title: E!

text: Controlling ownership was originally held by a consortium of five cable television providers (Comcast, Continental Cablevision, Cox Cable, TCI, and Warner Cable), HBO/Warner Communications, and various founding shareholders, with HBO directly programming and managing the network. In 1989, after Time Inc. bought Warner Communications to fend off a takeover bid by Paramount, the new Time Warner company held four of the eight major ownership positions and took over management control of Movietime and renamed the network as E!: Entertainment Television on June 1, 1990; this name change was made to emphasize its widening coverage of the celebrity–industrial complex, contemporary film, television and music, daily Hollywood gossip, and fashion.


title: E!

text: In 1997, Comcast, one of the minority partners, teamed up with Disney/ABC Cable Networks to buy the channel after Time Warner had exercised their put agreement. Comcast increased the ownership stakes in the network through mergers with forerunners of TCI and Continental under various circumstances. In November 2006, Comcast acquired Disney's 39.5% share of E! for $1.23 billion to gain full ownership of the network as part of a broader programming carriage agreement between Disney/ABC and Comcast.


title: E!

text: In January 2011, Comcast Entertainment Group, the company's television unit, became a division of the NBCUniversal Television Group, after Comcast acquired a 51% majority stake in NBCUniversal from General Electric. E!'s only sister networks prior to the NBC Universal merger were the now-defunct channels Style Network (then Esquire Network) and G4, along with Comcast's sports networks: Versus, Comcast SportsNet and Golf Channel. In the case of Versus, E! staff produced that network's "Sports Soup" and G4's "Web Soup", while the Orlando-based Golf Channel featured no crossovers with E! at all due to incompatible audiences and operations. Versus and Golf Channel were taken under the direct control of the NBC Sports division, with the former being renamed NBC Sports Network in January 2012, and are no longer connected to their former sister networks beyond advertising and in-house operations.


title: E!

text: On July 9, 2012, the channel introduced a revised logo (the first change to its logo since the network rebranded as E! in 1990), removing the exclamation mark background behind the "E" but keeping the exclamation point underneath, along with a new slogan "Pop of Culture", which coincided with the launch of the new series "Opening Act". The network also started the process of introducing scripted programming (the first series, "The Royals", premiering in March 2015), in addition to its existing reality and documentary series. The changes were announced during E!'s programming upfront presentation on April 30, 2012.


title: E!

text: On January 13, 2022, E! began to carry NBC Sports coverage of worldwide figure skating trials pre-2022 Winter Olympics for the first time, after the discontinuation of NBCSN spread NBC Sports events across its cable channels. The network had previously carried final week matches for the Premier League on Championship Sunday as part of NBC's rights to the English football league, before the move of matches to Peacock.


title: E!

text: E! is one of the few U.S. general-entertainment cable channels that broadcasts a daily news program; its flagship entertainment news program is "E! News", which debuted on September 1, 1991. The weekday program (which also has an hour-long weekend edition) features stories and gossip about celebrities, and the film, music and television industries, and has been broadcast under various formats since its launch, even being aired live for a time during the mid-2000s. It was first hosted by Dagny Hultgreen. Steve Kmetko was a host from 1994 to 2002. It has been hosted by Terrence Jenkins and Giuliana Rancic since 2012 and 2006, respectively, with Ryan Seacrest (who co-anchored the program from 2006 to 2012) serving as managing editor of the news operation.


title: E!

text: "E! News" was the only entertainment news show on the channel for much of its history until 2006, when the channel launched "The Daily 10", hosted by Sal Masekela and Catt Sadler (Debbie Matenopoulos also co-hosted from the show's inception until 2008); the series was cancelled in September 2010 after E! announced that the weekday editions of "E! News" would be expanded to one hour starting on October 25, 2010.


title: E!

text: E! also carried a simulcast of business news channel Bloomberg Television from 2004 to January 2009, when the latter network had expanded its cable and satellite carriage to a level that allowed the discontinuation of the simulcast.


title: E!

text: Outside "E! News" telecasts, the channel runs an "E! News"–branded news ticker displaying entertainment news headlines each half-hour during regular programming; fast-breaking entertainment headlines (such as a celebrity arrest or death) may also be displayed on a ticker, during any program when warranted.


title: E!

text: On August 5, 2020, E! canceled both New York-based shows, along with "In The Room", one of the first of many program and employee cuts and staff realignments announced across NBCUniversal that week due to the pandemic. The news operation has continued to maintain the "E! News" website, and its social media presences.


title: E!

text: The network was known early on for its daily video simulcast of the "Howard Stern Show", which aired from June 20, 1994, until July 8, 2005, weeknights in a redacted half-hour form, airing three times in late night. The program was discontinued several months after Stern moved to Sirius Satellite Radio and sold the video rights to his show to pay-per-view provider In Demand as a monthly pay offering (video rights are now held by Sirius XM).


title: E!

text: E! is known for its live red carpet pre-shows for the industry's three prominent award shows, the Primetime Emmy Awards, the Golden Globe Awards, and the Academy Awards, and were famous for their fashion critiques by Joan Rivers; Rivers also hosted post-awards specials under the title "Fashion Police", which became a regular weekly series in September 2010. In April 2017, it was announced that E! had acquired the People's Choice Awards, which will move to the network from CBS in 2018 with a new November scheduling. The network promoted that the show would be given an "end-to-end" experience that will leverage its existing experience in awards show coverage. As ratings declined across all of cable television overall, the People's Choice returned to broadcast television in 2021, with E! simulcasting the ceremony with NBC.


title: E!

text: The network also produces many documentary and biographical series, most notably "E! True Hollywood Story"; many of E!'s original specials are entertainment-related ranging from light fare (such as "25 Cutest Child Stars All Grown Up") to serious fare (such as "15 Most Unforgettable Hollywood Tragedies"). It also produces specials centering on investigative and crime stories including "E! Investigates", which features topical investigative reports on subjects ranging from child prostitution to teenage pregnancy.


title: E!

text: In recent years, the network has become known for its reality television programs. Its most popular series for over a decade has been "Keeping Up with the Kardashians", which spawned eight spin-off series and countless specials. Other original reality programming airing on the network currently includes "Total Divas"–a series featuring the WWE's Bella Twins, "Hollywood Medium with Tyler Henry", the plastic surgery repair series "Dr. 90210" and "Botched", along with "Very Cavallari" with Kristin Cavallari and her (later ex-) husband Jay Cutler, "Ladygang–"a television version of the popular podcast, and dating show "Dating #NoFilter",


title: E!

text: E! has had five comedy programs: the late night talk show "Chelsea Lately", hosted by comedian Chelsea Handler, its scripted/improvised spin-off "After Lately", and "The Soup" (based on the popular 1991-2002 E! series "Talk Soup"), featuring clips of the previous week's TV shows with humorous commentary delivered by the host, actor/comedian Joel McHale. Handler also produced "Love You, Mean It", a weekly comedic look at pop culture hosted by Whitney Cummings, and a nightly talk show from actress Busy Philipps, "Busy Tonight". "The Soup" returned in February 2020, with new host Jade Catta-Preta, though it, and many of E!'s in-studio shows, were cancelled in the last quarter of 2020 due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic hampering production.


title: E!

text: On September 8, 2020, it was announced the network's most popular series "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" would be ending with season 20 in 2021.


title: E!

text: Over the years, E! has occasionally run acquired programming including reruns of "Alice", "Absolutely Fabulous", "20/20" lifestyle-based interview shows from ABC (since removed under NBCUniversal ownership), and edited 60-minute versions of "Saturday Night Live", though fewer of these programs currently air. The only programming currently airing on E! that it does not produce are broadcast standards-edited reruns of the former HBO series "Sex and the City" originally carried by HBO's sister network TBS, and feature films that air under the banner "Movies We Love"; the latter was part of a since-abandoned initiative by the network to use films to increase the network's ratings, though the branding remains, and low and mid-grossing female-focused films from the Universal Pictures library usually receive their basic cable premiere on E!, with higher-grossing films premiering on USA Network. The network has aired same-week runs of NBC series (such as "The Voice", "Fashion Star", "Whitney", and "Are You There, Chelsea?"), and in the past aired previews of G4 programming to give that network an extended promotional platform due to their lowered carriage when it was removed from DirecTV in November 2010. The network also airs selected shows from the Peacock streaming service (which E!'s parent company NBCUniversal owns).


title: E!

text: Since Comcast's acquisition of NBCUniversal, E! has infrequently aired sporting events as an overflow outlet for NBC Sports. It has participated in NBC's "Championship Sunday" effort to broadcast all matches on the final matchday of the Premier League soccer season. In January 2022 (amid the shutdown of long-time sister channel NBCSN), E! was incorporated into NBC Sports' coverage of two figure skating events ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics, the 2022 European Figure Skating Championships and Four Continents Figure Skating Championships.


title: E!

text: E! HD is a high definition simulcast feed of E! launched on December 8, 2008, in Comcast's default 1080i resolution format. Currently, the network's entire original programming roster post-2010 is carried in high definition, along with most films. Available on the vast majority of pay television providers, it is downscaled at the provider headend level to provide a standard definition equivalent for those systems.


title: E!

text: During E!'s run as a broadcast service in Canada, the "E! Ontario" version of the service until the December 2008 discontinuation of the E! broadcast television system was available in HD over Hamilton, Ontario-based CHCH-TV (channel 11) on its channel 18 ATSC digital signal, though the majority of E!'s programming outside American primetime series before the shutdown of the television system was not available in the format.


title: E!

text: "E! Online" is the online arm of E!, featuring live updates on entertainment news stories; the website includes an online-only entertainment news bulletin titled "E! News Now", which is updated each weekday. The website also provides live streaming video of major red carpet events including movie premieres and award shows such as the Academy Awards and the Emmys, along with some blogs involving shows such as "The Soup". Columnists featured on the website include Kristin dos Santos (the "Watch with Kristin" television blog), Ted Casablanca ("The Awful Truth" gossip blog), and Marc Malkin (writer of an eponymous gossip blog and host of a daily video blog on the site).


title: E!

text: As part of the rebrand of the cable channel on July 9, 2012, EOnline.com was redesigned for HTML5, including tablet and mobile devices.


title: E!

