title: Wartime sexual violence

text: A 19 October 2004 "UN News Centre" article titled "UNICEF adviser says rape in Darfur, Sudan continues with impunity" reported:


title: Wartime sexual violence

text: Armed militias in Sudan's strife-torn Darfur region are continuing to rape women and girls with impunity, an expert from the United Nations children's agency said today on her return from a mission to the region. Pamela Shifman, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) adviser on violence and sexual exploitation, said she heard dozens of harrowing accounts of sexual assaults – including numerous reports of gang-rapes – when she visited internally displaced persons (IDPs) at one camp and another settlement in North Darfur last week. "Rape is used as a weapon to terrorize individual women and girls, and also to terrorize their families and to terrorize entire communities," she said in an interview with the UN News Service. "No woman or girl is safe."


title: Wartime sexual violence

text: Every woman or girl she spoke to had either endured sexual assault herself, or knew of someone who had been attacked, particularly when they left the relative safety of their IDP camp or settlement to find firewood.


title: Wartime sexual violence

text: Male prisoners of war may be subject to rape and sexual violence. Sexual violence against male prisoners of the Iraq War gained wide publicity after graphic photos documented such abuses on male Iraqi prisoners by US guards at Abu Ghraib prison, where prisoners were forced to humiliate themselves. American soldiers gang raped a 14-year-old Iraqi girl in the Mahmudiyah rape and killings. US soldiers also sodomized children with women present when the women and children were arrested together and it was recorded on video tape according to Seymour Hersh. An Iraqi girl, 14 years old, was raped multiple times by US guards according to "The Guardian" and an Iraqi woman called Noor sent a letter from the prison detailing her rape by US military policeman which was verified by US Major General Antonio Taguba in his report. US soldiers forced Iraqi male detainees at Abu Ghraib to engage in homosexual activities with each other and forced their anuses to make contact with each other's penises by piling them up on each other while their legs and hands were shackled and handcuffed. Iraqi female lawyer Amal Kadham Swadi interviewed an Iraqi woman raped by multiple American soldiers, telling her to keep it a secret, saying "We have daughters and husbands. For God's sake don't tell anyone about this." She had stitches on her arm from injuries when she tried to resist the rape and these were seen by Swadi. She was held in Baghdad in November 2003 at the former police compound al-Kharkh which was used as a US military base.


title: Wartime sexual violence

text: The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has employed sexual violence against women and men in a manner that has been described as "terrorism". ISIL has utilized sexual violence in order to undermine a sense of security within communities, as well as to raise funds through the sale of captives into sexual slavery. According to "The Wall Street Journal", ISIL appeals to apocalyptic beliefs and claims "justification by a Hadith that they interpret as portraying the revival of slavery as a precursor to the end of the world". In late 2014, ISIL released a pamphlet on the treatment of female slaves. "The New York Times" said in August 2015 that "[t]he systematic rape of women and girls from the Yazidi religious minority has become deeply enmeshed in the organization and the radical theology of the Islamic State in the year since the group announced it was reviving slavery as an institution."


title: Wartime sexual violence

text: The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno Ocampo, claimed that there is evidence that Gaddafi's troops used rape as a weapon during the Libyan civil war. He also said, "Apparently, he [Gaddafi] decided to punish, using rape," while witnesses confirmed that the Libyan government also purchased a large number of Viagra-like drugs. The Libyan government, on the other hand, does not recognize the ICC's jurisdiction.


title: Wartime sexual violence

text: In 2015, Amnesty International reported that the Afghan Taliban had engaged in mass murders and gang rapes of Afghan civilians in Kunduz. Taliban fighters killed and raped the female relatives of police commanders and soldiers. The Taliban also raped and killed midwives who they accused of providing reproductive health services to women in the city. One female human rights activist described the situation:When the Taliban asserted their control over Kunduz, they claimed to be bringing law and order and Shari'a to the city. But everything they've done has violated both. I don't know who can rescue us from this situation.


title: Wartime sexual violence

text: In contemporary conflict zones, international organizations, particularly the United Nations peacekeepers, have been involved in maintaining peace and stability in the area as well as distribute humanitarian aid to the local population. At present there are 16 Peace Operations directed by the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations. The peacekeepers are mainly composed of military personnel (but to a less number also the police) sent by governments of various member-states. However, over the course of their involvement in the field, peacekeepers have also been accused and at times found guilty of committing rape and other forms of sexual violence to the local population, in particular to women and children. Among all international staff in the conflict zone, United Nations peacekeepers (handled by the Department of Peacekeeping Operations) have been most frequently identified as the perpetrators of rape.


title: Wartime sexual violence

text: Like traditional military ventures, peacekeepers are deployed in highly unstable areas similar to war zones, where there is absence of the rule of law, disintegration of society and great psychological and economic hardships. Having an image of wealth and authority, peacekeepers can easily exercise power over the local population, which is often abused.


title: Wartime sexual violence

text: Moreover, as members of their respective country's militaries, peacekeepers also carry with them in the peace operations the "hyper-masculine culture" that encourages sexual exploitation and abuse. The motivations for rape differ from the traditional perpetrators (government and rebel forces) in that rape is not part of a war strategy that contributes to fulfilling the organization's mission, but rather more as means to relieve the perpetrators' sexual urges most often related to the military culture. Apart from putting the victim under the threat of physical violence, perpetrators induce sexual acts from the victim through payment, and granting or denying humanitarian aid.


title: Wartime sexual violence

text: UN peacekeepers' involvement in rape was found as early as 1993 during the Bosnian genocide, where peacekeepers were found to regularly visit a Serb-run brothel in Sarajevo that housed Bosniak and Croat women who were forced to become prostitutes. According to the Outlook, sexual misconduct by Indian soldiers and officers on UN duty in Congo raised disturbing questions. In the early twenty-first century, several UN soldiers in Haiti have been accused and convicted of raping boys as young as 14 years. In one instance, Uruguayan UN soldiers were accused in 2011 of raping a Haitian boy, sparking protests that called for the withdrawal of UN peacekeeping forces. In Congo in 2004, peacekeepers from Uruguay, Morocco, Tunisia, South Africa and Nepal have faced 68 cases of rape, prostitution and pedophilia. The investigation resulted in the jailing of six Nepalese troops. In Sudan, the Egyptian contingent was accused of raping six women when the civilians took shelter at the peacekeepers' headquarters in order to flee from the fighting. Allegations of rape of young women and children have also been launched against UN peacekeepers in South Sudan. In Mali, four UN peacekeepers from Chad were involved in the rape of a woman. Members of the Moroccan contingent faced rape charges during the course of their duties at the UN mission in Ivory Coast.


title: Wartime sexual violence

text: The most common challenge in reprimanding perpetrators is the significant underreporting of the issue mainly due to three reasons. First, the victims do not report or file complaints due to fears of revenge from the offender(s), denial of aid and the social stigma against rape victims in the victims' own community. Second, UN higher officials previously dismissed such allegations as "boys will be boys". Third, fellow peacekeepers are accustomed to the "wall of silence" in the spirit of brotherhood characteristic of military culture but also to protect the reputation of their sending government. As a consequence, whistleblowers are often stigmatised.


title: Wartime sexual violence

text: However, if there would indeed be reports, the UN instituted the Conduct and Discipline Teams (CDTs) to conduct an investigation referring the allegations for serious offense to the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS). When found guilty, the course of the specific disciplinary action is dependent on the employee status of the offender. UN civilian staff and personnel have functional immunity that can only be waived by the UN Secretary-General. In the case of military personnel, they are subject to the jurisdiction of their respective sending governments. The usual practice for offending soldiers has been to repatriate the personnel and prosecute them in their home country. In several cases, punitive measures are imposed such as demotion or dishonorable dismissal. However, very few among guilty personnel have faced criminal charges in their home countries after repatriation.


title: Wartime sexual violence

text: In 2016–2017 and beyond, many Rohingya Muslim women were raped by Burmese soldiers during the Rohingya genocide.


title: Wartime sexual violence

text: In the Tigray War that started in November 2020 in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia, there were widespread reports of rape and other sexual abuse. Europe External Programme with Africa (EEPA) described an incident of six young girls raped in Mekelle in which the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) soldiers justified the rape on the grounds that "[the girls]' father is Dr. Debretsion and [the soldiers father]' is Dr. Abiy. We are not all the same", in reference to the two main political leaders of the conflict, Debretsion Gebremichael, the deposed leader of the Tigray Region, and Abiy Ahmed, the prime minister of Ethiopia. Weyni Abraha from Yikono, a Tigrayan women's rights group, viewed the sexual violence as a deliberate use of rape as a weapon of war, stating "This is being done purposely to break the morale of the people, threaten them and make them give up the fight."


title: Wartime sexual violence

text: Arguments for sexual violence in the Tigray War constituting a deliberate campaign satisfying the definition of genocide include the well-organised command hierarchy of the ENDF as the largest contributor of armed forces to United Nations peacekeeping operations, the strict command hierarchy of the Eritrean Defence Forces (EDF) as the tool of a totalitarian state, testimonies about soldiers refusing to rape being punished, the systematic continuation of patterns of rape over six to seven months, and similarities with rape during the Bosnian War and during the Rwandan genocide.


title: Wartime sexual violence

text: A rape camp is a detention facility that is designed for or turns into a place where detainees are systematically and repeatedly raped, under the control and authority of state or non-state, armed or civilian, organisational structures.


title: Wartime sexual violence

text: Rape camps set up by the Bosnian Serb authorities have been extensively documented in the Bosnian War.


title: Wartime sexual violence

text: Sexual violence in the Tigray War included three known rape camps: a rape camp in Hawzen established by the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) and with rapists from the ENDF and Eritrean Defence Forces (EDF); an ENDF–EDF rape camp at a construction site during which queueing rapists took turns to hold the baby of the victim; and a third rape camp next to a river.


title: Wartime sexual violence

text: Forced prostitution and sexual slavery are distinct as forms of war rape, as they entail more than the opportunistic rape by soldiers of women captives. Instead, women and girls are forced into sexual slavery, in some cases for prolonged periods. This is defined by the UN as "the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised, including sexual access through rape or other forms of sexual violence". War time forced prostitution takes several forms ranging from individual trafficking by armed forces to the institutionalization of the act of rape by military or civil authorities. The term 'forced prostitution' is often used in the press to refer to women and girls displaced by war who are forced to engage in prostitution to survive.


