title: Film crew

text: Animation film crews have many of the same roles and departments as live-action films (including directing, production, editing, camera, sound, etc.), but nearly all on-set departments (lighting, electrical, grip, sets, props, costume, hair, makeup, special effects, and stunts) were traditionally replaced with a single animation department made up of various types of animators (character, effects, in-betweeners, cleanup, etc.). In traditional animation, the nature of the medium meant that everything was literally flattened into the drawn lines and solid colors that became the characters, making nearly all live-action positions irrelevant. Because animation has traditionally been so labor-intensive and thus expensive, animation films normally have a separate story department in which storyboard artists painstakingly develop scenes to make sure they make sense before they are actually animated.


title: Film crew

text: However, since the turn of the 21st century, modern 3D computer graphics and computer animation have made possible a level of rich detail never seen before. Many animated films now have specialized artists and animators who act as the virtual equivalent of lighting technicians, grips, costume designers, props masters, set decorators, set dressers, and cinematographers. They make artistic decisions strongly similar to those of their live-action counterparts, but implement them in a virtual space that exists only in software rather than on a physical set. There have been major breakthroughs in the simulation of hair since 2005, meaning that hairstylists have been called in since then to consult on a few animation projects.


title: Alison Mosshart

text: Alison Nicole Mosshart (born November 23, 1978) is an American singer, songwriter, artist, and the lead vocalist for the rock bands The Kills and The Dead Weather. She started her musical career in 1995 with the Florida punk rock band Discount which disbanded in 2000. She then co-founded the Kills with British guitarist Jamie Hince (formerly of Scarfo and Blyth Power) in 2000 in London.


title: Alison Mosshart

text: In early 2009, she joined the supergroup The Dead Weather, formed by Jack White, along with Jack Lawrence and Dean Fertita. In that band, her stage name is "Baby Ruthless."


title: Alison Mosshart

text: Mosshart formed pop-punk band Discount (for which she was the singer) at the age of 17 with skateboarding friends in Vero Beach, Florida. The band recorded their first album, "Ataxia's Alright Tonight" when the band members were still in high school, and began touring aggressively throughout the DIY punk underground in North America and Europe. As a front-person, Mosshart distinguished herself through her intense, erratic, and earnest stage presence. Discount's subsequent album, "Half Fiction", was subsequently named the 50th Greatest Pop-Punk Album of all time by "Rolling Stone" magazine. The band , and released their final album, "Crash Diagnostic" in 2000. The album reflected a move toward more angular sounds and detached lyrics than the emotionally frank pop-punk of the previous two albums. After touring in support of the album, the band played their last show in Gainesville in August 2000.


title: Alison Mosshart

text: Before the two even met, Mosshart, while on tour with Discount, overheard Hince playing music in a squat above where she and the band were staying. She finally approached him, after which they started playing around with some music ideas. After she went back to Florida, she continued writing songs with Hince, by sending her ideas overseas to London where he lived. She became very exhausted and ill, so after saving money, Mosshart moved to London and the duo officially started. She has tattooed the date of their first concert on her left hand: 14 February 2002.


title: Alison Mosshart

text: In 2003, The Kills released their first album "Keep on Your Mean Side". In 2005, they released their follow-up album "No Wow".


title: Alison Mosshart

text: In 2008, "Midnight Boom" was released, and singles "U R A Fever", "Cheap and Cheerful", and "Sour Cherry" got much more exposure than the Kills' previous singles on shows and movies like "House M.D.", "90210", "The House Bunny", "Friday the 13th (2009 film)", and "The Losers".


title: Alison Mosshart

text: On January 11, 2011, Mosshart announced the name of the new album "Blood Pressures". It was released April 5 in the U.S. and April 4 elsewhere. The album is their most commercially successful to date.


title: Alison Mosshart

text: They have released a photography book called Dream & Drive of their past 9 years with the photographer Kenneth Capello.


title: Alison Mosshart

text: On June 26, 2014, The Kills opened for Jack White in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin, for White's Lazaretto tour. Mosshart joined White to perform White's song "Love Interruption", and both Mosshart and Hince joined White to perform Leadbelly's "Goodnight Irene".


title: Alison Mosshart

text: Mosshart is one of the original members of the alternative rock band The Dead Weather, formed in late 2008. She had performed previously with Jack White and Jack Lawrence and The Raconteurs, prior to this band's formation. She sings lead vocals and plays rhythm guitar.


title: Alison Mosshart

text: She co-wrote (with Dean Fertita) the band's first single "Hang You from the Heavens", which was released on March 11, 2009. Mosshart also wrote "So Far From Your Weapon" and co-wrote the other eight of the ten original tracks on their debut album "Horehound".


title: Alison Mosshart

text: In 2010, a second album - "Sea of Cowards" - was released. The lead single, "Die By the Drop", was written by Mosshart, Fertita, and Lawrence.


title: Alison Mosshart

text: White's Third Man Records released a book made by Mosshart for her three bandmates called Shark Infested Soda Fountain containing pictures she took during their tour.


title: Alison Mosshart

text: In 2014, she joined Jack White on stage for his show at Bridge School Benefit to perform "I Cut Like A Buffalo" (from "Horehound") and "Love Interruption" (from White's solo album "Blunderbuss") with him while Dean Fertita was playing guitar.


title: Alison Mosshart

text: On 29 August 2013, The Dead Weather announced that they had returned to the studio to record a follow-up to 2010's "Sea of Cowards". Announcement of their third album, "Dodge and Burn", came in July 2015 for a release in September by Third Man Records. Along with four previously released tracks, remixed and remastered, the album features eight new songs.


title: Alison Mosshart

text: Mosshart debuted her artwork as part of ArtNowNY's collaborative exhibit, Push It, in 2014. Her primary medium is paint.


title: Alison Mosshart

text: In April 2011, Mosshart contributed to Vogue.co.uk's "Today I'm Wearing" feature, sharing a picture of her outfits each day for one month.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: Piazza San Marco (; ), often known in English as St Mark's Square, is the principal public square of Venice, Italy, where it is generally known just as "la Piazza" ("the Square"). All other urban spaces in the city (except the Piazzetta and the Piazzale Roma) are called "campi" ("fields"). The Piazzetta ("little Piazza/Square") is an extension of the Piazza towards San Marco basin in its southeast corner (see plan). The two spaces together form the social, religious and political centre of Venice and are commonly considered together. This article relates to both of them.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: A remark usually attributed (though without proof) to Napoleon calls the Piazza San Marco "the drawing room of Europe".


title: Piazza San Marco

text: The square is dominated at its eastern end by St Mark's Basilica. It is described here by a perambulation starting from the west front of the church (facing the length of the piazza) and proceeding to the right.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: The church is described in the article St Mark's Basilica, but there are aspects of it which are so much a part of the piazza that mentioned here, including the whole of its western facade with its great arches and marble decoration, the Romanesque carvings around the central doorway and, the four horses which preside over the whole piazza and are such potent symbols of the pride and power of Venice that the Genoese in 1379 said that there could be no peace between the two cities until these horses had been bridled; four hundred years later, Napoleon, after he had conquered Venice, had them taken down and shipped to Paris.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: The Piazzetta dei Leoncini is an open space on the north side of the church named after the two marble lions (presented by Doge Alvise Mocenigo in 1722), but now officially called the Piazzetta San Giovanni XXIII. The neo-classic building on the east side adjoining the Basilica is the Palazzo Patriarcale, the seat of the Patriarch of Venice.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: Beyond that is St Mark's Clocktower ("Torre dell'Orologio"), completed in 1499, above a high archway where the street known as the Merceria (a main thoroughfare of the city) leads through shopping streets to the Rialto, the commercial and financial centre. To the right of the clock-tower is the closed church of San Basso, designed by Baldassarre Longhena (1675), sometimes open for exhibitions.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: To the left is the long arcade along the north side of the piazza, the buildings on this side are known as the Procuratie Vecchie, the old procuracies, formerly the homes and offices of the Procurators of St Mark, high officers of state in the days of the republic of Venice. They were built in the early 16th century. The arcade is lined with shops and restaurants at ground level, with offices above. The restaurants include the famous Caffè Quadri, which was patronized by the Austrians when Venice was ruled by Austria in the 19th century, while the Venetians preferred Florian's on the other side of the piazza.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: Turning left at the end, the arcade continues along the west end of the piazza, which was rebuilt by Napoleon about 1810 and is known as the Ala Napoleonica (Napoleonic Wing). It holds, behind the shops, a ceremonial staircase which was to have led to a royal palace but now forms the entrance to the Museo Correr (Correr Museum).


