title: Sodium nitrite

text: Sodium nitrite has shown varying degrees of effectiveness for controlling growth of other spoilage or disease causing microorganisms. Although the inhibitory mechanisms are not well known, its effectiveness depends on several factors including residual nitrite level, pH, salt concentration, reductants present and iron content. The type of bacteria also affects sodium nitrite's effectiveness. It is generally agreed that sodium nitrite is not effective for controlling Gram-negative enteric pathogens such as "Salmonella" and "Escherichia coli".


title: Sodium nitrite

text: Other food additives (such as lactate and sorbate) provide similar protection against bacteria, but do not provide the desired pink color.


title: Sodium nitrite

text: Sodium nitrite is also able to effectively delay the development of oxidative rancidity. Lipid peroxidation is considered to be a major reason for the deterioration of quality of meat products (rancidity and unappetizing flavors). Sodium nitrite acts as an antioxidant in a mechanism similar to the one responsible for the coloring effect. Nitrite reacts with heme proteins and metal ions, neutralizing free radicals by nitric oxide (one of its byproducts). Neutralization of these free radicals terminates the cycle of lipid oxidation that leads to rancidity.


title: Sodium nitrite

text: Sodium nitrite is used as a medication together with sodium thiosulfate to treat cyanide poisoning. It is recommended only in severe cases of cyanide poisoning. In those who have both cyanide poisoning and carbon monoxide poisoning sodium thiosulfate by itself is usually recommended. It is given by slow injection into a vein.


title: Sodium nitrite

text: Side effects can include low blood pressure, headache, shortness of breath, loss of consciousness, and vomiting. Greater care should be taken in people with underlying heart disease. The patient's levels of methemoglobin should be regularly checked during treatment. While not well studied during pregnancy, there is some evidence of potential harm to the baby. Sodium nitrite is believed to work by creating methemoglobin that then binds with cyanide and thus removes it from the mitochondria.


title: Sodium nitrite

text: Sodium nitrite came into medical use in the 1920s and 1930s. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines.


title: Sodium nitrite

text: Several academic publications in 2020 and 2021 have discussed the toxicity of sodium nitrite, and an apparent recent increase in suicides from using sodium nitrite which had been ordered online. The usage of sodium nitrite as a suicide method has been heavily discussed on suicide forums. Sodium nitrite was also the culprit of the McCarthy et al. v Amazon lawsuit alleging that Amazon knowingly assisted in the deaths of healthy children by selling them "suicide kits" as Amazon's "frequently bought together" feature recommended buying sodium nitrite, an antiemetic and a suicide instruction book together.


title: Sodium nitrite

text: Sodium nitrite is toxic. The LD in rats is 180 mg/kg and in human LD is 71 mg/kg. Yet, death by sodium nitrite ingestion can happen at lower dose. Sodium nitrite is sometimes used for homicide. The online marketplace eBay has globally prohibited the sale of sodium nitrite since 2019. To prevent accidental intoxication, sodium nitrite (blended with salt) sold as a food additive in the US is dyed bright pink to avoid mistaking it for plain salt or sugar. In other countries, nitrited curing salt is not dyed but is strictly regulated.


title: Sodium nitrite

text: Nitrites are not naturally occurring in vegetables in significant quantities. Boiling vegetables does not affect nitrite levels.


title: Sodium nitrite

text: The presence of nitrite in animal tissue is a consequence of metabolism of nitric oxide, an important neurotransmitter. Nitric oxide can be created "de novo" from nitric oxide synthase utilizing arginine or from ingested nitrite.


title: Sodium nitrite

text: Because of sodium nitrite's high level of toxicity to swine ("Sus scrofa") it is now being developed in Australia to control feral pigs and wild boar. The sodium nitrite induces methemoglobinemia in swine, i.e. it reduces the amount of oxygen that is released from hemoglobin, so the animal will feel faint and pass out, and then die in a humane manner after first being rendered unconscious. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department operates a research facility at Kerr Wildlife Management Area, where they examine feral pig feeding preferences and bait tactics to administer sodium nitrite.


title: Sodium nitrite

text: Carcinogenicity is the ability or tendency of a chemical to induce tumors, increase their incidence or malignancy, or shorten the time of tumor occurrence.


title: Sodium nitrite

text: Adding nitrites to meat has been shown to generate known carcinogens such as nitrosamines; the World Health Organization (WHO) advises that each of "processed meats" eaten a day would raise the risk of getting bowel cancer by 18% over a lifetime. The World Health Organization's review of more than 400 studies concluded, in 2015, that there was sufficient evidence that "processed meats" caused cancer, particularly colon cancer; the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified "processed meats" as carcinogenic to humans (Group 1); "processed meat" meaning meat that has been transformed through salting, curing, fermentation, smoking, or other processes to enhance flavour or improve preservation.).


title: Sodium nitrite

text: Nitrosamines can be formed during the curing process used to preserve meats, when sodium nitrite-treated meat is cooked, and also from the reaction of nitrite with secondary amines under acidic conditions (such as occurs in the human stomach). Dietary sources of nitrosamines include US cured meats preserved with sodium nitrite as well as the dried salted fish eaten in Japan. In the 1920s, a significant change in US meat curing practices resulted in a 69% decrease in average nitrite content. This event preceded the beginning of a dramatic decline in gastric cancer mortality. Around 1970, it was found that ascorbic acid (vitamin C), an antioxidant, inhibits nitrosamine formation. Consequently, the addition of at least 550 ppm of ascorbic acid is required in meats manufactured in the United States. Manufacturers sometimes instead use erythorbic acid, a cheaper but equally effective isomer of ascorbic acid. Additionally, manufacturers may include α-tocopherol (vitamin E) to further inhibit nitrosamine production. α-Tocopherol, ascorbic acid, and erythorbic acid all inhibit nitrosamine production by their oxidation-reduction properties. Ascorbic acid, for example, forms dehydroascorbic acid when oxidized, which when in the presence of nitrosonium, a potent nitrosating agent formed from sodium nitrite, reduces the nitrosonium into nitric oxide. The nitrosonium ion formed in acidic nitrite solutions is commonly mislabeled nitrous anhydride, an unstable nitrogen oxide that cannot exist in vitro.


title: Sodium nitrite

text: Ingesting nitrite under conditions that result in endogenous nitrosation has been classified as "probably carcinogenic to humans" by International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).


title: Sodium nitrite

text: Sodium nitrite consumption has also been linked to the triggering of migraines in individuals who already experience them.


title: Sodium nitrite

text: One study has found a correlation between highly frequent ingestion of meats cured with pink salt and the COPD form of lung disease. The study's researchers suggest that the high amount of nitrites in the meats was responsible; however, the team did not prove the nitrite theory. Additionally, the study does not prove that nitrites or cured meat caused higher rates of COPD, merely a link. The researchers did adjust for many of COPD's risk factors, but they commented they cannot rule out all possible unmeasurable causes or risks for COPD.


title: Sodium nitrite

text: Industrial production of sodium nitrite follows one of two processes, the reduction of nitrate salts, or the oxidation of lower nitrogen oxides.


title: Sodium nitrite

text: One method uses molten sodium nitrate as the salt, and lead which is oxidized, while a more modern method uses scrap iron filings to reduce the nitrate.


title: Sodium nitrite

text: A more commonly used method involves the general reaction of nitrogen oxides in alkaline aqueous solution, with the addition of a catalyst. The exact conditions depend on which nitrogen oxides are used, and what the oxidant is, as the conditions need to be carefully controlled to avoid over oxidation of the nitrogen atom.


title: Sodium nitrite

text: Sodium nitrite has also been produced by reduction of nitrate salts by exposure to heat, light, ionizing radiation, metals, hydrogen, and electrolytic reduction.


title: Sodium nitrite

text: In organic synthesis isotope enriched sodium nitrite-N can be used instead of normal sodium nitrite as their reactivity is nearly identical in most reactions.


title: Port of Spain

text: Port of Spain (Spanish: "Puerto España"), officially the City of Port of Spain (also stylized Port-of-Spain), is the capital of Trinidad and Tobago and the third largest municipality, after Chaguanas and San Fernando. The city has a municipal population of 37,074 (2011 census), an urban population of 81,142 (2011 estimate) and a transient daily population of 250,000. It is located on the Gulf of Paria, on the northwest coast of the island of Trinidad and is part of a larger conurbation stretching from Chaguaramas in the west to Arima in the east with an estimated population of 600,000.


title: Port of Spain

text: The city serves primarily as a retail and administrative centre and it has been the capital of the island since 1757. It is also an important financial services centre for the Caribbean and is home to two of the largest banks in the region. The Piarco International Airport is the main airport on the island, connecting the capital to various major global destinations.


title: Port of Spain

text: Port of Spain was also the "de facto" capital of the short-lived West Indies Federation, which united the Caribbean.


title: Port of Spain

text: The city is also home to the largest container port on the island and is one of several shipping hubs of the Caribbean, exporting both agricultural products and manufactured goods. Bauxite from Guyana is trans-shipped via facilities at Chaguaramas, about west of the city. The pre-lenten Carnival is the city's main annual cultural festival and tourist attraction.


title: Port of Spain

text: Today, Port of Spain is a leading city in the Caribbean region. Trinidad and Tobago hosted the Fifth Summit of the Americas in 2009, whose guests included US President Barack Obama and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.


title: Port of Spain

text: Port of Spain is also home to the biggest and most successful stock exchange in the Caribbean, the Trinidad and Tobago Stock Exchange (TTSE). The Nicholas Tower, as well as other skyscrapers, are well known throughout the region. These buildings dominate the city's skyline. Some of the tallest skyscrapers in the Caribbean are located in Port of Spain.


title: Port of Spain

text: The Port of Spain was founded near the site of the Amerindian fishing village of Cumucurapo ("place of the silk cotton trees"), located in the area today known as Mucurapo, west of the city centre. The name Conquerabia is also recorded for an Amerindian settlement in this area; this may have been a separate village, another name for Cumucurapo, or the result of miscomprehension by early Spanish settlers, who established a port here: , later . In 1560, a Spanish garrison was posted near the foot of the Laventille Hills, which today form the city's eastern boundary.


