title: Art Spiegelman

text: The same year, Voyager Company published "The Complete Maus", a CD-ROM version of "Maus" with extensive supplementary material, and Spiegelman illustrated a 1923 poem by Joseph Moncure March called "The Wild Party". Spiegelman contributed the essay "Getting in Touch With My Inner Racist" in the September 1, 1997, issue of "Mother Jones".


title: Art Spiegelman

text: Spiegelman was comics editor of the "New York Press" in the early 1990s. He was comics editor of "Details" magazine in the late 1990s; in 1997 he began assigning comics journalism pieces in "Details" to a number of his cartoonist associates, including Joe Sacco, Peter Kuper, Ben Katchor, Peter Bagge, Charles Burns, Kaz, Kim Deitch, and Jay Lynch. The magazine published these works of journalism in comics form throughout 1998 and 1999, helping to legitimize the form in popular perception.


title: Art Spiegelman

text: Spiegelman's influence and connections in New York cartooning circles drew the ire of political cartoonist Ted Rall in 1999. In "The King of Comix", an article in "The Village Voice", Rall accused Spiegelman of the power to "make or break" a cartoonist's career in New York, while denigrating Spiegelman as "a guy with one great book in him". Cartoonist Danny Hellman responded by sending a forged email under Rall's name to 30 professionals; the prank escalated until Rall launched a defamation suit against Hellman for $1.5 million. Hellman published a "Legal Action Comics" benefit book to cover his legal costs, to which Spiegelman contributed a back-cover cartoon in which he relieves himself on a Rall-shaped urinal.


title: Art Spiegelman

text: In 1997, Spiegelman had his first children's book published, "Open Me...I'm a Dog", with a narrator who tries to convince its readers that it is a dog via pop-ups and an attached leash. From 2000 to 2003, Spiegelman and Mouly edited three issues of the children's comics anthology "Little Lit", with contributions from "Raw" alumni and children's book authors and illustrators.


title: Art Spiegelman

text: Spiegelman lived close to the World Trade Center site, which was known as "Ground Zero" after the September 11 attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center. Immediately following the attacks Spiegelman and Mouly rushed to their daughter Nadja's school, where Spiegelman's anxiety served only to increase his daughter's apprehensiveness over the situation. Spiegelman and Mouly created a cover for the September 24 issue of "The New Yorker" which at first glance appears to be totally black, but upon close examination it reveals the silhouettes of the World Trade Center towers in a slightly darker shade of black. Mouly positioned the silhouettes so that the North Tower's antenna breaks into the "w" of "The New Yorker"s logo. The towers were printed in black on a slightly darker black field employing standard four-color printing inks with an overprinted clear varnish. In some situations, the ghost images only became visible when the magazine was tilted toward a light source. Spiegelman was critical of the Bush administration and the mass media over their handling of the September 11 attacks.


title: Art Spiegelman

text: Spiegelman did not renew his "New Yorker" contract after 2003. He later quipped that he regretted leaving when he did, as he could have left in protest when the magazine ran a pro-invasion of Iraq piece later in the year. Spiegelman said his parting from "The New Yorker" was part of his general disappointment with "the widespread conformism of the mass media in the Bush era". He said he felt like he was in "internal exile" following the September 11 attacks as the U.S. media had become "conservative and timid" and did not welcome the provocative art that he felt the need to create. Nevertheless, Spiegelman asserted he left not over political differences, as had been widely reported, but because "The New Yorker" was not interested in doing serialized work, which he wanted to do with his next project.


title: Art Spiegelman

text: Spiegelman responded to the September 11 attacks with "In the Shadow of No Towers", commissioned by German newspaper "Die Zeit", where it appeared throughout 2003. "The Jewish Daily Forward" was the only American periodical to serialize the feature. The collected work appeared in September 2004 as an oversized board book of two-page spreads which had to be turned on end to read.


title: Art Spiegelman

text: In the June 2006 edition of "Harper's Magazine" Spiegelman had an article published on the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy; some interpretations of Islamic law prohibit the depiction of Muhammad. The Canadian chain of booksellers Indigo refused to sell the issue. Called "Drawing Blood: Outrageous Cartoons and the Art of Outrage", the article surveyed the sometimes dire effect political cartooning has for its creators, ranging from Honoré Daumier, who spent time in prison for his satirical work; to George Grosz, who faced exile. To Indigo the article seemed to promote the continuance of racial caricature. An internal memo advised Indigo staff to tell people: "the decision was made based on the fact that the content about to be published has been known to ignite demonstrations around the world." In response to the cartoons, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promoted an Iranian cartoon contest seeking anti-Semitic cartoons. The organizers of the contest intended to highlight what they perceived as Western double standards surrounding anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Spiegelman produced a cartoon of a line of prisoners being led to the gas chambers; one stops to look at the corpses around him and says, "Ha! Ha! Ha! What’s really hilarious is that none of this is actually happening!"


title: Art Spiegelman

text: To promote literacy in young children, Mouly encouraged publishers to publish comics for children. Disappointed by publishers' lack of response, from 2008 she self-published a line of easy readers called Toon Books, by artists such as Spiegelman, Renée French, and Rutu Modan, and promotes the books to teachers and librarians for their educational value. Spiegelman's "Jack and the Box" was one of the inaugural books in 2008.


title: Art Spiegelman

text: In 2008 Spiegelman reissued "Breakdowns" in an expanded edition including "Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!" an autobiographical strip that had been serialized in the "Virginia Quarterly Review" from 2005. A volume drawn from Spiegelman's sketchbooks, "Be A Nose", appeared in 2009. In 2011, "MetaMaus" followed—a book-length analysis of "Maus" by Spiegelman and Hillary Chute with a DVD update of the earlier CD-ROM.


title: Art Spiegelman

text: Library of America commissioned Spiegelman to edit the two-volume "Lynd Ward: Six Novels in Woodcuts", which appeared in 2010, collecting all of Ward's wordless novels with an introduction and annotations by Spiegelman. The project led to a touring show in 2014 about wordless novels called "Wordless!" with live music by saxophonist Phillip Johnston. "Art Spiegelman's Co-Mix: A Retrospective" débuted at Angoulême in 2012 and by the end of 2014 had traveled to Paris, Cologne, Vancouver, New York, and Toronto. The book "Co-Mix: A Retrospective of Comics, Graphics, and Scraps", which complemented the show, appeared in 2013.


title: Art Spiegelman

text: In 2015, after six writers refused to sit on a panel at the PEN American Center in protest of the planned "freedom of expression courage award" for the satirical French periodical "Charlie Hebdo" following the shooting at its headquarters earlier in the year, Spiegelman agreed to be one of the replacement hosts, along with other names in comics such as writer Neil Gaiman. Spiegelman retracted a cover he had submitted to a Gaiman-edited "saying the unsayable" issue of "New Statesman" when the management declined to print a strip of Spiegelman's. The strip, "Notes from a First Amendment Fundamentalist", depicts Muhammad, and Spiegelman believed the rejection was censorship, though the magazine asserted it never intended to run the cartoon.


title: Art Spiegelman

text: In 2021, Literary Hub announced that Spiegelman was co-creating a work "Street Cop" with author Robert Coover.


title: Art Spiegelman

text: Spiegelman married Françoise Mouly on July 12, 1977, in a New York city hall ceremony. They remarried later in the year after Mouly converted to Judaism to please Spiegelman's father. Mouly and Spiegelman have two children together: a daughter, Nadja Rachel, born in 1987, and a son, Dashiell Alan, born in 1992.


title: Art Spiegelman

text: Spiegelman suffers from a lazy eye, and thus lacks depth perception. He says his art style is "really a result of [his] deficiencies". His is a style of labored simplicity, with dense visual motifs which often go unnoticed upon first viewing. He sees comics as "very condensed thought structures", more akin to poetry than prose, which need careful, time-consuming planning that their seeming simplicity belies. Spiegelman's work prominently displays his concern with form, and pushing the boundaries of what is and is not comics. Early in the underground comix era, Spiegelman proclaimed to Robert Crumb, "Time is an illusion that can be shattered in comics! Showing the same scene from different angles freezes it in time by turning the page into a diagram—an orthographic projection!" His comics experiment with time, space, recursion, and representation. He uses the word "decode" to express the action of reading comics and sees comics as functioning best when expressed as diagrams, icons, or symbols.


title: Art Spiegelman

text: Spiegelman has stated he does not see himself primarily as a visual artist, one who instinctively sketches or doodles. He has said he approaches his work as a writer as he lacks confidence in his graphic skills. He subjects his dialogue and visuals to constant revision—he reworked some dialogue balloons in "Maus" up to forty times. A critic in "The New Republic" compared Spiegelman's dialogue writing to a young Philip Roth in his ability "to make the Jewish speech of several generations sound fresh and convincing".


title: Art Spiegelman

text: Spiegelman makes use of both old- and new-fashioned tools in his work. He prefers at times to work on paper on a drafting table, while at others he draws directly onto his computer using a digital pen and electronic drawing tablet, or mixes methods, employing scanners and printers.


title: Art Spiegelman

text: Harvey Kurtzman has been Spiegelman's strongest influence as a cartoonist, editor, and promoter of new talent. Chief among his other early cartooning influences include Will Eisner, John Stanley's version of "Little Lulu", Winsor McCay's "Little Nemo", George Herriman's "Krazy Kat", and Bernard Krigstein's short strip "Master Race".


title: Art Spiegelman

text: In the 1960s Spiegelman read in comics fanzines about graphic artists such as Frans Masereel, who had made wordless novels in woodcut. The discussions in those fanzines about making the Great American Novel in comics later acted as inspiration for him. Justin Green's comic book "Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary" (1972) motivated Spiegelman to open up and include autobiographical elements in his comics.


title: Art Spiegelman

text: Spiegelman acknowledges Franz Kafka as an early influence, whom he says he has read since the age of 12, and lists Vladimir Nabokov, William Faulkner, Gertrude Stein among the writers whose work "stayed with" him. He cites non-narrative avant-garde filmmakers from whom he has drawn heavily, including Ken Jacobs, Stan Brakhage, and Ernie Gehr, and other filmmakers such as Charlie Chaplin and the makers of "The Twilight Zone".


