title: Dhadak

text: Johar had announced the production of "Dhadak" in November 2017 which marked the screen debut of Janhvi Kapoor, daughter of Sridevi and Boney Kapoor. Principal photography and it commenced in December 2017 while it was completed in April 2018. The soundtrack was composed by Ajay–Atul with lyrics written by Amitabh Bhattacharya and background score composed by John Stewart Eduri. The film was distributed internationally by Zee Studios.


title: Dhadak

text: "Dhadak", which was originally scheduled to release on 6 July 2018, was postponed and had its worldwide theatrical release on 20 July 2018. It received negative reviews from film critics for glossing over the subject of caste-based discrimination, which was present in "Sairat", and for being a poor remake of the original, although Khatter's performances was praised. "Dhadak" emerged as a commercial success, grossing over worldwide.


title: Dhadak

text: In Udaipur Madhukar "Madhu" Bhagla, a young college student hailing from a middle class family, wins a competitive eating contest and receives his prize from Parthavi Singh Rathore, a rich girl from a political family who also happens to be studying in the same college as Madhu. His friend Purshottam later finds Parthavi bathing in a lake and informs Madhu of the same. Madhu impresses Parthavi but incurs a minor injury meanwhile. The two begin to have feelings for each other.


title: Dhadak

text: Madhu goes back to his family restaurant where his father makes him promise to stay away from Parthavi since she hails from a powerful, affluent upper-caste family. Madhu ignores Parthavi at college, but she later confronts him for ignoring her. The two admit their love for each other and begin meeting secretly. Madhu asks Parthavi for a kiss, but she dares him to come to her brother Roop's birthday party. They share a kiss at the party, but are discovered by Parthavi's father, Ratan Singh Rathore. Roop and Ratan thrash Madhu and his friends but later are told by Inspector Shekhawat to calm down and wait for the election results before any severe action.


title: Dhadak

text: Once the elections are over, Madhu and his friends are arrested on charges pressed by Ratan, who wins. Parthavi pleads to Ratan to release Madhu and his friends. In an ensuing scuffle, she manages to get hold of a gun and threatens to shoot herself if Madhu is not freed. Madhu runs up to her and together, they elope. With the police on their trail, Madhu and Parthavi board a train to Mumbai, where Madhu contacts his maternal uncle and the two travel to Nagpur.


title: Dhadak

text: Madhu's uncle advises them to go to Kolkata for the time being. In Kolkata, they rent a small room for living; Madhu starts working in a roadside restaurant after learning Bengali while Parthavi finds work at a call centre. One day, Madhu goes to her office to gift her a new phone bought from his hard-earned money. Madhu sees Parthavi with her manager and thinks that she is cheating on him. Heartbroken, he returns home. After Parthavi returns home, they argue severely; Madhu slaps Parthavi in the heat of the moment. Parthavi begins to doubt why she came with Madhu. Parthavi is briefly missing, but Madhu finds her in her office and realizes how much he loves her. He asks for her hand in marriage and they marry.


title: Dhadak

text: Soon, Parthavi becomes pregnant and they have a son, Aditya "Adi" Bhagla. During the puja for their new house, Parthavi's brother and his gang arrive with many gifts for her family, hinting at reconciliation. However, Madhu is not convinced and asks Parthavi to stay back, but she brushes it off in excitement. Parthavi leaves her son at home with Madhu and steps out of the house. Madhu and Aditya are thrown from the balcony abruptly and die in front of Parthavi, with her brother overlooking them.


title: Dhadak

text: Producer Karan Johar acquired the Hindi remake rights of the 2016 Marathi language film "Sairat" in November that year, after the film's unexpected commercial success. On 15 November 2017, Johar announced through his Twitter handle that a film featuring Ishaan Khatter and Janhvi Kapoor in lead roles was under production, and released three first look posters to commemorate the event. On the following day, he released another poster and revealed that the film was tentatively titled "Dhadak" and was an official remake of "Sairat". The film marks the debut of Janhvi Kapoor, daughter of Sridevi and Boney Kapoor. "Dhadak" was meant to be Khatter's debut film too, but he was then cast by Majid Majidi in "Beyond the Clouds" (2018).


title: Dhadak

text: Kapoor, who had watched "Sairat" for the first time with her mother Sridevi, expressed that she wanted to debut with a similar film. A few days later, Johar approached her on her mother's insistence with the role of the female lead in the Hindi remake of "Sairat". Khatter watched "Sairat" after he was approached for the role, during which he learned that Shashank Khaitan was adapting it into a Hindi film. Kapoor elaborated and wrote the backstory of her character so that the role felt "more real" to her. Since "Dhadak" was set in Udaipur unlike "Sairat", Khaitan took Kapoor and Khatter to Rajasthan and allowed them to spend time with the local people and eat the local food to make them understand the background, language and background of their characters.


title: Dhadak

text: Khaitan preferred to call "Dhadak" an adaptation rather than a remake of "Sairat" since he had made some changes to the storyline of the original film. He cited "how Nagraj Manjule chose to tell that story and the uniqueness he brought to the film" as his inspiration for the remake. Khaitan, a Marwari Rajasthani himself who grew up in Kolkata, set Rajasthan and Kolkata as the premise for the film, and that required deviating from the original to stay "true to [himself] and the story [he is] telling. Another reason for choosing the two cities was "that they are visually and linguistically so different from each other". Khaitan called "Dhadak" a tribute to "Sairat".


title: Dhadak

text: After he was sure that he wanted to make "Dhadak", Khaitan worked to distance himself from "Sairat", making "Badrinath Ki Dulhania" (2017) in the meantime. Later, he began writing "Dhadak" using those sequences which he instinctively recalled from "Sairat", and eliminated those that did not come to him immediately. After writing the script, about four to five months before filming, he told Khatter and Kapoor their characters' behaviour, speech, and their inter-personal relationships. However, he did not treat Khatter or Kapoor as "star kids" since he wanted to create a "good film" with newcomers. Johar told him that the film "could be the biggest decision in [his] life, or the biggest mistake in [his] life". Khaitan preferred to make a high quality film over one that was commercially viable.


title: Dhadak

text: Principal photography commenced on 1 December 2017 in Udaipur, Rajasthan. Kapoor was joined by her mother on the first day of filming. Shortly after filming began, the shoot was disrupted in Jaipur, Rajasthan, after a part of the Ambikeshwar Mahadev Temple was damaged by the film's unit. While scenes were being filmed at the Jagat Shiromani Temple and Panna Meena Ka Kund, the crew members had parked their vehicles near Ambikeshwar Temple. One of their vans hit the chhajja of the temple. A police case was lodged against the film unit head by the temple authorities for damaging their historic property.


title: Dhadak

text: During the Jaipur schedule of filming, two sequences were filmed by onlookers and circulated on Instagram. By contacting the Instagram Help Centre, the makers managed to remove one of the videos, but the other kept circulating on social media. This disrupted the filmmakers' plans to keep the character looks hidden. After the incident, the a no-phone policy was practiced on the sets of "Dhadak", in which mobile phones and cameras were banned from being carried even by members of the cast and crew. The team urged the public to not indulge in such activities and to cooperate with them.


title: Dhadak

text: In January 2018, the visuals for the song "Zingaat" was filmed. It was choreographed by Farah Khan. In the same month, the Kolkata schedule of principal photography began. For a solo dance number picturised on Kapoor choreographed by Tushar Kalia, Kapoor rehearsed continuously for two days, and then shot it over a 24 hour period in a studio in Mumbai. After Sridevi's unexpected death, the film's team took a break to allow Kapoor to pay respects to her mother. She returned to filming shortly after. In March 2018, shooting shifted to Kolkata; some of the sequences were filmed at Victoria Memorial. Filming was completed by mid-April 2018.


title: Dhadak

text: The music of the film is composed by Ajay–Atul while the lyrics are written by Amitabh Bhattacharya. The background score is composed by John Stewart Eduri. The first song of the film, "Dhadak" which is sung by Ajay Gogavale and Shreya Ghoshal was released on 20 June 2018. The second song, "Zingaat" and the third song, "Pehli Baar" have been recreated from Sairat and were released on 27 June 2018 and 5 July 2018 respectively, the former being sampled from its eponymous namesake, and the latter from "Yad Lagla". The music album of the film was released by Zee Music Company on 2 July 2018. The album was positively received.


title: Dhadak

text: The song, "Dhadak", was mixed by Vijay Dayal at YRF Studios in Mumbai. The music video of the track was released on 19 June 2018, and features Janhvi Kapoor and Ishaan Khatter. Composer Ajay said, “When we first heard the narration of "Sairat", we knew that it was going to be an epic love story. So, while composing the music of the film that thought remained at the core. "Dhadak Hai Na" is a completely new composition, but it was made with the same thought of creating something epic. Like "Sairat", the music of "Dhadak" has the quality of being cinematic and dramatic. It's made on an international soundscape and when listeners hear the theme song, I think they will feel the depth and the scale of composition". John Stewart Eduri composed the background score.


title: Dhadak

text: The song was released on 19 June 2018 on Zee Music Company's YouTube page. On the same day of release, it was made available for online streaming at Saavn and Gaana. It garnered about 9 Million views within 24 hours. It trended at top position in India on YouTube India, Saavn and Gaana for almost a day. It also trended at second and third positions on YouTube India for several days and completed 50 million views on 7 July 2018 and 100 million views on 3 September 2018.


title: Dhadak

text: Daily News and Analysis wrote, "Shreya Ghoshal fans have fallen in love with her voice all over again". The article even praised the lyrics of the song and the chemistry of the actors, stating, "Everything from the lyrics, music to the chemistry of the lead actors has got a thumbs up from the audience." The track became an instant hit and many covers of the song were also made by various artists from all over India. Attaching some of these covers in her article, Rachna Srivastava wrote, "Tripping on Dhadak's title track? Let these covers help you trip a li'l more" Writing for NDTV, Puja Sahu mentioned that the track has been trending at peak position on YouTube India and has garnered in about 9 Million views within a day of its release. The reporter further praised the chemistry between Janhvi and Ishaan. An article in The Times of India read, "Bollywood celebs go gaga over Ishaan Khatter and Janhvi Kapoor's romantic number. The soothing song sung by Ajay Gogavale and Shreya Ghoshal will tug at your heartstrings instantly."