text: Unlike most international cable channels that have licensed an American cable channel's branding and programming, E! has existed as two separate television channels in Canada – in both broadcast and pay television forms.


title: E!

text: On September 7, 2007, Canwest Global Communications rebranded its CH television system as E! CH originally launched on February 12, 2001, by CHCH/Hamilton, Ontario as a secondary service of the Global Television Network; the CH/E! system would later include four additional Canwest-owned stations in Quebec (CJNT/Montreal), British Columbia (CHEK/Victoria and CHBC/Kelowna) and Alberta (CHCA/Red Deer), and three affiliates owned by Jim Pattison Group in British Columbia (CKPG/Prince George and CFJC/Kamloops) and Alberta (CHAT/Medicine Hat). The E! television system shut down on September 1, 2009, due to low ratings and corporate financial difficulties that eventually led to Canwest filing for bankruptcy protection and selling its properties to Shaw Media for US$6.7 million; the E! owned-and-operated stations experienced varied fates (CHCH and CJNT were sold to Channel Zero, CHEK was sold to an employee-led group; CHBC remained with Canwest and was converted into a Global O&O, and CHCA ceased operations outright), while the Pattison Group stations affiliated with the Rogers Media-owned Citytv system. As E!, local news and other regional programming, as well as most local community sponsorships on the O&O stations, used local branding (incorporating the callsign branding scheme common with Canadian stations not owned by a network or television system). This decision was at least partly made to avoid confusion with "E! News", but likely intended to ensure that local newscasts were not perceived as celebrity-oriented.


title: E!

text: The E! brand would later return to Canada on November 1, 2010, when CTVglobemedia (whose assets are now owned by Bell Media) signed a multi-year/multi-platform agreement with Comcast to rebrand Category 2 specialty channel Star! (which had a similar format to E! U.S. and had carried some of its programming prior to the 2007 rebranding of CH) into a Canadian version of E! on November 29, 2010.


title: E!

text: E!'s Asian network aired across Southeast Asia and the Philippines from December 15, 1997, until December 31, 2019.


title: E!

text: Some of E! programs started to air on Cinema Television during its inception by RMN (thru UHF Channel 31; now acquired by BEAM). But in 2000, both RMN and E! announced its partnership to relaunch CTV into E! Philippines. It was originally broadcast 24 hours a day, but eventually reduced in 2001 to a primetime 6-midnight block, before ending in 2003. Some of E!'s programs were brought to the Philippines and remade in a local version, one of which was "Wild On! Philippines".


title: E!

text: Three years after the relaunch as a standalone cable channel, E! produced its first original reality series in Asia, "It Takes Gutz to Be A Gutierrez" starring the Gutierrez family.


title: Scientific notation

text: Scientific notation is a way of expressing numbers that are too large or too small (usually would result in a long string of digits) to be conveniently written in decimal form. It may be referred to as scientific form or standard index form, or standard form in the United Kingdom. This base ten notation is commonly used by scientists, mathematicians, and engineers, in part because it can simplify certain arithmetic operations. On scientific calculators it is usually known as "SCI" display mode.


title: Scientific notation

text: or "m" times ten raised to the power of "n", where "n" is an integer, and the coefficient "m" is a nonzero real number (usually between 1 and 10 in absolute value, and nearly always written as a terminating decimal). The integer "n" is called the exponent and the real number "m" is called the "significand" or "mantissa". The term "mantissa" can be ambiguous where logarithms are involved, because it is also the traditional name of the fractional part of the common logarithm. If the number is negative then a minus sign precedes "m", as in ordinary decimal notation. In normalized notation, the exponent is chosen so that the absolute value (modulus) of the significand "m" is at least 1 but less than 10.


title: Scientific notation

text: Any given real number can be written in the form in many ways: for example, 350 can be written as or or .


title: Scientific notation

text: In "normalized" scientific notation (called "standard form" in the United Kingdom), the exponent "n" is chosen so that the absolute value of "m" remains at least one but less than ten (1 ≤ |"m"| < 10). Thus 350 is written as . This form allows easy comparison of numbers: numbers with bigger exponents are (due to the normalization) larger than those with smaller exponents, and subtraction of exponents gives an estimate of the number of orders of magnitude separating the numbers. It is also the form that is required when using tables of common logarithms. In normalized notation, the exponent "n" is negative for a number with absolute value between 0 and 1 (e.g. 0.5 is written as ). The 10 and exponent are often omitted when the exponent is 0.


title: Scientific notation

text: Normalized scientific form is the typical form of expression of large numbers in many fields, unless an unnormalized or differently normalized form, such as engineering notation, is desired. Normalized scientific notation is often called exponential notation—although the latter term is more general and also applies when "m" is not restricted to the range 1 to 10 (as in engineering notation for instance) and to bases other than 10 (for example, ).


title: Scientific notation

text: Engineering notation (often named "ENG" on scientific calculators) differs from normalized scientific notation in that the exponent "n" is restricted to multiples of 3. Consequently, the absolute value of "m" is in the range 1 ≤ |"m"| < 1000, rather than 1 ≤ |"m"| < 10. Though similar in concept, engineering notation is rarely called scientific notation. Engineering notation allows the numbers to explicitly match their corresponding SI prefixes, which facilitates reading and oral communication. For example, can be read as "twelve-point-five nanometres" and written as , while its scientific notation equivalent would likely be read out as "one-point-two-five times ten-to-the-negative-eight metres".


title: Scientific notation

text: A significant figure is a digit in a number that adds to its precision. This includes all nonzero numbers, zeroes between significant digits, and zeroes indicated to be significant.


title: Scientific notation

text: Leading and trailing zeroes are not significant digits, because they exist only to show the scale of the number. Unfortunately, this leads to ambiguity. The number is usually read to have five significant figures: 1, 2, 3, 0, and 4, the final two zeroes serving only as placeholders and adding no precision. The same number, however, would be used if the last two digits were also measured precisely and found to equal 0— seven significant figures.


title: Scientific notation

text: When a number is converted into normalized scientific notation, it is scaled down to a number between 1 and 10. All of the significant digits remain, but the placeholding zeroes are no longer required. Thus would become if it had five significant digits. If the number were known to six or seven significant figures, it would be shown as or . Thus, an additional advantage of scientific notation is that the number of significant figures is unambiguous.


title: Scientific notation

text: It is customary in scientific measurement to record all the definitely known digits from the measurement and to estimate at least one additional digit if there is any information at all available on its value. The resulting number contains more information than it would without the extra digit, which may be considered a significant digit because it conveys some information leading to greater precision in measurements and in aggregations of measurements (adding them or multiplying them together).


title: Scientific notation

text: Additional information about precision can be conveyed through additional notation. It is often useful to know how exact the final digit is. For instance, the accepted value of the mass of the proton can properly be expressed as , which is shorthand for .


title: Scientific notation

text: Most calculators and many computer programs present very large and very small results in scientific notation, typically invoked by a key labelled (for "exponent"), (for "enter exponent"), , , , or depending on vendor and model. Because superscripted exponents like 10 cannot always be conveniently displayed, the letter "E" (or "e") is often used to represent "times ten raised to the power of" (which would be written as ) and is followed by the value of the exponent; in other words, for any real number "m" and integer "n", the usage of ""m"E"n"" would indicate a value of "m" × 10. In this usage the character "e" is not related to the mathematical constant "e" or the exponential function "e" (a confusion that is unlikely if scientific notation is represented by a capital "E"). Although the "E" stands for "exponent", the notation is usually referred to as "(scientific) E notation" rather than "(scientific) exponential notation". The use of E notation facilitates data entry and readability in textual communication since it minimizes keystrokes, avoids reduced font sizes and provides a simpler and more concise display, but it is not encouraged in some publications.


title: Scientific notation

text: In normalized scientific notation, in E notation, and in engineering notation, the space (which in typesetting may be represented by a normal width space or a thin space) that is allowed "only" before and after "×" or in front of "E" is sometimes omitted, though it is less common to do so before the alphabetical character.


title: Scientific notation

text: Converting a number in these cases means to either convert the number into scientific notation form, convert it back into decimal form or to change the exponent part of the equation. None of these alter the actual number, only how it's expressed.


title: Scientific notation

text: First, move the decimal separator point sufficient places, "n", to put the number's value within a desired range, between 1 and 10 for normalized notation. If the decimal was moved to the left, append codice_6; to the right, codice_6. To represent the number in normalized scientific notation, the decimal separator would be moved 6 digits to the left and codice_8 appended, resulting in . The number would have its decimal separator shifted 3 digits to the right instead of the left and yield as a result.


title: Scientific notation

text: Converting a number from scientific notation to decimal notation, first remove the codice_9 on the end, then shift the decimal separator "n" digits to the right (positive "n") or left (negative "n"). The number would have its decimal separator shifted 6 digits to the right and become , while would have its decimal separator moved 3 digits to the left and be .


title: Scientific notation

text: Conversion between different scientific notation representations of the same number with different exponential values is achieved by performing opposite operations of multiplication or division by a power of ten on the significand and an subtraction or addition of one on the exponent part. The decimal separator in the significand is shifted "x" places to the left (or right) and "x" is added to (or subtracted from) the exponent, as shown below.


title: Scientific notation

text: Addition and subtraction require the numbers to be represented using the same exponential part, so that the significand can be simply added or subtracted:


title: Scientific notation

text: While base ten is normally used for scientific notation, powers of other bases can be used too, base 2 being the next most commonly used one.


title: Scientific notation

text: This is closely related to the base-2 floating-point representation commonly used in computer arithmetic, and the usage of IEC binary prefixes (e.g. 1B10 for 1×2 (kibi), 1B20 for 1×2 (mebi), 1B30 for 1×2 (gibi), 1B40 for 1×2 (tebi)).


title: Scientific notation

text: Similar to "B" (or "b"), the letters "H" (or "h") and "O" (or "o", or "C") are sometimes also used to indicate "times 16 or 8 to the power" as in 1.25 = = 1.40H0 = 1.40h0, or 98000 = = 2.7732o5 = 2.7732C5.


