title: Cherrapunji

text: A notable feature of monsoon rain at Sohra is that most of it falls in the morning. This could be partly due to two air masses coming together. During the monsoon months, the prevailing winds along the Brahmaputra valley generally blow from the east or the northeast, but the winds over Meghalaya are from the south. These two winds systems usually come together in the vicinity of the Khasi Hills. Apparently, the winds that are trapped in the valley at night begin their upward ascent only after they are warmed during the day. This partially explains the frequency of morning rainfall. Apart from orographic features, atmospheric convection plays an important role during the monsoon and the period just preceding it.


title: Cherrapunji

text: As of the 2011 Census in India, Sohra had a population of 10,086, with males 48.75% of the total population and females 51.25%. It has an average literacy rate of 74%, equal to the national average of 74.5%, with a male literacy rate of 72.4% and a female one of 73.9%.


title: Cherrapunji

text: Most of the people in the town overwhelmingly follow Christianity, with significant followers of indigenous Niam Khasi, Hinduism and a very small Muslim population.


title: Cherrapunji

text: The locals living in and around Sohra are known as Khasis. It is a matrilineal culture. After the wedding,the youngest girl husband should be stay with her family who own the property of the family, while others live on their own getting a bit of the share. The children take on the surname of the mother.


title: Cherrapunji

text: Sohra is also famous for its living bridges. Over hundreds of years the people have developed techniques for growing roots of trees into large bridges. The process takes 10 to 15 years and the bridges typically last hundreds of years, the oldest ones in use being over 500 years old.


title: Cherrapunji

text: Sohra Government College is the only general degree college in the town. Most students move to the state capital for college degrees. Schools, like the Ramkrishna Mission which are independent and government-run schools like the Thomas Jones School have been set up in and around the town.


title: Cherrapunji

text: Sohra has an All India Radio relay station known as Akashvani Sohra. It broadcasts on FM frequencies.


title: Danny Greene

text: Daniel John Patrick Greene (November 14, 1933 – October 6, 1977) was an Irish-American organized crime figure based in Cleveland, Ohio. Greene gained power first in the local chapter of the International Longshoremen's Association, where he was elected president during the early 1960s. He later became a full time crime boss and began competing with Jewish-American organized crime figure Shondor Birns and the Italian-American Cleveland crime family for control of the city's criminal underworld. Greene set up his own crew called the Celtic Club, complete with enforcers and a close alliance with outlaw biker gangs.


title: Danny Greene

text: During the 1970s, Greene allied himself of mobbed up labor union leader John Nardi during the latter's war against Jack Licavoli for leadership of the Cleveland crime family. Competing factions set off more than 36 bombs, most attached to cars, in murder attempts, many successful. After the humiliating failure of multiple attempts of his life and Greene's decision to repeatedly taunt the Licavoli faction as "maggots" in the Cleveland news media, Greene was successfully assassinated in 1977 by Los Angeles crime family enforcers Ray Ferritto and Ronald Carabbia.


title: Danny Greene

text: A subsequent police investigation revealed that Greene's murder had been a criminal conspiracy by the Italian-American crime families in Cleveland, New York City, and Southern California. The investigation also resulted in the defections of both Ray Ferritto and Los Angeles crime family boss Jimmy Fratianno, followed by the exposure and arrest of a mole inside the Cleveland FBI. The investigation also laid the groundwork for many successful Federal prosecutions of the Italian-American Mafia in multiple cities nationwide.


title: Danny Greene

text: Daniel John Patrick "Danny" Greene was born November 14, 1933, in Cleveland, Ohio, to John Henry Greene and Irene Cecelia Greene (née Fallon). His father was also born in Cleveland, but his mother was born in Pennsylvania.


title: Danny Greene

text: Three days after his birth, Greene's mother died. He was called "Baby Greene" until his mother was buried, after which he was eventually named after his grandfather (Daniel John Greene). Danny's father drank heavily and eventually lost his job as a salesman for Fuller Brush. After this, Danny temporarily moved in with his grandfather (a newspaper printer), who had also been recently widowed. Unable to provide for Danny, his father placed him in Parmadale, a Roman Catholic orphanage in Parma, Ohio, three miles outside Cleveland.


title: Danny Greene

text: In 1939, Danny's father began dating a nurse. He married her, and they started their own family and brought Danny to live with them.


title: Danny Greene

text: At age 6, Danny resented his stepmother and ran away on several occasions. His paternal grandfather took him in, and Danny lived with him and an aunt for the rest of his childhood in the Collinwood neighborhood. Taking advantage of the fact that his grandfather worked nights, Danny roamed the streets at night. When Danny's father died in 1959, the newspaper obituary listed his children from his second marriage but did not mention Danny.


title: Danny Greene

text: Danny attended St. Jerome Catholic School, where he developed a great fondness for the nuns and priests, developed a lasting friendship with some of his teachers, and served as an altar boy. He was athletic, excelled at baseball, and was an all-star basketball player. Although Danny was a poor student, the nuns at St. Jerome let him play sports because he was valuable to the team.


title: Danny Greene

text: Danny attended St. Ignatius High School. There he frequently fought with Italian-American students, children of more recent immigrants struggling for a place, and he developed an intense dislike for Italians that lasted his entire life.


title: Danny Greene

text: After being expelled from Saint Ignatius, he transferred to Collinwood High School, where he excelled in athletics. He was also a Boy Scout for a short time, before being kicked out of his troop. He was also expelled from Collinwood High School, in that case, due to excessive tardiness, which he claimed was caused by the bullying of fellow students.


title: Danny Greene

text: After being expelled from Collinwood High School in 1951, Greene enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, where he was soon noticed for his abilities as a boxer and marksman. He was stationed for a time at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, Jacksonville, North Carolina and was transferred many times, possibly because of behavioral issues. Promoted to the rank of corporal in 1953, Greene taught new junior Marines how to be artillerymen. He was honorably discharged later that year.


title: Danny Greene

text: In the early 1960s, Greene worked steadily as a longshoreman at the Cleveland docks, years before the work was unionized by the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA). In his free time he read about Ireland and its turbulent history, and began to think of himself as a "Celtic warrior". Some writers have speculated that reading about such warriors inspired his criminal ambitions. In 1961, the ILA removed the president of the local union. Greene was chosen to serve as interim president and handily won the next election. Once president, Greene had the union office painted green (to represent his Irish ethnicity) and installed thick green carpeting. He was known to drive a green car, wear green jackets, and often handed out green ink pens.


title: Danny Greene

text: In office, he raised dues 25% and pushed workers to perform "volunteer" hours to assist in providing a "building fund". Those who refused often found themselves losing work. He fired more than 50 members while denouncing them as "winos and bums" to other workers.


title: Danny Greene

text: Greene led sometimes violent protests and strikes to force the stevedore companies to allow the ILA to oversee the hiring of dockworkers. As a prerequisite to landing a job as a longshoreman, many workers had to unload grain from the ships on a temporary basis and turn their paychecks over to Greene. Said to have been collected to build a union hall, most of the funds ended up in Greene's personal bank account.


title: Danny Greene

text: An unidentified ILA member would later recall about Greene, "He read "On the Waterfront". He imagined himself a tough dock boss. But he was thirty years too late. He used workers to beat up union members who did not come in line, but he was never seen fighting himself. He was a spellbinding speaker and a good organizer."


title: Danny Greene

text: As a union organizer, Greene sometimes declared work stoppages, as frequently as 25 per day, to demonstrate to company owners his authority on the docks. On one occasion, he threatened to murder the two children of one owner, and the FBI put the man's house and family under protection.


title: Danny Greene

text: After Sam Marshall, an investigative reporter, collected affidavits that supported charges of extortion, Greene was exiled from the union and convicted of embezzlement. The conviction was later overturned on appeal.


title: Danny Greene

text: Rather than face a second trial, Greene pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of falsifying union records, was fined $10,000, and received a suspended sentence. Afterward, he did not pay the fine nor receive any prison time.


title: Danny Greene

text: After returning to his rackets, Greene met and befriended Teamsters boss Louis Triscaro, who introduced Greene to Jimmy Hoffa. After the friendly meeting, Hoffa later reportedly said to Triscaro, "Stay away from that guy. There's something wrong with him."


title: Danny Greene

text: Marty McCann, of the Organized Crime Division of the FBI, recruited Greene as an informant. Greene passed along information to the FBI and became a top-echelon confidential informant, but only that which suited his personal needs, and he would not hurt those close to him.


title: Danny Greene

text: Greene's codename was "Mr. Patrick", a reflection on his Irish pride. It was his confirmation name and that of his beloved Irish saint.


title: Danny Greene

text: Protected by his informant status, Greene increased his criminal activities. By 1964, the union members were fed up with Greene's behavior.


title: Danny Greene

text: "The Plain Dealer" began writing a nine-part investigative series about him. The series brought Greene unwanted attention from the U.S. Attorney, the Internal Revenue Service, the Labor Department, and the Cuyahoga County prosecutor.


title: Danny Greene

text: The ILA began its own investigation and soon removed Greene from office. Eventually, Greene was convicted in federal court of embezzling $11,500 in union funds and on two counts of falsifying records. The verdict was overturned by an appeals court, and federal prosecutors and Greene negotiated a settlement of Greene's guilty plea in exchange for two misdemeanor charges and a $10,000 fine, but he paid only a fraction of it.


title: Danny Greene

text: Greene was hired by the Cleveland Solid Waste Trade Guild to "keep the peace". Impressed with his abilities, mobster Alex "Shondor" Birns hired him as an enforcer for his various "numbers" operators. Additionally, the Cleveland Mafia family underboss, Frank "Little Frank" Brancato, used Greene and other Irish-American gangsters, during the 1960s, to act as errand boys and as muscle men to enforce the Mafia's influence over the garbage-hauling contracts and other rackets.


title: Danny Greene

text: Until his death in 1973, Brancato reportedly regretted having brought Greene into the mob due to the damage Greene did. For example, in May 1968, under Birns's orders, Greene was supposed to attack a black numbers man who was holding out on protection money due. Unfamiliar with the military-type detonator, Greene barely made it out of his car before the bomb exploded. He survived being thrown nearly 20 feet, although the hearing in his right ear was damaged for life. He told the police a story about what had occurred, and thereafter would only trust professionals to handle bombs for him.