title: Dhadak

text: The song debuted on Mirchi Music Top 20 countdown on 30 June 2018 at 5th position and climbed up to the 1st position in the next week itself. On Aircheck Top 20, the song debuted on 2 July 2018 at the peak position. The track was marked at the highest position at Saavn weekly Top 15. It was also marked at Rank 1 at the Jio Music weekly Top 20.


title: Dhadak

text: "Dhadak"s official trailer was released on 11 June 2018. Despite being initially scheduled to release on 6 July 2018, the film was postponed, and was instead released on 20 July 2018. It was released in over 2235 screens in India and a total of 2791 screens worldwide. Apart from India, the film was also released in the Middle East, United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Fiji and Pakistan.


title: Dhadak

text: "Dhadak" received negative reviews from critics. It was particularly criticized for being a poor remake of "Sairat", glossing over the subject of caste-based discrimination present in the original. Critics also felt that the film did not work as a standalone romance. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, "Dhadak" has a rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . Rajeev Masand of News18 gave it two and a half stars out of five; while praising both Kapoor and Khatter for their acting prowess, he found the film to be "relatively sanitized", and questioned the logic behind remaking "Sairat", writing, "[T]he caste angle, evidently too hot to handle in a mainstream Bollywood film, is largely swept under the rug in "Dhadak"." Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV gave the film two stars out of five, expressing that "[the] muddled screenplay, bland storytelling and uneven lead performances leave this glossy Karan Johar production without a proper, palpable heartbeat", concluding, "The result is a grind that pretty frames and fresh faces cannot mitigate".


title: Dhadak

text: Writing for "The Times of India", Rachit Gupta gave the film three and a half stars out of five and praised the direction, "[Khaitan] presents the naive romance with sensitivity, even while fusing the story with ample dramatic highs". While noting that the "glossed over aspect makes it unbelievable", Gupta was more positive, writing, "With all its strengths and weaknesses, "Dhadak" attempts to highlight some shocking truths about our society and for that it makes a worthy watch." Rohit Vats of "Hindustan Times" gave it two and a half stars out of five, writing, "Though Khaitan has tried to deliver subtle messages..., in the end, all this boils down to launching two potential future stars." Vats also noted that "[Kapoor] and [Khatter] were probably misfits for a rural setting". A reviewer for the Indo-Asian News Service gave the film two and a half stars out of five, saying, "The remake extracts all the juice from the original and then squanders it in irrelevant plot conversions" but deduces: "If "Dhadak" is still watchable in parts, it's because Ishaan Khattar is constantly injecting his exuberant conviction into every scene."


title: Dhadak

text: Shubhra Gupta of "The Indian Express" gave "Dhadak" one and a half stars out of five and said, "Barring a few patches, "Dhadak" has neither requisite drama nor authenticity. It underlines all its scenes with blaring background music, to tell us how to feel. It doesn’t work, not as an official copy of "Sairat", nor as a standalone Bollywood romance." Sukanya Verma of Rediff.com gave it two stars out of five and writes, "The heartbreak of shabby treatment from one's own family, the struggle of employment sans proper qualification in an alien city, the resentment, doubts and insecurities spawned by unending challenges hardly registers in "Dhadak"s superficial, clueless worldview." However, she praised Khatter, who "never seems out of his depth no matter how silly the setup" and Kapoor for her expressive ""Chandni" eyes". Anna M. M. Vetticad of "Firstpost" gave the film one and a half stars out of five and criticized, "In "Dhadak", [time and thought]... are sketchily written, as are the pair’s struggles in their new life away from their parents".


title: Dhadak

text: "Dhadak" earned 8.71 crore nett on its opening day domestically, which was the highest ever for a film starring newcomers in India, breaking the previous record held by "Student of the Year" (2012), also produced by Dharma Productions. It earned 11.04 crore nett on its second day and 13.92 crore nett on its third day, taking the weekend collection to 33.67 crore nett. In its first week, the film had a total collection of 51.56 crore nett. The film emerged as a commercial success, and has a worldwide gross of with in India.


title: Bento

text: A is the Japanese iteration of a single-portion take-out or home-packed meal, often for lunch. Outside Japan, it is common in other East and Southeast Asian culinary styles, especially within Chinese, Korean, Singaporean cuisines and more, as rice is a common staple food in the region. The term "bento" is derived from the Chinese term "biandang" (, ), which means "convenient" or "convenience".


title: Bento

text: A traditional "bento" may contain rice or noodles with fish or meat, often with pickled and cooked vegetables in a box. Containers range from mass-produced disposables to hand-crafted lacquerware. Often various dividers are used to separate ingredients or dishes, especially those with strong flavors, to avoid them affecting the taste of the rest of the meal. A typical divider is green plastic grass, also known as the 'sushi grass'. This also works to slow the growth of bacteria.


title: Bento

text: "Bento" are readily available in many places throughout Japan, including convenience stores, , railway stations, and department stores. However, Japanese homemakers often spend time and energy on carefully prepared box lunches for their spouses, children, or themselves. Outside Japan, the term bento box may be used (e.g., on English menus for Japanese restaurants). "Bentos" can be elaborately arranged in a style called ""kyaraben"" ("character "bento""), which are typically decorated to look like popular characters from Japanese animation (anime), comic books (manga), or video games. Another popular "bento" style is ""oekakiben"" or "picture "bento"". This is decorated to look like people, animals, buildings and monuments or items such as flowers and plants. Contests are often held where "bento" arrangers compete for the most aesthetically attractive arrangements.


title: Bento

text: There are comparable forms of boxed lunches in other Asian countries such as in mainland China, Taiwan and other Sinophone communities as "biàndāng" in Mandarin and "piān-tong" in Taiwanese Hokkien or in Korea as "dosirak" (Hangul: ; Hanja: ). Other Asian countries would either just use "bento" as a loanword or "hokben", which means steaming bento. There has also been discussion regarding what the bento means for Japanese society and what it represents. The analyses range from a simple semiotic approach to one that outlines the deeper ideological meanings behind the bento.


title: Bento

text: In Japan, ""bento"" is written in the Kanji . The word itself originates from the Chinese Song Dynasty slang term (, ), meaning "convenient" or "convenience". When it was imported to Japan, it was written with the ateji and . The word ""bento"" has been used since the 13th century, and the container itself, also called ""bento"", has been known since the 16th century. In modern times, the term is commonly used in East and Southeast Asia. In mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, ""bento"" remains written as the original name (). In other Sinophone communities, both "biandang" and "bento" are often interchangeably used.


title: Bento

text: The increased popularity of "bento" and its term can be traced back to the 12th century during the Kamakura period, when cooked and dried rice called "hoshi-ii" ( or , literally "dried meal") was developed, to be carried to work. "Hoshi-ii" can be eaten as is or boiled with water to make cooked rice, and is stored in a small bag. By the 16th century, wooden lacquered boxes were produced, and "bento" would be eaten during a "hanami" or a tea party.


title: Bento

text: In the Edo period (1603–1867), "bento" culture spread and became more refined. Travelers and sightseers would carry a simple "koshibentō" (, "waist "bento""), consisting of several "onigiri" wrapped with bamboo leaves or in a woven bamboo box. One of the most popular styles of "bento", called "makuno-uchi bentō" ("between-act "bento""), was first made during this period. People who came to see "Noh" and Kabuki ate specially prepared "bentos" between "maku" (acts). Numerous cookbooks were published detailing how to cook, how to pack, and what to prepare for occasions like "hanami" and "Hinamatsuri".


title: Bento

text: In the Meiji period (1868–1912), the first "ekibentō" or "ekiben" ( or , "train station "bento"") was sold. There are several records that claim where "ekiben" was first sold, but it is believed that it was sold on 16 July 1885, at the Utsunomiya train station, in the northern Kantō region of Japan, and contained two "onigiri" and a serving of "takuan" (pickled radish) wrapped in bamboo leaves. As early schools did not provide lunch, students and teachers carried "bentos", as did many employees.


title: Bento

text: In the Taishō period (1912–1926), the aluminum "bento" box became a luxury item because of its ease of cleaning and its silver-like appearance. Also, a move to abolish the practice of "bento" in school became a social issue. Disparities in wealth spread during this period after an export boom during World War I and subsequent crop failures in the Tohoku region. A "bento" too often reflected a student's wealth, and many wondered if this had an unfavorable influence on children both physically, from lack of adequate diet, and psychologically, from a clumsily made "bento" or the richness of food. After World War II, the practice of bringing "bentos" to school gradually declined and was replaced by uniform food provided for all students and teachers.


title: Bento

text: "Bentos" regained popularity in the 1980s, with the help of the microwave oven and the proliferation of convenience stores. In addition, the expensive wood and metal boxes have been replaced at most "bento" shops with inexpensive, disposable polystyrene boxes. However, even handmade "bentos" have made a comeback, and they are once again a common, although not universal, sight at Japanese schools. "Bentos" are still used by workers as a packed lunch, by families on day trips, as well as for school picnics and sports days. The "bento", made at home, is wrapped in a "furoshiki" cloth, which acts as both bag and table mat.


title: Bento

text: The "bento" made its way to Taiwan in the first half of the 20th century during the Japanese colonial period and remains popular to the present day. The Japanese name was borrowed as bendong (Taiwanese Hokkien: "piān-tong") or (Mandarin: "biàndāng") Taiwanese bento always includes protein, such as a crispy fried chicken leg, a piece of grilled mackerel and marinated pork chop, as well as the side dishes. Taiwan Railway Bento is a well known bento manufactured and distributed by the Taiwan Railways Administration at major railway stations and in train cars. It is estimated that, with five million boxed meals sold per year, the annual revenue from bento distribution is 370 million NTD (approx. 10 million USD).


title: Bento

text: In Korea, the packed lunch boxes are called Dosirak (also spelled ""doshirak"") (Hangul: ; Hanja: ) and they are either made at home or bought at the store. They are similar to Chinese and Japanese variations with some slight differences. Korean bento boxes are usually made with a few different vegetable and meat side dishes. The special ingredient is Kimchi which adds the Korean element to the bento box.