title: Wartime sexual violence

text: In 2007, commander Karl Engelbrektson decided that the lion's penis in the coat of arms of the Nordic Battlegroup had to be removed. Contrary to initial media reports that the decision was taken following complaints from female soldiers, Engelbrektsson revealed in a February 2008 interview with Sveriges Radio that it was he who made the decision, based on the 2000 United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace, and security. Since civilian women are often sexually assaulted in the war zones of the world, the commander did not consider the depiction of a penis appropriate on a uniform worn into battle. The decision was questioned by some Swedish heraldists, with Vladimir Sagerlund asserting that coats of arms containing lions without a penis were historically given to those who had betrayed the Swedish Crown. The state heraldist Henrik Klackenberg complained that his heraldry unit should have been consulted before making such change, but did not intend to take legal action. The controversy attracted attention from countries around the world.


title: How It Ends (2018 film)

text: How It Ends is a 2018 American action thriller film directed by David M. Rosenthal and written by Brooks McLaren. The film stars Theo James, Forest Whitaker, Grace Dove, Nicole Ari Parker, Kat Graham, and Mark O'Brien.


title: How It Ends (2018 film)

text: Will and Samantha (Sam) are a young couple expecting their first child. He flies from Seattle to visit her parents in Chicago, intending to ask her father Tom for permission to marry Sam. At dinner, he and Will get into an argument, and Will leaves without mentioning the pregnancy or wedding.


title: How It Ends (2018 film)

text: The next day, Sam calls Will before his flight back. She gets scared when she hears a strange sound, and says, "Something's wrong" before the line goes dead. At the airport, all flights are cancelled. There is a TV news report discussing preliminary reports on a seismic event off the West Coast of the US that has disrupted electrical power and telecommunication. Will returns to Sam's parents', where Tom and Will agree to drive together to Seattle to find Sam.


title: How It Ends (2018 film)

text: Amidst heavy traffic, Will and Tom find soldiers have closed off the interstate. Invoking his prior service as a Marine officer, Tom persuades them to let his car through. That night, they are pulled over by a police car but the driver is in actuality not an officer, rather a civilian with a shotgun. The ensuing firefight results in an accident that fractures Tom's ribs. Tom knocks him out, and they use the police cruiser to tow their damaged car to a nearby reservation.


title: How It Ends (2018 film)

text: At the reservation, mechanic Ricki fixes the car and agrees to travel with them in case they break down again. The trio set out, restocking provisions as they go. At one point, robbers hold the three of them at gunpoint, stealing their gasoline reserves. As being without fuel they are doomed, Will chases and catches up with the fleeing car. Ricki shoots out their tires, causing the vehicle to flip over. With the surrounding fire and the crashed car's leaking gas tank, they barely have enough time to take their gasoline back before the car explodes. Later that night, upset over what happened, Ricki leaves them.


title: How It Ends (2018 film)

text: The next day Tom's lung collapses, so Will has to perform a needle thoracostomy. Sensing Tom will die without medical help, they bond, and Will finally feels that Tom approves of him and Sam. On a bridge, they encounter a gang of armed men on motorcycles. They work together to evade the gang, but Tom succumbs to his wounds. The car breaks down, and Will burns it so he does not have to leave Tom's body to rot. Will continues the journey on foot.


title: How It Ends (2018 film)

text: A family picks Will up, and he leads them to his estranged father's empty house in Idaho where they all rest. He strikes a deal with them, taking their four wheel drive vehicle in exchange for them staying at his father's well-stocked house until they are ready to go north, where the situation is better. As he gets closer to Seattle, Will sees that the city is almost completely destroyed. The mystery thickens as Will notices dead victims buried in their cars under a thick layer of ash. Finally reaching Sam's devastated apartment, Will sees a note left by Sam with an address to a cabin.


title: How It Ends (2018 film)

text: At the cabin, Will finds Sam with Jeremiah, a neighbor from the apartment building. Convinced the disaster is not natural but the result of an elaborate attack, Jeremiah reveals a deep paranoia. The next morning, he tries to kill Will, having fallen in love with Sam. Will shoots him in self-defense. Soon after, a volcanic eruption triggers a massive burst of fire, ash and shockwaves, causing a pyroclastic flow. Will and Sam speed away from the all-engulfing cloud, barely staying ahead of it but managing to out-distance it as it subsides. They proclaim their love for one another, regardless of what happens next, as they, too, head north. The cause and nature of the original 'event' are unexplained.


title: How It Ends (2018 film)

text: On March 19, 2011, it was announced that Sierra/Affinity was developing an action thriller film "How It Ends" based on the 2010 Black List script by Brooks McLaren, and it would be produced by Paul Schiff and Tai Duncan through Paul Schiff Productions. On December 1, 2015, David M. Rosenthal came on board to direct the film, while Sierra Pictures, which developed the project, would also produce the film and fully finance it. On January 4, 2017, Netflix acquired worldwide rights to the film. In June 2017, Theo James, Forest Whitaker, and Kat Graham were cast in the film. In September 2017, Mark O'Brien was cast in the film.


title: How It Ends (2018 film)

text: The first full-length trailer was released by Netflix on June 22, 2018. The film was released on July 13, 2018.


title: How It Ends (2018 film)

text: "How It Ends" received negative reviews. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of , based on reviews, with an average rating of . Metacritic gives the film a weighted average score of 36 out of 100, based on 5 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: The Spanish Republic (), commonly known as the Second Spanish Republic (), was the form of government in Spain from 1931 to 1939. The Republic was proclaimed on 14 April 1931, after the deposition of King Alfonso XIII, and was dissolved on 1 April 1939 after surrendering in the Spanish Civil War to the Nationalists led by General Francisco Franco.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: After the proclamation of the Republic, a provisional government was established until December 1931, at which time the 1931 Constitution was approved. During this time and the subsequent two years of constitutional government, known as the Reformist Biennium, Manuel Azaña's executive initiated numerous reforms to what in their view would modernize the country. In 1932 the Jesuits, who were in charge of the best schools throughout the country, were banned and had all their property confiscated in favour of government-supervised schools, while the government began a large scale school-building projects. A moderate agrarian reform was carried out. Home rule was granted to Catalonia, with a local parliament and a president of its own.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: Soon, Azaña lost parliamentary support and President Alcalá-Zamora forced his resignation in September 1933. The subsequent 1933 election was won by the Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right (CEDA). However the President declined to invite its leader, Gil Robles, to form a government, fearing CEDA's monarchist sympathies. Instead, he invited the Radical Republican Party's Alejandro Lerroux to do so. CEDA was denied cabinet positions for nearly a year. In October 1934, CEDA was finally successful in forcing the acceptance of three ministries. The Socialists triggered an insurrection that they had been preparing for nine months. A general strike was called by the UGT and the PSOE in the name of the "Alianza Obrera". The rebellion developed into a bloody revolutionary uprising, aiming to overthrow the republican government. Armed revolutionaries managed to take the whole province of Asturias, committing numerous murders of policemen, clerics and civilians and destroying religious buildings and part of the University of Oviedo. In the occupied areas, the rebels officially declared a proletarian revolution and abolished regular money. The rebellion was crushed by the Spanish Navy and the Spanish Republican Army, the latter using mainly Moorish colonial troops from Spanish Morocco.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: In 1935, after a series of crisis and corruption scandals, President Alcalá-Zamora, who had always been hostile to the government, called for new elections, instead of inviting CEDA, the party with most seats in the parliament, to form a new government. The Popular Front won the 1936 general election with a narrow victory. The revolutionary left wing masses took to the streets, released prisoners. Within hours, sixteen people were killed, and thirty-nine were seriously injured. Meanwhile, fifty churches and seventy right wing political centres were attacked. Manuel Azaña Díaz was called upon to form a government before the electoral process had come to an end; he would shortly replace Zamora as president, taking advantage of a constitutional loophole. The Right abandoned the parliamentary option and began to conspire to overthrow the Republic, rather than taking control of it.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: The disenchantment with Azaña's ruling was voiced by Miguel de Unamuno, a republican and one of Spain's most respected intellectuals, who said that President Manuel Azaña should commit suicide as a patriotic act. On 12 July 1936, a group of Guardia de Asalto and other leftist militiamen went to opposition leader José Calvo Sotelo's house and mortally shot him. This assassination had an electrifying effect which provided a catalyst to transform what was a "limping conspiracy", led by General Emilio Mola, into a powerful revolt. Three days later (17 July), the revolt began with an army uprising in Spanish Morocco. The revolt then spread to several regions of the country. Military rebels intended to seize power immediately, but they were met with serious resistance as most of the main cities remained loyal to the Republic. An estimated total of half a million people would lose their lives in the war that followed.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: During the Spanish Civil War, there were three governments. The first was led by left-wing republican José Giral (from July to September 1936); however, a revolution inspired mostly by libertarian socialist, anarchist and communist principles broke within the Republic, which weakened the rule of the Republic. The second government was led by socialist Francisco Largo Caballero of the trade union General Union of Workers (UGT). The UGT, along with the National Confederation of Workers (CNT), were the main forces behind the aforementioned social revolution. The third government was led by socialist Juan Negrín, who led the Republic until the military coup of Segismundo Casado, which ended republican resistance and ultimately led to the victory of the nationalists.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: The Republican government survived in exile and retained an embassy in Mexico City until 1976. After the restoration of democracy in Spain, the government-in-exile formally dissolved the following year.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: On 28 January 1930, the military dictatorship of General Miguel Primo de Rivera (who had been in power since September 1923) was overthrown. This led various republican factions from a wide variety of backgrounds (including conservatives, socialists and Catalan nationalists) to join forces. The Pact of San Sebastián was the key to the transition from monarchy to republic. Republicans of all tendencies were committed to the Pact of San Sebastian in overthrowing the monarchy and establishing a republic. The restoration of the royal Bourbons was rejected by large sectors of the populace who vehemently opposed the King. The pact, signed by representatives of the main Republican forces, allowed a joint anti-monarchy political campaign. The 12 April 1931 municipal elections led to a landslide victory for republicans. Two days later, the Second Republic was proclaimed, and King Alfonso XIII went into exile. The king's departure led to a provisional government of the young republic under Niceto Alcalá-Zamora. Catholic churches and establishments in cities like Madrid and Sevilla were set ablaze on 11 May.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: In June 1931 a Constituent Cortes was elected to draft a new constitution, which came into force in December.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: The new constitution established freedom of speech and freedom of association, extended suffrage to women in 1933, allowed divorce, and stripped the Spanish nobility of any special legal status. It also effectively disestablished the Roman Catholic Church, but the disestablishment was somewhat reversed by the Cortes that same year. Its controversial articles 26 and 27 imposed stringent controls on Church property and barred religious orders from the ranks of educators. Scholars have described the constitution as hostile to religion, with one scholar characterising it as one of the most hostile of the 20th century. José Ortega y Gasset stated, "the article in which the Constitution legislates the actions of the Church seems highly improper to me." Pope Pius XI condemned the Spanish government's deprivation of the civil liberties of Catholics in the encyclical "Dilectissima Nobis".