title: Port of Spain

text: The part of today's downtown Port of Spain closest to the sea was once an area of tidal mudflats covered by mangroves. The first Spanish buildings here, in the 16th and 17th centuries, were open mud-plastered ajoupas, interspersed between large silk cotton trees and other trees. The fort was a mud-walled enclosure with a shack inside, a flagpole, two or three cannon, and few Spanish soldiers. This was captured during Walter Raleigh's expedition in April 1595. The Caribs were transient, travelling to the mainland (now Venezuela) and up the Orinoco River. The French naval commander visited in 1680, and reported that there was no Port of Spain. But in 1690, Spanish governor Don Sebastien de Roteta reported in writing to the King of Spain:


title: Port of Spain

text: In 1699, the of Trinidad reported to the king that the natives "were in the habit of showering scorn and abuse upon the Holy Faith and ridiculed with jests the efforts of the Holy Fathers".


title: Port of Spain

text: By 1757, the old capital, San José de Oruña (modern Saint Joseph), about inland, had fallen into disrepair, and Governor Don Pedro de la Moneda transferred his seat to Port of Spain, which thus became Trinidad's de facto capital. The last Spanish Governor of Trinidad, Don José Maria Chacón, devoted much of his time to developing the new capital. He compelled the island's Cabildo (governing council) to move to Port of Spain, and he limited its powers to the municipality. The 1783 Cedula of Population, which encouraged the settlement of French Catholics in the island, led to a rapid increase in the town's population and its geographical extension westwards.


title: Port of Spain

text: From the small cluster of buildings at the foot of the Laventille Hills, eleven streets were laid out west to the area bounded by the St. Ann's River, thus establishing the grid pattern which has survived in downtown Port of Spain to the present day. Along the sea shore was the Plaza de la Marina (Marine Square), a parade ground. By 1786, the town had a population of about 3,000.


title: Port of Spain

text: Realising that the St. Ann's River, prone to flooding, was impeding the expansion of the town, Chacón had its course diverted in 1787 so that it ran to the east of the city, along the foot of the Laventille Hills. (During the rainy season the river still had a tendency to overflow its banks, flooding parts of the city; over the decades its channel would be widened and paved. During the dry season the water level drops to a trickle; hence its nickname, the East Dry River.) Port of Spain was now able to continue spreading northwards and westwards, encroaching on the surrounding sugar-cane plantations.


title: Port of Spain

text: In 1797, Trinidad was invaded by a British force under General Sir Ralph Abercromby. The British landed west of Port of Spain, at what is still called Invaders Bay, and marched towards the town. Realising his military resources were inadequate to defend the colony and wishing to avoid unnecessary destruction, Governor Chacón capitulated and was able to negotiate generous terms with Abercromby. Port of Spain remained the capital; the new British colonial government renamed most of the streets after British royalty or military figures, but allowed Chacón Street (which followed the old course of the St. Ann's River) to retain its name, in tribute to the former governor.


title: Port of Spain

text: In 1803, Port of Spain began growing southwards, with the reclamation of the foreshore mudflats, using fill from the Laventille Hills. This began with the area immediately east of the diverted St. Ann's River; the district is still called Sea Lots today. Gradually the landfill crept west and the area south of Plaza del Marina became solid land. Further major reclamation efforts took place in the 1840s, the 1870s, and in 1906. In 1935 the Deep Water Harbour Scheme dredged the offshore area along Port of Spain's western neighbourhoods, and the dredged material was used to fill in the area south of Woodbrook. Wrightson Road, linking downtown Port of Spain to its western suburbs, was constructed at the same time. These reclaimed lands were originally called Docksite, and were home to US forces during World War II; later a number of government buildings were constructed here.


title: Port of Spain

text: Port of Spain continued to grow in size and importance during the 19th and early 20th centuries, peaking in size in the 1960s at about 100,000 people. Since then the population within the city limits has declined in size as the downtown area has become increasingly commercial and the suburbs in the valleys north, west, and north-east of the city have grown. Today Port of Spain is the western hub of a metropolitan area stretching from Carenage, west of the city, to Arima, east; this East–West Corridor runs along the southern edge of the Northern Range.


title: Port of Spain

text: From 1958 to 1962, Port of Spain was the temporary capital of the short-lived West Indies Federation, though there were plans to build a new federal capital at Chaguaramas, on land occupied by the US military base established during World War II. Federation Park, a residential neighbourhood in western Port of Spain intended to house employees of the federal government, is a memorial to that time.


title: Port of Spain

text: In July 1990, an extremist group held the prime minister and members of parliament hostage for 5 days while rioting and looting shook Port of Spain. The damage was a significant setback to the city's commercial district at a time of severe economic hardship, yet businesses returned. In 2005 there was an unprecedented series of small bombings in Port of Spain which caused injuries to bystanders. They ceased in October 2005 but the perpetrator has not been charged.


title: Port of Spain

text: Port of Spain measures about 10.4 km (c. 4 sq. mi) in area and is located in the northwest section of the island of Trinidad, between the Gulf of Paria, the Northern Range and the Caroni Swamp.


title: Port of Spain

text: The Northern Range is the range of tall, biodiverse hills across the northern portion of Trinidad and is considered an extension of the Andes mountains of South America, although that is geologically incorrect. Over 465 species of birds, and 100 species of mammals can be found in these mountains, making it one of the most biodiverse mountain ranges in the Caribbean. The Northern Range runs from the Chaguaramas Peninsula in the west to Toco in the east and consists mainly of steeply dipping metasedimentary rocks and lush rainforest containing a wide variety of plants and animal species. Port of Spain lies at the western end and the city climbs into the hills and valleys which are settled and largely deforested. The two tallest peaks are El Cerro del Aripo and El Tucuche which top 900 m (3,000 ft).


title: Port of Spain

text: The 3278 hectare protected Caroni Swamp has long formed a physical barrier to the city's expansion to the south, forcing urban growth relentlessly eastward at the expense of a traffic relieving ring road. This west coast mangrove area is the island's second largest wetland after the east coast Nariva Swamp which is almost twice as large. It has well over 160 species of birds, including the national bird, the scarlet ibis. It is one of the country's most popular tourist attractions with visitor facilities and regular guided boat tours.


title: Port of Spain

text: Some of the city lies on land reclaimed from the Gulf of Paria, the calm sheltered bay separating Trinidad from Venezuela, while other parts climb into the hills above the city. Geographically, the Port of Port of Spain is ideal for maritime traffic, providing a natural harbour on Trinidad's north-western coasts where adverse weather conditions are extremely rare.


title: Port of Spain

text: Unlike Chaguanas and San Fernando, Port of Spain has a comparatively cool climate due to the surrounding Northern Range mountains. In the valleys and mountains that surround the northern outskirts of the city, temperature inversion is quite frequent.


title: Port of Spain

text: Immediately north and northwest of Port of Spain lie the suburbs of Cascade, St. Ann's, Maraval and Diego Martin. The last two districts fall outside the municipal boundary, but are sometimes considered extensions of the city. St. Ann's is notable for being the location of the Prime Minister's official residence and diplomatic centre. Cascade, a mainly suburban area with treed lot type housing is located to the south-eastern area of St. Ann's. Cascade borders St. Ann's by a hill named Mount Hololo, a neighbourhood of both middle class and exclusive housing developments.


title: Port of Spain

text: Maraval is home to the exclusive Trinidad Country Club and right next door to the popular Long Circular Mall. Further afield, west of Diego Martin, lies the suburb of Westmoorings, which is known for its expensive Miami style highrise apartments facing the seafront. One of Trinidad's poshest shopping centres, The Falls at West-Mall, lies at the centre of these developments. As you head west beyond Carenage settlement is sparse, however the peninsula known as Chaguaramas, which was once a large US Army Base, has become a mecca for hundreds of international cruisers and a world major yacht storage and repair hub.


title: Port of Spain

text: To the east along the East–West Corridor, also falling outside city limits, lie the large towns of San Juan, Tunapuna and Arima. With congestion rendering downtown inaccessible during peak hours, major shopping centres like Valsayn Shopping Centre, Grand Bazaar and Trincity Mall have sprung up at highway intersections. The last two are noted for being among the largest shopping centres in the country and in the Caribbean, with of commercial space in each. Two large Universities have been established in the eastern section of the E-W corridor – the regional University of the West Indies, St. Augustine campus and the multi campus local University of Trinidad and Tobago whose main campus is on the Arima outskirts.


title: Port of Spain

text: The city has a tropical wet and dry climate (Köppen "Aw") characterized by warm to hot temperatures year-round, with little seasonal variation due to its proximity to the equator, though nighttime temperatures dip somewhat during the winter months from January to March. Temperatures typically range from , rarely above or below . The wet season lasts from May to December, and the dry season lasts from January to April of the following year. Between December and February, it can become mild at night.


title: Port of Spain

text: Port of Spain's official population is relatively small, and reflects the narrow city boundaries including the central business district and a number of economically depressed and a few upscale adjoining suburbs. In addition to the official population, the adjacent East–West Corridor conurbation has a population close to 600,000 people and the "big city" feel with its suburban car dominated commuting. The corridor is the built-up area of north Trinidad stretching from the capital, Port of Spain, east to Arima. It includes the towns of Barataria, San Juan, St. Joseph, Curepe, St. Augustine, Tunapuna, Tacarigua, Arouca, and Five Rivers, once distinct communities and now districts within a continuous urban area. For the most part it runs along the Eastern Main Road, between the Churchill–Roosevelt Highway and the foothills of the Northern Range.


title: Port of Spain

text: Port of Spain's largest open space—and the world's largest traffic roundabout—is the Queen's Park Savannah, known colloquially simply as "the Savannah". It occupies about of level land, and the distance around the perimeter is about . Once sugar land, it was bought by the town council in 1817 from the Peschier family (except for a small parcel near its centre that served as the Peschier cemetery, which remains in private hands).


title: Port of Spain

text: At first it was used as a vast cattle pasture in what was then the town's suburbs, but by the middle of the 19th century it had become established as a park. Until the early 1990s, horse racing was held frequently at the Savannah race track, and it also contains several cricket, football and rugby pitches. Apart from a ring of trees round its perimeter, the Savannah was never really landscaped, except for the small area in its northwest corner called the Hollows, a former reservoir now drained and planted with flowering shrubs.