title: Danny Greene

text: "Big Mike" Frato broke away from the Cleveland Solid Waste Trade Guild and founded the more legitimate trade group called the Cuyahoga County Refuse Haulers Association. A legitimate businessman, he protested Greene's bringing mob involvement and strong-arm tactics to the guild (although he had his own connections). The Cleveland Solid Waste Trade Guild fell apart shortly thereafter.


title: Danny Greene

text: In September 1970, Greene instructed Art Sneperger to place a bomb on Frato's car, but Sneperger had second thoughts and told Frato. Sneperger was a police informant and told Sgt. Edward Kovacic of the Cleveland Police intelligence unit about Greene's plans and Greene's role as an FBI informant. Greene once again ordered Sneperger to plant a bomb on Frato's car in 1971. The bomb detonated before Sneperger could get away, killing him and sparing Frato, who was across the street.


title: Danny Greene

text: Some investigators believed the premature explosion was caused by a radio signal, possibly from a short wave radio or a passing police car. Others thought that Birns and Greene killed Sneperger after learning he was an informant. Sgt. Kovacic was told by an underworld source that Greene had pushed the detonator, killing Sneperger instantly. The case was never officially solved.


title: Danny Greene

text: On November 26, 1971, Frato was shot and killed at Cleveland's White City Beach. Greene was arrested and interrogated. He admitted to the killing but claimed self-defense. He said Frato had fired three shots at Greene, who was jogging and exercising his dogs, and fired one back. Evidence seemed to corroborate Greene's story, and he was released. Cleveland police later learned Frato was armed and had an opportunity to kill Greene several weeks prior to the White Beach shooting. During their partnership, Greene and Frato had become so close that they had named sons after each other.


title: Danny Greene

text: Not long afterward, Greene again found himself a target while jogging in White City Beach. A sniper, concealed several hundred feet away, fired several shots at Greene from a rifle. Instead of ducking to the ground, Greene pulled out his revolver and started shooting, while running toward his would-be assassin. The sniper fled and was never positively identified. Investigators learned that this attempt was part of a murder contract left by Birns. Greene left his wife and their three children for their own safety and moved to Collinwood, where he rented an apartment.


title: Danny Greene

text: Journalist Ned Whelan wrote about Greene: "Imagining himself as a feudal baron, he supported a number of destitute Collinwood families, paid tuition to Catholic schools for various children and, like the gangsters of the Twenties, actually had 50 twenty-pound turkeys delivered to needy households on Thanksgiving." He often picked up restaurant tabs for friends, neighbors, and acquaintances, and left generous tips. Greene evicted a bookmaker who operated out of a small Waterloo business, and kept a local bar in order by making personal visits. When a rowdy group of Hells Angels moved into Collinwood, Greene visited their headquarters with a stick of dynamite. He threatened to light it and throw it into their club house until they came out to hear his warning to keep things quiet while in Collinwood.


title: Danny Greene

text: Greene formed his own crew of young Irish-American gangsters, called "The Celtic Club". His main enforcers were Keith "The Enforcer" Ritson, Kevin McTaggart, Brian O'Donnell, Danny Greene Jr., Billy McDuffy, Elmer Brittain, Ernest "Ted" Waite, Art "Snep" Snepereger and Jimmy "Icepick" Sterling who set up gambling dens across the city. He also allied with John Nardi, a Cleveland crime family labor racketeer who wanted to overthrow the leadership.


title: Danny Greene

text: The relationship between Greene and Birns began to sour. Greene had asked Birns for a loan of $75,000 to set up a "cheat spot" (speakeasy and gambling house). Birns arranged for it through the Gambino crime family, but the money was lost in the hands of Birns's courier Billy Cox, who used it to purchase cocaine. The police raided Cox's house, arrested him, and seized the narcotics and what was left of the $75,000. The Gambino family wanted their money, and Birns pressed Greene, who refused to return it, reminding Birns that he could not return something he had never received and that Birns was responsible for it, since Birns's courier had lost it.


title: Danny Greene

text: To settle the dispute, Birns directed an associate to hire a hitman for Greene, gave him $25,000 for the job, and noted it should be carried out even in the event of any harm befalling Birns. Several minor underworld characters, burglars by trade, took the contract, but their numerous assassination attempts on Greene failed.


title: Danny Greene

text: Not long afterward, Greene found an unexploded bomb in his car when he pulled into a Collinwood service station to get gas. The explosive was wired improperly and failed to detonate. Greene disassembled the bomb himself, removed the dynamite, and brought the rest of the package to a policeman, Edward Kovacic. Kovacic offered him police protection, but Greene refused it. He also refused to hand over the bomb, stating, "I'm going to send this back to the old bastard that sent it to me".


title: Danny Greene

text: Suspecting that Birns had ordered the hit, Greene decided to retaliate. On March 29, 1975, Holy Saturday, the eve of Easter, Birns was blown up by a bomb containing C-4, a potent military explosive, in the lot behind Christy's Lounge, formerly Jack & Jill West Lounge, a go-go spot at 2516 Detroit Ave. near St. Malachi's Church.


title: Danny Greene

text: On May 12, another explosion rocked Collinwood. Greene's building at 15805 Waterloo Road was destroyed, but he sustained only minor injuries. As the second floor fell, he was shielded from the debris by a refrigerator that had lodged against a wall. A second, more powerful bomb failed to explode, for which Greene credited the intercession of St. Jude, whose medal he always wore around his neck.


title: Danny Greene

text: In 1975, Greene began to push into the vending machine racket, traditionally controlled by the Mafia, as well as muscled into gambling operations. This angered the Cleveland family leadership, especially the soldier Thomas "The Chinaman" Sinito. Greene controlled some of the more lucrative laundry contracts that Sinito wanted, and Sinito deemed the excessive fees Greene charged for coin-operated laundry contracts extortion.


title: Danny Greene

text: Sinito and mob soldier Joseph "Joey Loose" Iacobacci murdered one of Greene's associates. In retaliation, Greene had dynamite wired to the frame of Sinito's car, but Sinito found the bomb, removed and disarmed it, and later destroyed it.


title: Danny Greene

text: In Greene's competition with the Mafia to build a vending machine empire, John Conte became a victim. Conte owned a vending machine company (that provided slot machines to various private clubs and parties) while working as a route man for another one. Conte was also a close friend of Joseph Gallo's.


title: Danny Greene

text: On the day of Conte's disappearance, he told his wife he had a meeting with Greene. That was the last time she saw him; his badly beaten corpse was discovered a few days later at a dump site in Austintown.


title: Danny Greene

text: Police investigators theorized that Conte was beaten to death in Greene's trailer and his body later transported to Austintown. They found some physical evidence, but Greene was never charged with Conte's murder.


title: Danny Greene

text: In 1976, longtime mobster John Scalish died, leaving control of Cleveland's lucrative criminal operations, specifically the city's Teamsters Union locals, up for grabs. Scalish had appointed James Licavoli as his successor, but other mobsters, such as John Nardi, challenged Licavoli for leadership of the organization.


title: Danny Greene

text: Within weeks, with Greene's assistance, Nardi had many of Licavoli's supporters killed, including Licavoli's underboss, Leo "Lips" Moceri. The Cleveland family's enforcer, Eugene "The Animal" Ciasullo, was seriously injured and sidelined for several months by a car bomb. Soon afterward, a bomb planted in Alfred "Allie" Calabrese's car killed an innocent man: Frank Pircio, of Collinwood, died while moving Calabrese's Lincoln Continental before getting his own car out of their shared driveway.


title: Danny Greene

text: This began a longstanding war between Licavoli's Cleveland crime family and Greene's Celtic Club. In 1976 alone, 36 bombs exploded around the Cleveland area, which was soon given the moniker "Bomb City, U.S.A." The ATF tripled its staffing in northeast Ohio in order to handle the bomb investigations. A suspected bombmaker, Martin Heidtman, was arrested but was released for lack of evidence. Rick Porrello reported in his book, "To Kill The Irishman", that Greene, using bombs or bullets, killed at least eight of the Mafia hit men sent to assassinate him.


title: Danny Greene

text: After the Waterloo Road bombing failed to kill him, Greene played up the stories of the Mafia's failed assassination attempts to his benefit. His bravado and flamboyant behaviour only added to his growing aura of invincibility and power in the urban legends of the Cleveland criminal underworld. Greene granted interviews to local television stations; for a newspaper photographer, posed proudly in front of a boarded-up window of his destroyed apartment building; and during a televised interview said to one television reporter,


title: Danny Greene

text: The luck of the Irish is with me and I have a message for those yellow maggots. That includes the payers and the doers. The doers are the people who carried out the bombing. They have to be eliminated because the people who paid them can't afford to have them remain alive. And the payers are going to feel great heat from the FBI and the local authorities ... And let me clear something else up. I didn't run away from the explosion. Someone said they saw me running away. I walked away.


title: Danny Greene

text: In response to the reporter's assertion that, like a cat, Greene had nine lives, Greene said, "I am an Irish Catholic. I believe that the Guy upstairs pulls the strings, and you're not going to go until he says so. It just wasn't my time yet."


title: Danny Greene

text: In another televised interview, Greene denied any knowledge of the underworld war. He said, "I have no axe to grind, but if these maggots in this so-called Mafia want to come after me, I'm over here by the Celtic Club. I'm not hard to find."


title: Danny Greene

text: On May 17, 1977, Greene's longtime ally John Nardi was killed by a bomb, planted by Pasquale Cisternino and Ronald Carabbia. After Nardi was murdered, Licavoli arranged a ceasefire with Greene, hoping to catch him off-guard and then have him killed.


title: Danny Greene

text: Shortly after their meeting, Greene muscled in on a large West Side gambling operation originally run by Nardi. Greene offered a percentage to Licavoli, who declined it.


title: Danny Greene

text: On October 6, 1977, Greene went to a dental appointment at the Brainard Place office building in Lyndhurst, Ohio. Members of the Mafia had tapped his phone and knew about the appointment. After Greene had visited a dentist and left the office building, he approached his car. The automobile parked next to his exploded, killing Greene instantly. The car bomb was believed to have been planted by a hitman known as Ray Ferritto.


title: Danny Greene

text: Greene's remains were cremated on October 8, 1977, and he was buried at Calvary Cemetery in Cleveland.


title: Danny Greene

text: Ray Ferritto was arrested in relation to Greene's murder. Ferritto implicated Jimmy Fratianno in the planning of the murder, and Fratianno was indicted for charges related to the bombing. Fearing for his safety, Fratianno agreed to become a government witness against the Mafia. In return for his testimony, he pleaded guilty to the murder charges and received a five-year prison sentence, of which he served 21 months. In 1980, after testifying for the government that led to the racketeering convictions of five reputed Mafia figures, Fratianno entered the federal Witness Protection Program.