title: Art Spiegelman

text: Spiegelman is a prominent advocate for the comics medium and comics literacy. He believes the medium echoes the way the human brain processes information. He has toured the U.S. with a lecture called "Comix 101", examining its history and cultural importance. He sees comics' low status in the late 20th century as having come down from where it was in the 1930s and 1940s, when comics "tended to appeal to an older audience of GIs and other adults". Following the advent of the censorious Comics Code Authority in the mid-1950s, Spiegelman sees comics' potential as having stagnated until the rise of underground comix in the late 1960s. He taught courses in the history and aesthetics of comics at schools such as the School of Visual Arts in New York. As co-editor of "Raw", he helped propel the careers of younger cartoonists whom he mentored, such as Chris Ware, and published the work of his School of Visual Arts students, such as Kaz, Drew Friedman, and Mark Newgarden. Some of the work published in "Raw" was originally turned in as class assignments.


title: Art Spiegelman

text: Spiegelman has described himself politically as "firmly on the left side of the secular-fundamentalist divide" and a "1st Amendment absolutist". As a supporter of free speech, Spiegelman is opposed to hate speech laws. He wrote a critique in "Harper's" on the controversial Muhammad cartoons in the "Jyllands-Posten" in 2006; the issue was banned from Indigo–Chapters stores in Canada. Spiegelman criticized American media for refusing to reprint the cartoons they reported on at the time of the "Charlie Hebdo" shooting in 2015.


title: Art Spiegelman

text: Spiegelman is a non-practicing Jew and considers himself "a-Zionist"—neither pro- nor anti-Zionist; he has called Israel "a sad, failed idea". He told "Peanuts" creator Charles Schulz he was not religious, but identified with the "alienated diaspora culture of Kafka and Freud ... what Stalin pejoratively called rootless cosmopolitanism".


title: Art Spiegelman

text: "Maus" looms large not only over Spiegelman's body of work, but over the comics medium itself. While Spiegelman was far from the first to do autobiography in comics, critics such as James Campbell considered "Maus" the work that popularized it. The bestseller has been widely written about in the popular press and academia—the quantity of its critical literature far outstrips that of any other work of comics. It has been examined from a great variety of academic viewpoints, though most often by those with little understanding of "Maus" context in the history of comics. While "Maus" has been credited with lifting comics from popular culture into the world of high art in the public imagination, criticism has tended to ignore its deep roots in popular culture, roots that Spiegelman has intimate familiarity with and has devoted considerable time to promote.


title: Art Spiegelman

text: Spiegelman's belief that comics are best expressed in a diagrammatic or iconic manner has had a particular influence on formalists such as Chris Ware and his former student Scott McCloud. In 2005, the September 11-themed "New Yorker" cover placed sixth on the top ten of magazine covers of the previous 40 years by the American Society of Magazine Editors. Spiegelman has inspired numerous cartoonists to take up the graphic novel as a means of expression, including Marjane Satrapi.


title: Art Spiegelman

text: A joint ZDF–BBC documentary, "Art Spiegelman's Maus", was televised in 1987. Spiegelman, Mouly, and many of the "Raw" artists appeared in the documentary "Comic Book Confidential" in 1988. Spiegelman's comics career was also covered in an Emmy-nominated PBS documentary, "Serious Comics: Art Spiegelman", produced by Patricia Zur for WNYC-TV in 1994. Spiegelman played himself in the 2007 episode "Husbands and Knives" of the animated television series "The Simpsons" with fellow comics creators Daniel Clowes and Alan Moore. A European documentary, "Art Spiegelman, Traits de Mémoire", appeared in 2010 and later in English under the title "The Art of Spiegelman", directed by Clara Kuperberg and Joelle Oosterlinck and mainly featuring interviews with Spiegelman and those around him.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: Mikel John Obi (born John Michael Nchekwube Obinna; 22 April 1987) is a Nigerian former professional footballer who played as a defensive midfielder.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: Mikel began his career with local club Plateau United, before joining Norwegian club Lyn at the age of 17 in 2004. In 2006, he made a controversial transfer to English club Chelsea after Manchester United claimed they had already signed him. He stayed with Chelsea for 11 years, before moving to China with Tianjin TEDA in 2017. After two years in China, he returned to England on a short-term deal with Middlesbrough, before joining Trabzonspor on a free transfer in July 2019. Mikel moved back to England in August 2020 joining Stoke City. In a 14-year international career between 2005 and 2019, he played 91 times for Nigeria, scoring six goals.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: Mikel was born in Jos, Plateau State, the son of Michael Obi, who runs an inter-state transport company in Jos. His father was a member of the Igbo ethnic group.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: Mikel started his football career at the age of 12 when picked as a talented footballer from over 3,000 young talents to play in Pepsi Football Academy, a team that at the time was well known for travelling across Nigeria scouting young footballers with the potential to play professionally.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: Obi stood out to scouts and was later picked to play for top-flight club Plateau United, a side that had previously developed stars Celestine Babayaro, Victor Obinna and Chris Obodo, among others, that went on to success in European leagues. Later known as John Obi Mikel, he made headlines for his country at the FIFA Under-17 World Championships held in Finland. Following the tournament, he went on to a trial at South Africa club Ajax Cape Town, ultimately joining Oslo-based club Lyn Fotball in Norway.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: On 29 April 2005, a few days after Mikel turned 18, Premier League club Manchester United announced that they had struck a deal with Lyn to sign the player. United's website also claimed that they had done a deal directly with the teenager and that he had signed a contract to join them. Mikel's agents were bypassed as the club persuaded the youngster to sign a four-year contract without representation. Lyn allegedly sent a fax to his agents abroad, claiming their services were no longer required by Mikel. Reports said the deal was initially worth £4 million, and would see the player arrive at Old Trafford in January 2006.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: Manchester United's rival Premier League club, Chelsea, later issued a counter-claim suggesting that they already had an agreement with Mikel and his agents, but Lyn denied this claim. However, subsequent reports indicated that Chelsea claimed to have been involved in arranging the player's original move to Europe with a view to signing him at a later date. Further substance was added to this claim after it was revealed that the player had impressed Chelsea manager José Mourinho while training with the club's first-team squad during the summer of 2004.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: Mikel expressed his delight at joining United in a hastily arranged press conference, where he was pictured holding up a Manchester United shirt bearing the squad number 21. Following his signing of the contract to join United, there were claims from Norway that he had received a number of threatening phone calls from unknown sources. Mikel was assigned a security guard and moved to a safe hotel. On 11 May 2005, however, the midfielder went missing during a Norwegian Cup game against Klemetsrud; he had not been selected for the match but had been watching from the stands. Whilst the player was believed to have left with one of his agents, John Shittu, who had by now flown in to meet Mikel, his disappearance sparked massive media coverage in Norway and also provoked a police enquiry after Lyn Director Morgan Andersen made claims in the Norwegian media that Mikel had been "kidnapped". These claims were later repeated by Manchester United's assistant manager Carlos Queiroz, who accused Chelsea of being involved in the alleged "kidnapping".


