title: Isaiah Berlin

text: Born in Riga (now the capital of Latvia, then a part of the Russian Empire) in 1909, he moved to Petrograd, Russia, at the age of six, where he witnessed the revolutions of 1917. In 1921 his family moved to the UK, and he was educated at St Paul's School, London, and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. In 1932, at the age of twenty-three, Berlin was elected to a prize fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford. In addition to his own prolific output, he translated works by Ivan Turgenev from Russian into English and, during World War II, worked for the British Diplomatic Service. From 1957 to 1967 he was Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at the University of Oxford. He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1963 to 1964. In 1966, he played a critical role in creating Wolfson College, Oxford, and became its founding President. Berlin was appointed a CBE in 1946, knighted in 1957, and appointed to the Order of Merit in 1971. He was President of the British Academy from 1974 to 1978. He also received the 1979 Jerusalem Prize for his lifelong defence of civil liberties, and on 25 November 1994 he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws at the University of Toronto, for which occasion he prepared a "short credo" (as he called it in a letter to a friend), now known as "A Message to the Twenty-First Century", to be read on his behalf at the ceremony.


title: Isaiah Berlin

text: An annual Isaiah Berlin Lecture is held at the Hampstead Synagogue, at Wolfson College, Oxford, at the British Academy, and in Riga. Berlin's work on liberal theory and on value pluralism, as well as his opposition to Marxism and communism, has had a lasting influence.


title: Isaiah Berlin

text: Berlin was born on 6 June 1909 into a wealthy Jewish family, the only son of Mendel Berlin, a timber trader (and a direct descendant of Shneur Zalman, founder of Chabad Hasidism), and his wife Marie, "née" Volshonok. His family owned a timber company, one of the largest in the Baltics, as well as forests in Russia, from where the timber was floated down the Daugava river to its sawmills in Riga. As his father, who was the head of the Riga Association of Timber Merchants, worked for the company in its dealings with Western companies, he was fluent not only in Yiddish, Russian and German, but also French and English. His Russian-speaking mother, Marie (Musya) Volshonok, was also fluent in Yiddish and Latvian. Isaiah Berlin spent his first six years in Riga, and later lived in Andreapol (a small timber town near Pskov, effectively owned by the family business) and Petrograd (now St Petersburg). In Petrograd, the family lived first on Vasilevsky Island and then on Angliiskii Prospekt on the mainland. On Angliiskii Prospekt, they shared their building with other tenants, including Rimsky-Korsakov's daughter, an assistant Minister of Finnish affairs and Princess Emeretinsky. With the onset of the October Revolution of 1917, the fortunes of the building's tenants were rapidly reversed, with both the Princess Emeretinsky and Rimsky-Korsakov's daughter soon being made to stoke the building's stoves and sweep the yards. Berlin witnessed the February and October Revolutions both from his apartment windows and from walks in the city with his governess, where he recalled the crowds of protesters marching on the Winter Palace Square.


title: Isaiah Berlin

text: One particular childhood memory of the February Revolution marked his life-long opposition to violence, with Berlin saying:


title: Isaiah Berlin

text: Feeling increasingly oppressed by life under Bolshevik rule where the family was identified as bourgeoisie, the family left Petrograd, on 5 October 1920, for Riga, but encounters with anti-Semitism and difficulties with the Latvian authorities convinced them to leave, and they moved to Britain in early 1921 (Mendel in January, Isaiah and Marie at the beginning of February), when Berlin was eleven. In London, the family first stayed in Surbiton where he was sent to Arundel House for preparatory school, then within the year they bought a house in Kensington, and six years later in Hampstead.


title: Isaiah Berlin

text: Berlin's native language was Russian, and his English was virtually nonexistent at first, but he reached proficiency in English within a year at around the age of 12. In addition to Russian and English, Berlin was fluent in French, German and Italian, and knew Hebrew, Latin, and Ancient Greek. Despite his fluency in English, however, in later life Berlin's Oxford English accent would sound increasingly Russian in its vowel sounds. Whenever he was described as an English philosopher, Berlin always insisted that he was not an English philosopher, but would forever be a Russian Jew: "I am a Russian Jew from Riga, and all my years in England cannot change this. I love England, I have been well treated here, and I cherish many things about English life, but I am a Russian Jew; that is how I was born and that is who I will be to the end of my life."


title: Isaiah Berlin

text: Berlin was educated at St Paul's School in London. According to Michael Bonavia, a British author who was at school with him, he


title: Isaiah Berlin

text: After leaving St Paul's, Berlin applied to Balliol College, Oxford, but was denied admission after a chaotic interview. Berlin decided to apply again, only to a different college: Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Berlin was admitted and commenced his "literae humaniores" "degree". He graduated in 1928, taking first-class honours in his final examinations and winning the John Locke Prize for his performance in the philosophy papers, in which he outscored A. J. Ayer. He subsequently took another degree at Oxford in philosophy, politics and economics, again taking first-class honours after less than a year on the course. He was appointed a tutor in philosophy at New College, Oxford, and soon afterwards was elected to a prize fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford, the first unconverted Jew to achieve this fellowship at All Souls.


title: Isaiah Berlin

text: While still a student, he befriended Ayer (with whom he was to share a lifelong amicable rivalry), Stuart Hampshire, Richard Wollheim, Maurice Bowra, Roy Beddington, Stephen Spender, Inez Pearn, J. L. Austin and Nicolas Nabokov. In 1940, he presented a philosophical paper on other minds to a meeting attended by Ludwig Wittgenstein at Cambridge University. Wittgenstein rejected the argument of his paper in discussion but praised Berlin for his intellectual honesty and integrity. Berlin was to remain at Oxford for the rest of his life, apart from a period working for British Information Services (BIS) in New York from 1940 to 1942 and for the British embassies in Washington, DC, and Moscow from then until 1946. Before crossing the Atlantic in 1940, Berlin took rest in Portugal for a few days. He stayed in Estoril, at the Hotel Palácio, between 19 and 24 October 1940. Prior to this service, however, Berlin was barred from participation in the British war effort as a result of his being born in Latvia, and because his left arm had been damaged at birth. In April 1943 he wrote a confidential analysis of members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for the Foreign Office; he described Senator Arthur Capper from Kansas as "a solid, stolid, 78-year-old reactionary from the corn belt, who is the very voice of Mid-Western "grass root" isolationism".


title: Isaiah Berlin

text: For his services, he was appointed a CBE in the 1946 New Year Honours. Meetings with Anna Akhmatova in Leningrad in November 1945 and January 1946 had a powerful effect on both of them, and serious repercussions for Akhmatova (who immortalised the meetings in her poetry).


title: Isaiah Berlin

text: In 1956 Berlin married Aline Elisabeth Yvonne Halban, "née" de Gunzbourg (1915–2014), the former wife of nuclear physicist Hans Halban, and a former winner of the ladies' golf championship of France. She was from an exiled half Russian-aristocratic and half ennobled-Jewish banking and petroleum family (her mother was Yvonne Deutsch de la Meurthe, granddaughter of Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe) based in Paris.


title: Isaiah Berlin

text: He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1959, and a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1975. He was instrumental in the founding, in 1966, of a new graduate college at Oxford University: Wolfson College. The college was founded to be a centre of academic excellence which, unlike many other colleges at Oxford, would also be based on a strong egalitarian and democratic ethos. Berlin was a member of the Founding Council of the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford University. As later revealed, when he was asked to evaluate the academic credentials of Isaac Deutscher, Isaiah Berlin argued against a promotion, because of the profoundly pro-communist militancy of the candidate.


title: Isaiah Berlin

text: Berlin died in Oxford on 5 November 1997, aged 88. He is buried there in Wolvercote Cemetery. On his death, the obituarist of "The Independent" wrote: "he was a man of formidable intellectual power with a rare gift for understanding a wide range of human motives, hopes and fears, and a prodigiously energetic capacity for enjoyment – of life, of people in all their variety, of their ideas and idiosyncrasies, of literature, of music, of art". The same publication reported: "Isaiah Berlin was often described, especially in his old age, by means of superlatives: the world's greatest talker, the century's most inspired reader, one of the finest minds of our time. There is no doubt that he showed in more than one direction the unexpectedly large possibilities open to us at the top end of the range of human potential." The front page of "The New York Times" concluded: "His was an exuberant life crowded with joys – the joy of thought, the joy of music, the joy of good friends. ... The theme that runs throughout his work is his concern with liberty and the dignity of human beings ... Sir Isaiah radiated well-being."


title: Isaiah Berlin

text: Berlin did not enjoy writing, and his published work (including both his essays and books) was produced by means of conversational dictation to a tape-recorder, or through the transcription of his improvised lectures and talks from recorded tapes. The work of transcribing his spoken word often placed a strain on his secretaries. This method of dictation even extended to his letters, which were produced by speaking to a Grundig tape recorder, often while simultaneously in conversation with his friends, and then transcribed with difficulty by his secretary, who at times would inadvertently include his jokes and laughter into the transcribed text itself. The results are a darting and leaping style of thought, which literally reflected his own conversation, and the ornate grammar and punctuation which was contained in his everyday speech.


title: Isaiah Berlin

text: Berlin is known for his inaugural lecture, "Two Concepts of Liberty," delivered in 1958 as Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at Oxford. The lecture, later published as an essay, reintroduced the study of political philosophy to the methods of analytic philosophy. Berlin defined 'negative liberty' as absence of coercion or interference of private actions by an external political body, which Berlin derived from the Hobbesian definition of liberty. 'Positive liberty' Berlin maintained, could be thought of as self-mastery, which asks not what we are free from, but what we are free to do. Berlin contended that modern political thinkers often conflated positive liberty with rational action, based upon a rational knowledge to which, it is argued, only a certain elite or social group has access. This rationalist conflation was open to political abuses, which encroached on negative liberty, when such interpretations of positive liberty were, in the nineteenth century, used to defend nationalism, paternalism, social engineering, historicism, and collective rational control over human destiny.


title: Isaiah Berlin

text: Berlin's lectures on the Enlightenment and its critics (especially Giambattista Vico, Johann Gottfried Herder, Joseph de Maistre and Johann Georg Hamann, to whose views Berlin referred as the Counter-Enlightenment) contributed to his advocacy of an irreducibly pluralist ethical ontology. In "Three Critics of the Enlightenment", Berlin argues that Hamann was one of the first thinkers to conceive of human cognition as language – the articulation and use of symbols. Berlin saw Hamann as having recognised as the rationalist's Cartesian fallacy the notion that there are "clear and distinct" ideas "which can be contemplated by a kind of inner eye", without the use of language – a recognition greatly sharpened in the 20th century by Wittgenstein's private language argument.


