title: Ardeatine massacre

text: Reviewing Katz's book, "The Battle for Rome", István Deák, on the other hand, cautions that although "armed resistance during World War II was romanticised because the Nazis were such an appalling enemy and because in that war the guerrillas' targets were still mainly soldiers", it is increasingly hard to draw the line between freedom fighting and terrorism. In his opinion, Hague Conventions regulating irregular warfare has been "more a failure than success." "What is needed," Deák stresses, "is a recognition of reality, namely that future wars will increasingly consist of civilians shooting at soldiers from hiding and frightened soldiers killing innocent civilians. And what is needed, in the aftermath of such a sobering recognition, is an attempt to create a new international law for the more efficient regulation of this type of horrible warfare." Robert Katz's book, "The Battle for Rome", Deák concludes, "provides fine arguments for this necessary debate".


title: Ardeatine massacre

text: Immediately after the war Roman Partisan leaders, including Rosario Bentivegna, the medical student who had set off the Via Rasella bomb, were recipients of medals conferred by the post-war Italian government.


title: Ardeatine massacre

text: Both Priebke and Kappler sought Vatican assistance after the war. Priebke escaped from a British prison camp in 1946 and fled, first to the Tyrol and then back to Rome, whence, using false papers supplied by the Vatican "ratline", he emigrated to Argentina. He was unmasked on camera in 1994 during a television interview by ABC television reporter Sam Donaldson, brought back to Italy for trial, and sentenced to house arrest in the home of his lawyer, Paolo Giachini. He died on 11 October 2013 from natural causes at age 100. His last request to have his remains returned to Argentina to be buried alongside his wife was denied by Argentina. The Vatican issued an "unprecedented ban" on holding the funeral in any Catholic church in Rome. But the Society of St Pius X, a Catholic splinter group often accused of having far-right and anti-Semitic leanings, offered to hold the ceremony in the city of Albano Laziale. During the funeral service, violent clashes broke out between fascist sympathisers and anti-fascist protesters.


title: Ardeatine massacre

text: Don Florian Abrahamowicz, a priest expelled from the Society of St Pius X for his extreme right-wing views, told Italy's Radio 24: "Priebke was a friend of mine, a Christian, a faithful soldier."


title: Ardeatine massacre

text: Kappler, a Protestant until his late conversion in life, unsuccessfully sought asylum within the Vatican. Tried by the British and sentenced to life imprisonment in Gaeta, in 1977 he successfully escaped from a Roman military hospital where he had been undergoing treatment for cancer. He died unmolested the following year at his home in Soltau, West Germany, the West Germans having refused Italian requests to extradite him.


title: Ardeatine massacre

text: The event was recreated in the 1962 film "Dieci italiani per un tedesco (Via Rasella)" ("Ten Italians for One German (Rasella Street)") directed by Filippo Walter Ratti and starring Gino Cervi.


title: Ardeatine massacre

text: In 1973, the feature film "Massacre in Rome" by George Pan Cosmatos was released starring Marcello Mastroianni and Richard Burton.


title: Ardeatine massacre

text: American composer William Schuman subtitled his Ninth Symphony, from 1968, "Le fosse Ardeatine" ("The Ardeatine Caves") in memory of the victims.


title: Ardeatine massacre

text: The 2017 novel entitled "From Sand and Ash" by Amy Harmon details a fictional account of the massacre.


title: Miitopia

text: Miitopia is a role-playing video game developed and published by Nintendo originally for the Nintendo 3DS. The 3DS version was released in Japan in 2016 and worldwide the following year, with a remastered version being released for the Nintendo Switch in 2021. The game features customizable Mii characters in a turn-based battle system, following the story of a group of heroes battling a character known as the Dark Lord who is stealing the faces of Miitopia's residents. The game received mixed reviews, with critics praising its creative life simulation elements and humor while criticizing its combat system and repetitiveness.


title: Miitopia

text: "Miitopia" is a role-playing video game with life simulation elements, starting with standard character classes or "jobs" such as warriors and mages; as the game progresses, more classes appear. Playable characters are created with Mii avatar and have certain personality traits which influence their role in combat. Similarly to "Tomodachi Life", the relationships between Miis outside of combat affects the game: for example, Miis not getting along with one another can make combat more difficult. "Miitopia" supports the ability to import Miis and their trait settings from "Tomodachi Life", as well as from a player's friend list.


title: Miitopia

text: The game supports Nintendo's line of Amiibo figures, which allow players to use unique cosmetics on their Miis. The Nintendo Switch remaster also introduces a new makeup and wig feature which allows players to further customize their in-game characters, including options not available on the console's Mii Maker application. The Switch remaster also includes a horse that can help in combat, outings that let your characters gain relationship EXP, and a secret final dungeon after the Tower of Dread, the Tower of Despair, yet all of these are not included in the 3DS version.


title: Miitopia

text: The game begins with the main protagonist, a Mii of the player's choice, arriving in Greenhorne Town, which is soon attacked by the main antagonist, the Dark Lord, who wields the ability to steal faces from Miis and use them to control peaceful creatures, turning the creatures into monsters. The protagonist chooses a character class and is sent on a journey to stop the Dark Lord. Along their journey, the player creates more companions, meets the Great Sage, and reaches Greenhorne castle, continuing the quest after the Dark Lord steals the faces of the King and the Princess. Afterwards, the team enters the kingdom of Neksdor, only to be attacked by the Dark Lord, who steals the protagonist's companions and renders the protagonist without a class. After the guardian provides the hero with new powers, they head out through Neksdor, meeting three new companions and the Genie of the Lamp. The team continues to the Realm of the Fey, where the Dark Lord attacks again, stealing the hero's companions and their character class again, prompting the guardian to provide a new group of character classes. The hero is tasked with saving the three Fab Fairies of the Realm, who provide the team the way to the Dark Lord's castle in Karkaton. Before they can open the door, the Fab Fairies have their faces stolen by the Dark Lord. After retrieving their faces, the Fab Fairies open the door to Karkaton, and the team head out. Upon arrival, the Dark Lord attacks again, stealing the new companions, but failing to steal the hero's powers. The hero is tasked with saving all of their friends, with some help from the Great Sage.


title: Miitopia

text: The team fights the Dark Lord, and upon defeating them, the heroes discover that the Dark Lord was a common Mii possessed by a small blue wisp known as the Dark Curse. Enraged, the Dark Curse tries to possess the player's Mii, until the Great Sage intervenes and becomes possessed instead, becoming the Darker Lord. After this you have the ability to swap between classes, which also includes classes that the Dark Lord had restricted your hero from. The hero and their team track down the Darker Lord through the lands of Powdered Peaks, Peculia and Nimbus, before reaching the Darker Lord's Domain in The Sky Scraper, fighting previous bosses along the way. Upon reaching the top of The Sky Scraper, the heroes go to the Otherworld for the final showdown against the Darker Lord. The hero and their team are then prompted to split up to fight the Darker Lord. Afterwards, the Darker Lord steals the faces of six heroes, evolving into the Darkest Lord for the fight with the last four members. After the Darkest Lord is defeated, the Great Sage is free. The Sage quickly traps the Dark Curse, and explains its history to the hero: it was once a normal Mii, rejected due to having a boring face, which they then decide to get rid of, and they faded away into a soul of hatred, malice and evil, which became the Dark Curse. The hero is given an opportunity to either destroy the Dark Curse or provide them with a new face and body. If the hero provides the Dark Curse with a new life, the Great Sage takes the Curse and travels with them to have them atone for their mistakes while the team is praised for saving Miitopia. If the hero decides to destroy the Dark Curse, they use their divine power to destroy the Dark Curse, in which they are also praised for saving Miitopia. After the credits, the player unlocks two post-game areas: Galados Isle and New Lumos. The player can also unlock the Elf and Vampire fighting class after doing certain quests.


title: Miitopia

text: "Miitopia" received mixed or average reviews from critics, according to review aggregator Metacritic. "Famitsu" awarded both versions a score of 31/40.


title: Miitopia

text: Many critics have drawn comparisons between "Miitopia" and "Tomodochi Life" due to the two involving Miis and having similar mechanics, despite having different premises. Jeff Cork of "Game Informer" described Miitopia as a hybrid between "Tomodachi Life" and an old-school RPG, allowing for a "simple but effective" player experience. While Jonathan Leack from "GameRevolution" draws a similar comparison between "Miitopia" and "Tomodachi Life," his opinion of the former was less favorable, noting that the interactions between characters in "Miitopia" were "let down by uninteresting writing", and were far less humorous as compared to "Tomodachi Life."


title: Miitopia

text: Another criticism of Leack's is the lack of player involvement. Due to a lack of player choices while exploring "Miitopia"'s various game areas, Leack described feeling as though the game was on autopilot for the majority of its playtime. Similarly, Heidi Kemps of "GameSpot" felt as though "Miitopia" was a "slow slog you mostly watch rather than play", and Jon Mundy of "Pocket Gamer" discussed the lack of challenge and player input in the gameplay. Allegra Frank of "Polygon" agreed to an extent, saying that the game often let the Miis "do their thing", but found that this was often still enough to keep her entertained. Frank highlighted that the uninvolved segments of the game were balanced out by its overall dynamic nature, saying that the game periodically shaking up the entire cast, map, and combat occurred often enough to keep her engaged.


title: Miitopia

text: Despite the combat being an essential part of the game, it was not universally praised. Leack criticized the unchallenging combat in the earlier stages, while Frank criticized the high frequency of battles leading to repetitive gameplay. The existence of an auto-battle mechanic mitigated this issue, but did not completely solve it. Equally criticized was the AI which controlled all the Miis in combat, save for the player's own Mii. Kemps and Frank both noted that a lack of player control over the battle party's actions could lead to frustrating gameplay. Nevertheless, Frank praised the creative "hidden intricacies" of the turn-based battle system, due to characters' jobs and personality traits having impacts on their combat style.


title: Miitopia

text: Creativity is what most critics cite to be "Miitopia"'s greatest asset. Cork, Kemps, Leack, and Frank agree that the creative spin on a more traditional RPG concept is ultimately the highlight of the game.


title: Miitopia

text: During its first week in the UK, the Switch port sold 36% more copies at launch than the 3DS version, debuting at #2 behind "Resident Evil Village". In Japan, the Switch port launched at #2 behind "Rune Factory 5" with 72,725 physical copies sold, three times the sales of the 3DS version. By its second week of release, the "Miitopia" Switch port surpassed competition to take the #1 weekly sales spot in Japan, with 34,451 physical copies sold. According to Media Create, the Switch port debuted at #1 in South Korea.