title: Scientific notation

text: Another similar convention to denote base-2 exponents is using a letter "P" (or "p", for "power"). In this notation the significand is always meant to be hexadecimal, whereas the exponent is always meant to be decimal. This notation can be produced by implementations of the "printf" family of functions following the C99 specification and (Single Unix Specification) IEEE Std 1003.1 POSIX standard, when using the "%a" or "%A" conversion specifiers. Starting with C++11, C++ I/O functions could parse and print the P notation as well. Meanwhile, the notation has been fully adopted by the language standard since C++17. Apple's Swift supports it as well. It is also required by the IEEE 754-2008 binary floating-point standard. Example: 1.3DEp42 represents .


title: John Stith Pemberton

text: John Stith Pemberton (July 8, 1831 – August 16, 1888) was an American pharmacist and Confederate States Army veteran who is best known as the inventor of Coca-Cola. In May 1886, he developed an early version of a beverage that would later become Coca-Cola, but sold his rights to the drink shortly before his death.


title: John Stith Pemberton

text: He suffered from a sabre wound sustained in April 1865, during the Battle of Columbus. His efforts to control his chronic pain led to morphine addiction. He began to experiment with various painkillers and toxins. In the end, after development of an earlier beverage blending alcohol and cocaine, this led to the recipe that later was adapted to make Coca-Cola.


title: John Stith Pemberton

text: Pemberton was born on July 8, 1831, in Knoxville, Georgia, and spent most of his childhood in Rome, Georgia. His parents were James C. Pemberton and Martha L. Gant. The Pembertons were of English lineage, the direct paternal ancestor Phineas Pemberton and his family from Lancashire, traveled aboard the ship "Submission" about 1682 from Liverpool to the Province of Maryland, eventually settling in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. There he built a mansion in 1687 and had served as William Penn's chief administrator.


title: John Stith Pemberton

text: Pemberton entered the Reform Medical College of Georgia in Macon, Georgia, and in 1850, at the age of nineteen, he earned his medical degree. His main talent was chemistry. After initially practicing some medicine and surgery, Pemberton opened a drug store in Columbus.


title: John Stith Pemberton

text: During the American Civil War, Pemberton served in the Third Cavalry Battalion of the Georgia State Guard, which was at that time a component of the Confederate Army. He achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel.


title: John Stith Pemberton

text: He met Ann Eliza Clifford Lewis of Columbus, Georgia, known to her friends as "Cliff", who had been a student at Wesleyan College in Macon. They were married in Columbus in 1853. Their only child, Charles Nay Pemberton, was born in 1854.


title: John Stith Pemberton

text: They lived in a Victorian cottage, the Pemberton House in Columbus, a home of historic significance which was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 28, 1971.


title: John Stith Pemberton

text: In April 1865, Pemberton sustained a saber wound to the chest during the Battle of Columbus. He soon became addicted to the morphine used to ease his pain.


title: John Stith Pemberton

text: In 1866, seeking a cure for his addiction, he began to experiment with painkillers that would serve as morphine-free alternatives to morphine. His first recipe was "Dr. Tuggle's Compound Syrup of Globe Flower", in which the active ingredient was derived from the buttonbush ("Cephalanthus occidentalis"), a toxic plant. He next began experimenting with coca and coca wines, eventually creating a recipe that contained extracts of kola nut and damiana, which he called Pemberton's French Wine Coca.


title: John Stith Pemberton

text: According to Coca-Cola historian Phil Mooney, Pemberton's world-famous soda was created in Columbus, Georgia and carried to Atlanta. With public concern about drug addiction, depression, and alcoholism among war veterans, and "neurasthenia" among "highly-strung" Southern women, Pemberton's "medicine" was advertised as particularly beneficial for "ladies, and all those whose sedentary employment causes nervous prostration".


title: John Stith Pemberton

text: In 1886, when Atlanta and Fulton County enacted temperance legislation, Pemberton had to produce a non-alcoholic alternative to his French Wine Coca. Pemberton relied on Atlanta drugstore owner-proprietor Willis E. Venable to test, and help him perfect, the recipe for the beverage, which he formulated by trial and error. With Venable's assistance, Pemberton worked out a set of directions for its preparation.


title: John Stith Pemberton

text: He blended the base syrup with carbonated water by accident when trying to make another glassful of the beverage. Pemberton decided then to sell this as a fountain drink rather than a medicine. Frank Mason Robinson came up with the name "Coca-Cola" for the alliterative sound, which was popular among other wine medicines of the time. Although the name refers to the two main ingredients, because of controversy over its cocaine content, The Coca-Cola Company later said that the name was "meaningless but fanciful".


title: John Stith Pemberton

text: Robinson hand wrote the Spencerian script on the bottles and ads. Pemberton made many health claims for his product, touting it as a "valuable brain tonic" that would cure headaches, relieve exhaustion, and calm nerves, and marketed it as "delicious, refreshing, pure joy, exhilarating", and "invigorating".


title: John Stith Pemberton

text: Soon after Coca-Cola hit the market, Pemberton fell ill and nearly bankrupt. Sick and desperate, he began selling rights to his formula to his business partners in Atlanta. Part of his motivation to sell was that he still suffered from expensive continuing morphine addiction. Pemberton had a hunch that his formula "someday will be a national drink", so he attempted to retain a share of the ownership to leave to his son. However, Pemberton's son wanted the money, so in 1888, Pemberton and his son sold the remaining portion of the patent to a fellow Atlanta pharmacist, Asa Griggs Candler, for , which in 2022 purchasing power is equal to .


title: John Stith Pemberton

text: Pemberton died from stomach cancer at age 57 in August 1888. At the time of his death, he also suffered from poverty and his worsening addiction to morphine. His body was returned to Columbus, Georgia, where he was buried at Linwood Cemetery. His grave marker is engraved with symbols showing his service in the Confederate Army and his membership as a Freemason. His son Charles continued to sell his father's formula, but six years later Charles Pemberton died, having succumbed to opium addiction.


title: Bougainville Island

text: Bougainville Island (Tok Pisin: "Bogenvil") is the main island of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, which is part of Papua New Guinea. It was previously the main landmass in the German Empire-associated North Solomons. Its land area is . The population of the whole province, including nearby islets such as the Carterets, is approximately 300,000 (2019 census). The highest point is Mount Balbi, on the main island, at . The much smaller Buka Island, , lies to the north, across the wide Buka Strait. Even though the strait is narrow, there is no bridge across it, but there is a regular ferry service between the key settlements on either side. The main airport (or airstrip) in the north is in the town of Buka.


title: Bougainville Island

text: Bougainville is the largest island in the Solomon Islands archipelago. Most of the islands in this archipelago (which are primarily concentrated in the southern and eastern portions of it) are part of the politically independent Solomon Islands. Two of these islands—the closely connected Shortland Islands—are less than south or southeast of Bougainville, and about west of Choiseul, one of the settlements of which, Poroporo, faces Bougainville.


title: Bougainville Island

text: Buka has an outcropping that is from New Ireland. Among the large islands of Papua New Guinea, New Ireland is the closest to Buka.


title: Bougainville Island

text: The Autonomous Region of Bougainville is scheduled to gain independence from Papua New Guinea by 2027.


title: Bougainville Island

text: Bougainville was first settled some 8,000 years ago. Three to four thousand years ago, Austronesian people arrived, bringing with them domesticated pigs, chickens, dogs, and obsidian tools. The first European contact with Bougainville was in 1768, when the French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville arrived and named the main island after himself.


title: Bougainville Island

text: British and American whaling ships visited the island for provisions, water and wood in the 19th century. The first on record was the "Roscoe" in 1822, and the last was "Palmetto" in 1881.


title: Bougainville Island

text: The German Empire laid claim to Bougainville in 1899, annexing it into German New Guinea. Christian missionaries arrived on the island in 1902.


title: Bougainville Island

text: During World War I, Australia occupied German New Guinea, including Bougainville. It became part of the Australian Territory of New Guinea under a League of Nations mandate in 1920.


title: Bougainville Island

text: In 1942, during World War II, Japan invaded the island, but allied forces launched the Bougainville campaign to regain control of the island in 1943. Despite heavy bombardments, the Japanese garrisons remained on the island until 1945. Following the war, the Territory of New Guinea, including Bougainville, returned to Australian control.


title: Bougainville Island

text: It was on Bougainville Island, on April 18, 1943, during the Pacific War, that the Japanese admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, who was the commander-in-chief of Japan’s Combined Fleet, died after his plane was attacked by US fighter planes and crashed into the jungle.


title: Bougainville Island

text: In 1949 the Territory of New Guinea, including Bougainville, merged with the Australian Territory of Papua, forming the Territory of Papua and New Guinea, a United Nations Trust Territory under Australian administration.


title: Bougainville Island

text: On 9 September 1975, the Parliament of Australia passed the Papua New Guinea Independence Act 1975. The Act set 16 September 1975 as date of independence and terminated all remaining sovereign and legislative powers of Australia over the territory. Bougainville was to become part of an independent Papua New Guinea. However, on 11 September 1975, in a failed bid for self-determination, Bougainville declared itself the Republic of the North Solomons. The republic failed to achieve any international recognition, and a settlement was reached in August 1976. Bougainville was then absorbed politically into Papua New Guinea with increased self-governance powers.


title: Bougainville Island

text: Between 1988 and 1998, the Bougainville Civil War claimed over 15,000 lives. Peace talks brokered by New Zealand began in 1997 and led to autonomy. A multinational Peace Monitoring Group (PMG) under Australian leadership was deployed. In 2001, a peace agreement was signed including promise of a referendum on independence from Papua New Guinea. This referendum was held between 23 November and 7 December 2019, with results being declared on 11 December. The referendum question was a choice between greater autonomy within Papua New Guinea, or full independence. Of the valid votes, 98.31% were in favour of full Independence. The vote is not binding; the Government of Papua New Guinea has the final say on the status of Bougainville.


title: Bougainville Island

text: Bougainville is the largest island in the Solomon Islands archipelago. It is part of the Solomon Islands rain forests ecoregion. Bougainville and the nearby island of Buka, are a single landmass separated by a deep wide strait. The island has an area of , and there are several active, dormant or inactive volcanoes which rise to . Bagana () in the north central part of Bougainville is conspicuously active, spewing out smoke that is visible for many kilometres. Earthquakes are frequent, but cause little damage.


