title: Denunciation rally

text: Denunciation rallies were disowned in China after 1978, when the reformers led by Deng Xiaoping took power. Starting from the "Boluan Fanzheng" period, Deng prohibited denunciation rallies and other kinds of Mao-era violent political campaigns.


title: Denunciation rally

text: Frederick T. C. Yu identified three categories of mass campaigns employed by the CCP in the years before and after the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC):


title: Denunciation rally

text: The process of denunciation rallies served multiple purposes. First, it demonstrated to the masses that the party was determined to subdue any opposition (generally labeled “class enemies”), by violence if necessary. Second, potential rivals were crushed. Third, those who attacked the targeted foes became complicit in the violence and hence invested in the state. All three served to consolidate the party's control, which was deemed necessary because party members constituted a small minority of China's population.


title: Denunciation rally

text: Both accusation meetings and mass trials were largely propaganda tools to accomplish the party's aims. Klaus Mühlhahn, professor of China studies at Freie Universität Berlin, wrote:


title: Denunciation rally

text: Julia C. Strauss observed that public tribunals were "but the visible dénouement of a show that had been many weeks in preparation".


title: Denunciation rally

text: Margaret Chu, writing retrospectively for the Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation's "Mindszenty Report" in November 1998, said:


title: Denunciation rally

text: Anne F. Thurston, in "Enemies of the People", gave a description of a denunciation rally for the professor You Xiaoli: "I had many feelings at that struggle session. I thought there were some bad people in the audience. But I also thought there were many ignorant people, people who did not understand what was happening, so I pitied that kind of person. They brought workers and peasants into the meetings, and they could not understand what was happening. But I was also angry."


title: Denunciation rally

text: The Canadian journalist Jan Wong recalled her experience as an exchange student in the 1960s: "It wasn't a 批判大会 "pipan dahui" [a denunciation rally]. It was a 批评会 "piping hui" [a criticism session]", drawing a crucial Maoist distinction. Then, "Fu the Enforcer and Cadre Huang had frequently subjected Erica and me to criticism sessions. It was like being summoned to the principal's office in high school—not pleasant, but not devastating either. A denunciation rally, on the other hand, was brutal and vicious. I was relieved to hear that it had been merely a criticism session."


title: Claudia Octavia

text: Claudia Octavia (late 39 or early 40 – June 9, AD 62) was a Roman empress. She was the daughter of the Emperor Claudius and Valeria Messalina. After her mother's death and father's remarriage to her cousin Agrippina the Younger, she became the stepsister of the future Emperor Nero. She also became his wife, in a marriage between the two which was arranged by Agrippina.


title: Claudia Octavia

text: Octavia was popular with the Roman people, but Nero hated their marriage. When his mistress, Poppaea Sabina, became pregnant, he divorced and banished Octavia. When this led to a public outcry, he instead had her executed.


title: Claudia Octavia

text: Octavia was the elder of two children of Claudius and his third wife, Valeria Messalina. Her younger brother was Britannicus. She had older half-siblings through her father's earlier marriages. Her elder half-sister was Claudia Antonia, Claudius's daughter through his second marriage to Aelia Paetina. She also had a half-brother, Claudius Drusus, through Claudius's first marriage to Plautia Urgulanilla, although Drusus died before she was born.


title: Claudia Octavia

text: She was born in Rome around 39 or 40 during the reign of her cousin Caligula. In January 41, Caligula was assassinated and her father was declared emperor. Shortly after Claudius' accession to the throne, her brother Britannicus was born on February 12. That same year, Claudius betrothed her to Lucius Junius Silanus Torquatus, a descendant of Augustus.


title: Claudia Octavia

text: In 48, Messalina was engaged in an affair with the senator Gaius Silius, and the two held a wedding banquet when Claudius was away in Ostia. Claudius was informed by one of his advisors, the freedman Narcissus, and hurried back to Rome, concerned that the wedding was part of an attempt to overthrow him and make Silius emperor. Octavia and Britannicus were sent out to meet Claudius in an attempt to assuage his anger. Messalina's efforts to reconcile with Claudius were unsuccessful, and she was executed by the Praetorian Guard on orders that Narcissus presented as being from Claudius.


title: Claudia Octavia

text: Political concerns, including the need to dissuade further challenges to his legitimacy, motivated Claudius to remarry. Several candidates were proposed by his advisors; they included his former wife Aelia Paetina and Lollia Paulina, a wealthy noblewoman who had been married to Caligula for a short time. In 49, Claudius instead married Agrippina the Younger, daughter of the popular general Germanicus and also a descendant of Augustus. Germanicus was Claudius' older brother, making Agrippina Claudius' niece and Octavia's first cousin. The law prohibiting such a marriage was changed in order to proceed.


title: Claudia Octavia

text: Agrippina had a son, Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus from her first marriage to Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus. In 50, Claudius adopted Lucius, who changed his name to Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus.


title: Claudia Octavia

text: Agrippina played an active role in politics through her influence on Claudius. She had Octavia's fiancé Silanus publicly accused of incest with his sister; he was forced to resign from his position of praetor and commit suicide. Suetonius reports the latter occurring on the same day as Claudius and Agrippina's marriage. She then had Octavia betrothed to Nero, who was additionally made an heir to Claudius. Octavia and Nero married in 53. To address the problem that they were now legally brother and sister, Octavia was first adopted into another patrician family.


title: Claudia Octavia

text: On October 13, 54, Claudius became ill and died unexpectedly. The convenient timing of his death – Britannicus was rapidly approaching adulthood and might displace Nero as heir – led the ancient sources to accuse Agrippina of killing him, possibly with poisoned mushrooms. Although modern historians consider the death suspicious and Agrippina possibly guilty, they also note that Claudius was in his sixties and never in the best of health. On the same day, Nero was acclaimed emperor by the Praetorian Guard, and the senate acquiesced, formally investing him with power. Octavia was now married to the emperor of Rome. Having become emperor, Nero's relationship with his mother began to deteriorate as the two vied for power.


title: Claudia Octavia

text: The next year, Britannicus died as well, during a banquet where Octavia, Nero, and Agrippina were all present. Octavia and Agrippina were shocked at Britannicus' sudden illness, which Nero attributed to epilepsy. Britannicus, as the son of Claudius, had been a potential rival for the imperium, one that Agrippina had attempted to use as leverage in power struggles with her son. The suspicious death of Nero's rival led to the widespread assumption that Nero had had Britannicus poisoned; ancient writers including Tacitus, Suetonius, Cassius Dio, and Josephus all charge Nero with the murder of his stepbrother. Tacitus reports that by this point, Octavia "had learned to hide her griefs, her affections, her every emotion".


title: Claudia Octavia

text: Octavia and Agrippina grew close after the death of Britannicus. Nero began to have affairs, first with Claudia Acte, a freedwoman, and then with Poppaea Sabina, the wife of his friend Marcus Salvius Otho. Nero's infidelities and his expressed desire to marry one of his mistresses resulted in another conflict in the ongoing power struggles between Nero and Agrippina. These came to an end in March 59 when Nero, possibly at the urging of Poppaea, murdered his mother, doing so with the assistance of Anicetus, a former tutor of Nero's who had become an admiral.


title: Claudia Octavia

text: Octavia was well-liked by the Roman populace, but her marriage to Nero was loveless and unhappy. Although Tacitus describes Octavia as "a noblewoman of proven virtue" and having a "modest demeanour", Nero had no interest in her and hated their marriage, preferring having affairs with Acte and Poppaea. When some in the court raised questions about his treatment of her, he responded that she should be content to be his wife in name only. According to Suetonius, he attempted to strangle her on several occasions.


title: Claudia Octavia

text: In 62, Nero no longer had the chief advisors of his early reign, as praetorian prefect Sextus Afranius Burrus died, and Seneca the Younger retired. This led to a shift in Nero's conduct that historian Barry Strauss referred to as "a turning point in the reign", as he increasingly exiled or executed those he considered his enemies. Burrus had previously advised Nero against divorcing Octavia. He positioned Nero's marriage to her as the source of his legitimacy as emperor, telling Nero that he would need to "give her back her dowry". The same year as Burrus' death, Poppaea became pregnant with Nero's child.


title: Claudia Octavia

text: Nero divorced Octavia, claiming that his lack of an heir was due to her sterility. As part of the divorce, he gave her properties previously belonging to Burrus and Rubellius Plautus, another Julio-Claudian relative he had recently had killed. Nero married Poppaea shortly after – in Suetonius' account, twelve days after the divorce.


title: Claudia Octavia

text: In an attempt to damage Octavia's reputation and with it her popularity, Nero and Poppaea also accused her of adultery with Eucaerus, a flute player from Alexandria. One of the new praetorian prefects, Ofonius Tigellinus, questioned Octavia's maidservants, including Pythias, under torture in order to corroborate this charge, but was largely unsuccessful. Nevertheless, Octavia was exiled to Campania.


title: Claudia Octavia

text: The people of Rome responded to Octavia's banishment with widespread public protests that historian Vasily Rudich described as "the most pronounced mass disturbance [in the city of Rome] under Nero until the very moment of his overthrow". The protests were largely against Poppaea; Nero was even cheered when rumors spread that he had changed his mind. Statues of Octavia were carried through the streets, while those of Poppaea were pulled down or damaged.


title: Claudia Octavia

text: Nero was unsure how to respond. Poppaea argued for harsher treatment of Octavia, claiming that the protesters were simply Octavia's clients and servants and did not really represent what the Roman populace thought. She also suggested that any husband found for Octavia could be a threat to his position. Nero asked Anicetus, his ally in the murder of Agrippina, to confess to adultery, offering him the options of rewards and a comfortable life in exile or death. Anicetus gave Nero the false confession he wanted and was exiled to Sardinia, where he eventually died of natural causes. Nero also accused Octavia of covering up this adultery with an abortion, even though his initial basis for divorce was a claim that she was sterile.


title: Claudia Octavia

text: Octavia was exiled to the small island of Pandateria (now Ventotene), where Julia the Elder, Agrippina the Elder, and Julia Livilla had all previously been exiled. A few days after her arrival, soldiers arrived with the order to execute her. Her entreaties with her executioners were unsuccessful, and she was tied up. Her veins were cut in an attempt to simulate suicide, but when that took longer than expected, she was brought into a room full of hot steam to suffocate. She died on June 9, 62. Her head was cut off and brought back to Poppaea.


