title: Free and open-source software

text: By the late 1960s, the prevailing business model around software was changing. A growing and evolving software industry was competing with the hardware manufacturer's bundled software products; rather than funding software development from hardware revenue, these new companies were selling software directly. Leased machines required software support while providing no revenue for software, and some customers who were able to better meet their own needs did not want the costs of software bundled with hardware product costs. In "United States vs. IBM", filed January 17, 1969, the government charged that bundled software was anticompetitive. While some software was still being provided without monetary cost and license restriction, there was a growing amount of software that was only at a monetary cost with restricted licensing. In the 1970s and early 1980s, some parts of the software industry began using technical measures (such as distributing only binary copies of computer programs) to prevent computer users from being able to use reverse engineering techniques to study and customize software they had paid for. In 1980, the copyright law was extended to computer programs in the United States—previously, computer programs could be considered ideas, procedures, methods, systems, and processes, which are not copyrightable.


title: Free and open-source software

text: Early on, closed-source software was uncommon until the mid-1970s to the 1980s, when IBM implemented in 1983 an "object code only" policy, no longer distributing source code.


title: Free and open-source software

text: In 1983, Richard Stallman, longtime member of the hacker community at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, announced the GNU project, saying that he had become frustrated with the effects of the change in culture of the computer industry and its users. Software development for the GNU operating system began in January 1984, and the Free Software Foundation (FSF) was founded in October 1985. An article outlining the project and its goals was published in March 1985 titled the "GNU Manifesto". The manifesto included significant explanation of the GNU philosophy, "Free Software Definition" and "copyleft" ideas. The FSF takes the position that the fundamental issue Free software addresses is an ethical one—to ensure software users can exercise what it calls "The Four Essential Freedoms".


title: Free and open-source software

text: The Linux kernel, created by Linus Torvalds, was released as freely modifiable source code in 1991. Initially, Linux was not released under either a Free software or an Open-source software license. However, with version 0.12 in February 1992, he relicensed the project under the GNU General Public License.


title: Free and open-source software

text: FreeBSD and NetBSD (both derived from 386BSD) were released as Free software when the "USL v. BSDi" lawsuit was settled out of court in 1993. OpenBSD forked from NetBSD in 1995. Also in 1995, The Apache HTTP Server, commonly referred to as Apache, was released under the Apache License 1.0.


title: Free and open-source software

text: In 1997, Eric Raymond published "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", a reflective analysis of the hacker community and Free software principles. The paper received significant attention in early 1998, and was one factor in motivating Netscape Communications Corporation to release their popular Netscape Communicator Internet suite as Free software. This code is today better known as Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird.


title: Free and open-source software

text: Netscape's act prompted Raymond and others to look into how to bring the FSF's Free software ideas and perceived benefits to the commercial software industry. They concluded that FSF's social activism was not appealing to companies like Netscape, and looked for a way to rebrand the Free software movement to emphasize the business potential of sharing and collaborating on software source code. The new name they chose was "Open-source", and quickly Bruce Perens, publisher Tim O'Reilly, Linus Torvalds, and others signed on to the rebranding. The Open Source Initiative was founded in February 1998 to encourage the use of the new term and evangelize open-source principles.


title: Free and open-source software

text: While the Open Source Initiative sought to encourage the use of the new term and evangelize the principles it adhered to, commercial software vendors found themselves increasingly threatened by the concept of freely distributed software and universal access to an application's source code. A Microsoft executive publicly stated in 2001 that "Open-source is an intellectual property destroyer. I can't imagine something that could be worse than this for the software business and the intellectual-property business." This view perfectly summarizes the initial response to FOSS by some software corporations. For many years FOSS played a niche role outside of the mainstream of private software development. However the success of FOSS Operating Systems such as Linux, BSD and the companies based on FOSS such as Red Hat, has changed the software industry's attitude and there has been a dramatic shift in the corporate philosophy concerning its development.


title: Free and open-source software

text: Users of FOSS benefit from the Four Essential Freedoms to make unrestricted use of, and to study, copy, modify, and redistribute such software with or without modification. If they would like to change the functionality of software they can bring about changes to the code and, if they wish, distribute such modified versions of the software or often − depending on the software's decision making model and its other users − even push or request such changes to be made via updates to the original software.


title: Free and open-source software

text: Manufacturers of proprietary, closed-source software are sometimes pressured to building in backdoors or other covert, undesired features into their software. Instead of having to trust software vendors, users of FOSS can inspect and verify the source code themselves and can put trust on a community of volunteers and users. As proprietary code is typically hidden from public view, only the vendors themselves and hackers may be aware of any vulnerabilities in them while FOSS involves as many people as possible for exposing bugs quickly.


title: Free and open-source software

text: FOSS is often free of charge although donations are often encouraged. This also allows users to better test and compare software.


title: Free and open-source software

text: FOSS allows for better collaboration among various parties and individuals with the goal of developing the most efficient software for its users or use-cases while proprietary software is typically meant to generate profits. Furthermore, in many cases more organizations and individuals contribute to such projects than to proprietary software. It has been shown that technical superiority is typically the primary reason why companies choose open source software.


title: Free and open-source software

text: According to Linus's law the more people who can see and test a set of code, the more likely any flaws will be caught and fixed quickly. However, this does not guarantee a high level of participation. Having a grouping of full-time professionals behind a commercial product can in some cases be superior to FOSS.


title: Free and open-source software

text: Furthermore, publicized source code might make it easier for hackers to find vulnerabilities in it and write exploits. This however assumes that such malicious hackers are more effective than white hat hackers which responsibly disclose or help fix the vulnerabilities, that no code leaks or exfiltrations occur and that reverse engineering of proprietary code is a hindrance of significance for malicious hackers.


title: Free and open-source software

text: Sometimes, FOSS is not compatible with proprietary hardware or specific software. This is often due to manufacturers obstructing FOSS such as by not disclosing the interfaces or other specifications needed for members of the FOSS movement to write drivers for their hardware - for instance as they wish customers to run only their own proprietary software or as they might benefit from partnerships.


title: Free and open-source software

text: While FOSS can be superior to proprietary equivalents in terms of software features and stability, in many cases it has more unfixed bugs and missing features when compared to similar commercial software. This varies per case, and usually depends on the level of interest in a particular project. However, unlike close-sourced software, improvements can be made by anyone who has the motivation, time and skill to do so.


title: Free and open-source software

text: A common obstacle in FOSS development is the lack of access to some common official standards, due to costly royalties or required non-disclosure agreements (e.g., for the DVD-Video format).


title: Free and open-source software

text: There is often less certainty of FOSS projects gaining the required resources and participation for continued development than commercial software backed by companies. However, companies also often abolish projects for being unprofitable, yet large companies may rely on, and hence co-develop, open source software. On the other hand, if the vendor of proprietary software ceases development, there are no alternatives; whereas with FOSS, any user who needs it still has the right, and the source-code, to continue to develop it themself, or pay a 3rd party to do so.


title: Free and open-source software

text: As the FOSS operating system distributions of Linux has a lower market share of end users there are also fewer applications available.


title: Free and open-source software

text: In 2017, the European Commission stated that "EU institutions should become open source software users themselves, even more than they already are" and listed open source software as one of the nine key drivers of innovation, together with big data, mobility, cloud computing and the internet of things.


title: Free and open-source software

text: In 2020 the European Commission adopted its "Open Source Strategy 2020-2023", including encouraging sharing and reuse of software and publishing Commission’s source code as key objectives. Among concrete actions there is also to set up an Open Source Programme Office in 2020 and in 2022 it launched its own FOSS repository https://code.europa.eu/.


title: Free and open-source software

text: "software (2021/C 495 I/01)" was adopted, under which, as a general principle, the European Commission may release software under EUPL or another FOSS license, if more appropriate. There are exceptions though.


title: Free and open-source software

text: In May 2022 the "Expert group on the Interoperability of European Public Services" came published 27 recommendations to strengthen the interoperability of public administrations across the EU. These recommendations are to be taken into account later in the same year in Commission’s proposal of the "“Interoperable Europe Act”".


title: Free and open-source software

text: While copyright is the primary legal mechanism that FOSS authors use to ensure license compliance for their software, other mechanisms such as legislation, patents, and trademarks have implications as well. In response to legal issues with patents and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), the Free Software Foundation released version 3 of its GNU Public License (GNU GPLv3) in 2007 that explicitly addressed the DMCA and patent rights.


title: Free and open-source software

text: After the development of the GNU GPLv3 in 2007, the FSF (as the copyright holder of many pieces of the GNU system) updated many of the GNU programs' licenses from GPLv2 to GPLv3. On the other hand, the adoption of the new GPL version was heavily discussed in the FOSS ecosystem, several projects decided against upgrading. For instance the Linux kernel, the BusyBox project, AdvFS, Blender, and the VLC media player decided against adopting the GPLv3.


title: Free and open-source software

text: Apple, a user of GCC and a heavy user of both DRM and patents, switched the compiler in its Xcode IDE from GCC to Clang, which is another FOSS compiler but is under a permissive license. LWN speculated that Apple was motivated partly by a desire to avoid GPLv3. The Samba project also switched to GPLv3, so Apple replaced Samba in their software suite by a closed-source, proprietary software alternative.


title: Free and open-source software

text: Leemhuis criticizes the prioritization of skilled developers who − instead of fixing issues in already popular open-source applications and desktop environments − create new, mostly redundant software to gain fame and fortune.


title: Free and open-source software

text: He also criticizes notebook manufacturers for optimizing their own products only privately or creating workarounds instead of helping fix the actual causes of the many issues with Linux on notebooks such as the unnecessary power consumption.


title: Free and open-source software

text: Mergers have affected major open-source software. Sun Microsystems (Sun) acquired MySQL AB, owner of the popular open-source MySQL database, in 2008.


title: Free and open-source software

text: Oracle in turn purchased Sun in January 2010, acquiring their copyrights, patents, and trademarks. Thus, Oracle became the owner of both the most popular proprietary database and the most popular open-source database. Oracle's attempts to commercialize the open-source MySQL database have raised concerns in the FOSS community. Partly in response to uncertainty about the future of MySQL, the FOSS community forked the project into new database systems outside of Oracle's control. These include MariaDB, Percona, and Drizzle. All of these have distinct names; they are distinct projects and cannot use the trademarked name MySQL.


