title: Uxmal

text: The site, located not far from Mérida beside a road to Campeche, has attracted many visitors since the time of Mexico's independence. The first detailed account of the ruins was published by Jean Frederic Waldeck in 1838. John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood made two extended visits to Uxmal in the early 1840s, with architect/draftsman Catherwood reportedly making so many plans and drawings that they could be used to construct a duplicate of the ancient city (unfortunately most of the drawings are lost).) Désiré Charnay took a series of photographs of Uxmal in 1860. Some three years later Empress Carlota of Mexico visited Uxmal; in preparation for her visit local authorities had some statues and architectural elements depicting phallic themes removed from the ancient façades.


title: Uxmal

text: Sylvanus G. Morley made a map of the site in 1909 which included some previously overlooked buildings. The Mexican government's first project to protect some of the structures from risk of collapse or further decay came in 1927. In 1930 Frans Blom led a Tulane University expedition to the site. They made plaster casts of the façades of the "Nunnery Quadrangle"; using these casts, a replica of the Quadrangle was constructed and displayed at the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago, Illinois. The plaster replicas of the architecture were destroyed following the fair, but some of the plaster casts of Uxmal's monuments are still kept at Tulane's Middle American Research Institute. In 1936 a Mexican government repair and consolidation program was begun under José Erosa Peniche.


title: Uxmal

text: Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom visited on 27 February 1975 for the inauguration of the site's sound & light show. When the presentation reached the point where the sound system played the Maya prayer to Chaac (the Maya rain deity), a sudden torrential downpour occurred. Gathered dignitaries included Gaspar Antonio Xiu, a descendant of the Xiu noble Maya lineage.


title: Uxmal

text: Microbial biofilms have been found degrading stone buildings at Uxmal and Kabah. Phototrophs such as "Xenococcus" are found more often on interior walls. Stone degrading "Gloeocapsa" and "Synechocystis" were also present in large numbers.


title: Uxmal

text: "Aureobasidium" and "Fusarium" fungi species are present at Chichen Itza and Uxmal. Cyanobacteria were prevalent in the interiors of rooms with low light levels.


title: Chancroid

text: Chancroid ( ) is a bacterial sexually transmitted infection characterized by painful sores on the genitalia. Chancroid is known to spread from one individual to another solely through sexual contact. However, there have been reports of accidental infection through another route which is by the hand. While uncommon in the western world, it is the most common cause of genital ulceration worldwide.


title: Chancroid

text: About half of infected men have only a single ulcer. Women frequently have four or more ulcers, with fewer symptoms. The ulcers are typically confined to the genital region most of the time.


title: Chancroid

text: The initial ulcer may be mistaken as a "hard" chancre, the typical sore of primary syphilis, as opposed to the "soft chancre" of chancroid.


title: Chancroid

text: Approximately one-third of the infected individuals will develop enlargements of the inguinal lymph nodes, the nodes located in the fold between the leg and the lower abdomen.


title: Chancroid

text: Half of those who develop swelling of the inguinal lymph nodes will progress to a point where the nodes rupture through the skin, producing draining abscesses. The swollen lymph nodes and abscesses are often referred to as buboes.


title: Chancroid

text: Chancroid is a bacterial infection caused by the fastidious Gram-negative streptobacillus "Haemophilus ducreyi". This pathogen is highly infectious"." It is a disease found primarily in developing countries, most prevalent in low socioeconomic groups, associated with commercial sex workers.


title: Chancroid

text: Chancroid, caused by "H. ducreyi" has infrequently been associated with cases of Genital Ulcer Disease in the US but has been isolated in up to 10% of genital ulcers diagnosed from STD clinics in Memphis and Chicago.


title: Chancroid

text: Infection levels are very low in the Western world, typically around one case per two million of the population (Canada, France, Australia, UK and US). Most individuals diagnosed with chancroid have visited countries or areas where the disease is known to occur frequently, although outbreaks have been observed in association with crack cocaine use and prostitution.


title: Chancroid

text: Chancroid is a risk factor for contracting HIV, due to their ecological association or shared risk of exposure, and biologically facilitated transmission of one infection by the other. Approximately 10% of people with chancroid will have a co-infection with syphilis and/or HIV.


title: Chancroid

text: "H. ducreyi" enters skin through microabrasions incurred during sexual intercourse. The incubation period of "H. ducreyi" infection is 10 to 14 days after which there is progression of the disease. A local tissue reaction leads to development of erythomatous papule, which progresses to pustule in 4–7 days. It then undergoes central necrosis to ulcerate.


title: Chancroid

text: From bubo pus or ulcer secretions, "H. ducreyi" can be identified using special culture media; however, there is a <80% sensitivity. PCR-based identification of the organisms is available, but none in the United States are FDA-cleared. Simple, rapid, sensitive and inexpensive antigen detection methods for "H. ducreyi" identification are also popular. Serologic detection of "H. ducreyi" uses outer membrane protein and lipooligosaccharide. "Most of the time, the diagnosis is based on presumptive approach using the symptomatology which in this case includes multiple painful genital ulcers""."


title: Chancroid

text: Despite many distinguishing features, the clinical spectrums of following diseases may overlap with chancroid:


title: Chancroid

text: Practical clinical approach for this STI as Genital Ulcer Disease is to rule out top differential diagnosis of Syphilis and Herpes and consider empirical treatment for Chancroid as testing is not commonly done for the latter.


title: Chancroid

text: Chancroid spreads in populations with high sexual activity, such as prostitutes. Use of condom, prophylaxis by azithromycin, syndromic management of genital ulcers, treating patients with reactive syphilis serology are some of the strategies successfully tried in Thailand. Also, treatment of sexual partners is advocated whether they develop symptoms or not as long as there was unprotected sexual intercourse with the patient within 10 days of developing the symptoms.


title: Chancroid

text: For the initial stages of the lesion, cleaning with soapy solution is recommended and sitz bath may be beneficial. Fluctuant nodules may require aspiration. Treatment may include more than one prescribed medication.


title: Chancroid

text: Macrolides are often used to treat chancroid. The CDC recommendation is either a single oral dose (1 gram) of azithromycin, a single IM dose (250 mg) of ceftriaxone, oral (500 mg) of erythromycin three times a day for seven days, or oral (500 mg) of ciprofloxacin twice a day for three days. Due to a paucity of reliable empirical evidence it is not clear whether macrolides are actually more effective and/or better tolerated than other antibiotics when treating chancroid. Data is limited, but there have been reports of ciprofloxacin and erythromycin resistance.


title: Chancroid

text: Aminoglycosides such as gentamicin, streptomycin, and kanamycin has been used to successfully treat chancroid; however aminoglycoside-resistant strain of "H. ducreyi" have been observed in both laboratory and clinical settings. Treatment with aminoglycosides should be considered as only a supplement to a primary treatment.


title: Chancroid

text: Pregnant and lactating women, or those below 18 years of age regardless of gender, should not use ciprofloxacin as treatment for chancroid. Treatment failure is possible with HIV co-infection and extended therapy is sometimes required.


title: Chancroid

text: Prognosis is excellent with proper treatment. Treating sexual contacts of affected individual helps break cycle of infection.


title: Chancroid

text: Within 3–7 days after commencing treatment, patients should be re-examined to determine whether the treatment was successful. Within 3 days, symptoms of ulcers should improve. Healing time of the ulcer depends mainly on size and can take more than two weeks for larger ulcers. In uncircumcised men, healing is slower if the ulcer is under the foreskin. Sometimes, needle aspiration or incision and drainage are necessary.


title: Chancroid

text: Although the prevalence of chancroid has decreased in the United States and worldwide, sporadic outbreaks can still occur in regions of the Caribbean and Africa. Like other sexually transmitted diseases, having chancroid increases the risk of transmitting and acquiring HIV.


title: Chancroid

text: Chancroid has been known to humans since time of ancient Greeks. Some of important events on historical timeline of chancre are:


title: Aaron Wiggins

text: Aaron Daniel Wiggins (born January 2, 1999) is an American professional basketball player for the Oklahoma City Thunder of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Maryland Terrapins.


title: Aaron Wiggins

text: Wiggins grew up playing basketball, football and running track. Through his childhood, he played the piano and trombone, acted in plays and danced. Wiggins played basketball for Grimsley High School in Greensboro, North Carolina before transferring to Wesleyan Christian Academy in High Point, North Carolina. As a senior, he was an NCISAA Class 3A All-State selection. Wiggins competed for Team Charlotte on the Amateur Athletic Union circuit. A consensus four-star recruit, he committed to play college basketball for Maryland on June 3, 2017. He had drawn the attention of Maryland's coaching staff while they were visiting Wesleyan to watch his teammate Jaylen Hoard.


title: Aaron Wiggins

text: Wiggins began his freshman season as a starter, but later told coach Mark Turgeon that he was more comfortable coming off the bench. As a freshman at Maryland, he played the most minutes among his team's reserves. He led Maryland with a season-high 15 points in losses to Michigan and Michigan State. He finished the season averaging 8.3 points and 3.3 rebounds in 23.5 minutes per game, shooting a team-high 41.3 percent from three-point range. On February 23, 2020, Wiggins scored a sophomore season-high 20 points, recording six three-pointers, in a 79–72 loss to Ohio State. As a sophomore, he averaged 10.4 points, 4.9 rebounds and 1.4 assists per game and was named Big Ten Sixth Man of the Year. In the final game of his junior season, Wiggins scored a career-high 27 points in a 96–77 loss to Alabama at the second round of the NCAA tournament. As a junior, he averaged 14.5 points, 5.8 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game, earning All-Big Ten honorable mention. On April 9, 2021, Wiggins declared for the 2021 NBA draft while maintaining his college eligibility. He later decided to remain in the draft.


title: Aaron Wiggins

text: Wiggins was selected in the second round of the 2021 NBA draft with the 55th pick by the Oklahoma City Thunder. Wiggins had a very productive NBA Summer League with the Thunder averaging the second most points on the team with 11.2 PPG. On August 15, 2021, he signed a two-way contract with the Thunder. Under the terms of the deal he will split time between the Thunder and their NBA G League affiliate, the Oklahoma City Blue. On December 26, 2021, Wiggins scored a career-high 24 points against the New Orleans Pelicans. He shot 8/10 from the field and 2/4 from three in Oklahoma City Thunder's 117-112 win. On February 12, 2022, the Oklahoma City Thunder converted Wiggins two-way contract into a standard contract for the rest of the season.


