prompt_front: Answer the question based on the given passages. Only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: Which is a shrub, Mimosa or Cryptocoryne?

The following are given passages.
Context 1: Passage 1:
Mimosa
Mimosa is a genus of about 590 species of herbs and shrubs, in the mimosoid clade of the legume family Fabaceae  The generic name is derived from the Greek word μῖμος (mimos), an "actor" or "mime", and the feminine suffix -osa, "resembling", suggesting its 'sensitive leaves' which seem to 'mimic conscious life' Two species in the genus are especially notable  One is Mimosa pudica, commonly known as touch-me-not, which folds its leaves when touched or exposed to heat  It is native to southern Central and South America but is widely cultivated elsewhere for its curiosity value, both as a houseplant in temperate areas, and outdoors in the tropics  Outdoor cultivation has led to weedy invasion in some areas, notably Hawaii  The other is Mimosa tenuiflora, which is best known for its use in shamanic ayahuasca brews due to the psychedelic drug dimethyltryptamine found in its root bark 

Taxonomy
The taxonomy of the genus Mimosa has gone through several periods of splitting and lumping, ultimately accumulating over 3,000 names, many of which have either been synonymized under other species or transferred to other genera  In part due to these changing circumscriptions, the name "Mimosa" has also been applied to several other related species with similar pinnate or bipinnate leaves, but are now classified in other genera  The most common examples of this are Albizia julibrissin (Persian silk tree) and Acacia dealbata (wattle) 

Description
Members of this genus are among the few plants capable of rapid movement; examples outside of Mimosa include the telegraph plant, Aldrovanda, some species of Drosera and the Venus flytrap  The leaves of the Mimosa pudica close quickly when touched  Some mimosas raise their leaves in the day and lower them at night, and experiments done by Jean-Jacques d'Ortous de Mairan on mimosas in 1729 provided the first evidence of biological clocks Mimosa can be distinguished from the large related genera, Acacia and Albizia, since its flowers have ten or fewer stamens  Botanically, what appears to be a single globular flower is actually a cluster of many individual ones  Mimosas contain some level of heptanoic acid 

Species
There are about 590 species including:
Mimosa aculeaticarpa Ortega
Mimosa andina Benth 
Mimosa arenosa (Willd ) Poir 
Mimosa asperata L 
Mimosa borealis Gray
Mimosa caesalpiniaefolia Benth 
Mimosa casta L 
Mimosa cupica Gray
Mimosa ceratonia L 
Mimosa diplotricha C Wright ex Sauvalle
Mimosa disperma Barneby
Mimosa distachya Cav 
Mimosa dysocarpa Benth 
Mimosa emoryana Benth 
Mimosa grahamii Gray
Mimosa hamata Willd 
Mimosa hystricina (Small ex Britt  et Rose) B L Turner
Mimosa invisa Martius ex Colla
Mimosa latidens (Small) B L  Turner
Mimosa laxiflora Benth 
Mimosa loxensis Barneby
Mimosa malacophylla Gray
Mimosa microphylla Dry 
Mimosa nothacacia Barneby
Mimosa nuttallii (DC ) B L  Turner
Mimosa ophthalmocentra Mart  ex Benth  1865
Mimosa pellita Kunth ex Willd 
Mimosa pigra L 
Mimosa polycarpa Kunth
Mimosa pudica L 
Mimosa quadrivalvis L 
Mimosa quadrivalvis var  hystricina (Small) Barneby
Mimosa quadrivalvis var  quadrivalvis L 
Mimosa roemeriana Scheele
Mimosa rubicaulis Lam 
Mimosa rupertiana B L  Turner
Mimosa scabrella Benth 
Mimosa schomburgkii Benth 
Mimosa somnians Humb  & Bonpl  ex Willd 
Mimosa strigillosa Torr  et Gray
Mimosa tenuiflora (Willd ) Poir  (= Mimosa hostilis)
Mimosa texana (Gray) Small
Mimosa townsendii Barneby
Mimosa turneri Barneby
Mimosa verrucosa Benth 
Passage 2:
Mimosa somnians
Mimosa somnians, commonly known as dormideira, is a species of woody shrub in the genus Mimosa and the family Fabaceae  It is native to the Caribbean, Central America and South America  It is a short, low-lying shrub with minuscule thorns lining its stem-like hairs Mimosa somnians is notable for exhibiting rapid plant movement  Its leaves are sensitive to tactile stimulus, folding quickly when touched, similar to Mimosa pudica  It can be differentiated from Mimosa pudica in that its leaves are bipinnate, there are more than four subbranchlets and these originate from more than one point on the branch Mimosa somnians's leaflets are 4–5 mm long  The flowers form pink balls  It propagates by seeds 

Forms, subspecies and varieties
Mimosa somnians f  viscida
Mimosa somnians subsp  longipes 
Mimosa somnians subsp  viscida
Mimosa somnians var  aquatica
Mimosa somnians var  deminuta
Mimosa somnians var  diminuta
Mimosa somnians var  glandulosa
Mimosa somnians var  lasiocarpa
Mimosa somnians var  leptocaulis
Mimosa somnians var  longipes
Mimosa somnians var  lupulina
Mimosa somnians var  possensis
Mimosa somnians var  somnians
Mimosa somnians var  velascoensis
Mimosa somnians var  viscida

Uses
In Guyana, it is used to calm down irritable children via washing 

Chemical constituents
Mimosa somnians contains (whole plant) about 0 029% tryptamine and about 0 029% methyltryptamine 
Passage 3:
Mimosa turneri
Mimosa turneri, the desert mimosa, is a perennial small- to medium-sized shrub native to the Southern United States and particularly abundant in Texas  It grows between 3 5 and 10 feet (1 1 and 3 0 m) tall and produces pink flowers  In many places it is considered a weed because it can grow invasively in moist soils 

Habitat and ecology
This species grows as a small to medium-sized shrub that is localized on limestone soil that can range from 2200 feet to 4000 feet above sea level in the desert  This plant is deciduous and has a very high heat tolerance, allowing it to grow in very hot deserts  This plant species was a contained species that escaped and became invasive in the Florida, Texas and Mexico regions  These plants live in soil with high alkalinity 

Morphology
The leaves of the desert mimosa resemble the fronds of a fern and consists of many leaflets that grow opposite of each other along the stem  The leaves are known as bipinnate  Leaflets can range from 9 mm to 12 mm and be 1 5 mm wide at its widest point  Each leaf has about 12- 25 leaflets  Flowers are globe like clusters of thin petals  They contain stamens that are double the number of petals or equal which are often twice the lengths of the corolla  Anthers are small and the ovary is sessile 

Usage
The desert mimosa is often used as food for cattle and livestock, as fuel, construction material as well as living fences that grow into barriers in the wild and can be used as decorative fences 
Passage 4:
Mimosa aculeaticarpa
Mimosa aculeaticarpa is a species of woody shrub in the family Fabaceae  It is commonly known as the catclaw mimosa or the wait-a-minute bush, and is endemic to upland regions of Mexico and the Southwestern United States, particularly Arizona, New Mexico and Texas 

Description
The catclaw mimosa is a straggling thicket forming shrub, usually growing to about one metre tall but occasionally double that height  The twigs are hairy and armed with backward pointing spines that easily catch in clothing  The alternate leaves are bi-pinnate with a varying number of small oblong leaflets  The flowers are white or pale pink, bunched together in globular heads  The fruits are flat pods up to four centimetres long, flattened between the seeds and splitting open when ripe  There are recurved prickles on the edges of the pods 

Distribution
This species grows in upland areas of central and southern Arizona, southern New Mexico, western and central Texas and northern Mexico 

Ecology
This species occurs as scattered individual plants in oak, oak-pine, and evergreen woodlands, pinyon-juniper woodland and mixed with other shrubs in grassland and shrub-steppe communities  It grows on mesas, rocky slopes and gravel deposits  It is commonly found growing in chaparral and is spreading into desert and semi arid areas  This may be because the seed pods are eaten by cattle and the seeds are deposited in the dung, giving them a rich environment for germination  The plant is fire tolerant and sprouts readily after bushfires  In upland areas of west Texas, the redberry juniper (Juniperus pinchotii) acts as a nurse plant for the seedlings   They benefit from the shade and leaf litter associated with the juniper which seems to provide a favourable microclimate for the establishment of the seedlings 
Passage 5:
Mimosa invisa
Mimosa invisa is a species of leguminous woody shrub or vine native to South America  Mimosa invisa includes two subspecies, each with two varieties:  The species is considered to be noxious and invasive in much of the United States 
Mimosa invisa Martius ex CollaMimosa invisa invisa BarnebyMimosa invisa invisa var  invisa Barneby - native to Brazil and Paraguay
Mimosa invisa invisa var  macrostachya (Bentham) Barneby - native to Brazil and ParaguayMimosa invisa spiciflora (Karsten) BarnebyMimosa invisa spiciflora var  spiciflora Barneby - native to northern South America
Mimosa invisa spiciflora var  tovarensis (Bentham) Barneby - native to Venezuela
Passage 6:
Mimosa rubicaulis
Mimosa rubicaulis is a shrub belonging to the family Fabaceae and subfamily Mimosoideae  It is bipinnately compound, each leaf having 8–12 pairs of pinnae, each with 16–20 pairs of pinnules, unlike Mimosa pudica which has at most two prickly pairs of leaflets  It is found across India 

Description
Mimosa rubicaulis is a large, straggling, very prickly shrub  It flowers from June to September, sporting long clusters of many pink spherical flower heads 1–1 5 cm across  The flowers fade to white, so the clusters sport both pink and white flower-heads most of the time  Leaves are double-compound, 8–15 cm long, with thorny rachis  Leaves have 3–2 pairs of side-stalks, each with 6–15 pairs of tiny oblong leaflets 4–8 mm  Pods are thin, flat, curved, 8–13 cm long, 1 cm wide, breaking into 4–10 rectangular single-seeded units, leaving the remains of the pod attached to the shoot It is considered useful for hedges  The wood is suitable for tent pegs and for making gunpowder charcoal  Roots and leaves are used medicinally  Himalayan Mimosa is found in the Himalayas, from Afghanistan to Bhutan, at altitudes of 300–1900 m  It prefers forest edges and boundaries of fields and gardens 
Passage 7:
Mimosa hamata
Mimosa hamata (Hindi:Alāy shrub (अलाय) is a species of flowering shrub in the family Fabaceae, that is native to the countries of India and Pakistan 

Uses
This plant has been used for animal feed 
Passage 8:
Cryptocoryne
Cryptocoryne is a genus of aquatic plants from the family Araceae  The genus is naturally distributed in tropical regions of India, Southeast Asia and New Guinea The typical habitats of Cryptocoryne are mostly streams and rivers with not too rapidly flowing water, in the lowland forest  They also live in seasonally inundated forest pools or on river banks submerged only at high water  Although the proper scientific name of the genus is Cryptocoryne, they are commonly referred to as crypts  The English name "water trumpet" refers to their inflorescence, a spadix enclosed by a spathe (typical for the whole family), which resembles a trumpet 
The first Cryptocoryne species was described in 1779 as Arum spirale by Retzius  The genus was described by Friedrich Ernst Ludwig von Fischer in 1828  However, the scientific classification of Cryptocoryne species is very complicated and there are different opinions about it  Lagenandra is another genus closely related to the genus Cryptocoryne  The two can be easily told apart since the leaves of Cryptocoryne species exhibit convolute vernation whereas Lagenandra species exhibit involute vernation 

The name Cryptocoryne is derived from the Greek crypto, hidden, and koryne, meaning club  The common name (water trumpet) refers to the shape of its inflorescence, which is typical of the Araceae family 

Cultivation and uses
Some Cryptocoryne are popular commercially cultivated aquarium plants  Submerged plants reproduce vegetatively, emerse plants may flower and reproduce sexually  Many species are cultivated only by dedicated experts and are very hard to grow, or are not present in a culture at all  Some species are endangered because their natural habitats are disappearing  On the other hand, some water trumpets (e g  Cryptocoryne beckettii) are very hardy aquarium plants, easy to grow to the point that they have become an invasive species after being introduced in Florida in North America Cryptocoryne is either found in peat bogs or on limestone; the latter do well in most aquaria, the former must have soft water to survive and need decomposing beech leaf litter to do well  C  striolata, while found primarily in peat bogs, has also been found growing on limestone  Borneo is home to many endemic crypts previously thought to grow only in tea-colored soft acid water emulating peat bogs but exploration of habitats from 2005 to 2010 showed about half grew on limestone as well  These hardwater Cryptocorynes are generally the easier ones to keep (in fact, some species, such as Cryptocoryne wendtii are said to be among the most versatile of aquarium plants); they tolerate low or bright light but grow faster in more intense light  This water plant's range is around 12 to 33 °C, and slightly alkaline to neutral pH 
Plants of the genus Cryptocoryne, which range from India to New Guinea are found in very diverse conditions  Some are true acid loving plants such as C  pallidnerva, found in peat bogs in Borneo, while others such as C  crispatula var  balansae and C  pontiderifolia are found in streams with limestone beds—hard alkaline water  One species, C  ciliata is even found in semi-brackish water in some areas  It is one of the few aquarium plants that tolerates salt concentrations 
Cryptocoryne plants have been in cultivation in the aquarium hobby since the late 18th century, although it was not until the 1960s that more than a handful of species was known and became more common in the hobby  New species still regularly crop up as interest in these plants widens and more collecting expeditions by private parties are carried out 

Crypt melt
A phenomenon often encountered when planting new crypts in an aquarium is commonly called Crypt melt, whereby the plant loses all its leaves  There seem to be two possible causes for this 
Rapid environmental change is thought to trigger this, as these plants do not seem to adapt well to transplantion, and may need 30 days or so to become established and for the leaves to regrow  Experienced growers report that it is better to plant crypts in aquariums that have been established for at least three months In the wild, crypts can grow fully submerged underwater, but in some plant nurseries they are often grown emersed and crypt melt could then be triggered by the change from emerse to submerse conditions 
There is lately a trend for such nurseries to send crypts as just a rootstock (i e  without the leaves) to reduce shipping costs and because the leaves will be lost anyway once planted in an aquarium 
Other reports emphasise the need to change the aquarium water regularly to prevent the buildup of nitrates which are thought to trigger this condition (often referred to as a disease) 

Species
Cryptocoryne affinis N E Br  in J D Hooker - Thailand, Malaysia
Cryptocoryne alba de Wit - Sri Lanka
Cryptocoryne albida R Parker - southern China, eastern India, Bangladesh, Indochina
Cryptocoryne annamica Serebryanyi - Vietnam
Cryptocoryne aponogetifolia Merr  - Philippines
Cryptocoryne aura  - West kalimantan
Cryptocoryne auriculata Engl  - Sarawak, Philippines
Cryptocoryne bangkaensis Bastm  - Sumatra
Cryptocoryne beckettii Thuill  ex Trim  - Sri Lanka; naturalized in Texas
Cryptocoryne bogneri Rataj - Sri Lanka
Cryptocoryne bullosa Becc  - Sarawak
Cryptocoryne ciliata (Roxb ) Schott - India, Bangladesh, Indochina, Malaysia, Indonesia, New Guinea, Philippines
Cryptocoryne cognata Schott - India
Cryptocoryne consobrina Schott - India
Cryptocoryne cordata var  cordata Griff  - Malaysia
Cryptocoryne cordata var  siamensis Griff  - Thai
Cryptocoryne cordata var  diderici Griff  - Sumatra
Cryptocoryne cordata var  grandis Ridl  - Northeast Borneo
Cryptocoryne cordata var  grabowskii Engl  - South Kalimantan
Cryptocoryne cordata var  zonata de Wit  - Sri Aman
Cryptocoryne coronata Bastm  & Wijng  - Philippines
Cryptocoryne crispatula var  crispatula Engl  - Southeast Asia
Cryptocoryne cruddasiana Prain - Myanmar
Cryptocoryne decus-silvae de Wit - Johor
Cryptocoryne dewitii N Jacobsen - Papua New Guinea
Cryptocoryne purpurea nothovar  edithiae de Wit  - South Kalimantan
Cryptocoryne elliptica N E Br  - Malaysia
Cryptocoryne ferruginea Engl  - Sarawak
Cryptocoryne fusca de Wit - Borneo
Cryptocoryne griffithii Schott - Kalimantan, Peninsular Malaysia
Cryptocoryne hudoroi Bogner & N Jacobsen - Kalimantan
Cryptocoryne ideii Budianto - Kalimantan
Cryptocoryne jacobsenii de Wit - Sumatra
Cryptocoryne joshanii Naive & Villanueva - Philippines
Cryptocoryne keei N Jacobsen - Sarawak
Cryptocoryne lingua Becc  ex Engl - Sarawak
Cryptocoryne loeiensis  Bastm , T Idei & N Jacobsen - Laos, Thailand
Cryptocoryne longicaudaBecc  ex Engl  - Borneo, Malaysia, Sumatra
Cryptocoryne mekongensis T Idei, Bastm  & N Jacobsen - Cambodia, Laos, Thailand
Cryptocoryne minima Ridl  - Malaysia, Sumatra
Cryptocoryne moehlmannii de Wit - Sumatra
Cryptocoryne nevillii Trimen - Sri Lanka
Cryptocoryne noritoi Wongso - Kalimantan
Cryptocoryne nurii var  nurii Furtado - Peninsular Malaysia
Cryptocoryne nurii var  raubensis N Jacobsen - Peninsular Malaysia
Cryptocoryne pallidinervia Engl  - Borneo
Cryptocoryne parva de Wit- Sri Lanka
Cryptocoryne pontederiifolia Schott - Sumatra
Cryptocoryne purpurea nothovar  purpurea Ridl  - Peninsular Malaysia
Cryptocoryne purpurea nothovar  sarawakensis Yosuke Kobayashi - sarawak
Cryptocoryne purpurea nothovar  borneoensis  N Jacobsen , Bastm  - Central Kalimantan
Cryptocoryne pygmaea Merr  - Philippines
Cryptocoryne retrospiralis  (Roxb ) Kunth - Bangladesh, India, Myanmar
Cryptocoryne schulzei de Wit - Johor
Cryptocoryne scurrilis de Wit - Sumatra
Cryptocoryne sivadasanii Bogner - southern India
Cryptocoryne spiralis (Retz ) Fisch  ex Wydler - Bangladesh, India
Cryptocoryne striolata Engl  - Borneo
Cryptocoryne thwaitesii Schott - Sri Lanka
Cryptocoryne timahensis Bastm  - Singapore   (C  cordata × C  nurii)
Cryptocoryne uenoi Yuji Sasaki - Sarawak
Cryptocoryne undulata Wendt - Sri Lanka
Cryptocoryne usteriana Engl   - Philippines
Cryptocoryne versteegii Engl  - New Guinea
Cryptocoryne vietnamensis I Hertel & H Mühlberg - Vietnam
Cryptocoryne villosa N Jacobsen - Sumatra
Cryptocoryne walkeri Schott - Sri Lanka
Cryptocoryne wendtii de Wit - Sri Lanka
Cryptocoryne × willisii Reitz - Sri Lanka   (C  parva × C  walkeri)
Cryptocoryne yujii Bastm  - Sarawak
Cryptocoryne zaidiana Ipor & Tawan - Sarawak
Cryptocoryne zukalii Rataj - Peninsular Malaysia
Passage 9:
Mimosa tenuiflora
Mimosa tenuiflora, syn  Mimosa hostilis, also known as jurema preta, calumbi (Brazil), tepezcohuite (México), carbonal, cabrera, jurema, black jurema, and binho de jurema, is a perennial tree or shrub native to the northeastern region of Brazil (Paraíba, Rio Grande do Norte, Ceará, Pernambuco, Bahia) and found as far north as southern Mexico (Oaxaca and coast of Chiapas), and the following countries: El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, Colombia and Venezuela   It is most often found in lower altitudes, but it can be found as high as 1,000 m (3,300 ft) 

Description
The fern-like branches have leaves that are Mimosa like, finely pinnate, growing to 5 cm (2 0 in) long   Each compound leaf contains 15–33 pairs of bright green leaflets 5–6 mm (0 20–0 24 in) long   The tree itself grows up to 8 m (26 ft) tall and it can reach 4–5 m (13–16 ft) tall in less than 5 years   The white, fragrant flowers occur in loosely cylindrical spikes 4–8 cm (1 6–3 1 in) long  In the Northern Hemisphere it blossoms and produces fruit from November to June or July   In the Southern Hemisphere it blooms primarily from September to January   The fruit is brittle and averages 2 5–5 cm (0 98–1 97 in) long   Each pod contains 4–6 seeds that are oval, flat, light brown and 3–4 mm (0 12–0 16 in) in diameter   There are about 145 seeds/1 g (0 035 oz)   In the Southern Hemisphere, the fruit ripens from February to April 

The tree's bark is dark brown to gray   It splits lengthwise and the inside is reddish brown 
The tree's wood is dark reddish brown with a yellow center   It is very dense, durable and strong, having a density of about 1 11 g/cm3 Mimosa tenuiflora does very well after a forest fire, or other major ecological disturbance   It is a prolific pioneer plant   It drops its leaves on the ground, continuously forming a thin layer of mulch and eventually humus   Along with its ability to fix nitrogen, the tree conditions the soil, making it ready for other plant species to come along 

Medicinal uses
A tea made of the leaves and stem has been used to treat tooth pain   For cases of cough and bronchitis, a water extract (decoction) of Mimosa tenuiflora is drunk   A handful of bark in one liter of water is used by itself or in a syrup   The solution is drunk until the symptoms subside One preliminary clinical study found Mimosa tenuiflora to be effective in treating venous leg ulcerations Aqueous extracts of Mimosa are widely used for wound healing and burns in Middle and South America  Consequently, the products of the plant (generally grouped under the term "Tepezcohuite") have become a popular and easily produced cosmetic ingredient in commercial skincare products, used and marketed by celebrities including Kylie Jenner and Salma Hayek 

Other uses
The tree is an acceptable source of forage or fodder for animals, providing vital protein and other nutrients   It does well in the dry season and in drought, while providing life saving food for local livestock and animals   Cows, goats and sheep eat the pods and leaves   There seems to be evidence that Mimosa tenuiflora forage or fodder cause development defects to pregnant ruminants in Brazil The tree is an important source of forage for bees, especially during the dry season and in the beginning of the wet season 
Like most plants in the family Fabaceae, Mimosa tenuiflora fertilizes the soil via nitrogen fixing bacteria   The tree is useful in fighting soil erosion and for reforestation 

Mimosa tenuiflora is a very good source of fuel wood and works very well for making posts, most likely because of its high tannin content (16%), which protects it from rot   Due to its high tannin content, the bark of the tree is widely used as a natural dye and in leather production   It is used to make bridges, buildings, fences, furniture and wheels   It is an excellent source of charcoal and at least one study has been done to see why this is the case The healing properties of the tree make it useful in treating domestic animals   A solution of the leaves or bark can also be used for washing animals in the prevention of parasites   Because the tree keeps most of its leaves during the dry season, it is an important source of shade for animals and plants during that time 

Chemistry
The bark is known to be rich in tannins, saponins, alkaloids, lipids, phytosterols, glucosides, xylose, rhamnose, arabinose, lupeol, methoxychalcones, and kukulkanins   Additionally, Mimosa hostilis contains labdane diterpenoids 