title: Mikel John Obi

text: It subsequently emerged that Mikel had travelled to London with his agent John Shittu, who was working for Jerome Anderson's SEM group. Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson considered travelling to Oslo to visit Mikel, but decided against this after Mikel was reported to have left the country. Staying in a London hotel and some nine days after disappearing, Mikel stated on Sky Sports News that he had been pressured into signing the contract with United without his agent present, claims rebuffed by both Manchester United and Lyn. Mikel told the British media that Chelsea were the club he genuinely wanted to sign for. In response to these events, United made an official complaint to FIFA about the behaviour of both Chelsea and the player's agents, Shittu and Rune Hauge, already infamous for his role in the George Graham bungs scandal. FIFA dismissed these claims in August 2005, stating there was insufficient evidence to bring a case against Chelsea.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: Following the tournament, Mikel failed to return to Lyn, whereupon the club subsequently lodged a complaint with FIFA. On 12 August, FIFA ruled that Mikel should return to Lyn to fulfil the remainder of his contract with the club, whilst they would decide at a later date whether the contract he signed with United should be upheld or cancelled. After a delay of over a month, Mikel complied with the FIFA decision and returned to Lyn in early September 2005 after a three-month absence.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: Rather than leaving FIFA to determine the validity of the contract signed with Manchester United, Chelsea intervened by volunteering to settle the transfer saga through negotiation with Lyn and Manchester United.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: On 2 June 2006, Chelsea, Manchester United and Lyn reached a settlement to resolve the future of the player. Mikel's registration was to be transferred from Lyn to Chelsea; Manchester United agreed to terminate their option agreement with Mikel. Under the terms of this agreement, Chelsea agreed to pay United £12 million, half paid upon the finalization of the contract and the other half in June 2007, and Lyn £4 million, half payable immediately and half in June 2007. As a result of this settlement, all claims in this matter were withdrawn. On 19 July, Chelsea were granted a work permit for Mikel after they completed the £16 million signing in June 2006.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: In the aftermath of the transfer, Lyn director Morgan Andersen, who had a previous conviction for forging official documents, was convicted of fraud and making false accusations; he was given a one-year suspended jail sentence by an Oslo court. The court also ordered him to pay 20,000 kroner (£1,944) in costs. Chelsea made a High Court claim for £16 million against Lyn and Andersen following the conviction, claiming that the previously agreed settlement was not binding as "the transfer was based on a fraudulent misrepresentation, now proven by a court of law." This claim was subsequently resolved out of court.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: On 12 September 2006, Mikel made his first start for Chelsea in the UEFA Champions League against Bulgarian club Levski Sofia and took a powerful shot which the goalkeeper failed to save and Didier Drogba pounced on the rebound. Mikel received many positive comments for his performance in the match. However, since being sent off in a match against Reading on 14 October 2006, Mikel was fined on three separate occasions by Chelsea for turning up late to training.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: At the time, Chelsea manager José Mourinho was believed to have strong reservations about his lifestyle outside of Stamford Bridge, and the club were reportedly considering offloading the player. Mikel was dropped for over a month, during which his father Michael voiced his concerns over his son's behaviour. After improved punctuality and showings at training sessions, Mikel earned a recall for Chelsea's Champions League group stage away game against Werder Bremen on 23 November 2006. He scored his first goal for Chelsea in their 6–1 FA Cup victory over Macclesfield Town on 6 January 2007. He also scored against Nottingham Forest in the following round of the competition. During Chelsea's triumph in the League Cup final in 2007, Mikel was sent off in injury time (having come on as a substitute) after clashing with Kolo Touré. The incident was followed by a huge fracas, in which Touré and Emmanuel Adebayor of Arsenal were sent off, Cesc Fàbregas and Frank Lampard were booked and Mourinho and Arsène Wenger were involved in an altercation on the pitch.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: In subsequent games, Mourinho deployed Mikel as a starter in a holding role in key games where he impressed greatly, notably in the Chelsea–Tottenham Hotspur FA Cup sixth round replay, the Champions League quarter-final games against Valencia, the Champions League semi-final games against Liverpool and also the victorious 2007 FA Cup Final against Manchester United. Mikel's height and great strength, allied to good ball control and an unusually wide range of passing, allows him not only to disrupt opposing attacks, but also to spread the play effectively. Mikel supplanted the French midfielder Claude Makélélé in the lineup following his departure to Paris Saint-Germain.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: Mikel was sent-off for the third time in his career in September 2007, when referee Mike Dean dismissed him for a tackle on Manchester United defender Patrice Evra. Chelsea appealed against the red card, but the three-match suspension was upheld.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: Mikel was also sent off in the semi-final of the League Cup against Everton for a challenge on Phil Neville. Despite this, he came back strongly to round off what has been a good first two seasons for him at Chelsea.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: The summer of 2008 saw veteran defensive midfielder Claude Makélélé transferred to French club Paris Saint-Germain, leaving the defensive midfield position vacant. Throughout the 2008–09 season, Mikel saw a great deal of playing time due to an injury to Michael Essien. During this period of increased action, Mikel performed admirably in the role. His ever-improving game was praised by Chelsea manager Luiz Felipe Scolari, and his importance to the team was underlined when he provided the free kick that Salomon Kalou scored to equalise against Manchester United. He played so well in 2008–09 that he was nominated for the club player and young player of the season. On 24 January 2009, Mikel was charged with drunk driving, just hours before an FA Cup game against Ipswich Town – Mikel was not due to play in the game as he was serving a suspension. Although he had all that trouble on 22 July, Mikel signed a new five-year contract with Chelsea.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: On 13 February 2010, Mikel provided the assist for Didier Drogba's goal as Chelsea beat Cardiff City 4–1 in the fifth round of the 2009–10 FA Cup. Mikel provided another assist for a Drogba goal in a 5–0 win over FA Cup finalists and relegated side Portsmouth on 24 March, as Chelsea cut United's lead at the top of the table to one point. Mikel played the full ninety minutes in Chelsea's 7–1 smashing of Aston Villa three days later as Chelsea kept pace in the title race with Manchester United. In their next Premier League game against United, Mikel played excellent as a marshall in midfield as Chelsea climbed above United in the table with a 2–1 win at Old Trafford, thanks to goals from Joe Cole and Drogba.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: Under new manager Carlo Ancelotti, Mikel continued to perform with efficiency in his defensive midfield role, notching 35 appearances for the Blues. In May 2010, he received Premier League and FA Cup winner's medals as part of Chelsea's first ever league-cup double winning team.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: Mikel and Chelsea started the new 2010–11 Premier League campaign where they left off from the 2009–10 season, playing strong defense and adding deadly finishing. Mikel played the full 90 and helped keep three clean-sheets in the first three games as Chelsea eased past West Bromwich Albion 6–0 on 14 August, crushed Wigan Athletic 6–0 at the DW Stadium seven days later and edged past Stoke City 2–0 on 28 August.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: Mikel was the preferred option in defensive midfield as teammate Michael Essien spent most of the season on the sideline with knee injuries. The injury to the versatile Essien forced the club to play new signing Ramires more often in the second half of the season. Mikel featured in 28 Premier League campaigns for Chelsea as the London side finished in second place, nine points behind champions Manchester United. Following the disappointment of not winning a title, Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti was sacked by the club.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: Before the start of their league campaign, Mikel's father was abducted in his native Nigeria on 10 August; despite this, Mikel started in the club's opening fixture against Stoke City at Britannia Stadium. Mikel came close to claiming his first Premier League goal for Chelsea in an inspired game as the sides played out a 0–0 draw in new coach André Villas-Boas' first game in charge.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: Due to Essien's long-term knee injury, Mikel found more playing time, but around Christmas time lost his place to new signing Oriol Romeu. Following a run of disappointing fixtures, including a catastrophic 3–1 loss to Napoli in the Champions League round of 16 first leg and a 1–0 defeat to West Brom, Villas-Boas was sacked by Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich. In both of these matches, Mikel was an unused substitute for the Blues. Following the appointment of former Chelsea midfielder Roberto Di Matteo as interim head coach, Mikel appeared in 16 of the club's last 20 games and started in 14 of them, and began to play some of his best football for the club.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: Mikel played the full 90 minutes in Chelsea's 2–1 victory over Liverpool in the 2012 FA Cup Final on 5 May 2012, picking up a yellow card in the 36th minute. The 2011–12 Premier League campaign saw Mikel appear in 22 league fixtures, starting 15 of them, as well as playing in eight fixtures leading up to the team's appearance in the 2012 UEFA Champions League Final against Bayern Munich.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: In the final in Munich on 19 May, Mikel played the full 120 minutes as the sides played out a 1–1 draw. Chelsea played a tough defensive battle and Mikel was hailed by Sky Sports pundit Jamie Redknapp as playing an excellent game, putting in "a performance that I didn't think he had in him; he was putting out fires everywhere," as Chelsea claimed a 4–3 victory in the penalty shootout. Following his performance, Mikel told reporters that it was "best night of our lives." Mikel's strong performances in the final stages of the season and his impressive display in Munich helped Chelsea secure Champions League football next season despite finishing in sixth place, knocking London rivals Tottenham into the UEFA Europa League.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: Mikel started all of Chelsea's first five games of the new 2012–13 Premier League season, and also played in the Community Shield against Manchester City and Super Cup against Atlético Madrid. In November, Mikel was named on the shortlist for the African Footballer of the Year along with former Chelsea teammate Didier Drogba.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: Mikel was charged with misconduct by the Football Association (FA) on 22 November 2012. He was given a three-match ban and fined £60,000 for threatening referee Mark Clattenburg during a 3–2 defeat to Manchester United.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: On 5 December 2012, Mikel signed a contract extension with Chelsea, keeping him at the club until 2017.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: On 21 September 2013, Mikel scored his first-ever Premier League goal in a 2–0 win against Fulham. He scored his second goal of the season in Chelsea's third round tie with Derby County on 5 January 2014, heading in the opening goal in an eventual 2–0 victory. He made his 200th Premier League appearance for Chelsea on 3 February, coming on as a late substitute in a 1–0 away victory at Manchester City.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: On 30 August 2014, Mikel, who substituted Willian on the 75-minute mark, set up Diego Costa's second goal after intercepting up Muhamed Bešić's backheel pass. Chelsea went on to win 6–3 against Everton at Goodison Park. Mikel scored a rare goal against Sporting CP on 10 December in a 3–1 victory at Stamford Bridge in the 2014–15 Champions League.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: Against Watford on Boxing Day 2015, in the first game of Guus Hiddink's second spell in charge, Mikel came on to become the 21st player to make 350 appearances for Chelsea. Chelsea then faced Paris Saint-Germain in the first leg of the UEFA Champions League round of 16. Mikel conceded a foul just outside the 18-yard box. PSG forward Zlatan Ibrahimović's free kick deflected off Mikel, who was part of the wall, and past goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois. Just a few minutes later, however, Mikel equalised from a stoppage time corner kick. Due to the injuries of John Terry and Gary Cahill, Mikel had to play as a centre-back in multiple games.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: On 4 November 2016, it was announced that the club would not be renewing his contract when it expired at the end of the season.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: On 6 January 2017, Chinese club Tianjin TEDA signed Mikel on a free transfer. On 14 April 2018, he scored his second league goal for Tianjin, and first goal of the season against Guangzhou R&F. He left Tianjin TEDA at the end of the 2018 Chinese Super League season in November 2018.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: After two years in China, Mikel joined English Championship team Middlesbrough on a short-term deal in the 2019 winter transfer window. The 31-year-old was a free agent after leaving Chinese side Tianjin TEDA. Mikel made 19 appearances for Boro, scoring once against Rotherham United on 5 May 2019 as the team narrowly missed out on a play-off spot finishing seventh. He was released by Middlesbrough at the end of the 2018–19 season.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: In the summer of 2019, Mikel joined Trabzonspor on a two-year contract with the option of a further year.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: It was announced on 17 March 2020, that Mikel had left Trabzonspor by mutual consent, days after expressing his concerns about the Turkish Super Lig continuing amid the global coronavirus pandemic.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: Mikel signed a one-year contract with EFL Championship side Stoke City on 17 August 2020. He made his Stoke debut on 13 September 2020 in a 0–0 draw away at Millwall. Under Michael O'Neill, Mikel was a key member of the team in 2020–21, making 41 appearances as Stoke finished in a mid-table position of 14th. At the end of the season O'Neill stated that he wants Mikel to stay at Stoke for another year.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: On 4 November 2021, the contract with Kuwait SC was terminated after only four months of joining the team. On 27 September 2022, Mikel announced his retirement from professional football at the age of 35.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: Mikel represented the Nigeria under-20 team at the 2005 FIFA World Youth Championship and won the Silver Ball for the second-best player at the tournament (behind Lionel Messi) as the Africans finished runner-up to Argentina.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: He made his debut for the Nigeria senior team on 17 August 2005, when he came on as a second-half substitute in a 1–0 friendly win over Libya. He did not play for the national team again prior to being named in the squad for the 2006 Africa Cup of Nations. In Nigeria's first group game, against Ghana, Mikel was an unused substitute. However, he was introduced into the second game against Zimbabwe early in the second half. Within ten minutes of coming on, he had supplied both the corner that resulted in Christian Obodo heading the game's opening goal, and scored Nigeria's second goal. He made his first international start in Nigeria's final group game, a 2–1 victory over Senegal.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: In 2007, Mikel was suspended from all Nigerian national teams after manager Berti Vogts dropped him from the squad for the Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Niger for failing to attend their previous match against Uganda. Mikel cited an injury, but because he did not attend an independent check by Nigerian officials, he was dropped. This, and his refusal to play for the Nigerian under-23 side, resulted in his suspension by the Nigeria Football Federation. After apologising, he was called up to the national squad for the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations in Ghana. At the tournament, he scored one goal and registered one assist in a match against Benin to help Nigeria qualify for the quarter-finals against hosts Ghana, where they lost 2–1 to their West African rivals.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: Mikel had been called up for the under-23 side in preparation of the team's last Olympic qualifier on 26 March 2008, needing a win to qualify. His failure to show up for any of the qualifiers again setting off some controversy with the U23 team coach Samson Siasia, who dropped him from the Olympic squad amidst significant furor from the media.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: On 5 June 2010, Mikel was ruled out of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa due to injury. He had been struggling to recover from a knee problem after undergoing surgery in May, though there were also reports that an ankle injury was to blame for Mikel's withdrawal.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: At the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations, Mikel was a key player for Nigeria as they went on to win their third continental title. He was named by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) in the team of the tournament alongside teammates Vincent Enyeama, Efe Ambrose, Victor Moses and Emmanuel Emenike.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: Mikel made his FIFA World Cup debut at the 2014 tournament in Brazil, earning a man of the match award in the Super Eagles' opening game against Iran. He helped the team to reach the knockout stage for the first time since 1998.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: He was selected by Nigeria for their 35-man provisional squad for the 2016 Summer Olympics and was later named captain of the Olympics squad. On 13 August 2016, Mikel scored his first ever Olympic goal in a 2–0 win against Denmark to advance to the semi-final. After the 2–0 defeat to Germany, Nigeria went on to the bronze medal match against Honduras. On 20 August, Mikel helped Nigeria to the bronze medal in a 3–2 victory over Honduras. Nigeria became the first ever country to win all three medals at the Olympic Games with the 1996 squad winning the gold and 2008 squad winning the silver.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: In a 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification match against Algeria, Mikel scored a goal and assisted his Chelsea teammate Victor Moses in a 3–1 victory.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: In July 2019, Mikel said that the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations would be his last tournament for Nigeria. He retired at the end of the competition, in which Nigeria came third.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: During preparations for the 2003 FIFA U-17 World Championship, the Nigerian Football Association (NFA) mistakenly submitted "Michael" as "Mikel" for the tournament in Finland. He decided to keep the new name, saying that it had a "special ring to it". He was most commonly referred to as "John Obi Mikel" upon his arrival at Chelsea, but on 31 July 2006, he stated that he prefers to be called Mikel John Obi instead, and he officially changed his name to Mikel John Obi in 2016.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: On 18 June 2021, the Nigerian Minister of Youth Sports Development, Sunday Akin Dare, announced the appointment of Obi as the country's Youth Ambassador.