title: Piazza San Marco

text: Turning left again, the arcade continues down the south side of the Piazza. The buildings on this side are known as the Procuratie Nuove (new procuracies), which were designed by Jacopo Sansovino in the mid-16th century but partly built (1582–86) after his death by Vincenzo Scamozzi apparently with alterations required by the procurators and finally completed by Baldassarre Longhena about 1640. Again, the ground floor has shops and also the Caffè Florian, a famous cafe opened in 1720 by Floriano Francesconi, which was patronised by the Venetians when the hated Austrians were at Quadri's. The upper floors were intended by Napoleon to be a palace for his stepson Eugène de Beauharnais, his viceroy in Venice, and now houses the Museo Correr. At the far end the Procuratie meet the north end of Sansovino's Libreria (mid-16th century), whose main front faces the piazzetta and is described there. The arcade continues round the corner into the Piazzetta.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: Opposite to this, standing free in the piazza, is St Mark's Campanile (1156–73 last restored in 1514), rebuilt in 1912 "com'era, dov'era" ("as it was, where it was") after the collapse of the former campanile on 14 July 1902. Adjacent to the campanile, facing towards the church, is the small building known as the Loggetta del Sansovino, built by Sansovino in 1537–46 and used as a lobby by patricians waiting to go into a meeting of the Great Council in the Doge's Palace and by guards when the council was sitting.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: Across the piazza in front of the church are three large mast-like flagpoles with bronze bases decorated in high relief by Alessandro Leopardi in 1505. The Venetian flag of St Mark used to fly from them in the time of the republic of Venice and now shares them with the Italian flag.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: The Piazzetta di San Marco is, strictly speaking, not part of the Piazza but an adjoining open space connecting the south side of the Piazza to the waterway of the lagoon. The Piazzetta lies between the Doge's Palace on the east and Jacopo Sansovino's Biblioteca (Library) which holds the Biblioteca Marciana on the west.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: At the corner near the campanile, this (west) side is occupied entirely by the Biblioteca (Library) designed by Jacopo Sansovino to hold the Biblioteca Marciana (library of St Mark). Building started in 1537 and it was extended, after the death of Sansovino, by Vincenzo Scamozzi in 1588–91. The building was said by Palladio to be "the most magnificent and ornate structure built since ancient times". The arcade continues to the end of the building with cafés and shops and also the entrances to the Archaeological Museum, the Biblioteca Marciana and the National Library, which occupy the floors above.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: At the end of this building is the Molo (the quay fronting the lagoon) and the adjoining building to the right is the Zecca (mint) also by Sansovino (completed 1547) and now part of the Biblioteca Marciana. Turning to the left at the end of the Biblioteca one crosses the open end of the Piazzetta marked by two large granite columns carrying symbols of the two patron saints of Venice. The first is Saint Theodore, who was the patron of the city before St Mark, holding a spear and with a crocodile to represent the dragon which he was said to have slain. This is made up of parts of antique statues and is a copy (the original is kept in the Doge's Palace). The second (eastern) column has a creature representing a winged lion — the "Lion of Venice" — which is the symbol of St Mark. This has a long history, probably starting as a winged lion-griffin on a monument to the god Sandon at Tarsus in Cilicia (Southern Turkey) about 300 BC. The columns are now thought to have been erected about 1268, when the water was closer and they would have been on the edge of the lagoon, framing the entry to the city from the sea. Gambling was permitted in the space between the columns and this right was said to have been granted as a reward to the man who first raised the columns. Public executions also took place between the columns.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: On the far side of the Piazzetta is the side wall of the Doge's Palace with Gothic arcades at ground level and a loggia on the floor above. Up to the seventh pillar from the front this is the building as rebuilt in 1340, while the extension towards the Basilica was added in 1424. The capitals of the columns of the extended part are mostly copies of those in the front of the Palace.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: The seventh pillar is marked by a tondo (circular sculpture) of Venice as Justice above the first floor loggia. To the left of this, there are two red pillars in front of the first-floor loggia, contrasting with the other pillars which are of white Istrian stone. The red pillars are made of red Verona marble. They may have framed the Doge's chair on ceremonial occasions, but it seems that important malefactors found guilty of crimes against the state would sometimes be executed there.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: On the rear corner of the Doge's Palace is a sculpture of the Judgment of Solomon with the archangel Gabriel above. The sculptors are not known. Set back from this corner is the Porta della Carta, the ceremonial entrance to the palace, built in fine Gothic style in 1438–43, probably by Giovanni and Bartolomeo Bon. Again, there is at the top a figure of Venice as Justice, the theme of fair judgment and justice being much emphasised on this side of the palace. Below this, the head of Doge Francisco Foscari and the lion before which he is kneeling were replaced in 1885, the originals having been destroyed on French orders in 1797. The statues on either side of the gateway represent the cardinal virtues of Temperance, Fortitude, Prudence and Charity.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: Next to this, on an outside corner of the basilica of St Mark, are four antique figures carved in porphyry, a very hard red granite. They are usually known as the Tetrarchs and said to represent the four joint rulers of the Roman Empire appointed by Diocletian and were formerly thought to be Egyptian. It is now thought probable (or, at least very possible) that they represent the sons of the Emperor Constantine, praised for their loving co-operation on his death in 337, especially as the work originally stood in the Philadelphion (Place of Brotherly Love) in Constantinople, where the missing foot of one of the figures has been found.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: Beyond this, in front of the South wall of the Basilica are two rectangular pillars always known as the Pillars of Acre. They were thought to be booty taken by the Venetians from Acre after their great victory over the Genoese there in 1258, but this traditional story has also had to be revised. The pillars actually came from the church of St Polyeuktos in Constantinople (524-7), and were probably taken by the Venetians soon after the fourth crusade in 1204. The ruins of this church were discovered in 1960 and it was excavated in the 1990s, when capitals were found, which matched the pillars.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: Beyond these pillars, opposite the corner of the Basilica, is a great circular stone of red porphyry known as the Pietra del Bando (Proclamation Stone) from which official proclamations used to be read. It has been suggested that this may have formed part of a column on which the so-called Tetrarchs stood.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: Across the water (the "Bacino di San Marco") at the end of the Piazzetta can be seen the island of San Giorgio Maggiore and the brilliant white facade of Palladio's church there.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: The history of the Piazza San Marco can be conveniently covered in four periods, but the only pre-renaissance buildings and monuments still standing there are St Mark's, the Doge's Palace and the two great columns in the Piazzetta.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: The first patron saint of Venice was St Theodore, a Greek warrior saint, and the first chapel of the Doge was dedicated to him. It was probably built about 819 and stood near the site of the present church of St Mark. In 828–829 relics of St Mark were stolen from Alexandria and brought to Venice, and in time the Venetians and the Doge adopted the apostle as their new patron. He was the missionary-apostle who was said to have converted their district; the relics of an apostle would increase the importance of the city and their acquisition was a further step in the gradual process of freeing Venice from the domination of Byzantium. The relics were temporarily placed in the palace (or castle) of the Doge, Justinian Partecipacius, who provided in his will for a new church to be built. This first church of St Mark was begun on the south side of the existing chapel; by 836 construction was sufficiently advanced for the relics to be moved there. The design of the church was based on the Church of the Twelve Apostles in Constantinople and it seems to have covered the same area as the central part of the present church. A campanile was first built in the time of Doge Pietro Tribuno (888–91).


title: Piazza San Marco

text: At that time there was probably an empty space covered with grass in front of the new church, but it cannot have extended more than about 60 metres to the west, where there was a stream (the Rio Baratario) bisecting the area now occupied by the Piazza. On the other side of this stream was a small church dedicated to San Geminiano. The Doge's palace, in the same area as its modern successor, was at that time surrounded by water. The lagoon was to the south, the Rio di Palazzo (the canal beneath the Bridge of Sighs) to the east, and another stream to the north between the palace and the church. There was an inlet from the lagoon occupying much of the space now covered by the Piazzetta and this seems to have been used as a dock for the city.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: In 976 there was a rebellion against the Doge and the church was set on fire. The wooden parts, including the roof and wooden dome, were probably lost, but the church was not completely destroyed and it seems to have been rebuilt much as before. In 1063 a complete rebuilding commenced. The new church was finished in the time of Doge Vitale Falier (1084–96), and in its main structure this is the present church, though the west front facing the Piazza was then in the Romanesque style with undecorated brickwork (like the exterior of the apse today). It had five domes, but their exterior profile was low, unlike the present high, onion-shaped structures.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: Great changes to the area came when Sebastiano Ziani was Doge (1172–78). Venice was growing in importance and the Doge was a very wealthy man. He initiated the changes which created the piazza as we know it. The Rio Baratario was filled in and the church of San Geminiano on the far side was demolished and rebuilt much farther back at the western end of what became the Piazza. An orchard which occupied part of the area was acquired from the convent of San Zaccharia and the Doge bought up a number of buildings which obstructed the site. By his will he left these buildings to the state and in due course they were demolished to clear the area. The rebuilding of the 9th-century Doge's palace also commenced in his time as Doge. The precise date of the various new buildings is not known and much must have been done in the time of his son, Pietro Ziani, who was Doge from 1205 to 1229.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: In 1204, Constantinople was captured in the course of the 4th Crusade and, both at that time and later during the 13th century, much valuable material was taken from the city and shipped back for the adornment of Venice. This included marbles and pillars for the facade of St Mark's, the two square pillars in the piazzetta known (wrongly) as the Pillars of Acre and probably also the Pietra del Bando (near the south west corner of St Mark's) and the four porphyry figures known as the Tetrarchs, which were eventually installed near the entrance to the Doge's Palace from the piazzetta.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: The two great granite columns in the Piazzetta are usually said to have been erected about 1170, but it is now thought more probable that this was done in the time of Doge Ranieri Zeno (1253–68) about 1268; the bases and capitals are 13th-century. Their origin is unknown, but Chios is suggested as possible. The lion is first mentioned in a decree of the Great Council in 1293, and the wording makes it clear that it was already on the pillar at that date. A statue of St Theodore (but not the present statue) was in place by 1329.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: It was also at this time, in the later 13th century, that St Mark's was being given its new west facade embellished with marble and mosaics and trophies from Constantinople, including the four horses.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: The original 9th-century Doge's palace was soon found too small for the number of patricians sitting on the Great Council after the right to do so was made hereditary in 1297, and rebuilding started in 1340. Work was held up by the Black Death in 1348 but the first stage was completed by 1365. This comprised the front part of the palace facing the lagoon, but in the Piazzetta the new building only extended to the seventh pillar back from the front corner, now marked by a circular relief of Venice as Justice on the outside of the first-floor arcade. Further back, part of the old palace, known as the Palace of Justice, remained, much as it had stood for about 200 years.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: Because of the great expense involved, nothing more was done for many years, but in 1422 the Doge Tomaso Mocenigo insisted that for the honour of the city the remaining part of the old palace should be demolished and the new part extended. It was resolved that the existing facade should be continued in the same style, and work started in 1424 under the new Doge Francesco Foscari. The extended facade had reached the corner by 1438 and the point where the 15th-century part joins the 14th-century part can only be recognised by the circular relief of Justice above the seventh pillar from the front corner and the fact that that pillar is larger than the others, having held up the corner of the building for 80 years. The capitals on this facade are, for the most part, copies of the existing capitals on the front facade. The last pillar, at the north-western corner of the building, is a very large column and, continuing the theme of Justice, bears a large relief carving of the Judgment of Solomon, with the archangel Gabriel above it. The sculptor is not known, although various suggestions have been made including Bartolomeo Buon from Venice and Jacopo della Quercia from Siena and several art historians think that the sculpture of the Judgment of Solomon (which must have been made in the period 1424/38) shows influence from Tuscany. Eduardo Arslan, after reviewing all the theories in 1971, concluded that this sculpture "remains for us a great mystery".