title: Lemba people

text: The Lemba, Remba, or Mwenye are a Bantu-speaking ethnic group which is native to Zimbabwe and South Africa, with smaller branches in Mozambique and Malawi. According to Tudor Parfitt, when he first worked in the field among the Lemba in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Malawi in the 1980s, they numbered an estimated 50,000. Some of their religious practices and beliefs are similar to Jewish and Islamic practices and beliefs. According to Parfitt, the Lemba claim that they once had a book which described their traditions but it was lost.


title: Lemba people

text: Since the late twentieth century, there has been increased media and scholarly attention with regard to the Lemba's claim of common descent from the Jewish people. Genetic Y-DNA analyses in the 2000s have established a partially Middle-Eastern origin for the majority of the male Lemba population.


title: Lemba people

text: Tudor Parfitt has suggested that the name "Lemba" may originate in "chilemba", a Swahili word for the turbans which are worn by some Bantu men, or it may originate from "lembi," a Bantu term for a "non-African" or a "respected foreigner". Alternatively, Magdel le Roux suggests that the name "VaRemba" may be translated as "the people who refuse" – probably in the context of "not eating with others" (according to one of her interviewees). In Zimbabwe and South Africa, the people prefer the name "Mwenye."


title: Lemba people

text: Their myths of origin state that their ancestors migrated from the North. According to Lemba tradition, their male ancestors were Jews who left Judea about 2500 years ago and settled in a place called "Senna" which was located on the Arabian Peninsula (in present-day Yemen). Much later, according to Rudo Mathivha, their oral history states that their ancestors migrated into Northeast Africa (Ethiopia). After their ancestors married local women and became established in Africa, at some point, the tribe split into two groups, one group stayed in Ethiopia and the other group travelled farther south, along the east coast.


title: Lemba people

text: According to Parfitt, who published a book on his findings in 1993, Senna was most likely located in Yemen, specifically in the village of "Sanāw" which is located within the easternmost portion of the Hadhramaut. The city has been home to a Jewish population since ancient times. Since the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 , as well as since later wars, the Jewish community of Yemen has dwindled to a few hundred. In Lemba tradition, Sena has the semi-mythical status of being a sacred city of origin, and as a result, it is also the object of hopes for their eventual return.


title: Lemba people

text: According to the Lemba oral tradition, their male ancestors migrated to Southeast Africa in order to obtain gold.


title: Lemba people

text: The Lemba claim that this second group settled in Tanzania and Kenya, building what was referred to as another Sena, or "Sena II". Others supposedly settled in Malawi, where their descendants reside today. Some settled in Mozambique, eventually migrating to Zimbabwe and South Africa. They claim that their ancestors constructed Great Zimbabwe, now preserved as a monument. Ken Mufuka, a Zimbabwean archaeologist, believes that either the Lemba or the Venda may have participated in this architectural project but he does not believe that they were solely responsible for its completion. Writer Tudor Parfitt and Magdel le Roux think that they may have helped construct the massive city.


title: Lemba people

text: (see below). But, most academics who are experts in this field believe that the construction of the enclosure at Great Zimbabwe is largely attributable to the ancestors of the Shona, who were the first people to displace the indigenous San people from the region. Such works were typical of their ancestral civilisations.


title: Lemba people

text: Most Lemba are members of Christian churches, but some Lemba who live in Zimbabwe are Muslims. Edith Bruder wrote that "from a theological point of view, the Lemba’s customs and rituals reveal religious pluralism and interdependence of these various practices" and see membership of these religions "in cultural rather than religious terms. These apparently religious identities do not prevent them from declaring themselves Jews through religious practice and ethnic identification." In 1992, Parfitt pointed to the strong cultural component in Lemba identification with Judaism. In 2002, Parfitt wrote that "Those Lemba, who perceive themselves as ethnically Jewish, find no contradiction in regularly attending a Christian Church. By and large the Lemba who are most stridently 'Jewish' are often those with the closest Christian attachments."


title: Lemba people

text: In Orthodox Judaism Halakhic Jewish status is determined by documenting an unbroken matrilineal line of descent and when no such line of descent exists, it is determined by conversion to Judaism. Jews who adhere to Orthodox or Conservative rabbinism believe that "Jewish status by birth" is only passed from a Jewish female to her children (if she herself is a Jew by birth or a Jew by conversion to Judaism) regardless of the Jewish status of the father. Because of the absence of matrilineal Jewish descent for the Lemba, Orthodox or Conservative Judaism would not recognise them as 'Halakhically Jewish.' The Lemba would need to complete a formal conversion process in order to be accepted as Jews.


title: Lemba people

text: The Reform and Reconstructionist denominations, the Karaites, and Haymanot Jews all recognize patrilineage. As more is learned about the widespread history of the Jewish people, the Reform branch of Judaism has acknowledged the existence of an unusual line of descent outside the European and indigenous Middle Eastern Jewish spheres. Especially since the publication of the genetic results of the Lemba, American Jewish communities have reached out to the people, offering assistance, sending books on Judaism and related study materials, and initiating ties in order to teach the Lemba about Rabbinic Judaism. So far, few Lemba have converted to Rabbinic Judaism.


title: Lemba people

text: South African Jews of European descent have long been aware of the Lemba, but they have never accepted them as Jews or thought of them as more than an "intriguing curiosity." Generally, the Lemba have not been accepted as Jews because of their lack of matrilineal descent. Several rabbis and Jewish associations support their recognition as descendants of the "Lost Tribes of Israel". In the 2000s, the Lemba Cultural Association approached the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, asking for the Lemba to be recognized as Jews by the Jewish community. The Lemba Association complained that "we like many non-European Jews are simply the victims of racism at the hands of the European Jewish establishment worldwide". They threatened to start a campaign to "protest and ultimately destroy 'Jewish apartheid'".


title: Lemba people

text: In Apartheid South Africa the Lemba were not recognized as an ethnic group which was distinct from other black South Africans. The Lemba Cultural Association face misconceptions about their goals such as the idea that the Lemba identify more with European Judaism, only aim to affiliate with the European Jewry and not other black Jews, and are distanced from South African politics. However, while the Lemba do identify with their religious Judaism, many practice Christianity as well.


title: Lemba people

text: According to Gideon Shimoni in his book, "Community and Conscience: The Jews in Apartheid South Africa" (2003): "In terms of "halakha" the Lemba are not at all comparable to the Falasha [of Ethiopia]. As a group they have no conceivable status in Judaism."


title: Lemba people

text: Rabbi Bernhard of South Africa has stated that the only way for a member of the Lemba tribe to be recognised as a Jew is to undergo the formal Halakhic conversion process. After that, the person "would be welcomed with open arms."


title: Lemba people

text: Many pre-modern Lemba beliefs and practices can be linked to Judaism, and some of them can also be linked to Islam. Ebrahim Moosa wrote that "Historians of religion have found among the Lemba certain religious and cultural practices which unmistakably resemble Islamic rituals, and there are reflections of Arabic in their language." In the period in which Jews were settled in Southern Arabia, they were proselytizing, and as a result, they attracted converts from around the Mediterranean and North Africa.


title: Lemba people

text: According to Rudo Mathivha, a Lemba of South Africa, practices and beliefs which are related to Judaism include the following:


title: Lemba people

text: According to Magdel le Roux, the Lemba have a rite of sacrifice called the "Pesah", which seems to be similar to the Jewish "Pesach" or Passover.


title: Lemba people

text: Some of these practices and traditions are not exclusively Jewish; they are common to Muslims in the Middle East and Africa, and they are also common to other African tribes and other non-African peoples. In the late 1930s, W. D. Hammond-Tooke wrote a book in which he identified Lemba practices that are similar to those of Muslims: for instance, their endogamous marriage practices are also common to Muslims (and many other cultures and ethnic groups), as are certain dietary restrictions. Together with the similarities between many Lemba clan-names and known Arabic and Semitic words; e.g., "Sadiki, Hasane, Hamisi, Haji, Bakeri, Sharifo" and "Saidi," Hammond-Tooke concluded that the Lemba were descended, at least in part, from Muslim Arabs.


title: Lemba people

text: In the late 20th century, the British scholar Tudor Parfitt, an expert on marginalized Jewish groups, became involved in researching the Lemba's claims. He helped trace the origin of their ancestors back to Senna, an ancient city which they believe was located on the Arabian peninsula, in present-day Yemen. In an interview which was featured on "NOVA" in 2000, Parfitt said he was struck by the Lemba's maintenance of rituals which seemed Jewish and/or Semitic:


title: Lemba people

text: In a 1931 article H.A. Stayt described them as an Arabic-Bantu tribe with Armenoid features, with on average, longer and thinner faces than that of the average bantu, their lips are thinner, their noses longer and more aquiline and their eyes smaller, darker and deeper-set. He stated that "there can be no doubt that the BaLemba are indeed the descendants of these Arab traders who took wives from the races among whom they traded..."


title: Lemba people

text: The Lemba follow strict endogamous marriage practices, discouraging unions between Lemba and non-Lemba; mostly against tribes they live amongst (which they collectively refer to as "Senji"). Endogamy is also common among many groups.


title: Lemba people

text: The restrictions on intermarriages between Lemba and non-Lemba make it nearly impossible for a male non-Lemba to become a member of the Lemba. Lemba men who marry non-Lemba women are expelled from the community unless the women agree to live in accordance with Lemba traditions. A woman who marries a Lemba man must learn about the Lemba religion and practice it, follow Lemba dietary rules, and practice other Lemba customs. The woman may not bring any cooking utensils from her previous home into the Lemba man's home. Initially, the woman may have to shave her head. Their children must be brought up as Lemba. If the Lemba had Jewish ancestors, the shaving of a non-Lemba woman's head may have been one of a series of rituals which were originally associated with the conversion of the first Lemba women to Judaism, this would have been the way in which Jewish males acquired women for the purpose of making families. The genetic MtDNA data of the Lemba (see below) has not shown any descent from female Jewish ancestors.