title: Port of Spain

text: Immediately north of the Savannah—also the northern limit of the city of Port of Spain—are the Royal Botanic Gardens, the Emperor Valley Zoo, President's House (recently abandoned after one end fell down), the official residence of the prime minister, and Queen's Hall, the city's major performing arts venue. Lady Chancellor Road, which ascends the hills overlooking the Savannah, is one of Port of Spain's most exclusive residential areas and is the current home of former West Indies cricketer and record breaking batsman, Brian Lara.


title: Port of Spain

text: On the Savannah's southern side is the Grand Stand, formerly used for viewing horse races, now used for various cultural events, most notably Carnival, when a temporary North Stand and raised stage are constructed in front of the Grand Stand, creating the "Big Yard", Carnival's central location since the early 20th century (previously, the main viewing area for Carnival was in downtown Port of Spain). From this location the Parade of Bands is broadcast live to the nation on Carnival Monday and Tuesday; it is also the venue for the Calypso Monarch and Carnival King and Queen Competitions and the finals of the Panorama steelpan competition. The architecturally soothing arches and curves of the Port of Spain National Academy for the Performing Arts (see picture and caption) dominate the south boundary of the Savannah between the green trimmed landmarks of Memorial Park (in remembrance of fallen soldiers during World Wars I and II) and the gingerbread styled, limestone built, colourful splendour of the Knowsley Ministry of Foreign Affairs Building.


title: Port of Spain

text: The western edge of the Savannah, along Maraval Road, is the location of the Magnificent Seven, a group of late Victorian and Edwardian buildings built in an eccentric and flamboyant variety of styles. These are the recently well restored Queen's Royal College; the residences of the Anglican bishop and the Roman Catholic archbishop; Whitehall, once a private residence, then the office of the prime minister from 1963 to 2010 ; Mille Fleurs, once a private residence, is undergoing full restoration as a public museum and headquarters for the National Heritage Trust and was sold to the Government in 1979; Roomor, an ornate black-and-white château-like building that remains a private residence; and Stollmeyer's Castle, a turreted house supposedly modelled on Balmoral Castle. The slow pace of building restorations over the years remains a concern.


title: Port of Spain

text: Housing in Port of Spain ranges from luxurious waterfront apartments to board houses lacking indoor plumbing and motor vehicular access. Continued pressure for expansion of commercial development in Woodbrook and uptown POS (Port of Spain proper) has led to a rapid rate of decline in the city's population over the past 4 decades. The private development scheme at Damien street Woodbrook recently provided 350 luxury-apartments, but those are unaffordable to most, even though they were originally intended for the general population.


title: Port of Spain

text: To address the problem, East Port of Spain Development Company was formed in 2005 with a mandate to develop and redevelop a zone in east Port-of-Spain to improve the economic, social and physical environment of those areas. Large parts of Port of Spain's Eastern entrance have been cleared of old warehouses and substandard housing.


title: Port of Spain

text: There are several new government housing projects in the city which are under construction or planned.


title: Port of Spain

text: Port of Spain is administered by the Port of Spain City Corporation. There are 12 councillors and 4 aldermen. The mayor is elected from the membership of the council.


title: Port of Spain

text: The council is presided over by the mayor, who is effectively the chief custodian of the city. It formulates policy and gives direction for the running of the city through a number of standing committees which each meet at least once per month.


title: Port of Spain

text: Decisions are then ratified at the statutory meeting of the council, which takes place on the last Wednesday of each month. The policies and directives of the council are executed by the administrative arm of the corporation, which is headed by the chief executive officer and has under her charge a number of senior officers and a workforce of about 3,000 daily-paid and 300 monthly-paid employees.


title: Port of Spain

text: The chief executive officer and her staff are public servants functioning under the regulations of the Statutory Authorities Service Commissions Ordinance.


title: Port of Spain

text: Following an election in 1887, Michel Maxwell Philip became the mayor, a position that had previously been held by only whites. Bridget Brereton wrote in her 2002 book "Race Relations in Colonial Trinidad 1870–1900" that "perhaps this marks the emergence of the coloured man as a political force in Trinidad".


title: Port of Spain

text: Port of Spain became a "city" in 1914; the ordinance was passed on 29 May and was proclaimed by the Governor on 25 June 1914. The first city councillors were elected on 2 November. Among them were oil pioneer Randolph Rust, lawyer and social activist Emmanuel Mzumbo Lazare and Dr. Enrique Prada, who was elected chairman by the council and became the first mayor of the City of Port of Spain.


title: Port of Spain

text: Port of Spain is a shopping and business centre for much of the country. Most government offices are also located in the city and many important government services can only be accessed in the Ministry offices located downtown. Within recent years, local banks headquartered here have helped it become a financial centre for the Caribbean and Central America region. Two of the largest banks in the Caribbean, Republic Bank, Trinidad and Tobago Limited and Royal Bank of Trinidad and Tobago (RBTT, reacquired by the Royal Bank in 2008) are headquartered here or base their Caribbean operations in the city.


title: Port of Spain

text: Trinidad's economy is based on natural gas and oil. No heavy industrial sites are located in Port of Spain, but a major oil refinery and many petrochemical and iron and steel plants exist or are planned for sites south of it and closer to San Fernando. However, the oil and gas majors and some service companies have located their headquarters in the city to be in close proximity to government services, infrastructure and the high quality of life many citizens of Port of Spain enjoy. Some of the oil and gas company headquarters located in Port of Spain (many others are found in San Fernando & Point Lisas) include BPTT, BGTT (British Gas), BHP Billiton, EOG Resources, Fluor, Repsol YPF, Atlantic LNG and Baker Hughes.


title: Port of Spain

text: Trinidad and Tobago is considered one of the wealthiest nations in the Caribbean and some of this wealth is on display in Port of Spain. High-income proceeds from the international sale of natural gas has aided the country in the Port of Spain International Waterfront project constructed on former Port Authority Land.


title: Port of Spain

text: The Port of Port of Spain is the country's major port for containerized shipping followed by the Port of Point Lisas.


title: Port of Spain

text: public international cargo-handling facilities for containerised, break-bulk, Roll-on/Roll-off and dry/liquid bulk cargo


title: Port of Spain

text: The Port also operates the ferry service between Trinidad & Tobago, as agents of the Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.


title: Port of Spain

text: Tourism is targeted for expansion and is a growing sector in the city's economy, but it is not as important as in other Caribbean cities. Port of Spain has a large agricultural market, known as the "central market" where food produced in the surrounding hinterland is traded.


title: Port of Spain

text: In 1999/2000 there were 40 Government/Assisted schools located in the Port of Spain Administrative Area. There were 17,957 students enrolled in primary schools and 15,641 enrolled in secondary school. In secondary schools, 7,567 were male and 8,074 were female.


title: Port of Spain

text: Education is free and compulsory up to secondary school. Port of Spain school leavers, as citizens of Trinidad and Tobago, do not pay tuition to study at local & regional public and private tertiary institutions except for graduate studies where they pay a heavily subsidised fee. There are several prominent tertiary institutions in Port of Spain and environs, in particular the St. Augustine campus of the three-campus, Caribbean-wide University of the West Indies, which had a local campus enrollment of 15,571 in academic year 2007/2008. The University of Trinidad and Tobago has several campuses and institutes in the greater Port of Spain area including the Chaguaramas Centre for Maritime Studies.


title: Port of Spain

text: Port of Spain has a population of 18,008 males and 19,066 females, with 5,694 businesses and is home to 12,333 households with an average size of 2.9 according to the 2011 census. The city experienced an average annual growth rate of −2.3% between the censuses of 2000 and 2011


title: Port of Spain

text: Port of Spain's diverse population reflects two centuries of immigration and this shows in the architecture of its buildings. The city features French colonial 'ginger bread' style houses, buildings with New Orleans reminiscent wrought-iron railings and wooden fretwork set beside modern high-rise towers and strip malls with a mish-mash of gothic-style cathedrals, mosques and Hindu temples testifying to the diversity of cultures. It is home to African, Indian, French, English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Venezuelan, Colombian, Bajan, Guyanese, Jamaican, Guadeloupean, Martinicquan, Dominican, Saint Lucian, Grenadian, Bahamian, Belizean, Surinamese, Chinese, Jewish, and Arab immigrants, most of them arriving since the Spanish Cedula of Population of 1783. Prominent Port of Spain citizens include Derek Walcott (Nobel Prize Literature 1992) and former West Indies cricketer Brian Lara.


title: Port of Spain

text: Trinidad has a rich tapestry of cultures which create occasions for celebrations beyond many's expectations for a small Caribbean island; thus there is much to see and do after work hours in Port of Spain, even long after the annual Carnival celebration. While the popularity of the major shopping area around Frederick Street as a nightspot centre has remained steady or declined, expansion of entertainment venues into the malls and outlying towns has occurred. St. James, 'uptown' Port of Spain (St. Clair and Woodbrook) have seen a boom in nightclubs, sports bars and fine dining restaurants as workers from government offices and large corporations disgorge on evenings from high-rise headquarters built in newly commercialized formerly upscale neighbourhoods.


title: Port of Spain

text: Port of Spain hosts major sporting venues including the Queen's Park Oval, Hasely Crawford Stadium, the Jean Pierre Complex and various sporting fields on the Queen's Park Savannah. Port of Spain was among the host cities of the 2007 Cricket World Cup. The city hosted the 2009 Pan American Junior Athletics Championship and the finals of the 2001 FIFA Under-17 World Cup and 2010 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup.


title: Port of Spain

text: There are a number of well placed green spaces which have been preserved in Port of Spain. Many of them are referred to as squares or parks. Although some of the Squares have retained some of their "original framework" which consists of lengths of metal placed in concrete, which surround the exterior of the space, with each Square having at least four gates. These gates are positioned on the corners so as to allow the main paths of the Square to form an X. Some of the Squares have not retained nor do they give the appearance of having had the lengths of metal placed on its exterior points as lines of demarcation. By virtue of the gates to the Squares not being closed at any time and the lack of metal enclosures on others, there is the impression that these Squares and places are also open to the public at all hours. In some of the Squares, there are street lights to illuminate the interior of the square at nighttime.