title: Bougainville Island

text: Bougainville Island is primarily forested with a diverse tropical ecosystem. Copper mining on the island by a Rio Tinto-owned mining operation caused significant detriment to the immediate and downstream ecology from the destruction of forest and heavy metal-contaminated mine tailings, resulting in an uprising by the islanders to protect their land and native ecology. More recently, deforestation in order to feed the growing population has affected the flow of many rivers on the island. The United Nations Environmental Program has offered to facilitate the cleanup of the Rio Tinto-owned Panguna mine and explore reopening the mine with more stringent environmental standards.


title: Bougainville Island

text: Bougainville has one of the world's largest copper deposits, which has been under development since 1972, but was shut down in a popular revolution against the foreign-owned mining interests. Due to a seven-year blockade of the island by the Papua New Guinean Army during the Coconut Revolution, the island was cut off from the outside world. This pressure forced the islanders to develop self-sustaining systems from salvaged parts and foraged resources, including village-scale hydropower, coconut bio-diesel, diversified forest-garden farms, and neo-traditional herbal medicine. These innovations were a major focus of the documentary film "The Coconut Revolution".


title: Bougainville Island

text: The majority of people on Bougainville are Christian, an estimated 70% being Roman Catholic and a substantial minority United Church of Papua New Guinea since 1968. Few non-natives remain, as most were evacuated following the civil wars.


title: Bougainville Island

text: There are many indigenous languages in Bougainville Province, belonging to three language families. The languages of the northern end of the island, and some scattered around the coast, belong to the Austronesian family. The languages of the north-central and southern lobes of Bougainville Island belong to the North and South Bougainville families.


title: Bougainville Island

text: The most widely spoken Austronesian language is Halia and its dialects, spoken in the island of Buka and the Selau peninsula of Northern Bougainville. Other Austronesian languages include Nehan, Petats, Solos, Saposa (Taiof), Hahon and Tinputz, all spoken in the northern quarter of Bougainville, Buka and surrounding islands. These languages are closely related. Bannoni and Torau are Austronesian languages not closely related to the former, which are spoken in the coastal areas of central and south Bougainville. On the nearby Takuu Atoll a Polynesian language is spoken, Takuu.


title: Bougainville Island

text: The Papuan languages are confined to the main island of Bougainville. These include Rotokas, a language with a very small inventory of phonemes, Eivo, Terei, Keriaka, Naasioi (Kieta), Nagovisi, Siwai (Motuna), Baitsi (sometimes considered a dialect of Siwai), Uisai and several others. These constitute two language families, North Bougainville and South Bougainville.


title: Bougainville Island

text: None of the languages are spoken by more than 20% of the population, and the larger languages such as Nasioi, Korokoro Motuna, Telei, and Halia are split into dialects that are not always mutually understandable. For general communication most Bougainvilleans use Tok Pisin as a lingua franca, and at least in the coastal areas Tok Pisin is often learned by children in a bilingual environment. English and Tok Pisin are the languages of official business and government.


title: Bougainville Island

text: Cut off from the outside world for several years by a Papua New Guinean blockade during the civil war, the islanders suffered many deaths from a lack of medical resources.


title: Bougainville Island

text: A 2013 United Nations survey of 843 men found that 62% (530 respondents) of those have raped a woman or girl at least once, with 41% (217 respondents) of the men reported having raped a non-partner, whereas 14% (74 respondents) reported having committed gang rape. Additionally, the survey also found that 8% (67 respondents) of the men had raped other men or boys.


title: Bougainville Island

text: "The Coconut Revolution", a documentary about the struggle of the indigenous population to save their island from environmental destruction and gain independence, was made in 1999.


title: Bougainville Island

text: "An Evergreen Island" (2000), a film by Australian documentary filmmakers Amanda King and Fabio Cavadini of Frontyard Films, showed the ingenuity with which the Bougainvillean people survived for almost a decade (1989-1997) without trade or contact with the outside world, because of a trade dispute.


title: Bougainville Island

text: "Mr. Pip" (2012) is a film by New Zealand director Andrew Adamson based on the book "Mister Pip" by Lloyd Jones.


title: Bougainville Island

text: In late November 2019 a non-binding referendum was held to decide whether Bougainville should be a sovereign state independent from Papua New Guinea. The result was overwhelmingly in favour of sovereignty for the island, with 98% of the votes supporting secession. The Papua New Guinea government and Bougainville have agreed that the region will attain full independence in 2027 pending approval of the PNG government.


title: Idolatry

text: Idolatry is the worship of a cult image or "idol" as though it were God. In Abrahamic religions (namely Judaism, Samaritanism, Christianity, the Baháʼí Faith, and Islam) idolatry connotes the worship of something or someone other than the Abrahamic god as if it were God. In these monotheistic religions, idolatry has been considered as the "worship of false gods" and is forbidden by texts such as the Ten Commandments. Other monotheistic religions may apply similar rules.


title: Idolatry

text: For instance, the phrase "false god" is a derogatory term used in Abrahamic religions to indicate cult images or deities of non-Abrahamic Pagan religions, as well as other competing entities or objects to which particular importance is attributed. Conversely, followers of animistic and polytheistic religions may regard the gods of various monotheistic religions as "false gods" because they do not believe that any real deity possesses the properties ascribed by monotheists to their sole deity. Atheists, who do not believe in any deities, do not usually use the term "false god" even though that would encompass all deities from the atheist viewpoint. Usage of this term is generally limited to theists, who choose to worship some deity or deities, but not others.


title: Idolatry

text: In many Indian religions, which include both theistic and non-theistic branches of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, idols ("murti") are considered as symbolism for the absolute but not the Absolute, or icons of spiritual ideas, or the embodiment of the divine. It is a means to focus one's religious pursuits and worship ("bhakti"). In the traditional religions of Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, Africa, Asia, the Americas and elsewhere, the reverence of cult images or statues has been a common practice since antiquity, and cult images have carried different meanings and significance in the history of religion. Moreover, the material depiction of a deity or more deities has always played an eminent role in all cultures of the world.


title: Idolatry

text: The opposition to the use of any icon or image to represent ideas of reverence or worship is called aniconism. The destruction of images as icons of veneration is called iconoclasm, and this has long been accompanied with violence between religious groups that forbid idol worship and those who have accepted icons, images and statues for veneration. The definition of idolatry has been a contested topic within Abrahamic religions, with many Muslims and most Protestant Christians condemning the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox practice of venerating the Virgin Mary in many churches as a form of idolatry.


title: Idolatry

text: The history of religions has been marked with accusations and denials of idolatry. These accusations have considered statues and images to be devoid of symbolism. Alternatively, the topic of idolatry has been a source of disagreements between many religions, or within denominations of various religions, with the presumption that icons of one's own religious practices have meaningful symbolism, while another person's different religious practices do not.


title: Idolatry

text: The term "idolatry" comes from the Ancient Greek word "eidololatria" (εἰδωλολατρία), which itself is a compound of two words: "eidolon" (εἴδωλον "image/idol") and "latreia" (λατρεία "worship", related to λάτρις). The word "eidololatria" thus means "worship of idols", which in Latin appears first as "idololatria", then in Vulgar Latin as "idolatria", therefrom it appears in 12th century Old French as "idolatrie", which for the first time in mid 13th century English appears as "idolatry".


title: Idolatry

text: Although the Greek appears to be a loan translation of the Hebrew phrase "avodat elilim", (עבודת אלילים) which is attested in rabbinic literature (e.g., bChul., 13b, Bar.), the Greek term itself is not found in the Septuagint, Philo, Josephus, or in other Hellenistic Jewish writings. The original term used in early rabbinic writings is "oved avodah zarah" ("AAZ", worship in strange service, or "pagan"), while "avodat kochavim umazalot" ("AKUM", worship of planets and constellations) is not found in its early manuscripts. The later Jews used the term , "avodah zarah", meaning "foreign worship".


title: Idolatry

text: The earliest so-called Venus figurines have been dated to the prehistoric Upper Paleolithic era (35–40 ka onwards). Archaeological evidence from the islands of the Aegean Sea have yielded Neolithic era Cycladic figures from 4th and 3rd millennium BC, idols in "namaste" posture from Indus Valley civilization sites from the 3rd millennium BC, and much older petroglyphs around the world show humans began producing sophisticated images. However, because of a lack of historic texts describing these, it is unclear what, if any connection with religious beliefs, these figures had, or whether they had other meaning and uses, even as toys.


title: Idolatry

text: The earliest historic records confirming cult images are from the ancient Egyptian civilization, thereafter related to the Greek civilization. By the 2nd millennium BC two broad forms of cult image appear, in one images are zoomorphic (god in the image of animal or animal-human fusion) and in another anthropomorphic (god in the image of man). The former is more commonly found in ancient Egypt influenced beliefs, while the anthropomorphic images are more commonly found in Indo-European cultures. Symbols of nature, useful animals or feared animals may also be included by both. The stelae from 4,000 to 2,500 BC period discovered in France, Ireland through Ukraine, and in Central Asia through South Asia, suggest that the ancient anthropomorphic figures included zoomorphic motifs. In Nordic and Indian subcontinent, bovine (cow, ox, -*gwdus, -*g'ou) motifs or statues, for example, were common. In Ireland, iconic images included pigs.


title: Idolatry

text: The Ancient Egyptian religion was polytheistic, with large cult images that were either animals or included animal parts. Ancient Greek civilization preferred human forms, with idealized proportions, for divine representation. The Canaanites of West Asia incorporated a golden calf in their pantheon.


title: Idolatry

text: The ancient philosophy and practices of the Greeks, thereafter Romans, were imbued with polytheistic idolatry. They debate what is an image and if the use of image is appropriate. To Plato, images can be a remedy or poison to the human experience. To Aristotle, states Paul Kugler, an image is an appropriate mental intermediary that "bridges between the inner world of the mind and the outer world of material reality", the image is a vehicle between sensation and reason. Idols are useful psychological catalysts, they reflect sense data and pre-existing inner feelings. They are neither the origins nor the destinations of thought but the intermediary in the human inner journey. Fervid opposition to the idolatry of the Greeks and Romans was of Early Christianity and later Islam, as evidenced by the widespread desecration and defacement of ancient Greek and Roman sculptures that have survived into the modern era.