title: Piazza San Marco

text: In 1438 a contract was made with Giovanni and Bartolomeo Buon for the construction of a great ceremonial doorway into the palace. This was the Porta della Carta and connected the newly constructed wing of the palace with the south wall of St Mark's. Giovanni was nearing the end of his life and the gateway is mainly the work of Bartolomeo. It was completed by 1442 and included a sculpture of the Doge Francesco Foscari kneeling before the lion of St Mark. The statues of the cardinal virtues on either side were by another hand. Originally the whole gateway was painted and gilded. This is just visible in the right background of Gentile Bellini's painting of 1496, which shows the piazza in its state at this time, still narrow and with the old 13th-century buildings on either side.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: In 1493 an astronomical clock was commissioned by Venice and it was decided to install it in a new clocktower in the Piazza with a high archway beneath it leading into the street known as the Merceria, which leads to the Rialto. The building, which was probably designed by Codussi, was started in 1496, a section of the original Procuratie being demolished for the purpose. The building was completed with the clock installed by February 1499. It can be seen, flanked by the original Procuratie building, in de Barbari's woodcut of Venice in 1500. The Procuratie then were only two storeys high and the tower stood higher above them than it does today.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: Buildings on either side to support the tower were added by 1506 and in 1512, when there was a fire in the old Procuratie, it became obvious that the whole range would have to be rebuilt.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: Despite the fact that Venice was then at war with much of Europe (War of the League of Cambrai) the whole of the south side of the Piazza was rebuilt, starting in 1517. The new buildings, known today as the Procuratie Vecchie, were three storeys high instead of two. Like the previous Procuratie they had an arcade on the ground level with two windows above each arch, but without the high Byzantine arches and with classical details.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: In 1527 Jacopo Sansovino came to Venice, fleeing from the sack of Rome, and by 1529 he had been appointed as Proto (consultant architect and buildings manager) to the Procurators of St. Mark. The Procurators wished to rebuild the old buildings on the south side of the Piazza, but Sansovino persuaded them that the opportunity should be taken to enlarge the Piazza and that these buildings should be demolished and the building line moved back clear of the campanile. He also convinced them that the old hostelries and shops on the west side of the Piazzetta opposite the Doge's Palace should be replaced by a new building worthy of the site. It was decided that the library of books and manuscripts, which had been bequeathed to the city by Cardinal Bessarion but had still not found a permanent home, should be housed there and Sansovino originally intended that the facade of this building (the Libreria) should eventually be continued along the south side of the Piazza and round the south-west corner as far as the church of San Geminiano in the middle of the west side. These changes also made it necessary to rebuild the Loggetta and at the same time the government of Venice had commissioned Sansovino to rebuild the mint (the Zecca) on the west side of the Libreria. All these works were proceeding together for many years after 1537. The new Loggetta was complete by 1545 and the Zecca by 1547 (though a third storey was added by 1566), but work on the Libreria was held up by the difficulty of finding new premises for the businesses which were displaced as well as by shortage of funds and only sixteen bays (out of twenty-one) had been finished before the death of Sansovino in 1570. By that date it had not yet been possible to start on the rebuilding of the south side of the Piazza beyond the Libreria.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: Sansovino also completed the rebuilding of the old church of San Geminiano at the west end of the Piazza, facing St Mark's. Much of the work had been done before he took it over in 1557, but he was responsible for the facade in white Istrian stone. He also continued the range of Procuratie Vecchie on the north side of the Piazza round the corner as far as this church.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: After the death of Sansovino funds were at last made available to start the rebuilding of the south side of the Piazza in its new position well clear of the campanile. His idea of a two-storey building continuing the facade of the Libreria had to be abandoned, as the Procurators required three storeys. However Vincenzo Scamozzi based the design on the facade of the Libreria and completed ten bays between 1582 and 1586, The Procuratie Nuove (New Procuracies), as they are called, were not completed until 1640, when the remaining bays on the south side were completed and continued round the corner to the church of San Geminiano by Baldassarre Longhena.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: Venice surrendered to Napoleon on 12 May 1797. By 4 June a "Tree of Liberty" had been placed in the Piazza. Soon afterwards stonemasons were sent out on the orders of the Municipality to destroy images of the winged lion, which was seen as a symbol of Venetian independence and aristocratic rule. On the Porta della Carta in the Piazzetta the head of Doge Francesco Foscari was removed as well as that of the lion before which he was kneeling. (They were replaced by copies later in the century). The French ordered the four horses of San Marco to be taken down and sent to Paris together with the bronze lion on the column in the Piazzetta. They were removed in December 1797.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: In January 1798 under the Treaty of Campoformio the Austrians moved into Venice in place of the French. This first Austrian ascendancy lasted from 1798 to 19 January 1806, when the French moved back after Napoleon's victories at Austerlitz and Jena and his establishment of the kingdom of Italy in 1804. Napoleon appointed his stepson Eugène de Beauharnais as his viceroy and in 1807 it was ordered that the Procuratie Nuove were to become the royal palace for his occupation. Napoleon himself paid a ceremonial visit to Venice later in 1807, landing at the Piazzetta on his way to the new palace.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: It was decided that the new palace should extend across the whole of the west end of the Piazza and this made it necessary to demolish the church of San Geminiano, rebuilt by Sansovino, and also the buildings on either side, Sansovino's extension of the Procuratie Vecchie to the north and part of the Procuratie Nuove to the south. The original architect was Gianni Antolini from Milan, but the new building caused much controversy and in 1810 he was replaced by Giovanni Soli from Modena. The present building, known as the Ala Napoleonica (the Napoleonic Wing) was built between 1810 and 1813. The facade of the two lower storeys is in the manner of the Procuratie Nuove, but the upper storey, containing the ceremonial entrance and the ballroom, has no windows or arches and is decorated with statues and sculpture in low relief. In the centre there was originally to have been a statue of Napoleon as Jupiter with the imperial arms above, but this was abandoned after the fall of Napoleon in 1814 and there is now no focal point on the west side of the Piazza.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: After the abdication of Napoleon the Austrians re-occupied Venice (under the Treaty of Fontainebleau) in April 1814. The Austrian chancellor, Prince Metternich, was instrumental in arranging the return to Venice of the four horses of St Mark and the lion from the Piazzetta. The horses were re-installed in front of the Basilica on 13 December 1815, but the bronze lion had been badly broken and had to be repaired. It was placed back on its pillar in April 1816.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: The Piazza was paved in the late 12th century with bricks laid in a herringbone pattern. Bands of light-colored stone ran parallel to the long axis of the main piazza. These lines were probably used in setting up market stalls and in organizing frequent ceremonial processions. This original pavement design can be seen in paintings of the late Middle Ages and through the Renaissance, such as Gentile Bellini's "Procession in Piazza San Marco" of 1496.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: In 1723 the bricks were replaced with a more complex geometrical pavement design laid out by Venetian architect Andrea Tirali. Little is known about Tirali's reasoning for the particulars of the design. Some have speculated that the pattern was used to regulate market stalls, or to recall their former presence in the square. Others believe the pattern was drawn from oriental rugs, a popular luxury item in this trading centre.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: A field of dark-colored igneous trachyte with geometrical designs executed in white Istrian stone, similar to travertine composed the design. Squares of diagonally laid blocks alternated with rectangular and oval designs along broad parallel bands. The squares were pitched to the centre, like a bowl, where a drain conducted surface water into a below-grade drainage system. The pattern connected the central portal of the Basilica with the centre of the western opening into the piazza. This line more closely parallels the façade of the Procuratie Vecchie, leaving a nearly triangular space adjacent to the Procuratie Nuove with its wider end closed off by the Campanile. The pattern continued past the campanile, stopping at a line connecting the three large flagpoles and leaving the space immediately in front of the Basilica undecorated. A smaller version of the same pattern in the Piazzetta paralleled Sansovino's Library, leaving a narrow trapezoid adjacent to the Doge's palace with the wide end closed off by the southwest corner of the Basilica. This smaller pattern had the internal squares inclined to form non-orthogonal quadrilaterals.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: The overall alignment of the pavement pattern serves to visually lengthen the long axis and reinforce the position of the Basilica at its head. This arrangement mirrors the interior relationship of nave to altar within the cathedral.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: As part of the design, the level of the piazza was raised by approximately one meter to mitigate flooding and allow more room for the internal drains to carry water to the Grand Canal.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: In 1890, the pavement was renewed "due to wear and tear". The new work closely follows Tirali's design, but eliminated the oval shapes and cut off the west edge of the pattern to accommodate the Napoleonic wing at that end of the Piazza.


title: Piazza San Marco

text: The Piazza San Marco is not far above sea level and during the "Acqua Alta", the "high water" from storm surges from the Adriatic or heavy rain, it is quick to flood. Water pouring into the drains in the piazza runs directly into the Grand Canal. This normally works well but, when the sea is high, it has the reverse effect, with water from the lagoon surging up into the square. A historically important flood was the 1966 Venice flood, when an abnormal occurrence of high tides, rain-swollen rivers and a severe sirocco wind caused the canals to rise to a height of 194 cm or 6 ft 4 in.


title: Rahul Bajaj

text: Rahul Bajaj (10 June 1938 – 12 February 2022) was an Indian billionaire businessman. He was the chairman emeritus of the Indian conglomerate Bajaj Group. He was awarded the third-highest civilian award in India, the Padma Bhushan, in 2001.


title: Rahul Bajaj

text: Bajaj was born on 10 June 1938, to Kamalnayan Bajaj and Savitri Bajaj. He was the grandson of Indian independence fighter, Jamnalal Bajaj, who was a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi. Bajaj was an alumnus of Harvard Business School in the US, St. Stephen's College, Delhi, Government Law College, Mumbai and Cathedral and John Connon School.


title: Rahul Bajaj

text: Bajaj took over the Bajaj Group in 1965. In a career spanning over five decades, he led the turnover of the group's flagship company, Bajaj Auto, from to , with the company's scooter Bajaj Chetak being the main growth driver.


