title: Marine mammal

text: The polar bear is the most carnivorous species of bear, and its diet primarily consists of ringed ("Pusa hispida") and bearded ("Erignathus barbatus") seals. Polar bears hunt primarily at the interface between ice, water, and air; they only rarely catch seals on land or in open water. The polar bear's most common hunting method is still-hunting: The bear locates a seal breathing hole using its sense of smell, and crouches nearby for a seal to appear. When the seal exhales, the bear smells its breath, reaches into the hole with a forepaw, and drags it out onto the ice. The polar bear also hunts by stalking seals resting on the ice. Upon spotting a seal, it walks to within , and then crouches. If the seal does not notice, the bear creeps to within of the seal and then suddenly rushes to attack. A third hunting method is to raid the birth lairs that female seals create in the snow. They may also feed on fish.


title: Marine mammal

text: Sirenians are referred to as "sea cows" because their diet consists mainly of sea-grass. When eating, they ingest the whole plant, including the roots, although when this is impossible they feed on just the leaves. A wide variety of seagrass has been found in dugong stomach contents, and evidence exists they will eat algae when seagrass is scarce. West Indian manatees eat up to 60 different species of plants, as well as fish and small invertebrates to a lesser extent.


title: Marine mammal

text: Sea otters are a classic example of a keystone species; their presence affects the ecosystem more profoundly than their size and numbers would suggest. They keep the population of certain benthic (sea floor) herbivores, particularly sea urchins, in check. Sea urchins graze on the lower stems of kelp, causing the kelp to drift away and die. Loss of the habitat and nutrients provided by kelp forests leads to profound cascade effects on the marine ecosystem. North Pacific areas that do not have sea otters often turn into urchin barrens, with abundant sea urchins and no kelp forest. Reintroduction of sea otters to British Columbia has led to a dramatic improvement in the health of coastal ecosystems, and similar changes have been observed as sea otter populations recovered in the Aleutian and Commander Islands and the Big Sur coast of California. However, some kelp forest ecosystems in California have also thrived without sea otters, with sea urchin populations apparently controlled by other factors. The role of sea otters in maintaining kelp forests has been observed to be more important in areas of open coast than in more protected bays and estuaries.


title: Marine mammal

text: An apex predator affects prey population dynamics and defense tactics (such as camouflage). The polar bear is the apex predator within its range. Several animal species, particularly Arctic foxes ("Vulpes lagopus") and glaucous gulls ("Larus hyperboreus"), routinely scavenge polar bear kills. The relationship between ringed seals and polar bears is so close that the abundance of ringed seals in some areas appears to regulate the density of polar bears, while polar bear predation in turn regulates density and reproductive success of ringed seals. The evolutionary pressure of polar bear predation on seals probably accounts for some significant differences between Arctic and Antarctic seals. Compared to the Antarctic, where there is no major surface predator, Arctic seals use more breathing holes per individual, appear more restless when hauled out on the ice, and rarely defecate on the ice. The fur of Arctic pups is white, presumably to provide camouflage from predators, whereas Antarctic pups all have dark fur.


title: Marine mammal

text: Killer whales are apex predators throughout their global distribution, and can have a profound effect on the behavior and population of prey species. Their diet is very broad and they can feed on many vertebrates in the ocean including salmon, rays, sharks (even white sharks), large baleen whales, and nearly 20 species of pinniped. The predation of whale calves may be responsible for annual whale migrations to calving grounds in more tropical waters, where the population of killer whales is much lower than in polar waters. Prior to whaling, it is thought that great whales were a major food source; however, after their sharp decline, killer whales have since expanded their diet, leading to the decline of smaller marine mammals. A decline in Aleutian Islands sea otter populations in the 1990s was controversially attributed by some scientists to killer whale predation, although with no direct evidence. The decline of sea otters followed a decline in harbor seal and Steller sea lion populations, the killer whale's preferred prey, which in turn may be substitutes for their original prey, now reduced by industrial whaling.


title: Marine mammal

text: A 2010 study considered whales to be a positive influence to the productivity of ocean fisheries, in what has been termed a "whale pump". Whales carry nutrients such as nitrogen from the depths back to the surface. This functions as an upward biological pump, reversing an earlier presumption that whales accelerate the loss of nutrients to the bottom. This nitrogen input in the Gulf of Maine is more than the input of all rivers combined emptying into the gulf, some each year.


title: Marine mammal

text: Whales defecate at the ocean's surface; their excrement is important for fisheries because it is rich in iron and nitrogen. The whale feces are liquid and instead of sinking, they stay at the surface where phytoplankton feed off it.


title: Marine mammal

text: Upon death, whale carcasses fall to the deep ocean and provide a substantial habitat for marine life. Evidence of whale falls in present-day and fossil records shows that deep sea whale falls support a rich assemblage of creatures, with a global diversity of 407 species, comparable to other neritic biodiversity hotspots, such as cold seeps and hydrothermal vents. Deterioration of whale carcasses happens through a series of three stages. Initially, moving organisms, such as sharks and hagfish, scavenge soft tissue at a rapid rate over a period of months to as long as two years. This is followed by the colonization of bones and surrounding sediments (which contain organic matter) by enrichment opportunists, such as crustaceans and polychaetes, throughout a period of years. Finally, sulfophilic bacteria reduce the bones releasing hydrogen sulphide enabling the growth of chemoautotrophic organisms, which in turn, support other organisms such as mussels, clams, limpets, and sea snails. This stage may last for decades and supports a rich assemblage of species, averaging 185 species per site.


title: Marine mammal

text: Due to the difficulty to survey populations, 38% of marine mammals are data deficient, especially around the Antarctic Polar Front. In particular, declines in the populations of completely marine mammals tend to go unnoticed 70% of the time.


title: Marine mammal

text: Marine mammals were hunted by coastal aboriginal humans historically for food and other resources. These subsistence hunts still occur in Canada, Greenland, Indonesia, Russia, the United States, and several nations in the Caribbean. The effects of these are only localized, as hunting efforts were on a relatively small scale. Commercial hunting took this to a much greater scale and marine mammals were heavily exploited. This led to the extinction of the Steller's sea cow ("Hydrodamalis gigas"), sea mink ("Neogale macrodon"), Japanese sea lion ("Zalophus japonicus"), and the Caribbean monk seal ("Neomonachus tropicalis"). Today, populations of species that were historically hunted, such as blue whales ("Balaenoptera musculus") and the North Pacific right whale ("Eubalaena japonica"), are much lower than their pre-whaling levels. Because whales generally have slow growth rates, are slow to reach sexual maturity, and have a low reproductive output, population recovery has been very slow.


title: Marine mammal

text: A number of whales are still subject to direct hunting, despite the 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling set under the terms of the International Whaling Commission (IWC). There are only two nations remaining which sanction commercial whaling: Norway, where several hundred common minke whales are harvested each year; and Iceland, where quotas of 150 fin whales and 100 minke whales per year are set. Japan also harvests several hundred Antarctic and North Pacific minke whales each year, ostensibly for scientific research in accordance with the moratorium. However, the illegal trade of whale and dolphin meat is a significant market in Japan and some countries.


title: Marine mammal

text: The most profitable furs in the fur trade were those of sea otters, especially the northern sea otter which inhabited the coastal waters between the Columbia River to the south and Cook Inlet to the north. The fur of the Californian southern sea otter was less highly prized and thus less profitable. After the northern sea otter was hunted to local extinction, maritime fur traders shifted to California until the southern sea otter was likewise nearly extinct. The British and American maritime fur traders took their furs to the Chinese port of Guangzhou (Canton), where they worked within the established Canton System. Furs from Russian America were mostly sold to China via the Mongolian trading town of Kyakhta, which had been opened to Russian trade by the 1727 Treaty of Kyakhta.


title: Marine mammal

text: Commercial sealing was historically just as important as the whaling industry. Exploited species included harp seals, hooded seals, Caspian seals, elephant seals, walruses and all species of fur seal. The scale of seal harvesting decreased substantially after the 1960s, after the Canadian government reduced the length of the hunting season and implemented measures to protect adult females. Several species that were commercially exploited have rebounded in numbers; for example, Antarctic fur seals may be as numerous as they were prior to harvesting. The northern elephant seal was hunted to near extinction in the late 19th century, with only a small population remaining on Guadalupe Island. It has since recolonized much of its historic range, but has a population bottleneck. Conversely, the Mediterranean monk seal was extirpated from much of its former range, which stretched from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea and northwest Africa, and remains only in the northeastern Mediterranean and some parts of northwest Africa.


title: Marine mammal

text: Polar bears can be hunted for sport in Canada with a special permit and accompaniment by a local guide. This can be an important source of income for small communities, as guided hunts bring in more income than selling the polar bear hide on markets. The United States, Russia, Norway, Greenland, and Canada allow subsistence hunting, and Canada distributes hunting permits to indigenous communities. The selling of these permits is a main source of income for many of these communities. Their hides can be used for subsistence purposes, kept as hunting trophies, or can be bought in markets.


title: Marine mammal

text: By-catch is the incidental capture of non-target species in fisheries. Fixed and drift gill nets cause the highest mortality levels for both cetaceans and pinnipeds, however, entanglements in long lines, mid-water trawls, and both trap and pot lines are also common. Tuna seines are particularly problematic for entanglement by dolphins. By-catch affects all cetaceans, both small and big, in all habitat types. However, smaller cetaceans and pinnipeds are most vulnerable as their size means that escape once they are entangled is highly unlikely and they frequently drown. While larger cetaceans are capable of dragging nets with them, the nets sometimes remain tightly attached to the individual and can impede the animal from feeding sometimes leading to starvation. Abandoned or lost nets and lines cause mortality through ingestion or entanglement. Marine mammals also get entangled in aquaculture nets, however, these are rare events and not prevalent enough to impact populations.


title: Marine mammal

text: Vessel strikes cause death for a number of marine mammals, especially whales. In particular, fast commercial vessels such as container ships can cause major injuries or death when they collide with marine mammals. Collisions occur both with large commercial vessels and recreational boats and cause injury to whales or smaller cetaceans. The critically endangered North Atlantic right whale is particularly affected by vessel strikes. Tourism boats designed for whale and dolphin watching can also negatively impact on marine mammals by interfering with their natural behavior.