title: Idolatry

text: Judaism prohibits any form of idolatry even if they are used to worship the one God of Judaism as occurred during the sin of the golden calf. According to the second word of the decalogue, Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. The worship of foreign gods in any form or through icons is not allowed.


title: Idolatry

text: Many Jewish scholars such as Rabbi Saadia Gaon, Rabbi Bahya ibn Paquda, and Rabbi Yehuda Halevi have elaborated on the issues of idolatry. One of the oft-cited discussions is the commentary of Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon (Maimonides) on idolatry. According to the Maimonidean interpretation, idolatry in itself is not a fundamental sin, but the grave sin is the denial of God's omnipresence that occurs with the belief that God can be corporeal. In the Jewish belief, the only image of God is man, one who lives and thinks; God has no visible shape, and it is absurd to make or worship images; instead man must worship the invisible God alone.


title: Idolatry

text: The commandments in the Hebrew Bible against idolatry forbade the practices and gods of ancient Akkad, Mesopotamia, and Egypt. The Hebrew Bible states that God has no shape or form, is utterly incomparable, is everywhere and cannot be represented in a physical form of an idol.


title: Idolatry

text: Biblical scholars have historically focused on the textual evidence to construct the history of idolatry in Judaism, a scholarship that post-modern scholars have increasingly begun deconstructing. This biblical polemics, states Naomi Janowitz, a professor of Religious Studies, has distorted the reality of Israelite religious practices and the historic use of images in Judaism. The direct material evidence is more reliable, such as that from the archaeological sites, and this suggests that the Jewish religious practices have been far more complex than what biblical polemics suggest. Judaism included images and cultic statues in the First Temple period, the Second Temple period, Late Antiquity (2nd to 8th century CE), and thereafter. Nonetheless, these sorts of evidence may be simply descriptive of Ancient Israelite practices in some—possibly deviant—circles, but cannot tell us anything about the mainstream religion of the Bible which proscribes idolatry.


title: Idolatry

text: The history of Jewish religious practice has included cult images and figurines made of ivory, terracotta, faience and seals. As more material evidence emerged, one proposal has been that Judaism oscillated between idolatry and iconoclasm. However, the dating of the objects and texts suggest that the two theologies and liturgical practices existed simultaneously. The claimed rejection of idolatry because of monotheism found in Jewish literature and therefrom in biblical Christian literature, states Janowitz, has been unreal abstraction and flawed construction of the actual history. The material evidence of images, statues and figurines taken together with the textual description of cherub and "wine standing for blood", for example, suggests that symbolism, making religious images, icon and index has been integral part of Judaism. Every religion has some objects that represent the divine and stand for something in the mind of the faithful, and Judaism too has had its holy objects and symbols such as the Menorah.


title: Idolatry

text: The Christian view of idolatry may generally be divided into two general categories: the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox view which accepts the use of religious images, and the views of many Protestant churches that considerably restrict their use. However, many Protestants have used the image of the cross as a symbol.


title: Idolatry

text: The Roman Catholic and particularly the Orthodox Churches have traditionally defended the use of icons. The debate on what images signify and whether reverence with the help of icons in church is equivalent to idolatry has lasted for many centuries, particularly from the 7th century until the Reformation in the 16th century. These debates have supported the inclusion of icons of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the Apostles, the iconography expressed in stained glass, regional saints and other symbols of Christian faith. It has also supported the practices such as the Catholic mass, burning of candles before pictures, Christmas decorations and celebrations, and festive or memorial processions with statues of religious significance to Christianity.


title: Idolatry

text: St. John of Damascus, in his "On the Divine Image", defended the use of icons and images, in direct response to the Byzantine iconoclasm that began widespread destruction of religious images in the 8th century, with support from emperor Leo III and continued by his successor Constantine V during a period of religious war with the invading Umayyads. John of Damascus wrote, "I venture to draw an image of the invisible God, not as invisible, but as having become visible for our sakes through flesh and blood", adding that images are expressions "for remembrance either of wonder, or an honor, or dishonor, or good, or evil" and that a book is also a written image in another form. He defended the religious use of images based on the Christian doctrine of Jesus as an incarnation.


title: Idolatry

text: St. John the Evangelist cited John 1:14, stating that "the Word became flesh" indicates that the invisible God became visible, that God's glory manifested in God's one and only Son as Jesus Christ, and therefore God chose to make the invisible into a visible form, the spiritual incarnated into the material form.


title: Idolatry

text: The early defense of images included exegesis of Old and New Testament. Evidence for the use of religious images is found in Early Christian art and documentary records. For example, the veneration of the tombs and statues of martyrs was common among early Christian communities. In 397 St. Augustine of Hippo, in his Confessions 6.2.2, tells the story of his mother making offerings for the tombs of martyrs and the oratories built in the memory of the saints.


title: Idolatry

text: The Catholic defense mentions textual evidence of external acts of honor towards icons, arguing that there are a difference between adoration and veneration and that the veneration shown to icons differs entirely from the adoration of God. Citing the Old Testament, these arguments present examples of forms of "veneration" such as in Genesis 33:3, with the argument that "adoration is one thing, and that which is offered in order to venerate something of great excellence is another". These arguments assert, "the honor given to the image is transferred to its prototype", and that venerating an image of Christ does not terminate at the image itself – the material of the image is not the object of worship – rather it goes beyond the image, to the prototype.


title: Idolatry

text: The manufacture of images of Jesus, the Virgin Mary and Christian saints, along with prayers directed to these has been widespread among the Catholic faithful.


title: Idolatry

text: The Eastern Orthodox Church has differentiated between "latria" and "dulia". A "latria" is the worship due God, and "latria" to anyone or anything other than God is doctrinally forbidden by the Orthodox Church; however "dulia" has been defined as veneration of religious images, statues or icons which is not only allowed but obligatory. This distinction was discussed by Thomas Aquinas in section 3.25 of "Summa Theologiae".


title: Idolatry

text: In Orthodox apologetic literature, the proper and improper use of images is extensively discussed. Exegetical orthodox literature points to icons and the manufacture by Moses (under God's commandment) of the Bronze Snake in Numbers 21:9, which had the grace and power of God to heal those bitten by real snakes. Similarly, the Ark of the Covenant was cited as evidence of the ritual object above which Yahweh was present.


title: Idolatry

text: Veneration of icons through "proskynesis" was codified in 787 AD by the Seventh Ecumenical Council. This was triggered by the Byzantine Iconoclasm controversy that followed raging Christian-Muslim wars and a period of iconoclasm in West Asia. The defense of images and the role of the Syrian scholar John of Damascus was pivotal during this period. The Eastern Orthodox church has ever since celebrated the use of icons and images. Eastern-rite Catholics also accepts icons in their Divine Liturgy.


title: Idolatry

text: The idolatry debate has been one of the defining differences between Papal Catholicism and Anti-papal Protestantism. The anti-papal writers have prominently questioned the worship practices and images supported by Catholics, with many Protestant scholars listing it as the "one religious error larger than all others". The sub-list of erring practices have included among other things the veneration of Virgin Mary, the Catholic mass, the invocation of saints, and the reverence expected for and expressed to Pope himself. The charges of supposed idolatry against the Roman Catholics were leveled by a diverse group of Protestants, from Anglicans to Calvinists in Geneva.


title: Idolatry

text: Protestants did not abandon all icons and symbols of Christianity. They typically avoid the use of images, except the cross, in any context suggestive of veneration. The cross remained their central icon. Technically both major branches of Christianity have had their icons, states Carlos Eire, a professor of religious studies and history, but its meaning has been different to each and "one man's devotion was another man's idolatry". This was particularly true not only in the intra-Christian debate, states Eire, but also when soldiers of Catholic kings replaced "horrible Aztec idols" in the American colonies with "beautiful crosses and images of Mary and the saints".


title: Idolatry

text: Protestants often accuse Catholics of idolatry, iconolatry, and even paganism; in the Protestant Reformation such language was common to all Protestants. In some cases, such as the Puritan groups denounced all forms of religious objects, whether in three-dimensional or two-dimensional form, including the Christian cross.


title: Idolatry

text: The body of Christ on the cross is an ancient symbol used within the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran churches, in contrast with some Protestant groups, which use only a simple cross. In Judaism, the reverence to the icon of Christ in the form of cross has been seen as idolatry. However, some Jewish scholars disagree and consider Christianity to be based on Jewish belief and not truly idolatrous.


title: Idolatry

text: In Islamic sources, the concept of "shirk" (triliteral root: "sh-r-k") can refer to "idolatry", though it is most widely used to denote "association of partners with God". The concept of "Kufr" (k-f-r) can also include idolatry (among other forms of disbelief). The one who practices "shirk" is called "mushrik" (plural "mushrikun") in the Islamic scriptures. The Quran forbids idolatry. Over 500 mentions of "kufr" and "shirk" are found in the Quran, and both concepts are strongly forbidden.


title: Idolatry

text: The Islamic concept of idolatry extends beyond polytheism, and includes some Christians and Jews as "muširkūn" (idolaters) and "kafirun" (infidels). For example:


title: Idolatry

text: Shia classical theology differs in the concept of Shirk. According to Twelver theologians, the attributes and names of God have no independent and hypostatic existence apart from the being and essence of God. Any suggestion of these attributes and names being conceived of as separate is thought to entail polytheism. It would be even incorrect to say God knows by his knowledge which is in his essence but God knows by his knowledge which is his essence. Also God has no physical form and he is insensible. The border between theoretical Tawhid and Shirk is to know that every reality and being in its essence, attributes and action are from him (from Him-ness), it is Tawhid. Every supernatural action of the prophets is by God's permission as Quran points to it. The border between the Tawhid and Shirk in practice is to assume something as an end in itself, independent from God, not as a road to God (to Him-ness). Ismailis go deeper into the definition of "Shirk", declaring they don't recognize any sort of "ground of being" by the esoteric potential to have intuitive knowledge of the human being. Hence, most Shias have no problem with religious symbols and artworks, and with reverence for Walis, Rasūls and Imams.


