title: 2020 Summer Paralympics

text: Aluminium was taken from temporary housing in Fukushima to make the torches for the Olympic and Paralympic flames. More than 10,000 pieces of aluminium were used and organizers contacted local authorities to see which houses were no longer being used.


title: 2020 Summer Paralympics

text: The 2020 Summer Paralympics featured 539 events in 22 sports. Badminton and taekwondo made their Paralympic debut in Tokyo, while classifications were added or realigned in other sports; canoe, shooting, table tennis, track cycling, and wheelchair fencing saw increases in the number of medal events held, while there were reductions in athletics and swimming.


title: 2020 Summer Paralympics

text: In January 2014, the IPC began accepting bids for new sports to be added to the Paralympic programme. Six sports were reported to have made bids, including amputee football, badminton, power hockey, powerchair football, and taekwondo. New disciplines were also proposed in existing events, including 3x3 basketball (in wheelchair and ID classifications), and visually impaired match racing and one-person multi-hull in sailing.


title: 2020 Summer Paralympics

text: On 31 January 2015, the IPC officially announced that badminton and taekwondo had been added to the Paralympic programme for 2020. They replaced football 7-a-side and sailing. which were dropped due to an insufficient international reach.


title: 2020 Summer Paralympics

text: On 9 December 2019, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) banned Russia from all international sport for a period of four years, after the Russian government was found to have tampered with lab data that it provided to WADA in January 2019 as a condition of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency being reinstated. On 26 April 2021, it was confirmed Russian athletes would represent the Russian Paralympic Committee, with the acronym 'RPC'.


title: 2020 Summer Paralympics

text: At least five countries withdrew from the Games due to COVID-19-related concerns, including North Korea (which declined to participate in either the Olympics or Paralympics), as well as Kiribati, Samoa, Tonga, and Vanuatu due to budgetary concerns tied to COVID-19 travel restrictions. Absent direct flights to Japan, the four countries' athletes would have had to travel to Tokyo via Australia and New Zealand as international borders to those countries for non-residents had been closed since March 2020, and would be subject to 14-day quarantine periods before their flight to Japan, and on their way back to their home countries.


title: 2020 Summer Paralympics

text: On 16 August 2021, Afghanistan (representing the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan) withdrew from the Games due to violence and instability in the country following the Taliban's capture of Kabul, which left their team of Zakia Khudadadi (taekwondo) and Hossain Rasouli (athletics) unable to travel to Tokyo. Their national flag was still paraded during the opening ceremony as a signal of solidarity. However, after a "major global operation", the two athletes were successfully evacuated to France, where they trained at INSEP in Paris before arriving in a flight with the Paris 2024 delegation in Tokyo on 28 August. IPC president Andrew Parsons stated that the team would not be allowed to interact with other athletes at the village would they be available to the media—having been given special permission to skip press conferences. Rasouli missed the event where he was originally intended to compete, the men's 100m T47. After declining an offer to compete in the 400m event as an alternative, Rasouli accepted an extra spot in the men's long jump T47.


title: 2020 Summer Paralympics

text: The following 162 teams qualified at least one athlete. Six of them, Bhutan, Grenada, Guyana, Maldives, Paraguay, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, made their debut appearances at the Paralympic Games. Two of them returned to the Games after not sending delegations in 2016: Barbados (that for the first time in its history it had not classified its athletes for the Games) along with Luxembourg (who had classified athletes for the last time in Beijing 2008).


title: 2020 Summer Paralympics

text: There were test events before the Olympic and Paralympic Games; these were contested from June 2019 to June 2020 before the start of the 2020 Summer Olympics. The selected Paralympic sports were athletics (2–3 May 2020), goalball (28–29 September 2019), paratriathlon (15–18 August 2019), powerlifting (26–27 September 2019), swimming (16 April 2020) and wheelchair rugby (12–15 March 2020). It was announced in February 2019 that test events would be under the banner "Ready, Steady, Tokyo". 22 of the 56 events would be organised by the Tokyo organising committee and the rest by national and international organisations. World Sailing's World Cup Series, held at Enoshima, was the first test event, while the last the Tokyo Challenge Track Meet in May 2020.