title: Mikel John Obi

text: On 12 August 2011, Mikel's father, Michael Obi, was the victim of a suspected kidnapping in Nigeria. Mikel was informed before Chelsea's match against Stoke City two days later but opted to play despite his concerns for his father's well-being. On 15 August 2011, Mikel made an impassioned plea for his father's safe return. He told Sky Sports News, "I've always tried to help the country, this is the time for the country to help me, whoever knows where my dad is should please contact me." Michael Obi was found alive on 22 August 2011, in the Nigerian city of Kano. His abductors were reported to be in police custody. On 26 June 2018, a few hours before a World Cup match, Mikel was informed of another kidnapping of Michael Obi, but did not tell any of his team members. The Enugu State Police stated that they rescued Michael Obi on 2 July after a gunfight.


title: Peter Dutton

text: Peter Craig Dutton (born 18 November 1970) is an Australian politician who has been leader of the opposition and leader of the Liberal Party since May 2022. He has represented the Queensland seat of Dickson in the House of Representatives since 2001 and held ministerial office in the Howard, Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments. Dutton is considered to be a right-wing populist, opposed to immigration, abortion, and same-sex marriage. He leads the conservative National Right caucus on the right wing of the Liberal Party.


title: Peter Dutton

text: Dutton grew up in Northern Brisbane. He worked as a police officer in the Queensland Police for nearly a decade upon leaving school, and later ran a construction business with his father. He joined the Liberal Party as a teenager and was elected to the House of Representatives at the 2001 election, aged 30. Following the 2004 election, he was appointed as Minister for Employment Participation. In January 2006, he was promoted to become Assistant Treasurer under Peter Costello. After the defeat of the Liberal-National Coalition at the 2007 election, he was appointed to the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Minister for Health, a role he would hold for the next six years.


title: Peter Dutton

text: Upon the victory of the Coalition at the 2013 election, Dutton was appointed Minister for Health and Minister for Sport. He was moved to the role of Minister for Immigration and Border Protection in December 2014, where he played a key role in overseeing Operation Sovereign Borders. He was kept in that position after Malcolm Turnbull replaced Tony Abbott as Prime Minister in September 2015. In December 2017, he was also given the restored role of Minister for Home Affairs, heading a new 'super' department with broad responsibilities brought together from other existing departments.


title: Peter Dutton

text: After the defeat of Abbott, Dutton became widely seen as the leader of the conservative faction in the Liberal Party, and began to be spoken of as a potential leader. In August 2018, after a period of poor opinion polling for the Coalition, Dutton unsuccessfully challenged Turnbull for the leadership. He then was defeated by Scott Morrison in a second leadership ballot days later after Turnbull chose to resign. He was retained as Minister for Home Affairs by Morrison, later becoming Minister for Defence and Leader of the House in March 2021. He went on to succeed Morrison as party leader unopposed after the Coalition's defeat at the 2022 election, becoming leader of the opposition. He is the first Liberal leader to come from Queensland, and the first leader since Alexander Downer to represent a seat outside of New South Wales.


title: Peter Dutton

text: Dutton was born on 18 November 1970 in the northern Brisbane suburb of Boondall. He is the eldest of five children, with one brother and three sisters. His mother Ailsa Leitch worked in childcare and his father Bruce Dutton was a builder. Dutton finished high school at the Anglican St Paul's School, Bald Hills. He is the great-great-grandson of the pastoralist squatter and politician Charles Boydell Dutton. He is also a descendant of Captain Richard James Coley, who was Queensland's first Sergeant-at-Arms, who built Brisbane's first private dwelling and who gave evidence confirming the mass poisonings of Aboriginal Australians at Kilcoy in 1842.


title: Peter Dutton

text: Dutton joined the Young Liberals in 1988 aged 18. He became the policy vice-chair of the Bayside Young Liberals the following year and chair of the branch in 1990. At the 1989 Queensland state election, the 19-year-old Dutton ran unsuccessfully as the Liberal candidate against Tom Burns, a former state Labor leader, in the safe Labor seat of Lytton.


title: Peter Dutton

text: Upon leaving high school, Dutton graduated from the Queensland Police Academy in 1990. He served as a Queensland Police officer for nearly a decade, working in the drug squad in Brisbane in the early 1990s. He also worked in the sex offenders squad and with the National Crime Authority.


title: Peter Dutton

text: In 1999, Dutton left the Queensland Police, having achieved the rank of detective senior constable. Documentation filed in the District Court of Queensland in 2000 describes his resignation as being prompted by a loss of driving confidence resulting from an incident in August 1998. He was driving an unmarked Mazda 626 during a covert surveillance operation, before rolling his car while in pursuit of an escaped prisoner who was driving erratically. Dutton also suffered numerous physical injuries during the accident, and as a result, was hospitalised briefly and bedridden for a week. He had sought damages of $250,000 from the escaped prisoner's insurance company but dropped the claim in 2005.


title: Peter Dutton

text: On leaving the police, Dutton completed a Bachelor of Business at the Queensland University of Technology. He and his father founded the business Dutton Holdings, which was registered in 2000; it operated under six different trading and business names. The company bought, renovated, and converted buildings into childcare centres, and in 2002 it sold three childcare centres to the now defunct ABC Learning. ABC Learning continued to pay rent of A$100,000 to Dutton Holdings. Dutton Holdings continues to trade under the name Dutton Building & Development.


title: Peter Dutton

text: Dutton was elected to the Division of Dickson at the 2001 election, defeating Labor's Cheryl Kernot. He was elevated to the ministry after the 2004 election as Minister for Workforce Participation, a position he held until January 2006. He was then appointed Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Revenue. He successfully retained Dickson at the 2007 election, which saw the government lose office. However, his margin was reduced to just 217 votes more than Labor's Fiona McNamara.


title: Peter Dutton

text: Following the 2007 election, Dutton was promoted to shadow cabinet by the new Liberal leader Brendan Nelson, as Shadow Minister for Finance, Competition Policy and Deregulation. In 2008, he chose not to be present in the chamber during the apology to the Stolen Generations, which enjoyed bipartisan support. He said "I regarded it as something which was not going to deliver tangible outcomes to kids who are being raped and tortured in communities in the 21st century." Later, in a 2014 interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, Dutton said he regretted boycotting the apology: "I underestimated the symbolic and cultural significance of it."


title: Peter Dutton

text: In September 2008, Nelson was replaced as Liberal leader by Malcolm Turnbull, who appointed Dutton as Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing. He retained that position when Tony Abbott succeeded Turnbull as leader in December 2009. In June 2010, Dutton released the Coalition's mental health policy. "The Australian" described it as "the most significant announcement by any political party in relation to a targeted, evidence-based investment in mental health", but not all experts agreed.


title: Peter Dutton

text: Dutton retained his seat with a positive swing at the 2010 federal election, despite an unfavourable redistribution. In the lead-up to the 2013 federal election, he announced a range of Coalition health policies, which were received favourably by industry groups. The Australian Medical Association said "the Coalition has delivered a strong package of practical, affordable health policies that would strengthen general practice", while Cancer Council Australia said that "Dutton's promise to finalise the bowel cancer screening program by 2020 would save an additional 35,000 lives over the next 40 years."