title: Bento

text: In Singapore, such packed lunch boxes are often acculturated and localised with cuisines slightly different to Japan. These may include roasted pork (similar to char siew) and soy eggs, as well as fried rice. It has been a common method of meal preparation within Singaporean cuisine as early as the start of the 20th century, which was intensified during the Japanese occupation and cultural influences in subsequent decades, with Japanese-style "bento" also being common in the country today.


title: Bento

text: In 2021, the Singapore Food Tech Event showcased as to how "bento" of the future might look like for a sustainable food system.


title: Bento

text: In Japan, it is common for mothers to make "bento" for their children to take to school. Because making "bento" can take a while, some mothers will prepare the ingredients the night before, and then assemble and pack everything the following morning before their children go to school. It is often a social expectation of mothers to provide bento for their children, to create both a nutritionally balanced and aesthetically pleasing meal. This activity is expected of the mother and emphasized by society at large, and is common in nursery school institutions.


title: Bento

text: The traditional bento that is eaten at school or at work is most often prepared by the mother or the wife. However, it can also be bought in konbini (mini-markets) or from street vendors who appear on street corners at lunchtime. For those in a hurry who have to spend their lunch time aboard the shinkansen (bullet train), there is also the bento ekiben which, as its name suggests, is on sale in the train stations. Bento is also present in more solemn moments, even on the Japanese New Year's table for example. Then called osechi, it comes in two or three levels and contains expensive dishes that are eaten at this high point of the Japanese calendar.


title: Bento

text: Many scholars have written about the bento since the late 20th century. The foundation of their approach is based on the idea that food can carry many different meanings.


title: Bento

text: In the 1970’s, Chie Nakane used the ekiben, a specific type of bento sold in train stations, as a metaphor for group organization in Japan. By comparing this variant of bento to groups in Japan, he considered how different organizations in Japanese society often include identical components so it does not depend on any other groups for its success. For O-Young Lee in 1984, the bento is utilized to present the reductionism tendencies of Japanese culture. All the food in this Japanese style lunch box is only able to be reduced to fit in a little box due to it being Japanese food; it naturally lends itself to being tightly packed. Roland Barthes, on the other hand, used a symbolic approach to describe the lack of a centerpiece in Japanese food. He described the distinct contents of a bento box as a multitude of fragments or ornaments that are thrown together to beautify each other. Joseph Jay Tobin in 1992 discussed how the meticulous assembly of individual bentos has been aided by the reinterpretation of Western goods, practices, and ideas through a process he classified as domestication.


title: Procyonidae

text: Procyonidae is a New World family of the order Carnivora. It comprises the raccoons, ringtails, cacomistles, coatis, kinkajous, olingos, and olinguitos. Procyonids inhabit a wide range of environments and are generally omnivorous.


title: Procyonidae

text: Procyonids are relatively small animals, with generally slender bodies and long tails, though the common raccoon tends to be bulky.


title: Procyonidae

text: Because of their general build, the Procyonidae are often popularly viewed as smaller cousins of the bear family. This is apparent in their German names: a raccoon is called a "Waschbär" (washing bear, as it "washes" its food before eating), a coati is a "Nasenbär" (nose-bear), while a kinkajou is a "Honigbär" (honey-bear). Dutch follows suit, calling the animals "wasbeer", "neusbeer" and "rolstaartbeer" respectively. However, it is now believed that procyonids are more closely related to mustelids than to bears. Procyonids share common morphological characteristics including a shortened rostrum, absent alisphenoid canals, and a relatively flat mandibular fossa. Kinkajous have unique morphological characteristics due to their arboreally-adapted locomotion, including a prehensile tail and unique femoral structure.


title: Procyonidae

text: Due to their omnivorous diet, procyonids have lost some of the adaptations for flesh-eating found in their carnivorous relatives. While they do have carnassial teeth, these are poorly developed in most species, especially the raccoons. Apart from the kinkajou, procyonids have the dental formula:


title: Procyonidae

text: Most members of Procyonidae are solitary however some species form groups. Coati females will form bands of 4-24 individuals that forage together, while Kinkajous have been found to form social groups of two males and one female. Certain Procyonids give birth to one offspring like Ringtails, Olingos, and Kinkajous while Raccoons and Coatis give birth to litters that range in size from 2 to 6 offspring.


title: Procyonidae

text: Procyonid fossils once believed to belong to the genus "Bassariscus", which includes the modern ringtail and cacomistle, have been identified from the Miocene epoch, around 20 million years (Ma) ago. It has been suggested that early procyonids were an offshoot of the canids that adapted to a more omnivorous diet. The recent evolution of procyonids has been centered on Central America (where their diversity is greatest); they invaded the formerly isolated South America as part of the Great American Interchange, beginning about 7.3 Ma ago in the late Miocene, with the appearance of "Cyonasua".


title: Procyonidae

text: Genetic studies have shown that kinkajous are a sister group to all other extant procyonids; they split off about 22.6 Ma ago. The clades leading to coatis and olingos on one branch, and to ringtails and raccoons on the other, separated about 17.7 Ma ago. The divergence between olingos and coatis is estimated to have occurred about 10.2 Ma ago, at about the same time that ringtails and raccoons parted ways. The separation between coatis and mountain coatis is estimated to have occurred 7.7 Ma ago.


title: Procyonidae

text: There has been considerable historical uncertainty over the correct classification of several members. The red panda was previously classified in this family, but it is now classified in its own family, the Ailuridae, based on molecular biology studies. The status of the various olingos was disputed: some regarded them all as subspecies of "Bassaricyon gabbii" before DNA sequence data demonstrated otherwise.


title: Procyonidae

text: The traditional classification scheme shown below on the left predates the recent revolution in our understanding of procyonid phylogeny based on genetic sequence analysis. This outdated classification groups kinkajous and olingos together on the basis of similarities in morphology that are now known to be an example of parallel evolution; similarly, coatis are shown as being most closely related to raccoons, when in fact they are closest to olingos. Below right is a cladogram showing the results of the recent molecular studies . Genus "Nasuella" was not included in these studies, but in a separate study was found to nest within "Nasua".


title: Procyonidae

text: Several recent molecular studies have resolved the phylogenetic relationships between the procyonids, as illustrated in the cladogram below.


title: Procyonidae

text: Below is a list of extinct taxa (many of which are fossil genera and species) complied in alphabetical order under their respective subfamilies.


title: Trilateral Commission

text: The Trilateral Commission is a nongovernmental international organization aimed at fostering closer cooperation between Japan, Western Europe and North America. It was founded in July 1973 principally by American banker and philanthropist David Rockefeller, an internationalist who sought to address the challenges posed by the growing economic and political interdependence between the U.S. and its allies in North America, Western Europe, and Japan.


title: Trilateral Commission

text: The Trilateral Commission is headed by an executive committee and three regional chairs representing Europe, North America, and the Asia-Pacific region, with headquarters in Paris, Washington, D.C., and Tokyo, respectively. Meetings are held annually at locations that rotate among the three regions; regional and national meetings are held throughout the year. Most gatherings focus on discussing reports and debating strategy to meet the commission's aims.


title: Trilateral Commission

text: Membership in the Trilateral Commission is highly selective and by invitation only; as of 2021, there were roughly 400 members, including leading figures in politics, business, media, and academia. Each country within the three regions is assigned a quota of members reflecting its relative political and economic strength. The organization represents influential commercial and political interests that share a commitment to private enterprise and trade, multilateralism, and global governance; this has subjected it to criticism for elitism.


title: Trilateral Commission

text: The Trilateral Commission was formed in 1973 by private citizens of Japan, North American nations (the U.S. and Canada), and Western European nations to foster substantive political and economic dialogue across the world. The idea of the commission was developed in the early 1970s, a time of considerable discord among the United States and its allies in Western Europe, Japan, and Canada.


title: Trilateral Commission

text: Zbigniew Brzezinski, a Rockefeller advisor who was a specialist on international affairs (and later President Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor from 1977 to 1981), left Columbia University to organize the group, along with:


title: Trilateral Commission

text: Other founding members included Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker, both later heads of the Federal Reserve System.


title: Trilateral Commission

text: The Trilateral Commission initiated its biannual meetings in October 1973 in Tokyo, Japan. In May 1976 the first plenary meeting of all of the commission's regional groups took place in Kyoto, Japan. Since the ninth meeting in 1978, plenary meetings have taken place annually. Besides annual plenary meetings, regional meetings have also taken place in each of the Asia Pacific Group, the European Group and the North American Group. Since its founding, the discussion group has produced an official journal, "Trialogue".


title: Trilateral Commission

text: Membership is divided into numbers proportionate to each of the think tank's three regional areas. North America is represented by 120 members: 20 Canadian, 13 Mexican and 87 American. The European group has reached its limit of 170 members from almost every country on the continent; the ceilings for individual countries are 20 for Germany, 18 for France, Italy and the United Kingdom, 12 for Spain and 1–6 for the rest. At first Asia and Oceania were represented only by Japan, but in 2000 the Japanese group of 85 members became the Pacific Asia group, comprising 117 members: 75 Japanese, 11 South Koreans, seven Australian and New Zealand citizens, and 15 members from the ASEAN nations (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand). The Pacific Asia group also included 9 members from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The commission now claims "more than 100" Pacific Asian members.


title: Trilateral Commission

text: The Trilateral Commission's bylaws apparently deny membership to public officials. It draws its members from politics, business, and academia, and has three chairpersons, one from each region. The current chairs are former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Joseph S. Nye, Jr., former head of the European Central Bank Jean-Claude Trichet, and Yasuchika Hasegawa, chair of Takeda Pharmaceutical Company.


title: Trilateral Commission

text: Social critic and academic Noam Chomsky has criticized the commission as undemocratic, pointing to its publication "The Crisis of Democracy", which describes the strong popular interest in politics during the 1970s as an "excess of democracy". He described it as one of the most interesting and insightful books showing the modern democratic system not to really be a democracy at all, but controlled by elites. Chomsky says that as it was an internal discussion, they "let their hair down" and talked about how the public needs to be reduced to its proper state of apathy and obedience.


title: Trilateral Commission

text: Critics accuse the Commission of promoting a global consensus among the international ruling classes in order to manage international affairs in the interest of the financial and industrial elites under the Trilateral umbrella.


title: Trilateral Commission

text: In his 1980 book "With No Apologies", Republican Senator Barry Goldwater suggested that the discussion group was "a skillful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power: political, monetary, intellectual, and ecclesiastical... [in] the creation of a worldwide economic power superior to the political governments of the nation-states involved."


title: Trilateral Commission

text: Some conspiracy theorists believe the organization to be a central plotter of a world government or synarchy. As documented by journalist Jonathan Kay, Luke Rudkowski interrupted a lecture by former Trilateral Commission director Zbigniew Brzezinski in April 2007 and accused the organization and a few others of having orchestrated the 9/11 attacks to initiate a new world order.


title: Trilateral Commission

text: Neo-conservative pundit Charles Krauthammer mockingly alluded to the conspiracy theories when he was asked in 2012 who makes up the "Republican establishment", saying, "Karl Rove is the president. We meet every month on the full moon... [at] the Masonic Temple. We have the ritual: Karl brings the incense, I bring the live lamb and the long knife, and we began... with a pledge of allegiance to the Trilateral Commission."


