title: Richard Fuisz

text: In 2000, the same year he was named to the board of directors of Bradley Pharmaceuticals, Fuisz founded International Fluidics, another firm dedicated primarily to oral drug delivery systems; its name was changed to Kosmos Pharma in 2002. In order to acquire Fuisz's patents covering oral film strip technology, 'postage stamps' that dissolve instantly on the tongue, Kosmos was purchased by Monosol LLC in 2004, and Fuisz's son Joseph was named Monosol's senior Vice President. Meanwhile, Fuisz continued to develop and secure patents through his family-owned private company, Fuisz LLC; in addition to health care innovations such as vaginal drug delivery, thin-film-based smokeless tobacco and e-cigarettes, and systems for monitoring addictive drug compliance, Fuisz LLC also holds patents on wristwatches protected by encryption, computer vision (including face and object recognition) and e-commerce, among other diverse technological fields.


title: Richard Fuisz

text: In 2011, the blood testing company Theranos and its CEO Elizabeth Holmes sued Fuisz and his sons, alleging that Fuisz had misappropriated a Theranos patent and used that information to file his own medical analyzer patent. Theranos and Holmes were represented in the lawsuit by famed litigator David Boies. Boies alleged that the Fuiszes thought they could take advantage of Holmes because she was "young and female." Holmes has since been convicted by the U.S. Government for four charges of criminal fraud.


title: Richard Fuisz

text: Theranos separately made the same claims against its law firm McDermott Will & Emery, in a case that was dismissed. Fuisz vociferously denied the allegations and defended himself pro se.


title: Richard Fuisz

text: Fuisz was credited in the book "" with connecting the author John Carreyrou with the former medical director of Theranos, exposing Theranos's fraudulent blood testing system. John Carreyrou went on to write a series of articles for "The Wall Street Journal", publicly revealing the Theranos fraud and intimidation tactics by Boies. In the 2022 Hulu miniseries "The Dropout", Fuisz was portrayed by William H. Macy.


title: Charlie Charlie challenge

text: The Charlie Charlie challenge is a divination game in which the putative answer to a yes–no question is found by waiting for a balanced pencil to point towards the word "Yes" or "No" written on a sheet of paper. As with a Magic 8-Ball, most players, typically teenagers, do not sincerely believe in the power of the mechanism. The game is a modern incarnation of an older Spanish game called ("the Pencil Game"). It was popularized in the English-speaking world in 2015, partly through the hashtag #CharlieCharlieChallenge. On 29 April 2015, an alarmist tabloid television newscast about the game being played in Hato Mayor Province of the Dominican Republic was uploaded to YouTube, and the unintentional humor in the report led to the game trending on Twitter, crossing the language barrier to be played around the world.


title: Charlie Charlie challenge

text: In an early version of the game, two players each hold two pencils in the shape of a square, pressing the ends of their pencils against the other player's. Like a Ouija board, it uses the ideomotor phenomenon, with players moving the pencils without conscious control.


title: Charlie Charlie challenge

text: The two pencil game involves crossing two pens or pencils to create a grid (with sectors labelled "yes" and "no") and then asking questions to a "supernatural entity" named "Charlie." The upper pencil is then expected to rotate to indicate the answer to such questions. The first question everyone asks by speaking into the pencils is "can we play?" or "are you here?" or "are you there?"


title: Charlie Charlie challenge

text: The top pencil is precariously balanced on a central pivot point, meaning that it can easily rotate on the pivot due to slight wind gusts, or the breathing of players expecting the pencil to move.


title: Charlie Charlie challenge

text: According to Caitlyn Dewey of "The Washington Post," this game is valuable as an example of cross-cultural viral trends: Charlie makes a killer case study in virality and how things move in and out of languages and cultures online. You'll notice, for instance, a lot of players and reporters talking about the game as if it were new, when it's actually—and more interestingly, I think—an old game that has just recently crossed the language divide. Maria Elena Navez of BBC Mundo said "There's no demon called 'Charlie' in Mexico," and suggested that Mexican demons with English names (rather than, say, "Carlitos") are "usually American inventions." Urban legend expert David Emery says that some versions of the game have copied the ghost story La Llorona, popular in Mexico, Central America and North of South America, but the pencil game is not a Mexican tradition. Joseph Laycock, a professor of religious studies at Texas State University argued that while Charlie is "most often described as a "Mexican ghost," it appears that Christian critics reframed the game as Satanic almost immediately, due to their desire to "claim a monopoly on wholesome encounters with the supernatural."


title: Charlie Charlie challenge

text: In May 2015, "The Racket Report", a parody website that describes itself as "not intended to communicate any true or factual information," posted a hoax article claiming that 500 "mysterious" deaths had resulted from playing the Charlie Charlie Challenge. The Fiji Sun reported claims made by the satire website as news in June. The Fijian Ministry of Education banned the game, and three Fijian teachers in Tavua were taken to a police station for questioning over allegations they forced their students to play it, before being cleared of all charges.


title: Charlie Charlie challenge

text: In May 2015, four teenage girls were sent to a hospital in Tunja, Colombia, and quickly released with a diagnosis of mass hysteria.


title: Charlie Charlie challenge

text: Kate Knibbs writes that "once the paranormal fad went viral, it didn't take long for Christian fearmongers to warn against calling on the nefarious spirit world." Pat Robertson denounced the Charlie Charlie challenge as demonic. Several exorcists promoted the idea that the game caused spirit possession, a concern repeated by Muslims in Jamaica and the UAE. Various media outlets described participants in the games as "gullible".


title: Charlie Charlie challenge

text: Psychological suggestion can lead people to expect a particular response, which can result in thoughts and behaviors that will help bring the anticipated outcome to fruition – for instance by breathing more heavily. Chris French, head of the anomalistic psychology research unit at the University of London says that human agent detection leads people to see patterns in random events and perceive an intelligence behind them. He argues that divination games involve magical thinking, saying "Often the 'answers' received [in divination games] might be vague and ambiguous, but our inherent ability to find meaning—even when it isn't there—ensures that we will perceive significance in those responses and be convinced that an intelligence of some kind lay behind them." Kate Knibbs, writing in Gizmodo described the game as "a Vine-ready pastiche of kitsch occultism" that "has the familiar pull of pareidolia" where people interpret patterns as having a meaning.


title: Charlie Charlie challenge

text: Stuart Vyse, a psychology professor at Connecticut College argues that teenagers often go to see paranormal movies in groups, and "There's a real social bonding aspect to this whole phenomenon," and "It's almost a developmental passage for some kids, to deal with things that are scary." Donald Saucier, a psychology professor at Kansas State University argues that teenagers go through "a period where social influence is very strong" and they are more prone to superstition. Stephen Schlozman, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School said "I think kids are interested in the dares that aren't actually all that dangerous, but have that feeling of danger to them." Sharon Hill argues that teenagers playing the game "overreact because of the peer situation."


title: Charlie Charlie challenge

text: Pastor Carl Gallups told WPTF news radio "I have done some experiments with this, and I think people are being punked. On my desk in front of me, I have the two pencils set up and the one on the top that is balanced is easily moved by just a puff of air." He continued, "I held my phone up to pretend like I was filming it and just started breathing a little heavy, but it's indiscernible to anybody around, and the pencil just moves so easily." Fred Clark and Rebecca Watson liken the phenomenon of pencils moving on a desk to James Hydrick's debunked claim that he could move a pencil on a desk by psychokinesis.


title: Charlie Charlie challenge

text: Andrew Griffin wrote in "The Independent" that the game is "perhaps scarier than a Ouija board because it doesn't have the same explanations. With those boards, players have to keep hold of a glass while it moves around the table—so it's not difficult to imagine that people might be pushing it around without knowing it."


title: Charlie Charlie challenge

text: David Emery argues parsimoniously that when simple scientific explanations "can sufficiently explain why a phenomenon occurs, there's no reason to assume supernatural forces are at work." Despite simple scientific explanations being offered by science journalists, these are less readily available in mainstream news outlets.


title: Charlie Charlie challenge

text: The producers of the 2015 horror film "The Gallows" promoted their film on the bandwagon of the game, releasing a video clip featuring the game.


title: We (novel)

text: We () is a dystopian novel by Russian writer Yevgeny Zamyatin, written 1920–1921. It was first published as an English translation by Gregory Zilboorg in 1924 by E. P. Dutton in New York, with the original Russian text first published in 1952. The novel describes a world of harmony and conformity within a united totalitarian state. It influenced the emergence of dystopia as a literary genre. George Orwell claimed that Aldous Huxley's 1931 "Brave New World" must be partly derived from "We", but Huxley denied this.


title: We (novel)

text: "We" is set in the future. D-503, a spacecraft engineer, lives in the One State, an urban nation constructed almost entirely of glass, which assists mass surveillance. The structure of the state is Panopticon-like, and life is scientifically managed F. W. Taylor-like. People march in step with each other and are uniformed. There is no way of referring to people except by their given numbers. The society is run strictly by logic or reason as the primary justification for the laws or the construct of the society. The individual's behaviour is based on logic by way of formulae and equations outlined by the One State.


title: We (novel)

text: A few hundred years after the One State's conquest of the entire world, the spaceship "Integral" is being built in order to invade and conquer extraterrestrial planets. Meanwhile, the project's chief engineer, D-503, begins a journal that he intends to be carried upon the completed spaceship.


title: We (novel)

text: Like all other citizens of the One State, D-503 lives in a glass apartment building and is carefully watched by the secret police, or Bureau of Guardians. D-503's lover, O-90, has been assigned by One State to visit him on certain nights. She is considered too short to bear children and is deeply grieved by her state in life. O-90's other lover and D-503's best friend is R-13, a State poet who reads his verse at public executions.


title: We (novel)

text: While on an assigned walk with O-90, D-503 meets a woman named I-330. I-330 smokes cigarettes, drinks alcohol, and shamelessly flirts with D-503 instead of applying for an impersonal sex visit; all of these are highly illegal according to the laws of the One State.


title: We (novel)

text: Both repelled and fascinated, D-503 struggles to overcome his attraction to I-330. She invites him to visit the Ancient House, notable for being the only opaque building in the One State, except for windows. Objects of aesthetic and historical importance dug up from around the city are stored there. There, I-330 offers him the services of a corrupt doctor to explain his absence from work. Leaving in horror, D-503 vows to denounce her to the Bureau of Guardians, but finds that he cannot.