Entheogenic uses
Mimosa tenuiflora is an entheogen used by the Jurema Cult (O Culto da Jurema) in northeastern Brazil  Dried Mexican Mimosa tenuiflora root bark has been recently shown to have a dimethyltryptamine (DMT) content of about 1-1 7%   The stem bark has about 0 03% DMT The parts of the tree are traditionally used in northeastern Brazil in a psychoactive decoction also called Jurema or Yurema  Analogously, the traditional Western Amazonian sacrament Ayahuasca is brewed from indigenous ayahuasca vines 
However, to date no β-carbolines such as harmala alkaloids have been detected in Mimosa tenuiflora decoctions, yet the Jurema is used in combination with several plants This presents challenges to the pharmacological understanding of how DMT from the plant is rendered orally active as an entheogen, because the psychoactivity of ingested DMT requires the presence of a monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI), such as a β-carboline  If an MAOI is neither present in the plant nor added to the mixture, the enzyme monoamine oxidase (MAO) will metabolize DMT in the human gut, preventing the active molecule from entering the blood and brain 
The plant is also used in clandestine manufacture of crystalline DMT  In this form, it is psychoactive by itself when vaporized and inhaled 
The isolation of the chemical compound yuremamine from Mimosa tenuiflora as reported in 2005 represents a new class of phytoindoles, which may explain an apparent oral activity of DMT in Jurema 

Cultivation
For outside planting, USDA Zone 9 or higher is recommended In nature, Mimosa tenuiflora "[   ] fruits and seeds are disseminated by the wind in a radius of 5–8 m (16–26 ft) from the mother plant; rain carries them from slopes to lower plains and human activities contribute to their dissemination "For cultivation, the seed pods are collected once they start to spontaneously open on the tree   The collected pods are laid out in the sun so that the pods open up and release their seeds   The seeds can then be planted in sandy soil with sun exposure 
Scarification of the seed via mechanical means or by using sulfuric acid greatly increases the germination rate of the seeds over non-treatment   The seeds can be sown directly into holes in the ground or planted in prepared areas 
The seeds can germinate in temperatures ranging from 10 to 30 °C, but the highest germination rate occurs at around 25 °C (about 96%), even after four years of storage   Germination takes about 2–4 weeks 
It is also possible to propagate Mimosa tenuiflora via cuttings Trimming adult Mimosa tenuiflorae during the rainy season is not recommended as it can kill them 

Legal status
United Nations
See also
Dimethyltryptamine
Psychedelic plants
Passage 10:
Mimosa texana
Mimosa texana is a shrub in the family Fabaceae  It is commonly known as the Texas mimosa, the Texas catclaw or the Wherry mimosa and is endemic to upland regions of Mexico and Texas  This species used to be classified as Mimosa biuncifera but it was found that phenotypic variations occurred across its range and a new taxonomy was proposed by Rupert C  Barneby in 1986, splitting the species into Mimosa aculeaticarpa var  biuncifera and Mimosa texana 

Distribution
Texas mimosa is found on alkaline soils in Mexico and Zapata and Starr counties in the state of Texas  It is uncommon and grows on caliche and gravelly hillsides 

Description
This species is a straggly, much branched, deciduous shrub of up to two metres tall  It has slender, zigzag, dark coloured twigs clad in backward pointing prickles  The alternate bi-pinnate leaves have medium-sized leaflets  The globular flowers are creamy-white and cover the bush in the spring  They are intensely fragrant and attract numerous insects  The seed pods are brick red and flattened, with prickly edges 
Context 2: Passage 1:
Mikkeli hostage crisis
The Mikkeli hostage crisis, or Jakomäki bank robbery took place on 8–9 August 1986, which ended in Mikkeli, South Savo, Finland, outside of the Mikkeli County Government House on Maaherrankatu  The crisis began when the perpetrator, Jorma Kalevi Takala (born July 11, 1950) took three hostages in Helsinki in a bank robbery, with whom he traveled by car to Mikkeli  The event ended when Takala blew up his car, killing himself and hostage Jukka Häkkinen (born May 13, 1961)  In the aftermath of the incident, the Finnish police were subjected to harsh criticism 

Events
The events began on 8 August 1986, when Jorma Takala, armed with a sawed-off shotgun and an explosive charge, entered the Kansallis-Osake-Pankki bank in Jakomäki, Helsinki  Takala took twelve people inside the bank as his hostages  After receiving 2 5  million Finnish marks and a getaway car in exchange for most of the hostages, he left the bank with three remaining hostages, two female and one male  Takala forced the male hostage to drive the car, following Highway 4 and later Highway 5  
The party arrived in Mikkeli on 9 August, where they parked in front of the Mikkeli County Government House  Finnish police surrounded the vehicle and tried to negotiate with Takala  When he threatened to blow up the car if he was not allowed to continue his journey, the police advised the hostages to leave the vehicle  Both female hostages complied, after which the police started to shoot at the car  In response, Takala detonated the charge and destroyed the vehicle, killing both himself and the male hostage  Nine police officers were injured in the explosion 

Aftermath
The police received much criticism for its handling of the crisis  Nobody knew who gave the order to shoot at the car and initially none of the police commanders took the responsibility for the operation  After an investigation by the NBI, Chancellor of Justice Jorma S  Aalto decided not to prosecute the police officers for the events  In 1993, the Supreme Court of Finland convicted the police commissioner who led the operation of involuntary manslaughter and negligence and fined him 6,000 mk 
Passage 2:
Graham Perkin
Edwin Graham Perkin (16 December 1929 – 16 October 1975) was an Australian journalist and newspaper editor 

Early life
Perkin was born at Hopetoun, Victoria, elder son of Herbert Edwin Perkin, baker, and his wife Iris Lily, née Graham, both Victorian born  Graham grew up at Warracknabeal and was educated at the local high school  In 1948 he began to study law at the University of Melbourne, but abandoned his course in the following year when he obtained a cadetship with The Age  At the Methodist Church, St Kilda, on 6 September 1952 he married Peggy Lorraine Corrie 

Career
As a young reporter, Perkin rapidly acquired a reputation for enthusiasm and restless energy  In 1955 he won a Kemsley scholarship in journalism which took him to London  Returning to Australia as a feature writer, he shared the Walkley Award for journalism in 1959 for an article on pioneering heart surgery  His rise in the newspaper hierarchy was rapid: he became deputy news editor in 1959, news editor in 1963, assistant-editor in 1964 and editor (at the age of 36) in 1966  He was appointed to the additional post of editor-in-chief in 1973 
Perkin turned The Age into a more interventionist and campaigning newspaper  It exposed financial scandals in State governments and corruption in the police force, and attacked Federal governments for suppressing information  In the process, it attracted critics who thought it too 'leftist'  In 1972 The Age, which had traditionally supported Coalition governments, advocated the election of Gough Whitlam's Australian Labor Party  When that government was forced to an early election in 1974, Perkin wanted to support Whitlam again  His stand led to a conflict with the board of David Syme & Co  Ltd, owner and publisher of The Age  A compromise, supported by the managing director Ranald Macdonald, narrowly averted Perkin's resignation  It also reinforced his insistence on editorial independence, subject to the management's right to dismiss an editor in whom it had lost confidence 
However, Perkin turned violently on Whitlam a year later when he published details of a murky land deal involving Phillip Cairns, the son of Deputy Prime Minister Jim Cairns, and Rex Connor, the Minister for Minerals and Energy  Perkin had won a bidding war for the information, setting aside his normal opposition to buying stories because he felt the story was one of overwhelming importance  Perkin's editorials grew more and more critical of Whitlam, culminating in the elemental editorial "Go now, go decently" in which he called for the government to step down  It began with the words 'We will say it straight, and clear, and at once  The Whitlam Government has run its course ' Perkin died of a heart attack on 16 October 1975 at his Sandringham home at the age of 45 
The Age became a more substantial, wider ranging, better written and significantly more influential newspaper  Perkin's reforms and his willingness to speak out strongly in defence of the paper's policies boosted circulation from a stagnant 180,000 in 1965 to a solid 222,000 ten years later  The company's revenues rose correspondingly  Perkin was also director (from 1966) of Australian Associated Press, its chairman in 1970-72, and a director of Reuters Ltd, London, in 1971-74 

Personal life
His wife, their son Steve, and their daughter Corrie – both journalists – survived him  Peggy later remarried, and died in 2012, aged 81 

Graham Perkin Journalism Award
The Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year Award, an annual prize, was established in 1976 

Bibliography
Hills, Ben, Breaking News: The Golden Age of Graham Perkin, Scribe, 2010  ISBN 978-1-921640-37-7
Passage 3:
1991 Sacramento hostage crisis
On April 4, 1991, 41 employees and customers were taken hostage and held at a Good Guys! electronics store at the corner of 65th Street and Stockton Boulevard in Florin, California, near the Florin Mall (now Florin Towne Centre) for approximately eight hours by four gunmen  Near the end of the hostage crisis, six were killed: three hostages and three of the four hostage-takers  The fourth hostage-taker was captured by authorities, and an additional 14 hostages were injured during the crisis  To this day, the hostage crisis remains the largest hostage rescue operation in US history, with over 40 hostages having been held at gunpoint 

Event
Background
The four gunmen were all Vietnamese immigrants: brothers Loi Khac Nguyen, 21; Pham Khac Nguyen, 19; and Long Khac Nguyen, 17; and their friend, Cuong Tran, 17  The Nguyens had fled Vietnam as a family of eight in 1979 at the start of the second wave of Vietnamese refugees, first sailing to Malaysia and remaining anchored there for the first seven months, then waiting for four more months in an Indonesian refugee camp before they arrived in California in 1980  The entire family lived in a two-bedroom apartment 1⁄2 mile (0 80 km) from the Good Guys! store  Cuong Tran had moved with his parents into a new home in Elk Grove 15 months before the hostage crisis Tran and Long Nguyen were friends and classmates at Florin High School; both had been expelled in March 1991 after stealing athletic equipment and attempting to set fire to the building  Loi Nguyen had attended Valley High School but dropped out during his senior year  Pham Nguyen was attending William Daylor High School (a continuation school) after having transferred from Valley following attendance issues On the day of the hostage crisis, Pham Nguyen briefly came to school and asked to be excused with a toothache  The Nguyen brothers told their parents they were going fishing at the Sacramento River 

Start of the siege
At approximately 1:00 p m , on April 4, 1991, the four young gunmen drove into the parking lot of the Good Guys! electronics store, in the South Area of Sacramento County  The group left their vehicle, a 1982 Toyota Corolla, and entered the store armed with three pistols and a shotgun  They had purchased the guns legally at a local sporting goods store the prior week, following a background check and waiting period  Although reported, the gunmen were not members of the Oriental Boys gang, and the hostage-taking and subsequent crisis were not considered to be gang-related They herded customers and staff into a group, including a shoplifter attempting to leave the store, and began shooting at the ceiling of the store  One employee escaped after being ordered to lock the doors  Although initial reports indicated they had taken the hostages after a failed robbery attempt, subsequent statements to hostages and negotiators instead proved "they were attempting to gain notoriety," according to Sacramento County Sheriff Glen Craig  They were frustrated with their lives in the United States since it was difficult to find good jobs and expressed a desire to travel to Thailand and fight the Viet Cong, according to two of the hostages 

Law enforcement and media response
When the 9-1-1 call came in at 1:33 p m , the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department Special Enforcement Detail (SED) was already in the process of gearing up in anticipation of executing a previously planned drug raid  They immediately paged off-duty team members and began preparations to rush to the scene along with the Department's Critical Incident Negotiations Team (CINT) and other local and state law enforcement agencies 
As the situation developed, the local media descended on the area in force, broadcasting the unfolding incident  They were able to get footage of the event because of the store's huge glass front doors, which allowed video crews to see into the store where the hostage-takers lined up some of the hostages in front of the entrance as human shields 

Surveillance and negotiation
Following the standard operating procedure, the team obtained a floor plan of the building, which was copied and distributed to team members  The SED team was told that there was only one entrance to the store that was not alarmed: a freight entrance located at the rear of the store  Their only option would be to enter the store's showroom, where the hostages were being held, through a fabrics store on the north side of the building  The entry team gained entrance to the fabric store and slowly moved into position  The criminals apparently heard movement by the police amid shouts of "stay away from the door" coming from inside the store itself 
One of the entry team members removed a ceiling panel in the hallway between the two buildings and inserted a pole-mounted mirror  He was able to observe the subjects directing hostages to place large boxes against the back door to block entry  Once the door was barricaded, the area was abandoned  A fisheye camera was installed by the team but was of limited use because of the design of the store, showing only a portion of the showroom near the door  By this time, the hostages had been tied up with speaker wire and had been arranged inside the store's glass front entrance doors in standing and kneeling positions 
For more than two hours, the department's CINT tried to end the incident peacefully by negotiating with the hostage-takers  Negotiations were initially conducted from police headquarters, and a special negotiation team took over on-site after a few hours from a bank that had been evacuated  The hostage-takers demanded $4 million, forty 1,000-year-old ginseng roots, four bulletproof vests, a 50-troop military helicopter, and transportation for everyone to Thailand after a refueling stop in Alaska  Throughout the incident, the hostage-takers did not present a consistent set of demands to the negotiators One demand that remained constant was for bulletproof vests  During early negotiations, one of the requested vests was exchanged for what was to be the release of nine hostages, although only three were released initially; the police officer who took the first vest to them stripped to his underwear to prove he was unarmed  Loi Nguyen sent a woman to retrieve the vest and threatened to shoot her children if she did not return; after she retrieved the vest, they were the first three hostages to be released  In addition to the hostage exchange, another benefit was that it allowed police to gain information on the current situation in the store  One of the released hostages revealed that the shots heard earlier had been the hostage-takers shooting at the store's security cameras and that none of the hostages had been harmed up to this point  Soon thereafter, more shots were heard, but this was the hostage-takers testing the vest  Approximately an hour later, another woman and her three children were released; an eighth hostage was released at 8:20 p m , bearing a message that they would start to shoot the other hostages shortly At one point during the negotiations, the leader of the hostage-takers, who called himself "Thai" (later shown to be Loi Nguyen), agreed to surrender to the police but only if they were allowed to retain their bulletproof vests and weapons while in prison  The police negotiator informed Loi Nguyen that he would have a short sentence and his vest and guns would be returned upon his release  He set down the phone and began to discuss the situation with his partners  At that point, many of the officers involved felt the exchanges might lead to a negotiated settlement; when he returned to the phone, Loi Nguyen stated that while he accepted those terms, his partners did not  Suddenly, the phone went dead, and the CINT immediately tried to re-establish contact with the store  On the first attempt, the phone was busy, and on the second attempt, a suspect calling himself "Number One" (later shown to be Long Nguyen) answered the phone, informing everyone that he was now in control  From that point on, the situation began to rapidly deteriorate  Shots were once again fired at the store's security cameras 

Entry
At approximately 9 p m , Long Nguyen shot a twenty-year-old male hostage named Sean McIntyre in the leg and then released McIntyre as the ninth and final hostage to be released with the instruction to deliver their message and plight to the local media  They claimed they were trying to draw attention to the troubles of their home country and that they were on a suicide mission  At that point, the police attempted to distract the gunmen by putting the hostage on the news, which would also move them to the television area of the store, but this tactic did not work  The police team was finally given the "green light" to enter the store  Sniper Jeffrey Boyes would issue the signal to execute the assault  Boyes had received permission to fire on any subject on whom he could obtain a clear line of sight 
After McIntyre was shot and released, another hostage was shot just before 10 p m ; the gunmen had told the hostages to select the next victim from among themselves, causing an elderly hostage, Harold Brooks, to faint  According to Sheriff Craig, the gunmen joked "he just decided he was going to be our next person shot " Long Nguyen attempted to shoot Brooks, but his gun misfired, and Loi Nguyen shot Brooks in the leg  The surviving hostages stated the gunmen divided them into two groups and had begun flipping a coin to decide their fates  Guns were placed to the hostages' heads  Several hostages were placed on the phone, and they informed the police the gunmen were going to begin executing hostages 

A second bulletproof vest was delivered to the front door shortly after Brooks was shot, which was to be exchanged for nine more hostages, but no one was released  Another hostage, Priscilla Alvarez, was sent out to recover the second vest with her wrists tied behind her and harnessed with more speaker cord  As the door was opened and Alvarez was halfway down the path to retrieve the vest, Boyes took a shot at one of the gunmen, but the sniper's bullet was deflected by the glass door as it swung shut, and it hit the target's ear Immediately, the hostage-takers ran back and forth, and Long Nguyen started to shoot the seated hostages who were tied down in a row behind the glass door, in full view of the news cameras broadcasting the event live  At the same time, Boyes radioed "Go", and the SED entry team immediately hit the door at 9:51 p m  A stun grenade was tossed into the store from outside, and Curt Warburton, one of the Good Guys employees, managed to scramble to safety through the now shattered glass door  "Number One" (Long Nguyen), now stunned and disoriented, managed to stagger out of Boyes's sights and take cover behind a large pillar  He then immediately began firing his weapon at more bound hostages 
It took the seven-person entry team two to three seconds to get through the back doors from where they had been hiding (a storage space in the rear of the store) because of the "barricades" erected earlier  They then had to contend with the 100-foot (30 m) distance to the front of the store  The team was armed with a variety of weapons for the entry  Sergeants Don Devlin, Charles Price, and Gordon Smith were armed with SiGARMS Sig P220 pistols, Sergeant Bill Kelly carried a laser-sighted HK MP5, investigators Mike Hammel and Greg Peterson carried H&K MP5SD3 submachine guns, and investigator Roger Stanfill was still armed with his AR-15 
Hammel and Price cleared the west side of the store, Peterson and Kelly the east side, and Devlin and Smith went straight up the middle  Stanfill took up a rearguard position  As the team began its movement toward the front of the store, the remaining hostage-takers immediately began to fire on the entry team and hostages  Peterson stepped on the wire that had been used to tether the female hostage sent out to recover the second vest  At that moment, she was snatched to safety by officers outside the store, causing Peterson's feet to fly out from under him, forcing him to fall backward, just as a shotgun blast immediately blew through the area where he was standing  His fellow team members mistakenly believed he had been struck in the face by the blast  As Peterson began to rise to his feet, Devlin and Kelly tried to flank the shotgun-wielding suspect, who fired on them once again, before being taken under fire by the team 

Suspects shot
Simultaneously, on the west side of the store, the team shot one of the suspects (Cuong Tran) before he could react  Then they spotted a second armed suspect (Pham Nguyen) and fired on him, but he disappeared into the chaos of the screaming and panicking crowd of hostages  Then, "Number One" (Long Nguyen) was shot 
At this point, the team could only account for three of the suspects and immediately began a systematic search for the fourth  Price and Hammel discovered an unarmed Asian male (Loi Nguyen) lying on the floor, wearing the sole bulletproof vest that had been provided earlier  Once he was rolled over, they discovered he had a  223 caliber entrance wound, accounting for all four suspects 
It took only 30 seconds from the initial police entry until the gunfire ceased, bringing an end to the hostage crisis 

Aftermath
Casualties
During the assault, the suspects wounded eleven hostages and killed three  Of the eleven wounded, ten were shot, and one suffered a miscarriage  Others shot at were Bret Soren, Chris Lauretzen, Curt Warburton, and many others who suffered both physical and extreme emotional consequences including brutal bodily injuries, trauma, and severe ongoing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)  Of the four suspects, three were killed by the entry team and one, "Thai" (Loi), was wounded  None of the SED entry team was wounded  The hostages killed were store employees Kris Edward Sohne and John Lee Fritz and customer Fernando Gutierrez Gutierrez's two nieces were also hostages  One of the nieces, Lisa Joseph, later wrote the book Heads or Tails: A True Hostage Story of Terror, Torture and Ultimate Survival about her ordeal  Two employees hid in a computer closet during the hostage crisis The Good Guys! announced they would set up trust funds for the two slain employees and would pay for the funerals of all three murder victims 

Trial and prosecution
Loi Nguyen was arraigned from his hospital bed shortly after the crisis ended and charged with 54 felonies, including murder  Nguyen's attorney, Sacramento public defender Linda Parisi, argued that Loi Nguyen was trying to make peace, based on witness testimony and recorded audio, and did not deserve the death penalty; she pointed to Long Nguyen as the leader  However, Rebecca Moore, a sheriff's detective, pointed out that Loi Nguyen had purchased the guns, driven the group to the store, and handled most of the negotiations: "In my opinion he is the most responsible party for this thing going down " Because of pre-trial publicity, the trial was moved to San Francisco  He was convicted on February 8, 1995, on 51 felony counts: three for murder, eight for attempted murder, two for assault with a firearm, and 38 for kidnapping, after two days of jury deliberation  On March 28, the jury recommended a life sentence in prison rather than the death penalty, after four more hours of deliberation At the sentencing hearing in Sacramento, Judge W J  Harpham said, "It's hard to find the adjectives for the terror the defendant put these hostages through " He sentenced Loi Khac Nguyen to 49 life terms in prison, 41 to be served consecutively without the chance of parole  Information that surfaced at Nguyen's trial revealed the men's motivation for committing the crime was that they were frustrated by their inability to learn English and find jobs  Nguyen initially served his sentence at the California State Prison, Lancaster  he was later transferred to California State Prison, Centinela, and has since been transferred to California State Prison, Solano where he is currently serving his term  His CDCR number is J69791 The former Good Guys! building later became a Dollar Tree store, which was modified to move the main entry doors from the front (south facade) to the side of the building (east facade)  This Dollar Tree still stands and remains in business 

In popular culture
In 2000, a play titled The Good Guys: An American Tragedy was created by Michael Edo Keane and Miko Lee and presented by Theater of Yugen, a theatre group that presents work relating to the Pan Asian Diaspora, at the Theater Artaud in San Francisco, California 
The hostage crisis was examined in detail in the first season of the documentary series Shootout!, aired on the History Channel, for the first time in September 2005 
Footage of the event was featured in World's Scariest Police Shootouts in 1997 
In March 2015, the crisis was the focus of an episode of ABC's In an Instant 
In 2019 a movie called A Clear Shot, based on the incident, was released  It starred Hao Do as Loi, Kevin Bach as Pham, Tony Dew as Long, and Dang Tran as Cuong 

See also
List of homicides in California
1996 Honolulu hostage crisis
Passage 4:
Chris Reason
Chris Reason (born 1 October 1965) is a senior reporter and presenter for Seven News in Sydney, Australia  He was awarded the Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year Award for his coverage of the Lindt Cafe siege in December 2014 

Career
Reason's career began in 1990, when during his first year at Seven News he unwittingly covered a segment now infamously known as the Democracy Manifest video, which became an Internet viral video years later  In 2019, The Guardian called it "perhaps the pre-eminent Australian meme of the past 10 years" In 2002, he was announced as co-host of the re-launched national breakfast program Sunrise alongside Melissa Doyle  But in September, Reason was diagnosed with cancer and forced to retire from the program while he underwent six months of chemotherapy, surgery and recovery care  He was replaced by David Koch  The cancer was an abdominal metastasis of the testicular cancer he had fought four years earlier  Reason had missed a critical health check-up in 2001 while covering the September 11 terror attacks in the United States, and he says it almost cost him his life  In multiple interviews since, he has warned young men to never miss a health check-up In 2003, after his recovery, Reason had multiple roles—first as presenter of Seven Morning News, and then presenter of Sunday Sunrise in 2004  In 2005, he was named co-host of Weekend Sunrise alongside Lisa Wilkinson, but he was later replaced by Deal or No Deal host Andrew O'Keefe  Reason returned to full-time reporting as Senior Network Correspondent In 2015, he won the Graham Perkin Award for his coverage of the Lindt Cafe siege  He has won a Walkley Award and two Logie Awards for News Reporting 
Reason is a back-up presenter for most of the Seven News programs, including Seven Morning News, Seven Afternoon News and Seven News Sydney  He also intermittently fills in for either David Koch or Matt Doran on Sunrise and Weekend Sunrise respectively, and appears on the former show during the week as one of the News Feed panelists 