title: Claudia Octavia

text: For all these things offerings were decreed to the temples — how often must those words be said? Let all who make their acquaintance with the history of that period in my narrative or that of others take so much for granted: as often as the emperor ordered an exile or a murder, so often was a thanksgiving addressed to Heaven; and what formerly betokened prosperity was now a symbol of public calamity. – Tacitus, "The Annals"


title: Claudia Octavia

text: In the aftermath of the failed Pisonian conspiracy of 65, Praetorian Subrius Flavus listed Nero's murder of Octavia as one of the reasons for his participation when being questioned by Nero.


title: Claudia Octavia

text: Poppaea would remain Nero's wife until her death in 65, a death usually attributed to Nero kicking her while she was pregnant. Nero would kill himself after armies rose in revolt against him, dying on June 9, 68, exactly six years after Octavia.


title: Claudia Octavia

text: Her divorce from Nero is the subject of the play "Octavia", the only example of Roman drama based on Roman history to survive in its entirety. It was written by an unknown author after Nero's death, possibly during the rule of the Flavian dynasty, and may have been the first written accusation that Nero was responsible for the Great Fire of Rome.


title: Claudia Octavia

text: Beginning in the 17th century, there was an increase in operas and other dramatic works based on the life of Nero. The "Octavia" was likely an influence on some of these works, although to what extent is unclear. Octavia appears in works including Handel's lost opera "Nero", Claudio Monteverdi's opera "L'incoronazione di Poppea" (1642/1643), Reinhard Keiser's opera "Octavia" (1705), Vittorio Alfieri's tragedy "Ottavia" (1783), and Johann Caspar Aiblinger's ballet "La morte di Nerone" (1815/1816). Some works took considerable creative liberties with the historical events, such as Giovanni Battista Bassani's "Agrippina in Baia" (1687), which contains a happy ending where all the characters survive and are successfully reconciled with each other.


title: Claudia Octavia

text: Octavia is also the subject of the massive German novel "Die Römische Octavia" (1677-1707) by Anthony Ulrich, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, and a character in Robert Graves's novel "Claudius the God" (the sequel to "I, Claudius") and the television series "I, Claudius". She is the main character of the historical biographical novel "Octavia: A Tale of Ancient Rome" by Seymour van Santvoord (1923).


title: Sarah Anne Williams

text: Sarah Anne Williams is an American voice actress. She currently resides in Los Angeles. In anime, she is known for her performances as Nonon Jakuzure in "Kill la Kill", Sayaka Miki in "Puella Magi Madoka Magica", Lisbeth in "Sword Art Online", Neferpitou in "Hunter × Hunter", in "", Karin Miyoshi in "Yuki Yuna is a Hero", Yuniko Kozuki in "Accel World", E.M. Pino in "Edens Zero", and Susamaru in "". In video games, she voiced Jinx in "League of Legends", Uni / Black Sister in the "Hyperdimension Neptunia" series, Echo in "Mobius Final Fantasy", Jack Frost in "", Chihaya Mifune in "Persona 5", Peacock in "Skullgirls", and Mist in "Fire Emblem Heroes".


title: Demining

text: Demining or mine clearance is the process of removing land mines from an area. In military operations, the object is to rapidly clear a path through a minefield, and this is often done with devices such as mine plows and blast waves. By contrast, the goal of "humanitarian demining" is to remove all of the landmines to a given depth and make the land safe for human use. Specially trained dogs are also used to narrow down the search and verify that an area is cleared. Mechanical devices such as flails and excavators are sometimes used to clear mines.


title: Demining

text: A great variety of methods for detecting landmines have been studied. These include electromagnetic methods, one of which (ground penetrating radar) has been employed in tandem with metal detectors. Acoustic methods can sense the cavity created by mine casings. Sensors have been developed to detect vapor leaking from landmines. Animals such as rats and mongooses can safely move over a minefield and detect mines, and animals can also be used to screen air samples over potential minefields. Bees, plants, and bacteria are also potentially useful. Explosives in landmines can also be detected directly using nuclear quadrupole resonance and neutron probes.


title: Demining

text: Detection and removal of landmines is a dangerous activity, and personal protective equipment does not protect against all types of landmine. Once found, mines are generally defused or blown up with more explosives, but it is possible to destroy them with certain chemicals or extreme heat without making them explode.


title: Demining

text: Land mines overlap with other categories of explosive devices, including unexploded ordnance (UXOs), booby traps and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). In particular, most mines are factory-built, but the definition of landmine can include "artisanal" (improvised) mines. Thus, the United Nations Mine Action Service includes mitigation of IEDs in its mission. Injuries from IEDs are much more serious, but factory-built landmines are longer lasting and often more plentiful. Over 1999–2016, yearly casualties from landmines and unexploded ordnance have varied between 9,228 and 3,450. In 2016, 78% of the casualties were suffered by civilians (42% by children), 20% by military and security personnel and 2% by deminers.


title: Demining

text: There are two main categories of land mine: anti-tank and anti-personnel. Anti-tank mines are designed to damage tanks or other vehicles; they are usually larger and require at least of force to trigger, so infantry will not set them off.


title: Demining

text: Anti-personnel mines are designed to maim or kill soldiers. There are over 350 types, but they come in two main groups: "blast" and "fragmentation". Blast mines are buried close to the surface and triggered by pressure. A weight between , the weight of a small child, is usually enough to set one off. They are usually cylindrical with a diameter of and a height of . Fragmentation mines are designed to explode outwards resulting in casualties as much as 100 metres away. A subtype of fragmentation mines called "bounding" mines are specifically designed to launch upward off the ground before detonating. Their size varies and they are mostly metal, so they are easily detected by metal detectors. However, they are normally activated by tripwires that can be up to 20 metres away from the mine, so tripwire detection is essential.


title: Demining

text: The casing of blast mines may be made of metal, wood, or plastic. Some mines, referred to as minimum metal mines, are constructed with as little metal as possible – as little as – to make them difficult to detect. Common explosives used in land mines include TNT (), RDX (), pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN, ), HMX () and ammonium nitrate ().


title: Demining

text: Land mines are found in about 60 countries. Deminers must cope with environments that include deserts, jungles, and urban environments. Antitank mines are buried deeply while antipersonnel mines are usually within 6 inches of the surface. Mines may be placed by hand or scattered from airplanes, in regular or irregular patterns. In urban environments, fragments of destroyed buildings may hide them; in rural environments, soil erosion may cover them or displace them. Detectors can be confused by high-metal soils and junk. Thus, demining presents a considerable engineering challenge.


title: Demining

text: In military demining, the goal is to create a safe path for troops and equipment. The soldiers who carry out this task are known as combat engineers, sappers, or pioneers. Sometimes soldiers may bypass a minefield, but some bypasses are designed to concentrate advancing troops into a killing zone. If engineers need to clear a path (an operation known as "breaching"), they may be under heavy fire and need supporting fire to suppress the enemy or obscure the site with smoke. Some risk of casualties is accepted, but engineers under heavy fire may need to clear an obstacle in 7–10 minutes to avoid excessive casualties, so manual breaching may be too slow. They may need to operate in bad weather or at night. Good intelligence is needed on factors like the locations of minefields, types of mines and how they were laid, their density and pattern, ground conditions and the size and location of enemy defenses.


title: Demining

text: Humanitarian demining is a component of mine action, a broad effort to reduce the social, economic and environmental damage of mines. The other "pillars" of mine action are risk education, victim assistance, stockpile destruction, and advocacy against the use of anti-personnel mines and cluster munitions. Humanitarian demining differs from military demining in several ways. Military demining operations require speed and reliability under combat conditions to safely bypass a mine field so it is more acceptable if some mines are missed in the process. Humanitarian demining aims to reduce risk for deminers and civilians as much as possible by removing (ideally) all landmines and demining work can usually be temporarily halted if unfavorable circumstances arise. In some situations, it is a necessary precondition for other humanitarian programs. Normally, a national mine action authority (NMAA) is given the primary responsibility for mine action, which it manages through a mine action center (MAC). This coordinates the efforts of other players including government agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), commercial companies, and militaries.


title: Demining

text: The International Mine Action Standards (IMAS) provide a framework for mine action. While not legally binding in themselves, they are intended as guidelines for countries to develop their own standards. The IMAS also draw on international treaties including the Mine Ban Treaty, which has provisions for destroying stockpiles and clearing minefields.


title: Demining

text: In the 1990s, before the IMAS, the United Nations required that deminers had to clear 99.6% of all mines and explosive ordnance. However, professional deminers found that unacceptably lax because they would be responsible if any mines later harmed civilians. In contrast, the IMAS call for the clearance of "all" mines and UXOs from a given area to a specified depth.


title: Demining

text: As of 2017, antipersonnel mines are known to contaminate 61 states and suspected in another 10. The most heavily contaminated (with more than 100 square kilometres of minefield each) are Afghanistan, Angola, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Chad, Iraq, Thailand and Turkey. Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty are required to clear all mines within 10 years of joining the treaty, and as of 2017, 28 countries had succeeded. However, several countries were not on track to meet their deadline or had requested extensions.


title: Demining

text: A 2003 RAND Corporation report estimated that there are 45–50 million mines and 100,000 are cleared each year, so at present rates it would take about 500 years to clear them all. Another 1.9 million (19 more years of clearance) are added each year. However, there is a large uncertainty in the total number and the area affected. Records by armed forces are often incomplete or nonexistent, and many mines were dropped by airplane. Various natural events such as floods can move mines around and new mines continue to be laid. When minefields are cleared, the actual number of mines tends to be far smaller than the initial estimate; for example, early estimates for Mozambique were several million, but after most of the clearing had been done only 140,000 mines had been found. Thus, it may be more accurate to say that there are millions of landmines, not tens of millions.


title: Demining

text: Before minefields can be cleared, they need to be located. This begins with "non-technical survey", gathering records of mine placement and accidents from mines, interviewing former combatants and locals, noting locations of warning signs and unused agricultural land, and going to look at possible sites. This is supplemented by "technical survey", where potentially hazardous areas are physically explored to improve knowledge of their boundaries. A good survey can greatly reduce the time required to clear an area; in one study of 15 countries, less than 3 percent of the area cleared actually contained mines.


