title: Mandan

text: The Sioux kept consolidating their dominant position on the northern plains. In the words of "Cheyenne warrior" and Lakota-allied George Bent: "... the Sioux moved to the Missouri and began raiding these two tribes, until at last the Mandans and Rees [Arikaras] hardly dared go into the plains to hunt buffalo".


title: Mandan

text: The Arikara Indians were from time to time also among the foes of the Mandans. Chief Four Bears's revenge on the Arikara, who had killed his brother, is legendary.


title: Mandan

text: Major fights were fought. "We destroyed fifty tepees [of Sioux]. The following summer thirty men in a war party were killed", tells the Mandan winter count of Butterfly for 1835-1836. The big war party was neutralized by Yanktonai Sioux Indians.


title: Mandan

text: Mitutanka, now occupied by Arikaras as well as some Mandans, was burned by Yankton Sioux Indians on January 9, 1839. "... the small Pox last year, very near annihilated the Whole [Mandan] tribe, and the Sioux has finished the Work of destruction by burning the village".


title: Mandan

text: In 1845, the Hidatsa moved some 20 miles north, crossed the Missouri and built Like-a-Fishhook Village. Many Mandans joined for common protection.


title: Mandan

text: The Mandan were first plagued by smallpox in the 16th century and had been hit by similar epidemics every few decades. Between 1837 and 1838, another smallpox epidemic swept the region. In June 1837, an American Fur Company steamboat traveled westward up the Missouri River from St. Louis. Its passengers and traders aboard infected the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara tribes. There were approximately 1,600 Mandan living in the two villages at that time. The disease killed 90% of the Mandan people, effectively destroying their settlements. Almost all of the tribe's members, including the second chief, Four Bears, died. Estimates of the number of survivors vary from 27 up to 150 persons, with some sources placing the number at 125. The survivors banded together with the nearby surviving Hidatsa in 1845 and moved upriver, where they developed Like-a-Fishhook Village.


title: Mandan

text: The Mandan believed that they had been infected by whites associated with the steamboat and Fort Clark. Chief Four Bears reportedly said, while ailing, "a set of Black harted Dogs, they have deceived Me, them that I always considered as Brothers, has turned Out to be My Worst enemies". Francis Chardon, in his "Journal at Fort Clark 1834–1839", wrote that the Gros Ventres (ie. Hidatsa), "swear vengeance against all the Whites, as they say the small pox was brought here by the S[team] B[oat]." (Chardon, Journal, p. 126). In the earliest detailed study of the event, in "The American Fur Trade of the Far West" (1902), Hiram M. Chittenden blamed the American Fur Company for the epidemic. Oral traditions of the affected tribes continue to claim that whites were to blame for the disease. R. G. Robertson in his book "Rotting Face: Smallpox and the American Indian", blames Captain Pratte of the steamboat "St. Peter" for failing to quarantine passengers and crew once the epidemic broke out, stating that while


title: Mandan

text: not guilty of premeditated genocide, but he was guilty of contributing to the deaths of thousands of innocent people. The law calls his offence criminal negligence. Yet in light of all the deaths, the almost complete annihilation of the Mandans, and the terrible suffering the region endured, the label criminal negligence is benign, hardly befitting an action that had such horrendous consequences.


title: Mandan

text: Some scholars who have argued that the transmission of smallpox to Native Americans during the 1836-40 epidemic was intentional, including Ann F. Ramenofsky who asserted in 1987: ""Variola Major" can be transmitted through contaminated articles such as clothing or blankets. In the nineteenth century, the U.S. Army sent contaminated blankets to Native Americans, especially Plains groups, to control the Indian problem." The Commissioner of Indian Affairs had refused to send the vaccine to the Mandans, apparently not thinking them worthy of protection.


title: Mandan

text: Some accounts repeat a story that an Indian sneaked aboard the "St. Peter" and stole a blanket from an infected passenger, thus starting the epidemic. The many variations of this account have been criticized by both historians and contemporaries as fiction, a fabrication intended to assuage the guilt of white settlers for displacing the Indians. "The blanket affair was created afterward and is not to be credited", notes B. A. Mann. Given trade and travel patterns, there were numerous ways for people to have been infected, as they had been in earlier, also severe, epidemics.


title: Mandan

text: The Mandan were a party in the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851. They shared a mutual treaty area north of Heart River with the Hidatsa and the Arikara.


title: Mandan

text: Soon attacks on hunting parties by Lakota and other Sioux made it difficult for the Mandan to be safe in the treaty area. The tribes called for the United States Army to intervene, and they would routinely ask for such aid until the end of Lakota primacy. Despite the treaty, the Mandan received little protection from US forces.


title: Mandan

text: In the summer of 1862, the Arikara joined the Mandan and Hidatsa in Like-a-Fishhook Village on the upper Missouri. All three tribes were forced to live "outside" their treaty area south of the Missouri by the frequent raiding of Lakota and other Sioux. Before the end of 1862, some Sioux Indians set fire to part of a Like-a-Fishhook Village.


title: Mandan

text: In June 1874, there "was a big war" near Like-a-Fishhook-Village. Colonel George Armstrong Custer failed to cut off a large war party of Lakota that was attacking the Mandan, although "... the Mandans should be protected same as white settlers". Five Arikaras and a Mandan were killed by the Lakota. The attack turned out to be one of the last made by the Lakota on the Three Tribes.


title: Mandan

text: The Mandan joined with the Arikara in 1862. By this time, Like-a-Fishhook Village had become a major center of trade in the region. By the 1880s, though, the village was abandoned. In the second half of the 19th century, the Three Affiliated Tribes (the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara) gradually lost control of some of their holdings. The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 recognized 12 million acres (49,000 km²) of land in the territory owned jointly by these tribes. With the creation of the Fort Berthold Reservation by Executive Order on April 12, 1870, the federal government acknowledged only that the Three Affiliated Tribes held 8 million acres (32,000 km²). On July 1, 1880, another executive order deprived the tribes of 7 million acres (28,000 km²) of land lying outside the boundaries of the reservation.


title: Mandan

text: In the early 20th century, the government seized more land; by 1910, the reservation was reduced to 900,000 acres (3,600 km²). This land is located in Dunn, McKenzie, McLean, Mercer, Mountrail and Ward counties in North Dakota.


title: Mandan

text: Under the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act, which encouraged tribes to restore their governments, the Mandan officially merged with the Hidatsa and the Arikara. They drafted a constitution to elect representative government and formed the federally recognized Three Affiliated Tribes, known as the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation.


title: Mandan

text: In 1951, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began construction of Garrison Dam on the Missouri River. Developed for flood control and irrigation, this dam created Lake Sakakawea. It flooded portions of the Fort Berthold Reservation, including the villages of Fort Berthold and Elbowoods, as well as a number of other villages. The former residents of these villages were moved and New Town was constructed for them.


title: Mandan

text: While New Town was constructed for the displaced tribal members, much damage was done to the social and economic foundations of the reservation by the loss of flooded areas. The flooding claimed approximately one quarter of the reservation's land. This land contained some of the most fertile agricultural areas upon which their economy had been developed. The Mandan did not have other land that was as fertile or viable for agriculture. In addition, the flooding claimed the sites of historic villages and archaeological sites with sacred meaning for the peoples.


title: Mandan

text: The Mandan were known for their distinctive, large, circular earthen lodges, in which more than one family lived. Their permanent villages were composed of these lodges. Constructed and maintained by women, each lodge was circular with a dome-like roof and a square hole at the apex of the dome through which smoke could escape. Four pillars supported the frame of the lodge. Wood timbers were placed against these, and the exterior was covered with a matting made from reeds and twigs and then covered with hay and earth, which protected the interior from rain, heat and cold. It was sturdy enough so that numerous adults and children could sit on the top of the lodge. The lodge also featured an extended portico-type structure at the entrance, to provide protection from cold and other weather.


title: Mandan

text: The interior was constructed around four large pillars, upon which crossbeams supported the roof. These lodges were designed, built and owned by the women of the tribe, and ownership was passed through the female line. Generally in diameter, they could hold several families, up to 30 or 40 people, who were related through the elder women. When a young man married, he moved to his wife's lodge, which she shared with her mother and sisters. Villages usually had around 120 lodges. Reconstructions of these lodges may be seen at Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park near Mandan, North Dakota, and the Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site.


title: Mandan

text: Originally lodges were rectangular, but around 1500 CE, lodges began to be constructed in a circular form. Toward the end of the 19th century, the Mandan began constructing small log cabins, usually with two rooms. When traveling or hunting, the Mandan would use skin tipis. Today, the Mandan live in modern dwellings.


title: Mandan

text: Villages were usually oriented around a central plaza that was used for games (chunkey) and ceremonial purposes. In the center of the plaza was a cedar tree surrounded by a vertical wood enclosure. The shrine represented the "Lone Man", one of the main figures in Mandan religion. He was said to have built a wooden corral that saved the people of a village from a flooding river in North Dakota. Villages were often situated on high bluffs above the river. Often, villages would be constructed at the meeting of tributaries, in order to use the water as a natural barrier. Where there were few or no natural barriers, the villages built some type of fortification, including ditches and wooden palisades.


title: Mandan

text: The Mandan were originally divided into thirteen clans, which were reduced to seven by 1781, due to population losses in the smallpox epidemic. Ninety percent of the population died in the 1837-1838 smallpox epidemic. By 1950 only four clans survived.


title: Mandan

text: Historically clans organized around successful hunters and their kin. Each clan was expected to care for its own, including orphans and the elderly, from birth to death. The dead were traditionally cared for by their father's clan. Clans held a sacred or medicine bundle, which consisted of a few gathered objects believed to hold sacred powers. Those in possession of the bundles were considered to have sacred powers bestowed to them by the spirits and thus were considered the leaders of the clan and tribe. In historic times, the medicine bundles could be purchased, along with knowledge of the rites and rights associated with them, and then inherited by offspring.