Personal life
His father died from brain cancer in 2006  He attended Villanova College in the Brisbane suburb of Coorparoo and the University of Queensland (BA)  Reason married journalist Kathryn Robinson in 2005  They became parents to twins in 2007 
Passage 5:
Les Carlyon
Leslie Allen Carlyon  (10 June 1942 – 4 March 2019) was an Australian writer and newspaper editor 

Early life
Carlyon began his career in journalism with The Herald and Weekly Times as a cadet on the Sun News-Pictorial (now the Herald Sun) in 1960  In 1963, he moved to The Age working successively as leader writer, finance editor, news editor, assistant editor and, in 1975 aged 33, editor, following the sudden death of the previous editor, Graham Perkin  Carlyon had to resign for health reasons in 1976 after just one year in the position From 1977 to 1982, he was a visiting lecturer in journalism at RMIT University, Melbourne  During this time, he continued writing for newspapers across Australia with a particular focus on horse racing In 1984, Carlyon returned to an executive role in journalism with his first employer, the Herald and Weekly Times, where he was promoted to editor-in-chief   After resigning in 1986, Carlyon again continued as a freelance writer and columnist during the 1990s, contributing to such publications as the Sydney Morning Herald, Western Australia's The Sunday Times and The Bulletin Carlyon twice won the Walkley Award for journalism (1971 and 2004)  In 1993, he won the Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year Award 

Books
In addition to his career as a journalist, Carlyon was also an accomplished author writing mainly on sport and Australian military history  His books include:

Carlyon, Les (1996)  True Grit: Tales from a Decade on the Turf  Mandarin  ISBN 9781863306065 
Carlyon, Les (1998)  Heroes in our eyes  Information Australia  ISBN 9781863502467 
Carlyon, Les (2001)  Gallipoli  Macmillan Australia  ISBN 9781743534229 
Carlyon, Les (2006)  The Great War  Picador Australia  ISBN 9780330424967 
Carlyon, Les (2011)  The Master: A personal portrait of Bart Cummings  Macmillan Australia  ISBN 9781742628837 
Carlyon, Les (2021)  Les Carlyon: A Life in Words  Allen and Unwin Australia  ISBN 9781760879723 Gallipoli, a popular history of the Allied Gallipoli campaign in the Dardanelles during the First World War (which remains a key event in the Australian and New Zealand national consciousnesses), was published in 2001, and met with critical and commercial success in Australia, New Zealand and England  The book was the basis for the Australian 2015 TV miniseries Gallipoli, released in the year of the 100th anniversary of the campaign The Great War is the story of Australian forces on the Western Front in France and Belgium also during World War I Les Carlyon: A Life in Words, published posthumously, is a collection of Carlyon's articles from across his career, selected by his family and with a foreword by his son, Patrick Carlyon 

Awards
In the 2014 Queen's Birthday Honours List, Carlyon was invested as a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC), for "eminent service to literature through the promotion of the national identity as an author, editor and journalist, to the understanding and appreciation of Australia's war history, and to the horseracing industry" He was admitted to the Australian Media Hall of Fame He served as a Member of the Council of the Australian War Memorial from May 2006 until his death (he was replaced by Tony Abbott)  In April 2020, the Australian War Memorial announced the inaugural Les Carlyon Literary Prize in his memory 

Awards
Walkley Award for magazine feature writing 1971
Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year Award 1993
Walkley Award for journalism leadership 2004
Melbourne Press Club Quill Award for Lifetime Achievement 2004
Prime Minister's Prize for History 2007 (for The Great War)
Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) 2014

Death
Carlyon's death, aged 76, on 4 March 2019 was widely reported 
Passage 6:
2014 Sydney hostage crisis
The Lindt Café siege was a terrorist attack that occurred on 15–16 December 2014 when a lone gunman, Man Haron Monis, held hostage ten customers and eight employees of a Lindt Chocolate Café in the APA Building in Martin Place, Sydney, Australia 
The Sydney siege led to a 16-hour standoff, after which a gunshot was heard from inside and police officers from the Tactical Operations Unit (TOU) stormed the café  Hostage Tori Johnson was killed by Monis and hostage Katrina Dawson was killed by a police bullet ricochet in the subsequent raid  Monis was also killed  Three other hostages and a police officer were injured by police gunfire during the raid Police have been criticised over their handling of the siege for not taking proactive action earlier, for the deaths of hostages at the end of the siege, and for the lack of negotiation during the siege  Hostage Marcia Mikhael called radio station 2GB during the siege and said, "They have not negotiated, they've done nothing  They have left us here to die "Early on, hostages were seen holding a Jihadist flag against the window of the café, featuring the shahādah creed  Initially, many media organisations mistook it for the flag used by the Islamic State (IS); Monis later demanded that an IS flag be brought to him  Monis also unsuccessfully demanded to speak to the Prime Minister of Australia, Tony Abbott, live on radio  Monis was described by Abbott as having indicated a "political motivation," but the eventual assessment was that the gunman was "a very unusual case—a rare mix of extremism, mental health problems and plain criminality "In the aftermath of the siege, Muslim groups issued a joint statement in which they condemned the incident, and memorial services were held in the city at the nearby St Mary's Cathedral and St James' Church  Condolence books were set up in other Lindt cafés and the community turned Martin Place into a "field of flowers " The Martin Place Lindt café was severely damaged during the police raid, closed afterwards, then renovated for reopening in March 2015 In October 2022, the TOU officer who shot and killed Monis during the police storming of the Lindt Café published a memoir entitled 'Tiger! Tiger! Tiger! Tiger! The Lindt Café Siege: The incredible inside story of two days that traumatised a nation: And one man's journey of resilience and hope '

Events
Prior to event
An anonymous call was made to Australia's anti-terrorism hotline 48 hours before the siege, raising concerns about the content of Monis's website  On his website, Monis had pledged allegiance to "the caliph of the Muslims", believed to be referring to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and denounced moderate Islam  It has been reported that the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation followed up on the call by reviewing the website and Monis's posts on social media but found nothing to indicate that he was likely to commit an act of violence 

Hostage-taking and negotiations
Monis entered the Lindt Chocolate Café at 53 Martin Place, Sydney, at 8:33 am Sydney local time (AEDT) on 15 December 2014 (UTC+11)  The café is located directly across from the Seven News television studios, and near the Reserve Bank of Australia, the headquarters of the Commonwealth Bank, Westpac bank, and Martin Place underground train station 
The situation began at 9:44 am, when Monis forced Tori Johnson, the manager of the café, to phone 000 Monis was bearded, wearing a black cap and wearing a black headband with the inscription, in Arabic: "We are ready to sacrifice for you, O Mohammad " He was carrying a blue sports bag, and armed with a sawed-off pump-action shotgun 
The shotgun was old but could fire four shots in five seconds Monis used hostages as human shields  He had disabled the automatic sliding glass doors of the café Monis claimed there were four "devices" located around Sydney  However, New South Wales Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione said that none of the alleged devices were found during investigations  Monis also demanded that a hostage ask all media to broadcast that "this is an attack on Australia by the Islamic State"  In addition, he demanded that an Islamic State flag be delivered to him, although the request was never fulfilled Hostages were ordered to hold up a Black Standard flag, with the shahādah in white Arabic letters (an Islamic creed declaring: "There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of God"), against the window of the café  Some news reports initially mistook it for the flag used by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) Monis demanded to speak to the Australian Prime Minister live on radio, but this demand was rejected  This was relayed by hostage Marcia Mikhael, who said that she "lost it" when told that the Prime Minister was too busy, saying, "I don't care what [Abbott] is doing right now   I'm sure there's nothing more important happening in Australia   than the lives of the people in this café   "Mamdouh Habib said he knew Monis well and offered to help police negotiate with him  He believed that Monis was "sick and disturbed" over his failure to gain access to his children, and said Monis could trust him to get his message out  Lawyer Manny Conditsis had represented Monis and had also offered help because he said that Monis respected what he had to say to him  Barrister Michael Klooster who had met Monis in the cafe before the siege called the police at 2:17 pm  Other Muslim leaders also offered to help, including the Grand Mufti of Australia, Ibrahim Abu Mohamed 
All such offers were rejected by police because they had no control over what the untrained negotiators might say or do  However, Mikhael said that after the request to speak to the Prime Minister was refused: "It was then that I knew that there was not going to be any negotiation and we were just left there     They were waiting for him to kill someone or shoot something so they [could] come in     There was nothing proactive about that operation, nothing "Belinda Neil, who was a negotiator for the NSW police, said that in negotiations, "[W]e want to try and talk to the hostage-taker     [W]e want to find out why he's there, why is he doing this, and we don't just go into this situation hoping to resolve it in half an hour " This approach would be consistent with the Behavioral Change Stairway Model  However, Mikhael stated that no such negotiation took place  Habib said that he called both the police and the Attorney General twice during the raid, but they did not return his calls  Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione confirmed during the siege that "we're not dealing directly with him     we do not have direct contact with the offender "Several hostages made contact with media outlets and relayed Monis's demands to them  At the request of the New South Wales Police Force, they were not published during the siege  The social media profiles of the hostages were also used to relay demands At 1:43 am Tori Johnson texted his family "He's [Monis] increasingly agitated, walks around when he hears a noise outside with a hostage in front of him  Wants to release one person in good faith, tell police " This was conveyed to the police 10 minutes later During the early stages of the siege, the Australian government and NSW authorities did not label the event as a terrorist attack; however, as the siege continued, NSW police authorised the engagement of the state's counter-terrorism task force, treating the incident as an act of terrorism 

Escape of first five hostages
At around 3:37 pm, two hostages, John O'Brien and barrister Stefan Balafoutis, escaped from the front entrance of the building, followed by a third hostage, café employee Paolo Vassallo, who ran out from a fire exit at the side of the building  At around 4:58 pm, two female hostages, both employees, Jieun Bae and Elly Chen, escaped by running from another entrance of the building and were met by Tactical Operations Unit officers Monis was unaware that Jieun Bae and Elly Chen had escaped  Jarrod Morton-Hoffman made noise to cover their exit and persuaded Monis that media reports of five hostages escaping were wrong  After the escape, Monis threatened to kill hostages Police planted a covert listening device in the café during the night  At one point, the device picked up Monis saying that he wanted to kill any escaping hostages 

Raid and end of the siege
At 2:03 am on 16 December, a "very loud bang" was heard as Monis shot towards six hostages fleeing from the building  At 2:11 am Monis fired a shot towards the kitchen, and was heard on the police listening device reloading his shotgun  The hostage Fiona Ma then escaped through the front door, and two police Tactical Operations Unit teams were ordered to move very slowly towards the two entrances At 2:14 am, four minutes after the Tactical operations teams were ordered in, Monis shot Tori Johnson in the back of the head, killing him  The shooting was witnessed by a police sniper, who reported a hostage down  Police armed with M4A1 carbines threw eleven stun grenades as they stormed the café 
Monis was shot in the head  An officer reported that "I watched the (gun's) laser     from the centre of his chest go to his head and his head exploded and he fell"  One officer then fired a total of 17 rounds, and another officer fired 5 additional rounds  Some fragments of those rounds killed hostage Katrina Dawson Police declared the siege over soon after, later confirming that Monis was killed in the raid  Two hostages had died, and another three were injured by police bullets  One police officer, whose face was grazed by a police bullet, was discharged from hospital later in the day At the inquest, Counsel assisting the coroner, Jeremy Gormley SC, said, "No shot fired by Mr Monis, other than the one that struck and killed Mr Johnson, struck anyone " Mitchell McAlister, who was a tactical assaulter with 2nd Commando Tactical Assault Group questioned the police use of M4A1 carbines with 5 56mm NATO rounds that could have "dangerous effects in a dense and enclosed environment " It was also unclear why 22 shots were fired by police, of which 13 hit Monis 

Flag raids
At around 2:00 pm on 15 December, police contacted Rebecca Kay, a member of the Muslim community, and asked her to help source an ISIS flag for Monis  Kay contacted many people in the Muslim community but ultimately the police sourced their own flag  However, the flag was never given to Monis The following day, NSW and federal police raided three homes of people who had been contacted in the attempt to source the flag  Kay assumes that her conversations had been monitored  Kay said she would help police in another crisis, but "with this incident they have not built trust at all  You don't understand   the fear that [the AFP and ASIO] create, and how they stalk   members of our community   " Lawyer Zali Burrows questioned the purpose of the police contacting Kay in the first place, stating, "Why didn't they just print [a flag]?"

Police strategy
The police followed a "contain and negotiate" strategy which was to avoid any direct action unless a hostage was killed or injured  They decided that this strategy could deliver a "peaceful negotiated outcome" because Monis had not harmed any hostages, despite having threatened to do so  Monis had also not reacted violently to the escape of five hostages on two separate occasions, or due to none of his demands being met  Further, Monis claimed to have a bomb, and "if the bomb was triggered, all of those inside the cafe and those attempting a rescue were not likely to survive"  At 8:20 pm and again at 11:35 pm, the head of the tactical operations unit attempted to persuade the other commanders to take a "deliberate action" plan and storm the cafe but this was overruled by other commanders and Assistant Commissioner Mark Jenkins due to the danger to the hostages and police 
Police snipers could not be used due to "the narrow windows, the moving around of Monis, the risk to hostages if there was a missed shot, (and) the position of the snipers behind glass" At 11 am, Operational Commander Mick Fuller approved negotiations for the release of half of the 18 hostages in return for Monis being allowed to talk on ABC radio  However, the negotiation commander decided not to do so because it conflicted with a standing policy to not negotiate with terrorists The first negotiator was not told that the Grand Mufti of Australia and a barrister who represented Monis had offered to help negotiate with Monis  He only found out about Monis's demand for the ABC to broadcast that Australia was under attack after a Facebook post from one of the hostages was read out on radio 2GB  Monis had also demanded that the Christmas lights be turned off  The first negotiator thought that doing this would have provided an opportunity to bargain with Monis, but did not hear back from commanders as to whether it was possible so "discarded" the option He was then relieved by a second negotiator, but did not tell him about the demand that the Christmas lights be turned off  Hostage Selina Win Pe told the second negotiator Monis wanted to know why it hadn't happened  It was later revealed an Ausgrid team had assembled to switch off the lights, but was sent home A third negotiator later said that he did not have the Christmas lights turned off because he had some reason to know that Monis would not carry through his threat to kill Win Pe  He said there was some "step-by-step" process to have the hostages released (after nineteen hours)  Jenkins says he would have liked the Christmas lights turned off quickly, and was unaware that this had been found to be possible  Jenkins was also not told about the Johnson text near the end of the siege that Monis wanted to release a hostage The negotiation team leader did not think Monis would hurt anyone because Monis had told people inside the cafe that everyone would go home once Prime Minister Tony Abbott called  The team leader later conceded that Abbott was never going to call  Forensic advice given to the police by an unnamed consultant psychiatrist was that Monis was probably undertaking a grandiose act to be recognised as a figure of great infamy rather than wishing to hurt anyone  He doubted that Monis actually represented ISIS because he did not have the correct flag, nor that his actions were politically motivated  The psychiatrist warned that "a wounded narcissist is a dangerous specimen" as none of Monis's demands were met 

Timeline of events
Hostages
Authorities did not release an estimate of the number of hostages inside the café during the siege  After the siege, a total of 18 hostages was confirmed—eight staff and ten customers of the café including lawyers and Westpac employees with offices close by  Initial estimates varied, with some significantly overestimating the number Tori Johnson, the 34-year-old manager of the café, died after being shot in the head by Monis 
Katrina Dawson, a 38-year-old barrister, was killed when she was hit by seven police bullet fragments while lying behind a chair, which was hit by 10 bullets Three hostages and a police officer were wounded by police gunfire during the raid  The three hostages were Marcia Mikhael, who was shot in the leg; Robyn Hope, a 75-year-old woman who was shot in the shoulder; and Louisa Hope, her 52-year-old daughter, who was shot in the foot 
All three were in a stable condition after treatment  Paolo Vassallo, one of the five hostages who initially escaped the scene, was hospitalised for a pre-existing condition 
The other hostages were identified as John O'Brien, Stefan Balafoutis, Elly Chen, Jieun Bae, Harriette Denny, Viswakanth Ankireddy, Joel Herat, Fiona Ma, Jarrod Hoffman, Puspendu Ghosh, Selina Win Pe, and Julie Taylor Memorial services for Johnson and Dawson were held on 23 December: Johnson's in the morning at St Stephen's Uniting Church, Sydney, and Dawson's in the afternoon in the Great Hall of the University of Sydney  Interviews with some of the hostages were later recorded for television and broadcast, amid some controversy 

Evacuations and closures
After the siege began, a staged exclusion zone was established with thousands of people evacuated from nearby buildings, including from the floors above the café  The Sydney Opera House was evacuated after a suspicious package was found; however, reports were unconfirmed by police  The US Consulate General in Sydney, located in Martin Place, was also evacuated  Some Sydney schools were put in "white level lockout" due to the hostage situation, which meant that no school group was permitted to leave the school grounds Police advised people in the area bounded by Hunter, George, Elizabeth, and Macquarie streets, bordering Martin Place, to remain indoors and away from windows  Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, and ANZ closed their CBD branches for the day  The State Library was also closed  Numerous other buildings, including David Jones stores, executive offices for the New South Wales Parliament, criminal courts for the Supreme Court, the Downing Centre, and "several city legal chambers" were evacuated, as were the facilities of the Seven Network, situated directly across from the café, forcing The Morning Show to suspend transmission  Police established an emergency centre in nearby Hyde Park in response to the unfolding situation with emergency services sent to the area to respond to any immediate threats and evacuees were relocated to the park as a safety precaution Trains did not stop at Martin Place railway station during the incident  Transport for NSW advised people to stay away from the CBD  Road closures prevented southbound access to the Cahill Expressway, York Street, and Harbour Street, and northbound access to the Cahill Expressway, and all traffic was diverted to the Sydney Harbour Tunnel  On the morning of 16 December, road diversions remained in place and Martin Place train station remained closed  In the evening of 16 December, Elizabeth Street, Macquarie Street and Hunter Street were opened to traffic Uber fares for travel in Sydney surged during the event under the company's dynamic pricing system, which led to criticism  Uber subsequently refunded excessive fares and provided free rides out of the CBD 

Gunman
Iranian-born Monis was identified as the hostage-taker and named early on the morning of 16 December In September 2009, Monis was convicted for criminal use of the postal service to "menace, harass or cause offence", for a campaign protesting the presence of Australian troops in Afghanistan, by writing letters to the families of soldiers killed there, in which he called the soldiers murderers  On 12 December, three days before the siege, Monis lost his appeal against his conviction and was sentenced to 300 hours of community service  Monis had been charged with accessory to murder relating to the death of his former wife who was found stabbed eighteen times, and set alight, on 21 April 2013 at a unit block in Werrington  However, on 12 December 2013, Magistrate William Pierce said "It is a weak case" and granted Monis bail  In November 2016, Amirah Droudis was found guilty, in a judge-only trial, of the murder of Monis's ex-wife and sentenced to 44 years' jail Monis also had numerous charges of sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault, and common assault  On 14 April 2014, Monis was charged with three sexual assault offences against a woman and remanded in custody  He was granted bail on 26 May, six days after the Bail Act in New South Wales was rewritten based on recommendations by the New South Wales Law Reform Commission  On 10 October, he was charged with another 40 sexual assault offences against six more women, and his bail was continued Jeremy Gormly SC, counsel assisting the inquest, summarised Monis as "a complex, disturbed individual desperate for recognition and status but completely lacking the skills or achievements to bring that dream to life"  Gormly summarised that "Monis could be plausible, courteous and controlled, but he was also almost entirely consumed in his own self-importance      By 2014, he owned no property, was in debt, and had developed no employment skills  His attempts to develop a personal, religious following     had failed      He was facing future serious criminal charges    he had made no public impact of note on the Australian political scene"  Monis may have felt that he had "little left to live for" No weapons were found when police raided his home in 2013  From 1997 to 2000, Monis held a security guard licence, which would have let him carry a pistol between March and June 1997  The weapon that Monis used, a sawn-off French-made Manufrance La Salle pump-action shotgun, was more than 50 years old  Police believe the weapon was imported in the 1950s, when no registration was required  Monis had 23 shotgun cartridges of different brands on him, between 15 and 20 years old 

Reactions
Leaders
The Prime Minister convened the National Security Committee of Cabinet to give briefings on the situation and said "Australians should be reassured that our law enforcement and security agencies are well trained and equipped and are responding in a thorough and professional manner " He later said, "The whole point of politically motivated violence is to scare people out of being themselves  Australia is a peaceful, open, and generous society  Nothing should ever change that and that's why I would urge all Australians today to go about their business as usual", and "Australians should be reassured by the way our law enforcement and security agencies responded to this brush with terrorism "The Premier of New South Wales, Mike Baird, addressed the media during the stand-off, and stated "we are being tested today    in Sydney  The police are being tested, the public is being tested, but whatever the test we will face it head on and we will remain a strong democratic, civil society  I have full confidence in the Police Commissioner and the incredible work of the NSW police force The Lord Mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore, on the morning of 16 December, urged Australians to see this as a "one-off event", stating, "We're an inclusive multicultural community and we need to deal with this together"  Governor-General of Australia, Sir Peter Cosgrove, released a statement sympathising with the families, commending the work of the police involved, and urging Australians to "unite in our resolve to protect what we value most—our way of life, our care and respect for each other" 

Community
Thousands of people visited the site in the first few days after the incident to pay tribute to the victims  Among them were members of the families of Dawson and Johnson  Johnson's father was accompanied by rabbis Levi Wolff and Zalmen Kastel, Hindu priest Pandit Ramachandra, the Reverend Bill Crews and Sheikh Wesam Charkawi  Dawson's young daughter left her own note 
Flags on all NSW government buildings, including the Sydney Harbour Bridge, flew at half-mast to honour the hostages who lost their lives at the café A magistrate who had granted Monis bail and the lawyers who had represented him in his court appearances received death threats in the days after the attack  This reaction was described by the Bar Association as "understandable but wrong-headed", as magistrates have to deal with cases as they come before them on the basis of the law at the time 

#illridewithyou campaign
During and immediately following the incident, some in the community expressed concern about an increased potential for violence or intimidation directed at Muslims in Australia  For example, the head of the Australian Muslim Women's Association told the media there was an increase in anti-Muslim messages being posted on social media  Due to this concern among some local social media users, many started using the hashtag #illridewithyou [I'll ride with you]  This sought to offer solidarity and emotional support to Muslims travelling alone on public transport by people tweeting their bus/train route and suggesting that they would be willing to "ride with" anyone who might feel threatened  More than 150,000 people indicated their support of the concept by using the hashtag  The campaign was initially inspired by a Facebook status update about offering to walk with a woman who had removed her head covering  The campaign received international attention, including from United States President Barack Obama, although federal National Party member of Parliament George Christensen criticised the campaign for creating "false victims" out of Muslims and thereby taking attention away from the hostages 