title: Miitopia

text: Two music tracks from "Miitopia", "Boss Battle Time" and "Boss: The Darkest Lord", were featured in the crossover fighting game "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate". A Nintendo Switch port of the game, developed by Grezzo, was released on May 21, 2021.


title: I Want to Eat Your Pancreas (film)

text: An anime film adaptation of the light novel was announced in August 2017. The staff for the film were revealed in March 2018, with Takagusi and Lynn being announced as the unnamed male high school student and Sakura, respectively. The remaining cast were revealed in June, July, and August 2018.


title: I Want to Eat Your Pancreas (film)

text: "I Want to Eat Your Pancreas" held its preview screening in Tokyo on July 24, 2018, and was released in Japan on September 1. The film grossed over million worldwide and received positive reviews from critics, who praised the story and its message, animation, and writing. The film received several nominations from film festivals held at Sitges and Scotland.


title: I Want to Eat Your Pancreas (film)

text: An unnamed male high school student comes across a book in a hospital waiting room. He soon discovers that it is a diary kept by his very popular classmate Sakura Yamauchi, who reveals to him that she is secretly suffering from a fatal illness in her pancreas. Despite this, Sakura intends to maintain a normal school life and thus is drawn to him due to his relatively unfazed reaction to her condition. They begin to spend time together and become friends.


title: I Want to Eat Your Pancreas (film)

text: During their school break, Sakura invites him on a train trip to Fukuoka where they play truth-or-dare game and eventually share a bed in their hotel room. Afterward, Sakura's friends and classmates grow suspicious and resentful of his newfound closeness to her. The two begin doing activities from Sakura's bucket list together until she is suddenly hospitalized. During her hospitalization, the two sneak out to see fireworks together. When she gets discharged, Sakura invites him for lunch but fails to show up at their meeting place. Later that night, he learns from the news that Sakura died from a stabbing. He breaks down and does not attend her funeral.


title: I Want to Eat Your Pancreas (film)

text: Later, he visits Sakura's mother and asks for her diary. Her mother recognizes him and reveals Sakura left a message in the diary for him. The message tells him to keep the diary and to make her best friend Kyoko read it since she was unaware of her illness. Soon after reading the message, he immediately breaks down into tears as he never felt so much sorrow for a single person before. Sakura's mother learns of his name as Haruki Shiga before he leaves and explains how his name meaning "spring trees" corresponds to her daughter's name of "cherry blossom". Haruki meets with Kyoko, who is in denial that Sakura ever lied to her, but she runs away after reading the diary. Haruki runs after her and asks her to be his friend. In a post-credits scene, Haruki and Kyoko, who are now friends, visit Sakura's grave a year later.


title: I Want to Eat Your Pancreas (film)

text: In August 2017, an anime film adaptation of "I Want to Eat Your Pancreas" light novel series by Yoru Sumino was announced. Shinichiro Ushijima as director and screenwriter, Yūichi Oka as chief animation director and character designer, Mayuko Koike as cinematographer, and Yumi Jingugi as editor were confirmed in March 2018 as part of the staff behind the film at Studio VOLN. In contrast to his past directing of action films, this was Ushijima's first time working on a "coming-of-age drama" genre. Additionally, Mahiro Takasugi and Lynn were announced to be starring in the film as the unnamed male high school student credited as and Sakura Yamauchi, respectively. This was Takasugi's debut in voice acting. In June 2018, Yukiyo Fujii, Yuma Uchida, Jun Fukushima, Atsuko Tanaka, and Shin-ichiro Miki were cast as Kyoko, Takahiro, Gum Boy, and "Me"s mother and father, respectively. In July 2018, Emi Wakui joined the cast in her voice acting debut as Sakura's mother. In August 2018, 3DCG director Koremi Kishi stated how the team spent a lot of time and effort animating trams and diesel railcars since they were "important elements of the [film]'s worldview." Despite the frequent use of 3D in the layout and moving backgrounds, the team tried to avoid using it "in a way that would make the technology stand out and to make it fit naturally into the screen." That month, the four members of the band Sumika were cast in undisclosed roles. The English dub cast for the film was announced by Aniplex of America in November 2018.


title: I Want to Eat Your Pancreas (film)

text: Hiroko Sebu was announced to be composing "I Want to Eat Your Pancreas" in March 2018. This was Sebu's first time composing an anime film. She used the pizzicato technique to create sounds that would make "[Sakura] look cute... based on [her] movements and the way her hair flutters". Sumika was revealed to be performing the theme music and insert song for the film in May 2018, with the song as the opening theme music. The film's ending theme music titled was revealed in July 2018. The two theme music and the original soundtrack, which includes the film version of the insert song , were released in Japan on August 29, 2018.


title: I Want to Eat Your Pancreas (film)

text: In August 2017, the first special news trailer and visual for "I Want to Eat Your Pancreas" were published. In January 2018, the film received the second visual as well as a tagline that reads, "The distance between two people still has no name." The second and third special news trailers for the film were released in March and May 2018, respectively. The third visual for the film was published in June 2018, followed by the fourth and main visual the following month. , a sequel to the light novel series, was announced in August 2018 as a gift to moviegoers in Japan who saw the film in participating theaters. The official guidebook for the film was released in Japan on October 12, 2018.


title: I Want to Eat Your Pancreas (film)

text: Promotional partners for the film included Nakabayashi through their notebook product Logical Air, Toyama Prefecture, H.I.S. Chūbu travel agency, Uniqlo, Hakata Ikkousha ramen restaurant, Sweets Paradise store, Cerezo Osaka, and Respect for Geeks (R4G) clothing brand.


title: I Want to Eat Your Pancreas (film)

text: "I Want to Eat Your Pancreas" held its preview screening in Zepp DiverCity in Tokyo on July 24, 2018. The film held additional previews in Toho Cinemas Takaoka in Takaoka City on August 21, 2018, and in United Cinemas Toyosu in Tokyo on August 22. The film was screened at the Seoul International Cartoon and Animation Festival in South Korea on August 23, 2018. The film was widely released in Japan on September 1, 2018. The film held its Australian premiere at the Madman Anime Festival in Melbourne on September 15–16, 2018, and was widely released in the country on October 18. The film held its United Kingdom premiere at Scotland Loves Anime festival in Glasgow on October 14, 2018. The film held its United States premiere at the Animation Is Film Festival in Los Angeles on October 21, 2018, and was released in 400 theaters in the country by Aniplex of America and Fathom Events for two days on February 7 and 10, 2019.


title: I Want to Eat Your Pancreas (film)

text: "I Want to Eat Your Pancreas" was released on Blu-ray and DVD in Japan on April 3, 2019. The film was aired on NHK E on May 2, 2020, and on Nippon TV on July 23, 2021.


title: I Want to Eat Your Pancreas (film)

text: Aniplex of America released the film on Blu-ray in the United States on October 29, 2019. Madman Entertainment released the film on Blu-ray and DVD in Australia and New Zealand on January 22, 2020, while Manga Entertainment released it on Blu-ray and DVD in the United Kingdom on February 24.


title: I Want to Eat Your Pancreas (film)

text: "I Want to Eat Your Pancreas" grossed in Japan and million in other territories, for a worldwide total of million. The film earned million () in its opening weekend, ranking tenth at the Japanese box office.


title: I Want to Eat Your Pancreas (film)

text: The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 93%, with an average score of 7.2/10, based on 14 reviews. "I Want to Eat Your Pancreas" light novel author Yoru Sumino had a "mixed review" on its anime film adaptation, stating that it had "good parts, but honestly there are also unsatisfying parts."


title: I Want to Eat Your Pancreas (film)

text: Rafael Motamayor graded "I Want to Eat Your Pancreas" 'A-' for "Collider", feeling that the film "may look like a traditional romantic drama about a dying character, but it is a heartfelt celebration of life and friendships with a tight script and round characters", and had similarities with "The Fault in Our Stars" (2014) and "A Silent Voice" (2016). James Perkins of "Starburst" felt the film was a "devastatingly beautiful - a gut-punch of a romantic drama that will leave you broken and have you crying your eyes out by its ending with its respectful portrayal of dealing with and accepting loss and finding wonder in the world during the short time we are on this planet for." He praised the film for its "powerful message, sublime animation and writing and deep profound focus on the development of its characters". Alex Osborn gave the film 8 out of 10 for "IGN Southeast Asia", feeling that it was "a beautiful and moving exploration of what it means to truly live". Osborn praised the art direction and premise that it "isn't especially novel, but the strength of its core relationship and the satisfying way it concludes makes for a memorable story with a powerful message."


title: I Want to Eat Your Pancreas (film)

text: Kim Morrissy of Anime News Network graded the film 'B-', feeling that it "isn't... a poor adaptation. It's a perfectly good movie in its own right, and I don't intend to compare its merits to the live-action version. However, [the film] does have some noticeable failings as an animated film." Morrissy criticized the inconsistent character animation with the script and voice acting, and the overuse of filters that became "hard to tell what is happening in those scenes because the characters are completely overshadowed by the effects." However, she praised the film for its "[c]onsistently great voice acting, [and] some good character animation and nuanced writing". Matt Schley rated the film 2 out of 5 stars for "The Japan Times", feeling that it would "either leave you sniffling or wishing some zombies had shown up after all." Schley criticized the pacing as similar to "an episodic structure more suited to television", dialogue, narration, and "swelling" music.


title: I Want to Eat Your Pancreas (film)

text: "I Want to Eat Your Pancreas" was nominated for Best Animated Feature Film at the Sitges Film Festival in September 2018. The film won the Audience Award and was nominated for the Jury Award at Scotland Loves Anime festival in October 2018.


title: RWE

text: RWE AG is a German multinational energy company headquartered in Essen. It generates and trades electricity in Asia-Pacific, Europe and the United States. The company is the world's number two in offshore wind power and Europe's third largest in renewable energy. In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000, RWE Group was ranked as the 297th -largest public company in the world.


title: RWE

text: RWE confirmed in December 2015, that it would separate its renewable energy generation, power grid and retail operations into a separate company, Innogy SE, during 2016, and sell a 10% holding in the business through an initial public offering. The restructuring was caused by an effort to reduce the group's exposure to nuclear decommissioning costs, required due to a German government policy of closing all nuclear power stations by 2022.