title: Mandan

text: Children were named ten days after their birth in a ceremony that officially linked the child with its family and clan. Girls were taught domestic skills, especially cultivation and processing of maize and other plants, preparation, tanning and processing of skins and meats, needlework and quillwork, and how to build and keep a home. Boys were taught hunting and fishing. The boys began fasting for religious visions at the age of ten or eleven. Marriage among the Mandan was generally arranged by members of one's own clan, especially uncles; although, occasionally it would take place without the approval of the couple's parents. Divorce could be easily obtained.


title: Mandan

text: Upon the death of a family member, the father and his people would erect a scaffold near the village to contain the body. The body would be placed with the head toward the northwest and feet to the southeast. Southeast is the direction of the Ohio River Valley, from which the Mandan came. The Mandan would not sleep in this orientation, because it invited death. After a ceremony to send the spirit away, the family would mourn at the scaffold for four days. After the body rotted and the scaffold collapsed, the bones would be gathered up and buried, except for the skull, which was placed in a circle near the village. Family members would visit the skulls and talk to them, sometimes bearing their problems or regaling the dead with jokes. After the Mandan moved to the Fort Berthold Reservation, they resorted to placing the bodies in boxes or trunks, or wrapped them in fur robes and placed them in rocky crevices.


title: Mandan

text: Mandan food came from farming, hunting, gathering wild plants, and trade. Corn was the primary crop, and part of the surplus was traded with nomadic tribes for bison meat. Mandan gardens were often located near river banks, where annual flooding would leave the most fertile soil, sometimes in locations miles from villages. Women owned and tended the gardens, where they planted several varieties of corn, beans and squash. Sunflowers were planted first in early April. As early as the fifteenth century, the Mandan town Huff had enough storage pits to store seventy thousand bushels of corn.


title: Mandan

text: Hunting the buffalo was a critical part of Mandan survival and rituals. They called the buffalo to "come to the village" in the "Buffalo Dance" ceremony at the beginning of each summer. In addition to eating the meat, the Mandan used all parts of the buffalo, so nothing went to waste. 'Float bison', which accidentally fell or were driven into the river, were considered a Mandan delicacy and the meat was eaten when half-rotten. The hides were used for buffalo-fur robes or were tanned, and the leather used for clothing, bags, shelter and other uses. The Mandan were known for their painted buffalo hides that often recorded historic events. The bones would be carved into items such as needles and fish hooks. Bones were also used in farming: for instance, the scapula was used as a hoe-like device for breaking the soil. The Mandan also trapped small mammals for food and hunted deer. Deer antlers were used to create rake-like implements used in farming. Birds were hunted for meat and feathers, the latter used for adornment. Archaeological evidence shows that the Mandan also ate fish.


title: Mandan

text: The Mandan and neighboring Hidatsa villages were key centers of trade on the Northern plains. The Mandan sometimes traded far from home but more often nomadic plains peoples travelled to the upper Missouri villages to trade. For example William Clark in the winter of 1804 documented the arrival of thousands of Assiniboine Indians as well as Cree and Cheyenne to trade. The Mandan bartered corn in exchange for dried bison meat. The Mandan also exchanged horses with the Assiniboine in exchange for arms, ammunition and European products. Clark noted that the Mandan obtained horses and leather tents from peoples to the west and southwest such as Crows, Cheyennes, Kiowas and Arapahos.


title: Mandan

text: Up until the late 19th century, when Mandan people began adopting Western-style dress, they commonly wore clothing made from the hides of buffalo, as well as of deer and sheep. From the hides, tunics, dresses, buffalo-fur robes, moccasins, gloves, loincloths and leggings could be made. These items were often ornamented with quills and bird feathers, and men sometimes wore the scalps of enemies.


title: Mandan

text: Mandan women wore ankle-length dresses made of deerskin or sheepskin. This would often be girded at the waist with a wide belt. Sometimes the hem of the dress would be ornamented with pieces of buffalo hoof. Underneath the dress, they wore leather leggings with ankle-high moccasins. Women's hair was worn straight down in braids.


title: Mandan

text: During the winter months, men would commonly wear deerskin tunics and leggings with moccasins. They also kept themselves warm by wearing a robe of buffalo fur. During the summer months, however, they often wore only a loincloth of deerskin or sheepskin. Unlike the women, men would wear various ornaments in their hair. The hair was parted across the top with three sections hanging down in front. Sometimes the hair would hang down the nose and would be curled upwards with a curling stick. The hair would hang to the shoulders on the side, and the back portion would sometimes reach to the waist. The long hair in the back would create a tail-like feature, as it would be gathered into braids then smeared with clay and spruce gum, and tied with cords of deerskin. Headdresses of feathers were often worn as well. Besides buffalo, elk, and deer hides, the Mandan also used ermine and white weasel hides for clothing.


title: Mandan

text: Today, Mandan people wear traditionally inspired clothing and regalia at powwows, ceremonies, and other significant events.


title: Mandan

text: The Mandan's religion and cosmology was highly complex and centered around the figure known as Lone Man. Lone Man was involved in many of the creation myths as well as one of the flood myths.


title: Mandan

text: In their creation myth, the world was created by two rival deities, the First Creator and the Lone Man. The Missouri River divided the two worlds that the beings created. First Creator created the lands to the south of the river with hills, valleys, trees, buffalo, pronghorn antelope and snakes. To the north of the river, Lone Man created the Great Plains, domesticated animals, birds, fish and humans. The first humans lived underground near a large lake. Some of the more adventurous humans climbed a grapevine to the surface and discovered the two worlds. After returning underground, they shared their findings and decided to return with many others. As they were climbing the grapevine, it broke and half the Mandan were left underground.


title: Mandan

text: According to Mandan beliefs, each person possessed four different, immortal souls. The first soul was white and often seen as a shooting star or meteor. The second soul was colored a light brown and was seen in the form of the meadowlark. The third soul, called the lodge spirit, remained at the site of the lodge after death and would remain there forever. The final soul was black and after death would travel away from the village. These final souls existed as did living people; residing in their own villages, and farming and hunting.


title: Mandan

text: The "Okipa" ceremony was a major part of Mandan religious life. This complex ceremony related to the creation of the earth was first recorded by George Catlin. A man would volunteer to be the Okipa Maker, and sponsor the preparations and foods needed. Preparations took much of a year, as there were days of events, when crowds were hosted.


title: Mandan

text: The ceremony opened with a Bison Dance, to call the buffalo to the people. It was followed by a variety of torturous ordeals through which warriors proved their physical courage and gained the approval of the spirits. The "Okipa" began with the young men not eating, drinking, or sleeping for four days. Then they were led to a hut, where they had to sit with smiling faces while the skin of their chest and shoulders was slit and wooden skewers were thrust behind the muscles. With the skewers tied to ropes and supporting the weight of their bodies, the warriors would be suspended from the roof of the lodge and would hang there until they fainted. To add agony, heavy weights or buffalo skulls were added to the initiates' legs. After fainting, the warriors would be pulled down and the men (women were not allowed to attend this ceremony) would watch them until they awoke, proving the spirits' approval. Upon awakening, the warriors would offer the left little finger to the Great Spirit, whereupon a masked tribesman would sever it with a hatchet blow. Finally, participants would endure a grueling race around the village called "the last race", until the thongs tied to the buffalo skulls ripped out of their skin.


title: Mandan

text: Those finishing the ceremony were seen as being honored by the spirits; those completing the ceremony twice would gain everlasting fame among the tribe. Chief Four Bears, or Ma-to-toh-pe, completed this ceremony twice. The last Okipa ceremony was performed in 1889, but the ceremony was resurrected in a somewhat different form in 1983. The version of the "Okipa" as practiced by the Lakota may be seen in the 1970 film "A Man Called Horse" starring Richard Harris.


title: Mandan

text: The Mandan and the two culturally related tribes, the Hidatsa (Siouan) and Arikara (Caddoan), while being combined have intermarried but do maintain, as a whole, the varied traditions of their ancestors. The tribal residents have recovered from the trauma of their displacement in the 1950s.


title: Mandan

text: They constructed the Four Bears Casino and Lodge in 1993, attracting tourists and generating gaming and employment income for the impoverished reservation.


title: Mandan

text: The most recent addition to the New Town area has been the new Four Bears Bridge, which was built in a joint effort between the three tribes and the North Dakota Department of Transportation. The bridge, spanning the Missouri River, replaces an older Four Bears Bridge that was built in 1955. The new bridge—the largest bridge in the state of North Dakota—is decorated with medallions celebrating the cultures of the three tribes. The bridge was opened to traffic September 2, 2005, and was officially opened in a ceremony on October 3.


title: The Freedom Writers Diary

text: The Freedom Writers Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them is a non-fiction 1999 book written by The Freedom Writers, a group of students from Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, California, and their teacher Erin Gruwell. It is the basis of the 2007 movie "Freedom Writers", starring Hilary Swank.


title: The Freedom Writers Diary

text: The Freedom Writers Diary was made up of journals that Erin Gruwell told her students to write in about the troubles of their past, present and future. The Freedom Writers name pays homage to the name of the 1960s civil rights group Freedom Riders.


title: The Freedom Writers Diary

text: After intercepting a racist drawing from one of her students, Gruwell compared the drawings to Nazi propaganda techniques. She drew blank stares; only one of them had heard of the Holocaust. As a result, she assigned them to read and write about the posthumously published 1947 book "The Diary of Anne Frank" (written between 1942 and 1944) and the 1992–93 non-fiction book by Zlata Filipović, "".


title: The Freedom Writers Diary

text: The Freedom Writers Foundation continued with exercises and philosophies similar to those used in the original class, and tracks the progress of the original and continuing classes.


title: The Freedom Writers Diary

text: As an idealistic 23-year-old English teacher at Wilson High School in Long Beach, California, Erin Gruwell confronted a room of "unteachable, at-risk" students. One day she intercepted a note with a racial caricature, and angrily declared that this was precisely the sort of thing that led to the Holocaust – only to be met by uncomprehending looks. So she and her students, using the treasured books "Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl" and "Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Sarajevo" as their guides, undertook a life-changing, eye-opening, spirit-raising odyssey against intolerance and misunderstanding. They learned to see the parallels between these books and their own lives, recording their thoughts and feelings in diaries and dubbing themselves the "Freedom Writers" in homage to the civil rights activists "The Freedom Riders".