"Field of flowers"
On the morning of 16 December, after police declared the crisis to be over, a makeshift memorial began to take shape in Martin Place  From the first bunch of lilies, tributes developed into a field of flowers that "you can smell before you can see" and which was extensively reported and photographed  The Prime Minister and NSW Premier were among many in the community to lay flowers at the memorial in a demarcated space  Flowers were also taken to suburban Lindt shops 
Volunteers from the Rural Fire Service, the State Emergency Service and the Red Cross began clearing the flowers on 22 December after consultation with the families, because rain was expected  It was announced that the condolence books would be bound in several volumes and one complete copy provided to each family  The messages on the many cards were to be digitised  During the week after the siege, it was estimated that 110,000 bouquets were laid at Martin Place 

Religious organisations
During the siege, Sanier Dandan, president of the Lebanese Muslim Association, informed ABC News that Australian Muslim leaders were meeting online for discussions as to how the Muslim community could help with the situation  He added, "Regardless, we have a hostage situation  Whether he is someone who belongs to the Australian Muslim community or not, we are still waiting for information to be provided by police and based on that if there's something the Muslim community can do or assist, we are there "
Ibrahim Abu Mohamed, the Grand Mufti of Australia, condemned the incident in a statement released on 15 December  The same afternoon, around fifty Muslim groups issued a joint statement in which they condemned the incident  The Australian Ahmadiyya Muslim Association condemned the incident, the national president saying that "such actions are criminal and totally contrary to the teachings of Islam " Egypt's Grand Mufti Shawqi Allam also condemned the attack 
In Martin Place, the 2014 traditional Hanukkah menorah presented a message of support: "May the lights of the festival of Hanukkah bring comfort and warmth to our nation" The Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher, invoked the special prayers in the Roman Missal from the "Mass in times of civil disturbance" and a memorial service was held at St Mary's Cathedral, on the morning of 19 December St James' Church, which had been within the exclusion zone, held a "Service of Remembrance and Reflection" on the afternoon of 19 December  The service was attended by about 400 people, most of them members of the legal profession 

International
During the siege, a spokesman for the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, John Baird, said, "We urge all Canadians in Sydney to use extra precaution and limit their movements as authorities handle this situation "Iran Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Marzieh Afkham, strongly condemned the taking of hostages as "inhuman" and also stated that the Australian authorities had been repeatedly warned about Monis United States President Barack Obama called the Prime Minister to express his condolences on behalf of the United States  According to the White House, Obama praised the "Australian public's embrace of #illridewithyou and the Muslim leaders who have disavowed the actions of the hostage taker", and "Australia's rejection of any violence taken in the name of religion and the fear this violence seeks to stoke " The President also conveyed the United States' willingness to provide assistance in the aftermath of the situation  United States Secretary of State, John Kerry, said the United States stood ready to provide Australia with any assistance required in "determining the facts of the case, assisting the victims and holding accountable anyone and everyone responsible for this act of terror"  Citing this event, the United States issued a global travel alert to its citizens, to be alert for possible terrorist attacks within public venues New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, UK Prime Minister David Cameron, and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak also expressed their concern about the incident  In addition, the Israeli embassy in Australia stated that it stood with Australia in the face of terror 

Charitable foundations
Following the two deaths during the hostage situation, the Katrina Dawson Foundation was established, with the aim of supporting educational opportunities for women  The then Governor-General Quentin Bryce was a founding member  At his parents' request, a memorial fund for Johnson was used to raise money for mental health organisation Beyond Blue  The first donation, of $51,000, came from Lindt Australia 

Terrorist organizations
Two weeks after the siege, Dabiq, a magazine published by the ISIL editorialised on Monis's actions and attempted to claim him as one of their own, in a response that an expert described as "absolutely predictable"  The magazine lauded Monis's actions and their effect on the city  The al Qaeda-produced magazine Inspire also praised Monis's actions 

Investigations
A number of organisations announced formal investigations 
Police investigations include a "critical incident" investigation undertaken by NSW police; headed by Detective Inspector Angelo Memmolo and an enquiry conducted by the Australian Federal Police Federal and state governments announced a joint review to be led by Michael Thawley from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and Blair Comley of the New South Wales Department of Premier and Cabinet Following the siege, officers from the New South Wales Police Force and the Australian Federal Police went to the Belmore home of Monis's partner Amirah Droudis, and removed property  Her bail was revoked after a hearing on 22 December 2014  Investigations by Australian security agencies and monitoring of suspects following the siege revealed increased "terror chatter" 

Federal–State joint review
The findings of the Federal–State joint review were released on 22 February 2015  The report covered Monis's earlier interactions with the government, his access to firearms, and the government response to Monis including problems correlating his various aliases  The report's terms of reference did not cover the controversial police actions during the siege itself, such as the nature of the negotiations or the final assault The review found that the judgements made by government agencies were reasonable  It suggested only modest changes to laws and procedures, taking the view that "introducing substantial further controls involves a larger choice about the sort of society we wish to live in and is properly the province of the public and our elected representatives"  The review found that the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) had conducted a thorough review of Monis in 2008/9 and found that he was not involved in politically motivated violence, nor had significant contact with groups of security concern  After receiving 18 calls from the public, ASIO reviewed Monis's Facebook page, which was considered not to indicate a threat  None of the calls related to any pending attack  The review found that there was no credible information that would indicate an attack  Monis had been granted bail while charged with several violent offences  However, bail laws had since been tightened in this regard  Monis obtained his firearm illegally and was never granted a license The review suggested, in addition to the reforms to the bail laws and "new programmes to counter violent extremism", that a review of immigration policies and visa applications should be undertaken  The review suggested that the gun that Monis used had lawfully entered the country, possibly as early as the 1950s, and had fallen into the "grey market" after not being included in the gun buyback schemes of 1996 and 2002 

Inquest
An inquest, mandatory whenever people die in a police operation, began as scheduled on 29 January 2015, presided over by the State Coroner, Michael Barnes  The stated aim was "to determine how the [three] deaths occurred, the factors that contributed to them and whether they could have been prevented" The hearings were divided into blocks of a couple of weeks  The first, which started on 25 May 2015, queried people who knew Monis to get background information  The second started on 17 August 2015 to consider Monis's bail application  Further blocks that investigate how the police dealt with the siege itself will be withheld from the public "in the interests of the families" The findings of the inquest were released on 24 May 2017 

Aftermath
Designation of the event as terrorism
Insurance declaration
Treasurer Joe Hockey declared the siege to be a "terrorist incident" under the Terrorism Insurance Act 2003  The Act means that insurance exclusions for terrorist incidents do not apply if such a declaration is made 

Debate on status as a terrorist event
Scholars and social commentators have debated whether Monis was a terrorist and whether his actions could be classified as an act of terrorism  There is doubt as to whether or not Monis fit the definition of a lone wolf terrorist 
Queensland University of Technology criminologist Mark Lauchs said it was important to not describe the siege as a "terrorist attack"  Lauchs said Monis was simply a deranged person running a hostage situation  "This incident was not about religion and neither was it a terrorist attack, but given that perception by the paraphernalia Monis used " The Australian prime minister said, "[Man Haron Monis] had a long history of violent crime, infatuation with extremism and mental instability   As the siege unfolded yesterday, he sought to cloak his actions with the symbolism of the ISIL death cult "Prof Greg Barton (from Deakin University) and Dr Clarke Jones (ANU) told the inquest that Monis was a loner and had mental health problems, and was desperate to attach himself to something  Clarke suggested that if the Rebels had accepted his membership then the siege might not have happened  Roger Shanahan from the Lowy Institute said that if Monis had followed ISIS direction he would have just killed everyone The chief of ASIO Duncan Lewis confirmed that he believed Monis to be a terrorist  However, former counter-terrorism adviser to the White House, Richard A  Clarke, said, "I don't think this was a lone wolf terrorist, I don't think this was a terrorist at all, I think this was someone who was committing suicide by police as a lot of people with mental problems do, and now, if they say they're a terrorist, if they say they're somehow associated with ISIS or Al Qaeda, it becomes a major event that shuts down the city and gets international attention  This was a person with a mental problem who tried to gain attention and succeeded, tried to shut down the city and succeeded, merely by putting up a flag that was something like the flag of ISIS "The difference between terrorism and terrorising acts was noted in one analysis as "enormously important"—it added that in Monis's case, terrorism "was clearly an element, but he was coming to the end of his rope with a variety of legal processes; there was clearly some mental instability " One view was that his lack of ties to any movement did not preclude his being a terrorist as it is "an inclusive club"  Another commentator said, "There can be also no doubt that his attack was a terrorist act, as defined under Australia's Criminal Code Act 1995" and that, "he was a terrorist, clearly influenced by IS" One terrorism expert, Professor Greg Barton, described Monis's actions as those of a "lone wolf terrorist     driven by a desire for attention and to be in the spotlight", and his use of the flag was described as "the only way" to instil fear on a global scale  Professor Michael Wesley, Director of the School of International, Political and Strategic Studies at the Australian National University said the attack "was very different from first-generation or second-generation terrorist attacks—but it was terrorism, and terrorism of a brutal and more unpredictable sort " Another view was that describing the gunman as a terrorist was misplaced and would only serve the interests of ISIL  The supervisor of terrorism and security analysis for Stratfor said that this hostage-incident exhibits many of the elements associated with grassroots terrorism  A criminologist said that the event "was not about religion and neither was it a terrorist attack but given that perception by the paraphernalia Monis used "Conversely, Yassir Morsi, a researcher at the Centre for Muslim and non-Muslim Understanding in Australia, suggested that "before he flew the black flag, Monis was just a desperate man with a violent past" and that "he was just another gunman      the symbol (flag) rewrote Monis's violent past and gave grammar to his attack "Monis had entered the cafe without an ISIS flag  ASIO's previous investigations had found no links between Monis and any terrorist group  When a News reporter met him before the crisis she thought Monis was "lost and confused" and "harmless"  Habib said Monis was "sick and disturbed" and desperately seeking attention over his grievances with government officials that had nothing to do with terrorism In 2016, Monis was cited as one of a number of recent violent attackers who were mentally disturbed and operated under the justification of Islamist ideas or slogans  Other examples include the as-of-yet unidentified perpetrator of the Munich knife attack and Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, the perpetrator of the 2014 shootings at Parliament Hill, Ottawa  According to psychologists and psychiatrists who study radicalisation, jihad propaganda and calls to kill infidels can push mentally-ill individuals to act, even in the absence of direct or personal contact with radical Islamists In February 2017, United States President Donald Trump cited the Sydney siege as an example of what he claimed was deliberate underreporting of terrorist attacks by the media, notwithstanding that the event received "blanket coverage" in local and international news 

The coroner's finding
Following the Sydney siege inquest, in May 2017, the NSW Coroner Michael Barnes determined that "The siege was a terrorist incident "

Police weapons and tactics
During the siege, an Australian Army Tactical Assault Group East team at Holsworthy Barracks evaluated the floorplan of the cafe and gave advice to police  Mitchell McAlister, a former member of TAG East, questioned the police use of M4A1 carbines with 5 56 mm rounds over Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns Katrina Dawson died from a fragment of a police bullet, and other hostages appear to have been hit by bullets that ricocheted off the concrete building  It was unclear why 22 shots were fired by police, of which 13 hit Monis  Police have been criticised for both the high powered weapons used and the number of shots fired 

Negotiation
During the siege, no significant effort was made to negotiate with Monis, as would normally be expected in a hostage situation in order to build a relationship with a gunman and persuade them to surrender  Instead, Monis received no encouragement or assistance from trained police negotiators Help was offered by the Muslim community including the Grand Mufti and Mamdouh Habib who had known Monis personally  Habib offered to help negotiate or provide background information to the police  These offers were not taken up It has been suggested that the police treatment of the siege as a terrorist attack may have led to errors such as making no attempt to negotiate with the gunman as would have been normal practice in other hostage situations  One commentator, Guy Rundle, questioned whether the police may have used a "crude rule" that "we don't negotiate with terrorists" that affected their procedures  It might also explain the choice of weapon in a small enclosure against a lone gunman  These factors may have directly led to the deaths of Johnson and Dawson 

ISIL flag
During the siege, police asked Muslims in Sydney to source an ISIL flag for Monis, before obtaining their own  The police later raided several houses of people contacted by Ms Kay who was attempting to find an ISIL flag  Ms Kay assumed that the phone calls had been monitored, and that the request had been solely to find out who she would contact, lowering trust among Muslims in the NSW police force 

Lack of detection
The security forces have been criticised for not recognising that Monis was a threat, and for taking him off their watch list in 2008  This may have been because they overlooked key evidence, or it may have been because there was simply no evidence to collect  The federal/state joint review found that the relevant agencies' analysis had been reasonable 

Law and politics
After the siege, the revelation that the new Bail Act had allowed Monis to be granted bail sparked calls to further tighten the law; however, a review had already been conducted in the wake of earlier controversial bail releases, with the new law set "to take effect next year" (that is, on 28 January 2015)  Former director of public prosecutions in New South Wales, Nicholas Cowdery, said he was not sure that the amended law would have changed anything in Monis's case, saying that "There will always be, unfortunately, some exceptional events which laws and controls put in place before the event could not have prevented"  Homicide detectives sent a letter to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) urging them to challenge the bail decision for Monis, but a commissioned officer did not pass it on to the DPP  Michael Esposito, writing for the Law Society of South Australia, noted that the shocking nature of the Sydney siege had the power to prompt reviews of bail laws across Australia Some commentators expressed concerns about immigration and citizenship processes  Monis's "confused agenda" meant that Amnesty International did not realise that he and Boroujerdim, who had sought help in 1997, were the same man until they went back through their records  In the absence of hard evidence, suggestions that Monis represented a growing trend of systemic failure, rather than being an aberration, were noted as dangerous to public confidence; to the separation of powers; to the idea of innocence till proven guilty and also to social cohesion by inviting suspicion of people from the Middle East In the week after the siege, it was revealed that John Robertson, NSW Opposition leader, had sent a letter which passed on a request made by Monis, a constituent in his Blacktown electorate, to the Department of Family and Community Services in 2011  The letter was, according to Robertson, routine procedure on behalf of a constituent and written in support of Monis's request for a supervised visit with his children on Father's Day despite an apprehended violence order against him  The Department declined Monis's request  As pressure mounted on Robertson to resign as Leader of the Labor Party, and three months away from the 2015 state election, he stood aside on 23 December 2014 

Violence
Commentators considered Monis's history of domestic violence, with a family violence expert arguing that it should have been considered when bail was given  A columnist noted that while his behaviour highlighted an "epidemic" of violence towards women, the media focus remained on terrorism Historians of religion and politics also critically reviewed the role of violence committed in the name of religion 

Media
Debate followed about the difficulty of managing a police operation in the presence of continuous global media coverage as well as the likely damage caused by the spread of rumour  Particular criticism was levelled at Rupert Murdoch and News Corp for spreading false information as well as for insensitivity and "gross ethical violations"  Commissioner Scipione and chair of the Australian Press Council, Professor Julian Disney released statements about the media coverage after the event  Beyond misinformation, concerns were raised regarding the presentation of crises as entertainment Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Four Corners aired a two-part broadcast, interviewing former hostages, and the families of deceased Katrina Dawson and Tori Johnson 

Memorials and legacy
A month after the siege, police, ambulance workers, firefighters and others were officially thanked at NSW Government House  Memorial plaques were placed inside the reopened Lindt café  A permanent memorial to the victims of the siege will incorporate the flowers from Martin Place, which are to be mulched and incorporated into its garden element  The memorial was opened in December, 2017 The premiere of Jonathon Welch's choral piece Street Requiem in February 2015 was dedicated to the siege victims and to those who died in the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris Composer Lyle Chan, who resides less than a kilometre from the Lindt cafe, wrote two works influenced by the events  Sea of Flowers was premiered by conductor Alondra de la Parra and the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in May 2015  Chan's Love Is Always Born (December), with original words by Michael Leunig and 'Silent Night' in Arabic, was commissioned and premiered by the Song Company at concerts around the first anniversary of the events Dawson's family created the Katrina Dawson Foundation and scholarships to The Women's College, University of Sydney to provide financial assistance to young women for their university education  The first recipients started university in 2016 Senator Dean Smith, a homosexual Liberal Party member, changed his views on same-sex marriage in Australia due to Tori Johnson and his partner of 14 years  Smith later introduced a bill aimed at legalising same-sex marriage to the Senate, which became law A ceremony unveiling the memorial was held on 16 December 2017 The Lindt Cafe closed in October 2021 due to lack of patronage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing construction work for the Sydney Metro 

See also
List of mass shootings in Australia
Sydney siege inquest
2015 Parramatta shooting
Crime in Australia
Islam in Australia
Context 3: Passage 1:
Douglas Murray (author)
Douglas Kear Murray (born 16 July 1979) is a British author and political commentator  He founded the Centre for Social Cohesion in 2007, which became part of the Henry Jackson Society, where he was associate director from 2011 to 2018  He is also an associate editor of the conservative-leaning British political and cultural magazine The Spectator  Murray has also written columns for publications such as The Wall Street Journal 
Murray's books include Neoconservatism: Why We Need It (2005), Bloody Sunday: Truths, Lies and the Saville Inquiry (2011) about the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam (2017), The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity (2019), and The War on the West: How to Prevail in the Age of Unreason (2022) 
Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Sohrab Ahmari have praised Murray's work and writing on Islam in Europe  French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy has said of Murray, "Whether one agrees with him or not" he is "one of the most important public intellectuals today " Critics claim his views and ideology are linked to far-right political ideologies and accuse him of promoting far-right conspiracy theories such as Eurabia, the Great Replacement, and cultural Marxism  Murray has rejected descriptions of his politics as far-right 

Early life
Murray was born in Hammersmith, London, to an English, school teacher mother, and a Scottish, Gaelic-speaking father who had been born on the Isle of Lewis and who worked as a civil servant  He has one elder brother  In an interview with The Herald Murray stated that his father had intended to be in London temporarily but stayed after meeting his mother and that they "encouraged a good discussion around the dinner table" when he was growing up but "neither are political "Murray was educated at his local state primary and secondary schools, before going to a comprehensive which had previously been a grammar school  Recalling this experience in 2011, he wrote, "My parents had been promised that the old grammar school standards and ethos remained, but none did  By the time I arrived the school was what would now be described as 'an inner-city sink school', a war zone similar to those many of the children's parents had escaped from " Murray's parents withdrew him from the school after a year  He was awarded scholarships to St Benedict's School, Ealing, and subsequently Eton College, before going on to study English at Magdalen College, Oxford 

Publications
At age 19, while in his second year at the University of Oxford, Murray published Bosie: A Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas, which was described by Christopher Hitchens as "masterly"  Bosie was awarded a Lambda Award for a gay biography in 2000  After leaving Oxford, Murray wrote a play, Nightfall, about the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg In 2006, Murray published a defence of neoconservatism – Neoconservatism: Why We Need It – and went on a speaking tour promoting the book in the United States  The publication was subsequently reviewed in the newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat by the Iranian author Amir Taheri: "Whether one agrees with him or not Murray has made a valuable contribution to the global battle of ideas " In 2007, he assisted in the writing of Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World: Renewing Transatlantic Partnership by Gen  Dr  Klaus Naumann, Gen  John Shalikashvili, Field Marshal The Lord Inge, Adm  Jacques Lanxade, and Gen  Henk van den Breemen  His book Bloody Sunday was (jointly) awarded the 2011–2012 Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize  In June 2013, Murray's e-book Islamophilia: a Very Metropolitan Malady was published In 2017, Murray published The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam, which spent almost 20 weeks on The Sunday Times bestseller list and was a No  1 bestseller in non-fiction  It has since been published in over 20 languages  In The Strange Death of Europe, Murray argued that Europe "is committing suicide" by allowing non-European immigration into its borders and losing its "faith in its beliefs"  The book received a polarized response from critics  Juliet Samuel of The Telegraph praised Murray, saying that: "His overall thesis, that a guilt-driven and exhausted Europe is playing fast and loose with its precious modern values by embracing migration on such a scale, is hard to refute " An academic review in the Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs acclaimed the book as "explosive" and "an elegantly written, copiously documented exposé of Europe's suicidal hypocrisy"  Rod Liddle of The Sunday Times called the book "a brilliant, important and profoundly depressing book" Other reviews of the book were highly negative  In The Guardian, the political journalist Gaby Hinsliff described Strange Death as "gentrified xenophobia" and "Chapter after chapter circles around the same repetitive themes: migrants raping and murdering and terrorising", also pointing out that Murray offers little definition of the European culture which he claims is under threat  Writing in The New York Times, Pankaj Mishra described the book as "a handy digest of far-right clichés"  Mishra accused Murray of defending Pegida, of writing that the English Defence League "had a point", and of describing Viktor Orbán as a better sentinel of "European values" than George Soros  Writing in The Intercept, Murtaza Hussain criticised what he called the "relentlessly paranoid tenor" and "apocalyptic picture of Europe" portrayed in the book, while challenging the links Murray made between non-European immigration and large increases in crime  In Middle East Eye, Georgetown professor Ian Almond called the book "a staggeringly one-sided flow of statistics, interviews and examples, reflecting a clear decision to make the book a rhetorical claim that Europe is doomed to self-destruction" Murray wrote about social justice and identity politics in his 2019 book The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity which became a Sunday Times bestseller  It was also nominated as an audio book of the year for the British Book Awards  In the book, Murray points to what he sees as a cultural shift, away from established modes of religion and political ideology, in which various forms of victimhood can provide markers of social status  He divides his book into sections dealing with different forms of victimhood, including types of LGBT identity, feminism and racial politics  Murray criticises the work of French philosopher Michel Foucault for what he sees as a reduction of society to a system of power relations  Murray's book drew polarized responses from critics  Tim Stanley in The Daily Telegraph praised the book, calling Murray "a superbly perceptive guide through the age of the social justice warrior"  Katie Law in the Evening Standard said that Murray "tackled another necessary and provocative subject with wit and bravery"  Conversely, William Davies gave a highly critical review of Murray's work in The Guardian, describing the book as "the bizarre fantasies of a rightwing provocateur, blind to oppression" In 2021 Murray published The War on the West: How to Prevail in the Age of Unreason  The book was characterised by Gerard Baker as an examination of attempts to destroy Western civilisation from sources within 

Media career
Murray is an associate editor of The Spectator In 2016, Murray organised a competition through The Spectator in which entrants were invited to submit offensive poems about Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, with a top prize of £1,000 donated by a reader  This was in reaction to the Böhmermann affair, in which German satirist Jan Böhmermann was prosecuted under the German penal code for such a poem  His book Bloody Sunday: Truths, Lies and The Saville Inquiry, had been longlisted for the 2012 Orwell Book Prize  He announced the winner of the poetry competition as Conservative MP Boris Johnson (former editor of the magazine and former Mayor of London) In April, 2019, Murray spent weeks urging New Statesman journalist George Eaton and editor Jason Cowley to share the original recording of an interview between Eaton and Roger Scruton, with Murray branding the published interview – which attributed a number of controversial statements to Scruton – as "journalistic dishonesty"  Murray eventually managed to acquire the recording, which formed the basis of an article in the Spectator defending Scruton, arguing that his remarks had been misinterpreted  It is unclear how Murray obtained the recording  The New Statesman subsequently apologized for Eaton's misrepresentation Murray has written columns for The Daily Telegraph, National Review, The Wall Street Journal, UnHerd, and the New York Post  In February 2022, Murray became a Fox News contributor 