title: RWE

text: In July 2019, RWE's handling of the conflict with activists in the Hambach Forest were strongly criticized in the media. The company finally agreed to refrain from clearing the forest until autumn 2020.


title: RWE

text: In July 2020, RWE completed a far-reaching asset swap deal with E.ON first announced in 2018, whereby the international renewable generation portfolio of E.ON and Innogy were transferred to RWE.


title: RWE

text: The company was founded in Essen in 1898, as Rheinisch-Westfälisches Elektrizitätswerk Aktiengesellschaft (Rhenish-Westphalian Power Plant) by Elektrizitäts-Actien-Gesellschaft vorm. W. Lahmeyer & Company (EAG) and others. The full name was used until 1990 when it was renamed to RWE AG. Its first power station started operating in Essen in 1900. In 1902, EAG sold its shares to a consortium formed by Ruhr industrialists Hugo Stinnes and August Thyssen.


title: RWE

text: In 1906, it expanded its operations beyond Essen by acquiring Elektrizitätswerk Berggeist AG in Brühl, and Bergische Elektrizitätswerke GmbH, Solingen. During the same year, it also acquired shareholdings in the tramway companies Bochum-Gelsenkirchener Straßenbahn AG and Rheinische Bahngesellschaft AG.


title: RWE

text: In 1908, RWE signed demarcation contracts with Städtische Elektrizitätswerk Dortmund and Elektrizitätswerk Westfalen AG. Together they created Westfälische Verbands-Elektrizitätswerk AG. RWE contributed to the newly established company by its power station in Dortmund–Kruckel and the supply grid in Witten/Dortmund. Later all these companies formed Vereinigte Elektrizitätswerke Westfalen AG (VEW).


title: RWE

text: In 1909, RWE opened the Reisholz Power Plant and acquired a stake in the tram company Süddeutsche Eisenbahngesellschaft AG. RWE also started to build its own gas supply network in 1909. Deliveries of coal gas to the Bergisches Land region started in 1912. In 1914, RWE opened Vorgebirgszentrale power plant in Hürth. By 1920, the plant had installed capacity of 190 megawatts, which made it the largest in Europe.


title: RWE

text: Before World War I, municipalities of Essen, Mülheim an der Ruhr, and Gelsenkirchen, became shareholders in RWE. By the 1920s, Bonn, Cologne, Krefeld, Duisburg, and Düsseldorf also became shareholders and municipalities owned the majority of RWE's shares. In 1925, the Prussian state became a shareholder in RWE. In 1929, municipalities and the Rhine Province combined their shareholdings into a holding company Kommunale Aufnahmegruppe für Aktien GmbH.


title: RWE

text: In 1920, RWE acquired Niedersächsische Kraftwerke AG, located in Osnabrück. In 1922, it expanded its coal business by acquiring three anthracite mines in Essen and a majority stake in the lignite company Braunkohlen- und Briketwerke Roddergrube AG. In 1923, it acquired its founder company EAG. Three years later, the company acquired a stake in Rheinische Elektrizitäts-Aktiengesellschaft (Rheinelektra) and became a shareholder in the newly established Ruhrgas gas company in exchange of its gas grid. In 1927, RWE and Prussia swapped their holdings in the Brunswick and Cologne coalfields and RWE became an owner of Braunkohlen-Industrie AG Zukunft.


title: RWE

text: In 1932, RWE acquired a majority stake in the coal company Rheinische Aktiengesellschaft für Braunkohlenbergbau (Rheinbraun). In 1936, it acquired Niederrheinische Braunkohlenwerke AG, an operator of the Frimmersdorf Power Plant.


title: RWE

text: Since autumn 1943, the Essen state police had been investigating Wilhelm Ricken, RWE's technical director and designated general director, for "subversion of the military". The then First Mayor of Essen, Just Dillgardt, who was also second chairman of RWE's supervisory board, had reported Ricken to the state police. Previously, he had received a tip from the then commercial director and fellow board member of Ricken, Friedrich Praedel. This "board member" of RWE is said to have pushed Dillgardt to press charges. Wilhelm Ricken was then arrested on 20 October 1943, and sentenced to death on 8 March 1944, by the Volksgerichtshof (People's Court), partly because of his statement that "the war would end like 1918". On 2 May 1944, Wilhelm Ricken was executed in Berlin-Plötzensee.


title: RWE

text: During World War II, the infrastructure owned by RWE was severely damaged but mostly repaired by 1948. In 1952, the company was excluded from the Allies' control. In 1957, RWE acquired the coal company Neurath AG.


title: RWE

text: RWE and the Bavarian state-owned 'Bayernwerk' joined forces to build Germany's first industrial nuclear reactor. The Kahl experimental nuclear power plant (15 megawatts), constructed right next to RWE's Dettingen hard coal fired power plant, supplied its first electricity in 1962. Until its closure in 1985, this plant would serve as a source of important findings which supported the design and operation of commercial nuclear reactors.


title: RWE

text: RWE's nuclear operations started in 1961, when RWE and Bayernwerk (now part of E.ON) started to build the first German industrial nuclear reactor—the Kahl Nuclear Power Plant. In 1962, they started to build the Gundremmingen Nuclear Power Plant. In 1965, at the request of the surrounding municipalities, the Karnap power plant in Essen started to burn domestic waste.


title: RWE

text: In 1969, RWE acquired a stake in "Gelsenkirchener Bergwerks-Aktiengesellschaft" which allowed its expansion into the oil industry. However, in 1974, it was sold to VEBA AG.


title: RWE

text: In 1971, founded "Gesellschaft für elektrischen Straßenverkehr", a company to develop an electric car for commercial scale production. The prototype presented in 1983 was produced in cooperation with Volkswagen and named City-Stromer.


title: RWE

text: In 1988, RWE again expanded into the oil industry by acquiring Deutsche Texaco, formerly known as Deutsche Erdoel AG, which was renamed RWE-DEA AG für Mineralöl und Chemie (RWE-DEA). RWE was reorganized to hold energy, mining and raw materials; petroleum and chemicals; waste management; mechanical and plant engineering; and construction divisions.


title: RWE

text: In the 1990s, RWE acquired a number of assets in the former East Germany, including stakes in the mining company Lausitzer Braunkohle AG (LAUBAG) and the power company VEAG. In 2000, RWE and VEW merged to create a "new" RWE, and stakes in LAUBAG and VEAG (now both merged into Vattenfall Europe) were sold to avoid competition violation.


title: RWE

text: In 2001, RWE took over the British company Thames Water. In 2002, it acquired American Water Works Company, based in New Jersey, which became a subsidiary of Thames Water. In 2006, RWE sold Thames Water to Kemble Water Limited, a consortium led by Macquarie Group. RWE previously owned American Water, the United States' largest investor-owned water utility, but this was divested in 2008.


title: RWE

text: In 2002, RWE acquired the British electricity and gas utility company Innogy for £3 billion (US$4.3 billion). Innogy was subsequently renamed RWE npower plc.


title: RWE

text: As a result of the assets swap with RAG AG, RWE gave away its stake in the power company STEAG. It received almost full control of the renewable energy company Harpen AG. The full control of Harpen was achieved in 2005. In 2003, RWE also achieved full control over Thyssengas. In the same year, it decided to divest its American coal company Consol Energy.


title: RWE

text: In 2011, RWE unbundled its transmission system by selling its majority stake in the transmission system operator Amprion (RWE Transportnetz Strom GmbH), but keeping 25.1% in the company.


title: RWE

text: On 14 August 2012, RWE AG announced that the company would cut 2,400 more jobs to reduce costs. Previously the company had announced to eliminate 5,000 jobs and 3,000 jobs through divestments as anticipated of closing all nuclear reactors by 2022.


title: RWE

text: In August 2013, RWE completed the disposal of NET4GAS, the Czech gas transmission network operator, for €1.6billion to a consortium consisting of Allianz and Borealis. The company (named Transgas A.S. then) was privatized to RWE in 2002. In the 2000s, RWE also acquired energy companies in Poland (STOEN S.A.) and Slovenia (VSE a.s).


title: RWE

text: It also owned RWE Dea (now DEA AG), which produced some of the oil and gas RWE sold (annual production is around 2 million m of crude oil (about 365,000 BOE) ) and 3 billion m of natural gas (about 18 million BOE, 49,300 BOE) a day. In March 2015, RWE closed the sale of RWE Dea to a group led by Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman despite opposition from UK regulators. The $5.6 billion deal, announced in 2014, required approval from 14 countries where RWE Dea operates in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.


title: RWE

text: On 1 April 2016, RWE transferred its renewable, network and retail businesses into a separate company named Innogy, which is listed at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The new entity combined RWE subsidiaries RWE Innogy, RWE Deutschland, RWE Effizienz, RWE Vertrieb and RWE Energiedienstleistungen.


title: RWE

text: In March 2018, it was announced that E.ON will acquire Innogy in a complex €43 billion deal of assets swap with RWE. As a result, RWE will take a 16.7% stake in E.ON. Following the purchase of E.ON's renewables business and nuclear electricity generation assets, RWE is expected to become Europe's third-largest renewable energy provider behind Spain's Iberdrola and Italy's Enel, and the second-largest in the market for offshore wind power.


title: RWE

text: RWE operates in Asia-Pacific, Europe and the United States. The group is organized around four core areas:


title: RWE

text: In the UK, RWE fully owns RWE Generation UK plc., which operates a number of natural gas and renewable energy power stations across the UK. RWE's last coal-fired power station in the UK, Aberthaw Power Station in South Wales, was closed in March 2020. The company owns the gas-fired power stations Staythorpe in Nottinghamshire, Pembroke in West Wales, Little Barford in Bedfordshire, Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, and Didcot 'B' Station in Oxfordshire. It has previously closed its Didcot 'A' Power Station in Oxfordshire, Littlebrook Power Station in Kent, Fawley Power Station in Hampshire, and Tilbury Power Station in Essex.


title: RWE

text: RWE jointly owns one third of the Urenco Group with E.ON. The remaining stakes are held by the British and Dutch governments, with one-third each.


title: RWE

text: In 2019, RWE produced a total of 153.2 TWh of electricity from the following sources: 33.2% natural gas, 32% lignite, 13.8% nuclear power, 10.7% renewables, 9.3% hard coal and 1.2% pumped storage. In 2019, the company generated 88.1 Mt of CO Electricity production at the German branch of RWE had the following environmental implications in 2006: 700 μg/kWh radioactive waste and 752 g/kWh emissions. In 2007, the company ranked between the 28th and the 29th place of emitters by country.