title: Marine mammal

text: The fishery industry not only threatens marine mammals through by-catch, but also through competition for food. Large scale fisheries have led to the depletion of fish stocks that are important prey species for marine mammals. Pinnipeds have been especially affected by the direct loss of food supplies and in some cases the harvesting of fish has led to food shortages or dietary deficiencies, starvation of young, and reduced recruitment into the population. As the fish stocks have been depleted, the competition between marine mammals and fisheries has sometimes led to conflict. Large-scale culling of populations of marine mammals by commercial fishers has been initiated in a number of areas in order to protect fish stocks for human consumption.


title: Marine mammal

text: Shellfish aquaculture takes up space so in effect creates competition for space. However, there is little direct competition for aquaculture shellfish harvest. On the other hand, marine mammals regularly take finfish from farms, which creates significant problems for marine farmers. While there are usually legal mechanisms designed to deter marine mammals, such as anti-predator nets or harassment devices, individuals are often illegally shot.


title: Marine mammal

text: Habitat degradation is caused by a number of human activities. Marine mammals that live in coastal environments are the most likely to be affected by habitat degradation and loss. Developments such as sewage marine outfalls, moorings, dredging, blasting, dumping, port construction, hydroelectric projects, and aquaculture both degrade the environment and take up valuable habitat. For example, extensive shellfish aquaculture takes up valuable space used by coastal marine mammals for important activities such as breeding, foraging and resting.


title: Marine mammal

text: Contaminants that are discharged into the marine environment accumulate in the bodies of marine mammals when they are stored unintentionally in their blubber along with energy. Contaminants that are found in the tissues of marine mammals include heavy metals, such as mercury and lead, but also organochlorides and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. For example, these can cause disruptive effects on endocrine systems; impair the reproductive system, and lower the immune system of individuals, leading to a higher number of deaths. Other pollutants such as oil, plastic debris and sewage threaten the livelihood of marine mammals.


title: Marine mammal

text: Noise pollution from anthropogenic activities is another major concern for marine mammals. This is a problem because underwater noise pollution interferes with the abilities of some marine mammals to communicate, and locate both predators and prey. Underwater explosions are used for a variety of purposes including military activities, construction and oceanographic or geophysical research. They can cause injuries such as hemorrhaging of the lungs, and contusion and ulceration of the gastrointestinal tract. Underwater noise is generated from shipping, the oil and gas industry, research, and military use of sonar and oceanographic acoustic experimentation. Acoustic harassment devices and acoustic deterrent devices used by aquaculture facilities to scare away marine mammals emit loud and noxious underwater sounds.


title: Marine mammal

text: Two changes to the global atmosphere due to anthropogenic activity threaten marine mammals. The first is increases in ultraviolet radiation due to ozone depletion, and this mainly affects the Antarctic and other areas of the southern hemisphere. An increase in ultraviolet radiation has the capacity to decrease phytoplankton abundance, which forms the basis of the food chain in the ocean. The second effect of global climate change is global warming due to increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. Raised sea levels, rising sea temperatures and changed currents are expected to affect marine mammals by altering the distribution of important prey species, and changing the suitability of breeding sites and migratory routes. The Arctic food chain would be disrupted by the near extinction or migration of polar bears. Arctic sea ice is the polar bear's habitat. It has been declining at a rate of 13% per decade because the temperature is rising at twice the rate of the rest of the world. By the year 2050, up to two-thirds of the world's polar bears may vanish if the sea ice continues to melt at its current rate.


title: Marine mammal

text: A study by evolutionary biologists at the University of Pittsburgh showed that the ancestors of many marine mammals stopped producing a certain enzyme that today protects against some neurotoxic chemicals called organophosphates, including those found in the widely used pesticides chlorpyrifos and diazinon. Marine mammals may be increasingly exposed to these compounds due to agricultural runoff reaching the world's oceans.


title: Marine mammal

text: The Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 (MMPA) was passed on October 21, 1972 under president Richard Nixon to prevent the further depletion and possible extinction of marine mammal stocks. It prohibits the taking ("the act of hunting, killing, capture, and/or harassment of any marine mammal; or, the attempt at such") of any marine mammal without a permit issued by the Secretary. Authority to manage the MMPA was divided between the Secretary of the Interior through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), and the Secretary of Commerce, which is delegated to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The Marine Mammal Commission (MMC) was established to review existing policies and make recommendations to the Service and NOAA to better implement the MMPA. The Service is responsible for ensuring the protection of sea otters and marine otters, walruses, polar bears, the three species of manatees, and dugongs; and NOAA was given responsibility to conserve and manage pinnipeds (excluding walruses) and cetaceans.


title: Marine mammal

text: The Act was updated on 1 January 2016 with a clause banning "the import of fish from fisheries that cannot prove they meet US standards for protecting marine mammals." The requirement to show that protection standards are met is hoped to compel countries exporting fish to the US to more strictly control their fisheries that no protected marine mammals are adversely affected by fishing.


title: Marine mammal

text: The 1979 Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) is the only global organization that conserves a broad range of animals, which includes marine mammals. Of the agreements made, three of them deal with the conservation of marine mammals: ACCOBAMS, ASCOBANS, and the Wadden Sea Agreement. In 1982, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) adopted a pollution prevention approach to conservation, which many other conventions at the time also adopted.


title: Marine mammal

text: The Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans in the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and contiguous Atlantic area (ACCOBAMS), founded in 1996, specifically protects cetaceans in the Mediterranean area, and "maintains a favorable status", a direct action against whaling. There are 23 member states.


title: Marine mammal

text: The Agreement on the Conservation of Small Cetaceans of the Baltic and North Seas (ASCOBANS) was adopted alongside ACCOBAMS to establish a special protection area for Europe's increasingly threatened cetaceans. Other anti-whaling efforts include a ten-year moratorium in 1986 by the IWC on all whaling, and an environmental agreement (a type of international law) the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling which controlled commercial, scientific, and subsistence whaling.


title: Marine mammal

text: The Agreement on the Conservation of Seals in the Wadden Sea, enforced in 1991, prohibits the killing or harassment of seals in the Wadden Sea, specifically targeting the harbor seal population.


title: Marine mammal

text: The 1973 Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears between Canada, Denmark (Greenland), Norway (Svalbard), the United States, and the Soviet Union outlawed the unregulated hunting of polar bears from aircraft and icebreakers, as well as protecting migration, feeding, and hibernation sites.


title: Marine mammal

text: Various non-governmental organizations participate in marine conservation activism, wherein they draw attention to and aid in various problems in marine conservation, such as pollution, whaling, bycatch, and so forth. Notable organizations include the Greenpeace who focus on overfishing and whaling among other things, and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society who are known for taking direct-action tactics to expose illegal activity.


title: Marine mammal

text: For thousands of years, indigenous peoples of the Arctic have depended on whale meat & seal meat. The meat is harvested from legal, non-commercial hunts that occur twice a year in the spring and autumn. The meat is stored and eaten throughout the winter. The skin and blubber (muktuk) taken from the bowhead, beluga, or narwhal is also valued, and is eaten raw or cooked. Whaling has also been practiced in the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic since about the time of the first Norse settlements on the islands. Around 1000 long-finned pilot whales are still killed annually, mainly during the summer. Today, dolphin meat is consumed in a small number of countries worldwide, which include Japan and Peru (where it is referred to as "chancho marino", or "sea pork"). In some parts of the world, such as Taiji, Japan and the Faroe Islands, dolphins are traditionally considered food, and are killed in harpoon or drive hunts.


title: Marine mammal

text: There have been human health concerns associated with the consumption of dolphin meat in Japan after tests showed that dolphin meat contained high levels of methylmercury. There are no known cases of mercury poisoning as a result of consuming dolphin meat, though the government continues to monitor people in areas where dolphin meat consumption is high. The Japanese government recommends that children and pregnant women avoid eating dolphin meat on a regular basis. Similar concerns exist with the consumption of dolphin meat in the Faroe Islands, where prenatal exposure to methylmercury and PCBs primarily from the consumption of pilot whale meat has resulted in neuropsychological deficits amongst children.


title: Marine mammal

text: Ringed seals were once the main food staple for the Inuit. They are still an important food source for the people of Nunavut and are also hunted and eaten in Alaska. Seal meat is an important source of food for residents of small coastal communities. The seal blubber is used to make seal oil, which is marketed as a fish oil supplement. In 2001, two percent of Canada's raw seal oil was processed and sold in Canadian health stores.


title: Marine mammal

text: Various species of dolphins are kept in captivity. These small cetaceans are more often than not kept in theme parks and dolphinariums, such as SeaWorld. Bottlenose dolphins are the most common species of dolphin kept in dolphinariums as they are relatively easy to train and have a long lifespan in captivity. Hundreds of bottlenose dolphins live in captivity across the world, though exact numbers are hard to determine. The dolphin "smile" makes them popular attractions, as this is a welcoming facial expression in humans; however the smile is due to a lack of facial muscles and subsequent lack of facial expressions.


title: Marine mammal

text: Organizations such as World Animal Protection and the Whale and Dolphin Conservation campaign against the practice of keeping cetaceans, particularly killer whales, in captivity. In captivity, they often develop pathologies, such as the dorsal fin collapse seen in 60–90% of male killer whales. Captives have vastly reduced life expectancies, on average only living into their 20s. In the wild, females who survive infancy live 46 years on average, and up to 70–80 years in rare cases. Wild males who survive infancy live 31 years on average, and up to 50–60 years. Captivity usually bears little resemblance to wild habitat, and captive whales' social groups are foreign to those found in the wild. Captive life is also stressful due to the requirement to perform circus tricks that are not part of wild killer whale behavior, as well as restricting pool size. Wild killer whales may travel up to in a day, and critics say the animals are too big and intelligent to be suitable for captivity. Captives occasionally act aggressively towards themselves, their tankmates, or humans, which critics say is a result of stress. Dolphins are often trained to do several anthropomorphic behaviors, including waving and kissing—behaviors wild dolphins would rarely do.