title: Free and open-source software

text: In August 2010, Oracle sued Google, claiming that its use of Java in Android infringed on Oracle's copyrights and patents. In May 2012, the trial judge determined that Google did not infringe on Oracle's patents and ruled that the structure of the Java APIs used by Google was not copyrightable. The jury found that Google infringed a small number of copied files, but the parties stipulated that Google would pay no damages. Oracle appealed to the Federal Circuit, and Google filed a cross-appeal on the literal copying claim.


title: Free and open-source software

text: By defying ownership regulations in the construction and use of information—a key area of contemporary growth—the Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) movement counters neoliberalism and privatization in general.


title: Free and open-source software

text: By realizing the historical potential of an "economy of abundance" for the new digital world FOSS may lay down a plan for political resistance or show the way towards a potential transformation of capitalism.


title: Free and open-source software

text: According to Yochai Benkler, Jack N. and Lillian R. Berkman Professor for Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School, free software is the most visible part of a new economy of commons-based peer production of information, knowledge, and culture. As examples, he cites a variety of FOSS projects, including both free software and open-source.


title: MG Motor

text: MG Motor UK Limited (MG Motor) is an automotive company owned by SAIC Motor UK, headquartered in London, owned by the Shanghai-based Chinese state-owned automaker SAIC Motor. MG Motor designs, develops and markets cars sold under the MG marque, while vehicle manufacturing takes place at its plants in China, Thailand, and India. The design of the cars was originally engineered by MG Motors in the Longbridge plant in Birmingham.


title: MG Motor

text: Following the collapse of MG Rover Group in 2005, the Chinese automaker Nanjing Automobile acquired the Longbridge plant and the MG marque for £53 million ($97 million). Nanjing Automobile formally established NAC MG UK Limited as a holding company for the plant and marque on 12 April 2006. In March 2007, Nanjing Automobile unveiled the first MG vehicles manufactured in China, the MG TF, MG 3 and MG 7.


title: MG Motor

text: Cars were assembled once again at Longbridge with production of the MG TF LE500 between August 2007 and September 2016.


title: MG Motor

text: In 2007, Nanjing Automobile was acquired by SAIC Motor, and in early 2009 "NAC MG UK Limited" was renamed "MG Motor UK Limited".


title: MG Motor

text: The first all-new MG-branded model for 16 years, the MG6, was officially launched on 26 June 2011 during a visit to MG Motor's Longbridge plant by Chinese premier Wen Jiabao.


title: MG Motor

text: By March 2012, SAIC had invested a total of £450 million in MG Motor. Sales in the UK totalled 782 vehicles in 2012. The MG3 went on sale in the United Kingdom in September 2013.


title: MG Motor

text: MG Motor was voted third place for the 'Best Manufacturer' category in the "Auto Express" 2014 Driver Power survey. 2014 also saw MG Motor celebrate the MG brand's 90th birthday. They enjoyed further celebrations with a record-breaking year that saw the company lead UK car industry growth in 2014. The brand's sales rose by 361% during 2014 part thanks to the introduction of the MG3 to the product range, with a total of 2,326 cars sold in the UK.


title: MG Motor

text: During 2014, MG was the fastest-growing brand in Britain as shown by official figures issued by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. Currently, MG Motor has the fastest-growing network of dealers in the UK.


title: MG Motor

text: On 23 September 2016 MG Motor announced that all car production had ceased at Longbridge and henceforth MG vehicles would be imported into the UK.


title: MG Motor

text: In 2018, SAIC Design opened a new advanced design studio in London, which deals with the advanced design of MG and Roewe vehicles.


title: MG Motor

text: MG Motor continued to assemble cars at the historic Longbridge plant until 2016 when production ended, but retained a large technical centre known as SAIC Motor Technical Centre which employed around 500 people at its peak, together with a design studio. SAIC further reduced its presence in Longbridge in 2019 with the large Technical Centre downsized to 20 staff and moved to London.


title: MG Motor

text: Formerly home to Austin, British Leyland, Rover Group and, later, the MG Rover Group. MG has a £30 million flagship dealership in the heart of London's Piccadilly, which was opened in July 2015. Its location is 47–48 Piccadilly, opposite the historic Fortnum & Mason store.


title: MG Motor

text: MG vehicles were primarily designed in United Kingdom between 2005 and 2019, with a reduced UK input since then. Longbridge has been retained and Research and Development is currently undertaken at the Longbridge Facility, with Longbridge being home to SMTC, which has significant design and engineering input into SAIC products.


title: MG Motor

text: MG has headquarters in United Kingdom, with production in China, Thailand (from 2016) and India (since 2019) but the primary design was held at the Longbridge, Birmingham headquarter. Studio is based in a newly renovated building in the heart of London on the Marylebone Road. The new creative space is SAIC first facility, to specialise in Advanced Digital Design Technology, and will work in conjunction with the automotive manufacturer's other studios to support future product designs for brands including MG and Roewe. Advanced London is the second SAIC Motor design studio to be established in Europe, following the studio in Longbridge, which opened in 2011. The London Design Studio will focus more on advanced design research projects and creative exploration of conceptual ideas. London makes use of advanced virtual reality technology to design vehicles, which allows for the designers to fully immerse themselves into the design concepts, greatly improving the level of detail at which ideas can be reviewed before they are turned into more costly physical models. Using state-of-the-art functions such as this will allow Advanced London to explore innovative design concepts, broadening design possibilities." Advanced London is managed by SAIC Design European Advanced Design Director, Carl Gotham.


title: MG Motor

text: After MG Rover collapsed, Nanjing Automobile continued production at the Longbridge plant. Nanjing used Longbridge to produce the MG TF, which they mildly redeveloped.


title: MG Motor

text: SAIC took ownership of the MG brand, and from 2010 onwards, the newly released MG 6 was produced in China. However, from 13 April 2011, MG Motor produced the MG 6 at Longbridge. From 2013, the MG 3 also saw some limited final assembly at the same factory.


title: MG Motor

text: Activity at Longbridge was gradually reduced. It was announced in September 2016 that production at the Longbridge facility was to be stopped in 2016 and moved to China, with Matthew Cheyne, head of sales and marketing at MG Motor UK, citing "moving production abroad was a necessary business decision". Twenty-five employees were made redundant as a result of the move and other employees moved to different areas. This marked the end of MG production in the UK, and production was fully moved to China, with later a factory in Thailand.


title: MG Motor

text: In 2019 MG Motor was set to open a fourth factory in China, in Ningde, Fujian Province. The factory will specialise in producing electric vehicles, with the new all-electric production sports car being produced at the factory. MG and Roewe's upcoming SUV, codenamed IS 32 (MG) and IS 31 (Roewe), are also set to be produced at the factory.


title: MG Motor

text: In January 2012, MG Motor announced that it would enter the 2012 British Touring Car Championship through the newly established MG KX Momentum Racing team. In its debut season the team ran two MG6s driven by Jason Plato and Andy Neate. Plato ended the season in third place, with the car yet to find its feet in wet conditions.


title: MG Motor

text: The team returned in 2013 with Sam Tordoff driving, who performed well in his debut year having joined through the KX Academy scheme. Plato once again came third, with Tordoff sixth.


title: MG Motor

text: In 2014, MG won the Manufacturer's Championship to break Honda's four-year reign. After just three years of competition, the MG6 GT sealed the title by 95 points at the season finale at Brands Hatch.


title: MG Motor

text: Drivers Plato and Tordoff racked up seven wins and 20 podiums in the 30-race calendar. Plato finished the Driver's Championship in second place, behind Colin Turkington, while Tordoff finished seventh. The 2014 season also saw a third MG6 GT on the grid, driven by Marc Hynes and also maintained by Triple Eight but in a new livery which did not resemble the other two MG cars. Hynes finished his debut season in 18th.


title: MG Motor

text: For the 2015 campaign MG fought to regain the Manufacturers / Constructors title with a new driver lineup. 2013 Champion Andrew Jordan and young gun Jack Goff paired up in the MG6 to fight against Honda, BMW and Infiniti for the title. MG finished second in the Manufacturers / Constructors title challenge, with Andrew and Jack in fifth and ninth position, respectively, in the drivers' standings.


title: MG Motor

text: MG announced a new three-year contract extension with Triple Eight Racing for the 2016 BTCC campaign. The team plan was to bring in young and up-and-coming drivers with an intention to grow its own champion over the duration of the contract. Josh Cook, a former 2014 Renault UK Clio Cup Vice-Champion, and BTCC 2015 Jack Sears Trophy winner (award for the top rookie) and Ashley Sutton, graduating to BTCC after leaving the Renault Clio Cup as reigning 2015 champion, were announced as the new line up for MG. After a hard-fought campaign the MG drivers finished in 12th and 13th place, respectively, with Ash picking up the Jack Sears Trophy for the top rookie.


title: MG Motor

text: Another new driver lineup was introduced for the 2017 season as Árón Taylor-Smith and Daniel Lloyd drove the MG6 cars. The season was a disaster, with not a single win or podium finish to show for their efforts. Lloyd left the team after four meetings and Josh Cook was brought back to help improve results, whilst Taylor-Smith was withdrawn from the Croft rounds of the championship after being involved in a multi-car accident during the wet qualifying session at the circuit, the Irishman struggled thereafter, picking up just six further points all season. Cook was ultimately the highest placed of the MG drivers in the championship, but only in 18th (that includes the points he obtained when driving for Maximum Motorsport before returning to MG), and the team finished a distant last in the manufacturers standings.


title: MG Motor

text: Triple Eight merged their operations with BMR Racing for 2018, and therefore MG exited the championship again as a manufacturer. The MG6 continued to be used for a further two seasons, firstly by AmD Tuning in 2018, and then by Excelr8 Motorsport in 2019, with rather limited success in both years.


title: Water buffalo

text: The water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis), also called the domestic water buffalo or Asian water buffalo, is a large bovid originating in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. Today, it is also found in Europe, Australia, North America, South America and some African countries.