title: Transair Flight 810

text: Transair Flight 810, a Boeing 737-200 converted freighter aircraft on a short cargo flight en route from Honolulu International Airport to Kahului Airport on the neighboring Hawaiian island of Maui, experienced mechanical difficulties and crashed shortly after takeoff in the early morning of July 2, 2021.


title: Transair Flight 810

text: The twin-engined plane was owned and operated by Rhoades Aviation under the Transair trade name, and had a crew of two. Both Pratt & Whitney JT8D turbofans faltered shortly after takeoff. Unable to maintain altitude, the pilots ditched off the coast of Oahu about 11 minutes into the flight.


title: Transair Flight 810

text: The pair were rescued about an hour after the crash in a coordinated inter-agency response involving multiple aircraft and boats. Both were hospitalized for serious injuries and later released. The wreckage was located the following week at depths up to off Ewa Beach.


title: Transair Flight 810

text: The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board immediately began investigating. Transair voluntarily withdrew its four remaining 737s from service for a week-long internal review. Transair resumed flying their one operational 737-200 a week later, but had to cease 737 operations a week after that due to deficiencies identified by the FAA prior to the ditching.


title: Transair Flight 810

text: On July 2, 2021, at 1:33 a.m. HST, the aircraft began its take-off from Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL) just west of Honolulu on the southern coast of Oahu. At around 1:42 a.m., after air traffic control had cleared the flight to climb to 13,000 feet, the pilots informed Honolulu tower that the aircraft had "lost an engine." Publicly available flight data show the aircraft had only climbed to around 2,100 feet (640 meters).


title: Transair Flight 810

text: The tower controller offered an immediate return for landing, but the crew instead requested delay vectors to run a checklist. They continued on a southwest heading, away from the airport. At around 1:46 a.m., the crew reported that the second engine had overheated, and they could not maintain altitude.


title: Transair Flight 810

text: After turning back toward Honolulu, the aircraft continued to lose altitude, so the controller issued a low-altitude alert and asked if they wanted to go to the closer Kalaeloa Airport instead. "We'd like the closest airport runway, please" was one of the last transmissions recorded from the aircraft. The plane went down on the water of Māmala Bay about short of Kalaeloa Airport.


title: Transair Flight 810

text: A United States Coast Guard helicopter rescued one pilot and an Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting (ARFF) boat rescued the other. They were the only two people aboard. Both were taken to The Queen's Medical Center about away. The 58-year-old survivor was hospitalized in critical condition; the 50-year-old survivor had a head injury and multiple lacerations and was hospitalized in serious condition. Both men were released from the hospital within a few days.<ref name="https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com 2021b"></ref>


title: Transair Flight 810

text: U.S. Coast Guard Joint Rescue Coordination Center Honolulu watchstanders received a report from Honolulu Air Traffic Control of a downed Boeing 737 offshore. In response, the Coast Guard issued a notice to mariners, launched a Eurocopter MH-65 Dolphin helicopter and HC-130 Hercules airplane from Coast Guard Air Station Barbers Point (co-located at the Kalaeloa Airport), sent out a 45-foot Response Boat – Medium crew, and diverted the cutter "Joseph Gerczak". In addition to the Coast Guard, multiple other agencies deployed, including Emergency Medical Services. The Hawaii Department of Transportation’s ARFF boat based at the Honolulu International Airport also responded and took approximately 30 to 40 minutes to get to the scene after navigating through a mile-wide debris field. A Coast Guard press release quoted a watchstander saying, "Our crews often train closely with our counterparts... That training paid off and we were able to quickly deploy response assets to the scene and recover the two people aboard the aircraft."


title: Transair Flight 810

text: Around 2:30 a.m., the Coast Guard helicopter located a fuel slick and wreckage. The helicopter crew radioed to the same tower controller who last spoke to Flight 810 about 45 minutes earlier, "We do have an aircraft in the water. We're currently overhead [the] debris field", then called a few minutes later to report, "We have zero, two souls in sight in the water." The controller responded: "Okay, so you have both guys, both souls in sight?" to which they replied, "Both souls in sight, yes, sir."


title: Transair Flight 810

text: When the Coast Guard helicopter arrived on the scene, only about from their air station, one survivor was on the vertical tail of the aircraft (the only part of the aircraft that could still be seen floating above the waves) while a second one was in the water floating on a bed of cargo soaked in jet fuel. Both pilots had escaped through the cockpit windows. The helicopter crew planned to rescue the survivor already in the water first but changed that plan when the tail section rapidly sank, leaving the other survivor struggling to swim. The aircrew lowered a rescue swimmer, who put the survivor in the rescue strop, and they were both lifted on board the helicopter. That survivor was reported to be at the point of exhaustion and not fully responsive when he was assessed on board the helicopter.


title: Transair Flight 810

text: The helicopter then brought the rescue swimmer to assist the other survivor. He was lifted on board the ARFF rescue boat, and later transferred to an ambulance on shore when the boat returned to the airport in Honolulu. The survivor recovered first was flown directly to the hospital once the helicopter crew recovered its rescue swimmer.


title: Transair Flight 810

text: The aircraft involved was a 45-year-old first-generation Boeing 737-200. From 1968 to 1988, Boeing built 1,095 of the 737-200 type, but by 2021, fewer than 60 were still flying worldwide. Scheduled passenger service using 737-200s largely ended in 2008 with the closure of Aloha Airlines (also based in Honolulu) but a few remained in passenger service through 2020.


title: Transair Flight 810

text: This 737-275C Adv. combi aircraft was built for Pacific Western Airlines, delivered on October 10, 1975, and originally registered in Canada as C-GDPW. The aircraft was eventually taken out of passenger service, and later converted to a full freighter. In 1999 the converted airframe was re-registered to Transmile as 9M-PML in Malaysia until it was then re-registered by Transair in the U.S. as N810TA in 2014. It was one of five Boeing 737s in Rhoades Aviation Inc's Transair fleet.


title: Transair Flight 810

text: First-generation 737s were powered by two Pratt & Whitney JT8D-9A engines, originally designed for the Boeing 727 around 1960. Pratt & Whitney produced more than 14,000 of these engines before regular production ended in 1985. The company continued actively supplying parts and overhauling engines through 2021 when roughly 2,000 were still in use. Mainline airline use of the JT8D continued until 2020 when Delta Airlines retired its McDonnell Douglas MD-88 fleet early due to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Transair Flight 810

text: The FAA's Service Difficulty Reports database shows the aircraft involved, N810TA, experienced #1 (left) engine failure on takeoff twice in recent years, but with different engines each time. In a 2018 failure, the engine had accumulated 23,657 hours total time and 35,753 total cycles, while in a 2019 failure the engine had 71,706 total hours and 67,194 total cycles.


title: Transair Flight 810

text: The following day, USCGC "Joseph Gerczak" completed collection of a small amount of incidental flotsam from the debris field to aid in the investigation. The NTSB examined the retrieved items, described as mostly general cargo.


title: Transair Flight 810

text: In an initial statement, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said, "The pilots had reported engine trouble and were attempting to return to Honolulu when they were forced to land the aircraft in the water... The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board will investigate." The FAA would not comment on its current investigation, but a local investigative reporter for KHON-TV found more than a dozen FAA enforcement actions against Rhoades Aviation and Trans Executive Airlines of Hawaii (doing business as Transair), with fines that totaled over $200,000 over 25 years. A company representative declined to comment because they are a party to the ongoing NTSB investigation, but a former FAA Chief Counsel published critical commentary on the reporting, cautioning against drawing premature conclusions from potentially unrelated historical enforcement actions.


title: Transair Flight 810

text: "Transair has voluntarily chosen not to operate our Boeing 737 cargo aircraft temporarily while we assess the situation and continue to cooperate with federal authorities in their investigation", a Transair spokesman said in a statement the following day. Transair has a contract to carry mail between the Hawaiian Islands, but the United States Postal Service said no mail was aboard this flight. They had made alternate arrangements after Transair grounded its 737s. Transair resumed 737-200 operations a week later. But in less than a week, Rhoades Aviation lost its FAA inspection authorization at midnight on July 15, after failing to ask for reconsideration of a June 13 notice of deficiencies identified during an ongoing FAA investigation that began in 2020. This effectively grounded Rhoades's fleet of 737-200s, which only included one remaining operational aircraft at the time. The FAA said the grounding was not a direct result of the ditching.


title: Transair Flight 810

text: The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) originally announced it was sending seven investigators immediately after the ditching, but updated that to say they were deploying a relatively large ten-investigator team to Oahu. Two investigators arrived later that day and began on-scene coordination,<ref name="https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com 2021"></ref> and the rest arrived by the next day. Team specialties included air traffic control, systems, maintenance records, human performance, operations, powerplants, and wreckage recovery.


title: Transair Flight 810

text: The NTSB also announced that the manufacturers of the airframe and the engines, Boeing and Pratt & Whitney respectively, would be among the parties to the investigation. The NTSB stated, "In general terms, NTSB investigators develop factual information in three areas: the people involved in an accident, the equipment involved in the accident and the environment in which the accident occurred."


title: Transair Flight 810

text: NTSB met with the parties to the investigation the following day, and said it would use side-scan sonar to locate and evaluate the wreckage prior to attempting to recover the "black box" flight recorders. The wreckage was located the following week at depths between —below the depth where human divers could safely recover the flight recorders per the NTSB.


title: Transair Flight 810

text: The NTSB also sampled fuel from another aircraft and found no anomalies. By the end of the following week, the on-site "go-team" had completed collection of the perishable evidence, including interviews of more than a dozen key personnel, and returned home, but the flight recorders remained with the wreckage at the bottom of the sea.


title: Transair Flight 810

text: Photos from a remotely-controlled SEAMOR Marine Chinook underwater vehicle showed that the fuselage broke ahead of the wing, with the nose section separated from the center section, but the inboard sections of both wings were still attached to the fuselage wing carry-through.


title: Transair Flight 810

text: On May 25, 2022, citing numerous safety violations found during its investigation, the FAA announced that it was revoking the airline's air operator's certificate. Among the cited violations were 33 flights undertaken with engines that were not airworthy. Rhoades was given until June 8 to appeal the agency's decision.