title: RWE

text: RWE has long been among the top targets of climate activists, in part as a result of a long-running, high-profile battle to preserve a forest in western Germany that is threatened by the planned expansion of one of the group's coal mines. RWE also operates some of the largest coal-fired power stations in Europe.


title: RWE

text: Since 2012, environmentalists have protested against RWE because of the Hambach surface mine situated in the area of Hambach Forest. In November 2017, in the lawsuit filed by "Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland" (BUND), the German arm of Friends of the Earth, the Higher Administrative Court in Münster ruled to end the tree cutting. According to BUND, Hambach Forest is a habitat type 9160 of annex I of the European Habitats Directive (Council Directive 92/43/EEC of 21 May 1992).


title: RWE

text: Opponents also argue that an environmental impact assessment study for the mine was never conducted. The Administrative Court in Cologne denied the necessity of such a study in November 2017, because the permission for the mining operations was given in the 1970s, long before environmental impact assessment studies became mandatory. In October 2018, an estimated 50,000 protesters turned out against the company's planned continued forest clear-cutting for its open-pit coal mine expansion while a court order delayed the process until at least late 2020, to explore if it violated EU environmental regulations.


title: RWE

text: In September 2021, it was revealed that RWE are among a number of fossil fuel companies suing governments for enacting green policies against climate change. RWE are suing the Dutch government for $1.6bn following their move to phase out and shut down coal power plants.


title: Religion in Iraq

text: Religion in Iraq dates back to Ancient Mesopotamia, particularly Sumer, Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia between circa 3500 BC and 400 AD, after which they were replaced by the expansion of Syriac Christianity. Islam would first arrive in Mesopotamia in the 7th century via Islamic invasions, were it currently forms the modern majority.


title: Religion in Iraq

text: A national census has not been held since 1987. Today, the country is overwhelmingly Muslim, who are split into two distinct sects, Shia and Sunni. According to the CIA World Factbook, approximately 95% to 98% of the population are Muslims.


title: Religion in Iraq

text: The remaining 5% follow Christianity, Yazidism, religious syncretism, Mandaeism, Shabakism, Yarsanism and Zoroastrianism.


title: Religion in Iraq

text: The religious development of Mesopotamia and Mesopotamian culture in general, especially in the south, was not particularly influenced by the movements of the various peoples into and throughout the area. Rather, Mesopotamian religion was a consistent and coherent tradition which adapted to the internal needs of its adherents over millennia of development.


title: Religion in Iraq

text: There was increasing syncretism between the Sumerian and Akkadian cultures and deities, with the Akkadians typically preferring to worship fewer deities but elevating them to greater positions of power. Circa 2335 BC, Sargon of Akkad conquered all of Mesopotamia, uniting its inhabitants into the world's first empire and spreading its domination into ancient Iran, the Levant, Anatolia, Canaan and the Arabian Peninsula. The Akkadian Empire endured for two centuries before collapsing due to economic decline, internal strife and attacks from the north east by the Gutian people.


title: Religion in Iraq

text: Islam is the most common religion in Iraq. Iraq's Muslims follow two distinct traditions, Shia and Sunni Islam. According to CIA World Factbook, Iraq is approximately 95% to 98% Muslim. Iraq is home to many religious sites important for both Shia and Sunni Muslims.


title: Religion in Iraq

text: Baghdad was a hub of Islamic learning and scholarship for centuries and served as the capital of the Abassids. The city of Karbala has substantial prominence in Shia Islam as a result of the Battle of Karbala, which was fought on the site of the modern city on October 10, 680. Similarly, Najaf is renowned as the site of the tomb of Alī ibn Abī Tālib (also known as "Imām Alī"). The Shia consider him to be the righteous caliph and first imām. The city is now a great center of pilgrimage from throughout the Shia Islamic world even though his grave is debatable and it is estimated that only Mecca and Medina receive more Muslim pilgrims.


title: Religion in Iraq

text: The city of Kufa was home to the famed Sunni scholar Abu Hanifah, whose school of thought is followed by a sizable number of Sunnis across the globe. Likewise, Samarra is home to the al-Askari Mosque, containing the mausoleums of the Ali al-Hadi and Hasan al-Askari, the tenth and eleventh Shia Imams, respectively, as well as the shrine of Muhammad al-Mahdi, known as the "Hidden Imam", who is the twelfth and final Imam of the Shia of the Ja'farī Madhhab. This has made it an important pilgrimage centre for Ja'farī Shia Muslims. In addition, some female relatives of the Islamic prophet Muhammad are buried in Samarra, making the city one of the most significant sites of worship for Shia and a venerated location for Sunnis.


title: Religion in Iraq

text: Smaller sects of Islam exist in the country, such as the small Shia Shaykhist community concentrated in Basra and Karbala.


title: Religion in Iraq

text: Iraqi Arabs are a mix between Shia Muslims and Sunni Muslims. The Arab Sunni Muslims live mainly in the area of the so-called Sunni Triangle, but there are other communities in other parts of the country, whereas the Arab Shia Muslims live mainly in Southeast Iraq. The capital Baghdad is mixed of Arab Sunni Muslims and Arab Shia Muslims as well as other religions.


title: Religion in Iraq

text: Iraqi Kurds are 98% Sunni Muslims, with a Shia Feyli minority of 2%. Most Kurds are located in the northern areas of the country. Most Iraqi Kurdish Muslims follow the Shafi school of Islamic law and some are also members of either the Qadiri or the Naqshbandi Sufi tariqah.


title: Religion in Iraq

text: About 75% of Iraqi Turkmen are Sunni Muslims, and about 25% practice Shia Islam. Collectively, most Iraqi Turkmen are secular, having internalized the secularist interpretation of state–religion affairs practiced in the Republic of Turkey. The religious and tribal factors and tensions inherent in Iraq's political culture do not significantly affect the Iraqi Turkmen Sunnis and Shias.


title: Religion in Iraq

text: Christianity was brought to Iraq in 40's AD/CE by Thomas the Apostle, Thaddaeus of Edessa and his pupils Aggagi and Mari. Thomas and Thaddeus


title: Religion in Iraq

text: belonged to the twelve Apostles. Iraq's Original People and Indigenous Assyrian people represent roughly 3%-5% of the population (earlier CIA Factbook), mostly living in Northern Iraq, concentrated in the Ninewa and Dahuk governorates. There are no official statistics, and estimates vary greatly. In 1950 Assyrian Christians may have numbered 10–12% of the population of 5.0 million. They were 8% or 1.4 in a population of 16.3 million in 1987 and 1.5 million in 2003 of 26 million. Emigration has been high since the 1970s. Since the 2003 Iraq War. There has been no official census since 2003, when the Assyrian Christian population in Iraq numbered 1.2–2.1 million.


title: Religion in Iraq

text: The Yazidis are a group in Iraq who number just over 650,000. Yazidism, or Sherfedin, dates back to pre-Islamic times. Mosul is the principal holy site of the Yazidi faith. The holiest Yazid shrine is that of Sheikh Adi located at the necropolis of Lalish.


title: Religion in Iraq

text: Zoroastrianism was one of the dominant religions in Northern Mesopotamia before the Islamic era. Currently, Zoroastrianism is an officially recognized religion in Iraqi and Iran.


title: Religion in Iraq

text: Zoroastrianism has become the fastest growing religion with Kurds, especially in Northern Iraq. Because of the religion's strong ties to Kurdish culture, there has been a recent rebirth of Zoroastrianism in the region, and as of August 2015 the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) officially recognized Zoroastrianism as a religion within Iranian People called Kurds within Iraq. Arguably the world's oldest monotheistic religion, Zoroastrianism ("Zardashti" in Kurdish) has almost disappeared in the last century until recent years. According to Yasna, an association that promotes Zoroastrianism in Kurdistan, since 2014 about 15,000 people have registered with the organization, most of them Kurds converting from Islam. The Kurds in Iraq have converted to Zoroastrianism from a Muslim background since 2015, with the first new Zoroastrian temples being built and opened in 2016.


title: Religion in Iraq

text: Many Kurdish people converted from Islam to Zoroastrianism, especially after ISIL attacked Northern Iraq. The surge in Kurdish Muslims converting to Zoroastrianism, the faith of their ancestors is largely attributed to disillusionment with Islam after the years of violence and barbarism perpetrated by the ISIS terrorist group.


title: Religion in Iraq

text: On 21 September 2016, the first official Zoroastrian fire temple of Iraqi Kurds opened in Sulaymaniyah. Attendees celebrated the occasion by lighting a ritual fire and beating the frame drum or "daf".


title: Religion in Iraq

text: There are no accurate numbers on the population of Zoroastrians in Iraq because they are listed as "Muslims" on their government-issued documents.


title: Religion in Iraq

text: According to the Haran Gawaita, a text that tells the history of the Mandaean people, the Mandaeans arrived in the Parthian Empire during the reign of Artabanus II, and later moved to southern Babylonia. This would make the Iraqi presence of Mandaeans approximately 2000 years old, making it the third oldest continually-practiced faith in Iraqi society after Zoroastrianism and Judaism. However, Mandaeans believe their religion predates Judaism and Christianity as a monotheistic faith tracing it back to their first prophet Adam. Until the 2003 Iraq war, there were about 60,000 estimated Mandaeans living in Iraq. The oldest independent confirmation of Mandaean existence in the region is Kartir's inscription at Ka'ba-ye Zartosht. The Mandaean faith is commonly known as the last surviving Gnostic religion. John the Baptist, known as "Yahia Yuhanna", is considered to have been the final Mandaean prophet and first true "Ris'Amma", or Ethnarch, of the Mandaean people. Most Iraqi Mandaeans live near waterways because of the practice of total immersion (or baptism) in flowing water every Sunday. The highest concentrations are in Amarah, Nasiriyah and Basra. Besides these southern regions and Ahvaz in Iran, large numbers of Mandaeans can be found in Baghdad, giving them easy access to the Tigris River.


title: Religion in Iraq

text: Judaism first came to Iraq under the rule of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon. It was a part of the Babylonian Captivity. After the Six-Day War in Israel, rioting caused the majority of Jews to flee. Present estimates of the Jewish population in Baghdad are eight (2007), seven (2008) and five (2013) . Among the American forces stationed in Iraq, there were only three Jewish chaplains.