title: Lemba people

text: According to Tooke, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Lemba were highly esteemed for their mining and metalwork skills by the surrounding tribes which lived in the Zoutpansberg region of South Africa. He wrote in his 1937 book that the other tribes considered the Lemba outsiders. According to articles which were written during the early 1930s, in the 1920s, the Lembas' medical knowledge earned them respect among tribes in South Africa. Parfitt claims that colonial Europeans had their own reasons for considering some tribes rather than other tribes indigenous to Africa, because they made the British believe that they had a right to be on the continent just like other migrants. Modern Y-DNA evidence confirms the extra-African origin of some of the Lemba's male ancestors. By contrast, the lead anthropologist in Zimbabwe firmly places them among African peoples, ignoring the DNA evidence.


title: Lemba people

text: Lemba tradition tells of a sacred object, the "ngoma lungundu" or the "drum that thunders", which they brought from the place which was called Sena. Their oral history claims that the "ngoma" was the biblical Ark of the Covenant which was made by Moses. Parfitt, a professor at SOAS, University of London, wrote a book in 2008, "The Lost Ark of the Covenant" about the rediscovery of this object. His book was adapted into a television documentary that aired on the History Channel, tracing the Lemba's claim that the "ngoma lungunda" was the legendary Ark of the Covenant. Following the lead of eighth-century accounts of the Ark in Arabia, Parfitt learned of a ghost town which was named Sena in the Hadhramaut.


title: Lemba people

text: Parfitt has suggested that the "ngoma" was related to the Ark of the Covenant, lost in Jerusalem after the city's destruction by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II in 587 BC. He believes that the "ngoma" is a descendant of the biblical Ark, which may have been destroyed or may have been repaired when more material was added to it as the artifact began to wear out. He says that the ark/ngoma was carried to Africa by its priestly guardians. The Lemba people's oral history claims that the Ark exploded 700 years ago, and was rebuilt on its remains.


title: Lemba people

text: Parfitt believes that he discovered the "ngoma" in a Harare, Zimbabwe museum in 2007. It had last been exhibited in 1949 by colonial officials in Bulawayo. They took it to Harare for protection during the struggle for independence, and it was later misplaced inside the museum. Parfitt said he believed that the ngoma was the oldest wooden artifact in Zimbabwe. In February 2010, the 'Lemba ngoma lungundu' was put on display in the museum, along with a celebration of both its history and the history of the Lemba.


title: Lemba people

text: Parfitt says that the ngoma/ark was carried into battles. If it broke apart, it was rebuilt. The ngoma, he says, was possibly built from the remains of the original Ark. "So it's the closest descendant of the Ark that we know of," Parfitt says. "Many people say that the story is far-fetched, but the oral traditions of the Lemba have been backed up by science", he said. The ngoma was on display in the Zimbabwe Museum of Human Sciences, but in 2008, it disappeared. The story of Parfitt and the ngoma was updated in 2014 in the ZDF documentary "Tudor Parfitt and the Lost Tribe of Israel"


title: Lemba people

text: The Lemba did not touch the "ngoma" because they considered it an intensely sacred object. It was carried by poles which were inserted into rings which were attached to each side of the "ngoma". The only members of the tribe who were permitted to approach it were the male members of its hereditary priesthood because it was their responsibility to guard it. Other Lemba feared that if they ever touched it, they would be "struck down by the fire of God" which would erupt from the object. The Lemba continue to regard the ngoma as the sacred Ark.


title: Lemba people

text: According to Y chromosome studies by Amanda B. Spurdle & Trefor Jenkins (1996), Mark G. Thomas et al. (2000), Himla Soodyall (2013), The Lemba are paternally most closely related to Semitic speaking populations in Western Asia (Haplogroup J = 51.7%); Central and Southern Asians (LT,K,R,F = 24.5%); with minor contributions from Bantu speaking males.


title: Lemba people

text: A study which was conducted by Himla Soodyall (2013) observed that the non-African Y component in the Lemba is around 73.7% to 79.6%. Overall, the study shows that Y chromosomes which are typically linked to Jewish ancestry were not detected through higher resolution analysis. It seems more likely that Arab traders, who are known to have established long-distance trade networks which stretched thousands of kilometers along the western rim of the Indian Ocean, from Sofala in the south to the Red Sea in the north and beyond, to the Hadramut, to India, and even to China from about 900 AD, are more likely linked with the ancestry of the non-African founding males of the Lemba/Remba.


title: Lemba people

text: In order to more specifically define the Lemba people's origins, Parfitt and other researchers conducted a larger study in order to compare additional Lemba subjects (whose clans were recorded) with males from South Arabia and Africa, as well as Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews. They found that significant similarities exist between the markers of the Lemba and the markers of the men of the Ḥaḍramawt in Yemen. They also learned that the population of Sena, Yemen was relatively recent, so its members and the Lemba would not have shared common ancestors.


title: Lemba people

text: A subsequent study which was conducted in 2000 revealed that a substantial number of Lemba men carry a particular haplotype of the Y-chromosome which is known as the Cohen modal haplotype (CMH), as well as a haplogroup of Y-DNA Haplogroup J which is found in some Jews, as well as in other populations which live across the Middle East and Arabia. The genetic studies have found no Semitic female contribution to the Lemba gene pool.


title: Lemba people

text: Among Jews, the CMH marker is most prevalent in Kohanim, or hereditary priests. As recounted in Lemba oral tradition, members of the Buba clan "had a leadership role in bringing the Lemba out of Israel". The genetic study found that 50% of the males in the Buba clan had the Cohen marker, a proportion which is higher than that which is found in the general Jewish population.


title: Lemba people

text: More recently, Mendez et al. (2011) observed that a moderately high frequency of the studied Lemba samples carried Y-DNA Haplogroup T, which is also considered to be of Near Eastern origin. The Lemba T carriers exclusively belonged to T1b, which is rare and was not sampled in indigenous Jews of either the Near East or North Africa. T1b has been observed in low frequencies in Ashkenazi Jews as well as in a few Levantine populations.


title: Lemba people

text: A 2014 article which analyzed earlier research which attempted to trace Jewish ancestry in general states:


title: I'd Rather Go Blind

text: "I'd Rather Go Blind" is a blues song written by Ellington Jordan and co-credited to Billy Foster and Etta James. It was first recorded by Etta James in 1967, released in 1967, and has subsequently become regarded as a blues and soul classic.


title: I'd Rather Go Blind

text: Etta James wrote in her autobiography "Rage To Survive" that she heard the song outlined by her friend Ellington "Fugi" Jordan when she visited him in prison. She then wrote the rest of the song with Jordan, but for tax reasons gave her songwriting credit to her partner at the time, Billy Foster, singer with doo-wop group The Medallions.


title: I'd Rather Go Blind

text: Etta James recorded the song at the FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. It was included on the album "Tell Mama" and as the B-side of the single of the same name which made number 10 on the Billboard R&B charts, and number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song is also on the 1978 Jerry Wexler-produced album "Deep in the Night", but there it is titled "Blind Girl" (track 10). Some critics have regarded "I'd Rather Go Blind" as of such emotional and poetic quality as to make that release one of the great double-sided singles of the period. Critic Dave Marsh put the song in his book "The Heart of Rock and Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made". Noting that James had recorded the song during a break from heroin addiction, Marsh writes, "the song provides a great metaphor for her drug addiction and intensifies the story."


title: I'd Rather Go Blind

text: A version of the song was America/German singer Sydney Youngblood's third single release, peaking at number 44 on the UK Singles Chart. It was Youngblood's only US pop chart appearance, making it to number 46 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in October 1990, and the first of two minor hits on the Hot R&B Singles chart, peaking at number 42.


title: I'd Rather Go Blind

text: It has since been recorded by a wide variety of artists, including the blind-from-birth Clarence Carter, on his 1969 album "The Dynamic Clarence Carter". Other recordings include those by Little Milton, Chicken Shack, Koko Taylor, Man Man, Rod Stewart, B.B. King, Elkie Brooks, Paul Weller, Trixie Whitley, Ruby Turner, Marcia Ball, Barbara Lynn, and Beyoncé for the "Cadillac Records" film soundtrack.


title: I'd Rather Go Blind

text: The song reached number 14 on the UK Singles Chart in 1969 in a version by the British blues band Chicken Shack, featuring Christine Perfect, later to become Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac. After she left Chicken Shack, but before she joined Fleetwood Mac, Christine also recorded her own version of the song for her debut solo album, the eponymous "Christine Perfect" album.


title: I'd Rather Go Blind

text: The song was also recorded in 1972 for "Never a Dull Moment", the fourth album by Rod Stewart. Etta James refers to Stewart's version favorably in her autobiography, "Rage to Survive".


title: I'd Rather Go Blind

text: Versions have been performed by Paolo Nutini, Australian musician Toby, and American folk singer Holly Miranda.


title: I'd Rather Go Blind

text: British soul singer Liam Bailey released a home-recorded version of the song with his EP "2am Rough Tracks" in 2010. The EP was released on Lioness Records.


title: I'd Rather Go Blind

text: In 2011, Joe Bonamassa and Beth Hart included the song on their album "Don't Explain". At the 2012 Kennedy Center Honors concert honoring Buddy Guy, Beth Hart received a standing ovation for a rendition of the song accompanied by Jeff Beck on guitar.


title: I'd Rather Go Blind

text: The Allman Brothers performed this song live occasionally with Susan Tedeschi. Tedeschi and Allman Brothers guitarists Derek Trucks and Warren Haynes performed their version of the song at The White House's Red White and Blues event in 2012.


title: I'd Rather Go Blind

text: The near note-for-note rendition of the song's melody can be heard in Chris Stapleton's 2015 track "Tennessee Whiskey".


title: I'd Rather Go Blind

text: In 2018, Grace Potter recorded the song at FAME Studios for the tribute album "Muscle Shoals...Small Town, Big Sound".


title: Russian involvement in the Syrian civil war

text: Russia has supported the administration of incumbent President Bashar al-Assad of Syria since the beginning of the Syrian conflict in 2011: politically, with military aid, and (since September 2015) with direct military involvement. The 2015 deployment to Syria marked the first time since the end of the Cold War in 1991 that Russia entered an armed conflict outside the borders of the former Soviet Union.