title: Idolatry

text: Islam strongly prohibits all form of idolatry, which is part of the sin of "shirk" (); "širk" comes from the Arabic root Š-R-K (), with the general meaning of "to share". In the context of the Qur'an, the particular sense of "sharing as an equal partner" is usually understood as "attributing a partner to Allah". "Shirk" is often translated as idolatry and polytheism. In the Qur'an, "shirk" and the related word (plural Stem IV active participle) "mušrikūn" (مشركون) "those who commit shirk" often refers to the enemies of Islam (as in verse 9.1–15) but sometimes it also refers to erring Muslims.


title: Idolatry

text: Within Islam, "shirk" is sin that can only be forgiven if the person who commits it asks God for forgiveness; if the person who committed it dies without repenting God may forgive any sin except for committing "shirk". In practice, especially among strict conservative interpretations of Islam, the term has been greatly extended and means deification of anyone or anything other than the singular God. In Salafi-Wahhabi interpretation, it may be used very widely to describe behaviour that does not literally constitute worship, including use of images of sentient beings, building a structure over a grave, associating partners with God, giving his characteristics to others beside him, or not believing in his characteristics. 19th century Wahhabis regarded idolatry punishable with the death penalty, a practice that was "hitherto unknown" in Islam. However, Classical Orthodox Sunni thought used to be rich in Relics and Saint veneration, as well as pilgrimage to their shrines. Ibn Taymiyya, a medieval theologian that influenced modern days Salafists, was put in prison for his negation of veneration of relics and Saints, as well as pilgrimage to Shrines, which was considered unorthodox by his contemporary theologians.


title: Idolatry

text: According to Islamic tradition, over the millennia after Ishmael's death, his progeny and the local tribes who settled around the oasis of Zam-Zam gradually turned to polytheism and idolatry. Several idols were placed within the Kaaba representing deities of different aspects of nature and different tribes. Several heretical rituals were adopted in the Pilgrimage ("Hajj") including doing naked circumambulation.


title: Idolatry

text: In her book, "Islam: A Short History", Karen Armstrong asserts that the Kaaba was officially dedicated to Hubal, a Nabatean deity, and contained 360 idols that probably represented the days of the year. But by Muhammad's day, it seems that the Kaaba was venerated as the shrine of Allah, the High God. Allah was never represented by an idol. Once a year, tribes from all around the Arabian peninsula, whether Christian or pagan, would converge on Mecca to perform the "Hajj", marking the widespread conviction that Allah was the same deity worshiped by monotheists. Guillaume in his translation of Ibn Ishaq, an early biographer of Muhammad, says the Ka'aba might have been itself addressed using a feminine grammatical form by the Quraysh. Circumambulation was often performed naked by men and almost naked by women, It is disputed whether Allah and Hubal were the same deity or different. Per a hypothesis by Uri Rubin and Christian Robin, Hubal was only venerated by Quraysh and the Kaaba was first dedicated to Allah, a supreme god of individuals belonging to different tribes, while the pantheon of the gods of Quraysh was installed in Kaaba after they conquered Mecca a century before Muhammad's time.


title: Idolatry

text: The oldest forms of the ancient religions of India apparently made no use of cult images. While the Vedic literature leading up to Hinduism is extensive, in the form of Samhitas, Brahmanas, Aranyakas and Upanishads, and has been dated to have been composed over a period of centuries (1200 BC to 200 BC), historical Vedic religion appears not to have used cult images up to around 500 BC at least. The early Buddhist and Jain (pre-200 BC) traditions suggest no evidence of idolatry. The Vedic literature mentions many gods and goddesses, as well as the use of Homa (votive ritual using fire), but it does not mention images or their worship. The ancient Buddhist, Hindu and Jaina texts discuss the nature of existence, whether there is or is not a creator deity such as in the Nasadiya Sukta of the "Rigveda", they describe meditation, they recommend the pursuit of simple monastic life and self-knowledge, they debate the nature of absolute reality as Brahman or Śūnyatā, yet the ancient Indian texts mention no use of images. Indologists such as the Max Muller, Jan Gonda, Pandurang Vaman Kane, Ramchandra Narayan Dandekar, Horace Hayman Wilson, Stephanie Jamison and other scholars state that "there is no evidence for icons or images representing god(s)" in the ancient religions of India. Use of cult images developed among the Indian religions later, perhaps first in Buddhism, where large images of the Buddha appear by the 1st century AD.


title: Idolatry

text: According to John Grimes, a professor of Indian philosophy, Indian thought denied even dogmatic idolatry of its scriptures. Everything has been left to challenge, arguments and enquiry, with the medieval Indian scholar Vācaspati Miśra stating that not all scripture is authoritative, only scripture which "reveals the identity of the individual self and the supreme self as the non-dual Absolute".


title: Idolatry

text: According to Eric Reinders, icons and idolatry have been an integral part of Buddhism throughout its later history. Buddhists, from Korea to Vietnam, Thailand to Tibet, Central Asia to South Asia, have long produced temples and idols, altars and rosaries, relics to amulets, images to ritual implements. The images or relics of Buddha are found in all Buddhist traditions, but they also feature gods and goddesses such as those in Tibetan Buddhism.


title: Idolatry

text: Bhakti (called "Bhatti" in Pali) has been a common practice in Theravada Buddhism, where offerings and group prayers are made to Cetiya and particularly images of Buddha. Karel Werner notes that Bhakti has been a significant practice in Theravada Buddhism, and states, "there can be no doubt that deep devotion or "bhakti / bhatti" does exist in Buddhism and that it had its beginnings in the earliest days".


title: Idolatry

text: According to Peter Harvey – a professor of Buddhist Studies, Buddha idols and idolatry spread into northwest Indian subcontinent (now Pakistan and Afghanistan) and into Central Asia with Buddhist Silk Road merchants. The Hindu rulers of different Indian dynasties patronized both Buddhism and Hinduism from 4th to 9th century, building Buddhist icons and cave temples such as the Ajanta Caves and Ellora Caves which featured Buddha idols. From the 10th century, states Harvey, the raids into northwestern parts of South Asia by Muslim Turks destroyed Buddhist idols, given their religious dislike for idolatry. The iconoclasm was so linked to Buddhism, that the Islamic texts of this era in India called all idols as "Budd". The desecration of idols in cave temples continued through the 17th century, states Geri Malandra, from the offense of "the graphic, anthropomorphic imagery of Hindu and Buddhist shrines".


title: Idolatry

text: In East Asia and Southeast Asia, worship in Buddhist temples with the aid of icons and sacred objects has been historic. In Japanese Buddhism, for example, "Butsugu" (sacred objects) have been integral to the worship of the Buddha ("kuyo"), and such idolatry considered a part of the process of realizing one's Buddha nature. This process is more than meditation, it has traditionally included devotional rituals ("butsudo") aided by the Buddhist clergy. These practices are also found in Korea and China.


title: Idolatry

text: In Hinduism, an icon, image or statue is called "Murti" or "Pratima". Major Hindu traditions such as Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism and Smartaism favor the use of "Murti" (idol). These traditions suggest that it is easier to dedicate time and focus on spirituality through anthropomorphic or non-anthropomorphic icons. The Bhagavad Gita – a Hindu scripture, in verse 12.5, states that only a few have the time and mind to ponder and fix on the unmanifested Absolute (abstract formless Brahman), and it is much easier to focus on qualities, virtues, aspects of a manifested representation of god, through one's senses, emotions and heart, because the way human beings naturally are.


title: Idolatry

text: A "murti" in Hinduism, states Jeaneane Fowler – a professor of Religious Studies specializing on Indian Religions, is itself not god, it is an "image of god" and thus a symbol and representation. A "Murti" is a form and manifestation, states Fowler, of the formless Absolute. Thus a literal translation of "Murti" as idol is incorrect, when idol is understood as superstitious end in itself. Just like the photograph of a person is not the real person, a "Murti" is an image in Hinduism but not the real thing, but in both cases the image reminds of something of emotional and real value to the viewer. When a person worships a "Murti", it is assumed to be a manifestation of the essence or spirit of the deity, the worshipper's spiritual ideas and needs are meditated through it, yet the idea of ultimate reality – called Brahman in Hinduism – is not confined in it.


title: Idolatry

text: Devotional ("bhakti movement") practices centered on cultivating a deep and personal bond of love with God, often expressed and facilitated with one or more Murti, and includes individual or community hymns, japa or singing ("bhajan", "kirtan" or "aarti"). Acts of devotion, in major temples particularly, are structured on treating the "Murti" as the manifestation of a revered guest, and the daily routine can include awakening the "murti" in the morning and making sure that it "is washed, dressed, and garlanded."


title: Idolatry

text: In Vaishnavism, the building of a temple for the "murti" is considered an act of devotion, but non-Murti symbolism is also common wherein the aromatic Tulsi plant or "Saligrama" is an aniconic reminder of the spiritualism in Vishnu. In the Shaivism tradition of Hinduism, Shiva may be represented as a masculine idol, or half-man half woman ardhanarishvara form, in an anicon Linga-Yoni form. The worship rituals associated with the "Murti", correspond to ancient cultural practices for a beloved guest, and the "Murti" is welcomed, taken care of, and then requested to retire.


title: Idolatry

text: Christopher John Fuller states that an image in Hinduism cannot be equated with a deity and the object of worship is the divine whose power is inside the image, and the image is not the object of worship itself, Hindus believe everything is worthy of worship as it contains divine energy. The idols are neither random nor intended as superstitious objects, rather they are designed with embedded symbolism and iconographic rules which sets the style, proportions, the colors, the nature of items the images carry, their mudra and the legends associated with the deity. The "Vāstusūtra Upaniṣad" states that the aim of the "Murti" art is to inspire a devotee towards contemplating the Ultimate Supreme Principle (Brahman). This text adds (abridged):


title: Idolatry

text: Some Hindu movements founded during the colonial era, such as the Arya Samaj and Satya Mahima Dharma reject idolatry.


title: Idolatry

text: Devotional idolatry has been a prevalent ancient practice in various Jaina sects, wherein learned Tirthankara ("Jina") and human "gurus" have been venerated with offerings, songs and Āratī prayers. Like other major Indian religions, Jainism has premised its spiritual practices on the belief that "all knowledge is inevitably mediated by images" and human beings discover, learn and know what is to be known through "names, images and representations". Thus, idolatry has been a part of the major sects of Jainism such as Digambara and Shvetambara. The earliest archaeological evidence of the idols and images in Jainism is from Mathura, and has been dated to be from the first half of the 1st millennium AD.