title: The Freedom Writers Diary

text: With funds raised by a "Read-a-thon for Tolerance", they arranged for Miep Gies, the Dutch woman who sheltered the Frank family, to visit them in California during the 1994/1995 school year, where she declared that Erin Gruwell's students were "the real heroes." Their efforts have paid off spectacularly, both in terms of recognition – appearances on "Primetime Live" and "All Things Considered", coverage in "People" magazine, a meeting with U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley – and educational benefit. All 150 Freedom Writers graduated from high school and many went on to attend college.


title: The Freedom Writers Diary

text: On March 11, 2008, an English teacher at Perry Meridian High School in Indianapolis, Indiana, Connie Heermann, was suspended for a year and a half without pay for using the "Freedom Writers Diary" in her classroom against the wishes of the school board. Administrators objected to racial slurs and sexual content in portions of the book.


title: Salt Lake City Stars

text: The Salt Lake City Stars are an American professional basketball team in the NBA G League based in Salt Lake City, Utah, and are affiliated with the Utah Jazz. As of the 2022-23 season, the Stars play in the Maverik Center in West Valley City, Utah. Prior to the move to Salt Lake City for the 2016–17 season, the team was known as the Idaho Stampede.


title: Salt Lake City Stars

text: The team was founded as a member of the Continental Basketball Association in 1997 and was league runner-up in the 2003–04 season, losing to the Dakota Wizards. After the 2005–06 season, the Stampede announced that the team would be joining the NBA Development League. From 2005 to 2015, the team played as the Idaho Stampede at the CenturyLink Arena in Boise. Before then, they played home games at the Ford Idaho Center in Nampa. The Stampede's sole NBA affiliate is the Utah Jazz, with whom they originally had a hybrid partnership. However, on March 24, 2015, the Utah Jazz and the Idaho Stampede announced that the Jazz had purchased the Stampede, becoming the 8th NBA team to become owners of their D-League affiliate. They also had past affiliations with the Denver Nuggets, Seattle SuperSonics, Toronto Raptors and most recently the Portland Trail Blazers, with the Jazz taking sole affiliation after the 2013–2014 season.


title: Salt Lake City Stars

text: The team was purchased by the Jazz on March 24, 2015, and signed a one-year lease at CenturyLink Arena. Shortly after the Jazz bought the Stampede, rumors abounded about the team's relocation to Orem, Utah to be closer to the parent club; coincidentally, Orem was home to the D-League's Utah Flash from 2007 until 2011 (the team now plays in Wilmington, Delaware as the Delaware Blue Coats). These rumors were not far off, as on April 4, 2016, the Utah Jazz and the D-League announced that the Stampede would relocate to Salt Lake City for the 2016–17 season and would be renamed the Salt Lake City Stars.


title: Salt Lake City Stars

text: On October 10, 2022, it was announced that the team will be moving into the Maverik Center as their home arena for the 2022-2023 season.


title: Double-spending

text: Double-spending is a potential flaw in a digital cash protocol in which the same single digital token can be spent more than once. Unlike physical cash, a digital token consists of a digital file that can be duplicated or falsified. As with counterfeit money, such double-spending leads to inflation by creating a new amount of copied currency that did not previously exist. This devalues the currency relative to other monetary units or goods and diminishes user trust as well as the circulation and retention of the currency. Fundamental cryptographic techniques to prevent double-spending, while preserving anonymity in a transaction, are blind signatures and, particularly in offline systems, secret splitting.


title: Double-spending

text: Prevention of double-spending is usually implemented using an online central trusted third party that can verify whether a token has been spent. This normally represents a single point of failure from both availability and trust viewpoints.


title: Double-spending

text: In a decentralized system, the double-spending problem is significantly harder to solve. To avoid the need for a trusted third party, many servers must store identical up-to-date copies of a public transaction ledger, but as transactions (requests to spend money) are broadcast, they will arrive at each server at slightly different times. If two transactions attempt to spend the same token, each server will consider the first transaction it sees to be valid, and the other invalid. Once the servers disagree, there is no way to determine true balances, as each server's observations are considered equally valid.


title: Double-spending

text: Most decentralized systems solve this with a consensus algorithm, a way to bring the servers back in sync. Two notable types of consensus mechanisms are proof-of-work and proof-of-stake.


title: Double-spending

text: The cryptocurrency Bitcoin implemented a solution in early 2009. Its cryptographic protocol used a proof-of-work consensus mechanism where transactions are batched into blocks and chained together using a linked list of hash pointers (blockchain). Any server can produce a block by solving a computationally difficult puzzle (specifically finding a partial hash collision) called mining. The block commits to the entire history of bitcoin transactions as well as the new set of incoming transactions. The miner is rewarded some bitcoins for solving it.


title: Double-spending

text: The double-spending problem persists, however, if two blocks (with conflicting transactions) are mined at the same approximate time. When servers inevitably disagree on the order of the two blocks, they each keep both blocks temporarily. As new blocks arrive, they must commit to one history or the other, and eventually a single chain will continue on, while the other(s) will not. Since the longest (more technically "heaviest") chain is considered to be the valid data set, miners are incentivized to only build blocks on the longest chain they know about in order for it to become part of that dataset (and for their reward to be valid).


title: Double-spending

text: Transactions in this system are therefore never technically "final" as a conflicting chain of blocks can always outgrow the current canonical chain. However, as blocks are built on top of a transaction, it becomes increasingly costly and thus unlikely for another chain to overtake it.


title: Double-spending

text: The total computational power of a decentralized proof-of-work system is the sum of the computational power of the nodes, which can differ significantly due to the hardware used. Larger computational power increases the chance to win the mining reward for each new block mined, which creates an incentive to accumulate clusters of mining nodes, or mining pools. Any pool that achieves 51% hashing power can effectively overturn network transactions, resulting in double spending.


title: Double-spending

text: A given cryptocurrency's susceptibility to attack depends on the existing hashing power of the network since the attacker needs to overcome it. For the attack to be economically viable, the market cap of the currency must be sufficiently large to justify the cost to rent hashing power.


title: Double-spending

text: In 2014, mining pool Ghash.io obtained 51% hashing power in Bitcoin which raised significant controversies about the safety of the network. The pool has voluntarily capped their hashing power at 39.99% and requested other pools to follow in order to restore trust in the network.


title: Mantralayam

text: Mantralayam is a pilgrim village in Kurnool district in Andhra Pradesh, India, on the banks of the Tungabhadra River on the border with neighbouring Karnataka state. It is known for the brundavana of Raghavendra Swami, a saint who lived in 17th century and who entered into samadhi alive in front of his disciples. Thousands of people visit the Raghavendra Matha and temples on the banks of river.


title: Decimal degrees

text: Decimal degrees (DD) is a notation for expressing latitude and longitude geographic coordinates as decimal fractions of a degree. DD are used in many geographic information systems (GIS), web mapping applications such as OpenStreetMap, and GPS devices. Decimal degrees are an alternative to using sexagesimal degrees (degrees, minutes, and seconds - "DMS notation"). As with latitude and longitude, the values are bounded by ±90° and ±180° respectively.


title: Decimal degrees

text: Positive latitudes are north of the equator, negative latitudes are south of the equator. Positive longitudes are east of the Prime Meridian; negative longitudes are west of the Prime Meridian. Latitude and longitude are usually expressed in that sequence, latitude before longitude. The abbreviation dLL has been used in the scientific literature with locations in texts being identified as a tuple within square brackets, for example [54.5798,-3.5820]. The appropriate decimal places are used.


title: Decimal degrees

text: The radius of the semi-major axis of the Earth at the equator is resulting in a circumference of . The equator is divided into 360 degrees of longitude, so each degree at the equator represents . As one moves away from the equator towards a pole, however, one degree of longitude is multiplied by the cosine of the latitude, decreasing the distance, approaching zero at the pole. The number of decimal places required for a particular precision at the equator is:


title: Decimal degrees

text: A value in decimal degrees to a precision of 4 decimal places is precise to at the equator. A value in decimal degrees to 5 decimal places is precise to at the equator. Elevation also introduces a small error: at elevation, the radius and surface distance is increased by 0.001 or 0.1%. Because the earth is not flat, the precision of the longitude part of the coordinates increases the further from the equator you get. The precision of the latitude part does not increase so much, more strictly however, a meridian arc length per 1 second depends on the latitude at the point in question. The discrepancy of 1 second meridian arc length between equator and pole is about because the earth is an oblate spheroid.


title: Decimal degrees

text: In most systems, such as OpenStreetMap, the degree symbols are omitted, reducing the representation to


title: Decimal degrees

text: where formula_3 is the absolute value of formula_4 and formula_5 is the truncation function. Note that with this formula only formula_6 can be negative and only formula_7 may have a fractional value.


title: Roger I of Sicily

text: Roger I (, Arabic: "رُجار", "Rujār"; Maltese: "Ruġġieru", – 22 June 1101), nicknamed Roger Bosso and The Great, was a Norman nobleman who became the first Count of Sicily from 1071 to 1101. He was a member of the House of Hauteville, and his descendants in the male line continued to rule Sicily down to 1194.


title: Roger I of Sicily

text: Roger was born in Normandy, and came to southern Italy as a young man in 1057. He participated in several military expeditions against the Emirate of Sicily beginning in 1061. He was invested with part of Sicily and the title of count by his brother, Robert Guiscard, Duke of Apulia, in 1071. By 1090, he had conquered the entire island. In 1091, he conquered Malta. The state he created was merged with the Duchy of Apulia in 1127 and became the Kingdom of Sicily in 1130.


title: Roger I of Sicily

text: Roger was the youngest son of Tancred of Hauteville by his second wife Fredisenda. Roger arrived in Southern Italy in the summer of 1057. The Benedictine monk, Goffredo Malaterra, who compares Robert Guiscard and his brother Roger to "Joseph and Benjamin of old," said of Roger:


title: Roger I of Sicily

text: In 1057 he shared the conquest of nearly all of Calabria excepting Reggio with his brother Robert. For a time Roger lived like a bandit in his castle of Scalea, near Cosenza. In a treaty of 1062, the brothers divided the conquest so that each was to have half of every castle and town in Calabria. It was about this same time that Roger married Judith d'Évreux.