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: The 2018 Italian general election was held on 4 March 2018 after the Italian Parliament was dissolved by President Sergio Mattarella on 28 December 2017. Voters were electing the 630 members of the Chamber of Deputies and the 315 elective members of the Senate of the Republic for the 18th legislature of the Italian Republic since 1948. The election took place concurrently with the Lombard and Lazio regional elections. No party or coalition gained an absolute majority in the parliament, even though the centre-right coalition won a plurality of seats as a coalition, and the Five Star Movement (M5S) won a plurality of seats as an individual party.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: The centre-right coalition, whose main party was the right-wing League led by Matteo Salvini, emerged with a plurality of seats in the Chamber of Deputies and in the Senate, while the anti-establishment M5S led by Luigi Di Maio became the party with the largest number of votes. The centre-left coalition, led by former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of the governing Democratic Party (PD), came third; however, no political group or party won an outright majority, resulting in a hung parliament.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: The 2018 Italian government formation lasted three months and the Conte I Cabinet was formed on 1 June between the M5S and the League, whose leaders both became deputy prime ministers in a populist coalition government led by the M5S-linked independent Giuseppe Conte as Prime Minister of Italy. The 2019 Italian government crisis started when the League withdrew its support of the government and the coalition ended with Conte's resignation on 20 August. A new M5S-led coalition was formed with the centre-left PD and the Free and Equal left-wing parliamentary group, with Conte at its head, on 5 September 2019. Amid the 2021 Italian government crisis, the Conte II Cabinet was replaced by a national unity government headed by Mario Draghi.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: In the 2013 Italian general election held in March, none of the three main alliances (the centre-right coalition led by Silvio Berlusconi, the centre-left coalition led by Pier Luigi Bersani, and the anti-establishment, populist Five Star Movement (M5S) led by Beppe Grillo) won an outright majority in the Italian Parliament. After a failed attempt to form a government by Bersani, then-secretary of the Democratic Party (PD), and Giorgio Napolitano's reluctantly-accepted second term as President of Italy in the 2013 Italian presidential election held in April, Enrico Letta, Bersani's deputy, received the task of forming a grand coalition government. The Letta Cabinet consisted of the PD, Berlusconi's The People of Freedom (PdL), Civic Choice (SC), the Union of the Centre (UDC), and the Italian Radicals (RI).


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: On 16 November 2013, Berlusconi launched the new Forza Italia (FI), named like the previous Forza Italia party (1994–2009). Additionally, Berlusconi announced that FI would be opposed to Letta's government, causing the split from the PdL/FI of a large group of deputies and senators led by Minister of Interior Angelino Alfano, who launched the alternative New Centre-Right (NCD) party and remained loyal to the government, which also came to include the Populars for Italy (PpI).


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: Following the election of Matteo Renzi as secretary of the PD in December 2013, there were persistent tensions culminating in Letta's resignation as Prime Minister in February 2014. The Renzi Cabinet was based on the same coalition, including the NCD, but in a new fashion. The new Prime Minister had a strong mandate from the PD, which was reinforced in May by the party's strong showing in the 2014 European Parliament election in Italy; the 2015 Italian presidential election resulted in the election of Sergio Mattarella, a former PD member, as the president of Italy in January. While in power, Renzi implemented several reforms, including the Italian electoral law of 2015 ("Italicum") that would be declared partially unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court of Italy in January 2017 and replaced by the Italian electoral law of 2017 ("Rosatellum"), and a relaxation of labour and employment laws known as the Jobs Act with the intention of boosting economic growth that would also found by the same court to be partially unconstitutional in September 2018, which was upheld in July 2020, plus a thorough reform of the public administration, the simplification of the civil trial, the recognition of same-sex unions (not marriages), and the abolition of several minor taxes.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: As a result of the Libyan Civil War, a major problem faced by Renzi was the high level of illegal immigration to Italy. During his tenure, there was an increase in the number of immigrants rescued at sea being brought to southern Italian ports, prompting criticism from the M5S, FI, and the Northern League, and causing a loss of popularity for Renzi. Into 2016, opinion polls registered the PD's strength, the growth of the M5S, the Northern League, and Brothers of Italy (FdI), FI's decline, SC's disappearance, and the replacement of Left Ecology Freedom (SEL) with Italian Left (SI).