title: Water buffalo

text: Two extant types of water buffalo are recognized, based on morphological and behavioural criteria: the river buffalo of the Indian subcontinent and further west to the Balkans, Egypt and Italy and the swamp buffalo, found from Assam in the west through Southeast Asia to the Yangtze valley of China in the east.


title: Water buffalo

text: The wild water buffalo ("Bubalus arnee") most likely represents the ancestor of the domestic water buffalo. Results of a phylogenetic study indicate that the river-type water buffalo probably originated in western India and was domesticated about 6,300 years ago, whereas the swamp-type originated independently from Mainland Southeast Asia and was domesticated about 3,000 to 7,000 years ago. The river buffalo dispersed west as far as Egypt, the Balkans, and Italy; while swamp buffalo dispersed to the rest of Southeast Asia and up to the Yangtze River valley.


title: Water buffalo

text: Water buffaloes were traded from the Indus Valley civilisation to Mesopotamia, in modern Iraq, 2500 BC by the Meluhhas. The seal of a scribe employed by an Akkadian king shows the sacrifice of water buffaloes.


title: Water buffalo

text: At least 130 million water buffaloes exist, and more people depend on them than on any other domestic animal.


title: Water buffalo

text: They are especially suitable for tilling rice fields, and their milk is richer in fat and protein than that of dairy cattle. A large feral population became established in northern Australia in the late 19th century, and there are smaller feral herds in Papua New Guinea, Tunisia and northeastern Argentina. Feral herds are also present in New Britain, New Ireland, Irian Jaya, Colombia, Guyana, Suriname, Brazil, and Uruguay.


title: Water buffalo

text: Carl Linnaeus first described the genus "Bos" and the water buffalo under the binomial "Bos bubalis" in 1758; the species was known to occur in Asia and was held as a domestic form in Italy. Ellerman and Morrison-Scott treated the wild and domestic forms of the water buffalo as conspecifics, whereas others treated them as different species. The nomenclatorial treatment of the wild and domestic forms has been inconsistent and varies between authors and even within the works of single authors.


title: Water buffalo

text: In March 2003, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature achieved consistency in the naming of the wild and domestic water buffaloes by ruling that the scientific name "Bubalus arnee" is valid for the wild form. "B. bubalis" continues to be valid for the domestic form and applies also to feral populations.


title: Water buffalo

text: The skin of the river buffalo is black, but some specimens may have dark, slate-coloured skin. Swamp buffaloes have a grey skin at birth, which becomes slate blue later. Albinoids are present in some populations. River buffaloes have longer faces, smaller girths, and bigger limbs than swamp buffaloes. Their dorsal ridges extend further back and taper off more gradually. Their horns grow downward and backward, then curve upward in a spiral. Swamp buffaloes are heavy-bodied and stockily built; the body is short and the belly large. The forehead is flat, the eyes prominent, the face short, and the muzzle wide. The neck is comparatively long, and the withers and croup are prominent. A dorsal ridge extends backward and ends abruptly just before the end of the chest. Their horns grow outward, and curve in a semicircle, but always remain more or less on the plane of the forehead. The tail is short, reaching only to the hocks. Body the size and shape of horns may vary greatly among breeds. Height at the withers is for bulls, and for cows, but large individuals may attain . Head-lump length at maturity typically ranges from with a long tail. They range in weight from , but weights of over have also been observed.


title: Water buffalo

text: "Tedong bonga" is a piebald water buffalo featuring a unique black and white colouration that is favoured by the Toraja of Sulawesi.


title: Water buffalo

text: The swamp buffalo has 48 chromosomes; the river buffalo has 50 chromosomes. The two types do not readily interbreed, but fertile offspring can occur. Water buffalo-cattle hybrids have not been observed to occur, but the embryos of such hybrids reach maturity in laboratory experiments, albeit at lower rates than non-hybrids.


title: Water buffalo

text: The rumen of the water buffalo differs from the rumen of other ruminants. It contains a larger population of bacteria, particularly the cellulolytic bacteria, lower protozoa, and higher fungi zoospores. In addition, higher rumen ammonia nitrogen (NH-N) and higher pH have been found, compared to those in cattle.


title: Water buffalo

text: River buffaloes prefer deep water. Swamp buffaloes prefer to wallow in mudholes, which they make with their horns. During wallowing, they acquire a thick coating of mud. Both are well-adapted to a hot and humid climate with temperatures ranging from in the winter to and greater in the summer. Water availability is important in hot climates, since they need wallows, rivers, or splashing water to assist in thermoregulation. Some water buffalo breeds are adapted to saline seaside shores and saline sandy terrain.


title: Water buffalo

text: Water buffaloes thrive on many aquatic plants. During floods, they graze submerged, raising their heads above the water and carrying quantities of edible plants. Water buffaloes eat reeds, "Arundo donax", a kind of Cyperaceae, "Eichhornia crassipes", and Juncaceae. Some of these plants are of great value to local peoples. Others, such as "E. crassipes" and "A. donax", are a major problem in some tropical valleys and by eating them, the water buffaloes may help control these invasive plants.


title: Water buffalo

text: Green fodders are used widely for intensive milk production and for fattening. Many fodder crops are conserved as hay, chaffed, or pulped. Fodders include alfalfa, the leaves, stems or trimmings of banana, cassava, Mangelwurzel, esparto, "Leucaena leucocephala" and kenaf, maize, oats, "Pandanus", peanut, sorghum, soybean, sugarcane, bagasse, and turnips. Citrus pulp and pineapple wastes have been fed safely to buffalo. In Egypt, whole sun-dried dates are fed to milk buffalo up to 25% of the standard feed mixture.


title: Water buffalo

text: Swamp buffaloes generally become reproductive at an older age than river breeds. Young males in Egypt, India, and Pakistan are first mated around 3.0–3.5 years of age, but in Italy, they may be used as early as 2 years of age. Successful mating behaviour may continue until the animal is 12 years or even older. A good river buffalo male can impregnate 100 females in a year. A strong seasonal influence on mating occurs. Heat stress reduces libido.


title: Water buffalo

text: Although water buffaloes are polyoestrous, their reproductive efficiency shows wide variation throughout the year. The cows exhibit a distinct seasonal change in displaying oestrus, conception rate, and calving rate. The age at the first oestrus of heifers varies between breeds from 13 to 33 months, but mating at the first oestrus is often infertile and usually deferred until they are 3 years old. Gestation lasts from 281 to 334 days, but most reports give a range between 300 and 320 days. Swamp buffaloes carry their calves for one or two weeks longer than river buffaloes. Finding water buffaloes that continue to work well at the age of 30 is not uncommon, and instances of a working life of 40 years have been recorded.


title: Water buffalo

text: The most likely ancestor of domesticated water buffaloes is the wild water buffalo ("Bubalus arnee"), which is native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. Two types of domesticated water buffaloes are recognized, based on morphological and behavioural criteria – the river buffalo of the western Indian subcontinent and further west to the Balkans and Italy; and the swamp buffalo, found from Assam in the west through Southeast Asia to the Yangtze valley of China in the east.


title: Water buffalo

text: River and swamp-type water buffaloes are believed to have been domesticated independently. Results of a phylogenetic study indicate that the river-type water buffalo probably originated in western India and was domesticated about 6,300 years ago, whereas the swamp-type originated independently from Mainland Southeast Asia and was domesticated about 3,000 to 7,000 years ago. The river buffalo dispersed west as far as Egypt, the Balkans, and Italy; while swamp buffalo dispersed to the rest of Southeast Asia and up to the Yangtze River valley.


title: Water buffalo

text: Swamp-type water buffaloes entered Island Southeast Asia from at least 2,500 years ago, through the northern Philippines where butchered remains of domesticated water buffalos have been recovered from the Neolithic Nagsabaran site (part of the Lal-lo and Gattaran Shell Middens, c. 2200 BCE to 400 CE). These became the ancestors of the distinct swamp-type carabao breed of the Philippines, which in turn spread to Malaysia, Indonesia, and Guam.


title: Water buffalo

text: The present-day river buffalo is the result of complex domestication processes involving more than one maternal lineage and a significant maternal gene flow from wild populations after the initial domestication events. Twenty-two breeds of the river buffalo are known, including the Murrah, NiliRavi, Surti, Carabao, Anatolian, Mediterranean, and Egyptian buffaloes. China has a huge variety of water buffalo genetic resources, with 16 local swamp buffalo breeds in various regions.


title: Water buffalo

text: Results of mitochondrial DNA analyses indicate that the two types were domesticated independently. Sequencing of cytochrome b genes of "Bubalus" species implies that the water buffalo originated from at least two populations, and that the river-type and the swamp-type have differentiated at the full species level. The genetic distance between the two types is so large that a divergence time of about 1.7 million years has been suggested. The swamp-type was noticed to have the closest relationship with the tamaraw of the northern Philippines.


title: Water buffalo

text: A 2008 DNA analysis of Neolithic water buffalo remains in northern China (previously used as evidence of a Chinese domestication origin) found that the remains were of the extinct "Bubalus mephistopheles" and are not genetically related to modern domesticated water buffaloes. Another study in 2004 also concluded that the remains were from wild specimens. Both indicate that water buffaloes were first domesticated outside of China. Analyses of mitochondrial DNA and single-nucleotide polymorphism indicate that swamp and river buffaloes were crossbred in China.


title: Water buffalo

text: An analysis of the genomes of 91 swamp and 30 river buffaloes showed that they separated already before domestication about .


title: Water buffalo

text: By 2011, the global water buffalo population was about 172 million. The estimated global population of water buffalo is 208,098,759 head distributed in 77 countries in five continents.


title: Water buffalo

text: More than 95.8% of the world population of water buffaloes are kept in Asia, including both the river-type and the swamp-type. The water buffalo population in India numbered over 97.9 million head in 2003, representing 56.5% of the world population. They are primarily of the river type, with 10 well-defined breeds: the Bhadawari, Banni, Jafarabadi, Marathwadi, Mehsana, Murrah, Nagpuri, Nili-Ravi, Pandharpuri, Surti, and Toda buffaloes. Swamp buffaloes occur only in small areas in northeastern India and are not distinguished into breeds.