title: Roger I of Sicily

text: Roger had first thought of conquering Sicily when he and his brother conquered Calabria. At the time, it was ruled by Muslims and the population were mostly Byzantine Greek Christians. The Arab princes had become all but independent of the sultan of Tunis. In May 1061 the brothers crossed from Reggio and captured Messina. In June 1063, Roger defeated a Muslim army at the Battle of Cerami and would strike another victory at the Battle of Misilmeri in 1068. After they took Palermo in January 1072, Robert Guiscard, as suzerain, invested Roger as Count of Sicily. Robert retained Palermo, half of Messina, and the north-east portion (the Val Demone). Not till 1085 was Roger able to undertake a systematic conquest.


title: Roger I of Sicily

text: In March 1086 Syracuse surrendered, and when in February 1091 Noto yielded, the conquest of Sicily was complete. Much of Robert's success had been due to Roger's support. After Robert died and Count Roger became the senior member of the family, he supported his nephew, Duke Roger Borsa, against his other nephew, Prince Bohemund of Taranto, Lando IV of Capua, and other rebels. In return for his uncle's aid against Bohemund and the rebels, Duke Roger Borsa surrendered his share in the castles of Calabria to his Roger in 1085, and in 1091 his inheritance in Palermo, likewise.


title: Roger I of Sicily

text: Roger's rule in Sicily became more absolute than that of Robert Guiscard in Italy. In addition, due to immigration by Lombards and Normans, Latin Christianity gradually replaced that of the Greek Byzantine tradition. At the enfeoffments of 1072 and 1092, no great undivided fiefs were created. The mixed Norman, French and Italian vassals all owed their benefices to the count. No feudal revolt of importance arose against Roger.


title: Roger I of Sicily

text: In 1091 Roger, in order to avoid an attack from North Africa, set sail with a fleet to conquer Malta. His ship reached the island before the rest. On landing, the few defenders the Normans encountered retreated and the following day Roger marched to the capital Mdina. Terms were discussed with the local "qadi". It was agreed that the islands would become tributaries of the count himself and that the "qadi" should continue to administer the islands. With the treaty many Greek and other Christian prisoners were released, who chanted to Roger the "Kyrie eleison". He left the islands with many who wished to join him and so many were on his ship that it nearly sank, according to Geoffrey Malaterra. The invasion was romanticized in later centuries, and legends arose that the Count gave the Maltese their red and white flag by cutting a part of his banner. Mass is said once a year in remembrance of the Count at the Cathedral of Mdina, as a recognition for the Count's role in liberating Maltese Christians from Muslim dominance and rule.


title: Roger I of Sicily

text: Politically supreme, the count also became master of the insular church. The Papacy, favouring a prince who had recovered Sicily from Greeks and Muslims, in 1098 granted Roger and his heirs the Apostolic Legateship of the island. Roger created new Latin bishoprics at Syracuse, Girgenti and elsewhere, nominating the bishops personally, while he turned the archbishopric of Palermo into a Catholic see. Of these bishops and other important clergy positions, a minority were French, and of those even fewer were Norman. Of the five new sees he founded, one bishop was Norman and three others were from other parts of France. He practiced general toleration towards Arabs and Greeks, even sponsoring the construction of over twelve Greek monasteries in the Val Demone region. In the cities, the Muslims, who had generally secured such rights in their terms of surrender, retained their mosques, their qadis, and freedom of trade; in the country, however, they became serfs. Roger drew the mass of his infantry from the Muslims; Saint Anselm, visiting him at the siege of Capua, 1098, found "the brown tents of the Arabs innumerable". Nevertheless, the Latin element began to prevail, as Lombards and other Italians flocked to the island in the wake of the conquest, and the conquest of Sicily proved decisive in the steady decline of Muslim power in the western Mediterranean from this time.


title: Roger I of Sicily

text: Roger I died on 22 of June 1101 in Mileto and was buried at the Benedictine Abbey of the Holy Trinity. The abbey was destroyed in the earthquake of 1783. Its ruins are currently located in the Mileto Antica archaeological park.


title: Roger I of Sicily

text: Upon Roger's death, his son, Simon of Hauteville, became the Count of Sicily, with his mother, Adelaide del Vasto, acting as his regent. On 28 September 1105, at the age of 12, Simon died, and the title of count passed to his younger brother, Roger II of Sicily, with Adelaide continuing on as regent, being the mother of Roger II as well.


title: Roger I of Sicily

text: Roger's eldest son, Jordan, predeceased him. Roger's second son, Geoffrey, possibly illegitimate, was a leper with no chance of inheriting.


title: Roger I of Sicily

text: Roger's last wife was Adelaide del Vasto, a sister of his son-in-law Henry del Vasto. They married in 1087. Roger and Adelaide's children were:


title: Untouchables (law enforcement)

text: The Untouchables were special agents of the U.S. Bureau of Prohibition led by Eliot Ness, who, from 1930 to 1932, worked to end Al Capone's illegal activities by aggressively enforcing Prohibition laws against his organization. Legendary for being fearless and incorruptible, they earned the nickname "The Untouchables" after several agents refused large bribes from members of the Chicago Outfit.


title: Untouchables (law enforcement)

text: Due to its significant success and enduring legacy, the unit has subsequently had a lasting impact on the techniques and methods of modern organized crime law enforcement units.


title: Untouchables (law enforcement)

text: Shortly after taking office in 1929, Herbert Hoover, the 31st President of the United States, gave Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon and Attorney General William D. Mitchell a plan for attacking large bootlegging gangs with small teams of Prohibition agents working under special United States attorneys. Neither Mellon nor Mitchell moved to implement Hoover's plan until attorney Frank J. Loesch of the Chicago Crime Commission approached the president in March 1930, asking his help in bringing down Al Capone. Hoover, facing the political fallout of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, instructed his administration to make the Capone case a priority.


title: Untouchables (law enforcement)

text: At that time, Capone was already under investigation by agents from the Treasury's Bureau of Internal Revenue. In 1929, an investigation led by U.S. attorney George E. Q. Johnson into a Chicago Heights bootlegging gang allied with the Capone mob had uncovered financial records suggesting members of the Chicago Outfit could be found guilty of evading federal income tax. Agents of the Treasury Department's Intelligence Unit, serving under Elmer Irey, used this evidence to convict Capone's brother Ralph of tax fraud in April 1930, but they lacked sufficient evidence to charge Capone when Loesch met with Hoover. In June 1930, Special Agent Frank J. Wilson was placed in charge of this investigation.


title: Untouchables (law enforcement)

text: In late 1930, Attorney General Mitchell, impatient with Johnson's lack of progress on the Capone case, decided to implement President Hoover's idea for sending a small squad of Prohibition agents to break up the Capone gang. Johnson selected twenty-seven-year-old Eliot Ness, a special agent with the Prohibition Bureau who had played key roles on the Chicago Heights case and an investigation into Ralph Capone's bootlegging operations, to head this elite squad.


title: Untouchables (law enforcement)

text: Ness was ordered to lead raids against the Outfit's illegal breweries and distilleries, depriving Capone of the income he needed to pay the corrupting graft that was his greatest protection against prosecution, while also gathering evidence that could be used to prosecute Capone and his associates for conspiracy to violate the Volstead Act. Ness selected several agents, most from outside Chicago, whom he believed to be trustworthy, before beginning an extensive wire-tapping operation to gather information for the raids.


title: Untouchables (law enforcement)

text: The squad located several Capone breweries and distilleries in and around Chicago and began raiding them in March 1931. Within six months, Ness's agents had destroyed bootlegging operations worth an estimated $500,000 (the equivalent of $8,579,503 in 2020 dollars) and representing an additional $2 million in lost income for Capone (equivalent to over $34.3 million in 2020). Their efforts reportedly inflicted significant financial harm on Capone and his organization while Frank Wilson and the Intelligence Unit worked to build their tax evasion case.


title: Untouchables (law enforcement)

text: Failed attempts by members of the Capone mob to bribe or intimidate Ness and his agents inspired Charles Schwarz of the "Chicago Daily News" to begin calling them "untouchables," a term Schwarz borrowed from newspaper stories about the untouchables of India. George Johnson adopted the nickname and promoted it to the press, establishing it as the squad's unofficial title.


title: Untouchables (law enforcement)

text: In June 1931, Capone was indicted first for income tax evasion and then for five thousand counts of conspiracy to violate the Volstead Act, the latter based on evidence gathered by Ness and his Untouchables. Capone pled guilty to all charges after George Johnson agreed to recommend a -year sentence. But Federal Judge James H. Wilkerson refused to accept Johnson's agreement and, once Capone changed his pleas, brought the tax case to trial. Although Capone would never be prosecuted on the Prohibition charges, that indictment formed the basis of a tax suit brought by the federal government following Capone's conviction for income tax evasion.


title: Untouchables (law enforcement)

text: Ness and the Untouchables continued to attack the Outfit's beer and liquor empire during and after Capone's trial, their efforts resulting in estimated lost income in excess of $9 million. In recognition of this work, Ness was promoted to Chief Investigator of the Prohibition Bureau for Chicago in 1932. By that point, the Untouchables had essentially been disbanded, though Ness would continue to lead raids against Outfit breweries and distilleries until the repeal of Prohibition in 1933.


title: Untouchables (law enforcement)

text: Because corruption was endemic among law-enforcement officials, Ness searched records of all Prohibition agents to create a reliable team. The initial group, aside from Ness himself, numbered six. Over the course of the investigation, some agents left the squad for various reasons, while others were brought on as manpower shortages within the Prohibition Bureau allowed.


title: Untouchables (law enforcement)

text: In June 1931, after Capone pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the National Prohibition Act, the Prohibition Bureau credited ten agents with building the case against him. These may be considered the core members of the Untouchables:


title: Untouchables (law enforcement)

text: Other agents known to have served with the squad, but who were not named among its primary members, include:


title: Untouchables (law enforcement)

text: Given the Untouchables' enduring fame, other names have often been attached to the squad in error. These include:


title: Lai Bhaari

text: Lai Bhaari (लय भारी) is a 2014 Indian Marathi-language action drama film directed by Nishikant Kamat. The film marks the debut of Riteish Deshmukh in Marathi cinema, while Salman Khan and Genelia D'Souza also make cameo appearances. It was the first Marathi that was made on such a big scale , film became the highest grossing Marathi film during that time. It was declared a blockbuster at the box office.