title: Marine mammal

text: The large size and playfulness of pinnipeds make them popular attractions. Some exhibits have rocky backgrounds with artificial haul-out sites and a pool, while others have pens with small rocky, elevated shelters where the animals can dive into their pools. More elaborate exhibits contain deep pools that can be viewed underwater with rock-mimicking cement as haul-out areas. The most common pinniped species kept in captivity is the California sea lion as it is abundant and easy to train. These animals are used to perform tricks and entertain visitors. Other species popularly kept in captivity include the grey seal and harbor seal. Larger animals like walruses and Steller sea lions are much less common. Pinnipeds are popular attractions because they are "disneyfied", and consequently, people often anthropomorphize them with a curious, funny, or playful nature.


title: Marine mammal

text: Some organizations, such as the Humane Society of the United States and World Animal Protection, object to keeping pinnipeds and other marine mammals in captivity. They state that the exhibits could not be large enough to house animals that have evolved to be migratory, and a pool could never replace the size and biodiversity of the ocean. They also oppose using sea lions for entertainment, claiming the tricks performed are "exaggerated variations of their natural behaviors" and distract the audience from the animal's unnatural environment.


title: Marine mammal

text: Sea otters can do well in captivity, and are featured in over 40 public aquariums and zoos. The Seattle Aquarium became the first institution to raise sea otters from conception to adulthood with the birth of Tichuk in 1979, followed by three more pups in the early 1980s. In 2007, a YouTube video of two cute sea otters holding paws drew 1.5 million viewers in two weeks, and had over 20 million views . Filmed five years previously at the Vancouver Aquarium, it was YouTube's most popular animal video at the time, although it has since been surpassed. Otters are often viewed as having a "happy family life", but this is an anthropomorphism.


title: Marine mammal

text: The oldest manatee in captivity was Snooty, at the South Florida Museum's Parker Manatee Aquarium in Bradenton, Florida. Born at the Miami Aquarium and Tackle Company on July 21, 1948, Snooty was one of the first recorded captive manatee births. He was raised entirely in captivity, and died at the age of 69. Manatees can also be viewed in a number of European zoos, such as the Tierpark in Berlin, the Nuremberg Zoo, in ZooParc de Beauval in France, and in the Aquarium of Genoa in Italy. The River Safari at Singapore features seven of them.


title: Marine mammal

text: Bottlenose dolphins and California sea lions are used in the United States Navy Marine Mammal Program (NMMP) to detect mines, protect ships from enemy soldiers, and recover objects. The Navy has never trained attack dolphins, as they would not be able to discern allied soldiers from enemy soldiers. There were five marine mammal teams, each purposed for one of the three tasks: MK4 (dolphins), MK5 (sea lions), MK6 (dolphins and sea lions), MK7 (dolphins), and MK8 (dolphins); MK is short for mark. The dolphin teams were trained to detect and mark mines either attached to the seafloor or floating in the water column, because dolphins can use their echolocative abilities to detect mines. The sea lion team retrieved test equipment such as fake mines or bombs dropped from planes usually out of reach of divers who would have to make multiple dives. MK6 protects harbors and ships from enemy divers, and was operational in the Gulf War and Vietnam War. The dolphins would swim up behind enemy divers and attach a buoy to their air tank, so that they would float to the surface and alert nearby Navy personnel. Sea lions would hand-cuff the enemy, and try to outmaneuver their counter-attacks.


title: Marine mammal

text: The use of marine mammals by the Navy, even in accordance with the Navy's policy, continues to meet opposition. The Navy's policy says that only positive reinforcement is to be used while training the military dolphins, and that they be cared for in accordance with accepted standards in animal care. The inevitable stresses involved in training are topics of controversy, as their treatment is unlike the animals' natural lifestyle, especially towards their confined spaces when not training. There is also controversy over the use of muzzles and other inhibitors, which prevent the dolphins from foraging for food while working. The Navy states that this is to prevent them from ingesting harmful objects, but conservation activists say this is done to reinforce the trainers' control over the dolphins, who hand out food rewards. The means of transportation is also an issue for conservation activists, since they are hauled in dry carriers, and switching tanks and introducing the dolphin to new dolphins is potentially dangerous as they are territorial.


title: Gutzon Borglum

text: John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum (March 25, 1867 – March 6, 1941) was an American sculptor best known for his work on Mount Rushmore. He is also associated with various other public works of art across the U.S., including Stone Mountain in Georgia, the statue of Union General Philip Sheridan in Washington, D.C., as well as a bust of Abraham Lincoln which was exhibited in the White House by Theodore Roosevelt and which is now held in the United States Capitol crypt in Washington, D.C.


title: Gutzon Borglum

text: The son of Danish immigrants, Gutzon Borglum was born in 1867 in St. Charles in what was then Idaho Territory. Borglum was a child of Mormon polygamy. His father, Jens Møller Haugaard Børglum (1839–1909), came from the village of Børglum in northwestern Denmark. He had two wives when he lived in Idaho: Gutzon's mother, Christina Mikkelsen Børglum (1847–1871), and her sister Ida, who was Jens's first wife. Jens Borglum decided to leave Mormonism and moved to Omaha, Nebraska where polygamy was both illegal and taboo. Jens Borglum had worked mainly as a woodcarver before his decision to attend the Saint Louis Homeopathic Medical College in St. Louis, Missouri. At this point "Jens and Christina divorced, the family left the Mormon church, and Jens, Ida, their children, and Christina's two sons, Gutzon and Solon, moved to St. Louis, where Jens earned a medical degree." Upon his graduation from the Missouri Medical College in 1874, Dr. Borglum moved the family to Fremont, Nebraska, where he established a medical practice. Gutzon Borglum remained in Fremont until 1882, when his father enrolled him in St. Mary's College, Kansas.


title: Gutzon Borglum

text: After a brief stint at Saint Mary's College, Gutzon Borglum moved to Omaha, Nebraska, where he apprenticed in a machine shop and graduated from Creighton Preparatory School.


title: Gutzon Borglum

text: Back in the U.S. in New York City, he sculpted saints and apostles for the new Cathedral of St. John the Divine in 1901; in 1906 he had a group sculpture accepted by the Metropolitan Museum of Art— the first sculpture by a living American the museum had ever purchased—and made his presence further felt with some portraits. He also won the Logan Medal of the Arts. His reputation soon surpassed that of his younger brother Solon Borglum, already an established sculptor.


title: Gutzon Borglum

text: Borglum married Mary Montgomery Williams, on May 20, 1909, with whom he had three children, including a son, Lincoln, and a daughter, Mary Ellis (Mel) Borglum Vhay (1916–2002).


title: Gutzon Borglum

text: Borglum was active in the committee that organized the New York Armory Show of 1913, the birthplace of modernism in American art. By the time the show was ready to open, however, Borglum had resigned from the committee, feeling that the emphasis on avant-garde works had co-opted the original premise of the show and made traditional artists like himself look provincial. He moved into an estate in Stamford, Connecticut in 1914 and lived there for 10 years. He sheltered Czechoslovak Legion members on his land at Stamford in 1917.


title: Gutzon Borglum

text: Borglum was an active member of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons (the Freemasons), raised in Howard Lodge #35, New York City, on June 10, 1904, and serving as its Worshipful Master 1910–11. In 1915, he was appointed Grand Representative of the Grand Lodge of Denmark near the Grand Lodge of New York. He received his Scottish Rite Degrees in the New York City Consistory on October 25, 1907. He was friends with Theodore Roosevelt for many years and during the 1912 United States presidential election Borglum was a very active campaign organizer and member of the Bull Moose Party.


title: Gutzon Borglum

text: While it has been claimed that Borglum was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, an article in the "Smithsonian Magazine" denies that there is proof that he officially joined the KKK. That said, he became "deeply involved in Klan politics", attending Klan rallies and serving on Klan committees. In 1925, having only completed the head of Robert E. Lee, Borglum was dismissed from the Stone Mountain project, with some holding that it came about due to infighting within the KKK, with Borglum involved in the strife. Later, he stated "I am not a member of the Kloncilium, nor a knight of the KKK," but Howard Shaff and Audrey Karl Shaff claim that "that was for public consumption." The museum at Mount Rushmore displays a letter to Borglum from D. C. Stephenson, the infamous Klan Grand Dragon who later was convicted of the rape and murder of Madge Oberholtzer. The 8x10 foot portrait contains the inscription "To my good friend Gutzon Borglum, with the greatest respect." Correspondence from Borglum to Stephenson during the 1920s detailed a deep racist conviction in Nordic moral superiority and strict immigration policies.


title: Gutzon Borglum

text: A fascination with gigantic scale and themes of heroic nationalism suited his extroverted personality. His head of Abraham Lincoln, carved from a six-ton block of marble, was exhibited in Theodore Roosevelt's White House and can be found in the United States Capitol Crypt in Washington, D.C. A "patriot," believing that the "monuments we have built are not our own," he looked to create art that was "American, drawn from American sources, memorializing American achievement," according to a 1908 interview. Borglum was highly suited to the competitive environment surrounding the contracts for public buildings and monuments, and his public sculptures are found all around the United States.


title: Gutzon Borglum

text: In 1908, Borglum won a competition for an equestrian statue of the Civil War General Philip Sheridan to be placed in Sheridan Circle in Washington, D.C. A second version of "General Philip Sheridan" was erected in Chicago, Illinois, in 1923. Winning this competition was a personal triumph for him because he won out over sculptor J.Q.A. Ward, a much older and more established artist and one whom Borglum had clashed with earlier in regard to the National Sculpture Society. At the unveiling of the Sheridan statue, one observer, President Theodore Roosevelt (whom Borglum was later to include in the Mount Rushmore portrait group), declared that it was "first rate"; a critic wrote that "as a sculptor Gutzon Borglum was no longer a rumor, he was a fact." (Smith:see References)


title: Gutzon Borglum

text: President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered an address on May 3, 1934 dedicating a statue of William Jennings Bryan created by Borglum. This Bryan statue by Borglum originally stood in Washington, D.C. but was displaced by highway construction moved by an Act of Congress in 1961 to Salem, Illinois, Bryan's birthplace.