The Metropolitan Correctional Center, Chicago (MCC Chicago) is a United States federal prison in Chicago, Illinois, which holds male and female prisoners of all security levels prior to and during court proceedings in the Northern District of Illinois, as well as inmates serving brief sentences. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice.


title: Metropolitan Correctional Center, Chicago

text: MCC Chicago was designed by architect Harry Weese. Construction began in 1971 and the facility opened in 1975. The building is a right triangle shape, extrudes 28 stories, and has a rooftop exercise yard. The irregularly-spaced windows on each wall are reminiscent of old computer punchcards.


text: Several features make MCC Chicago's design unique from other federal prison facilities. Weese designed each cell with a floor-to-ceiling slit window, long by wide, narrow enough not to require bars, and beveled out to allow natural light to pass inside. The cells were originally designed to feel as comfortable as possible, based on sailboat cabins, with built-in hardwood beds and desks. Most of these features have since been removed.


text: An exercise yard is available for inmates, located on the roof of the building. This rooftop yard is enclosed by tall concrete walls with fenced openings. A recreation center in the basement provides fitness equipment on a regular schedule, along with a selection of board games. The leisure and law libraries are housed on the ninth floor along with classrooms and offices. There is a security housing unit (SHU) for male prisoners, while female prisoners needing to be isolated, as of 2005, have been taken to the Cook County Jail.


text: In 1985, convicted murderers Bernard Welch and Hugh Colomb assembled the materials necessary to break open a window hole and gain egress from the MCC, escaping down a piecework rope to street level. They were eventually recaptured after a months-long nationwide manhunt.


text: In October 2009, Matthew Nolan (28750-045), brother of film director Christopher Nolan, assembled bedsheets and other materials for a foiled window escape plan that was later called "impossible" by the judge who sentenced Nolan to 14 months for the attempt. Nolan was being held at the MCC awaiting extradition to Costa Rica on a passport charge (his charges having been reduced from earlier capital offenses) at the time of the foiled plot.


text: In February 2010, Sinaloa Cartel leader Vicente Zambada-Niebla was apprehended by Mexican police and extradited to Chicago to face trial. Considered a high security risk, he was placed in solitary confinement. Based on intelligence that allies of Zambada-Niebla were planning a helicopter escape, Zambada-Niebla was not allowed access to the rooftop exercise yard. Bureau of Prisons officials cited the fact that the Sinaloa Cartel has unlimited resources and has succeeded in both escapes and assassinations in the past. Zambada-Niebla sued the Bureau of Prisons in 2011 claiming that his being denied exercise constituted cruel and unusual punishment. In September 2011, US District Judge Ruben Castillo ruled that since Zambada-Niebla had not been convicted, placing him in solitary confinement was unwarranted. In order to comply with the ruling and alleviate security concerns, the Bureau of Prisons transferred Zambada-Niebla to the Federal Correctional Institution, Milan, a medium-security facility in Michigan which has a ground-level exercise area.


text: In the early morning hours of December 18, 2012, two convicted bank robbers, Kenneth Conley (28560-298) and Joseph "Jose" Banks (22652-424), escaped the secure facility. Conley and Banks were being housed in the MCC while awaiting sentencing on their bank robbery convictions, crimes which were unrelated beyond the pair being cellmates at the MCC. The escape by Banks and Conley was the first from any secure federal correctional facility since April 2006, when convicted murderer Richard Lee McNair escaped from the U.S. Penitentiary, Pollock, Louisiana. The pair ostensibly fashioned a rope from bedsheets or fabric scraps, and exited their 17th-floor cell through a hole created at the bottom of a narrow window slot, rappelling down the side of the MCC to the street below.


text: Their escape and the gaping hole in the prison wall apparently went unnoticed during routine overnight bed checks, and was only discovered when arriving jail workers spotted the rope dangling down the side of the MCC at about 7:00 am. The inmates had obtained and concealed large numbers of bedsheets, fake iron window bars used to mimic the real bars they removed and hid, passable street clothing, and bulky materials used to fool guards into believing they were asleep in bed. It is unclear what tools were used to create the hole in the wall necessary for the escape, and if these had been hidden in the cell for an extended period of time.


text: Conley and Banks were subsequently recorded on a nearby video security system as they entered a cab at the corner of Congress Parkway and Michigan Avenue at about 2:40 am. In the video, they were wearing some form of light-colored plain clothes, and not their bright-orange, prison-issue jumpsuits. The identity of the cab driver and cab company, as well as how the convicts paid the cab fare, remained unclear.


text: On December 20, 2012, Banks was recaptured by FBI agents and the Chicago police in the 2300 block of North Bosworth Avenue. On January 3, 2013, Conley was apprehended in Palos Hills, Illinois. Conley and Banks are currently incarcerated at Florence ADX, the supermax facility in Colorado which holds the most dangerous inmates in the federal system, as well as inmates who constitute a high escape risk. Their release dates are in 2032 and 2040. Banks filed a $10 million lawsuit in 2014 for negligence for allowing him to escape. The lawsuit was dismissed by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.


The High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, together with the Office of the High Representative (OHR) in Bosnia and Herzegovina, were created in 1995 immediately after the signing of the Dayton Agreement which ended the 1992–1995 Bosnian War. The purpose of the High Representative and the OHR is to oversee the civilian implementation of the Dayton agreement. They also serve to represent the countries involved in the implementation of the Dayton Agreement through the Peace Implementation Council (PIC), which chooses the High Representative.


title: High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: So far, all of the High Representatives named have been from European Union countries, while their principal deputies have been from the United States. The Principal Deputy High Representative serves as International Supervisor for Brčko, representing the international community in the Brčko District.


text: Due to the vast powers of the High Representative over Bosnian politics and essential veto powers, the position has been compared to that of a viceroy.


text: The Dayton Agreement created the legal basis for the OHR. Its Annex 10 provides for the institution of the "Office of the High Representative (OHR) in Bosnia and Herzegovina" to oversee the civilian implementation of the agreement, representing the countries involved in the Dayton Accords through the Peace Implementation Council.


text: At its December 1997 meeting in Bonn, the Peace Implementation Council agreed in granting further substantial powers to the OHR, in order to avoid the implementation of the Dayton Agreement being delayed or obstructed by local nationalist politicians. The OHR was requested to:


text: The "Bonn powers" were extensively used by the OHR in the following decade. Some examples include the adoption of the Defence reform in April 2003, with the suppression of the Supreme Defence Council of the Republika Srpska, and the amendment of Entity Constitutional Laws.


text: Until 2004, the OHR had dismissed a total of 139 officials, including judges, ministers, civil servants and members of parliaments, sometimes along with freezing their bank accounts. After the 2002 elections, the OHR scrutinised all political candidates for major ministerial positions at Entity and State level.


text: The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which Bosnia and Herzegovina had joined in 2002, has voiced complaints against the actions of the OHR, requiring it to transfer his powers to the Bosnian authorities as soon as possible.


text: The OHR's prolonged interference in the politics of Bosnia and Herzegovina is also considered to be one of the causes of the low commitment of citizens towards the state (shown by low voter turnout) and of low accountability of politicians (whose actions are finally subject to external review).


text: Between 2002 and 2011, the High Representative also served as the European Union Special Representative to Bosnia and Herzegovina.


text: Under Christian Schwarz-Schilling, the OHR seemed to soften its invasiveness, thanks to pressures from the Council of Europe and a growing EU involvement. The number of OHR legislative initiatives and of dismissed officials lowered.


text: On 27 February 2008, the PIC decided to end the High Representative's mandate on 30 June 2008. The EU decision to shut down the OHR by June 2007 unexpectedly aroused disappointment and concern in the Bosnian population, NGOs, and politicians.


text: However, since the PIC February 2008 review, it was decided to extend that mandate indefinitely until a set of positive benchmarks have been fulfilled.


text: The "double hatting" between EUSR and OHR was discontinued in 2011, when the EU representative post was fused between the EUSR and the head of the EU delegation.


text: In February 2008, the Peace Implementation Council set the conditions for closure of the OHR. The most critical issues will be considered objectives to be achieved by the BiH authorities before transition from OHR to a European Union presence can take place. From a long list of known priorities the PIC selected the key ones for transition, for closure of OHR:


text: An additional non-written condition to be enforced through the "assessment by the PIC Steering Board" final condition, was adopted later by the US and some EU countries:


text: The closure of the OHR is considered by the Steering Board of the Peace Implementation Council to be a pre-condition for EU membership and even for candidate status.


text: The second-ranking official at the Office of the High Representative carries the title of "Principal Deputy High Representative (PDHR)." For many years, the individual filling that role has been an official of the United States Government, in most cases a career Foreign Service Officer of the U.S. Department of State. Throughout much of OHR's earlier history, there were also individuals who held the title of "Deputy High Representative," a rank just below that of the PDHR.


title: Liam Fox

text: Liam Fox (born 22 September 1961) is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for International Trade from 2016 to 2019 and Secretary of State for Defence from 2010 to 2011. A member of the Conservative Party, Fox has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for North Somerset, formerly Woodspring, since 1992.


title: Liam Fox

text: Fox studied medicine at the University of Glasgow and worked as a GP and civilian army medical GP before being elected as an MP. After holding several ministerial roles under John Major, Fox served as Constitutional Affairs Spokesman from 1998 to 1999, Shadow Health Secretary from 1999 to 2003, Chair of the Conservative Party from 2003 to 2005, Shadow Foreign Secretary in 2005 and Shadow Defence Secretary from 2005 to 2010.


title: Liam Fox

text: In the 2009 expenses scandal, he was the Shadow Cabinet minister found to have the largest over-claim on expenses and, as a result, was forced to repay the most money. In 2010, he was appointed Defence Secretary by Prime Minister David Cameron, a position from which he resigned on 14 October 2011 over allegations that he had given a close friend, lobbyist Adam Werritty, inappropriate access to the Ministry of Defence and allowed him to join official trips overseas.


title: Liam Fox

text: In July 2016, in the wake of the United Kingdom's vote to leave the European Union, Fox was appointed the first Secretary of State for International Trade by new Prime Minister Theresa May. He was also made President of the Board of Trade. Fox has twice stood unsuccessfully for the leadership of the Conservative Party, in 2005 and 2016. In July 2019, he lost his cabinet position when new Prime Minister Boris Johnson appointed his cabinet.


title: Liam Fox

text: Fox was born and raised in a Catholic family of Irish heritage in East Kilbride, Scotland, and brought up in a council house that his parents later bought. His great-uncle, John Fox, was Labour Provost of Motherwell, and most of his family were Labour supporters.