title: 2020 Summer Paralympics

text: The emblems of the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics were unveiled on 25 April 2016. The Paralympic emblem features a hand fan in a circle form, filled with an indigo-colored checkerboard pattern. The design is meant to "express a refined elegance and sophistication that exemplifies Japan". The designs replaced a previous emblem which had been scrapped due to allegations that it plagiarized the logo of the Théâtre de Liège in Belgium.


title: 2020 Summer Paralympics

text: The shortlist of mascots for the Tokyo Games was unveiled on 7 December 2017 and the winning entry was announced on 28 February 2018. Candidate pair A, created by Ryo Taniguchi, received the most votes (109,041) and was declared the winner, defeating Kana Yano's pair B (61,423 votes) and Sanae Akimoto's pair C (35,291 votes). Someity is a figure with pink chequered patterns inspired by the Games' official logo, as well as cherry blossom flowers. It has a calm but powerful ability, it is nature-loving, and it speaks to the wind. Both Miraitowa and Someity were named by the Organising Committee on 22 July 2018.


title: 2020 Summer Paralympics

text: Japanese public broadcaster NHK produced a series of short films called "Animation x Paralympic: Who Is Your Hero?" Each short features a different Paralympic sport, and is designed and produced in collaboration with well-known creators of anime and manga, sometimes featuring crossovers with popular series or with real-life athletes.


title: 2020 Summer Paralympics

text: The International Paralympic Committee anticipated that the 2020 Summer Paralympics would be seen by a global audience of at least 4.25 billion viewers, an increase over the estimated 4.1 billion of the 2016 Games. Japanese broadcaster NHK aired coverage of selected events in 8K. In markets without and with a dedicated rightsholder, the IPC streamed the Games on its YouTube, Twitter and Facebook accounts.


title: 2020 Summer Paralympics

text: In the United Kingdom, these were third Summer Paralympics to be broadcast by Channel 4, which planned to air at least 300 hours of coverage on free-to-air TV (with More4 to be dedicated primarily to team events), 1,200 hours of coverage via streaming, as well as an evening highlights program and "The Last Leg" nightly. The broadcaster launched a trailer directed by Bradford Young entitled "Super. Human." in mid-July 2021, which aimed to focus on the "realities" of the lives of Paralympic athletes, and "the sacrifices they make in pursuit of greatness".


title: 2020 Summer Paralympics

text: In the United States, NBCUniversal aired 1,200 hours of coverage on NBCSN and Olympic Channel, while NBC broadcast five highlights programs over the course of the Games and afterward (with three airing in primetime), which "[showcased] the incredible backstories of the athletes and teams competing in Tokyo".


title: 2020 Summer Paralympics

text: Canadian media rights was once again led by the CBC, with 120 hours of television coverage, along with broadcasts by Sportsnet and AMI-tv.


title: 2020 Summer Paralympics

text: In Australia, the Seven Network offered one free-to-air channel broadcast via either their Channel 7 or 7mate channels and up to 16 free streaming channels via the online 7plus service.


title: 2020 Summer Paralympics

text: In New Zealand, the Games were broadcast by TVNZ Duke. TVNZ faced criticism for the scale of its coverage, including a lack of streaming coverage, and the TVNZ broadcast and OBS world feed missing coverage of events involving local athletes. On 2 September, citing the criticism, TVNZ announced that it would waive the geoblocking for the IPC's official streams on YouTube.


title: 2020 Summer Paralympics

text: In India, Eurosport India and Discovery+ debuted as a new local rightsholder, focusing on coverage of events involving Indian athletes.


title: 2020 Summer Paralympics

text: In Brazil, the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games were broadcast on Grupo Globo platforms Sportv, Globoplay and for the first time some events was broadcast live on Rede Globo free-to-air channel at late nights and early mornings. The games were sublicensed to a public broadcasters consortium led by TV Brasil and TV Cultura.