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: The legislative branch was changed to a single chamber called the Congress of Deputies. The constitution established legal procedures for the nationalisation of public services and land, banks, and railways. The constitution provided generally accorded civil liberties and representation.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: The Republican Constitution also changed the country's national symbols. The "Himno de Riego" was established as the national anthem, and the Tricolor, with three horizontal red-yellow-purple fields, became the new flag of Spain. Under the new Constitution, all of Spain's regions had the right to autonomy. Catalonia (1932), the Basque Country (1936) and Galicia (although the Galician Statute of Autonomy couldn't come into effect due to the war) exercised this right, with Aragon, Andalusia and Valencia, engaged in negotiations with the government before the outbreak of the Civil War. The Constitution guaranteed a wide range of civil liberties, but it opposed key beliefs of the right wing, which was very rooted in rural areas, and desires of the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, which was stripped of schools and public subsidies.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: The 1931 Constitution was formally effective from 1931 until 1939. In the summer of 1936, after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, it became largely irrelevant after the authority of the Republic was superseded in many places by revolutionary socialists and anarchists on one side, and Nationalists on the other.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: With the new constitution approved in December 1931, once the constituent assembly had fulfilled its mandate of approving a new constitution, it should have arranged for regular parliamentary elections and adjourned. However fearing the increasing popular opposition the Radicals and Socialist majority postponed the regular elections, therefore prolonging their way in power for two more years. This way the republican government of Manuel Azaña initiated numerous reforms to what in their view would "modernize" the country.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: In 1932 the Jesuits who were in charge of the best schools throughout the country were banned and had all their property confiscated. Landowners were expropriated. Autonomy was granted to Catalonia, with a local parliament and a president of said parliament. Catholic churches in major cities were again subject to arson in 1932, and a revolutionary strike action was seen in Málaga the same year. A Catholic church in Zaragoza was burnt down in 1933.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: In November 1932, Miguel de Unamuno, one of the most respected Spanish intellectuals, rector of the University of Salamanca, and himself a Republican, publicly raised his voice to protest. In a speech delivered on 27 November 1932, at the Madrid Ateneo, he protested: "Even the Inquisition was limited by certain legal guarantees. But now we have something worse: a police force which is grounded only on a general sense of panic and on the invention of non-existent dangers to cover up this over-stepping of the law."


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: In 1933, all remaining religious congregations were obliged to pay taxes and banned from industry, trade and educational activities. This ban was forced with strict police severity and widespread mob violence.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: The majority vote in the 1933 elections was won by the Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right (CEDA). In face of CEDA's electoral victory, president Alcalá-Zamora declined to invite its leader, Gil Robles, to form a government. Instead he invited the Radical Republican Party's Alejandro Lerroux to do so. Despite receiving the most votes, CEDA was denied cabinet positions for nearly a year. After a year of intense pressure, CEDA, the largest party in the congress, was finally successful in forcing the acceptance of three ministries. However the entrance of CEDA in the government, although being normal in a parliamentary democracy, was not well accepted by the left. The Socialists triggered an insurrection that they had been preparing for nine months. A general strike was called by the UGT and the PSOE in the name of the "Alianza Obrera". The issue was that the Left Republicans identified the Republic not with democracy or constitutional law but with a specific set of left-wing policies and politicians. Any deviation, even if democratic, was seen as treasonous.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: The inclusion of three CEDA ministers in the government that took office on 1 October 1934 led to a country wide revolt. A "Catalan State" was proclaimed by Catalan nationalist leader Lluis Companys, but it lasted just ten hours. Despite an attempt at a general stoppage in Madrid, other strikes did not endure. This left Asturian strikers to fight alone. Miners in Asturias occupied the capital, Oviedo, killing officials and clergymen. Fifty eight religious buildings including churches, convents and part of the university at Oviedo were burned and destroyed. The miners proceeded to occupy several other towns, most notably the large industrial centre of La Felguera, and set up town assemblies, or "revolutionary committees", to govern the towns that they controlled. Thirty thousand workers were mobilized for battle within ten days. In the occupied areas the rebels officially declared the proletarian revolution and abolished regular money. The revolutionary soviets set up by the miners attempted to impose order on the areas under their control, and the moderate socialist leadership of Ramón González Peña and Belarmino Tomás took measures to restrain violence. However, a number of captured priests, businessmen and civil guards were summarily executed by the revolutionaries in Mieres and Sama. This rebellion lasted for two weeks until it was crushed by the army, led by General Eduardo López Ochoa. This operation earned López Ochoa the nickname "Butcher of Asturias". Another rebellion by the autonomous government of Catalonia, led by its president Lluís Companys, was also suppressed and was followed by mass arrests and trials.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: With this rebellion against an established political legitimate authority, the Socialists showed identical repudiation of representative institutional system that anarchists had practiced. The Spanish historian Salvador de Madariaga, an Azaña's supporter, and an exiled vocal opponent of Francisco Franco is the author of a sharp critical reflection against the participation of the left in the revolt: "The uprising of 1934 is unforgivable. The argument that Mr Gil Robles tried to destroy the Constitution to establish fascism was, at once, hypocritical and false. With the rebellion of 1934, the Spanish left lost even the shadow of moral authority to condemn the rebellion of 1936."


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: The suspension of the land reforms that had been attempted by the previous government, and the failure of the Asturias miners' uprising, led to a more radical turn by the parties of the left, especially in the PSOE (Socialist Party), where the moderate Indalecio Prieto lost ground to Francisco Largo Caballero, who advocated a socialist revolution. At the same time, the involvement of the Centrist government party in the Straperlo scandal deeply weakened it, further polarising political differences between right and left. These differences became evident in the 1936 elections.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: On 7 January 1936, new elections were called. Despite significant rivalries and disagreements, the socialists, Communists, and the Catalan-and-Madrid-based left-wing Republicans decided to work together under the name Popular Front. The Popular Front won the election on 16 February with 263 MPs against 156 right-wing MPs, grouped within a coalition of the "National Front" with CEDA, Carlists, and Monarchists. The moderate centre parties virtually disappeared; between the elections, Lerroux's group fell from the 104 representatives it had in 1934 to just 9.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: American historian Stanley G. Payne thinks that there was major electoral fraud in the process, with widespread violation of the laws and the constitution. In line with Payne's point of view, in 2017 two Spanish Scholars, Manuel Álvarez Tardío and Roberto Villa García published the result of a research where they concluded that the 1936 elections were rigged. This view has been criticised by Eduardo Calleja and Francisco Pérez, who question the charges of electoral irregularity and argue that the Popular Front would still have won a slight electoral majority even if all of the charges were true.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: In the thirty-six hours following the election, sixteen people were killed (mostly by police officers attempting to maintain order or intervene in violent clashes) and thirty-nine were seriously injured, while fifty churches and seventy right wing political centres were attacked or set ablaze. The right had firmly believed, at all levels, that they would win. Almost immediately after the results were known, a group of monarchists asked Robles to lead a coup but he refused. He did, however, ask prime minister Manuel Portela Valladares to declare a state of war before the revolutionary masses rushed into the streets. Franco also approached Valladares to propose the declaration of martial law and calling out of the army. This was not a coup attempt but more of a "police action" akin to Asturias, as Franco believed the post-election environment could become violent and was trying to quell the perceived leftist threat. Valladares resigned, even before a new government could be formed. However, the Popular Front, which had proved an effective election tool, did not translate into a Popular Front government. Largo Caballero and other elements of the political left were not prepared to work with the republicans, although they did agree to support much of the proposed reforms. Manuel Azaña Díaz was called upon to form a government before the electoral process had come to an end, and he would shortly replace Zamora as president, taking advantage of a constitutional loophole: the Constitution allowed the Cortes to remove the President from office after two early dissolutions, and while the first (1933) dissolution had been partially justified because of the fulfillment of the Constitutional mission of the first legislature, the second one had been a simple bid to trigger early elections.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: The right reacted as if radical communists had taken control, despite the new cabinet's moderate composition; they were shocked by the revolutionary masses taking to the streets and the release of prisoners. Convinced that the left was no longer willing to follow the rule of law and that its vision of Spain was under threat, the right abandoned the parliamentary option and began to conspire as to how to best overthrow the republic, rather than taking control of it.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: This helped the development of the fascist-inspired Falange Española, a National party led by José Antonio Primo de Rivera, the son of the former dictator, Miguel Primo de Rivera. Although it only received 0.7 percent of the votes in the election, by July 1936 the Falange had 40,000 members.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: The country rapidly descended into anarchy. Even the socialist Indalecio Prieto at a party rally in Cuenca, in May 1936, complained: "we have never seen so tragic a panorama or so great a collapse as in Spain at this moment. Abroad Spain is classified as insolvent. This is not the road to socialism or communism but to desperate anarchism without even the advantage of liberty."