title: Gutzon Borglum

text: In 1925, the sculptor moved to Texas to work on the monument to trail drivers commissioned by the Trail Drivers Association. He completed the model in 1925, but due to lack of funds it was not cast until 1940, and then was only a fourth its originally planned size. It stands in front of the Texas Pioneer and Trail Drivers Memorial Hall next to the Witte Museum in San Antonio. Borglum lived at the historic Menger Hotel, which in the 1920s was the residence of a number of artists. He subsequently planned the redevelopment of the Corpus Christi waterfront; the plan failed, although a model for a statue of Christ intended for it was later modified by his son and erected on a mountaintop in South Dakota. While living and working in Texas, Borglum took an interest in local beautification. He promoted change and modernity, although he was berated by academicians.


title: Gutzon Borglum

text: Borglum was initially involved in the carving of Stone Mountain in Georgia. Borglum's nativist stances made him seem an ideologically sympathetic choice to carve a memorial to heroes of the Confederate States of America, planned for Stone Mountain, Georgia. In 1915, coinciding with the Klan-glorifying, highly successful "The Birth of a Nation", he was approached by the United Daughters of the Confederacy with a project for sculpting a high bust of General Robert E. Lee on the mountain's rockface. Borglum accepted, but told the committee, "Ladies, a twenty-foot head of Lee on that mountainside would look like a postage stamp on a barn door."


title: Gutzon Borglum

text: Borglum's ideas eventually evolved into a high-relief frieze of Lee, Jefferson Davis, and Stonewall Jackson riding around the mountain, followed by a legion of artillery troops. Borglum agreed to include a Ku Klux Klan altar in his plans for the memorial to acknowledge a request of Helen Plane in 1915, who wrote to him: "I feel it is due to the KKK that saved us from Negro domination and carpetbag rule, that it be immortalized on Stone Mountain".


title: Gutzon Borglum

text: After a delay caused by World War I, Borglum and the newly chartered Stone Mountain Confederate Monumental Association set to work on this monument, the largest ever attempted. Many difficulties slowed progress, some because of the sheer scale involved. After finishing the detailed model of the carving, Borglum was unable to trace the figures onto the massive area on which he was working, until he developed a gigantic magic lantern to project the image onto the side of the mountain.


title: Gutzon Borglum

text: Carving officially began on June 23, 1923, with Borglum making the first cut. At Stone Mountain he developed sympathetic connections with the reorganized Ku Klux Klan, who were major financial backers of the monument. Lee's head was unveiled on Lee's birthday January 19, 1924, to a large crowd, but soon thereafter Borglum was increasingly at odds with the officials of the organization. His domineering, perfectionist, authoritarian manner brought tensions to such a point that in March 1925 Borglum smashed his clay and plaster models. He left Georgia permanently, his tenure with the organization over. None of his work remains, as it was all blasted off the mountain's face for the work of Borglum's replacement Henry Augustus Lukeman. In his abortive attempt, however, Borglum had developed the necessary techniques for sculpting on a gigantic scale that made Mount Rushmore possible.


title: Gutzon Borglum

text: His Mount Rushmore project, 1927–1941, was the brainchild of South Dakota state historian Doane Robinson. His first attempt with the face of Thomas Jefferson had to be redone when it was determined that there was not enough stone to complete it. Dynamite was used to remove large areas of rock from under Washington's brow. The initial pair of presidents, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, was soon joined by Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.


title: Gutzon Borglum

text: Ivan Houser, father of John Sherrill Houser, was assistant sculptor to Gutzon Borglum in the early years of carving; he began working with Borglum shortly after the inception of the monument and was with Borglum for a total of seven years. When Houser left Gutzon to devote his talents to his own work, Gutzon's son, Lincoln, took over as Assistant-Sculptor to his father.


title: Gutzon Borglum

text: Borglum alternated exhausting on-site supervising with world tours, raising money, polishing his personal legend, sculpting a Thomas Paine memorial for Paris and a Woodrow Wilson memorial for Poznań, Poland (1931). In his absence, work at Mount Rushmore was overseen by Bill Tallman and later his son, Lincoln Borglum. During the Rushmore project, father and son were residents of Beeville, Texas. When he died in Chicago, following complications of surgery, his son finished another season at Rushmore, but left the monument largely in the state of completion it had reached under his father's direction.


title: Gutzon Borglum

text: In 1909, the sculpture "Rabboni" was created as a grave site for the Ffoulke Family in Washington, D.C. at Rock Creek Cemetery.


title: Gutzon Borglum

text: Four public works by Borglum are in Newark, New Jersey: "Seated Lincoln" (1911), "Indian and the Puritan" (1916), "Wars of America" (1926), and a stele with bas-relief, "First Landing Party of the Founders of Newark" (1916).


title: Gutzon Borglum

text: One of Borglum's more unusual pieces is the "Aviator" completed in 1919 as a memorial for James Rogers McConnell, who was killed in World War I while flying for the Lafayette Escadrille. It is located on the grounds of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia.


title: Gutzon Borglum

text: In 1922, he crafted a sculpture of William D. Hoard in what is now the Henry Mall Historic District on the campus of the University of Wisconsin.


title: Gutzon Borglum

text: His statue of Collis P. Huntington was completed in 1924 and stands at the entrance of the CSX Huntington headquarters building located in the 900 block of Seventh Avenue Huntington, West Virginia.


title: Gutzon Borglum

text: His statue of Harvey W. Scott was completed in 1933 and stood at the peak of Mount Tabor, Portland, Oregon until it was toppled by protestors in 2020.


title: Gutzon Borglum

text: Borglum sculpted the "Memorial to the "Start Westward of the United States"", which is located in Muskingum Park, Marietta, Ohio (1938). The work was featured on a 1938 3¢ US postage stamp.


title: Gutzon Borglum

text: He created a memorial to Sacco and Vanzetti (1928), a plaster cast of which is now in the Boston Public Library.


title: Gutzon Borglum

text: Another Borglum design is the North Carolina Monument on Seminary Ridge at the Gettysburg Battlefield in south-central Pennsylvania. The cast bronze sculpture depicts a wounded Confederate officer encouraging his men to push forward during Pickett's Charge. Borglum had also made arrangements for an airplane to fly over the monument during the dedication ceremony on July 3, 1929. During the sculpture's unveiling, the plane scattered roses across the field as a salute to those North Carolinians who had fought and died at Gettysburg.


title: Gutzon Borglum

text: In 1939 when German troops marched into Poland they destroyed Borglum's statue of Woodrow Wilson located in Poznań.


title: Gutzon Borglum

text: Borglum died in 1941 of a heart attack and is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.


title: Malabo

text: Malabo ( , ; formerly Santa Isabel) is the capital of Equatorial Guinea and the province of Bioko Norte. It is located on the north coast of the island of Bioko, (, and as "Fernando Pó" by the Europeans). In 2018, the city had a population of approximately 297,000 inhabitants.


title: Malabo

text: Spanish is the official language of the city and of the country as well, but Pichinglis is used as a language of wider communication across Bioko island, including Malabo.


title: Malabo

text: Malabo is the oldest city in Equatorial Guinea. Ciudad de la Paz is a planned community under construction in mainland Equatorial Guinea which was designed to replace Malabo as the capital. The institutions of governance of Equatorial Guinea began the process of locating to Ciudad de la Paz in February 2017.


title: Malabo

text: In 1472, in an attempt to find a new route to India, the Portuguese navigator Fernão do Pó, encountered the island of Bioko, which he called "Formosa". Later, the island was named after its discoverer, Fernando Pó. At the beginning of the 16th century, specifically in 1507, the Portuguese Ramos de Esquivel made a first attempt at colonization on the island of Fernando Pó. He established a factory in "Concepción" (now Riaba) and developed plantations of sugarcane.


title: Malabo

text: With the treaties of San Ildefonso in 1777 and El Pardo in 1778, during the reign of the Spanish King Charles III, the Portuguese gave to the Spanish the islands of Fernando Pó, Annobón, and the right to conduct trade in the mainland, an area of influence of approximately 800 000 km in Africa, in exchange for the Colonia del Sacramento in Río de la Plata and the Santa Catalina Island off the Brazilian coast (occupied by the Spaniards). The area stretched from the Niger Delta to the mouth of Ogooué River — in current Gabon — and included, besides the islands of Fernando Pó and Annobón, the islets of Corisco and Elobeyes. Having failed its attempts to colonize these lands because they already had vast colonies in other parts of the world, Spain lost interest in Spanish Guinea in 1827 and authorized the British to use the island as a base for suppressing the slave trade.


title: Malabo

text: In 1821, the British captain Nelly approached the island of Fernando Pó. He found it abandoned and founded the establishments of "Melville Bay" (now Riaba) and "San Carlos" (now Luba). Some years later, another British captain, William Fitzwilliam Owen, decided to colonize the island and in the north of it — on the site of the present capital — erected a base for British ships hunting slave traders. Thus, on 25 December 1827, "Port Clarence" was founded on the ruins of a previous Portuguese settlement.The name was chosen in honor of the Duke of Clarence, who later became King William IV. The Bubis indigenous to the island called it "Ripotó" (place of the foreigners). The population of the capital was increased by the arrival of slaves freed by the British. These freedmen were settled in Port Clarence before the establishment of Sierra Leone as a colony for freed slaves. The descendants of these freed slaves remained on the island. They joined other migrants who arrived as free workers from Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon, and became the population group called Creole or fernandinos, whose language was Pichinglis, a Bantu-English Creole with some Spanish elements.


title: Malabo

text: During the British period, the British consul automatically became the governor of the colony, including Governor John Beecroft, a British mulatto who modernized the capital, and whose work was later recognized by Spain with a monument in Punta Fernanda.


title: Malabo

text: In 1844, when Queen Isabella II of Spain ruled after the regency of her mother Maria Cristina and Baldomero Espartero, in an attempt to modernize Spain and rescue its heritage, Spain let the UK know its desire to regain control of the colony and thus the island. It took another decade to implement this direct control. The capital already had more dynamic and Protestant religious missions which were very successful. Both factors helped to change the attitude of Spain, in addition to internal reasons already alluded.