title: Peter Dutton

text: As the 2010 election approached, it looked like Dutton would lose to the Labor candidate due to a redistribution of division boundaries that had erased his majority and made Dickson notionally Labor. To safeguard himself, Dutton sought pre-selection for the merged Liberal National Party in the safe Liberal seat of McPherson on the Gold Coast (despite not living in or near McPherson). Some constituents complained, "The abandoning of a seat by a sitting MP halfway through a parliamentary term to contest pre-selection in a seat over 100 kilometres to the south is not looked upon favourably."


title: Peter Dutton

text: Dutton lost the McPherson pre-selection to Karen Andrews, reportedly due to misgivings from former Nationals in the area. He then asked the LNP to "deliver him a seat for which he does not have to fight other preselection candidates." Liberal MP Alex Somlyay (the chief Opposition whip of the time) said that Dutton's expectation of an uncontested preselection was "unusual." When the state executive did not provide Dutton an unchallenged preselection, Dutton reluctantly returned to campaign for the seat of Dickson. In the election, he won the seat with a 5.9% swing towards him.


title: Peter Dutton

text: Dutton retained his seat at the 2013 election. He was appointed to the new ministry by Prime Minister Tony Abbott as Minister for Health and Minister for Sport.


title: Peter Dutton

text: As Health Minister, Dutton announced the $20 billion Medical Research Future Fund. As announced, the capital and any ongoing capital gains of the Medical Research Future Fund will be preserved in perpetuity.


title: Peter Dutton

text: Under Dutton, projected funding in the health portfolio increased in the 2014–15 Budget to $66.9 billion, an increase of 7.5 percent from $62.2 billion in 2012–13, the final full year of the Labor Government. Projected expenditure on Medicare increased over 9.5 percent from $18.5 billion in 2012–13 under Labor to a projected $20.32 billion in 2014–15 under Dutton. Funding for public hospital services increased by nearly 14 percent under Dutton in the 2014–15 Budget to a projected $15.12 billion compared to $13.28 billion in the last full year of the Labor Government in 2012–13.


title: Peter Dutton

text: In a 2015 poll by "Australian Doctor" magazine, based on votes from over 1,100 doctors, Dutton was voted the worst health minister in the last 35 years by 46 percent of respondents.


title: Peter Dutton

text: On 23 December 2014, Dutton was sworn in as the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection after a cabinet


title: Peter Dutton

text: reshuffle. In September 2015, Dutton cancelled the visa of anti-abortion activist Troy Newman, over remarks in his 2000 book "Their Blood Cries Out".


title: Peter Dutton

text: In 2016, News Corp Sunday political editor Samantha Maiden wrote a column critical of Jamie Briggs. Dutton drafted a text message to Briggs describing Maiden as a "mad fucking witch" but inadvertently sent it to Maiden. Maiden accepted an apology from Dutton.


title: Peter Dutton

text: Before the 2016 election Dutton said of refugees "many ... won't be numerate or literate in their own language let alone English", and "These people would be taking Australian jobs". Turnbull defended Dutton by stating he is an "outstanding Immigration Minister". Against a statewide swing against the government of 2.9 points, Dutton's margin fell from 6.7 to 1.6 points, leaving him with a margin of fewer than 3,000 votes against Labor candidate Linda Lavarch.


title: Peter Dutton

text: On 5 June 2015, Dutton denied claims made by Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young that she was spied on during a visit to Nauru. At the same time he called into question her credibility saying "I have evidence that Senator Hanson-Young over-states every issue. She gets her facts wrong most of the time. And I just think you need to look at it in the light of experience with Senator Hanson-Young. If she's got evidence, produce it." He also claimed that "What Sarah Hanson-Young is about is publicity. She loves the camera and she loves to see her own name in the paper. That's the start and finish of Sarah Hanson-Young." Hanson-Young responded that "Peter Dutton can attack and insult me as much as he likes, but nothing will change the fact that my work has revealed systemic child abuse and the rape of young women on Nauru under his watch." The spying claims were later confirmed by the Immigration Department and Wilson Security who carried out the spying operation.


title: Peter Dutton

text: In June 2015, an au pair who was detained at Brisbane Airport made a phone call and had her tourist visa reinstated. In November, in a second case, Dutton granted a visa to another au pair, despite his department warning him that she was at risk of breaching her work conditions on her tourist visa. Dutton indicated that he knew neither tourist. In August 2018, Roman Quaedvlieg indicated that he had personal knowledge of one of the cases, and was seeking to correct Hansard if it did not match his knowledge. A third au pair was granted a visa due to lobbying by AFL chief Gillon McLachlan, she was due to stay with his relative Callum Maclachlan. Dutton's department again warned him there were indications that she was intending to work for Callum's family. A Senate inquiry into two of the cases published a report on 11 September 2018. It recommended "that the Senate consider censuring the Minister for Home Affairs (the Hon Peter Dutton MP) ... for failing to observe fairness in making official decisions as required by the Statement of Ministerial Standards."


title: Peter Dutton

text: On 11 September 2015, Dutton was overheard on an open microphone, before a community meeting on Syrian refugees, joking about rising sea levels in the Pacific Islands, saying "Time doesn't mean anything when you're about to have water lapping at your door". Dutton initially refused to apologise, saying it was a private conversation, but later apologised. The Foreign Minister of


title: Peter Dutton

text: the Marshall Islands at the time, Tony deBrum, responded by writing "insensitivity knows no bounds in the big polluting island down [south]" and the "Next time waves are battering my home [and] my


title: Peter Dutton

text: In November 2016, Dutton said it was a mistake by the Malcolm Fraser administration to have admitted Lebanese Muslim immigrants. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said Dutton was making a specific point about those charged with terrorism offences. "He made it quite clear that he respects and appreciates the contribution that the Lebanese community make in Australia."


title: Peter Dutton

text: On 15 April 2017 shots were fired by the Papua New Guinea defence force into the Manus Island Detention Centre. Dutton responded saying "There was difficulty, as I understand it, in the community. There was an alleged incident where three asylum seekers were alleged to be leading a local five-year old boy back toward the facility and there was a lot of angst around that, if you like, within the local PNG community." "I think there was concern about why the boy was being led or for what purpose he was being led away back into the regional processing centre. So I think it's fair to say that the mood had elevated quite quickly. I think some of the local residents were quite angry about this particular incident and another alleged sexual assault."


title: Peter Dutton

text: However, the regional police commander on Manus Island said a young boy who was 10, not five, had gone to the centre two weeks earlier to ask for food. He said "It's a total separate incident altogether" The Greens senator Nick McKim said Dutton had been caught telling an outrageous lie. "This has disturbing echoes of the children overboard affair lies."


title: Peter Dutton

text: On 31 October 2017, the Papuan Government closed down the Manus Island regional processing centre. However, 600 men residing in the processing centre refused to be moved to alternative accommodation in the town of Lorengau and staged a protest. Dutton defended the closure of the processing centre and asserted that the Papuan authorities had given notice of the camp's impending closure in May 2017. He also rejected Australian Greens Senator Nick McKim's report that there was no safe alternative accommodation available as false and claimed McKim was inciting trouble. Following a prolonged standoff with Papuan security forces, the remaining men were evacuated, many forcibly, to new accommodation. Arrangements have been made to resettle an unspecified number of the asylum seekers in the United States. The others will be moved to either a different part of Papua New Guinea or a different country.


title: Peter Dutton

text: In mid-November 2017, Dutton rejected an offer by the newly-elected New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to resettle 150 asylum seekers from the Manus Island detention centre in New Zealand and warned that it would have repercussions for the two countries' bilateral relations. He also claimed that New Zealand's offer would encourage people smugglers. Dutton also criticised a New Zealand offer to provide $3 million for services for asylum seekers on Manus and Nauru as a "waste of money" that could be spent elsewhere, such as displaced people in Indonesia. In addition, Dutton criticised Australia's Opposition Leader Bill Shorten's call for Australia to accept the New Zealand offer as an attempt to appease the Labor Left with "cheap political stunts and mealy-mouthed words".


title: Peter Dutton

text: On 20 December 2017, Dutton was appointed the Minister for Home Affairs with responsibilities of overseeing the Department of Home Affairs which was established on 20 December 2017 by Administrative Arrangement Order. The Home Affairs portfolio is a major re-arrangement of national security, law enforcement, emergency management, transport security, border control, and immigration functions.


title: Peter Dutton

text: In March 2018, Dutton made calls to treat white South African farmers as refugees, stating that "they need help from a civilised country". However, his offer was rejected by Afrikaner rights organisation AfriForum, which stated that the future of Afrikaners was in Africa, as well as by the survivalist group the Suidlanders, which took credit for bringing the issue of a purported "white genocide" to international attention and for Dutton's decision, and was met with "regret" by the South African foreign ministry. The Australian High Commissioner was subsequently summoned by the South African foreign ministry, which expressed its offence at Dutton's statements, and demanded a "full retraction".


title: Peter Dutton

text: His proposal got support from some of his party's backbenchers and Liberal Democrat Senator David Leyonhjelm with Leyonhjelm later clarifying that he thought that South African farmers should be admitted under existing visa programmes, and could not be regarded as refugees. National Party of Australia MP Andrew Broad warned that the mass migration of South African farmers would result in food shortages in South Africa. Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema encouraged white farmers to take up Dutton's offer. After initially leaving the door open to changes, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop subsequently ruled out any special deals for white South African farmers, emphasising the non-discriminatory nature of Australia's humanitarian visa programme. In a subsequent interview, Dutton vowed to push forward with his plans, saying that his critics were "dead to me".


title: Peter Dutton

text: In April 2018, it emerged that Dutton's department had previously blocked asylum applications by a white farmer, and another white South African woman, with the decisions upheld by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.


title: Peter Dutton

text: As both Immigration Minister and Home Affairs Minister, Peter Dutton has defended an amendment to the Migration Act 1958 that facilitates the denial or cancellation of Australian visas for non-citizens on "character" grounds. This stringent "character test" also affects non-citizens who have lived most of their lives in Australia or who have families living in the country. New Zealand nationals living in Australia were disproportionately affected by this "character test" with over 1,300 New Zealanders having been deported from Australia in the period between January 2015 and July 2018. According to a Home Affairs Department report, 620 New Zealanders had their visas cancelled on character grounds in 2017 alone.