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: In June 1936 Miguel de Unamuno, disenchanted with the unfolding of the events told a reporter who published his statement in "El Adelanto" that President Manuel Azaña should commit suicide as a patriotic act.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: On 12 July 1936, Lieutenant José Castillo, an important member of the anti-fascist military organisation Unión Militar Republicana Antifascista (UMRA), was shot by Falangist gunmen.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: In response a group of Guardia de Asalto and other leftist militiamen led by Civil Guard Fernando Condés, after getting the approval of the minister of interior to illegally arrest a list of members of parliament, went to right-wing opposition leader José Calvo Sotelo's house in the early hours of 13 July on a revenge mission. Sotelo was arrested and later shot dead in a police truck. His body was dropped at the entrance of one of the city's cemeteries. According to all later investigations, the perpetrator of the murder was a socialist gunman, Luis Cuenca, who was known as the bodyguard of PSOE leader Indalecio Prieto. Calvo Sotelo was one of the most prominent Spanish monarchists who, describing the government's actions as Bolshevist and anarchist, had been exhorting the army to intervene, declaring that Spanish soldiers would save the country from communism if "there are no politicians capable of doing so".


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: Prominent rightists blamed the government for Calvo Sotelo's assassination. They claimed that the authorities did not properly investigate it and promoted those involved in the murder whilst censoring those who cried out about it and shutting down the headquarters of right-wing parties and arresting right-wing party members, often on "flimsy charges". The event is often considered the catalyst for the further political polarisation that ensued, the Falange and other right-wing individuals, including Juan de la Cierva, had already been conspiring to launch a military coup d'état against the government, to be led by senior army officers.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: When the antifascist Castillo and the anti-socialist Calvo Sotelo were buried on the same day in the same Madrid cemetery, fighting between the Police Assault Guard and fascist militias broke out in the surrounding streets, resulting in four more deaths.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: The killing of Calvo Sotelo with police involvement aroused suspicions and strong reactions among the government's opponents on the right. Although the nationalist generals were already planning an uprising, the event was a catalyst and a public justification for a coup. Stanley Payne claims that before these events, the idea of rebellion by army officers against the government had weakened; Mola had estimated that only 12% of officers reliably supported the coup and at one point considered fleeing the country for fear he was already compromised, and had to be convinced to remain by his co-conspirators. However, the kidnapping and murder of Sotelo transformed the "limping conspiracy" into a revolt that could trigger a civil war. The involvement of forces of public order and a lack of action against the attackers hurt public opinion of the government. No effective action was taken; Payne points to a possible veto by socialists within the government who shielded the killers who had been drawn from their ranks. The murder of a parliamentary leader by state police was unprecedented, and the belief that the state had ceased to be neutral and effective in its duties encouraged important sectors of the right to join the rebellion. Within hours of learning of the murder and the reaction, Franco, who until then had not been involved in the conspiracies, changed his mind on rebellion and dispatched a message to Mola to display his firm commitment.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: Three days later (17 July), the coup d'état began more or less as it had been planned, with an army uprising in Spanish Morocco, which then spread to several regions of the country.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: The revolt was remarkably devoid of any particular ideology. The major goal was to put an end to anarchical disorder. Mola's plan for the new regime was envisioned as a "republican dictatorship", modelled after Salazar's Portugal and as a semi-pluralist authoritarian regime rather than a totalitarian fascist dictatorship. The initial government would be an all-military "Directory", which would create a "strong and disciplined state." General Sanjurjo would be the head of this new regime, due to being widely liked and respected within the military, though his position would be a largely symbolic due to his lack of political talent. The 1931 Constitution would be suspended, replaced by a new "constituent parliament" which would be chosen by a new politically purged electorate, who would vote on the issue of republic versus monarchy. Certain liberal elements would remain, such as separation of church and state as well as freedom of religion. Agrarian issues would be solved by regional commissioners on the basis of smallholdings but collective cultivation would be permitted in some circumstances. Legislation prior to February 1936 would be respected. Violence would be required to destroy opposition to the coup, though it seems Mola did not envision the mass atrocities and repression that would ultimately manifest during the civil war. Of particular importance to Mola was ensuring the revolt was at its core an Army affair, one that would not be subject to special interests and that the coup would make the armed forces the basis for the new state. However, the separation of church and state was forgotten once the conflict assumed the dimension of a war of religion, and military authorities increasingly deferred to the Church and to the expression of Catholic sentiment. However, Mola's program was vague and only a rough sketch, and there were disagreements among coupists about their vision for Spain.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: Franco's move was intended to seize power immediately, but his army uprising met with serious resistance, and great swathes of Spain, including most of the main cities, remained loyal to the Republic of Spain. The leaders of the coup (Franco was not commander-in-chief yet) did not lose heart with the stalemate and apparent failure of the coup. Instead, they initiated a slow and determined war of attrition against the Republican government in Madrid.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: As a result, an estimated total of half a million people would lose their lives in the war that followed; the number of casualties is actually disputed as some have suggested as many as a million people died. Over the years, historians kept lowering the death figures and modern research concluded that 500,000 deaths were the correct figure.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: On 17 July 1936, General Franco led the Spanish Army of Africa from Morocco to attack the mainland, while another force from the north under General Emilio Mola moved south from Navarre. Military units were also mobilised elsewhere to take over government institutions. Before long the professional Army of Africa had much of the south and west under the control of the rebels. Bloody purges followed in each piece of captured "Nationalist" territory in order to consolidate Franco's future regime.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: Although both sides received foreign military aid, the help that Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany (as part of German involvement in the Spanish Civil War), and neighbouring Portugal gave the rebels was much greater and more effective than the assistance that the Republicans received from the USSR, Mexico, and volunteers of the International Brigades. While the Axis powers wholeheartedly assisted General Franco's military campaign, the governments of France, Britain, and other European powers looked the other way and let the Republican forces die, as the actions of the Non-Intervention Committee would show. Imposed in the name of neutrality, the international isolation of the Spanish Republic ended up favouring the interests of the future Axis Powers.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: The Siege of the Alcázar at Toledo early in the war was a turning point, with the rebels winning after a long siege. The Republicans managed to hold out in Madrid, despite a Nationalist assault in November 1936, and frustrated subsequent offensives against the capital at Jarama and Guadalajara in 1937. Soon, though, the rebels began to erode their territory, starving Madrid and making inroads into the east. The north, including the Basque country, fell in late 1937, and the Aragon front collapsed shortly afterward. The bombing of Guernica was probably the most infamous event of the war and inspired Picasso's painting. It was used as a testing ground for the German Luftwaffe's Condor Legion. The Battle of the Ebro in July–November 1938 was the final desperate attempt by the Republicans to turn the tide. When this failed and Barcelona fell to the rebels in early 1939, it was clear the war was over. The remaining Republican fronts collapsed, and Madrid fell in March 1939.


title: Second Spanish Republic

text: The Second Spanish Republic's economy was mostly agrarian, and many historians call Spain during this time a "backward nation". Major industries of the Second Spanish Republic were located in the Basque region (due to it having Europe's best high-grade non-phosphoric ore) and Catalonia. This greatly contributed to Spain's economic hardships, as their center of industry was located on the opposite side of the country from their resource reserves, resulting in immense transportation costs due to the mountainous Spanish terrain. Compounding economic woes was Spain's low export rate and heavily domestic manufacturing industry. High levels of poverty left many Spaniards open to extremist political parties in search of a solution.


title: Norilsk

text: Norilsk (, "Norílʹsk") is a closed city in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located south of the western Taymyr Peninsula, around 90 km east of the Yenisey River and 1,500 km north of Krasnoyarsk. Norilsk is 300 km north of the Arctic Circle and 2,400 km from the North Pole. It has a permanent population of 182,701 (2021), and up to 220,000 including temporary inhabitants. It is the second-largest city in the region after Krasnoyarsk. Since 2016 Norilsk's population has grown steadily. In 2017, for the first time, migration to the city exceeded outflow; In 2018, according to Krasnoyarskstat, natural population growth amounted to 1,357 people: 2,381 people were born, 1,024 people died.


title: Norilsk

text: It is the world's northernmost city with more than 180,000 inhabitants, and the second-largest city (after Murmansk) inside the Arctic Circle. Norilsk and Yakutsk are the only large cities in the continuous permafrost zone.


title: Norilsk

text: Norilsk is located atop some of the largest nickel deposits on Earth. Consequently, mining and smelting ore are the major industries. Norilsk is the center of a region where nickel, copper, cobalt, platinum, palladium, and coal are mined. The presence of mineral deposits in the Siberian Craton was known for two centuries before Norilsk was founded, but mining began only in 1939, when subterranean portions of the Norilsk-Talnakh intrusions were found beneath mountainous terrain.


title: Norilsk

text: In 2004, two satellite cities (Talnakh and Kayerkan) became districts of the city of Norilsk, and Oganer became a suburb of Norilsk's Central District. The jurisdiction of Norilsk also extends to the settlement of Snezhnogorsk, which originated in 1963 as a settlement to accommodate the builders of the Ust-Khantai Hydroelectric Power Station.


title: Norilsk

text: Access to Norilsk is restricted for foreign citizens, who are required to obtain a special permission to visit the city.


title: Norilsk

text: Norilsk owes its name to its geographical location: the Norilsk river flows near the city (Norilka, Pyasina river basin), which is located near the Norilsk mountains. The travelers Khariton Laptev, Alexander Fyodorovich Middendorf, and Fedor Bogdanovich Schmidt mentioned the river Norilsk and the Norilsk mountains in their accounts.


title: Norilsk

text: According to the Soviet Arctic explorer Nikolay Urvantsev, the Norilsk river was probably given its former name, Norilka, in the 16th–17th centuries during the existence of the city Mangazeya, when the Taymyr was settled by Russian fishing people. It is likely that the name of the river comes from the word "norilo", a long thin pole that was used to stretch a string of trap nets from hole to hole under the ice.


title: Norilsk

text: Some argue the name derives from the Yukagir word "nerile", meaning "an earthen hill, consisting of some crags, cliffs" (the mountains around Norilsk do indeed resemble "nerile"). According to another version, the name of the river (Norilka) and, accordingly, the city comes from the Evenk word "narus" or "nioril" in the Yukagir language, which means "swamps". It may also derive from the name of an Evenk tribe, the "Nyurilians", or from the nearby Lake Murilskoye.


title: Norilsk

text: People knew about the minerals in the Norilsk area as early as the Bronze Age - a site with primitive equipment for smelting and casting, as well as raw materials (balls of native copper), has been discovered near Lake Pyasino.