title: Demining

text: By one United Nations estimate, the cost to produce a landmine is between $3 and $75 while the cost of removing it is between $300 and $1000. However, such estimates may be misleading. The cost of clearance can vary considerably since it depends on the terrain, the ground cover (dense foliage makes it more difficult) and the method; and some areas that are checked for mines turn out to have none.


title: Demining

text: Although the Mine Ban Treaty gives each state the primary responsibility to clear its own mines, other states that can help are required to do so.


title: Demining

text: In 2016, 31 donors (led by the United States with $152.1 million and the European Union with $73.8 million) contributed a total of $479.5 million to mine action, of which $343.2 million went to clearance and risk education. The top 5 recipient states (Iraq, Afghanistan, Croatia, Cambodia and Laos) received 54% of this support.


title: Demining

text: The conventional method of mine detection was developed in World War II and has changed little since then. It involves a metal detector, prodding instrument and tripwire feeler. Deminers clear an area of vegetation and then divide it into lanes. A deminer advances along a lane, swinging a metal detector close to the ground. When metal is detected, the deminer prods the object with a stick or stainless steel probe to determine whether it is a mine. If a mine is found, it must be deactivated.


title: Demining

text: Although conventional demining is slow (5–150 square metres cleared per day), it is reliable, so it is still the most commonly used method. Integration with other methods such as explosive sniffing dogs can increase its reliability.


title: Demining

text: Demining is a dangerous occupation. If a mine is prodded too hard or it is not detected, the deminer can suffer injury or death. The large number of false positives from metal detectors can make deminers tired and careless. According to one report, there is one such incident for every 1000–2000 mines cleared. 35 percent of the accidents occur during mine excavation and 24 percent result from missed mines.


title: Demining

text: In World War II, the primary method of locating mines was by prodding the ground with a pointed stick or bayonet. Modern tools for prodding range from a military prodder to a screwdriver or makeshift object. They are inserted at shallow angles (30 degrees or less) to probe the sides of potential mines, avoiding the triggering mechanism that is usually on top. This method requires the deminer's head and hands to be near the mine. Rakes may also be used when the terrain is soft (e.g., sandy beaches); the deminer is further away from the mine and the rake can be used to either prod or scoop up mines from beneath.


title: Demining

text: Metal detectors used by deminers work on the same principles as detectors used in World War I and refined during World War II. A practical design by Polish officer Józef Kosacki, known as the Polish mine detector, was used to clear German mine fields during the Second Battle of El Alamein.


title: Demining

text: Although metal detectors have become much lighter, more sensitive and easy to operate than the early models, the basic principle is still electromagnetic induction. Current through a wire coil produces a time-varying magnetic field that in turn induces currents in conductive objects in the ground. In turn, these currents generate a magnetic field that induces currents in a receiver coil, and the resulting changes in electric potential can be used to detect metal objects. Similar devices are used by hobbyists.


title: Demining

text: Nearly all mines contain enough metal to be detectable. No detector finds all mines, and the performance depends on factors such as the soil, type of mine and depth of burial. An international study in 2001 found that the most effective detector found 91 percent of the test mines in clay soil but only 71 percent in iron-rich soil. The worst detector found only 11 percent even in clay soils. The results can be improved by multiple passes.


title: Demining

text: An even greater problem is the number of false positives. Minefields contain many other fragments of metal, including shrapnel, bullet casings, and metallic minerals. 100–1000 such objects are found for every real mine. The greater the sensitivity, the more false positives. The Cambodian Mine Action Centre found that, over a six-year period, 99.6 percent of the time (a total of 23 million hours) was spent digging up scrap.


title: Demining

text: Dogs have been used in demining since World War II. They are up to a million times more sensitive to chemicals than humans, but their true capability is unknown because they can sense explosives at lower concentrations than the best chemical detectors. Well-trained mine-detection dogs (MDDs) can sniff out explosive chemicals like TNT, monofilament lines used in tripwires, and metallic wire used in booby traps and mines. The area they can clear ranges from a few hundred to a thousand meters per day, depending on several factors. In particular, an unfavorable climate or thick vegetation can impede them, and they can get confused if there is too high a density of mines. The detection rate is also variable, so the International Mine Action Standards require an area to be covered by two dogs before it can be declared safe.


title: Demining

text: Preferred breeds for MDDs are the German Shepherd and Belgian Malinois, although some Labrador Retrievers and Beagles are used. They cost about $10,000 each to train. This cost includes 8–10 weeks of initial training. Another 8–10 weeks is needed in the country where the dog is deployed to accustom the dog to its handler, the soil and climate, and the type of explosives.


title: Demining

text: MDDs were first deployed in WWII. They have been extensively used in Afghanistan, which still has one of the largest programs. Over 900 are used in 24 countries. Their preferred role is for verifying that an area is cleared and narrowing down the region to be searched. They are also used in Remote Explosive Scent Tracing (REST). This involves collecting air samples from stretches of land about 100 meters long and having dogs or rats sniff them to determine whether the area needs clearing.


title: Demining

text: Mechanical demining makes use of vehicles with devices such as tillers, flails, rollers, and excavation. Used for military operations as far back as World War I, they were initially "cumbersome, unreliable and under-powered", but have been improved with additional armor, safer cabin designs, reliable power trains, Global Positioning System logging systems and remote control. They are now primarily used in humanitarian demining for technical surveys, to prepare the ground (removing vegetation and tripwires), and to detonate explosives.


title: Demining

text: Tiller systems consist of a heavy drum fitted with teeth or bits that are intended to destroy or detonate mines to a given depth. However, mines can be forced downwards or collected in a "bow wave" in front of the roller. They have trouble with steep slopes, wet conditions and large stones; light vegetation improves the performance, but thicker vegetation inhibits it. Flails, first used on Sherman tanks, have an extended arm with a rotating drum to which are attached chains with weights on the end. The chains act like swinging hammers. The strike force is enough to set off mines, smash them to pieces, damage the firing mechanism or throw the mine up. A blast shield protects the driver and the cabin is designed to deflect projectiles. Mine flail effectiveness can approach 100% in ideal conditions, but clearance rates as low as 50–60% have been reported.


title: Demining

text: First used in World War I with tanks, rollers are designed to detonate mines; blast-resistant vehicles with steel wheels, such as the Casspir, serve a similar purpose. However, those used in humanitarian demining cannot withstand the blast from an anti-tank mine, so their use must be preceded by careful surveying. Unlike flails and tillers, they only destroy functioning mines, and even those do not always explode.


title: Demining

text: Excavation, the removal of soil to a given depth, is done using modified construction vehicles such as bulldozers, excavators, front-end loaders, tractors and soil sifters. Armor plates and reinforced glass are added. Removed soil is sifted and inspected. It can also be fed through an industrial rock crusher, which is robust enough to withstand blasts from antipersonnel mines. Excavation is a reliable way of clearing an area to a depth that other mechanical systems cannot reach, and it has been used in several countries. In particular, the HALO Trust estimates that their excavation program destroys mines about 7 times faster than manual deminers.


title: Demining

text: A 2004 study by the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining concluded that the data on the performance of mechanical demining systems was poor, and perhaps as a result, they were not being used as the primary clearance system (with the exception of excavators). However, by 2014, confidence in these systems had increased to the point where some deminers were using them as primary clearance systems.


title: Demining

text: Mechanical demining techniques have some challenges. In steep, undulating terrain they may skip over some of the ground. Operators can be endangered by defective mines or mines with delay charges that detonate after the blast shield has passed over; shaped charge mines that are capable of piercing most armor; and intelligent mines that are off to the side and use a variety of sensors to decide when to fire a rocket at an armored vehicle. One answer is to use remote controlled vehicles such as the Caterpillar D7 MCAP (United States) and the Caterpillar D9 (Israel).


title: Demining

text: Despite advances in mine detection technology, "mine detection boils down to rows of nervous people wearing blast-resistant clothing and creeping laboriously across a field, prodding the ground ahead to check for buried objects." Often, especially when the soil is hard, they unwittingly apply too much force and risk detonating a mine. Prodders have been developed that provide feedback on the amount of force.


title: Demining

text: Universities, corporations and government bodies have been developing a great variety of methods for detecting mines. However, it is difficult to compare their performance. One quantitative measure is a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, which measures the tradeoff between false positives and false negatives. Ideally, there should be a high probability of detection with few false positives, but such curves have not been obtained for most of the technologies. Also, even if field tests were available for all technologies, they may not be comparable because performance depends on a myriad of factors, including the size, shape and composition of the mines; their depth and orientation; the type of explosive; environmental conditions; and performance of human operators. Most field tests have taken place in conditions that favor the performance of the technology, leading to overestimates of their performance.


title: Demining

text: Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) probes the ground using radar. A GPR device emits radio waves; these waves are reflected at discontinuities in permittivity and one or more antennae pick up the return signal. The signal is analyzed to determine the shapes and locations of the reflectors. Discontinuities occur between materials with different dielectric constants such as a landmine, a rock and soil. Unlike metal detectors, GPR devices can detect nonmetallic mine casings. However, radio waves have wavelengths that are comparable to the dimensions of landmines, so the images have low resolution. The wavelength can be varied; smaller wavelengths give better image quality but cannot penetrate as far into the soil. This tradeoff in performance depends on soil properties and other environmental factors as well as the properties of the mines. In particular, attenuation in wet soils can make it difficult to spot mines deeper than , while low-frequency radar will "bounce" off small plastic mines near the surface. Although GPR is a mature technology for other applications such as searching for archaeological artifacts, the effect of those factors on mine detection is still not adequately understood, and GPR is not widely used for demining.


title: Demining

text: GPR can be used with a metal detector and data-fusion algorithms to greatly reduce the false alarms generated by metallic clutter. One such dual-sensor device, the Handheld Standoff Mine Detection System (HSTAMIDS) became the standard mine detector of the U.S. Army in 2006. For humanitarian demining, it was tested in Cambodia for a variety of soil conditions and mine types, detecting 5,610 mines and correctly identifying 96.5% of the clutter. Another dual detector developed by ERA Technology, the Cobham VMR3 Minehound, had similar success in Bosnia, Cambodia and Angola. These dual-sensor devices are relatively light and cheap, and the HALO Trust has begun to deploy more of them around the world.