Political views
Murray has been described as a conservative, a neoconservative, and a regular critic of immigration and Islam  Murray's views have been described as "anti-Muslim" by British journalist Peter Oborne Murray has argued that the term 'far right' is used far too often by the political left  He has also said that political parties previously identified as far-right should be recognised as being able to moderate their politics over time  Murray has argued that there is an effort by the left to destroy Western culture and has argued that criticisms of Western leaders and philosophers are motivated by attempts to hurt the west 

Islam and Muslims
In February 2006, Douglas Murray said "conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board: Europe must look like a less attractive proposition " Murray's former coworker James Brandon interpreted this comment as calling for the collective punishment of Muslims  After Murray refused Paul Goodman's offer to disown these comments, the Conservative Party frontbench severed formal relations with Murray and his Centre for Social Cohesion According to Murray's former coworker at the Centre for Social Cohesion, James Brandon, Murray failed to distinguish Islam from Islamism  Brandon said he attempted to "de-radicalise" Murray to ensure that only Islamists were targeted and not "Muslims as a whole"  Brandon writes that Murray has privately retracted some of his comments In 2005 Murray said there is "a creed of Islamic fascism – a malignant fundamentalism, woken from the Dark Ages to assault us here and now"  In 2010, during an Intelligence Squared US debate titled "Is Islam a Religion of Peace?" Murray argued "[Islam's Prophet] Muhammad was a bad man" In the wake of the 2017 London Bridge attack, Murray blamed Islam as a religion and called for reduced immigration In 2008, Murray listed the cases of 27 writers, activists, politicians and artists – including Sir Salman Rushdie, Maryam Namazie and Anwar Shaikh, all three of whom had received death threats due to their criticism of Islam  Murray said that "Unless Muslims are allowed to discuss their religion without fear of attack there can be no chance of reform or genuine freedom of conscience within Islam "In 2009, Murray was prevented from chairing a debate at the London School of Economics between Alan Sked and Hamza Tzortzis on the topic "Islam or Liberalism: Which is the Way Forward?", with the university citing security concerns following a week-long student protest against Israel's attacks on Gaza  The debate took place without Murray chairing  The move was criticised by the conservative press, such as The Daily Telegraph and The Spectator In June 2009, Murray accepted an invitation to a debate with Anjem Choudary, leader of the banned group Al-Muhajiroun, on the subject of Sharia law and British law at Conway Hall  Members of Al-Muhajiroun acting as security guards tried to segregate men and women at the entrance of the event  Clashes broke out near the entrance between Choudary's and Murray's supporters and Conway Hall cancelled the debate because of the attempted forced separation of men and women  Outside the building, a confrontation between Choudary and Murray over the cancellation of the event occurred  Murray's Centre for Social Cohesion later published a study arguing that one in seven Islam-related terrorist cases in the UK could be linked to Al-Muhajiroun Murray has argued in defence of Muslim reformers in his writing 

Brexit
Murray supported the 'Leave' side in the UK's 2016 EU referendum  In the wake of the Brexit vote, Murray expressed concern that the result "has just not been accepted by an elite" and said that the result "should be celebrated by anybody who actually believes in democracy" 

Immigration
Murray is a vocal critic of immigration  In March 2013, Murray claimed that London was a "foreign country" due to "white Britons" becoming a minority in 23 of the 33 London boroughs  In Murray's book The Strange Death of Europe, he writes that Europe and its values are committing suicide due to mass immigration; in the opening pages, he calls for halting Muslim immigration  In the book, he also details crimes committed by immigrants in Europe and writes favourably of immigration hard liner Viktor Orbán In 2018, Murray filmed a video for PragerU entitled "The Suicide of Europe"  Writing in the news website Sludge, journalist Alex Koch described the video as "evok[ing] the common white nationalist trope of white genocide with its rhetoric of 'suicide' and 'annihilation' " Koch interviewed a senior editor at the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism, Mark Pitcavage, who stated that there was "almost certainly prejudice in the video" and that it was "filled with anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric"  Similarly, the Southern Poverty Law Center described the video as a "dog whistle to the extreme right" In September 2016, Murray supported Donald Trump's proposal for a wall along the southern border of the United States  In January 2017, Murray defended Executive Order 13769 which banned entry to the U S  by citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries 

Gender and sexuality
Murray is gay, and he is a supporter of same-sex marriage  However, he has said that he believes that homosexuality "is an unstable component on which to base an individual identity and a hideously unstable way to try and base any form of group identity"  In his book The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity, Murray defends conversion therapy, and asserts that homophobia has mostly been vanquished Murray has said that it is a lie that a man can become a woman  In September 2020, during an appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast, Murray compared accepting trans people to "late-empire sign of things falling apart"  He has stated that he thinks there is no such thing as non-binary gender In September 2019, Murray said in an interview that women are held to a different standard than men when it comes to sexual behaviour, citing instances involving Drew Barrymore, Jane Fonda and Mayim Bialik behaving sexually towards men without backlash from the media 

Foreign policy
In his book Neoconservatism: Why We Need It, Murray argues that neoconservatism is necessary for fighting against dictatorships and human rights abuses  Murray has called for continuing the War on terror on Iran, Syria, and any regime which supports terrorism  He has also said that he believes that the political left or right have no desire for foreign interventions since John McCain's death On June, 2013, Murray opposed U S intervention in the Syrian civil war and wrote "as the composition of the military opponents has become clearer—al Qaeda-linked Islamists dominating one side, Bashar al-Assad's forces and Hezbollah the other—it has become obvious that the window of opportunity for outside intervention is closed"  In 2021, Murray chastised the Biden administration for withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and for attempting to portray the withdrawal as a success Murray supported the Iraq War and wrote in 2004, "Iraq may be the big intervention of this generation  Success means the success of the Iraqi nation in a region of failing states and unprecedented freedom for a nation previously cowed by brutalism and ignored by pacifism  Failure means not only the failure of the Arab world to allow freedom and democracy to stick, and the failure of the civilized world to stand up to tyranny, but the failure and loss of many more lives in a country which finally found hope and a future " Murray also defended the war against critics on multiple occasions In 2013, Murray condemned journalist Owen Jones for mistakenly saying that Israel had killed a 11 month old child in a military strike  Jones responded by criticising Murray for ignoring a UN report which reported an Israel airstrike had killed numerous innocent civilians  In 2014, Murray defended and supported Israel during 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict  Murray also defended Israel's right to defend itself, saying, "If you don't believe that Israel has the right to stop a group that has proposed repeatedly since its existence that it wants to annihilate Israel, if you believe that Israel doesn't have the right to try and stop this enemy, then of course you don't believe Israel has the right to exist; you believe Israel has the right to die " During a visit to Israel in 2019, Murray praised Israeli society, saying that Israel "has a healthier attitude towards nationalism than Europe" and lauded Israel's restrictive approach to immigration  In 2019, Murray supported the Trump administration's decision to formally recognize Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights In June 2019, Murray referred to Robert Mueller's investigation into Donald Trump and Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections as a "nothing-burger"  Murray called the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine a war crime and a blunder  He has claimed that the Russian military are corrupt and inefficient, as well as praised the Ukrainians for attempting to defend their homeland  Murray has urged the Republican Party to support Ukraine, and has expressed disappointment in Republicans Matt Gaetz and Kevin McCarthy for not supporting Ukraine Murray has said he believes that China is a threat to the west  In May 2020, he rebuked people labelling the COVID-19 lab leak theory – a theory which states that COVID-19 came from a lab in China – as a conspiracy theory  He has advocated for punishing China for their role in allowing COVID-19 into the United States and has expressed concern over China's influence on American universities  Murray has also criticised TikTok, referring to it as "a piece of malware from China", and accused the Chinese Communist Party of using it to corrupt society 

Donald Trump
In November 2016, Murray questioned US Democrats calling Trump sexist, homophobic, and racist, as they had also attempted to portray Mitt Romney and John McCain in the same way  Murray also said that Trump's foreign policy plans were less provocative than Hillary Clinton's would have been  In response to Trump being nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, Murray argued that were good reasons to nominate Trump for a prize, citing his attempts to negotiate peace with Kim Jong-un and his policy towards Israel Ahead of the 2020 United States presidential election, Murray argued that while Trump had personality flaws and enacted certain policies he did not agree with, his re-election would be more beneficial for the United Kingdom in terms of foreign policy and Brexit than a Biden administration would be  Murray praised Trump for having brokered the Israel–United Arab Emirates normalization agreement, and wrote of the assassination of Qasem Soleimani: "American forces took out Iran's leading general, a man who had overseen the deaths of countless numbers of British and American troops, not to mention Iraqi and other civilians in the area, and Iran took it  Not least because they seemed to fear that they were dealing with a madman "In 2021, Murray criticised the January 6 United States Capitol attack perpetrated by supporters of Trump, and said that Trump alone was responsible for stoking the riot The following year, Murray reiterated his criticism of Trump's behaviour following the Capitol riot, but argued some Democratic Party politicians were contradictory in condemning the violence and claiming the riots were a danger to democracy after they had endorsed the rhetoric of the Black Lives Matter movement during the riots that followed the murder of George Floyd and Hillary Clinton's claims that the 2016 election had been stolen  Murray also argued that the Trump administration had enacted strong policies in regard to immigration, Iran, and China and it would be a strategic mistake of the Biden administration to reverse them  However, Murray has also asserted that the Republican Party should distance itself from Trump's stolen election theories and not seek 2024 primary candidates based on Trump's personal approval if it is to win the next presidential election 

Viktor Orbán
In March 2018, Viktor Orbán posted a photo on his official Facebook account of himself reading the Hungarian-language edition of The Strange Death of Europe  Murray has disputed the claim that Hungary is experiencing significant democratic backsliding under Orbán, and has called Freedom House's comparisons of Orbán's government to a dictatorship as "increasingly off-kilter"  In May 2018, Murray was personally received by Orbán in Budapest as part of the "Future of Europe" conference, along with other conservative figures like Steve Bannon, and according to Hungarian state media had an individual discussion and photograph with Orbán 

Other activities
Murray is on the international advisory board of NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem-based NGO described as pro-Israel and right-wing, which was founded in 2001 by Gerald M  Steinberg  As of 2022, he is also one of the directors of the Free Speech Union, an organization established by Toby Young in 2020 which speaks out against cancel culture Murray participates in the Intellectual Dark Web, a loosely affiliated group of commentators including Bret Weinstein, Dave Rubin, Joe Rogan, and Sam Harris 

Criticism
A number of academic and journalistic sources have linked Murray's ideology and political views to the far right, the alt-right, the Islamophobic right or some combination thereof  Murray has also been accused of being xenophobic, chauvinist and racist  His fans have described him as a defender of "free speech" Murray has been accused of putting a socially acceptable face on what would otherwise be considered fringe ideologies  In 2012, Arun Kundnani, who has written on radicalization, wrote in an article for Security and Human Rights that the "counterjihadist" ideology expressed by Murray and other conservative intellectuals was "through reworking far-right ideology and appropriating official discourse    able to evade categorisation as a source of far-right violence"  Nafeez Ahmed argued in Middle East Eye that Murray's support for free speech in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shooting and the January 2015 Île-de-France attacks was "really just a ploy for far-right entryism"  In 2019, an article in Social Policy Review described Murray's views as a kind of "mainstreamist" ideology that defies easy categorization as extremist while remaining "entangled with the far right" Murray has been accused of promoting far-right conspiracy theories, including the Great Replacement theory, the Eurabia conspiracy theory and the Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory  However, he has indicated that he dislikes the term "Cultural Marxism" Murray has contended that he is frequently mislabelled politically, and that the mainstream right are unfairly conflated with the far-right in modern political discourse  In August 2019, Murray criticised what he perceived as the overuse of terms like "far-right", saying that since the election of Donald Trump and the Brexit vote "there has been an acceleration in claimed sightings [of the far right] and a blurring of the definitions" 

Personal life
Murray was a friend of the journalist Christopher Hitchens Murray has described himself as atheist, having been an Anglican until his twenties  He has also described himself as a cultural Christian and a Christian atheist 

Works
Brandon, James; Murray, Douglas (2007), Hate on the State: How British libraries encourage Islamic extremism (PDF), Westminster, UK: Centre for Social Cohesion 
Murray, Douglas (2000), Bosie: A Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas, ISBN 0-340-76771-5 
——— (2005), Neoconservatism: Why We Need It, ISBN 1-904863-05-1 
——— (2007), Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World: Renewing Transatlantic Partnership (PDF), archived from the original (PDF) on 25 September 2019, retrieved 21 December 2019
———; Verwey, Johan Pieter (2008), Victims of Intimidation: Freedom of Speech Within Europe's Muslim Communities (PDF), London, UK: Centre for Social Cohesion 
——— (2011), Bloody Sunday: Truths, Lies and the Saville Inquiry, London: Dialogue, ISBN 978-1-84954-149-7 
——— (2013), Islamophilia: A Very Metropolitan Malady, emBooks, ISBN 978-1-62777050-7 
——— (2017), The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam, Bloomsbury, ISBN 978-1-47294224-1 
——— (2019), The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity, Bloomsbury, ISBN 978-1-47295995-9 
——— (2022), The War on the West: How to Prevail in the Age of Unreason, Harper Collins, ISBN 978-0063162020 
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Press TV controversies
Press TV (stylised as PRESSTV) is an Iranian state-owned news network that broadcasts in the English and French languages owned by Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), the only organization legally able to transmit radio and TV broadcasts in Iran  The 24-hour channel, which has headquarters in Tehran, was launched on 2 July 2007 and was intended to compete with western English language services 

Background and purpose
Iran's first international English-language TV channel was established in 1976  Later in 1997, Sahar TV was launched by IRIB, broadcasting in multiple languages including English Press TV was created on 8 July 2007, for the purpose of presenting news, images and arguments, especially on Middle Eastern affairs, to counter the news coverage that appears on BBC World News, CNN International and Al Jazeera English  Press TV is state-funded and is a division of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), the only organisation legally able to transmit radio and television broadcasts inside Iran  Based in Tehran, It broadcasts to North America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and areas of Africa and Latin America IRIB's head is appointed directly by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei; according to The Guardian, it is close to the country's conservative political faction, especially the Revolutionary Guards Press TV CEO Mohammad Sarafraz said in a June 2007 press conference that, "Since September 11, Western bias has divided the media into two camps: those that favour their policies make up one group and the rest of the media are attached to radical Islamic groups like Al-Qaeda  We want to show that there is a different view  Iran, and the Shi'as in particular, have become a focal point of world propaganda  From the media point of view, we are trying to give a second eye to Western audiences "By launching an English-language television network to promote an Iranian perspective of the world, together with an Arab-language station, the Al-Alam News Network, the Iranian government said it hoped "to address a global audience exposed to misinformation and mudslinging as regards the Islamic Republic of Iran " The two networks focus on "difficult issues in the Middle East such as the United States’ occupation of neighbouring Iraq and the Shia question " According to mediachannel org, "the government aims to use Press TV to counter what it sees as a steady stream of Western propaganda against Iran as well as offer an alternative view of world news" Press TV began its activities in London during 2007  The network's website launched in late January 2007, and the channel itself on 2 July 2007  Roshan Muhammed Salih was Press TV's first London news editor and chief correspondent  In an article for The Guardian in July 2009, Salih wrote that Press TV was "willing to give a platform to legitimate actors whom the western media will not touch, such as Hamas and Hezbollah" The BBC journalist Linda Pressly described Press TV as pro-Palestinian and opposed to sanctions against Iran in December 2011  At the time Press TV Ltd in London sold programmes to Iran, principally talk shows, while Tehran's Press TV International produced the majority of the news and documentaries As of 2009, the annual budget of Press TV is 250 billion rials (more than US$8 3 million)  By then, the station was employing more than 400 throughout the world 

Controversies
Pro-Iranian government bias
Press TV promotes Iranian foreign policy and has been described as Iranian government propaganda It has aired the coerced confessions of multiple prisoners, the basis for the revocation of its license to broadcast in the UK after such an incident  Press TV has disputed accusations made against it Press TV's news bulletins often feature Iranian ministers, diplomats or government officials, or guest commentators that  express views consistent with the Iranian government's "message of the day " In 2012, commentator Douglas Murray wrote that the station was the "Iranian government’s propaganda channel" In a post-election "information offensive," reports the Associated Press, Press TV and Al-Alam have "churned out a blitz of policy statements, negotiating points and news breaks as the main soapboxes for Iran's public diplomacy "In 2007, the Canadian weekly Maclean's, while observing that "most of Press TV's news reports are factually accurate," alleged that Press TV also publishes "intentional errors," citing a story on the Press TV website that contained the claim, based on "no evidence, that the Lebanese government is trying to convert the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp into an American military base "In August 2009, Ofcom, the British broadcasting regulator, judged that two phone-in shows hosted by George Galloway on Press TV had broken its broadcasting code on impartiality in their coverage of the Gaza War by not including enough calls from pro-Israelis  Press TV said contributions to the show reflected the balance of opinion The Sunday Times journalist Eleanor Mills walked out before a Press TV interview in 2010 after discovering she was not being interviewed by Sky News, as she had falsely believed  While she was reassured on editorial independence from Tehran, Mills doubted she would be able to talk about torture in Iran or Neda Agha-Soltan, who was shot dead in the 2009 Iranian presidential election protests 

Antisemitism
Press TV has been accused by the UK's The Jewish Chronicle of broadcasting "the most disreputable of fringe causes", such as Holocaust denial, and of antisemitic conspiracy theories by the Anti-Defamation League It was accused in December 2011 by British journalist Nick Cohen of functioning as "a platform for the full fascist conspiracy theory of supernatural Jewish power"  He wrote that "If whites ran Press TV, one would have no difficulty in saying it was a neo-Nazi network"  Oliver Kamm in The Jewish Chronicle in 2009, of having an "ability to insinuate into public debate the worst and most pernicious ideas around", including Holocaust denial   Cohen mentioned that the station featured "fascist ideologues such as Peter Rushton, the leader of the White Nationalist Party – an organisation that disproves the notion that the only thing further to the right of the BNP is the wall "In a September 2009, Press TV picked up and republished an antisemitic conspiracy theory that was circulating in Algeria and Morocco, accusing Jews of a conspiracy to kidnap Algerian children and harvest their organs  Moroccan journalist Hassan Masiky criticized Press TV for trafficking in a dangerous "work of fantasy" that is a "nonsense, nightmarish tale" In a May 2011 article reprinted on the website of Press TV, correspondent Mark Dankof wrote an article about how the prediction of the fabricated antisemitic text Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion is "only partially true", and lauded Press TV as "one of the few exceptions to the Lobby's control" of the media In 2012, a report from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) alleged that Press TV has broadcast what the ADL described as examples of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and opinions  The report says Press TV for interviewing individuals such as the American conspiracy theorist David Duke who said on the station that Israel was involved in 9/11 and of the Iraq War, he said: "The Zionists orchestrated and created this war in the media, the government, and international finance"  The ADL reported in 2013 that in another appearance, Duke made "anti-Semitic allegations that are consistent with his record and typical of the views often espoused on Press TV"  Mark Dankof has also backed claims on Press TV that 9/11 was an "Israeli Mossad inside operation from start to finish" In early 2015, Press TV claimed Jews or Israel were responsible for the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris  In a 20 January 2015 article by Kevin Barrett on the station's website he claimed that "The Zionists created ISIL and sent it to fight Muslims and Christians in Syria and Iraq" while "New World Order Zionism is also targeting the USA for destruction"  In a 17 February 2015 article for the website, Barrett claimed 9/11 was a "Zionist ‘coup d'etat’ to seize power in the country and launch a permanent war on Islam on behalf of Israel" and falsely claimed the 2011 attacks in Norway was the responsibility of a "team of Zionist-liked professional killers "In early March 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Press TV broadcast an item claiming "Zionist elements developed a deadlier strain of coronavirus against Iran" and a few days later claimed Israel was responsible for the virus  Both claims are entirely false 

Publication of Holocaust denial
On the subject of International Holocaust Remembrance Day (27 January), an editorial on the Press TV website in 2008 noted, "On this anniversary, we all need to mull over the faking of history and the Greatest Lie Ever Told"  In 2008, The Jerusalem Post and the British Searchlight magazine criticized Press TV for reprinting on its website an article entitled "The Walls of Auschwitz: A Review of the Chemical Studies" by the British Holocaust denier Nicholas Kollerstrom which was first published by the denial group, the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH)  The document claims that the Auschwitz gas chambers were used for "benign" purposes only and said "the alleged massacre of Jewish people by gassing during World War II was scientifically impossible"  Press TV described Kollerstrom, by then removed as an honorary fellow of University College London (UCL) because of the article, as a "distinguished academic"  Other Holocaust deniers to have appeared on the station include Michèle Renouf and Peter Rushton In a 2014 article on the website, the Canadian writer Brandon Martinez described Auschwitz as having been an appealing place where Jews were able to participate in "cultural and leisure activities"  He rejected the existence of gas chambers during The Holocaust and the use of Zyklon B for the mass killings of History of the Jews in Europe  To make his assertions he drew on claims made by Holocaust deniers Mark Webber and David Irving In November 2013, the Press TV website reprinted an opinion piece in its 'Viewpoints' section, first written by M I  Bhat for Veterans Today, although Bhat was a regular columnist for Press TV as well  The article blamed Jews for their fate in the Holocaust and accepted "the Nazi regime’s anti-Jewish conspiracy theories as historical fact"  Bhat queried whether American Jews were "incubating another Hitler" 

Maziar Bahari case
On 10 June 2010, the United Kingdom's Channel 4 News interviewed Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari, a documentary maker and Newsweek contributor, who was arrested while filming the protests following the contested Iranian presidential election in 2009 Held in Evin Prison, Bahari was accused of spying for the CIA, MI6 and Mossad, and was detained for 118 days  Bahari alleged that a 10-second Press TV interview and 'confession' that the western media was guilty of fomenting the protests had been preceded by torture, and was given under the threat of execution  The nature of the interview, that it was a forced confession, was not disclosed to viewers of the footage  Having to talk complete rubbish before a camera to save his life "was like a rape”, he told The Sunday Times in 2012  "It went against the very essence of me"  Bahari is not the only Iranian prisoner who has been coerced with a following broadcast of the supposed confession 