title: Norilsk

text: In the 16th-17th centuries, copper from the Norilsk deposits was used by the inhabitants of Mangazeya, a city located beyond the Arctic Circle on the Taz River, which was an important regional trading and craft center. During the excavations of Mangazeya in 1972-1975, Professor Mikhail Ivanovich Belov discovered a vast foundry yard. Platinoids were found in the remains of the copper wares unearthed there.


title: Norilsk

text: Geologist and explorer Nikolay Urvantsev carried out further study of the Norilsk region during expeditions in 1919-1926, which confirmed the presence of rich deposits of coal and polymetallic ores in the western spurs of the Putorana Plateau.


title: Norilsk

text: In 1921, during one of Urvantsev's expeditions, a log cabin was built at the northern foot of Mount Schmidtikh. This hut is considered to be the first building in Norilsk. The cabin was later moved, and is now located near Norilsk Museum. It has the status of a historical monument.


title: Norilsk

text: Norilsk was founded at the end of the 1920s, but the official date of the city's foundation is traditionally held to be 1935, when the Norillag system of Gulag labour camp was established and prisoners began construction work on the A.P. Zavenyagin Norilsk Mining and Metallurgical Plant. Over the next few years Norilsk grew into a settlement for the Norilsk mining and metallurgical complex, and it was granted urban-type settlement status in 1939 and city status in 1953.


title: Norilsk

text: In the late 1940s, architects began to design a “new” city on the eastern shore of Lake Dolgoye, and Norillag prisoners started building work in 1951. In the summer of 1953, inmates from one of the Norillag camps, Gorlag, went on strike, sparking the Norilsk Uprising.


title: Norilsk

text: In 1947, construction began on the Salekhard–Igarka Railway, a line intended to cross northern Siberia. The railway was to have linked the Arctic coal-mining city of Vorkuta in European Russia to the Yenisei River via Salekhard and the Ob River. A spacious railway station was built in Norilsk, in the expectation that the city would eventually have a train service to Moscow, but construction of the Salekhard–Igarka Railway was halted after Joseph Stalin died in 1953.


title: Norilsk

text: To support the new city, the Norilsk railway to the port of Dudinka on the Yenisei River was built, first as a narrow-gauge line (winter 1935–36), later as a Russian standard gauge line (completed in the early 1950s).


title: Norilsk

text: Norillag was officially closed on August 22, 1956, by order No. 0348 of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. According to the Norillag archives, 16,806 prisoners died in Norilsk as a result of forced labor, starvation and intense cold during the years the camp was operational (1935–1956). Fatalities were especially high during World War II from 1942 to 1944 when food supplies were particularly scarce. An unknown, yet significant number of prisoners continued to work and die in the mines until around 1979.


title: Norilsk

text: Several memorial structures have been erected in the city to commemorate Norilsk's Gulag past. The Russian author Boris Ivanov wrote about the most famous of them in his book "Paying for Platinum": "In the center of Norilsk, on Gvardeyskaya Square, 'in an atmosphere of solemnity', a foundation stone was even set, promising the construction of a monument on this spot to those who created the basis of the plant and this miracle city. This basalt block, weighing 100 poods (), delivered from Mount Rudnaya. On a plaque attached to it are the words: 'An obelisk will be built here, an eternal reminder of the feat of the Norilsk people who conquered the tundra, created our city and the plant'. The foundation stone was laid recently by historical standards, on June 26, 1966..."


title: Norilsk

text: On July 17, 2020, a monument to the Metallurgists of Norilsk was unveiled at the site of the foundation stone. The foundation stone itself is part of the sculptural composition.


title: Norilsk

text: In the 1980s, the Norilsk Golgotha memorial complex was built on the slope of Mount Schmidtikh to house the mass graves of the prisoners who founded the city. Poland and the (ex-Soviet) Baltic states have erected monuments to their countrymen who died here. Icon lamps also burn in an Orthodox chapel set on the mountainside.


title: Norilsk

text: The discovery in 1966 of the Oktyabrskoye deposit of copper-nickel ores, located 40 kilometers northeast of Norilsk, was a milestone in the further development of the region. The mining settlement of Talnakh was founded at the same time. A new complex, the Nadezhda Metallurgical Plant, was built 15 km west of Norilsk to process the raw materials from the new deposits. Work began in 1971 and the complex was finished in 1981.


title: Norilsk

text: A number of Finnish companies assisted in the construction and automation of Norilsk's No. 2 copper and nickel smelters (in the Nadezhda complex), which led to substantial numbers of Finnish metallurgical and automation experts and their families coming to Norilsk from 1978 onward, creating a Finnish expat community of some hundreds of people for a couple of years.


title: Norilsk

text: Today Talnakh is the area's major mining/enrichment site. Enriched ore emulsion is pumped from here to Norilsk's metallurgy plants.


title: Norilsk

text: Enriched nickel and copper are transported from Dudinka to Murmansk by sea, and from there to the Monchegorsk enrichment and smelting plant on the Kola Peninsula, while more precious content goes upriver to Krasnoyarsk. This transportation takes place only during the summer. The port of Dudinka is closed and dismantled during spring flooding in late May, when waters can rise by up to (a typical spring occurrence on all Siberian rivers, caused by winter ice obstructing meltwater from upstream).


title: Norilsk

text: Norilsk-Talnakh continues to be a dangerous mine to work in. According to the mining company, there were 2.4 accidents per 1,000 workers in 2005. In 2017, Norilsk Nickel claimed that it had reduced its overall lost time injury frequency rate (LTIFR) by almost 60% since 2013.


title: Norilsk

text: In June 2020, 20,000 tons of diesel fuel spilled from the tank of an NTEK power plant, polluting hundreds of square kilometers and causing serious damage to the local ecosystem.


title: Norilsk

text: Within the Russian system of administrative divisions, it is, together with the urban-type settlement of Snezhnogorsk, Krasnoyarsk Territory, incorporated as the district city of Norilsk—an administrative unit with a status equal to that of the districts. As a municipal division, the district city of Norilsk is incorporated as the Norilsk Urban Okrug.


title: Norilsk

text: Since 2005, the city of Norilsk has been divided into three geographically disparate administrative districts:


title: Norilsk

text: In September 2021, the composition of the Legislative Assembly of the Krasnoyarsk Territory was updated. Sergei Sizonenko was elected deputy for Taymyr constituency No. 23.


title: Norilsk

text: The population of Norilsk is After the fall of the USSR the population dropped by 40,000, but this was offset by the subsequent merger of the towns of Kayerkan and Talnakh into Norilsk, maintaining a permanent population of 175,000. Including temporary residents, the population can reach up to 220,000.


title: Norilsk

text: Life expectancy for local residents is about 10 years less than average Russian life expectancy, which as of 2013 was around 69 years.


title: Norilsk

text: The city has an ethnically diverse population. As of 2010, the predominant ethnic and cultural groups were Russians, Ukrainians, Azerbaijanis, Tatars, Lezgins, Chuvash, Bashkirs, Belarusians, Ossetians, Nogai, and Kazakhs. The population of Norilsk consists almost entirely of people who moved to the city in the second half of the 20th century and their descendants, but many of the descendants of prisoners who were amnestied in 1953 still live in the city. There are very few representatives of indigenous ethnicities - Nenets, Enets, Nganasans and Dolgans - in the city.


title: Norilsk

text: As of January 1, 2021, in terms of population, the city ranked 103rd out of 1,116 cities in the Russian Federation.


title: Norilsk

text: Orthodox Christianity is the main religion in Norilsk. There is a Russian Orthodox cathedral, several Russian Orthodox churches and a Ukrainian Orthodox church. There is also a mosque in Norilsk. Built in 1998 and belonging to the local Tatar community, it is considered to be the northernmost Muslim prayer house in the world.


title: Norilsk

text: Since 2014, the city has been the center of the newly formed Norilsk Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church.


title: Norilsk

text: Norilsk is on Krasnoyarsk Time, seven hours ahead of UTC (UTC+07:00) and 4 hours ahead of Moscow Time (MSK+4)


title: Norilsk

text: Norilsk sits between the West Siberian Plain and Central Siberian Plateau at the foot of the Putorana Mountains. It is one of the world's most northerly settlements and is both the largest city built on permafrost and the largest city inside the Arctic Circle. Norilsk has an extremely harsh subarctic climate (according to the Köppen climate classification, it is between subarctic (Dfc) to tundra (ET)). It is one of the coldest cities in the world – far colder than Murmansk, which is located at almost the same latitude.


title: Norilsk

text: As a result of Norilsk's geographical isolation on the Taimyr Peninsula, the rest of Russia is usually referred to as “the mainland”, and expressions like “move to the mainland” or “on the mainland” are common among locals.


title: Norilsk

text: Despite being located inside the Arctic Circle, Norilsk has a subarctic climate (Köppen climate classification "Dfc") with very long, extremely cold winters (from early October to May) and very short, mild summers. Norilsk experiences negative temperatures for about 240 days a year, and snow cover lasts from seven to nine months, with more than 50 days of snowstorms. Strong winds are common. The average temperature in January is about -27 °C.


title: Norilsk

text: The midnight sun is above the horizon from May 20 to July 24, and the time when the sun does not rise, polar night, lasts from approximately November 30 to January 13.


title: Norilsk

text: Summer is short (mid-July) and cool, with an average July high of +14.3°C, though temperatures can sometimes rise above .


title: Norilsk

text: Norilsk has an average annual air temperature of −9.6 °C, with an annual variation of absolute temperatures of 85 °C. The average annual relative humidity is about 76%.


title: Norilsk

text: Much of the surrounding area is naturally treeless tundra, and there are very few trees in the city itself.


title: Norilsk

text: The nickel deposits of Norilsk-Talnakh are the largest-known nickel-copper-palladium deposits in the world. The deposit was formed 250 million years ago during the eruption of the Siberian Traps igneous province (STIP). The STIP erupted over one million cubic kilometers of lava, a large portion of it through a series of flat-lying lava conduits below Norilsk and the Talnakh Mountains.


title: Norilsk

text: Norilsk is a center of non-ferrous metallurgy and is home to mining giant Norilsk Nickel's mining operations. The smelting of the nickel ore is directly responsible for severe pollution, which generally takes the form of acid rain and smog. By some estimates, Norilsk's nickel mines produce 1 percent of global sulfur dioxide () emissions.