text: From October 2011, Russia, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, repeatedly vetoed Western-sponsored draft resolutions in the UN Security Council that demanded the resignation of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and that opened the possibility of United Nations sanctions against his government. The Russian leadership rejects the demands of Western powers and their Arab allies that Bashar al-Assad should not be allowed to be a participant in the Syria settlement. In January and February 2012, the opposition Syrian National Council and the Western powers dismissed Russian peace initiatives.


text: In September 2015 the Federation Council, (the upper house of Russia's parliament) authorized the Russian president to use armed forces in Syria. Russian air and missile strikes began targeting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Army of Conquest, al-Nusra Front, and the Free Syrian Army. Russia has also provided armament and air support to Turkey and to the Syrian Democratic Forces in their operations against ISIL in Syria.


text: During the course of the Russian intervention, Russia moved beyond bombing just military targets and began bombing hospitals and medical facilities. According to Airwars, between four and six thousand civilians were killed by the Russian Military actions. Due to this, Russia's seat at the UN Human Rights Council was taken away in October 2016.


text: A report by Airwars found a 34% increase in incidents of civilian harm caused by Russia during the first six months of 2018 compared to 2017.


text: During the Cold War (1947–1991), Syria was an ally to the Soviet Union in opposition to the Western powers, and a strong political bond grew. Between 1955 and 1958, Syria received about $294 million from the Soviet Union for military and economic assistance. The Suez War in 1956 accelerated a multiplication of ties between Syria and the Soviet Union, simultaneously with the increase in power and influence of the Syrian Ba'ath Party.


text: The Syrian Revolution of February 1966 gave the Soviet Union the opportunity to further support Syria. In 1971, under an agreement with the Syrian Ba'athist government's President Hafez al-Assad, the Soviet Union was allowed to open its naval military base in Tartus, giving the Soviet Union a stable presence in the Middle East. Thousands of Syrian military officers and educated professionals studied in Russia during President Hafez al-Assad's three-decade rule (1971–2000).


text: In April 1977, Hafez al-Assad visited Moscow, and met with Soviet leaders Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin among others, as a sign of improved Syrian relations with the USSR. Three years later, in October 1980, Syria and the Soviet Union signed a twenty-year Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation.


text: At the beginning of the Syrian civil war (2011), Syria was one of Russia's closest Middle Eastern allies.


text: The Syrian Civil War is an ongoing international armed conflict taking place in Syria. The unrest began in the early spring of 2011 within the context of Arab Spring protests, with nationwide protests against President Bashar al-Assad's government, whose forces responded with violent crackdowns. The civil uprising phase created the platform for the emergence of militant opposition movements and massive defections from the Syrian Army, which gradually transformed the conflict from a civil uprising to an armed rebellion, and later civil war. The rebel Free Syrian Army was created on 29 July 2011 and from then on, the struggle took the shape of an armed insurgency, with civil resistance disbanded and opposition members turning to arms. Many factions arose, either as break-offs of the Free Syrian Army or spontaneously in their own rights.


text: The killing of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya reportedly left a particularly strong and consequential impression on Putin. A senior diplomat who had served at the U.S. embassy in Moscow under the Obama administration reportedly claimed that "Putin had been appalled by Gaddafi's fate" to the extent that "Putin had watched a video of Gaddafi’s savage death three times, a video that shows him being sodomised with a bayonet." Referring to the U.S. coalition's lobbying efforts for the airstrikes at the United Nations, the U.S. diplomat was quoted as saying that a later U.S. intelligence assessment concluded that "Putin blamed himself for letting Gaddafi go, for not playing a strong role behind the scenes" and that the video may have even influenced Putin's decision to support Syrian president Bashar al-Assad since "Putin believed that unless he got engaged Bashar would suffer the same fate – mutilated – and he'd see the destruction of his allies in Syria."


text: By 2012 it was reported the U.S. was running a covert operation in aid of militant groups fighting the Assad government.


text: On 6 March 2013, the Arab League gave its members the green light to arm the Syrian rebels. On 26 March 2013, at the Arab league summit in Doha, the League recognised the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, as the legitimate representatives of the Syrian people.


text: Since 2014, a significant part of Syria's territory had been claimed by Islamic State (ISIL), an entity internationally recognised as a terrorist organization; a number of Western and other countries, most notably the U.S., Britain and France, began to participate in direct military action against ISIL in the territory of Syria.


text: The Russian naval facility in Tartus in Syria is Russia's only naval facility in the Mediterranean region and only remaining military facility outside the former USSR. In March 2012, critics saw the position of the naval facility in Tartus as a chief motivating factor for Russia to speak out in favor of the Assad government maintaining stability in the region.


text: At least since mid 2013, Chechen and other Russian North Caucasus volunteers have been fighting in the Syrian Civil War against the government of Bashar al-Assad.


text: "The Washington Post" in 2014 reported that Moscow was concerned about such fighters returning to Russia after having picked up militant contacts in Syria.


text: and President Putin declared that their return to Russia would be a threat to Russia, and that it would be better to fight them on Syrian ground.


text: Russia has been able to showcase its old and new weapons in the conflict which helped boost its arms sales to $15bn in 2015.


text: Russian economic interests in Syria, including arms sales, are offered as one of the reasons for its support of the government. However, according to "Foreign Affairs", economic considerations are of less importance than geopolitical ones. This is especially due to the fact that many Syrian arms purchases are financed by loans.


text: Many Russian soldiers have died during the war. Russian officials estimate that as of January 2019, 112 soldiers have been killed since troops were sent to fight in Syria in 2015. The BBC has a higher estimation of 175 deaths having occurred from 2015 to the end of 2018.


text: In 2019, the Russian Armed Forces were accused of covering up the death one of its soldiers, junior sergeant Andranik Arustamyan. However, Arustamyan's family has defended the military and said that they were informed of his death.


text: At the end of May 2011, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russia opposed United Nations' involvement in Syria because "the situation doesn't present a threat to international peace and security ... Syria is a very important country in the Middle East and destabilizing Syria would have repercussions far beyond its borders", and asserted that Assad had made attempts at major reform.


text: In June, both the US and other Western governments as well as Syrian protesters prevailed upon Russia to change its position, and finally a Syrian anti-government delegation visited Moscow and met with Russian envoy Mikhail Margelov, who after the meeting noted that "leaders come and go" and called for "an end to any and all forms of violence", which some interpreted to be a shift away from Assad, once a major ally, in foreign policy.


text: "A harder line from Russia would be a blow to Syria which relies heavily on Russian military equipment and has long-standing ties to Moscow", the American nbcnews.com wrote that day.


text: On 19 July, Russian Prime minister, Dmitri Medvedev said he was working with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to find consensus for a strategy to persuade the Syrian government to abandon violence and begin a constructive dialogue with protesters. He did not threaten to use Russia's veto at the United Nations Security Council to oppose a resolution critical of the Syrian government, as Russia has previously said it could do. Medvedev also said it was imperative that Syria not slide into civil war the way Libya did in 2011.


text: Amid the siege of Hama, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on 1 August documenting deaths in Hama as well as condemning the violence, including the alleged killing of eight policemen by Assad's government. The statement beseeched the pro-Assad forces as well as the violent protesters to "exercise maximum restraint".


text: On 3 August, Russian UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin stated that Russia will not oppose a UN resolution condemning the violence in Syria as long as it does not include sanctions or other "pressures". Al Jazeera reported that Russia had "softened the blow" to the Assad government by insisting successfully that the UN would make a statement rather than a resolution on the matter.


text: On 23 August, the Russian delegation to the UN, along with those of China and Cuba, took to the floor to denounce a UN inquiry into human rights violations by the Assad government. Vitaly Churkin stated that "We hope to see progress, we hope to see dialogue established in Syria. ... We think we should continue to work within the scope of that unified position."


text: On 26 August, Reuters reported that according to UN envoys, the effort by the US, France, the UK, Germany and Portugal to impose UN sanctions on Syria was meeting "fierce resistance" from Russia and China, with Vitaly Churkin threatening to use Russia's veto power. According to Reuters, the arms embargo included in the sanctions would prevent Russian firms (the main source of Syrian weaponry) from selling to Syria. Russia proposed a second "rival" resolution to be voted on, described as "toothless" by Western diplomats, which did not include sanctions or other punitive measures, but rather urged Syria to speed up the process of its reforms.


text: On 4 October, Russia and China exercised a double veto against a Western-drafted Security Council resolution. The resolution demanded an end to all violence in Syria, accountability for those responsible for it, condemned "grave and systematic" human rights violations, called for a political process, encouraged the opposition to take part in that, and said the Security Council would review Syria's compliance with the resolution in 30 days after which the council would "consider options", including unspecified "measures" under the United Nations Charter. The "New York Times" qualified that as "a weak reference to the possibility of sanctions against Damascus", while Russia had said it would not accept a resolution that included even a hint of sanctions. Russia and the other BRICS nations (Brazil, India, China, South Africa) argued that a UNSC resolution on Libya had been twisted to justify the NATO 2011 military intervention in Libya leading into war against the Libyan government and were determined not to repeat that. After this veto, an analyst of the Center for the Analysis of Middle East Conflicts said to the BBC Russian service: Assad has a better chance to resist than the opposition does to win, therefore Moscow is now simply betting on Assad.


text: In the days following their rejecting the Security Council resolution, both Russia and China issued public admonishments of the Syrian government, separately expressing their desire for the government to reform and respect the will of the Syrian people. "If the Syrian leadership is unable to complete such reforms, it will have to go, but this decision should be made not by NATO and certain European countries, it should be made by the people of Syria and the government of Syria," Medvedev told the Russian Security Council.


text: On 1 November, Sergei Lavrov said at a Russian-Gulf ministerial meeting that Russia would oppose the recent proposal for a no-fly zone in Syria as (in Russia's view) the no-fly zone in Libya had been used to "support one side in a civil war". Lavrov nonetheless stated, when asked if Russia was supporting the Assad government, that "we are not protecting any regime".


text: On 15 December, Russia proposed a UN Security Council resolution condemning the violence "by all parties, including disproportionate use of force by Syrian authorities". The draft resolution also raised concern over "the illegal supply of weapons to the armed groups in Syria". Western diplomats initially referred to the proposed resolution as a basis for negotiations. The proposal was an updated version of a Russian-Chinese draft resolution introduced to the Security Council a few months earlier.