title: Peter Dutton

text: In July 2017, Dutton's Department of Immigration and Border Protection introduced a special Skilled Independent subclass 189 visa to provide a pathway for New Zealanders holding a Special Category Visa to acquire Australian citizenship. The visa requires NZ nationals to have held a Special Category Visa for five years and to maintain an annual income of $53,900. Between 60,000 and 80,000 New Zealanders residing in Australia are eligible for the Skilled Independent subclass 189 visa. By February 2018, 1,512 skilled independent visas had been issued by late February 2018 with another 7,500 visas still being processed. The Skilled Independent subclass 189 visa was criticised by Australian Greens Senator Nick McKim as a stealth means of favouring "English-speaking, white and wealthy" migrants.


title: Peter Dutton

text: In February 2018, Dutton used his discretionary powers as Minister of Home Affairs to deport New Zealander Caleb Maraku on the grounds that he breached the "character test" provision of the Migration Act 1958. Maraku had been sentenced to 12 months probation for committing a one punch attack on another youth in Queensland's Gold Coast in November 2017. Maraku's perceive lenient sentencing and insensitive behaviour following his sentence had drawn substantial media and public attention, including a 50,000 strong petition calling for his deportation. In response to Maraku's case, Dutton stated:


title: Peter Dutton

text: In early July 2018, Dutton ordered the deportation of controversial New Zealand Baptist Pastor Logan Robertson, who had disrupted services at two mosques in Kuraby and Darra in Brisbane. Dutton approved Robertson's visa cancellation on the grounds that he had violated the conditions of his visa, stating that "we have a wonderful tradition in our country of freedom of speech, but we're not going to tolerate people going to a place of worship and harassing others." Robertson had early drawn controversy in New Zealand for his homophobic remarks and opposition to same-sex marriage.


title: Peter Dutton

text: In mid-July 2018, Dutton's immigration "character test" became the subject of a controversial Australian Broadcasting Corporation documentary, entitled "Don't Call Australia Home", focusing on New Zealanders who had been deported from Australia. In response, Dutton issued a tweet defending his deportation policy and claiming that deporting 184 "bikies" saved Australia A$116 million. In response, the New Zealand Minister of Justice Andrew Little, who also appeared in the documentary, criticised Australia's deportation laws for lacking "humanitarian ideals." The documentary's release also coincided with the release of a 17-year-old New Zealand youth from an Australian detention centre, which had caused friction between the two governments. In response, Dutton defended his Government's policy of deporting non-citizen criminals and chastised New Zealand for not contributing enough to assist Australian naval patrols intercepting the "people smugglers."


title: Peter Dutton

text: In mid-July 2019, Dutton defended Australia's right to deport criminal non-citizens in response to concerns raised by the visiting New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, stating: In response, Professor Patrick Keyzer and Dave Martin of La Trobe University criticized Dutton's pedophilia remarks as misleading and contended that most deportees from Australia had spent most of their lives in Australia and had little ties to New Zealand.


title: Peter Dutton

text: In October and November 2019, Dutton expressed his views on protesters and police response. He stated that when protesters break the law "There needs to be mandatory or minimum sentences imposed... A community expectation is that these people are heavily fined or jailed." He also agreed with an on-air statement made by conservative 2GB radio presenter Ray Hadley that protesters should not receive social security payments. Leader of the Australian Greens Richard Di Natale responded by saying that "Peter Dutton doesn’t know what living in a democracy means" and claimed that he's "starting to sound more like a dictator than he is an elected politician. Because somebody says something that he doesn’t like, that he doesn’t support, he’s saying we’re going to strip away income support."


title: Peter Dutton

text: In November 2019, Dutton said that the States should make protesters pay for the cost of police response to demonstrations. He said of protesters: "For many of them they don't even believe in democracy... These people are completely against our way of life. These people can protest peacefully, as many people do, but the disruption that they seek to cause, the disharmony that they seek to sow within our society is unacceptable."


title: Peter Dutton

text: In December 2019, Dutton announced that airport security measures were to be increased to detect, deter and respond to potential threats to aviation safety. Measures include greater use of canines and the deployment of extra protective services personnel armed with MK18 short-barreled rifles. Dutton appeared in a video alongside police personnel to announce the policy, sparking criticism of the potential use of police for political purposes.


title: Peter Dutton

text: In March 2019, the Australian Federal Police Association had claimed that the AFP should be removed from the Department of Home Affairs to preserve its integrity and its ability to carry out investigations without government influence. Association president Angela Smith described it as "an embarrassing situation... We look the least independent police force in Australia, surely the other police forces are laughing at us."


title: Peter Dutton

text: On 21 August 2018, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called a snap ballot of the leadership of the Liberal Party following several days of feverish leadership speculation, of which Dutton was at the centre. Dutton responded to Turnbull's ballot call by formally challenging for the leadership of the party and won 35 of 83 votes available, 7 short of a majority. Dutton then resigned from the Ministry despite being offered by Turnbull to retain his position of Minister for Home Affairs, and the media speculated that Dutton and his conservative backers in the party were likely to challenge for the leadership again in the near future. Three days later, Dutton called for another leadership spill, and Malcolm Turnbull tendered his resignation to the Governor-General. Dutton was defeated by Treasurer and Acting Home Affairs Minister Scott Morrison by 45 votes to 40.


title: Peter Dutton

text: Doubts surrounding Dutton's eligibility to be elected to parliament emerged on the grounds of section 44(v) of the Australian Constitution, as the family trust owned by Dutton operated a child care centre that received over $5.6 million in funding from the Commonwealth Government, in a situation similar to Bob Day's case. Although Dutton had received legal advice stating that he was not in breach of section 44(v), Labor had received contrary advice; at Turnbull's request, the Attorney-General referred the matter to the Solicitor-General. On 23 August, Labor attempted to move a motion to refer Dutton's eligibility as an MP to the High Court, in a similar manner to referrals made during the recent parliamentary citizenship crisis. The motion failed by 69 votes to 68. On 24 August, the Solicitor-General advised that in terms of section 44(v) Dutton was "not incapable" of sitting as an MP, although he added that he had been provided with limited factual information and that, owing to differences of judicial opinion in earlier decisions of the High Court on section 44(v), Dutton's legal position could not be entirely clear without a referral to the High Court.


title: Peter Dutton

text: Dutton was reappointed to his former Home Affairs portfolio by Scott Morrison in the Morrison Ministry; however, responsibility for Immigration was stripped from the role and was assigned to David Coleman.


title: Peter Dutton

text: Dutton was re-elected at the 2019 federal election. The political think tank GetUp! identified Dutton as "Australia's most unwanted hard-right politician" after surveying more than "30,000 members". GetUp! mounted a campaign in an attempt to defeat Dutton in Dickson. In response, Dutton said GetUp! was, "deceptive", "undemocratic" and "unrepresentative" and that he would back "parliamentary processes to bring the activist group to heel." GetUp! has defended the effectiveness of its campaigning in Dutton's electorate.


title: Peter Dutton

text: In March 2021, Dutton was appointed Minister for Defence. On 21 May 2021, Dutton directed the department and serving military personnel to stop pursuing a "woke agenda", and cease holding events to mark the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia and Transphobia where staff wore rainbow clothing.


title: Peter Dutton

text: In October 2021, Dutton said Australia will back up any U.S. effort to defend Taiwan if China attacks. In November 2021, he branded the former Prime Minister Paul Keating as "Grand Appeaser Comrade Keating".


title: Peter Dutton

text: On 16 June 2021, in the Federal Court, Justice Richard White ordered Dutton to attend mediation over a defamation suit he brought against refugee activist, Shane Bazzi over a tweet calling him a "rape apologist". In August 2020, it was announced this mediation had failed.


title: Peter Dutton

text: On 24 November 2021, White ruled in Dutton's favour and awarded $35,000 in defamation damages, but refused Dutton’s bid for an injunction to prevent Bazzi tweeting about him.


title: Peter Dutton

text: This decision was overturned on 17 May 2022 by the Full Court of the Federal Court, which found that the words "rape apologist", taken in the context of the whole message together with the "Guardian" article to which it was linked, referred to Dutton's attitude not to rape itself but toward claims of having been raped and accordingly did not amount to defamation.


title: Peter Dutton

text: The Coalition was defeated at the 2022 federal election, with Dutton retaining his seat despite a swing against him. After Scott Morrison resigned as leader of the Liberal Party, Dutton was elected unopposed as the new leader, with Sussan Ley elected as deputy.


title: Peter Dutton

text: In parliament, in December 2022, Dutton repeatedly, after multiple corrections, referred incorrectly to Sharon Claydon as "Mr Speaker".


title: Peter Dutton

text: Dutton is aligned with the "National Right" faction of the Liberal Party, which he leads. He has been described as a right-wing populist. Dutton is opposed to an Australian republic. In December 2018, Dutton told Sky News that for the prior seventeen years he had regarded "parliament as a disadvantage for sitting governments".


title: Peter Dutton

text: In January 2018, Dutton said that people in Melbourne are scared of going out because of "gang violence" involving African Australians, but was "ridiculed" for it by people who live in Melbourne.


title: Peter Dutton

text: Dutton opposes any changes to negative gearing which offers tax breaks to property investors, saying in May 2017 that changing it would harm the economy. He owns six properties with his wife, including a shopping centre in Townsville.


title: Peter Dutton

text: In 2018, Dutton said he supports Australian school kids taking the Oath of Allegiance in schools, as is done by new Australian citizens.


title: Peter Dutton

text: Dutton is against the legalisation of cannabis, and has described it as a "gateway drug" in June 2021. After the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) decriminalised the recreational use of cannabis in September 2019, Dutton condemned the new laws as "unconscionable", "trendy", and "dangerous".