title: Malabo

text: Spain again took control of the island in 1855 and the capital, Port Clarence, was renamed "Santa Isabel", in honor of Queen Isabella II.The capital of the island of Fernando Pó became the capital of Equatorial Guinea.


title: Malabo

text: Its present name was given to the town in 1973 as part of the campaign of President Francisco Macías Nguema to replace place names of European origin with African names, in this case honoring Malabo Löpèlo Mëlaka, the last Bubi king. Malabo, the son of King Moka, surrendered to the Spaniards. His uncle Sas Ebuera, head of the Bubi warriors, claimed to represent legitimate Bubi rule and continued resisting, confronting the Spanish openly in 1898. After the Spanish killed Sas Ebuera, Malabo became the king unopposed, but with no authority. Bubi clans and settlements were slow to accept Spanish sovereignty over the island, and the full conquest and pacification of the island was not achieved until 1912.


title: Malabo

text: During the so-called "Reign of Terror" of Macías Nguema, the dictator suppressed much of the intelligentsia of the country, initiating the process of taking over the positions of the public administration by part of the natives of Mongomo and clan Esangui. Many city residents had to leave. In the last years of his mandate, almost a fifth of the population fled. At that time (1968–1979), Equatorial Guinea received money from the Soviet Union in return for, inter alia, affording port facilities for Soviet naval craft, particularly submarines.


title: Malabo

text: The infamous Black Beach prison, also known as "Blay Beach prison" (or Playa Negra prison), sits at the mouth of the Cónsul River, beside the black beach and behind the Governor's Palace and barracks. Several people have been jailed there during the 35 years of dictatorship. Among those imprisoned and tortured are many political leaders such as Rafael Upiñalo (Movimiento), Fabián Nsue (UP), Felipe Ondo Obiang (FDR), Martín Puye of Movement for the Self-Determination of Bioko Island (MAIB) or Plácido Micó Abogo of the Social Democratic Convergence for Social Democracy (CPDS).


title: Malabo

text: A group of mercenaries was also jailed at Black Beach for an attempted coup against President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.


title: Malabo

text: Malabo is situated in the north of the island of Bioko, at coordinates 3° 45' 7.43" North and 8° 46' 25.32" East. The south of Malabo is limited by the Cónsul River and just across the river, south-west, is the hospital. West of the city, located about 9 km from the center of Malabo, is renewed Malabo International Airport. In the coastal region north of the city are the bays and capes. The elder is the punta de la Unidad Africana located just behind the Malabo Government Building and which occupies the entire eastern part of the Bay of Malabo. Another cape of importance is punta Europa located in the west of the city near to the airport.


title: Malabo

text: Malabo features a tropical monsoon climate (Köppen "Am"). Malabo receives on average of rain per year. The city has a pronounced, albeit short, sunnier (but still cloudy) dry season from December through February. January is normally its driest month with of rain falling on average. It also has a very long cloudy wet season that covers the remaining nine months from March to November. On average, the months hit hardest by the wet season are September and October, which receive of rain and showers between them.


title: Malabo

text: Daytime temperatures do not vary at all day to day, and only vary a few degrees throughout the entire year. At night, the average low temperature is in every month of the year but January to April have a slightly higher diurnal range because it is clearer. Nonetheless, with only 1,020 hours of sunshine per year, Malabo is one of the cloudiest, wettest and most lightning-prone capitals of the world, and experiences much fog and haze even when it's not raining in the driest months.


title: Malabo

text: The mayor is María Coloma Edjang Mbengono who establishes the municipal services prescribed by law, which are the responsibility of the municipality. These include drinking water and others public sources, lighting, paving of roads, cemeteries, cleaning and sanitation, the sanitary waste treatment and waste, disinfecting, emergency first aid, health inspections and drinks, health inspection of poor housing, public banks, slaughterhouses, markets and the elimination of stagnant water.


title: Malabo

text: Through the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation for Development (AECID), are made several development projects at both regional and national level. Headquartered in the Technical Cooperation Office in Malabo (created in 1984), carried out actions for the development of the culture, health, education and institutional strengthening. Stressing the Cultural Center of Spain in Malabo (CCEM), founded in 2003, where young people are encouraged to feel a cultural space where they can unleash their creative freedom. It also has three geographical axes, in order to capture the largest number of people in the region and contribute to its development. Activities include the training, art, film, theater, music and games, with the two main festivals: Traveling Film Festival of Equatorial Guinea (FECIGE) and the International Festival of Hip Hop in Malabo.


title: Malabo

text: Another important center is the Hispano-Guinean Cultural Center, from 2012 Equatorial Guinean Cultural Center began as headquarters of Institute Cardinal Cisneros, and then archive, museum and library. It was built in the 1950s.


title: Malabo

text: The Museum of Modern Art Equatorial Guinea has traditional and contemporary art of the country and the continent. The city also hosts the National Library, built in 1916.


title: Malabo

text: The tourism sector is seeing significant expansion. Since the discovery of oil, numerous infrastructural developments have been made. Since the first African meeting in the country, there has been a marked change in all aspects of tourism promotion. One of them is the famous city of Sipopo which is designed to house business and remunerative tourism.


title: Malabo

text: The city of Malabo is a focal point for tourism in Equatorial Guinea. Firstly, it has a direct connection with the main tourist attractions of Bioko Island, from amazing places to the highlighted below. and secondly, it has a wide range of hotels for all types of public. Among the main tourist places accessible from this city you can highlight the following:


title: Malabo

text: Numerous entities such as Rumbo Malabo, Guinea Tourism and other companies, make known to the world the tourism sector of the country as well as the virtues and more tourist places.


title: Malabo

text: Malabo has a relatively young population. Approximately 45% of the population is under 15. Only about 4% of the population is more than 65 years old. Most of the population lives in rural areas of the island.


title: Malabo

text: Malabo is the commercial and financial center. Malabo's economy is based on the administration and other services. Trade is also one of the most prominent and important economic activities, especially since the arrival of US companies which exploit oil wells close to the coast. This trade also comes from the presence of other Americans, Mexicans, Nigerians, Cameroonians, Spanish and other Central Africans; The building that was originally built by the Banco Popular Español, but after independence became the seat of Banco de Guinea Ecuatorial.


title: Malabo

text: Malabo has a high-tonnage port, connected mainly with the ports of Douala, (Cameroon) and Bata, and an air link via an international airport.


title: Malabo

text: The National University of Equatorial Guinea (UNGE) and the National Distance Education University (UNED), the latter Spanish-language, have headquarters in the city. The Colegio Nacional Enrique Nvó Okenve, another of the country's universities, has one of its two campuses in the city.


title: Malabo

text: Malabo has preserved buildings from the colonial era, such as the Presidential Palace and the Palace of Justice of Malabo. Other colonial buildings are also found downtown, although they are worn; for example the wooden 19th-century buildings on Nigeria and Rey Boncoro streets.


title: Malabo

text: Notable buildings include the Cathedral of Santa Isabel, of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Malabo. It is a church in the Gothic Revival style, built between 1897 and 1916. Its architect was Luis Segarra Llairadó, paid by contributions from the government of Spain and the donations of the faithful. It has two spires 40 meters high. In January 2020 a fire due to an electrical failure caused the calcination of part of its structure, currently there are work ongoing for an early restoration in November 2021.


title: Malabo

text: Other points of interest are "La Gaditana", known as "Finca Amilivia" prior to 1918, the casa Teodolita, built in 1902 and one of the oldest homes in the city, the City Hall building in Malabo, the Church of Elá Nguema, Independence Square, the Casa de España and the bay of the harbor.


title: Malabo

text: Public buses make the journey between downtown Malabo and the neighborhood of Ela Nguema. Taxis circulate in the city and outlying areas, and there is car hire from Avis and Europcar.


title: Malabo

text: The port of Malabo can theoretically reach a treatment capacity of 200,000 tons/year. The main maritime links are with national destination to Bata and international to Spain and Douala in Cameroon.


title: Malabo

text: The Malabo International Airport serves the city. It is located 7 km from the centre in Punta Europa, Bioko. It serves long-distance direct flights to Europe and some African capitals as per the list below:


title: Malabo

text: From Malabo airport, one can fly to any of the other airports in the country. These airports are located in the region of Annobón, Bata, Mongomoyen, and Corisco.


title: Malabo

text: Among the places of worship, they are predominantly Christian churches and temples (Catholic: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Malabo, Protestant, Evangelical Christian: Assemblies of God). Malabo Mosque was established in 2015.


title: Malabo

text: The main sports facility of Malabo, and the country, is the Estadio de Malabo, with a capacity of 15,250 spectators. The stadium is home to the Equatorial Guinea national football team and hosted matches during the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations. Notably, the Spain national football team, at the time World Champions, played a friendly at this stadium. The stadium also is home to the CD Elá Nguema, the main club of the country. Also located in Malabo is the Estadio Internacional. The Estadio Internacional has a 6,000 seat capacity. The Equatorial Guinea national football team played here until the Nuevo Estadio was opened.


title: Malabo

text: The 2012 Africa Cup of Nations was organized jointly by Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. One of the four venues for the tournament was the Estadio de Malabo, the main stadium of the country, constructed in 2007. In Malabo were disputed six matches of the group stage (one match of Group A and five of group B), and one cross of quarterfinals


title: Malabo

text: The 16 November 2013, the Spain national football team played a friendly match against the Equatorial Guinea national football team. It was the first visit of a European team in the country, and the match was criticized by several organizations, including the president of the Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional, Javier Tebas, due to the political situation of the country and the government of Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.


title: Malabo

text: Some of the top clubs in the country, who have won several times the Equatoguinean Primera División are from the city of Malabo. The club with the most league titles is the CD Elá Nguema with 14. Other clubs from the city that have been proclaimed league champions are the Renacimiento FC, the Atlético Malabo or Cafe Bank Sportif. Another club of the city is the Atlético Semu, once champion of Equatoguinean Cup.


title: Malabo

text: Another important club from the city is the Malabo Kings of basketball, which was champion of the country, and in 2013 was proclaimed champion Central Zone of Africa Basketball Championship, winning in Kinshasa at Talia from Gabon. The Malabo Kings had already finished second in 2011, Yaoundé (Cameroon). In 2013 held in Malabo on I Campus of Basketball Ciudad de Malabo organized by the Equatorial Guinea Basketball Federation and Club de Baloncesto Conejero from Spain.