text: By the end of January 2012, a resolution proposal, competing with the Russian 15 December draft (see above), had been drafted by Western and Arab powers, which, in contrast, did not condemn violence by both sides in the conflict and did not rule out military intervention. Russia indicated that it would not agree to the Western-Arab draft in its current form, and that it would continue to promote its own resolution in the Security Council.


text: On 4 February 2012, Russia and China vetoed that Western and Arab sponsored Security Council resolution, which urged Bashar al-Assad to adhere to a peace plan drafted by the Arab League.


text: On 7 February 2012, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, along with foreign intelligence chief Mikhail Fradkov, met with President Assad and reported to the world that President Assad was committed to reform of the constitution and electoral process. Additionally, the Russian delegation said that Syria alone held the power to change the fate of its people, without foreign intervention. In March, Lavrov said in a televised interview that Syria's leadership had ignored Russia's warnings and made "very many mistakes" that helped drag the country to the brink of civil war.


text: On 16 April, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov and other Russian diplomats met with members of the Syrian opposition and Hassan Abdul-Azim, head of an opposition group, the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change. When special U.N. envoy Kofi Annan developed a plan to end Syrian violence, Russia attempted to play a major role in the outcome of the plan by meeting with both the Assad government and opposition forces, while vetoing multiple plans during Security Council votes to accomplish the goals set forth by an international consensus.


text: On 20 April, the Security Council announced an agreement to expand the number of U.N. cease-fire observers in Syria from 30 to 300, as well as to allow Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to decide on the peacekeepers' deployment based on conditions on the ground. Under the plan, Syrian violence would immediately stop and the Assad government would begin implementation of the Annan six-point peace plan. The draft was the result of two texts proposed by Russia and European Council members. When the texts were merged, the portion imposing sanctions on the Assad government for failure to comply with the peacekeeping plan was removed, as requested by Russia and China. The Russian draft also did not contain language dictating that U.N. peacekeepers' presence in Syria was a condition of Assad's agreement to return troops and heavy weapons to their barracks.


text: The United Nations Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) was passed by the U.N. Security Council on 21 April 2012, and deployed up to 300 unarmed observers to Syria for a period of up to 90 days. The plan also called for passage of the Annan peace plan, making unanimous passage of the resolution significant. After the peace plan was passed, Russian's U.N. ambassador Vitaly Churkin relayed Russia's support of the agreement to the media, while other nations expressed frustration with the process and lack of progress in ending the violence so far.


text: A Bloomberg article (April 2012) said that although Russia has tried to retain the image of a peacemaker in this conflict, Russian diplomats have repeatedly criticized the potential condemnation of Assad by western nations. Russia has also accused the West and allied nations of sabotaging a cease-fire brokered by Russia between Syrian forces.


text: In the aftermath of the Houla massacre (May 2012), Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that "The government bears the main responsibility for what is going on" and that "Any government in any country bears responsibility for the security of its citizens". Russia's reaction was considered to be a condemnation of the Syrian government. However, Lavrov also stated that the rebels shared the blame for the killings, noting that some victims had been killed at close range in a district controlled by the opposition fighters. As talk of UN intervention intensified, a foreign affairs committee chair in the Russian government, hardened Russia's stance, moving it further away from the earlier condemnation of Damascus, saying that "We have very strong doubts that those people who were shot at point-blank [range] and were stabbed, that this was the action of forces loyal to President Assad. ... The shelling was probably ... the troops of Mr Assad, but the stabbing and point-blank firing was definitely from the other side."


text: According to Steve Rosenberg of the BBC in June 2012, Russia accused the US of setting double standards: US selling weapons to Bahrain and at the same time criticizing Russia for supporting Syrian President Assad with weapons.


text: Russia feels that the US is acting hypocritically by expecting them to discontinue selling weapons to the Syrian government, since the US supplies Syrian rebels with weapons via Turkey. From Russia's perspective, if US aids the Syrian opposition, they are indirectly, undermining Russia's national security. BBC commented that Russia expects only one of two outcomes to take place in the Syrian civil war: either Assad stays in power, ensuring their stronghold influence in the middle east region, or, radical Islamists take over, creating a terror threat for Russia.


text: On 11 June 2013, President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that President Assad's not undertaking any "reform" had led to the current situation in Syria. He stated on Russian state media that:


text: "Syria as a country was rife for some kind of change. And the government of Syria should have felt that in due time and should have undertaken some reform. Had they done that, what we're seeing in Syria today would have never happened."


text: On 26 June 2013, the Deputy Russian Foreign Minister said that the small Russian naval base at Tartus has been evacuated. Mikhail Bogdanov stated that: "Presently, the Russian Defense Ministry has not a single person stationed in Syria. The base does not have any strategic military importance".


text: On 9 September 2013, responding to U.S. threats of strikes against Syria in response to use of chemical weapons in Syria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov issued a proposal intended to avert a U.S. attack, with provisions including Syria's placing its chemical weapons under international control and their subsequent destruction.


text: On 12 September 2013, "The New York Times" published an op-ed by Vladimir Putin urging the United States to avoid unilateral military action and work with international cooperation in support of a negotiated solution to the Syrian conflict.


text: On 15 September 2015, in Dushanbe at a meeting of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization, Putin called for a united, international effort together with Syria to fight the threat of ISIL but also said that Syrian President Assad "is ready to integrate the same [healthy] part of the opposition into the state's administration".


text: On 27 September, President Vladimir Putin stated, in an interview with CBS's '60 Minutes': "More than 2,000 terrorist-fighters from Russia and ex-Soviet republics are in the territory of Syria. There is a threat of their return to us. So, instead of waiting for their return, we are helping President al-Assad fight them".


text: In the United Nations General Assembly, 28 September 2015, President Putin seemed to lay at least part of the responsibility for the Syrian Civil War with unnamed powers that had been "pushing" for "democratic revolution" in Syria:


text: Putin again called for cooperation with the Syrian government in fighting terrorism: "we should acknowledge that no-one except for Assad and his militia are truly fighting Isis in Syria."


text: On 1 October 2015, President Vladimir Putin dismissed unidentified media reports of alleged casualties among civilians caused by Russian airstrikes in Syria as "information warfare" against Russia, stating that the claims had begun before the planes used in the airstrikes had even taken off.


text: On 12 October, Putin appealed to members of the American-led intervention in Syria to join the Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War, highlighting the legality of Russia's intervention at Syria's request and questioning whether the U.S. one was valid at all. He highlighted the legitimate authority of Syria's fledgling constitutional democracy and lambasted the scrapped Pentagon program funding rebel training in Syria, saying "It would have been better to give us $500 million. At least we would have used it more effectively from the point of view of fighting international terrorism."


text: On 13 October, Putin criticized the leaders of the American-led intervention in Syria for sending arms to the area that could end up in the wrong hands. He also criticized the American decision not to share with Russia information regarding potential ISIL targets, adding that American side does not seem to have a clear understanding of what really happens in the country and what goals they are seeking to achieve.


text: In mid-October, Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, talking of the U.S. government's refusal to engage in dialogue with Russia on cooperation in Syria, called this a "silly behavior": "As a result of these decisions and the cancellation of talks, the Americans have demonstrated their weakness." He added Russia remained open to discussion of "any issues".


text: On 30 January 2012, the Russian foreign ministry suggested "informal" talks in Moscow between the Syrian regime and opposition, and said the Syrian authorities had already agreed to the Russian offer. Abdel Baset Seda, a member of the Syrian National Council's executive committee, told Reuters that the SNC had not received any formal invitation for such talks, but would decline if one arrived: "Our position has not changed and it is that there is no dialogue with (President Bashar al-Assad)".


text: According to Martti Ahtisaari who held discussions about Syria with the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council in February 2012, a Russian three-point plan, put forth by its ambassador, Vitaly Churkin included a proposal for Assad to cede power. The plan also required the Syrian government and the opposition to come to the negotiating table. It was ignored by the US, Britain and France, because at the time they thought that Assad's regime was about to fall.


text: 7 November 2013, Russia again announced it was trying to broker talks in Moscow between the Syrian government and opposition, seeing that the U.S. and Russian negotiators failed to agree on whether or not Assad should be forced out of office. Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Bogdanov said the Moscow talks could focus on humanitarian problems as well on some political issues.


text: At the end of October 2015, on the initiative of Russia, Iran was for the first time invited to participate in the Syria peace talks in Vienna.


text: On 22 February 2016, in Munich, foreign ministers of Russia and the U.S., as co-chairs of the ISSG, announced that they had concluded a deal to seek a nationwide "cessation of hostilities" in Syria that came into effect on 27 February 2016 at 00:00 (Damascus time).


text: On 23 February 2016, the Russian defence ministry inaugurated the Russian Reconciliation Center headquartered at its Khmeimim base, which was billed as a step undertaken in accordance with arrangements between Russia and the U.S.


text: From early stages of the Syrian conflict, Russia, under its contractual obligations, delivered ammunition and weapons to the Syrian government; in early 2012 Russia's contracts with Syria for arms were unofficially estimated to be worth 1.5 billion US dollars, comprising 10% of Russia's global arms sales. The arms sales to the Syrian government provoked criticism on the part of Western as well as some Arab nations. The Russian government dismissed criticism noting that the arms sales to Syria did not violate any standing arms embargoes. On 1 June 2012, shortly after the Houla massacre, Russia's foreign ministry in turn blamed the massacre, in which 108 people were said to have been killed, on foreign assistance to Syrian rebels, including arms deliveries and mercenary training: "The tragedy in Houla showed what can be the outcome of financial aid and smuggling of modern weapons to rebels, recruitment of foreign mercenaries and flirting with various sorts of extremists".