title: Demining

text: Soil absorbs radiation from the Sun and is heated, with a resulting change in the infrared radiation that it emits. Landmines are better insulators than soil. As a result, the soil overhead tends to heat faster during the day and cool faster at night. Thermography uses infrared sensors to detect anomalies in the heating and cooling cycle. The effect can be enhanced using a heat source. The act of burying a mine also affects the soil properties, with small particles tending to collect near the surface. This tends to suppress the frequency-dependent characteristics that are evident in the larger particles. Hyperspectral imaging, which senses dozens of frequency bands ranging from visible light to long-wave infrared, can detect this effect. Finally, polarized light reflecting off man-made materials tend to remain polarized while natural materials depolarize it; the difference can be seen using a polarimeter.


title: Demining

text: The above methods can be used from a safe distance, including on airborne platforms. The detector technology is well developed and the main challenge is to process and interpret the images. The algorithms are underdeveloped and have trouble coping with the extreme dependence of performance on environmental conditions. Many of the surface effects are strongest just after the mine is buried and are soon removed by weathering.


title: Demining

text: Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) maps out the electrical conductivity of the ground using a two-dimensional grid of electrodes. Pairs of electrodes receive a small current and the resulting voltages measured on the remaining electrodes. The data are analyzed to construct a map of the conductivity. Both metallic and non-metallic mines will show up as anomalies. Unlike most other methods, EIT works best in wet conditions, so it serves as a useful complement to them. However, the electrodes must be planted in the ground, which risks setting off a mine, and it can only detect mines near the surface.


title: Demining

text: In X-ray backscatter, an area is irradiated with X-rays (photons with wavelengths between 0.01 and 10 nanometres) and detecting the photons that are reflected back. Metals strongly absorb x-rays and little is reflected back, while organic materials absorb little and reflect a lot. Methods that use collimators to narrow the beams are not suitable for demining because the collimators are heavy and high-power sources are required. The alternative is to use wide beams and deconvolve the signal using spatial filters. The medical industry has driven improvements in x-ray technology, so portable x-ray generators are available. In principle, the short wavelength would allow high-resolution images, but it may take too long because the intensity must be kept low to limit exposure of humans to the radiation. Also, only mines less than 10 centimetres deep would be imaged.


title: Demining

text: A buried mine will almost always leak explosives through the casing. 95 percent of this will be adsorbed by the soil, but the other 5 percent will mostly dissolve in water and be transported away. If it gets to the surface, it leaves a chemical signature. TNT biodegrades within a few days in soil, but an impurity, 2,4-dinitrotoluene (2,4-DNT), lasts much longer and has a high vapor pressure. Thus, it is the primary target for chemical detection. However, the concentrations are very small, particularly in dry conditions. A reliable vapor detection system needs to detect 10 grams of 2,4-DNT per millilitre of air in very dry soil or 10 grams per millilitre in moist soil. Biological detectors are very effective, but some chemical sensors are being developed.


title: Demining

text: Honey bees can be used to locate mines in two ways: passive sampling and active detection. In passive sampling, their mop-like hairs, which are electrostatically charged, collect a variety of particles including chemicals leaking from explosives. The chemicals are also present in water that they bring back and air that they breathe. Methods such as solid phase microextraction, sorbent sol-gels, gas chromatography and mass spectrometry can be used to identify explosive chemicals in the hive.


title: Demining

text: Honey bees can also be trained, in 1–2 days, to associate the smell of an explosive with food. In field trials, they detected concentrations of parts per trillion with a detection probability of 97–99 percent and false positives of less than 1 percent. When targets were placed consisting of small amounts of 2.4-DNT mixed with sand, they detect vapor plumes from the source several meters away and follow them to the source. Bees make thousands of foraging flights per day, and over time high concentrations of bees occur over targets. The most challenging issue is tracking them when a bee can fly 3–5 kilometres before returning to the hive. However, tests using lidar (a laser scanning technique) have been promising.


title: Demining

text: Bees do not fly at night, in heavy rain or wind, or in temperatures below , but the performance of dogs is also limited under these conditions. So far, most tests have been conducted in dry conditions in open terrain, so the effect of vegetation is not known. Tests have commenced in real minefields in Croatia and the results are promising, although after about three days the bees must be retrained because they are not getting food rewards from the mines.


title: Demining

text: Like dogs, giant pouched rats are being trained to sniff out chemicals like TNT in landmines. A Belgian NGO, APOPO, trains rats in Tanzania at a cost of $6000 per rat. These rats, nicknamed "HeroRATS", have been deployed in Mozambique and Cambodia. APOPO credits the rats with clearing more than 100,000 mines.


title: Demining

text: Rats have the advantage of being far lower mass than the human or dogs, so they are less likely to set off mines. They are just smart enough to learn repetitive tasks but not smart enough to get bored; and unlike dogs, they do not bond with their trainers, so they are easier to transfer between handlers. They have far fewer false positives than metal detectors, which detect any form of metal, so in a day they can cover an area that would take a metal detector two weeks.


title: Demining

text: In Sri Lanka, dogs are an expensive option for mine detection because they cannot be trained locally. The Sri Lankan Army Corps of Engineers has been conducting research on the use of the mongoose for mine detection, with promising initial results. Engineer Thrishantha Nanayakkara and colleagues at the University of Moratuwa in Sri Lanka have been developing a method where a mongoose is guided by a remote-controlled robot.


title: Demining

text: During the Angolan Civil War, elephants fled to neighboring countries. After the war ended in 2002, they started returning, but Angola was littered with millions of landmines. A biologist noticed that the elephants soon learned to avoid them. In a study in South Africa, researchers found that some elephants could detect TNT samples with a high sensitivity, missing only one out of 97 samples. They were 5% more likely to indicate the presence of TNT than dogs and 6% less likely to miss a sample (the more important measure of success). While researchers do not plan to send elephants to minefields, they could sniff samples collected by unmanned vehicles in a preliminary screening of potential minefields.


title: Demining

text: Thale cress, a member of the mustard family and one of the most-studied plants in the world, normally turns red under harsh conditions. But using a combination of natural mutations and genetic manipulation, scientists from Danish biotechnology company Aresa Biodetection created a strain that only changes color in response to nitrate and nitrite, chemicals that are released when TNT breaks down. The plants would aid demining by indicating the presence of mines through color change, and could either be sown from aircraft or by people walking through demined corridors in minefields. In September 2008, Aresa Biodetection ceased development of the method, but in 2012 a group at Cairo University announced plans for large-scale testing of a method that would combine detection using "Arabidopsis" with bacteria that would corrode metal in mines and rose periwinkle, sugar beet, or tobacco plants that would absorb nitrogen from the TNT that was released.


title: Demining

text: An inherent problem with sensing nitrate and nitrites is that they are already in the soil naturally. There are no natural chemical sensors for TNT, so some researchers are attempting to modify existing receptors so they respond to TNT-derived chemicals that do not occur naturally.


title: Demining

text: A bacterium, known as a bioreporter, has been genetically engineered to fluoresce under ultraviolet light in the presence of TNT. Tests involving spraying such bacteria over a simulated minefield successfully located mines. In the field, this method could allow for searching hundreds of acres in a few hours, which is much faster than other techniques, and could be used on a variety of terrain types. While there are some false positives (especially near plants and water drainage), even three ounces of TNT were detectable using these bacteria. Unfortunately, there is no strain of bacteria capable of detecting RDX, another common explosive, and the bacteria may not be visible under desert conditions. Also, well-constructed munitions that have not had time to corrode may be undetectable using this method.


title: Demining

text: As part of the "Dog's nose" program run by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), several kinds of non-biological detectors were developed in an attempt to find a cheap alternative to dogs. These include spectroscopic, piezoelectric, electrochemical, and fluorescent detectors. Of these, the fluorescent detector has the lowest detection limit. Two glass slides are coated with a fluorescent polymer. Explosive chemicals bind to the polymer and reduce the amount of fluorescent light emitted. This has been developed by Nomadics, Inc. into a commercial product, Fido, that has been incorporated in robots deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.


title: Demining

text: Chemical sensors can be made lightweight and portable and can operate at a walking pace. However, they do not have a 100% probability of detection, and the explosive vapors they detect have often drifted away from the source. Effects of environmental conditions are not well understood. As of 2016, dogs outperformed the best technological solutions.


title: Demining

text: Although some of the methods for detecting explosive vapors are promising, the transport of explosive vapors through the soil is still not well understood. An alternative is to detect the bulk explosive inside a landmine by interacting with the nuclei of certain elements. In landmines, explosives contain 18–38% nitrogen by weight, 16–37% carbon and 2–3% hydrogen. By contrast, soils contain less than 0.07% nitrogen, 0.1–9% carbon and 0–50% hydrogen. Methods for interrogating the nuclei include nuclear quadrupole resonance and neutron methods. Detection can be difficult because the "bulk" may amount to less than 100 grams and a much greater signal may come from the surrounding earth and cosmic rays.


title: Demining

text: Nuclear quadrupole resonance (NQR) spectroscopy uses radio frequency (RF) waves to determine the chemical structure of compounds. It can be regarded as nuclear magnetic resonance "without the magnet". The frequencies at which resonances occur are primarily determined by the quadrupole moment of the nuclear charge density and the gradient of the electric field due to valence electrons in the compound. Each compound has a unique set of resonance frequencies. Unlike a metal detector, NQR does not have false positives from other objects in the ground. Instead, the main performance issue is the low ratio of the signal to the random thermal noise in the detector. This signal-to-noise ratio can be increased by increasing the interrogation time, and in principle the probability of detection can be near unity and the probability of false alarm low. Unfortunately, the most common explosive material (TNT) has the weakest signal. Also, its resonance frequencies are in the AM radio band and can be overwhelmed by radio broadcasts. Finally, it cannot see through metal casing or detect liquid explosives. Nevertheless, it is considered a promising technology for confirming results from other scanners with a low false alarm rate.