title: Rahul Bajaj

text: Bajaj stepped down from his role in 2005 and his son Rajiv became the Group's managing director. Bajaj led the split of Bajaj Auto into three units in 2008: Bajaj Auto, Bajaj Finserv and a holding company. He resigned as chairman and non-executive director of Bajaj Finserv to become chairman emeritus in March 2019. In April 2021, Bajaj stepped down as non-executive chairman of Bajaj Auto, ceding the position to his cousin, Niraj Bajaj, and remained with the company as chairman emeritus.


title: Rahul Bajaj

text: Bajaj was elected to the Rajya Sabha, India's Upper House of Parliament, filling the seat vacated by the death of Pramod Mahajan for the 2006–2010 period.


title: Rahul Bajaj

text: Bajaj was elected as the president of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) twice, in 1979–1980 and 1999–2000. For his outstanding work to the Indian industry, the then President of India, Pranab Mukherjee, presented him with CII President's Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2017.


title: Rahul Bajaj

text: Some of the other positions that Bajaj held included chairman of Indian Airlines, chairman of the International Business Council at the World Economic Forum, chairman of the board at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, member of the International Advisory Council at the Brookings Institution, and a member of the South Asia advisory board at Harvard Business School.


title: Rahul Bajaj

text: On the "Forbes," 2016 list of the world's billionaires, he was ranked No. 722, with a net worth of US$2.4 billion.


title: Rahul Bajaj

text: His sons Rajiv Bajaj and Sanjiv Bajaj are involved in the management of his companies. His daughter Sunaina is married to Manish Kejriwal, the former head of Temasek India.


title: Rahul Bajaj

text: Bajaj died from pneumonia on 12 February 2022, at the age of 83. He was earlier admitted to the Ruby Hall Clinic in Pune, and was undergoing treatment at the hospital. He also had cancer and heart problem prior to his death.


title: Santander Bank

text: Santander Bank, N. A. (), formerly Sovereign Bank, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Spanish Santander Group. It is based in Boston and its principal market is the northeastern United States. It has $57.5 billion in deposits, operates about 650 retail banking offices and over 2,000 ATMs, and employs approximately 9,800 people. It offers an array of financial services and products including retail banking, mortgages, corporate banking, cash management, credit card, capital markets, trust and wealth management, and insurance.


title: Santander Bank

text: Sovereign Bank was rebranded as Santander Bank on October 17, 2013; the stadium, arena, and performing arts center for which it has naming rights were also rebranded.


title: Santander Bank

text: Santander Bank, N.A., was founded on October 8, 1902 as "Sovereign Bank", a savings and loan in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania. The company's earliest customers were largely textile workers. Sovereign expanded rapidly during the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, acquiring numerous other banks. In 2000, Sovereign bought 278 New England branches from the newly merged FleetBoston Financial, becoming the third-largest retail bank in the Boston area at one stroke. This transaction was driven by a requirement from bank regulators that Fleet Bank and BankBoston divest 306 branches as a condition for merger.


title: Santander Bank

text: Forty-five years before the founding of Sovereign Bank, its future parent was founded as Banco Santander on 15 May 1857, with the approval of Queen Isabel II of Spain. The bank grew and in the 1920s started to build a network of branches. In 1942 it opened in Madrid. In 1934 Emilio Botín Sanz de Sautuola y López became director, and in 1950, chairman. He expanded the bank throughout Spain, so in 1957 it was Spain's seventh-largest bank. In 1976 it acquired First National Bank of Puerto Rico, and in 1982 Banco Español-Chile. In 1986, Emilio senior's son, Emilio Botin-Sanz de Sautuola y García de los Ríos, succeeded him. In the late 1980s he acquired CC-Bank in Germany and a stake was in Banco de Comercio e Industria in Portugal. In 1989, the "Supercuenta Santander" was launched.


title: Santander Bank

text: Sovereign bought the naming rights to Mercer County's new arena in 1999 in support of newly acquired Trenton Savings Bank (formerly TSFS) and other New Jersey branches for a ten-year term. In following years, the bank also named the Sovereign Center arena and Sovereign Performing Arts Center in Reading, Pennsylvania, and Sovereign Bank Stadium in York, Pennsylvania.


title: Santander Bank

text: In June 2006, Banco Santander purchased almost 20% of Sovereign Bank for US$2.4 billion. As Banco Santander owned 25% of Sovereign, it had the right to buy the bank for $40 per share for one year beginning in the middle of 2008. On June 1, 2006, Sovereign Bank purchased Independence Community Bank Corp. of Brooklyn, New York, for US$3.6 billion in cash. Sovereign completed the transition process of Independence and S.I. Bank & Trust customers on September 9, 2006. Sovereign financed this merger through its partial sale to Spain's Banco Santander Central Hispano.


title: Santander Bank

text: On October 13, 2008, Banco Santander purchased the remainder of Sovereign for US$1.9 billion (1.4 billion euros). Sovereign Bank was severely affected by losses related to auto loans and stock in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Banco Santander had previously seen a loss of over $1 billion on its investment in Sovereign, when the latter's share price tumbled after being downgraded by Moody's in September 2008. On January 30, 2009, Banco Santander completed its acquisition of Sovereign Bank, for about $2.51 per share.


title: Santander Bank

text: In August 2011, the bank announced its plans to formally relocate its U.S. headquarters from Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, to Boston, Massachusetts, where its top executives had already been located for the previous few years.


title: Santander Bank

text: In late September 2011, the bank announced that it would officially change its name to "Santander" as part of its parent company's goal to create a global brand. The rebranding was completed on October 17, 2013.


title: Santander Bank

text: In March 2015, Scott Powell was appointed head of U.S. business at Santander, and CEO of Santander Holdings USA, replacing Roman Blanco. Powell left his role as CEO in December 2019. He was replaced by Timothy Wennes.


title: Green politics

text: Green politics, or ecopolitics, is a political ideology that aims to foster an ecologically sustainable society often, but not always, rooted in environmentalism, nonviolence, social justice and grassroots democracy. It began taking shape in the western world in the 1970s; since then Green parties have developed and established themselves in many countries around the globe and have achieved some electoral success.


title: Green politics

text: The political term green was used initially in relation to "die Grünen" (German for "the Greens"), a green party formed in the late 1970s. The term political ecology is sometimes used in academic circles, but it has come to represent an interdisciplinary field of study as the academic discipline offers wide-ranging studies integrating ecological social sciences with political economy in topics such as degradation and marginalization, environmental conflict, conservation and control and environmental identities and social movements.


title: Green politics

text: Supporters of green politics share many ideas with the conservation, environmental, feminist and peace movements. In addition to democracy and ecological issues, green politics is concerned with civil liberties, social justice, nonviolence, sometimes variants of localism and tends to support social progressivism. Green party platforms are largely considered left in the political spectrum. The green ideology has connections with various other ecocentric political ideologies, including ecofeminism, eco-socialism and green anarchism, but to what extent these can be seen as forms of green politics is a matter of debate. As the left-wing green political philosophy developed, there also came into separate existence opposite movements on the right-wing that include ecological components such as eco-capitalism and green conservatism.


title: Green politics

text: Adherents to green politics tend to consider it to be part of a higher worldview and not simply a political ideology. Green politics draws its ethical stance from a variety of sources, from the values of indigenous peoples, to the ethics of Mahatma Gandhi, Baruch Spinoza, and Jakob von Uexküll. These people influenced green thought in their advocacy of long-term seventh generation foresight, and on the personal responsibility of every individual to make moral choices.


title: Green politics

text: Unease about adverse consequences of human actions on nature predates the modern concept of environmentalism. Social commentators as far apart as ancient Rome and China complained of air, water and noise pollution.


title: Green politics

text: The philosophical roots of environmentalism can be traced back to enlightenment thinkers such as Rousseau in France, and later the author and naturalist Thoreau in America. Organised environmentalism began in late 19th Century Europe and the United States as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution with its emphasis on unbridled economic expansion.


title: Green politics

text: "Green politics" first began as conservation and preservation movements, such as the Sierra Club, founded in San Francisco in 1892.


title: Green politics

text: Left-green platforms of the form that make up the green parties today draw terminology from the science of ecology, and policy from environmentalism, deep ecology, feminism, pacifism, anarchism, libertarian socialism, libertarian possibilism, social democracy, eco-socialism, and/or social ecology or green libertarianism. In the 1970s, as these movements grew in influence, green politics arose as a new philosophy which synthesized their goals. The Green Party political movement is not to be confused with the unrelated fact that in some far-right and fascist parties, nationalism has on occasion been tied into a sort of green politics which promotes environmentalism as a form of pride in the "motherland" according to a minority of authors.


title: Green politics

text: In June 1970, a Dutch group called Kabouters won 5 of the 45 seats on the Amsterdam Gemeenteraad (City Council), as well as two seats each on councils in The Hague and Leeuwarden and one seat apiece in Arnhem, Alkmaar and Leiden. The Kabouters were an outgrowth of Provo's environmental White Plans and they proposed "Groene Plannen" ("Green Plans").


title: Green politics

text: The first political party to be created with its basis in environmental issues was the United Tasmania Group, founded in Australia in March 1972 to fight against deforestation and the creation of a dam that would damage Lake Pedder; whilst it only gained three percent in state elections, it had, according to Derek Wall, "inspired the creation of Green parties all over the world." In May 1972, a meeting at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, launched the "Values Party", the world's first countrywide green party to contest Parliamentary seats nationally. In November 1972, Europe's first green party, PEOPLE in the UK came into existence.


title: Green politics

text: The German Green Party was not the first Green Party in Europe to have members elected nationally but the impression was created that they had been, because they attracted the most media attention: The German Greens, contended in their first national election in the 1980 federal election. They started as a provisional coalition of civic groups and political campaigns which, together, felt their interests were not expressed by the conventional parties. After contesting the 1979 European elections they held a conference which identified Four Pillars of the Green Party which all groups in the original alliance could agree as the basis of a common Party platform: welding these groups together as a single Party. This statement of principles has since been utilised by many Green Parties around the world. It was this party that first coined the term "Green" ("Grün" in German) and adopted the sunflower symbol. The term "Green" was coined by one of the founders of the German Green Party, Petra Kelly, after she visited Australia and saw the actions of the Builders Labourers Federation and their green ban actions. In the 1983 federal election, the Greens won 27 seats in the Bundestag.