title: Isaiah Berlin

text: For Berlin, values are creations of mankind, rather than products of nature waiting to be discovered. He argued, on the basis of the epistemic and empathetic access we have to other cultures across history, that the nature of mankind is such that certain values – the importance of individual liberty, for instance – will hold true across cultures, and this is what he meant by objective pluralism. Berlin's argument was partly grounded in Wittgenstein's later theory of language, which argued that inter-translatability was supervenient on a similarity in forms of life, with the inverse implication that our epistemic access to other cultures entails an ontologically contiguous value-structure. With his account of value pluralism, he proposed the view that moral values may be equally, or rather incommensurably, valid and yet incompatible, and may, therefore, come into conflict with one another in a way that admits of no resolution without reference to particular contexts of a decision. When values clash, it may not be that one is more important than the other: keeping a promise may conflict with the pursuit of truth; liberty may clash with social justice. Moral conflicts are "an intrinsic, irremovable element in human life". "These collisions of values are of the essence of what they are and what we are." For Berlin, this clashing of incommensurate values within, no less than between, individuals, constitutes the tragedy of human life. Alan Brown suggests, however, that Berlin ignores the fact that values are commensurable in the extent to which they contribute to the human good.


title: Isaiah Berlin

text: "The Hedgehog and the Fox", a title referring to a fragment of the ancient Greek poet Archilochus, was one of Berlin's most popular essays with the general public, reprinted in numerous editions. Of the classification that gives the essay its title, Berlin once said "I never meant it very seriously. I meant it as a kind of enjoyable intellectual game, but it was taken seriously."


title: Isaiah Berlin

text: Berlin expands upon this idea to divide writers and thinkers into two categories: hedgehogs, who view the world through the lens of a single defining idea (examples given include Plato), and foxes, who draw on a wide variety of experiences and for whom the world cannot be boiled down to a single idea (examples given include William Shakespeare: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy". Hamlet 1.5 167–168).


title: Isaiah Berlin

text: Berlin promoted the notion of "positive liberty" in the sense of an intrinsic link between positive freedom and participatory, Athenian-style, democracy. There is a contrast with "negative liberty." Liberals in the English-speaking tradition call for negative liberty, meaning a realm of private autonomy from which the state is legally excluded. In contrast French liberals ever since the French Revolution more often promote "positive liberty"that is, liberty insofar as it is tethered to collectively defined ends. They praise the state as an essential tool to emancipate the people.


title: Isaiah Berlin

text: Berlin's lecture "Historical Inevitability" (1954) focused on a controversy in the philosophy of history. Given the choice, whether one believes that "the lives of entire peoples and societies have been decisively influenced by exceptional individuals" or, conversely, that whatever happens occurs as a result of impersonal forces oblivious to human intentions, Berlin rejected both options and the choice itself as nonsensical. Berlin is also well known for his writings on Russian intellectual history, most of which are collected in "Russian Thinkers" (1978; 2nd ed. 2008) and edited, as most of Berlin's work, by Henry Hardy (in the case of this volume, jointly with Aileen Kelly). Berlin also contributed a number of essays on leading intellectuals and political figures of his time, including Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Chaim Weizmann. Eighteen of these character sketches were published together as "Personal Impressions" (1980; 2nd ed., with four additional essays, 1998; 3rd ed., with a further ten essays, 2014).


title: Isaiah Berlin

text: A number of commemorative events for Isaiah Berlin are held at Oxford University, as well as scholarships given out in his name, including the Wolfson Isaiah Berlin Clarendon Scholarship, The Isaiah Berlin Visiting Professorship, and the annual Isaiah Berlin Lectures. The Berlin Quadrangle of Wolfson College, Oxford, is named after him. The Isaiah Berlin Association of Latvia was founded in 2011 to promote the ideas and values of Sir Isaiah Berlin, in particular by organising an annual Isaiah Berlin day and lectures in his memory. At the British Academy, the Isaiah Berlin lecture series has been held since 2001. Many volumes from Berlin's personal library were donated to Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beer Sheva and form part of the Aranne Library collection. The Isaiah Berlin Room, on the third floor of the library, is a replica of his study at the University of Oxford. There is also the Isaiah Berlin Society which takes place at his alma mater of St Paul's School. The society invites world famous academics to share their research into the answers to life's great concerns and to respond to students' questions. In the last few years they have hosted: A.C. Grayling, Brad Hooker, Jonathan Dancy, John Cottingham, Tim Crane, Arif Ahmed, Hugh Mellor and David Papineau.


title: Isaiah Berlin

text: Apart from "Unfinished Dialogue", all books/editions listed from 1978 onwards are edited (or, where stated, co-edited) by Henry Hardy, and all but "Karl Marx" are compilations or transcripts of lectures, essays, and letters. Details given are of first and latest UK editions, and current US editions. Most titles are also available as e-books. The twelve titles marked with a '+' are available in the US market in revised editions from Princeton University Press, with additional material by Berlin, and (except in the case of "Karl Marx") new forewords by contemporary authors; the 5th edition of "Karl Marx" is also available in the UK.


title: Secret in Their Eyes

text: Secret in Their Eyes is a 2015 American thriller film written and directed by Billy Ray and a remake of the 2009 Argentine film of the same name, both based on the novel "La pregunta de sus ojos" by Eduardo Sacheri. The film stars Chiwetel Ejiofor, Nicole Kidman and Julia Roberts, with Dean Norris, Michael Kelly, Joe Cole and Alfred Molina in supporting roles.


title: Secret in Their Eyes

text: The film was released by STXfilms on November 20, 2015. It received mixed reception from critics, who praised its performances but compared it unfavorably to the original.


title: Secret in Their Eyes

text: In 2002, shortly after 9/11, Ray Kasten, a counterterrorism agent for the FBI, and his friend Jessica "Jess" Cobb, an investigator for the Los Angeles district attorney's office, meet new ADA Claire Sloan. Jess and Ray receive a call about an unknown female body found in a dumpster near a local mosque, which Ray has been investigating for possible terrorist links. At the crime scene, both are devastated to discover that the victim is Jess's 18-year-old daughter, Carolyn, whose body has been bleached inside and out to destroy DNA evidence of both rape and murder.


title: Secret in Their Eyes

text: Ray, who was supposed to meet Carolyn to plan a surprise party for Jess, feels responsible for what happened to her, while Jess feels the increasing need to move out of the city. While helping Jess pack, Ray notices pictures from a picnic thrown for law enforcement in which a young man is seen staring at Carolyn. Ray scans the photo and matches it to Anzor Marzin, who is an informant in the terrorism probe. DA Martin Morales is reluctant to go after Marzin, fearing it would compromise the terrorism investigation. Officer Reggie Siefert brings in a suspect named Aban Ghazala, who Ray realizes is not the killer.


title: Secret in Their Eyes

text: Ray forces Siefert to admit that he set up Ghazala as a patsy to protect Marzin. Ray and Detective Bumpy Willis track down and arrest Marzin at Dodger Stadium. Claire argues with Ray over his methods while seemingly defending Marzin, saying he wasn't capable of the crime. Claire taunts Marzin, provoking him to expose himself and punch her, saying he's going to give Claire what Carolyn got. Ray beats Marzin, which leads to Morales ordering Marzin released. As Marzin gloats, an enraged Ray suggests they kill him before he gets away, but Jess refuses to go that route, saying death would be too easy on him. After his release, the police find Marzin's van, but Siefert burns it to destroy the evidence against Marzin.


title: Secret in Their Eyes

text: Thirteen years later, Ray, now head of security for the New York Mets, returns to Los Angeles and reunites with Claire, now the DA, while Jess, who has been asocial since the loss of her daughter, is Claire's top investigator. Ray has found a man named Clay Beckwith, who he believes is Marzin living under an alias. The investigation eventually leads to a shootout with Beckwith in which Siefert is killed. Beckwith and his men are arrested, but Jess insists that Beckwith is not Marzin.


title: Secret in Their Eyes

text: When Ray and Claire pay a visit to Jess's isolated farmhouse, she confesses that she found and killed Marzin thirteen years previously, shortly after Ray left Los Angeles. Later, Ray follows Jess into her barn and discovers that Marzin is actually alive, having been imprisoned in a cage for over a decade. Marzin begs Ray to ask Jess to talk to him. Ray pulls out his gun and leaves it with Jess as he goes outside and starts digging a grave. Ray hears Jess shooting Marzin. The two meet each other with a sense of relief while Claire officially closes Carolyn's case.


title: Secret in Their Eyes

text: On January 20, 2015, STX Entertainment acquired the US rights to the film. STX also produced the film.


title: Secret in Their Eyes

text: Principal photography began on January 26, 2015, in Los Angeles. On January 27, filming took place at the Santa Anita Park.


title: Secret in Their Eyes

text: STX had initially scheduled the film for release on October 23, 2015, but in July 2015, the film was moved back to its eventual November 20, 2015 release date.


title: Secret in Their Eyes

text: "Secret in Their Eyes" grossed $20.2 million in North America and $12 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $32.2 million, against a budget of $19.5 million.


title: Secret in Their Eyes

text: In North America, the film opened alongside "" and "The Night Before" on November 20, 2015. In its opening weekend, it was projected to gross $7–9 million from 2,392 theaters. The film made $170,000 from its early Thursday night screenings and $2.3 million on its first day. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $6.7 million, finishing fifth at the box office.


title: Secret in Their Eyes

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The site's critical consensus reads, ""Secret in Their Eyes" wastes its incredible cast on a remake that fails to improve upon—or even make a compelling case for its own existence in addition to—the remarkable original." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 45 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". On CinemaScore, audiences gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Secret in Their Eyes

text: Writer Manuel Betancour of Remezcla said the film "offers a textbook example of what often gets lost in translation when foreign films are remade for American audiences."


title: Lorenzo Pellegrini

text: Lorenzo Pellegrini (; born 19 June 1996) is an Italian professional footballer who plays as a midfielder and is captain for club Roma. He represents the Italian national team.