title: Demining

text: Since the late 1940s, a lot of research has examined the potential of nuclear techniques for detecting landmines and there have been several reviews of the technology. According to a RAND study in 2003, "Virtually every conceivable nuclear reaction has been examined, but ... only a few have potential for mine detection." In particular, reactions that emit charged particles can be eliminated because they do not travel far in the ground, and methods involving transmission of neutrons through the medium (useful in applications such as airport security) are not feasible because the detector and receiver cannot be placed on opposite sides. This leaves emission of radiation from targets and scattering of neutrons. For neutron detectors to be portable, they must be able to detect landmines efficiently with low-intensity beams so that little shielding is needed to protect human operators. One factor that determines the efficiency is the cross section of the nuclear reaction; if it is large, a neutron does not have to come as close to a nucleus to interact with it.


title: Demining

text: One possible source of neutrons is spontaneous fission from a radioactive isotope, most commonly californium-252. Neutrons can also be generated using a portable particle accelerator (a "sealed neutron tube") that promotes the fusion of deuterium and tritium, producing helium-4 and a neutron. This has the advantage that tritium, being less radiotoxic than californium-252, would pose a smaller threat to humans in the event of an accident such as an explosion. These sources emit fast neutrons with an energy of 14.1 million electron volts (MeV) from the neutron tube and 0–13 MeV from californium-252. If low-energy (thermal) neutrons are needed, they must be passed through a moderator.


title: Demining

text: In one method, "thermal neutron analysis (TNA)", thermal neutrons are captured by a nucleus, releasing energy in the form of a gamma ray. One such reaction, nitrogen-14 captures a neutron to make nitrogen-15, releasing a gamma ray with energy 10.835 MeV. No other naturally occurring isotope emits a photon with such a high energy, and there are few transitions that emit nearly as much energy, so detectors do not need high energy resolution. Also, nitrogen has a large cross section for thermal neutrons. The Canadian Army has deployed a multi-detector vehicle, the Improved Landmine Detection System, with a TNA detector to confirm the presence of anti-tank mines that were spotted by other instruments. However, the time required to detect antipersonnel mines is prohibitively long, especially if they are deeper than a few centimeters, and a human-portable detector is considered unachievable.


title: Demining

text: An alternative neutron detector uses fast neutrons that enter the ground and are moderated by it; the flux of thermal neutrons scattered back is measured. Hydrogen is a very effective moderator of neutrons, so the signal registers hydrogen anomalies. In an antipersonnel mine, hydrogen accounts for 25–35% of the atoms in the explosive and 55–65% in the casing. Hand-held devices are feasible and several systems have been developed. However, because they are sensitive only to atoms and cannot distinguish different molecular structures, they are easily fooled by water, and are generally not useful in soils with water content over 10%. However, if a distributed pulsed neutron source is used, it may be possible to distinguish wet soil from explosives by their decay constants. A "Timed Neutron Detector" based on this method has been created by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and has won design awards.


title: Demining

text: Acoustic/seismic methods involve creating sound waves above the ground and detecting the resulting vibrations at the surface. Usually the sound is generated by off-the-shelf loudspeakers or electrodynamic shakers, but some work has also been done with specialized ultrasound speakers that send tight beams into the ground. The measurements can be made with non-contact sensors such as microphones, radar, ultrasonic devices and laser Dopper vibrometers.


title: Demining

text: A landmine has a distinctive acoustic signature because it is a container. Sound waves alternately compress and expand the enclosed volume of air and there is a lag between the volume change and the pressure that increases as the frequency decreases. The landmine and the soil above it act like two coupled springs with a nonlinear response that does not depend on the composition of the container. Such a response is not seen in most other buried objects such as roots, rocks, concrete or other man-made objects (unless they are hollow items such as bottles and cans) so the detection method has few false positives.


title: Demining

text: As well as having a low false positive rate, acoustic/seismic methods respond to different physical properties than other detectors, so they could be used in tandem for a richer source of information. They are also unaffected by moisture and weather, but have trouble in frozen ground and vegetation. However, because sound attenuates in the ground, the current technology is limited to mines "deeper than approximately one mine diameter". It is also slow, with scans taking between 125 and 1000 seconds per square meter, but increasing the number of sensors can speed the scan up proportionately.


title: Demining

text: "Drone" is a synonym for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The system that includes the drone, the person operating the machine and the communication system is called an unmanned aerial (or aircraft) system (UAS). The FAA also uses the term small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) for small UAS. In the past decade, the use of such systems for demining has grown rapidly.


title: Demining

text: Drones equipped with cameras have been used to map areas during non-technical survey, to monitor changes in land use resulting from demining, to identify patterns of mine placement and predict new locations, and to plan access routes to minefields. One such system, a fixed-wing UAV made by SenseFly, is being tested by GICHD in Angola. A Spanish company, CATUAV, equipped a drone with optical sensors to scan potential minefields in Bosnia and Herzegovina; their design was a finalist in the 2015 Drones for Good competition. From February to October 2019, Humanity & Inclusion, an international NGO, is testing drones for non-technical survey in northern Chad.


title: Demining

text: Several ideas for detecting landmines are in the research and development phase. A research team at the University of Bristol is working on adding multispectral imaging (for detecting chemical leaks) to drones. Geophysicists at Binghamton University are testing the use of thermal imaging to locate "butterfly mines", which were dropped from airplanes in Afghanistan and mostly sit on the surface. At DTU Space, an institute in the Technical University of Denmark, researchers are designing a drone with magnetometer suspended underneath it, with the initial goal of clearing mines from World War II so power cables can be connected to offshore wind turbines.


title: Demining

text: The Dutch Mine Kafon project, led by designer Massoud Hassani, is working on an autonomous drone called the Mine Kafon Drone. It uses robotic attachments in a three-step process. First, a map is generated using a 3-D camera and GPS. Next, a metal detector pinpoints the location of mines. Finally, a robotic gripping arm places a detonator above each mine and the drone triggers it from a distance.


title: Demining

text: Drone programs must overcome challenges such as getting permission to fly, finding safe takeoff and landing spots, and getting access to electricity for charging the batteries. In addition, there are concerns about privacy, and a danger that drones could be weaponized by hostile forces.


title: Demining

text: Deminers may be issued personal protective equipment (PPE) such as helmets, visors, armoured gloves, vests and boots, in an attempt to protect them if a mine is set off by accident. The IMAS standards require that some parts of the body (including the chest, abdomen, groin and eyes) be protected against a blast from 240 grams of TNT at a distance of 60 centimeters; head protection is recommended. Although it says blast resistant boots may be used, the benefits are unproven and the boots may instill a false sense of security.


title: Demining

text: The recommended equipment can afford significant protection against antipersonnel blast mines, but the IMAS standards acknowledge that they are not adequate for fragmentation and antitank mines. Heavier armor increases protection at the expense of comfort and mobility. PPE selection is a balance between protection "should a blast occur" and being sufficiently unhindered to "prevent a blast in the first place". Other ways of managing risk include better detectors, remote-controlled vehicles to remove fragmentation mines, long-handled rakes for excavation and unmanned aerial vehicles to scout the hazards before approaching.


title: Demining

text: Once a mine is found, the most common methods of removing it are to manually defuse it (a slow and dangerous process) or blow it up with more explosives (dangerous and costly). Research programs have explored alternatives that destroy the mine without exploding it, using chemicals or heat.


title: Demining

text: The most common explosive material, TNT, is very stable, not burnable with a match and highly resistant to acids or common oxidizing agents. However, some chemicals use an autocatalytic reaction to destroy it. Diethylenetriamine (DETA) and TNT spontaneously ignite when they come in contact with each other. One delivery system involves a bottle of DETA placed over a mine; a bullet shot through both brings them in contact and the TNT is consumed within minutes. Other chemicals that can be used for this purpose include pyridine, diethylamine and pyrole. They do not have the same effect on explosives such as RDX and PETN.


title: Demining

text: Thermal destruction methods generate enough heat to burn TNT. One uses leftover rocket propellant from the NASA Space Shuttle missions. Thiokol, the company that built the engines for the shuttles, developed a flare with the propellant. Placed next to a mine and activated remotely, it reaches temperatures exceeding , burning a hole through the landmine casing and consuming the explosive. These flares have been used by the US Navy in Kosovo and Jordan. Another device uses a solid state reaction to create a liquid that penetrates the case and starts the explosive burning.


title: Demining

text: In World War II, one method used by the German SS to clear minefields was to force captured civilians to cross the minefields which would trigger any mine they encountered. More humane methods included mine plows, mounted on Sherman and Churchill tanks, and the Bangalore torpedo. Variants of these are still used today.


title: Demining

text: Mine plows use a specially designed shovel to unearth mines and shove them to the side, clearing a path. They are quick and effective for clearing a lane for vehicles and are still attached to some types of tank and remotely operated vehicles. The mines are moved but not deactivated, so mine plows are not used for humanitarian demining.


title: Demining

text: The mine-clearing line charge, successor to the Bangalore torpedo, clears a path through a minefield by triggering the mines with a blast wave. Several examples include the Anti-personnel obstacle breaching system and the Python Minefield Breaching System, a hose-pipe filled with explosives and carried across a minefield by a rocket.


title: April Winchell

text: April Terri Winchell (born January 4, 1960) is an American actress, writer, and radio host. She is prehaps best known as the second and current voice of Clarabelle Cow, having voiced the character since 1996.


title: April Winchell

text: Winchell was born in 1960. She is the daughter of inventor, ventriloquist and comedian Paul Winchell (1922–2005) (the original voice of Tigger), and his second wife, Nina Russel. In her weblog writings and appearances on radio, she describes her childhood with many references to the great talent of her father as well as the many disturbing incidents owing to his mental health issues.


title: April Winchell

text: Winchell's projects include the role of Sylvia in "Wander Over Yonder," a Disney Channel animated series featuring Jack McBrayer in the title role. Created by "The Powerpuff Girls" producers Craig McCracken and Lauren Faust, the show chronicles the adventures of Wander and his trusty (and cynical) steed Sylvia, as they travel the universe. The series premiered on the Disney Channel in September 2013.