title: Norilsk

text: Norilsk is a city with an extremely unfavorable ecological and environmental situation, but recent initiatives have begun to tackle some of the region's most serious pollution issues.


title: Norilsk

text: Russia's Federal State Statistics Service lists Norilsk as the most polluted city in Russia. In 2017, Norilsk produced 1.798 million tons of carbon pollutants—nearly six times more than the 304,600 tons that was generated by Russia's second-most polluted city, Cherepovets. Norilsk, the report states, decontaminates almost half of its emissions.


title: Norilsk

text: In addition, the Blacksmith Institute has included Norilsk in its list of the 10 most polluted places on Earth. The list cites air pollution by particulates, including radioisotopes strontium-90, and caesium-137; the metals nickel, copper, cobalt, and lead; selenium; and by gases (such as nitrogen and carbon oxides, sulfur dioxide, phenols and hydrogen sulfide). The Institute estimates that 4 million tons of cadmium, copper, lead, nickel, arsenic, selenium and zinc are released into the air every year.


title: Norilsk

text: Nickel ore is smelted at the company's processing site at Norilsk. This smelting is directly responsible for severe pollution, which generally comes in the form of acid rain and smog. By some estimates, Norilsk's nickel mines produce 1 percent of global sulfur dioxide emissions. Heavy metal pollution near Norilsk is so severe that it has now become economically feasible to mine surface soil, as the soil has acquired such high concentrations of platinum and palladium.


title: Norilsk

text: According to an April 2007 BBC News report, Norilsk Nickel accepted personal responsibility for what had happened to the forests around the city, and insisted that the company was implementing measures to reduce pollution. In 2016, company chairman Vladimir Potanin admitted that environmental issues were the company's biggest problem.


title: Norilsk

text: In September 2016, images surfaced on social media of the nearby Daldykan River, which had turned red. Russia's Environment Ministry issued a statement claiming that preliminary evidence pointed towards Nornickel-owned wastewater pipes from a nearby smelting plant as the source of the contamination. The company referred to intense rainfall and insisted that the incident of sedimentary coloring presented no danger to people or wildlife. The smelting plant, the company said, was in the process of being modernized. Nonetheless, accusations of illegal waste dumping continue to plague the company.


title: Norilsk

text: The closure of the nickel plant in June 2016 was an important step toward the improvement of the environmental situation in the city, and made it possible to cut annual pollutant emissions from the plant by about 400,000 tons.


title: Norilsk

text: Norilsk Nickel has stated that the total emissions of its Russian operations were 6% lower in 2016 than in 2015, primarily thanks to the shutdown of the smelter. Following the completion of a large-scale project to upgrade the Talnakh concentrator, the enterprise's capacity has grown by more than 30%, from 7.6 to 10.2 million tons of ore per year. In addition to achieving higher production rates, the goal of the modernization was also to reduce the negative impact on the environment by increasing the recovery of sulfur from ore to tailings.


title: Norilsk

text: In 2017, Norilsk Nickel announced that it had invested $14 billion in a major development program aimed at reducing sulfur dioxide emissions in Norilsk by 75% by 2023, using 2015 as a base year. One of the bigger steps taken to combat pollution was the closure of Nornickel's old smelter in Norilsk, the main source of SO emissions within the city boundaries since 1942.


title: Norilsk

text: In 2018, Norilsk Nickel announced the Sulfur Project, which includes the modernization of the Copper Plant, located within the city, and the relocation of blister copper production to the Nadezhda plant, outside the city. Norilsk's Arena sports and entertainment complex has a showroom where you can see information about the Sulfur Program and Norilsk Nickel's other environmental projects.


title: Norilsk

text: In 2021, the Clean Norilsk project was launched, with the support of Federal Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology Alexander Kozlov. The aim of the initiative is to demolish about 500 abandoned buildings and structures, and remove about 2 million square meters of industrial waste. The Clean Norilsk project was included in the nationwide environmental program Clean Arctic.


title: Norilsk

text: On May 29, 2020 a fuel reservoir owned by Nornickel subsidiary NTEK at CHPP-3 ruptured during depressurization, spilling approximately 21,000 tons of diesel fuel and directly threatening the ecosystem of the Arctic Ocean. It was one of the largest oil spills in Russian history. As a result of the leak, according to preliminary estimates, 6,000 tons soaked into the ground, and 15,000 tons leaked into the nearby Ambarnaya River and Daldykan River. By June 3, according to Rosprirodnadzor, the maximum permissible concentration of harmful substances in the water of the Ambarnaya River exceeded the norm by tens of thousands of times. Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, declared a state of emergency. The fuel was a reserve used as a backup for the main gas supply to a power plant. The storage tank was built on permafrost, which, according to a statement by the company, could possibly have melted and become unstable due to climate change. An area of 350 square kilometers (135 square miles) was contaminated and it is proving difficult to clean up the area because there are no roads and the river is too shallow for boats and barges. Oleg Mitvol, former deputy head of Rosprirodnadzor, estimated that the clean-up would cost about 100 billion rubles (US$1.5 billion) and take 5–10 years.


title: Norilsk

text: Vice-speaker of the Taymyr Duma Sergey Sizonenko noted that about 700 of Taymyr's indigenous people live in the affected area.


title: Norilsk

text: As a result of the proceedings, Norilsk Nickel was obliged to pay a fine of 146 billion rubles, which went into the federal budget of the Russian Federation, rather than the budget of the municipality. On August 26, 2021, the head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Russian Federation Alexander Chupriyan announced that clean-up work was complete.


title: Norilsk

text: At the beginning of 2020, 43 water treatment facilities were operational in Norilsk. The system is constantly being upgraded. The modernization work is partly funded by Norilsk Nickel.


title: Norilsk

text: MMC Norilsk Nickel (formerly the Norilsk Mining and Metallurgical Combine), a mining company, is the principal employer in the Norilsk area. Norilsk is a major center of non-ferrous metallurgy; the following non-ferrous metals are mined here: copper, nickel, cobalt; precious metals: palladium, osmium, platinum, gold, silver, iridium, rhodium, ruthenium; by-products: technical sulfur, metallic selenium and tellurium, sulfuric acid. The company produces 35% of the world's palladium, 25% of its platinum, 20% of its nickel, 20% of its rhodium, and 10% of its cobalt. In Russia, 96% of nickel, 95% of cobalt, and 55% of copper is produced by Norilsk Nickel. In 2007 the total volume of commodities produced and services carried out by the company in various manufacturing industries amounted to 321.5 billion rubles. In 2021 Norilsk Nickel's net profit increased by 92% to $6.974 billion.


title: Norilsk

text: The Norilsk industrial region has all the necessary infrastructure for the production of non-ferrous metals: electric power, hydropower, industrial construction and building material production, and repair and service enterprises.


title: Norilsk

text: Energy is supplied from the Norilsk CHPP-1, CHPP-2, and CHPP-3 combined cycle power plants, which are located in different parts of the city and are owned by Norilsk Nickel. The company's industrial enterprises are the principal consumers of electricity in the city.


title: Norilsk

text: The city is served by Alykel Airport and Valek Airport. The Norilsk railway links Norilsk to the port of Dudinka on the Yenisei River, but has been freight-only since 1998.


title: Norilsk

text: There is a road network around Norilsk (such as the A-382 which links to Dudinka and Norilsk Alykel Airport), but the city is not connected to the rest of Russia by road or rail. In essence, Norilsk and Dudinka are an island. As there is no overland communication with the "Big Land", groups of enthusiasts make road trips to Norilsk in off-road vehicles from other cities in Russia.


title: Norilsk

text: Freight is transported to and from Norilsk via Dudinka by boat on the Arctic Ocean or on the Yenisei. Dudinka is connected by sea with Arkhangelsk and Murmansk year-round, and by river with Krasnoyarsk and Dikson during the summer navigation period.


title: Norilsk

text: Norilsk has a municipal bus network, and there is also a bus service to Dudinka. Several dozen taxi firms operate in the city. In bad weather, workers from Norilsk Nickel's industrial enterprises, which are located outside the city, are transported to and from the sites in off-road vehicles.


title: Norilsk

text: Norilsk (Alykel) airport is located 35 kilometers west of the city center. Large-scale reconstruction in 2005-2008 upgraded the passenger terminal building to a modern international standard. In 2016-2018, a large-scale project was carried out to upgrade the airport's runway. This has made it possible to increase the airport's capacity, offer more flights and increase air safety.


title: Norilsk

text: In the summer of 2020, reconstruction work began on the airport as part of a state program to develop Russia's transport network. Total investment amounts to more than 12.5 billion rubles (of which 5.8 billion rubles has been invested by Norilsk Nickel).


title: Norilsk

text: Norilsk has a six-digit telephone numbering plan. All districts of the city are connected by a single telephone network.


title: Norilsk

text: Fixed-line communications for the population and organizations are provided by MTS, Norilsk Telecom, NN-Infocom, and Rostelecom.


title: Norilsk

text: Cellular communication began to develop relatively late in Norilsk: the first operator, Yeniseitelecom, began offering services only in December 2001. There are currently four mobile operators in the city: Yeniseitelecom (since 2001; since 2012 - under the Rostelecom brand; since July 31, 2015 - Tele2 Russia), Beeline (since 2002), MTS (since 2003) and MegaFon (since 2006). All of them, in addition to GSM communications, also provide third-generation services in the UMTS standards (Beeline, MTS and MegaFon, Tele2 Russia) and IMT-MC-450 (Tele2 Russia). Apart from MTS, all these mobile operators, built their own networks from scratch. MTS entered the Norilsk market as a result of the purchase of LLC Sibchallenge (the Taymyrsky Telefon (TT) brand) in 2003.


title: Norilsk

text: Since September 22, 2017, communication with the "mainland" has been carried out via fiber optic transmission; before that, communication could only be carried out via satellite channels; there were no cable lines connecting Norilsk with other cities.


title: Norilsk

text: A characteristic feature of Norilsk's cable network is the presence of communication cables in sewage pipes (on the surface); on the "mainland" the cables are laid in a cable duct.