title: We (novel)

text: He begins to have dreams, which disturbs him, as dreams are thought to be a symptom of mental illness. Slowly, I-330 reveals to D-503 that she is involved with the Mephi, an organization plotting to bring down the One State. She takes him through secret tunnels inside the Ancient House to the world outside the Green Wall, which surrounds the city-state. There, D-503 meets the inhabitants of the outside world: humans whose bodies are covered with animal fur. The aims of the Mephi are to destroy the Green Wall and reunite the citizens of the One State with the outside world.


title: We (novel)

text: Despite the recent rift between them, O-90 pleads with D-503 to impregnate her illegally. After O-90 insists that she will obey the law by turning over their child to be raised by the One State, D-503 obliges. However, as her pregnancy progresses, O-90 realizes that she cannot bear to be parted from her baby under any circumstances. At D-503's request, I-330 arranges for O-90 to be smuggled outside the Green Wall.


title: We (novel)

text: In his last journal entry, D-503 indifferently relates that he has been forcibly tied to a table and subjected to the "Great Operation", which has recently been mandated for all citizens of the One State in order to prevent possible riots; having been psycho-surgically refashioned into a state of mechanical "reliability", they would now function as "tractors in human form". This operation removes the imagination and emotions by targeting parts of the brain with X-rays. After this operation, D-503 willingly informed the Benefactor about the inner workings of the Mephi. However, D-503 expresses surprise that even torture could not induce I-330 to denounce her comrades. Despite her refusal, I-330 and those arrested with her have been sentenced to death, "under the Benefactor's Machine".


title: We (novel)

text: Meanwhile, the Mephi uprising gathers strength; parts of the Green Wall have been destroyed, birds are repopulating the city, and people start committing acts of social rebellion. Although D-503 expresses hope that the Benefactor shall restore "reason", the novel ends with the One State's survival in doubt. I-330's mantra is that, just as there is no highest number, there can be no "final" revolution.


title: We (novel)

text: The dystopian society depicted in "We" is presided over by the Benefactor and is surrounded by a giant Green Wall to separate the citizens from primitive untamed nature. All citizens are known as "numbers". Every hour in one's life is directed by "The Table".


title: We (novel)

text: The action of "We" is set at some time after the Two Hundred Years' War, which has wiped out all but "0.2 percent of the earth's population". The war was over a rare substance only mentioned in the book through a metaphor; the substance was called "bread" as the "Christians gladiated over it"—as in Christians killed for sport in Roman gladiator games as a form of entertainment, "bread and circuses," suggesting a war that was meant to distract the population from a power grab by the government. The war only ended after the use of weapons of mass destruction, so that the One State is surrounded with a post-apocalyptic landscape.


title: We (novel)

text: Many of the names and numbers in "We" are allusions to personal experiences of Zamyatin or to culture and literature.


title: We (novel)

text: For example, "Auditorium 112" refers to cell number 112, where Zamyatin was twice imprisoned, and the name of S-4711 is a reference to the Eau de Cologne number 4711.


title: We (novel)

text: Zamyatin, who worked as a naval architect, refers to the specifications of the icebreaker "St. Alexander Nevsky".


title: We (novel)

text: The numbers [.. .] of the chief characters in WE are taken directly from the specifications of Zamyatin's favourite icebreaker, the Saint Alexander Nevsky, yard no. A/W 905, round tonnage 3300, where O–90 and I-330 appropriately divide the hapless D-503 [.. .] Yu-10 could easily derive from the Swan Hunter yard numbers of no fewer than three of Zamyatin's major icebreakers – 1012, 1020, 1021 [.. .]. R-13 can be found here too, as well as in the yard number of "Sviatogor" A/W 904.


title: We (novel)

text: Many comparisons to The Bible exist in "We". There are similarities between Genesis Chapters 1–4 and "We", where the One State is considered Paradise, D-503 is Adam, and I-330 is Eve. The snake in this piece is S-4711, who is described as having a bent and twisted form, with a "double-curved body" (he is a double agent). References to Mephistopheles (in the Mephi) are seen as allusions to Satan and his rebellion against Heaven in the Bible (Ezekiel 28:11–19; Isaiah 14:12–15). The novel itself could be considered a criticism of organised religion given this interpretation. However, Zamyatin, influenced by Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "Notes from Underground" and "The Brothers Karamazov", made the novel a criticism of the excesses of a militantly atheistic society. The novel displayed an indebtedness to H. G. Wells's dystopia "When the Sleeper Wakes" (1899).


title: We (novel)

text: The novel uses mathematical concepts symbolically. The spaceship that D-503 is supervising the construction of is called the "Integral", which he hopes will "integrate the grandiose cosmic equation". D-503 also mentions that he is profoundly disturbed by the concept of the square root of −1—which is the basis for imaginary numbers (imagination being deprecated by the One State). Zamyatin's point, probably in light of the increasingly dogmatic Soviet government of the time, would seem to be that it is impossible to remove all the rebels against a system. Zamyatin even says this through I-330: "There is no final revolution. Revolutions are infinite."


title: We (novel)

text: Along with Jack London's "The Iron Heel", "We" is generally considered to be the grandfather of the satirical futuristic dystopia genre. It takes the modern industrial society to an extreme conclusion, depicting a state that believes that free will is the cause of unhappiness, and that citizens' lives should be controlled with mathematical precision based on the system of industrial efficiency created by Frederick Winslow Taylor. The Soviet attempt at implementing Taylorism, led by Aleksei Gastev, may have immediately influenced Zamyatin's portrayal of the One State. In Russia, a dystopian totalitarian society before Zamyatin was described by Mikhail Saltykov in his satirical novel "The History of a Town", and Saltykov's idea of "Utopia of the straight line" continues in "We": "To unbend the wild curve, to straighten it out to a tangent — to a straight line!"


title: We (novel)

text: Christopher Collins in "Evgenij Zamjatin: An Interpretive Study" finds the many intriguing literary aspects of "We" more interesting and relevant today than the political aspects:


title: We (novel)

text: The little-known Russian dystopian novel "Love in the Fog of the Future", published in 1924 by Andrei Marsov, has also been compared to "We".


title: We (novel)

text: George Orwell claimed that Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" (1932) must be partly derived from "We". However, in a letter to Christopher Collins in 1962, Huxley says that he wrote "Brave New World" as a reaction to H. G. Wells's utopias long before he had heard of "We".


title: We (novel)

text: Kurt Vonnegut said that in writing "Player Piano" (1952), he "cheerfully ripped off the plot of "Brave New World", whose plot had been cheerfully ripped off from Yevgeny Zamyatin's "We"". Ayn Rand's "Anthem" (1938) has many significant similarities to "We" (detailed here), although it is stylistically and thematically different. Vladimir Nabokov's novel "Invitation to a Beheading" may suggest a dystopian society with some similarities to Zamyatin's; Nabokov read "We" while writing "Invitation to a Beheading".


title: We (novel)

text: Orwell began "Nineteen Eighty-Four" (1949) some eight months after he read "We" in a French translation and wrote a review of it. Orwell is reported as "saying that he was taking it as the model for his next novel". Brown writes that for Orwell and certain others, "We" "appears to have been "the" crucial literary experience". Shane states that "Zamyatin's influence on Orwell is beyond dispute". Robert Russell, in an overview of the criticism of "We", concludes that ""1984" shares so many features with "We" that there can be no doubt about its general debt to it", however, there is a minority of critics who view the similarities between "We" and "1984" as "entirely superficial". Further, Russell finds that "Orwell's novel is both bleaker and more topical than Zamyatin's, lacking entirely that ironic humour that pervades the Russian work".


title: We (novel)

text: In "The Right Stuff" (1979), Tom Wolfe describes "We" as a "marvelously morose novel of the future" featuring an "omnipotent spaceship" called the "Integral" whose "designer is known only as 'D-503, Builder of the Integral'". Wolfe goes on to use the "Integral" as a metaphor for the Soviet launch vehicle, the Soviet space programme, or the Soviet Union.


title: We (novel)

text: Jerome K. Jerome has been cited as an influence on Zamyatin's novel. Jerome's short story "The New Utopia" (1891) describes a regimented future city, indeed world, of nightmarish egalitarianism, where men and women are barely distinguishable in their grey uniforms (Zamyatin's "unifs") and all have short black hair, natural or dyed. No one has a name: women wear even numbers on their tunics, and men wear odd, just as in "We". Equality is taken to such lengths that people with well-developed physiques are liable to have lopped limbs. In Zamyatin, similarly, the equalisation of noses is earnestly proposed. Jerome has anyone with an overactive imagination subjected to a levelling-down operation—something of central importance in "We". There is a shared depiction by both Jerome and Zamyatin that individual and, by extension, familial love is a disruptive and humanizing force. Jerome's works were translated in Russia three times before 1917. Jerome's "Three Men in a Boat" is a set book in Russian schools.


title: We (novel)

text: In 1998, the first English translation of "Cursed Days", a diary kept in secret by anti-communist Russian author Ivan Bunin during the Russian Civil War in Moscow and Odessa was published in Chicago. In a foreword, the diary's English translator, Thomas Gaiton Marullo, described "Cursed Days" as a rare example of dystopian nonfiction and pointed out multiple parallels between the secret diary kept by Bunin and the diary kept by D-503.


title: We (novel)

text: Zamyatin's literary position deteriorated throughout the 1920s, and he was eventually allowed to emigrate to Paris in 1931, probably after the intercession of Maxim Gorky.


title: We (novel)

text: The novel was first published in English in 1924 by E. P. Dutton in New York in a translation by Gregory Zilboorg, but its first publication in the Soviet Union had to wait until 1988, when glasnost resulted in it appearing alongside George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four". A year later, "We" and "Brave New World" were published together in a combined edition.


title: We (novel)

text: The German TV network ZDF adapted the novel for a TV movie in 1982, under the German title "Wir" (English: We).


title: We (novel)

text: The novel has also been adapted, by Alain Bourret, a French director, into a short film called "The Glass Fortress" (2016). "The Glass Fortress" is an experimental film that employs a technique known as still image film, and is shot in black-and-white, which help support the grim atmosphere of the story's dystopian society. The film is technically similar to "La Jetée" (1962), directed by Chris Marker, and refers somewhat to "THX 1138" (1971), by George Lucas, in the "religious appearance of the Well Doer". According to film critic Isabelle Arnaud, "The Glass Fortress" has a special atmosphere underlining a story of thwarted love that will be long remembered.


title: We (novel)

text: A Russian film adaptation, directed by Hamlet Dulyan and starring Egor Koreshkov, is in post-production as of May 2021, with a projected release sometime in the fall.


title: We (novel)

text: Montreal company Théâtre Deuxième Réalité produced an adaptation of the novel in 1996, adapted and directed by Alexandre Marine, under the title "Nous Autres".


title: We (novel)

text: Released in 2015, "The Glass Fortress" is a musical and narrative adaptation of the novel by Rémi Orts Project and Alan B.


title: We (novel)

text: In 2022, the Canadian indie rock band Arcade Fire released "We", an album whose title was inspired by the novel.


title: Murder of Odin Lloyd

text: The murder of Odin Lloyd occurred on June 17, 2013, in North Attleborough, Massachusetts, US. His death made international headlines when Aaron Hernandez, at the time a tight end for the New England Patriots of the National Football League, was investigated as a suspect and convicted in the case. Lloyd had been a linebacker for a New England Football League (NEFL) semi-professional football team, the Boston Bandits, since 2007.


title: Murder of Odin Lloyd

text: Hernandez was arrested on June 26, 2013, and charged with the murder. Ninety minutes after his arrest, Hernandez was released by the Patriots. Police also arrested two other men in connection with Lloyd's death: Carlos Ortiz on June 27, 2013, and Ernest Wallace on June 28, 2013. Prosecutors say both men were with Hernandez when they drove to the location of the murder. On August 22, 2013, Hernandez was indicted by a grand jury for the murder of Odin Lloyd. Nearly eight months later, Ortiz and Wallace were also indicted for the murder.


title: Murder of Odin Lloyd

text: On April 15, 2015, Hernandez was found guilty of first-degree murder, as well as five weapon charges, which required a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. He was tried for two separate murder charges for the 2012 double homicide of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado, but was acquitted of these charges on April 14, 2017. On May 12, 2016, Wallace was acquitted of first-degree murder of Lloyd, but was convicted of being an accessory after the fact of the crime; he was sentenced to serve four and a half to seven years in prison. On June 27, 2016, Ortiz changed his 'not guilty' plea and pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact. In exchange for his plea, prosecutors dropped the murder charge against Ortiz. He was also sentenced to serve four and a half to seven years in prison.


title: Murder of Odin Lloyd

text: On April 19, 2017, at 3:05 am, Hernandez was found dead in his prison cell by correctional officers after apparently hanging himself with a bedsheet. By killing himself before the appeal of his case could be completed, Hernandez's murder conviction was vacated, technically returning him to a state of innocent until proven guilty. The court's decision to vacate was appealed by the prosecutors and the Lloyd family's attorneys. In March 2019, the Massachusetts Supreme Court overturned the entire doctrine of abatement "ab initio", thus reinstating his original murder conviction.


title: Murder of Odin Lloyd

text: Odin Leonardo John Lloyd was born in Saint Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands and spent a few years with his family in Antigua, before they moved to the Dorchester section of Boston. He was the first-born child and only son of Ursula Ward. Lloyd is survived by at least one sister, Olivia Thibou.


title: Murder of Odin Lloyd

text: He is survived by a maternal uncle, who said that he had last seen Lloyd on the Sunday before his death. A neighbor, who described himself as "a regular at a nearby park where Lloyd would go to work out – not hang out," described Lloyd as usually keeping to himself. Citing Lloyd's physical condition, the neighbor said, "Of everybody on this street, he was the one who could take care of himself…So there had to be some shaky stuff if he was the guy killed."


title: Murder of Odin Lloyd

text: Lloyd was a linebacker for the Boston Bandits, a semi-pro football team. He had played for the team since 2007.


title: Murder of Odin Lloyd

text: At the time of his death, Odin Lloyd was dating Shaneah Jenkins, sister of the fiancée of Aaron Hernandez.


title: Murder of Odin Lloyd

text: On June 17, 2013, Lloyd was shot and killed in an industrial park located one mile from Hernandez's house.


title: Murder of Odin Lloyd

text: On June 16, the night before Lloyd's death, Hernandez texted two friends from his hometown of Bristol, Connecticut asking them to come to Massachusetts, writing, "You can't trust anyone anymore." In the early morning hours of June 17, Lloyd was riding as a passenger in Hernandez's car; he texted his sister, "Did you see who I am with?" and when his sister responded, he replied, "NFL." Lloyd's last text to his sister read, "Just so you know." His sister later said that she had thought he was bragging. Based on an upheld defendant's attorney objection, the court dismissed the texts as testimony, saying there was insufficient evidence that Lloyd feared for his life.


title: Murder of Odin Lloyd

text: Prosecutors reportedly said that Lloyd and Hernandez were in contact just 10 hours before his death, concerning a bag of marijuana. Furthermore, keys to a car that had been rented by Hernandez were allegedly found in Lloyd's pocket. Prosecutors believe Lloyd recently said something to Hernandez that destroyed his trust, giving Hernandez a motive to kill. Prosecutors also stated how bubble gum that was purchased by Hernandez was found stuck to a gun-shell casing at the scene, that was similar to the one that Lloyd was shot with and the DNA matched Hernandez, as well as found in the rental car that was under Hernandez's name. The prosecution testified that crime scene investigators were able to find shoe tracks at the crime scene that made the same impression of shoes worn by Hernandez the same night according to surveillance footage.


title: Murder of Odin Lloyd

text: On June 18, 2013, police searched Hernandez's house in North Attleboro for several hours. The Massachusetts State Police obtained a search warrant after evidence surfaced that Hernandez had intentionally destroyed his home security system. A cell phone belonging to Hernandez was turned over to police "in pieces", and Hernandez allegedly hired a "team of house cleaners" the same day Lloyd's body was discovered, raising additional suspicion. In the wake of Lloyd's death, the Boston Bandits released a statement: "The Bandits would like to extend our deepest condolences to Odin's family and his loved ones. He will be deeply missed by his football family but we promise to persevere and play the game that Odin loved in his honor" and "the Boston Bandits are cooperating with local and state police in their efforts to identify the person responsible for Odin Lloyd's death".


title: Murder of Odin Lloyd

text: On June 26, 2013, Hernandez was arrested at his home and charged with first-degree murder, one count of carrying a firearm without a license, two counts of possessing a large-capacity firearm, and two counts of possessing a firearm without a firearm identification card. The first-degree murder charge required a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole, as Massachusetts outlawed the death penalty in 1984. Hernandez was held without bail at the Bristol County, Massachusetts Jail and House of Correction.


title: Murder of Odin Lloyd

text: On June 27 and 28, 2013, respectively, Carlos Ortiz and Ernest Wallace were also arrested in connection with Lloyd's death. Ortiz told police that Hernandez had rented an apartment secretly in Franklin, Massachusetts. As reported by the Associated Press, a subsequent search of the apartment "turned up ammunition and clothing that police believe could be evidence in the murder case against him". Ortiz was held on $500,000 bail. On September 27, 2013, Ortiz was indicted on a single count of accessory to murder after the fact in the killing of Lloyd.


title: Murder of Odin Lloyd

text: In addition, Hernandez's fiancée, Shayanna Jenkins, and his cousin, Tanya Cummings Singleton, were charged as accessories to murder for their suspected involvement in assisting Hernandez after he killed Lloyd.


title: Murder of Odin Lloyd

text: On January 29, 2015, the trial began in Fall River, Massachusetts with opening statements by prosecuting attorney Patrick Bomberg and defense attorney Michael Fee. Judge E. Susan Garsh presided. The trial was expected to take about ten weeks. The trial was delayed on a few occasions as a result of the unprecedented snowfall in Greater Boston.


title: Murder of Odin Lloyd

text: In opening statements, prosecutors said Hernandez's DNA was found at the murder scene. On April 9, 2015, a photographer for NBC affiliate WHDH (TV) was banned from reporting and taking pictures at the trial as one of their news trucks had followed the jury van the previous day.


title: Murder of Odin Lloyd

text: In closing statements, in light of substantial physical evidence provided by the prosecution, the defense admitted to Hernandez being present during the murder, but downplayed his role. Defense said that he was an unwilling participant who "was a 23-year-old kid who witnessed something. A shocking killing, committed by someone he knew. He really didn't know what to do. So he just put one foot in front of the other."


title: Murder of Odin Lloyd

text: On April 15, 2015, Hernandez was convicted of first-degree murder and all weapons charges, and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Immediately following the conviction, Hernandez was temporarily transferred to the Massachusetts Correctional Institution – Cedar Junction, a maximum security intake facility to begin serving his sentence; it is located 1.5 miles from Gillette Stadium, where he formerly played. He was transferred to serve the remainder of his life sentence at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center, a maximum-security facility adjacent to the medium-security Massachusetts Correctional Institution – Shirley.


title: Murder of Odin Lloyd

text: Wallace was acquitted of charges of murder on May 12, 2016, but convicted of being an accessory after the fact. He was sentenced to four-and-one-half to seven years in prison.


title: Murder of Odin Lloyd

text: On April 19, 2017, at around 3:05 am, Hernandez was found hanging in his prison cell. His death was ruled a suicide. Hernandez's attorneys successfully requested that his murder conviction be vacated due to the legal principle of abatement "ab initio": if a convicted criminal has not exhausted all legal appeals at the time of his death, a guilty verdict may be officially vacated. His conviction was reinstated in 2019 following an appeal from prosecutors and the Lloyd family.


title: Murder of Odin Lloyd

text: After being convicted in the Lloyd murder, Hernandez was accused of the 2012 shooting deaths of Boston residents Daniel Jorge Correia de Abreu and Safiro Teixeira Furtado. Attorney Jose Baez represented Hernandez in the murder trial, which resulted in a not guilty verdict. Baez wrote in his 2018 book "Unnecessary Roughness" that he and Hernandez planned an appeal in the Lloyd case. Baez believed Hernandez made poor choices in associating with criminals, but was not a murderer. He noted that Hernandez did not flee the area after the Lloyd murder and was compliant with every police interview and warrant before his arrest. Baez contended an appeal had a strong chance of success, given what he characterized as weaknesses in the prosecution cases that were overlooked by the initial lawyers and Judge Garsh's comments during a bail hearing that Hernandez appeared to be guilty (a possible violation of presumption of innocence).


title: Dancing mania

text: Dancing mania (also known as dancing plague, choreomania, St. John's Dance, tarantism and St. Vitus' Dance) was a social phenomenon that occurred primarily in mainland Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries. It involved groups of people dancing erratically, sometimes thousands at a time. The mania affected adults and children who danced until they collapsed from exhaustion and injuries. One of the first major outbreaks was in Aachen, in the Holy Roman Empire (in modern-day Germany), in 1374, and it quickly spread throughout Europe; one particularly notable outbreak occurred in Strasbourg in 1518 in Alsace, also in the Holy Roman Empire (now France).


title: Dancing mania

text: Affecting thousands of people across several centuries, dancing mania was not an isolated event, and was well documented in contemporary reports. It was nevertheless poorly understood, and remedies were based on guesswork. Often musicians accompanied dancers, due to a belief that music would treat the mania, but this tactic sometimes backfired by encouraging more to join in. There is no consensus among modern-day scholars as to the cause of dancing mania.


title: Dancing mania

text: The several theories proposed range from religious cults being behind the processions to people dancing to relieve themselves of stress and put the poverty of the period out of their minds. It is speculated to have been a mass psychogenic illness, in which physical symptoms with no known physical cause are observed to affect a group of people, as a form of social influence.


title: Dancing mania

text: "Dancing mania" is derived from the term "choreomania", from the Greek "choros" (dance) and "mania" (madness), and is also known as "dancing plague". The term was coined by Paracelsus, and the condition was initially considered a curse sent by a saint, usually St. John the Baptist or St. Vitus, and was therefore known as "St. Vitus' Dance" or "St. John's Dance". Victims of dancing mania often ended their processions at places dedicated to that saint, who was prayed to in an effort to end the dancing; incidents often broke out around the time of the feast of St. Vitus.


title: Dancing mania

text: St. Vitus' Dance was diagnosed, in the 17th century, as Sydenham chorea. Dancing mania has also been known as epidemic chorea and epidemic dancing. A disease of the nervous system, chorea is characterized by symptoms resembling those of dancing mania, which has also rather unconvincingly been considered a form of epilepsy.


title: Dancing mania

text: Other scientists have described dancing mania as a "collective mental disorder", "collective hysterical disorder" and "mass madness".


title: Dancing mania

text: The earliest-known outbreak of dancing mania occurred in the 7th century, and it reappeared many times across Europe until about the 17th century, when it stopped abruptly. One of the earliest-known incidents occurred sometime in the 1020s in Bernburg, where 18 peasants began singing and dancing around a church, disturbing a Christmas Eve service.


title: Dancing mania

text: Further outbreaks occurred during the 13th century, including one in 1237 in which a large group of children travelled from Erfurt to Arnstadt (about ), jumping and dancing all the way, in marked similarity to the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, a legend that originated at around the same time. Another incident, in 1278, involved about 200 people dancing on a bridge over the River Meuse resulting in its collapse. Many of the survivors were restored to full health at a nearby chapel dedicated to St. Vitus. The first major outbreak of the mania occurred between 1373 and 1374, with incidents reported in England, Germany and the Netherlands.


title: Dancing mania

text: On 24 June 1374, one of the biggest outbreaks began in Aachen, before spreading to other places such as Cologne, Flanders, Franconia, Hainaut, Metz, Strasbourg, Tongeren, Utrecht, and regions and countries such as Italy and Luxembourg. Further episodes occurred in 1375 and 1376, with incidents in France, Germany, and the Netherlands, and in 1381, there was an outbreak in Augsburg. Further incidents occurred in 1418 in Strasbourg, where people fasted for days and the outbreak was possibly caused by exhaustion. In another outbreak, in 1428 in Schaffhausen, a monk danced to death and, in the same year, a group of women in Zurich were reportedly in a dancing frenzy.


title: Dancing mania

text: Another of the most extensive outbreaks occurred in July 1518, in Strasbourg (see Dancing plague of 1518), where a woman began dancing in the street, and between 50 and 400 people joined her. Further incidents occurred during the 16th century when the mania was at its peak: in 1536 in Basel, involving a group of children; and in 1551 in Anhalt, involving just one man. In the 17th century, incidents of recurrent dancing were recorded by professor of medicine Gregor Horst, who noted:


title: Dancing mania

text: Dancing mania appears to have completely died out by the mid-17th century. According to John Waller, although numerous incidents were recorded, the best documented cases are the outbreaks of 1374 and 1518, for which there is abundant contemporary evidence.


title: Dancing mania

text: The outbreaks of dancing mania varied, and several characteristics of it have been recorded. Generally occurring in times of hardship, up to tens of thousands of people would appear to dance for hours, days, weeks, and even months.


title: Dancing mania

text: Women have often been portrayed in modern literature as the usual participants in dancing mania, although contemporary sources suggest otherwise. Whether the dancing was spontaneous, or an organized event, is also debated. What is certain, however, is that dancers seemed to be in a state of unconsciousness, and unable to control themselves.


title: Dancing mania

text: In his research into social phenomena, author Robert Bartholomew notes that contemporary sources record that participants often did not reside where the dancing took place. Such people would travel from place to place, and others would join them along the way. With them they brought customs and behaviour that were strange to the local people. Bartholomew describes how dancers wore "strange, colorful attire" and "held wooden sticks".


title: Dancing mania

text: Robert Marks, in his study of hypnotism, notes that some decorated their hair with garlands. However, not all outbreaks involved foreigners, and not all were particularly calm. Bartholomew notes that some "paraded around naked" and made "obscene gestures". Some even had sexual intercourse. Others acted like animals, and jumped, hopped and leaped about.


title: Dancing mania

text: They hardly stopped, and some danced until they broke their ribs and subsequently died. Throughout, dancers screamed, laughed, or cried, and some sang. Bartholomew also notes that observers of dancing mania were sometimes treated violently if they refused to join in. Participants demonstrated odd reactions to the color red; in "A History of Madness in Sixteenth-Century Germany", Midelfort notes they "could not perceive the color red at all", and Bartholomew reports "it was said that dancers could not stand... the color red, often becoming violent on seeing [it]".


title: Dancing mania

text: Bartholomew also notes that dancers "could not stand pointed shoes", and that dancers enjoyed their feet being hit. Throughout, those affected by dancing mania suffered from a variety of ailments, including chest pains, convulsions, hallucinations, hyperventilation, epileptic fits, and visions. In the end, most simply dropped down, overwhelmed with exhaustion. Midelfort, however, describes how some ended up in a state of ecstasy. Typically, the mania was contagious but it often struck small groups, such as families and individuals.


title: Dancing mania

text: In Italy, a similar phenomenon was tarantism, in which the victims were said to have been poisoned by a tarantula or scorpion. Its earliest-known outbreak was in the 13th century, and the only antidote known was to dance to particular music to separate the venom from the blood. It occurred only in the summer months. As with dancing mania, people would suddenly begin to dance, sometimes affected by a perceived bite or sting and were joined by others, who believed the venom from their own old bites was reactivated by the heat or the music. Dancers would perform a tarantella, accompanied by music which would eventually "cure" the victim, at least temporarily.


title: Dancing mania

text: Some participated in further activities, such as tying themselves up with vines and whipping each other, pretending to sword fight, drinking large amounts of wine, and jumping into the sea. Some died if there was no music to accompany their dancing. Sufferers typically had symptoms resembling those of dancing mania, such as headaches, trembling, twitching and visions.


title: Dancing mania

text: As with dancing mania, participants apparently did not like the color black, and women were reported to be most affected. Unlike dancing mania, tarantism was confined to Italy and southern Europe. It was common until the 17th century, but ended suddenly, with only very small outbreaks in Italy until as late as 1959.


title: Dancing mania

text: A study of the phenomenon in 1959 by religious history professor Ernesto de Martino revealed that most cases of tarantism were probably unrelated to spider bites. Many participants admitted that they had not been bitten, but believed they were infected by someone who had been, or that they had simply touched a spider. The result was mass panic, with a "cure" that allowed people to behave in ways that were, normally, prohibited at the time. Despite their differences, tarantism and dancing mania are often considered synonymous.


title: Dancing mania

text: As the real cause of dancing mania was unknown, many of the treatments for it were simply hopeful guesses, although some did seem effective. The 1374 outbreak occurred only decades after the Black Death, and was treated in a similar fashion: dancers were isolated, and some were exorcised. People believed that the dancing was a curse brought about by St. Vitus; they responded by praying and making pilgrimages to places dedicated to St. Vitus.


title: Dancing mania

text: Prayers were also made to St. John the Baptist, who some believed also caused the dancing. Others claimed to be possessed by demons, or Satan, therefore exorcisms were often performed on dancers. Bartholomew notes that music was often played while participants danced, as that was believed to be an effective remedy, and during some outbreaks musicians were even employed to play. Midelfort describes how the music encouraged others to join in, however, and thus effectively made things worse, as did the dancing places that were sometimes set up.


title: Dancing mania

text: Numerous hypotheses have been proposed for the causes of dancing mania, and it remains unclear whether it was a real illness or a social phenomenon. One of the most prominent theories is that victims suffered from ergot poisoning, which was known as St. Anthony's fire in the Middle Ages. During floods and damp periods, ergots were able to grow and affect rye and other crops. Ergotism can cause hallucinations and convulsions, but cannot account for the other strange behaviour most commonly identified with dancing mania.


title: Dancing mania

text: Other theories suggest that the symptoms were similar to encephalitis, epilepsy, and typhus, but as with ergotism, those conditions cannot account for all symptoms.


title: Dancing mania

text: Numerous sources discuss how dancing mania, and tarantism, may have simply been the result of stress and tension caused by natural disasters around the time, such as plagues and floods. Hetherington and Munro describe dancing mania as a result of "shared stress"; people may have danced to relieve themselves of the stress and poverty of the day, and in so doing, attempted to become ecstatic and see visions.