text: Besides providing the refurbished MI-25 helicopter gunships, Russia was also said to have transferred to Syria the Buk-M2 air defense system, the Bastion coastal defence missile system, and Yak-130 combat jet trainer. Russian shipments of fuel have also assisted Assad, and an unspecified number of military advisers are teaching Syrians how to use Russian weapons. The head of Russia's federal service for military-technical co-operation confirmed that the repaired Syrian MI-25 attack helicopters were "ready to be delivered on time" adding that "Syria is our friend, and we fulfill all our obligations to our friends". Amnesty International, noting the Syrian government's headlong deployment of military helicopters, criticised Russia: "Anyone supplying attack helicopters – or maintaining, repairing or upgrading them – for the Syrian government displays a wanton disregard for humanity." Human Rights Watch warned Russia's state-owned arms-trading company Rosoboronexport in a letter that, under international law, "providing weapons to Syria while crimes against humanity are being committed may translate into assisting in the commission of those crimes", and called on governments and companies around the world to stop signing new contracts and consider suspending current dealings with the Russian company.


text: In May 2013, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to Moscow in a bid to convince Russian president Vladimir Putin not to sell S-300 surface-to-air missile batteries and 144 missiles to Assad's government. The long-range air defense system would be a leap for Syria's current air defense system, enabling them to down fighter planes and cruise missiles.


text: The Assad government was reported to have used Russian-supplied MI-8 and Mi-17 helicopters to carry out barrel-bomb attacks in Homs. According to former senior American intelligence official Jeffrey White, Russia was most likely providing spare parts such as engines, transmissions and rotors.


text: In January 2014, a Russian company "AR 514" (514 авиационный ремонтный завод) posted photos in their portfolio showing them performing repairs and upgrade on Su-24 identified to belong to Syrian fleet. In 2015 Assad confirmed in an interview that Russia has been supplying arms to Syria based on contracts signed before and after the beginning of the conflict.


text: As of September 2015, Russia has stepped up its military presence in Syria, deploying 12 Su-25 ground attack aircraft, 12 Su-24 interdictor aircraft, 6 Sukhoi Su-34 medium bombers and 4 Su-30 multirole combat aircraft and 15 helicopters (including Mi-24 attack helicopters) at the Bassel Al-Assad International Airport near Latakia. The planes are protected by at least two or possibly three SA-22 surface-to-air, antiaircraft systems, and unarmed MQ-1 Predator-like surveillance drones are being used to fly reconnaissance missions. In addition to air forces, ground forces include 6 T-90 tanks, 15 artillery pieces, 35 armored personnel carriers and 200 Marines (with housing facilities for 1,500 personnel) BM-30 multiple missile launchers have been spotted near Latakia.


text: On 30 September 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin requested permission from Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament, to deploy the country's military in Syria. On the same day, Federation Council approved the use of Russian military in Syria to fight terrorist groups, the Islamic State in particular. Permission was granted after a unanimous vote, however any combat operations will be limited to using the air force. Russian media reported that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had asked for Russia to intervene by providing military assistance.


text: On 30 September 2015, Russia launched its first airstrikes against targets in Rastan, Talbiseh, and Zafaraniya in Homs province of Syria. Moscow gave the United States a one-hour advance notice of its operations. The Homs area is crucial to President Bashar al-Assad's control of western Syria. Insurgent control of the area would separate the coastal cities of Latakia- where Russian aircraft are based- and Tartous, where Russia operates a naval facility from Damascus.


text: On 1 October 2015, the Russian defence ministry spokesman said Russia had deployed over 50 aircraft (including also Su-34) in Syria: "The air group was deployed on very short notice. We have been able to do it, as most of the materiel and ammunition had already been there, at our depot in Tartus. We only had to move our aircraft and deliver some equipment."


text: At the end of December 2015, senior U.S. officials privately admitted that Russia, while maintaining a relatively light military footprint, had achieved its central goal of stabilising the Assad government and, with the costs relatively low and minimal casualties, could sustain the operation at this level for years to come.


text: In February 2016, the Russian Ambassador to Syria said that part of Russia's arms deliveries to the Syrian government was gratis or on easy terms.


text: In March 2016, the strategic city of Palmyra was recaptured by the Syrian Army after a large-scale offensive supported by Russian airstrikes.


text: Officially, Russia is participating only in an air war over Syria, with a small number of special and support troops on the ground. However, in November 2016 Reuters published a report that contained evidence that Russian forces were playing a more substantial role in ground combat by employing contractors recruited through private agencies registered in foreign jurisdictions. According to the report, despite their unofficial status, these troops operated in coordination with Russia's regular military and were given benefits back home normally available to serving soldiers. Russian contractors fighting in Syria are reportedly paid $6,500 a month.


text: According to publications by Russian media, Russian contract fighters had taken part in combat in Syria before the formal Russian intervention began in September 2015. According to an official in a Ukrainian law enforcement agency, at least 1,700 Russian contractors have been deployed to Syria, many of whom had earlier served in Ukraine.


text: In May 2016, Reuters published a Special Report titled "How Russia allowed homegrown radicals to go and fight in Syria" that, based on first-hand accounts, said that at least in the period between 2012 and 2014 the Russian government agencies appeared to run a programme to facilitate and encourage Russian radicals and militants to leave Russia and go to Turkey and then on to Syria; the persons in question had joined jihadist groups, some fighting with the ISIL.


text: A top leader of ISIL, Abu Omar al-Shishani, initially led a group of several hundred fighters, mostly from ex-Soviet states. In June 2016 Nikolai Bordyuzha estimated that 10,000 militants from ex-Soviet states were fighting alongside jihadist groups in the Middle East, including Syria. In July 2016, the British press cited ″experts″ as believing that ISIL fielded at least three exclusively Russian-speaking "Caucasian" (often led by Chechens) battalions of about 150 men each.


text: Putin's proposal, mid-October 2015, that the U.S. receive a high-level Russian delegation and that a U.S. delegation arrive in Moscow to discuss coordinated action against terrorism in Syria was declined by both the United States


text: On 20 October 2015, three weeks into the Russian military campaign in Syria, Russian President Vladimir Putin met Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Moscow to discuss their joint military campaign "against terrorism" and "a long-term settlement, based on a political process that involves all political forces, ethnic and religious groups" in Syria.


text: In May 2012, the Russian Orthodox Church and its primate Patriarch Kirill I were reported by the U.S. mainstream press to be supportive of the existing government in Syria; the Church's leadership alluded to the potential threat to Christians in Syria that had comprised 10% of the country's population.


text: In September 2015, one of Russia's Muslim (Sunni) leaders, Chief Mufti Talgat Tadzhuddin said: "We fully back the use of a contingent of Russian armed forces in the battle against international terrorism."


text: In November 2015, Tadzhuddin publicly claimed that he had proposed to Vladimir Putin that Syria be annexed.


text: In early January 2016, Patriarch Kirill publicly endorsed Russia's military operation in Syria, saying that the campaign in that country that "is literally our neighbour" was "defence of the fatherland".


text: In May 2019, "The Moscow Times" reported that "Fifty-five percent of Russian respondents say their country should end its military campaign in Syria, up from 49 percent in August 2017, according to a poll published by Levada". According to an August 2019 poll by Public Opinion Foundation, only 10% of Russians see the Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War as a "success".


text: In January 2012, Human Rights Watch criticised Russia for "repeating the mistakes of Western governments during the Arab Spring by continuing to support a longstanding authoritarian ally [Assad] whose people have clearly expressed the desire for democratic change". The human rights group also accused Russia of selectively using one of its reports to support a one-sided position on Syria.


text: Former UK ambassador to Russia from 2004 to 2008, Tony Brenton, said in April 2012 that Russia is looking – in Syria – for its first opportunity since the Cold War to boost its brokering abilities.


text: In October 2015, Robert Fisk, Middle East correspondent for "The Independent", wrote: "The Russian air force in Syria has flown straight into the West's fantasy air space. The Russians, we are now informed, are bombing the "moderates" in Syria – "moderates" whom even the Americans admitted two months ago, no longer existed."


text: "The New York Times" opined that with anti-government insurgents in Syria receiving for the first time bountiful supplies of U.S.-made anti-tank missiles and with Russia raising the number of airstrikes against the government's opponents that had raised morale in both camps, broadening war objectives and hardening political positions, the conflict was turning into an all-out proxy war between the U.S. and Russia. This analysis was shared by the Dutch quality newspaper "NRC Handelsblad" that drew parallels with the situation in Afghanistan in the 1980s.


text: In 2016 Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh expressed the view that Russia's military campaign against militant groups in Syria was "very good" and more effective than the U.S.-led campaigns, stating "I don't know why we persist on living in the Cold War, but we do. Russia actually did a very good job. They … did the bombing that was more effective than what we do, I think that's fair to say."


title: Bobbsey Twins

text: The Bobbsey Twins are the principal characters of what was, for 75 years, the Stratemeyer Syndicate's longest-running series of American children's novels, written under the pseudonym Laura Lee Hope. The first of 72 books was published in 1904, the last in 1979, with a separate series of 30 books published from 1987 through 1992. The books related the adventures of the children of the upper-middle-class Bobbsey family, which included two sets of fraternal twins: Nan and Bert, who were twelve years old, and Flossie and Freddie, who were six.


title: Bobbsey Twins

text: Edward Stratemeyer is believed to be the writer of the first volume in its original form in 1904. When the original series was brought to its conclusion in 1979, it reached a total of 72 volumes. At least two attempts to restart the series were launched after this, but neither effort saw the popularity the original series achieved.


title: Bobbsey Twins

text: Speculation that Stratemeyer also wrote the second and third volumes of the series is believed to be incorrect; these books are attributed to Lilian Garis, wife of Howard Garis, credited with volumes 4–28 and 41. Elizabeth Ward is credited with volumes 29–35, while Harriet Stratemeyer Adams is credited with 36–38, 39 (with Camilla McClave), 40, 42, 43 (with Andrew Svenson), and 44–48. Volumes 49–52 are attributed to Andrew Svenson, while 53–59, and the 1960s rewrites of 1–4, 7, 11–13, and 17, are attributed to June Dunn. Grace Grote is regarded as the author of 60–67 and the rewrites of 14 and 18–20, and Nancy Axelrad is credited with 68–72. Of the 1960s rewrites not mentioned, volumes 5 and 16 are credited to Mary Donahoe, 6 and 25 to Patricia Doll, 8–10 and 15 to Bonnibel Weston, and 24 to Margery Howard.