title: Liam Fox

text: Along with his brother and two sisters, he was educated in the state sector; he attended St. Bride's High School (now part of St Andrew's and St Bride's High School). He studied medicine at the University of Glasgow Medical School, graduating with a MB ChB in 1983. Fox is a former general practitioner (he was a GP in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, before his election to Parliament), a former Civilian Army General Practitioner and Divisional Surgeon with St John Ambulance. He is a member of the Royal College of General Practitioners.


title: Liam Fox

text: While studying medicine at the University of Glasgow in the early 1980s, he was a member of the Dialectic Society and became president of the Glasgow University Conservative Association. Fox contested the Hairmyres ward of East Kilbride District Council in May 1984, coming second (210 votes) to the incumbent Labour councillor, Ed McKenna.


title: Liam Fox

text: While at Glasgow, Fox resigned his position on the university's Students Representative Council (SRC) in protest at the council passing a motion condemning the decision of the university's Glasgow University Union (GUU) not to allow a gay students' society to join the union. The SRC motion called both the union's decision and the explanations given for it "bigoted". The GUU maintained its stance regardless, and the controversy was reported in the national media; this led to many other university student unions up and down the country, including Edinburgh, cutting ties with their Glasgow counterparts.


title: Liam Fox

text: Explaining his decision to resign from the SRC and support the GUU's position, Fox was quoted as saying: "I'm actually quite liberal when it comes to sexual matters. I just don't want the gays flaunting it in front of me, which is what they would do." When asked about these comments in 2008, Fox said that "fortunately most of us have progressed from the days when we were students more than a quarter of a century ago".


title: Liam Fox

text: His first attempt to get elected as an MP for a Scottish constituency ended in failure when he contested Roxburgh and Berwickshire in the 1987 general election. Thereafter, he sought and won the nomination for the English constituency of Woodspring and was successful in being elected MP for that constituency at the 1992 general election.


title: Liam Fox

text: In June 1993, Fox was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Home Secretary, Michael Howard. Thereafter, in July 1994, he was appointed an Assistant Government Whip. Following a limited government reshuffle in November 1995, he was appointed a Lord Commissioner of Treasury – a Senior Government Whip. He was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 1996 to 1997.


title: Liam Fox

text: In 1996, he brokered an accord in Sri Lanka, called the Fox Peace Plan, between Chandrika Kumaratunga's PA and the opposition UNP of Ranil Wickremasinghe, on a bipartisan approach for ending the ethnic war. In 2001, Jonathan Goodhand wrote, "However, little has happened since then to suggest that the various parties would have acted in good faith in the interests of peace."


title: Liam Fox

text: In June 1997, Fox was appointed Opposition Front Bench Spokesman on Constitutional Affairs and joined the Shadow Cabinet in 1998 as the principal spokesman for Constitutional Affairs. Between 1999 and 2003, he was the Shadow Secretary of State for Health.


title: Liam Fox

text: In November 2003, Fox was appointed campaign manager for Michael Howard following the no-confidence vote against the Conservative's party leader, Iain Duncan Smith. Fox became co-chairman of the party following Michael Howard's elevation to the post of party leader in November 2003. After the 2005 general election he was promoted within the Shadow Cabinet to become Shadow Foreign Secretary. On 7 December 2005 he was moved to Shadow Defence Secretary by new Leader of the Opposition David Cameron.


title: Liam Fox

text: In September 2005, Fox announced he would join the contest to be the next leader of the Conservative party. His campaign theme for the 2005 leadership race was based on the "broken society" theme, which he said Conservatives could address by returning the emphasis to marriage and reforming welfare. In the initial ballot of Conservative MPs, on 18 October 2005, he gained enough support (42 votes) to enter the second ballot two days later. There he was eliminated with 51 votes in third place behind David Cameron (90 votes) and David Davis (57 votes). Cameron, who eventually won the leadership election, gave Fox the role of Shadow Defence Secretary.


title: Liam Fox

text: In late June 2016, Fox announced on LBC that he intended to run for the leadership of the Conservative party once again, after David Cameron resigned following the result of the EU referendum, in which Fox supported leaving the EU. During the announcement of his candidacy, he said that the UK should trigger Article 50 by the end of 2016 so it could leave the EU by 2019, specifying 1 January 2019 as the date on which the UK should leave. He stated that he would not allow freedom of movement to be considered as part of any alternative trade arrangement with the EU.


title: Liam Fox

text: Fox promised to increase defence spending, stating that he would particularly like to see "an increase in the size of the Navy and our cyber capability". He also promised to scrap HS2, spending the £55 billion set aside for the project on regional train lines, cut taxes, cut welfare spending, create a new governmental department for "trade and foreign affairs" and review the aid budget. Fox was eliminated in the first ballot, finishing in last place with 16 votes. Theresa May went on to win the leadership and become Prime Minister and gave Fox the job of International Trade Secretary.


title: Liam Fox

text: Fox was appointed as Secretary of State for Defence in the cabinet of David Cameron on 12 May 2010 and that weekend flew out to Afghanistan with the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, and the International Development Secretary, Andrew Mitchell, to see first hand the issues facing the troops based there.


title: Liam Fox

text: In July 2010, he said that the dire state of the public finances meant the Armed Forces could no longer be equipped to cover every conceivable danger. He said that the strongest signal that it will have to give up one or more of these capabilities, which have been maintained at the same time as contributing to collective security pacts such as NATO. "We don't have the money as a country to protect ourselves against every potential future threat," he said. "We have to look at where we think the real risks will come from, where the real threats will come from and we need to deal with that accordingly. The Russians are not going to come over the European plain any day soon," he added. Fox's admission cast doubt on the future of the 25,000 troops currently stationed in Germany. The Defence Secretary had previously said that he hoped to withdraw them at some point, leaving Britain without a presence in the country for the first time since 1945.


title: Liam Fox

text: The Ministry of Defence (MoD) faced budget cuts of up to 8% over the next five years, according to some analysts, and the department was grappling with a £37 billion shortfall on programmes it has signed up to. The results of the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) were published on 19 October 2010. Speaking in September 2010 at a meeting in Paris with his French counterpart Hervé Morin on the possibility of sharing aircraft carriers with the French Navy, Fox said, "I think it is unrealistic to share an aircraft carrier but, in other areas like tactical lift we can see what we can do." He added: "I can't deny that there is an element of urgency added by budget concerns."


title: Liam Fox

text: In September 2010, in a private letter to David Cameron, Fox refused to back any "draconian cuts" in the Armed Forces at a time when Britain was at war. The letter was written the night before a National Security Council (NSC) meeting on the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR). In the letter, Fox wrote that: "Frankly this process is looking less and less defensible as a proper SDSR (Strategic Defence and Strategy Review) and more like a 'super CSR' (Comprehensive Spending Review). If it continues on its current trajectory it is likely to have grave political consequences for us". Fox continued saying that "Our decisions today will limit severely the options available to this and all future governments. The range of operations that we can do today we will simply not be able to do in the future. In particular, it would place at risk."


title: Liam Fox

text: In February 2011, Fox criticised "ballooning" spending in his own department. The top 15 major procurement projects were running at £8.8 billion over budget and, between them, were delayed by a total of 32 years. That included the A400M transporter aircraft order that was £603 million over budget and six years behind schedule. Fox criticised what he called a "conspiracy of optimism based on poor cost-estimation, unrealistic timescales" at the MoD and in industry. "These practices in the MOD would simply not be tolerated in the private sector, and they will no longer be tolerated in the MoD."


title: Liam Fox

text: In March 2011, Fox defended the decision to make 11,000 redundancies in the armed forces, insisting that personnel who have recently returned from Afghanistan would not be sacked. Cameron had conceded that axing around 5,000 personnel from the army, 3,300 from the Navy and 2,700 from the RAF will be "difficult" for those affected. Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) set out plans for reducing the size of the armed forces by 17,000 in total. Some of that number would be met by not replacing people who were retiring or leaving for other reasons. Defence officials said 11,000 personnel still faced being redundant on a compulsory or voluntary basis. Fox said it was essential that service personnel were made "fully aware of the options available and the time-scales involved". "That means that a timetable needs to be adhered to for the sake of themselves and their families," he said. "It would simply be wrong to alter that timetable for the convenience of the Government."


title: Liam Fox

text: In light of the 2011 Libyan civil war, Fox warned that Libya could end up split in two as Muammar Gaddafi unleashed the full fury of his military arsenal, sending warplanes and ground troops to attack rebel-held positions across the country. "We could see the Gaddafi forces centred around Tripoli," Fox said. "We could see a de facto partition of the country."


title: Liam Fox

text: In May 2011, Fox opposed plans to sharply increase Britain's aid budget, in a direct challenge to David Cameron's authority. In a leaked letter to the Prime Minister, Fox said he could not accept plans to increase the development budget to 0.7 percent of the gross domestic product. The aid pledge, made in the Conservative election manifesto last year, was at the heart of Cameron's attempts to change his party's image. It has gained opponents among right-wing Tories, many of whom voted for Fox when he fought Cameron for the party leadership in 2005. "I cannot support the proposal in its current form," Fox told the Prime Minister. Fox suggested that development funding should be diverted to the defence budget, writing that reneging on the aid pledge would release more public money to be spent on "other activities or programmes rather than aid". The "Telegraph" James Kirkup said the leak was increasing suspicion among Cameron's allies that the Defence Secretary was trying to undermine the Prime Minister.


title: Liam Fox

text: After negative comments by Sir Simon Bryant and Sir Mark Stanhope, Secretary Fox said admirals and air marshals who have voiced concerns were giving strength to Muammar Gaddafi's regime. He also warned that high-ranking members of the Armed Forces were facing the sack because the Government wanted to reduce bureaucracy by cutting "the star count". "The Daily Telegraph" had learned that the redundancies would include up 500 starred officers, equivalent to the rank of an Army brigadier and above. Fox said: "We must be very careful, those of us who have authority in defence, when discussing the sustainability of a mission. People's lives are at stake and there can only be one message that goes out on Libya." Admiral Sir John "Sandy" Woodward, a former deputy chief of the defence staff, suggested Fox was trying to blame military chiefs for "his own failings". He said: "Of course the service chiefs should not be talking outside the MoD, but when politicians have got it so wrong they have no other choice."