title: Malabo

text: Malabo was originally to host the 2019 African Games but due to economic problems they decide to withdraw its hosting rights and was replaced by Casablanca, Morocco.


title: Malabo

text: Malabo has been significantly affected by Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo's growing co-operation with the petroleum industry. The country's production has reached , an increase which led to a doubling of the city's population, but for the vast majority, very little of that wealth has been invested in development.


title: Solitaire

text: Solitaire is any tabletop game which one can play by oneself, usually with cards, but also with dominoes. The term "solitaire" is also used for single-player games of concentration and skill using a set layout tiles, pegs or stones. These games include peg solitaire and mahjong solitaire. The game is most often played by one person, but can incorporate others.


title: Solitaire

text: The origins of Card Solitaire or Patience are unclear, but the earliest records appear in the late 1700s across northern Europe and Scandinavia. The term "Patiencespiel" appears in "Das neue Königliche L’Hombre-Spiel", a German book published in 1788. Books were also reported to appear in Sweden and Russia in the early 1800s. There are additional references to Patience in French literature. In the United States, the first card solitaire book, "Patience: A series of thirty games with cards", was published by Ednah Cheney in 1870.


title: Solitaire

text: The most popular card solitaire is Klondike, which was called Microsoft Solitaire in a digital implementation included with the Windows operating system from 1990 onwards.


title: Afzal Guru

text: Mohammad Afzal Guru (June 1969 – 9 February 2013) was a Kashmiri separatist, who was convicted for his role in the 2001 Indian Parliament attack. He received a death sentence for his involvement, which was upheld by the Indian Supreme Court. Following the rejection of a mercy petition by the President of India, he was executed on 9 February 2013. His body was buried within the precincts of Delhi's Tihar Jail. Amnesty International has questioned his sentence stating that he did not receive adequate legal representation and that his execution was carried out in secrecy.


title: Afzal Guru

text: Initially more nationalist, his separatism would become Islamist over the years, the seclusion in prison making him more devout as well a voracious reader of books on religion, philosophy, and comparative religion.


title: Afzal Guru

text: Guru born in Du Aabgah village near Sopore town in the Baramulla district of Jammu and Kashmir in 1969 to the family of Habibullah. Habibullah ran a timber and transport business, and died when Guru was a child. Guru completed his schooling from Government School, Sopore and passed the matriculation exam in 1986. He subsequently enrolled in the Jhelum valley medical college. He had completed the first year of his MBBS course and was preparing for competitive exams when he began to participate in other activities.


title: Afzal Guru

text: Afzal's native place was Sopore. There, he ran a commission agency in fruits. It was during this business venture that he came into contact with Tariq, a man from Anantnag, who motivated him to join Jihad for the liberation of Kashmir. He crossed the Line of Control and proceeded to Muzaffarabad, Pakistan administered Kashmir. There, he became a member of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front and then returned to Sopore shortly afterward to lead 300 rebels. He did odd jobs and completed his graduation from Delhi University in the year 1993–94.


title: Afzal Guru

text: Shaukat who was a friend of Geelani, made Guru visit Geelani and they used to discuss "Jihad" and the "liberation" of Kashmir at length. In the summer of 1993–94, on the advice of his family, he surrendered to the Border Security Force and returned to Delhi where he worked till 1996. He took up a job with a pharmaceuticals firm and served as its area manager. Simultaneously, he worked as a commission agent for medical and surgical goods in the year 1996. During this period, he used to shuttle between Srinagar and Delhi. On a visit to Kashmir in 1998, he married a Baramulla native, Tabasum.


title: Afzal Guru

text: The 13 December 2001 attack was conducted by the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM). Gunmen sneaked into the Parliament in a car with Home Ministry and Parliament labels. They drove into the then Vice President Krishna Kant's car parked in the premises and began firing. The ministers and MPs escaped unhurt. The attack was foiled due to the immediate reaction of the security personnel present at the spot and complex. There was a fierce gun-battle lasting for nearly 30 minutes. Nine persons including eight security personnel and one gardener lost their lives in the attack and 16 persons including 13 security personnel, received injuries. The five assailants were killed. At the end of December, US President George W. Bush made a telephone call to Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to defuse tension between the two countries and urge them to move away from escalating the Parliament attack into war.


title: Afzal Guru

text: On 15 December 2001, the special cell of Delhi Police, with the help of leads relating to the car used and cellphone records, arrested Guru from Srinagar, his cousin Shaukat Husain Guru, Shaukat's wife Afsan Guru (Navjot Sandhu before marriage) and S A R Gilani, a lecturer of Arabic at Delhi University were also arrested by the police.


title: Afzal Guru

text: On 13 December an FIR was lodged by the police and after subsequent arrests, all the accused were tried under charges of waging war, conspiracy, murder, attempt to murder etc. with the provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002 (POTA) being added to the original charges after six days. On 29 December 2001, Guru was sent to 10-day police remand. The court appointed Seema Gulati as his lawyer. who dropped Guru's case after 45 days because of her case load. In June 2002, charges were filed against all four of them. 80 witnesses were examined for the prosecution and 10 witnesses were examined on behalf of the accused.


title: Afzal Guru

text: Guru was charged under several sections of POTA and the Indian Penal Code including waging of war against the Government of India and conspiracy to commit the same; murder and criminal conspiracy; conspiring and knowingly facilitating the commission of a terrorist act or acts preparatory to a terrorist act, and also voluntarily harbouring and concealing the now-deceased terrorists, knowing that such persons were terrorists and were members of the Jaish-e-Mohammad, and possession of 10 Lakhs given to him by the terrorists who were killed by the police when they attacked the Parliament. Police filed a charge-sheet in the case on 15 May 2002. The trial started after charges were laid against the four accused on 4 June 2002.


title: Afzal Guru

text: After his arrest, Guru made a confessional statement which bore his signature, recorded by the DCP, special cell. It was recorded in the preamble of the confession that DCP had asked policemen present there to leave the room. The Supreme Court was angered by the act of police officials, who, in their over-zealousness, had arranged for a media interview. However, after seven months, Guru disowned this confession and the Supreme Court did not accept the earlier confession as evidence against him.


title: Afzal Guru

text: Sushil Kumar, Guru's advocate later claimed that Guru had written a letter to him where Guru said that he had made the confessions under duress as his family was being threatened. Journalist Vinod K. Jose claimed that in an interview in 2006, Guru had said that he had been subjected to extreme torture which included electric shocks in private parts and being beaten up for hours along with threats regarding his family after his arrest. Between the time of his arrest and the time when initial charges were filed, Guru was told that his brother was held in detention. At the time of his confession, he had no legal representation.


title: Afzal Guru

text: On 22 December 2001, the case was brought before a special POTA Court under sessions judge S N Dhingra and the trial started on 8 July 2002, and was conducted on a day-to-day basis. Eighty witnesses were examined for the prosecution and ten were examined for defence. Trial was concluded in nearly six months.


title: Afzal Guru

text: On 18 December 2002, relying on the circumstantial evidence, the special court awarded capital punishment to Guru, Shaukat and Geelani. Shaukat's wife Afsan was found guilty of concealing the plot and sentenced to five years in jail. The POTA court justified capital punishment, saying the attack on Parliament was the handiwork of forces which wanted to "destroy the country and cripple it by killing or capturing its entire political executive, including the Prime Minister and the Home Minister... captivate entire legislature and the Vice-President, who were in Parliament." He was also sentenced to life imprisonment on as many as eight counts under the provisions of IPC, POTA and Explosive Substances Act in addition to varying amounts of fine. In August 2003, Jaish-e-Mohammed leader Ghazi Baba, who was a prime accused in the attack was killed in an encounter with the Border Security Force (BSF) in Srinagar. In October 2003, on an appeal, Delhi High Court upheld the order.


title: Afzal Guru

text: An appeal was made to the Delhi High Court, but after going through the case and taking into consideration various authorities and precedents, the Court found that the conviction of Guru was correct and hence his appeal was dismissed. Guru was represented by senior counsel Shanti Bhushan and Colin Gonsalves. The co-accused in the case, SAR Geelani and Afsan Guru (wife of Shaukat Husain), were acquitted by the High Court 29 October 2003.


title: Afzal Guru

text: On 4 August 2005, the Supreme Court, upheld the death sentence for Afzal Guru while it commuted Shaukat Hussain Guru's sentence from death to 10 years imprisonment. Of the three sentenced to death, SAR Geelani (who was presented as the mastermind behind the attack), Shaukat Hussain Guru and Afzal Guru, only Afzal Guru's penalty was upheld by the Supreme Court. Guru filed a review petition before the Supreme Court seeking review of its judgement. However, on 22 September 2005, the review petition too came to be dismissed by the Supreme Court.


title: Afzal Guru

text: The Supreme Court observed that mostly, the conspiracies are proved by the circumstantial evidence. It held that the circumstances detailed in the judgment clearly established that Guru was associated with the deceased militants in almost every act done by them in order to achieve the objective of attacking the Parliament House. It also observed that there was sufficient and satisfactory circumstantial evidence to establish that Guru was a partner in this conspired crime of enormous gravity. It has to be noted, that in its judgement of 5 August 2005, the supreme court admitted that the evidence against Guru was only circumstantial, and that there was no evidence that he belonged to any terrorist group or organisation. He was subsequently meted out three life sentences and a double death sentence.


title: Afzal Guru

text: In October 2006, Guru's wife Tabasum Guru filed a mercy petition with then President of India A. P. J. Abdul Kalam. In June 2007, Supreme Court dismissed Guru's plea seeking review of his death sentence, saying "there is no merit" in it. In December 2010, Shaukat Hussain Guru was released from Delhi's Tihar Jail due to his good conduct.


title: Afzal Guru

text: There was an appeal to issue clemency to Guru from various human rights groups including political groups in Kashmir, who believe that Guru did not receive a fair trial and was framed by corrupt police and the victim of inefficient police work. Human rights activists in various parts of India and the world have demanded reprieve as they believe that the trial was flawed. Arundhati Roy and Praful Bidwai castigated the trial and argued that Guru has been denied natural justice. Accusations of human rights violations have been made by many.