title: Bobbsey Twins

text: In the original editions, the first books in the series (like those in previous Stratemeyer series) took place in a clear chronology, with the characters aging as time passed. "The Bobbsey Twins: Merry Days Indoors and Out" took place over the course of a school year, with Nan and Bert described as eight years old and Freddie and Flossie four. The second book, "The Bobbsey Twins in the Country" is set at the beginning of the following summer. The second part of the summer is chronicled in "The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore", which is written as a direct sequel to the previous book, tying up some plot threads. The fourth book, "The Bobbsey Twins at School", begins the next autumn, with Nan and Bert "nearly nine years old" and Freddie and Flossie "almost five." Editors at the Stratemeyer Syndicate quickly realized, at this rate, their young heroes would quickly age beyond their readership, so the later books in the series (and revised editions) take place in a sort of chronological stasis, with the older twins perpetually 12 years old and the younger set 6.


title: Bobbsey Twins

text: The earliest Bobbsey books were mainly episodic strings of adventures; with the growing popularity of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, detective plots began to dominate the series. Few of the mysteries involved violent crime, and quite a few did not involve any crime.


title: Bobbsey Twins

text: While many of the early volumes were constructed from whole cloth, with little or no connection to the real world, by 1917 ("The Bobbsey Twins in a Great City," vol. 9, rewritten in 1960 as "The Bobbsey Twins' Search in the Great City") they visit real places, and by the 1950s ("The Bobbsey Twins at Pilgrim Rock" vol. 50), those visits to real places were as well-researched as any fictional visits to real places. By 1971, when the Bobbseys visited Colonial Williamsburg ("The Bobbsey Twins' Red White and Blue Mystery," vol. 64), real places were depicted in meticulous detail, down to the names of well-known hotels and restaurants (and, in that particular case, the color of Colonial Williamsburg shuttle buses).


title: Bobbsey Twins

text: It is said vol. 68, "The Bobbsey Twins on the Sun-Moon Cruise," was the result of a research trip for a proposed Nancy Drew book: Harriet Stratemeyer Adams and Nancy Axelrad (her personal assistant at the time) took an eclipse cruise but, when they returned, the publisher was more interested in a new Bobbsey title.


title: Bobbsey Twins

text: In 1960, the Stratemeyer syndicate rewrote most of the older volumes, many of which became almost unrecognizable in the process. This was concurrent with the release of a new edition of the series, with picture covers, no dust jackets, and a lavender spine and back cover (replacing earlier various green bindings). Many of the cover paintings were dust-jacket paintings added in the 1950s (for earlier versions, a single common dust-jacket painting was used throughout an edition), but most were new with the "purple" edition. In all, twenty were completely rewritten, all but two with modernized titles, while sixteen were never released in this edition, evidently deemed to be dated beyond repair.


title: Bobbsey Twins

text: Most of the rewrites were motivated by changing technology (automobiles replacing horses and buggies) or changing social standards, particularly in how Sam and Dinah, the black cook and handyman, were portrayed. "The Bobbsey Twins and Baby May" received the most extreme rewrite; it is a story about the Bobbsey family's adventures searching for the parents of a foundling baby. Since, by the 1960s, sheer numbers of government agencies rendered the original story utterly implausible, an entirely new novel was written about the twins' adventures with a baseball-playing baby elephant ("The Bobbsey Twins' Adventures with Baby May"). This, however, had a ripple effect, because the original "The Bobbsey Twins at Cloverbank" was a sequel to the original "Baby May." Thus, a second book, "The Bobbsey Twins and the Four-Leaf Clover Mystery," was written. It incorporates little material from the original.


title: Bobbsey Twins

text: Starting in 1987, a numbered series of paperback originals branded "The New Bobbsey Twins" were released by Minstrel Books, an imprint of Pocket Books. Featuring all-new stories, the series ended with volume 30, "The Mystery of the Mixed-Up Mall", in 1992.


title: Bobbsey Twins

text: In her book "The Rhetoric of Character in Children's Literature", Maria Nikolajeva refers to the twins as a "simple duplication of protagonists". Bobbie Ann Mason, in "The Girl Sleuth: A Feminist Guide", differs, agreeing the books afford the child-reader an opportunity to imagine "a union with someone just like her, but of the opposite sex", but arguing the distinction between boy-twin and girl-twin "makes a world of difference": Bert "acts out his manhood by winning contests and beating the town bully, Danny Rugg", while his twin Nan – throughout the series "too old for dolls and pranks, too young for boys and barred from their games" – spends most of her time in the books "wagging her finger at Freddie and appearing to enjoy it", acting as "mini-parent, non-child, serious-minded little manipulator".


title: Bobbsey Twins

text: Re-imagined versions of the Bobbsey twins appear in The CW drama "Nancy Drew", an adaptation of another Stratemeyer Syndicate series. In the series, the twins are given the full names of Amanda and Gilbert "Gil" and are respectively played by Aadila Dosani and Praneet Akilla.


title: Agnieszka Holland

text: Agnieszka Holland (born 28 November 1948) is a Polish film and television director and screenwriter, best known for her political contributions to Polish cinema. She began her career as assistant to directors Krzysztof Zanussi and Andrzej Wajda, and emigrated to France shortly before the 1981 imposition of the martial law in Poland.


title: Agnieszka Holland

text: Holland is best known for her films "Europa Europa" (1990), for which she received an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay nomination, and "The Secret Garden" (1993), as well as "Angry Harvest" and the Holocaust drama "In Darkness", both of which were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In 2017 she received Alfred Bauer Prize (Silver Bear) for her film "Spoor" at the Berlin International Film Festival. In 2020, she was elected President of the European Film Academy.


title: Agnieszka Holland

text: Holland was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1948. She is the daughter of journalists Irena (née Rybczyńska) and Henryk Holland, who was a prominent Communist activist since 1935 and a captain of the Polish Army. Holland's mother was Roman Catholic and her father Jewish, but she was not brought up in either faith. Her father, Henryk Holland, lost his parents in a ghetto during the Holocaust, and spent most of his adult life denying his own Jewishness. Holland's father was an ardent Communist journalist whose publications against a number of prominent professors led to their dismissals by the Communist regime. Holland's mother participated in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising as a member of the Polish resistance movement. Holland's Catholic mother aided several Jews during the Holocaust and received the Righteous Among the Nations medal from the Yad Vashem Institute in Israel.


title: Agnieszka Holland

text: Holland was often ill as a child, and spent much of her time writing, drawing and directing short plays with other children. When she was eleven, her parents, whose marriage had been continuously contentious, divorced and her mother soon remarried a Jewish journalist, Stanisław Brodski.


title: Agnieszka Holland

text: Holland describes her relationship with her father as influential, but very distant. According to Holland, "he was very interesting, very intelligent, and in the last years of his life he gave me a lot of doors to the art and the film. But he wasn't really interested in the young children and he only noticed me when he wanted to make a kind of show". Holland recalls being shown off to her father's friends during late night gatherings, and then being ignored in the morning when he was no longer entertaining. When Holland was thirteen, her father committed suicide while under house arrest in Warsaw.


title: Agnieszka Holland

text: Holland attended the Stefan Batory Gymnasium and Lyceum in Warsaw. After high school, she studied at the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU) because, as she said in an interview, she thought the Czechoslovak films of the 1960s were very interesting: "I watched first films of Miloš Forman, Ivan Passer, and Věra Chytilová. They seemed to be fantastically interesting to me, unlike what was being made in Poland at that time". At FAMU, she also met her future husband and fellow director, Laco Adamik.


title: Agnieszka Holland

text: Holland witnessed the Prague Spring of 1968 while in Czechoslovakia, and was arrested for her support of the dissident movement for the government reforms and political liberalization. She describes her time in Prague as her "introduction to politics, violence, beauty, art, marriage, film and other arts...everything that happened to [her] after was based on this Czechoslovak experience". During her time in prison, she spent time in a cell between two inmates who had fallen in love. It became her job to pass erotic notes and messages between them. Holland herself said that "it was like phone sex and I was the cable". It was during her time in Prague and in prison that she realized "she'd rather be an artist than an agitator". Holland graduated from FAMU in 1971. She returned to Poland and wrote her first screenplay. Though it was censored and stopped from being developed, it attracted the attention of Andrzej Wajda, who became her mentor. Her daughter with Adamik, Kasia (born 28 December 1972), is also a director.


title: Agnieszka Holland

text: The events and confusing identities that made up her childhood resulted in Holland being known to have a significant struggle with identity, which manifests itself in many of her most famous films, specifically those related to Polish-Jewish interactions during the Holocaust. According to Holland, the tense relationship between Polish natives and Jewish Poles is still an ongoing issue. She says that "some Jews from Poland are still hostile to the Polish...There are things in Catholicism and Polish nationalism which are deeply anti-Semitic". Her widely acclaimed film "Europa, Europa" brought her success and recognition in Hollywood, but she has always and still faces trouble in her career and life due to her past. Holland's "mixed Polish Catholic and Jewish ancestry...places her at the hub of this century's violence". These conflicts and hardships have been the inspiration for films such as "Europa, Europa" and "In Darkness."


title: Agnieszka Holland

text: Holland began her career as an assistant director for Polish film directors Krzysztof Zanussi and Andrzej Wajda. Her credits include Zanussi's 1973 film, "Iluminacja" ("Illumination"), and Wajda's 1983 film, "Danton". She was first assistant director on Wajda's 1976 "Man of Marble", an experience which gave her the capability to explore political and moral issues within the confines of an oppressive regime. Though she had a large role to play in the success of this film, her name was kept off of the credits because of censorship laws. In the first part of her career, Holland was unable to release any films under her own name because of the harsh censorship of Communist authorities. Wajda offered to adopt her but she refused, convinced that she could eventually release films under own name. Her first major film was "Provincial Actors" ("Aktorzy Prowincjonalni"), a 1978 chronicle of tense backstage relations within a small-town theater company which was an allegory of Poland's contemporary political situation. It won the International Critics Prize at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival.


title: Agnieszka Holland

text: Holland directed two more major films in Poland, "Fever" (Gorączka, 1980, entered in the 31st Berlin International Film Festival) and "A Lonely Woman" ("Kobieta samotna") in 1981, before immigrating to France shortly before the December 1981 imposition of martial law in Poland. She was told that she could not return to Poland, and was unable to see or even have any contact with her daughter for over eight months. During this time, though safe, Holland was unable to create any successful films on her own.