title: Port of Spain

text: Lord Harris Square which is located between Pembroke, New and Abercromby Sts. was "established in the early 1900s, (and) is named as a tribute to Lord Harris, governor of Trinidad between 1846 and 1854".


title: Port of Spain

text: Woodford Square is located between Frederick, Abercromby and Hart Sts. It is bounded by the Old National Library, The Red House and the Trinity Cathedral. Woodford Square is sometimes referred to as "University of Woodford Sq because of its occasional use by soapbox speakers and gospel preachers, this is the symbolic center of downtown. Dr Eric Williams, Trinidad and Tobago’s first prime minister, lectured to the masses here about the importance of sovereignty, which later led to the country’s independence from Britain".


title: Port of Spain

text: "Woodford Square was formerly known as Brunswick Square.". However prior to 1808, "Woodford Square was first known as the Place of Souls by the native Indians who fought a bloody battle on this open space. ... With the coming of the French settlers to the island, they called the Place of souls – Place Des Ames. Place Des Ames means Place of souls. Place Des Ames later became known as Brunswick Square. Brunswick Square was used as a parade ground for soldiers. Many of these soldiers were Germans. Brunswick is a German name, and so it is believed that this open space was named after the German soldiers who used it."


title: Port of Spain

text: Marine Square, while not a designated green space serves as a meeting place for many visitors coming into Port of Spain. "Plaza De La Marina was the name given to the area extending from the Wharf in the west to the Roman Catholic Cathedral to the east." "When the British came in 1797 the name was changed to Marine Square... In the 1880s a fountain was erected in the middle of the square." "1962: Marine Square becomes Independence Square." In the 1980s "this area was the site of the statue of Captain Arthur Andrew Cipriani (1875–1945), one of Trinidad and Tobago's celebrated political leaders and sportsmen...The area was then renamed the Brian Lara Promenade in honor of Trinidad and Tobago's most celebrated cricketer and record breaking batsman, Brian Charles Lara (1974–). The Promenade was completed in three phases and finally opened in August 1995".


title: Port of Spain

text: A little more of the history on Marine Square is revealed in the following extract "the square was the early home of the Syrian/ Lebanese communities when they started to arrive in Trinidad during the early 20th century. They were fleeing from the harsh religious and political persecution of the Turks who had conquered their lands. The original number of these immigrants was small but it grew larger when a confrontation erupted between a Muslim religious sect and the Christian Maronites.


title: Port of Spain

text: Annette Rahael, a third generation Syrian living in Trinidad explained, "when the early settlers arrived and saw the cathedral on Marine Square they immediately claimed it as the House of God and adopted Catholicism as their religious affiliation, since there were no churches in Trinidad celebrating the liturgy of the Antiochan Orthodox religion which they had practised in their country".


title: Port of Spain

text: Tamarind Square – This square is located between Nelson and George Sts. It is located in close proximity to one of the local banks which was established in Trinidad and Tobago, "Workers Bank". This bank merged with the Trinidad Cooperative Bank and the National Commercial Bank to form First Citizens' Bank.


title: Port of Spain

text: Victoria Square is located on Duke St. West, Park St, and has been categorised as a Park located in Woodbrook according to WOW City. However, because of its location on Duke St. West which starts on Wrightson Road and ends on Charlotte St, it is included here.


title: Port of Spain

text: Kew Place is one of the smallest "squares" in Port of Spain. "Kew Place has a length of 0.12 kilometres" and is large enough to hold a statue of Gandhi. It is located just opposite the main entrance to Lapeyrouse Cemetery on Philip Street and is within walking distance of Victoria Square.


title: Port of Spain

text: Port of Spain offers a range of nightclubs and entertainment complexes; a few of the best and most expensive ones arguably being Zen, 51 degrees, Coco Lounge, El Morocco and Shakers; however the list changes frequently as partygoers' tastes change. International and regional performers such as Beyoncé, Chris Brown, Sean Paul, Rihanna, Cascada, Akon, Usher, Maroon 5, Kumar Sanu and natively born Trinidadian International Super Star Nicki Minaj to name a very few, have visited Port of Spain.


title: Port of Spain

text: A great variety of restaurants including Italian, Mexican, Lebanese, Thai, Venezuelan-Panyol, French, Japanese, Chinese, Creole, American and Indian can be found in Port of Spain with many concentrated on Ariapita Avenue, a popular entertainment strip, which also includes a Jazz Lounge and a Wine Tasting restaurant. MovieTowne's Fiesta Plaza, a tribute to Bourbon Street New Orleans, on the city's foreshore, features many new restaurants, open air dining and a bandstand with live entertainment. Port of Spain's restaurants provide a wide range of local and international cuisines, accompanied by the traditional fast food chains. Many of the city's restaurants can be sampled at the Taste T&T Food Festival hosted at the Jean Pierre Sports Complex annually in May.


title: Port of Spain

text: Port of Spain is also a cultural hub for the country. Regular dance and theatre productions occur at:


title: Port of Spain

text: Port of Spain is the centre of one of the largest Carnivals in the world, with tens of thousands participating in the pre-Lenten street party.


title: Port of Spain

text: One of Port of Spain's most prominent artisans is Peter Minshall, who creates 'mas' or masquerade costumes for Trinidad's annual carnival. Internationally, he helped design the opening awards ceremonies for the 1987 Pan American Games, the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, the 1994 Football World Cup and the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.


title: Port of Spain

text: The National Museum and Art Gallery is the country's most important museum. It displays depictions of national festivals, Carnival, life during World War II and artifacts from the country's earliest settlers, the Amerindians. There are also displays by leading local and international artists, with exhibitions being mounted at various times during the year. The museum was established in 1892 and was originally called the Royal Victoria Institute, as it was built as part of the preparation for Queen Victoria's jubilee.


title: Port of Spain

text: Fort San Andres which is located on South Quay, opposite City Gate. According to Geoffrey MacLean, in the Trinidad Express Newspaper in December 2014, "the fort, which replaced a mound of mud and wood that served as the only defence of Port of Spain, was, when completed in 1787, located offshore and linked to the mainland by a wooden bridge."


title: Port of Spain

text: The Trinidad and Tobago Police Service Museum which is located at the Old Police Headquarters on St. Vincent Street. This Museum is in close proximity to the Old Cabildo Building, called the Law Museum as of August 2012 by the Guardian TT when it was reopened, the Ministry of Legal Affairs, and the Colonial Life Insurance Co Ltd building, known as CLICO, and opposite to CLICO is the RED HOUSE.


title: Port of Spain

text: Port of Spain and its immediate environs have a higher crime rate than any other part of Trinidad. Homicides countrywide rose from fewer than 50 in the 1980s, to 97 in 1998, then to 360 in 2006 (30 murders per 100,000 persons). It rose to approximately 500 in 2008 but decreased significantly in 2010 and 2011. For the year 2012, the rate reached 354 murders per 100,000 persons, but with a state of emergency being imposed by government for approximately three months. For the year 2013 the rate reached 407. Until July of the 2014, the number reaches 207 homicides.


title: Port of Spain

text: Many murders are drug and gang related, especially in the depressed communities of East Port of Spain. The police administration has responded by improving the working conditions of officers, increasing the use of forensic evidence and surveillance technology (CCTV cameras) as well as hiring overseas experts.


title: Port of Spain

text: Reports of kidnappings for ransom which were on the rise a few years ago have declined dramatically since 2006. However, theft and violent crimes remain prevalent to this date, while crime and the perception of crime continues to hamper the economic prospects of the city.


title: Port of Spain

text: In 2022, the U.S. Department of State updated the Trinidad and Tobago travel advisory first to Level 2: Exercise increased precautions and then to Level 3: Reconsider travel in November 2022. Violent crime was cited as the reason for this advisory, specifically kidnapping and terrorism as well as shootings in Port of Spain specifically. The advisory specifies that U.S. government personnel are prohibited from travelling to Laventille, Beetham, Sea Lots, Cocorite, and the interior of Queens’ Park Savannah; after dark, they are prohibited from travelling to Downtown Port of Spain, Fort George Overlook and all beaches.


title: Port of Spain

text: Five Regional Health Authorities (RHAs) deliver public health care services to the people of Trinidad and Tobago. RHAs are autonomous bodies that own and operate health facilities in their respective regions. The Port of Spain municipality is served by the North West Regional Health Authority (NWRHA).


title: Port of Spain

text: The NWRHA administers and manages the Port of Spain General Hospital, St. Ann's Psychiatric Hospital, St. James Medical Complex and 16 health centres that serve a catchment area of 500,000 people. The Port of Spain General Hospital is one of the major trauma centres in the nation and in the Southern Caribbean.


title: Port of Spain

text: The demand for speedy quality health service has led to the establishment of private hospitals. The major ones are:


title: Port of Spain

text: In the greater Port of Spain area, the public and fully state-funded Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, run by the North Central RHA, is also a major provider of medical services. It includes the Wendy Fitzwilliam Children's Ward and the Mt. Hope Women's Hospital.


title: Port of Spain

text: Port of Spain has one of the most dense and complex systems of roadways in Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean.


title: Port of Spain

text: Transportation in and out of Port of Spain is plagued by heavy traffic delays at morning and evening rush hour. Port of Spain's major roadways are equipped with CCTV cameras, road signage, lane markings, cat eyes, and other safety features.


title: Port of Spain

text: There are also a few major inner-city roadways. Ariapita Avenue is one of them, being the center of the city's nightlife and at the center of a revitalization project. The Queen's Park Savannah is said to be the world's largest roundabout and has a perimeter roadway that is technically a collection of roadways all providing access to the Savannah's environs. Tragarete Road is another inner-city roadway that runs into St. James, also providing access to the Queen's Park Oval and One Woodbrook Place.


title: Port of Spain

text: City Gate serves as a transportation hub for public buses and private mini-buses (locally known as maxi-taxis). City Gate is located on South Quay just south of Independence Square. The PTSC facilities and service have been plagued with issues for a period of time, but recently there have been upgrades to the service and facilities including free WiFi on coach buses, a new coach waiting area at City Gate and addition of new buses to the fleet.