title: Lai Bhaari

text: On 25 January 2015 Lai Bhaari broke all previous records and got the highest television viewership for any film in Maharashtra (Marathi – Hindi) with 5727 TVTs.


title: Lai Bhaari

text: It is remade in Odia as "Jaga Hatare Pagha" starring Anubhav Mohanty. It ran for more than 100 days in Maharashtra.


title: Lai Bhaari

text: Pratap Singh Nimbalkar (Uday Tikekar) and his wife Sumitra Devi (Tanvi Azmi) are known for their social work like helping poor farmers by giving them land and shelter. Even though they are blessed by everyone, Sumitra Devi is insulted for not having a child even though she has been married for 9 years. Her maid suggests her to pray to Lord Vithoba (generally known as Vitthal by most common people of Maharashtra) in Pandharpur, a holy place in Maharashtra. Out of eagerness, Sumitra Devi promises to give her first son to Lord Vitthal.


title: Lai Bhaari

text: As fate would have it, she gets pregnant soon and confirms the good news to Pratap Singh. But when she tells him that she has promised Lord Vithhal to give him her first child, Pratap Singh, who is modern in thought, says all this is ridiculous and flies off to London. When the baby is born, and Sumitra Devi calls up Pratap Singh and tells him that she is now convinced of keeping the baby. He comes back as soon as possible and names the baby Abhay Singh, or Prince, as a nickname.


title: Lai Bhaari

text: 25 years later, Prince (Riteish Deshmukh) comes back home after studying abroad. On the other hand, there is Prince's paternal cousin Sangram (Sharad Kelkar) is a crooked guy, who is trying to take all farms from the farmers by torturing them. On hearing this, Pratap Singh warns him for doing so. A few days later, Pratap Singh is killed and it is implied that Sangram was behind his death.


title: Lai Bhaari

text: Seeing Prince as the only obstacle left in his plan of owning all the farms in the village. He hires Nandini (Aaditi Pohankar) secretary of Pratap Singh to cheat Prince. In her love Prince signs the property papers and Sangram starts harassing the people. When Prince asks him that he was warned then Sangram shows the papers Prince claim them artificial and was going to the collector Sangram subsequently kills Prince by crashing truck to Prince's car and takes over all the property that belonged to Pratap Singh. Seeing no way left, Sumitra Devi goes to Pandharpur and angrily prays to Lord Vitthal to give back her son. Right outside the temple, Mauli (Riteish Deshmukh), a lookalike of Prince, beats up some goons who were eve teasing.


title: Lai Bhaari

text: In a surprising twist, it is revealed that 25 years ago, Sumitra Devi had given birth to twins, one of which she gave to Lord Vitthal. And this son is none other than Mauli, a rowdy, as opposed to the gentleman Prince. How Mauli takes revenge from Sangram forms the crux of the story.


title: Lai Bhaari

text: With a budget of , Lai Bhaari is one of the most expensive Marathi films till date. It has been produced by Jeetendra Thackeray, Ameya Khopkar and Genelia Deshmukh under Cinemantra Production and Mumbai Film Company production banner and it is presented by Zee Talkies and Essel Vision.


title: Lai Bhaari

text: This movie marks the third instalment of Ritesh Deshmukh in Marathi after his produced two successful Marathi films Balak-Palak and Yellow.


title: Lai Bhaari

text: The Song "Mauli Mauli" become one of the most popular Marathi Song that time. This Song belong to God Vitthal Dev.


title: Lai Bhaari

text: The film has received highly positive reviews. Rediff gave 4 out of 5 stars and declared movie awesome. Bollywoodlife and Koimoi have rated the movie 3 stars out of 5 .Times of India gave the movie a rating of 3.5/5. It has been acclaimed by various Bollywood celebrities.


title: Lai Bhaari

text: "Lai Bhaari" opened to packed houses all over and grossed around on the first day, on the first Saturday and on its first Sunday, taking the first weekend collections to in Maharashtra alone. Lai Bhaari collected a total of in first week. The second week recorded a gross collection of on Friday, on Saturday and on Sunday. The gross collected till 27 July 2014 amounted to . With this lai bhari broke Duniyadari's record of having the second highest box office collection in Marathi cinema. Till 31 July the total collection of the film was 31.52 cr. After the fourth week, the total earnings reached and overtook Timepass as the highest grossing Marathi film ever, at that time.


title: Power purchase agreement

text: A power purchase agreement (PPA), or electricity power agreement, is a contract between two parties, one which generates electricity (the seller) and one which is looking to purchase electricity (the buyer). The PPA defines all of the commercial terms for the sale of electricity between the two parties, including when the project will begin commercial operation, schedule for delivery of electricity, penalties for under delivery, payment terms, and termination. A PPA is the principal agreement that defines the revenue and credit quality of a generating project and is thus a key instrument of project finance. There are many forms of PPA in use today and they vary according to the needs of buyer, seller, and financing counter parties.


title: Power purchase agreement

text: Contractual terms of a PPA may last anywhere between 5 and 20 years, during which time the power purchaser buys energy, and sometimes also capacity and/or ancillary services, from the electricity generator. Such agreements play a key role in the financing of independently owned (i.e. not owned by a utility) electricity generating assets. The seller under the PPA is typically an independent power producer, or "IPP."


title: Power purchase agreement

text: In the case of distributed generation (where the generator is located on a building site and energy is sold to the building occupant), commercial PPAs have evolved as a variant that enables businesses, schools, and governments to purchase electricity directly from the generator rather than from the utility. This approach facilitates the financing of distributed generation assets such as photovoltaic, micro-turbines, reciprocating engines, and fuel cells. More than 137 firms in 32 countries reported the signing of power purchase agreements in 2021.


title: Power purchase agreement

text: Under a PPA, the seller is the entity that owns the project. In most cases, the seller is organized as a special purpose entity whose main purpose is to facilitate non-recourse project financing.


title: Power purchase agreement

text: Under a PPA, the buyer is typically a utility or a company that purchases the electricity to meet its customers' needs. In the case of distributed generation involving a commercial PPA variant, the buyer may be the occupant of the building—a business, school, or government for example. Electricity traders may also enter into PPA with the Seller.


title: Power purchase agreement

text: In the United States, PPAs are typically subject to regulation by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). FERC determines which facilities are applicable for PPAs under the Energy Policy Act of 2005. PPAs facilitate the financing of distributed generation assets such as photovoltaic, microturbines, reciprocating engines, and fuel cells.


title: Power purchase agreement

text: PPAs are typically subject to regulation at the state and federal level to varying degrees depending on the nature of the PPA and the extent to which the sale of electricity is regulated where the project is sited. In the U.S., FERC determines which facilities are considered to be exempt wholesale generators (EWG) or qualifying facilities and are applicable for PPAs under the Energy Policy Act of 2005.


title: Power purchase agreement

text: PPAs are more prevalent in the United States. However, in recent years, this type of financing has gained pace in the European Union, where it has been utilized to fund about 9 GW of output, headed by significant contracts in Spain and Scandinavia.


title: Power purchase agreement

text: The German Energy Agency () has argued that PPAs are central to the German energiewende and require better regulatory support.


title: Power purchase agreement

text: The PPA is often regarded as the central document in the development of independent electricity generating assets (power plants). Because it defines the revenue terms for the project and credit quality, it is key to obtaining non-recourse project financing.


title: Power purchase agreement

text: One of the key benefits of the PPA is that by clearly defining the output of the generating assets (such as a solar electric system) and the credit of its associated revenue streams, a PPA can be used by the PPA provider to raise non-recourse financing from a bank or other financing counterparty.


title: Power purchase agreement

text: The PPA is considered contractually binding on the date that it is signed, also known as the effective date. Once the project has been built, the effective date ensures that the purchaser will buy the electricity that will be generated and that the supplier will not sell its output to anyone else except the purchaser.


title: Power purchase agreement

text: Before the seller can sell electricity to the buyer, the project must be fully tested and commissioned to ensure reliability and comply with established commercial practices. The commercial operation date is defined as the date after which all testing and commissioning has been completed and is the initiation date to which the seller can start producing electricity for sale (i.e. when the project has been substantially completed). The commercial operation date also specifies the period of operation, including an end date that is contractually agreed upon.


title: Power purchase agreement

text: Typically, termination of a PPA ends on the agreed upon commercial operation period. A PPA may be terminated if abnormal events occur or circumstances result that fail to meet contractual guidelines. The seller has the right to curtail the delivery of energy if such abnormal circumstances arise, including natural disasters and uncontrolled events. The PPA may also allow the buyer to curtail energy in circumstances where the after-tax value of electricity changes.


title: Power purchase agreement

text: When energy is curtailed, it is usually because one of the parties involved was at fault, which results in paid damages to the other party. This may be excused in extraordinary circumstances such as natural disasters and the party responsible for repairing the project is liable for such damages. In situations where liability is not defined properly in the contract, the parties may negotiate force majeure to resolve these issues.


title: Power purchase agreement

text: Maintenance and operation of a generation project is the responsibility of the seller. This includes regular inspection and repair, if necessary, to ensure prudent practices. Liquidated damages will be applied if the seller fails to meet these circumstances. Typically, the seller is also responsible for installing and maintaining a meter to determine the quantity of output that will be sold. Under this circumstance, the seller must also provide real-time data at the request of the buyer, including atmospheric data relevant to the type of technology installed.


title: Power purchase agreement

text: The PPA will distinguish where the sale of electricity takes place in relation to the location of the buyer and seller. If the electricity is delivered in a "busbar" sale, the delivery point is located on the high side of the transformer adjacent to the project. In this type of transaction, the buyer is responsible for transmission of the energy from the seller. Otherwise, the PPA will distinguish another delivery point that was contractually agreed on by both parties.