title: Agnieszka Holland

text: Knowing she could not return to communist Poland, Holland wrote scripts for fellow Polish filmmakers in exile: Wajda's "Danton", "A Love in Germany" (1983), "The Possessed" (1988) and "Korczak" (1990). She also developed her own projects with Western European production companies, directing "Angry Harvest" (1985), "To Kill a Priest" (1988) and "Olivier, Olivier" (1992). Holland received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film for "Angry Harvest", a West German production about a Jewish woman on the run during World War II.


title: Agnieszka Holland

text: Some of Holland's most famous work has been her depictions of the Holocaust. These works have been controversial because of Holland's commitment to realism, and the acceptance of all types of individuals both as victims and as flawed human beings deserving of guilt. According to an article written about Holland, her films about the Holocaust "cling to the world as she sees it. A world in which wisdom, if it exists at all, lies in accepting the violence and human frailty in everyone, without exception, including Jewish people". This is most poignant in Holland's 2011 film "In Darkness," in which Jewish and Polish Catholic characters are juxtaposed as having some of the same reprehensible qualities as well as redeemable ones.


title: Agnieszka Holland

text: Holland's best-known film may be "Europa Europa" (1991), which was based on the life of Solomon Perel (a Jewish teenager who fled Germany for Poland after "Kristallnacht" in 1938). At the outbreak of World War II and the German invasion of Poland, Perel fled to the Soviet-occupied section of the country. Captured during the German invasion of the USSR in 1941, Solomon convinced a German officer that he was German and found himself enrolled in the Hitler Youth. The film received a lukewarm reception in Germany, and the German Oscar selection committee did not submit it for the 1991 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. However, it attracted the attention of Michael Barker (who handled Orion Classics' sales at the time). "Europa, Europa" was released in the United States, winning the 1991 Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film and an Oscar nomination for best adapted screenplay.


title: Agnieszka Holland

text: Almost twenty years later, Holland released "In Darkness" (2011), a German-Canadian-Polish co production that dramatized the story of a Polish sewage worker who aided a group of Jewish refugees by hiding them in the sewers of Lwów during the time when Jewish people in the city were being sent to extermination camps. The story focuses on the relationships between ethnic Poles and Jewish people during the Holocaust. The characters of "In Darkness" are shown as having some strong similarities, despite the fact that the realities for Jews and ethnic Poles, specifically those depicted in the film, are extremely different. By comparing the Polish protagonist to the Jewish ones, Holland recreates the morally confusing and physically brutal world that though very different for those who were hunted, was everywhere during the Third Reich. This juxtaposition seemed to be a reflection of Holland's own personal experience, specifically her struggle with identity and anti-semitism.


title: Agnieszka Holland

text: Until her successful 1991 film "Europa, Europa," Holland was barely recognized as an acclaimed filmmaker in Hollywood. Her chance came about because of a roller coaster ride with the future producer of her American debut Artur Brauner. Holland had been treated to a day at Disneyland by the American Academy when she was in the running as a nominee for a foreign Oscar for her film "Angry Harvest." After the difficulty she had getting "Angry Harvest" made, she had almost decided to give up filmmaking once and for all, but Brauner was convinced that with "Europa, Europa" he had a perfect project for her. During her trip to Disney, Holland, "against her better judgement decided to ride a roller coaster with her producer. After they stepped off, Holland was shaking with fear as Brauner whipped a contract out of his pocket: "Sign!"". The success of this film brought Holland to the attention of mainstream Hollywood, bringing her the opportunity to direct the film adaptation of the 1911 novel "The Secret Garden." This was Holland's first movie made for a major studio with a broad American public in mind. It was a huge change in style for Holland, who was known at the point for her generally dark and pessimistic directorial perspective.


title: Agnieszka Holland

text: A friend of Polish writer and director Krzysztof Kieślowski, Holland collaborated on the screenplay for his film, "". Like Kieślowski, Holland frequently examines issues of faith in her work. Much of her film work has a strong political slant. Government reprisals, stifling bureaucratic machinery, sanctioned strikes and dysfunctional families are represented in her early work. In a 1988 interview Holland said that although women were important in her films, feminism was not the central theme of her work. She suggested that when she was making films in Poland under the Communist regime, there was an atmosphere of cross-gender solidarity against censorship (the main political issue). Holland said that she was interested in happenings between people, not the politics occurring outside them; in this context, "maybe you could say that all my movies are political."


title: Agnieszka Holland

text: Holland's later films include "Olivier, Olivier" (1992), "The Secret Garden" (1993), "Total Eclipse" (1995), "Washington Square" (1997), the HBO production "Shot in the Heart" (2001), "Julie Walking Home" (2001), and "Copying Beethoven" (2006).


title: Agnieszka Holland

text: In a 1997 interview, when asked how her experiences as a director have influenced her films, Holland said "filmmakers of the younger generation lack life experience" and, as a result, lack many of the tools needed to breathe humanity into their characters. Compared to directors of her generation, she feels that the younger generation comes from wealthy families, goes straight to film schools and watches movies primarily on videotape. Holland suggests that this results in what she calls a "numbness" and "conventionalization" of contemporary cinema.


title: Agnieszka Holland

text: In 2003, Holland was a member of the jury at the 25th Moscow International Film Festival. The following year she directed "Moral Midgetry", the eighth episode of the third season of the HBO drama series "The Wire". In 2006, Holland returned to direct the eighth episode of the fourth season ("Corner Boys"). Both were written by novelist Richard Price. Show runner David Simon said that Holland was "wonderful behind the camera" and staged the fight between Avon Barksdale and Stringer Bell in "Moral Midgetry" well.


title: Agnieszka Holland

text: In 2007 Holland, her sister Magdalena Łazarkiewicz and her daughter Katarzyna Adamik directed the Polish political drama series "Ekipa", and in 2008 Holland became the first president of the Polish Film Academy. On 5 February 2009, the "Krakow Post" reported that Holland would direct a biopic about Krystyna Skarbek entitled "Christine: War My Love".


title: Agnieszka Holland

text: Her 2011 film, "In Darkness", was selected as the Polish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 84th Academy Awards. In January 2012, the film was one of the five nominees.


title: Agnieszka Holland

text: Holland accepted an offer to film a three-part drama for HBO about Jan Palach, who immolated himself in January 1969 to protest "normalization" after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968. The resulting miniseries, "Burning Bush", has been shown in Poland and Germany and selected for a Special Presentation screening at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. She also won the Czech Lion Award in the Best Director category for this TV series.


title: Agnieszka Holland

text: On 1 December 2013, the film screened at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, where Holland was invited to deliver the Rajiv Vaidya Memorial Lecture: Viewing History through the Filmmaker's Lens. It was also shown at the 2013 Philadelphia Film Festival. Holland was a guest speaker at Brooklyn College.


title: Agnieszka Holland

text: In December 2013, Holland was announced as director of NBC's next miniseries "Rosemary's Baby", a two-part version of the best selling novel by Ira Levin with Zoe Saldana.


title: Agnieszka Holland

text: In March 2016, it was announced that Holland is set to direct an adaptation of Peter Swanson's best-selling novel "The Kind Worth Killing", a psychological thriller about a ruthless female killer.


title: Agnieszka Holland

text: In February 2017, Agnieszka Holland received The Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize for "Spoor". The award is given to the films that are perceived to open new perspectives in the art of film.


title: Agnieszka Holland

text: In 2019, she won the Golden Lions Award (Polish: "Złote Lwy") at the 44th Gdynia Film Festival for her historical film "Mr. Jones", which deals with the subject of the Great Famine in Ukraine. On 23 November 2019, Agnieszka Holland and Anne Applebaum were awarded Orders of Princess Olga, 3rd Class by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for their efforts in promoting the memory of the Holodomor.


title: Agnieszka Holland

text: Agnieszka Holland translated from Czech to Polish the novel "The Unbearable Lightness of Being". She volunteered for this task after meeting the author, Milan Kundera, in 1982, and reading the manuscript; both were living in Paris at that time. Holland found the events of the book relatable not only to her personal experience of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia but also to the strikes of 1980 in Poland, and therefore wanted to introduce the book to the Polish audience. The translation was originally published by the London-based publisher "Aneks" and has since been widely reprinted.


title: Biblical Sabbath

text: The Sabbath is a weekly day of rest or time of worship given in the Bible as the seventh day. It is observed differently in Judaism and Christianity and informs a similar occasion in several other faiths. Observation and remembrance of Sabbath is one of the Ten Commandments ("Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy") considered to be the fourth in Judaism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and most Protestant traditions, and the third in Roman Catholic and Lutheran traditions.


title: Biblical Sabbath

text: The Biblical Hebrew "Shabbat" is a verb meaning "to cease" or "to rest", its noun form meaning a time or day of cessation or rest. It's Anglicized pronounciation is "Sabbath." A cognate Babylonian "Sapattu" or "Sabattu" is reconstructed from the lost fifth Enūma Eliš creation account, which is read as: ""[Sa]bbatu" shalt thou then encounter, mid[month]ly".


title: Biblical Sabbath

text: It is regarded as a form of Sumerian "sa-bat" ("mid-rest"), rendered in Akkadian as "um nuh libbi" ("day of mid-repose").


title: Biblical Sabbath

text: The dependent Greek cognate is "Sabbaton", used in the New Testament 68 times. Two inflections, Hebrew "Shabbathown" and Greek "σαββατισμός" ("Sabbatismós"), also appear. The Greek form is cognate to the Septuagint verb "sabbatizo" (e.g., ; ; ; ). In English, the concept of sabbatical is cognate to these two forms.


title: Biblical Sabbath

text: The King James Bible uses the English form "sabbath(s)" 172 times. In the Old Testament, "sabbath(s)" translates "Shabbath" all 107 times (including 35 plurals), plus "shebeth" three times, "shabath" once, and the related "mishbath" once (plural). In the New Testament, "sabbath" translates "Sabbaton" 59 times; "Sabbaton" is also translated as "week" nine times, by synecdoche.


title: Biblical Sabbath

text: The Sabbath Year or "Shmita" (, "Shmittah", literally "release"), is the seventh (שביעי, "shbiy'iy") year of the seven-year agricultural cycle mandated by Torah for the Land of Israel, relatively little observed in biblical tradition, but still observed in contemporary Judaism.