title: Port of Spain

text: A ferry service links Port of Spain with Scarborough, Tobago and a water taxi service, restarted in December 2008 (Trinidad's west coast towns were once served by steamship), links it with San Fernando. The ferry terminal is located at South Quay while the water taxi terminal is part of the Port of Spain International Waterfront Centre.


title: Port of Spain

text: Like the rest of the island of Trinidad, Port of Spain is served by the Piarco International Airport located in Piarco, approximately east of Port of Spain via the Churchill Roosevelt Highway.


title: Port of Spain

text: To ease the current traffic woes that result in two- to three-hour commutes during rush hours, a number of projects are in various stages of implementation. The upgrading of the Churchill–Roosevelt highway to a grade separated expressway and the extension of water ferry services from Port of Spain to the major urban hubs along the west coast are particularly notable.


title: Port of Spain

text: Electricity generation is handled by Powergen, a privately owned electricity producer, while electrical distribution is handled by the Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission (T&TEC) a state owned enterprise. Powergen had one natural gas-fired generation plant located on Wrightson Road in Port of Spain however this plant was closed on 14 January 2016 ending 121 years of power generation in Port of Spain. Port of Spain is supplied by power from power generation facilities located in Point Lisas, Penal and La Brea.


title: Port of Spain

text: Telecommunications are regulated by the Telecommunications Authority of Trinidad and Tobago (TATT). It has successfully de-monopolised the industry, granting several new mobile licenses in 2005 for two private companies, Digicel and Laqtel to offer wireless service in competition with TSTT. Laqtel which would have offered Trinidad and Tobago's first CDMA (3G) network had its license revoked by the TATT in 2008. Fixed-line telephone service and broadband was also once a monopoly controlled by Telecommunications Services of Trinidad and Tobago (TSTT). Flow alongside Digicel also now offers these services to its wide customer base. LTE-A, Cable and Fiber broadband services in excess of 100 Mbit/s are available throughout the city. There are WiFi hotspots at all major hotels and for free in coffee shops, malls and at the airport. Broadband and mobile competition has resulted in lower rates and wider availability of services for consumers.


title: Port of Spain

text: Water and sewerage are under the purview of the Water and Sewerage Authority of Trinidad and Tobago (WaSA). Much of the city's water supply comes from the Caroni Arena Dam located in the Arena Forest Reserve near Brazil Village. The Caroni Arena Dam supplies the Caroni Water Treatment Plant located opposite the Piarco International Airport Southern Terminal. This Caroni Water Treatment Plant was upgraded in 2000 to a total daily production of 75 m.g.d.


title: Port of Spain

text: Another important facility, the new Beetham Waste Water Treatment Plant, began to treat domestic waste to international standards in 2004. The plant serves customers within Greater Port-of Spain and environs from Pt. Cumana in the west to Mt. Hope in the east including Diego Martin and Maraval.


title: Love O2O (TV series)

text: Love O2O () is a 2016 Chinese television series based on the novel of the same name written by Gu Man, starring Zheng Shuang and Yang Yang. It aired on Jiangsu TV and Dragon TV from 22 August to 6 September 2016."This story tells a love story between Xiao Nai and Bei Weiwei." It is a commercial success in China. It is one of the most-watched Chinese modern dramas, with over 25.2 billion views online.


title: Love O2O (TV series)

text: In August, 2021 this show has been officially banned by the People's Republic of China's government in the entirety of Mainland China as the female lead role, Zheng Shuang has been labelled as "actors with poor conduct" by the regulators due to her involvement in a series of scandals including tax evasion which she is found guilty of.


title: Love O2O (TV series)

text: Bei Weiwei (Zheng Shuang) is a computer science university student, who excels in her studies. She aspires to be an online game developer. Her player's name is Luwei Weiwei in the role-playing game, "A Chinese Ghost Story". After she is dumped by her online husband Zhenshui Wuxiang, she is approached by the number one player Yixiao Naihe, who suggests they get married so they both can participate in the couples in-game competitions. The newlyweds instantly hit it off and undergo many adventures together in-game.


title: Love O2O (TV series)

text: However, Wei Wei did not expect the real identity of her in-game husband to be a college senior, Xiao Nai (Yang Yang) who is a jock and academician. After they meet each other, they fall in love. Together, they overcome numerous misunderstandings and obstacles standing in the way of their budding romance.


title: Love O2O (TV series)

text: The series was filmed at Shanghai Songjiang University Town, East China University of Political Science and Law and Shanghai Commercial Plaza from September to December 2015.


title: Love O2O (TV series)

text: The fictional game in the universe uses the content provided by "A Chinese Ghost Story", a popular MMORPG game in China.


title: Love O2O (TV series)

text: The series ranked first in television ratings and became the number one most searched and discussed topic online during its broadcast. The drama is also well-received internationally.


title: Love O2O (TV series)