title: Transair Flight 810

text: The NTSB coordinated with the insurance company for Transair to begin an underwater recovery effort. Both engines, both fuselage sections, and cargo, were expected to be recovered, in an operation that was expected to begin on or about October 9, and last 10–14 days. A research vessel, "RV Bold Horizon" (), with a 7,000 lb. remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) was used to raise the engines and rig each fuselage section for hoisting to the surface by a derrick barge "Salta Verde" () equipped with a crane. The recovery is somewhat unusual in that the aircraft did not break up into small pieces. On November 2, the NTSB recovered both flight recorders as well as the aircraft's fuselage and engines.


title: Liberty DeVitto

text: Liberatori "Liberty" DeVitto (born August 8, 1950) is an American rock drummer. He is best known for his work as a drummer for New York singer-songwriter Billy Joel's recording and touring band. He has also been a session drummer on recordings of other artists. He is credited as a drummer on records that have sold a combined total of 150 million units worldwide.


title: Liberty DeVitto

text: DeVitto was born in New York City, of Italian ancestry, where his father was a police officer at the New York Police Department. He taught himself to play the drums after seeing The Beatles on their appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in February 1964. He was also influenced as a teenager by rock drummer Dino Danelli.


title: Liberty DeVitto

text: DeVitto got his big break in the music business when he was hired to play drums for Billy Joel in the mid-1970s. In an online interview, DeVitto describes how Joel's classic late-1970s/early-1980s band first came together: Billy and I used to play the same club in Plainview, Long Island, called "My House." He was 17 and in a band called The Hassles and I was 16 and in a band called The New Rock Workshop. We would watch each other play and acknowledge each other in passing. In 1974, he was living in Los Angeles and had already released "Piano Man" and "Streetlife Serenade". He used studio musicians for the recording and different guys out on the road. I was playing in a band called Topper with Doug Stegmeyer and he got the gig to play bass with Billy on the "Streetlife" tour. He told Doug that he wanted to move back to New York and find a permanent band he could record and tour with on a regular basis. Doug recommended me because Billy was looking for a New York-type drummer, aggressive and hard hitting, and the rest is history. The three of us recorded the basic tracks for "Turnstiles" and we both recommended Russell Javors and Howie Emerson, who played guitars in Topper and with the addition of Richie Cannata on saxophone, the "Billy Joel Band" was born.


title: Liberty DeVitto

text: In addition to his work with Joel, DeVitto has also been an active session musician working with other big acts such as Paul McCartney, Carly Simon, Phoebe Snow, Karen Carpenter, Stevie Nicks, Rick Wakeman, Bob James and Meat Loaf.


title: Liberty DeVitto

text: After working with Joel for 30 years, DeVitto was discharged from drumming duties for the 2006 Billy Joel tour for an unknown reason. Up to that point, he had the longest running tenure in Joel's band, starting with the recording of 1976's "Turnstiles".


title: Liberty DeVitto

text: As of 2018, DeVitto uses Liberty drums, pedals & hardware, Sabian cymbals, Evans drumheads, Latin Percussion and Pro-Mark drumsticks.


title: Liberty DeVitto

text: DeVitto appeared on the November/December 2013 cover of "Making Music" magazine to discuss his life and career.


title: Liberty DeVitto

text: Around that time he began collaborations with Brooklyn singer-songwriter Michael Sackler-Berner, which led to the founding of band The Slim Kings alongside bassist Andy Attanasio. The Slim Kings released two albums and multiple singles. The band toured with ZZ Top and Los Lonely Boys.


title: Liberty DeVitto

text: On October 23, 2014, DeVitto, Cannata, and Javors (with Stegmeyer, posthumously) were inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame, primarily for their work with Joel. Shortly thereafter, DeVitto, Cannata, and Javors officially formed The Lords of 52nd Street band; the band also includes a pianist and lead vocalist, keyboardist, and a guitarist, and plays faithful renditions of the recorded Joel originals.


title: Liberty DeVitto

text: On May 19, 2009, DeVitto filed a lawsuit in Manhattan's state Supreme Court claiming Joel and Sony Music owed him over 10 years worth of royalty payments. DeVitto has never been given songwriting credit on any of Joel's songs. DeVitto's lawyer added that he does not know exactly how much DeVitto is owed, and that Joel's record sales are subject to an audit. In April 2010, it was announced that Joel and DeVitto "amicably resolved" the lawsuit out of court.


title: Liberty DeVitto

text: In 2003, DeVitto signed on as an official supporter of Little Kids Rock, a nonprofit organization that provides free musical instruments and instruction to children in underserved public schools throughout the United States. DeVitto has personally delivered instruments to children in the program, performed at benefit events for the cause and sits on the organization's Honorary Board of Directors.


title: Liberty DeVitto

text: Liberty DeVitto is the father of four daughters, Devon (b. 1980), actress and model Torrey (b. 1984), Maryelle (b. 1988) and Mae Elizabeth Josephine on 11 February 2017.


title: Calendula officinalis

text: Calendula officinalis, the pot marigold, common marigold, ruddles, Mary's gold or Scotch marigold, is a flowering plant in the daisy family Asteraceae. It is probably native to southern Europe, though its long history of cultivation makes its precise origin unknown, and it may possibly be of garden origin. It is also widely naturalised farther north in Europe (as far as southern England) and elsewhere in warm temperate regions of the world.


title: Calendula officinalis

text: "Calendula officinalis" is a short-lived aromatic herbaceous perennial, growing to tall, with sparsely branched lax or erect stems. The leaves are oblong-lanceolate, long, hairy on both sides, and with margins entire or occasionally waved or weakly toothed. The inflorescences are yellow, comprising a thick capitulum or flowerhead diameter surrounded by two rows of hairy bracts; in the wild plant they have a single ring of ray florets surrounding the central disc florets. The disc florets are tubular and hermaphrodite, and generally of a more intense orange-yellow colour than the female, tridentate, peripheral ray florets. The flowers may appear all year long where conditions are suitable. The fruit is a thorny curved achene and weight in average 10.1 mg (n=50).


title: Calendula officinalis

text: Calendulas are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including cabbage moth, gothic moth, large yellow underwing, and setaceous Hebrew character.


title: Calendula officinalis

text: "Calendula officinalis" is widely cultivated and can be grown easily in sunny locations in most kinds of soils. Although perennial, it is commonly treated as an annual, particularly in colder regions where its winter survival is poor, and in hot summer locations where it also does not survive.


title: Calendula officinalis

text: Calendulas are considered by many gardening experts as among the easiest and most versatile flowers to grow in a garden, especially because they tolerate most soils. In temperate climates, seeds are sown in spring for blooms that last throughout the summer and well into the fall. In areas of limited winter freezing, seeds are sown in autumn for winter color. Plants will wither in subtropical summer. Seeds will germinate freely in sunny or half-sunny locations, but plants do best if planted in sunny locations with rich, well-drained soil. Pot marigolds typically bloom quickly from seed (in under two months) in bright yellows, golds, and oranges.


title: Calendula officinalis

text: Leaves are spirally arranged, long, simple, and slightly hairy. The flower heads range from pastel yellow to deep orange, and are across, with both ray florets and disc florets. Most cultivars have a spicy aroma. It is recommended to deadhead (remove dying flower heads) the plants regularly to maintain even blossom production.


title: Calendula officinalis

text: Numerous cultivars have been selected for variation in the flowers, from pale yellow to orange-red, and with 'double' or 'semi-double' flowerheads with ray florets replacing some or all of the disc florets. Examples include 'Alpha' (deep orange), 'Jane Harmony', 'Sun Glow' (bright yellow), 'Lemon' (pale yellow), 'Orange Prince' (orange), 'Indian Prince' (dark orange-red), 'Pink Surprise' (double, with inner florets darker than outer florets), 'Green-heart Gold' (double, bright yellow), 'Apricot Pygmy' (double light peach) and 'Chrysantha' (yellow, double). 'Variegata' is a cultivar with yellow variegated leaves.


title: Calendula officinalis

text: The cultivar group 'Fiesta Gitana' has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.


title: Calendula officinalis

text: Pot marigold florets are edible. They are often used to add color to salads or added to dishes as a garnish and in lieu of saffron. The leaves are edible but are often not palatable. They have a history of use as a potherb and in salads. The plant is also used to make tea.


title: Calendula officinalis

text: Flowers were used in ancient Greek, Roman, Middle Eastern, and Indian cultures as a medicinal herb, as well as a dye for fabrics, foods, and cosmetics. Many of these uses persist today. They are also used to make oil that protects the skin.


title: Calendula officinalis

text: Marigold leaves can also be made into a poultice that is believed to help scratches and shallow cuts to heal faster, and to help prevent infection. It has also been used in eye drops.


title: Calendula officinalis

text: The petals and pollen of "Calendula officinalis" contain triterpenoid esters and the carotenoids flavoxanthin and auroxanthin (antioxidants and the source of the yellow-orange coloration). The leaves and stems contain other carotenoids, mostly lutein (80%), zeaxanthin (5%), and beta-carotene. Plant extracts are also widely used by cosmetics, presumably due to presence of compounds such as saponins, resins, and essential oils.


title: Calendula officinalis

text: The flowers of "Calendula officinalis" contain flavonol glycosides, triterpene oligoglycosides, oleanane-type triterpene glycosides, saponins, and a sesquiterpene glucoside.


title: Calendula officinalis

text: Plant pharmacological studies have suggested that "Calendula" extracts may have anti-viral, anti-genotoxic, and anti-inflammatory properties "in vitro". In an "in vitro" assay, the methanol extract of "C. officinalis" exhibited antibacterial activity and both the methanol and the ethanol extracts showed antifungal activities.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: The Kurds are the largest ethnic minority in Turkey. According to various estimates, they compose between 15% and 20% of the population of Turkey. There are Kurds living in various provinces of Turkey, but they are primarily concentrated in the east and southeast of the country, within the region viewed by Kurds as Turkish Kurdistan. Officially in Eastern Anatolia and Southeastern Anatolia Regions.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: Massacres, such as the brutal suppression of the Sheikh Said Rebellion, the Dersim ethnocide, and the Zilan massacre, have periodically been committed against the Kurds since the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923. The Turkish government categorized Kurds as "Mountain Turks" until 1991, and denied the existence of Kurds. The words "Kurds" or "Kurdistan" were banned in any language by the Turkish government, though "Kurdish" was allowed in census reports. Following the military coup of 1980, the Kurdish languages were officially prohibited in public and private life. Many people who spoke, published, or sang in Kurdish were arrested and imprisoned. In Turkey, it is illegal to use Kurdish as a language of instruction in both public and private schools. The Kurdish language is only allowed as a subject in some schools.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: Since the 1980s, Kurdish movements have included both peaceful political activities for basic civil rights for Kurds in Turkey as well as armed rebellion and guerrilla warfare, including military attacks aimed mainly at Turkish military bases, demanding first a separate Kurdish state and later self-determination for the Kurds. According to a state-sponsored Turkish opinion poll, 59% of self-identified Kurds in Turkey think that Kurds in Turkey do not seek a separate state (while 71.3% of self-identified Turks think they do).