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: In the 2016 Italian constitutional referendum, a constitutional reform proposed by Renzi's government and duly approved by Parliament was rejected 59% to 41%. Under the reform, the Senate would have been composed of 100 members, of which 95 are regional representatives and five are presidential appointees. Following defeat in December 2016, Renzi stepped down as Prime Minister and was replaced by Minister of Foreign Affairs Paolo Gentiloni, another PD member and deputy.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: In early 2017, in opposition to Renzi's policies, some left-wing PD members led by Bersani, Massimo D'Alema, and Roberto Speranza launched, along with SI splinters, the Democratic and Progressive Movement (MDP). Contextually, the NCD was transformed into Popular Alternative (AP). In April, Renzi was re-elected secretary of the PD and became the party's candidate for Prime Minister, defeating Minister of Justice Andrea Orlando and the governor of Apulia Michele Emiliano.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: In May 2017, Matteo Salvini was re-elected federal secretary of the Northern League and launched his own bid. Under Salvini, the party had emphasised Euroscepticism, opposition to immigration, and other right-wing populist policies. His aim had been to re-launch it as a nationalist party, withering any notion of northern separatism. This focus became particularly evident in December 2017, when the party ("Lega Nord") presented its new electoral logo dropping "Nord" ("Northern"). That same month, the League per Salvini Premier was founded as a sister party to promote Salvini's candidature as Prime Minister. Political commentators have since described it as a parallel party of the League, with the aim of politically replacing the latter, which had been burdened by a statutory debt of €49 million.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: In September 2017, Luigi Di Maio was selected as candidate for Prime Minister and political head of the M5S, replacing Grillo; in the following months, Grillo was accused by critics of continuing to play his role as "de facto" leader of the party, while an increasingly important, albeit unofficial, role was assumed by Davide Casaleggio, son of Gianroberto, a web strategist who founded the M5S along with Grillo in 2009 and died in 2016. In January 2018, Grillo separated his own blog from the movement; his blog was used in the previous years as an online newspaper of the M5S and the main propaganda tool. This event was seen by many as the proof that Grillo was slowly leaving politics.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: The autumn registered some major developments to the left of the political spectrum. In November, the RI, Forza Europa, and individual liberals launched a joint list named More Europe (+E), led by the long-time RI leader Emma Bonino. In December, the MDP, SI, and Possible launched a joint list named Free and Equal (LeU) under the leadership of Pietro Grasso, the president of the Senate and former anti-mafia prosecutor. That same month, the Italian Socialist Party, the Federation of the Greens, Civic Area, and Progressive Area formed a list named Together in support of the PD, and the Communist Refoundation Party, the Italian Communist Party, social centres, minor parties, local committees, associations, and groups launched a far-left joint list named Power to the People (PaP) under the leadership of Viola Carofalo.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: In late December 2017, the centrist post-NCD Popular Alternative (AP), which had been a key coalition partner for the PD, divided itself among those who wanted to return into the centre-right's fold and those who supported Renzi's coalition. Two groups of AP splinters (one led by Maurizio Lupi and the other by Enrico Costa) formed, along with Direction Italy, Civic Choice, Act!, Cantiere Popolare, and the Movement for the Autonomies, a joint list within the centre-right named Us with Italy (NcI). The list was later enlarged to the Union of the Centre and other minor parties. The remaining members of the AP, Italy of Values, Centrists for Europe, Solidary Democracy, and minor groups joined forces in the pro-PD Popular Civic List (CP) led by Minister of Health Beatrice Lorenzin.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: On 28 December 2017, President Mattarella dissolved the parliament and a new general election was called for 4 March 2018.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: On 21 February 2018, Marco Minniti, the Italian Minister of the Interior, warned: "There is a concrete risk of the mafias conditioning electors' free vote." The Sicilian Mafia have been active in Italian election meddling; the Camorra and 'Ndrangheta organisations have also taken an interest.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: In late February 2018, Berlusconi indicated Antonio Tajani, the president of the European Parliament, as his candidate for the premiership if the centre-right coalition won the general election, and if FI achieved a plurality of the votes inside the coalition, condition that did not occur, resulting in a victory of the League, the party led by Salvini.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: The first phase of the electoral campaign was marked by the statement of President Mattarella to parties for the presentation of "realistic and concrete" proposals during the traditional end of the year's message, in which he also expressed the wish for a high participation in the ballot.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: The electoral programme of the PD included, among the main points, the introduction of a minimum hourly wage of €10, a measure that would affect 15% of workers, that is those workers who do not adhere to the national collective agreements, plus a cut of the contributory wedge for permanent contracts, a relocation allowance and an increase in subsidies for the unemployed, a monthly allowance of €80 for parents for each minor child, fiscal detraction of €240 for parents with children, and the progressive reduction of the rates of IRPEF and IRES, respectively the income tax and the corporate tax. Regarding immigration, which had been a major problem in Italy for the previous years, the PD advocated a reduction in migrant flows through bilateral agreements with the countries of origin and pretended to a halt to European Union funding for countries like Hungary and Poland that have refused to take in any of the 600,000 migrants who have reached Italy through the Mediterranean over the past four years. Among the PD's allies, the CP proposed free nursery schools, a tax exemption for corporate welfare, and other measures regarding public health, including the contrast to the long waiting list in hospitals, the abolition of the so-called "supertickets", and an extension of home care for the elderly. +E advocated the re-launch of the process of European integration and federalisation of the European Union towards the formation of the United States of Europe. This was also supported by the PD, with the PD's leader Renzi saying the United States of Europe is the future. In opposition to the PD's policies implemented by Minister of Interior Marco Minniti, +E advocated the social integration of migrants.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: The main proposal of the centre-right coalition was a tax reform based on the introduction of a flat tax; for Berlusconi, it was initially based on the lowest current rate (23%) with the threshold raised to €12,000, then proceeding to a gradual reduction of the rate, while according to Salvini the tax rate should be only 15%. The economic newspaper "Il Sole 24 Ore" estimated the cost of this measure at around €25 billion per year calculated with a 20% rate, or €40 billion with 15%. Berlusconi also proposed the cancellation of IRAP, a tax on productivity, plus increase of minimum pensions to €1,000, the introduction of a "dignity income" to fight poverty, the end of contribution on youth recruitment, changes to the Fornero Law, which regulated pensions, and the launch of a Marshall Plan for Africa to reduce illegal immigration to Italy. Within FI, there were some representatives of the Animalist Movement led by Michela Vittoria Brambilla, whose main focus was the banning of fur clothing and stricter controls in circuses, free veterinary care, and the establishment of an ombudsman for animal rights. The League proposed the complete replacement of the Fornero Law and the possibility of retirement with 41 years of contributions, the "scrapping" of tax records for taxpayers in difficulty, an operation that should yield up to €35 billion to the state, and the disbandment of Equitalia, the company that deals with the collection of taxes, plus the abolition of the limit on the use of cash and the regularization of prostitution; moreover, Salvini's main aim was a drastic reduction of illegal immigration by reintroducing border controls, blocking arrivals, and repatriating all migrants who have no right to stay in Italy. The FdI proposed free nurseries, a check for €400 per month for newborns up to the six years old to increase population growth, parental leave paid to 80% up to the sixth year of birth, increase in salaries and equipment to law enforcement, the increased use of the Italian Army as a measure to fight crime, and a new law on self-defense.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: The M5S presented a programme whose main points are the introduction of a basic income, known as "income of citizenship", to fight poverty, a measure that would cost between €15 and €20 billion annually, plus the cut of the public debt by 40 points in relation to GDP in ten years, the adoption of measures to revitalise youth employment, a cut in pensions of over €5,000 net not entirely based on the contribution method, the reduction of IRPEF rates and the extension of the income tax threshold, the increase in spending on family welfare measures from 1.5 to 2.5% of GDP, and a constitutional law that obliges members of parliament to resign if they intend to change party. Di Maio also proposed a legislative simplification, starting with the elimination of almost 400 laws with a single legislative provision.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: LeU focused on the so-called right to study, proposing in particular the abolition of tuition fees for students who take the exams regularly, with the estimated cost for the state budget of €1.6 billion. LeU also proposed the reintroducing the Workers' Statute, which offered protections that were eliminated by the Renzi government's Jobs Act, plus fighting tax evasion, corruption, and organised crime.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: On 3 February 2018, a drive-by shooting event occurred in the city of Macerata, Marche, in Central Italy, where six African migrants were seriously wounded. Luca Traini, a 28-year-old local man, was arrested and charged with attempted murder, and was also charged for the attack against the local headquarters of the ruling PD party. After the attack, Traini reportedly had an Italian flag draped on his shoulders and raised his arm in the fascist salute. Traini stated that the attack was "revenge" for Pamela Mastropietro, an 18-year-old Roman woman whose dismembered body had been found few days earlier, stuffed into two suitcases and dumped in the countryside; for this, three Nigerian drug dealers were arrested, the main suspect being Innocent Oseghale, a 29-year-old failed asylum seeker. Missing body parts had sparked allegations of the murder having been a muti killing also involving cannibalism.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: The case sparked anger and anti-immigrant sentiment in Macerata. Traini's lawyer reported "alarming solidarity" for Traini expressed by the populace, while Mastropietro's mother publicly thanked Traini for "lighting a candle" for her daughter. A second autopsy of the girl's remains, published after the attack against the African migrants, revealed that Mastropietro had been strangled, stabbed, and then flayed while still alive. The murder of Mastropietro and the attack by Traini, and their appraisal by Italian media and the public were "set to become a decisive factor" in the national elections.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: Traini was a member and former local candidate of the League, and many political commentators, intellectuals, and politicians criticized Salvini in connection with the attack, accusing him of having "spread hate and racism" in the country. Roberto Saviano, the notable anti-mafia writer, labeled Salvini as the "moral instigator" of Traini's attack. Salvini responded to critics by accusing the centre-left government of responsibility for Mastropietro's death through allowing migrants to stay in the country and having "blood on their hands", asserting that the blame lies with those who "fill [Italy] with illegal immigrants".


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: Prime Minister Gentiloni stated that he "trusts in the sense of responsibility of all political forces. Criminals are criminals and the state will be particularly harsh with anyone that wants to fuel a spiral of violence." Gentiloni added that "hate and violence will not divide Italy". Minister Minniti condemned the attack against the Africans, saying that any political party must "ride the hate". Renzi, whose party was also accused about its position on immigration, stated that "calm and responsibility" from all political forces would now be necessary. In the constituency of Macerata, the centre-right coalition, led by the League, won a plurality of the votes in the ballot, electing candidate Tullio Patassini, and showed an increase from 0.4% of the vote in 2013 to 21% in 2018, five years later.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: Differently from many other Western world countries, electoral debates between parties' leaders are not so common before general elections in Italy; the last debate between the two main candidates to premiership dated back to the 2006 Italian general election between Silvio Berlusconi and Romano Prodi. With few exceptions, almost every main political leader had denied his participation to an electoral debate with other candidates, preferring interviews with TV hosts and journalists; however, many debates took places between other leading members of the main parties.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: As a consequence of the 2016 Italian constitutional referendum and of two different sentences of the Constitutional Court of Italy, the electoral laws for the two houses of the Italian Parliament lacked uniformity. In October 2017, the PD, AP, FI, the League, and minor parties agreed on a new electoral law, which was approved by the Chamber of Deputies with 375 votes in favour and 215 against and by the Senate with 214 votes against 61; the reform was opposed by the M5S, the MDP, SI, FdI and minor parties.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: The so-called "Rosatellum bis", named after Ettore Rosato (PD leader in the Chamber of Deputies), is a mixed electoral system, with 37% of seats allocated using a first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting and 63% using the proportional largest remainder method, with one round of voting. The 630 deputies were to be elected as follows:


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: For Italian residents, each house members were to be elected in single ballots, including the constituency candidate and his/her supporting party lists. In each single-member constituency, the deputy or senator is elected on a plurality basis, while the seats in multi-member constituencies are allocated nationally. In order to be calculated in single-member constituency results, parties need to obtain at least 1% of the national vote. In order to receive seats in multi-member constituencies, parties need to obtain at least 3% of the national vote. Elects from multi-member constituencies would come from closed lists.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: The voting paper, which is a single one for the first-past-the-post and the proportional systems, shows the names of the candidates to single-member constituencies and in close conjunction with them the symbols of the linked lists for the proportional part, each one with a list of the relative candidates. The voter was able to cast their vote in three different ways:


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: The centre-right coalition emerged with a plurality of seats in the Chamber of Deputies and in the Senate, while the anti-establishment Five Star Movement became the party with the largest number of votes. The centre-left coalition came third. As no political group or party won an outright majority, the election resulted in a hung parliament.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: The autonomous region of Aosta Valley, in northwestern Italy, elects one member to the Chamber of Deputies through a direct first-past-the-post election. Some parties that formed electoral coalitions in Italy, might have opted to run against one another (or form different coalitions) in this particular region.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: Twelve members of the Chamber of Deputies are elected by Italians abroad. Two members are elected for North America and Central America (including most of the Caribbean), four members for South America (including Trinidad and Tobago), five members for Europe, and one member for the rest of the world (Africa, Asia, Oceania, and Antarctica). Voters in these regions select candidate lists and cast a preference vote for individual candidates. The seats are allocated by proportional representation. The electoral law allows for parties to form different coalitions on the lists abroad, compared to the lists in Italy; Forza Italia, the League, and Brothers of Italy formed a unified list for abroad constituencies.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: Di Maio and Renzi run in a single-member constituency, respectively in Acerra, near Naples, for the Chamber of Deputies and in Florence for the Senate. Salvini ran in many multi-member constituencies through the country and he was elected in Calabria due to the mechanism of the electoral law, while Meloni was elected in the single-member constituency of Latina, Lazio, for the Chamber of Deputies.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: Using the Gallagher index, the disproportionality of the Chamber of Deputies in the election was 5.50, while for the Senate of the Republic it was 6.12.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: After the election's results were known, both Luigi Di Maio and Matteo Salvini stated that they must receive from President Sergio Mattarella the task of forming a new cabinet because they led the largest party and the largest coalition, respectively. On 5 March, Matteo Renzi announced that the Democratic Party (PD) would be in the opposition during this legislature and he would resign as party leader when a new cabinet is formed. On 6 March, Salvini repeated his campaign message that his party would refuse any coalition with the Five Star Movement (M5S). On 14 March, Salvini offered to govern with the M5S, imposing the condition that the League ally Forza Italia, led by the former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, must also take part in any coalition. Di Maio rejected this proposal on the grounds that Salvini was "choosing restoration instead of revolution" because "Berlusconi represents the past".