text: The drama was praised for following the details of the novel faithfully, as well as its refreshing and unique plot. Unlike most dramas, "Love O2O" does not succumb to overused cliches and plot devices, making it stand out from dramas with similar themes.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: The Arab Socialist Baʿath Party ( ' ) was a political party founded in Syria by Mishel ʿAflaq, Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Bītār, and associates of Zaki al-ʾArsūzī. The party espoused Baʿathism (from Arabic "baʿth" meaning "renaissance" or "resurrection"), which is an ideology mixing Arab nationalist, pan-Arabism, Arab socialist, and anti-imperialist interests. Baʿathism calls for unification of the Arab world into a single state. Its motto, "Unity, Liberty, Socialism", refers to Arab unity, and freedom from non-Arab control and interference.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: The party was founded by the merger of the Arab Baʽath Movement, led by ʿAflaq and al-Bitar, and the Arab Baʽath, led by al-ʾArsūzī, on 7 April 1947 as the Arab Baʿath Party. The party quickly established branches in other Arab countries, although it would only hold power in Iraq and Syria. The Arab Baʿath Party merged with the Arab Socialist Movement, led by Akram al-Hawrani, in 1952 to form the Arab Socialist Baʿath Party. The newly formed party was a relative success, and it became the second-largest party in the Syrian parliament in the 1954 election. This, coupled with the increasing strength of the Syrian Communist Party, led to the establishment of the United Arab Republic (UAR), a union of Egypt and Syria, in 1958. The UAR would prove unsuccessful, and a Syrian coup in 1961 dissolved it.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: Following the break-up of the UAR, the Baʿath Party was reconstituted. However, during the UAR period, military activists had established the Military Committee that took control of the Baʿath Party away from civilian hands. In the meantime, in Iraq, the local Baʽath Party branch had taken power by orchestrating and leading the Ramadan Revolution, only to lose power a couple of months later. The Military Committee, with Aflaq's consent, took power in Syria in the 8th of March Revolution of 1963.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: A power struggle quickly developed between the civilian faction led by ʿAflaq, al-Bitar, and Munīf ar-Razzāz and the Military Committee led by Salah Jadid and Hafez al-Assad. As relations between the two factions deteriorated, the Military Committee initiated the 1966 Syrian coup d'état, which ousted the National Command led by al-Razzāz, ʿAflaq, and their supporters. The 1966 coup split the Baʿath Party between the Iraqi-dominated Baʿath movement and the Syrian-dominated Baʿath movement.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: The party was founded on 7 April 1947 as the Arab Ba'ath Party by Michel Aflaq (an Antiochian Christian), Salah al-Din al-Bitar (a Sunni Muslim), and the followers of Zaki al-Arsuzi (an atheist) in Damascus, Syria, leading to the establishment of the Syrian Regional Branch. Other regional branches were established throughout the Arab world in the later 1940s and early 1950s, in, among others, Iraq, Yemen and Jordan. Throughout its existence, the National Command (the body responsible for all-Arab affairs) gave most attention to Syrian affairs. The 2nd National Congress was convened in June 1954 and elected a seven-man National Command; Aflaq, Bitar, and Akram al-Hawrani were elected and represented the Syrian Regional Branch, while Abdullah Rimawi and Abdallah Na'was were elected to represent the Jordanian Branch. The 1954 congress is notable for sanctioning the merger of the Arab Socialist Movement and the Ba'ath Party, which took place in 1952.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: The Syrian Regional Branch rose to prominence in the 1940s and 1950s; in the 1954 parliamentary elections the Syrian Regional Branch won 22 seats in parliament, becoming the second largest party in the country. 90 percent of Ba'ath Party members who stood for elections were elected to parliament. The failure of the traditional parties, represented by the People's Party and the National Party, strengthened the Ba'ath Party's public credibility. Through this position, the party was able to get two of its members into the cabinet; Bitar was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs and Khalil Kallas became Minister of Economics. Its new, strengthened position was used successfully to garner support for Syria's merger with Gamal Abdel Nasser's Egypt, which led to the establishment of the United Arab Republic (UAR) in 1958.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: On 24 June 1959, Fuad al-Rikabi, the Regional Secretary of the Iraqi Regional Branch, accused the National Command of betraying Arab nationalist principles by conspiring against the UAR. In light of these criticisms, the Ba'ath convened the 3rd National Congress, held 27 August–1 September 1959, attended by delegates from Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, South Arabia, the Gulf, "Arab South," "Arab Maghreb," Palestine, and Party student organisations in Arab and other universities. The congress is notable for endorsing the dissolution of the Syrian Regional Branch, which had been decided by Aflaq and Bitar without inner-party consultation in 1958, and for expelling Rimawi, the Regional Secretary of the Jordanian Regional Branch. Rimawi reacted to his expulsion by forming his own party, the Arab Socialist Revolutionary Ba'ath Party, which established a rival National Command to compete with the original. The National Command responded to the problems in Iraq by appointing a Temporary Regional Command on 2 February 1960, which appointed Talib El-Shibib as Regional Secretary, and on 15 June 1961 the National Command expelled Rikabi from the party.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: In Iraq, the Iraqi Regional Branch had supported Abd al-Karim Qasim's seizure of power and its ensuing abolishment of the Iraqi Monarchy. The Iraqi Ba'athists supported Qasim on the grounds that they believed he would enter Iraq into the UAR, enlarging the Arab nationalist republic. However, this was proven to be a ruse, and after taking power, Qasim launched an Iraq first policy. In retaliation, the Ba'ath Party tried to assassinate Qasim in February 1959, but the operation, led by a young Saddam Hussein, failed. Qasim was overthrown in the Ramadan Revolution led by young Ba'athist officer Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr; this was rumoured to be supported by the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Declassified documents and the testimony of former CIA officers indicate there was no direct American involvement, although the CIA had been previously notified of an earlier Ba'athist coup plot in July 1962 by a high-ranking informant within the Party. The CIA official working with Archie Roosevelt Jr. on a separate plan to instigate a military coup against Qasim, and who later became the head of the CIA's operations in Iraq and Syria from late 1968 to June 1970, has "denied any involvement in the Ba'ath Party's actions." The Iraqi Regional Branch, when it took power, was so riven by factionalism that its purported allies launched a counter-coup forcing them out of power in November 1963.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: The 4th National Congress, held in August 1960, criticized the leadership of Aflaq and Bitar, called for the reestablishment of the Syrian Regional Branch and deemphasized the party's commitment to Arab nationalism while emphasizing more the socialist character of the party. A year later, during the UAR's nadir in Syria, the Syrian General Abd al-Karim al-Nahlawi launched a coup on 28 September 1961, which led to the reestablishment of the Syrian Arab Republic.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: The challenges of building a Ba'athist state led to considerable ideological discussion and internal struggle within the party. The Iraqi Regional Branch was increasingly dominated by self-described Marxist Ali Salih al-Sa'di. Al-Sa'di was supported in his ideological reorientation by Hammud al-Shufi, the Regional Secretary of the Syrian Regional Branch; Yasin al-Hafiz, one of the party’s few ideological theorists; and by certain members of the secret Military Committee. The Marxist wing gained new ground at the 6th National Congress (held in October 1963), in which the Iraqi and Syrian regional branches called for the establishment of "socialist planning", "collective farms run by peasants", "workers' democratic control of the means of production", and other demands reflecting a certain emulation of Soviet-style socialism. Aflaq, angry at this transformation of his party, retained a nominal leadership role, but the National Command as a whole came under the control of the radicals.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: In 1963, the Ba'ath Party seized power in Syria, and from then on the Ba'ath functioned as the only officially recognized Syrian political party, but factionalism and splintering within the party led to a succession of varying governments and new constitutions. On 23 February 1966, a coup d'état led by Salah Jadid, the informal head of the Military Committee, overthrew Aflaq and Bitar's cabinet. The coup sprung out of factional rivalry between Jadid's "regionalist" (qutri) camp, which promoted ambitions for a Greater Syria, and the more traditionally pan-Arab faction then in power, the "nationalist" (qawmi) faction. Jadid's supporters were considered to have been more left-wing then Aflaq and his peers. Several of Jadid's opponents managed to make their escape, and they fled to Beirut, Lebanon. Jadid moved the party in a more radical direction. Although he and his supporters had not signed onto the victorious far-left line at the 6th Party Congress, they had now moved to adopt its positions. The moderate faction, formerly led by Aflaq and al-Bitar, were purged from the party.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: While it took some years, the 1966 coup resulted in the creation of two competing National Commands, one Syrian-dominated and another Iraqi-dominated. However, both in Iraq and Syria, the Regional Command became the real centre of party power, and the membership of the National Command became a largely honorary position, often the destination of figures being eased out of the leadership. One consequence of the split was that Zaki al-Arsuzi took Aflaq's place as the official father of Ba'athist thought in the pro-Syrian Ba'ath movement, while the pro-Iraqi Ba'ath movement still considered Aflaq the "de jure" father of Ba'athist thought.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: The organizational structure of the Ba'ath Party was created at the 2nd National Congress (1954) by amending the party's Internal Regulations (), which had been previously approved at the party's 1st National Congress (1947). The organizational structure ran from top to bottom, and members were forbidden to initiate contacts between groups on the same level of the organisation, i.e., all contacts had to pass through a higher command level.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: The National Command was the ruling organ of the party between sessions of the National Congress and was headed by a Secretary-General. Between National Congresses, the National Command was held accountable by the National Consultative Council (Arabic: "al-majlis al-istishari al-qawmi"). The National Consultative Council was a forum made up of representatives from the party's regional branches. However, the number of National Consultative Council members was decided by the size of the regional branch. The National Congress elected the National Command, National Tribunal, the party's discipline body, and the Secretary-General, the party leader. The congress delegates determined the party's policies and procedures.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: Before 1954, the party was ruled by the Executive Committee, but this organ, along with others, too, was replaced at the 2nd National Congress in 1954. In Ba'athist jargon, "Nation" means the Arab Nation, because of that, the National Command formed the highest policy-making and coordinating council for the Ba'ath movement throughout the Arab world. The National Command had several bureaus, similar to those of the Regional Command. National Command sessions were held monthly. Of these, the National Liaisons Office was responsible for maintaining contact with the party's Regional Branches.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: A "region" ("quṭr"), in Ba'athist parlance, is an Arab state, e.g., Syria, Iraq, or Lebanon. Use of the term "region" reflected the Party's refusal to acknowledge these countries as separate nation-states. The Regional Congress, which combined all the provincial branches, was the region's highest authority and elected a Regional Command, the party leadership in a specific region; the Regional Tribunal, the body responsible for discipline inspection; and a Regional Secretary, the regional party leader. The Regional Congress was made of delegates from the provincial branches; other members attended, but as observers. The Regional Congress was responsible for evaluating the party's performance since the last Regional Congress, while at the same time formulating new policies for the next period, which would last until the next Regional Congress was held. How long this period lasted was decided by the Regional Command. The Regional Command, similar to the Branch Command, operated through bureaus and met for weekly-sessions.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: Below the Regional Commands were "branches". The branch came above the sub-branch; it comprised at least two to five sub-branches and operated at the provincial level. The branch held a congress periodically in which it elected a Command and a Secretary (leader). The Command operated through bureaus, such as the Workers Bureau and the Bureau of the Secretariat. The "sub-branch" level constituted three to five sections "and was the lowest level of the party to hold a periodical Congress." Some sub-branches were independent of central authority and elected their own Command and secretaries, while other sub-branches were incorporated into the branches. In the latter case, the sub-branch secretary would be appointed by the superior branch.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: A "section", which comprised two to five divisions, functioned at the level of a large city quarter, a town, or a rural district. It elected its own command, composed of five members, but the sub-branch appointed the command's secretary. Beneath the section were "divisions". A division comprised two to seven "circles", controlled by a division commander. The lowest level was the circle. It was composed of three to seven members, constituting the basic organizational unit. Such Ba'athist groups occurred throughout the bureaucracy and the military. They functioned as the Party’s watchdogs and were an effective form of covert surveillance within a public administration.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: The Military Organization was made up of branches similar to those in the Ba'ath's civilian sector. However, unlike the civilian sector, the Military Organization was controlled by a separate Military Bureau and held periodical Military Congresses. The Military Organization and the Civilian Organization converged at the Regional Congress.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: There existed three types of membership categories in the Ba'ath Party: Active member (Arabic: "udw ämil"), Apprentice Member (Arabic: "udw mutadarrib") and Supporter (Arabic: "firqa"). An Active member had to attend all formal meetings of his party unit, was given the right to vote in party elections, and could run for party office. In the Syrian Regional Branch, a member had to spend 18 months as a Supporter to be promoted to Apprentice status, and then wait another 18 months to be promoted to Active member status.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: From its very beginning, the party was a manifestation of Arab nationalist thought, with the party itself self-describing as "The Party of Arab Unity". The pan-Arab tendencies of the party's predecessor, the Arab Ba'ath Movement, were strengthened in 1945–1947 by recruiting members from Zaki al-Arsuzi's Arab Ba'ath. The first article of the party's constitution stated that: "...the Arabs form one nation. This nation has the natural right to live in a single state. [As such,] the Arab fatherland constitutes an indivisible political and economic unit. No Arab can live apart from the others."


title: Ba'ath Party

text: To express his heartfelt belief in Arab nationalism, Aflaq coined the term "one Arab nation with an eternal message" (). Party ideology, and Ba'athism in general, was not based on concepts such as the purity of the Arab race or ethnic chauvinism, but on idealistic concepts borrowed from the enlightenment era. According to author Tabitha Petran, the basic tenet of the party's ideology was:


title: Ba'ath Party

text: "...that the Arab nation is a permanent entity in history. The Arab nation is considered, philosophically speaking, not as a social and economic formation, but as a transcendent fact inspiring different forms, one of its highest contributions taking the form of Islam. It was not Islam that modeled the peoples of Arabia, the Fertile Crescent, and North Africa, equipping them with Islamic values, especially the Arabic language and the Arabic culture, but the Arab nation which created Islam. This conception of the Arab nation implicitly advantages the Arab contribution to history. On the other hand, Arab decadence can be overcome through a purifying and spiritual action, not religious but moral."