title: April Winchell

text: As a voice actress, she has been heard in hundreds of animated television series, such as "Goof Troop" (as Peg Pete), "Recess" (as Mrs. Muriel Finster), "Disney's House of Mouse" and "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse" (as Clarabelle Cow), "Bonkers" (as Lucky's wife, Dyl Piquel), "Pepper Ann" (as title character's mom, Lydia Pearson), and "Kids from Room 402" (as Miss Gracie Graves the school teacher, along with several other characters that appear on the show), "The Legend of Tarzan" (taking over for Rosie O'Donnell as Terk in the original film), "" (as Cruella De Vil), "" (as Molly Mange), "Robot and Monster", "Phineas & Ferb", "Kim Possible" Queen of Heart of Alice in Wonderland Teress MacNeil Respectively .


title: April Winchell

text: She has also voiced characters in numerous films, including "Antz", "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", "Monsters University" and Rob Zombie's "The Haunted World of El Superbeasto". Winchell portrayed the "Glendale Federal Bank" lady – a cranky, cynical customer alleviated by the service at her new bank – in a series of radio commercials, which Winchell wrote and directed herself. The commercials caught the attention of Roseanne Barr, who hired her as a writer on Barr's eponymous sitcom.


title: April Winchell

text: Besides her many contributions to radio advertising as a director, writer, and performer, Winchell also hosted a radio talk show program on KFI, a Los Angeles radio station. This weekend program aired for three years, and enjoyed the fastest growth audience in the history of the station. Subsequent to the end of this program in November 2002, she appeared semi-regularly on the "Ask Mr. KABC" program, on KABC, an AM station also in Los Angeles – until the show ended in February 2007.


title: April Winchell

text: In 2005, Winchell signed a deal with U.S. pay-TV service HBO to develop and host a show on Sirius Satellite Radio. However, on her official website on May 3, 2006, she announced that negotiations had stalled out between HBO and Sirius, leaving her program in limbo.


title: April Winchell

text: On March 16, 2007, she returned to semi-regular radio appearances on "The Marc "Mr. K" Germain Show" on KTLK-AM (the new show hosted by the former Mr. KABC) and appeared twice a month. (Her appearances on Germain's show are available at her website in addition to KTLK's website.) During March, Winchell was "banned for life" from KABC (AM) in Los Angeles at the behest of ABC radio host Bill O'Reilly, over a retelling of an occurrence she dubbed "Croissantgate" (KABC provided Bill O'Reilly with croissants that were not fresh enough for his taste, causing a commotion at the station).


title: April Winchell

text: As a musical theater actor, she starred as "Ado Annie" in the Columbia Artists revival of "Oklahoma!", and also appeared opposite Kevin Spacey in "".


title: April Winchell

text: Additionally, Winchell wrote and starred as "Sheila Sands" in her show at the Roxy Theatre in Los Angeles to sold out crowds. The show was produced by Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner, who discovered her at Cafe Largo in Hollywood. Winchell reprised the character to open for Brad Garrett at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas in 2013.


title: April Winchell

text: She has also been a frequent panelist on the live-stage version of "What's My Line" at the Acme Comedy Theatre in Hollywood.


title: April Winchell

text: In 1992, Winchell and her then-husband Mick Kuisel formed Radio Savant Productions, a radio advertising production company. Since that time, Winchell has received many awards including Cannes, Clio, The $100,000 Mercury Award and The International Grand Andy (bestowed by The Association of Independent Commercial Producers) – it was the only time the Andy was given for radio. Winchell also provided the award-winning radio and television advertising for Big Bear Mountain Resorts for over 20 years.


title: April Winchell

text: Winchell's official website contains a link to her IMDB biography and library of unusual and outsider music pieces.


title: April Winchell

text: Prior to 2009, Winchell maintained a personal Web site that, in addition to the music pieces, chronicled the actor's activities, which include her professional, personal, and romantic life. In October 2009, Winchell (under the pseudonym "Helen Killer") launched Regretsy, a blog website which satirized Etsy. Within four days, the site had received nearly 90 million hits. This huge viral success caught the attention of Random House, who subsequently won a bidding war to publish a book based around the Regretsy website. The book, which was published April 6, 2010, features humorous and bizarre crafts and artwork from several different artists, as well as essays about Winchell's personal life, childhood and own crafting failures. As of March 1, 2012, the Regretsy site had raised over $200,000 for charitable causes. The popularity of Regretsy's "Not Remotely Steampunk" section even inspired a viral "chap hop" music video. Winchell ceased updating Regretsy on February 1, 2013.


title: April Winchell

text: Winchell made several appearances on early episodes of the internet broadcast series "Talk Radio One," interviewed by former Los Angeles radio personality Marc Germain. She became a weekly guest on the series beginning in 2017.


title: April Winchell

text: Winchell worked on the 1996 video game "Toonstruck" in which she voiced a number of characters including Ms. Fit, Polly, Punisher Polly and Dr. Payne's Receptionist. Not only did she voiced the characters but she has also worked as casting and dialogue director for the game. She also worked as a punch writer for "" and wrote three episodes of the American sitcom "Roseanne".


title: April Winchell

text: In broadcasts of her KFI show, on her web diary and several other websites, Winchell revealed she and Kevin Spacey dated after high school.


title: April Winchell

text: On August 19, 2005, she announced on her website that she was diagnosed with stage 4 thyroid cancer. To promote solidarity during her radiation treatment, she issued her own "Glow in the Dark" wristbands, so one could "glow along" with April. She made a full recovery.


title: April Winchell

text: Winchell is a supporter of charities including Project Angel Food, a Los Angeles-based service providing meals for homebound people living with AIDS. Her website, Regretsy, generated charitable funds through selling of Regretsy merchandise. On, April 17, 2011, Winchell created April's Army, which ran monthly campaigns for which all profits went to a selected Regretsy member who has encountered hardships. On December 5, 2011, Regretsy began a Secret Santa program, collecting donations for presents for needy children.


title: Toubkal

text: Toubkal or Tubkal (Berber: ⵜⵓⴳⴳ ⴽⴰⵍ/ⵜⵓⴱⵇⴰⵍ "Tugg kal/Tubqal"; "Tūbqāl") is a mountain peak in southwestern Morocco, located in the Toubkal National Park. At


title: Toubkal

text: , it is the highest peak in the Atlas Mountains, Morocco, North Africa and the Arab World. Located south of the city of Marrakesh, and visible from it, Toubkal is an ultra prominent peak, the highest for over .


title: Toubkal

text: Although much of the High Atlas consists of sedimentary rocks, the Toubkal massif is an area of volcanic rocks which have weathered into alpine crests, cut by deep, narrow valleys. To the south, the mountain drops steeply down for to a small lake called Lac d'Ifni. To the west, the mountain's edge is marked by a pass, the Tizi n'Ouanoums at . From this pass, the mountain's W-S-W ridge rises up to Toubkal West, which forms a shoulder at before continuing to the summit at .


title: Toubkal

text: The north and western sides of Toubkal drain down to the Mizane Valley, which has the passes of both Tizi n'Ouanoums and Tizi n'Ouagane at its head. Two hanging valleys on the western side of the mountain - the Ikhibi Nord and Ikhibi South provide ready access for trekkers and climbers to reach Toubkal's summit. At one time the northern valley provided the normal route of ascent, but the construction of a mountain hut by the French Alpine Club below Ikhibi Sud now encourages trekkers to ascend via the southern route instead.


title: Toubkal

text: Toubkal is popular with trekkers and ski mountaineers, but less so with climbers, despite its ease of access and sunny climate. Trekkers usually approach the mountain from Marrakesh via the road-end village of Imlil. Qualified guides can be hired, as well as porters, to carry equipment and food supplies higher into the mountains. It is a moderate hike and navigation is not a problem.


title: Toubkal

text: The normal route starts with a walk to the village of Aroumd. Beyond Aroumd, a floodplain is crossed and the route follows the left slope of the valley southwards. The valley bends to the east to the tiny settlement of Sidi Chamharouch, which has grown around a Muslim shrine. At Sidi Chamharouch, the path leads over the stream and runs steeply uphill to the right side of the Isougouane valley, which leads to two stone-built refuges (Refuge du Toubkal and Refuge Les Mouflons) that are often used as base camp at .


title: Toubkal

text: The first recorded ascent was on 12 June 1923 by the Marquis de Segonzac, Vincent Berger and Hubert Dolbeau, but the mountain may well have been climbed before that date. Toubkal's height was measured the following year, and determined as being Nowadays measured at 4,167 metres, the summit is crowned with a large pyramidal metal trigonometric marker, and offers views taking in most of the Atlas and Little Atlas Mountains.


title: Toubkal

text: It is possible to climb mountain Toubkal in two days - first day up to the refuge (around seven hours), second day to the summit (around four hours ascent, three hours descent) and back to Imlil (up to five hours).


title: Toubkal

text: In summer the mountains can be very dry, but are sometimes subject to storms. Although the temperature should remain above zero during the day, freezing conditions are possible over 3,500m. In winter the mountains are covered in snow and ice, and can be prone to avalanches. Skiing is possible as the snow can lie to considerable depth and cover many rocky slopes. Information about the state of the route can be obtained at Marrakesh tourist offices or at Imlil.


title: Toubkal

text: 1) Ikhibi Sud (normal route). From the Toubkal refuge, a path crosses the stream, climbs a steep scree slope to the east and enters a hanging valley, then climbs another steep slope to reach a col (Tizi'n'Toubkal at 3,940m). At the col the route turns left (northwards) up easy slopes to the narrow summit crest of Jebel Toubkal.


title: Toubkal

text: The ascent during the summer (from May) is non-technical yet moderately difficult, only complicated by steep and slippery scree slopes and altitude sickness. Sturdy boots and proper (windproof) clothing are required, and trekking poles are helpful on the scree. An ice-axe may be needed on the remaining snowfields in the early summer. The ascent during the end of the winter and spring (February/March) is more difficult; crampons are necessary to ascend through the snow and - in some cases - ice. Ascent: ; 2.5 –3 hours.


title: Toubkal

text: 2) Ikhibi Nord Not as frequently ascended as Ikhibi Sud, but technically easier. The route starts some distance down the valley from the Toubkal refuge, and turns right (eastwards) to follow a track up through a hanging valley to a col on the north side of Toubkal. Ascent:; 3–4 hours. The col also gives access to adjacent peaks of Imouzzer and Tibherine


title: Toubkal

text: 3) West-North-West Ridge (ONO Arete). (First ascent by J de Lepinay and party, 1936). Infrequently climbed, but a long and pleasant traverse containing many gaps and towers. Some difficulties can be avoided by means of an abseil. Grade III/IV; 7 hours.