title: Peter Dutton

text: Dutton opposes same-sex marriage. In March 2017, it was reported in "The Sydney Morning Herald" that Dutton "said privately it was inevitable that same-sex marriage would become law in Australia so it would be better for the Coalition, rather than Labor, to control the process". Dutton's actions publicly have been in opposition to same-sex advocates. In March 2017, 31 CEOs signed a letter to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull calling for a free vote in the Australian Parliament on same-sex marriage. In response to this letter, on 16 March, Dutton said that the CEOs "shouldn't shove their views down our throats" and that CEOs who were "doing the wrong thing" should "be publicly shamed". Dutton repeated his criticism at a speech to the LNP State Council in Queensland on 18 March. The "Herald" then reported that "the forcefulness of Mr Dutton's attack on corporate chief executives last weekin which he told them to "stick to their knitting"has aroused suspicion among some colleagues who believed he was committed to achieving a breakthrough on [same-sex marriage]". The following month, "The Daily Telegraph" reported that Dutton was asked by a lesbian for clarification on his position, and he "told her he had been clear that he was against same-sex marriage". In his political career, Dutton has voted "very strongly against same sex marriage"; however, he voted in favour of the "Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Act 2017", which legalised same-sex marriage in Australia; 65 percent of his constituency voted "Yes" in the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey.


title: Peter Dutton

text: Dutton's comments were heavily criticised as an attempt to censor expressions of support for same-sex marriage, with some commenters also accusing him of hypocrisy given his support for changing . Former New South Wales Premier Kristina Keneally said that according to Dutton, "Free speech is great and should be expanded, unless it's an Australian corporate CEO speaking about same-sex marriage. Then they need to shut up." Liberal MPs and ministers Julie Bishop and Simon Birmingham also expressed disagreement with Dutton's comments.


title: Peter Dutton

text: On 9 May 2017, a 67-year-old man pushed a pie into the face of Qantas CEO Alan Joyce while Joyce was speaking at a function in Perth. The next day, the assailant confirmed that the attack was to protest against Joyce's support for same-sex marriage. Dutton had singled out Joyce in his criticism of pro-same-sex marriage CEOs, leading some LGBTI advocates to hold him partially responsible for the attack. Dutton condemned the attack on Twitter.


title: Peter Dutton

text: On 28 September 2017 following the news that US rapper Macklemore would sing a pro-marriage equality song at the NRL Grand Final, Dutton said in the name of free speech that "two songs should be played, one for gay marriage and one against gay marriage"


title: Peter Dutton

text: Dutton has been accused of supporting and promoting the white genocide myth, especially in relation to the South African farm attacks. In 2018, amid pressure by the South African Australian community for a special immigration intake for their family members, he declared that Afrikaners required refugee status in Australia because of the high level of violent crime in South Africa and "the horrific circumstances they face" in South Africa. "BBC News" reported that the Suidlanders group's "message of white genocide" had "resonated" with Dutton, prompting him to offer fast-track visas to white South African farmers due to their being "persecuted", claiming they needed help from a "civilised" country. Australian Greens leader Richard Di Natale labelled the process of bringing white South African farmers to Australia as thoroughly racist. He also said that it would restore a semblance of policy similar to that enacted under the White Australia Policy.


title: Peter Dutton

text: Dutton married his first wife when he was 22 years of age; the marriage ended after a few months. His eldest child, a daughter, was born in 2002 to another partner, and split time between her parents in a shared parenting arrangement. In 2003, Dutton married his second wife, Kirilly (), with whom he has two sons.


title: Peter Dutton

text: On 13 March 2020, Dutton announced that he had tested positive for COVID-19, becoming one of the first high-profile cases of the pandemic in Australia.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: The national flag of Denmark (, ) is red with a white Nordic cross, which means that the cross extends to the edges of the flag and the vertical part of the cross is shifted to the hoist side.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: A banner with a white-on-red cross is attested as having been used by the kings of Denmark since the 14th century. An origin legend with considerable impact on Danish national historiography connects the introduction of the flag to the Battle of Lindanise of 1219.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: The elongated Nordic cross reflects its use as a maritime flag in the 18th century. The flag became popular as a national flag in the early 16th century. Its private use was outlawed in 1834 but again permitted by a regulation of 1854. The flag holds the world record of being the oldest continuously used national flag.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: In May 1893 a new regulation to all chiefs of police stated that the police should not intervene, if the two last fields in the flag were longer than as long as these did not exceed , and provided that this was the only rule violated.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: This regulation is still in effect today and thus the legal proportions of the National flag today are 3:1:3 in width and anywhere between 3:1:4.5 and 3:1:5.25 in length.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: No official definition of "Dannebrog rød" exists. The private company "Dansk Standard", regulation number 359 (2005), defines the red colour of the flag as Pantone 186c.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: A tradition recorded in the 16th century traces the origin of the flag to the campaigns of Valdemar II of Denmark (r. 1202–1241). The oldest of them is in Christiern Pedersen's ""Danske Krønike"", which is a sequel to Saxo's Gesta Danorum, written 1520–23. Here, the flag falls from the sky during a Russian campaign of Valdemar's. Pedersen also states that the very same flag was taken into exile by Eric of Pomerania in 1440.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: The second source is the writing of the Franciscan friar Petrus Olai (Peder Olsen) of Roskilde (died c. 1570). This record describes a battle in 1208 near Fellin during the Estonia campaign of King Valdemar II. The Danes were all but defeated when a lamb-skin banner depicting a white cross fell from the sky and miraculously led to a Danish victory. In a third account, also by Petrus Olai, in "Danmarks Tolv Herligheder" ("Twelve Splendours of Denmark"), in splendour number nine, the same story is re-told almost verbatim, with a paragraph inserted correcting the year to 1219. Now, the flag is falling from the sky in the Battle of Lindanise, also known as the Battle of Valdemar (Danish: "Volmerslaget"), near Lindanise (Tallinn) in Estonia, of 15 June 1219.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: It is this third account that has been the most influential, and some historians have treated it as the primary account taken from a (lost) source dating to the first half of the 15th century.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: In Olai's account, the battle was going badly, and defeat seemed imminent. However the Danish Bishop Anders Sunesen, on top of a hill overlooking the battle, prayed to God with his arms raised, and the Danes moved closer to victory the more he prayed. When he raised his arms the Danes surged forward but when his arms grew tired and he let them fall, the Estonians turned the Danes back. Attendants rushed forward to raise his arms once again and the Danes again surged forward. But for a second time he grew so tired that he dropped his arms and the Danes again lost the advantage and were moving closer to defeat. He needed two soldiers to keep his hands up. When the Danes were about to lose, 'Dannebrog' miraculously fell from the sky and the King took it, showed it to the troops, their hearts were filled with courage, and the Danes won the battle.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: The possible historical nucleus behind this origin legend was extensively discussed by Danish historians in the 19th to 20th centuries. One such example is Adolf Ditlev Jørgensen, who argued that Bishop Theoderich was the original instigator of the 1218 inquiry from Bishop Albert of Buxhoeveden to King Valdemar II which led to the Danish participation in the Baltic crusades. Jørgensen speculates that Bishop Theoderich might have carried the Knight Hospitaller's banner in the 1219 battle and that "the enemy thought this was the King's symbol and mistakenly stormed Bishop Theoderich tent. He claims that the origin of the legend of the falling flag comes from this confusion in the battle."


title: Flag of Denmark

text: The Danish church-historian L. P. Fabricius (1934) ascribes the origin to the 1208 Battle of Fellin, not the Battle of Lindanise in 1219, based on the earliest source available about the story. Fabricius speculated that it might have been Archbishop Andreas Sunesøn's personal ecclesiastical banner or perhaps even the flag of Archbishop Absalon, under whose initiative and supervision several smaller crusades had already been conducted in Estonia. The banner would then already be known in Estonia. Fabricius repeats Jørgensen's idea about the flag being planted in front of Bishop Theodorik's tent, which the enemy mistakenly attacked believing it to be the tent of the King.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: A different theory is briefly discussed by Fabricius and elaborated more by Helge Bruhn (1949). Bruhn interprets the story in the context of the widespread tradition of the miraculous appearance of crosses in the sky in Christian legend, specifically comparing such an event attributed to a battle of 10 September 1217 near Alcazar, where it is said that a golden cross on white appeared in the sky, to bring victory to the Christians.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: In Swedish national historiography of the 18th century, there is a tale paralleling the Danish legend, in which


title: Flag of Denmark

text: The white-on-red cross emblem originates in the age of the Crusades. In the 12th century, it was also used as war flag by the Holy Roman Empire.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: In the "Gelre Armorial", dated 1340–1370, such a banner is shown alongside the coat of arms of the king of Denmark. This is the earliest known undisputed colour rendering of the Dannebrog. At about the same time, Valdemar IV of Denmark displays a cross in his coat of arms on his "Danælog" seal ("Rettertingsseglet", dated 1356). The image from the Armorial Gelre is nearly identical to an image found in a 15th-century coat of arms book now located in the National Archives of Sweden ("Riksarkivet"). The seal of Eric of Pomerania (1398) as king of the Kalmar union displays the arms of Denmark's chief dexter, three lions. In this version, the lions are holding a Dannebrog banner.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: The reason why the kings of Denmark in the 14th century begin displaying the cross banner in their coats of arms is unknown. Caspar Paludan-Müller (1873) suggested that it may reflect a banner sent by the pope to the Danish king in support of the Baltic countries. Adolf Ditlev Jørgensen (1875) identifies the banner as that of the Knights Hospitaller, which order had a presence in Denmark from the later 12th century.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: Several coins, seals, and images exist, both foreign and domestic, from the 13th to 15th centuries and even earlier, showing heraldic designs similar to Dannebrog, alongside the royal coat of arms (three blue lions on a golden shield.)