title: Power purchase agreement

text: Electricity rates are agreed upon as the basis for a PPA. Prices may be flat, escalate over time, or be negotiated in any other way as long as both parties agree to the negotiation. In a regulated environment, an Electricity Regulator will regulate the price. A PPA will often specify how much energy the supplier is expected to produce each year and any excess energy produced will have a negative impact on the sales rate of electricity that the buyer will be purchasing. This system is intended to provide an incentive for the seller to properly estimate the amount of energy that will be produced in a given period of time.


title: Power purchase agreement

text: The PPA will also describe how invoices are prepared and the time period of response to those invoices. This also includes how to handle late payments and how to deal with invoices that became final after periods of inactivity regarding challenging the invoice. The buyer also has the authority to audit those records produced by the supplier in any circumstance. There is a defined timeline when PPA Provider has to send an invoice to the Generator or vice versa and if that timeline is not met then it has its own consequences, which varies from one PPA Provider to another.


title: Power purchase agreement

text: The buyer will typically require the seller to guarantee that the project will meet certain performance standards. Performance guarantees let the buyer plan accordingly when developing new facilities or when trying to meet demand schedules, which also encourages the seller to maintain adequate records. In circumstances where the output from the supplier fails to meet the contractual energy demand by the buyer, the seller is responsible for retributing such costs. Other guarantees may be contractually agreed upon, including availability guarantees and power-curve guarantees. These two types of guarantees are more applicable in regions where the energy harnessed by the renewable technology is more volatile.


title: Power purchase agreement

text: A basic sample PPA between the Bonneville Power Administration and a wind power generating entity was developed as a reference for future PPAs.


title: Power purchase agreement

text: Solar PPAs are now being successfully utilized in the California Solar Initiative's Multifamily Affordable Solar Housing (MASH) program.


title: Power purchase agreement

text: PPAs can be managed in the European market by service providers. The legal agreements between the statewide power sectors(seller) and the trader(buyer/who buys large quantity of power) will be treated as the PPA in power sector.


title: Power purchase agreement

text: Data center owners Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have used PPAs to offset the emissions and power usage of cloud computing. Amazon has signed power purchase agreements with 44 renewable energy projects in nine different countries, totaling 6.2 GW in 2021, following its commitment to power its facilities with 100% renewable energy by 2030 and zero carbon emissions by 2040. Some manufacturers with heavy carbon emission footprints and energy usage such as Anheuser-Busch InBev have also shown interest in PPAs. In 2017, Anheuser-Busch InBev agreed to purchase using a PPA from the utility company Iberdrola in Mexico for 220 MW of new wind farm energy.


title: Power purchase agreement

text: Recently, a new form of PPA was proposed to commercialize electric vehicle charging stations through a bi-lateral form of power purchase agreement.


title: Power purchase agreement

text: The European Federation of Energy Traders (EFET) has released a set of CPPA Standard Documentation. Further research in this area is anticipated to benefit the PPA industry.


title: Ninotchka

text: Ninotchka is a 1939 American romantic comedy film made for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer by producer and director Ernst Lubitsch and starring Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas. It was written by Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett, and Walter Reisch, based on a screen story by Melchior Lengyel. "Ninotchka" is Greta Garbo's first full comedy, and her penultimate film; she received her third and final Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. It is one of the first American films which, under the cover of a satirical, light romance, depicted the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin as being rigid and gray, in this instance comparing it with the free and sunny Parisian society of pre-war years.


title: Ninotchka

text: Iranoff (Sig Ruman), Buljanoff (Felix Bressart), and Kopalski (Alexander Granach), three agents from the Russian Board of Trade arrive in Paris to sell jewelry confiscated from the aristocracy during the Russian Revolution of 1917.


title: Ninotchka

text: Count Alexis Rakonin (Gregory Gaye), a White Russian nobleman reduced to employment as a waiter in the hotel where the trio are staying, overhears details of their mission and informs the former Russian Grand Duchess Swana (Ina Claire) that her court jewels are to be sold by the three men. Her debonair paramour, Count Léon d'Algout (Melvyn Douglas) offers to help retrieve the jewelry before it is sold.


title: Ninotchka

text: In their hotel suite, Iranoff, Buljanoff and Kopalski negotiate with Mercier (Edwin Maxwell) a prominent Parisian jeweler, when Léon interrupts the meeting. He explains that the jewels were seized illegally by the Soviet government and a petition has been filed preventing their sale or removal. Mercier withdraws his offer to purchase the jewelry until the lawsuit is settled.


title: Ninotchka

text: The amiable, charming and cunning Léon treats the three Russians to an extravagant lunch, gets them drunk and easily wins their friendship and confidence. He sends a telegram to Moscow in their name suggesting a compromise.


title: Ninotchka

text: Moscow, angered by the telegram, then sends Nina Ivanovna "Ninotchka" Yakushova (Greta Garbo), a special envoy whose goal is to win the lawsuit, complete the jewelry sale and return with the three renegade Russians. Ninotchka is methodical, rigid and stern, chastising Iranoff, Buljanoff and Kopalski for failing to complete their mission.


title: Ninotchka

text: Ninotchka and Léon first meet outside the hotel, their respective identities unknown to one another. He flirts, but she is uninterested. Intrigued, Léon follows her to the Eiffel Tower and shows her his home through a telescope. Intrigued by his behavior, Ninotchka tells him he might warrant study and suggests they go to his apartment. Ninotchka becomes attracted to Léon and eventually, they begin to kiss but are interrupted by a phone call from Buljanoff. Both realizing they are each other's adversaries over the jewelry, Ninotchka promptly leaves Léon's apartment, despite his protestations.


title: Ninotchka

text: While attending to the various legal matters over the lawsuit, Ninotchka gradually becomes seduced by the west and by the persistent Léon, who has fallen in love with her and broken down her resistance. At a dinner date with Léon where she unexpectedly meets Swana face-to-face (her rival for the jewelry and for Léon's affections), Ninotchka consumes champagne for the first time and quickly becomes intoxicated. The following afternoon, a hungover Ninotchka is awakened by Swana and discovers Rakonin has stolen the jewelry during the night. Swana tells Ninotchka that she will return the jewels and drop the litigation if Ninotchka returns to Moscow immediately so that Swana can have Léon to herself. Ninotchka reluctantly agrees to Swana's proposal and after completing the sale of the jewelry to Mercier, Ninotchka and the three Russians fly back to Moscow.


title: Ninotchka

text: Meanwhile, Léon visits Swana and confesses his love for Ninotchka. Swana then informs Léon that Ninotchka has already left for Moscow. He attempts to follow her but is denied a Russian visa, because of his nobility.


title: Ninotchka

text: Sometime later, in Moscow, Ninotchka invites her three comrades to her communal apartment for dinner and they nostalgically recall their time in Paris. After dinner, Ninotchka finally receives a letter from Léon, but it has been completely censored by the authorities, and she is devastated.


title: Ninotchka

text: More time passes; Iranoff, Buljanoff and Kopalski once again run afoul of their superiors after they fail at their mission to sell furs in Constantinople. Against her wishes, Ninotchka is sent by Commissar Razinin (Bela Lugosi) to investigate and retrieve the trio.


title: Ninotchka

text: After Ninotchka arrives in Constantinople, the three Russians inform her that they have opened a restaurant and will not be returning to Moscow. When Ninotchka asks them who was responsible for this idea, they point to a balcony where Léon is standing. He explains that he was barred from entering Russia to win Ninotchka back, so he and the three Russians conspired to get her to leave the country. He asks her to stay with him and she happily agrees.


title: Ninotchka

text: The final shot in the film is of Kopalski carrying a protest sign complaining that Iranoff and Buljanoff are unfair, because his name does not illuminate on the electric sign in front of their new restaurant.


title: Ninotchka

text: The movie was released in late 1939, shortly after the outbreak of World War II in Europe, where it became a great success. It was, however, banned in the Soviet Union and its satellites. Despite that, it went on to make $2,279,000 worldwide. USA: $1,187,000. International: $1,092,000. Profit: $138,000.


title: Ninotchka

text: In a play on the famous "Garbo Talks!" ad campaign used for her "talkie" debut in "Anna Christie" (1930), "Ninotchka" was marketed with the catchphrase "Garbo Laughs!", commenting on Garbo's largely somber and melancholy image (though Garbo laughs several times in many of her previous pictures).


title: Ninotchka

text: An attempt by MGM to re-release "Ninotchka" later during World War II was suppressed on the grounds that the Soviets were then allies of the West. The film was re-released after the war ended.


title: Ninotchka

text: In 1955, the musical "Silk Stockings", based on "Ninotchka", opened on Broadway. Written by Cole Porter, the stage production was based on "Ninotchka's" story and script and starred Hildegard Neff and Don Ameche. MGM then produced a 1957 film version of the musical directed by Rouben Mamoulian and starring Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse. Actor George Tobias, who appeared uncredited in "Ninotchka" as the Russian official who is punched by Leon for refusing him a visa is featured as Commissar Markovitch in "Silk Stockings". Rolfe Sedan, who portrayed the hotel manager in "Ninotchka", appears uncredited as a stage manager in "Silk Stockings". The MGM films "Comrade X" (1940), starring Clark Gable and Hedy Lamarr, and "The Iron Petticoat" (1956), starring Bob Hope and Katharine Hepburn, both borrow heavily from "Ninotchka".


title: Ninotchka

text: MGM had scheduled "Madame Curie" as Garbo's next film, but pleased with the success of "Ninotchka", the studio quickly decided to team Garbo and Douglas in another romantic comedy. "Two-Faced Woman" (1941) was the result and Garbo received the worst reviews of her entire career. It turned out to be her final film and Greer Garson eventually starred in "Madame Curie".


title: Ninotchka

text: In 1990, "Ninotchka" was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2011, "Time" also included the film on the magazine's list of "All-Time 100 Movies".


title: Ninotchka

text: "Ninotchka" is recognized as well by the American Film Institute in the AFI 100 Years... series in the following lists:


title: Ninotchka

text: "Ninotchka" received four Academy Award nominations: Best Picture, Best Actress in a Leading Role, Best Original Story, and Best Screenplay.


title: Ninotchka

text: "Ninotchka" is based on a three-sentence story idea by Melchior Lengyel that made its debut at a poolside conference in 1937, when a suitable comedy vehicle for Garbo was being sought by MGM: “Russian girl saturated with Bolshevist ideals goes to fearful, capitalistic, monopolistic Paris. She meets romance and has an uproarious good time. Capitalism not so bad, after all.”