title: Norilsk

text: Since 2017, internet connection speeds have improved due to the installation of a 957-km (595 mi) communications cable laid along the Yenisei River toward Krasnoyarsk.


title: Norilsk

text: On June 3, 2019, the city switched to digital television, and most TV channels stopped broadcasting using an analogue signal.


title: Norilsk

text: Until 2017, Norilsk was the last major city in Russia without high-speed internet access - access to the network was provided by a satellite channel with a speed of only 1 GB/s. The laying of a fiber optic line was complicated by the long distance (956 km) and severe weather conditions (up to -60 degrees in winter). The country's "big three" telecom operators did not dare to undertake the project, which was instead handled by the Norilsk Nickel subsidiary Unity. Broadband internet started working in the city in September 2017. The launch was attended by Minister of Telecom and Mass Communications Nikolay Nikiforov and President of Norilsk Nickel Vladimir Potanin. Connectivity is now 40 times faster - up to 40 GB/s. The construction of the fiber optic line cost Norilsk Nickel 2.5 billion rubles, an investment that will not pay off, according to Russian business daily Vedomosti.


title: Norilsk

text: The city has 80 institutions in the general education system: 38 pre-school educational and 29 secondary schools, six preparatory schools, one lyceum, and six further education institutions (the Station for Young Technicians, the Center for Extracurricular Activities, the House of Children's Creativity, the Social and Educational Center, the Station for Children's and Youth Tourism and Excursions, and the Palace of Creativity for Children and Youth).


title: Norilsk

text: There are 41 municipal budgetary autonomous preschool educational institutions in Norilsk, including the Child Development Center. Ten of the city's general education institutions offer specialized professional development classes.


title: Norilsk

text: Norilsk has a wide range of cultural institutions, including the Norilsk Museum and exhibition complex (which includes an art gallery and the "First House of Norilsk" house-museum), the Norilsk Municipal Cultural Center, the Norilsk Polar Drama Theater, the Norilsk Youth Theater & Studio, cinemas, a sports and entertainment complex, a music school, and art schools for children and adults, as well as many monuments and historical buildings.


title: Norilsk

text: The Norilsk Polar Drama Theater is one of the world's most northernmost theaters. Founded in 1941 in Norillag, the troupe originally consisted mainly of prisoners. Artists such as Georgiy Zhzhonov (1949-1953, after imprisonment), E. Urusova (1950-1954, after imprisonment), Innokenty Smoktunovsky (1946-1951), V. Lukyanov, and V. Abramitskaya, E. Mokienko, A. Shcheglov, and I. Rozovsky all performed in the Norilsk Drama Theater at one time. From 1954-1962, Honored Artist of the RSFSR Efim Gelfand was the chief director of the theater. The theater also collaborated with Grigory Gorin and Yuli Kim, whose musical "How the Soldier Ivan Chonkin Guarded the Plane," based on Vladimir Voinovich's novel The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin, was staged in Norilsk for the first time and awarded the Golden Ostap Prize at a satire and humor festival in St. Petersburg (1997). In 2009, the Norilsk Polar Drama Theater was classified as a cultural heritage site of special value in the Krasnoyarsk Territory.


title: Norilsk

text: The city hosts several annual major cultural and entertainment festivals, such as the Bolshoi Argish festival, the Land is Our Common Home festival, and others.


title: Norilsk

text: Norilsk's library system has been recognized as the best in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Libraries are found in every district of the city.


title: Norilsk

text: Exhibitions, concerts, creative gatherings, performances by local groups and touring artists regularly take place at the museum and exhibition complex, the Norilsk Municipal Cultural Center, and other cultural and leisure centers in the city.


title: Norilsk

text: As in other cities built around metallurgical enterprises, Metallurgist's Day (July 17) is an important festival. Members of indigenous northern ethnicities (Nenets, Dolgans, etc.) celebrate the festival of Heiro, which marks the return of the sun to the sky after the polar night.


title: Norilsk

text: In June 2021, Norilsk Nickel announced a RUB 4 billion project to create an Arctic Museum of Contemporary Art (AMMA), which includes the reconstruction of the House of Trade building and the opening of an 8,500-square-meter museum.


title: Norilsk

text: The head of the Norilsk camps, Avraami Zavenyagin, was made responsible for restructuring the camp barracks into a full-fledged city. The architects - Gevorg Kochar, Mikael Mazmanyan, Olgerd Trushinsh - were prisoners of Norillag. They were supervised by Vitold Nepokoichitsky, who arrived from Leningrad in 1939, so the first blocks to be constructed in the city were built in the neoclassical style and resemble St. Petersburg. Nepokoichitsky's wife, Lydia Minenko, also made a notable contribution. Local features such as Lake Dolgoye and reservoirs in the southwestern district were taken into account in the masterplan. The layout of the city was based on a main avenue, interrupted in places by squares.


title: Norilsk

text: One of the main challenges was to minimize the impact of strong winds. The first solutions were unsuccessful (it was initially assumed that snow would be swept out along the city's streets, which were specially laid out along the axes of the prevailing winds, but the winds turned out to be too strong, and there was too much snow). After that, the decision was taken to use compact perimeter blocks, which determined the appearance of the city.


title: Norilsk

text: The city is unusual in that its gas and water pipes, which are typically laid underground elsewhere, run overground. This is due to the problems created by the seasonal melting and freezing of the top layer of permafrost.


title: Norilsk

text: The city center is dominated by buildings in neoclassical style, with outlying residential areas consisting of tower blocks.


title: Norilsk

text: Rising Arctic temperatures are causing permafrost to thaw, cracking foundations and making many of the city's buildings increasingly unstable. In response, regional authorities have announced a 650-million-ruble (€7.9 million) thermal stabilisation program for 10 Norilsk apartment buildings whose foundations are under threat.


title: Norilsk

text: The system consists of a network of pipes through which refrigerant circulates, helping to freeze the foundations in the ground. Soil cooling systems were installed alongside two buildings in 2019 and 2020, and the thermal stabilisation program is scheduled to be completed in 2024.


title: Norilsk

text: The Norilsk Television Station broadcasts the signal from Russia’s First and Second Digital Multiplexes in the DVB-T2 format.


title: Norilsk

text: On November 16, 2020, the city launched Norilsk TV, its first municipal round-the-clock channel, broadcast by local cable operators MTS and Norсom under number 24. Another local channel, Severny Gorod Norilsk (“The Northern City of Norilsk”) presents its news broadcasts on the Klyuch channel several times a day. Until August 2019, news was produced and broadcast by the GTRK Norilsk Television and Radio Company, a division of VGTRK that was subsequently closed due to reorganization.


title: Norilsk

text: Norilsk’s city newspaper, "Zapolyarnaya Pravda", was founded in 1953. Since then, the newspaper has been a source of relevant information on the city's day-to-day life, the operation of its enterprises and organizations, and its residents’ lives.


title: Norilsk

text: Apart from "Zapolyarnaya Pravda", the local print-based press consists of free papers containing adverts and commercial information.


title: Norilsk

text: Norilsk's residents enjoy a full range of public healthcare services offered by institutions that report to the Ministry of Healthcare of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. All city districts have outpatient clinics for children and adults, emergency rooms, and dentist clinics. An inter-district children's hospital is also available. The city operates a blood center.


title: Norilsk

text: The healthcare sector also features a broad range of private institutions offering a variety of services.


title: Norilsk

text: Norilsk's largest hospital is the general city hospital (KGBUZ Norilsk Interdistrict Hospital No. 1), located in the Oganer residential area.


title: Norilsk

text: December 2021 saw the inauguration of the first of five healthcare centers Nornickel had promised to build. The remaining four are expected to start operating before 2025.


title: Norilsk

text: The city is proud of its futsal club, MFK Norilsk Nickel, which competes in the Super League. Founded in 1993, the club's current president is Pavel Belkin. Norilsk Nickel won the Russian championship in the 2001/2002 and made it to the Russian Cup finals in 1999/2000, 2014/15, and 2017/18, eventually winning the trophy in 2019/20. In 2020/2021, the team came third in the Russian championship.


title: Norilsk

text: In 2021, Norilsk hosted a basketball match between a representative team from the Norilsk division and PBC CSKA Moscow.


title: Norilsk

text: The city's range of sports amenities includes the Arktika multidisciplinary sports palace; swimming pools in the Central District, Talnakh, and Kayerkan; the Zapolyarnik outdoor stadium; the BOKMO sports complex; the House of Physical Education in the city center; the Ldinka indoor skating rink; the Solnyshko stadium; and many more sports clubs and centers with a variety of opportunities for sports and fitness. For winter sports Norilsk has the Ol-Gul professional skiing center, the Oganer ski lodge, and the Gora Otdelnaya ski resort. In the summer, suburban tourist centers offer outdoor sports facilities for children and grown-ups. The city also has a junior sports academy.


title: Norilsk

text: In 2006, construction work began on a multi-purpose stadium in Metallurgov Square. It was later transformed into the Arena Norilsk shopping mall, which opened its doors in December 2013. In September 2015, the shopping mall welcomed visitors to the new X-Fit-Sever fitness center and the Tropicana water park and swimming pool.


title: Norilsk

text: Norilsk has nine municipal extracurricular sports centers, where schoolchildren can choose from a variety of sports and activities: basketball, volleyball, acrobatics, gymnastics, trampoline, track and field, cross-country skiing, fencing, boxing, wrestling, swimming, taekwondo, judo, weightlifting, karate, futsal, figure skating, hockey, and water polo.


title: Norilsk

text: Another popular local sport is curling. Norilsk and Dudinka host the international WCT Arctic Cup, which features teams from Hungary, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, and Estonia. The championship is supported by the Russian Curling Federation and Nornickel.


title: Norilsk

text: On December 17, 2020, Nornickel announced the opening of Aika, a sports center of over 10,000 square meters. The company has invested 3.6 billion rubles into its construction.


title: Norilsk

text: In 2021, the Russian government, the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Norilsk and Norilsk Nickel approved a series of projects for the development of the city through to 2035 with a budget of 120.1 billion rubles (24 billion from the treasury, 14.8 billion from the budget of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, 81.3 billion from Norilsk Nickel's funds). Projects include renovation of the housing stock, repairs to infrastructure, and the relocation of residents to areas with more favorable living conditions. As of January 1, 2021, 8,064 families from Norilsk and Dudinka had purchased apartments and moved to the "mainland".