title: Green politics

text: The first Canadian foray into green politics took place in the Maritimes when 11 independent candidates (including one in Montreal and one in Toronto) ran in the 1980 federal election under the banner of the Small Party. Inspired by Schumacher's Small is Beautiful, the Small Party candidates ran for the expressed purpose of putting forward an anti-nuclear platform in that election. It was not registered as an official party, but some participants in that effort went on to form the Green Party of Canada in 1983 (the Ontario Greens and British Columbia Greens were also formed that year). Former Green Party of Canada leader Elizabeth May was the instigator and one of the candidates of the Small Party and she was eventually elected as a member of the Green Party in 2011 Canadian federal election.


title: Green politics

text: In Finland, the Green League became the first European Green Party to form part of a state-level Cabinet in 1995. The German Greens followed, forming a government with the Social Democratic Party of Germany (the "Red-Green Alliance") from 1998 to 2005. In 2001, they reached an agreement to end reliance on nuclear power in Germany, and agreed to remain in coalition and support the German government of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in the 2001 Afghan War. This put them at odds with many Greens worldwide, but demonstrated that they were capable of difficult political tradeoffs.


title: Green politics

text: In Latvia, Indulis Emsis, leader of the Green Party and part of the Union of Greens and Farmers, an alliance of a Nordic agrarian party and the Green Party, was Prime Minister of Latvia for ten months in 2004, making him the first Green politician to lead a country in the history of the world. In 2015, Emsis' party colleague, Raimonds Vējonis, was elected President of Latvia by the Latvian parliament. Vējonis became the first green head of state worldwide.


title: Green politics

text: In the German state of Baden-Württenburg, the Green Party became the leader of the coalition with the Social Democrats after finishing second in the 2011 Baden-Württemberg state election. In the following state election, 2016, the Green Party became the strongest party for the first time in a German Landtag.


title: Green politics

text: In 2016, the former leader of the Austrian Greens (1997 to 2008), Alexander Van der Bellen, officially running as an independent, won the 2016 Austrian presidential election, making him the second green head of state worldwide and the first directly elected by popular vote. Van der Bellen placed second in the election's first round with 21.3% of the vote, the best result for the Austrian Greens in their history. He won the second-round run-off against the far-right Freedom Party's Norbert Hofer with 53.8% of the votes, making him the first President of Austria who was not backed by either the People's Party or the Social Democratic Party.


title: Green politics

text: According to Derek Wall, a prominent British green proponent, there are four pillars that define green politics:


title: Green politics

text: In 1984, the Green Committees of Correspondence in the United States expanded the Four Pillars into Ten Key Values, which further included:


title: Green politics

text: In 2001, the Global Greens were organized as an international green movement. The Global Greens Charter identified six guiding principles:


title: Green politics

text: Green economics focuses on the importance of the health of the biosphere to human well-being. Consequently, most Greens distrust conventional capitalism, as it tends to emphasize economic growth while ignoring ecological health; the "full cost" of economic growth often includes damage to the biosphere, which is unacceptable according to green politics. Green economics considers such growth to be "uneconomic growth"— material increase that nonetheless lowers the overall quality of life. Green economics inherently takes a longer-term perspective than conventional economics, because such a loss in quality of life is often delayed. According to green economics, the present generation should not borrow from future generations, but rather attempt to achieve what Tim Jackson calls "prosperity without growth".


title: Green politics

text: Some Greens refer to productivism, consumerism and scientism as "grey", as contrasted with "green", economic views. "Grey" approaches focus on behavioral changes.


title: Green politics

text: Therefore, adherents to green politics advocate economic policies designed to safeguard the environment. Greens want governments to stop subsidizing companies that waste resources or pollute the natural world, subsidies that Greens refer to as "dirty subsidies". Some currents of green politics place automobile and agribusiness subsidies in this category, as they may harm human health. On the contrary, Greens look to a green tax shift that are seen to encourage both producers and consumers to make ecologically friendly choices.


title: Green politics

text: Many aspects of green economics could be considered anti-globalist. According to many left-wing greens, economic globalization is considered a threat to well-being, which will replace natural environments and local cultures with a single trade economy, termed the global economic monoculture. This is not a universal policy of greens, as green liberals and green conservatives support a regulated free market economy with additional measures to advance sustainable development.


title: Green politics

text: Since green economics emphasizes biospheric health and biodiversity, an issue outside the traditional left-right spectrum, different currents within green politics incorporate ideas from socialism and capitalism. Greens on the Left are often identified as eco-socialists, who merge ecology and environmentalism with socialism and Marxism and blame the capitalist system for environmental degradation, social injustice, inequality and conflict. eco-capitalists, on the other hand, believe that the free market system, with some modification, is capable of addressing ecological problems. This belief is documented in the business experiences of eco-capitalists in the book, "The Gort Cloud" that describes the gort cloud as the green community that supports eco-friendly businesses.


title: Green politics

text: Since the beginning, green politics has emphasized local, grassroots-level political activity and decision-making. According to its adherents, it is crucial that citizens play a direct role in the decisions that influence their lives and their environment. Therefore, green politics seeks to increase the role of deliberative democracy, based on direct citizen involvement and consensus decision making, wherever it is feasible.


title: Green politics

text: Green politics also encourages political action on the individual level, such as ethical consumerism, or buying things that are made according to environmentally ethical standards. Indeed, many green parties emphasize individual and grassroots action at the local and regional levels over electoral politics. Historically, green parties have grown at the local level, gradually gaining influence and spreading to regional or provincial politics, only entering the national arena when there is a strong network of local support.


title: Green politics

text: In addition, many greens believe that governments should not levy taxes against strictly local production and trade. Some Greens advocate new ways of organizing authority to increase local control, including urban secession, bioregional democracy, and co-operative/local stakeholder ownership.


title: Green politics

text: Although Greens in the United States "call for an end to the 'War on Drugs'" and "for the decriminalization of victimless crimes", they also call for developing "a firm approach to law enforcement that directly addresses violent crime, including trafficking in hard drugs".


title: Green politics

text: In Europe, some green parties have tended to support the creation of a democratic federal Europe, while others have opposed European integration.


title: Green politics

text: In the spirit of nonviolence, green politics oppose the war on terrorism and the curtailment of civil rights, focusing instead on nurturing deliberative democracy in war-torn regions and the construction of a civil society with an increased role for women.


title: Green politics

text: In keeping with their commitment to the preservation of diversity, greens are often committed to the maintenance and protection of indigenous communities, languages, and traditions. An example of this is the Irish Green Party's commitment to the preservation of the Irish Language. Some of the green movement has focused on divesting in fossil fuels. Academics Stand Against Poverty states "it is paradoxical for universities to remain invested in fossil fuel companies". Thomas Pogge says that the fossil fuel divestment movement can increase political pressure at events like the international climate change conference (COP). Alex Epstein of Forbes notes that it is hypocritical to ask for divestment without a boycott and that a boycott would be more effective. Some institutions that are leading by example in the academic area are Stanford University, Syracuse University, Sterling College and over 20 more. A number of cities, counties and religious institutions have also joined the movement to divest.


title: Green politics

text: Green politics mostly opposes nuclear fission power and the buildup of persistent organic pollutants, supporting adherence to the precautionary principle, by which technologies are rejected unless they can be proven to not cause significant harm to the health of living things or the biosphere.


title: Green politics

text: Green platforms generally favor tariffs on fossil fuels, restricting genetically modified organisms, and protections for ecoregions or communities.


title: Green politics

text: The Green Party supports phasing out of nuclear power, coal, and incineration of waste. However, the Green Party in Finland has come out against its previous anti-nuclear stance and has stated that addressing global warming in the next 20 years is impossible without expanding nuclear power. These officials have proposed using nuclear-generated heat to heat buildings by replacing the use of coal and biomass to reach zero-emission outputs by 2040.


title: Green politics

text: Green ideology emphasizes participatory democracy and the principle of "thinking globally, acting locally." As such, the ideal Green Party is thought to grow from the bottom up, from neighborhood to municipal to (eco-)regional to national levels. The goal is to rule by a consensus decision making process.


title: Green politics

text: Strong local coalitions are considered a prerequisite to higher-level electoral breakthroughs. Historically, the growth of Green parties has been sparked by a single issue where Greens can appeal to ordinary citizens' concerns. In Germany, for example, the Greens' early opposition to nuclear power won them their first successes in the federal elections.


title: Green politics

text: There is a growing level of global cooperation between Green parties. Global gatherings of Green Parties now happen. The first Planetary Meeting of Greens was held 30–31 May 1992, in Rio de Janeiro, immediately preceding the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held there. More than 200 Greens from 28 nations attended. The first formal Global Greens Gathering took place in Canberra, in 2001, with more than 800 Greens from 72 countries in attendance. The second Global Green Congress was held in São Paulo, Brazil, in May 2008, when 75 parties were represented.


title: Green politics

text: Global Green networking dates back to 1990. Following the Planetary Meeting of Greens in Rio de Janeiro, a Global Green Steering Committee was created, consisting of two seats for each continent. In 1993 this Global Steering Committee met in Mexico City and authorized the creation of a Global Green Network including a Global Green Calendar, Global Green Bulletin, and Global Green Directory. The Directory was issued in several editions in the next years. In 1996, 69 Green Parties from around the world signed a common declaration opposing French nuclear testing in the South Pacific, the first statement of global greens on a current issue. A second statement was issued in December 1997, concerning the Kyoto climate change treaty.


title: Green politics

text: At the 2001 Canberra Global Gathering delegates for Green Parties from 72 countries decided upon a Global Greens Charter which proposes six key principles. Over time, each Green Party can discuss this and organize itself to approve it, some by using it in the local press, some by translating it for their web site, some by incorporating it into their manifesto, some by incorporating it into their constitution. This process is taking place gradually, with online dialogue enabling parties to say where they are up to with this process.


title: Green politics

text: The Gatherings also agree on organizational matters. The first Gathering voted unanimously to set up the "Global Green Network" (GGN). The GGN is composed of three representatives from each Green Party. A companion organization was set up by the same resolution: "Global Green Coordination" (GGC). This is composed of three representatives from each Federation (Africa, Europe, The Americas, Asia/Pacific, see below). Discussion of the planned organization took place in several Green Parties prior to the Canberra meeting. The GGC communicates chiefly by email. Any agreement by it has to be by unanimity of its members. It may identify possible global campaigns to propose to Green Parties worldwide. The GGC may endorse statements by individual Green Parties. For example, it endorsed a statement by the US Green Party on the Israel-Palestine conflict.