title: Toubkal

text: On 17 December 2018, two trekkers, from Denmark and Norway, were murdered close to the foot of the trail in a terror-related attack.


title: Van (Dutch)

text: Van () is a very common prefix in Dutch language surnames, where it is known as a "tussenvoegsel". In those cases it nearly always refers to a certain, often quite distant, ancestor's place of origin or residence; for example, Ludwig "van Beethoven" "from Bettenhoven" and Rembrandt "van Rijn" "from the Rhine". "Van" is also a preposition in the Dutch and Afrikaans languages, meaning "of" or "from" depending on the context (similar to "da", "de" and "di" in the Romance languages).


title: Van (Dutch)

text: In surnames, it can appear by itself or in combination with an article (compare French "de la", "de l"'). The most common cases of this are van de, van der and van den, where the articles are all current or archaic forms of the article "de" "the". Less common are van het and van 't, which use the similar but grammatically neuter article "het". The contraction ver-, based on van der, is also common and can be written as a single word with the rest of the surname; an example being Johannes Vermeer ("van der meer" "of the lake").


title: Van (Dutch)

text: Names in other languages may contain a component "Van" that is unrelated to the Dutch preposition. The very common Vietnamese middle name "Văn", often spelled in English text without diacritics, as in "Pham Van Tra", is a male given name, implying education.


title: Van (Dutch)

text: The preposition ""van"" is the most widely used preposition in Dutch surnames, but many others are also used, although not always recognised as such if the whole surname is written as a single word. Just as ""van"" all these prepositions used to indicate geographical locations:


title: Van (Dutch)

text: Apart from these prepositions the prefix "de" (not a preposition but an article, meaning "the") is also very common. They indicate a property, quality or origin, as in "de Lange" (the tall one), "de Korte" (the short one), "de Kleine" (the little one), "de Groot" (the big one), "de Zwart", "de Wit", "de Rode" (the one with black, white, red hair or skin), "de Rijke" (the rich one). The most widespread Dutch family name is "de Vries" (the Frisian).


title: Van (Dutch)

text: For Dutch people of French (usually Huguenot) origin whose ancestors never modified their surnames to fit Dutch norms, the prefix ""de"" is a French preposition similar in meaning to ""van"".


title: Van (Dutch)

text: Collation and capitalisation of names differs between countries. In the Netherlands and Suriname, names starting with ""van"" are filed under the initial letter of the following name proper, so Johannes van der Waals is filed under "W", as: "Waals, Johannes van der" or "van der Waals, Johannes". The "v" is written in lower case, except when the surname is used as standalone (when the first name or initials are omitted), in which case it is capitalised, as in ""de schilder Vincent van Gogh"" and ""de schilder Van Gogh" ("the painter Van Gogh"). In compound terms like ""de Van Goghtentoonstelling" ("the Van Gogh exhibition") the "v" is capitalised, unless the connection between the person and the concept is or has become very weak.


title: Van (Dutch)

text: In Belgium, any surnames beginning with ""Van"" or ""van"" are filed under "V". So for example Eric Van Rompuy is listed under the "V" section, not under the "R". The lowercase spelling in a name from the Netherlands is respected but not necessarily differentiated in alphabetical ordering and its Dutch style capitalisation for certain usages is generally unknown and thus not followed. The painter's full name, however, having become commonplace, is usually spelled Vincent Van Gogh in Belgium. In Flemish surnames the "V" is always capitalised though a following interjected ""de"", ""den"" ('the') or ""der"" ('of the', 'from the') usually stays lowercase.


title: Van (Dutch)

text: In South Africa the Afrikaans surname Van der Merwe would be listed under the "v" section as is done in Belgium and not under "m" as in "Merwe, J. van der"; however, South Africa follows the same capitalisation convention as the Netherlands (thus, one would refer in English or in Afrikaans to a "Jan van der Merwe" when the first name is included, but simply to "Van der Merwe" when the first name is omitted). In anglicised versions of Dutch names (as in Dick Van Dyke, George Vancouver, Martin Van Buren), the ""van" is almost always capitalised in the United States, but in the British Isles some families of Dutch origin continue to use the Dutch form (e.g. Caroline van den Brul).


title: Van (Dutch)

text: Where the "Van" is not of Dutch origin, such as in the Vietnamese middle name Wen or Van (as in Dương Văn Minh, Nguyễn Văn Thiệu), there is no reason to use a lower case "v".


title: Van (Dutch)

text: In some names, usually those of the Flemish/Belgian ones, and also some of the names of people from outside the Low Countries (with Dutch-speaking immigrant ancestors), the prefixes are concatenated to each other or to the name proper and form a single-worded or two-worded surnames, as in Vandervelde or Vande Velde. Prominent examples include "Vandenberg" and "Vanderbilt".


title: Van (Dutch)

text: The German ""von"" is a linguistic cognate of the Dutch ""van"", however, unlike the German ""von"", the Dutch ""van"" is not indicative of the person's nobility or royalty. "Van" has a history of being used by commoners and nobility alike to simply signify ancestral relation to a particular place, (e.g. "Willem van Oranje" "William of [the] Orange [family]"; "Jan van Ghent" "John [who hails] from Ghent").


title: Obfuscation

text: Obfuscation is the obscuring of the intended meaning of communication by making the message difficult to understand, usually with confusing and ambiguous language. The obfuscation might be either unintentional or intentional (although intent usually is connoted), and is accomplished with circumlocution (talking around the subject), the use of jargon (technical language of a profession), and the use of an argot (ingroup language) of limited communicative value to outsiders.


title: Obfuscation

text: In expository writing, unintentional obfuscation usually occurs in draft documents, at the beginning of composition; such obfuscation is illuminated with critical thinking and editorial revision, either by the writer or by an editor. Etymologically, the word "obfuscation" derives from the Latin , from "obfuscāre" (to darken); synonyms include the words beclouding and abstrusity.


title: Obfuscation

text: Doctors are faulted for using jargon to conceal unpleasant facts from a patient; the American author and physician Michael Crichton said that medical writing is a "highly skilled, calculated attempt to confuse the reader". The psychologist B. F. Skinner said that medical notation is a form of multiple audience control, which allows the doctor to communicate to the pharmacist things which the patient might oppose if they could understand medical jargon.


title: Obfuscation

text: "Eschew obfuscation", also stated as "eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation", is a humorous fumblerule used by English teachers and professors when lecturing about proper writing techniques. Literally, the phrase means "avoid being unclear" or "avoid being unclear, support being clear", but the use of relatively uncommon words causes confusion in much of the audience (those lacking the vocabulary), making the statement an example of irony, and more precisely a heterological phrase. The phrase has appeared in print at least as early as 1959, when it was used as a section heading in a NASA document.


title: Obfuscation

text: An earlier similar phrase appears in Mark Twain's "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses", where he lists rule fourteen of good writing as "eschew surplusage".


title: Obfuscation

text: Obfuscation of oral or written communication achieves a degree of secure communication without a need to rely upon technology. This technique is sometimes referred to as "talking around" and is a form of security through obscurity.


title: Obfuscation

text: A notable example of obfuscation of written communication is a message sent by September 11 attacks ringleader Mohamed Atta to other conspirators prior to the attacks occurring:


title: Obfuscation

text: Within the illegal drug trade, obfuscation is commonly used in communication to hide the occurrence of drug trafficking. A common spoken example is "420", used as a code word for cannabis, a drug which, despite some recent prominent decriminalization changes, remains illegal in most places. The Drug Enforcement Administration reported in July 2018 a total of 353 different code words used for cannabis.


title: Obfuscation

text: In white-box cryptography, obfuscation refers to the protection of cryptographic keys from extraction when they are under the control of the adversary, e.g., as part of a DRM scheme.


title: Obfuscation

text: In network security, obfuscation refers to methods used to obscure an attack payload from inspection by network protection systems.


title: Demographics of Uzbekistan

text: The demographics of Uzbekistan are the demographic features of the population of Uzbekistan, including population growth, population density, ethnicity, education level, health, economic status, religious affiliations, and other aspects of the population. The nationality of any person from Uzbekistan is Uzbekistani, while the ethnic Uzbek majority call themselves Uzbeks. Much of the data is estimated because the last census was carried out in Soviet times in 1989.


title: Demographics of Uzbekistan

text: Uzbekistan is Central Asia's most populous country. Its 35 million people ( estimate) comprise nearly half the region's total population.


title: Demographics of Uzbekistan

text: The population of Uzbekistan is very young: 25.1% of its people are younger than 14. According to official sources, Uzbeks comprise a majority (84.4%) of the total population. Other ethnic groups, as of 1996 estimates, include Russians (5.5% of the population), Tajiks (5%), Kazakhs (3%), Karakalpaks (2.5%), and Tatars (1.5%).


title: Demographics of Uzbekistan

text: Uzbekistan has an ethnic Korean population that was forcibly relocated to the region from the Soviet Far East in 1937–1938. There are also small groups of Armenians in Uzbekistan, mostly in Tashkent and Samarkand. The nation is 94% Muslim (mostly Sunni), 3% Eastern Orthodox and 3% other faiths (which include small communities of Korean Christians, other Christian denominations, Buddhists, Baha'is, and more). The Bukharan Jews have lived in Central Asia, mostly in Uzbekistan, for thousands of years. There were 94,900 Jews in Uzbekistan in 1989 (about 0.5% of the population according to the 1989 census), but now, since the collapse of the USSR, most Central Asian Jews left the region for the United States or Israel. More than 5,000 Jews remain in Uzbekistan.


title: Demographics of Uzbekistan

text: Much of Uzbekistan's population was engaged in cotton farming in large-scale collective farms when the country was part of the Soviet Union. The population continues to be heavily rural and dependent on farming for its livelihood, although the farm structure in Uzbekistan has largely shifted from collective to individual since 1990.


title: Demographics of Uzbekistan

text: Source: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs website > World Population Prospects: The 2019 revision.


title: Demographics of Uzbekistan

text: According to the CIA World Factbook, the total fertility rate (TFR) estimated as of 2011 is 1.89 children born/woman.