title: Liam Fox

text: On 27 June 2011, Fox announced that Baron Levene had completed his report on the reform of the MoD which suggested that they could cut the number of senior officers and could also lead to ministerial posts being axed. The army, navy and air force would each be run by a single chief. Currently, the services have two commanders, one in charge of strategy, the second in charge of day-to-day operations. The reforms would see operational control pushed down the chain of command. In addition, the three service chiefs will be removed from the defence board, a powerful committee the defence secretary chairs. The overall head of the military, the chief of the defence staff, currently, General Sir David Richards, will represent them. A committee chaired by an independent non-executive director, chosen by the defence secretary, will be in charge of appointments to the services' top ranks. The MoD is expected to axe up to 8,000 civil servants in 2012. Senior commanders would be given more overall control of their budgets and internal appointments.


title: Liam Fox

text: The report also suggested that a new Joint Forces Command structure should be created with senior appointments in the MoD lasting longer than every two years by making sure people stay in post for longer. Levene said that "finance and the need for affordability are not regarded as sufficiently important throughout the organisation." He said that the "lack of trust" which pervades the MoD has led to a tendency for those at the top to try to micromanage, while the individual services look out for themselves rather than thinking of defence as a whole. This has led to a "predisposition to overcomplicate ... and a culture of reinventing the wheel". The role of the chief of the defence staff should also be enhanced so that "he alone will be responsible for representing the military voice." Levene says that the new defence board "should be the primary decision-making body for non-operational matters", and should meet 10 times a year. It will have nine members, but only one will be from the military, the chief of the defence staff, currently General Sir David Richards.


title: Liam Fox

text: In a speech on the future of the Armed Forces to the House of Commons on 19 October 2010 Prime Minister David Cameron set out plans that would mean cuts: 7,000 jobs go in the British Army; 5,000 in the Royal Navy; 5,000 in the Royal Air Force; and 25,000 civilian jobs at the Ministry of Defence. In terms of equipment, the RAF would lose the Nimrod reconnaissance aircraft programme, the entire Harrier fleet would be scrapped, and bases will be turned over to the Army. The Army will have its tanks and heavy artillery cut by 40%, and half of the soldiers in Germany will return to the UK by 2015, with the rest brought home by 2030 and housed in former RAF bases. The Navy would have its destroyer and frigate fleet cut from 23 to 19 (by cutting the Type 22 frigates) and will be provided with less expensive frigates. It will be affected by the loss of the Harriers. Overall, the defence budget was to be cut by 8% but Cameron insisted that Britain would continue to meet the Nato target of spending 2% of GDP on defence.


title: Liam Fox

text: In the same speech Cameron announced a national cyber security programme, costing £500 million, "to fix shortfalls in cyber infrastructure", while more focus will be given to tackling terrorists such as Al Qaeda and dissident Irish republicans in what he said would be "continuing investment in our world class intelligence agencies". Army numbers will fall to 95,500 by 2015 – 7,000 fewer than today – but ground forces will continue to have vital operational role in the future, he said.


title: Liam Fox

text: It was revealed that Fox's close friend, best man and former business partner Adam Werritty had made visits to Fox at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in Whitehall on 22 occasions in 16 months; Werrity was not security-cleared with the MoD. Additionally, over a 17-month period, ending October 2011, Werritty was present at 40 of Fox's 70 recorded engagements. The uncertain nature of Werritty's relationship with Fox led to an investigation by senior civil servants, initially the MoD's Permanent Secretary, Ursula Brennan and latterly the Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell. Fox said that Werrity had never worked for him either in an official or unofficial capacity despite allegations that Fox was using a source of advice outside the Civil Service, paid for by private funds, allegedly a private intelligence firm. Disclosure of increasing amounts of detail of their contact, funding and explanations of their relationship led to Fox's resignation on 14 October 2011 in advance of O'Donnell's report of his investigation into Fox breaking the Ministerial code by letting his friend Adam Werritty into defence meetings.


title: Liam Fox

text: The Cabinet Secretary's investigation into the incident concluded that Fox's conduct constituted a "clear breach of the Ministerial code" and that his actions posed a "security risk".


title: Liam Fox

text: In 2019 it was revealed that algorithms for Google had begun autocompleting the phrase "disgraced former" with "defence Secretary Liam Fox" following Fox's scandal and subsequent resignation.


title: Liam Fox

text: After Theresa May became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in July 2016, Fox was appointed Secretary of State for International Trade, responsible for helping to secure trade deals with other countries following Brexit.


title: Liam Fox

text: "The Wall Street Journal" reported Fox as saying he would prefer a free trade agreement with the EU rather than be part of the EU customs union, which he said could restrict Britain's ability to negotiate lower tariffs with other trading partners.


title: Liam Fox

text: In a September 2016 speech on international trade, Fox said there needed to be a change in British business culture, arguing that exporting was a "duty" which companies neglected because "it might be too difficult or too time-consuming or because they can't play golf on a Friday afternoon". In April 2017, he was criticised for a trade visit to the Philippines, where he acknowledged "shared values" when speaking to Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, heavily criticised for the increase in extrajudicial killings in the Philippines.


title: Liam Fox

text: In 2017, Fox announced a new board of trade which would meet four times a year to "ensure the benefits of free trade are spread throughout the UK." The announcement was criticised by Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake, who said the board was a "job-creation scheme" for Fox. A DIT spokesman said it was a "technicality" that Fox was the sole member of the board, because of a constitutional convention that full membership is only for privy counsellors. In July 2019, he lost his cabinet position when new Prime Minister Boris Johnson made a cabinet reshuffle.


title: Liam Fox

text: Fox supported Brexit at the EU Referendum 2016, and is a self-proclaimed "staunch Eurosceptic". Following this assertion, he stated that he wants a "clean break" from Brussels, in order to regain "national sovereignty". In July 2019 he acknowledged that no deal could lead to the breakup of the United Kingdom.


title: Liam Fox

text: In March 2018, Fox said that he would "no longer support" an extension to the EU transition period. He had previously said that a post-Brexit trade deal "should be the easiest in human history". By July 2019 he recognised that a deal with the US would "take time" and that despite reaching "above 99% of agreement" on a deal based on Canada's existing deal with the EU, the Canadians were now looking at the zero-tariff access being promised in the event of no deal.


title: Liam Fox

text: On 30 November 2018, he came out in support for Theresa May's Brexit deal, calling it the best possible deal that safely delivers Brexit.


title: Liam Fox

text: On 8 July 2020, the UK government nominated Fox as a candidate for Director-General of the World Trade Organisation. Fox's main rival for the nomination, the Labour peer Peter Mandelson, was overlooked due to his opposition to Brexit. Fox progressed to the second round of the selection process. He did not become one of the two candidates to enter the final round, who were South Korea's Yoo Myung-hee and Nigeria's Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and was knocked out on 7 October.


title: Liam Fox

text: In March 2013, Fox was one of the chief guests at a conference in Bahrain designed to rally Western opinion to the side of the Bahrain government in its struggle against the Arab Spring. Fox was the only Briton on the list of "key people" attending the Bahrain International Symposium. More than 60 people died during two years of protests, and 13 civil rights demonstrators were sentenced to ten years in prison.


title: Liam Fox

text: He voted for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. As Shadow Defence Secretary he supported the Government's position of maintaining British troops in Iraq until the security situation allowed for a withdrawal of troops but was critical of the lack of post-invasion planning and poor equipment initially provided to British troops. He supported the idea of the American Surge and believes that it was successful. After becoming Shadow Defence Secretary, he visited Iraq on a number of occasions.


title: Liam Fox

text: In August 2014, Fox argued that the UK should start bombing Islamist extremists in northern Iraq. The following month this became government policy.


title: Liam Fox

text: He has been an outspoken supporter of the war in Afghanistan and the British presence there. He has been critical towards some of the European NATO partners who he believes are not contributing enough to the effort in the more dangerous southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan. Since becoming Shadow Defence Secretary he has visited Afghanistan on five occasions.


title: Liam Fox

text: In July 2010, Fox said that an early withdrawal of coalition troops from Afghanistan would risk a return of civil war and act as a "shot in the arm to jihadists" across the world. In marked contrast to David Cameron, who pledged to withdraw all British troops by 2015, Fox said Britain would be betraying the sacrifices of its fallen soldiers if it left "before the job is finished". British forces would be among the last to leave Afghanistan, he added, because they are stationed in Helmand, one of the most dangerous provinces in the country. He said that "Were we to leave prematurely, without degrading the insurgency and increasing the capability of the Afghan national security forces, we could see the return of the destructive forces of transnational terror ... Not only would we risk the return of civil war in Afghanistan, creating a security vacuum, but we would also risk the destabilisation of Pakistan with potentially unthinkable regional, and possibly nuclear, consequences."


title: Liam Fox

text: In July 2010, it was reported that 1,000 Royal Marines were expected to leave and be redeployed to central Helmand by the end of 2010. Fox told MPs that UK forces had made "good progress" in Sangin, but the move would enable Britain to provide "more manpower and greater focus" on Helmand's busy central belt, leaving the north and south to the US. "The result will be a coherent and equitable division of the main populated areas of Helmand between three brigade-sized forces, with the US in the north and the south, and the UK-led Task Force Helmand, alongside our outstanding Danish and Estonian allies, in the central population belt," he told the House of Commons.


title: Liam Fox

text: On 19 July 2010, Fox said that within four years the Afghan army and police should take responsibility for security, leaving British troops to work only as military trainers. The date is a full year earlier than the deadline suggested by David Cameron this month, who said he wanted most troops back by 2015. Fox said: "It has always been our aim to be successful in the mission and the mission has always said that the Afghan national security forces would be able to deal with their own security by 2014. We recognise that there will be further work to do in terms of training and improving the quality of those forces beyond that, which is why we have said training forces may be available after that date. But we have made it very clear that that will not be combat forces."


title: Liam Fox

text: He has very strong Atlanticist views. He believes that NATO is the cornerstone of the United Kingdom and Europe's defence and that NATO must have primacy over the European Union including the right of first refusal for all matters relating to the defence of continental Europe. He has been critical of the common funding mechanism within NATO and has called for a system to be used that allows for more proportionate burden sharing between NATO member states for NATO led military operations.


title: Liam Fox

text: He is considered to be staunchly Eurosceptic and opposed to European defence integration as well as European political integration. He is opposed to the European Commission having any role in defence policy. He believes that the European Security and Defence Policy duplicates and takes away scarce national resources from NATO. He specifically opposes the defence provisions in the Lisbon Treaty. He serves as a vice-president of the eurosceptic pressure group Conservatives for Britain.