title: Ba'ath Party

text: The early Ba'ath gave little attention to the problems facing the peasants and workers. As the historian Hanna Batatu notes, "Aflaq was basically urban in outlook. The peasants never constituted an object of his special concern. In his writing there is scarcely an expression of concentrated interest in the country's husbandsmen." While peasants and the issues they faced are mentioned in some of Aflaq's work, there was scarcely any depth given to them. Aflaq never expressed explicit enmity towards traditional landowners. Issues such as these would only gain prominence when Akram al-Hawrani became a leading party figure and when the "transitional Ba'athists" took power. Of the four members in the 1st Executive Committee, Wahib al-Ghanim was the only who paid much attention to the problems of the peasants and workers, because the other members (Aflaq, Salah al-Din al-Bitar and Jalil al-Sayyide) had a middle class upbringing and upheld middle class values.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: The early party organization never cultivated a deep following in rural areas. In fact, at the party's founding congress, only one peasant and one worker were present among the 217 delegates. Most of the delegates were either school teacher or students attending universities. When Akram al-Hawrani's Arab Socialist Party (ASP) merged with the Ba'ath Party, the majority of ASP members of peasants origins did not join the Ba'ath Party, instead becoming personal followers of Hawrani. However, the majority of Ba'ath members were of rural upbringing. The "Transitional Ba'ath", which grew out of the dissolution of the Syrian Regional Branch (1958) and the Military Committee, was more rural in outlook, policy and ideology.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: The slogan "Unity, liberty, socialism" is the key tenet in Ba'athist thought. Unity stood for the creation of an independent, strong Arab Nation. Liberty did not mean liberal democracy, but rather freedom from colonial oppression and freedom of speech and thought. Aflaq believed that the Ba'ath Party, at least in theory, would rule, and guide the people, in a transitional period of time without consulting the people, however he did support intra-party democracy. The last tenet, 'socialism', did not mean socialism as it is defined in the West, but rather a unique form of Arab socialism. According to Ba'athist thought, socialism had originated under the rule of the Prophet Muhammad. The original interpretation of Arab socialism did not answer questions such as: how much state control was necessary, or economic equality; but instead focused on freeing the Arab Nation and its people from colonization and oppression in general.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: After the failure of the United Arab Republic (UAR), a union of Egypt and Syria, the Ba'ath Party was divided into two main factions, the Regionalists () and the Nationalists (pan-Arab) (). When the union with Egypt collapsed, the Ba'ath Party was put in a difficult position, the party still sought Arab unity, but did not oppose the UAR's dissolution and did not want to seek another union with Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser's rule. However, being the unionist party that it was, the party's leaders could not state their position on this issue. The end result was that the pro-Arab nationalists within the Ba'ath Party became committed Nasserists, while the more moderate Arab nationalists founded the pro-Nasserite Socialist Unionists party. The third group, led by people disenchanted with both Nasser and the union period, remained in the Ba'ath Party, stopped believing in the feasibility of pan-Arabism. On 21 February 1962, the National Command issued a new policy regarding the pan-Arab project by first mentioning the successes and failures of the UAR, but ending the statement by calling for the reestablishment of the UAR as a decentralized federal union with Nasser's Egypt. Many rank-and-file members opposed this change in policy, with many members being both disenchanted with pan-Arabism and Aflaq's continued party rule.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: When the Syrian Regional Branch was reestablished, the majority of its members in the provinces were of communal origins–Druze, Alawi or Ismaili. The provincial party members had not been told of the Syrian Regional Branch's dissolution, which in fact broke the communication line with provincial branches and the National Command. While its true that in 1962 the Regionalists supported the slogan, adopted at the 5th National Congress, "the renewal of the union with Egypt while taking note of past mistakes", they treated such a slogan as a propaganda slogan, and not as a feasible goal.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: The disillusionment felt among party members on the pan-Arab project, led to the radicalization of the party's interpretation of socialism. Yasin al-Hafiz, a former member of the Syrian Communist Party, was an early frontrunner for the party's radicalization. While he didn't oppose the pan-Arab project, he wanted to turn the concept of Arab socialism into a scientific and revolutionary socialist ideology which adapted Marxism to local conditions. Jamal al-Atassi, who had been a moderate socialist for most of his life, called for the renunciation of Arab socialism in 1963 and the adoption of a "virtually Marxist concept of socialism" by claiming that class struggle was the moving force in society.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: Hammud al-Shufi became the leader of the party's Marxist faction during his short stint as Syrian Regional Secretary, literally the head of the Syrian Regional Organization. Shufi was able, due to his position as head of the Organization Bureau of the Regional Command, to recruit several Marxist or Marxist-leaning members to the top of the Syrian Regional party hierarchy. Radical socialists led by Ali Salih al-Sadi took control of the Iraqi Regional Branch in 1963, which led to the official radicalization of the party's ideology.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: The delegates at the 6th National Congress elected an Ideology Committee that was responsible for writing a charter about the party's ideology. The end result was the document "Points of Departure". The document, which was approved by the 6th National Congress, relegated Arab unity to a secondary role and gave socialism prominence. Marxist concepts were used interchangeably alongside Ba'athist ones; however, the document was reluctant in explicitly admitting that certain ideas were of Marxist origins. While the "Points of Departure" didn't create a break with the party's traditional ideology, it criticized the party's old guard for giving Arab unity primacy over socialism and their failure to turn Ba'athism into a comprehensive theory. While the documents says Arab unity is progressive, the reason for it being important changed. The document stated: "Arab unity is an indispensable basis for the construction of a socialist economy." Aflaq also believed that Arab unity was only an intermediate goal, but it stood at the centre of classical Ba'athism. In the Points of Departure, despite not firmly stating it, the goal of creating a socialist society seemed to be both an immediate goal and the main goal of the party.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: The concept of Arab socialism, accused of being narrow-minded and nationalistic, was replaced with the "Arab road to socialism" concept. The Points of Departure criticized the classical Ba'athist view regarding private ownership. Classical Ba'athists supported private ownership as a way to recruit into the party many petty bourgeois elements. The document called for nationalization of the commanding heights of the economy, the slow incorporation of the petty bourgeoisie into the socialist economy and the elimination of the national bourgeoisie and its allied classes. To safeguard the party from evolving into one supporting state capitalism, the socialist economy would be controlled by a vanguard party together with popular participation from the toiler masses.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: Neo-Ba'athism is the dramatic changes that manifested in Ba'athist ideology from 1960 to 1964, and the Military Committee's takeover of the Syrian Regional Branch and the National Command in the period 1964 to 1966. The 6th National Congress signified the takeover of the party by an anti-militarist left, which opposed both the traditional leaders in the National Command and the pragmatists in the Military Committee. When the anti-military left called for popular democracy, no involvement of the military in national politics and popular struggle, the Military Committee became concerned. By 1965 the anti-military leftists began to "spread rumors about the rightist character of the military junta [Military Committee] within the party and their subversive efforts to engulf it. There was not a single officer in the party who was not accused of conspiracy and reactionary tendencies." In collaboration with the National Command the Military Committee succeeded in expelling the anti-military left from the party at the 7th National Congress. The Military Committee, which now controlled the Syrian Regional Branch, took control of the Ba'ath Party in the coup of 1966. According to Middle East expert Avraham Ben-Tzur "the [neo-]Ba'th in its latest variant is a bureaucratic apparatus headed by the military, whose daily life and routine are shaped by the rigid military oppression on the home front, and [Soviet aid among others] military aid."