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: During the Kurdish–Turkish conflict, food embargoes were placed on Kurdish villages and towns. There were many instances of Kurds being forcibly expelled from their villages by Turkish security forces. Many villages were reportedly set on fire or destroyed. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, political parties that represented Kurdish interests were banned. In 2013, a ceasefire effectively ended the violence until June 2015, when hostilities renewed between the PKK and the Turkish government over Turkish involvement in the Syrian Civil War. Violence was widely reported against ordinary Kurdish citizens and the headquarters and branches of the pro-Kurdish rights Peoples' Democratic Party were attacked by mobs.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: The Marwanid dynasty, which was of Kurdish origin, ruled a territory from Diyarbakir that included parts of Syria and Iraq from 984 to 1083. The Ayyubid dynasty, also of Kurdish origin (but identifying first and foremost as Muslims), ruled parts of Anatolia in the 12th and 13th centuries.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: According to the Kurdish historian Rohat Alakom, the first Kurdish tribe to arrive in Central Anatolia was the Modanlı tribe (itself a sub-tribe of the Merdisi) that settled in Haymana in 1184. According to Ahmet Nezihî Turan the first Kurdish settlement in Central Anatolia was named "Kürtler" ("Kurds"), founded in Yaban Âbâd (present-day Kızılcahamam-Çamlıdere near Ankara) in 1463. According to Mark Sykes, the earliest population transfer (or exile) of Kurds to Central Anatolia was carried out during the reign of Selim I (1512–20).


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: The Mahmudi or "Pinyanişi" was an Ottoman-Kurdish tribe in the Lake Van region, who according to Evliya Çelebi had 60,000 warriors. Their chief, Sarı Süleyman Bey, strengthened the Hoşap Castle in the Lake Van region, in 1643.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: After ca. 1800, the Cihanbeyli, Reşwan and Şêxbizin tribes migrated into central Anatolia from the east and southeast. The total Kurdish population in Turkey was estimated at around 1.5 million in the 1880s, many of whom were nomadic or pastoral.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: Before the foundation of Turkey, the Kurds were recognized as an own Nation of themselves. The Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal also recognized the Kurds as a nation at the time and stated that provinces in which the Kurds lived shall be granted autonomy. After the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, which ended the caliphates and sultanate in Turkey, there have been several Kurdish rebellions since the 1920s: Koçkiri Rebellion, Beyitüssebab rebellion, Sheikh Said Rebellion, Dersim Rebellion, Ararat rebellion. The policy towards the Kurds changed most prominently in 1924, as the new constitution denied the Kurds autonomy. The Kurdish people and their language were soon oppressed by the Turkish Government, as the Turkish Constitution of 1924 prohibited the use of Kurdish in public places, and a law was issued which enabled the expropriation of the Kurdish landowners and the delivery of the land to Turkish speaking people. Through the Turkish History Thesis, Kurds were classified as being of Turanian origin, having migrated from Central Asia 5000 years ago. Hence, a Kurdish nation was denied and Kurds were called Mountain Turks. From 1927 on, a General Inspector ruled over the First Inspectorate General through the implementation of emergency decrees and martial law. The areas around Hakkari, Mardin, Siirt, Urfa, Van, Elaziğ and Diyarbakır were under the his rule until 1952, when the government of the Democratic Party brought a new approach towards the Kurds and closed the General Inspectorates.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: Referring to the main policy document in this context, the 1934 law on resettlement, a policy targeting the region of Dersim as one of its first test cases, with disastrous consequences for the local population. The aim or the law was to spread the population with non-Turkish culture in to different areas than their origin, and to settle people who were willing to adhere to the Turkish culture in the formerly non-Turkish areas. The Fourth Inspectorate General was created in January 1936 in the Dersim region and the Kurdish language and culture were forbidden. The Dersim massacre is often confused with the Dersim Rebellion that took place during these events. In 1937–38, approximately 10,000-15,000 Alevis and Kurds were killed and thousands went into exile. A key component of the Turkification process was the policy of massive population resettlement.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: After the 1960 coup, the State Planning Organization (, DPT) was established under the Prime Ministry to solve the problem of Kurdish separatism and underdevelopment. In 1961, the DPT prepared a report titled "The principles of the state's development plan for the east and southeast" (), shortened to "Eastern Report". It proposed to defuse separatism by encouraging ethnic mixing through migration (to and from the Southeast). This was not unlike the policies pursued by the Committee of Union and Progress under the Ottoman Empire. The Minister of Labor of the time, Bülent Ecevit of partial Kurdish ancestry, was critical of the report. From the establishment of the Inspectorate Generals until 1965, South East Turkey, was a forbidden area for foreigners.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: During the 1970s, the separatist movement coalesced into the Kurdish–Turkish conflict. From 1984 to 1999, the Turkish military was embroiled in a conflict with the PKK. The village guard system was set up and armed by the Turkish state around 1984 to combat the PKK. The militia comprises local Kurds and it has around 58,000 members. Some of the village guards are fiercely loyal to the Turkish state, leading to infighting among Kurdish militants.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: Due to the clashes between Turkish Army and the PKK the countryside in the southeast was depopulated, with Kurdish civilians moving to local defensible centers such as Diyarbakır, Van, and Şırnak, as well as to the cities of western Turkey and even to western Europe. The causes of the depopulation included the Turkish state's military operations against Kurdish population, some PKK atrocities against Kurdish clans they could not control and the poverty of the southeast. In the 1990s, hope for an end to the conflict emerged, as the PKK has declared several ceasefires and the political society has organized several campaigns to facilitate a reconciliation.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: "Evacuations were unlawful and violent. Security forces would surround a village using helicopters, armored vehicles, troops, and village guards, and burn stored produce, agricultural equipment, crops, orchards, forests, and livestock. They set fire to houses, often giving the inhabitants no opportunity to retrieve their possessions. During the course of such operations, security forces frequently abused and humiliated villagers, stole their property and cash, and ill-treated or tortured them before herding them onto the roads and away from their former homes. The operations were marked by scores of “disappearances” and extrajudicial executions. By the mid-1990s, more than 3,000 villages had been virtually wiped from the map, and, according to official figures, 378,335 Kurdish villagers had been displaced and left homeless."


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: In 2009, under the lead of Interior Minister Beşir Atalay, a short-lived peace process was started, but was not supported by the Republican Peoples Party (CHP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) over concerns over the ethnic and national unity of the state. It ended in December 2009, following an attack on Turkish soldiers by the Kurdistan Workers' Party on the 7 December and the ban of the Democratic Society Party (DTP) on the 11 December 2009. In 2010, after clashes between the PKK and the government forces in eastern and southeastern Turkey, several locations in Iraqi Kurdistan were attacked by the Turkish Air Force early in June 2010. The air attack was reported 4 days later in a news article released immediately after the attack. The tense condition has continued on the border since 2007, with both sides responding to each other's every offensive move.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: Following Turkey's electoral board decision to bar prominent Kurdish candidates who had allegedly outstanding warrants or were part of ongoing investigations for PKK-links from standing in upcoming elections, violent Kurdish protests erupted on April 19, 2011, resulting in at least one casualty.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: On the eve of the 2012 year (28 December), the prime minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said that the government was conducting negotiations with jailed rebel leader Öcalan. On 21 March 2013, after months of negotiations with the Turkish Government, Abdullah Ocalan's letter to people was read both in Turkish and Kurdish during Nowruz celebrations in Diyarbakır. The letter called a cease-fire that included disarmament and withdrawal from Turkish soil and calling "an end to armed struggle". The PKK announced that they would obey, stating that the year of 2013 is the year of solution either through war or through peace. On 25 April 2013, the PKK announced that it would be withdrawing all its forces within Turkey to northern Iraq.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: On 6 and 7 October 2014, riots erupted in various cities in Turkey for protesting the Siege of Kobani. Protesters were met with tear gas and water cannons; 37 people were killed in protests. Following the July 2015 crisis (after ISIL's 2015 Suruç bombing attack on Kurdish activists), Turkey bombed alleged PKK bases in Iraq, following the PKK's unilateral decision to end the cease-fire (after many months of increasing tensions) and its suspected killing of two policeman in the town of Ceylanpınar (which the group denied carrying out). Violence soon spread throughout the country. Many Kurdish businesses were destroyed by mobs. The headquarters and branches of the pro-Kurdish rights Peoples' Democratic Party were also attacked. There are reports of civilians being killed in several Kurdish populated towns and villages. The Council of Europe raised their concerns over the attacks on civilians and the blockade of Cizre. In 2008 and also in the indictment in the Peoples' Democratic Party closure case the demand for education in Kurdish language or the teaching of the Kurdish language was equated of supporting terrorist activities by the PKK. By 2017, measures taken to curtail efforts to promote Kurdish culture within Turkey had included changing street names that honored Kurdish figures, removing statues of Kurdish heroes, and closing down television channels broadcasting in the Kurdish language. In July 2020, Turkey's Council of Higher Education banned students studying the Kurdish language and literature at Turkish universities from writing their dissertations in Kurdish.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: Kurdish politicians are exercising politics in Turkey's mainstream political parties, as well as smaller parties. Mehmet Mehdi Eker (Agriculture), Mehmet Şimşek (Finance) and Bekir Bozdağ (Deputy Prime Minister) are examples of ministers with Kurdish background who worked as ministers in the 61st government of Turkey.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: There are also political parties that supports minority politics, like the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), which holds 58 out of 600 seats in the Parliament, a multi-ethnic society and friendly Turkish-Kurdish relations. Critics have accused the party of mainly representing the interests of the Kurdish minority in south-eastern Turkey, where the party polls the highest. The Turkish Government under Recep Tayyip Erdogan blames the HDP of holding relations with the armed militia PKK and has dismissed and arrested dozens of elected Mayors since the 2016 and since the municipal elections in March 2019 dismissed another 45 Mayors from the 65 Mayorships the party won. Since 2016 also Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ (at the time HDP party leaders) and several other members of Parliament of the HDP are imprisoned as part of the 2016 purges in Turkey.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: Parties in Turkey with high emphasis on Kurdish nationalism or minority politics include Rights and Freedoms Party, Communist Party of Kurdistan, Islamic Party of Kurdistan, Peoples' Democratic Party, Kurdistan Democratic Party/North (illegal), Revolutionary Party of Kurdistan (illegal). Defunct parties include Democracy Party (DEP; 1993–94), Democratic People's Party (1997–2005), Democratic Society Party (DTP; 2005–09), Freedom and Democracy Party (ÖZDEP; 1992–93), Kurdistan Islamic Movement (1993–2004), Peace and Democracy Party (2008–14), People's Democracy Party (HADEP; 1994–2003), People's Labor Party (HEP; 1990–93), Workers Vanguard Party of Kurdistan (1975–92). Banned parties include HEP, ÖZDEP (1993), DEP (1994), HADEP (2003), and DTP (2009).