title: Green politics

text: Thirdly, Global Green Gatherings are an opportunity for informal networking, from which joint campaigning may arise. For example, a campaign to protect the New Caledonian coral reef, by getting it nominated for World Heritage Status: a joint campaign by the New Caledonia Green Party, New Caledonian indigenous leaders, the French Green Party, and the Australian Greens. Another example concerns Ingrid Betancourt, the leader of the Green Party in Colombia, the Green Oxygen Party ("Partido Verde Oxigeno"). Ingrid Betancourt and the party's Campaign Manager, Claire Rojas, were kidnapped by a hard-line faction of FARC on 7 March 2002, while travelling in FARC-controlled territory. Betancourt had spoken at the Canberra Gathering, making many friends. As a result, Green Parties all over the world have organized, pressing their governments to bring pressure to bear. For example, Green Parties in African countries, Austria, Canada, Brazil, Peru, Mexico, France, Scotland, Sweden and other countries have launched campaigns calling for Betancourt's release. Bob Brown, the leader of the Australian Greens, went to Colombia, as did an envoy from the European Federation, Alain Lipietz, who issued a report. The four Federations of Green Parties issued a message to FARC. Ingrid Betancourt was rescued by the Colombian military in Operation Jaque in 2008.


title: Green politics

text: Separately from the Global Green Gatherings, "Global Green Meetings" take place. For instance, one took place on the fringe of the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. Green Parties attended from Australia, Taiwan, Korea, South Africa, Mauritius, Uganda, Cameroon, Republic of Cyprus, Italy, France, Belgium, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Norway, the US, Mexico and Chile.


title: Green politics

text: The Global Green Meeting discussed the situation of Green Parties on the African continent; heard a report from Mike Feinstein, former Mayor of Santa Monica, about setting up a web site of the GGN; discussed procedures for the better working of the GGC; and decided two topics on which the Global Greens could issue statements in the near future: Iraq and the 2003 WTO meeting in Cancun.


title: Green politics

text: The European Federation of Green Parties formed itself as the European Green Party on 22 February 2004, in the run-up to European Parliament elections in June 2004, a further step in trans-national integration.


title: Green politics

text: Green movements are calling for social change to reduce the misuse of natural resources. These include grassroots non-governmental organizations like Greenpeace and green parties:


title: Flag of Cambodia

text: The flag of Cambodia (, ; ) in its present form was originally adopted in 1948 and readopted in 1993, after the Constituent Assembly election in 1993 and restoration of the Cambodian monarchy.


title: Flag of Cambodia

text: Since around 1850, the Cambodian flag has featured a depiction of Angkor Wat in the centre. The current flag, with a blue border and red central (the stripes are in the ratio 1:2:1) was adopted following Cambodia's independence in 1948. It was used until 9 October 1970, when a new flag was introduced for Lon Nol's Khmer Republic that lasted until the takeover of the Khmer Rouge in 1975. The subsequent state of Democratic Kampuchea, which existed from 1975 to 1979, used a red flag with a three-towered Angkor Wat design retained in yellow beginning in 1976. The People's Republic of Kampuchea was established in 1979, after the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia.


title: Flag of Cambodia

text: The Kampuchean National United Front for National Salvation (FUNSK) revived the flag adopted by the Khmer Issarak in the days of anti-French resistance for the new state. This flag had the same colour pattern as the DK flag, but with a yellow five-towered Angkor Wat silhouette. When the PRK renamed itself as "State of Cambodia" (SOC) in 1989, the flag's lower half became blue. The UNTAC flag was used during the 1992–1993 transitional period along with the flag of the SOC within Cambodia.


title: Flag of Cambodia

text: In 1993, the 1948 Cambodian flag was readopted. The current Cambodian flag, together with the flags of Portugal, San Marino and Spain, are the only four state flags to feature a building. Red and blue are traditional colours of Cambodia.


title: Flag of Cambodia

text: The flag used today is the same as that established in 1948, although the older flag is sometimes said to have used a red outline for Angkor Wat while the current flag uses black specifically. Since that time, five other intervening designs have been used. Almost all made use of the image of the temple of Angkor Wat in one form or another. This famous temple site, which dates from the 12th century, was built by the Mahidharapura monarchs. It has five towers, but these were not always all depicted in the stylised version used on flags. The monarchy was restored in September 1993, the 1948 flag having been readopted in June of that year.


title: Flag of Cambodia

text: The Royal Standard of the King of Cambodia (; "King's Flag") is the personal flag of the Cambodian monarch. It was officially adopted in 1993, but its initial use dates back to 1941. It is also considered among the national symbols of Cambodia.


title: The Four Feathers (2002 film)

text: The Four Feathers is a 2002 war drama film directed by Shekhar Kapur and starring Heath Ledger, Wes Bentley, Djimon Hounsou and Kate Hudson. Set during the British Army's Gordon Relief Expedition (late 1884 to early 1885) in Sudan, well after the formation of Mahdiyya, it tells the story of a young man accused of cowardice. This film, with altered plot events, is the latest in a long line of cinematic adaptations of the 1902 novel "The Four Feathers" by A.E.W. Mason. Other versions of the story have been set in the 1890s, with different battle events.


title: The Four Feathers (2002 film)

text: Harry Faversham, a young British officer completing his training, celebrates his engagement to Ethne Eustace, in a ball with his fellow officers and father. When the Colonel announces that the regiment is being dispatched to Egyptian-ruled Sudan to rescue the British General Charles "Chinese" Gordon, young Faversham has serious reservations about going to war, and resigns his commission. Harry's father disowns him. Perceiving his resignation as cowardice, three of his friends and his fiancée each give him a white feather, the symbol of cowardice. Ethne breaks off their engagement.


title: The Four Feathers (2002 film)

text: Harry learns that his best friend Jack and his former regiment have come under attack by rebels. Undertaking the perilous journey into the Sudan alone, he strikes up an alliance with Abou Fatma, a mercenary warrior. Harry disguises himself as an Arab. Harry and Abou Fatma follow a group of army workers he believes to be spies of self-proclaimed Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad, and reach the garrison of Abu-Klea, which they realise has been overrun. Harry begs Abou Fatma to warn his friends that their destination is under siege and an attack is likely.


title: The Four Feathers (2002 film)

text: The regiment stops its march to bury a group of British killed by the Mahdi. Abou Fatma is captured by Egyptian soldiers; believing he is an enemy scout, they bring him before the British officers. He tells the British that he has been sent by a British officer to warn them of the Mahdi's attack. He says that Muslims always bury their dead and that of the enemy, but that these bodies have been left to keep the British occupied. Faversham's comrades are worried, but ultimately they disregard Abou Fatma's warnings and he is flogged as a suspected spy.


title: The Four Feathers (2002 film)

text: The British and Egyptian troops are not prepared for battle. The Mahdi rebels attack with spearmen, riflemen and cavalry, while the British forces form a defensive square. Firing volley after volley, the British repel the initial Mahdi assault just as they spot British cavalry reinforcements in their distinctive red uniforms. A force of skirmishers is sent to pursue the retreating Sudanese, but they are ambushed by Mahdi rebels and forced to fight on foot. Soon the British discover that the cavalry who they thought were reinforcements are Sudanese disguised in British uniforms. Among them is Faversham. The British square reorganises and fires a few volleys, in the process killing several skirmishers who have not yet returned to the square, including Edward Castleton, who had earlier given Harry a feather. Jack attempts to rescue Castleton in the process but is blinded when his rifle misfires. The British issue an order for retreat.


title: The Four Feathers (2002 film)

text: Harry finds Jack during the battle and protects him after he was blinded. Harry finds letters from Ethne to Jack, but cares for his friend without identifying himself. Never knowing his rescuer, Jack is transported to England. He asks Ethne to marry him, but she does not answer and discusses it with Harry's father.


title: The Four Feathers (2002 film)

text: Tom, another officer, arrives to tell Jack that Harry had visited him in Sudan. During the encounter, Harry confirms that he had sent Abou to alert the British of the Mahdi attack, and is bitter that his friends ignored the warning. Abou tells Harry that he believes Trench lives on in the notorious Mahdi prison of Omdurman. Upon learning this, Harry says he is determined to rescue him. Abou advises Harry against this venture, which is all but certain to lead to his death. Undeterred, Harry allows himself to be captured and imprisoned at Omdurman.


title: The Four Feathers (2002 film)

text: In the prison, Harry finds Trench. They suffer greatly as they are starved and subjected to hard labor. After a failed escape attempt, they concede the hopelessness of their situation. Later Abou rescues Harry and Trench by giving them a poison to fake their deaths. A suspicious guard follows the removal of the bodies, along with three other guards. Harry and Abou kill the four. Abou returns to the desert, and Harry escorts Trench back to Britain. Harry is acknowledged by his father and Ethne reclaims her feather, as Harry has proven his bravery. She has become engaged to Jack.


title: The Four Feathers (2002 film)

text: Jack learns that Harry was his rescuer when he happens to touch his face; he releases Ethne from their engagement. After a ceremony of remembrance, Harry and Ethne hold hands and are engaged again.


title: The Four Feathers (2002 film)

text: The film opened in North American cinemas on 20 September 2002 and grossed $6,857,879 in its opening weekend, making number 5 at the US box office. "The Four Feathers" ended up making $29.8 million worldwide, failing to bring back its $35 million budget.


title: The Four Feathers (2002 film)

text: "The Four Feathers" received mixed reviews from critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 41% approval rating, based on 150 reviews, with an average rating of 5.39/10. The website's consensus reads, "Though beautiful to look at, "The Four Feathers" lacks epic excitement and suffers from an ambivalent viewpoint."


title: Dub Taylor

text: Walter Clarence "Dub" Taylor Jr. (February 26, 1907 – October 3, 1994), was an American character actor who from the 1940s into the 1990s worked extensively in films and on television, often in Westerns but also in comedies. He is the father of actor and painter Buck Taylor.