title: Liam Fox

text: Fox is critical of abortion and has called for "huge restriction, if not abolition" on the UK's "pro-abortion laws". In an interview with "Morgan and Platell", Fox elaborated on these views, stating that he would "like to see [abortion limits] brought down...well below 20 weeks; I'd like to see us look at limits more akin to some of the European countries at 12 or 14 weeks."


title: Liam Fox

text: He went on to state that "a society that actually aborts 180,000 unborn children every year is a society that needs to be asking a lot of questions about itself. For me, it's a simple personal belief. It says, "thou shall not kill", it doesn't say, thou shall not kill unless Parliament says it's OK. For the same reason I'm against the death penalty. However, I do accept...that if the majority of the population decide that it's something they find acceptable, I've got to live with that. But I'm not going to be quiet and I'm not going to pretend that my views are other than they are for the sake of political convenience."


title: Liam Fox

text: Fox has stated on a number of occasions that the Military Covenant is broken and that the British Armed Forces are being asked to do too much for what they are resourced to do.


title: Liam Fox

text: Along with the leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron, he established the Military Covenant Commission headed by Frederick Forsyth with the aim of finding ways to improve the welfare of service members, veterans, and their families under a future Conservative Government. Fox has a particular interest in mental health issues and has criticised Gordon Brown's Labour Government for failing to adequately address the problem.


title: Liam Fox

text: Fox is a supporter of Israel and is a member of Conservative Friends of Israel. In 2006 he said, "Israel's enemies are our enemies and this is a battle in which we all stand together or we will all fall divided." "The Jewish Chronicle" has called Fox a "champion of Israel" while in government. In January 2009, referring to Israel, he also said, "British support for any ally is never unqualified. International law and values must always be obeyed." In May 2011, Fox was booed at the "We Believe in Israel" event for saying that Israeli settlements "are illegal and an obstacle to peace".


title: Liam Fox

text: Fox believes that Britain should maintain its continuous at sea, independent, submarine based strategic nuclear deterrent based on the Trident system.


title: Liam Fox

text: Fox has pledged to restructure the defence procurement process in the Ministry of Defence. He has also stated that it would be a matter of policy to see Britain's share of global defence exports increasing under a Conservative Government.


title: Liam Fox

text: Fox believes that it is in Britain's national interest to build bilateral defence relations with key strategic partners. Fox has mentioned the United States, France, Norway, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States.


title: Liam Fox

text: He is a strong believer in the Special Relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States. He was the UK Director and founding member of The Atlantic Bridge, a UK-based charity that aims to preserve and promote the Special Relationship. The Atlantic Bridge closed down in October 2011 after being told to cease activities by the Charity Commission for "promoting a political policy [that] is closely associated with the Conservative Party".


title: Liam Fox

text: Fox was able to retain a good relationship with the administration of George W. Bush, despite a five-year breakdown in relations between the Conservative and Republican parties over the Iraq War. He led the Conservative delegation to the 2008 Republican National Convention. In 2018, he commented that the 25% tariffs imposed by the United States on imported EU steel were "patently absurd."


title: Liam Fox

text: On 5 February 2013, Fox voted against a second reading of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, designed to introduce same-sex marriage in the United Kingdom. He described David Cameron's plans to legalise same-sex marriage as "divisive, ill thought through and constitutionally wrong", arguing that redefining marriage for the majority to satisfy a "small, yet vocal, minority" was not a good basis for a stable, tolerant society.


title: Liam Fox

text: In October 2013, Fox called for "The Guardian" newspaper to face prosecution over the 2013 mass surveillance disclosures.


title: Liam Fox

text: In January 2015, Fox published a video on YouTube detailing his opinions and criticism of Edward Snowden. He stated: "We're constantly having to protect our society from a range of threats, especially organised crime, paedophilia, and terrorism. For our intelligence services to operate effectively, and to protect us from these threats, they need to be able to do things in secret, secrets whose public disclosure would be damaging to our National Interest. When Edward Snowden stole files and took them with him to China and then Russia, some 58,000 files came from GCHQ, information that had played a vital role in preventing terrorist outrages in Britain, over the past decade and longer. It was not freedom fighting. We should call treason by its name. And those who assisted Snowden must be held responsible for their actions."


title: Liam Fox

text: In January 2014, Fox stated that ring-fenced funding for the NHS should end, stating: "The increase [in spending] over the last decade has been phenomenal and yet a lot of our health indicators lag behind other countries, particular things like stroke outcome or a lot of cancer outcomes."


title: Liam Fox

text: Before the Scottish independence vote he made a speech setting out reasons why Scotland should remain in the union.


title: Liam Fox

text: If Scotland leaves the United Kingdom "we all lose" he told a Neighbourhood Watch group from his constituency visiting Westminster Houses of parliament on 1 September 2014.


title: Liam Fox

text: Fox was disappointed that Parliament voted not to take military action over the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Fox was critical of Cameron's strategy and performance for that debate, and stated "There was no need to seek parliamentary approval for any military action, as constitutional authority lies with the government." He later took the view that there were no easy answers to the Syrian civil war and the prospect of the Assad government surviving should be considered. Fox argued that bombing attacks against ISIL in Iraq should be extended into Syria, and safe havens should be created in Syria by military intervention.


title: Liam Fox

text: In March 2010, Fox appealed Sir Thomas Legg's decision that he had overclaimed £22,476 in mortgage interest payments. Fox immediately repaid the money, then appealed the decision. Fox's appeal was rejected and the decision was upheld by Sir Paul Kennedy, a former high court judge. Fox stated that his decision to remortgage his second home to pay for redecorations and claim the higher interest repayments on his expenses represented value for money because he could have charged the taxpayer for the decorating bills directly. In his response, Sir Paul Kennedy stated: "What you claimed was not recoverable under the rules then in force. I entirely accept that, like many others, you could have made other claims if the fees office had rejected your claims for mortgage interest, and that you may well have spent some of what you raised by increasing your mortgage on your constituency home, but the evidence is imprecise, and my terms of reference only allow me to interfere if I find special reasons in your individual case showing that it would not be fair and equitable to require repayment, either at all or at the level recommended." This reportedly made him the Conservative Shadow Cabinet member with the largest over-claim on expenses, and as a result, he has been forced to repay the most money.


title: Liam Fox

text: It was reported in June 2009 that Fox claimed expenses of more than £19,000 over the previous four years for his mobile phone. Fox stated that the high bill was due to regular trips overseas, in his capacity as Shadow Defence Secretary and said he was looking for a cheaper tariff.


title: Liam Fox

text: In October 2012, the Commons Speaker blocked the release of data showing which MPs were renting their homes to other MPs for financial gain. However, a study of parliamentary records was published in "the Daily Telegraph". The study showed that Liam Fox receives rental income from his London home while simultaneously claiming rental income from the taxpayer to live at another residence.


title: Liam Fox

text: In October 2013, documents showed that Fox claimed 3p for a 100 metre car trip a year earlier. He also made an additional 15 claims under £1 for car travel approved in 2012–13, two of which were for 24p and 44p. He told the "Sunday People": "I don't do my expenses. My office does them. But they are all done according to the rules for travel distances."


title: Liam Fox

text: In March 2010, Fox admitted breaking parliamentary rules on two occasions by visiting Sri Lanka on a trip paid for by the Sri Lankan government without declaring the trip in the Register of Members' Financial Interests in the required time of 30 days and failing to declare an interest in Sri Lanka when asking ministers how much UK aid had been given to Sri Lanka. Fox has declared all of his trips to Sri Lanka paid for by the Sri Lankan government in the Register of Members' Financial Interests. One trip he took in November 2007 was declared two months late. Fox blamed a "changeover of staffing responsibilities" for this error. Of the five trips to Sri Lanka mentioned in the BBC article, three were paid for fully by the Sri Lankan government. Those not paid in full by the Sri Lankan government were paid for by the Sri Lankan Development Trust.


title: Liam Fox

text: Fox stated that he had been working for 'all sides of the ethnic divide': "I have been involved in attempts to promote peace and reconciliation in Sri Lanka, involving all sides of the ethnic divide, since I was a foreign minister in 1997. During my most recent visit, I spoke at a press conference to outline my reasons for being there. The declaration of the visit you refer to in November 2007 was highlighted in an end-of-year audit following a changeover of staffing responsibilities. The registrar was immediately notified and my register entry was updated accordingly. All visits have been fully declared on the House of Commons Register of Members' Interests and are therefore public knowledge and entirely legitimate. I do, however, recognise that when asking one question in 2008, I should have noted an interest and will be writing to the registrar to make this clear".


title: Liam Fox

text: During October 2011, Fox's close friendship with Adam Werritty attracted extensive media attention and eventually led to Fox's resignation. Werrity had been best man at his wedding, had lived rent-free in Fox's flat, and been involved with him in business and in the conservative Atlanticist think-tank The Atlantic Bridge. While Fox was Secretary of State for Defence, Werrity had visited Fox at the Ministry of Defence on many occasions, had accompanied Fox on numerous official trips, attended some of his meetings with foreign dignitaries, and had used official-looking business cards which said he was an "advisor" to Fox, without having a government post or security clearance. The media raised questions about Fox's judgement in allowing this to happen and the source of Werrity's income.


title: Liam Fox

text: In response, Fox initially requested Ursula Brennan, the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Defence, to investigate his connection with Werrity. Some of the meetings involved himself, Werritty, Matthew Gould (prior to appointment, while he was Britain's Ambassador-designate to Israel, and afterwards), and in some cases, Denis MacShane. The Foreign Office responded by stating: "The FCO has total confidence that Matthew Gould has acted appropriately at all times and at no stage was he acting independently, or out of line with government policy."


title: Liam Fox

text: On Sunday 9 October 2011, in advance of Brennan's initial report of the result of her inquiry to the Prime Minister, Fox made a statement apologising publicly for his conduct in relation to Werrity, denying wrongdoing but admitting errors of judgement in mixing his professional and personal loyalties. The inquiry was escalated and Fox resigned in advance of publication of the full report by the Cabinet Secretary.


title: Liam Fox

text: The full list of Fox's meetings for his time in office to date, 20 May 2010 to 8 October 2011, was published by the MoD after 7 pm on 10 October 2011 and revealed that Werrity was present at 40 of Fox's 70 engagements in that period (57%). In 2005–6, Fox used public money, from his expense claims as an MP, to pay Adam Werritty.