Allegations about Canada
Following the severing of diplomatic relations between Canada and Iran in September 2012, Press TV began to devote more attention to Canada 
In December 2012, Press TV aired a report entitled "Alberta takes aboriginal kids from parents at high rate" in which Joshua Blakeney, Press TV's Calgary correspondent, claimed that Alberta's child protective services were engaged in the human trafficking of First Nations children  Blakeney stated that "Some upset parents allege that there is a profit motive behind what they refer to as Canada's so-called child protective services" and asserted that an anti-terrorism squad, called INSET, was responsible for the abductions One of the veiled women interviewed in the report (who was not identified) claimed that her "aboriginal children were taken by a squad of 32 police officers " Another woman interviewed stated that "It definitely is a money-making scheme, because a lot of native children have been sold into adoption, but it is also used as an assimilation program [and] a genocidal program " The report also showed written messages of "Help me! Now!!", which were allegedly written by abducted children The allegations in the report were immediately denied by Government officials and Native leaders  Cindy Blackstock, an associate professor at the University of Alberta and executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada denied the report was true, stating that "The factors driving aboriginal children into care have been well-known for 15 years; it's poverty, poor housing and substance abuse      The federal government provides significantly less funding on reserves than for all other Canadians     but I have never in my life heard of any military undertones to this "Blakeney has also claimed in reports published or broadcast by Press TV, that the appearance of Canada's new $20 bill was evidence that Canada "remained an imperialist nation" and that "90% of Canadian youth felt stressed about careers " Blakeney subsequently claimed that his reports for Press TV are "defiantly illuminating the skeletons in Canada’s closet "Another report made several charges against the Canadian government, including:

Secret plans to "steal indigenous children";
"Ignorance of the First Nation land rights";
Jailing refugees without cause; and
using excessive force to suppress student protests Another program interviewed Alfred Lambremont Webre, who was described as an "international lawyer" based in Vancouver  Webre stated Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is an "out and out Zionist" who is engaging in the "same repressive policies within Canada that Israel follows within its own territories against the Palestinian people " Webre then described a conspiracy between Vancouver police and serial killer Robert Pickton "to commit ritual Satanic murders with high-ranking politicians " Finally, Webre claimed that Queen Elizabeth II abducted 10 Aboriginal children in 1964  Concluding his comments, Webre described Canada as "the ultimate Zionist state under the British Crown and under Israel "In response, Paul Heinbecker, a former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations and a distinguished fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation at the University of Waterloo, has stated that Press TV is highlighting Canada's First Nations in order to "negate" Canadian reports of human rights allegations against Iran  Heinbecker stated that "The human rights situations in the two countries are scarcely comparable     but our own very real shortcomings on Aboriginal issues     are fodder for the Iranian efforts " Iranian native Payam Akhavan, a professor of international law at McGill University, stated that "Canada's diplomatic posture has elevated its ranking in the regime's demonology charts " Ed Corrigan, an immigration lawyer and former councillor for London, Ontario, is a regular guest on Press TV  Corrigan, who has said that "There's very few people in Canada who have more expertise on Middle East politics than I do," argues that Press TV is demonstrating the "international opinion" of Canada's treatment of its native peoples, explaining that "We tend to forget about our conquest of North America     but most countries in the world see it as a colonial exercise "

Coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine
Like the Kremlin, Press TV used Moscow's term "special operation" to describe the early days of the 2022 war in Ukraine  It also used headlines describing massacred civilians in Bucha as "fake attack" and "provocation" aimed at Russia 

Staff resignations
Nick Ferrari
Nick Ferrari, a British radio presenter on LBC, resigned from his show on Press TV on 30 June 2009, following the response of the country's authorities to protests over the disputed Iranian presidential election  Ferrari told The Times that Press TV's news coverage had been "reasonably fair" until the election—but was not any longer  Ferrari admitted joining Press TV "was one of the dimmest career decisions of my life", although he also said he had not been pressurized to adhere to any particular line 

Hassan Abdulrahman
In September 2009, The Times reported that Hassan Abdulrahman, born David Theodore Belfield, one of the chief editors of the Press TV website from the beginning of Press TV's news department, had stated that he left Press TV as chief online editor in July 2009 after the election in protest at its skewed coverage of that event  The Times quoted Abdulrahman as saying, "No, I don't think Press TV is about [real journalism]  By its nature, state journalism is not journalism  They have some programmes on there that might be, but generally it's not " In the article the Times also reported that Abdulrahman, who has also used the alias Dawud Salahuddin, is wanted by the FBI for shooting dead Ali Akbar Tabatabai, a former press attache at the pre-revolutionary Iranian embassy in Washington, in 1980  The Iranian government provided Belfield money and airfare to Tehran after he committed the killing, which he admitted to in 1995  (However, he denied that it was "murderous", stating that it was "an act of war   In Islamic religious terms, taking a life is sometimes sanctioned and even highly praised, and I thought that event was just such a time ")

Sheena Shirani
Sheena Shirani worked for Press TV from 2007 to January 2016 as an editor, producer and news presenter  She said that her news director Hamid Reza Emadi and studio manager Payam Afshar sexually harassed her for years, and published a recorded phone conversation with her boss Emadi  Press TV suspended both managers following the incident 

Sanctions and restrictions
In 2010, the Jammu and Kashmir government banned Press TV for airing video on the 2010 Qur'an-burning controversy saying "We have decided to impose a ban on the airing of Press TV broadcasts by local cable operators  We appeal to the people not to heed unverified reports about the alleged desecration of the Holy Koran which have only been aired by Press TV and no other television news channel in the world "On 3 April 2012, Munich-based media regulator Bayerische Landeszentrale für neue Medien (BLM), announced it was removing Press TV from the SES Astra satellite, as they did not have a licence to broadcast in Europe In October 2012, Eutelsat stopped broadcasting Press TV on the order, the channel said, of the European Commission  The following month, the Hong Kong-based AsiaSat took Iranian channels off air in East Asia  The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting managed to resume broadcasts after striking deals with smaller companies that are based in other countries Google blocked Press TV access to their Gmail and YouTube in April 2019; although the latter remained active no new content could be added  YouTube removed Press TV UK from its platform in January 2020  Press TV accused Google, which owns YouTube, of censorship  The Press TV UK channel appeared after the original was removed  In April 2019, Press TV reported that Google blocked their access (along with HispanTV) "without prior notice, citing "violation of policies," and that they received a message saying "your Google Account was disabled and can’t be restored because it was used in a way that violates Google’s policies " Although their YouTube channels remain open, no new content can be published  Press TV claimed that Google "has refused to offer an explanation for shutting down the accounts," and that they have not violated any of Google's listed policies On 26 June 2008, Florida congressman Gus Bilirakis proposed to declare Press TV, Al-Alam News Network and several IRIB-affiliated channels as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity "

UK license revocation
Maziar Bahari, by then a British resident, complained to Ofcom, the regulatory authority for the telecommunication industries in the United Kingdom In May 2011, Ofcom ruled that Press TV was responsible for a serious breach of UK broadcasting rules by airing a 10-second interview with Maziar Bahari, accepting that it had been obtained under duress while he was imprisoned  Ofcom held a hearing in July 2011; the Press TV delegation included two British politicians who have worked as presenters for the channel  A fine of £100,000 ($155,000 in January 2012) was eventually imposed in November 2011, reversing an initial decision to revoke Press TV's licence  The extent of the fine was partly due to Press TV continuing to run the interview after warnings from Ofcom that the station had broken the Broadcasting Code Responding to the decision, Press TV said Ofcom was "influenced by powerful pro-Israeli politicians and US sympathisers" and "members of the royal family and the government"  It maintained Bahari was an "MI6 contact person"  Defenders of Press TV, such as Geoffrey Alderman and the broadcaster's legal representative, Farooq Bajwa, referred to a formerly secret American diplomatic cable dated 4 February 2010 which was released by WikiLeaks  The cable said the British government was then "exploring ways to limit the operations of the IRIB's Press TV service" in response to the jamming by the Iranian government of broadcasts by the BBC Persian Service and the Voice of America On 20 January 2012, Press TV's licence to broadcast in the UK was revoked by Ofcom with immediate effect  The investigation into the Bahari case had revealed the applying company's direct connection to Tehran, and that editorial control came from there  An invitation to change this in the licence had not been taken up by Press TV  Geoffrey Alderman, who had appeared on Press TV to put the Zionist case, criticised the Ofcom decision, describing it as "thoroughly deplorable as well as palpably cynical" and "an affront to freedom of expression"  He said the location of Press TV's editorial control had not changed since the licence was granted  Press TV said Ofcom's decision was a "clear instance of censorship"  However, it continued to broadcast in the UK via its YouTube and Facebook pages 

Website domain seizure
On 22 June 2021, the presstv com domain was seized from a company based in the United States by the United States Department of Justice, shutting down Press TV's website and the websites of other Iranian media outlets  The Department of Justice said that these sites were sources of Iranian-linked disinformation and that proper licensing had not been acquired from the Office of Foreign Assets Control for the use of the domains  Soon thereafter, the broadcaster changed the domain name for its website to use the  ir top-level domain and was back online 

Support for Press TV
In 2009, responding to Peter Wilby, Dominic Lawson and other critics, Mehdi Hasan, writing for the New Statesman, argued that "engaging with Iran, no matter who is in charge in Tehran, is a prerequisite for peace and progress in the region  The very fact that Press TV is Iranian-owned makes it the ideal English-language platform on which to do so "American conspiracy theorist James Fetzer, whose views have often been featured by PressTV and Fars News, has stated that "Press TV, along with RT and Sputnik News, have become the gold standard for reporting on international events and developments" 

See also
Media in Iran
National Iranian Radio and Television
Passage 3:
Francis J  Beckwith
Francis J  "Frank" Beckwith (born November 3, 1960) is an American philosopher, professor, scholar, speaker, writer, and lecturer 
He is currently Professor of Philosophy & Church-State Studies, Affiliate Professor of Political Science and Associate Director of the Graduate Program in Philosophy, at Baylor University, where he first served as Associate Director of Baylor's J  M  Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies Beckwith works in the areas of ethics, legal and political philosophy, philosophy of religion, and church-state jurisprudence Beckwith is well known for his legal and philosophical work on abortion, arguing in defense of the sanctity of life in several academic publications including his 2007 book Defending Life, published by Cambridge University Press, and his 1993 book, Politically Correct Death, published by Baker Publishing Group  He has also published multiple books examining current philosophical questions regarding religion, law and politics  His 2015 book, Taking Rites Seriously: Law, Politics and the Reasonableness of Faith, (Cambridge University Press), was the winner of the prestigious American Academy of Religion's 2016 Book Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in the category of Constructive-Reflective Studies In May 2007, he returned to the Catholicism of his youth, after decades as an Evangelical Protestant  This inspired him to write a book describing his faith journey, titled Return to Rome: Confessions of an Evangelical Catholic published by Brazos Press  It is compared with Scott Hahn's Rome Sweet Home, as a significant work of Catholic Apologetics 

Life, education and academic appointments
Beckwith was born in Brooklyn, New York and grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada  He is a graduate of Bishop Gorman High School, where he was a member of the 1978 AAA Basketball high school state championship team  His siblings include the writer, comic, and actress Elizabeth Beckwith Francis Beckwith earned a B A  in philosophy from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV)  He later earned his MA in apologetics from Simon Greenleaf University, Anaheim, which merged with Trinity International University, Illinois in 1996  Beckwith earned his doctorate from  Fordham University (PhD  and M A  in philosophy), and his MJS (Master of Juridical Studies) from the Washington University School of Law, St  Louis A condensed version of Beckwith's 1984 M A  thesis on the Baháʼí Faith was published by Bethany House, as Baha'i [sic]: A Christian Response in 1985 In 2001, Beckwith completed his Wash  U  M J S dissertation on the inclusion of intelligent design in public school science curricula  In 2003, Rowman and Littlefield published his dissertation in revised and expanded form as Law, Darwinism, and Public Education: The Establishment Clause and the Challenge of Intelligent Design 
Prior to arriving at Baylor in July 2003, he was a Visiting Research Fellow (2002–2003) in the James Madison Program in the Politics Department at Princeton University  He has also held full-time academic appointments at UNLV (Lecturer in Philosophy, 1989–96), Whittier College (Assistant Professor of Philosophy, 1996–97), and Trinity International University (Associate Professor Philosophy, Culture, and Law, 1997-2002)  Beckwith has also held two visiting endowed appointments: (2008-2009) Mary Anne Remick Senior Visiting Fellow in the de Nicola Center for Ethics & Culture at the University of Notre Dame, and (2016–2017) Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy in the Benson Center for Western Civilization, Thought, and Policy at the University of Colorado, Boulder In November 2006, Beckwith became the 58th president of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS), only to resign both his presidency and membership in May 2007, a week after he returned to the Catholic Church  Over a decade later, he became the 90th president of the American Catholic Philosophical Association (ACPA)  From 1995 to 2007, he was a fellow at The Center for Bioethics & Human DignityIn 2003, after his appointment as associate director of the J  M  Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies at Baylor, 29 members of the Dawson family called on Baylor University to remove Beckwith as associate director  The Dawson family members questioned the appointment, accusing Beckwith of holding church-state positions contrary to Dawson's beliefs on the separation of church and state, largely because of Beckwith's affiliation with the Discovery Institute (DI) and his work on 
intelligent design and public education  Beckwith argued that their concerns were not well founded and that they represented a fundamental misunderstanding of his positions  In summer 2007 Beckwith dropped his affiliation with Discovery  He has subsequently published works highly critical of intelligent design, including chapters in his award-winning 2015 book Taking Rites Seriously' and his 2019 book Never Doubt Thomas: The Catholic Aquinas as Evangelical and Protestant  He currently resides with his wife in Texas 

Bibliography
Francis J  Beckwith in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

Baha'i [sic]: A Christian Response to Baha'ism [sic] (Bethany House, 1985) 
David Hume's Argument Against Miracles: A Critical Analysis (Lanham: University Press of America, 1989) 
The Mormon Concept of God: A Philosophical Analysis with Stephen E  Parrish (Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1991) 
Politically Correct Death: Answering the Arguments for Abortion Rights (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993) 
Are You Politically Correct?: Debating America's Cultural Standards with Michael E  Bauman, eds  (Buffalo: Prometheus, 1993) 
See the gods fall: Four Rivals to Christianity with Stephen E  Parrish, (Joplin: College Press, 1997) 
Affirmative Action: Social Justice or Reverse Discrimination? with Todd E  Jones, eds  (Amherst: Prometheus, 1997) 
Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air with Gregory Koukl, (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998) 
The Abortion Controversy 25 Years After Roe v  Wade: A Reader 2nd ed  with Louis Pojman, eds  (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1998) 
The New Mormon Challenge with Carl Mosser and Paul Owen, eds  (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002) 
Do the Right Thing: Readings in Applied Ethics and Social Philosophy editor, 2nd ed  (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2002) 
Law, Darwinism, and Public Education: The Establishment Clause and the Challenge of Intelligent Design (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003) 
To Everyone An Answer: A Case for the Christian Worldview with William Lane Craig and J  P  Moreland, eds  (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004) 
Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007)
Return to Rome: Confessions of an Evangelical Catholic  Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2009
Politics for Christians: Statecraft as Soulcraft (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2010)
A Second Look at First Things: A Case for Conservative Politics  The Hadley Arkes Festschrift (w/ R  P  George, S  McWilliams)  (South Bend, IN: St  Augustine Press, 2013)
Taking Rites Seriously: Law, Politics, and the Reasonableness of Faith (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015)
Never Doubt Thomas: The Catholic Aquinas as Evangelical and Protestant (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2019)
Passage 4:
George Weinstock
George M  Weinstock (born February 6, 1949) is an American geneticist and microbiologist on the faculty of The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, where he is a professor and the associate director for microbial genomics  Before joining The Jackson Laboratory, he taught at Washington University in St  Louis and served as associate director of The Genome Institute  Previously, Dr  Weinstock was co-director of the Human Genome Sequencing Center (HGSC) at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, and Professor of Molecular and Human Genetics there [1] He received his B S  degree from the University of Michigan in 1970 and his Ph D  from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977  He has spent most of his career taking genomic approaches to study fundamental biological processes 
Weinstock's parents met during the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and he grew up meeting many of the participants in the atomic bomb project and their colleagues  He performed his PhD thesis under David Botstein at MIT, studying the structure of phage P22 chromosome 
As a postdoctoral fellow with Dr  I  R  Lehman at Stanford University School of Medicine, Dr  Weinstock and Kevin McEntee discovered that the RecA protein of E  coli catalyzed strand transfer in genetic recombination  Later, as a faculty member at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth), he led one of the first bacterial genome projects, collaborating with The Institute for Genomic Research to sequence the entire genome of a bacterium, Treponema pallidum, the organism that causes syphilis  In 1999 he joined Richard Gibbs at the HGSC as one of the five main centers to work on the Human Genome Project   The HGSC produced sequences of human chromosomes 3, 12 and X  Dr  Weinstock was a principal investigator in projects producing genome sequences for rat, mouse, macaque, bovine, sea urchin, honey bee, fruit fly and many microbial genomes, as well as one of the first personal genome projects, sequencing Dr  James Watson’s genome using next-generation sequencing technology He was a leader of the Human Microbiome Project, studying the collection of microbes that colonize the human body 

Awards and honors
Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science
Fellow, American Academy of Microbiology
Editorial Board, Genome Biology
Editorial Board, Genome Biology and Evolution
Editorial Board, BMC Genomics
Passage 5:
Richard D  Cummings
Richard D  Cummings is an American biochemist who is the S  Daniel Abraham Professor of Surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts  He also the chief of the division of surgical sciences within the department of surgery   He is  the director of the Harvard Medical School Center for Glycoscience, director of the National Center for Functional Glycomics, and also founder of the Glycomics Core at BIDMC   As of 2018 Cummings is also the scientific director of the Feihi Nutrition Laboratory at BIDMC   Before moving to BIDMC/HMS, Cummings was the William Patterson Timmie Professor and chair of the department of biochemistry at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia from 2006 to 2015  At Emory, Cummings was a founder in 2007 of the Emory Glycomics Center 

Education
Cummings graduated from Isabella High School near Maplesville, Alabama, and received his B S  in biology and chemistry from the University of Montevallo in Montevallo, Alabama  He received his Ph D  in biology (biochemistry) from The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, where he trained with Stephen A  Roth, and was a postdoctoral fellow in the division of hematology/oncology at Washington University School of Medicine, where he trained with Stuart A  Kornfeld 

Career and research
Cummings was professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Georgia in Athens from 1983-1992 and associate director of the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center Cummings was the Ed Miller Endowed Chair in Molecular Biology, the George Lynn Cross Professor in Biochemistry, and professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, College of Medicine, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma from 1992-2006  He was the founder in 1999 of the Oklahoma Center for Medical Glycobiology Cummings was a co-founder in 2002, along with Rodger P  McEver and Richard Alvarez, of Selexys Pharmaceuticals Corporation, where he initially served as president and chief scientific officer   Selexys was based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma   The emphasis of the company was in developing treatments for inflammatory disorders  On November 21, 2016, it was announced that Selexys was purchased by Novartis   The purchase occurred following receipt of results of the SUSTAIN study, a Phase II trial evaluating the use of SelG1, an anti-P-selectin antibody, in the reduction of vaso-occlusive pain crises in patients with sickle cell disease (SCD) Cummings was also a co-founder in 2014 of Tetherex Pharmaceuticals, a spinoff of Selexys in Oklahoma City, that is developing novel first-in-class therapeutics targeting cell adhesion proteins in inflammatory and oncologic diseases  In 1988 he was a founder of ELA Technologies, Inc  in Athens, Georgia, that specialized in developing uses of bioluminescent proteins in high-sensitivity detection assays 

Research
Cummings is a co-founder of the fields of glycomics and glycobiology   His research, which has been funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1984, has focused on the biochemical and molecular regulation of cellular metabolism and function   His work emphasizes the roles of glycoconjugates in cell adhesion and cell signaling   In his biochemical studies he is exploring the fundamental pathways of glycoconjugate biosynthesis and alterations in biosynthesis in human and animal diseases   He is also exploring the roles of proteins and lectins that recognize glycans, as well as anti-glycan antibodies, in biological pathways and disease, including inflammation, autoimmunity, infectious diseases, and cancer   Cummings has over 330 peer-reviewed publications in the field  Among his notable discoveries are the immunogenic glycans in parasitic helminths, the nature of the sulfated and glycosylated ligand PSGL-1 for selectins, the molecular chaperone COSMC (C1GalT1C1) that regulates T-synthase activity and consequently O-glycosylation pathways, and the roles of glycans in regulating leukocyte trafficking 

Appointments and awards
Cummings is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2014), member of Sigma Xi (2020) and a past President of the Society for Glycobiology (2001)   In 2008 he received the Karl Meyer Award from the Society for Glycobiology and in 2019 he received the IGO Award from the International Glycoconjugate Organization, all in recognition of his contributions to glycosciences  Cummings is the chair of the Steering Committee for the Consortium of Functional Glycomics, a worldwide organization that is a comprehensive resource for functional glycomics   Cummings is the director of the National Center for Functional Glycomics, which relocated in 2015 from Emory to BIDMC/HMS, and develops and offers a variety of glycan microarray technologies for researchers in the field  Cummings is also co-Director of the Human Glycome Project, a world-wide effort to identify and functionally characterize the components of the human glycome 

Publications
Cummings is a co-Editor of the 1st Edition of Essentials of Glycobiology (1999), the 2nd Edition (2009) of Essentials of Glycobiology, the 3rd Edition (2017) of Essentials of Glycobiology, and now the 4th Edition (2022) of Essentials of Glycobiology, the first textbook in the field of glycobiology  Cummings was also the artwork editor for the textbook and prepared most of the illustrations   This textbook in 2003 became one of the pioneering textbooks to be distributed electronically by the National Library of Medicine  Cummings is also a co-editor of Handbook of Glycomics, which provides a comprehensive overview of the emerging field of glycomics, and a co-editor of Galectins:  Methods and Protocols   In addition, Cummings currently has 32 US Patents in the field of biotechnology and glycobiology 
Passage 6:
Jeanetta Laurence
Jeanetta Christine Laurence OBE (born December 1949) is the former associate director of The Royal Ballet  She was artistic administrator from 1990, assistant director from 2003 and associate director from  2009 to 2014 Jeanetta Laurence was born in Oxford, trained at The Royal Ballet School  She rose to be a soloist with The Royal Ballet and created roles in works by Jack Carter, Ronald Hynd, Joe Layton, Lynn Seymour and others Laurence received an OBE in the 2015 New Year Honours, "for services do dance" 
Passage 7:
Carole Hayman
Carole Hayman is an English writer, broadcaster, actor and director  She was born in Kent, and attended Leeds University and the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School  She has been an actress and theatre director and was an associate director at the Royal Court Theatre in the late eighties  She was married to Max Stafford-Clark, the director of the theatre during some of that period  During that time she appeared in many of Caryl Churchill's plays including, Cloud Nine and Top Girls   As Associate Director, she directed plays by Sarah Daniels, Andrea Dunbar, G E  Newman, Fay Weldon and Sue Townsend, including Ripen our Darkness and Byrthrite by Sarah Daniels and Bazaar and Rummage and The Great Celestial Cow by Sue Townsend   She has published many comic and satirical novels and written radio and TV series for the BBC, ITV and Channel Four  These include Ladies of Letters (co-written with Lou Wakefield) and The Refuge and The Spinney (co-written with Sue Townsend) 

Novels
The Warfleet Chronicles, consisting of:
Missing (1998) Gollancz
Greed, Crime, Sudden Death (1998) Gollancz
Connections (2002), published online at http://www sealit org
Hard Choices (2001) published online  Later published in hard copy by Aurora Metro 
Cuddling Sharks (2001) published online
One to Watch (2001) published online
Ladies of Letters (series of books and BBC Radio 4 eleven comedy series  ITV three TV series)
Ladies of Letters (2000) Granada Media
More Ladies of Letters (2000) Granada Media
Ladies of Letters com (2001, Little, Brown)
Ladies of Letters Log On (2002)
The Rashomon Principle (2000)
Ciaou Kim (1989)
All The Best Kim (1988) HarperCollins