title: Dub Taylor

text: Taylor was born February 26, 1907, in Richmond, Virginia, the middle child of five children of Minnie and Walter C. Taylor, Sr. According to the federal census of 1920, he had two older sisters, Minnie Marg[aret] and Maud, a younger brother named George, and a little sister, Edna Fay. The family moved to Augusta, Georgia, around 1912, when Walter was five years old, and lived there until he was 13. Taylor's mother was a Pennsylvania native; and his father, who worked in Augusta at that time as a cotton broker, was from North Carolina. While in Georgia as a boy, Walter, Jr. got his lifelong nickname when his friends began calling him "W", then shortened it further to "Dub".


title: Dub Taylor

text: A vaudeville performer, Taylor made his film debut in 1938 as the cheerful ex-football captain Ed Carmichael in Frank Capra's "You Can't Take It with You". He secured the part because the role required an actor who could play tuned percussion. During the 1950s and early 1960s, he used his xylophone skills on several television shows, including the syndicated series "Ranch Party".


title: Dub Taylor

text: In 1939, he appeared in the film "Taming of the West", where he originated the character of Cannonball, a role he played for the next 10 years in over 50 films. Cannonball was a comedic sidekick to Wild Bill Elliott in 13 features. He played the character in other westerns starring Charles Starrett, Russell Hayden, Tex Ritter and Jimmy Wakely. Taylor later dropped the Cannonball name because he felt it held him back from roles in films with larger budgets.


title: Dub Taylor

text: He had bit parts in a number of classic motion pictures, including "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (1939), "A Star Is Born" (1954) and "Them!" (1954).


title: Dub Taylor

text: The 1954 film "Dragnet" had Taylor in an uncredited role, that of gangster Miller Starkie, who is killed in the opening scene. He had a small role in the 1958 Walt Disney film "Tonka" as a rustler of stray horses for sale. The same year, he performed in "No Time for Sergeants" as the representative of the draft board who summoned Will Stockdale (Andy Griffith) from his rural home in Georgia to the United States Air Force.


title: Dub Taylor

text: He later joined Sam Peckinpah's stock company in 1965's "Major Dundee", playing a professional horse thief. He also appeared in "The Wild Bunch" (1969) as a minister who gets his flock shot in the film's opening scene; in "Junior Bonner" (1972), "The Getaway" (1972), and "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" (1973) as an aging, eccentric outlaw friend of Billy's; and in Michael Cimino's crime film "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot" (1974), He also played Ivan Moss, father of Michael J. Pollard's character C. W. Moss, in "Bonnie and Clyde" (1967)"."


title: Dub Taylor

text: He portrayed an ill-tempered chuckwagon cook in the 1969 film "The Undefeated", starring John Wayne and Rock Hudson, and appeared in "Support Your Local Gunfighter" (1971) as the drunken Doc Shultz.


title: Dub Taylor

text: He appeared in "Back to the Future Part III" (1990) with veteran Western actors Pat Buttram and Harry Carey Jr. Taylor's last film role was in "Maverick" (1994), and although he had only a fleeting appearance as an unnamed "Room Clerk", his name appears in the film's opening credits.


title: Dub Taylor

text: In the 1950s, he guest-starred three times on the syndicated series "The Range Rider", starring Jock Mahoney and Dick Jones. He appeared in the 1955 episode "The Outlander" of "Cheyenne", and on the syndicated series "Death Valley Days" playing the Colorado silver miner "Chicken Bill" Lovell.


title: Dub Taylor

text: In 1957, Taylor was cast alongside Alan Hale, Jr., in the syndicated "Casey Jones" TV series. He played in the 1961 "Perry Mason" episode "The Case of the Grumbling Grandfather". Taylor was on "The Lloyd Bridges Show" (1962–1963), in the episodes "My Child Is Yet a Stranger" and "The Tyrees of Capital Hill". He was in "The Andy Griffith Show", first as the preacher who marries Charlene Darling to Dud Wash, then as postmaster Talbert, and next as the brother-in-law of town handyman Emmett Clark.


title: Dub Taylor

text: Taylor performed on other sitcoms, including "Hazel" with Shirley Booth. His character, Mitch Brady, was owner of a local cab company and a frequent boyfriend of Hazel's. He was cast in an episode of "I Love Lucy", and on "The Brian Keith Show", and in a fourth-season episode of "The Cosby Show". He was on NBC's series "Laredo" and "The High Chaparral".


title: Dub Taylor

text: Taylor played Houston Lamb in four episodes of "Little House On The Prairie" in seasons six and seven (1979 to 1981). He appeared on "Hee Haw" for six seasons, from 1985 to 1991, where he was mostly seen as a regular in the Lulu's Truck Stop skit featuring Lulu Roman and Gailard Sartain. Taylor was in several episodes of "Designing Women" as a rustic enamored with the women from Sugarbaker's during a camping expedition.


title: Dub Taylor

text: Starting in the late 1970s, Taylor appeared in a series of Western-style commercials for Hubba Bubba bubble gum. In the radio versions of the commercials, his character was named "The Geezer".


title: Dub Taylor

text: In 1994, he appeared in a commercial for Pace Foods, performing as one of four participants in a fair's "Dip-Off" contest, where two other competitors and he use their "secret ingredient" of Pace Picante Sauce in their dips. When the fourth participant holds up a jar of "Mexican sauce" as a "secret ingredient", Taylor's character proclaims that it was "made in New York City!"


title: Dub Taylor

text: Taylor died of a heart attack on October 3, 1994, in Los Angeles. He was cremated, and his ashes were scattered near Westlake Village, California.


title: House (season 7)

text: The seventh season of "House" premiered on September 20, 2010, and ended on May 23, 2011. House and Cuddy attempt to make a real relationship work and face the question as to whether their new relationship will affect their ability to diagnose patients. The new season features a new opening title sequence. This was the second change in the opening sequence since the show began; Jennifer Morrison's name was removed from the credits, while Peter Jacobson's and Olivia Wilde's were added to it, with new background images also inserted into the traditional title sequence. This is the last season to feature Lisa Edelstein, who did not return for the eighth season.


title: House (season 7)

text: Prior to the start of the season, it was announced that a multi-episode arc that would feature House on the road was scrapped, forcing David Shore to return to the show to rework the rest of the season. Furthermore, Fox ordered one more episode for the season, bringing the total number of episodes to 23. The last episode of the season aired on May 23, 2011.


title: House (season 7)

text: Keiko Agena, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Erika Alexander, Kendra Andrews, Logan Arens, Dylan Baker, Kuno Becker, Cleo Berry, Thom Bishops, J.R. Cacia, Erin Cahill, Hayley Chase, Michael Chey, Gabrielle Christian, Justin Chon, Willis Chung, Austin Michael Coleman, Jack Coleman, David Costabile, Stephanie Courtney, Kevin Daniels, Michelle DeFraites, Brett DelBuono, Tiffany Espensen, Kayla Ewell, Chad Faust, Lesley Fera, Andrew Fiscella, Megan Follows, Ken Garito, Sprague Grayden, Joyce Greenleaf, Jennifer Grey, Matthew Haddad, Tina Holmes, Amy Irving, Brittany Ishibashi, Ashley Jones, Zachary Knighton, Amy Landecker, Jennifer Landon, Adrian LaTourelle, James Hiroyuki Liao, Matthew Lillard, Seidy Lopez, Donal Logue, Stella Maeve, Terry Maratos, Chris Marquette, Gerald McCullouch, Rachel Melvin, Brigdett Newman, Linda Park, Kimberlee Peterson, Kevin Phillips, Haley Pullos, Aaron Refvem, Allan Rich, Sasha Roiz, Tony Savas, Vinessa Shaw, Samantha Smith, Alyson Stoner, Tyler James Williams, Jarret Wright and George Wyner.


title: Khalifa Haftar

text: Field Marshal Khalifa Belqasim Haftar (; born 7 November 1943) is a Libyan-American politician, military officer, and the commander of the Tobruk-based Libyan National Army (LNA). On 2 March 2015, he was appointed commander of the armed forces loyal to the elected legislative body, the Libyan House of Representatives.


title: Khalifa Haftar

text: Haftar was born in the Libyan city of Ajdabiya. He served in the Libyan army under Muammar Gaddafi, and took part in the coup that brought Gaddafi to power in 1969. He took part in the Libyan contingent against Israel in the Yom Kippur War of 1973. In 1987, he became a prisoner of war during the war against Chad after being lured into a trap and captured, which was then a major embarrassment for Gaddafi and represented a major blow to Gaddafi's ambitions in Chad. While being held prisoner, he and his fellow officers formed a group hoping to overthrow Gaddafi. He was released around 1990 in a deal with the United States government and spent nearly two decades living in the U.S. in Langley, Virginia, and gained U.S. citizenship. In 1993, while living in the United States, he was convicted "in absentia" of crimes against the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and sentenced to death.


title: Khalifa Haftar

text: Haftar held a senior position in the forces which overthrew Gaddafi in 2011, during the First Libyan Civil War. In 2014, he was commander of the Libyan Army when the General National Congress (GNC) refused to give up power in accordance with its term of office. Haftar launched a campaign against the GNC and its Islamic fundamentalist allies. His campaign allowed elections to take place to replace the GNC but then developed into the Second Libyan Civil War. In 2017, Ramzi al-Shaeri, Vice-President of the Derna city council and lawyers Ryan Goodman and Alex Whiting accused Haftar of the war crime of ordering the killing of prisoners of war during the recapture of Derna. Haftar has been described as "Libya's most potent warlord", having fought "with and against nearly every significant faction" in Libya's conflicts, as having a "reputation for unrivalled military experience" and as governing "with an iron fist".


title: Khalifa Haftar

text: Although Haftar is reportedly an anti-Islamist, his allies include the Salafi Madkhali militias for geopolitical purposes.


title: Khalifa Haftar

text: In November 2021, Khalifa Haftar announced his candidacy for the presidential election in December 2021 before it was postponed.