title: Ba'ath Party

text: Fuad al-Rikabi founded the Iraqi Regional Branch in 1951 or 1952. There are those who trace the branch's founding to Abd ar Rahman ad Damin and Abd al Khaliq al Khudayri in 1947, after their return from the 1st National Congress, which was held in Syria. Another version is that the branch was established in 1948 by Rikabi and Sa'dun Hamadi, a Shia Muslim. However, Efraim Karsh and Inari Rautsi contend that the Regional Branch was established in the 1940s, but that it received official recognition as a Regional Branch of the Ba'ath Party in 1952 by the National Command. What is certain is that Rikabi was elected the Regional Branch's first Regional Secretary in 1952.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: The party initially consisted of a majority of Shia Muslims, as Rikabi recruited supporters mainly from his friends and family, but slowly became Sunni dominated. The Regional Branch, and other parties of pan-Arab inclination, had difficulties in recruiting Shia members. Most Shi'ites considered pan-Arab ideology as a Sunni project, since the majority of Arabs are Sunnis.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: At the time of 14 July Revolution in 1958, which overthrew the Hashemite monarchy, the Regional Branch had 300 members. The Iraqi Regional Branch supported Abd al-Karim Qasim's rule on the grounds that he would seek Iraq's entry into the United Arab Republic. Of the 16-members of Qasim's cabinet, 12 of them were Regional Branch members. After taking power, Qasim's change his position on the UAR, reverting to the old "Iraq first policy". This turn displeased the Regional Branch and other Arab nationalists groups. Because of his policy reversal, the Regional Branch gathered a group, led by Saddam Hussein, which tried but failed to assassinate Qasim.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: The Regional Branch seized power in the Ramadan Revolution. The coup was led by leading Regional Branch member Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr. The plotters appointed Abdul Salam Arif, a Nasserite, to the Presidency while al-Bakr was appointed the country's Prime Minister. However, real power was in the hands of Ali Salih al-Sadi, the branch's Regional Secretary. After taking power, the Regional Branch through its militia, the National Guard, initiated what Iraqi expert Con Coughlin referred to as an "orgy of violence" against communist and left-wing elements. These repressive measures coupled with factionalism within the Regional Branch led to the November 1963 Iraqi coup d'état by President Arif and his Nasserite supporters. Iraq expert Malik Mufti believes Aflaq may have supported Arif's coup because it weakened al-Sadi's position within the party and strengthened his own. The coup forced the branch to go underground. Because of the coup, several leading Ba'athist were jailed, such as al-Bakr and Saddam. Despite this, the Regional Branch elected al-Bakr as Regional Secretary in 1964.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: Following the party's establishment in Syria, Ba'athist ideas spread throughout the Arab world. In Jordan Ba'athist thought first spread to the East Bank in the late-1940s, most notably at universities. While the Regional Branch was not formed until 1951, several meetings took place at the universities where students and professors alike would discuss the Ba'athist thought. Despite the ideology being very popular, it took time before the actual Regional Branch was established. A group of teachers established the Regional Branch in the city by Al-Karak. At the very beginning, the clinic owned by Abd al-Rahman Shuqyar was used as the branch's meeting place. Bahjat Abu Gharbiyah became the Regional Branch's first member in the West Bank, and was thus resigned the responsibility of building the party's organization in the area the branch secretary in the West Bank, and was thus responsible in that area. In the West Bank, the branch was most active in the cities of Jerusalem and Ramallah.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: The 1st Regional Congress was held in 1951 in the home of Abdullah Rimawi. The congress mapped out the "future course of the party". The next year, the 2nd Regional Congress was held, this time in Abdallah Na'was' home. It elected a Regional Command and appointed Rimawi as the branch's Regional Secretary. Shugyar, Gharbiyah and Na'was agreed to serve in the Regional Branch's Central Committee. Rimawi and Na'was, his deputy, would prove effective leaders. Shortly after the 2nd Regional Congress, the branch launched a successful recruitment campaign in Jordanian and Palestinian neighbourhoods and cities. On 28 August 1956 the branch was legalized by a High Court.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: Both Rimawi and Na'was were elected to Parliament in the 1950 and 1951 elections as independents (the branch was not a legal party at the time). In the 1951 election, the branch managed to elect three members to parliament. Rimawi was able to retain his seat in parliament until the 1956 election. None of these elections can be considered democratic. Shuqyar, during the 1951 elections, was imprisoned by the authorities because his views were deemed to radical. Less than a month before the election day, the British Embassy in Amman had estimated that Shuqyar would gain an easy victory. However, because of the undemocratic nature of the election, Shuqyar was not elected. As voting patterns would prove, voters who voted for Ba'athist candidates lived in Irbid and Amman on the East Bank, and Jerusalem and Nablus on the West Bank.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: Shuqyar during a government-imposed exile to Southern Jordan, used his spare time reading Marxist and Leninist literature. While he never became a communist, Shuqyar began to support communist concepts. On his return from exile he tried to persuade the Regional Branch to join in an electoral front with the Jordanian Communist Party. However, the Regional Branch leaders Rimawi, Na'was, Gharbiyah and Munif al-Razzaz opposed such an idea, and because of it, Shuqyar left the Ba'ath Party.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: Rimawi and Na'was were elected to the National Command at the 2nd National Congress (held in 1952). At the 6th and 7th National Congress, the Regional Branch elected Razzaz to the National Command.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: The Lebanese Regional Branch was formed in 1949–1950. During the existence of the UAR, the Regional Branch was split into two factions, those supporting Nasser and those opposing him. However, in April 1960, the UAR denied the Regional Branch organ "As Sahafäh" access into the UAR-ruled Syria.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: The Regional Branch was strongest in the city of Tripoli. In the 1960 elections, Abd al-Majid al-Rafei was just a few votes short of being elected to parliament. However, a persistent problem for him during his election campaign was the vocal criticism of him and the Regional Branch by the Lebanese Communist Party. In Tripoli the Communists supported the candidacy of Rashid Karami, to ensure themselves of a Regional Branch victory. On 17 July 1961 a group of rival Ba'athists led by Rimawi opened fire on several of the Regional Branch's members.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: During the UAR years, the same factional lines that developed in the Syrian Regional Branch came to the Lebanese Regional Branch. At the 4th National Congress (held in Lebanon), which was mainly attended by delegates representing Lebanon, several resolutions with a pronounced anti-Nasser tone were approved. At the same time, criticism of Aflaq and Bitar was severe, both their leadership records and their ideology were criticized. A resolution was approved, which stated that the party leaders [Aflaq, al-Bitar among others had to hastily entered into a union with Egypt, had wrongly dissolved the Syrian Regional Branch in 1958, given pan-Arabism primacy when socialism was the more important, the need to use Marxist, not Ba'athi, tools to analyze the current situation and the need for the party to strengthen their positions amongst the popular classes–the workers, peasants, artisans and shopkeepers. Because of the position of the Lebanese Regional Branch, Aflaq at the 5th National Congress invited enough Iraqi Regional Branch delegates to neutralize the Lebanese delegates. However, at the same time, the Lebanese Regional Branch opposed Hawrani and his faction. At the 6th National Congress, the Lebanese Regional Branch elected Jubrän Majdalani and Khalid al-Ali to the National Command.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: At the 7th National Congress the National Command in collaboration with the Military Committee either expelled or removed leftists such as those found in the Lebanese Regional Branch from leadership position, and in the most severe cases, expelled them from the party. The Lebanese Regional Branch managed to elect three members to the National Command at the 7th National Congress; Majdalani, al-Ali and Abd al-Majid Rafi.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: The Regional Branch was founded in the 1950s by Amr Taher Deghayes. Ba'athism was a major political force in Libya following the establishment of the United Arab Republic. Many intellectuals were attracted to Ba'athist ideology during the later years of the Kingdom of Libya. However, with help from Nasserist propaganda, several Ba'athists changed affiliation and became Nasserists instead. The growth of these pan-Arab ideologies concerned the government, which led to the incarceration of several Nasserist and Ba'athist military officers in the early sixties. The Ba'athist were accused of working to overthrow "the political, economic and social system" of the Kingdom; the sentences ranged from everything to eight months to two years. By 1964, the Libyan Regional Branch had only managed to establish one-level below the Regional Command, the branch-level. Syrian specialist John Devlin estimated that the Libyan Regional Branch had been 50 and 150 members in 1964.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: Syrian politics took a dramatic turn in 1954 when the military government of Adib Shishakli was overthrown and the democratic system restored. The Ba'ath, now a large and popular organisation, won 15 out of 142 parliamentary seats in the Syrian election that year, becoming the second-largest party in parliament. Aside from the Syrian Communist Party (SCP), the Ba'ath Party was the only party able to organise mass protests among workers. The party was supported by the intelligentsia due to their pro-Egyptian and anti-imperialist stance along with their advocation of social reform.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: The Ba'ath faced considerable competition from ideological competitors, notably the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), which supported the establishment of a Greater Syria. The Ba'ath Party's main adversary was the SCP, whose support for class struggle and internationalism was anathema to the Ba'ath. In addition to parliamentary-level competition, all these parties (as well as Islamists) competed in street-level activity and sought to recruit support among the military.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: By the end of 1957, the SCP was able to weaken the Ba'ath Party to such an extent that the Ba'ath Party drafted a bill in December that called for a union with Egypt, a move that proved to be very popular. The Ba'ath leadership dissolved the party in 1958, gambling that the illegalisation of certain parties would hurt the SCP more than it would the Ba'ath.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: A military coup in Damascus in 1961 brought the UAR to an end. Sixteen prominent politicians signed a statement supporting the coup, among them al-Hawrani and Salah al-Din al-Bitar (who later retracted his signature). Following the UAR's dissolution, the Ba'ath Party was reestablished at the 1962 congress. The Military Committee did not show itself to the civilian wing of the party at this congress. During the congress, Aflaq and the Military Committee, through Muhammad Umran, made contact for the first time; the committee asked for permission to initiate a coup d'état; Aflaq supported the conspiracy.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: Following the success of the Ramadan Revolution, led by the Ba'ath Party's Iraqi Regional Branch, the Military Committee hastily convened to hatch a coup against Nazim al-Kudsi's presidency. The 8 March Revolution proved successful, and a Ba'athist government in Syria was established. The plotters first order was to establish the National Council for the Revolutionary Command (NCRC), consisting entirely of Ba'athists and Nasserists, and controlled by military personnel rather than civilians from the very beginning.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: While the Ba'ath Party had attained power, there was a problem; internal infighting. The Military Committee, which was itself a tiny minority of the already small Ba'ath Party membership, was forced to rule by force. The Ba'ath Party had only 2,500 members by mid-1963, the party lacked a popular base. Even if membership expanded, the authoritarian way of ruling it had introduced when coming to power would get worse, not better.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: Another problem was that the civilian wing was riven by infighting between the radical socialist and moderate faction, while the military stood more unified. Whatever the case, the Syrian Regional Command slowly amassed its powers by weakening the National Command. This all came to a head in the 1966 Syrian coup d'état.


title: Ba'ath Party

text: Following the Ba'ath Party's founding, regional branches were established in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Not long after it established branches in North Yemen and South Yemen. In Tunisia, a Regional Branch was established in the 1950s, but was forced underground for much of its existence. The Saudi Regional Branches elected Ali Ghannäm to represent them at the 7th National Command. While its currently unknown which side the Saudi Ba'ath took after the 1966 split, it published a newspaper, "Sawt al-Tal‘iyya", from 1973 to 1980. It was an ardent critic of the Saudi royal family and American imperialism. The majority of its members were Shia Muslims. In late 1963, Ba'ath cells were being established in Sudan, and there were even rumours that a Ba'ath cell had been established in Egypt. A regional Ba'ath Party branch was established in Algeria in 1988 after the one-party system ended.


title: Abu al-Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi

text: Abu al-Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi (), born Nour Karim al-Mutni (; died 15 October 2022), was an Iraqi terrorist and the third caliph of the Islamic State. He was named as caliph on 10 March 2022, in an audio message by the new spokesperson of IS, Abu Omar al-Muhajir, whose announcement came more than a month after the death of his predecessor Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi. The message said that Abu al-Hassan was given a pledge of allegiance in response to the will of the former caliph. The Turkish government claimed that he was arrested in Istanbul on 26 May 2022. Later, Islamic State sources denied news reports of his arrest in the 347th issue of their weekly newsletter "Al-Naba". In November 2022, Islamic State spokesman Abu Omar al-Muhajir announced that Abu al-Hasan had been killed in combat. After confirmation by the Islamic State and the United States Central Command of his death in Syria, Abu Omar announced Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurashi as Abu al-Hasan's successor.


title: Abu al-Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi

text: Abu al-Hasan was his "kunya". Al-Hashimi and al-Qurashi indicate that he belonged to the Banu Hashim clan of the Quraysh tribe.


title: Abu al-Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi

text: "Al Ain News" reported in March 2022 that al-Qurashi's real name was Zaid, an Iraqi national and the former emir of the Diwan of Education. A May 2022 United Nations Security Council (UNSC) report expanded on this, claiming that the most likely candidate as to his real identity was an Iraqi national by the name of Bashar Khattab Ghazal al-Sumaida'i, also known as Haji Zaid, stating:


title: Abu al-Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi

text: Abu al-Hassan's identity is not yet established but has been much discussed among Member States, with Iraqi national Bashar Khattab Ghazal al-Sumaida'i cited as the most likely candidate. Some Member States suggested that al-Sumaida'i was arrested in Turkey near Istanbul in May; others maintain that he remains at large. IS has not yet commented.


title: Abu al-Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi

text: Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan corroborated this after his arrest, claiming that al-Sumaida'i had been acting as the highest figure in the Islamic State since the death of former caliph Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi. IS, however, have never named their caliph to be al-Sumaida'i, and denied that he was imprisoned.


title: Abu al-Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi

text: There are also other theories as to his identity. According to two unnamed Iraqi security officials, al-Qurashi's real name was Juma Awad al-Badri, and he was the elder brother of former IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Research by Iraqi historian Hisham al-Hashimi published in 2020 stated that al-Badri was head of the five-member Shura Council.