title: Water buffalo

text: In 2003, the second-largest population lived in China, with 22.76 million head, all of the swamp-type, with many breeds kept only in the lowlands, and other breeds kept only in the mountains; as of 2003, 3.2 million swamp-type carabao buffaloes were in the Philippines, nearly 3 million swamp buffaloes were in Vietnam, and roughly 773,000 buffaloes were in Bangladesh. About 750,000 head were estimated in Sri Lanka in 1997. In Japan, the water buffalo was used as a domestic animal throughout the Ryukyu Islands or Okinawa prefecture, however it is almost extinct now and mainly used as a tourist attraction. Per a 2015 report, about 836,500 water buffaloes were in Nepal.


title: Water buffalo

text: The water buffalo is the main dairy animal in Pakistan, with 23.47 million head in 2010. Of these, 76% are kept in the Punjab. The rest are mostly kept in the province of Sindh. The water buffalo breeds used are the Nili-Ravi, Kundi, and Azi Kheli. Karachi alone has upwards of 400,000 head of water buffalo in 2021, which provide dairy as well as meat to the local poulation.


title: Water buffalo

text: In Thailand, the number of water buffaloes dropped from more than 3 million head in 1996 to less than 1.24 million head in 2011. Slightly over 75% of them are kept in the country's northeastern region. By the beginning of 2012, less than one million were in the country, partly as a result of illegal shipments to neighbouring countries where sales prices are higher than in Thailand.


title: Water buffalo

text: Water buffaloes are also present in the southern region of Iraq in the Mesopotamian Marshes. The draining of the Mesopotamian Marshes by Saddam Hussein was an attempt to punish the south for the 1991 Iraqi uprisings. After 2003 and the Firdos Square statue destruction, these lands were reflooded and a 2007 report on Maysan and Dhi Qar shows a steady increase in the number of water buffaloes. The report puts the number at 40,008 head in those two provinces.


title: Water buffalo

text: Water buffaloes were probably introduced to Europe from India or other eastern sources. In Italy, the Longobard King Agilulf is said to have received water buffaloes around 600 AD. These were probably a present from the Khan of the Avars, a Turkic nomadic tribe that dwelt near the Danube River at the time. Sir H. Johnston knew of a herd of water buffaloes presented by a King of Naples to the Bey of Tunis in the mid-19th century that had resumed the feral state in northern Tunis.


title: Water buffalo

text: European water buffaloes are all of the river-type and considered to be of the same breed named the Mediterranean buffalo. In Italy, the Mediterranean type was particularly selected and is called the Mediterranea Italiana buffalo to distinguish it from other European breeds, which differ genetically. Mediterranean buffalo are also kept in Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, Albania, Kosovo, and North Macedonia, with a few hundred in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Hungary. Little exchange of breeding water buffaloes has occurred among countries, so each population has its own phenotypic features and performances. In Bulgaria, they were crossbred with the Indian Murrah breed, and in Romania, some were crossbred with Bulgarian Murrah. As of 2016, about 13,000 buffaloes were in Romania, down from 289,000 in 1989.


title: Water buffalo

text: Between 1824 and 1849, swamp buffaloes were introduced into the Northern Territory from Timor, Kisar, and probably other islands in the Indonesian archipelago. When the third attempt at settlement by the British on the Cobourg Peninsula (east of present-day Darwin) was abandoned in 1849, the buffaloes were released. A few river buffaloes were imported from India in the 1880s for milking, brought from India to Darwin. Water buffalo have been the main grazing animals on the subcoastal plains and river basins between Darwin and Arnhem Land (the "Top End") since the 1880s. They became feral and caused significant environmental damage. Their only natural predators in Australia are crocodiles and dingoes, which can only prey on the younger animals. As a result, they were hunted in the Top End from 1885 until 1980.


title: Water buffalo

text: In the early 1960s, an estimated population of 150,000 to 200,000 water buffaloes was living in the plains and nearby areas. The commencement of the brucellosis and tuberculosis campaign (BTEC) resulted in a huge culling program to reduce water buffalo herds to a fraction of the numbers that were reached in the 1980s. The BTEC was finished when the Northern Territory was declared free of the disease in 1997. Numbers dropped dramatically as a result of the campaign, but had recovered to an estimated 150,000 animals across northern Australia in 2008, and up to an estimated 200,000 by 2022. Both swamp and river buffaloes exist in feral populations, but swamp buffaloes are more prevalent than river buffaloes.


title: Water buffalo

text: ""Nganabbarru"" is the Bininj Kunwok word for buffalo, which are represented in rock art paintings at Djabidjbakalloi. The buffalo left behind after the failed British attempt at settlement became a threat to the local Aboriginal peoples, as they had no guns at that time. As the herds expanded across into Arnhem Land, some local people seized the chance to hunt the animals for their hides in the 1880s, as they did not belong to anyone, unlike sheep and cattle. The industry continues to provide employment opportunities and income for traditional owners.


title: Water buffalo

text: During the 1950s, water buffaloes were hunted for their skins and meat, which was exported and used in the local trade. In the late 1970s, live exports were made to Cuba and continued later into other countries. Swamp buffaloes are now crossed with river buffaloes in artificial insemination programs, and are kept in many areas of Australia. Some of these crossbreeds are used for milk production. Melville Island is a popular hunting location, where a steady population up to 4,000 individuals exists. Safari outfits are run from Darwin to Melville Island and other locations in the Top End, often with the use of bush pilots; buffalo horns, which can measure up to a record of tip-to-tip, are prized hunting trophies.


title: Water buffalo

text: Water buffaloes were exported live to Indonesia until 2011, at a rate of about 3,000 per year. After the live export ban that year, the exports dropped to zero, and had not resumed as of June 2013. Tom Dawkins, CEO of NT Buffalo Industry Council, said in May 2022 that culling should be a last resort, given the flourishing and growing live export trade and economic benefits for Aboriginal people. By the end of 2021, cattle exports to Indonesia had dropped to the lowest level since 2012, while demand for buffalo was growing both in Australia and in Southeast Asia.


title: Water buffalo

text: Water buffaloes were introduced into the Amazon River basin in 1895. They are now extensively used there for meat and dairy production. In 2005, the water buffalo herd in the Brazilian Amazon stood at roughly 1.6 million head, of which 460,000 were located in the lower Amazon floodplains. The breeds used include the Mediterranean from Italy, the Murrah and Jafarabadi from India, and the carabao from the Philippines. The official Brazilian herd number in 2019 is 1.39 million head.


title: Water buffalo

text: During the 1970s, small herds were imported to Costa Rica, Ecuador, Cayenne, Panama, Suriname, Guyana, and Venezuela.


title: Water buffalo

text: Other important herds in South America are Colombia (>300.000), Argentina (>100.000) and Venezuela with unconfirmed reports ranging from 200 to 500 thousand head.


title: Water buffalo

text: In 1974, four water buffaloes were imported to the United States from Guam to be studied at the University of Florida. In February 1978, the first herd arrived for commercial farming. Until 2002, only one commercial breeder was in the United States. Water buffalo meat is imported from Australia. Until 2011, water buffaloes were raised in Gainesville, Florida, from young obtained from zoo overflow. They were used primarily for meat production, and frequently sold as hamburger. Other U.S. ranchers use them for production of high-quality mozzarella cheese. Water buffaloes are also kept in the Caribbean, specifically in Trinidad and Tobago and Cuba.


title: Water buffalo

text: The husbandry system of water buffaloes depends on the purpose for which they are bred and maintained. Most of them are kept by people who work on small farms in family units. Their water buffaloes live in close association with them, and are often their greatest capital asset. The women and girls in India generally look after the milking buffaloes, while the men and boys are concerned with the working animals. Throughout Asia, they are commonly tended by children who are often seen leading or riding their charges to wallows. Water buffaloes are the ideal animals for work in the deep mud of paddy fields because of their large hooves and flexible foot joints. They are often referred to as "the living tractor of the East". They are the most efficient and economical means of cultivation of small fields. In most rice-producing countries, they are used for threshing and for transporting the sheaves during the rice harvest. They provide power for oilseed mills, sugarcane presses, and devices for raising water. They are widely used as pack animals, and in India and Pakistan, for heavy haulage, also. In their invasions of Europe, the Turks used water buffaloes for hauling heavy battering rams. Their dung is used as a fertilizer, and as a fuel when dried.


title: Water buffalo

text: Around 26 million water buffaloes are slaughtered each year for meat worldwide. They contribute 72 million tonnes of milk and three million tonnes of meat annually to world food, much of it in areas that are prone to nutritional imbalances. In India, river buffaloes are kept mainly for milk production and for transport, whereas swamp buffaloes are kept mainly for work and a small amount of milk.


title: Water buffalo

text: Water buffalo milk presents physicochemical features different from those of other ruminant species, such as a higher content of fatty acids and proteins. The physical and chemical parameters of swamp-type and river-type water buffalo milk differ.


title: Water buffalo

text: Water buffalo milk contains higher levels of total solids, crude protein, fat, calcium, and phosphorus, and slightly higher content of lactose compared with those of cow milk. The high level of total solids makes water buffalo milk ideal for processing into value-added dairy products such as cheese. The conjugated linoleic acid content in water buffalo milk ranged from 4.4 mg/g fat in September to 7.6 mg/g fat in June. Seasons and genetics may play a role in variation of CLA level and changes in gross composition of water buffalo milk.


title: Water buffalo

text: Water buffalo meat, sometimes called "carabeef", is often passed off as beef in certain regions, and is also a major source of export revenue for India. In many Asian regions, water buffalo meat is less preferred due to its toughness; however, recipes have evolved ("rendang", for example) where the slow cooking process and spices not only make the meat palatable, but also preserve it, an important factor in hot climates where refrigeration is not always available.


title: Water buffalo

text: The bones and horns are often made into jewellery, especially earrings. Horns are used for the embouchure of musical instruments, such as "ney" and "kaval".


title: Water buffalo

text: Wildlife conservation scientists have started to recommend and use introduced populations of feral water buffaloes in far-away lands to manage uncontrolled vegetation growth in and around natural wetlands. Introduced water buffaloes at home in such environs provide cheap service by regularly grazing the uncontrolled vegetation and opening up clogged water bodies for waterfowl, wetland birds, and other wildlife. Grazing water buffaloes are sometimes used in Great Britain for conservation grazing, such as in the Chippenham Fen National Nature Reserve. The water buffaloes can better adapt to wet conditions and poor-quality vegetation than cattle.