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: On 12 March, Renzi resigned as party leader and was replaced by deputy secretary Maurizio Martina. On 24 March, the centre-right coalition and the M5S agreed on the election of presidents of the houses of parliament, Roberto Fico of the M5S for the Chamber of Deputies and Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati of FI for the Senate of the Republic.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: On 7 April, Di Maio made an appeal to the PD to "bury the hatchet" and consider a governing coalition with the M5S. On 18 April, President Sergio Mattarella gave newly-elected Senate president Casellati a so-called "exploratory mandate" to form a government of M5S and the centre-right coalition, with a two-day deadline. On 23 April, President Mattarella gave newly-elected Chamber of Deputies president Fico an "exploratory mandate" to form a government between M5S and the PD, with a three-day deadline. The decision came after the previous attempt by Casellati failed to show any progress. On 30 April, following an interview of Renzi, who expressed his strong opposition to an alliance with the M5S, Di Maio called for new elections.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: On 7 May, President Mattarella held a third round of government formation talks, after which he formally confirmed the lack of any possible majority (the M5S rejecting an alliance with the whole centre-right coalition, the PD rejecting an alliance with both the M5S and the centre-right coalition, and the League's Salvini refusing to start a government with the M5S without Berlusconi's FI, whose presence in the government was explicitly vetoed by M5S's Di Maio); on the same circumstance, he announced his intention to soon appoint a "neutral government" (irrespective of the M5S and the League's refusal to support such an option) to take over from the Gentiloni Cabinet, which was considered unable to lead Italy into a second consecutive election, as it was representing a majority from a past legislature, and offering an early election in July as a realistic option to take into consideration due to the deadlock situation.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: On 9 May, after a day of rumours, both the M5S and the League officially requested President Mattarella to give them 24 more hours to strike a government agreement between the two parties. Later in the evening that same day, Berlusconi publicly announced that FI would not support a M5S–League government on a vote of confidence but would still maintain the centre-right alliance, opening the doors to a possible majority government between the two parties.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: On 13 May, the M5S and the League reached an agreement on a government program, clearing the way for the formation of a governing coalition between the two parties, while they still negotiated the members of a government cabinet, including the prime minister. The M5S and League leaders were slated to meet with President Mattarella on 14 May to guide the formation of a new government. On 17 May, the M5S and the League agreed to the details regarding the government program, officially clearing the way for the formation of a governing coalition between the two parties. The final draft of their program was then published on 18 May.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: On 18 May, 44,796 members of the M5S cast their vote online on the matter concerning the government agreement, with 42,274, more than 94%, voting in favour. A second vote sponsored by the League then took place on 19 May and 20 May, and was open to the general public. On 20 May, it was announced that approximately 215,000 Italian citizens had participated in the League election, with around 91 percent supporting the government agreement.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: On 21 May, the M5S and the League proposed law professor Giuseppe Conte as Prime Minister. On 23 May, Conte was invited to the Quirinal Palace to receive the task of forming a new cabinet and was granted a mandate by President Mattarella. On 27 May, the designated Prime Minister Conte renounced to his office due to contrasts between the League's leader Salvini and President Mattarella. Salvini proposed the university professor Paolo Savona as Minister of Economy and Finances, but Mattarella opposed him, considering Savona too Eurosceptic and anti-German. In his speech after Conte's resignation, Mattarella declared that the two parties wanted to bring Italy out of the eurozone; as the guarantor of the Constitution of Italy and country's interest and stability, he could not allow this. On the following day, Mattarella gave Carlo Cottarelli, an economist and former IMF director, the task of forming a new government.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: In the statement released after the designation, Cottarelli specified that in case of confidence by the Italian Parliament, he would contribute to the approval of the budget law for 2019, then Parliament would be dissolved and a new general election would be called for the beginning of 2019. In the absence of confidence, the government would deal only with the so-called current affairs and lead the country toward new elections after August 2018. Cottarelli also guaranteed the neutrality of the government and the commitment not to run for the next election. He ensured a prudent management of Italian national debt and the defense of national interests through a constructive dialogue with the European Union.