title: Idolatry

text: The creation of idols, their consecration, the inclusion of Jaina layperson in idols and temples of Jainism by the Jaina monks has been a historic practice. However, during the iconoclastic era of Islamic rule, between the 15th and 17th century, a Lonka sect of Jainism emerged that continued pursuing their traditional spirituality but without the Jaina arts, images and idols.


title: Idolatry

text: Sikhism is a monotheistic Indian religion, and Sikh temples are devoid of idols and icons for God. Yet, Sikhism strongly encourages devotion to God. Some scholars call Sikhism a Bhakti sect of Indian traditions.


title: Idolatry

text: In Sikhism, "nirguni Bhakti" is emphasised – devotion to a divine without Gunas (qualities or form), but its scripture also accepts representations of God with formless ("nirguni") and with form ("saguni"), as stated in Adi Granth 287. Sikhism condemns worshipping images or statues as if it were God, but have historically challenged the iconoclastic policies and Hindu temple destruction activities of Islamic rulers in India.


title: Idolatry

text: Sikhs house their scripture and revere the Guru Granth Sahib as the final Guru of Sikhism. It is installed in Sikh "Gurdwara" (temple), many Sikhs bow or prostrate before it on entering the temple. Guru Granth Sahib is ritually installed every morning, and put to bed at night in many "Gurdwaras".


title: Idolatry

text: Africa has numerous ethnic groups, and their diverse religious idea have been grouped as African Traditional Religions, sometimes abbreviated to ATR. These religions typically believe in a Supreme Being which goes by different regional names, as well as spirit world often linked to ancestors, and mystical magical powers through divination. Idols and their worship have been associated with all three components in the African Traditional Religions.


title: Idolatry

text: According to J.O. Awolalu, proselytizing Christians and Muslims have mislabelled idol to mean false god, when in the reality of most traditions of Africa, the object may be a piece of wood or iron or stone, yet it is "symbolic, an emblem and implies the spiritual idea which is worshipped". The material objects may decay or get destroyed, the emblem may crumble or substituted, but the spiritual idea that it represents to the heart and mind of an African traditionalist remains unchanged. Sylvester Johnson – a professor of African American and Religious Studies, concurs with Awolalu, and states that the colonial era missionaries who arrived in Africa, neither understood the regional languages nor the African theology, and interpreted the images and ritualism as "epitome of idolatry", projecting the iconoclastic controversies in Europe they grew up with, onto Africa.


title: Idolatry

text: First with the arrival of Islam in Africa, then during the Christian colonial efforts, the religiously justified wars, the colonial portrayal of idolatry as proof of savagery, the destruction of idols and the seizure of idolaters as slaves marked a long period of religious intolerance, which supported religious violence and demeaning caricature of the African Traditional Religionists. The violence against idolaters and idolatry of Traditional Religion practicers of Africa started in the medieval era and continued into the modern era. The charge of idolatry by proselytizers, state Michael Wayne Cole and Rebecca Zorach, served to demonize and dehumanize local African populations, and justify their enslavement and abuse locally or far off plantations, settlements or for forced domestic labor.


title: Idolatry

text: Statues, images and temples have been a part of the Traditional Religions of the indigenous people of the Americas. The Incan, Mayan and Aztec civilizations developed sophisticated religious practices that incorporated idols and religious arts. The Inca culture, for example, has believed in "Viracocha" (also called "Pachacutec") as the creator deity and nature deities such as "Inti" (sun deity), and "Mama Cocha" the goddess of the sea, lakes, rivers and waters.


title: Idolatry

text: In Mayan culture, "Kukulkan" has been the supreme creator deity, also revered as the god of reincarnation, water, fertility and wind. The Mayan people built step pyramid temples to honor "Kukulkan", aligning them to the Sun's position on the spring equinox. Other deities found at Mayan archaeological sites include "Xib Chac" – the benevolent male rain deity, and "Ixchel" – the benevolent female earth, weaving and pregnancy goddess. A deity with aspects similar to "Kulkulkan" in the Aztec culture has been called "Quetzalcoatl".


title: Idolatry

text: Missionaries came to the Americas with the start of Spanish colonial era, and the Catholic Church did not tolerate any form of native idolatry, preferring that the icons and images of Jesus and Mary replace the native idols. Aztec, for example, had a written history which included those about their Traditional Religion, but the Spanish colonialists destroyed this written history in their zeal to end what they considered as idolatry, and to convert the Aztecs to Catholicism. The Aztec Indians, however, preserved their religion and religious practices by burying their idols under the crosses, and then continuing their idol worship rituals and practices, aided by the syncretic composite of atrial crosses and their idols as before.


title: Idolatry

text: During and after the imposition of Catholic Christianity during Spanish colonialism, the Incan people retained their original beliefs in deities through syncretism, where they overlay the Christian God and teachings over their original beliefs and practices. The male deity "Inti" became accepted as the Christian God, but the Andean rituals centered around idolatry of Incan deities have been retained and continued thereafter into the modern era by the Incan people.


title: Idolatry

text: The Polynesian people have had a range of polytheistic theologies found across the Pacific Ocean. The Polynesian people produced idols from wood, and congregated around these idols for worship.


title: Idolatry

text: The Christian missionaries, particularly from the London Missionary Society such as John Williams, and others such as the Methodist Missionary Society, characterized these as idolatry, in the sense of islanders worshipping false gods. They sent back reports which primarily focussed on "overthrow of pagan idolatry" as evidence of their Christian sects triumph, with fewer mentions of actual converts and baptism.


title: Idolatry

text: The term "false god" is often used throughout the Abrahamic scriptures (Torah, Tanakh, Bible, and Quran) to compare Yahweh (interpreted by Jews, Samaritans, and Christians) or Elohim/Allah (interpreted by Muslims) as the only true God. Nevertheless, the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament itself recognizes and reports that originally the Israelites were not monotheists but actively engaged in idolatry and worshipped many foreign, non-Jewish Gods besides Yahweh and/or instead of him, such as Baal, Astarte, Asherah, Chemosh, Dagon, Moloch, Tammuz, and more, and continued to do so until their return from the Babylonian exile (see Ancient Hebrew religion). Judaism, the oldest Abrahamic religion, eventually shifted into a strict, exclusive monotheism, based on the sole veneration of Yahweh, the predecessor to the Abrahamic conception of God.


title: Idolatry

text: The vast majority of religions in history have been and/or are still polytheistic, worshipping many diverse deities. Moreover, the material depiction of a deity or more deities has always played an eminent role in all cultures of the world. The claim to worship the "one and only true God" came to most of the world with the arrival of Abrahamic religions and is the distinguishing characteristic of their monotheistic worldview, whereas virtually all the other religions in the world have been and/or are still animistic and polytheistic.


title: Idolatry

text: The accusations and presumption that all idols and images are devoid of symbolism, or that icons of one's own religion are "true, healthy, uplifting, beautiful symbolism, mark of devotion, divine", while of other person's religion are "false, an illness, superstitious, grotesque madness, evil addiction, satanic, and cause of all incivility" is more a matter of subjective personal interpretation, rather than objective impersonal truth. Regina Schwartz and some other contemporary scholars state allegations that idols only represent false gods, followed by iconoclastic destruction is only little more than religious intolerance. The Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume wrote in his essay "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion" (1779) that the worship of different gods and cult images in Pagan religions is premised on religious pluralism, tolerance, and acceptance of diverse representations of the divine, whereas Abrahamic monotheistic religions are intolerant, have attempted to destroy freedom of expression, and have violently forced others to accept and worship their conception of God.


title: Sebastian Kurz

text: Sebastian Kurz (; born 27 August 1986) is a former Austrian politician who twice served as chancellor of Austria, initially from December 2017 to May 2019 and then a second time from January 2020 to October 2021.


title: Sebastian Kurz

text: Kurz was born and raised in Meidling, Vienna. He entered politics by joining the Young People's Party (JVP) in 2003 and rose through the ranks there over the following years. As a result of a cabinet reshuffle in 2011, Kurz received his first government mandate as state secretary responsible for socially integrating refugees. After the 2013 legislative election, Kurz became the country's foreign minister and remained its top diplomat until December 2017.


title: Sebastian Kurz

text: In May 2017, Kurz succeeded ÖVP chairman Reinhold Mitterlehner and ran as chancellor candidate of his party in the 2017 legislative election. He campaigned on modernizing the Austrian political and bureaucratic apparatus as well as handling the social and immigration issues the country was facing after the European refugee crisis. His perceived reformist approach, rhetorical skills and youth were cited as the prime reasons for his landslide victory. Kurz was subsequently charged with forming his first cabinet. He opted for a coalition with the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). During his first chancellorship, Kurz was credited with mostly following through on his campaign pledges, but his leadership style was widely criticised as uncooperative and hasty. Several political scandals, culminating with the Ibiza affair in 2019, ended the ÖVP–FPÖ coalition. As a result of him no longer commanding the support of Parliament, Kurz and his Cabinet were ousted.


title: Sebastian Kurz

text: Following the 2019 snap election, he returned to power and formed a coalition with the environmentalist Green Party this time. Kurz and his second cabinet were inaugurated in January 2020. Their agenda, however, was swiftly put in limbo by the surging COVID-19 pandemic. His response to the pandemic included lockdowns and curfews. An investigation into the Ibiza affair by a parliamentary subcommittee, an unstable Cabinet plagued by resignations, and ultimately a corruption inquiry, forced Kurz to resign the chancellorship in October 2021. However, remaining party chair and parliamentary leader allowed him to retain control over government affairs, and thus he came to be known as "shadow chancellor". Two months later, Kurz quit politics entirely and started working as a global strategist for Peter Thiel.


title: Sebastian Kurz

text: Kurz was the youngest chancellor in Austrian history as well as the youngest head of government in the world for about four years. His youth and political tenor were credited with revitalizing the traditional conservative movement in Austria, and to a larger extent in Europe.