title: Khalifa Haftar

text: Haftar was born in Ajdabiya, and is a member of the al-Farjani tribe. He studied at al-Huda School in Ajdabiya in 1957 and then moved to Derna to obtain his secondary education between 1961 and 1964. He joined the Benghazi Military University Academy (also known as Benghazi Royal Military College) on 16 September 1964 and graduated from there in 1966. In the late 1970s, he went on to receive military training in the Soviet Union, completing a special three-year degree for foreign officers sent to study in the USSR, at the M. V. Frunze Military Academy. Haftar later pursued further military training in Egypt. He was also stationed with the artillery corps.


title: Khalifa Haftar

text: As a young army officer, Haftar took part in the coup that brought Muammar Gaddafi to power in 1969, assisting Gaddafi in the overthrow of Libya's King Idris. Shortly thereafter, Haftar became a top military officer for Gaddafi. He commanded Libyan troops supporting Egyptian troops entering Israeli-occupied Sinai in 1973.


title: Khalifa Haftar

text: Like other members of the Free Unionist Officers (the junta that toppled the monarchy), Haftar is a secularist and was a Nasserist. He was a member of the Revolutionary Command Council which governed Libya in the immediate aftermath of the coup. Haftar later became Gaddafi's military chief of staff. In the late 1980s, Haftar commanded Libyan forces during the Chadian–Libyan conflict, which ended in defeat for Libya.


title: Khalifa Haftar

text: By 1986, Haftar had attained the rank of colonel, and was then the chief officer in command of Gaddafi's military forces in Chad in the Chadian–Libyan conflict. During the war, in which the Libyan forces were either captured or driven back across the border, Haftar and 600–700 of his men were captured as prisoners of war, and incarcerated in 1987 after their defeat in the Ouadi Doum airstrike. Shortly after this disastrous battle, Gaddafi disavowed Haftar and the other Libyan prisoners of war who were captured by Chad. One possible contributing factor to Gaddafi's repudiation of Haftar and of other captured prisoners of war may have been the fact that Gaddafi had earlier signed an agreement to withdraw all Libyan forces from Chad, and Haftar's operations inside of Chad had been in violation of this agreement. Another possible reason given for Gaddafi's abandonment of Haftar was the potential that Haftar might return to Libya as a hero and thus pose a threat to Gaddafi's rule itself. In any event, Gaddafi's repudiation clearly served to embitter Haftar towards Gaddafi.


title: Khalifa Haftar

text: In 1986 and 1987 the Government of Chad accused Libya of using toxic gas and napalm against central government forces and against rebel forces. Libya may have used mustard gas delivered in bombs by An-26 aircraft in final phases of the war against Chad in September 1987.


title: Khalifa Haftar

text: Gaddafi demanded Haftar's soldiers be returned to Libya, but the Americans arranged for them to fly to Zaire instead. There, half of his soldiers decided to return to Libya. In late 1987, Haftar and a group of officers aligned themselves with the National Front for the Salvation of Libya (NFSL), a U.S. supported opposition group. On 21 June 1988, he declared the establishment of the military wing of the NFSL, called the Libyan National Army under his leadership. When U.S. financial aid to Zaire was not forthcoming, Zaire expelled the remainder to Kenya. Kenya only provided temporary residence, and the CIA negotiated a settlement around 1990, enabling Haftar and 300 of his soldiers to move to the United States under the U.S. refugee programme. In fact, the end of the Cold War diminished Libya's geo-strategic relevance and the CIA funding program to Haftar's brigade was suspended.


title: Khalifa Haftar

text: In March 1996, Haftar took part in a failed uprising against Gaddafi in the mountains of eastern Libya, before returning to the U.S.


title: Khalifa Haftar

text: Haftar moved to suburban area outside Washington, D.C., living in Falls Church, Virginia until 2007. He then moved to Vienna, Virginia. From there, and mostly through his close contacts within the DIA / CIA, he consistently supported several attempts to topple and assassinate Gaddafi. He spelled his name "Hifter" in legal documents in the United States.


title: Khalifa Haftar

text: In 2011, he returned to Libya at the onset of the Libyan Crisis, to support the anti-Gaddafi forces in the First Libyan Civil War. In March, a military spokesperson announced that Haftar had been appointed commander of the military, but the National Transitional Council denied this. By April, Abdul Fatah Younis held the role of commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, Omar El-Hariri was serving as Younis's Chief of Staff, and Haftar had assumed the third most senior position as the commander of ground forces with the rank of lieutenant general. Younis was assassinated later that summer. On 17 November 2011, Haftar was chosen as the overall commander of the new Libyan Army due to his military experience and loyalty to the revolution that overthrew Gaddafi.


title: Khalifa Haftar

text: In February 2014, Haftar appeared in a televised announcement to reveal that the General National Congress (GNC), the elected parliament which had recently unilaterally extended its mandate, had been dissolved. Haftar called for a caretaker government to oversee new elections, and urged Libyans to revolt against the GNC, the mandate of which was still in force at the time. Ultimately, his appeal did not lead to a general uprising due to the substantial lack of resources and local support for his initiative. His announcement was soon dismissed with great skepticism by the then acting Prime Minister Ali Zeidan. Haftar's actions were condemned as a "coup attempt" and "ridiculous".


title: Khalifa Haftar

text: Haftar's strategy was to embark on a series of "town hall" meetings around Libya and, with the support of fellow ex-officers from the military, to secretly build an army. Three months later on 16 May in Operation Dignity, Haftar began a combined air and ground assault against the pro-Islamic militias of Benghazi, as well as a sustained heavy weapons attack against the Libyan parliament. At the time of the Benghazi assault, Haftar, who had already been the target of assassination attempts, reportedly explained to a friend that he was fully aware of the personal safety risks involved in his actions. On 20 May 2014, four days after the Benghazi assault, the GNC announced that it had finally scheduled the long postponed national elections that were to replace the then-interim legislature (the Tripoli-based GNC) with the Tobruk-based House of Representatives. These elections were scheduled for 25 June 2014.


title: Khalifa Haftar

text: Later in May, after having been ousted from office by the GNC, Ali Zeidan endorsed Operation Dignity, as did 40 members of parliament, the heads of the navy and the air-force, and much of the army. On 4 June 2014, a suicide car bomber detonated his vehicle at Haftar's residence at Ghut al-Sultan near Abayar, east of Benghazi, killing four people and injuring at least three others. Haftar was not injured in the attack.


title: Khalifa Haftar

text: In eastern Libya, Haftar's air and ground forces remained in place and seemed to be gaining general support. Over the course of May and June, numerous pro–Operation Dignity marches were held throughout Libya, and in the 25 June parliamentary elections the secularists gained a clear mandate over and against the Islamist agenda. Meanwhile, despite its initial denouncement of Operation Dignity in May, Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani's administration subsequently refrained from further official endorsement or denouncement of Haftar's Operation Dignity. However, the newly elected parliament branded Haftar's enemies "terrorists".


title: Khalifa Haftar

text: On 24 November 2014 and the following day, warplanes affiliated with Operation Dignity forces attacked Mitiga International Airport in Tripoli, temporarily shutting down the airport, but also damaging nearby houses. In response to the attack on Mitiga, a court in Tripoli issued an arrest warrant for Khalifa Haftar.


title: Khalifa Haftar

text: Haftar was officially made commander of the Libyan National Army (LNA) by the internationally recognized House of Representatives on 2 March 2015. The Libyan armed forces split up later in the year into the LNA under Haftar's control and the Libyan Army controlled by the Government of National Accord (GNA).


title: Khalifa Haftar

text: After three years of military campaigns, in early July 2017 Haftar announced in a televised speech that his forces had finally taken full control of Benghazi, the second largest Libyan city. Haftar's military victory has been regarded by many as the expression of his growing military and political ambitions, and especially of his intention to secure military control over critical areas in eastern Libya. Some of his critics claimed that he deliberately dragged his militias through years of fighting against diverse groups which he framed as Islamist enemies in order to consolidate a future political role through his military leadership.


title: Khalifa Haftar

text: Similarly, while some have celebrated Haftar's role in unifying and successfully leading the fight against the Islamic State, several sources have claimed that Haftar's role in the fighting of ISIS has been largely overstated or motivated by self-serving calculus. For instance, as of early 2016 Haftar's forces were reported to have bombed an Islamist group known as the Derna Mujahideen Shura Council who was behind the successful ouster of IS from Derna.


title: Khalifa Haftar

text: Furthermore, experts have questioned whether the LNA could establish its control over the entire national territory, or whether Haftar would allow any military or elected political leader other than himself to guide a national army or government should that opportunity materialize in the future through a new general election.


title: Khalifa Haftar

text: Haftar remains resolute that one of the aims of Operation Dignity is to completely dismantle the Libyan branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as what he considers to be any other Islamist terrorist organizations within Libya. However, in recent years journalists and critics have observed that, in spite of his formal anti-Islamism mission, Haftar has continuously cooperated with Salafi organizations based in eastern Libya. His ties to these groups have produced a mutually beneficial partnership in the administration of the areas controlled by Haftar's forces as well as in the military fight against their Islamist counterpart, especially against the Muslim Brotherhood and Ansar al-Sharia. Some of the Salafi groups allied with Haftar were part of the militias based in Barqa that have fought under his leadership and eventually spread in Benghazi, Jabal al-Akhdar, and Ajdabiya. As Ahmed Salah Ali emphasized in his June 2017 report published by the Atlantic Council, Haftar needs the Salafi support due to his lack of troops and resources on the ground, while his Salafi allies have greatly benefited from their control over religious discourse and their growing military strength in eastern Libya, which have led to an increase in their appeal to unemployed youth.


title: Khalifa Haftar

text: In July 2017 a video posted online featured the execution of 20 suspected ISIS fighters by Haftar's forces, and this led the United Nations to call for the LNA to investigate summary executions of prisoners. In general, in many areas under his control several sources have denounced the abuses perpetrated by his militias and the several repressive actions undertaken to limit civil liberties.


title: Khalifa Haftar

text: As of August 2016, Haftar had refused to support the new United Nations Security Council endorsed Government of National Accord, which led the United States and allies to believe that he was jeopardizing the stability of Libya. Libya specialist and RUSI Senior Research Fellow Alison Pargeter pointed out that Haftar may plausibly be regarded as the "biggest single obstacle to peace in Libya" in that he allegedly fears that cooperating with the GNA may lead to the end of his influence in eastern Libya.