title: Afzal Guru

text: Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed and local political groups voiced their support of clemency for Guru. It was alleged many have done so to appease Muslim voters in India. However, there were protests (with instances of stone pelting at Indian security forces) in Kashmir against the planned execution of Guru in 2006.


title: Afzal Guru

text: Communist Party of India (Marxist) was critical of both the Congress as well as of the BJP, and claimed it was delaying the legal procedure in the case accusing it of trying to whip up enmity between communities in the name of a crime done by a group of criminals. The party wants the law of the land to take its course without any interference.


title: Afzal Guru

text: Ram Jethmalani held that it is completely within the president's power to commute the Death sentence and is not a mercy plea. He said, "It’s a misnomer to call it a mercy petition. It leads to total misunderstanding of the constitutional power. The constitutional power is that the president has the power to disagree with the Supreme Court both with its findings of fact and law."


title: Afzal Guru

text: The Jammu and Kashmir People's Democratic Party president and MP, Mehbooba Mufti commented that the centre should pardon Afzal if Pakistan accepted the clemency appeal for Sarabjit Singh.


title: Afzal Guru

text: However, the All-India Anti-Terrorist Front Chairman Maninderjeet Singh Bitta urged the President of India not to accept any clemency pleas on Afzal's behalf. He warned that his organisation would launch agitations if Afzal was pardoned. He also criticised statements of various political leaders and blamed them for "encouraging activities of terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir".


title: Afzal Guru

text: An "India Today" poll in October 2006 showed that 78% of Indians supported the death penalty for Afzal.


title: Afzal Guru

text: On 12 November 2006, the former Deputy Prime Minister of India, Lal Krishna Advani criticised the delay in carrying out the death sentence on Guru for the Parliament terror attack, saying, "I fail to understand the delay. They have increased my security. But what needs to be done immediately is to carry out the court's orders".


title: Afzal Guru

text: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) severely criticised Arundhati Roy. BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said:


title: Afzal Guru

text: "Those who are supporting Afzal by demanding that he should not be hanged are not only acting against public sentiment in the country but are giving a fillip to terrorist morale"


title: Afzal Guru

text: On 23 June 2010, the Ministry of Home Affairs recommended the president's office to reject the mercy petition. On 7 January 2011, a whistle-blowing site indianleaks.in leaked a document which stated that the mercy petition file was not with President of India. This was rubbished by Kapil Sibal in an interview with NDTV.


title: Afzal Guru

text: This was confirmed by Home Minister P. Chidambaram in New Delhi on 23 February 2011. With the death penalty handed to Ajmal Kasab, the speculation was that Guru was next in line.


title: Afzal Guru

text: On 10 August 2011, the home ministry of India rejected the mercy petition, and sent a letter to the President of India recommending the death penalty .


title: Afzal Guru

text: On 7 September 2011, a high intensity bomb blast outside Delhi high court killed 11 people and left 76 others injured.


title: Afzal Guru

text: In an e-mail sent to a media house Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, an Islamic fundamentalist organisation, owned responsibility for the attack and claimed the blast was carried out in retaliation to Parliament attack convict Guru's death sentence.


title: Afzal Guru

text: "We own the responsibility for today's blasts at Delhi high court. Our demand is that Mohammed Afzal Guru's death sentence should be repealed immediately else we would target major high courts and the Supreme Court of India."


title: Afzal Guru

text: Later on Afzal Guru in his letter declared the attack on Delhi High Court that killed 11 Indians against the principles of Islam and refuted all allegations with the attack.


title: Afzal Guru

text: On 16 November 2012, the president had sent seven cases back to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), including Afzal Guru's. The president requested Sushil Kumar Shinde, home minister, review the opinion of his predecessor, P. Chidambaram. On 10 December, Shinde indicated he would look at the file after the winter session of the Parliament was finished on 20 December. Shinde made his final recommendation to execute Guru on 23 January 2013. On 3 February 2013, Guru's mercy petition was rejected by the President of India.


title: Afzal Guru

text: Afzal Guru was hanged six days later on 9 February 2013 at 8 am. Jail officials have said that when Guru was told about his execution, he was calm. He expressed his wish to write to his wife. The jail superintendent gave him a pen and paper. He wrote the letter in Urdu, which was posted to his family in Kashmir the same day. Very few officers were told about the decision. Three doctors and a maulvi, who performed his last rites, were informed secretly a night before. They were asked to come early Saturday morning. Guru performed his morning prayers and read a few pages of the Quran. Guru's letter was delivered to his family on 12 February. Kobad Ghandhy, who spent three years with Afzal in Tihar, wrote that Afzal asked jail authorities to treat the jail staff well and that the staff wept for Afzal. The execution of Mohammed Afzal Guru was named Operation Three Star.


title: Afzal Guru

text: Guru's family was informed of his execution two days after by a letter sent through Speedpost, a fast courier service, to their home in Sopore. Postal officials in Srinagar said they received the letter Saturday evening (9 February), but it could not be delivered until Monday (11 February) because Sunday was a public holiday.


title: Afzal Guru

text: The secret operation surrounding the execution of Afzal Guru was code named Operation Three Star. The prison took steps to execute Guru in secrecy. The execution was carried out without the family's knowledge or any form of public announcement. Guru's body was buried on prison grounds to prevent a public funeral.


title: Afzal Guru

text: On a national level, security was prepared beforehand for public protests. After Guru' s execution, a curfew was then imposed by the authorities when the news became public in Kashmir to prevent any kind of protests in support of Guru. State-run media Doordarshan announced the execution on the morning of 9 February, and Omar Abdullah, chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir state, made a special appeal on television for public calm. Authorities also shut down cable TV and internet services to try to stop further news of the hanging and activists from organizing and spreading unrest.


title: Afzal Guru

text: Mosques throughout the region were used for public announcements and curfew information. SAR Geelani, who was co-accused in the attacks on the Indian parliament and later acquitted by the Supreme Court,<ref name="Outlook-Case-6/7"></ref> was taken into preventive custody by the Delhi Police. Several leaders from the separatist movement were also detained. However, protests flared up in parts of the Valley—Guru's hometown of Sopore, Baramulla in North Kashmir and Pulwama in South Kashmir—and groups of young men broke curfew and threw stones at security forces. Police fired at protesters, and 36 people were injured, including 23 policemen, said a police spokesperson, particularly around Guru's home district where most of the violence was concentrated.


title: Afzal Guru

text: There were scuffles in Delhi too, where Bajrang Dal and Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) members were celebrating the hanging of Afzal Guru. Soon Kashmiri students from Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University accompanied by members of CPI(M-L), Peoples Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) and National Confederation of Human Rights Organisations (who were condemning capital punishment) started a counter-protest in support of Afzal Guru and chanted slogans in support of an independent Kashmir. Tensions escalated as the rival protests took on a communal hue when both groups raised religious slogans and scuffled with each other as police struggled to keep them separated. Protesters holding protests on different issues too joined the foray against the Kashmiri students. The situation was brought under control by policemen in riot gear who bundled the students into waiting buses and drove them away. Delhi police lathicharged protestors at Jantar Mantar. The police detained at least 21 Kashmiri students. Female students were also assaulted.


title: Afzal Guru

text: In an interview in 2006 with Jose, Guru said, "If you want to hang me, go ahead with it, but remember it will be a black spot on the judicial and political system of India."


title: Afzal Guru

text: In the letter written before his death, Guru wrote, "I am about to be hanged. Now, near the gallows, I want to tell you (family members) that I was not given enough time to write a detailed letter. I am thankful that Allah (God) chose me for this sacrifice. And please, take care of Tabasum and Galib."


title: Afzal Guru

text: SAR Geelani condemned Afzal Guru's hanging was a "cruel and politically motivated gimmick" and a " politically motivated decision."


title: Afzal Guru

text: Justice SN Dhinga, the Judge who sentenced Guru and co-accused Shaukat Guru and SAR Geelani to death in 2002, termed the execution a political move stating that the judiciary took just three years to decide the matter while the executive took eight years to implement the same


title: Afzal Guru

text: Amnesty International condemned the execution saying that it 'indicates a disturbing and regressive trend towards executions shrouded in secrecy'. Shashikumar Velath, Programmes Director at Amnesty International India said "We condemn the execution in the strongest possible terms. This very regrettably puts India in opposition to the global trend towards moving away from the death penalty".


title: Afzal Guru

text: In April 2013, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari condemned the execution of Afzal Guru inside the Pakistan-controlled Kashmir region. The President said, "The hanging of Afzal Guru through the abuse of judicial process has further aggravated and angered the people of Kashmir."


title: Afzal Guru

text: Most political parties with exception of Kashmiri politicians welcomed the move by the Government of India. The BJP stated that it was a correct move albeit very late. It also stated that the public opinion forced Afzal Guru's hanging.


title: Afzal Guru

text: A leader from the Bharatiya Janata Party, then Chief Minister of Gujarat now Prime Minister Narendra Modi, tweeted "better late than never" after the news of Guru's execution by hanging had been announced. Modi had previously been critical of the government for delaying Guru's execution after the Supreme Court's final decision.


title: Afzal Guru

text: Jammu and Kashmir People's Democratic Party spokesman Naeem Akhtar also criticised Guru's burial inside the prison complex in New Delhi, saying the body should have been given to his family in Kashmir. The All Parties Hurriyat Conference announced a four-day mourning on the death of Guru. The Prime Minister of Azad Kashmir, announced three-day mourning and the Kashmir flag waved at half mast.


title: Afzal Guru

text: Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah has been highly critical about Afzal Guru's hanging. He said the "biggest tragedy" of the execution was that he was not allowed to meet his family before he was hanged. He also suggested that the centre was "selective" in avenging attacks on symbols of democracy and backed the allegation that the legal process in the Parliament attack mastermind Afzal Guru's case was "flawed".


title: Afzal Guru

text: Omar Abdullah's father, Former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Union minister Farooq Abdullah said: "Afzal Guru’s mercy petition was put before the President. He rejected it. The matter is over."


title: Afzal Guru

text: The Hindu published in an article by Praveen Swami where he mentioned that legal experts have cast no small doubt on whether Guru received a fair trial, whether his guilt was proved and whether his death penalty was legitimate. It was cited that the debates on this case had engaged some of India's finest legal minds for months, both on the side of the state and defence. He also mentioned that the key actors in the attack were likely to get away, because no one could investigate them. In his words, "We are still far from knowing the full truth of 13/12. It is likely that many of the unanswered questions might resolve themselves if Pakistan were ever to arrest Jaish-e-Muhammad chief Maulana Masood Azhar — currently living, in some luxury, in his Bahawalpur home. Nothing in recent experience – witness the 26/11 case – suggests this will happen"


title: Afzal Guru

text: However, Swami was very critical of Arundhati Roy for asserting that political parties and the media all colluded to do something terribly wrong.


title: Afzal Guru

text: Although the press in India has been broadly supportive of Guru's hanging, a section of the press criticised the manner in which the execution was carried out. In particular, the "Times of India" pointed out that since assumption of office as president Pranab Mukherjee had turned down three clemency petitions – Ajmal Amir Kasab, Afzal Guru and Saibanna Ningappa Natekar. The "Times of India" highlighted the possible lack of due process evident in the government's failure to comply with the stipulation of the jail manual to inform Guru's family about the date of the execution. The compromise is more evident in Guru's case because, unlike Kasab, his family members are Indians, who live in Kashmir. The rationale behind this stipulation is to provide the convict a chance to meet his family members for the last time.


title: Afzal Guru

text: In a different article, the "Times of India" also noted that "There's no doubt, therefore, that the crime of which Afzal has been convicted falls in the "rarest of rare" category. In the event he's gone through due process, as exemplified in the acquittals or lesser sentencing of all three of his co-accused through various stages of the judicial process, depending on quality of evidence. Once the president rejected his mercy petition the government had no option but to carry out the death sentence."


title: Afzal Guru

text: However in another article, it was observed in "The Hindu" that though judicial determination will be – and ought to be – subjected to continued critical scrutiny but there is nothing to show the judicial system was blind to Guru’s legal rights. The article also criticised the journalists and political leaders of 'a certain kind' for not dealing with the "full truth".


title: Afzal Guru

text: Dawn observed that the timing in which he was executed was clearly an attempt to thwart the impending criticism of the economy's dwindling growth rate which had reportedly come down to a 10-year low of five per cent. The hanging was also expected to make the Congress party look as hardline as the BJP. The demeanour is considered useful with the urban middle class voter.


title: Afzal Guru

text: The families of victims of the 2001 parliament attack said that they will write to president Pranab Mukherjee to get back the bravery awards returned by them earlier. The families had earlier returned the medals to protest the delay in hanging.


title: Afzal Guru

text: Indian Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said that Afzal Guru's family was informed about the hanging decision on time. But the family was not aware of Guru's hanging since the Speed post letter sent by the Tihar jail authorities regarding the hanging of Afzal reached his family 2 days after his hanging. He defended the secrecy government maintained in the execution saying that it would not have happened had the decision been made public in advance. He also denied the Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah's charge that he was kept in the dark about the centre's decision to hang him. He said: "I personally informed Omar about the execution. Also, the family of Afzal Guru was informed on the night of 7 February." Asserting the need to maintain secrecy, Shinde said, "This, as Ajmal Kasab's case, was extremely sensitive, government had to be very careful. Secrecy has to be maintained in such cases." He also picked holes in Omar Abdullah's assertion that Parliament attack convict Guru's hanging was "out of turn."


title: Afzal Guru

text: On 13 February, few days after Guru's execution, lawyers N D Pancholi and Nandita Haksar withdrew as his family's counsel, citing "unseemly controversies" and "suspicion" by certain political groups in Kashmir. Without elaborating on the immediate reasons for their decision they said that in Kashmir some political groups feel these offers of solidarity and friendship with suspicion.


title: Afzal Guru

text: Guru's wife, Tabasum, had sought to claim his body which was buried in the Tihar Jail. However the Central government is likely to reject the request citing the Jail manual. The Delhi Jail manual states that the body may not be transferred to family/friends "if there are grounds for supposing that the prisoner's funeral will be an occasion for a demonstration".


title: Murder of Emani Moss

text: Emani Gabrielle Moss (April 23, 2003 – October 28, 2013) was a ten-year-old American girl who was starved to death by her stepmother in Lawrenceville, Georgia, in 2013, in what became a prominent case leading to reforms in Georgia's child welfare system. Tiffany Nicole Moss (born July 1983) was convicted of murdering Emani in 2019 and was subsequently sentenced to death. The murder received national as well as international attention.


title: Murder of Emani Moss

text: The attention was largely due to the crime's severe nature; Moss physically abused Emani for several years before her death. In 2013, Moss began starving Emani. Emani's father, Eman, who was rarely home, failed to stop the abuse. Emani died of starvation on October 28, 2013. At the time of her death, she weighed , the weight of an average toddler. The murder led to several systemic changes in the Georgia Division of Family and Child Services (GDFCS). Eman pled guilty in 2015 for his role in the crime.


title: Murder of Emani Moss

text: The case against Moss went to trial, and in April 2019, Moss, who represented herself, was convicted of all counts. She was sentenced to death on May 1, 2019. She is currently incarcerated at the Arrendale State Prison and is Georgia's only female death row inmate.


title: Murder of Emani Moss

text: Emani Gabrielle Moss was born on April 23, 2003. Shortly after Emani's birth, her mother, addicted to drugs, surrendered her parental rights, and Emani's father, Eman gained sole custody of her. Emani was one of five children born to her mother. Her mother surrendered parental rights to all of her children. Eman was charged with and convicted of battery and second-degree child cruelty in 2004 after beating Emani's biological mother in front of her.


title: Murder of Emani Moss

text: Eman largely raised Emani and often took her to the Freedom Christian Church. There, he met Tiffany Moss, a preschool teacher. Eman and Tiffany married in July 2009 and had two children, a son and a daughter. Though there are no records indicating that Tiffany abused her biological children, she did abuse Emani. The abuse increased in March 2010 after a beating of Emani caused Moss to lose her job. Emani, then age six, told a school nurse that she feared going home with a bad report card because she worried her parents would hurt her. She also told the nurse that her stepmother had spanked her with a curtain rod. The nurse then found multiple scabs, bruises, and welts on Emani's arms, back, chest, legs, and shoulders, and Emani was taken to the police headquarters. Tiffany was arrested and charged with first-degree child cruelty. Tiffany admitted to hitting Emani three times after she failed to do her homework. She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years of probation as part of Georgia's First Offender Program. The Georgia Division of Family and Children Services (GDFCS) signed the plea deal. The GDFCS dismissed a case against Tiffany and Eman after they completed parenting classes.


title: Murder of Emani Moss

text: After the March 2010 beating, Emani was taken from her father and stepmother's home and placed with her grandmother Robin, staying with her for about six months. During this time, Emani's school performance improved. Eman fought for custody of Emani, and in the fall of 2010, the GDFCS returned her to him. Robin fought to retain custody of her granddaughter. Though she suspected Emani was being abused, she could not persuade authorities to give her custody. Prosecutors later argued at trial that the March 2010 abuse incident launched an escalating cycle of more abuse that ultimately resulted in Emani's death. Because Moss had pleaded guilty to beating Emani, she was no longer allowed to teach preschool. This made her resent Emani, as she blamed her for the job loss.


title: Murder of Emani Moss

text: Moss continued to abuse Emani for the next several years. In July 2012, Emani twice tried to run away from home. In one case, she went to the apartment office and told them she wanted to run away because Moss had tied her up with a belt and placed her in a cold shower. The police responded and were told by Moss that Emani was not telling the truth. Because there was not enough evidence to charge anyone, Emani was returned to Eman and Moss. In another July 2012 incident, Emani ran away and was found sleeping in the bushes of a nearby apartment complex by a police officer. Emani told the officer that she had run away because her stepmother was mean to her. The officer reported the event to the GDFCS and filed runaway and curfew violation charges against Emani to ensure she would see a juvenile court judge.


title: Murder of Emani Moss

text: From 2011 to the summer of 2013, the Moss family moved around, sometimes living with family. Eman, who worked long hours, did not see his daughter often. He later reported at trial that she would eat a lot when he saw her on the weekends when he was in charge of the children. When the Mosses lived on their own, Emani rarely saw extended family. In May 2013, the Mosses visited Eman's sister Sharoniece's house for Mother's Day. Sharoniece and Robin noticed that Emani's hair had been cut. When Robin confronted Moss about it, Moss reportedly said, "if you act ugly, you should look ugly." Sharoniece also noticed that Emani acted more timidly. After the 2012–2013 school year ended, Eman and Moss announced that they would pull Emani from public school and homeschool her. Sharoniece objected to the idea and called the GDFCS, asking them to intervene. Still, they declined. On August 6, 2013, the GDFCS received an anonymous tip that Emani was being neglected by her father and stepmother and "appeared to be thin." According to a lawsuit against the GDFCS filed by Robin, the GDFCS did not visit the home and did not conduct a follow-up "due to having no current address and no current maltreatment."


title: Murder of Emani Moss

text: Mother's Day (12 May) 2013 was the last time any members of Emani's family, besides her father, stepmother, and siblings, saw her alive. In the late summer of 2013, Eman, Moss, their children, and Emani moved to an apartment in Lawrenceville, Georgia. According to District Attorney Danny Porter, this was when, "for all intents and purposes, Emani vanished from the face of the earth." During this time, Eman worked two jobs, making him largely absent from Emani's life. He would leave for his first job in the early morning, briefly return in the late afternoon, and then leave for his second job around 6:00 pm before finally returning at around 10:30 pm or 11:00 pm. While Eman was at work, Moss was left to care for the children.


title: Murder of Emani Moss

text: At some point, Moss began to starve Emani. According to prosecutors, the starvation likely lasted several weeks. During this time, Emani was confined to her bedroom. Neighbors only saw Moss's biological children and did not know they had an older sister.