title: Eugene Scalia

text: Eugene Scalia (born August 14, 1963) is an American attorney who is a partner at Gibson Dunn. He served as the United States secretary of labor during the final 16 months of the Donald Trump administration. Scalia previously served one year as solicitor of the Department of Labor during the George W. Bush administration. He is a son of the late Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia.


title: Eugene Scalia

text: Scalia was described by "The New York Times" as "a skilled lawyer with a broadly conservative, pro-business and anti-regulatory agenda". During his tenure in the Department of Labor, he reversed Obama-era labor and employment regulations.


title: Eugene Scalia

text: Scalia was born on August 14, 1963, in Cleveland, Ohio, the second of nine children of Antonin Scalia and Maureen (née McCarthy) Scalia. He attended the University of Virginia, graduating in 1985 with a Bachelor of Arts with distinction in economics and a minor in political science. He worked for the U.S. government for two years, then attended the University of Chicago Law School, where he became editor-in-chief of the "University of Chicago Law Review". He graduated in 1990 with a Juris Doctor, "cum laude".


title: Eugene Scalia

text: From 1985 to 1987, he was an aide to United States Department of Education Secretary William J. Bennett. From 1992 to 1993, he served as Special Assistant to Attorney General William P. Barr. Scalia was in private practice in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, California. In 2000, his firm, Gibson Dunn, represented George W. Bush before the U.S. Supreme Court in "Bush v. Gore".


title: Eugene Scalia

text: He served as the Solicitor of Labor, having been appointed by President Bush in April 2001 and assuming the position in January 2002 following a recess appointment. At the time, he was accused by Democratic senators and labor groups of being hostile to workers and criticized for his articles criticizing ergonomics. A group of former career officials within the Department of Labor have since described Scalia as having been "very supportive of enforcement litigation to vindicate the rights of workers, both at the trial and appellate levels". In 2019, "The New York Times" wrote that Scalia "is perhaps best known for his opposition to a regulation that would have mandated greater protections for workers at risk of repetitive stress injuries". The regulation was repealed by Congress in 2001.


title: Eugene Scalia

text: During his career in private practice, Scalia has defended major corporations against financial and labor regulations. Writing in "The New Yorker", Eyal Press said "as a corporate lawyer, Scalia has repeatedly hindered the efforts of workers to secure benefits or defend their rights." After leaving the Bush administration, he helped Wall Street firms oppose financial oversight and criticized banking regulations put in place under Obama.


title: Eugene Scalia

text: Scalia argued for the plaintiffs in "Wal-Mart v. Maryland" in July 2006, which invalidated a state law under which large companies with at least 10,000 employees would have been required to spend at least 8% of their payroll on employee healthcare.


title: Eugene Scalia

text: Following his term as Secretary of Labor, Scalia returned to private practice at Gibson Dunn, where he is co-chair of the firm's administrative law and regulatory practice group.


title: Eugene Scalia

text: On July 18, 2019, President Donald Trump announced he would nominate Scalia to be the next Secretary of Labor. On September 26, 2019, the Senate confirmed his nomination by a vote of 53–44. Scalia was sworn in by Vice President Mike Pence on September 30. Scalia is the only person to have served as both Solicitor and Secretary of Labor.


title: Eugene Scalia

text: During his tenure in the Department of Labor, he weakened some labor and employment protections, drawing criticism from organized labor leaders.


title: Eugene Scalia

text: Janet Herold, an Obama-era career appointee to the Labor Department, spearheaded a number of employment discrimination lawsuits against major technology companies, including the Oracle Corporation. In 2019, Herold filed a complaint in which she alleged that Scalia had abused his authority by intervening to settle a 2017 Labor Department lawsuit in which Oracle was being investigated for allegedly underpaying women and people of color. Scalia encouraged a settlement figure between $17 million and $38 million, which Herold considered too low. Oracle went on to win the case, with the Department of Labor deciding not to appeal the decision. The Department of Labor dismissed Herold's complaint against Scalia, saying that Herold's "retaliation allegations rest on erroneous speculation regarding matters she is not in a position to know" and that Scalia had not participated in settlement discussions with Oracle. Herold was fired by Scalia in January 2021 after refusing to accept a transfer to a non-legal position.


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: The blockade of the Gaza Strip is the ongoing land, air, and sea blockade of the Gaza Strip imposed by Israel and Egypt temporarily in 2005–2006 and permanently from 2007 onwards, following the Israeli disengagement from Gaza.


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: The blockade was made permanent after Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip during the Battle of Gaza, seizing government institutions and replacing Fatah and other Palestinian Authority (PA) officials with Hamas members. Earlier, after Hamas won elections and formed the PA government in March 2006, led by Ismail Haniya, Israel and the Quartet on the Middle East set conditions before they would continue to provide aid to the PA or have any dialogue with any member of a Hamas-led PA government. These conditions were: recognition of Israel, disavowal of violent actions, and acceptance of previous agreements between Israel and the PA, including the Oslo Accords. Hamas refused to accept these conditions and aid to the PA was stopped and sanctions against the PA imposed.


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: When Hamas took over Gaza, Egypt and Israel largely closed their border crossings with Gaza, on the grounds that Fatah and PA forces had fled the Strip and were no longer able to provide security on the Palestinian side. Egypt was worried that Hamas control of Gaza would increase Iranian influence. Egyptian Foreign Minister Aboul Gheit also explained that opening the Rafah border crossing, the only crossing on the Egypt-Gaza border, would undermine the legitimacy of the PA. Israel said that the blockade was necessary to protect Israeli citizens from "terrorism, rocket attacks and any other hostile activity" and to prevent dual use goods from entering Gaza.


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: Israel has been accused of violating or failing to fulfil specific obligations it had committed to under various ceasefire agreements on different occasions to alleviate or lift the blockade. "Crossings were repeatedly shut and buffer zones were reinstated. Imports declined, exports were blocked, and fewer Gazans were given exit permits to Israel and the West Bank." PA President Mahmoud Abbas has expressed his approval of the Egyptian border restrictions. In 2014 and subsequent years, Abbas supported Egypt's crackdown on smuggling tunnels, and welcomed the flooding of the tunnels by Egypt in coordination with the PA.


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: In 1994, Israel built the Gaza–Israel barrier as a security measure to stop the infiltration of terrorists, including suicide bombers, into Israel. There are four border crossings between Israel and the Gaza Strip through the barrier: the Kerem Shalom, Karni, Erez, and Sufa crossings. All goods bound for Gaza as well as exports passing through Israel must use one of these crossings, and undergo security inspection before being permitted to enter or leave Gaza. In 2005, Israel withdrew its settlers and forces from the Gaza Strip.


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: Additionally, starting in 2009, Egypt built an underground Egypt-Gaza barrier along the Egypt-Gaza border. The stated aim was to block smuggling tunnels. The Rafah Border Crossing is the only lawful crossing point between Egypt and Gaza, and was manned by PA security forces and the European Union Border Assistance Mission Rafah. All humanitarian and other supplies passing through Israel or Egypt must pass through these crossings after security inspection.


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: Until 2013, there were hundreds of smuggling tunnels dug under the Egypt-Gaza border to smuggle goods, including fuel, into Gaza to bypass the blockade.


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: On 12 September 2005, the final day of the Israeli withdrawal, international politicians such as France's Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy and Jordan's Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Muasher warned of Gaza being turned into an open-air prison. Four days later, Mahmoud Abbas stated to the UN General Assembly: "It is incumbent upon Israel to turn this unilateral withdrawal into a positive step in a real way.We must quickly resolve all outstanding major issues, including the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, the airport and the seaport, as well as the establishment of a direct link between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Without this, Gaza will remain a huge prison."


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: Following the disengagement, human rights groups alleged that Israel frequently blockaded Gaza in order to apply pressure on the population "in response to political developments or attacks by armed groups in Gaza on Israeli civilians or soldiers". The special envoy of the Quartet James Wolfensohn noted that "Gaza had been effectively sealed off from the outside world since the Israeli disengagement [August–September 2005], and the humanitarian and economic consequences for the Palestinian population were profound. There were already food shortages. Palestinian workers and traders to Israel were unable to cross the border".


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: On 15 January 2006, the Karni crossing – the sole point for exports of goods from Gaza – was closed completely for all kinds of exports. The greenhouse project suffered a huge blow, as the harvest of high-value crops, meant to be exported for Europe via Israel, was essentially lost (with a small part of the harvest donated to local institutions). Moreover, closing of Karni cut off the so-far resilient textile and furniture industries in Gaza from their source of income. Starting February 2006, the Karni crossing was sporadically open for exports, but the amount of goods allowed to be exported was minuscule compared to the amount of goods imported (which, in turn, barely supported Gaza's needs). Between 1 January and 11 May, more than 12,700 tonnes of produce were harvested in Gaza's greenhouses, almost all of it destined for export; out of it, only 1,600 tonnes (less than 13%) were actually exported.


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: The election for the Palestinian Legislative Council took place on 25 January 2006, and was decisively won by Hamas. The election took place during a full blockade of Gaza. After the PLC was sworn in on 18 February 2006, in addition to its blockade of the Gaza Strip, Israel imposed other sanctions on the PA, including withholding the PA's tax revenue (collected by Israel on the PA's behalf), and imposing travel restrictions on Hamas PLC members. Israel's position is that Hamas is a terrorist organisation that has vowed to destroy Israel, and is responsible for the death of hundreds of its citizens, and neither wanted to have any direct relations with the other. On 20 February, Hamas leader Ismail Haniya was nominated to form a new PA government, which was sworn in on 29 March.


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: Besides Israel's position in relation to a Hamas-led PA government, following the election, the Quartet on the Middle East had stated that continued aid to and dialogue with the PA under a Hamas government was conditional on Hamas agreeing to three conditions: recognition of Israel, the disavowal of violent actions, and acceptance of previous agreements between Israel and the PA, including the Oslo Accords. Haniya refused to accept these conditions, and the Quartet stopped all dialogue with the PA and especially any member of the Hamas government, ceased providing aid to the PA and imposed sanctions against the PA under Hamas. Though initially opposed by the United States, a Quartet member, the US government agreed in April 2006 to discontinue $400 million of foreign aid to the PA. Instead the US redirected $100 million to the United Nations and other non-Palestinian groups, but no aid money was given directly to the government of Mahmoud Abbas.