title: 2018 Italian general election

text: On 28 May 2018, the PD announced that they would vote the confidence to Cottarelli, while the M5S and the centre-right parties FI, the League, and Brothers of Italy (FdI) announced their vote against. Cottarelli was expected to submit his list of ministers for approval to President Mattarella on 29 May. On 29 May and 30 May, he held only informal consultations with Mattarella. According to the Italian media, he was facing difficulties due to the unwillingness of several potential candidates to serve as ministers in his cabinet and may even renounce. Meanwhile, Salvini and Di Maio announced their willingness to restart the negotiations to form a political government, and the FdI leader Giorgia Meloni gave her support to the initiative. The government was formed the following day.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: The series gained popularity on the 8-bit NES for its tight action-platform gameplay, catchy music and, according to G4's "X-Play", for being the first console game to have the story presented in cinematic cutscenes. The 8-bit trilogy was enhanced for the 16-bit Super NES in 1995. Sega released two "Ninja Gaiden" games for the Game Gear and Master System, the latter only for PAL regions. A new game, titled "Ninja Gaiden", was released in 2004 as a 3D action game on the Xbox, developed by Team Ninja, the makers of "Dead or Alive". The "Ninja Gaiden" franchise is known for its high degree of difficulty, particularly the original NES version and the Xbox revival.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: According to "Eurogamer", the gameplay of the "Strider" arcade franchise was a vital influence on the modern incarnation of the "Ninja Gaiden" franchise.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: The arcade version of "Ninja Gaiden" (released in 1988, in Japan, North America, and Europe) was a "Double Dragon"-style beat 'em up, in which the player controls a nameless blue ninja (red for a second player) as he travels to various regions of the United States, to defeat an evil cult led by a descendant of Nostradamus, who is trying to fulfill his ancestor's prophecy of the rise of an evil king in 1999. The player has a variety of techniques, such as a flying neck throw and a backflip. The player can obtain power-ups by throwing characters into background objects, such as street lights and dumpsters. The player fights primarily with their bare hands, although a sword can be used for a limited time as a power-up; they can use overhead environmental objects as a prop from which he can deliver more powerful kicking attacks. Although the game takes place in different environments, there are primarily only five kinds of enemies, all of which appear in every level (although some levels have extra enemy types). The game is remembered for its infamous continue screen, where the player character is tied to the ground underneath a descending circular saw.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: The original "Ninja Gaiden" arcade game received several ports for the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga and ZX Spectrum systems. The Amiga version in particular, retained almost all of the graphics and functionality of the original game, including the two-player cooperative gameplay and the introduction. All these versions, developed by Ocean Software, were released in Europe as "Shadow Warriors". An MS-DOS port of the original "Ninja Gaiden" was also developed by Hi Tech Expressions, this time for its release in North America as "Ninja Gaiden", as opposed to the other versions. However, it featured stripped down play mechanics and a low 16 colour palette. Lastly, it was ported to the Atari Lynx handheld system. An emulated version of the arcade game exists in the Xbox version's update "Ninja Gaiden Black" as a bonus feature and was available through Nintendo's Wii Virtual Console download service.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: The first "Ninja Gaiden" for the Nintendo Entertainment System was released in Japan on December 9, 1988, in the United States in March 1989, and in Europe on August 15, 1991. A ninja named Ryu Hayabusa finds a letter by his recently missing father, Ken, telling him to go to America and meet with an archaeologist Dr. Smith. Dr. Smith tells Ryu that two statues hidden by Ryu's father and the doctor have the power to end the world if united. Ryu ends up in South America and battles Jaquio, an evil cult leader bent on reviving the ancient demon called "Jashin" and responsible for the attack on Ken Hayabusa.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: While the arcade game itself bears little or no connection to the later NES trilogy or Xbox revival, certain aspects of it were carried over to the first NES title. The first stage in the NES game is a loose adaptation of the first stage in the arcade game and the opening cutscene in the NES game vaguely resembles the intro in the arcade version. Both games feature Jason Voorhees lookalikes and the final boss in the arcade game vaguely resembles Bloody Malth from the NES game. The game introduced many of the series' staples, including cinematic cutscenes, the boomerang-like Windmill Shuriken, and the magical techniques called Ninja Arts. To use the ninja arts, players must collect power-ups. Each art uses up a certain number of power-ups.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: A port was developed by Hudson for the PC Engine featuring enhanced graphics, reworked music, and rebalanced difficulty. An LCD handheld version produced by Tiger Electronics was released in 1988, which also had a sequel.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: In the sequel, "Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos", Ryu learns of a new villain named Ashtar, Emperor of Chaos and master to Jaquio. Ryu must rescue Irene Lew, a former CIA agent, from Ashtar and destroy the Dark Sword, a weapon of great power, forged from a bone of the demon, as the Dragon Sword is forged from a fang of a dragon. In the end, Ryu learns that Jaquio has been reborn to fulfill the destiny of Ashtar and the Dark Sword. This game was the first to feature Spirit Clones, invincible copies of Ryu which would mimic his movements and fight by his side. Also introduced was the ability to scale walls without the need to constantly jump upwards.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: "" received computer ports developed by GameTek for the PC (MS-DOS format) and the Commodore Amiga, both for their release in North America. They feature a 256 colour palette (32 on Amiga) and a save-and-load function, where the player's exact position in the game can be saved at any given moment.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: The third game, titled "Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom" features rogue secret agents, genetic engineering and the eponymous warship. The gameplay is largely unchanged and more is revealed about Foster, the CIA agent who sent Ryu after Jaquio in the first game and his true intentions towards the ninja. It is the first game in the series to have limited continues. Additionally, most attacks deal 2 damage units to the player character (rather than 1 in the previous games), who still has only 16 health units. Additions include a sword extension power-up that increases the range of the player's attack until the end of the level or until death, new types of surfaces from which the player can hang, and automatically scrolling areas.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: The story of the 2004 release of "Ninja Gaiden" and its sequels have been established as prequels to the NES series, and takes place in the same universe as Team Ninja's "Dead or Alive" fighting games. The main story of the game involves Ryu Hayabusa setting out on a quest to retrieve the Dark Dragon Blade from the hands of evil after most of his clan was wiped out.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: The series was revived after several years with the 2004 release of "Ninja Gaiden" for the Xbox. The title was developed over five years by developer Tomonobu Itagaki and his Team Ninja, and eventually released to high sales and critical acclaim.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: An upgraded edition with new content, modes and features came out the following year under the name "Ninja Gaiden Black". Later, an enhanced port directed by Yosuke Hayashi was made for the PlayStation 3 as "Ninja Gaiden Sigma", released on July 3, 2007. This version has its graphics reworked to high definition standards, and Rachel as a playable character. In 2012, an updated version of the "Sigma" game was a launch title for the PlayStation Vita, titled "Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus". It added a few new costumes for the playable characters, touch controls and making ninpo attacks stronger, and a new trophy list for the game.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: The game was well-received, having a 94% score on Metacritic. The game magazine EGM awarded it Best Xbox game of the year.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: "Ninja Gaiden II " was a follow up to the series, released in 2008 and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360. It is set one year after the events in "Ninja Gaiden" (2004). The new features in the game were four difficulty levels, a regenerating health bar, and upgraded graphics and enemy AI.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: An enhanced version of "Ninja Gaiden II" was released for the PlayStation 3, titled "Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2". The PlayStation Vita version, titled "Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 Plus", was released in 2013.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: Although series director Tomonobu Itagaki left shortly after the release of "Ninja Gaiden II", Tecmo Koei still owned the franchise and planned to instigate developments of another title, with a newly restructured Team Ninja. This title was revealed as "Ninja Gaiden III" at the Tokyo Game Show 2010. Information about the game in the coming months revealed that the new director, Yosuke Hayashi, would be taking the series to new directions, including the addition of "resistance" in cutting through enemies. Later, at the E3 2011, the game was unveiled as "Ninja Gaiden 3". Changes to gameplay included removing dismemberment, replacing the roll with a new "slide" maneuver, and a "kunai climb" technique that would allow Ryu to scale certain walls. Tecmo Koei released the game on March 20, 2012, for both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: An expanded version of the game titled "Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge" was released later on November 18 of the same year for the Wii U. In early 2013, "Razor's Edge" was released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 as well.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: Sega, under license from Tecmo, developed three games but ultimately released only two: one for the Master System and another for the Game Gear, both bearing the "Ninja Gaiden" title, marking the first time a game in the series was released with the "Ninja Gaiden" name in Japan and Europe.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: Released in Japan, North America and Europe in 1991 for the Game Gear, this game was not very close to any of the other "Ninja Gaiden" games. It featured a smaller screen size, bigger character sprites, slower game speed, and unlike the NES and Master System games which were more oriented to platforming action, this was more a linear side-scrolling game.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: Tecmo released a Game Boy version called "Ninja Gaiden Shadow". It was a licensed edit of a proposed "Shadow of the Ninja" (Natsume) Game Boy port, and serves as a prequel to the original game.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: Released in Europe, Australia and Brazil in 1992 for the Master System, this game has similar gameplay mechanics to the NES games, though Ryu bounces off walls instead of clinging to them, like the later 3D games. The game features a new storyline, characters and scenarios, not connected to any of the other "Ninja Gaiden" games.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: A Mega Drive/Genesis version of "Ninja Gaiden" was in development by Sega sometime in 1992. It was planned to be a belt scroll-style beat-'em-up similar to the arcade version of "Ninja Gaiden", instead of following the side-scrolling platform game format from the NES trilogy. The plot would have involved Ryu traveling to the United States in order to track down a pair of sibling ninjas named Jin and Rika who have gone rogue by stealing the Secret Scrolls of the Huma (an alternate romanization of the name "Fūma"). The Mega Drive version is not a port of the arcade game, but some of the stages (such as a casino) and enemy characters (like the hockey mask-wearing punks) are similar, though the play mechanics are very different.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: The game was not released commercially despite being reviewed in magazines, but a beta build was leaked through the internet as a ROM image. The beta features seven stages, including cut-scenes and bosses, but has several programming bugs such as odd moving controls, unfinished levels, and cut-scenes which are skipped before finishing. Although the opening and stage names are in Japanese, the rest of the cut-scenes were translated into English. The techniques available in the beta consist of a standard punch combo, a jump kick, a rolling move, a special somersault kick, and a throw.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: The game was released in Japan on the mobile platforms as a prequel to the first NES title in 2004. The game is a short single act which retain the elements of the classic Nintendo trilogy.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: "" was released in March 2008, for the Nintendo DS. The game is played in a diagonal top-down view with 3D graphics, and the player needs to hold the Nintendo DS sideways. "Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword" is played using the stylus. The story is set six months after the events of 2004's "Ninja Gaiden". There is a new playable female ninja character, Momiji.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: The game was released in 2012 in Japan for Android and iOS mobile systems. A release in North America was announced in 2012 under the title "Ninja Gaiden Clans", but was eventually cancelled. Gameplay is similar to "Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword", but the game involves card collection trading.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: Released in 2014 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows, the game follows the exploits of the ninja Yaiba Kamikaze. The game received mixed reviews, with many magazines and websites criticizing the repetitive gameplay, difficulty and level design.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: is a 1995 SNES collection containing the three Ninja Gaiden games for the NES. It is also included as a bonus unlockable in 2004's "Ninja Gaiden" for the Xbox. The three games are straight ports and were not optimized for the SNES, but there are several differences from the NES versions. Passwords are included and the cinematic sequences were redrawn. The third game is based on the Japanese version, with infinite continues and lower damage from enemy attacks. The ports have no closing credits. Parallax scrolling was removed from the backgrounds of some levels ("Ninja Gaiden III" stage 2-1 for example). Other graphical changes were made to comply with Nintendo's "Family Friendly" censorship policy at the time (i.e. a pool of blood changed from red to green, and the removal of pentagrams). Some music tracks are omitted (two pieces of music from "Ninja Gaiden III" and the stage 1–1 music in the "Ninja Gaiden II" pursuit cutscenes). A degree of censorship was actually removed from certain parts of the script (for example, Jaquio's "Argh! He's awake" is replaced with "Damn, he's awake").


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: "Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection" is a compilation of "Ninja Gaiden Sigma", "Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2", and "Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge". It was released on Microsoft Windows via Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on June 10, 2021, marking the first time the "Sigma" games have been released on Nintendo and Xbox platforms.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: The NES version of "Ninja Gaiden" received a novelization in the "Worlds of Power" series of book which had books based on other current Nintendo games.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: A prequel comic book based on "" was published by Dark Horse Comics and written by Tim Seeley and Josh Emmons tells the story of how Yaibas sword came to be known as Heartless.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: "Ninja Gaiden" characters and references to the series, including those who first appeared in "Dead or Alive" series can be found in various games by Koei Tecmo, Microsoft, and Sony.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: In February 2020, "Nioh 2" director, Fumihiko Yasuda, revealed that Team Ninja was thinking about making its next "Ninja Gaiden" game.


title: Ninja Gaiden

text: Three months prior to the release "Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection", Team Ninja has hinted about a new sequel. "Ninja Gaiden" producer Fumihiko Yasuda said that he would like to make a female spin-off while discussing its new features. It would feature Kasumi, Ayane, Momiji and Rachel.


title: Seka (actress)

text: Seka (born Dorothiea Ivonniea Hundley, April 15, 1954) also known as Dorothea Hundley Patton, is an entrepreneur and retired American pornographic actress who performed full-time from 1977 to 1982, and on a limited basis in the mid-1990s and early 2000s. She was known as the Platinum Princess of Porn. In 2013, she released her autobiography about her life and career, titled "Inside Seka".


title: Seka (actress)

text: Dorothiea Hundley was born and raised in Radford, Virginia, having, she recalled, "a plain, normal childhood" with two siblings, a brother and sister. She describes her ancestry as Cherokee and Irish. Nicknamed "Dottie," she won a high-school beauty pageant, being named Ms. Hopewell High School or Miss Hopewell High School (accounts vary) and became Miss Southside Virginia.


title: Seka (actress)

text: Hundley married Francis "Frank" Patton on April 21, 1972, a week after her 18th birthday. She and Patton divorced before she began her pornographic career in 1977. She worked for Reynolds Metals Company, maker of Reynolds Wrap household aluminum, and later became a clerk at an adult bookstore, where she began dating the married owner.


title: Seka (actress)

text: She described her entry into pornographic films, following her move from the East Coast to Las Vegas and then to Los Angeles,


title: Seka (actress)

text: Seka's early pornographic pseudonyms included Linda Grasser. She eventually adopted the screen name Seka, after a female blackjack dealer she knew in Las Vegas. (She married actor-turned-director Kenneth M. Yontz the year after her porn debut; they divorced in 1980.) She went on to star in more than 200 adult videos with a "break" in 1982, when she stopped shooting sex movies, claiming "they wouldn't pay her what she wanted," and turned to stripping and nude modeling while also running her own fan club. Subsequently, she admitted that the HIV epidemic in the mid-1980s contributed to her decision to avoid the hardcore sex scene, saying, "That's why I don't make movies any more . . . I like to live." By the early 1990s she had returned to the porn industry to perform in a few final movies, her last being "American Garter."


title: Seka (actress)

text: Jamie Gillis performed with Seka numerous times and considered her to be "a bit above porn," describing her as a "white trash queen." Among her fellow performers, she listed her favorite male screen partners as Gillis, John Holmes, Mike Ranger and Paul Thomas. In terms of female screen partners, she rated her favorites as Veronica Hart, Aunt Peg, Kay Parker and Candida Royalle


title: Seka (actress)

text: In 1994, Seka hosted a radio talk show in Chicago called "Let's Talk About Sex" on Saturday nights (10:00 pm to 2:00 am, local time) on station 97.9FM, The Loop; she hosted it for approximately three years.


title: Seka (actress)

text: own website. In February 2007 she stated she had just shot her first hardcore scene in nearly 15 years, available as online pay-per-view.


title: Seka (actress)

text: In 2015 she published her autobiography, "Inside Seka," whose text Kerry Zukus transcribed from her dictations. Jim Norton wrote the foreword and Bobby Slayton wrote the afterword.


