The second major point on which the principals had agreed on March 10 was the need to crack down on terrorist organizations and curtail their fund-raising. The embassy bombings of 1998 had focused attention on al Qaeda's finances. One result had been the creation of an NSC-led interagency committee on terrorist financing. On its recommendation, the President had designated Bin Laden and al Qaeda as subject to sanctions under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. This gave theTreasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) the ability to search for and freeze any Bin Laden or al Qaeda assets that reached the U.S. financial system. But since OFAC had little information to go on, few funds were frozen. In July 1999, the President applied the same designation to the Taliban for harboring Bin Laden. Here, OFAC had more success. It blocked more than $34 million in Taliban assets held in U.S. banks. Another $215 million in gold and $2 million in demand deposits, all belonging to the Afghan central bank and held by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, were also frozen. After October 1999, when the State Department formally designated al Qaeda a "foreign terrorist organization," it became the duty of U.S. banks to block its transactions and seize its funds. Neither this designation nor UN sanctions had much additional practical effect; the sanctions were easily circumvented, and there were no multilateral mechanisms to ensure that other countries' financial systems were not used as conduits for terrorist funding. Attacking the funds of an institution, even the Taliban, was easier than finding and seizing the funds of a clandestine worldwide organization like al Qaeda. Although the CIA's Bin Laden unit had originally been inspired by the idea of studying terrorist financial links, few personnel assigned to it had any experience in financial investigations. Any terrorist-financing intelligence appeared to have been collected collaterally, as a consequence of gathering other intelligence. This attitude may have stemmed in large part from the chief of this unit, who did not believe that simply following the money from point A to point B revealed much about the terrorists' plans and intentions. As a result, the CIA placed little emphasis on terrorist financing. Nevertheless, the CIA obtained a general understanding of how al Qaeda raised money.

Question: "Who recommended that the President designate Bin Laden and al Qaeda as subject to sanctions under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act?"

Response: "The embassy"
OPTIONS:
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- yes

A: no

Honours and legacy In 1929, Soviet writer Leonid Grossman published a novel The d'Archiac Papers, telling the story of Pushkin's death from the perspective of a French diplomat, being a participant and a witness of the fatal duel. The book describes him as a liberal and a victim of the Tsarist regime. In Poland the book was published under the title Death of the Poet. In 1937, the town of Tsarskoye Selo was renamed Pushkin in his honour. There are several museums in Russia dedicated to Pushkin, including two in Moscow, one in Saint Petersburg, and a large complex in Mikhaylovskoye. Pushkin's death was portrayed in the 2006 biographical film Pushkin: The Last Duel. The film was directed by Natalya Bondarchuk. Pushkin was portrayed onscreen by Sergei Bezrukov. The Pushkin Trust was established in 1987 by the Duchess of Abercorn to commemorate the creative legacy and spirit of her ancestor and to release the creativity and imagination of the children of Ireland by providing them with opportunities to communicate their thoughts, feelings and experiences. A minor planet, 2208 Pushkin, discovered in 1977 by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh, is named after him. A crater on Mercury is also named in his honour. MS Alexandr Pushkin, second ship of the Russian Ivan Franko class (also referred to as "poet" or "writer" class). Station of Tashkent metro was named in his honour. The Pushkin Hills and Pushkin Lake were named in his honour in Ben Nevis Township, Cochrane District, in Ontario, Canada. UN Russian Language Day, established by the United Nations in 2010 and celebrated each year on 6 June, was scheduled to coincide with Pushkin's birthday.

Question: "What is the name of the film that Natalya Bondarchuk directed?"

Response: "Pushkin: The Last Duel"
OPTIONS:
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A: yes

The violent arena of domestic abuse litigation has grown a bit more volatile here, now that a judge has decided to hold two women in contempt of court for returning to men who had been ordered to stay away from them. "You can't have it both ways," said Judge Megan Lake Thornton of Fayette County District Court in recently fining two women $100 and $200 respectively for obtaining protective orders forbidding their partners from contacting them, then relenting and contacting the men. Ruling that the order was mutually binding, Judge Thornton also cited the men for contempt. "It drives me nuts when people just decide to do whatever they want," said Judge Thornton, who is experienced in the state's thick domestic abuse docket, which produces close to 30,000 emergency protective orders a year. Kentucky officials say there is a virtual epidemic of abusive relationships in the state. Judge Thornton's ruling has alarmed advocates for battered women, who plan to appeal it. The advocates say the finding goes beyond existing law and is unrealistic because some renewed contacts often prove unavoidable in domestic abuse cases, which involve economic and family dependency and other complications of daily living. The state office on domestic violence has pointedly agreed, warning that the ruling could cause abused women to hesitate in bringing their plight before the courts for fear of being chastised for their trouble. "The reality is it's easy to say they should never have contact," said Sherry Currens, executive director of the Kentucky Domestic Violence Association, an advocacy and legal protection group. "But we're talking about people in long-term relationships. They may have children in common. It's pretty hard to say, 'Never speak again.' People have financial difficulties. They may love the partner. It's not an easy thing." But Judge Thornton declared in court, "When these orders are entered, you don't just do whatever you damn well please and ignore them." The ruling stunned Cindra Walker, the lawyer for the two women, who is with Central Kentucky Legal Services, which represents many of the thousands of indigent women caught in abusive relationships. "For over five years, I've been in court practically every day on these abuse cases," Ms. Walker said, "and I've never before had a victim threatened with contempt."

Question: "What ruling made by Judge Thornton are advocates for battered women planning to appeal?"

Response: "To hold two women in contempt of court for returning to men who had been ordered to stay away from them"
OPTIONS:
- no
- yes

A:
yes