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: As noted by Wolfensohn (and also in an EU paper), withholding of the PA's own tax revenue – an action taken by Israel alone, not by the Quartet – was more damaging than the ceasing of international aid to the PA. These taxes, collected in Palestine (both in the West Bank and Gaza) by Israeli authorities, were supposed to be transferred to the PA's budget. By releasing or withholding these revenues, Israel was able, in the words of the International Crisis Group, to "virtually turn the Palestinian economy on and off". Israel withheld these transfers from the PA until June 2007. Withholding the tax revenue by Israel meant that the PA lacked money to pay its employees, including the police, further destabilizing the situation in Gaza.


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: In March 2007, Fatah agreed to join Hamas in a PA unity government, also headed by Haniya. Shortly after, in June, Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip during the Battle of Gaza, seizing PA government institutions in the Strip and replacing Fatah and other PA officials with Hamas members.


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: Following the takeover, besides other measures, Israel and Egypt closed the Gaza border crossings, marking the start of the blockade of the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, in the West Bank, President Mahmoud Abbas officially dissolved the Haniya-led PA government, suspended parts of the Basic Law, and created a new PA government by decree, without approval of the PLC. This government was recognized by the international community, and international relations and aid to the PA government in the West Bank resumed, the economic sanctions were lifted, and Israel resumed the transfer of tax revenue to it.


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: Linked with the conflict following his party's loss in the 2006 election, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas approved the Egyptian border restrictions by the new regime, purportedly aimed at protecting Egypt from danger. In 2014 and subsequent years, Abbas supported Egypt's crackdown on smuggling tunnels and welcomed the flooding of the tunnels by Egypt in coordination with the PA.


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: In 2010, Abbas declared that he opposed lifting the Israeli naval blockade of the Gaza Strip because this would bolster Hamas. Egypt also supported this position.


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: In 2016, Abbas objected to the entrance of Qatari fuel to the Gaza electricity plant via Israel, because his PA would be unable to collect taxes on the fuel.


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: In 2016 most Palestinian parties welcomed Turkish initiatives to end the strict Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip by building a seaport for the movement of people and goods. This step was condemned by Fatah and the PA, a senior Fatah leader saying that his movement would not allow this to happen, while the Fatah Executive Committee said this was an Israeli trick to separate Gaza from the West Bank. In turn a Hamas official condemned the PA's position; "This position proves that the PA is part of the Israeli-led siege which has been imposed on Gaza for ten years".


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: In 2017, the PA government imposed its own sanctions against Gaza, including, among other things, cutting off salaries to thousands of PA employees, as well as financial assistance to hundreds of families in the Gaza Strip. The PA initially said it would stop paying for the electricity and fuel that Israel supplies to the Gaza Strip, but after a year partially backtracked.


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: In 2017, the PA government imposed sanctions against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, including ceasing to pay salaries to thousands of civil servants in Gaza, as well as financial assistance to families in the Gaza Strip. Since 2018, Qatar has been providing funding for Palestinians in Gaza. In February 2021, with Israeli approval, Qatar agreed to pay $360 million for the year to pay for fuel for Gaza's power plant, pay civil servants and provide aid to tens of thousands of impoverished families.


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: After the 11-day Gaza War in May 2021, Israel stopped the Qatari money coming into Gaza out of concern that it would be diverted to Hamas for military purposes. In July 2021, it was reported that the United Nations had agreed to oversee the distribution of the Qatari money to Gazans through banks affiliated with the Palestinian Monetary Authority in Ramallah. Israel agreed to the arrangement on condition that none of the money is diverted to Hamas. However, as of 5 July, payment of Hamas salaries has delayed the resumption of the Qatari funding, because the channel for paying them is through the Palestinian Authority, which does not want to pay salaries to anyone affiliated with Hamas. The PA banks are refusing to take part, fearing that their cooperation would expose them to legal actions for supporting and funding terrorism. On 19 August, the United Nations and Qatar signed an agreement for the resumption of Qatari cash payments to 100,000 needy Gazans. It does not cover cash payments to Hamas employees. Palestinian sources said that Hamas has enough money to pay its civil servants until the end of the year. The PA pulled out of the agreement on 10 September in relation to salaries of public servants, holding up distribution of all Qatari funds.


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: On 16 August 2021, Israel seized 23 tons of chocolate intended for import to Gaza and suspected for use by Hamas as an alternative currency to finance its operations.


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: The worsening economic and humanitarian situation raised great concern abroad. According to the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), in January 2003, the Israeli blockade and closures had drained as much as US$2.4 billion out of the economy of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: Throughout 2006, the Karni crossing was only partially operational, costing Palestinians $500,000 a day, as less than 10% of the Gaza Strip's minimal daily export targets were achieved. Basic food commodities were severely depleted, bakeries closed and food rationing was introduced.


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: The World Bank estimated in 2015 that the GDP losses caused by the blockade since 2007 was above 50%, and entailed large welfare losses. Gaza's manufacturing sector, once significant, shrunk by as much as 60% in real terms, due to the wars in the past 20 years and the blockade. Gaza's exports virtually disappeared since the imposition of the 2007 blockade. It stated that "solutions have to be found to enable faster inflow of construction materials into Gaza", while taking into account "legitimate security concerns of neighboring countries."


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: In May 2015, the World Bank reported that the Gaza economy was on the "verge of collapse". 40% of Gaza's population lived in poverty, even though around 80% received some sort of aid. It said the restrictions had to be eased to allow construction materials "to enter in sufficient quantities" and to allow exports. "The economy cannot survive without being connected to the outside world", The World Bank said the tightened restrictions meant the construction sector's output was reduced by 83%.


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: Because of the widespread violence within Israel during the Second Intifada that began in September 2000, Israel closed all entry points between Israel and the Palestinian territories, including the Gaza Strip, and closed the Gaza International Airport. On 9 October 2001, all movement of people and goods between Israel and the Palestinian territories was halted, and a complete internal closure came into effect on 14 November 2001.


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: The Intifada came to an end in February 2005, and Israel forces and settlers left the Gaza Strip by 1 September 2005 as part of Israel's unilateral disengagement plan. To improve the movement of people and economic activity in the Gaza Strip, Israel and the PA on 15 November 2005 signed an "Agreement on Movement and Access" (AMA). The AMA provided for the reopening of the Rafah crossing with Egypt, which was to be monitored by the PA and the European Union. Only people with Palestinian identity cards or foreign nationals, subject to Israeli oversight, were to be permitted to cross. In mid-November 2005, Israel started allowing some workers and traders to enter Israel via the Erez crossing, if they had Israeli-issued permits; however, until 21 January 2006, the crossing was open on less than 50% of working days on average.


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: Palestinians were invariably banned from traveling between Gaza and the West Bank. Following the Israeli disengagement from Gaza in September 2005, Israel "[established] a domestic legal framework apparently aimed at sealing off Gaza from Israel and from the West Bank" Israel had previously agreed, as part of the Oslo Accords, to treat Gaza and the West Bank as a single territorial unit, a position upheld by the Israeli High Court. However, following the 2005 disengagement, Israel adopted the position that Gaza residents have "no vested right" to cross into the West Bank; and that although there is "a certain connection" between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, it "does not give Gaza residents a right to enter [the West Bank]". Those Gaza residents who did not try to cross the territory of Israel proper, but instead traveled around it, using the "long and expensive" route via Egypt and Jordan to travel from Gaza to the West Bank, were still turned back by Israeli border personnel at the Allenby Bridge when attempting to enter the West Bank from Jordan. This policy was still in place as of 2014: Gaza residents, except in rare "humanitarian" cases, are not allowed to enter the West Bank - even if they do not travel via Israel proper but around it, trying to enter via the Allenby Bridge.


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: AMA stipulated the opening hours of crossings between Gaza and Israel and the number of trucks/truckloads to pass through them. It also stipulated that bus convoys, carrying Palestinians from Gaza to the West Bank and vice versa, would start on 15 December 2005; and truck convoys, carrying goods on the same route, would start on 15 January 2006. This agreement was not upheld, as neither bus nor truck convoys started by their respective dates. Israel first announced that according to its interpretation, Israel was only obliged to run a "test" or "pilot" bus route and only for Palestinians meeting certain Israeli-specified requirements, then delayed this pilot project "indefinitely". The part of the agreement concerning opening hours and throughput of border crossings was not implemented either.


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: The Palestinians claim that Israel did not honor AMA in relation to movement of people between Gaza and the West Bank. The bus convoys between Gaza and the West Bank (which were to start on 15 December 2005) never started.


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: Gazans are invariably banned from entering the West Bank, and Israel adopted the position that they have no legal right to do so. This position has not changed since 2005.


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: Under the Oslo II Accord, activities of the Palestinian Naval Police are restricted to from the coast. Under the 1994 Gaza–Jericho Agreement, which was not implemented, Palestinian fishing was to be permitted up to offshore. In 2007, Israel restricted fishermen travel to offshore. Israeli officials said the restrictions were necessary because of past incidents of Palestinians using fishing boats for smuggling and attacks. Israeli patrol boats regularly patrol Gaza's coastline and fire on Palestinian fishing vessels that go beyond the permitted distance from shore. In July 2018, Israel further restricted the Gaza fishing space to .


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: Israel has intercepted a number of vessels attempting to bring supplies into Gaza, claiming that they may be providing goods that may be used to build arms. A humanitarian mission organised by the Free Gaza Movement, with Cynthia McKinney and Mairead Maguire on board, was intercepted by Israel attempting to sail to Gaza. They were deported but the supplies were later delivered to Gaza over land by truck.


title: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

text: On 29 April 2014, "Gaza's Ark", a vessel being converted in Gaza from a fishing boat to carry cargo to Europe, was sunk by an explosion following a telephone warning to the guard, who was uninjured. The organisers of the project suspect that Israel forces are responsible.