Television
She played Mrs Godber in "The Veiled Lady", S2:E2 of ITV's Agatha Christie's Poirot, January 14, 1990 
Passage 8:
Murray Esler
Professor Murray David Esler, AM (born in 1943 in Geelong, Australia) is a clinical cardiologist and medical scientist, based at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute and the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, where he is the Associate Director of the Heart Centre  He is a Professor of Medicine at Melbourne's Monash University  As Associate Director of the Baker, Professor Esler leads the Institute’s research into the relationship between the brain and heart health  He studied medicine at the University of Melbourne and received a PhD from the Australian National University (Department of Clinical Science)  His chief research interests are the causes and treatment of high blood pressure and heart failure, the effects of stress on the cardiovascular system, and monoamine transmitters of the human brain 
His research on the sympathetic nerves of the kidneys in essential hypertension provided the theoretical basis for the development of a revolutionary treatment of high blood pressure, involving silencing these nerves with a radio wave emitting catheter placed in the kidney arteries  This treatment, called Renal Sympathetic Denervation, is now used clinically in Europe and Australia for severe drug-resistant hypertension, and is in Stage 3 trials in the United States 
He is the father of actor Ben Esler 

Awards
Professor Esler has received the following awards for his research:

Excellence Award in Hypertension Research, awarded by the American Heart Association in (2013) 
Bjorn Folkow Award of the European Society of Hypertension (2012) 
Eureka Prize for Translational Research, shared with Professor Markus Schlaich (2011) 
Victoria Prize, State Government of Victoria (2009)
Order of Australia; AM (2007)
Hamdan Award for Medical Research Excellence, awarded by Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for Medical Sciences, Dubai, United Arab Emirates (2006) 
Centenary Medal (2003) of the Government of Australia 
Elected a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (2002) 
Hartnett Medal of the Royal Society of the Arts (2002) 
Merck Sharpe & Dohme Award of the International Society of Hypertension (2000) 
Ramaciotti Medal (1997), for excellence in biomedical research 
RT Hall Prize (1996), for research in cardiology, awarded annually by the Cardiac Society of Australasia 
Wellcome (Australia) Medal (1989), awarded annually for "the most outstanding biomedical research in Australia" 
Susman Prize, Royal Australasian College of Physicians (1983), awarded annually for "the best original contribution to internal medicine by a Fellow or Member of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians" 
Passage 9:
Julie Huber
Julie Huber is a Senior Scientist in the Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry department at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution  She previously was an associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Brown University, an associate scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and the associate director of the MBL's Josephine Bay Paul Center for Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution  She also serves as the associate director of the Center for Dark Energy Biosphere Investigations, a National Science Foundation-supported program headquartered at the University of Southern California 

Early life and education
Huber spent her youth in Chicago and has cited frequent visits to the local Shedd Aquarium as part of her inspiration to pursue a career in oceanography  Huber was an undergraduate student at Eckerd College in St  Petersburg, Florida, and received her B S  in marine science in 1998  She received her Ph D  in biological oceanography from the University of Washington in 2004 for work with oceanographer and astrobiologist John Baross on the microbial ecology of underwater volcanoes 

Academic career
Huber began work as a postdoctoral fellow at the Marine Biological Laboratory, a facility in Woods Hole, Massachusetts affiliated with the University of Chicago, in 2005; she became an assistant scientist there in 2007  She joined the faculty at Brown University as an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology in 2008  She became an associate scientist at MBL and the associate director of the Josephine Bay Paul Center in 2013, and an associate professor at Brown in 2014  She moved her laboratory to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in June 2017 
Since 2015 Huber has served on the editorial board of the scientific journal Environmental Microbiology and as a senior editor of mSystems, an open-access journal published by the American Society for Microbiology  Huber is also active in public outreach and science communication 

Research
Huber's research group studies the microbial ecology of the deep ocean, particularly the habitat formed beneath the sea floor and the contributions of microbes to marine biogeochemistry 



ground_truth: Mimosa

prompt_front: Answer the question based on the given passages. Only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: Who was the gunman of the hostage crisis which Chris Reason was awarded the Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year Award for his coverage of?

The following are given passages.
Context 4: Passage 1:
Danity Kane discography
The discography of Danity Kane, an American R&B duo, consists of three studio album, five singles, and four music videos  Danity Kane were formed in 2005 during the third season of the reality television series Making the Band, and consisted of Aubrey O'Day, Wanita "D  Woods" Woodgett, Shannon Bex, Dawn Richard, and Aundrea Fimbres  The group disbanded in January 2009 during the fourth season of Making the Band  The group released their self titled debut album in August 2006  The album reached number one on the United States Billboard 200 and was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)  Danity Kane's debut single, "Show Stopper", which featured rapper Yung Joc, reached number eight on the US Billboard Hot 100  "Ride for You", their second single, reached number 78 on the Billboard Hot 100  Welcome to the Dollhouse, Danity Kane's second album, was released in March 2008  It reached number one on the Billboard 200 and was certified gold by the RIAA  The album's lead single, "Damaged", reached number ten on the Billboard Hot 100 and was certified platinum by the RIAA  The group's fifth single, "Bad Girl", featured Missy Elliott and reached number 10 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 chart 

Albums
Studio albums
Extended plays
Singles
Other charted songs
Music videos
Notes
Passage 2:
List of songs recorded by Kesha
American singer Kesha made her international debut in early 2009 featuring on the Flo Rida single "Right Round", which reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States and topped the charts in five other countries  Kesha's debut album, Animal, released in January 2010, topped the Canadian and American charts, debuting at number one in its first week on the Billboard 200  The album's lead single, and Kesha's solo debut single, "Tik Tok", was released in August 2009 and reached number one in eleven countries and spent nine consecutive weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100  Since its release in 2009, the song has sold 15 million copies worldwide, therefore making it the best-selling digital single of all time  The album spawned three more hit singles, "Blah Blah Blah", "Your Love Is My Drug" and "Take It Off"  She topped eight charts on the 2010 Billboard Year-End Chart, including Top New Artists, Hot 100 Songs and Hot 100 Artists The commercial and critical success of her first album led to plans of a deluxe edition of the album titled Cannibal, which was ultimately released as an extended play in November 2010  Its lead single, "We R Who We R", reached the top ten in ten countries, while peaking at number one in the United States, Australia, and United Kingdom  The EP's second and final single, "Blow", was released in February 2011 and also managed to peak inside the top ten of multiple countries 
Kesha released her second studio album, Warrior, in December 2012  The lead single, "Die Young", peaked at number two in the United States, while charting in the top ten of eleven other countries  Two more singles, "C'Mon" and "Crazy Kids", were also released from the album, but failed to match the success of the lead single  In October 2013, she was featured on Pitbull's single, "Timber", which peaked at number one in over fifteen countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, and United States   In April 2016, she released her first single in three years, a collaboration with Zedd, "True Colors"   It is the first song since her ongoing legal battle with producer Dr Luke  2017 saw the release of Kesha's third studio album, Rainbow, which featured the single "Praying"  The single reached no  22 in the U S  "Woman" was previously a promotional single but later was released as the second single from the album  Her fourth album, High Road, was released in 2020  Four singles were released from the album: "Raising Hell", "My Own Dance", "Resentment", and "Tonight"  Her fifth studio album, Gag Order, was released on May 19, 2023  Two singles were released on the same day ahead of the album's release: "Eat the Acid" and "Fine Line" 

Released songs
Passage 3:
Far East Movement
Far East Movement (abbreviated FM) is an American hip hop and electronic music group based in Los Angeles  The group formed in 2003 and as of August 2018 consists of Kev Nish (Kevin Nishimura), Prohgress (James Roh), DJ Virman (Virman Coquia), JT Rollerson (James Rollerson), and formerly J-Splif (Jae Chong)   Their 2010 single, "Like a G6", featuring pop-rap duo The Cataracs and singer Dev hit number one on both the Billboard Hot 100 chart and on the iTunes chart in late October 2010, making them the first Asian-American group to earn a number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart  Among their other chart successes are: "Rocketeer" featuring Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic, which peaked at number seven on the Billboard Hot 100; "Turn Up the Love", which peaked within the top ten of the charts in the United Kingdom, and their 2012 remix of the song "Get Up (Rattle)" by the Bingo Players, which topped the charts in the United Kingdom 
The group's latest album, Identity, is the first release under their own record label Transparent Music  Identity focuses on bridging Eastern artists with FM's Western dance music roots  The album received a positive review in Billboard magazine; the single "Freal Luv" with Marshmello featuring Tinashe and Chanyeol from the chart topping K-pop group Exo, received 40 million plays on YouTube  Far East Movement has also branched out with a number of collaborations on labels Ministry of Sound, Dim Mak, and Ultra 
In 2016, Far East Movement's company, Transparent Arts (TA), moved into artist management  TA manages seven artists of various genres, including Korean-American K-pop artist Tiffany Young, rappers Dumbfoundead and Year of the Ox, DJ producers Yultron, Autolaser, and singer Satica  The artists have garnered millions of social media plays, sold out national tours, and have released tracks through labels Owsla, Spinnin', Armada, and Universal 
FM also has a joint label, BredNButter, with Trap City, a large YouTube dance music channel with more than ten million subscribers  BredNButter's many releases have amassed millions of plays in total in a little over a year of existence 
They also founded Identity Festival, a festival celebrating Asian American Heritage with the City of Los Angeles on the steps of City Hall that gathered over 10,000 attendees in 2018 with headliners Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park and K-pop star Jay Park 
Far East Movement is in the process of recording their next full-length release 

Musical career
2003–2007: Folk Music
The three original members of Far East Movement, Kevin Nishimura (Kev Nish), James Roh (Prohgress), and Jae Choung (J-Splif), grew up in the Downtown Los Angeles area  They were close companions in high school and shared a passion for music together  The trio promoted their music online and began performing at local clubs and events in Los Angeles; soon, they began their musical career with the name "Emcees Anonymous" by 2001  However, they later changed it to Far East Movement or FM, originating from a song that they produced with the same name  In 2003, they organised an event called "Movementality" in Koreatown, Los Angeles, featuring ten different performances with all the proceeds sent to a local youth drug rehabilitation center 
In 2005, Far East Movement released a mixtape called Audio-Bio, which was one of their first CDs and contained many of their earliest songs and many songs not available anywhere else  Their first album, titled Folk Music, was released in early 2006  The single "Round Round" was featured in the film, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, appearing both on the self-titled soundtrack and video game  This critical breakout was the catalyst that cemented their decision to pursue music as a full-time career  Their songs "Get Offa Me" and "Make Ya Self" were featured in The Fast and the Furious video game  They proceeded to perform on two world tours (including USA, South America, Canada, and Asia), and they signed distribution deals in Japan and Korea with Avex Network and JF Productions for their album 
In 2007, they were featured in the Sundance Film Festival film called Finishing the Game, making the song "Satisfaction" for the film  They also released the single "You've Got A Friend" featuring Lil Rob and Baby Bash, which became their first song on major national radio 

2008–2009: DJ Virman and Animal
LA's radio station Power 106 DJ, DJ Virman, came to the group as their official DJ  They released another single titled "Lowridin" that received heavy airplay in 2008  Soon after, they planned on showcasing a second album, releasing Animal later on in the same year  Animal featured three hit singles that frequently won national radio play: "You’ve Got A Friend", "Lowridin", and the successful "Girls On The Dance Floor"  "Girls on the Dance Floor" reached 27 on the Billboard chart for the Latin Rhythm Airplay, which marked their debut on the Billboard's charts There were several collaborations on the Animal album, including The Stereotypes, Lil Rob, Baby Bash, Bruno Mars, Wiz Khalifa, Bionik, 24/8, IZ, DB Tonik, and Jah Free  Their songs from the Animal album were featured in major film and television on multiple occasions  FM's single "Girls on the Dance Floor" has been played on MTV's America's Best Dance Crew on the Season 4 Finale during a performance with Artistry In Motion, Vogue Evolution and We Are Heroes  It was also featured on Get Him to the Greek, FOX's So You Think You Can Dance and on the 7th episode of CSI: Miami Season 8  In addition, "Dance Like Michael Jackson" was aired on ABC Family's Lincoln Heights on November 10, 2009 and on the Gossip Girl episode, "Dan de Fleurette"  "I Party" was highlighted on FOX's TV series Lie To Me and "Fetish" was on Spike TV's Guy's Choice Awards 2009  "Girls on the Dance Floor" has attained over 5 million hits on Myspace while attracting over 8 million views on YouTube 
Streetwear company Orisue teamed up with Far East Movement and helped shoot a music video for "Lowridin"  In May 2009, Far East Movement joined the Korean hip hop group Epik High on their "Map the Soul" tour throughout the U S  Then they held their first headlining concert at the Roxy Theater in Hollywood by July 2009, which resulted in a sold-out show  Together with Wong Fu Productions, FM has established another three sold-out "International Secret Agents" concerts titled as "ISA", hosted in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York in order to promote Asian American artists in the media with performances by Quest Crew, Poreotics, Jay Park, and others 
FM's mixtape Party Animal was released on the first date of LMFAO's Party Rock Tour  Their two singles, "Girls on the Dance Floor" and "2 is Better w/ Ya Boy", garnered successful radio airplay  They later announced that they were working on a new album with Grammy nominated producers, The Stereotypes, who had produced their hit track, "Girls on the Dance Floor" 

2010–2011: Cherrytree/Interscope Records and Free Wired
In February 2010, Far East Movement signed a major record deal with Cherrytree Records, a subsidiary of Interscope Records  They were managed at the time by Ted Chung and Russell Redeaux of Stampede Management 
Later in the same year, the group supported Robyn and Kelis on their double headlining tour along with Dan Black, in addition to being announced as the opening act of Lady Gaga's tour on the Japanese leg of The Monster Ball Tour  Furthermore, their previous hit track, "Girls on the Dancefloor" & "Fetish", was featured in Piranha 3D, yet it was not slotted into the film's soundtrack 
Their 2010 "ISA" shows in New York and LA were held on August 28 and September 5 respectively  They performed their songs alongside acts by AJ Rafael, Jay Park, Wong Fu Productions, Poreotics and Quest Crew (both winners from America's Best Dance Crew), David Choi, Jennifer Chung, David Garibaldi, Lydia Paek, and more 
From September 13 until mid-October, the group was one of the opening acts for the Up In The Air Tour with Mike Posner, across various cities in North America Free Wired, their debut album from Cherrytree/Interscope Records, was released on October 12, 2010  The album includes collaborations with Keri Hilson, Lil Jon, Snoop Dogg (their song co-written by Bruno Mars), Mohombi, Colette Carr, Natalia Kills, Koda Kumi, and Ryan Tedder from OneRepublic In the October 30, 2010 edition of Billboard Magazine, their single featuring The Cataracs and Dev titled "Like a G6" peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 as well as iTunes  While gathering success for both their album and single, they were featured in a series of tour dates with their Cherrytree/Interscope Record label mate, La Roux, in November 2010 On November 20, it was confirmed that the group had reached the double Platinum status for "Like a G6", collecting two million in sales  Their second single which was released for airplay as a follow up to "Like A G6" was "Rocketeer", which featured Ryan Tedder The group was awarded Best International Artist in the 2010 M net Asian Music Awards The group toured with Rihanna and Calvin Harris from late February to early March, as part of Rihanna's Last Girl on Earth Tour 
 Right after the tour ended, the group began headlining their own tour, The Free Wired World Tour  The group visited Manila, Jakarta, Taipei, Hong Kong, Singapore, Seoul, Hamburg and Bangkok  The group were due to tour selected venues in the United Kingdom in early July but cancelled these dates due to recording commitments  However, they performed at the Barclaycard Wireless Festival on July 1 in London 
Far East Movement toured with Lil Wayne on the I Am Still Music tour  On tour, the group took out a second tour bus to work on their second album under the Cherrytree Records label 

2012–2015: Dirty Bass and KTown Riot
Their second major label album, Dirty Bass, was released on May 18, 2012  The lead single from the album was "Live My Life", featuring Justin Bieber  It was more successful than the original first single "Jello"  The single was released on February 28, 2012, with the release of the music video on March 23, 2012  The video was shot on the streets of Amsterdam, and directed by Mickey Finnegan Far East Movement also worked with producers such as David Guetta, Cherry Cherry Boom Boom (aka Cherrytree founder/president Martin Kierszenbaum), will i am and RedOne  In September 2012, the group performed in Charlotte with Perez Hilton as part of the 2012 Democratic National Convention  On October 22, 2012, they released a new single, "For All" which they then performed at then President Barack Obama's re-election inauguration 
Far East Movement also performed the official theme song for the first season of the American-Japanese animated series Monsuno, which airs in the United States on Nicktoons 
In January 2013, "Get Up (Rattle)," a song by the Bingo Players on which they were featured, topped the charts in the United Kingdom  It remained at the top of the UK Singles Chart for two weeks before being dethroned by "Thrift Shop" by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis  "Turn Up the Love", a track from "Dirty Bass", reached the top 5 on the overall singles charts in over a dozen countries 
On April 29, 2013, Far East Movement released the song "Lovetron", featuring Travis Garland  On June 2, 2013, they released the song "The Illest", featuring Riff Raff  On January 9, 2014, they released the song "Bang It To The Curb", featuring Sidney Samson  Their EP KTown Riot was released on October 28, 2014 

2016: Identity and J-Splif's Departure
On September 21, 2016, S M Entertainment, one of the largest entertainment companies in South Korea, announced that Chanyeol, from popular K-pop band EXO, would be collaborating with Far East Movement in their track "Freal Luv", which also features Tinashe and Marshmello On October 10, 2016, Starship Entertainment announced that Hyolyn, from K-pop girl-group Sistar, would be featured in a new song titled "Umbrella" 
Both songs were included in the band's fifth studio album, Identity, released on October 21  It features various Korean artists, such as Tiffany from Girls' Generation, rappers Yoon Mi-rae, Jay Park, Loco and R&B group Urban Zakapa, along with American singer-songwriter Macy Gray, rapper Soulja Boy and credits from British singer-producer MNEK  Identity debuted at #1 on the global iTunes dance charts  The music video for "Freal Luv" was viewed over  30 million times on YouTube 
On October 14, 2016, Far East Movement released "We Out Here" featuring Blackbear and Thurz 
On November 23, 2016, Far East Movement announced that J-Splif had left the group due to family reasons 

2017–present: International collaborations
On October 26, 2018, Far East Movement released a song titled "Bamboo" which features vocals from Jason Zhang and Kina Grannis 
On February 8, 2019, Far East Movement released a single titled "Blossoms" which features Troop Brand and Chinese rapper Vava 
On March 14, 2019, Far East Movement released a single titled "Lovebird" which features Lay 
On April 19, 2019, Far East Movement released a single titled "Paint the Clouds" which features vocals from Tia Ray 
On June 21, 2019, Far East Movement released a single titled "Maps", featuring Diamond, Starchild Yeezo, and Rell the Soundbender 
On July 26, 2019, Far East Movement released a single titled "Glue", featuring Heize and Shawn Wasabi 

Discography
Folk Music (2006)
Animal (2009)
Free Wired (2010)
Dirty Bass (2012)
Identity (2016)

Filmography
Members
DJ Virman joined the group in 2007  Before joining Far East Movement, he was working as a DJ for the Power 106 radio station in Los Angeles 
On  November 23 2016, the group announced that J-Splif had left the group due to family issues 

Current Members
Kev Nish (Kevin Nishimura, born January 12, 1984) (2003–present)
Prohgress (James Roh, born January 14, 1980) (2003–present)
DJ Virman (Virman Coquia, born January 24, 1982) (2007–present)

Former Members
J-Splif (Jae Choung, born February 11, 1984) (2003-2014)

See also
List of artists who reached number one in the United States
Passage 4:
B*Witched discography
The discography of B*Witched, an Irish pop girl group, consists of two studio albums, two extended plays, two compilation albums, two video albums and 13 singles (including one as part of a collective)  The group released their debut single "C'est la Vie" on 25 May 1998  Despite mixed reviews, it reached Number 1 on the UK charts, making them the youngest female group ever to do so, and also made Number 9 in the US  Subsequent singles "Rollercoaster", "To You I Belong" and "Blame It on the Weatherman" also topped the UK charts  The group's debut album, B*Witched, was released in October 1998, reaching Number 3 in the UK charts and was certified Double Platinum in the UK and Platinum in the US  B*Witched's second album, Awake and Breathe, released almost exactly a year after their debut, peaked at number 5 on the charts and was certified Platinum  Singles from the album were less successful than earlier releases ("Jesse Hold On" reached number 4, "I Shall Be There" number 13 and "Jump Down" number 16 in the UK)  The latter two appeared on their new American EP, Across America 2000, along with live tracks and the earlier cover of "Does Your Mother Know"  However, in September 2002, the group officially split when O'Carroll decided to leave the band On 18 October 2012, it was announced that B*Witched would reunite for the ITV2 reality documentary series The Big Reunion  In May 2013 B*Witched unveiled a new song called "Love and Money"  During a radio interview in October 2013, Edele Lynch confirmed that the group would release new material in September 2014  In December, they announced via PledgeMusic that they had recorded their first ever EP, entitled Champagne or Guinness  It was released on 28 September 2014 alongside the single "The Stars Are Ours" 

Albums
Studio albums
Compilations
Video albums
Extended plays
Singles
As main artist
As featured artist
Other appearances
Music videos
Passage 5:
Ain't Love a Bitch
"Ain't Love a Bitch" is a song written by Gary Grainger and Rod Stewart  Stewart released it on his 1978 album Blondes Have More Fun, and it was one of four songs on the album co-written by Stewart and Grainger  The song was released as a single in 1979, reaching #11 on the UK charts, and #22 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States  It spent 8 weeks on the UK charts and 6 weeks on the US charts  The song also reached the Top Ten in several countries, including Ireland  Billboard magazine placed Stewart #7 on its list of the Top Single Artists of 1979 on the strength of "Ain't Love a Bitch" and its predecessor, "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" Stewart performed the song on Dave Allen's Dave Allen at Large  A video of the song was included on the DVD included in the deluxe editions of the compilation album Some Guys Have All the Luck / The Definitive Rod Stewart 

Background
Rolling Stone critic Janet Maslin excoriated the song as being "unexpectedly sensitive, with a soft, strum-along melody and a bunch of namby-pamby characters doo-doo-doing a background chorus while Stewart croons about old girlfriends "   She further criticizes the song for taking material that could have been tough and making it sound "like the 1400th cover version of 'I Left My Heart in San Francisco '" CD Review commented on the references within "Ain't Love a Bitch" to Stewart's earlier song "Maggie May", describing the music as "bouncy"  High Fidelity objected to the lyrics blaming women for love's problems  The Albany Herald also noted that the song is autobiographical, and incorporates elements from Stewart's "musical and personal past " Stereo Review described the song as a "repellent frat-house love song"  Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic described the song as being in the same mold as "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?"  Author Barry Alan Farber described the line "Ain't we all a little juvenile" as encapsulating the way people retain pieces of their adolescence into adulthood   Cash Box called it a "return to the   balladeering  of 'Tonight's The Night'" after the disco success of "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" and said the song has "gentle, soothing acoustic guitar work, strings, and light drumming "  Record World said that "The rhythm is light and [Stewart's] vocals have a music hall quality "

Chart performance
Passage 6:
Pinball Wizard
"Pinball Wizard" is a song written by Pete Townshend and performed by the English rock band the Who, featured on their 1969 rock opera album Tommy  The original recording was released as a single in 1969 and reached No  4 in the UK charts and No  19 on the U S  Billboard Hot 100 
The B-side of the "Pinball Wizard" single is an instrumental credited to Keith Moon, titled "Dogs Part Two"   Despite the title, it has no musical connection to the Who's 1968 UK single "Dogs" 

Story
The lyrics are written from the perspective of a pinball champion, called "Local Lad" in the Tommy libretto book, astounded by the skills of the opera's eponymous main character, Tommy Walker: "He ain't got no distractions / Can't hear those buzzers and bells / Don't see lights a flashin' / Plays by sense of smell / Always gets a replay / Never seen him fall / That deaf dumb and blind kid / Sure plays a mean pinball ", and "I thought I was the Bally table king, but I just handed my pinball crown to him" 
Townshend once called it "the most clumsy piece of writing [he'd] ever done"  Nevertheless, the song was a commercial success and remains one of the most recognised tunes from the opera  It was a perpetual concert favourite for Who fans due to its pop sound and familiarity 

Position on the album
In late 1968 or early 1969, when the Who played a rough assembly of their new album to critic Nik Cohn, Cohn gave a lukewarm reaction to it  Following this, Townshend, as Tommy's principal composer, discussed the album with Cohn and concluded that, to lighten the load of the rock opera's heavy spiritual overtones (Townshend had recently become deeply interested in the teachings of Meher Baba), the title character, a "deaf, dumb, and blind" boy, should also be particularly good at a certain game  Knowing Cohn was an avid pinball fan, Townshend suggested that Tommy would play pinball, and Cohn immediately declared Tommy to be a masterpiece  The song "Pinball Wizard" was written and recorded almost immediately  The single version was slightly sped up and runs to 2:57, whilst the natural length album version runs to 3:04 

Reception
Cash Box said "Pinball Wizard" was "sensational", saying "Retaining the joyful exaltation of early pop rock, the Who add a proficiency and modernization that clicks with the accuracy of a Beatles-gone-heavy



ground_truth: Man Haron

prompt_front: Answer the question based on the given passages. Only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: For what ogranization does a commentator of Press TV serve as associate director?