title: Flag of Denmark

text: There is a record suggesting that the Danish army had a "chief banner" ("hoffuitbanner") in the early 16th century. Such a banner is mentioned in 1570 by Niels Hemmingsøn in the context of a 1520 battle between Danes and Swedes near Uppsala as nearly captured by the Swedes but saved by the heroic actions of the banner-carrier Mogens Gyldenstierne and Peder Skram. The legend attributing the miraculous origin of the flag to the campaigns of Valdemar II of Denmark (r. 1202–1241) was recorded by Christiern Pedersen and Petrus Olai in the 1520s.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: Hans Svaning's "History of King Hans" from 1558 to 1559 and Johan Rantzau's "History about the Last Dithmarschen War", from 1569, record the further fate of the Danish "hoffuitbanner": According to this tradition, the original flag from the Battle of Lindanise was used in the small campaign of 1500 when King Hans tried to conquer Dithmarschen (in western Holstein in the north Germany). The flag was lost in a devastating defeat at the Battle of Hemmingstedt on 17 February 1500. In 1559, King Frederik II recaptured it during his own Dithmarschen campaign.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: In 1576, the son of "Johan Rantzau", Henrik Rantzau, also writes about the war and the fate of the flag, noting that the flag was in a poor condition when returned. He records that the flag after its return to Denmark was placed in the cathedral in Slesvig. Slesvig historian Ulrik Petersen (1656–1735) confirms the presence of such a banner in the cathedral in the early 17th century and records that it had crumbled away by about 1660.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: Contemporary records describing the battle of Hemmingstedt make no reference to the loss of the original Dannebrog, although the capitulation state that all Danish banners lost in 1500 was to be returned. In a letter dated 22 February 1500 to Oluf Stigsøn, King John describes the battle but does not mention the loss of an important flag. In fact, the entire letter gives the impression that the lost battle was of limited importance. In 1598, Neocorus wrote that the banner captured in 1500 was brought to the church in Wöhrden and hung there for the next 59 years until it was returned to the Danes as part of the peace settlement in 1559.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: Used as a maritime flag since the 16th century, the Dannebrog was introduced as a regimental flag in the Danish army in 1785, and for the militia (landeværn) in 1801. From 1842, it was used as the flag of the entire army.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: During the first half of the 19th century, in parallel to the development of Romantic nationalism in other European countries, the military flag increasingly came to be seen as representing the nation itself. Poems of this period invoking the "Dannebrog" were written by B.S. Ingemann, N.F.S. Grundtvig, Oehlenschläger, Chr. Winther and H.C. Andersen. By the 1830s, the military flag had become popular as an unofficial national flag, and its use by private citizens was outlawed in a circular enacted on 7 January 1834.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: In the national enthusiasm sparked by the First Schleswig War during 1848–1850, the flag was still very widely displayed, and the prohibition of private use was repealed in a regulation of 7 July 1854, for the first time allowing Danish citizens to display the Dannebrog (but not the swallow-tailed "Splitflag" variant). Special permission to use the "Splitflag" was given to individual institutions and private companies, especially after 1870. In 1886, the war ministry introduced a regulation indicating that the flag should be flown from military buildings on thirteen specified days, including royal birthdays, the date of the signing of the Constitution of 5 June 1849 and on days of remembrance for military battles. In 1913, the naval ministry issued its own list of flag days. On 10 April 1915, the hoisting of any "other" flag on Danish soil was prohibited. From 1939 until 2012, the yearbook "Hvem-Hvad-Hvor" included a list of flag days. As of 2019 flag days can be viewed at the "Ministry of Justice (Justitsministeriet)" as well as "The Denmark Society (Danmarks-Samfundet)".


title: Flag of Denmark

text: The size and shape of the civil ensign (""Koffardiflaget"") for merchant ships is given in the regulation of 11 June 1748, which says: "A red flag with a white cross with no split end. The white cross must be of the flag's height. The two first fields must be square in form and the two outer fields must be lengths of those". The proportions are thus: 3:1:3 vertically and 3:1:4.5 horizontally. This definition are the absolute proportions for the Danish national flag to this day, for both the civil version of the flag (""Stutflaget""), as well as the merchant flag (""Handelsflaget""). The civil flag and the merchant flag are identical in colour and design.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: A regulation passed in 1758 required Danish ships sailing in the Mediterranean to carry the royal cypher in the center of the flag in order to distinguish them from Maltese ships, due to the similarity of the flag of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: According to the regulation of 11 June 1748 the colour was simply red, which is common known today as "Dannebrog rød" (""Dannebrog red""). The only available red fabric dye in 1748 was made of madder root, which can be processed to produce a brilliant red dye (used historically for British soldiers' jackets). A regulation of 4 May 1927 once again states that Danish merchant ships have to fly flags according to the regulation of 1748.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: The first regulation regarding the "Splitflag" dates from 27 March 1630, in which King Christian IV orders that Norwegian "Defensionskibe" (armed merchants ships) may only use the "Splitflag" if they are in Danish war service. In 1685 an order, distributed to a number of cities in Slesvig, states that all ships must carry the Danish flag, and in 1690 all merchant ships are forbidden to use the "Splitflag", with the exception of ships sailing in the East Indies, West Indies and along the coast of Africa. In 1741 it is confirmed that the regulation of 1690 is still very much in effect; that merchant ships may not use the "Splitflag". At the same time the Danish East India Company is allowed to fly the "Splitflag" when past the equator.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: Some confusion must have existed regarding the "Splitflag". In 1696 the Admiralty presented the King with a proposal for a standard regulating both size and shape of the "Splitflag". In the same year a royal resolution defines the proportions of the "Splitflag", which in this resolution is called "Kongeflaget" (the King's flag), as follows: "The cross must be of the flags height. The two first fields must be square in form with the sides three times the cross width. The two outer fields are rectangular and the length of the square fields. The tails are the length of the flag".


title: Flag of Denmark

text: These numbers are the basic for the "Splitflag", or "Orlogsflag", today, though the numbers have been slightly altered. The term "Orlogsflag" dates from 1806 and denotes use in the Danish Navy.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: From about 1750 to the early 19th century, a number of ships and companies which the government has interests in, received approval to use the "Splitflag".


title: Flag of Denmark

text: In the royal resolution of 25 October 1939 for the Danish Navy, it is stated that the "Orlogsflag" is a "Splitflag" with a deep red (""dybrød"") or madder red (""kraprød"") colour. Like the National flag, no nuance is given, but in modern days this is given as 195U. Furthermore, the size and shape is corrected in this resolution to be: "The cross must be of the flag's height. The two first fields must be square in form with the height of of the flag's height. The two outer fields are rectangular and the length of the square fields. The tails are the length of the rectangular fields". Thus, if compared to the standard of 1696, both the rectangular fields and the tails have decreased in size.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: The "Splitflag" and "Orlogsflag" have similar shapes but different sizes and shades of red. Legally, they are two different flags. The "Splitflag" is a Danish flag ending in a swallow-tail, it is "Dannebrog red", and is used on land. The "Orlogsflag" is an elongated "Splitflag" with a deeper red colour and is only used on sea.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: The "Orlogsflag" with no markings, may only be used by the Royal Danish Navy. There are though a few exceptions to this. A few institutions have been allowed to fly the clean "Orlogsflag". The same flag with markings has been approved for a few dozen companies and institutions over the years.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: Furthermore, the "Orlogsflag" is only described as such if it has no additional markings. Any swallow-tail flag, no matter the colour, is called a "Splitflag" provided it bears additional markings.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: The current version of the royal standard was introduced on 16 November 1972 when the Queen adopted a new version of her personal coat of arms. The royal standard is the flag of Denmark with a swallow-tail and charged with the monarch's coat of arms set in a white square. The centre square is 32 parts in a flag with the ratio 56:107.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: Greenland and the Faroe Islands are additional autonomous territories within the Kingdom of Denmark. They have their own official flags.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: Some areas in Denmark have unofficial flags. While they have no legal recognition or regulation, they can be used freely.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: The regional flags of Bornholm and Ærø are occasionally used by locals of those islands and in tourist-related businesses.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: The proposal for a flag of Jutland has hardly found any actual use, maybe in part due to its peculiar design.


title: Flag of Denmark

text: The flag of Vendsyssel (Vendelbrog) is seen infrequently, but many locals recognise it. According to an article in the newspaper Nordjyske, the flag had been used in the former insignia of Flight Eskadrille 723 of Aalborg Air Base, in the 1980s.


title: Shock and awe

text: Shock and awe (technically known as rapid dominance) is a military strategy based on the use of overwhelming power and spectacular displays of force to paralyze the enemy's perception of the battlefield and destroy their will to fight. Though the concept has a variety of historical precedents, the doctrine was explained by Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade in 1996 and was developed specifically for application by the US military by the National Defense University of the United States.


title: Shock and awe

text: Introducing the doctrine in a report to the United States' National Defense University in 1996, Ullman and Wade describe it as an attempt to develop a post-Cold War military doctrine for the United States. Rapid dominance and shock and awe, they write, may become a "revolutionary change" as the United States military is reduced in size and information technology is increasingly integrated into warfare. Subsequent U.S. military authors have written that rapid dominance exploits the "superior technology, precision engagement, and information dominance" of the United States.


title: Shock and awe

text: The term "shock and awe" is most consistently used by Ullman and Wade as the effect that rapid dominance seeks to impose upon an adversary. It is the desired state of helplessness and lack of will. It can be induced, they write, by direct force applied to command and control centers, selective denial of information and dissemination of disinformation, overwhelming combat force, and rapidity of action.


title: Shock and awe

text: The doctrine of rapid dominance has evolved from the concept of "decisive force". Ulman and Wade contrast the two concepts in terms of objective, use of force, force size, scope, speed, casualties, and technique.


title: Shock and awe

text: Although Ullman and Wade claim that the need to "[m]inimize civilian casualties, loss of life, and collateral damage" is a "political sensitivity [which needs] to be understood up front", their doctrine of rapid dominance requires the capability to disrupt "means of communication, transportation, food production, water supply, and other aspects of infrastructure", and, in practice, "the appropriate balance of Shock and Awe must cause ... the threat and fear of action that may shut down all or part of the adversary's society or render his ability to fight useless short of complete physical destruction."


title: Shock and awe

text: Using as an example a theoretical invasion of Iraq 20 years after Operation Desert Storm, the authors claimed, "Shutting the country down would entail both the physical destruction of appropriate infrastructure and the shutdown and control of the flow of all vital information and associated commerce so rapidly as to achieve a level of national shock akin to the effect that dropping nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had on the Japanese."


title: Shock and awe

text: Reiterating the example in an interview with CBS News several months before Operation Iraqi Freedom, Ullman stated, "You're sitting in Baghdad and all of a sudden you're the general and 30 of your division headquarters have been wiped out. You also take the city down. By that I mean you get rid of their power, water. In 2, 3, 4, 5 days they are physically, emotionally and psychologically exhausted."


title: Shock and awe

text: Ullman and Wade argue that there have been military applications that fall within some of the concepts of shock and awe. They enumerate nine examples: