title: Sinterklaas

text: Santa Claus is portrayed as Sinterklaas in the 1985 film "One Magic Christmas": he and his wife have Dutch accents, and she calls him Nicolaas. In lieu of elves, his helpers are "Christmas angels" who are deceased people of all nationalities.


title: Sinterklaas

text: Sinterklaas has been the subject of a number of Dutch novels, films and television series, primarily aimed at children. Sinterklaas-themed children's films include "Winky's Horse" (2005) and the sequel "Where Is Winky's Horse?" (2007).


title: Sinterklaas

text: Sinterklaas-themed films aimed at adults include the drama "Makkers Staakt uw Wild Geraas" (1960), which won a Silver Bear award at the 11th Berlin International Film Festival; the romantic comedy "Alles is Liefde" (2007) and its Belgian remake "Zot van A." (2010); and the Dick Maas-directed horror film "Sint" (2010).


title: Sinterklaas

text: "De Club van Sinterklaas" is a Sinterklaas-themed soap opera aimed at children. The popular television series has run since 1999 and has had a number of spin-off series. Since 2001, a Sinterklaas "news" program aimed at children is broadcast daily on Dutch television during the holiday season, the "Sinterklaasjournaal". The Dutch-Belgian Nickelodeon series "Slot Marsepeinstein" has aired since 2009.


title: Sinterklaas

text: Much of the first half of "A War of Gifts" by Orson Scott Card is about the Sinterklaas tradition, including chapter 4 "Sinterklaas Eve" and 5 "Sinterklaas Day".


title: Sinterklaas

text: In the fourth episode of the television series "The Librarians" ("And Santa's Midnight Ride"), Santa (Bruce Campbell) is an "immortal avatar" who has existed in many different incarnations throughout history. After experiencing mistletoe poisoning, he briefly turns into Sinterklaas, using his magic to play tricks and make toys appear in people's shoes, before regaining control of his current incarnation.


title: Sinterklaas

text: Other holiday figures based on Saint Nicholas are celebrated in some parts of Germany and Austria ("Sankt Nikolaus"); Hungary ("Mikulás"); Switzerland ("Samichlaus"); Italy ("San Nicola" in Bari, South Tyrol, Alpine municipalities, and many others); parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia ("Sveti Nikola"); Slovenia ("Sveti Nikolaj" or "Sveti Miklavž"); Greece ("Agios Nikolaos"); Romania ("Moș Nicolae"); Albania ("Shën Kolli", "Nikolli"), among others. See further: Saint Nicholas Day.


title: Hagar

text: Hagar is a biblical woman. According to the Book of Genesis, she was an Egyptian slave, a handmaiden of Sarah (then known as "Sarai"), whom Sarah gave to her own husband Abram (later renamed Abraham) as a wife to bear him a child. Abraham's firstborn son, through Hagar, Ishmael, became the progenitor of the Ishmaelites, generally taken to be the Arabs. Various commentators have connected her to the Hagrites (sons of Agar), perhaps claiming her as their eponymous ancestor. Hagar is alluded to, although not named, in the Quran, and Islam considers her Abraham's second wife.


title: Hagar

text: According to the Bible, Hagar was the Egyptian slave of Sarai, Abram's wife (whose names later became Sarah and Abraham). Sarai had been barren for a long time and sought a way to fulfill God's promise that Abram would be father of many nations, especially since they had grown old, so she offered Hagar to Abram to be his concubine.


title: Hagar

text: the Bible it is seen that Sarai was despised in the eyes of Hagar as she had conceived whilst Sarai had not. Abraham gave Sarai the liberty to treat Hagar as she pleases, as it seems at this time that Hagar was considered to be Sarai’s maid. Sarai eventually dealt harshly with Hagar and so she fled.


title: Hagar

text: Hagar fled into the desert on her way to Shur. At a spring en route, an angel appeared to Hagar, who instructed her to return to Sarai and submit to her mistress, so that she may bear a child who "shall be a wild ass of a man: his hand shall be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the face of all his brethren" (Genesis 16:9 - 12). Then she was told to call her son Ishmael. Afterward, Hagar referred to God as "El Roi" (variously "god of sight"; "god saw me"; "god who appears"). She then returned to Abram and Sarai, and soon gave birth to a son, whom she named as the angel had instructed.


title: Hagar

text: There is no direct mention of Hagar in the Quran, which does not declare her explicitly a free woman or as a maid of Sarah or Abraham. Moreover, the notion of Hagar being a slave girl is denied by some modern scholars, who posit instead that Hagar was the daughter of the pharaoh of Egypt, thus making her a princess rather than a slave girl or a bondswoman.


title: Hagar

text: Later, Sarah gave birth to Isaac, and the tension between the women returned. At a celebration after Isaac was weaned, Sarah found the teenage Ishmael mocking her son (Genesis 21:9). She was so upset by the idea of Ishmael inheriting their wealth, that she demanded that Abraham send Hagar and her son away. She declared that Ishmael would not share in Isaac's inheritance. Abraham was greatly distressed but God told Abraham to do as his wife commanded because God's promise would be carried out through Isaac; Ishmael would be made into a great nation as well because he was Abraham's offspring. Later, before Abraham died, he gave gifts to Ishmael and his other sons and sent them away from Isaac (Genesis 25:6). Ishmael and Isaac buried Abraham together (Genesis 25:9).


title: Hagar

text: Early the next morning, Abraham brought Hagar and Ishmael out together. Abraham gave Hagar bread and water then sent them into the wilderness of Beersheba. She and her son wandered aimlessly until their water was completely consumed. In a moment of despair, she burst into tears. God heard her and her son crying and came to rescue them. The angel opened Hagar's eyes and she saw a well of water. He also told Hagar that God would "make a great nation" of Ishmael. Hagar found her son a wife from Egypt and they settled in the Desert of Paran.


title: Hagar

text: The Quranic narrative slightly differs from the Biblical account: it is Allah alone who commands Abraham to take Hagar and Ishmael down to the desert, later Mecca, and leave them there. Due to the scarcity of water in the desert, it did not take long for both mother and son to suffer from a great thirst, and so Hagar ran between the hills of Safa and Marwah in search of water for her son. After the seventh run between the two hills, an angel appeared before her. He helped her and said that God heard Ishmael cry and would provide them with water, and Hagar found the sacred Zamzam Well. Later, Mecca was known for its perfection and abundant water and an Arab tribe called Banu Jurhum settled there with Hagar and her son Ishmael, because of the presence of the water.


title: Hagar

text: Rabbinical commentators asserted that Hagar was Pharaoh's daughter. The midrash Genesis Rabbah states it was when Sarah was in Pharaoh's harem that he gave her his daughter Hagar as servant, saying: "It is better that my daughter should be a servant in the house of such a woman than mistress in another house". Sarah treated Hagar well, and induced women who came to visit her to visit Hagar also. However Hagar, when pregnant by Abraham, began to act superciliously toward Sarah, provoking the latter to treat her harshly, to impose heavy work upon her, and even to strike her (ib. 16:9).


title: Hagar

text: Some Jewish commentators identify Hagar with Keturah (), the woman Abraham married after the death of Sarah, stating that Abraham sought her out after Sarah's death. It is suggested that Keturah was Hagar's personal name, and that "Hagar" was a descriptive label meaning "stranger". This interpretation is discussed in the Midrash and is supported by Rashi, Judah Loew ben Bezalel, Shlomo Ephraim Luntschitz, and Obadiah ben Abraham Bartenura. Rashi argues that "Keturah" was a name given to Hagar because her deeds were as beautiful as incense (hence: ), and/or that she remained chaste from the time she was separated from Abraham— derives from the Aramaic word "restrained". The contrary view (that Keturah was someone other than Hagar) is advocated by the Rashbam, Abraham ibn Ezra, David Kimhi, and Nachmanides. They were listed as two different people in the genealogies in the Book of Chronicles (1 Chronicles 1:29–33).


title: Hagar

text: In the New Testament, Paul the Apostle made Hagar's experience an allegory of the difference between law and grace in his Epistle to the Galatians. Paul links the laws of the Torah, given on Mount Sinai, to the bondage of the Israelite people, implying that it was signified by Hagar's condition as a bondswoman, while the "free" heavenly Jerusalem is signified by Sarah and her child. The Biblical Mount Sinai has been referred to as "Agar", possibly named after Hagar.


title: Hagar

text: Augustine of Hippo referred to Hagar as symbolizing an "earthly city", or sinful condition of humanity: "In the earthly city (symbolised by Hagar) [...] we find two things, its own obvious presence and the symbolic presence of the heavenly city. New citizens are begotten to the earthly city by nature vitiated by sin but to the heavenly city by grace freeing nature from sin." This view was expounded on by medieval theologians such as Thomas Aquinas and John Wycliffe. The latter compared the children of Sarah to the redeemed, and those of Hagar to the unredeemed, who are "carnal by nature and mere exiles".


title: Hagar

text: Hājar or Haajar () is the Arabic name used to identify the wife of Abraham (Arabic: ) and the mother of Ishmael (Arabic: ). Although not mentioned by name in the Qur'an, she is referenced and alluded to via the story of her husband. She is a revered woman in the Islamic faith.


title: Hagar

text: According to Muslim belief, she was the Egyptian wife of Ibrāhīm. She eventually settled in the Desert of Paran with her son Ismā'īl. Hājar is honoured as an especially important matriarch of monotheism, as it was through Ismā'īl that Muhammad would come.


title: Hagar

text: Some Modern Muslim scholars are of the opinion that she was never a handmaid of Sarah, rather she was a princess of Egypt who willingly followed Abraham and later married him. They further argue that Hagar and Ishmael were not cast out as claimed by Biblical narrative, but they were settled at Makkah (Paran) for the sake of Almighty Allah.


title: Hagar

text: Neither Sarah nor Hājar is mentioned by name in the Qur'an, but the story is traditionally understood to be referred to in a line from Ibrāhīm's prayer in Surah Ibrahim (14:37): "I have settled some of my family in a barren valley near your Sacred House." While Hājar is not named, the reader lives Hājar's predicament indirectly through the eyes of Ibrāhīm. She is also frequently mentioned in the .


title: Hagar

text: According to the , a collection of tales about the prophets, Hājar was the daughter of the King of Maghreb, a descendant of Islamic prophet Salih. Her father was killed by Pharaoh Dhu l-'arsh (, meaning "he/master of the throne") and she was captured and taken as a slave. Later, because of her royal blood, she was made mistress of the female slaves and given access to all of Pharaoh's wealth. Upon conversion to Ibrāhīm's faith, the Pharaoh gave Hājar to Sarah who gave her to Ibrāhīm. In this account, the name "Hājar" (called in Arabic) comes from (Arabic: ), the Arabic for "here is your recompense".


title: Hagar

text: According to another tradition, Hājar was the daughter of the Egyptian king, who gave her to Ibrāhīm as a wife, thinking Sarah was his sister. According to Ibn Abbas, Ismā'īl's birth to Hājar caused strife between her and Sarah, who was still barren. Ibrāhīm brought Hājar and their son to a land called Paran-aram or (Faran in Arabic, in latter days held to be the land surrounding Mecca). The objective of this journey was to "resettle" rather than "expel" Hājar. Ibrāhīm left Hājar and Ismā'īl under a tree and provided them with water. Hājar, learning that God had ordered Ibrāhīm to leave her in the desert of Paran, respected his decision. The Muslim belief is that God tested Ibrāhīm by ordering this task.


title: Hagar

text: Hājar soon ran out of water, and Ismā'īl, an infant by that time, began to cry from hunger and thirst. Hājar panicked and ran between two nearby hills, Al-Safa and Al-Marwah, repeatedly in search for water. After her seventh run, an angel appeared over the location of the Zamzam and then hit the ground with his heel (or his wing) and caused a miraculous well to spring out of the ground. This is called the Zamzam Well and is located a few metres from the Kaaba in Mecca.


title: Hagar

text: The incident of her running between the Al-Safa and Al-Marwah hills is remembered by Muslims when they perform their pilgrimage (Hajj) at Mecca. Part of the pilgrimage is to run seven times between the hills, in commemoration of Hājar's courage and faith in God as she searched for water in the desert (which is believed to have then miraculously appeared from the Zamzam Well), and to symbolize the celebration of motherhood in Islam. To complete the task, some Muslims also drink from the Zamzam Well and take some of the water back home from pilgrimage in memory of Hājar.


title: Hagar

text: According to the Baháʼí Faith, the Báb was a descendant of Abraham and Hagar, and God made a promise to spread Abraham's seed. The Baháʼí Publishing House released a text on the wives and concubines of Abraham and traces their lineage to five different religions.


title: Hagar

text: Many artists have painted scenes from the story of Hagar and Ismael in the desert, including Pieter Lastman, Gustave Doré, Frederick Goodall and James Eckford Lauder. William Shakespeare refers to Hagar in "The Merchant of Venice" Act II Scene 5 line 40 when Shylock says "What says that fool of Hagar's offspring, ha?" This line refers to the character Launcelot, whom Shylock is insulting by comparing him to the outcast Ishmael. It also reverses the conventional Christian interpretation by portraying the Christian character as the outcast.


title: Hagar

text: Hagar's destitution and desperation are used as an excuse for criminality by characters in the work of Daniel Defoe, such as Moll Flanders, and the conventional view of Hagar as the mother of outcasts is repeated in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's play "Zapolya", whose heroine is assured that she is "no Hagar's offspring; thou art the rightful heir to an appointed king."


title: Hagar

text: In the 19th century a more sympathetic portrayal became prominent, especially in America. Edmonia Lewis, the early African-American and Native American sculptor, made Hagar the subject of one of her most well-known works. She said it was inspired by "strong sympathy for all women who have struggled and suffered". In novels and poems Hagar herself, or characters named Hagar, were depicted as unjustly suffering exiles. These include the long dramatic poem "Hagar" by Eliza Jane Poitevent Nicholson (pen name Pearl Rivers), president of the National Woman's Press Association; "Hagar in the Wilderness" by Nathaniel Parker Willis, the highest-paid magazine writer of his day; and "Hagar's Farewell" by Augusta Moore. In 1913 this was joined by the overtly feminist novel "Hagar", by the American Southern socialist and suffragist Mary Johnston's. Hall Caine gave the name "A Son of Hagar" to 1885 book set in contemporary England and dealing with the theme of illegitimacy.


title: Hagar

text: A similarly sympathetic view prevails in more recent literature. The novel "The Stone Angel" by Margaret Laurence has a protagonist named Hagar married to a man named Bram, whose life story loosely imitates that of the biblical Hagar. A character named Hagar is prominently featured in Toni Morrison's novel "Song of Solomon", which features numerous Biblical themes and allusions. In the 1979 novel Kindred, by Octavia Butler, the protagonist Dana has an ancestor named Hagar (born into slavery) whom we meet towards the end of the novel, as part of Dana's time travel back to Maryland in the 19th century. Hagar is mentioned briefly in Salman Rushdie's controversial novel "The Satanic Verses", where Mecca is replaced with 'Jahilia', a desert village built on sand and served by Hagar's spring. Hagar is mentioned, along with Bilhah and Zilpah, in Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale", a dystopian novel which centres around the women whose duty it is to produce children for their masters, assuming the place of their wives in a rape ceremony based upon the biblical passage. In the recent book of nonfiction, "The Woman Who Named God: Abraham's Dilemma and the Birth of Three Faiths", by Charlotte Gordon provides an account of Hagar's life from the perspectives of the three monotheistic religions, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. In 2019, Nyasha Junior published a book on Hagar entitled "Reimaging Hagar: Blackness and Bible" which provides a reception history of Hagar that focuses on interpretations of Hagar as a black woman and particularly those interpretations of Hagar that are made by African Americans.


title: Hagar

text: Since the 1970s, the custom has arisen of giving the name "Hagar" to newborn female babies. The giving of this name is often taken as a controversial political act, marking the parents as being supporters of reconciliation with the Palestinians and the Arab world, and is frowned upon by many, including nationalists and the religious. The connotations of the name were represented by the founding of the Israeli journal "Hagar: Studies in Culture, Polity and Identities" in 2000.


title: Hagar

text: Several black American feminists have written about Hagar, comparing her story to those of slaves in American history. Wilma Bailey, in an article entitled "Hagar: A Model for an Anabaptist Feminist", refers to her as a "maidservant" and "slave". She sees Hagar as a model of "power, skills, strength and drive". In the article "A Mistress, A Maid, and No Mercy", Renita J. Weems argues that the relationship between Sarah and Hagar exhibits "ethnic prejudice exacerbated by economic and social exploitation".


title: Hagar

text: Hagar bearing a child for an infertile woman is an example of what is now called surrogacy or contractual gestation, except in Hagar's case she had no choice in the matter. Critics of this and other assisted reproductive technologies have used Hagar in their analysis. As early as 1988, Anna Goldman-Amirav in "Reproductive and Genetic Engineering" wrote of Hagar within "the Biblical 'battle of the wombs' [which] lay the foundation for the view of women, fertility, and sexuality in the patriarchal society".


title: Lady Randolph Churchill

text: Jennie Spencer-Churchill (; 9 January 1854 – 29 June 1921), known as Lady Randolph Churchill, was an American-born British socialite, the wife of Lord Randolph Churchill, and the mother of British prime minister Sir Winston Churchill.


title: Lady Randolph Churchill

text: Jennie Jerome was born in the Cobble Hill section of Brooklyn in 1854, the second of four daughters (one died in childhood) of financier, sportsman, and speculator Leonard Jerome and his wife Clarissa (always called Clara), daughter of Ambrose Hall, a landowner. Jerome's father was of Huguenot extraction, his forebears having emigrated to America from the Isle of Wight in 1710. Hall family lore insists that Jennie had Iroquois ancestry through her maternal grandmother; however, there is no research or evidence to corroborate this.


title: Lady Randolph Churchill

text: She was raised in Brooklyn, Paris, and New York City. She had two surviving sisters, Clarita (1851–1935) and Leonie (1859–1943). Another sister, Camille (1855–1863) died when Jennie was nine.


title: Lady Randolph Churchill

text: There is some disagreement regarding the time and place of her birth. A plaque at 426 Henry St. gives her year of birth as 1850, not 1854. However, on 9 January 1854, the Jeromes lived nearby at number 8 Amity Street (since renumbered as 197). It is believed that the Jeromes were temporarily staying at the Henry Street address, which was owned by Leonard's brother Addison, and that Jennie was born there during a snowstorm.


title: Lady Randolph Churchill

text: She was a noted beauty; an admirer, Lord d'Abernon, said that there was "more of the panther than of the woman in her look."


title: Lady Randolph Churchill

text: Jennie was a talented amateur pianist, having been tutored as a girl by Stephen Heller, a friend of Chopin. Heller believed that his young pupil was good enough to attain "concert standard" with the necessary "hard work", of which, according to author Mary S. Lovell, he was not confident she was capable.


title: Lady Randolph Churchill

text: In 1909, when American impresario Charles Frohman became sole manager of The Globe Theatre, the first production was "His Borrowed Plumes", written by Jennie. Although Mrs Patrick Campbell produced and took the lead role in the play, it was a commercial failure. It was at this point that Campbell began an affair with Jennie’s then husband, George Cornwallis-West.


title: Lady Randolph Churchill

text: Jennie served as the chair of the hospital committee for the American Women's War Relief Fund starting in 1914. This organization helped fund and staff two hospitals during World War I.


title: Lady Randolph Churchill

text: Jennie Jerome was married for the first time on 15 April 1874, aged 20, at the British Embassy in Paris, to Lord Randolph Churchill, the third son of John Winston Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough and Lady Frances Anne Vane. The couple had met at a sailing regatta on the Isle of Wight in August 1873, having been introduced by the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII.


title: Lady Randolph Churchill

text: Although they became engaged within three days of this initial meeting, the marriage was delayed for months while their parents argued over settlements. By this marriage, she was properly known as Lady Randolph Churchill and would have been addressed in conversation as Lady Randolph.


title: Lady Randolph Churchill

text: The Churchills had two sons: Winston (1874–1965), the future prime minister, was born less than eight months after the marriage. According to his biographer William Manchester, Winston was most likely conceived before the marriage, rather than born prematurely. A recent biography has stated that he was born two months prematurely after Lady Randolph "had a fall." When asked about the circumstances of his birth, Winston Churchill replied: "Although present on the occasion, I have no clear recollection of the events leading up to it." Lady Randolph's sisters believed that the biological father of the second son, John (1880–1947) was Evelyn Boscawen, 7th Viscount Falmouth, although that was mostly discredited due to the boys' striking likeness to Randolph Churchill and to each other.


title: Lady Randolph Churchill

text: Lady Randolph is believed to have had numerous lovers during her marriage, including the Prince of Wales, Milan I of Serbia, Prince Karl Kinsky, and Herbert von Bismarck.


title: Lady Randolph Churchill

text: As was the custom of the day in her social class, Lady Randolph played a limited role in her sons' upbringing, relying largely upon nannies, especially Elizabeth Everest. Winston worshipped his mother, writing her numerous letters during his time at school and begging her to visit him, which she rarely did. He wrote about her in "My Early Life": "She shone for me like the evening star. I loved her dearly – but at a distance." After he became an adult, they became good friends and strong allies, to the point where Winston regarded her almost as a political mentor, more a big sister than a mother.


title: Lady Randolph Churchill

text: Lady Randolph was well-respected and influential in the highest British social and political circles. She was said to be intelligent, witty, and quick to laughter. It was said that Queen Alexandra especially enjoyed her company, although Lady Randolph had been involved in an affair with her husband the king which was well known to Alexandra. Through her family contacts and her extramarital romantic relationships, Lady Randolph greatly helped her husband's early career, as well as that of her son Winston.


title: Lady Randolph Churchill

text: Lord Randolph died in 1895, aged 45. His death freed Jennie to move on effortlessly despite her lack of money; she mixed in the highest London society circles. Attending a party hosted by Daisy Warwick, Jennie was introduced to George Cornwallis-West, a captain in the Scots Guards who was just 16 days older than her own son Winston; he was instantly smitten, and they spent much time together. George and Jennie were married on 28 July 1900 at St Paul's Church, Knightsbridge.


title: Lady Randolph Churchill

text: Around this time, Jennie became well known for chartering the hospital ship to care for those wounded in the Second Boer War, for which she was awarded the decoration of the Royal Red Cross (RRC) in the South Africa Honours list published on 26 June 1902. She received the decoration in person from King Edward VII on 2 October that year, during a visit to Balmoral Castle.


title: Lady Randolph Churchill

text: George doted on Jennie, amorously nicknaming her "pussycat". However, they drifted apart. The Churchills were becoming a dedicated literary family, and George, who was a financial failure in the City, slowly fell out of love with his wife, who was old enough to be his mother. Short of money, Jennie contemplated selling the family home in Hertfordshire to move into the Ritz Hotel in Piccadilly. George was in fragile health, and recuperated at the royal skiing resort of St Moritz. Jennie took to writing plays for the West End, in many of which the star was Mrs. Patrick Campbell.


title: Lady Randolph Churchill

text: Jennie separated from George in 1912, and they were divorced in April 1914, whereupon Cornwallis-West married Mrs. Campbell. Jennie dropped the surname "Cornwallis-West", and resumed, by deed poll, the name "Lady Randolph Churchill."


title: Lady Randolph Churchill

text: Her third marriage, on 1 June 1918, was to Montagu Phippen Porch (1877–1964), a member of the British Civil Service in Nigeria, who was younger than her son Winston by three years. At the end of World War I, Porch resigned from the colonial service. After Jennie's death, he returned to West Africa, where his business investments had proven successful.


title: Lady Randolph Churchill

text: In May 1921, while Montagu Porch was away in Africa, Jennie slipped while coming down a friend's staircase wearing new high-heeled shoes, breaking her ankle. Gangrene set in, and her left leg was amputated above the knee on 10 June. At age 67, she died at her home at 8 Westbourne Street in London on 29 June, following a haemorrhage of an artery in her thigh resulting from the amputation.


title: Lady Randolph Churchill

text: She was buried in the Churchill family plot at St Martin's Church, Bladon, Oxfordshire, next to her first husband.


title: Lady Randolph Churchill

text: The invention of the Manhattan cocktail is sometimes erroneously attributed to Jennie Churchill, who supposedly asked a bartender to make a special drink to celebrate the election of Samuel J. Tilden to the New York governorship in 1874. However, though the drink is believed to have been invented by the Manhattan Club (an association of New York Democrats) on that occasion, Jennie could not have been involved as she was in Europe at the time, about to give birth to her son Winston later that month.


title: Atul Agnihotri

text: Atul Agnihotri (born 8 July 1970) is an Indian actor, producer and director. He started his Bollywood career as an actor, went on to direct two films, and found success as a film producer. He is best known for his debut film "Sir" (1993), which was the most notable film of his career and featured him as the lead protagonist. His other notable films were "" (1994) and "Krantiveer" (1994).


title: Atul Agnihotri

text: Atul Agnihotri was born into a Punjabi Brahmin Hindu family, the son of Rohit Agnihotri, an actor of yesteryear who quit films after a brief stint and later tried his hand at business. Agnihotri lost his father at a young age and the responsibility of supporting his family came upon him. Agnihotri's first cousin is actress Rati Agnihotri, who lived with them in Mumbai for two years and made her entry into films during that time; essentially, this inspired Atul to join films likewise.


title: Atul Agnihotri

text: Agnihotri is married to producer/designer Alvira Khan Agnihotri. He has a sister as well. His wife is the daughter of scriptwriter Salim Khan and sister of actors Salman Khan, Arbaaz Khan and Sohail Khan. their first child Ayaan Agnihotri born on 12 June 1998 and had daughter Alizeh Agnihotri born on 21 September 2000.


title: Atul Agnihotri

text: Agnihotri's career stretches back to 1983 when he made a brief appearance as a child artist in "Pasand Apni Apni" (1983) in which his cousin Rati Agnihotri was the heroine. Inspired by her success, and by the memory of his father's brief stint as an actor, he made his acting debut with Mahesh Bhatt's "Sir" (1993), which emerged as a commercial and critical success. He went on to act in several other films throughout the 1990s and early 2000s with his most notable hits being "Krantiveer" (1994), "Naaraz" (1994), "" (1994), "Chachi 420" (1997), "Yeshwant" (1997), and "Hum Tumhare Hain Sanam" (2002).


title: Atul Agnihotri

text: After being restricted to supporting and second lead roles, Agnihotri abandoned acting and turned to film direction. He made his directorial debut with the 2004 film "Dil Ne Jise Apna Kahaa" which starred his brother-in-law Salman Khan along with Bhoomika Chawla and Preity Zinta in the lead roles.


title: Atul Agnihotri

text: Agnihotri persisted with direction, and began work in 2008 on the film "Hello." He was both producer and director of this film, which starred his other brother-in-law Sohail Khan, along with Isha Koppikar and Sharman Joshi. The film was released on 10 October 2008 to a poor reception at the box office and proved to be a flop.


title: Atul Agnihotri

text: Agnihotri's second directorial venture, "Hello" (2008) had been the first film produced by him. His second film as a producer was "Bodyguard," starring his brother-in-law Salman Khan with Kareena Kapoor. The film was directed by Siddique, who is otherwise active in Malayalam cinema and who had directed the original Malyalam version of the same film.


title: Atul Agnihotri

text: In 2014, Agnihotri produced his next film, "O Teri" starring relative newcomers Pulkit Samrat, Bilal Amrohi and Sarah Jane Dias. The film was directed by debutant director Umesh Bisht; thus, it gave an opening to a large number of newcomers.


title: Atul Agnihotri

text: Agnihotris next project is producing Ali Abbas Zafar's "Bharat" starring Salman Khan, set to release Eid 2019. Bharat will be an official adaptation of 2014 Korean film, ‘Ode to My Father’ which depicted modern Korean history from the 1950s to the present day through the life of an ordinary man. Agnihotri confirmed: "It’s the journey of a country and also a person, both of whom go by the name of Bharat."


title: HP Sauce

text: HP Sauce is a British brown sauce, the main ingredients of which are tomatoes and tamarind extract. It was named after London's Houses of Parliament. After making its first appearance on British dinner tables in the late 19th century, HP Sauce went on to become an icon of British culture. It was the best-selling brand of brown sauce in the UK in 2005, with 73.8% of the retail market. The sauce was originally produced in the United Kingdom, but is now made by Heinz in the Netherlands.


title: HP Sauce

text: HP Sauce has a tomato base, blended with malt vinegar and spirit vinegar, sugars (molasses, glucose-fructose syrup, sugar), dates, cornflour, rye flour, salt, spices and tamarind. It is used as a condiment with hot and cold savoury food, and as an ingredient in soups and stews.


title: HP Sauce

text: The picture on the front of the bottle is a selection of London landmarks including Elizabeth Tower, the Palace of Westminster, and Westminster Bridge.


title: HP Sauce

text: Frederick Gibson Garton had a grocers and provisions shop on Milton Street, in Nottingham. He used a recipe for a brown sauce in his pickles and sauce factory in New Basford. This was located at the rear of his home in Sandon Street. Its ingredients included vinegar, water, tomato puree, garlic, tamarind, ground mace, cloves and ginger, shallots, cayenne pepper, raisins, soy, flour and salt. Garton registered the name H.P. Sauce in 1895, choosing it because he had heard a rumour that a restaurant in the Houses of Parliament had begun serving it. The sauce bottle labels carried a picture of the Houses of Parliament. This was by no means his only product. He also made Nottingham Sauce, Sandon Sauce, Worcester Sauce, Banquet Sauce, Yorkshire Sauce and Daddies Favourite Sauce, as well as Garton & Co's Indian Chutney.


title: HP Sauce

text: In 1899 he was unable to settle a debt with his vinegar suppliers, the Midland Vinegar Company of Aston Cross, Birmingham. Edwin Samson Moore of the vinegar company visited his Nottingham premises to settle the matter. The outcome was that Garton handed over the name and recipe for HP Sauce - for just £150. He also had to agree to keep out of the Sauce and Pickles business. The name of GARTON remained on the bottles of HP sauce for many years afterwards but it was The Midland Vinegar Company who profited from the huge sales that were generated. Today HP and Daddies are the two most popular national brands of brown sauce. They can both trace their origins to a tiny premises in Sandon Street, Basford, Nottinghamshire.


title: HP Sauce

text: In the United Kingdom, HP Sauce became informally known as "Wilson's gravy" in the 1960s and 1970s, after Mary Wilson, the wife of Prime Minister Harold Wilson, gave an interview to "The Sunday Times", in which she said: "If Harold has a fault, it is that he will drown everything with HP Sauce."


title: HP Sauce

text: The brand passed from the Midlands Vinegar Company to Smedley HP Foods Limited, which was subsequently acquired by a division of Imperial Tobacco, before being sold to the French Groupe Danone SA in 1988 for £199 million.


title: HP Sauce

text: In June 2005, Heinz purchased the parent company, HP Foods, from Danone. In October of that year the United Kingdom Office of Fair Trading referred the takeover to the Competition Commission, which approved the £440 million acquisition in April 2006.


title: HP Sauce

text: In May 2006, Heinz announced plans to switch production of HP Sauce from Aston in Birmingham to its European sauces facility in Elst, Netherlands, only weeks after HP launched a campaign to "Save the Proper British Cafe". The announcement prompted a call to boycott Heinz products. The move, resulting in the loss of approximately 125 jobs at the Aston factory, was criticised by politicians and union officials, especially as the parent company still wanted to use the image of the House of Commons on its bottles. In the same month, local Labour MP Khalid Mahmood brandished a bottle of HP Sauce during Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons as part of a protest against the Heinz move. He also made reference to the sauce's popularity with the former Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson. These plans were confirmed on 23 August 2006 and the factory at Aston ceased production on 16 March 2007. A week later a "wake" was held at the location of the factory.


title: HP Sauce

text: The six-acre Aston site was purchased by developer Chancerygate in 2007 at £800,000 per acre; they subsequently sold it for half that price and it now houses a distribution warehouse for East End Foods.


title: HP Sauce

text: HP Sauce is available in a range of formats and sizes, including the iconic 9 oz/255 g glass bottle, plastic squeeze bottle, and TopDown bottle.


title: HP Sauce

text: Also the ingredients vary markedly. In 2007 for example the varieties from Mexico and Canada were lighter and less concentrated.


title: Seulgi (singer)

text: Kang Seul-gi (; born February 10, 1994), known mononymously as Seulgi, is a South Korean singer and dancer. She is a member of girl group Red Velvet, its sub-unit Red Velvet – Irene & Seulgi, and the supergroup Got the Beat. She released her debut EP, "28 Reasons", in 2022.


title: Seulgi (singer)

text: Kang Seul-gi was born on February 10, 1994, in Ansan, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea. Her family consists of her parents and an older brother. She studied in Ansan Byeolmang Middle School and attended School of Performing Arts Seoul. She can speak both Korean and Japanese.


title: Seulgi (singer)

text: Seulgi began training at SM Entertainment in 2007. On December 2, 2013, she was one of the first three trainees introduced to the public through SM Entertainment's pre-debut project, SM Rookies, alongside now-NCT members Jeno and Taeyong. Various pre-debut clips of Seulgi were released by SM Entertainment, one of which was a dance performance of "Be Natural" by S.E.S. with Irene. In July 2014, Seulgi was featured on Henry Lau's song "Butterfly" from his second EP "Fantastic". She also appeared in the music video of his single "Fantastic".


title: Seulgi (singer)

text: In January 2015, Seulgi starred in the musical "School Oz", playing the lead role of Dorothy. From April to May, she was part of the variety show "Off to School".


title: Seulgi (singer)

text: In July 2016, Seulgi released "Don't Push Me" with bandmate Wendy as part of the soundtrack of the television series "Uncontrollably Fond". In October, Seulgi competed on "King of Mask Singer" under the alias Cinema Heaven. On November 18, she sang the theme song of the MMORPG "Blade & Soul", "You, Just Like That" (그대는 그렇게), although it was not officially released as a digital single until 2017. On December 30, Seulgi released the digital single "Sound of Your Heart" with Wendy and other SM artists for the digital music project SM Station.


title: Seulgi (singer)

text: In January 2017, Seulgi released "You're the Only One I See" with Wendy as part of the soundtrack of the drama "". As part of SM Station, she also released the duet "Darling U" with labelmate Yesung on January 22. In February, Seulgi and Hwang Chi-yeul collaborated on the song "Our Story", which served as the final track for Hwang's duet project "Fall, in girl". In March, Seulgi featured on labelmate Mark's "Drop", an original song performed on "High School Rapper". Seulgi was cast alongside six other female idols in the variety show "Idol Drama Operation Team", wherein they had to create their own television series, titled "Let's Only Walk the Flower Road", as scriptwriters and play fictional versions of themselves, who are part of a fictional music group. The group, called Girls Next Door, released the song "Deep Blue Eyes" and held their debut stage at "Music Bank" on July 14. On October 27, Seulgi released a remake of the 2001 song "Doll (인형)", originally by Shin Hye-sung and Lee Ji-hoon, along with Kangta and Wendy as part of the second season of SM Station. An accompanying music video featuring footage from their live performance of the song at the SM Town Live Tour V in Japan was released on the same day. That same month, Seulgi featured on labelmate Taemin's song "Heart Stop" from his second studio album "Move".


title: Seulgi (singer)

text: In February 2018, Seulgi was confirmed as part of the cast of "Law of the Jungle in Mexico". In April, she was confirmed as part of the cast of the variety show "Secret Unnie". She featured on Moonbyul's debut single "Selfish", which was released on May 23. Seulgi and Wendy starred in the special 100th episode of "Battle Trip", which aired for the first time on July 21. In September, Seulgi released the digital single "Wow Thing" with Soyeon, SinB, and Chungha. In October, it was announced that Seulgi had been cast in the television show "Cool Kids". On October 15, she featured on Zion.T's "Hello Tutorial", which peaked at number two on the Gaon Digital Chart.


title: Seulgi (singer)

text: On February 12, 2019, Seulgi released "Always", a ballad about eternal love, for the soundtrack of "The Crowned Clown".


title: Seulgi (singer)

text: On April 20, 2020, SM Entertainment confirmed that Seulgi would be part of Red Velvet's first sub-unit, alongside bandmate Irene. Red Velvet – Irene & Seulgi debuted on July 6 with the extended play (EP) "Monster". The EP contained the studio version of Seulgi's solo song "Uncover", which was first revealed during Red Velvet's third concert tour La Rouge. She and Irene starred in the spin-off of Red Velvet's reality show "Level Up Project!". On November 23, it was announced that Seulgi would translate the series of art essays "Art Gallery By My Side: Love, Happiness, Sleep".


title: Seulgi (singer)

text: On January 25, 2021, Seulgi featured in the music video for labelmate Yunho's "Eeny Meeny". On February 1, Seulgi and rapper Bewhy released a music video for the song "Born Confident" for a Volkswagen campaign. On March 30, it was announced that Seulgi would feature on Wendy's song "Best Friend" from her debut EP "Like Water". On April 2, it was announced that Seulgi would host a web music program, "The Wise Music Encyclopedia". On June 1, she started hosting her own live show, "Seulgi.zip", on Naver Now. On June 7, Seulgi teamed up with NCT's Taeyong on the release of the demo song "Rose" on SoundCloud. The duo co-composed the song with producer SQUAR. On December 28, Seulgi featured on BamBam's song "Who Are You" from his second EP "B". On December 27, Seulgi was revealed as a member of the supergroup Got the Beat, alongside bandmate Wendy. The group debuted on January 3, 2022.


title: Seulgi (singer)

text: On September 13, 2022, it was announced that Seulgi would debut as a soloist with the release of her first EP, titled "28 Reasons", on October 4, led the single of the same.


title: Seulgi (singer)

text: From performance to visual media, Seulgi is an all-rounder artist. Brands often cite her positivity, creativity, passion for her craft, unique sensibility and style and cultural influence (especially among young Koreans) as reasons for why they choose her to represent them.


title: Seulgi (singer)

text: In Gallup Korea's Idol Preference poll, before its discontinuation in 2020, Seulgi ranked as one of the most popular idols. She topped the monthly "Individual Girl Group Members Brand Power Ranking" published by the Korean Corporate Reputation Research Institute several times. In a survey among soldiers doing mandatory military service in South Korea in 2019, Seulgi ranked as the fourth most popular female K-pop idol. She has also consistently placed high in the Korea Queer Women Community's annual poll due to admiration for her "girl crush" image.


title: Seulgi (singer)

text: Seulgi has also been recognized for her fashion sense. Her casual, chic and trendy style has made her an emerging leader in casual fashion and a reference for the MZ generation in South Korea. In particular, her influence on the rise of minimalist fashion among Koreans in their 20s and 30s has been highlighted. In her show "Seulgi.zip", a mainly fashion-themed program, Seulgi discussed fashion items, style points and favorite trends with her guests and gave advice to her listeners. Seulgi became the first K-pop act to be selected as global ambassador for Italian luxury brand Salvatore Ferragamo. A brand representative stated that they selected for her popularity as a fashion icon, a successful performer, and an influential entertainer.


title: Seulgi (singer)

text: Aside from various endorsements with her bandmates, Seulgi has served as brand ambassadors individually. In March 2018, she was selected to model Nike's collection for the South Korea national football team, the Red Devils 2018 Collection. Since August 2018, Seulgi has been the face of Converse Korea as their first female brand ambassador. Starting with the "One Star" campaign under the slogan "no one can evaluate me", Seulgi and Converse have campaigned for support on one's own values and standards.


title: Seulgi (singer)

text: On December 23, 2019, Seulgi was announced as the face of Coca-Cola's 2020 campaign "Little Big Moments" along with actor Park Bo-gum. Several days later, French retailer L'Occitane debuted a new campaign featuring Seulgi, as well as two other artists, art director Cha In-cheol and illustrator Kim Se-dong. Seulgi served as ambassador for L'Occitane and OMY's "City Palette" campaign for their shea butter hand cream.


title: Seulgi (singer)

text: In January 2021, Seulgi became the new ambassador of Volkswagen. She served as the face of a new campaign for their new T-Roc model and helped promote it with original music and video for their slogan "Born Confident". In February, Seulgi was officially announced as the South Korean brand ambassador of the Italian luxury brand Salvatore Ferragamo through a photoshoot with "Harper's Bazaar" and was later on announced on June 29 as a global brand ambassador through their shoe capsule collection campaign, "Let's Dance". In April, Seulgi was announced as the newest model for cosmetics brand AMUSE. In December, she became the muse of Istkünst, a Korean unisex streetwear brand.


title: Seulgi (singer)

text: In addition to her work as a dancer and vocalist, Seulgi has earned praise from various online communities for her art and photography skills. In 2016, Seulgi was chosen as the honorary ambassador for the 18th Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival to help spread the festival's mission to spread public awareness on animated films and help students and lesser known artists in the field gain more opportunities. In 2019, Seulgi voiced an audio guide in M. Chat exhibit's of world class graffiti artists at Seoul Arts Center.


title: Seulgi (singer)

text: French company L'Occitane collaborated with Seulgi in 2019 for their "City Palette" campaign. Seulgi designed a city map for eco bags to convey the beauty of nature in cities that are heavily affected by pollution.


title: Seulgi (singer)

text: Due to Seulgi's love for the arts, Maronie Books asked Seulgi to translate their "Art Museum By My Side" project in 2020. The series is a collection of 35 artworks for each theme of Love, Happiness and Sleep, aiming to serve as guide to those who find it difficult to enjoy art due to lack of professional knowledge. Seulgi's translation of the book, originally written in English by Shana Gozansky, presented both the text and Seulgi's interpretations and featured notes on her personal favorites.


title: Seulgi (singer)

text: In November 2021, Seulgi joined the Lacoste and "Peanuts" "We Play Collective" campaign that aimed to promote harmony among diverse people, wherein participants selected famous "Peanuts" quotes and expressed them through drawings with motifs that symbolize Lacoste.


title: Seulgi (singer)

text: On February 10, 2022, Seulgi published a poster book with her very own artworks that she stated convey personal moments of happiness. In August, the luxury jewelry brand Fred Paris collaborated with Seulgi on their first emoji brand campaign, named "Seulggomi" after her bear nickname from fans. From production planning to final design of the character and Kakaotalk stickers, Seulgi personally participated to help demonstrate Fred's brand identity through representative collections worn by her and the character itself.


title: Food web

text: A food web is the natural interconnection of food chains and a graphical representation of what-eats-what in an ecological community. Another name for food web is consumer-resource system. Ecologists can broadly lump all life forms into one of two categories called trophic levels: 1) the autotrophs, and 2) the heterotrophs. To maintain their bodies, grow, develop, and to reproduce, autotrophs produce organic matter from inorganic substances, including both minerals and gases such as carbon dioxide. These chemical reactions require energy, which mainly comes from the Sun and largely by photosynthesis, although a very small amount comes from bioelectrogenesis in wetlands, and mineral electron donors in hydrothermal vents and hot springs. These trophic levels are not binary, but form a gradient that includes complete autotrophs, which obtain their sole source of carbon from the atmosphere, mixotrophs (such as carnivorous plants), which are autotrophic organisms that partially obtain organic matter from sources other than the atmosphere, and complete heterotrophs that must feed to obtain organic matter.


title: Food web

text: The linkages in a food web illustrate the feeding pathways, such as where heterotrophs obtain organic matter by feeding on autotrophs and other heterotrophs. The food web is a simplified illustration of the various methods of feeding that links an ecosystem into a unified system of exchange. There are different kinds of feeding relations that can be roughly divided into herbivory, carnivory, scavenging and parasitism. Some of the organic matter eaten by heterotrophs, such as sugars, provides energy. Autotrophs and heterotrophs come in all sizes, from microscopic to many tonnes - from cyanobacteria to giant redwoods, and from viruses and bdellovibrio to blue whales.


title: Food web

text: Charles Elton pioneered the concept of food cycles, food chains, and food size in his classical 1927 book "Animal Ecology"; Elton's 'food cycle' was replaced by 'food web' in a subsequent ecological text. Elton organized species into functional groups, which was the basis for Raymond Lindeman's classic and landmark paper in 1942 on trophic dynamics. Lindeman emphasized the important role of decomposer organisms in a trophic system of classification. The notion of a food web has a historical foothold in the writings of Charles Darwin and his terminology, including an "entangled bank", "web of life", "web of complex relations", and in reference to the decomposition actions of earthworms he talked about "the continued movement of the particles of earth". Even earlier, in 1768 John Bruckner described nature as "one continued web of life".


title: Food web

text: Food webs are limited representations of real ecosystems as they necessarily aggregate many species into trophic species, which are functional groups of species that have the same predators and prey in a food web. Ecologists use these simplifications in quantitative (or mathematical representation) models of trophic or consumer-resource systems dynamics. Using these models they can measure and test for generalized patterns in the structure of real food web networks. Ecologists have identified non-random properties in the topological structure of food webs. Published examples that are used in meta analysis are of variable quality with omissions. However, the number of empirical studies on community webs is on the rise and the mathematical treatment of food webs using network theory had identified patterns that are common to all. Scaling laws, for example, predict a relationship between the topology of food web predator-prey linkages and levels of species richness.


title: Food web

text: Links in food webs map the feeding connections (who eats whom) in an ecological community. "Food cycle" is an obsolete term that is synonymous with food web. Ecologists can broadly group all life forms into one of two trophic layers, the autotrophs and the heterotrophs. Autotrophs produce more biomass energy, either chemically without the sun's energy or by capturing the sun's energy in photosynthesis, than they use during metabolic respiration. Heterotrophs consume rather than produce biomass energy as they metabolize, grow, and add to levels of secondary production. A food web depicts a collection of polyphagous heterotrophic consumers that network and cycle the flow of energy and nutrients from a productive base of self-feeding autotrophs.


title: Food web

text: The base or basal species in a food web are those species without prey and can include autotrophs or saprophytic detritivores (i.e., the community of decomposers in soil, biofilms, and periphyton). Feeding connections in the web are called trophic links. The number of trophic links per consumer is a measure of food web connectance. Food chains are nested within the trophic links of food webs. Food chains are linear (noncyclic) feeding pathways that trace monophagous consumers from a base species up to the top consumer, which is usually a larger predatory carnivore.


title: Food web

text: Linkages connect to nodes in a food web, which are aggregates of biological taxa called trophic species. Trophic species are functional groups that have the same predators and prey in a food web. Common examples of an aggregated node in a food web might include parasites, microbes, decomposers, saprotrophs, consumers, or predators, each containing many species in a web that can otherwise be connected to other trophic species.


title: Food web

text: Food webs have trophic levels and positions. Basal species, such as plants, form the first level and are the resource limited species that feed on no other living creature in the web. Basal species can be autotrophs or detritivores, including "decomposing organic material and its associated microorganisms which we defined as detritus, micro-inorganic material and associated microorganisms (MIP), and vascular plant material." Most autotrophs capture the sun's energy in chlorophyll, but some autotrophs (the chemolithotrophs) obtain energy by the chemical oxidation of inorganic compounds and can grow in dark environments, such as the sulfur bacterium "Thiobacillus", which lives in hot sulfur springs. The top level has top (or apex) predators which no other species kills directly for its food resource needs. The intermediate levels are filled with omnivores that feed on more than one trophic level and cause energy to flow through a number of food pathways starting from a basal species.


title: Food web

text: In the simplest scheme, the first trophic level (level 1) is plants, then herbivores (level 2), and then carnivores (level 3). The trophic level is equal to one more than the chain length, which is the number of links connecting to the base. The base of the food chain (primary producers or detritivores) is set at zero. Ecologists identify feeding relations and organize species into trophic species through extensive gut content analysis of different species. The technique has been improved through the use of stable isotopes to better trace energy flow through the web. It was once thought that omnivory was rare, but recent evidence suggests otherwise. This realization has made trophic classifications more complex.


title: Food web

text: The trophic level concept was introduced in a historical landmark paper on trophic dynamics in 1942 by Raymond L. Lindeman. The basis of trophic dynamics is the transfer of energy from one part of the ecosystem to another. The trophic dynamic concept has served as a useful quantitative heuristic, but it has several major limitations including the precision by which an organism can be allocated to a specific trophic level. Omnivores, for example, are not restricted to any single level. Nonetheless, recent research has found that discrete trophic levels do exist, but "above the herbivore trophic level, food webs are better characterized as a tangled web of omnivores."


title: Food web

text: A central question in the trophic dynamic literature is the nature of control and regulation over resources and production. Ecologists use simplified one trophic position food chain models (producer, carnivore, decomposer). Using these models, ecologists have tested various types of ecological control mechanisms. For example, herbivores generally have an abundance of vegetative resources, which meant that their populations were largely controlled or regulated by predators. This is known as the top-down hypothesis or 'green-world' hypothesis. Alternatively to the top-down hypothesis, not all plant material is edible and the nutritional quality or antiherbivore defenses of plants (structural and chemical) suggests a bottom-up form of regulation or control. Recent studies have concluded that both "top-down" and "bottom-up" forces can influence community structure and the strength of the influence is environmentally context dependent. These complex multitrophic interactions involve more than two trophic levels in a food web. For example, such interactions have been discovered in the context of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and aphid herbivores that utilize the same plant species.


title: Food web

text: Another example of a multitrophic interaction is a trophic cascade, in which predators help to increase plant growth and prevent overgrazing by suppressing herbivores. Links in a food-web illustrate direct trophic relations among species, but there are also indirect effects that can alter the abundance, distribution, or biomass in the trophic levels. For example, predators eating herbivores indirectly influence the control and regulation of primary production in plants. Although the predators do not eat the plants directly, they regulate the population of herbivores that are directly linked to plant trophism. The net effect of direct and indirect relations is called trophic cascades. Trophic cascades are separated into species-level cascades, where only a subset of the food-web dynamic is impacted by a change in population numbers, and community-level cascades, where a change in population numbers has a dramatic effect on the entire food-web, such as the distribution of plant biomass.


title: Food web

text: The field of chemical ecology has elucidated multitrophic interactions that entail the transfer of defensive compounds across multiple trophic levels. For example, certain plant species in the "Castilleja" and "Plantago" genera have been found to produce defensive compounds called iridoid glycosides that are sequestered in the tissues of the Taylor's checkerspot butterfly larvae that have developed a tolerance for these compounds and are able to consume the foliage of these plants. These sequestered iridoid glycosides then confer chemical protection against bird predators to the butterfly larvae. Another example of this sort of multitrophic interaction in plants is the transfer of defensive alkaloids produced by endophytes living within a grass host to a hemiparasitic plant that is also using the grass as a host.


title: Food web

text: Food webs depict energy flow via trophic linkages. Energy flow is directional, which contrasts against the cyclic flows of material through the food web systems. Energy flow "typically includes production, consumption, assimilation, non-assimilation losses (feces), and respiration (maintenance costs)." In a very general sense, energy flow (E) can be defined as the sum of metabolic production (P) and respiration (R), such that E=P+R.


title: Food web

text: Biomass represents stored energy. However, concentration and quality of nutrients and energy is variable. Many plant fibers, for example, are indigestible to many herbivores leaving grazer community food webs more nutrient limited than detrital food webs where bacteria are able to access and release the nutrient and energy stores. "Organisms usually extract energy in the form of carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins. These polymers have a dual role as supplies of energy as well as building blocks; the part that functions as energy supply results in the production of nutrients (and carbon dioxide, water, and heat). Excretion of nutrients is, therefore, basic to metabolism." The units in energy flow webs are typically a measure mass or energy per m per unit time. Different consumers are going to have different metabolic assimilation efficiencies in their diets. Each trophic level transforms energy into biomass. Energy flow diagrams illustrate the rates and efficiency of transfer from one trophic level into another and up through the hierarchy.


title: Food web

text: It is the case that the biomass of each trophic level decreases from the base of the chain to the top. This is because energy is lost to the environment with each transfer as entropy increases. About eighty to ninety percent of the energy is expended for the organism's life processes or is lost as heat or waste. Only about ten to twenty percent of the organism's energy is generally passed to the next organism. The amount can be less than one percent in animals consuming less digestible plants, and it can be as high as forty percent in zooplankton consuming phytoplankton. Graphic representations of the biomass or productivity at each tropic level are called ecological pyramids or trophic pyramids. The transfer of energy from primary producers to top consumers can also be characterized by energy flow diagrams.


title: Food web

text: A common metric used to quantify food web trophic structure is food chain length. Food chain length is another way of describing food webs as a measure of the number of species encountered as energy or nutrients move from the plants to top predators. There are different ways of calculating food chain length depending on what parameters of the food web dynamic are being considered: connectance, energy, or interaction. In its simplest form, the length of a chain is the number of links between a trophic consumer and the base of the web. The mean chain length of an entire web is the arithmetic average of the lengths of all chains in a food web.


title: Food web

text: In a simple predator-prey example, a deer is one step removed from the plants it eats (chain length = 1) and a wolf that eats the deer is two steps removed from the plants (chain length = 2). The relative amount or strength of influence that these parameters have on the food web address questions about:


title: Food web

text: In a pyramid of numbers, the number of consumers at each level decreases significantly, so that a single top consumer, (e.g., a polar bear or a human), will be supported by a much larger number of separate producers. There is usually a maximum of four or five links in a food chain, although food chains in aquatic ecosystems are more often longer than those on land. Eventually, all the energy in a food chain is dispersed as heat.


title: Food web

text: Ecological pyramids place the primary producers at the base. They can depict different numerical properties of ecosystems, including numbers of individuals per unit of area, biomass (g/m), and energy (k cal m yr). The emergent pyramidal arrangement of trophic levels with amounts of energy transfer decreasing as species become further removed from the source of production is one of several patterns that is repeated amongst the planets ecosystems. The size of each level in the pyramid generally represents biomass, which can be measured as the dry weight of an organism. Autotrophs may have the highest global proportion of biomass, but they are closely rivaled or surpassed by microbes.


title: Food web

text: Pyramid structure can vary across ecosystems and across time. In some instances biomass pyramids can be inverted. This pattern is often identified in aquatic and coral reef ecosystems. The pattern of biomass inversion is attributed to different sizes of producers. Aquatic communities are often dominated by producers that are smaller than the consumers that have high growth rates. Aquatic producers, such as planktonic algae or aquatic plants, lack the large accumulation of secondary growth as exists in the woody trees of terrestrial ecosystems. However, they are able to reproduce quickly enough to support a larger biomass of grazers. This inverts the pyramid. Primary consumers have longer lifespans and slower growth rates that accumulates more biomass than the producers they consume. Phytoplankton live just a few days, whereas the zooplankton eating the phytoplankton live for several weeks and the fish eating the zooplankton live for several consecutive years. Aquatic predators also tend to have a lower death rate than the smaller consumers, which contributes to the inverted pyramidal pattern. Population structure, migration rates, and environmental refuge for prey are other possible causes for pyramids with biomass inverted. Energy pyramids, however, will always have an upright pyramid shape if all sources of food energy are included and this is dictated by the second law of thermodynamics.


title: Food web

text: Many of the Earth's elements and minerals (or mineral nutrients) are contained within the tissues and diets of organisms. Hence, mineral and nutrient cycles trace food web energy pathways. Ecologists employ stoichiometry to analyze the ratios of the main elements found in all organisms: carbon (C), nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P). There is a large transitional difference between many terrestrial and aquatic systems as C:P and C:N ratios are much higher in terrestrial systems while N:P ratios are equal between the two systems. Mineral nutrients are the material resources that organisms need for growth, development, and vitality. Food webs depict the pathways of mineral nutrient cycling as they flow through organisms. Most of the primary production in an ecosystem is not consumed, but is recycled by detritus back into useful nutrients. Many of the Earth's microorganisms are involved in the formation of minerals in a process called biomineralization. Bacteria that live in detrital sediments create and cycle nutrients and biominerals. Food web models and nutrient cycles have traditionally been treated separately, but there is a strong functional connection between the two in terms of stability, flux, sources, sinks, and recycling of mineral nutrients.


title: Food web

text: Food webs are necessarily aggregated and only illustrate a tiny portion of the complexity of real ecosystems. For example, the number of species on the planet are likely in the general order of 10, over 95% of these species consist of microbes and invertebrates, and relatively few have been named or classified by taxonomists. It is explicitly understood that natural systems are 'sloppy' and that food web trophic positions simplify the complexity of real systems that sometimes overemphasize many rare interactions. Most studies focus on the larger influences where the bulk of energy transfer occurs. "These omissions and problems are causes for concern, but on present evidence do not present insurmountable difficulties."


title: Food web

text: Within these categories, food webs can be further organized according to the different kinds of ecosystems being investigated. For example, human food webs, agricultural food webs, detrital food webs, marine food webs, aquatic food webs, soil food webs, Arctic (or polar) food webs, terrestrial food webs, and microbial food webs. These characterizations stem from the ecosystem concept, which assumes that the phenomena under investigation (interactions and feedback loops) are sufficient to explain patterns within boundaries, such as the edge of a forest, an island, a shoreline, or some other pronounced physical characteristic.


title: Food web

text: In a detrital web, plant and animal matter is broken down by decomposers, e.g., bacteria and fungi, and moves to detritivores and then carnivores. There are often relationships between the detrital web and the grazing web. Mushrooms produced by decomposers in the detrital web become a food source for deer, squirrels, and mice in the grazing web. Earthworms eaten by robins are detritivores consuming decaying leaves.


title: Food web

text: "Detritus can be broadly defined as any form of non-living organic matter, including different types of plant tissue (e.g. leaf litter, dead wood, aquatic macrophytes, algae), animal tissue (carrion), dead microbes, faeces (manure, dung, faecal pellets, guano, frass), as well as products secreted, excreted or exuded from organisms (e.g. extra-cellular polymers, nectar, root exudates and leachates, dissolved organic matter, extra-cellular matrix, mucilage). The relative importance of these forms of detritus, in terms of origin, size and chemical composition, varies across ecosystems."


title: Food web

text: Ecologists collect data on trophic levels and food webs to statistically model and mathematically calculate parameters, such as those used in other kinds of network analysis (e.g., graph theory), to study emergent patterns and properties shared among ecosystems. There are different ecological dimensions that can be mapped to create more complicated food webs, including: species composition (type of species), richness (number of species), biomass (the dry weight of plants and animals), productivity (rates of conversion of energy and nutrients into growth), and stability (food webs over time). A food web diagram illustrating species composition shows how change in a single species can directly and indirectly influence many others. are used to simplify food web research into semi-isolated units such as small springs, decaying logs, and laboratory experiments using organisms that reproduce quickly, such as daphnia feeding on algae grown under controlled environments in jars of water.


title: Food web

text: While the complexity of real food webs connections are difficult to decipher, ecologists have found mathematical models on networks an invaluable tool for gaining insight into the structure, stability, and laws of food web behaviours relative to observable outcomes. "Food web theory centers around the idea of connectance." Quantitative formulas simplify the complexity of food web structure. The number of trophic links (t), for example, is converted into a connectance value:


title: Food web

text: where, S(S-1)/2 is the maximum number of binary connections among S species. "Connectance (C) is the fraction of all possible links that are realized (L/S) and represents a standard measure of food web complexity..." The distance (d) between every species pair in a web is averaged to compute the mean distance between all nodes in a web (D) and multiplied by the total number of links (L) to obtain link-density (LD), which is influenced by scale dependent variables such as species richness. These formulas are the basis for comparing and investigating the nature of non-random patterns in the structure of food web networks among many different types of ecosystems.


title: Food web

text: Scaling laws, complexity, chaos, and pattern correlates are common features attributed to food web structure.


title: Food web

text: Food webs are extremely complex. Complexity is a measure of an increasing number of permutations and it is also a metaphorical term that conveys the mental intractability or limits concerning unlimited algorithmic possibilities. In food web terminology, complexity is a product of the number of species and connectance. Connectance is "the fraction of all possible links that are realized in a network". These concepts were derived and stimulated through the suggestion that complexity leads to stability in food webs, such as increasing the number of trophic levels in more species rich ecosystems. This hypothesis was challenged through mathematical models suggesting otherwise, but subsequent studies have shown that the premise holds in real systems.


title: Food web

text: At different levels in the hierarchy of life, such as the stability of a food web, "the same overall structure is maintained in spite of an ongoing flow and change of components." The farther a living system (e.g., ecosystem) sways from equilibrium, the greater its complexity. Complexity has multiple meanings in the life sciences and in the public sphere that confuse its application as a precise term for analytical purposes in science. Complexity in the life sciences (or biocomplexity) is defined by the "properties emerging from the interplay of behavioral, biological, physical, and social interactions that affect, sustain, or are modified by living organisms, including humans".


title: Food web

text: Several concepts have emerged from the study of complexity in food webs. Complexity explains many principals pertaining to self-organization, non-linearity, interaction, cybernetic feedback, discontinuity, emergence, and stability in food webs. Nestedness, for example, is defined as "a pattern of interaction in which specialists interact with species that form perfect subsets of the species with which generalists interact", "—that is, the diet of the most specialized species is a subset of the diet of the next more generalized species, and its diet a subset of the next more generalized, and so on." Until recently, it was thought that food webs had little nested structure, but empirical evidence shows that many published webs have nested subwebs in their assembly.


title: Food web

text: Food webs are complex networks. As networks, they exhibit similar structural properties and mathematical laws that have been used to describe other complex systems, such as small world and scale free properties. The small world attribute refers to the many loosely connected nodes, non-random dense clustering of a few nodes (i.e., trophic or keystone species in ecology), and small path length compared to a regular lattice. "Ecological networks, especially mutualistic networks, are generally very heterogeneous, consisting of areas with sparse links among species and distinct areas of tightly linked species. These regions of high link density are often referred to as cliques, hubs, compartments, cohesive sub-groups, or modules...Within food webs, especially in aquatic systems, nestedness appears to be related to body size because the diets of smaller predators tend to be nested subsets of those of larger predators (Woodward & Warren 2007; YvonDurocher et al. 2008), and phylogenetic constraints, whereby related taxa are nested based on their common evolutionary history, are also evident (Cattin et al. 2004)." "Compartments in food webs are subgroups of taxa in which many strong interactions occur within the subgroups and few weak interactions occur between the subgroups. Theoretically, compartments increase the stability in networks, such as food webs."


title: Food web

text: Food webs are also complex in the way that they change in scale, seasonally, and geographically. The components of food webs, including organisms and mineral nutrients, cross the thresholds of ecosystem boundaries. This has led to the concept or area of study known as cross-boundary subsidy. "This leads to anomalies, such as food web calculations determining that an ecosystem can support one half of a top carnivore, without specifying which end." Nonetheless, real differences in structure and function have been identified when comparing different kinds of ecological food webs, such as terrestrial vs. aquatic food webs.


title: Food web

text: Food webs serve as a framework to help ecologists organize the complex network of interactions among species observed in nature and around the world. One of the earliest descriptions of a food chain was described by a medieval Afro-Arab scholar named Al-Jahiz: "All animals, in short, cannot exist without food, neither can the hunting animal escape being hunted in his turn." The earliest graphical depiction of a food web was by Lorenzo Camerano in 1880, followed independently by those of Pierce and colleagues in 1912 and Victor Shelford in 1913. Two food webs about herring were produced by Victor Summerhayes and Charles Elton and Alister Hardy in 1923 and 1924. Charles Elton subsequently pioneered the concept of food cycles, food chains, and food size in his classical 1927 book "Animal Ecology"; Elton's 'food cycle' was replaced by 'food web' in a subsequent ecological text. After Charles Elton's use of food webs in his 1927 synthesis, they became a central concept in the field of ecology. Elton organized species into functional groups, which formed the basis for the trophic system of classification in Raymond Lindeman's classic and landmark paper in 1942 on trophic dynamics. The notion of a food web has a historical foothold in the writings of Charles Darwin and his terminology, including an "entangled bank", "web of life", "web of complex relations", and in reference to the decomposition actions of earthworms he talked about "the continued movement of the particles of earth". Even earlier, in 1768 John Bruckner described nature as "one continued web of life".


title: Food web

text: Interest in food webs increased after Robert Paine's experimental and descriptive study of intertidal shores suggesting that food web complexity was key to maintaining species diversity and ecological stability. Many theoretical ecologists, including Sir Robert May and Stuart Pimm, were prompted by this discovery and others to examine the mathematical properties of food webs.


title: Abdullah Öcalan

text: Abdullah Öcalan ( ; ; born 4 April 1949), also known as Apo (short for Abdullah in Turkish and Kurdish for "uncle"), is a political prisoner and founding member of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).


title: Abdullah Öcalan

text: Öcalan was based in Syria from 1979 to 1998. He helped found the PKK in 1978, and led it into the Kurdish–Turkish conflict in 1984. For most of his leadership, he was based in Syria, which provided sanctuary to the PKK until the late 1990s.


title: Abdullah Öcalan

text: After being forced to leave Syria, Öcalan was abducted in Nairobi in 1999 by the Turkish National Intelligence Agency (MIT) (with assistance of the USA) and taken to Turkey, where after a trial he was sentenced to death under Article 125 of the Turkish Penal Code, which concerns the formation of armed organizations. The sentence was commuted to aggravated life imprisonment when Turkey abolished the death penalty. From 1999 until 2009, he was the sole prisoner in İmralı prison in the Sea of Marmara, where he is still held.


title: Abdullah Öcalan

text: Öcalan has advocated a political solution to the conflict since the 1993 Kurdistan Workers' Party ceasefire. Öcalan's prison regime has oscillated between long periods of isolation during which he is allowed no contact with the outside world, and periods when he is permitted visits. He was also involved in negotiations with the Turkish government that led to a temporary Kurdish–Turkish peace process in 2013.


title: Abdullah Öcalan

text: From prison, Öcalan has published several books. Jineology, also known as the science of women, is a form of feminism advocated by Öcalan and subsequently a fundamental tenet of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK). Öcalan's philosophy of democratic confederalism is applied in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), an autonomous polity formed in Syria in 2012.


title: Abdullah Öcalan

text: Öcalan was born in Ömerli, a village in Halfeti, Şanlıurfa Province in eastern Turkey. While some sources report his birthday as being 4 April 1948, no official birth records for him exist, and he himself claims not to know exactly when he was born, estimating the year to be 1946 or 1947. He is the oldest of seven children. He attended elementary school in a neighboring village and wanted to join the Turkish army. He applied to the military high school but failed in the admission exam. In 1966 he began to study at a vocational high school in Ankara () and attended meetings of anti-communists but also of circles active in left wing politics interested in improving Kurdish rights. After graduating in 1969, Öcalan began working at the Title Deeds Office of Diyarbakır. It was at this time his political affiliation began to take a form. He was relocated one year later to Istanbul where he participated in the meetings of the Revolutionary Cultural Eastern Hearths (DDKO). Later, he entered the Istanbul Law Faculty but after the first year transferred to Ankara University to study political science. His return to Ankara was facilitated by the state in order to divide the "Dev-Genç" (Revolutionary Youth Federation of Turkey), of which Öcalan was a member. President Süleyman Demirel later regretted this decision, since the PKK was to become a much greater threat to the state than "Dev-Genç".


title: Abdullah Öcalan

text: Öcalan was not able to graduate from Ankara University, as on the 7 April 1972 he was arrested after participating in a rally against the killing of Mahir Çayan. He was charged with distributing the left-wing political magazine "Şafak" (published by Doğu Perinçek) and was held for seven months at the Mamak Prison. In November 1973, the Ankara Democratic Association of Higher Education, ("Ankara Demokratik Yüksek Öğrenim Demeği," ) was founded and shortly after he was elected to join its board. In the ADYÖD several students close to the political views of Hikmet Kıvılcımlı were active. In December 1974, "ADYÖD" was closed down. In 1975, together with Mazlum Doğan and , he published a political booklet which described the main aims for a "Revolution in Kurdistan". During meetings in Ankara between 1974 and 1975, Öcalan and others came to the conclusion that Kurdistan was a colony and preparations ought to be made for a revolution. The group decided to disperse into the different towns in Turkish Kurdistan in order to set up a base of supporters for an armed revolution. At the beginning, this idea had only a few supporters, but following a journey Öcalan made through the cities of Ağrı, Batman, Diyarbakır, Bingöl, Kars and Urfa in 1977, the group counted over 300 adherents and had organised about thirty armed militants.


title: Abdullah Öcalan

text: In 1978, in the midst of the right- and left-wing conflicts which culminated in the 1980 Turkish coup d'état, Öcalan founded the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). In July 1979 he fled to Syria.


title: Abdullah Öcalan

text: Since its foundation, the party focused on ideological training. Marxism-Leninism, the history and estate of Kurdistan had a central role in the party. Öcalan elaborated on the importance of ideology to the extent to where he condemned "ideoloylessness" and equated ideology with religion which according to him had replaced the latter. "If you break the link between yourself and ideology you will beastialize". With the support of the Syrian Government, he established two training camps for the PKK in Lebanon where the Kurdish guerrillas should receive political and military training.


title: Abdullah Öcalan

text: In 1984, the PKK initiated a campaign of armed conflict by attacking government forces in order to create an independent Kurdish state. Öcalan attempted to unite the Kurdish liberation movements of the PKK and the one active against Saddam Hussein in Iraq. In negotiations between the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the PKK, it was agreed that the latter was able to move freely in Iraqi Kurdistan. He also met twice with Masoud Barzani, the leader of the KDP in Damascus, to resolve some minor issues they had once in 1984 and another time in 1985. But due to pressure from Turkey the cooperation remained timid. During an interview he gave to the Turkish Milliyet in 1988, he mentioned the goal wasn't to gain independence from Turkey at all costs, but remained firm on the issue of the Kurdish rights, and suggested that negotiations should take place for a federation to be established in Turkey. In 1988, he also met with Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in Damascus, with which he signed an agreement and after some differences after the foundation of a Kurdish Government in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1992 he later had a better relationship.


title: Abdullah Öcalan

text: In the early 1990s, interviews given to both Doğu Perinçek and Hasan Bildirici he mentioned his willingness to achieve a peaceful solution to the conflict. In another given to Oral Çalışlar, he emphasized the difference between independence and separatism. He articulated the view that different nations were able to live in independence within the same state if they had equal rights. Then in 1993, upon request of Turkish president Turgut Özal, Öcalan met with Jalal Talabani for negotiations following which Öcalan declared a unilateral cease fire which had a duration from 20 March to 15 April. Later he prolonged it in order to enable negotiations with the Turkish government. Soon after Özal died on 17 April 1993, the initiative was halted by Turkey on the grounds that Turkey did not negotiate with terrorists. During an International Kurdish Conference in Brussels in March 1994, his initiative for equal rights for Kurds and Turks within Turkey was discussed. It is reported by Gottfried Stein, that at least during the first half of the 1990s, he used to live mainly in a protected neighborhood in Damascus. On 7 May 1996, in the midst of another unilateral cease-fire declared by the PKK, an attempt to assassinate him in a house in Damascus, was unsuccessful.


title: Abdullah Öcalan

text: Following the protests which arose against the prohibition of the PKK in Germany, Öcalan had several meetings with politicians from Germany who came to hold talks with him. In the summer of 1995 the president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Verfassungsschutz) Klaus Grünewald came to visit him, And with the German MP Heinrich Lummer of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) he held meetings in October 1995 in Damascus and March 1996, during which they discussed the PKKs activities in Germany. Öcalan assured him that the PKK would support a peaceful solution for the conflict. Back in Germany, Lummer made a statement in support for further negotiations with Öcalan. With time, the United States (1997), European Union, Syria, Turkey, and other countries have included the PKK on their lists of terrorist organizations. A Greek parliamentary delegation from the PASOK came to visit him in the Beqaa valley on the 17 October 1996. During his stay in Syria he has published several books concerning the Kurdish revolution. On at least one occasion, in 1993, he was detained and held by Syria's General Intelligence Directorate, but later released. Until 1998, Öcalan was based in Syria. As the situation deteriorated in Turkey, the Turkish government openly threatened Syria over its support for the PKK. As a result, the Syrian government forced Öcalan to leave the country but still refused turning him over to the Turkish authorities. In October 1998, Öcalan prepared for his departure from Syria and during a meeting in Kobane, he attempted to lay the foundations for a new party. This intention was not successful as for the Syrian intelligence obstructed the establishment of the party.


title: Abdullah Öcalan

text: He left Syria on the 9 October 1998 and for the next four months, he toured several European countries advocating for a solution of the Kurdish-Turkish conflict. Öcalan first went to Russia where the Russian parliament voted on 4 November 1998 to grant him asylum. On the 6 November, 109 Greek parliamentarians invited Öcalan to stay in Greece, a move which was repeated by , the deputy speaker of the Greek Parliament at the time. Öcalan then chose to travel to Italy, where he landed on the 12 November 1998 at the airport in Rome. In 1998 the Turkish government requested the extradition of Öcalan from Italy, where he applied for political asylum upon his arrival. He was detained by the Italian authorities due to an arrest warrant issued by Germany. But Italy did not extradite him to Germany, who refused to hold a trial on Öcalan in its country. The German chancellor Gerhard Schröder as well as the Minister of the Interior Otto Schily preferred that Öcalan would be tried by an unspecified "European Court". Italy also didn't extradite him to Turkey. The Italian prime minister Massimo D'Alema announced it was contrary to Italian law to extradite someone to a country where the defendant is threatened with a capital punishment. But Italy also didn't want Öcalan to stay, and pulled several diplomatic strings to compel him to leave the country, which was accomplished on the 16 January when he departed to Nizhny Novgorod in hope to find a safe haven in Russia. But in Russia he was not as much welcomed as in October, and he had to wait for a week at the airport of Strigino International Airport in Nizhny Novgorod. From Russia, he took an airplane from Saint Petersburg to Greece where he arrived in Athens upon the invitation of Nikolas Naxakis, a retired Admiral on 29 January 1999. He spent the night as a guest of the popular Greek author Voula Damianakou in Nea Makri. Öcalan then attempted to travel to The Hague, to pursue a settlement of his legal situation at the International Criminal Court, but the Netherlands would not let his plane land, sent him back to Greece, where he landed on the island Corfu in the Ionean Sea. Öcalan then decided to fly to Nairobi on invitation of Greek diplomats. At that time he was defended by Britta Böhler, a high-profile German attorney who argued that the crimes he was accused of would have to be proven in court and attempted to reach that the International Court in The Hague would assume the case.


title: Abdullah Öcalan

text: He was taken captive in Kenya on 15 February 1999, while on his way from the Greek embassy to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, in an operation by the Turkish National Intelligence Organization ( "," MIT) with the help of the CIA. Following the capture of Öcalan, the Greek Government entered in turmoil over Öcalan's capture and Foreign Minister Theodoros Pangalos, Interior Minister Alekos Papadopoulos and the Minister of Public Order Philipos Petsalnikos resigned from their posts. Costoulas, the Greek ambassador who protected him, said that his own life was in danger after the operation. According to Nucan Derya, the interpreter of Öcalan in Kenya, the Kenyans have warned the Greek ambassador George Costoulas, that "something" might happen if he didn't leave four days ago and that after they were given the assurance by Pangalos, that Öcalan would have safe passage to Europe, Öcalan was determined to travel to Amsterdam and face the accusations of terrorism. According to the Turkish Vatan, the Americans transferred him to the Turkish authorities, who flew him back to Turkey for trial.


title: Abdullah Öcalan

text: Öcalan's capture led thousands of Kurds to hold worldwide protests condemning the capture of Öcalan at Greek and Israeli embassies. Kurds living in Germany were threatened with deportation if they continued to hold demonstrations in support of Öcalan. The warning came after three Kurds were killed and 16 injured during the 1999 attack on the Israeli consulate in Berlin. A group named the "Revenge Hawks of Apo" set fire to a department store in Kadiköy Istanbul, causing the death of 13 people. In several European capitals and larger cities as well as in Iraq, Iran and also Turkey protests were organized against his capture.


title: Abdullah Öcalan

text: He was brought to İmralı island, where he was interrogated for a period of 10 days without being allowed to see or speak to his lawyers. A state security court consisting of one military and two civilian judges was established on İmralı island to try Öcalan. A delegation of three Dutch lawyers who intended to defend him were not allowed to meet with their client and detained for questioning at the airport on the grounds that they acted as "PKK militants" and not lawyers; they were sent back to the Netherlands. On the seventh day a judge took part in the interrogations, and prepared a transcript of it. The trial began on 31 May 1999 on the İmralı island in the Sea of Marmara, and was organized by the Ankara State Security Court. During the trial, he was represented by the Asrın Law Office. His lawyers had difficulty in representing him adequately as they were allowed only two interviews per week of initially a duration of 20 minutes, and later 1 hour, of which several were cancelled due to "bad weather" or because the authorities didn't give the permission needed for them. Also his lawyers were unaware of what the charges might be, and received the formal indictment only after excerpts of it were already presented to the press. The trial was accompanied by arrests of scores of Kurdish politicians from the People's Democracy Party (HADEP). In mid-June 1999, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey approved the removal of military judges from the State Security Courts, in an attempt to address criticism from the European Court of Human Rights and a civilian judge assumed the post of the military judge. Shortly before the verdict was read out by Judge Turgut Okyay, when asked about his final remarks, he again offered to play a role in the peace finding process. Öcalan was charged with treason and separatism and sentenced to death on 29 June 1999. He was also banned from holding public office for life.


title: Abdullah Öcalan

text: On the same day, Amnesty international (AI) demanded a re-trial and Human Rights Watch (HRW) questioned the fact that witnesses brought by the defense were not heard in the trial. In 1999 the Turkish Parliament discussed a so-called Repentance Bill which would commute Öcalans death sentence to 20 years imprisonment and allow PKK militants to surrender with a limited amnesty, but it didn't pass due to resistance from the far-right around the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). In January 2000 the Turkish government declared the death sentence was delayed until the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) reviewed the verdict. Upon the abolition of the death penalty in Turkey in August 2002, in October of that year, the security court commuted his sentence to life imprisonment.


title: Abdullah Öcalan

text: In an attempt to reach a verdict which was more favorable to Öcalan, he appealed at the ECHR at Strasbourg, which accepted the case in June 2004. In 2005, the ECHR ruled that Turkey had violated articles 3, 5, and 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights by refusing to allow Öcalan to appeal his arrest and by sentencing him to death without a fair trial. Öcalan's request for a retrial was refused by Turkish courts.


title: Abdullah Öcalan

text: After his capture, Öcalan was held in solitary confinement as the only prisoner on İmralı island in the Sea of Marmara. Following the commutation of the death sentence to a life sentence in 2002, Öcalan remained imprisoned on İmralı, and was the sole inmate there. Although former prisoners at İmralı were transferred to other prisons, more than 1,000 Turkish military personnel were stationed on the island to guard him. In November 2009, Turkish authorities announced that they were ending his solitary confinement by transferring several other prisoners to İmralı. They said that Öcalan would be allowed to see them for ten hours a week. The new prison was built after the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture visited the island and objected to the conditions in which he was being held. From 27 July 2011 until 2 May 2019 his lawyers have not been allowed to see Abdullah Öcalan. From July 2011 until December 2017 his lawyers filed more than 700 appeals for visits, but all were rejected.


title: Abdullah Öcalan

text: There have been held regular demonstrations by the Kurdish community to raise awareness of the isolation of Öcalan. In October 2012 several hundred Kurdish political prisoners went on hunger strike for better detention conditions for Öcalan and the right to use the Kurdish language in education and jurisprudence. The hunger strike lasted 68 days until Öcalan demanded its end. Öcalan was banned from receiving visits almost two years from 6 October 2014 until 11 September 2016, when his brother Mehmet Öcalan visited him for Eid al-Adha. In 2014 the ECHR ruled in that there was a violation of article 3 in regards of him being to only prisoner on İmarli island until 17 November 2009, as well as the impossibility to appeal his verdict. On 6 September 2018 visits from lawyers were banned for six months due to former punishments he received in the years 2005–2009, the fact that the lawyers made their conversations with Ocalan public, and the impression that Öcalan was leading the PKK through communications with his lawyers. He was again banned from receiving visits until 12 January 2019 when his brother was permitted to visit him a second time. His brother said his health was good. The ban on the visitation of his lawyers was lifted in April 2019, and Öcalan saw his lawyers on 2 May 2019.


title: Abdullah Öcalan

text: In 2008, the Justice Minister of Turkey, Mehmet Ali Şahin, said that between 2006 and 2007, 949 people were convicted and more than 7,000 people prosecuted for calling Öcalan "esteemed" ("Sayın").


title: Abdullah Öcalan

text: In November 1998, Öcalan elaborated on a 7-point peace plan according to which the Turkish attacks on Kurdish villages should stop, the refugees would be allowed to return, the Kurdish people would be granted autonomy within Turkey, the Kurds would receive the equal democratic rights as the Turks and the Turkish government supported village guards system shall come to an end and the Kurdish language and culture was to be officially recognized. In January 1999 during his stay in Europe, Öcalan saw the parties liberation struggle focus to have developed from guerrilla warfare to dialogue and negotiations. After his capture Öcalan called for a halt in PKK attacks, and advocated for a peaceful solution for the Kurdish conflict inside the borders of Turkey. In October 1999, eight PKK militants around the former European PKK spokesman Ali Sapan turned themselves in to Turkey on request of Öcalan. Depending on their treatment, the other PKK militants would turn them selves in as well, his attorney announced. But the eight, as well as another group which surrendered a few weeks later in Istanbul, were imprisoned and the peace initiative was dismissed by the Turkish Government. Öcalan called for the foundation of a "Truth and Justice Commission" by Kurdish institutions in order to investigate war crimes committed by both the PKK and Turkish security forces. A similar structure began functioning in May 2006. In March 2005, Öcalan issued the "Declaration of Democratic confederalism in Kurdistan" calling for a border-free confederation between the Kurdish regions of Southeastern Turkey (called "Northern Kurdistan" by Kurds), Northeast Syria ("Western Kurdistan"), Northern Iraq ("South Kurdistan"), and Northwestern Iran ("East Kurdistan"). In this zone, three bodies of law would be implemented: EU law, Turkish/Syrian/Iraqi/Iranian law and Kurdish law. This proposal was adopted by the PKK programme following the "Refoundation Congress" in April 2005.