title: Lorenzo Pellegrini

text: Pellegrini is an academy graduate of Roma, having joined the club in 2007, and made his senior debut in 2015. He departed for Sassuolo later that year where he made over 50 appearances across all competitions before returning to Roma in July 2017.


title: Lorenzo Pellegrini

text: Born in Rome, Pellegrini, who had suffered from arrhythmia as a youngster, joined the youth academy of local side Roma at the age of nine. Having previously represented the club in the UEFA Youth League, he was handed his senior debut at the age of 18 by manager Rudi Garcia on 22 March 2015, coming on as a second-half substitute for Salih Uçan in a 1–0 Serie A win over Cesena.


title: Lorenzo Pellegrini

text: On 30 June 2015, Pellegrini signed for fellow Serie A side Sassuolo for a fee of €1.25 million. In terms of the transfer agreement, Roma retained a buy-back-clause which afforded the club the opportunity to re-purchase Pellegrini at a future stage. He made his debut for the club on 8 November 2015, starting in a 1–0 league win over Carpi, and scored his first goal the following month when he netted in a 3–0 win over Sampdoria. He ultimately made 20 appearances for the season, including one in the Coppa Italia, and scored three goals. During the 2016–17 season, Pellegrini became the youngest player to have a hand in 10 goals in a single Serie A campaign, having registered six goals and four assists by 10 April 2017. He made 34 appearances across all competitions for the campaign, scoring eight goals registering seven assists, before re-signing for Roma at the end of the season.


title: Lorenzo Pellegrini

text: On 30 June 2017, Roma exercised the buy back clause of €10 million, which was included in Pellegrini's transfer agreement with Sassuolo, to bring him back to Rome on a five-year deal. On the same day Roma youth product Federico Ricci joined Sassuolo outright, for a €3 million fee. Pellegrini scored his first-ever goal for the club on 1 December 2017, netting Roma's third goal in a 3–1 league win over SPAL.


title: Lorenzo Pellegrini

text: Pellegrini has represented Italy at various youth levels. He made his debut for the U19 side against Germany in March 2014. He then enjoyed a brief spell with the U20's in 2015 before making his U21 debut against France on 2 June the following year.


title: Lorenzo Pellegrini

text: He made his first appearance for the senior side in an 8–0 victory over San Marino in an unofficial friendly match on 31 May 2017, coming on as a half time substitute for Daniele Baselli. His official debut followed on 11 June when he appeared in Italy's 5–0 home win over Liechtenstein in a 2018 World Cup qualifier.


title: Lorenzo Pellegrini

text: Later that month, he was included in the Italy under-21 squad for the 2017 UEFA European Under-21 Championship by manager Luigi Di Biagio. On 18 June, he scored the nation's first goal at the tournament, netting from a bicycle kick in a 2–0 win over Denmark. Italy were eliminated in the semi-finals following a 3–1 defeat to Spain on 27 June; during the match, Pellegrini assisted Federico Bernardeschi's temporary equaliser.


title: Lorenzo Pellegrini

text: Two years after his promotion in the senior team, he was called back in the U21 squad for the 2019 UEFA European Under-21 Championship on home soil.


title: Lorenzo Pellegrini

text: Pellegrini scored his first goal with the Italy senior side on 5 September 2019, in a 3–1 away win over Armenia in a Euro 2020 qualifier.


title: Lorenzo Pellegrini

text: In June 2021, he was included in Italy's squad for UEFA Euro 2020 by manager Roberto Mancini. However, an injury later ruled him out of the final tournament, and Gaetano Castrovilli was called up in his place.


title: Lorenzo Pellegrini

text: On 6 October, Pellegrini scored in a 2–1 home defeat to Spain in the semi-finals of the 2021 UEFA Nations League Finals.


title: Lorenzo Pellegrini

text: Regarded as a promising young player, from a tactical standpoint, Pellegrini's natural role is that of a central midfielder, who can be deployed in any position in a three-man midfield, although he is also capable of playing as an attacking midfielder and as a defensive midfielder. A tall, physically strong, yet agile, dynamic, energetic, and hard-working midfielder, his main characteristics are his stamina, ball control, movement, flair, and ability to make attacking runs into the penalty area from behind, as well as his eye for goal, and his striking ability from distance with either foot, despite being naturally right-footed. A former central defender in his youth, he is also an effective ball-winner, which enables him to break down possession, while his vision and technical skills allow him subsequently to carry or distribute the ball and provide assists for his teammates. His wide range of skills thus enable him to contribute at both ends of the pitch, and make him effective in linking both the defensive and offensive aspects of the game in a box-to-box role.


title: Emil Maurice

text: Emil Maurice (; 19 January 1897 – 6 February 1972) was an early member of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi Party) and a founding member of the "Schutzstaffel" (SS). He was Hitler's first personal chauffeur, and was one of the few persons of mixed Jewish and ethnic German ancestry to serve in the SS, being declared an honorary Aryan by Adolf Hitler in 1935.


title: Emil Maurice

text: A watchmaker by trade, Maurice was a close early associate of Adolf Hitler; their personal friendship dated back to 1919 when they were both members of the German Workers Party (DAP). Maurice officially joined the DAP on 1 December 1919 and his party number was 594 (the count began at 501). With the founding of the "Sturmabteilung" in 1920, Maurice became the first "Oberster SA-Führer" (Supreme SA Leader). Maurice led the SA stormtroopers in fights that were known to break out with other groups during those early days. Hitler later in his book "Mein Kampf" mentions one fight in particular from November 1921 where Maurice was at the forefront of the SA unit during the fighting.


title: Emil Maurice

text: In July 1921, Maurice became a personal chauffeur for Adolf Hitler. In March 1923, Maurice also became a member of the "Stabswache" (Staff Guard), a small separate bodyguard dedicated to Hitler's service rather than "a suspect mass" of the party, such as the SA. It was given the task of guarding Hitler at Nazi parties and rallies. In May 1923, the unit was renamed "Stoßtrupp" (Shock Troop) 'Adolf Hitler'. Maurice, Julius Schreck, Joseph Berchtold, and Erhard Heiden, were all members of the "Stoßtrupp". On 9 November 1923, the "Stoßtrupp", along with the SA and several other paramilitary units, took part in the abortive Beer Hall Putsch in Munich. In the aftermath of the putsch, Hitler, Rudolf Hess, Maurice and other Nazi leaders were incarcerated at Landsberg Prison. The Nazi Party and all associated formations, including the "Stoßtrupp", were officially disbanded.


title: Emil Maurice

text: After Hitler's release from prison, the Nazi Party was officially refounded. In 1925, Hitler ordered the formation of a new bodyguard unit, the "Schutzkommando" (protection command). It was formed by Julius Schreck and included old "Stoßtrupp" members, Maurice and Heiden. That same year, the "Schutzkommando" was expanded to a national level. It was renamed successively the "Sturmstaffel" (storm squadron), and finally on 9 November the "Schutzstaffel" (SS). Hitler became SS member No. 1 and Emil Maurice became SS member No. 2. At that time, Maurice became an SS-"Führer" in the new organization, although the leadership of the SS was assumed by Schreck, the first "Reichsführer-SS". Maurice became Hitler's permanent chauffeur in 1925. Later when Maurice informed Hitler in December 1927 that he was having a relationship with Hitler's half-niece Geli Raubal, Hitler forced an end to the affair. Maurice was dismissed from Hitler's personal service in 1928, but allowed to remain a member of the SS. As chauffeur, he was succeeded first by Julius Schreck and then Erich Kempka.


title: Emil Maurice

text: When the SS was reorganized and expanded in 1932, Maurice became a senior SS officer and would eventually be promoted to the rank SS-"Oberführer". While Maurice never became a top commander of the SS, his status as SS member #2 effectively credited him as an actual founder of the organization. Heinrich Himmler, who ultimately would become the most recognized leader of the SS, was SS member #168.


title: Emil Maurice

text: After Himmler had become "Reichsführer-SS", Maurice fell afoul of Himmler's racial purity rules for SS officers when he had to submit details of his family history before he was allowed to marry in 1935. Himmler stated, "without question...Maurice is, according to his ancestral table, not of Aryan descent". All SS officers had to prove racial purity back to 1750, and it turned out that Maurice had Jewish ancestry: Charles Maurice Schwartzenberger ( 1805–1896), the founder of the Thalia Theater in Hamburg, was his great-grandfather.


title: Emil Maurice

text: Even though Maurice had been a party member since 1919, taken part in the abortive Beer Hall Putsch, for which he was awarded the prestigious Blood Order, and been a bodyguard for Hitler, Himmler considered him to be a serious security risk given his "Jewish ancestry". Himmler recommended that Maurice be expelled from the SS, along with other members of his family. To Himmler's annoyance, Hitler stood by his old friend. In a secret letter written on 31 August 1935, Hitler compelled Himmler to make an exception for Maurice and his brothers, who were informally declared "Honorary Aryans" and allowed to stay in the SS.


title: Emil Maurice

text: Maurice became engaged on 31 March 1935 to the medical student – later doctor – Hedwig Maria Anna Ploetz, the daughter of Colonel Rudolf Ploetz. They married on 5 November 1935 in Munich. In 1936, he became a Reichstag deputy for Leipzig and from 1937 was the chairman of the Munich Chamber of Commerce. From 1940 to 1942, he served in the "Luftwaffe" as an officer. After the war, in 1948, he was sentenced to four years in a labour camp and had 30% of his assets confiscated. In 1951, he owned a watch shop in Munich. He died on 6 February 1972 in Germany.


title: Bill Haley

text: William John Clifton Haley (; July 6, 1925 – February 9, 1981) was an American rock and roll musician. He is credited by many with first popularizing this form of music in the early 1950s with his group Bill Haley & His Comets and million-selling hits such as "Rock Around the Clock", "See You Later, Alligator", "Shake, Rattle and Roll", "Rocket 88", "Skinny Minnie", and "Razzle Dazzle". Haley has sold over 60 million records worldwide. In 1987, he was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.


title: Bill Haley

text: Haley was born July 6, 1925 in Highland Park, Michigan. In 1929, the four-year-old Haley underwent an inner-ear mastoid operation which accidentally severed an optic nerve, leaving him blind in his left eye for the rest of his life. It is said that he adopted his trademark kiss curl over his right eye to draw attention from his left, but it also became his "gimmick", and added to his popularity. As a result of the effects of the Great Depression on the Detroit area, his father moved the family to Bethel Township, Pennsylvania, when Bill was seven years old. Haley's father William Albert Haley (1900–1956) was from Kentucky and played the banjo and mandolin, and his mother, Maude Green (1895–1955), who was originally from Ulverston in Lancashire, England, was a technically accomplished keyboardist with classical training. Haley told the story that when he made a simulated guitar out of cardboard, his parents bought him a real one.


title: Bill Haley

text: One of his first appearances was in 1938 for a Bethel Junior baseball team entertainment event, performing guitar and songs when he was 13 years old.


title: Bill Haley

text: The anonymous sleeve notes accompanying the 1956 Decca album "Rock Around the Clock" describe Haley's early life and career: "When Bill Haley was fifteen [c. 1940] he left home with his guitar and very little else and set out on the hard road to fame and fortune. The next few years, continuing this story in a fairy-tale manner, were hard and poverty-stricken, but crammed full of useful experience. Apart from learning how to exist on one meal a day and other artistic exercises, he worked at an open-air park show, sang and yodelled with any band that would have him, and worked with a traveling medicine show. Eventually he got a job with a popular group known as the 'Down Homers' while they were in Hartford, Connecticut. Soon after this he decided, as all successful people must decide at some time or another, to be his own boss again – and he has been that ever since." These notes fail to account for his early band, known as the Four Aces of Western Swing. During the 1940s Haley was considered one of the top cowboy yodelers in America as "Silver Yodeling Bill Haley". One source states that Haley started his career as "The Rambling Yodeler" in a country band, The Saddlemen.


title: Bill Haley

text: The sleeve notes conclude: "For six years Bill Haley was a musical director of Radio Station WPWA in Chester, Pennsylvania, and led his own band all through this period. It was then known as Bill Haley's Saddlemen, indicating their definite leaning toward the tough Western style. They continued playing in clubs as well as over the radio around Philadelphia, and in 1951 made their first recordings on Ed Wilson's Keystone Records in Philadelphia." The group subsequently signed with Dave Miller's Holiday Records and, on June 14, 1951 the Saddlemen recorded a cover of the Delta Cats "Rocket 88".


title: Bill Haley

text: During the Labor Day weekend in 1952, the Saddlemen were renamed Bill Haley with Haley's Comets. The name was inspired by the supposedly official pronunciation of Halley's Comet and was suggested by Bob Johnson, program director at radio station WPWA where Bill Haley had a live radio program from noon to 1 pm. In 1953, Haley's recording of "Crazy Man, Crazy" (co-written by Haley and his bass player, Marshall Lytle, although Lytle would not receive credit until 2001) became the first rock and roll song to hit the American charts, peaking at number 15 on "Billboard" and number 11 on "Cash Box". Soon after, the band's name was revised to "Bill Haley & His Comets".


title: Bill Haley

text: In 1954, Haley recorded "Rock Around the Clock". Initially, it was relatively successful, peaking at number 23 on the "Billboard" pop singles chart and staying on the charts for a few weeks. On re-release, the record reached #1 on July 9, 1955.


title: Bill Haley

text: Haley soon had another worldwide hit with "Shake, Rattle and Roll", another rhythm and blues cover in this case from Big Joe Turner, which went on to sell a million copies and was the first rock 'n' roll song to enter the British singles charts in December 1954, becoming a gold record. He retained elements of the original (which was slow blues), but sped it up with some country music aspects into the song (specifically, Western swing) and changed up the lyrics. Haley and his band were important in launching the music known as "Rock and Roll" to a wider audience after a period of it being considered an underground genre.


title: Bill Haley

text: When "Rock Around the Clock" appeared as the theme song of the 1955 film "Blackboard Jungle" starring Glenn Ford, it soared to the top of the American "Billboard" chart for eight weeks. The single is commonly used as a convenient line of demarcation between the "rock era" and the music industry that preceded it. "Billboard" separated its statistical tabulations into 1890–1954 and 1955–present. After the record rose to number one, Haley became widely popular by those who had come to embrace the new style of music. With the song's success, the age of rock music began overnight and ended the dominance of the jazz and pop standards performed by Frank Sinatra, Jo Stafford, Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Eddie Fisher, Patti Page and Elvis Presley (whose rendition of the song is now lost).


title: Bill Haley

text: "Rock Around the Clock" was the first record to sell over one million copies in both Britain and Germany. Later on in 1957, Haley became the first major American rock singer to tour Europe. Haley continued to score hits throughout the 1950s such as "See You Later, Alligator" and he starred in the first rock and roll musical films "Rock Around the Clock" and "Don't Knock the Rock", both in 1956. Haley was already 30 years old, and he was soon eclipsed in the United States by the younger, sexier Elvis Presley, but continued to enjoy great popularity in Latin America, Europe, and Australia during the 1960s.


title: Bill Haley

text: Bill Haley and the Comets performed "Rock Around the Clock" on the "Texaco Star Theater" hosted by Milton Berle on Tuesday, May 31, 1955, on NBC in an" a cappella" and lip-synched version. Berle predicted that the song would go number one: "A group of entertainers who are going right to the top." Berle also sang and danced to the song which was performed by the entire cast of the show. This was one of the earliest nationally televised performances by a rock and roll band and provided the new musical genre with a much wider audience.


title: Bill Haley

text: Bill Haley and the Comets were the first rock and roll act to appear on the iconic American musical variety series the "Ed Sullivan Show" on Sunday, August 7, 1955, on CBS in a broadcast that originated from the Shakespeare Festival Theater in Hartford, Connecticut. They performed a live version of "Rock Around the Clock" with Franny Beecher on lead guitar and Dick Richards on drums. The band made their second appearance on the show on Sunday, April 28, 1957, performing the songs "Rudy's Rock" and "Forty Cups of Coffee".


title: Bill Haley

text: Bill Haley and the Comets appeared on "American Bandstand" hosted by Dick Clark on ABC twice in 1957, on the prime time show October 28, 1957, and on the regular daytime show on November 27, 1957. The band also appeared on Dick Clark's "Saturday Night Beechnut Show", also known as "The Dick Clark Show", a primetime TV series from New York on March 22, 1958, during the first season and on February 20, 1960, performing "Rock Around the Clock", "Shake, Rattle and Roll", and "Tamiami". In 2017 Haley was inducted into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame.


title: Bill Haley

text: Haley had at least ten children. John W. Haley, his eldest son, wrote "Sound and Glory", a biography of Haley. His youngest daughter, Gina Haley, is a professional musician based in Texas. Scott Haley is an athlete. His youngest son Pedro is also a musician.


title: Bill Haley

text: Bill Haley Jr., Haley's second son and first with Joan Barbara "Cuppy" Haley-Hahn, publishes a regional business magazine. In February, 2011, he formed a tribute band, performing his father's music and telling the stories behind the songs.


title: Bill Haley

text: An admitted alcoholic, Haley fought a battle with alcohol into the 1970s. Nonetheless, he and his band continued to be a popular touring act, benefiting from a 1950s nostalgia movement that began in the late 1960s and the signing of a lucrative record deal with the European Sonet label. After performing for Queen Elizabeth II at the Royal Variety Performance on November 26, 1979, Haley made his final performances in South Africa in May and June 1980. Before the South African tour, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Subsequently, Haley's planned tour of Germany in the autumn of 1980 had to be cancelled.


title: Bill Haley

text: Despite his illness, Haley started compiling notes for possible use as a basis for either a biographical film based on his life, or a published autobiography (accounts differ), and there were plans for him to record an album in Memphis, Tennessee, when the brain tumor began affecting his behavior and he returned to his home in Harlingen, Texas.


title: Bill Haley

text: The October 25, 1980, issue of German tabloid "Bild" reported that Haley had a brain tumor. Haley's British manager, Patrick Malynn, was quoted as saying that "Haley had taken a fit [and] didn't recognize anyone anymore." Haley was immediately taken to his home in Beverly Hills. In addition, Haley's doctor said that the tumor was inoperable. The "Berliner Zeitung" reported a few days later that Haley had collapsed after a performance in Texas and was taken to the hospital in his hometown of Harlingen. However, this account is questionable, as Bill Haley did not perform in the United States at all in 1980.


title: Bill Haley

text: Haley's widow Martha, who was with him in these troubling times, denied he had a brain tumor as did his old and very close friend Hugh McCallum. Martha and friends related that Haley did not want to go on the road anymore and that ticket sales for that planned tour of Germany in the fall of 1980 were slow. McCallum said, "It's my unproven gut feeling that that [the brain tumor] was said to curtail talks about the tour and play the sympathy card."


title: Bill Haley

text: At the same time, Haley's drinking problem appeared to be getting worse. According to Martha, by this time, she and Bill fought all the time and she told him to stop drinking or move out. Eventually, he moved out into a room in their pool house. Martha still took care of him and sometimes, he would come in the house to eat, but he ate very little. "There were days we never saw him," said his daughter Martha Maria.


title: Bill Haley

text: In addition to Haley's drinking problems, he was also developing serious mental health issues. Martha Maria said, "It was like sometimes he was drunk even when he wasn't drinking." After being picked up by the Harlingen Police several times for alleged intoxication, Martha had a judge put Haley in the hospital, where he was seen by a psychiatrist, who said Bill's brain was overproducing a chemical, like adrenaline. The doctor prescribed a medication to stop the overproduction, but said Bill would have to stop drinking. Martha said, "This is pointless." She took him home, however, fed him and gave him his first dose. As soon as he felt better, he went back out to his room in the pool house, and the downward spiral continued until his passing.


title: Bill Haley

text: Media reports immediately following his death indicated that Haley displayed deranged and erratic behavior in his final weeks. According to a biography of Haley by John Swenson, released in 1982, Haley made a succession of bizarre, mostly monologue late-night phone calls to friends and relatives toward the end of his life in which he was semi-coherent, his first wife has been quoted as saying, "He would call you and ramble, dwelling on the past ...". The biography also describes Haley painting the windows of his home black, but there is little other information available about his final days.


title: Bill Haley

text: Haley died at his home in Harlingen on February 9, 1981, aged 55. He was discovered lying motionless on his bed by a friend who had stopped by to visit him. The friend immediately called the police and Haley was pronounced dead at the scene. Haley's death certificate gave "natural causes, most likely a heart attack" as being the cause. Following a small funeral service attended by 75 people, Haley was cremated in Brownsville, Texas.


title: Bill Haley

text: Haley was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. His son Pedro represented him at the ceremony. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6350 Hollywood Boulevard on February 8, 1960, for his contributions to the music industry. The Comets were separately inducted into the Hall of Fame as a group in 2012, after a rule change allowed the induction of backing groups.


title: Bill Haley

text: Songwriters Tom Russell and Dave Alvin addressed Haley's demise in musical terms with "Haley's Comet" on Alvin's 1991 album "Blue Blvd." Dwight Yoakam sang backup on the tribute.


title: Bill Haley

text: Surviving members of the 1954–55 contingent of Haley's Comets reunited in the late 1980s and continued to perform for many years around the world. They released a concert DVD in 2004 on Hydra Records, played the Viper Room in West Hollywood in 2005, and performed at Dick Clark's American Bandstand Theater in Branson, Missouri, beginning in 2006–07. As of 2014, only two members of this particular contingent were still alive (Joey Ambrose and Dick Richards), but they continued to perform in Branson and Europe. In 2019, Dick Richards, the drummer of the Comets, died at the age of 95. At least two other groups also continue to perform in North America under the Comets name as of 2014.


title: Bill Haley

text: In March 2007, the Original Comets opened the Bill Haley Museum in Munich, Germany. On October 27, 2007, ex-Comets guitar player Bill Turner opened the Bill Haley Museum for the public.


title: Bill Haley

text: In February 2006, the International Astronomical Union announced the naming of asteroid 79896 Billhaley to mark the 25th anniversary of Haley's death.


title: Bill Haley

text: Unlike his contemporaries, Bill Haley has rarely been portrayed on screen. Following the success of "The Buddy Holly Story" in 1978, Haley expressed interest in having his life story committed to film, but this never came to fruition. In the 1980s and early 1990s, numerous media reports emerged stating that plans were underway to do a biopic based upon Haley's life, with Beau Bridges, Jeff Bridges and John Ritter all at one point being mentioned as actors in line to play Haley (according to "Goldmine Magazine", Ritter attempted to buy the film rights to "Sound and Glory").


title: Bill Haley

text: Before the formation of Bill Haley and the Saddlemen, which later became the Comets, Haley released several singles with other groups. Dates are approximate due to lack of documentation.


title: Bill Haley

text: Many Haley discographies list two 1946 recordings by the Down Homers released on the Vogue Records label as featuring Haley. Haley historian Chris Gardner, as well as surviving members of the group, have confirmed that the two singles: "Out Where the West Winds Blow"/"Who's Gonna Kiss You When I'm Gone" (Vogue R736) and "Boogie Woogie Yodel"/"Baby I Found Out All About You" (Vogue R786) do not feature Haley. However, the tracks were nonetheless included in the compilation box set "Rock 'n' Roll Arrives" released by Bear Family Records in 2006.


title: Bill Haley

text: Bill Haley's compositions included "Four Leaf Clover Blues" in 1948, "Rose of My Heart", "Yodel Your Blues Away", "Crazy Man, Crazy", "What'Cha Gonna Do", "Fractured", "Live It Up", "Farewell, So Long, Goodbye", "Real Rock Drive", "Rocking Chair on the Moon", "Sundown Boogie", "Green Tree Boogie", "Tearstains on My Heart", "Down Deep in My Heart", "Straight Jacket", "Birth of the Boogie", "Two Hound Dogs", "Rock-A-Beatin' Boogie", "Hot Dog Buddy Buddy", "R-O-C-K", "Rudy's Rock", "Calling All Comets", "Tonight's the Night", "Hook, Line and Sinker", "Sway with Me", "Paper Boy (On Main Street U.S.A.)", "Skinny Minnie", "B.B. Betty", "Eloise", "Whoa Mabel!", "Vive le Rock and Roll", "I've Got News For You", "So Right Tonight", "Jamaica D.J.", "Ana Maria", "Yucatán Twist", "Football Rock and Roll", "Let the Good Times Roll Again" in 1979, and "Chick Safari" in 1960.


title: Bill Haley

text: He also wrote or co-wrote songs for other artists such as "I've Got News for You" for Penny Smith in 1955 on Kahill, "Calypso Rock" for Dave Day and The Red Coats on Kapp in 1956, "Half Your Heart" with Robert J. Hayes for Kitty Nation in 1956 on Wing, "I Oughta" and "Everything But You" for Dotti Malone in 1956 also on Wing, "A.B.C. Rock" and "Rocky the Rockin' Rabbit" (among others) for Sally Starr for an album she released on Haley's own label, Clymax Records, "A Sweet Bunch of Roses" for Country and Western singer Lou Graham, "Toodle-Oo-Bamboo" for Ray Coleman and His Skyrockets on Skyrocket Records in 1959, "Always Together" for the Cook Brothers on Arcade in 1960, "Crazy Street" for The Matys Brothers on Coral Records, "The Cat" for Cappy Bianco, and "(Ya Gotta) Sing For the Ladies" and "Butterfly Love" for Ginger Shannon and Johnny Montana in 1960 on Arcade as well as "I'm Shook" and "Broke Down Baby", both of which were recorded by The Tyrones in 1958–59.


title: Bill Haley

text: In 1982, Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings at least 25 years old and with "qualitative or historical significance".


title: Cutting Crew

text: Cutting Crew are an English rock band formed in London in 1985. They are best known for their debut album "Broadcast" and hit single, "(I Just) Died in Your Arms".


title: Cutting Crew

text: While still in his teens, Nick Van Eede (born Nicholas Eede) recorded a few UK solo singles in the late 1970s, and later was in the band The Drivers, which found success in Canada, particularly with their 1982 single "Tears On Your Anorak". While touring Canada, The Drivers had a support band called Fast Forward, whose line up included guitarist Kevin MacMichael. Van Eede was so impressed with MacMichael's guitar playing that he asked him to form a new band with him. The Drivers split in 1983, but Van Eede and MacMichael joined forces in 1985 by relocating to London, England. Initially, the two made demos that led to a recording contract, before bassist Colin Farley and drummer Martin "Frosty" Beedle joined in 1986.


title: Cutting Crew

text: Their first album, "Broadcast", was released on Virgin Records in 1986. The song "(I Just) Died in Your Arms" was mixed in London at Utopia Studios by Tim Palmer. Although Virgin Records was already a major label in the UK, their debut song, "(I Just) Died in Your Arms", provided the first US hit for Virgin as a full-fledged label. This song release quickly helped the band gain popularity. Virgin flew the band to New York City for initial recordings of the album, then to Australia to shoot music videos. The unknown band shot to No. 1 in the major US market, as well as smaller markets such as Canada and Norway, with their debut single. Their most popular single, it was a multiformat success in the US, where it also reached number four on the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, No. 24 on the Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart and—in an extended remix version—No. 37 on the Hot Dance/Club Play chart. The song peaked at No. 4 in another major market, the UK Singles Chart, as well as becoming a hit in the smaller Switzerland and South Africa markets. It went to No. 2 in Sweden and Ireland, and No. 9 in Austria. Keyboardist Tony Moore joined in 1986 and was a touring member of the band through 1988.


title: Cutting Crew

text: The choice for follow-up single in the UK had been "I've Been In Love Before", but that song spent only three weeks in the UK Top 40, peaking at No. 31. Their choice for follow-up single in the US was their third UK release, "One for the Mockingbird", but the song was a relative commercial disappointment on both sides of the Atlantic, just cracking the Top 40 of the Hot 100 at No. 38 and hitting No. 29 on the Mainstream Rock chart in the US, No. 47 in Canada and No. 52 in the UK Singles Chart.


title: Cutting Crew

text: The band took a chance on "I've Been in Love Before" again, this time with greater success. The song became Cutting Crew's second US Top 10 on the Hot 100, peaking at No. 9, and was their first major hit on the US Adult Contemporary chart, where it peaked at No. 2. This success prompted a UK re-release, and this time it spent five weeks in the UK Singles Chart Top 40, peaking at No. 24. The song failed to chart throughout most of Europe, but it peaked at No. 8 in Canada. Despite an unflattering review by "Rolling Stone" magazine, Cutting Crew received a Grammy nomination as the Best New Artist of 1987.


title: Cutting Crew

text: Disputes with management led to a long recording hiatus, which stalled the band's career momentum. Cutting Crew's second album, "The Scattering", was finally released in early 1989. Its lead single, "(Between a) Rock and a Hard Place", (CA 54, UK 66, U.S. 77) failed to reach the Top 40. Van Eede's vocal style, however, did score a sizeable US Adult Contemporary hit with "Everything But My Pride." That song peaked at No. 4 and stayed in the top 50 for 22 weeks. It climbed to No. 72 on the Canadian pop charts, though it failed to hit the US Hot 100. The prophetically named "The Last Thing" scaled the AC charts as high as No. 17 in early 1990 and went to No. 90 on the Canadian chart, and has been their final chart hit to date. Although a video for the title track did air briefly in the UK and North America, "The Scattering" failed to chart.


title: Cutting Crew

text: Recorded at The Mill Studios in Cookham, Berkshire on the Thames and produced by Chris Neil. Farley and Beedle left the group in 1991 with no replacement, leaving only Eede and MacMichael in the group. Eede sang and played keys and MacMichael played all guitars (lead and bass). Standout tracks are "Frigid as England" written by Jeff Lowe, the plaintive "Sweet Auburn" and the darkly comic, "Don't Let It Bring You Down."


title: Cutting Crew

text: The album spawned one single, "If That's The Way You Want It." Neither the single nor the album itself charted. Within weeks of its release, Virgin Records was bought by EMI and the album became obsolete.


title: Cutting Crew

text: The band broke up in 1993; shortly after the release of their "Compus Mentus" album. After the break-up, MacMichael joined forces with Robert Plant and played on his "Fate of Nations" album. On 31 December 2002, MacMichael died of lung cancer at the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia, at the age of 51.


title: Cutting Crew

text: In 2003, Van Eede formed the group Grinning Souls. This group independently released the album "Capture" in 2005. The following year, Van Eede took the decision to re-release the album under the title "Grinning Souls", this time crediting the work to Cutting Crew. Grinning Souls (the band) became Cutting Crew for all subsequent live work: Van Eede was the only original Cutting Crew member in the group.


title: Cutting Crew

text: The new band toured in Germany, Norway, the UK, Canada, Hungary, Switzerland and the USA with, amongst others, ABC, Berlin, Wang Chung, Supertramp, Level 42 and Midge Ure. In 2008, Cutting Crew signed a US deal with label Spectra Records.


title: Cutting Crew

text: In October 2015, Cutting Crew released their fifth studio album, "Add to Favourites", through In Red Flynn label, via Cherry Red Records. It features "Till the Money Run$ Out", which was released as the first single on 4 September 2015. The band line up included guitarists Gareth Moulton and Joolz Dunkley, bassist Nick Kay, keyboardist Jono Harrison, drummer Martyn Barker and the Blackjack Horns. The band embarked on a UK tour shortly after its release.


title: Cutting Crew

text: At the end of 2018, Cutting Crew had announced, through their social networks, they had plans to release a new album featuring "new songs and new versions of CC classics." Although they did not have any new releases for 2019, a press release made by January of the following year announced the release for their second official worldwide compilation album titled "Ransomed Healed Restored Forgiven", featuring nine songs from their past catalogue reworked as orchestral renditions, as well as other versions. Soon afterwards, the release date was announced on 27 March 2020 by Van Eede in a short video through the Cutting Crew official Facebook page. On the same day, they released the lead single for this project, an 8-track digital EP of their signature song "(I Just) Died in Your Arms", which also received a physical release, as well as a brand new video for the song uploaded on YouTube. The album was released on 24 April 2020, through August Day label, on digital platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music. But due to logistics limitations during the COVID-19 pandemic, its physical release was delayed until 8 May 2020. Along with its other formats there is a limited box edition containing 3 different CDs, as well as the physical CD edition of the reworked "(I Just) Died in Your Arms" EP, and a postcard signed by Van Eede himself. To promote the album, Van Eede spoke to several media outlets, such as "American Songwriter" and "Forbes".


title: Cutting Crew

text: This greatest hits album has since spawned two more singles, the orchestral version of the "Broadcast" single "One for the Mockingbird", and the orchestral version of "The Scattering" single "Everything But My Pride". On 5 August 2020, it was announced a vinyl limited edition, with only 300 copies pressed, would be available for purchase solely through DTC, making this the first vinyl edition of one of the band's releases since "The Scattering". After Van Eede stated he had planned to do some concerts held in England in 2021 to support the album, the band announced on 7 September 2020 they would be the opening act for Go West's upcoming tour to happen in 2021, but, after the sanitary measures regarding COVID-19 pandemic still happening, the joint tour was postponed to the first half of the following year. The Cutting Crew's setlist for this tour featured several cuts from "Ransomed". After concluding touring the UK, Cutting Crew will kick off their 35th Anniversary Tour in Germany.


title: Sue Barker

text: Susan Barker (born 19 April 1956) is an English former television presenter and former professional tennis player. During her playing career, Barker won 15 WTA Tour singles titles, including a major singles title at the 1976 French Open. She reached a career-high singles ranking of world No. 3.


title: Sue Barker

text: Barker started working for the BBC as a tennis presenter in 1993, and the following year began to present coverage of the Wimbledon tennis championships; she stepped down from this role after the 2022 Wimbledon Championships. Barker was a former presenter of "A Question of Sport".


title: Sue Barker

text: Barker was born on 19 April 1956 and raised in Paignton, Devon, and educated at a convent school. In 1966, aged 10, she was picked out as the second of two girls who were to receive tennis coaching from Arthur Roberts, who had coached Angela Mortimer to three Grand Slam titles.


title: Sue Barker

text: Roberts continued coaching her beyond the selection prize commitment, charging only £1/session to allow her development to continue. Barker's forehand was her strongest and most admired weapon throughout her career, with Roberts describing it as "especially potent".


title: Sue Barker

text: Advised as a teenager by a visiting LTA coach to change her forehand, Roberts told her not to and he later resigned from the LTA Coaches Association in protest at the advice. Roberts later entered Barker into tournaments on the continent, providing her with a one-way ticket there and telling her to "earn your ticket home". Roberts remained Barker's mentor throughout her career.


title: Sue Barker

text: Aged 16, and ranked 21st in the WTA rankings, Barker was advised by Roberts to move to the United States for her development. Signed by Mark McCormack's International Management Group (IMG) on her 17th birthday, she moved to an IMG-provided townhouse in Newport Beach, California, where her neighbours included the newly retired Rod Laver, and was coached at the John Wayne Tennis Club.


title: Sue Barker

text: In 1973 and 1974 she won the Exmouth Open at Exmouth, Devon, on both occasions against Annette Coe. In 1975, Barker won her first top-level singles title and three additional titles. Barker reached her first Grand Slam semi-final in 1975 at the Australian Open. She won the German Open in 1976, beating Renáta Tomanová of Czechoslovakia in the final 6–3, 6–1.


title: Sue Barker

text: Later in 1976, Barker had the biggest victory of her career by winning the French Open at the age of 20, again defeating Tomanová in the final. After her French Open victory against Tomanová, Barker felt that it would be the first of a number of Grand Slam titles that she would win, but she would not reach another Grand Slam final in her career.


title: Sue Barker

text: In 1977 Barker won two singles titles in San Francisco and Dallas. She beat Martina Navratilova to reach the Virginia Slims Tour Championships final, where she lost in three sets to Chris Evert. Barker reached the Australian Open semi-final for the second time in 1977 and reached the Wimbledon semi-final that year. She looked set to meet Virginia Wade in the Wimbledon final in 1977, but unexpectedly lost her semi-final against Betty Stöve of the Netherlands.


title: Sue Barker

text: Years later, Barker said that losing to Stöve was the biggest disappointment of her career and admitted that she was so upset at losing in the 1977 Wimbledon semi-final that she could not bear to watch the final, which was won by Wade.


title: Sue Barker

text: After an injury-plagued 1978 during which her ranking dropped to World No. 24, she won three singles titles and reached three other finals in 1979. She was named the tour's "Comeback Player of the Year" by her fellow professionals. Barker reached one final in 1980 and won the last singles title of her career at the Brighton International in 1981, finishing the year ranked World No. 16. She won her last doubles title in 1982 at Cincinnati and played her last professional match in 1984.


title: Sue Barker

text: Barker won 15 singles titles and 12 doubles titles, with wins over Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King, Evonne Goolagong, Tracy Austin, Virginia Wade, Maria Bueno, Rosemary Casals, Andrea Jaeger and Pam Shriver. In 2004, recalling her French Open win of 1976, Barker said "I'm still incredibly proud of what I achieved."


title: Sue Barker

text: After retiring as a tennis player, Barker became a commentator and sports reporter for Australia's Channel 7 in 1985 before anchoring tennis coverage for British Sky Broadcasting from 1990 to 1993. In 1993, Barker joined the BBC and hosted its Wimbledon coverage as a regular guest on "Today at Wimbledon" with Harry Carpenter. She took over as host of "Today at Wimbledon" in 1994, and from 2000 until 2022, she anchored the two-week-long broadcast for the network.


title: Sue Barker

text: Barker has branched out since joining the BBC, becoming one of their chief sports presenters. She was one of the presenters of "Grandstand" and the presenter of the long-running sports quiz show "A Question of Sport" ("QoS") since 1997, having succeeded David Coleman. She retired as "QoS" presenter following the BBC's decision to revamp the show, having recorded her last episode in September 2020. She was a host of the annual BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards ceremony from 1994 to 2012 before stepping down in 2013.


title: Sue Barker

text: Barker has hosted BBC Sport's coverage of the Australian Open, the French Open, Queens Club Championships, Eastbourne, the Davis Cup, the ATP World Tour Finals and Wimbledon.


title: Sue Barker

text: Other sporting events she has hosted have included the Grand National (2000–2007), the Derby (2001–2007), Racing at Ascot and Longchamp (1995–1999), Hennessy Gold Cup at Newbury, the Great North Run, World Athletics Championships and European Athletics Championships (1999–2009), BBC Sports Personality of the Year (1994–2012), Commonwealth Games (1994–2010), Summer Olympics (1996–2012) and Winter Olympics (1994–2010).


title: Sue Barker

text: Barker provided commentary for the 1998 video game "Actua Tennis", along with fellow BBC broadcaster Barry Davies.


title: Sue Barker

text: In June 1999, she co-presented coverage of Prince Edward's wedding to Sophie Rhys-Jones at Windsor alongside Michael Buerk. Barker had introduced Rhys-Jones to Queen Elizabeth II's youngest son at a charity function a few years earlier.


title: Sue Barker

text: In 2008, Barker and the BBC extended her contract to cover the London 2012 Summer Olympics. It was estimated to be worth £375,000 a year.


title: Sue Barker

text: In July 2012, the Advertising Standards Authority in the UK received over 40 complaints for a Go Compare advert featuring Barker who was shown firing a large rocket launcher at opera singer Gio Compario (Wynne Evans) in an attempt to kill off the face of the brand. A spokesperson for the ASA said: "Some people think it offensive especially at a time when children are watching. Others think it inappropriate when our security forces are coming under fire on a daily basis. As with all complaints, we are looking into the matter before deciding if we launch a full investigation."


title: Sue Barker

text: Barker was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2000 New Year Honours for services to sport and broadcasting, Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2016 New Year Honours for services to broadcasting and charity and Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2021 Birthday Honours for services to broadcasting and charity.


title: Sue Barker

text: In September 2020, it was announced that Barker would step down from her role as host of BBC game show "A Question of Sport" after 24 years; she stated that she was "sad to say goodbye". On 9 June 2022, Barker announced she would be stepping down from BBC coverage of the Wimbledon tennis championship after the 2022 finals, which she had covered since 1993.


title: Sue Barker

text: At 17 years of age, Barker passed her British driving test and immediately moved to California in the US, renting a convertible car at the airport. In 1978, she broke off an engagement with Australian tennis player Syd Ball. In an interview the following year, she said: "I realised that Syd wasn't the answer. Underneath, I wasn't happy and I certainly wasn't ready for marriage. I wasn't fair to him or myself." After her engagement was broken off, she had a brief relationship with golfer Greg Norman.


title: Sue Barker

text: In 1980, Barker was temporarily blinded in her right eye after a large dog in Spain jumped up and bit her. She lost the sight in her eye for five hours and feared that the dog attack would force her to stop playing tennis, which she said "broke her heart".


title: Sue Barker

text: In 1982, Barker met singer Cliff Richard. Their 4 month long romance attracted considerable media attention after Richard flew to Denmark to watch her play in a tennis match and they were photographed cuddling and holding hands at Wimbledon. In 1988, Richard said of his former romance with Barker: "We were closer than just friends. She's the only person with whom I've had that sort of relationship." He said that one of the things which made up his mind not to marry her was when she got upset because he hadn't told her who he was seeing that day. Richard said: "I suddenly realised that in a marriage you don't live for yourself." Richard said in 2008 that he had come close to asking her to marry him. He said: "I seriously contemplated asking her to marry me, but in the end I realised that I didn't love her quite enough to commit the rest of my life to her."


title: Sue Barker

text: In 1986 some time after Barker's romance with Richard had ended and she began a brief relationship with tennis player Stephen Shaw, Richard said that he was still a friend of Barker. He said: "We have a mutual respect for each other and that means a lot to me."


title: Sue Barker

text: In 1988, Barker married landscape gardener and former policeman Lance Tankard. They live in the Cotswolds village of Stanton, Gloucestershire, after moving from a mansion on a 26-acre estate in Godalming, Surrey.


title: Sue Barker

text: In an interview in 1999, Barker said that during her tennis career she was approached by a lesbian tennis player in the locker room and touched "in a way that didn't feel right". Barker refused to name the female tennis player involved.


title: Sue Barker

text: In September 2022, Barker featured on "Desert Island Discs"; Her favourite chosen track was "Harry Hippie" by Bobby Womack, with her choice of book and luxury item given as "All In" by Billie Jean King and some New Zealand sauvignon blanc wine respectively.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: The Syrian Arab Armed Forces () are the military forces of the Syrian Arab Republic. They consist of the Syrian Arab Army, Syrian Arab Air Force, Syrian Arab Navy, Syrian Arab Air Defense Force, and paramilitary forces, such as the National Defence Force. According to the Syrian constitution, the President of Syria is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: The military is a conscripted force; males serve in the military upon reaching the age of 18, but they are exempted from service if they do not have a brother who can take care of their parents. Since the Syrian Civil War, the enlisted members of the Syrian military have dropped by over half from a pre-civil war figure of 325,000 to 150,000 soldiers in the army in December 2014, due to casualties, desertions and draft dodging, reaching between 178,000 and 220,000 soldiers in the army, in addition to 80,000 to 100,000 irregular forces.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: Before the start of the Syrian Civil War, the obligatory military service period was being decreased over time. In 2005, it was reduced from two and a half years to two years, in 2008 to 21 months and in 2011 to a year and a half. Since the Syrian Civil War the Syrian government has reportedly engaged in arrest campaigns and enacted new regulations, with citizens who have completed mandatory conscription being called up for reserve duty.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: The French Mandate volunteer force, which would later become the Syrian army, was established in 1920 with the threat of Syrian−Arab nationalism in mind. Although the unit's officers were originally all French, it was, in effect, the first indigenous modern Syrian army. In 1925 this force was expanded and designated the Special Troops of the Levant (Troupes Spéciales du Levant). In 1941, during World War II, the Army of the Levant participated in a futile resistance to the British and Free French invasion that ousted the Vichy French from Syria during the Syria–Lebanon Campaign. After the Allied takeover, the army came under the control of the Free French and was designated the Levantine Forces (Troupes du Levant). French Mandate authorities maintained a gendarmerie to police Syria's vast rural areas. This paramilitary force was used to combat criminals and political foes of the Mandate government. As with the Levantine Special Troops, French officers held the top posts, but as Syrian independence approached, the ranks below major were gradually filled by Syrian officers who had graduated from the Homs Military Academy, which had been established by the French during the 1930s. In 1938 the Troupes Spéciales numbered around 10,000 men and 306 officers (of whom 88 were French, mainly in the higher ranks). A majority of the Syrian troops were of rural background and minority ethnic origin, mainly Alawis, Druzes, Kurds and Circassians. By the end of 1945 the army numbered about 5,000 and the gendarmerie some 3,500. In April 1946 the last French officers were forced to leave Syria due to sustained resistance offensives; the Levantine Forces then became the regular armed forces of the newly independent state and grew rapidly to about 12,000 by the time of the 1948 Arab−Israeli War, the first of four Arab−Israeli wars involving Syria between 1948 and 1986.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: The Syrian Armed Forces fought in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War (against Israel) and were involved in a number of military coups. Between 1948 and 1967 a series of coups destroyed the stability of the government and any remaining professionalism within the armed forces. In March 1949 the chief of staff, Gen. Husni al-Za'im, installed himself as president. Two more military dictators followed by December 1949. Gen. Adib Shishakli then held power until deposed in the 1954 Syrian coup d'etat. Further coups followed, each attended by a purge of the officer corps to remove supporters of the losers from the force.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: In 1963 the Military Committee of the Syrian Regional Command of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party spent most of its time planning to take power through a conventional military coup. From the very beginning the Military Committee knew it had to capture al-Kiswah and Qatana—two military camps—seize control of the 70th Armored Brigade at al-Kiswah, the Military Academy in the city of Homs and the Damascus radio station. While the conspirators of the Military Committee were all young, their aim was not out of reach; the sitting regime had been slowly disintegrating and the traditional elite had lost effective political power over the country. A small group of military officers, including Hafez al-Assad, seized control in the March 1963 Syrian coup d'etat. Following the coup, Gen. Amin al-Hafiz discharged many ranking Sunni officers, thereby, Stratfor says, "providing openings for hundreds of Alawites to fill top-tier military positions during the 1963–1965 period on the grounds of being opposed to Arab unity. This measure tipped the balance in favor of Alawite officers who staged a coup in 1966 and for the first time placed Damascus in the hands of the Alawites."


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: The Armed Forces were involved in the 1967 Six-Day War (against Israel). Since 1967 most of the Golan Heights territory of southwestern Syria has been under Israeli occupation. They then fought in the late 1960s War of Attrition (against Israel) and the 1970 Black September invasion of Jordan. During the Yom Kippur War of 1973 the Syrian Army launched an attack to liberate the occupied Golan Heights that was only narrowly repulsed with the help of the US. Since 1973 the cease-fire line has been respected by both sides, with very few incidents until the Syrian civil war.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: Syria was invited into Lebanon by that country's president in 1976, to intervene on the side of the Lebanese government against PLO guerilla and Lebanese Christian forces. The Arab Deterrent Force originally consisted of a Syrian core, up to 25,000 troops, with participation by some other Arab League states totaling only around 5,000 troops. In late 1978, after the Arab League had extended the mandate of the Arab Deterrent Force, the Sudanese, the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates announced intentions to withdraw troops from Lebanon, extending their stay into the early months of 1979 at the Lebanese governments request. The Libyan troops were essentially abandoned and had to find their own way home (if at all), and the ADF thereby became a purely Syrian force (which did include the Palestinian Liberation Army (PLA)).


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: A year after Israel invaded and occupied Southern Lebanon during the 1982 Lebanon War, the Lebanese government failed to extend the ADF's mandate, thereby effectively ending its existence, although not the Syrian or Israeli military presence in Lebanon. Eventually the Syrian presence became known as the Syrian occupation of Lebanon.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: Syrian forces, still technically known as the Arab Deterrent Force, lingered in Lebanon throughout the Lebanese civil war (1975–90). Eventually the Syrians brought most of the nation under their control as part of a power struggle with Israel, which had occupied areas of southern Lebanon in 1978. In 1985, Israel began to withdraw from Lebanon, as a result of domestic opposition in Israel and international pressure. In the aftermath of this withdrawal, the War of the Camps broke out, with Syria fighting their former Palestinian allies. Following the end of the Lebanese civil war in 1990, the Syrian occupation of Lebanon continued until they themselves were also forced out by widespread public protest and international pressure. About 20,000 Syrian soldiers were deployed in Lebanon until 27 April 2005, when the last of Syria's troops left the country. Syrian forces have been accused of involvement in the murder of Rafiq al-Hariri, as well as continued meddling in Lebanese affairs, and an international investigation into the Hariri killing and several subsequent bomb attacks has been launched by the UN.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: Engagements since 1979 have included the Muslim Brotherhood insurgency (1979–82), notably including the Hama massacre, the 1982 Lebanon War (against Israel) and the dispatch of the 9th Armored Division to Saudi Arabia in 1990–91, ahead of the Gulf War against Iraq. The 9th Armored Division served as the Arab Joint Forces Command North reserve and saw little action. Syria's force numbered ~20,000 in strength (the sixth-largest contingent) and its involvement was justified domestically as an effort to defend Saudi Arabia. Syria's initial involvement in Operation Desert Shield also rolled into the Allied Operation Desert Storm, as Syrian forces did participate in helping dislodge and drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait City. Total losses sustained were two dead and one wounded. There were indications the Syrian government had been prepared to double its force to 40,000.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: In recent years Syria has relied on Russian arms purchases to obtain modern weapons. Purchases have included anti-tank and air defense systems. In early September 2008 the Syrian government ordered MiG-29SMT fighters, Pantsir S1E air-defence systems, Iskander tactical missile systems, Yak-130 aircraft, and two Amur-1650 submarines from Russia. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov asserted that the sale wouldn't upset the balance of power in the Middle East and were "in line with . . . international law."


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: Russia aims to turn the Russian naval base in Tartus into a permanent base. Israel and the US oppose further arms sales to Syria due to fears that the weapons could fall under the control of Iran or Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: Because of the violence against the people by the Syrian Army and the detention of a great number of people, some soldiers from different religions and sects (Sunni, Shia, Druze and Christian) defected in protest at orders to kill protesters in April 2011. By 2014, the


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: number of defecting officers had reached approximately 170,000, from different ranks. They formed the Free Syrian Army on 29 July 2011 (interview with Riad Al-Asaad - the founder and leader of the Free Syrian Army), and at the beginning of the conflict they depended on light


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: In March 2012 the Syrian government issued new travel restrictions for military-aged males. Under the new restrictions, reported by local Syrian news outlets, all males between 18–42 were banned from traveling outside the country. In a late June 2012 interview given by the FSA's "Asharq Al-Awsat" he claimed Riad al-Asaad said that about 20–30 Syrian officers defected to Turkey each day.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: On 18 July 2012 the Syrian Defense Minister Dawoud Rajha, former defense minister Hasan Turkmani and the president's brother-in-law Gen. Assef Shawkat were killed in a bomb attack in Damascus. Syrian intelligence chief Hisham Bekhityar and Head of the 4th Army Division Maher Al Assad—brother of President Assad—were also injured in the explosion.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: Since the start of the conflict in Syria, human rights groups say that the majority of abuses have been committed by the Syrian government's forces, and UN investigations have concluded that the government's abuses are the greatest in both gravity and scale. The branches of the Syrian Armed Forces that have committed war crimes include at least the Syrian Arab Army, Syrian Arab Air Force and the Syrian Military Intelligence. However the Syrian authorities deny these accusations and claim that irregular armed groups with foreign support are behind the atrocities, including Al Qaeda linked Insurgents.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: The numbers in the Syrian armed forces have reduced considerably during the Civil War, although estimates vary.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: Russian sources give higher estimates. In 2011, 300,000 reserves were reported in addition to regular forces. In 2014, Gazeta.ru reported that the regular army had reduced from 325,000 to 150,000 due to "mortality, desertions and deviations", but that this was supplemented by 60,000 Republican Guards and 50,000 Kurdish militias. In 2015, LifeNews still reported the same figures.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: Despite shrinking by nearly half from the 2011 beginning of the civil war by 2014, the Armed Forces have become much more flexible and capable, especially in anti-guerilla warfare. Their "modus operandi" switched from traditional Soviet-modeled conventional military forces into a force of smaller groups fighting in close-quarters guerrilla combat with an increasing role for junior officers.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: In September 2018, Statista Charts estimated that the Syrian military had lost 111 warplanes since the beginning of the civil war, including reconnaissance and attack drones. The Syrians lost most of their warplanes during the first four years of the war, with losses significantly decreasing after the Russian intervention into the war.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: With its headquarters in Damascus, the Syrian military consists of air, ground and naval forces. Active personnel were estimated as 295,000 in 2011, with an additional 314,000 reserves. Paramilitary forces were estimated at 108,000 in 2011. Estimates of the declining size of the armed forces over time include141,400 as of June 2019.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: In 2011, the majority of the Syrian military were Sunni, but most of the military leadership were Alawites. Alawites made up 12% of the pre-war Syrian population but 70% of the career soldiers in the Syrian Army. A similar imbalance is seen in the officer corps, where some 80% of the officers are Alawites. The military's most elite divisions, the Republican Guard and the 4th Armored Division, which are commanded by Bashar al-Assad's brother Maher, are exclusively Alawite. Most of Syria's 300,000 conscripts in 2011 were, however, Sunni.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: In 1987 Joshua Sinai of the Library of Congress wrote that the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) was the dominant military service, and as such controlled the senior-most posts in the armed forces and had the most manpower, approximately 80% of the combined services. In 1987 Sinai wrote that the major development in force organization was the establishment of an additional divisional framework based on the special forces and the organization of ground formations into two corps. In 2010 the International Institute for Strategic Studies estimated army regulars at 220,000, with an additional 280,000 reserves. That figure was unchanged in the 2011 edition of the "Military Balance", but in the 2013 edition, in the midst of the war, the IISS estimated that army strength was 110,000. By the end of 2017, analysts estimated the SAA to have just 25,000 combat-ready troops.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: The army's formations included three army corps (the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd), eight armored divisions (with one independent armored brigade), three mechanized divisions, one armored-special forces division and ten independent airborne-special forces brigades. The army had 11 divisional formations reported in 2011, with a fall in the number of armored divisions reported from the 2010 edition from eight to seven. The independent armored brigade had been replaced by an independent tank regiment. However, in addition to the 14th Special Forces Division, the 15th Special Forces Division has been identified by Human Rights Watch in 2011.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: The former Defense companies were merged into the Syrian Army as the 4th Armored Division and the Republican Guard. The 4th Armored Division became one of the Syrian government's most trusted security forces.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: The Syrian Arab Air Force is the aviation branch of the Syrian Armed Forces. It was established in 1948 and saw combat in 1948, 1967, 1973 and in 1982 against Israel. It has seen combat against militant groups on Syrian soil from 2011 to 2012, during the Syrian civil war. Presently there are at least 15 Syrian air force bases throughout the country. In 2011, Russian sources reported 40,000 personnel in the Air Force, while Reuters reported 100,000.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: In 1950 the Syrian Navy was established following the procurement of a few naval craft from France. The initial personnel consisted of soldiers who had been sent to French academies of naval training. In 1985 the Navy consisted of approximately 4,000 regular and 2,500 reserve officers and men. The navy is under the army's Latakia regional command. The fleet was based in the ports of Latakia, Baniyas, Minat al Bayda and Tartus. Among the 41 vessel fleet were two frigates, 22 missile attack craft (including ten advanced Osa II missile boats), three old submarines, two submarine chasers, four mine warfare vessels, eight gunboats, six patrol craft, four missile corvettes (on order), three landing craft (on order), one torpedo recovery vessel and, as part of its coastal defense system, Sepal shore-based, anti-ship missiles with a range of 300 km. In 2011, the Navy was estimated have 5,000 personnel.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: In 1987, according to the Library of Congress Country Studies, the Air Defence Command, within the Army Command but also composed of Air Force personnel, numbered approximately 60,000. In 1987 units included 20 air defense brigades (with approximately 95 SAM batteries) and two air defense regiments. The Air Defence Command had command access to interceptor aircraft and radar facilities. Air defenses included SA-5 long-range SAM batteries around Damascus and Aleppo, with additional SA-6 and SA-8 mobile SAM units deployed along Syria's side of the Lebanese border and in eastern Lebanon.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: At some later point in time, the Air Defence Command was upgraded into a separate Syrian Air Defense Force. According to Reuters Saudi Arabia confirms role in strikes against Islamic State in Syria


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: "See: List of armed groups in the Syrian Civil War#Syrian government and allies for more information on current paramilitaries due to the ongoing Syrian civil war."


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: As the Syrian Civil War progressed and casualties mounted, more and more positions were opened to women. The National Defense Force allows female volunteers into its ranks, mainly in securing checkpoints. The Republican Guard also formed a female section, an all-female tank battalion of 800 strong, nicknamed "Lionesses of Defense", fighting within the limits of Damascus.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: The breakup of the Soviet Union — long the principal source of training, material, and credit for the Syrian forces – may have slowed Syria's ability to acquire modern military equipment. It has an arsenal of surface-to-surface missiles. In the early 1990s, Scud-C missiles with a 500-kilometer range were procured from North Korea, and Scud-D, with a range of up to 700 kilometers, is allegedly being developed by Syria with the help of North Korea and Iran, according to Eyal Zisser.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: Syria received significant financial aid from Persian Gulf Arab states as a result of its participation in the Persian Gulf War, with a sizable portion of these funds earmarked for military spending. In 2005, Russia forgave Syria of three-fourths, or about $9.8 billion, of its $13.4 billion Soviet-era debt. Russia wrote off the debt to renew arms sales with Syria. As of 2011, arms contracts with Russia, Syria's main arms supplier, were worth at least $4 billion. Syria has conducted research and produced weapons of mass destruction.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: In 1987, according to a Library of Congress Country Study on Syria, service uniforms for Syrian military officers generally followed the British Army style, although army combat clothing followed the older British model. Each uniform had two coats: a long one for dress and a short jacket for informal wear. Army officer uniforms were khaki in summer, olive in winter. Certain Army and Air Defense personnel (i.e., commandos and paratroops) may have worn camouflage uniforms. Air force officers had two uniforms for each season: a khaki and a light gray for summer and a dark blue and a light gray in winter. Naval officers wore white in summer and navy blue in winter while lower ranks wear the traditional bell bottoms and white blouse. The uniform for naval chief petty officers was a buttoned jacket, similar to that worn by American chief petty officers. Officers had a variety of headgear, including a service cap, garrison cap, and beret (linen in summer and wool in winter). The color of the beret varied by season and according to the officer's unit.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: Syrian Commando and Paratroop uniforms consist of lizard or woodland-patterned camouflage fatigues along with combat boots, helmets and bulletproof vests. Headgear consisted of a red or orange beret.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: The Syrian military provides NBC uniforms to soldiers to remain effective in an environment effected by biological or chemical agents. This uniform consisted of a Russian-made Model ShMS-41 mask similar to those made in the Desert Storm conflict. Previous models of the ShMS used a hose, while the improved "ShmS-41" used a canister-style Respirator.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: It is difficult to assess how well equipped the Syrian Arab Army is. Although hundreds of hours of videos showing dead and captured Syrian soldiers filmed by rebels have been uploaded to social media, none show this equipment having been carried by or issued to frontline soldiers.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: In 1987, according to a Library of Congress Country Study on Syria, the rank insignia of Syrian commissioned officers were identical for both the army and air force. These were gold on a bright green shoulder board for the army and gold on a bright blue board for the air force. Officer ranks were standard, although the highest is the equivalent of lieutenant general, a rank held in 1986 only by the commander in chief and the minister of defence. Navy officer rank insignia were gold stripes worn on the lower sleeve. The highest-ranking officer in Syria's navy is the equivalent of lieutenant general. Army and air force rank for warrant officers were indicated by gold stars on an olive green shield worn on the upper left arm. Lower noncommissioned ranks were indicated by upright and inverted chevrons worn on the upper left arm.


title: Syrian Armed Forces

text: Although some twenty-five orders and medals were authorized, generally only senior officers and warrant officers wear medal ribbons. The following were some important Syrian awards: Order of Umayyads, Medal of Military Honor, the War Medal, Medal for Courage, Yarmuk Medal, Wounded in Action Medal, and Medal of 8 March 1963.


title: God Hand

text: The game mixes western and Japanese-themed comedy, containing over-the-top characters and storyline events. The gameplay combines traditional elements of the beat 'em up genre with new features, these include being able to map and string together a large repertoire of fighting techniques to the gamepad's face buttons in order to create unique combo attacks. The plot follows a martial artist protecting his companion and wielding a legendary divine arm called the "God Hand," in order to save the world from demons.


title: God Hand

text: The 3D action game has the player moving in all directions, attacking with the face buttons and using special moves. The player can turn around using a button, and all actions outside of basic attacks are performed via a context sensitive button. Using the button allows the player, as Gene, to jump up ladders, pick up items, and use special attacks on abnormal enemies. Four dodge moves are mapped to the directions on the right analog stick. The player can assign any attacks, including the Circle, Triangle, Square and X buttons. Square allows the player to chain multiple attacks at once. There are over one hundred moves in the game for the player to choose from including basic jabs and punches to drunken-style and capoeira martial arts.