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: According to a 2020 poll conducted by Kadir Has University 17.3% of the surveyed people who identify as Kurdish answered the question "Which form of polity do Kurdish people want?" as "an independent Kurdish state". Around 25% of the non-Kurdish participants gave the same answer to the question. Roughly 33% of the Kurdish participants answered "more democratic Turkey", meanwhile those who responded "autonomy" composed 24.5% of the surveyed.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: 12.3% of those surveyed find the government policies concerning Kurdish issues "definitely successful", while those who said "definitely unsuccessful" were 11.7 percent. 31.5 percent of the respondents stated that the "main element connecting the Kurds and the Turks" was Islam, 24% stated that they shared a common history, and the rate of those who said "democratic society" was 4.5 percent. To the question “How do you evaluate the dismissal of some provincial and district mayorships and the appointment of trustees by proxy after the 31 March local elections?” 26.5 percent of the participants answered the question as positive and 38.2 percent as negative.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: According to human rights organisations, since the beginning of the ongoing Kurdish–Turkish conflict in 1978, there have been over 4,000 Kurdish villages depopulated by Turkey and some 40,000 people have been killed. The conflict resumed in 2015. In December 2015, Turkish military operations against Kurdish rebels in Turkish Kurdistan have killed hundreds of civilians, displaced hundreds of thousands, and caused massive destruction in residential areas.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: Between 1982 and 1991, the performance or recording of songs in the Kurdish language on television and radio was banned in Turkey, affecting singers such as Şivan Perwer, Mahsun Kırmızıgül and İbrahim Tatlıses. However, a black market sprang up, and pirate radio stations and underground recordings became available.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: Şivan Perwer is a composer, vocalist and tembûr player. He concentrates mainly on political and nationalistic music—of which he is considered the founder in Kurdish music—as well as classical and folk music.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: Another important Kurdish musician from Turkey is Nizamettin Arıç (Feqiyê Teyra). He began with singing in Turkish, and made his directorial debut and also stars in "Klamek ji bo Beko" ("A Song for Beko"), one of the first films in Kurdish. Arıç rejected musical stardom at the cost of debasing his language and culture. As a result of singing in Kurdish, he was imprisoned, and then obliged to flee to Syria and eventually to Germany.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: Some sources consider Ali Hariri (1425–1495) as the first well-known poet who wrote in Kurdish. He was from the Hakkari region. Other well known are Sharafkhan Bidlisi the author of Sharafname and Ahmad Khani who wrote the Kurdish national epic Mem û Zin. During decades, the letters X, Q, and W which are part of the Kurdish alphabet were prohibited to be used and only in 2013, the ban was lifted.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: In 2011, Kanal D, Turkey's largest television station, began filming "Ayrılık Olmasaydı: ben-u sen" in majority-Kurdish Diyarbakir. The show, written by a Kurdish screenwriter, professed to be the first in the popular genre to portray the Kurds in a positive light. The show was set to debut in early 2012, but suffered numerous delays, some say because of the controversial subject.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: The majority of Kurds live in Turkey. Estimations on the Kurdish population in Turkey varies considerably according to sources. A professor of political science, Michael Gunter wrote that Kurdish sources tend to exaggerate numbers, while the states that Kurds live in often undercount the Kurdish population.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: Their numbers are estimated at 14,000,000 people by the CIA world factbook (18% of population). A report commissioned by the National Security Council (Turkey) in 2000 puts the number at 12,600,000 people, or 15.7% of the population. One Western source estimates that up to 25% of the Turkish population is Kurdish (approximately 18-19 million people). Kurdish nationalists put the figure at 20,000,000 to 25,000,000. All of the above figures are for the number of people who identify as Kurds, not the number who speak a Kurdish language, but include both Kurds and Zazas. Estimates based on native languages place the Kurdish population at 6% to 23%; Ibrahim Sirkeci claims the closest figure should be above 17.8%, taking into account political context and the potential biases in responses recorded in surveys and censuses. The population growth rate of Kurds in the 1970s was given as 3.27%. According to two studies (2006 and 2008) study by KONDA, people who self-identify as Kurdish or Zaza and/or speaks Kurmanji or Zazaki as a mother tongue correspond to 13.4% of the population. Based on higher birth rates among Kurdish people, and using 2000 Census results, KONDA suggested that this figure rises to 15.7% when children are included, at the end of 2007.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: Since the immigration to the big cities in the west of Turkey, interethnic marriage has become more common. A 2013 study estimates that there are 2,708,000 marriages between Turks and Kurds/Zaza.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: Turkish government statistics show that Kurdish women in Turkey give birth to about four children, more than double the rate for the rest of the Turkish population. The Kurdish population is growing, while the rest of the country has birth rates below replacement level. In some Kurdish dominated provinces women give birth to 7.1 children on average. Women in Kurdish dominated provinces of eastern Turkey also have an illiteracy rate about three times higher than men, which correlates with higher birth rates. In Şırnak 66 percent of 15-year-old girls could not read or write.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: The majority of people who identify as Kurds speak Kurmanji, meanwhile a minority of them speak Turkish or Zazaki as their mother language. A study published in 2015 that demographically analysed the Kurdish inhabited regions of Turkey (excluding diaspora) concluded that c. 92% people belonging to Kurdish ethnic identity spoke Kurdish languages, 6.4% spoke Turkish, and 1.4% spoke Zaza as their mother language. Around 2% of the surveyed people who identified as Zaza, but not Kurd expressed that their mother tongue was Kurdish. 3.1% of the Turks and 4.6% of Arabs also stated that they spoke Kurdish. Concerning Alevi people, c. 70% spoke Zaza, 20% Kurdish and 10% Turkish.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: Around 75% of the Kurds stated that they either had "very good" or "good" proficiency in their respective mother languages. 55% of those who had "very good" or "good" proficiency in their mother language stated that their children were also proficient. Around 75% of the Kurds and 2% of the Zazas (58.4% for Zazaki) declared that they spoke Kurdish at home. Turkish was spoken by 22.4% and 38.3% at home, respectively. Turkish (70%) was the dominant household language for Alevi population.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: Most of the Kurdish people living in Turkey are Sunni Muslims, though Alevism comprises a sizable minority of about 30%. 24.4% of the Kurds and 9.8% of Zazas declared that they were belonging to Hanafi school, meanwhile the vast majority of them were of the Shafiʽi school, which contrasted the local Turkish and Arab population, both of whom were overwhelmingly Hanafi. 3.1% of the Kurds and 14.8% of Zazas were Alevi, compared to 5.4 percent of Turks and 1.1 percent of Arabs.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: Kurds and Zazas in Eastern Turkey are found to be more religious compared to both general population of Turkey and the Turkish population in the same region. Religious observance rates such as fasting during Ramadan, praying 5 times a day or going to "Jumu'ah" regularly show similar patterns. On the other hand people who are Alevis show the least amount of religiosity and lowest observance rates, both regionally and nationally. 96 to 97 percent of the surveyed Kurd and Zaza groups in Eastern Turkey had someone in their household who wears headscarf, which was higher compared to Turkish population of the region. Only around 11% of Alevis declared that there were someone with headscarf in their household. 4.3% of both Kurd and Zaza groups were members of a specific religious sect, which was roughly double the rate of regional Turkish and Alevi population.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: 33.4% of the Kurds and 21.2% of the Zaza from Eastern Turkey declared that they had tribal affiliations (Kurdish: "eşîr", Turkish: "aşiret"), compared to c. 3% of the Turks in the same region. Tribal affiliation was highest (73%) among the people who declared that they were Alevis. 18.5% of those who were a member of a tribe stated that their tribe was an important factor for their political decisions. Around 10% of the surveyed tribal members claimed it was economically important to be in a tribe.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: The Kurds of Central Anatolia (Kurdish: "Kurdên Anatolyayê/Anatolê", Turkish: "Orta Anadolu Kürtleri" or "İç Anadolu Kürtleri" are the Kurdish people who have immigrated and been in Central Anatolia (present day Aksaray, Ankara, Çankırı, Çorum, Eskişehir, Karaman, Kayseri, Kırıkkale, Kırşehir, Konya, Nevşehir, Niğde, Sivas, Yozgat provinces) since about 16th century. They number between 50,000 and 100,000 people. The core of the Kurds of Central Anatolia is formed by "Tuz Gölü Kürtleri" (Kurds of Lake Tuz) who live in the provinces Ankara, Konya and Aksaray. Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) mentioned them as "Konya çöllerindeki Kürtler" (Kurds in the Konya deserts) in the interview with Ahmet Emin (Yalman) dated January 16/17, 1923.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: According to Hermann Wenzel, the original breeders of the Angora goat were the Kurds of Inner Anatolia.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: The largest tribes of the Kurds of Central Anatolia are the Bazaini or Shaikh Bazaini, Judikan, Saifkan, Chelebi, Janbeki, Jehanbegli, Khallikan, Mutikan, Hajibani, Barakati, Badeli, Ukhchizhemi, Rashvan, Sherdi, Urukchi, Milan, Zirikan, Atmanikan, and Tirikan. Formerly, some of the Janbegli, Rashvan and Milan tribes were of Alevi origin and followed Alevism.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: Two or the four primary dialects of Kurdish are used by the Central Anatolian Kurds. These are Kurmanji and Dimili/Zaza. Generally, their mother language is Kurmanji Kurdish who have difficulty understanding the dialect spoken in Haymana where the Şêxbizin tribe live. It is said that the new generation of Kurdish people in some settlements no longer speak Kurdish.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: Since the 1970s, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has condemned Turkey for thousands of human rights abuses. The judgments are related to executions of Kurdish civilians, torturing, forced displacements, destroyed villages, arbitrary arrests, murdered and disappeared Kurdish journalists. To cite a recent case, in 2018 and 2020, the ECHR ruled that the arrest and ongoing imprisonment of Selahattin Demirtaş was contrary to five articles in the European Convention on Human Rights and had the "ulterior purpose of stifling pluralism and limiting freedom of political debate" and ordered Turkey to pay him 25,000 Euros in compensation. Turkey refused to release him.