title: Sebastian Kurz

text: Kurz was born in Vienna, the only child of Elisabeth () and Josef Kurz. His father is an engineer and his mother is a grammar school teacher. Kurz's maternal grandmother Magdalena Müller, born 1928 in Temerin, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (today Vojvodina, Serbia), is a Danube Swabian who fled from the city and settled in Zogelsdorf (today in Austria) during World War II, after the Yugoslav Partisans and the Red Army started to liberate the territory that was then occupied by the Kingdom of Hungary. Kurz was brought up in Meidling, the 12th district of Vienna, where he still lives. He obtained his Matura certificate in 2004, completed compulsory military service in 2005, and began studying law at the University of Vienna the same year. Later, he dropped out of university and focused on his political career. Kurz is in a relationship with economics teacher Susanne Thier; they have a son named Konstantin together.


title: Sebastian Kurz

text: Kurz had been a member of the Young People's Party (JVP) since 2003 and was 'sponsored' by Markus Figl. From 2008 to 2012, he was chairman of Young People's Party of Vienna. As chairman, he led the youth arm of the electoral campaign of the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) into the 2010 Viennese state election and coined the electoral campaign's controversial slogan "black makes [you] cool" ("Schwarz macht geil"), a play on the official party color as well as the colloquial term ""geil"" which literally translates to "horny". Kurz used a black painted SUV termed the ""Geilomobil"" (cool/horny automobile) for official campaign trips in Vienna. Kurz was elected chairman of the Austrian JVP at a federal party convention in 2009, where he received 99 percent of the vote; five years later he was reelected with 100 percent. In 2017, attorney Stefan Schnöll succeeded Kurz as chairman. From 2009 to 2016, Kurz served as a deputy co-chair of the Viennese People's Party. From 2010 to 2011, he was a member of the Viennese State and Municipality Diet, where he focused on "generational equality and fair pensions", before being nominated as state secretary of the Interior Ministry for integration in June 2011, ensuing a reshuffle of the first Faymann cabinet. Following the 2013 Austrian legislative election, in which he won the most direct votes of any candidate, he briefly served as a member of the Parliament. In December 2013, Kurz resigned his parliamentary seat to become the country's youngest foreign minister at age 27.


title: Sebastian Kurz

text: Kurz opined that a healthy and open relation between the government and religious communities was pivotal for social integration. During his first months as state secretary for integration, Kurz suggested several policy changes, including a second obligatory preschool year for students with poor language skills. In 2011, the Foreign Ministry, the Austrian Integration Fund and the Education Ministry launched the joint venture "Zusammen:Österreich" ("Together:Austria"), which aimed at familiarizing immigrants with Austrian culture and traditions, and sought to convey Western tenets, such as religious freedom and democracy. "Zusammen:Österreich" deployed so-called "integration ambassadors" to public schools, which were responsible for furthering immigrant children's "identification with Austria" through dialog.


title: Sebastian Kurz

text: During his term as state secretary, Kurz received an annual budget totaling €15 million as of 2011. The budget was raised to €100 million by 2017. The surge was primarily the result of a large-scale expansion of German language classes by the government.


title: Sebastian Kurz

text: Following the 2013 legislative election, Kurz replaced Michael Spindelegger as head of the Foreign Ministry. In March 2014, the Foreign Ministry also became responsible for integration-related issues. Kurz declared the improvement of Austria's relation with the Western Balkans one of his top policy priorities. "For historical reasons" a committed relation with Israel and the Jewish community were also 'imperative' to Kurz.


title: Sebastian Kurz

text: During a visit to Belgrade in February 2014, he reaffirmed – in part because of national economic and political interests – Austria's continued support for the accession of Serbia to the European Union (EU).


title: Sebastian Kurz

text: In November 2014, Kurz launched the ""#stolzdrauf"" campaign, which sought to encourage people in displaying patriotism on social media. Among the supporters of the campaign were celebrities, such as the former Miss Austria Amina Dagi and musician Andreas Gabalier, according to the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung". Former president Heinz Fischer, Austrian Airlines, the Jewish Community and the Islamic Religious Community were also involved in some form. The campaign was officially launched at a press conference which was later jeopardized by the alt-right identitarian movement. The amount of money invested by the Foreign Ministry on the campaign's promotion were heavily criticized; expenditures totaled €326,029 in only five to six weeks, 55% of which were spent on boulevard and free newspaper advertisements.


title: Sebastian Kurz

text: On 25 February 2015, Parliament passed an amendment to the Islam law. The changes bar foreign funding of Islamic religious associations, and were strongly criticised by the Muslim community. It also granted Muslims the right to pastoral care in the military, prisons, hospitals and nursing homes. A German translation of the Qur'an, which had been sought by Kurz, was not included.


title: Sebastian Kurz

text: In June 2015, Kurz proposed to readjust child benefits received by foreign EU citizens – who work in Austria but whose children remained in their home country – so that it would match the price level of their country. In addition, European foreigners should "pay their fair share for a few years" before being eligible to enroll in Austrian social insurance programs. The Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) opposed this suggestion but agreed that the exploitation of child benefit programs needed to end. The Freedom Party (FPÖ) welcomed the proposal. The Green party accused Kurz of "adopting the FPÖ's hate mentality".


title: Sebastian Kurz

text: At the end of June 2015, Kurz introduced a long-term policy plan to shut down embassies in Malta, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia by autumn 2018 and simultaneously open new ones in Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Qatar, and Singapore. His plans also included a second Consulate General in China.


title: Sebastian Kurz

text: In January 2016, in an interview with the daily newspaper "Die Welt", Kurz stated "it is understandable that many politicians are afraid of 'ugly pictures' when it comes to border security. However, we cannot simply cede the responsibilities we have regarding our borders to Turkey, because we don't want to get our hands dirty. 'Ugly pictures' are unavoidable". The Green MEP Michel Reimon quoted the latter part in the caption of a photo showing the deceased refugee boy Aylan Kurdi, which went viral on Facebook. Reimon also referred to Kurz as an "inhumane cynic". An ÖVP spokesperson commented: "it is despicable that the Green party exploits the death of this little boy to promote their ideological stances", Aylan had died at a time "where border security did not exist yet".


title: Sebastian Kurz

text: The Foreign Ministry's Recognition & Evaluation Act was passed by Parliament in July 2016. It allows for the recognition of qualifications acquired abroad as well as the conversion of foreign academic certificates into domestic ones.


title: Sebastian Kurz

text: During commemorations and military parades to mark the end of World War II, Kurz visited Belarus on 5 May 2015, followed by a visit to Moscow where he met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. He described the annexation of Crimea and Russia's support of Eastern Ukrainian separatists as "contrary to international law". Kurz explained that a softening of EU sanctions would be declined without prior local improvements of the situation and that the implementation of the Minsk II agreement by Russia was imperative. He added that peace could only be achieved "with and not against Russia". In June 2016, he voiced his support for a proposal made by then-German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier to gradually withdraw sanctions in return for promises kept by Russia regarding the Minsk agreement.


title: Sebastian Kurz

text: In May 2016, Kurz visited Israel and met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The trip marked 60 years of diplomatic relations between Austria and Israel. Netanyahu and Kurz signed a working holiday visa agreement as well as several arrangements on bilateral educational and cultural issues.


title: Sebastian Kurz

text: In November 2016, Kurz expressed his gratitude as a representative of the European People's Party in a campaign rally of the Macedonian sister party VMRO-DPMNE for supporting the closure of the Western Balkans route, which was later criticized as an indirect election endorsement.


title: Sebastian Kurz

text: In March 2017, Kurz referred to rescue operations in the Mediterranean Sea as "NGO insanity", as these would "lead to more refugees dying instead of fewer". Intrigued by the Australian refugee model, Kurz repeatedly demanded that refugees rescued in the Mediterranean Sea should no longer be taken to mainland Italy, but transferred to refugee camps outside of Europe. EU border patrol agency Frontex supported his proposal, while most NGOs opposed it.


title: Sebastian Kurz

text: In March 2017, the Council of Ministers approved the Integration Act, which was enacted by Parliament two month later. It introduced German language classes for immigrants as well as mandatory "language and value" courses for refugees, and prohibits the distribution of the Quran by Salafists in public areas. It also banned full face veils in public spaces.


title: Sebastian Kurz

text: In May 2017, an integration ambassador criticized Kurz's immigration policy. According to a survey conducted by magazine Bum Media, two-thirds of the integration ambassadors disagreed with his policy objectives, especially the ban on full face veils.


title: Sebastian Kurz

text: Under Kurz's term, the cabinet agreed to up funds made available for bilateral relation building from €75 to roughly €150 million by 2021.


title: Sebastian Kurz

text: At the end of 2016, the Foreign Ministry announced that it had discontinued governmental endowment of "Südwind Magazin", which had been published monthly since 1979, for the association "Südwind Entwicklungspolitik". This was widely condemned, as it put the magazine in grave financial peril and reportedly undermined freedom of the press in Austria. The publisher of the magazine considered the move "politically idiotic".


title: Sebastian Kurz

text: As foreign minister, Kurz assumed the yearly-rotating chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in January 2017.


title: Sebastian Kurz

text: On 18 December 2017, Kurz stepped down as foreign minister to become chancellor. He was succeeded by Karin Kneissl of the FPÖ.


title: Sebastian Kurz

text: In 2016, several news outlets speculated that Kurz would most likely succeed Reinhold Mitterlehner as chairman of the ÖVP before the 2017 legislative election, and run as the party's chancellor candidate. In 2014, the "Kurier" already predicted that Kurz would run for the chancellorship in the upcoming election. On 10 May 2017, Mitterlehner abruptly tendered his resignation as party chair and vice chancellor. Following Mitterlehner's departure from politics, the party's Executive Board nominated Kurz as the new chairman on 14 May. However, Kurz declined to succeed Mitterlehner as vice chancellor. Before his official confirmation, Kurz introduced the Executive Board with a list of demands, most notably the power to unilaterally craft the party's federal nominees' list for legislative elections. The Board consented to most of them, some where even enshrined into the party bylaws. The "Falter" wrote that Kurz had already tested the waters regarding campaign funding before assuming the chairmanship and reported that large corporate donors pledged to endow his campaign with several millions of euros.


title: Sebastian Kurz

text: On 1 July 2017, Kurz was officially elected chairman of the ÖVP by a Federal Party Convention, garnering 98.7% of the delegates' vote and thereby falling just short of Mitterlehner's 99.1%.