title: Dancing mania

text: Another popular theory is that the outbreaks were all staged, and the appearance of strange behaviour was due to its unfamiliarity. Religious cults may have been acting out well-organised dances, in accordance with ancient Greek and Roman rituals. Despite being banned at the time, these rituals could be performed under the guise of uncontrollable dancing mania. Justus Hecker, a 19th-century medical writer, described it as a kind of festival, where a practice known as "the kindling of the Nodfyr" was carried out. This involved jumping through fire and smoke, in an attempt to ward off disease. Bartholomew notes how participants in this ritual would often continue to jump and leap long after the flames had gone.


title: Dancing mania

text: It is certain that many participants of dancing mania were psychologically disturbed, but it is also likely that some took part out of fear, or simply wished to copy everyone else. Sources agree that dancing mania was one of the earliest-recorded forms of mass hysteria, and describe it as a "psychic epidemic", with numerous explanations that might account for the behaviour of the dancers. It has been suggested that the outbreaks may have been due to cultural contagion triggered, in times of particular hardship, by deeply rooted popular beliefs in the region regarding angry spirits capable of inflicting a "dancing curse" to punish their victims.


title: Róisín Murphy

text: Róisín Marie Murphy ( , ; born 5 July 1973) is an Irish singer, songwriter, and record producer. She first became known in the 1990s as one half of the pop duo Moloko alongside English musician Mark Brydon. After the breakup of Moloko, she embarked on a solo career and released her debut solo album "Ruby Blue" (written and produced with experimental musician Matthew Herbert) to critical praise in 2005. Her second solo album, "Overpowered", was released in 2007.


title: Róisín Murphy

text: After an eight-year hiatuswhich was sporadically interrupted by non-album singles, side projects, and guest appearances on other artists' recordsMurphy released her third solo album "Hairless Toys" in 2015; it was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize and Ireland's Choice Music Prize. The following year, she released her fourth album "Take Her Up to Monto". In 2018, she released four 12" releases in collaboration with producer Maurice Fulton. In 2020, Murphy released her disco-inspired fifth solo album, "Róisín Machine". It received critical acclaim and became her most commercially successful album.


title: Róisín Murphy

text: Róisín Marie Murphy was born in Arklow on 5 July 1973. When she was 12 years old, she and her family moved to England, where they settled in Manchester. She embraced 1960s fashion from going with her mother, who was an antiques dealer, to car boot sales and charity shops. After three years of living in Manchester, her parents divorced and both of them moved back to Ireland. 15-year-old Murphy, however, insisted on remaining alone in England because she did not think that her mother had the strength to continue taking care of her. She lived with her best friend for a year, until she could receive Housing Benefit and move into a nearby apartment.


title: Róisín Murphy

text: Murphy's school years were difficult as she recalled in 2019: "I never felt it was like being bullied; I always felt I intimidated people, and that was why I got in trouble." She befriended a group of "weird boys who wore black" and who listened to The Jesus and Mary Chain. When Murphy attended a Sonic Youth concert with a friend, she was inspired to become a performer. She concealed her singing voice, not wanting other people to know she "sounded like Elaine Paige". She later joined a post-punk band that split after a handful of performances. She enrolled in a sixth form college at the age of 17 and later considered going to art school. At the age of 19, she moved to Sheffield, where she began going to nightclubs and was inspired by the Vivienne Westwood designs she saw at Trash.


title: Róisín Murphy

text: Murphy met Mark Brydon in 1994 at a party, using the chat-up line "Do you like my tight sweater? See how it fits my body." Brydon brought Murphy to his Fon Studios, where he auditioned her voice on tape, and liked Murphy's theatrical delivery. They began dating, and the newly formed Moloko were signed to Echo Records, releasing their debut album "Do You Like My Tight Sweater?" the following year. The album was described by Heather Phares of AllMusic as combining elements of trip hop and funk with electronic dance music, using a more humorous approach than some of their contemporaries. The follow-up "I Am Not a Doctor" covered similar musical ground, and a remix by Boris Dlugosch of "Sing It Back" enjoyed international success, and would go on to be featured on more than 110 compilation albums. In place of paying Dlugosch, Murphy helped write "Never Enough", which reached number sixteen on the UK Singles Chart in June 2001.


title: Róisín Murphy

text: October 2000 saw the release of Moloko's third album "Things to Make and Do", for which they employed more live instrumentation, and more multifaceted arrangements by keyboardist Eddie Stevens. The album reached number three on the UK Albums Chart, and "The Time Is Now" became their most successful British single, reaching number two. Murphy and Brydon broke up but were contractually obligated to deliver further albums. After the 2003 release of "Statues", Brydon backed out of much of the album's promotion, so Murphy handled most of it herself.


title: Róisín Murphy

text: Although no official statement was issued pertaining to Moloko's future, Murphy told "Q" magazine in May 2005, "We left it on good terms after a very successful tour. We shook hands, said "see you later", and haven't spoken since. I don't know what Mark thinks of this record or what he's doing. I don't know if we will or we won't reunite. Myself, I don't "not" want to."


title: Róisín Murphy

text: Murphy began doing solo work while still in Moloko, which included her contributions to the works of other artists including Handsome Boy Modeling School and Boris Dlugosch, for whom she sang on the track "Never Enough", which became a huge club hit, hitting the top three of the US Hot Dance Club Play chart.


title: Róisín Murphy

text: Murphy recorded her first official solo material in 2004 with producer Matthew Herbert, who had previously done remixes for Moloko. She had wanted to work with him again, commenting that "it felt very natural... because Matthew makes things seem quicker and easier." After the pair had recorded a few songs, Murphy found that she enjoyed working with Herbert, and her label Echo Records let her work freely without any deadline. When she presented them the album, they found it odd and did not hear any songs that would make successful singles. The A&R division suggested that Murphy make some changes to make it more radio-friendly. Murphy refused, stating that she "wanted it to be as pure as possible." The label later came to support her.


title: Róisín Murphy

text: Murphy released her debut album "Ruby Blue" in June 2005. Prior to this, tracks from the album were made available on three limited edition, vinyl-only releases: "Sequins #1", "Sequins #2" and "Sequins #3". The release of the EP's was to precede a London exhibition by artist Simon Henwood, featuring paintings of Murphy in various sequined outfits (some of Henwood's paintings are used as cover images for the record jackets). The titling is also a pun on "sequins" and the related word "sequence". Henwood also directed the two video clips for the album's singles ("If We're in Love" and "Sow into You").


title: Róisín Murphy

text: "Ruby Blue" samples sounds made by everyday objects and actions, including cosmetics, brass mice, dancing and ornaments. It mixes the electronic music for which Moloko was known with jazz and pop styles. Although the album was a commercial failure, it drew mainly positive reviews; Pitchfork Media called it "perfect, the ultimate combination of human warmth and technological know-how."


title: Róisín Murphy

text: In May 2006, Murphy signed with EMI. Her first single for the label, "Overpowered", was released on 2 July 2007. Written by Murphy and Paul Dolby (Seiji) of Bugz in the Attic and mixed by Tom Elmhirst, the single was accompanied by a series of remixes from Seamus Haji, Kris Menace, Hervé and Loose Cannons. A second single "Let Me Know" (a collaboration with Andy Cato), was released in September and the album, named "Overpowered", was released soon after.


title: Róisín Murphy

text: In September 2007, Murphy received a pre-nomination for the MTV Europe Music Award for Best Inter Act, but did not make it to the final list. She performed "Let Me Know" on "Friday Night with Jonathan Ross" on 5 October 2007.


title: Róisín Murphy

text: Murphy sustained an eye injury on 27 October 2007, while on tour in Russia to promote "Overpowered". She was forced to cancel several subsequent dates on the tour.


title: Róisín Murphy

text: Despite well-known troubles at EMI, Murphy started working again with Sejii on a third studio solo album. In 2008 she recorded a cover of the Bryan Ferry song "Slave to Love" that featured in a campaign for Gucci, and released on the promo-only "Movie Star" single. Murphy previewed material at the SEone club in London in 2009, performing "Momma's Place" and "Hold up Your Hands", and premiered the single "Orally Fixated" on her Myspace page in November 2009. The song was released later in the month. with "The Guardian" offering a free download of the song for 48 hours.


title: Róisín Murphy

text: From 2010 until early 2013 Murphy's only releases were on other artists' recordings. She contributed vocals to Crookers's album "Tons of Friends", David Byrne and Fatboy Slim's project "Here Lies Love", Mason's ""Boadicea"", Tony Christie's ""7 Hills"", The Feeling's ""Dance for the Lights"", an anonymous producer's "Simulation", ""Golden Era"" by David Morales, ""Flash of Light"" and ""Invisions"" with Luca C & Brigante, ""Look Around You"" by Boris Dlugosch, ""Alternate State"" by Hot Natured, Freeform Five's ""Leviathan"", and ""In My Garden"" with Invisible Cities. The exception to this was a 12", ""Simulation"", released under her own name in 2012.


title: Róisín Murphy

text: In May 2014, Murphy released a six-track Italian language EP "Mi Senti", featuring a new composition and previous Italian pop hits. Her third studio album "Hairless Toys" followed a year later, to positive reviews.


title: Róisín Murphy

text: Her July 2016 album "Take Her Up to Monto" was recorded during the same sessions as "Hairless Toys", and included long-time collaborator and producer Eddie Stevens. The "Monto" title is derived from an Irish folk song of the same name, popularised by The Dubliners in the 1960s, which Murphy's father sang to her as a child. The release was followed by a number of European festival dates and a number of North American shows.


title: Róisín Murphy

text: Through 2018 The Vinyl Factory released a series of four 12-inch discs produced by Baltimore house music pioneer Maurice Fulton. Consisting of eight original songs, each around 6 minutes, Murphy directed music videos for the four A-side releases.


title: Róisín Murphy

text: The single "Murphy's Law" was released 4 March 2020. During the subsequent pandemic quarantine, her home performances for a livestream concert were released as a series of six short films.


title: Róisín Murphy

text: Murphy released her fifth solo album "Róisín Machine" on 2 October 2020. It includes ten tracks, with singles "Simulation" and "Jealousy" released several years prior, together with more recently produced songs "Incapable", "Narcissus", "Murphy's Law", and "Something More".


title: Róisín Murphy

text: In 2022 Murphy starred as the Blood Witch Mercury in the Netflix TV Show "The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself".