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: The European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) reports that (as of April 2010): "The public use by officials of the Kurdish language lays them open to prosecution, and public defence by individuals of Kurdish or minority interests also frequently leads to prosecutions under the Criminal Code." From the 1994 briefing at the International Human Rights Law Group: "the problem in Turkey is the Constitution is against the Kurds and the apartheid constitution is very similar to it."


title: Kurds in Turkey

text: In 1998 Leyla Zana received a jail sentence. This prompted one member of the U.S. House of Representative, Elizabeth Furse, to accuse Turkey of being a racist state and continuing to deny the Kurds a voice in the state". Abbas Manafy from New Mexico Highlands University claims "The Kurdish deprivation of their own culture, language, and tradition is incompatible with democratic norms. It reflects an apartheid system that victimizes minorities like Armenians, Kurds, and Alevis."


title: Rose of Sharon

text: Rose of Sharon is a name that has been applied to several different species of flowering plants that are valued in different parts of the world. It is also a biblical expression, though the identity of the plant referred to is unclear and is disputed among biblical scholars. In neither case does it refer to actual roses, although one of the species it refers to in modern usage is a member of Rosaceae. The deciduous flowering shrub known as the rose of Sharon is a member of the mallow family which is distinct from the family Rosaceae. The name's colloquial application has been used as an example of the lack of precision of common names, which can potentially cause confusion. "Rose of Sharon" has become a frequently used catch phrase in poetry and lyrics.


title: Rose of Sharon

text: The name "Rose of Sharon" first appears in Hebrew in the Tanakh. In the Shir Hashirim ('Song of Songs' or 'Song of Solomon') , the speaker (the beloved) says "I am the rose of Sharon, a rose of the valley". The Hebrew phrase ("ḥăḇatzeleṯ hasharon") was translated by the editors of the King James version of the Bible as "rose of Sharon"; however, previous translations had rendered it simply as "the flower of the field" (Septuagint "'", Vulgate "'", Wycliffe "a flower of the field"). Contrariwise, the Hebrew word "ḥăḇatzeleṯ" occurs two times in the scriptures: in the Song, and in , which reads, "the desert shall bloom like the rose." The word is translated "rose" in the King James version, but is rendered variously as "lily" (Septuagint "'", Vulgate "'", Wycliffe "lily"), "jonquil" (Jerusalem Bible) and "crocus" (RSV).


title: Rose of Sharon

text: Varying scholars have suggested that the biblical "rose of Sharon" may be one of the following plants:


title: Rose of Sharon

text: According to an annotation of "Song of Solomon" 2:1 by the translation committee of the New Revised Standard Version, "rose of Sharon" is a mistranslation of a more general Hebrew word for crocus.


title: Rose of Sharon

text: Etymologists have tentatively linked the biblical to the words "beṣel", meaning 'bulb', and "ḥāmaṣ", which is understood as meaning either 'pungent' or 'splendid' ("The Analytical Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon").


title: Rose of Sharon

text: A possible interpretation for the biblical reference is "Pancratium maritimum", which blooms in the late summer just above the high-tide mark. The modern Hebrew name for this flower is or ("ḥăḇaṣṣeleṯ" or "habasselet ha-khof", coastal lily). Some identify this flower with the "rose of Sharon" mentioned in the Song of Songs, but not all scholars accept this.


title: Rose of Sharon

text: Recently, some scholars have translated "ḥăḇaṣṣeleṯ" as "a budding bulb" in consideration of the genealogical research of multilingual versions and lexicons.


title: Rose of Sharon

text: The name "rose of Sharon" is also commonly applied to several plants, all originating outside the Levant and not likely to have been the plant from the Bible:


title: Swiss neutrality

text: Swiss neutrality is one of the main principles of Switzerland's foreign policy which dictates that Switzerland is not to be involved in armed or political conflicts between other states. This policy is self-imposed and designed to ensure external security and promote peace.


title: Swiss neutrality

text: Switzerland has the oldest policy of military neutrality in the world; it has not participated in a foreign war since its neutrality was established by the Treaty of Paris in 1815.


title: Swiss neutrality

text: Although the European powers (Austria, France, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Prussia, Russia, Spain and Sweden) agreed at the Congress of Vienna in May 1815 that Switzerland should be neutral, final ratification was delayed until after Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated so that some coalition forces could invade France via Swiss territory.


title: Swiss neutrality

text: The country has a history of armed neutrality going back to the Reformation; it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815 and did not join the United Nations until 2002. It pursues an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world.


title: Swiss neutrality

text: According to Swiss president Ignazio Cassis in 2022 during a World Economic Forum speech, the laws of neutrality for


title: Swiss neutrality

text: Switzerland are based on the Hague agreement principles which include “no participation in wars; international cooperation but no membership in any military alliance; no provision of troops or weapons to warring parties and no granting of transition rights.”


title: Swiss neutrality

text: The beginnings of Swiss neutrality can be dated back to the defeat of the Old Swiss Confederacy at the Battle of Marignano in September 1515 or the peace treaty the Swiss Confederacy signed with France on November 12, 1516. Prior to this, the Swiss Confederacy had an expansionist foreign policy.


title: Swiss neutrality

text: The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 was another important step in the development of Switzerland's neutrality. Other countries were disallowed from passing through Swiss territory, and the Confederation became legally independent from the Holy Roman Empire, even though it had been independent from the Empire "de facto" since 1499.


title: Swiss neutrality

text: The 1798 invasion of Switzerland by the French First Republic culminated in the creation of a satellite state called the Helvetic Republic. While the 1798 Swiss constitution and the 1803 Act of Mediation stated that France would protect Swiss independence and neutrality, these promises were not kept. With the latter act, Switzerland signed a defensive alliance treaty with France. During the Restoration, the Swiss Confederation's constitution and the Treaty of Paris's Act on the Neutrality of Switzerland affirmed Swiss neutrality.


title: Swiss neutrality

text: The dating of neutrality to 1516 is disputed by modern historians. Prior to 1895, no historian referenced the Battle of Marignano as the beginning of neutrality. The later backdating has to be seen in light of threats by several major powers in 1889 to rescind the neutrality granted to Switzerland in 1815. A publication by Paul Schweizer, titled "Geschichte der schweizerischen Neutralität" attempted to show that Swiss neutrality wasn't granted by other nations, but a decision they took themselves and thus couldn't be rescinded by others. The later publication of the same name by Edgar Bonjour, published between 1946 and 1975, expanded on this thesis.


title: Swiss neutrality

text: During the First World War, Switzerland sustained its policy of neutrality despite sharing land borders with two of the Central Powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary) and two of the Allied Powers (France and Italy). The German-speaking majority in Switzerland generally favoured the Central Powers whilst the French-speaking and Italian-speaking populations favoured the Allied Powers. This sparked internal tensions; however, the country was able to maintain its neutrality.


title: Swiss neutrality

text: In 1917, the neutrality of Switzerland was brought into question by the Grimm-Hoffmann Affair. Robert Grimm, a Swiss socialist politician, visited Russia in an attempt to negotiate a separate peace agreement between Russia and Germany, in order to end the war on the Eastern Front in the interests of socialism. Grimm was supported by Arthur Hoffman, a Swiss Federal Councillor who was in charge of the Political Department and headed the Foreign Ministry. However, Hoffman had not consulted his fellow Councillors over this initiative, and when a telegram sent between Grimm and Hoffman was made public, the Allied Powers were outraged.


title: Swiss neutrality

text: The League of Nations formally recognized Swiss neutrality on February 13, 1920. While the policy was not universally admired, it was respected by other countries. As a tribute, the world organization even chose Geneva as its headquarters. It also exempted Switzerland from military obligations. However, the country was forced to adopt the so-called "differential neutrality", which required Switzerland to participate in economic sanctions while preserving its military neutrality, a policy initially welcomed to establish the Swiss solidarity with international efforts to promote a peaceful world order. By March 1938, however, the Swiss government was increasingly becoming averse to this type of neutrality and reverted to absolute neutrality. The shift was not only a case of the Swiss realizing the value of their traditional policies but was also attributed to the deteriorating European economic and political relations in a period preceding World War II.


title: Swiss neutrality

text: Switzerland found itself completely surrounded by the Axis powers and Axis-controlled territory for most of World War II. Nazi Germany planned an invasion of Switzerland, and Switzerland made preparations for such an occurrence. At one point, Switzerland mobilized 850,000 soldiers. Under the leadership of Henri Guisan, Switzerland developed its National Redoubt plan in case of an invasion.


title: Swiss neutrality

text: Although Switzerland was criticized by many for its ambiguous stance during World War II, its neutrality has been appreciated on several occasions by both European and non-European leaders.


title: Swiss neutrality

text: From 1943 Switzerland stopped American and British aircraft, mainly bombers, overflying Switzerland during the Second World War. On numerous occasions during the war, Allied aircraft trespassed on Swiss airspace; mostly damaged Allied bombers returning from raids over Italy and Germany whose crews preferred internment by the Swiss to becoming prisoners of war. Over a hundred Allied aircraft crews were interned and placed in ski resorts which were left abandoned due to the lack of tourists after the outbreak of war. They were to be held in there until the war had ended. At least 940 American airmen attempted to escape into France after the invasion of Normandy, but Swiss authorities intercepted 183 internees. Over 160 of these airmen were incarcerated in a Swiss prison camp known as Wauwilermoos, which was located near Lucerne and commanded by André Béguin, a pro-Nazi Swiss officer. The American internees remained in Wauwilermoos until November 1944 when the U.S. State Department lodged protests against the Swiss government and eventually secured their release.


