) whenever the trick is performed. He clinically refers to these near-lifeless shells in his diary as "the prestiges".


title: The Prestige

text: Angier's new act is as successful as Borden's. The infuriated and obsessed Borden attempts to discover how "In a Flash" is performed. During one performance he breaks into the backstage area and turns off the power to Angier's device, mistakenly believing the generator powering it is about to catch fire and turn the theatre ablaze. The subsequent teleportation is incomplete, and both the duplicated Angier and the "prestige" Angier survive as separate persons after this incident, but the original feels increasingly weak physically while the duplicate seems to lack physical substance. The original "prestige" Angier fakes his own death as part of a previous plan to put behind his public persona of a magician, and returns as the heir to his family estate of Caldlow House without any publicity. While there, he becomes terminally ill.


title: The Prestige

text: Angier had discovered Borden's secret as a twin prior to the accident that created his duplicate. Now alienated from the world by his ghostly form and consumed with thoughts of revenge, the Angier duplicate attacks one of the twins before a performance. However, Borden's apparent poor health, age, and the duplicate Angier's resurgent sense of morality prevent the assault from becoming murder. It is implied that this particular Borden twin dies a few days later, and the incorporeal Angier travels to meet the corporeal Angier, now living as the 14th Earl of Colderdale. They come into possession of Borden's diary, courtesy of a disgruntled third party in need of money, but publish it without revealing the twins' secret. Shortly afterwards, the corporeal Angier dies and his ghostly duplicate uses Tesla's device one last time to teleport himself into the body; hoping that either he will reanimate it and become whole again, or kill himself instantly and so reunite with his other self in death.


title: The Prestige

text: In the final section of the novel, Kate and Andrew's mystery is revealed. Andrew Westley goes into the Angier family vault. He finds all of Rupert Angier's near-lifeless shells (the prestiges) labelled with the date and place they were created. Andrew also finds a prestige of a small boy with the label Nicholas Julius Borden, with his place of creation listed as Caldlow House. It is then understood that Andrew himself never had a twin. The night Kate witnessed his "death", he had actually been cast into the Tesla device by Kate's father and had become a physical duplicate of himself. It is also revealed to Kate Angier and Andrew Westley that in Caldlow House, some form of Rupert Angier has continued to survive to the present day. It appears Angier's attempt to become whole again was successful. Angier confirms to Andrew, in their brief moment of contact in the vault, that Andrew was a physical duplicate of the small boy, just like Angier was a duplicate of all the prestiges in the vault.