title: Seka (actress)

text: She has appeared on various talk shows such as those hosted by Alan Thicke, Montel Williams, Oprah Winfrey, Larry King, Phil Donahue, and Morton Downey Jr., as well as an appearance on "Saturday Night Live." Seka appeared in the 2012 documentary "After Porn Ends," about life after being a porn actor.


title: Seka (actress)

text: Aside from her marriages to Frank Patton (1972 to no later than 1977), Patrick Connelly (1987) and Kenneth M. Yontz (1978–80), Seka dated comedian Sam Kinison in the mid-'80s. She credited him for arranging an appearance with him on "Saturday Night Live."


title: Seka (actress)

text: In the DVD commentary for his film, director Paul Thomas Anderson stated that she was the main inspiration for his character of Amber Waves in "Boogie Nights", due to her appearance and involvement with John Holmes in the documentary "Exhausted: John C. Holmes, The Real Story".


title: Seka (actress)

text: In the 2000 film "Charlie's Angels", Drew Barrymore's character, Dylan Sanders, wears a disguise while at a racetrack, that made her resemble Seka.


title: Seka (actress)

text: Electronic musician Aphex Twin sampled Seka for the track "Come on You Slags!" from his album "...I Care Because You Do".


title: Lhasa

text: Lhasa (; Lhasa dialect: ; ) is the urban center of the prefecture-level Lhasa City and the administrative capital of Tibet Autonomous Region in Southwest China. The inner urban area of Lhasa City is equivalent to the administrative borders of Chengguan District (), which is part of the wider prefectural Lhasa City.


title: Lhasa

text: Lhasa is the second most populous urban area on the Tibetan Plateau after Xining and, at an altitude of , Lhasa is one of the highest cities in the world. The city has been the religious and administrative capital of Tibet since the mid-17th century. It contains many culturally significant Tibetan Buddhist sites such as the Potala Palace, Jokhang Temple and Norbulingka Palaces.


title: Lhasa

text: Lhasa literally translates to "place of gods" ( , god; , place) in the Tibetan language. Chengguan literally translates to "urban gateway" () in the Chinese language. Ancient Tibetan documents and inscriptions demonstrate that the place was called Rasa (), which meant “goat’s place,” as it was a herding site.. The name was changed to Lhasa, which means “place of gods” upon its establishment as the capital of Tibet, and construction of the Jokhang temple was completed, which housed a holy statue of the Buddha. Lhasa is first recorded as the name, referring to the area's temple of Jowo, in a treaty drawn up between China and Tibet in 822 C.E.


title: Lhasa

text: By the mid 7th century, Songtsen Gampo became the leader of the Tibetan Empire that had risen to power in the Yarlung Tsangpo River (whose lower reaches in India is known as the "Brahmaputra River") Valley. After conquering the kingdom of Zhangzhung in the west, he moved the capital from the Chingwa Taktsé Castle in Chongye County (pinyin: Qióngjié Xiàn), southwest of Yarlung, to Rasa (Lhasa) where in 637 he raised the first structures on the site of what is now the Potala Palace on Mount Marpori.


title: Lhasa

text: In CE 639 and 641, Songtsen Gampo, who by this time had conquered the whole Tibetan region, is said to have contracted two alliance marriages, firstly to a Princess Bhrikuti of Nepal, and then, two years later, to Princess Wencheng of the Imperial Tang court. Bhrikuti is said to have converted him to Buddhism, which was also the faith attributed to his second wife Wencheng. In 641 he constructed the Jokhang (or Rasa Trülnang Tsulagkhang) and Ramoche Temples in Lhasa in order to house two Buddha statues, the Akshobhya Vajra (depicting the Buddha at the age of eight) and the Jowo Sakyamuni (depicting Buddha at the age of twelve), respectively brought to his court by the princesses. Lhasa suffered extensive damage under the reign of Langdarma in the 9th century, when the sacred sites were destroyed and desecrated and the empire fragmented.


title: Lhasa

text: A Tibetan tradition mentions that after Songtsen Gampo's death in 649 C.E., Chinese troops captured Lhasa and burnt the Red Palace. Chinese and Tibetan scholars have noted that the event is mentioned neither in the Chinese annals nor in the Tibetan manuscripts of Dunhuang. Lǐ suggested that this tradition may derive from an interpolation. Tsepon W. D. Shakabpa believes that "those histories reporting the arrival of Chinese troops are not correct."


title: Lhasa

text: From the fall of the monarchy in the 9th century to the accession of the 5th Dalai Lama, the centre of political power in the Tibetan region was not situated in Lhasa. However, the importance of Lhasa as a religious site became increasingly significant as the centuries progressed. It was known as the centre of Tibet where Padmasambhava magically pinned down the earth demoness and built the foundation of the Jokhang Temple over her heart. Islam has been present since the 11th century in what is considered to have always been a monolithically Buddhist culture. Two Tibetan Muslim communities have lived in Lhasa with distinct homes, food and clothing, language, education, trade and traditional herbal medicine.


title: Lhasa

text: By the 15th century, the city of Lhasa had risen to prominence following the founding of three large Gelugpa monasteries by Je Tsongkhapa and his disciples. The three monasteries are Ganden, Sera and Drepung which were built as part of the puritanical Buddhist revival in Tibet. The scholarly achievements and political know-how of this Gelugpa Lineage eventually pushed Lhasa once more to centre stage.


title: Lhasa

text: The 5th Dalai Lama, Lobsang Gyatso (1617–1682), unified Tibet and moved the centre of his administration to Lhasa in 1642 with the help of Güshi Khan of the Khoshut. With Güshi Khan as a largely uninvolved overlord, the 5th Dalai Lama and his intimates established a civil administration which is referred to by historians as the "Lhasa state". The core leadership of this government is also referred to as the Ganden Phodrang, and Lhasa thereafter became both the religious and political capital. In 1645, the reconstruction of the Potala Palace began on Red Hill. In 1648, the "Potrang Karpo" (White Palace) of the Potala was completed, and the Potala was used as a winter palace by the Dalai Lama from that time onwards. The "Potrang Marpo" (Red Palace) was added between 1690 and 1694. The name Potala is derived from Mount Potalaka, the mythical abode of the Dalai Lama's divine prototype, the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara. The Jokhang Temple was also greatly expanded around this time. Although some wooden carvings and lintels of the Jokhang Temple date to the 7th century, the oldest of Lhasa's extant buildings, such as within the Potala Palace, the Jokhang and some of the monasteries and properties in the Old Quarter date to this second flowering in Lhasa's history.


title: Lhasa

text: By the end of the 17th century, Lhasa's Barkhor area formed a bustling market for foreign goods. The Jesuit missionary, Ippolito Desideri reported in 1716 that the city had a cosmopolitan community of Mongol, Chinese, Muscovite, Armenian, Kashmiri, Nepalese and Northern Indian traders. Tibet was exporting musk, gold, medicinal plants, furs and yak tails to far-flung markets, in exchange for sugar, tea, saffron, Persian turquoise, European amber and Mediterranean coral. The Qing dynasty army entered Lhasa in 1720, and the Qing government sent resident commissioners, called the Ambans, to Lhasa. In November 11 of 1750, the murder of the regent by the Ambans triggered a riot in the city that left more than a hundred people killed, including the Ambans. After suppressing the rebels, Qing Qianlong Emperor reorganized the Tibetan government and set up the governing council called Kashag in Lhasa in 1751.


title: Lhasa

text: In January 1904, a British expeditionary force invaded and captured Lhasa during the British expedition to Tibet. The expedition's leader, Sir Francis Younghusband negotiated the Convention Between Great Britain and Tibet with the remaining Tibetan officials after the Dalai Lama had fled to the countryside. The treaty was subsequently repudiated and was succeeded by a 1906 Anglo-Chinese treaty. All Qing troops left Lhasa after the Xinhai Lhasa turmoil in 1912.


title: Lhasa

text: By the 20th century, Lhasa, long a beacon for both Tibetan and foreign Buddhists, had numerous ethnically and religiously distinct communities, among them Kashmiri Muslims, Ladakhi merchants, Sikh converts to Islam, and Chinese traders and officials. The Kashmiri Muslims ("Khache") trace their arrival in Lhasa to the Muslim saint of Patna, Khair ud-Din, contemporary with the 5th Dalai Lama. Chinese Muslims lived in a quarter to the south, and Newar merchants from Kathmandu to the north of the Barkhor market. Residents of the Lubu neighbourhood were descended from Chinese vegetable farmers who stayed over after accompanying an Amban from Sichuan in the mid-nineteenth century; some later intermarried with Tibetan women and spoke Tibetan as their first language. The city's merchants catered to all kinds of tastes, importing even Australian butter and Scottish whisky. In the 1940s, according to Heinrich Harrer:-


title: Lhasa

text: After the establishment of Communist Chinese People's Republic of China, "(...) the People's Liberation Army (PLA) invaded the country in 1950. In March 1959, an uprising centered on the capital, Lhasa, prompted a massive crackdown, during which the Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso (b. 1935), fled into exile." Such markets and consumerism came to an abrupt end after the arrival of Chinese government troops and administrative cadres in 1950. Food rations and poorly stocked government stores replaced the old markets, until the 1990s when commerce in international wares once more returned to Lhasa, and arcades and malls with a cornucopia of goods sprang up.


title: Lhasa

text: Of the 22 parks ("lingka"s) which surrounded the city of Lhasa, most of them over half a mile in length, where the people of Lhasa were accustomed to picnic, only three survive today: the Norbulingka, Dalai Lama's Summer Palace, constructed by the 7th Dalai Lama; a small part of the Shugtri Lingka, and the Lukhang. Dormitory blocks, offices and army barracks are built over the rest.


title: Lhasa

text: The Guāndì miào (關帝廟) or Gesar Lhakhang temple was erected by the Amban in 1792 atop Mount Bamare south of the Potala to celebrate the defeat of an invading Gurkha army.


title: Lhasa

text: The main gate to the city of Lhasa used to run through the large Pargo Kaling chorten and contained holy relics of the Buddha Mindukpa.