title: Water buffalo

text: In uncontrolled circumstances, though, water buffaloes can cause environmental damage, such as trampling vegetation, disturbing bird and reptile nesting sites, and spreading exotic weeds.


title: Water buffalo

text: In 2007, the development of Southeast Asia's first cloned water buffalo was announced in the Philippines. The Department of Agriculture's Philippine Carabao Center implemented cloning through somatic cell nuclear transfer as a tool for genetic improvement in water buffaloes to produce "super buffalo calves" by multiplying existing germplasms, but without modifying or altering genetic material.


title: Water buffalo

text: In January 2008, the Philippine Carabao Center in Nueva Ecija, per Filipino scientists, initiated a study to breed a super water buffalo that could produce 4 to 18 litres of milk per day, using gene-based technology. Also, the first "in vitro" river buffalo was born there in 2004 from an "in vitro"-produced, vitrified embryo, named "Glory" after President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Joseph Estrada's most successful project as an opposition senator, the PCC was created through Republic Act 3707, the Carabao Act of 1992.


title: Water buffalo

text: Indian scientists from the National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal developed a cloned water buffalo in 2010. The water buffalo calf was named Samrupa. The calf did not survive more than a week, due to genetic defects. A few months later, a second cloned calf named Garima was successfully born. The Central Institute for Research on Buffaloes, India's premier research institute on water buffaloes, also became the second institute in the world to successfully clone the water buffalo in 2016.


title: Xenu

text: Xenu (), also called Xemu, is a figure in the Church of Scientology's secret "Advanced Technology", a sacred and esoteric teaching. According to the "Technology", Xenu was the extraterrestrial ruler of a "Galactic Confederacy" who brought billions of his people to Earth (then known as "Teegeeack") in DC-8-like spacecraft 75 million years ago, stacked them around volcanoes, and killed them with hydrogen bombs. Official Scientology scriptures hold that the thetans (immortal spirits) of these aliens adhere to humans, causing spiritual harm.


title: Xenu

text: These events are known within Scientology as "Incident II", and the traumatic memories associated with them as "The Wall of Fire" or "R6 implant". The narrative of Xenu is part of Scientologist teachings about extraterrestrial civilizations and alien interventions in earthly events, collectively described as "space opera" by L. Ron Hubbard. Hubbard detailed the story in Operating Thetan level III (OT III) in 1967, warning that the "R6 implant" (past trauma) was "calculated to kill (by pneumonia, etc.) anyone who attempts to solve it".


title: Xenu

text: The Church of Scientology normally only reveals the Xenu story to members who have completed a lengthy sequence of courses costing large amounts of money. The church avoids mention of Xenu in public statements and has gone to considerable effort to maintain the story's confidentiality, including legal action on the grounds of copyright and trade secrecy. Officials of the Church of Scientology widely deny or try to hide the Xenu story. Despite this, much material on Xenu has leaked to the public via court documents and copies of Hubbard's notes that have been distributed through the Internet.


title: Xenu

text: In commentary on the impact of the Xenu text, academic scholars have discussed and analyzed Hubbard's writings, their place within Scientology, and relationship to science fiction, UFO religions, Gnosticism, and creation myths.


title: Xenu

text: The story of Xenu is covered in OT III, part of Scientology's secret "Advanced Technology" doctrines taught only to advanced members who have undergone many hours of auditing and reached the state of Clear followed by Operating Thetan levels 1 and 2. It is described in more detail in the accompanying confidential "Assists" lecture of October 3, 1968, and is dramatized in "Revolt in the Stars" (a screen-story – in the form of a novel – written by L. Ron Hubbard in 1977).


title: Xenu

text: Hubbard wrote that Xenu was the ruler of a Galactic Confederacy 75 million years ago, which consisted of 26 stars and 76 planets including Earth, which was then known as "Teegeeack". The planets were overpopulated, containing an average population of 178 billion. The Galactic Confederacy's civilization was comparable to our own, with aliens "walking around in clothes which looked very remarkably like the clothes they wear this very minute" and using cars, trains and boats looking exactly the same as those "circa 1950, 1960" on Earth.


title: Xenu

text: Xenu was about to be deposed from power, so he devised a plot to eliminate the excess population from his dominions. With the assistance of psychiatrists, he gathered billions of his citizens under the pretense of income tax inspections, then paralyzed them and froze them in a mixture of alcohol and glycol to capture their souls. The kidnapped populace was loaded into spacecraft for transport to the site of extermination, the planet of Teegeeack (Earth). The appearance of these spacecraft would later be subconsciously expressed in the design of the Douglas DC-8, the only difference being; "the DC8 had fans, propellers on it and the space plane didn't". When they had reached Teegeeack, the paralyzed citizens were off-loaded, and placed around the bases of volcanoes across the planet. Hydrogen bombs were then lowered into the volcanoes and detonated simultaneously, killing all but a few aliens. Hubbard described the scene in his film script, "Revolt in the Stars":


title: Xenu

text: The now-disembodied victims' souls, which Hubbard called "thetans", were blown into the air by the blast. They were captured by Xenu's forces using an "electronic ribbon" ("which also was a type of standing wave") and sucked into "vacuum zones" around the world. The hundreds of billions of captured thetans were taken to a type of cinema, where they were forced to watch a "three-D, super colossal motion picture" for thirty-six days. This implanted what Hubbard termed "various misleading data" (collectively termed the R6 implant) into the memories of the hapless thetans, "which has to do with God, the Devil, space opera, etcetera". This included all world religions; Hubbard specifically attributed Roman Catholicism and the image of the Crucifixion to the influence of Xenu. The two "implant stations" cited by Hubbard were said to have been located on Hawaii and Las Palmas in the Canary Islands.


title: Xenu

text: In addition to implanting new beliefs in the thetans, the images deprived them of their sense of personal identity. When the thetans left the projection areas, they started to cluster together in groups of a few thousand, having lost the ability to differentiate between each other. Each cluster of thetans gathered into one of the few remaining bodies that survived the explosion. These became what are known as "body thetans", which are said to be still clinging to and adversely affecting everyone except Scientologists who have performed the necessary steps to remove them.


title: Xenu

text: A government faction known as the Loyal Officers finally overthrew Xenu and his renegades, and locked him away in "an electronic mountain trap" from which he has not escaped. Although the location of Xenu is sometimes said to be the Pyrenees on Earth, this is actually the location Hubbard gave elsewhere for an ancient "Martian report station". Teegeeack was subsequently abandoned by the Galactic Confederacy and remains a pariah "prison planet" to this day, although it has suffered repeatedly from incursions by alien "Invader Forces" since that time.


title: Xenu

text: In 1988, the cost of learning these secrets from the Church of Scientology was £3,830, or US$6,500. This is in addition to the cost of the prior courses which are necessary to be eligible for OT III, which is often well over US$100,000 (roughly £77,000). Belief in Xenu and body thetans is a requirement for a Scientologist to progress further along the Bridge to Total Freedom. Those who do not experience the benefits of the OT III course are expected to take it and pay for it again.


title: Xenu

text: Within Scientology, the Xenu story is referred to as "The Wall of Fire" or "Incident II". Hubbard attached tremendous importance to it, saying that it constituted "the secrets of a disaster which resulted in the decay of life as we know it in this sector of the galaxy". The broad outlines of the story—that 75 million years ago a great catastrophe happened in this sector of the galaxy which caused profoundly negative effects for everyone since then—are told to lower-level Scientologists; but the details are kept strictly confidential.


title: Xenu

text: The OT III document asserts that Hubbard entered the Wall of Fire but emerged alive ("probably the only one ever to do so in 75,000,000 years"). He first publicly announced his "breakthrough" in "Ron's Journal 67" ("RJ67"), a taped lecture recorded on September 20, 1967, to be sent to all Scientologists. According to Hubbard, his research was achieved at the cost of a broken back, knee, and arm. OT III contains a warning that the R6 implant is "calculated to kill (by pneumonia etc.) anyone who attempts to solve it". Hubbard claimed that his "tech development"—i.e. his OT materials—had neutralized this threat, creating a safe path to redemption.


title: Xenu

text: The Church of Scientology forbids individuals from reading the OT III Xenu cosmogony without first having taken prerequisite courses. Scientologists warn that reading the Xenu story without proper authorization could cause pneumonia.


title: Xenu

text: OT III also deals with "Incident I", set four quadrillion years ago. In "Incident I", the unsuspecting thetan was subjected to a loud snapping noise followed by a flood of luminescence, then saw a chariot followed by a trumpeting cherub. After a loud set of snaps, the thetan was overwhelmed by darkness. It is described that these traumatic memories alone separate thetans from their static (natural, godlike) state. Modern astronomers have found that the universe is 13.7 billion years old, making this "Incident 1" simply impossible.


title: Xenu

text: Hubbard uses the existence of body thetans to explain many of the physical and mental ailments of humanity which, he says, prevent people from achieving their highest spiritual levels. OT III tells the Scientologist to locate body thetans and release them from the effects of Incidents I and II. This is accomplished in solo auditing, where the Scientologist holds both cans of an E-meter in one hand and asks questions as an auditor. The Scientologist is directed to find a cluster of body thetans, address it telepathically as a cluster, and take first the cluster, then each individual member, through Incident II, then Incident I if needed. Hubbard warns that this is a painstaking procedure, and that OT levels IV to VII are necessary to continue dealing with one's body thetans.


title: Xenu

text: The Church of Scientology has objected to the Xenu story being used to paint Scientology as science fiction fantasy. Hubbard's statements concerning the R6 implant have been a source of contention. Critics and some Christians state that Hubbard's statements regarding R6 prove that Scientology doctrine is incompatible with Christianity, despite the Church's statements to the contrary. In "Assists", Hubbard says:


title: Xenu

text: Hubbard wrote OT III in late 1966 and early 1967 in North Africa while on his way to Las Palmas to join the "Enchanter", the first vessel of his private Scientology fleet (the "Sea Org"). (OT III says "In December 1967 I knew someone had to take the plunge", but the material was publicized well before this.) He emphasized later that OT III was his own personal discovery.