title: Demographics of Uzbekistan

text: In 2002, the estimated TFR was 2.92; Uzbeks 2.99, Russians 1.35, Karakalpak 2.69, Tajik 3.19, Kazakh 2.95, Tatar 2.05, others 2.53; Tashkent City 1.96, Karakalpakstan 2.90, Fergana 2.73; Eastern region 2.71, East Central 2.96, Central 3.43, Western 3.05.


title: Demographics of Uzbekistan

text: The high fertility rate during the Soviet Union and during its period of disintegration is partly due to the historical cultural preferences for large families, economic reliance upon agriculture, and the greater relative worth of Soviet child benefits in Uzbekistan. Abortion was the preferred method of birth control. Legalized in 1955, the number of abortions increased by 231% from 1956-1973. By 1991, the abortion ratio was 39 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age per year.


title: Demographics of Uzbekistan

text: However, in the past few decades, fertility control methods have shifted considerably from abortion to modern contraceptive methods, especially IUDs. By the mid-1980s IUDS became the main method of contraception through government and organizational policies that aimed to introduce women to modern contraceptives. According to a UHES report from 2002, 73% of married Uzbek woman had used the IUD, 14% male condom, and 13% the pill.


title: Demographics of Uzbekistan

text: The government supported the use of modern contraceptives to control fertility rates because of national economic difficulties that followed the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Thus the government has been influential in determining the popularity of the IUD. Despite family planning programs that educate women on different methods of contraception, the IUD has remained women’s first choice of contraception. Word of mouth and social relations also account for the strong preference for the IUD. Nevertheless, factors such as class and level of education have been shown to give women more freedom in their choice of contraception methods.


title: Demographics of Uzbekistan

text: The regions of Surxondaryo and Qashqadaryo have the highest birth rate and the lowest death rates in Uzbekistan. On the other hand, the city of Tashkent has the lowest birth rate and the highest death rate of the country.


title: Demographics of Uzbekistan

text: Uzbek 71%, Russian 6%, Tajik 5% (believed to be much higher), Kazakh 4%, Tatar 3%, Karakalpak 2%, other 7%.


title: Demographics of Uzbekistan

text: The table shows the ethnic composition of Uzbekistan's population (in percent) according to four population censuses between 1926 and 1989 (no population census was carried out in 1999, and the next census is now being planned for 2010). The increase in the percentage of Tajik from 3.9% of the population in 1979 to 4.7% in 1989 may be attributed, at least in part, to the change in census instructions: in the 1989 census for the first the nationality could be reported not according to the passport, but freely self-declared on the basis of the respondent's ethnic self-identification.


title: Demographics of Uzbekistan

text: According to the CIA factbook, the current language distribution is: Uzbek 74.3%, Russian 14.2%, Tajik 4.4% and Other 7.1%. The Latin script replaced Cyrillic in the mid-1990s.


title: Demographics of Uzbekistan

text: Following independence, Uzbek was made the official state language. President Islam Karimov, the radical nationalist group Birlik (Unity), and the Uzbek Popular Front promoted this change. These parties believed that Uzbek would stimulate nationalism and the change itself was part of the process of de-Russification, which was meant to deprive Russian language and culture of any recognition. Birlik held campaigns in the late 1980s to achieve this goal, with one event in 1989 culminating in 12,000 people in Tashkent calling for official recognition of Uzbek as the state language. In 1995, the government adopted the Law of the Republic of Uzbekistan on State Language, which mandates that Uzbek be used in all public spheres and official jobs. Scholars studying migration and ethnic minorities have since criticized the law as a source of discrimination toward minorities who do not speak Uzbek. Nevertheless, Russian remains the de facto language when it comes to science, inter-ethnic communication, business, and advertising.


title: Demographics of Uzbekistan

text: Multiple sources suggest that the Persian-speaking Tajik population of Uzbekistan may be as large as 10%-15% of the total population. The Tajik language is the dominant language spoken in the cities of Bukhara and Samarkand. The delineation of territory in 1924 and the process of “Uzbekisation” caused many Tajiks to identify as Uzbek. Thus there are many Tajiks who speak Tajik but are officially documented as Uzbek.


title: Demographics of Uzbekistan

text: Muslims constitute 94% of the population according to a 2013 US State Department release. Approximately 3% of the population are Russian Orthodox Christians.


title: Demographics of Uzbekistan

text: There were 94,900 Jews in Uzbekistan in 1989 (about 0.5% of the population according to the 1989 census), but fewer than 5,000 remained in 2007.


title: Demographics of Uzbekistan

text: The following demographic statistics are from the CIA World Factbook as of September 2009, unless otherwise indicated.


title: Demographics of Uzbekistan

text: The educational system has achieved 99% literacy, and the mean amount of schooling for both men and women is 12 years. The government provides free and compulsory 12-year education.


title: Demographics of Uzbekistan

text: In 2016 Uzbekistan acknowledged the country's lack of higher education services to support its market needs. In addition, private higher education providers have begun to emerge on the market to provide students with the necessary knowledge and skills needed in the labor market. TEAM University, a private university in Tashkent, aims to develop the skills required to start entrepreneurial activities, thereby contributing to the development of businesses and private enterprises.


title: Demographics of Uzbekistan

text: The process of migration changed after the fall of the Soviet Union. During the Soviet Union, passports facilitated movement throughout the fifteen republics and movement throughout the republics was relatively less expensive than it is today. An application for a labor abroad permit from a special department of the Uzbek Agency of External Labor Migration in Uzbekistan is required since 2003. The permit was originally not affordable to many Uzbeks and the process was criticized for the bureaucratic red tape it required. The same departments and agencies involved in creating this permit are consequently working to substantially reduce the costs as well as simplifying the procedure. On July 4, 2007, the Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov signed three agreements that would address labor activity and protection of the rights of the working migrants (this includes Russian citizens in Uzbekistan and Uzbek citizens in Russia) as well as cooperation in fighting undocumented immigration and the deportation of undocumented workers.


title: Demographics of Uzbekistan

text: Economic difficulties have increased labor migration to Russia, Kazakhstan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Turkey, South Korea, and Europe over the past decade. At least 10% of Uzbekistan’s labor force works abroad. Approximately 58% of the labor force that migrates, migrates to Russia. High unemployment rates and low wages are responsible for labor migration.


title: Demographics of Uzbekistan

text: Migrants typically are people from the village, farmers, blue-collar workers, and students who are seeking work abroad. However, many migrants are not aware of the legal procedures required to leave the country, causing many to end up unregistered in Uzbekistan or the host country. Without proper registration, undocumented migrants are susceptible to underpayment, no social guarantees and bad treatment by employers. According to data from the Russian Federal Immigration Service, there were 102,658 officially registered labor migrants versus 1.5 million unregistered immigrants from Uzbekistan in Russia in 2006. The total remittances for both groups combined was approximately US $1.3 billion that same year, eight percent of Uzbekistan’s GDP.


title: Demographics of Uzbekistan

text: A significant number of ethnic and national minorities left Uzbekistan after the country became independent, but actual numbers are unknown. The primary reasons for migration by minorities include: few economic opportunities, a low standard of living, and a poor prospect for educational opportunities for future generations. Although Uzbekistan's language law has been cited as a source of discrimination toward those who do not speak Uzbek, this law has intertwined with social, economic, and political factors that have led to migration as a solution to a lack of opportunities in Uzbekistan.


title: Demographics of Uzbekistan

text: Russians, who constituted a primarily urban population made up half of the population of Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, until the 1980s. Since then, the population has been gradually diminishing as many Russians have migrated to Russia. Nevertheless, Russian registration permits (propiska) constrain migration. The decision to migrate is complicated by the fact that many Russians or other minority groups who have a “homeland” may view Uzbekistan as the “motherland.” It is also complicated by the fact that these groups might not speak the national language of their “homeland” or may be registered under another nationality on their passports. Nonetheless, “native” embassies facilitate this migration. Approximately 200 visas are given out to Jews from the Israel embassy weekly.


title: Warlley Alves

text: Warlley Alves Andrade (born 4 January 1991), is a Brazilian mixed martial artist who competes in the Welterweight division of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. A professional MMA competitor since 2011, Warlley made a name for himself fighting at Jungle Fight. He is the winner of Middleweight tournament.


title: Warlley Alves

text: Alves started training kickboxing at the age of 10, winning three Brazilian kickboxing championships in the process.


title: Warlley Alves

text: On 26 February 2014 it was revealed that Alves was selected to be a participant on "." Alves defeated Wendell Oliveira by split decision to move into the "Ultimate Fighter" house, and become an official cast member.


title: Warlley Alves

text: Alves was selected as the third pick (fifth overall) of coach Chael Sonnen to be a part of Team Sonnen. In his second Middleweight fight of the season, Alves was selected to fight Ismael de Jesus. Alves won via knockout (knees) in the first round. He was then scheduled to face Wagner Silva for a spot in the final against Marcio Alexandre Jr. He defeated Silva by submission (guillotine choke).


title: Warlley Alves

text: Alves made his UFC debut on 31 May 2014 at against Márcio Alexandre Jr. to determine the winner of middleweight tournament. He won the fight via technical submission (guillotine choke) after only twenty-five seconds into the third round. This win earned him the "Performance of the Night" award. After the fight Alves stated that he would fight in the Welterweight division of UFC.


title: Warlley Alves

text: Alves next fought Alan Jouban on 8 November 2014 at UFC Fight Night 56 in the co-main event. He won the fight by a controversial unanimous decision.


title: Warlley Alves

text: Alves faced Nordine Taleb on 1 August 2015 at UFC 190. He won the fight by submission in the second round.


title: Warlley Alves

text: Alves faced Colby Covington on 12 December 2015 at UFC 194. He won the fight via a guillotine choke submission in the first round, giving Covington his first professional loss.


title: Warlley Alves

text: Alves next faced Kamaru Usman on 19 November 2016 at UFC Fight Night 100. He lost the fight unanimous decision.


title: Warlley Alves

text: Alves was expected to face Kiichi Kunimoto on 11 June 2017 at UFC Fight Night 110. However, Alves pulled out of the fight on 19 May and was replaced by Zak Ottow.