title: Vagabond (TV series)

text: Vagabond () is a 2019 South Korean television series starring Lee Seung-gi, Bae Suzy and Shin Sung-rok. It aired on SBS TV from September 20 to November 23, 2019 for 16 episodes. Each episode was released on Netflix in South Korea and internationally after their television broadcast.


title: Vagabond (TV series)

text: Cha Dal-gun works as an underrated stuntman, while simultaneously taking care of his orphaned nephew, Cha Hoon. Although they have a fairly loving relationship, Hoon argues with his uncle before he leaves to go on a field trip to Morocco. Just before the plane takes off, Hoon sends a video of himself encouraging Dal-gun to continue following his dream to become a master in Taekwondo. At a drama set Dal-gun watches a report of a plane crash that killed over 200 civilians due to structural failure.


title: Vagabond (TV series)

text: He is completely shocked when he realizes that it is the exact same plane his nephew had taken to Morocco. With his world now turned upside down, Dal-gun travels to Morocco to attend the funeral for all the victims of the plane crash, grieving for the loss of his nephew. Dal-gun is about to return home, when he recognizes a supposedly dead passenger from the video his nephew had recorded. He manages to confront the man and slowly begins to realize that the plane crash was not caused by a malfunction.


title: Vagabond (TV series)

text: However, any evidence he finds is mysteriously erased and his life is threatened whenever he tries to prove to others that the plane crash was not an accident. As the situation grows more complex, he is forced to become partners with Go Hae-ri, a covert operative for the National Intelligence Service striving for a promotion. Determined to find out the truth behind the accident, Dal-gun and Hae-ri embark on an investigation that leads them deeper and deeper into a tangled web of corruption.


title: Vagabond (TV series)

text: Filming began in June 2018 and the series is entirely pre-produced. Overseas filming took place in Tangier and Medina in Morocco. In addition, some scenes were filmed in the desert and in Portugal.


title: Vagabond (TV series)

text: Originally scheduled to air in end-2018, the series was pushed back to May 2019, and then again due to filming schedule issues and a pending deal with Netflix. It aired in September 2019.


title: Omos

text: Tolulope "Jordan" Omogbehin (born May 16, 1994) is a Nigerian-American professional wrestler and former college basketball player. He is currently signed to WWE, where he performs on the WWE Raw brand under the ring name Omos. He played college basketball for the University of South Florida and for Morgan State University, from 2014 to 2015. Omogbehin signed with WWE in January 2019. He is a former Raw Tag Team Champion in WWE, holding the titles with AJ Styles during the summer of 2021.


title: Omos

text: Omogbehin was born on May 16, 1994, in Lagos, Nigeria. After his family migrated to the United States, Omogbehin attended and graduated from Atlantic Shores Christian School in Chesapeake, Virginia, and through high school, he played basketball and continued in the sport after choosing to attend the University of South Florida where he played at the center position. Omogbehin claims to have met basketball legend Hakeem Olajuwon during the USF Bulls' team trip to Houston, Texas in 2014. Omogbehin also played basketball at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland after transferring from USF; he played center for the Morgan State Bears from 2014 to 2015.


title: Omos

text: It was reported on January 1, 2019, that WWE signed Omogbehin with six other athletes to train at the WWE Performance Center. On July 18, 2019, Omogbehin made his in-ring debut during a July 18 house show, defeating team 2.0 in a two-on-one handicap match. He would keep wrestling on house shows during the following months. On June 15, 2020, he made his television debut during the episode of "Monday Night Raw", where he was presented as a surprise member of Akira Tozawa's ninja faction. Appearing as the tallest member of the faction, Omogbehin was referred to only as the "Giant Ninja" as he stood at ringside during team Tozawa's tag match against The Street Profits and The Viking Raiders, however, he would be repackaged as a bodyguard shortly thereafter, serving as the doorman and bouncer for Shane McMahon's "Raw Underground".


title: Omos

text: In October 2020, after the cancellation of "Raw Underground", Omogbehin began associating with AJ Styles, thus establishing himself as a heel. At Survivor Series, Omogbehin was introduced with a new ring name, Omos. At , Omos was involved in the WWE Championship match with the eponymous stipulation, preventing The Miz from reaching the title and dropping him onto a table placed outside the ring before chasing John Morrison to the back. At Royal Rumble, during the 2021 Royal Rumble match, Omos involved himself by preventing AJ Styles from being eliminated on a few occasions. Omos eliminated Big E and Rey Mysterio despite not being in the match. He would also go on to help Styles enter the Elimination Chamber match early before being ejected by WWE official Adam Pearce.


title: Omos

text: On the March 15, 2021, episode of "Raw", Omos announced that he would be making his televised in-ring debut at WrestleMania 37 alongside Styles against The New Day (Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods) for the WWE Raw Tag Team Championship. At the event, Omos and Styles defeated The New Day to win the titles, after Omos hit Kingston with a choke bomb and pinned him. At SummerSlam, Omos and Styles lost the Raw Tag Team Championship to RK-Bro (Randy Orton and Riddle). At Extreme Rules, Omos and Styles teamed with Bobby Lashley to take on The New Day in a 6-man tag team match, in which Styles, Omos and Lashley lost. After this, it was announced that Styles and Omos would face RK-Bro in a rematch for the tag team titles at Crown Jewel. At the event, they failed to regain the titles.


title: Omos

text: At Survivor Series on November 21, 2021, Omos participated in a 25-man dual-branded battle royal in honor of the 25th anniversary of The Rock's debut at the 1996 Survivor Series. Omos had the most eliminations at 12 and won the match by last eliminating Ricochet. After weeks of tension between him and Styles, on the December 20, 2021, episode of "Raw", Omos refused to tag into their match against Rey Mysterio and Dominik Mysterio, ultimately costing them the match. A fight broke out between the two, effectively ending their alliance when Omos turned on a now face AJ Styles.


title: Omos

text: On the January 3, 2022, episode of "Raw", a week after splitting up from Styles, a match was set up between the two, where Omos defeated Styles. On January 29, at the Royal Rumble, Omos entered the namesake match for the first time in his career at number 11, where he eliminated Montez Ford, Angelo Dawkins, and Damian Priest before he was eliminated by Styles, Austin Theory, Chad Gable, Dominik Mysterio, Ricochet, and Ridge Holland. On Night 2 of "WrestleMania 38", he faced Bobby Lashley in a losing effort, marking his first pinfall loss in WWE. On the April 4 episode of Raw, Omos would begin feuding with Lashley and acquired a new manager in MVP, who had turned on Lashley, thus forming an alliance between the two. He defeated Lashley at WrestleMania Backlash with MVP’s help, but lost to him in a steel cage match on the May 16 episode of "Raw". At Hell in a Cell, Omos and MVP lost to Lashley in a 2-on-1 handicap match, ending their feud.


title: Omos

text: On the June 20 episode of "Raw", Omos would qualify for the Men’s Money in the Bank ladder match after defeating Riddle. At the event, he would fail at winning the match after being thrown through the announce table by all the other competitors.


title: Omos

text: On the October 14 episode of "SmackDown", Omos confronted to Braun Strowman, starting a feud between the two. At Crown Jewel on November 5, Omos lost to Strowman.


title: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (film)

text: Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody is a 2022 biographical musical film based on the life of American pop singer and actress Whitney Houston. Directed by Kasi Lemmons, from a screenplay by Anthony McCarten, the film stars Naomi Ackie as Houston. Stanley Tucci, Ashton Sanders, Tamara Tunie, Nafessa Williams, and Clarke Peters are featured in supporting roles.


title: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (film)

text: An authorized biopic on Houston's life was announced in early 2020, with Ackie cast in the lead role that December, and rest of the cast signing on later the next year. Filming took place in Massachusetts and New Jersey from August to December 2021.


title: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (film)

text: "Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody" will be theatrically released in the United States on December 23, 2022 by Sony Pictures Releasing.


title: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (film)

text: On April 22, 2020, Stella Meghie was set to direct a Whitney Houston biopic titled "I Wanna Dance with Somebody", with Anthony McCarten attached to pen the screenplay and produce the film along with Clive Davis, Pat Houston, Larry Mestel, Denis O'Sullivan and Jeff Kalligheri. McCarten, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter who self-financed an option for Houston's life rights, wrote the script on spec, and lined up rights and music. On August 4, 2020, TriStar Pictures acquired the film. On September 1, 2021, Kasi Lemmons took over directing duties from Meghie who eventually served as an executive producer.


title: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (film)

text: On December 15, 2020, Naomi Ackie was set to portray Houston. In September 2021, Ashton Sanders was cast as Bobby Brown, Houston's husband for fifteen years. The same month, Stanley Tucci was cast as Clive Davis. In October 2021, Nafessa Williams, Clarke Peters, and Tamara Tunie were cast in the film.


title: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (film)

text: The film was expected to begin principal photography on August 9, 2021 in Newark, New Jersey and Boston, Massachusetts according to one source. In August 2021, Compelling Pictures was in pre-production on the film at Marina Studios in Boston. In October and November, scenes were shot in Arlington, Massachusetts as well as at Worcester Regional Airport, Wang Theater and Cutler Majestic Theatre and Gillette Stadium.


title: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (film)

text: The soundtrack was released by RCA Records on December 16, 2022, a week before the film's theatrical release.


title: Rubeus Hagrid

text: Rubeus Hagrid is a fictional character in the "Harry Potter" book series written by J. K. Rowling. He is introduced in "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" as a half-giant and half-human who is the gamekeeper and Keeper of Keys and Grounds of Hogwarts, the primary setting for the first six novels. In the third novel "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban", Hagrid is promoted to Care of Magical Creatures professor, and is later revealed to be a member of the Order of the Phoenix. A loyal, friendly, softhearted personality who is easily brought to tears, he is also known for his thick West Country accent.


title: Rubeus Hagrid

text: Hagrid was portrayed by Robbie Coltrane in all eight "Harry Potter" films, from "Philosopher's Stone" in 2001 to "Deathly Hallows – Part 2" in 2011.