title: Xenu

text: Critics of Scientology have suggested that other factors may have been at work. In a letter of the time to his wife Mary Sue, Hubbard said that, in order to assist his research, he was drinking alcohol and taking stimulants and depressants ("I'm drinking lots of rum and popping pinks and greys"). His assistant at the time, Virginia Downsborough, said that she had to wean him off the diet of drugs to which he had become accustomed. Russell Miller posits in "Bare-faced Messiah" that it was important for Hubbard to be found in a debilitated condition, so as to present OT III as "a research accomplishment of immense magnitude".


title: Xenu

text: Elements of the Xenu story appeared in Scientology before OT III. Hubbard's descriptions of extraterrestrial conflicts were put forward as early as 1950 in his book "Have You Lived Before This Life?", and were enthusiastically endorsed by Scientologists who documented their past lives on other planets.


title: Xenu

text: The 1968 and subsequent reprints of "" have had covers depicting an exploding volcano, which is reportedly a reference to OT III. In a 1968 lecture, and in instructions to his marketing staff, Hubbard explained that these images would "key in" the submerged memories of Incident II and impel people to buy the books.


title: Xenu

text: Since the 1980s, the volcano has also been depicted in television commercials advertising "Dianetics". Scientology's "Sea Org", an elite group within the church that originated with Hubbard's personal staff aboard his fleet of ships, takes many of its symbols from the story of Xenu and OT III. It is explicitly intended to be a revival of the "Loyal Officers" who overthrew Xenu. Its logo, a wreath with 26 leaves, represents the 26 stars of Xenu's Galactic Confederacy. According to an official Scientology dictionary, "the Sea Org symbol, adopted and used as the symbol of a Galactic Confederacy far back in the history of this sector, derives much of its power and authority from that association".


title: Xenu

text: In the Advanced Orgs in Edinburgh and Los Angeles, Scientology staff were at one time ordered to wear all-white uniforms with silver boots, to mimic Xenu's Galactic Patrol as depicted on the cover of "". This was reportedly done on the basis of Hubbard's declaration in his Flag Order 652 that mankind would accept regulation from that group which had last betrayed it—hence the imitation of Xenu's henchmen. In Los Angeles, a nightwatch was ordered to watch for returning spaceships.


title: Xenu

text: The name has been spelled both as "Xenu" and "Xemu". The Class VIII course material includes a three-page text, handwritten by Hubbard, headed "Data", in which the Xenu story is given in detail. Hubbard's indistinct handwriting makes either spelling possible, particularly as the use of the name on the first page of OT III is the only known example of the name in his handwriting. In the "Assists" lecture, Hubbard speaks of ""Xenu, ahhh, could be spelled X-E-M-U"" and clearly says "Xemu" several times on the recording. The treatment of "Revolt in the Stars"—which is typewritten—uses "Xenu" exclusively.


title: Xenu

text: It has been speculated that the name derives from Xemnu, an extraterrestrial comic book villain who first appeared in the story "I Was a Slave of the Living Hulk!" in "Journey into Mystery" #62 (November 1960). He was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Xemnu is a giant, hairy intergalactic criminal who escaped a prison planet, traveled to Earth, and hypnotized the entire human population. Upon Xemnu's defeat by electrician Joe Harper, Xemnu is imprisoned in a state of continual electric shock in orbit around the Sun, and humanity is left with no memory of Xemnu's existence.


title: Xenu

text: In its public statements, the Church of Scientology has been reluctant to allow any mention of Xenu. A passing mention by a trial judge in 1997 prompted the Church's lawyers to have the ruling sealed, although this was reversed. In the relatively few instances in which it has acknowledged Xenu, Scientology has stated the story's true meaning can only be understood after years of study. They complain of critics using it to paint the religion as a science-fiction fantasy.


title: Xenu

text: Senior members of the Church of Scientology have several times publicly denied or minimized the importance of the Xenu story, but others have affirmed its existence. In 1995, Scientology lawyer Earl Cooley hinted at the importance of Xenu in Scientology doctrine by stating that "thousands of articles are written about Coca-Cola, and they don't print the formula for Coca-Cola". Scientology has many graduated levels through which one can progress. Many who remain at lower levels in the church are unaware of much of the Xenu story which is first revealed on Operating Thetan level three, or "OT III". Because the information imparted to members is to be kept secret from others who have not attained that level, the member must publicly deny its existence when asked. OT III recipients must sign an agreement promising never to reveal its contents before they are given the manila envelope containing the Xenu knowledge. Its knowledge is so dangerous, members are told, that anyone learning this material before they are ready could become afflicted with pneumonia.


title: Xenu

text: Religious Technology Center director Warren McShane testified in a 1995 court case that the Church of Scientology receives a significant amount of its revenue from fixed donations paid by Scientologists to study the OT materials. McShane said that Hubbard's work "may seem weird" to those that have not yet completed the prior levels of coursework in Scientology. McShane said the story had "never" been secret, although maintaining there were nevertheless trade secrets contained in OT III. McShane discussed the details of the story at some length and specifically attributed the authorship of the story to Hubbard.


title: Xenu

text: When John Carmichael, the president of the Church of Scientology of New York, was asked about the Xenu story, he said, as reported in the September 9, 2007, edition of "The Daily Telegraph": "That's not what we believe". When asked directly about the Xenu story by Ted Koppel on ABC's "Nightline", Scientology leader David Miscavige said that he was taking things Hubbard said out of context. However, in a 2006 interview with "Rolling Stone", Mike Rinder, the then-director of the church's Office of Special Affairs, said that "It is not a "story", it is an auditing level", when asked about the validity of the Xenu story.


title: Xenu

text: In a BBC "Panorama" programme that aired on May 14, 2007, senior Scientologist Tommy Davis interrupted when celebrity members were asked about Xenu, saying: "None of us know what you're talking about. It's loony. It's weird." In March 2009, Davis was interviewed by investigative journalist Nathan Baca for KESQ-TV and was again asked about the OT III texts. Davis told Baca "I'm familiar with the material", and called it "the confidential scriptures of the Church". In an interview on ABC News "Nightline", October 23, 2009, Davis walked off the set when Martin Bashir asked him about Xenu. He told Bashir, "Martin, I am not going to discuss the disgusting perversions of Scientology beliefs that can be found now commonly on the internet and be put in the position of talking about things, talking about things that are so fundamentally offensive to Scientologists to discuss. ... It is in violation of my religious beliefs to talk about them." When Bashir repeated a question about Xenu, Davis pulled off his microphone and left the set.


title: Xenu

text: In November 2009 the Church of Scientology's representative in New Zealand, Mike Ferris, was asked in a radio interview about Xenu. The radio host asked, "So what you're saying is, Xenu is a part of the religion, but something that you don't want to talk about". Ferris responded, "Sure". Ferris acknowledged that Xenu "is part of the esoterica of Scientology".


title: Xenu

text: Despite the Church of Scientology's efforts to keep the story secret, details have been leaked over the years. OT III was first revealed in Robert Kaufman's 1972 book "", in which Kaufman detailed his own experiences of OT III. It was later described in a 1981 Clearwater "Sun" article, and came to greater public fame in a 1985 court case brought against Scientology by Lawrence Wollersheim. The church failed to have the documents sealed and attempted to keep the case file checked out by a reader at all times, but the story was summarized in the "Los Angeles Times" and detailed in William Poundstone's "Bigger Secrets" (1986) from information presented in the Wollersheim case. In 1987, a book by L. Ron Hubbard Jr., "" quoted the first page of OT III and summarized the rest of its content.


title: Xenu

text: Since then, news media have mentioned Xenu in coverage of Scientology or its celebrity proponents such as Tom Cruise. In 1987, the BBC's investigative news series "Panorama" aired a report titled "The Road to Total Freedom?" which featured an outline of the OT III story in cartoon form.


title: Xenu

text: On December 24, 1994, the Xenu story was published on the Internet for the first time in a posting to the Usenet newsgroup alt.religion.scientology, through an anonymous remailer. This led to an online battle between Church of Scientology lawyers and detractors. Older versions of OT levels I to VII were brought as exhibits attached to a declaration by Steven Fishman on April 9, 1993, as part of "Church of Scientology International v. Fishman and Geertz". The text of this declaration and its exhibits, collectively known as the Fishman Affidavit, were posted to the Internet newsgroup alt.religion.scientology in August 1995 by Arnie Lerma and on the World Wide Web by David S. Touretzky. This was a subject of great controversy and legal battles for several years. There was a copyright raid on Lerma's house (leading to massive mirroring of the documents) and a suit against Dutch writer Karin Spaink—the Church bringing suit on copyright violation grounds for reproducing the source material, and also claiming rewordings would reveal a trade secret.


title: Xenu

text: The Church of Scientology's attempts to keep Xenu secret have been cited in court findings against it. In September 2003, a Dutch court, in a ruling in the case against Karin Spaink, stated that one objective in keeping OT II and OT III secret was to wield power over members of the Church of Scientology and prevent discussion about its teachings and practices:


title: Xenu

text: Despite his claims that premature revelation of the OT III story was lethal, L. Ron Hubbard wrote a screenplay version under the title "Revolt in the Stars" in the 1970s. This revealed that Xenu had been assisted by beings named Chi ("the Galactic Minister of Police") and Chu ("the Executive President of the Galactic Interplanetary Bank"). It has not been officially published, although the treatment was circulated around Hollywood in the early 1980s. Unofficial copies of the screenplay circulate on the Internet.


title: Xenu

text: On March 10, 2001, a user posted the text of OT3 to the online community Slashdot. The site owners took down the comment after the Church of Scientology issued a legal notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Critics of the Church of Scientology have used public protests to spread the Xenu secret. This has included creating web sites with "xenu" in the domain name, and displaying the name Xenu on banners and protest signs.


title: Xenu

text: Versions of the Xenu story have appeared in both television shows and stage productions. The Off-Broadway satirical musical "A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant", first staged in 2003 and winner of an Obie Award in 2004, featured children in alien costumes telling the story of Xenu.