title: Swiss neutrality

text: Switzerland was surrounded by Axis-controlled territory; this meant that they also suffered from Allied bombings during the war – an example of this would be when Schaffhausen was accidentally bombed by American planes on April 1, 1944, the town was mistaken for Ludwigshafen am Rhein, a German town 284 kilometres away.


title: Swiss neutrality

text: These bombing incidents tested the neutrality of Switzerland as it showed the leniency of the Swiss towards Allied airspace violations. The bombings persisted and eventually Switzerland declared a zero-tolerance policy for violation by either Axis or Allied aircraft and authorised attacks on American aircraft.


title: Swiss neutrality

text: The Swiss, although somewhat skeptical, reacted by treating these violations of their neutrality as "accidents". The United States was warned that single aircraft would be forced down, and their crews would still be allowed to seek refuge, while bomber formations in violation of airspace would be intercepted. While American politicians and diplomats tried to minimise the political damage caused by these incidents, others took a more hostile view. Some senior commanders argued that as Switzerland was "full of German sympathisers", it deserved to be bombed. General Henry H. Arnold, Commanding General of the U.S. Army Air Forces, even suggested that it was the Germans themselves who were flying captured Allied planes over Switzerland in an attempt to gain a propaganda victory.


title: Swiss neutrality

text: It joined the United Nations after a March 2002 referendum. 10 years after Switzerland joined the UN, in recorded votes in the United Nations General Assembly, Switzerland occupied a middle position, siding from time to time with member states like the United States and Israel, but at other times with countries like China. In the United Nations Human Rights Council Switzerland sided much more with Western countries and against countries like China and Russia.


title: Swiss neutrality

text: Switzerland participated in the development of the International Code of Conduct for Private Security Service Providers (ICoC), intended as an oversight mechanism of private security providers. In September 2015, a "Federal Act on Private Security Services provided Abroad" was introduced, in order to "[preserve] Swiss neutrality", as stated in its first article. It requires Switzerland-based private security companies to declare all operations conducted abroad, and to adhere to the ICoC. Moreover, it states that no physical or moral person falling under this law can participate directly—or indirectly through the offer of private security services—in any hostilities abroad. In 2016, the Section of Private Security Services (SPSS), an organ of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs in charge of the procedures defined by the new law, has received 300 approval requests.


title: Swiss neutrality

text: In 2011, Switzerland registered as a candidate for a seat on the United Nations Security Council in 2023–2024. In a 2015 report requested by parliament, the government stated that a Swiss seat on the Security Council would be "fully compatible with the principles of neutrality and with Switzerland’s neutrality policy". Opponents of the project such as former ambassador Paul Widmer consider that this seat would "put its [Switzerland] neutrality at risk".


title: Swiss neutrality

text: In 2014 Switzerland didn't adopt EU-sanctions against Russia after the annexation of Crimea, but implemented rules that prevented bypassing the sanctions imposed by the European Union.


title: Swiss neutrality

text: The Swiss Armed Forces participated in the U.S.-led War in Afghanistan as observers, in what the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation described as the nation’s "first military deployment since 1815." During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the United States was given permission to use Swiss airspace for surveillance missions over Iraq.


title: Swiss neutrality

text: Switzerland was sending weapons to Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which were involved in the Saudi Arabian–led intervention in Yemen.


title: Swiss neutrality

text: In 2022, Switzerland adopted sanctions imposed by the European Union against Russia in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. While Switzerland follows defined rules to remain neutral in military conflicts, it imposed sanctions for this "serious violation of the most fundamental norms of international law [...] within the scope of its political room for manoeuvre." According to federal councilor Viola Amherd, Switzerland is only involved in humanitarian missions and will not allow direct shipments of arms to the war zone from or through its territory. Irrespective of the actual laws governing a neutral country, many media outlets still labelled this as a break with 500 years of Swiss neutrality. Russia perceived the sanctions in a similar way, as it rejected Switzerland's offer to mediate the conflict.


title: Swiss neutrality

text: In February 2022, Switzerland further adopted the sanctioning of Russia by the European Union and froze many Russian bank accounts. Analysts said the move would affect the Swiss economy.


title: Swiss neutrality

text: In March 2022, former Swiss councilor Christoph Blocher announced the ballot initiative 'Pro Souveräne Schweiz' (PSS), which would amend "integral neutrality" to the Swiss constitution. If approved, economic sanctions for example against Russia in 2022, would constitute a violation of Swiss neutrality. The initiative scheduled to be launched in fall 2022 is supported by the right-leaning Swiss People's Party (SVP).


title: Swiss neutrality

text: In April 2022, the Federal Department of Economic Affairs vetoed Germany's request to re-export Swiss ammunition to Ukraine on the basis of Swiss neutrality. The defence ministry of Switzerland, initiated a report in May 2022 analyzing various military options, including increased cooperation and joint military exercises with NATO. However, NATO membership remains unpopular. A poll from March 2022 found that 27% of those surveyed supported Switzerland joining NATO, while 67% were opposed. Another from May 2022 indicated 33% of Swiss supported NATO membership for Switzerland, and 56% supported increased ties with NATO.


title: Swiss neutrality

text: In September 2022 the Parliament of Switzerland voted against a revision of its law to impose independent sanctions. Therefore Switzerland can still only adopt sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council, the EU or the OECD.


title: Swiss neutrality

text: Swiss neutrality has been questioned at times, notably regarding Switzerland's role during World War II and the ICRC, the looted Nazi gold (and later during Operation Gladio), its economic ties to the apartheid regime in South Africa, and more recently in the Crypto AG espionage case.


title: Manly P. Hall

text: Manly Palmer Hall (18 March 1901 – 29 August 1990) was a Canadian author, lecturer, astrologer and mystic. Over his 70-year career he gave thousands of lectures, including two at Carnegie Hall, and published over 150 volumes, of which the best known is "The Secret Teachings of All Ages" (1928).


title: Manly P. Hall

text: In 1934 he founded The Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles. It includes a research library, lecture hall, and publishing house.


title: Manly P. Hall

text: Hall was born in 1901 in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, to Louise Palmer Hall, a chiropractor and member of the Rosicrucian Fellowship, and William S. Hall, a dentist. The younger Hall is said never to have known his father. In 1919, Hall moved to Los Angeles, California, to reunite with his birth mother, who was living in Santa Monica. Upon meeting her, he was almost immediately drawn to the arcane world of mysticism, esoteric philosophies and their underlying principles.


title: Manly P. Hall

text: In 1919, Hall took over as preacher of the "Church of the People", located at "Trinity Auditorium" in downtown Los Angeles. Less than a year later, Hall booked his first lecture on the topic of reincarnation. Hall was ordained a minister in the "Church of the People" on 17 May 1923. Only a few days later, he was elected "permanent pastor" of the church. His first publications consisted of two small pamphlets, "The Breastplate of the High Priest" "("1920")" and "Wands and Serpents ("1927")". Between 1922 and 1923 he wrote three books: "The Initiates of the Flame" (1922), "The Ways of the Lonely Ones" (1922), and "The Lost Keys of Freemasonry" (1923). Hall himself would become a Freemason later in life, in 1954.


title: Manly P. Hall

text: During the early 1920s, Caroline Lloyd and her daughter Estelle, members of a family who controlled an oil field in Ventura County, California, began sending a sizeable portion of their oil income to Hall. With these donated funds, Hall traveled within Europe and Asia to study the lives, customs and religions of the people there. While visiting London, England in the early 1930s, Hall acquired a substantial collection of rare books and manuscripts about alchemy and esotericism from an auction agent at Sotheby's. Owing to economic conditions resulting from the Great Depression, he acquired the collection for a price much lower than normal. Caroline Lloyd died in 1946 and in her will left Hall a house, $15,000 in cash, and an annual percentage of her family's oil field shares, valued at approximately $10,000 per year, for the next 38 years.


title: Manly P. Hall

text: By 1928, Hall had become sufficiently known and respected as an interpreter and lecturer of many ancient writings. He utilized print and word-of-mouth advertising to solicit public funding to finance his book "The Secret Teachings of All Ages" (1928)"." It is estimated to have cost $150,000 to publish. Original records on file with the Philosophical Research Society indicate his book was sold at a price somewhere between $50 and $100. The HS Crocker Company of San Francisco agreed to be his publisher if he could secure the interest of book designer John Henry Nash, who once worked as a printer for the Vatican." Color illustrations were created by John Augustus Knapp.


title: Manly P. Hall

text: After "The Secret Teachings of All Ages" circulated, Hall became increasingly influential on the metaphysical movement sweeping the United States. His book challenged assumptions about society's spiritual roots which made readers view them in new and diverse ways. He dedicated his book to "the proposition that concealed within the emblematic figures, allegories and rituals of the ancients is a secret doctrine concerning the inner mysteries of life, which doctrine has been preserved "in toto" among a small band of initiated minds." As one writer put it: "The result was a gorgeous, dreamlike book of mysterious symbols, concise essays and colorful renderings of mythical beasts rising out of the sea, and angelic beings with lions' heads presiding over somber initiation rites in torch-lit temples of ancestral civilizations that had mastered latent powers beyond the reach of modern man."


title: Manly P. Hall

text: In 1988, Hall himself wrote: "The greatest knowledge of all time should be available to the twentieth century not only in the one shilling editions of the Bohn Library in small type and shabby binding, but in a book that would be a monument, not merely a coffin. John Henry Nash agreed with me."


title: Manly P. Hall

text: The major books which followed include "The Dionysian Artificers" (1936), "Freemasonry of the Ancient Egyptians" (1937), and "Masonic Orders of Fraternity" (1950). In his over 70-year career, Hall delivered approximately 8,000 lectures in the United States and abroad, authored over 150 books and essays, and wrote countless magazine articles. He appears in the introduction to the 1938 film "When Were You Born", a murder mystery that uses astrology as a key plot point. Hall wrote the original story for the film (screenplay by Anthony Coldeway) and is also credited as the narrator.


title: Manly P. Hall

text: In 1942, Hall spoke to a record-setting audience at Carnegie Hall, on "The Secret Destiny of America," which later became a book of the same title. Through a series of stories, his book alleged that a secret order of philosophers created the idea of America as a country based on religious freedom and self-governance. In one of the stories that Hall cites as evidence of America's exceptionalism, he claims that an angel was present at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and inspiring them with God's words. President Ronald Reagan is reported to have adopted ideas and phrasing from "The Secret Destiny of America" (1944) in his speeches and essays for his allegorical use of the City upon a Hill.