title: Róisín Murphy

text: "Electronic Beats" described Murphy as "this adolescent century's true art-pop queen," writing that "her sensuous and ominous output is scattered across various genres and moods." AllMusic described her as "a purveyor of adventurous, omnivorous pop that blended influences as far-flung as disco and hot jazz." Australian publication "OutInPerth" called her "Ireland's queen of the avant-garde." "Drowned in Sound"'s Giuseppe Zevolli wrote that "she's merged pop, house, and disco with an avant-garde sensibility and a stunning, shape-shifting visual output that never ceases to provoke." Critic Mark Fisher located her music in a glam lineage that includes Roxy Music, Grace Jones, and the New Romantics, noting Murphy's attention to the cultivation of artifice and persona.


title: Róisín Murphy

text: The sound of Moloko's early work drew on electronic and trip hop influences before transitioning to a more organic sound. According to Elizabeth Vincentelli of "The New York Times", "it was only after [Moloko's] breakup that Murphy truly refined her trademark fusion of glossy sheen and playful experimentation." Her diverse solo work has included collaborations with experimental jazz composer Matthew Herbert and electronic producer Eddie Stevens, drawing variously on house music, ballroom culture, and avant-garde electronica. Murphy has a contralto vocal range, which has been described as distinctive, smoky and jazzy. Heather Phares described it as "combin[ining] a wild variety of voices and textures, from impassively chilly to gorgeously lilting to gleefully offbeat." The first performers that left an impression on her were Kim Gordon from Sonic Youth and Kim Deal from the Pixies. Iggy Pop also inspired her for his "energy - and he's a giver". She stated that her biggest influences were Siouxsie Sioux, Grace Jones and Björk. She was also inspired by Italian female singers such as Mina and Patty Pravo for the way they owned the stage when they moved. She described her performances as "a bit like "The Rocky Horror Picture Show"" and her audiences were said to "dress up to mirror Murphy’s own spectacular fashions."


title: Róisín Murphy

text: Murphy has drawn considerable attention and praise for her eccentric and imaginative fashion style. "Electronic Beats" noted "her reputation for sporting avant-garde couture into a place among fashion's elite." According to Jad Salfiti of "The Financial Times", "[her] clothes amplify her personality: exhibitionist, playful, eclectic, larger than life.


title: Róisín Murphy

text: Murphy lives in Ibiza, having previously split her time between London and Ireland. She previously dated British artist Simon Henwood; their daughter, Clodagh, was born on 15 December 2009. She has sole custody of Clodagh. Murphy is currently in a relationship with Italian producer Sebastiano Properzi. Their son, Tadhg, was born in September 2012.


title: Hannya

text: The mask is a mask used in Japanese Noh theater, representing a jealous female demon. It is characterized by two sharp bull-like horns, metallic eyes, and a leering mouth.


title: Hannya

text: is the Sino-Japanese pronunciation of "bō rě" (般若), which in turn is the Chinese pronunciation of "prajñā" (प्रज्ञा), the Sanskrit word for "wisdom". The word "prajñā" was commonly used in forming Buddhist Dharma names, such as Prajñātārā or Prajñāvikrama. This implies that "hannya" may be referring to the shortened name of a monk, and not wisdom as an abstract concept.


title: Hannya

text: One tradition states the mask is named after an artist monk called , who is said to have perfected its creation. An alternative explanation is that the artist would need a great deal of wisdom in order to create this mask.


title: Hannya

text: The mask is used in many Noh and plays, as well as in Shinto ritual dances. The mask portrays the souls of women who have become demons due to obsession or jealousy, similar to the Buddhist concept of a hungry ghost. Plays in which a person may wear the mask include and ; its use in these two plays, two of the most famous of the Noh repertoire, and its distinctive and frightening appearance make it one of the most recognizable Noh masks.


title: Hannya

text: The mask is said to be demonic and dangerous but also sorrowful and tormented, displaying the complexity of human emotions. When the actor looks straight ahead, the mask appears frightening and angry; when tilted slightly down, the face of the demon appears to be sorrowful, as though crying. The ability to change the expression of the mask through use of perspective is a feature commonly seen in Noh theatre. The oldest mask is dated 1558.


Territorial disputes in the South China Sea involve conflicting island and maritime claims in the region by several sovereign states, namely Brunei, the People's Republic of China (PRC), Taiwan (Republic of China/ROC), Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.


title: Territorial disputes in the South China Sea

text: The disputes involve the islands, reefs, banks, and other features of the South China Sea, including the Spratly Islands, Paracel Islands, Scarborough Shoal, and various boundaries in the Gulf of Tonkin. The waters near the Indonesian Natuna Islands, which some regard as geographically part of the South China Sea, are disputed as well. Maritime disputes also extend beyond the South China Sea, as in the case of the Senkaku Islands and the Socotra Rock, which lie in the East China Sea.


text: An estimated US$3.37 trillion worth of global trade passes through the South China Sea annually, which accounts for a third of the global maritime trade. 80 percent of China's energy imports and 39.5 percent of China's total trade passes through the South China Sea.Claimant states are interested in retaining or acquiring the rights to fishing stocks, the exploration and potential exploitation of crude oil and natural gas in the seabed of various parts of the South China Sea, and the strategic control of important shipping lanes. Maritime security is also an issue, as the ongoing disputes present challenges for shipping.


text: In 1932, France formally claimed both the Paracel and Spratly Islands. China and Japan both protested. On 6 April 1933, France occupied the Spratlys, announced their annexation, and formally included them in French Indochina.


text: In 2013, the PRC began island building in the Spratly Islands and the Paracel Islands region. According to Reuters, island building in the South China Sea primarily by Vietnam and the Philippines has been going on for decades on a small scale; while China has come late to the island building game, its efforts have been on an unprecedented scale as it had from 2014 to 2016 constructed more new island surface than all other nations have constructed throughout history and as of 2016 placed military equipment on one of its artificial islands unlike the other claimants. A 2019 article in Voice of America which compared China and Vietnam's island building campaign in the South China Sea similarly reported the reason why Vietnam in contradistinction to China has been subject to little international criticism and even support was because of the slower speed and widely perceived defensive nature of its island-building project.


text: China's actions in the South China Sea have been described as part of its "salami slicing"/"cabbage wrapping" strategies, and since 2015 the United States and other states such as France and the United Kingdom have conducted freedom of navigation operations (FONOP) in the region. In July 2016, an arbitration tribunal constituted under Annex VII of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) ruled against the PRC's maritime claims in "Philippines v. China". The tribunal did not rule on the ownership of the islands or delimit maritime boundaries. Both the People's Republic of China and Taiwan stated that they did not recognize the tribunal and insisted that the matter should be resolved through bilateral negotiations with other claimants. In January 2022, the United States Department of State called China's claims in the South China Sea "unlawful."


text: The disputes involve both maritime boundaries and islands. There are several disputes, each of which involves a different collection of countries:


text: In 1932, France formally claimed both the Paracel and Spratly Islands. China and Japan both protested. On 6 April 1933, France occupied the Spratlys, announced their annexation, formally included them in French Indochina, and built a couple of weather stations on them.


text: By May 1939, the Japanese had laid claim and occupied the Paracel and Spratly Islands. During World War II, the Empire of Japan used the islands in the South China Sea for various military purposes and asserted that the islands were not claimed by anyone when the Imperial Japanese Navy took control of them. Historical accounts note that at least France had controlled some of the features in the region during the 1930s. After the war, Imperial Japan had to relinquish control of the islands in the South China Sea in the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco which, however, did not specify the new status of the islands. The People's Republic of China made various claims to the islands during the 1951 treaty negotiations and the 1958 First Taiwan Strait Crisis.


text: Chinese claims in the South China sea are delineated in part by the nine-dash line. This was originally an "eleven-dashed-line," first indicated by the Kuomintang government of the Republic of China in 1947, for its claims to the South China Sea. When the Chinese Communist Party took over mainland China and formed the People's Republic of China in 1949, the line was adopted and revised to nine dashes/dots, as endorsed by Zhou Enlai. China's 1958 declaration described China's claims in the South China Sea islands based on the nine-dotted line map. The legacy of the nine-dash line is viewed by some PRC government officials, and by the PRC military, as providing historical support for their claims to the South China Sea.


text: The Geneva Accords of 1954, which ended the First Indochina War, gave South Vietnam control of the Vietnamese territories south of the 17th Parallel, which included the islands in the Paracels and Spratlys.


text: In 1974, when a North Vietnamese victory in the Vietnam War began to seem probable, the PRC used military force in the Paracel Islands and took Yagong Island and the Crescent group of reefs from South Vietnam. The government of the PRC wanted to prevent the Paracel islands from falling under the control of North Vietnam, which at the time was an ally of the Soviet Union. After not resisting during the initial Vietnamese attack, the PRC launched what they regarded as a "counterattack in self-defense". The United States, in the middle of détente with the PRC, gave a non-involvement promise to the PRC, which enabled the People's Liberation Army Navy to take control of the South Vietnamese islands.


text: In the later half of 1970s, the Philippines and Malaysia began referring to the Spratly Islands as included in their own territory. On 11 June 1978, President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines issued Presidential Decree No. 1596, declaring the north-western part of the Spratly Islands (referred to therein as the Kalayaan Island Group) as Philippine territory.


text: In 1988, the PRC and Vietnam fought each other near the Johnson Reef. The PRC had obtained a permit from the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission to build five observation posts for the conduction of ocean surveys, and one of the permitted observation posts was allowed to be located in the Spratly islands region. The PRC chose to built its observation post on the Fiery Cross Reef, which was isolated from the other islands in the region and was not occupied by any state at the time. When it started to build the observation post in the "terra nullius" Fiery Cross Reef, Vietnam sent its navy to the area to monitor the situation. The two states clashed near the Johnson Reef, and after the clash, China occupied the Johnson Reef.


text: In 1994, the PRC occupied Mischief Reef, located some 250 miles from the Philippine coast. Occupation was made in the middle of an energy resources race in the Spratlys, where China lacked a presence while the other countries were starting their oil exploration businesses. Mischief Reef marked the first time when the PRC had a military confrontation with the Philippines, an ally of the United States.