title: Xenu

text: The Xenu story was also satirized in a November 2005 episode of animated television series "South Park" titled "Trapped in the Closet". The Emmy-nominated episode, which also lampooned Scientologists Tom Cruise and John Travolta as closeted homosexuals, depicted Xenu as a vaguely humanoid alien with tentacles for arms, in a sequence that had the words "This Is What Scientologists Actually Believe" superimposed on screen. The episode became the subject of controversy when musician Isaac Hayes, the voice of the character "Chef" and a Scientologist, quit the show in March 2006, just prior to the episode's first scheduled re-screening, citing "South Park"s "inappropriate ridicule" of his religion. Hayes' statement did not mention the episode in particular, but expressed his view that the show's habit of parodying religion was part of a "growing insensitivity toward personal spiritual beliefs" in the media that was also reflected in the Muhammad cartoons controversy: "There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins." Responding to Hayes' statement, "South Park" co-creator Matt Stone said his resignation had "nothing to do with intolerance and bigotry and everything to do with the fact that Isaac Hayes is a Scientologist and that we recently featured Scientology in an episode of South Park ... In 10 years and over 150 episodes of South Park, Isaac never had a problem with the show making fun of Christians, Muslims, Mormons and Jews. He got a sudden case of religious sensitivity when it was his religion featured on the show. Of course we will release Isaac from his contract and we wish him well." Comedy Central cancelled the repeat at short notice, choosing instead to screen two episodes featuring Hayes. A spokesman said that "in light of the events of earlier this week, we wanted to give Chef an appropriate tribute by airing two episodes he is most known for." It did eventually rebroadcast the episode on July 19, 2006. Stone and "South Park" co-creator Trey Parker felt that Comedy Central's owners Viacom had cancelled the repeat because of the upcoming release of the Tom Cruise film "" by Paramount, another Viacom company: "I only know what we were told, that people involved with "MI3" wanted the episode off the air and that is why Comedy Central had to do it. I don't know why else it would have been pulled."


title: Xenu

text: Writing in the book "Scientology" published by Oxford University Press, contributor Mikael Rothstein observes that, "To my knowledge no real analysis of Scientology's Xenu myth has appeared in scholarly publications. The most sober and enlightening text about the Xenu myth is probably the article on Wikipedia (English version) and, even if brief, Andreas Grünschloss's piece on Scientology in Lewis (2000: 266–268)." Rothstein places the Xenu text by L. Ron Hubbard within the context of a creation myth within the Scientology methodology, and characterizes it as "one of Scientology's more important religious narratives, the text that apparently constitutes the basic (sometimes implicit) mythology of the movement, the "Xenu myth", which is basically a story of the origin of man on Earth and the human condition." Rothstein describes the phenomenon within a belief system inspired by science fiction, and notes that the "myth about Xenu, ... in the shape of a science fiction-inspired anthropogony, "explains" the basic Scientological claims about the human condition."


title: Xenu

text: Andreas Grünschloß analyzes the Xenu text in "The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements", within the context of a discussion on UFO religions. He characterizes the text as "Scientology's secret mythology (contained especially in the OT III teachings)". Grünschloß points out that L. Ron Hubbard, "also wrote a science fiction story called "Revolt in the Stars", where he displays this otherwise arcane story about the ancient ruler Xenu in the form of an ordinary science fiction novel". Grünschloß posits, "because of the connections between several motifs in Hubbard's novels and specific Scientology teachings, one might perceive Scientology as one of the rare instances where science fiction (or fantasy literature generally) is related to the successful formation of a new spiritual movement." Comparing the fusion between the two genres of Hubbard's science fiction writing and Scientology creation myth, Grünschloß writes, "Although the science fiction novels are of a different genre than other 'techno-logical' disclosures of Hubbard, they are highly appreciated by participants, and Hubbard's literary output in this realm (including the latest movie, "Battlefield Earth") is also well promoted by the organization." Writing in the book "UFO Religions" edited by Christopher Partridge, Grünschloß observes, "the enthusiasm for ufology and science fiction was cultivated in the formative phase of Scientology. Indeed, even the highly arcane story of the intergalactic ruler Xenu ... is related by Hubbard in the style of a simple science fiction novel".


title: Xenu

text: Several authors have pointed out structural similarities between the Xenu story and the mythology of gnosticism. James A. Herrick, writing about the Xenu text in "The Making of the New Spirituality: The Eclipse of the Western Religious Tradition", notes that "Hubbard's gnostic leanings are evident in his account of human origins ... In Hubbard, ideas first expressed in science fiction are seamlessly transformed into a worldwide religion with affinities to gnosticism." Mary Farrell Bednarowski, writing in "America's Alternative Religions", similarly states that the outline of the Xenu mythology is "not totally unfamiliar to the historian acquainted with ancient gnosticism", noting that many other religious traditions have the practice of reserving certain texts to high-level initiates. Nevertheless, she writes, the Xenu story arouses suspicion in the public about Scientology and adds fuel to "the claims that Hubbard's system is the product of his creativity as a science fiction writer rather than a theologian."


title: Xenu

text: Authors Michael McDowell and Nathan Robert Brown discuss misconceptions about the Xenu text in their book "World Religions at Your Fingertips", and observe, "Probably the most controversial, misunderstood, and frequently misrepresented part of the Scientology religion has to do with a Scientology myth commonly referred to as the Legend of Xenu. While this story has now been undoubtedly proven a part of the religion (despite the fact that church representatives often deny its existence), the story's true role in Scientology is often misrepresented by its critics as proof that they 'believe in alien parasites.' While the story may indeed seem odd, this is simply not the case." The authors write that "The story is actually meant to be a working myth, illustrating the Scientology belief that humans were at one time spiritual beings, existing on infinite levels of intergalactic and interdimensional realities. At some point, the beings that we once were became trapped in physical reality (where we remain to this day). This is supposed to be the underlying message of the Xenu story, not that humans are "possessed by aliens". McDowell and Brown conclude that these inappropriate misconceptions about the Xenu text have had a negative impact, "Such harsh statements are the reason many Scientologists now become passionately offended at even the mention of Xenu by nonmembers."


title: Xenu

text: Free speech lawyer Mike Godwin analyzes actions by the Scientology organization to protect and keep secret the Xenu text, within a discussion in his book "Cyber Rights" about the application of trade secret law on the Internet. Godwin explains, "trade secret law protects the information itself, not merely its particular expression. Trade secret law, unlike copyright, can protect ideas and facts directly." He puts forth the question, "But did the material really qualify as 'trade secrets'? Among the material the church has been trying to suppress is what might be called a 'genesis myth of Scientology': a story about a galactic despot named Xenu who decided 75 million years ago to kill a bunch of people by chaining them to volcanoes and dropping nuclear bombs on them." Godwin asks, "Does a 'church' normally have 'competitors' in the trade secret sense? If the Catholics got hold of the full facts about Xenu, does this mean they'll get more market share?" He comments on the ability of the Scientology organization to utilize such laws in order to contain its secret texts, "It seems likely, given what we know about the case now, that even a combination of copyright and trade secret law wouldn't accomplish what the church would like to accomplish: the total suppression of any dissemination of church documents or doctrines." The author concludes, "But the fact that the church was unlikely to gain any complete legal victories in its cases didn't mean that they wouldn't litigate. It's indisputable that the mere threat of litigation, or the costs of actual litigation, may accomplish what the legal theories alone do not: the effective silencing of many critics of the church."


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: Jaromír Jágr (; born 15 February 1972) is a Czech professional ice hockey right winger for and the owner of Rytíři Kladno of the Czech Extraliga (ELH). He previously played in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the Pittsburgh Penguins, Washington Capitals, New York Rangers, Philadelphia Flyers, Dallas Stars, Boston Bruins, New Jersey Devils, Florida Panthers and Calgary Flames, serving as captain of the Penguins and the Rangers, between 1990 and 2018. After leaving the Rangers in 2008, he played three seasons in the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) with Avangard Omsk. He returned to the NHL in 2011 with the Flyers and remained in the league for seven more years before being assigned by the Flames in 2018 to HC Kladno. Having played in 34 professional seasons (as of 2021) and over 2,000 professional games, Jágr has had one of the longest careers in professional ice hockey history. He is the most productive European player who has ever played in the NHL and is widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: Jágr has the second-most points in NHL history, after Wayne Gretzky. In 1990, at age 18, he was the youngest player in the NHL. Until his transfer, at age 45, he was the oldest player in the NHL, and is the oldest player to record a hat-trick. In 2017, Jágr was named one of the 100 Greatest NHL Players in history.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: Jágr was the fifth overall selection in the 1990 NHL Entry Draft. He won consecutive Stanley Cups in the 1991 and 1992 seasons with the Penguins. Individually, he has won the Art Ross Trophy as the NHL scoring champion five times (four times in a row), the Lester B. Pearson Award for the NHL's outstanding player as voted by the NHL Players' Association (NHLPA) three times and the Hart Memorial Trophy as the league's most valuable player once, while finishing second four times.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: Jágr is a member of the Triple Gold Club, individuals who have played for teams that have won the Stanley Cup (1991, 1992), the Ice Hockey World Championships (2005, 2010) and the Olympic gold medal in ice hockey (1998). Jágr is one of only two Czech players (the other being Jiří Šlégr) in the Club, achieving this feat in 2005. Jágr was the Czech Republic's flag bearer at the 2010 Winter Olympics. Jágr is also one of only three players from 1981 to 2001 to win the Art Ross Trophy as the leading point-scorer during the regular season; the others are Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux. Jágr has won the award more times than any other non-Canadian player. He is a member of the Czech Ice Hockey Hall of Fame.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: Jágr began skating at age three, and he immediately showed exceptional abilities. At age 15, he was playing at the highest level of competition in Czechoslovakia for Poldi SONP Kladno, and when he was 17, he became the youngest member of the Czechoslovakia national team.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: As a youth in his native country, he kept a photograph of American president Ronald Reagan in his school gradebook, in detest of the policies of the Soviet Union.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: Jágr was the first Czechoslovak player to be drafted by the NHL without first having to defect to the West; his selection in the NHL draft came as the Iron Curtain was falling. Because of this, after Jágr was selected by the Pittsburgh Penguins with the fifth overall pick in the 1990 NHL Entry Draft, he was able to immediately relocate to North America from Czechoslovakia. When he attended the draft, in Vancouver, he was the first Czechoslovak player present at the NHL draft with his government's blessings.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: Jágr was a supporting player with the powerhouse Penguins that won back-to-back Stanley Cups in 1991 and 1992. He was one of the youngest players in NHL history, at age 20, to score a goal in the Stanley Cup Finals.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: Before he had a clear grasp of the English language, Jágr could be heard reading the daily weather forecast on Pittsburgh radio station WDVE in his broken, thickly-accented English. He and teammate (and fellow countryman) Jiří Hrdina were promoted as the "Czechmates", a play on the term "checkmate" from chess. He would also play Scrabble in an attempt to increase his English vocabulary. Some Penguins fans realized that the letters in his first name could be scrambled to form the anagram "Mario Jr.", a reference to teammate Mario Lemieux.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: In the 1994–95 season, Jágr won his first Art Ross Trophy after finishing the regular season with the most points in the NHL; he tied Eric Lindros with 70 points but won based on his 32 goals to Lindros' 29. The next year, Jágr set a record for most points, 149, by a European-born player. Both his 62 goals and 87 assists from that season still stand as career-highs. His 1995–96 totals for assists and points stand as the records for right-wingers in those categories. After the 1997–98 season, Penguins captain Ron Francis signed with the Carolina Hurricanes, leaving Jágr the Penguins' captaincy. From 1997–98 to 2000–01, Jágr would win four-straight NHL scoring titles. In 1999, he would win the Hart Memorial Trophy as the NHL's most valuable player, as well as the Lester B. Pearson Award. In 1998, he led the Czech Republic to a gold medal at the 1998 Winter Olympics.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: On 30 December 1999, against the New York Islanders, Jágr scored three goals and four assists for a career-high seven-point night. He would later match this feat on 11 January 2003 by once again scoring three goals and four assists in a game against the Florida Panthers as a member of the Washington Capitals.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: In 2000–01, Jágr was struggling to find his scoring touch and faced criticisms about his relationship with Penguins head coach Ivan Hlinka. With the return of Mario Lemieux from retirement, the Penguins had two superstars, but friction developed between the two; Jágr held the captaincy but many fans regarded Lemieux as the talisman of the team. Additionally, the struggling, medium-market Penguins could, with Lemieux back, no longer hope to afford Jágr's high salary. Thus, on 11 July 2001, the organization traded him, along with František Kučera, to the Washington Capitals in exchange for Kris Beech, Michal Sivek and Ross Lupaschuk.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: In 806 games with Pittsburgh, Jágr became only the second player (after Lemieux) to score 1,000 points as a Penguin. Jágr sits second behind Lemieux in career goals in franchise history and third in games played, assists and points, having since been surpassed by Sidney Crosby.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: Later in 2001, the Capitals signed Jágr to the then-largest contract ever in NHL history at $77 million over seven years, an average annual value of $11 million, with an option for an eighth year. However, Jágr did not live up to expectations in Washington, as the Capitals failed to defend their division title and missed the 2002 Stanley Cup playoffs. For the first time during his tenure with the Capitals, Jágr failed to finish among the NHL's top scorers, help his team qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs, or make the NHL All-Star team. During the summer of 2002, the Capitals reunited Jágr with former teammate Robert Lang. In 2002–03, Washington finished sixth overall in the Eastern Conference but lost to the upstart Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round of the 2003 playoffs despite winning the series' first two games.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: The lack of organizational success prompted the Capitals to unload much of their high-priced talent in order to save money—not just a cost-cutting spree, but also an acknowledgement that their attempt to build a contender with high-priced veteran talent had failed. Disgruntled, Washington ownership spent much of 2003 trying to trade Jágr, but a year before a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) was to be signed, few teams were willing to risk $11 million on Jágr.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: On 23 January 2004, Jágr was eventually traded to the New York Rangers in exchange for Anson Carter and an agreement that Washington would pay approximately $4 million per year of Jágr's salary. Jágr also agreed to defer (with interest) $1 million per year for the remainder of his contract to allow the trade to go through.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: Due to the new CBA signed before the start of the 2005–06 season, Jágr's salary was reduced to $7.8 million, the maximum allowed under the terms of the new salary cap.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: During the NHL labor dispute in 2004–05, he had played for HC Kladno in the Czech Republic, and afterward for Avangard Omsk in the Russian Superleague (RSL).


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: Jágr led the Czech Republic to gold at the 2005 World Hockey Championships in Austria and was elected a tournament all-star in the process. He also became a member of hockey's prestigious Triple Gold Club, players who have won a Stanley Cup, a World Hockey Championship and an Olympic gold medal.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: Prior to the 2005–06 season, the Rangers had missed the playoffs for seven consecutive seasons. Following the fire sale of the high-priced, underachieving veterans that made up the team's roster (as well as the retirement of long-time captain Mark Messier), many experts picked the Rangers to be the worst team in the NHL. Jágr disagreed and promised the team would surprise a lot of people and make the Stanley Cup playoffs. He started strong during the beginning of the 2005 season and the return from the lockout of the NHL. He became only the fourth player in NHL history to score ten or more goals in less than ten games at the start of a season. His return to dominance helped the Rangers return to the Stanley Cup playoffs, but injuries to Jágr and others contributed to a four-game sweep in the first round by the New Jersey Devils.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: Jágr scored his 1,400th point on a power-play goal against the Philadelphia Flyers on 2 March 2006, pushing him past Jari Kurri into second place all-time among European-born players. He later passed Stan Mikita to become the all-time leader.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: On 18 March 2006, against the Toronto Maple Leafs, Jágr became only the sixth Rangers player in team history to break the 100-point barrier, and became the only Ranger right winger to score 100 points in a season.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: On 27 March 2006, against the Buffalo Sabres, Jágr had a goal and an assist, which tied both the Rangers' single-season goal record of 52 (Adam Graves, 1993–94) and the Rangers' single-season points record of 109 (Jean Ratelle, 1971–72). Two nights later, on 29 March, Jágr passed Ratelle when he assisted on Petr Průcha's first-period goal against the New York Islanders' Rick DiPietro. On 8 April, against the Boston Bruins, Jágr scored his NHL-leading 53rd goal of the season, breaking the Rangers' single-season goals record.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: After leading the NHL in points and goals for most of the 2005–06 season, Jágr was surpassed by the San Jose Sharks' duo of Joe Thornton (125 points) and Jonathan Cheechoo (56 goals), losing both the Art Ross and Maurice Richard trophies in the final week of the season. Jágr finished with 123 points, 54 goals and 24 power-play goals, second in the NHL in all three categories. He also finished third in the NHL in both assists (69) and plus-minus (+34). However, just as in Washington, playoff success was not to be for Jágr, whose Rangers were swept in four games by New Jersey. In the series, he suffered a dislocated shoulder in the third period of the first game of the series, which kept him from playing at his top form for the rest of the series. Jágr had surgery on the shoulder after the Rangers were eliminated from the playoffs.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: Despite being inched out by Joe Thornton for the Art Ross Trophy and Hart Trophy (league MVP), Jágr won his third Lester B. Pearson Award as the NHL's most outstanding player. During his acceptance speech for the Award, Jágr said, "With this award, you get voted on by players you play against every night and I think they understand the game better than the media." He has been named to seven NHL first All-Star teams.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: On 5 October 2006, before the first game of the 2006–07 season (against his former team Washington), Jágr was named as the 24th captain in the history of the New York Rangers, replacing Mark Messier, who had retired before the 2005–06 season. Jágr then proceeded to score a goal on his first shift in the game, just under 30 seconds into the new season.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: Jágr scored his 600th career NHL goal on 19 November 2006 against Tampa Bay goaltender Johan Holmqvist, making him the 16th player in NHL history to do so. Power play linemate Brendan Shanahan had scored his 600th goal almost three weeks earlier, making them the first teammates in NHL history to score their 600th goal in the same season.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: On 10 February 2007, against Washington, Jágr earned an assist on a goal by Michal Rozsíval to record his 1,500th career point. He is only the 12th NHLer to reach this mark, and the fourth-fastest player to do so after Marcel Dionne, Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: On 5 April 2007, against the Montreal Canadiens, Jágr scored his 30th goal of the 2006–07 season to record 15 consecutive seasons of 30 or more goals, tying the NHL record held by Mike Gartner.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: After a regular season slowed by a weak shoulder, Jágr then led the New York Rangers to a sweep of the Atlanta Thrashers in the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals, the Rangers would fall to the Buffalo Sabres in Game 6 of the Conference Semifinals.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: On 14 November 2007, against New Jersey, Jágr scored his fourth goal of the 2007–08 season at the Prudential Center in Newark, making him the first player to score a goal in 53 different NHL arenas.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: On 3 July 2008, Jágr, an unrestricted free agent for the first time in his career, was informed by Rangers general manager Glen Sather that the club would not offer him a new contract. Sather admitted that the two sides never engaged in detailed negotiations for a new contract, and that after many months of speculation, Jágr was "seriously considering" going to Russia to finish his career, despite offers from other NHL teams. Jágr expressed a desire to possibly finish out his career at his father's club, HC Kladno. On 4 July, Jágr agreed to a two-year contract with Avangard Omsk of the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL); the contract was reported to pay Jágr the equivalent of US$5 million annually.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: Jágr was named Avangard's captain on 30 January 2009. As a member of Avangard, Jágr was sitting next to Alexei Cherepanov, a first-round pick of the New York Rangers, who died during a game against Vityaz Chekhov. They were discussing the past shift when the 19-year-old Cherepanov collapsed onto Jágr on the bench at the Ice Hockey Center 2004 in Chekov.


title: Jaromír Jágr

text: In April 2009, Jágr publicly stated an interest in returning to the NHL, stating that he really just needed a break from the pressures of an 82-game NHL schedule. Jágr, who claimed to have lost 15 pounds since his last NHL season, and who was "practicing a lot harder than [he] ever did in [his] life", stated that he would be interested in joining the Edmonton Oilers because of the interest they showed in July 2008. However, following the expiration of his initial contract with Avangard, Jágr signed a new contract with Avangard for the 2010–11 season.