The following are given passages.
Context 4: " Billboard described the single as "a solid beat rocker " Record World described it as an "exciting side "

Live performances
This song is one of the band's most famous live songs, being played at almost every Who concert since its debut live performance on 2 May 1969  The live performances rarely deviated from the album arrangement, save for an occasional jam at the end sometimes leading to another song  Bootleg recordings show that this song has been known to last as long as 8 minutes (at a concert at the Rainbow Theatre in London on 3 February 1981), although live versions lasting as long as that are extremely rare  Pinball Wizard was also played during the Super Bowl XLIV Halftime Show on 7 February 2010 

Personnel
Roger Daltrey – lead vocals
Pete Townshend – backing vocals, co-lead vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar
John Entwistle – bass guitar
Keith Moon – drums

Charts and certifications
Elton John version
The song was performed by English musician Elton John in Ken Russell's 1975 film adaptation of Tommy  This version was released in 1975 as a promotional single only in the US, and in 1976 in the UK, where it reached number 7  Because it was not released as a commercial single in the US, it was ineligible to be listed on the Billboard Hot 100 chart  It did however make the US Radio & Records airplay chart, where it reached number 9 
John's version uses a piano as the song's centerpiece in place of the acoustic guitar in the original  In the film, John's character is shown playing his pinball machine via a small piano keyboard  His adaptation also features additional lyrics specially written by Townshend for the movie version, as well as a subtle inclusion of musical phrases from the Who's 1960s hit "I Can't Explain" during the outro  Similarly, the Who's later cover of Elton John's "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" included parts of "Take Me to the Pilot"  Unlike most of the soundtrack's music, which featured various combinations of the Who and some of the era's best session players, Elton John used his own band and producer Gus Dudgeon for the track  John has performed the song as part of his Las Vegas Red Piano Show, as well as on various tours  To date, it is the only cover of a Who song to reach the top 10 The song has subsequently been performed by Taron Egerton who portrayed Elton John in the film Rocketman (2019) 

Personnel
Elton John – lead vocals, piano
Davey Johnstone – acoustic and electric guitars, backing vocals
Dee Murray – bass, backing vocals
Nigel Olsson – drums, backing vocals
Ray Cooper – tambourine, congas

Chart performance
In Toronto, "Pinball Wizard" spent two weeks at number one on the CHUM survey  In Chicago, "Pinball Wizard" remained on the WLS Musicradio Survey as an "extra" for five and a half months, from mid-April to late September as an album track in heavy rotation 

Other cover versions
The song was featured in a medley with another song from Tommy ("See Me, Feel Me") in a recording by the British pop group the New Seekers in 1973  This version reached No  16 on the UK charts and in Australia, and No  28 in Canada, and No  29 on the U S  Hot 100 
In 1977, Barry Williams performed the song during a "Songs from Movies" medley on an episode of The Brady Bunch Variety Hour 
McFly released their cover of the song in 2005 as the B-side to their UK number one single "I'll Be OK"  They subsequently performed a cover of "My Generation" with Roger Daltrey that was exclusively released on HMV's new HMV Digital download store in September of that year 
Tenacious D also regularly perform the song as a part of a medley of songs from Tommy
In 2012, during the third season of Glee, Alex Newell performed the song during national competition 

In popular culture
The track is featured on the video games Rock Band 2, Rock Band Unplugged and Karaoke Revolution: American Idol Encore 2, as well as on The Who's Tommy Pinball Wizard 
Bruce Springsteen makes a reference to the song in his song "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)", in the album The Wild, the Innocent, & the E Street Shuffle, with the lyric "And the wizards play down on Pinball Way" 
Within the pinball community, using the phrase Pinball Wizard to describe a high quality player is common, though sometimes controversial  
In 2011, the American animated comedy television series SpongeBob SquarePants parodied "Pinball Wizard" with the song "Neat Clarinet" in the eighth season episode "Sweet and Sour Squid "
Passage 7:
Martina McBride discography
The discography of American country music artist Martina McBride consists of 14 studio albums, one live album, eight compilation albums, two video albums, three additional albums, 45 music videos, 51 singles, 16 other charting songs, and 45 album appearances  In 1991, she signed a recording contract with RCA Nashville, launching her debut studio album The Time Has Come in 1992  In September 1993, her second studio album The Way That I Am was issued  Its lead single "My Baby Loves Me" reached number 2 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, becoming her breakthrough hit  The third single "Independence Day" peaked in the Top 20 and became McBride's signature song  The song's success elevated sales of The Way That I Am to platinum status from the Recording Industry Association of America  Wild Angels was released in September 1995 and reached number seventeen on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart  The album's title track became McBride's first song to top the Hot Country Songs chart  McBride's fourth studio album Evolution was released in August 1997 and is her best-selling album to date, certifying three times platinum in the United States  The album spawned six singles which all became major hits including, "A Broken Wing", "Wrong Again", and "Whatever You Say"  After releasing a holiday album, McBride's fifth studio album Emotion was issued in September 1999  The lead single "I Love You" topped the Hot Country Songs chart, while also reaching minor positions on the Adult Contemporary and Billboard Hot 100 charts In 2001, McBride released her first Greatest Hits project, becoming her first album to top the Top Country Albums chart  All four of the album's new tracks were single releases including the number one single "Blessed"  Martina (2003) certified double platinum in the United States and featured the top 5 singles "This One's for the Girls" and "In My Daughter's Eyes"  McBride's seventh studio album entitled Timeless (2005) contained a series of classic country songs, debuting atop the country albums chart and the top ten of the Billboard 200  In 2007, McBride returned with her eighth studio record entitled Waking Up Laughing, which debuted in the top five of the Billboard country albums chart and Billboard 200  The album featured original songwriting material by McBride herself, including "Anyway", the album's lead single  After recording a live album in 2008, McBride's next studio album entitled Shine (2009) was issued  The album spawned three singles that reached the Top 20 on the country songs chart  Switching to Republic Nashville, Eleven was released in October 2011  Debuting at number 4 on the country albums chart, the album's second single "I'm Gonna Love You Through It" became a major hit in 2012  Under the production of Don Was, McBride released her twelfth studio record Everlasting (2014) that featured covers of R&B songs  Since her debut, Martina McBride has sold over 14 million albums, according to the Recording Industry Association of America 

Albums
Studio albums
Live albums
Compilation albums
Other albums
Singles
As lead artist
As guest artist
Other charted songs
Videography
Video albums
Music videos
As lead artist
As guest artist
Other appearances
Notes
Passage 8:
Tommy (album)
Tommy may refer to:

People
Tommy (given name)
Tommy Atkins, or just Tommy, a slang term for a common soldier in the British Army

Arts and entertainment
Film and television
Tommy (1931 film), a Soviet drama film
Tommy (1975 film), a British operetta film based on the Who's album Tommy
Tommy (2015 film), a Telugu drama film
Tommy (TV series), a 2020 American drama series

Literature
Tommy (King poem), by Stephen King, 2010
Tommy (Kipling poem), by Rudyard Kipling, 1892

Music
Tommy (The Who album), 1969
Tommy (London Symphony Orchestra album), 1972
Tommy (soundtrack), a soundtrack to the 1975 film
The Who's Tommy, a stage production, premiered 1992
Tommy (The Wedding Present album), 1988
Tommy (Dosh album), 2010
Tommy (EP), a 2017 EP by Klein
Tommy, a 2022 EP by Kiesza
Tommy, a 1965 album by Tommy Adderley
Tommy, a 1970 EP by The Who
"Tommy", a 1991 song by Status Quo from the album Rock 'til You Drop

Other uses in arts and entertainment
Tommy, a 1927 play, the basis of the 1930 film She's My Weakness
Tommy (statue), a statue of a Great War soldier in Seaham, England

Other uses
Tommy (pigeon), who received the Dickin Medal in 1946
British Rail Class 76, an electric locomotive, the prototype of which was named "Tommy"
Thomson's gazelle, an animal known as a "tommy"
Quarry Tommy a slate quarry near Cilgerran, Wales

See also
All pages with titles beginning with Tommy
Tommie, a masculine given name
Thompson submachine gun, also known as the "tommy gun"
Apache TomEE, the Java Enterprise Edition of Apache Tomcat
Tommy's (charity), associated with St Thomas' Hospital, London
Tomm (disambiguation)
Passage 9:
Jeremih
Jeremy Phillip Felton (born July 17, 1987), known professionally as Jeremih ( JERR-əm-eye), is an American R&B singer  In 2009, he signed a record deal with Def Jam Recordings  Jeremih's commercial debut single, "Birthday Sex", peaked at number four on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart—leading his self-titled debut album released in June that year, reaching number six on the US Billboard 200 chart  Jeremih's success continued with the release of his second album, All About You, led by the single "Down on Me" (featuring 50 Cent), which also reached the top five of the Billboard Hot 100  In 2014, his single "Don't Tell 'Em" (featuring YG) became his third top-ten hit on the Billboard Hot 100  The song became the lead single for his third studio album, Late Nights released in December 2015  A collaborative album between Jeremih and California singer Ty Dolla Sign, titled MihTy, was released in 2018 

Early life
Born in Chicago, Illinois, Jeremih began playing drums at the age of three and is able to play the saxophone, several percussion instruments, and piano/keyboards  He attended Morgan Park High School, where he was part of the marching band as well as a Latin jazz band  He also learned to play percussion instruments like congas and timbales  Felton was a good student and earned academic honors at Morgan Park High School  His strong academic performance enabled him to graduate from high school a year early  He enrolled at the University of Illinois and Parkland College in Urbana-Champaign  After spending a semester at the university studying engineering, he wanted to change his education to something related to music  He transferred to Columbia College Chicago in 2007 to pursue a degree in music business  After performing a tribute to Ray Charles at one of the campus's talent shows, he received positive feedback and realized his vocal ability, saying that the "music was just taking over" 

Career
2009–2011: Jeremih and All About You
While attending Columbia College Chicago, Jeremih collaborated with record producer Mick Schultz  Together, they recorded a song, titled "My Ride"  Jeremih received guidance from his cousin, Day26 group member, Willie Taylor  In February 2009, Jeremih met with Def Jam's CEO Russell Simmons, and executive vice president of A&R Karen Kwak  After performing for the two, Jeremih signed a recording contract with Def Jam that same day  In 2009, Jeremih released his debut single, "Birthday Sex"  The song later peaked at number 4 on the US Billboard Hot 100  In June 2009, Jeremih released his eponymous self-titled debut studio album, Jeremih  The album debuted at number 6 on the US Billboard 200, selling 59,000 copies in its first week  In promotion of the album, Jeremih took part in America's Most Wanted Tour, alongside Lil Wayne, Young Jeezy, and Soulja Boy Tell 'Em  The second single, "Imma Star (Everywhere We Are)", peaked at number 51 on the Billboard Hot 100 In August 2009, Jeremih was selected by Ron Huberman and Mayor Richard M  Daley of the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to campaign children to return to school  Community activists protested and demanded CPS to undo their decision, claiming that Jeremih's music was "not appropriate for students" and "promotes teen sex"  Huberman argued that "school officials would be naive to pretend students don't listen to Felton's music already"  Daley also argued that recording artists have the freedom of speech, noting that Jeremih was "a young man, [with a] back-to-school message, a young man who has had great success recording, producer, going to school, went to public school"  In September 2009, Jeremih performed on ABC Daytime's soap opera One Life to Live, alongside recording artist Lionel Richie  The two performed "Just Go", a song from Richie's album with the same title On June 1, 2010, Jeremih released the first single for his second studio album All About You, titled "I Like" featuring Ludacris  "Down on Me" featuring rapper 50 Cent was confirmed to be the second single from the album  "Down on Me" charted on the number-one position for eight weeks total on Rhythmic Billboard chart  All About You was released on September 28, 2010  The following year, Jeremih and Rick Ross were featured on the song, which was performed by Wale, titled "That Way" from the compilation album Self Made Vol  1 

2012–2015: Late Nights
In December 2011, Jeremih confirmed he had been working on his third studio album which was originally titled Thumpy Johnson  He announced plans from a summer 2012 release under Def Jam  However, the album was not released  Instead, Jeremih released his first mixtape titled Late Nights with Jeremih on August 7, 2012 On November 5, 2014, Jeremih and members of his crew were involved in an incident at a Fuddruckers restaurant in Billings, MT in which Jeremih's associates allegedly "hassled"[2] a young female restaurant employee and a manager for discriminating against them  Members of Jeremih's crew responded to the alleged racism by taking over the restaurant's microphone, throwing beer onto employees, and allegedly throwing a glass beer bottle into the kitchen, getting broken glass into the fryer and forcing the restaurant to close temporarily [3] The Billings Police Department sought but never issued arrest warrants in response to the incident [4] Surveillance footage of the altercation was published by TMZ, and the concert promoter for Jeremih's Billings performance offered refunds to audience members and renounced the actions taken by Jeremih and his crew  [5]
"All the Time" is a song which originally appeared on his mixtape Late Nights with Jeremih but was re-released with an additional verse by rapper Lil Wayne as a single  The song was released on April 16, 2013, as a digital download  On July 17, 2014, Jeremih formally released his collaborative EP "No More" with Shlohmo through his Twitter account The first single off Jeremih's third studio album (retitled Late Nights: The Album), "Don't Tell 'Em" featuring YG, was released on June 6, 2014  The second single, "Planez" featuring J  Cole was released on January 22, 2015  The first promotional single "Tonight Belongs to U!" featuring Flo Rida was released on April 21, 2015  The third single, "Oui" was released on October 30, 2015  The second promotional single, "Royalty" featuring Big Sean and Future, was released October 29, 2015  The third promotional single "Peace Sign" featuring Fabolous and Red Cafe was released November 18, 2015  The fourth single, "Pass Dat" was released December 1, 2015  On December 4, Jeremih finally released the album to critical acclaim  To promote the album, Jeremih embarked on his Late Nights Uncut Tour 

2016–present: MihTy
On February 7, 2016, Jeremih revealed his fourth studio album will be called, Later That Night in an interview with Billboard  In the same interview, he mentioned he had been recently writing songs for Kanye West and Nicki Minaj  In the summer of 2016, Jeremih headlined his first European concert tour  In July 2016, Jeremih released his second mixtape called Late Nights: Europe, which he recorded while on tour overseas  He stated that he was 90% done with his upcoming album Later That Night that would complete his "Late Night" series In June 2016, Jeremih announced a joint album with PartyNextDoor titled Late Night Party, which he said would be released before Later That Night  Following this announcement, the two artists headlined a joint tour called Summer's Over Tour scheduled for November and December 2016  In the last week of the tour, it was announced that Jeremih would removed from the tour  The decision came after Jeremih left the stage mid-performance in Chicago, sent a body-double to perform in Houston, and criticized PartyNextDoor on stage in Dallas  A few months later, Jeremih stated that there were arguments between the two artists' teams, but he had no ill will towards PartyNextDoor On Cinco de Mayo 2017, Jeremih released an EP, Cinco De MihYo, which he had written and recorded in 24 hours  In March 2018, Jeremih released an EP titled The Chocolate Box  Pitchfork stated, "When his projects are well-considered, or made with hyper-focused collaborators, he can be the most enchanting man in the room," but called one of the four tracks awkward and bored On June 8, 2018, Jeremih and Ty Dolla Sign released "The Light" as the lead single from their collaboration album MihTy  The 11-track album was released on October 26, 2018, and features guest appearances from Chris Brown, French Montana, and Wiz Khalifa In July 2018, Jeremih announced a joint tour with singer Teyana Taylor called Later That Night  The tour dates were from August 3 through September 8 in the United States  On August 15, Teyana tweeted that she would be leaving the tour due to mistreatment from Jeremih In 2019, Jeremih was featured in Chantel Jeffries' song and music video "Chase the Summer"  In March 2020, Jeremih was featured on the remix for "Baby Girl" by Bryce Vine  On May 3, 2021, DJ Khaled released a music video for his song "Thankful" from his album Khaled Khaled featuring Jeremih and Lil Wayne After a long hiatus from recording, Jeremih released his comeback single, "Changes", on October 21, 2022 In April 2023, he introduced his first protégé, Illinois singer Murf Dilly, to the music scene with his debut single "2 C's"  The song featured Jeremih as a guest vocalist and was released on his newly established Late Nightz Records 

Musical style
Jeremih cited Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, and R  Kelly as his biggest influences  He described their music as "timeless", calling them "true musician-artists"  With the release of his debut album, Andy Kellman of Allmusic compared Jeremih's vocals to Slim of 112 and Raphael Saadiq, noting that his "charmingly sly voice   is hard to not like"  In contrast, Ken Capobianco of The Boston Globe felt that Jeremih's voice was "thin", showing "little range"  Jody Rosen expressed that Jeremih "has a way with tunes and hooks"  He received comparisons to The-Dream, R  Kelly, and Stevie Wonder 

Health
In November 2020, Jeremih was hospitalized in Chicago after testing positive for COVID-19  By November 14, he was reported to be on a ventilator in the intensive care unit  He was taken off the ventilator on November 19 but remained in critical condition  His spokesman said Jeremih has no underlying conditions  Jeremih was transferred out of intensive care on November 21, into a general hospital to make a full recovery  He was released from the hospital on December 4 

Discography
Studio albumsJeremih (2009)
All About You (2010)
Late Nights (2015)

Awards and nominations
MOBO AwardsThe Music of Black Origin Awards (MOBO Awards) is an awards ceremony established in 1995 by Kanya King 

American Music AwardsThe American Music Awards is an annual awards ceremony created by Dick Clark in 1973 

Grammy AwardsNAACP AwardsAn NAACP Image Award is an accolade presented by the American National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to honor outstanding people of color in film, television, music, and literature 

Chicago Music AwardsThe Chicago Music Awards is an annual awards ceremony for music artist professionals to get recognized for their talents and hard work   Ephraim Martin, CMA President, is the founder 

Billboard Music AwardsThe Billboard Music Award is an honor given by Billboard magazine, the preeminent publication covering the music business  The Billboard Music Awards show had been held annually in December until it went dormant in 2007, but it returned in May 2011  By Billboard Music Award 

iHeartRadio Music AwardsThe iheartRadio award honors the biggest Artists and Songs of the year 
Passage 10:
Train discography
American rock band Train has released 11 studio albums, two live albums, one compilation album, one video album, four extended plays, 34 singles, six promotional singles, and 29 music videos  The band independently released their eponymous debut studio album in 1996, two years after their formation  In February 1998, the band signed to Aware Records and Columbia Records and re-released the album under the two labels  Three singles were released from Train; the album's first single, "Meet Virginia", peaked at number 20 on the US Billboard Hot 100  The album peaked at number 76 on the US Billboard 200 and was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)  In the period following the release of Train, producer Brendan O'Brien started working with the band in a partnership that would last for three albums  The band released their second studio album Drops of Jupiter in March 2001; it was preceded by the release of its lead single, "Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me)"  The single became a commercial success, peaking at number five on the US Billboard Hot 100 and also becoming a top 10 hit in Australia, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom  "Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me)" also won an award for Best Rock Song at the 44th Grammy Awards  The album peaked at number six on the Billboard 200, earning a double platinum certification from the RIAA  "She's on Fire", the third single from Drops of Jupiter, achieved moderate success in Australia and the UK  Train's third studio album, My Private Nation, was released in June 2003  It peaked at number six on the Billboard 200 and was certified platinum by the RIAA  The album's first two singles, "Calling All Angels" and "When I Look to the Sky", peaked at numbers 19 and 74 respectively on the Billboard Hot 100  The band released their fourth studio album For Me, It's You in January 2006  The album peaked at number 10 on the Billboard 200 and spawned three singles Following a three-year hiatus, Train released the single "Hey, Soul Sister" in 2009  It became an international hit, peaking at number three on the Billboard Hot 100, topping the charts in Australia and the Netherlands and becoming a top 10 hit in multiple other countries  Save Me, San Francisco, the band's fifth studio album, was released in October 2009  For the album, the band worked with several producers, including Martin Terefe and Gregg Wattenberg  It peaked at number 17 on the Billboard 200, earning a gold certification from the RIAA  The album's second and third singles, "If It's Love" and "Marry Me", became top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100  In April 2012, Train released their sixth studio album California 37; it peaked at number four on the Billboard 200  The album's lead single "Drive By" peaked at number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also became a top 10 hit in multiple other countries  Bulletproof Picasso followed in September 2014, peaking at number five on the Billboard 200, and was succeeded by the releases of the Christmas album Christmas in Tahoe in November 2015 and the Led Zeppelin tribute Train Does Led Zeppelin II in June 2016  A Girl, a Bottle, a Boat, the band's 10th studio album, was released in January 2017, peaking at number eight on the Billboard 200 

Albums
Studio albums
Live albums
Compilation albums
Video albums
Extended plays
Singles
Promotional singles
Other charted songs
Other appearances
Music videos
Notes



ground_truth: Henry Jackson Society