text: The occupation and/or control of most parts of the Spratly and Paracel islands has not changed significantly from the 90s through to the 2000s. The PRC controls all of the features in the Paracels. In the Spratlys, Vietnam controls most features with 29 in total, while the Philippines has control of eight features, Malaysia with 5, the PRC with 5, and the ROC with 1.


text: Since 2011 however, tensions started to increase again in the territory. In February, Chinese frigate Donguan fired three shots at Philippine fishing boats near Jackson atoll. In May, the Vietnamese Binh Minh 02 oil and gas survey ship clashed with three Chinese maritime patrol vessels some 600 km south of China's Hainan island.


text: 2012 marked the increased militarization of the islands. The ROC started the construction of an antenna tower and runway on the Taiping island in February, allowing the island to accommodate various military aircraft. On the Vietnam occupied Sand Cay and West Reef islands, upgrades and land reclamation projects were also started at this time. In April, the PRC took the Scarborough Shoal as a response to the Philippine navy's actions of stopping Chinese fishing boats in the area.


text: In September 2018, a South Korean navy destroyer traveled into what China saw as its territorial waters. A South Korean government official said the navy destroyer was taking refuge from a typhoon and not challenging maritime claims, but he declined to comment on whether Seoul believed the disputed waters belonged to China. A Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman said the ship broke Chinese law by entering its 12-nautical-mile-wide territorial sea around the Paracel Islands without seeking prior permission, but said Beijing accepted South Korea's explanation.


text: On 22 December 2020, the PRC claimed that the guided missile destroyer John S McCain had been "expelled" after it “trespassed” into Chinese territorial waters close to the Spratly Islands. However this claim has been disputed by the US Navy.


text: In March 2021, 220 Chinese fishing boats were seen moored around Whitsun Reef in the Spratly Islands, a reef claimed by the Philippines as part of its exclusive economic zone. Philippines Defense Minister Delfin Lorenzana accused China of "provocative action of militarizing the area".


text: On 20 July 2011, the PRC, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam agreed a set of preliminary guidelines on the implementation of the DOC (Declaration of Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea) which would help resolve disputes. This set of guidelines is based on an earlier agreement, also called DOC, from 2002, between China and the ASEAN Member States.


text: The agreement was described by the PRC's assistant foreign minister, Liu Zhenmin, as "an important milestone document for cooperation among China and ASEAN countries". Some of the early drafts acknowledged aspects such as "marine environmental protection, scientific research, safety of navigation and communication, search and rescue and combating transnational crime", although the issue of oil and natural gas drilling remains unresolved. "Following the spirit of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC), China and ASEAN countries actively advanced the consultations on the Code of Conduct (COC) in the South China Sea," with the forecast that the COC will be completed by 2021.


text: On 22 July 2011, the INS Airavat, an Indian amphibious assault vessel on a friendly visit to Vietnam, was reportedly contacted 45 nautical miles from the Vietnamese coast in the disputed South China Sea by a party identifying itself as the PLA Navy and stating that the ship was entering PRC waters. A spokesperson for the Indian Navy explained that as no ship or aircraft was visible, the INS Airavat proceeded on her onward journey as scheduled. The Indian Navy further clarified that "[t]here was no confrontation involving the INS Airavat. India supports freedom of navigation in international waters, including in the South China Sea, and the right of passage in accordance with accepted principles of international law. These principles should be respected by all."


text: In September 2011, shortly after the PRC and Vietnam signed an agreement seeking to contain a dispute over the South China Sea, India's state-run explorer, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) said that its overseas investment arm, ONGC Videsh Limited, had signed a three-year agreement with PetroVietnam for developing long-term co-operation in the oil sector, and that it had accepted Vietnam's offer of exploration in certain specified blocks in the South China Sea. However, this agreement between India and Vietnam has provoked attacks from the PRC In response, PRC Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu, without referring to India by name, stated:"As for oil and gas exploration activities, our consistent position is that we are opposed to any country engaging in oil and gas exploration and development activities in waters under China's jurisdiction. We hope the foreign countries do not get involved in South China Sea dispute." An Indian foreign ministry spokesman responded, "The Chinese had concerns, but we are going by what the Vietnamese authorities have told us and we have conveyed this to the Chinese." The Indo-Vietnamese deal was also denounced by the Chinese state-run newspaper "Global Times".


text: In Spring 2010, PRC officials reportedly communicated to US officials that the South China Sea was "an area of 'core interest' that is as non-negotiable" and on par with Taiwan and Tibet on the national agenda. However, Beijing appeared to have backed away from that assertion in 2011.


text: In October 2011, the PRC's "Global Times" tabloid editorialised on the South China Sea territorial disputes under the banner "Don't take peaceful approach for granted". The article referenced incidents earlier that year involving the Philippines and South Korea detaining PRC fishing boats in the region. "If these countries don't want to change their ways with China, they will need to prepare for the sounds of cannons. We need to be ready for that, as it may be the only way for the disputes in the sea to be resolved." Responding to questions about whether this reflected official policy, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman stated the country's commitment "to resolving the maritime dispute through peaceful means."


text: In July 2014, Professor Alan Dupont of the University of New South Wales was reported as saying that the Chinese government appeared to be directing its fishing fleet into disputed waters as a matter of policy.


text: From 2013 to the beginning of 2018, China carried out land reclamation in the South China Sea. The construction of the islands has been completed. The three island airports of Meiji Reef, Zhubi Reef, and Yongshu Reef have been completed.


text: In August 2019, China's paramount leader Xi Jinping told Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte that China would not recognise or abide by the Arbitration decision. This occurred during a visit by Duterte to Beijing, with discussions between the two leaders. Such a stance by Beijing is in line with the July 2019 publishing of a Chinese White Paper, "China's National Defense in the New Era," which details China's armed strength and repeatedly mentions deployment in the South China Sea. On 22 September 2020, in a recorded speech at the opening of the 75th session of the UN General Assembly, the Philippine President, Rodrigo Duterte reaffirmed the Hague ruling rejecting most of China's claims to disputed waters, and said "The award is now part of international law, beyond compromise and beyond the reach of passing governments to dilute, diminish, or abandon."


text: The area is said to be rich in oil and natural gas deposits; however, the estimates are highly varied. The Chinese Ministry of Geological Resources and Mining estimated that the South China Sea may contain 17.7 billion barrels of crude oil, compared to the oil rich country of Kuwait which has 13 billion barrels. In the years following the announcement by the PRC ministry, the claims regarding the South China Sea islands intensified. However, other sources claim that the proven reserves of oil in the South China Sea may only be 7.5 billion barrels, or about 1.1 billion barrels. According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA)'s profile of the South China Sea region, a US Geological Survey estimate puts the region's discovered and undiscovered oil reserves at 11 billion barrels, as opposed to a PRC figure of 125 billion barrels. The same EIA report also points to the wide variety of natural gas resource estimations, ranging from 190 trillion cubic feet to 500 trillion cubic feet, likely located in the contested Reed Bank".


text: The state-owned China Offshore Exploration Corp. planned to spend 200 billion RMB (US$30 billion) in the next 20 years to exploit oil in the region, with the estimated production of 25 million metric tons of crude oil and natural gas per annum, at a depth of 2000 meters within the next five years.


text: Competing claims in the oil and gas-rich South China Sea have stifled the development and exploitation of these resources. To break from this, the Philippines and China agreed to a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Cooperation on Oil and Gas Development in November 2018, where joint-use of, and not ownership over assets underlies the agreement. In the past, aggressive Chinese naval patrols deterred Manila from exploring gas deposits in disputed waters, like the Reed Bank, such that this type of agreement may allow for the claimant states to jointly develop the natural gas in the offshore area. The mechanism of joint agreements is not new, with Malaysia and Vietnam having forged a similar mechanism in 1992, while Malaysia and Thailand reached understandings in 1979 and 1990 over the development of gas-rich disputed waters.


text: The Philippines began exploring the areas west of Palawan for oil in 1970. Exploration in the area began in Reed Bank/Tablemount. In 1976, gas was discovered following the drilling of a well. However, the PRC's complaints halted the exploration. On 27 March 1984, the first Philippine oil company discovered an oil field off Palawan, which is an island province bordering the South China Sea and the Sulu Sea. These oil fields supply 15% of annual oil consumption in the Philippines.


text: Vietnam and Japan reached an agreement early in 1978 on the development of oil in the South China Sea. By 2012 Vietnam had concluded some 60 oil and gas exploration and production contracts with various foreign companies. In 1986, the "White Tiger" oil field in the South China Sea came into operation, producing over 2,000 tons of crude oil per year, followed by "The Bear" and "Dragon" oil fields. Offshore exploration activities in 2011 increased Vietnam's proven oil reserves to be the third largest in the Asia-Pacific region. However, the country is a net importer of oil products. In 2009 petroleum accounted for 14 percent of Vietnamese government income, down from 24 percent in 2004.


text: In 2017, after Chinese pressure, the Vietnamese government ordered Spain's Repsol to stop drilling in the disputed area. A joint-venture of Japanese Inpex and Petrovietnam plans to start drilling in the disputed area in 2021.


text: China's first independently designed and constructed oil drilling platform in the South China Sea is the "Ocean Oil 981" (). The major shareholders are J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (19%), Commonwealth Bank of Australia (14%), T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. and affiliates (6%), and BlackRock, Inc. (5%). It began operation on 9 May 2012 in the South China Sea, southeast of Hong Kong, at a depth of 1,500 m and employing 160 people. On 2 May 2014 the platform was moved near to the Paracel Islands, a move Vietnam stated violated their territorial claims. Chinese officials said it was legal, stating the area lies in waters surrounding the Paracel Islands which China occupies and militarily controls.


text: Prior to the territorial disputes, fishermen from involved countries tended to enter each other's controlled islands and Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) leading to conflicts with the authorities that controlled the areas as they were unaware of the exact borders. As well, due to depletion of the fishing resources in their maritime areas, they were forced to fish in the neighbouring countries' areas.


text: In 2006 the captain of a Taiwanese fishing boat was shot dead and a crewman wounded when their boat was reportedly attacked by pirates wearing military uniforms. Philippine authorities assured the Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs that no Filipino naval or coast guard personnel were involved in the incident.


text: In the spring of 2014, China and Vietnam clashed again over China's Haiyang Shiyou oil rig in Vietnam's EEZ. The incident left seventeen Vietnamese injured and damaged ships of both countries.


text: Although Indonesia is not part of claims in the South China Sea dispute, after Joko Widodo became President of the country in 2014, he instituted a policy in 2015 that, if any foreign fishermen were caught illegally fishing in Indonesian waters, their vessels would be destroyed. The president wanted to make maritime resources, especially fisheries, a key component of his administration's economic policy. Since the policy's initiation, fishing vessels drawing from many neighbouring countries were destroyed by Indonesian authorities. On 21 May 2015, around 41 fishing vessels from China, Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines were destroyed. On 19 March 2016, the China Coast Guard prevented the detention of Chinese fishermen by Indonesian authorities after Chinese fishermen were caught fishing near the waters around Natuna, leading to a protest by Indonesian authorities; the Chinese ambassador was subsequently summonsed as China had considered the areas to be "Chinese traditional fishing grounds". Further Indonesian campaigns against foreign fishermen resulted in the destruction of 23 fishing boats from Malaysia and Vietnam on 5 April 2016.


text: Out of the 556 ships Indonesia had destroyed from October 2014 to 2019 for violating rules, 312 of them were from Vietnam, 91 were from the Philippines, 87 were from Malaysia, 26 were local, and 3 were from China. The areas in the South China Sea had also become known for Indonesian pirates, with frequent attacks on Malaysian, Singaporean and Vietnamese vessels as well as leading to hijacking such as the MT Orkim Harmony and MT Zafirah hijacking incidents. The continuing war against foreign fishermen by Indonesia led to protests by Vietnam in late 2016, when a Vietnamese fisherman was killed after being shot by Indonesian authorities. Attacks have also come from Filipino and Moro pirates arriving from the Sulu Sea; a Vietnamese fisherman was killed by Filipino pirates in late 2015.


text: In 2017, two Vietnamese fishermen died from gunshot wounds from a pursuing Philippine Navy patrol boat about 40 miles off the city of Bolinao, Pangasinan. A police report said that the boats had collided after the navy had fired warning shots; the Philippine government Philippine government said on Monday that it had promised Vietnam a “fair and thorough” investigation.


text: Teodoro Locsin Jr., the Filipino Secretary of Foreign Affairs, said the Philippines was building a maritime fleet that could swarm areas in the South China Sea. He said the fleet build up was because of China which was also doing the same thing. He also said if one of the vessels got hit, the Filipino defense treaty with the United States would also be activated.


text: The Shangri-La Dialogue serves as the "Track One" exchange forum on security issues surrounding the Asia-Pacific region. The South China Sea territorial disputes has dominated proceedings at the conference in recent years. The Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific is the "Track Two" forum for dialogue on security issues.


text: In February 2016, U.S. President Barack Obama initiated the US-ASEAN Summit at Sunnylands in Rancho Mirage, California for closer engagement with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Territorial disputes in the South China Sea were a major topic, but its joint statement, the "Sunnylands Declaration", did not name the South China Sea, instead calling for "respect of each nation's sovereignty and for international law". Analysts believe it indicates divisions within the group on how to respond to China's maritime strategy.


text: The vast majority of international legal experts have concluded that China's claims based on legal and historical evidence are invalid.


text: Japanese scholar Taoka Shunji said in a journal article that when it came to China's advance in the South China Sea and the Spratly Islands, the assumption amongst many Japanese people that the territory of the Philippines was being invaded was incorrect. He pointed out that the Spratly islands were not part of the Philippines, when the US acquired the Philippines from Spain in the Treaty of Paris in 1898. It has been argued that the U.S. acquired prior Spanish claim to the islands by the 1900 Treaty of Washington. However, when the Japanese-ruled Taiwan itself had annexed the Spratly islands in 1938, the US -ruled Philippines did not challenge the move and never asserted that it was their territory. He also pointed out that other countries did not need to do full land reclamation since they already control islands, and that the reason China engaged in extensive land reclamation is because they needed it to build airfields since China only has control over reefs.


text: In July 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), an internationally agreed arbitration tribunal sitting in the Hague and constituted under Annex VII of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), ruled comprehensively against the People's Republic of China's South China Sea maritime claims in "Philippines v. China". This tribunal did not rule on the ownership of the islands or delimit maritime boundaries.


text: However, both mainland China and Taiwan stated that they did not recognize the tribunal and insisted that the matter should be resolved through bilateral negotiations with other claimants. On 17 September 2020, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom issued a joint note verbale recognizing the PCA ruling and challenging China's claims.


text: On 25 July 2020 Australia rejected China's claims to the South China Sea and filed a statement with the United Nations that said: "Australia rejects any claims to internal waters, territorial sea, exclusive economic zone and continental shelf based on such baselines," and there is "no legal basis" to draw the nine-dash line around the Four Sha archipelagos, Paracel and Spratly Islands or low-tide maritime zones. They encourage the claimants to resolve their disputes peacefully.


text: Cambodia has backed China over the dispute in ASEAN meetings, preventing consensus over unified ASEAN action. Anti-Vietnamese sentiment due to Vietnam's conquest of previously Cambodian lands, giving the Vietnamese a privileged status and encouragement of Vietnamese settlers in Cambodia during French colonial rule, and the occupation of Cambodia after the ousting of the Khmer Rouge has led to anti-Vietnamese feelings against ethnic Vietnamese in Cambodia and against Vietnam, and in turn has led to pro-China sentiment among the Cambodian government and the Cambodian opposition, including in the South China Sea.


text: India says that the South China Sea was "part of global commons and India has an abiding interest in peace and stability in the region... We firmly stand for the freedom of navigation and overflight and unimpeded lawful commerce in these international waterways, in accordance with international law, notably UNCLOS." This was seen as largely backing the US position.


text: Since early in the South China Sea dispute, Indonesia has repeatedly asserted its position as a non-claimant state in the South China Sea dispute, and often positioned itself as an "honest broker". However, parts of China's unilaterally claimed nine-dash line overlap Indonesia's exclusive economic zone near the Natuna islands. Although China has acknowledged Indonesia's sovereignty over the Natuna islands, the PRC has argued that the waters around the Natuna islands are Chinese "traditional fishing grounds". Indonesia quickly dismissed China's claim, asserting that China's nine-dash line claim over parts of the Natuna islands has no legal basis. In November 2015, Indonesia's security chief Luhut Pandjaitan said Indonesia could take China before an international court. Indonesia filed a comment with the Permanent Court of Arbitration regarding China's claim in the case of Philippines v. China.


text: Chinese fishing vessels – often escorted by Chinese coastguard ships – have repeatedly been reported to have breached Indonesian waters near the Natuna islands. On 19 March 2016, for example, Indonesian authorities tried to capture a Chinese trawler accused of illegal fishing in Indonesian waters, and arrested the Chinese crew. They were prevented from towing the boat to harbour by a Chinese coast guard vessel which reportedly "rammed" the trawler in Indonesian waters. "To prevent anything else occurring, the Indonesian authorities let go of the Chinese boat and then left toward Natuna, still with eight fishermen and the captain on board," said Arrmanatha Nasir, a spokesman for Indonesia's Foreign Ministry. Indonesia still has the Chinese crew in custody. On 21 March 2016, minister for fisheries and maritime affairs Susi Pudjiastuti summoned the Chinese ambassador, Xie Feng, and discussed this matter. Indonesia insists that they have the right to prosecute the Chinese trawler crew, despite Beijing's demand to release their eight fishermen. Arif Havas Oegroseno, the government official of maritime security, said that the Chinese claim of "traditional fishing grounds" was not recognised under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. This incident prompted security minister Luhut Pandjaitan to deploy more troops and patrol boats, and to strengthen the Ranai naval base in the area.


text: Following the clashes, on 23 June 2016, Indonesian President Joko Widodo visited the Natuna islands on a warship to demonstrate Indonesia's authority. He led a high-level delegation, which included the Commander of the Indonesian National Armed Forces (TNI) and state ministers. Security Minister Luhut Pandjaitan said it was meant to send a "clear message" that Indonesia was "very serious in its effort to protect its sovereignty".


text: Following the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling on 12 July 2016, Indonesia called on all parties involved in the territorial dispute to exercise self-restraint and to respect applicable international laws.


text: Indonesia challenged the Chinese nine-dash historical claim by arguing that if the historical claims can be used on presenting the territorial naval claims, Indonesia might also use its historical claims on the South China Sea by referring to the ancient influence of the Srivijaya and Majapahit empires.


text: Indonesia's EEZ extends 200 nautical miles (370 km) from its shores, which around Natuna means it is slightly intersected by China's Nine-Dash Line, defining its widely disputed claim to most of the South China Sea. In 2014–2015, the presence of the TNI on the islands was reinforced, which the Indonesian government hoped would reduce the chance of any conflict. Then in early 2020, a further 600 troops were deployed and eight navy warships from the Indonesian Navy including Ahmad Yani-class frigates, Bung Tomo-class corvettes, and Kapitan Pattimura-class ASW corvettes were sent to the area with support from the Indonesian Navy Naval Aviation CN-235 MPA, the Indonesian Air Force also sent 4 F-16 and a Boeing 737-2x9 Surveillance, and put BAE Hawk aircraft nearby on alert after Chinese fishing vessels increased illegal activity within the EEZ, escorted by a Chinese Coast Guard vessel. A recent visit to the area by President Joko Widodo displayed Indonesia's resolve to not overlook such incursions.


text: Japan has used "normative power" via strategic foreign aid to certain claimants in the dispute such as the Philippines and Vietnam in order to assert its presence in the region as promoting the "rule of law at sea."


text: Laos has supported China by refusing to accept the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling on China's sovereignty claims in the South China Sea.


text: Singapore has reiterated that it is not a claimant state in the South China Sea dispute and has offered to play a neutral role in being a constructive conduit for dialogue among the claimant states. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said during his official visit to the US that he hoped all countries will respect international law and the outcome of arbitration. The spokesperson of China Hua Chunying responded in a press conference said that the award by the Arbitral Tribunal was "illegal" and "invalid", and thus not binding at all. She urged Singapore to respect China's position, stay objective and impartial.


text: Kabir Hashim, General Secretary of the United National Party, has said that the South China Sea disputes should be resolved through bilateral talks between China and the countries concerned rather than being subject to external forces.