title: 2020 Summer Paralympics

text: In Singapore, selected live events were telecast on Mediacorp Channel 5 while the rest of the coverage was streamed on meWATCH. Selected highlights also appeared on the Mediacorp Entertainment YouTube channel.


title: 2020 Summer Paralympics

text: In the Philippines, the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games were broadcast on cable channel TAP Sports and was streamed online on TAP Go.


title: 2020 Summer Paralympics

text: Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike pressed ahead for students to be allowed to attend the Paralympics with the Paralympic organizing committee in Tokyo arguing "it's important to have students view athletes with disabilities" for their education on disability. This has been remarked on due to their being a state of emergency in Tokyo concerning the illness. Chiba Prefecture later dropped from the program due to two teachers being found to have COVID-19 infections.


title: 2020 Summer Paralympics

text: The reining judo paralympic champion from Georgia, Zviad Gogotchuri, was arrested after assaulting a security guard at a Tokyo hotel on 16 August 2021. The visually impaired judoka from Georgia was later ejected from the games.


title: 2020 Summer Paralympics

text: Japan's Aramitsu Kitazono was scheduled to compete in the round of 16 events of the men's 81 kg category. However, he was forced to withdraw at the last minute, two days before his scheduled event after sustaining injuries to his head and legs during an incident that happened on 26 August 2021 at the Paralympics Village. It was revealed Aramitsu was hit by a Toyota e-Palette driverless vehicle, which was under manual control by an operator, when he was walking on the pedestrian crossing. His opponent Dmytro Solovey of Ukraine automatically qualified to the quarterfinals as a result of Aramitsu's late withdrawal.


title: 2020 Summer Paralympics

text: Malaysian shot putter (F20 class), Muhammad Ziyad Zolkefli, arrived three minutes late for the event but was cleared to compete. In this event on 31 August 2021, he originally won the gold medal in the men's shot put F20 event, thus defending his title in Rio 2016 and breaking a new world record. However after the event had finished, his gold was stripped after a protest from the Ukrainian delegation, citing that Ziyad came late to the call room. Other than Ziyad, Australian Todd Hodgets and Ecuadorian Jordi Villalba were also disqualified from the event for 'Failure to Report to the Call Room'.


title: 2020 Summer Paralympics

text: Later, Malaysian Youth and Sports Minister, Ahmad Faizal Azumu issued a statement via his Twitter account, stating that the National Paralympic Committees of Malaysia, Australia, and Ecuador has made a joint-counter protest to opposing the protest made by the Ukrainian delegation.


title: 2020 Summer Paralympics

text: However, the appeal from three NPC's has been rejected, and Ukrainian Maksym Koval remains as the gold medal winner.


title: 2020 Summer Paralympics

text: After the events, some social media accounts from Ukraine have been spammed by hateful comments from Malaysia, including Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky's Instagram account. Koval's Instagram account has also been hacked by Malaysian cyber troopers due to the result. This action caused the official Facebook account of the Ukrainian Embassy to Malaysia to be deactivated, and the Embassy's official Twitter account has been set to private.


title: 2020 Summer Paralympics

text: Forty officers from , who were tasked to support local police at venues and to control traffic during the Games, were removed from duty by Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (TMPD) and sent home following numerous incidents. This included visiting brothels, drinking in their dormitories (which is against regulations) and in bars surrounding Kinshichō Station, Sumida, which then descended into drunken brawls with civilian bystanders. That latter incident led the TMPD to intervene, which led to the officers being caught.


title: Daniel LaPlante

text: Daniel J. LaPlante (born May 16, 1970) is an American convicted murderer serving multiple life sentences for the 1987 murders of Priscilla Gustafson and her two children in Townsend, Massachusetts.


title: Daniel LaPlante

text: LaPlante lived with his mother and stepfather. While growing up in Townsend, LaPlante was sexually and psychologically abused by many adults in his life. LaPlante's father was responsible for the majority of the abuse. He also struggled with school. He was diagnosed with dyslexia at an early age,


title: Daniel LaPlante

text: On December 1, 1987, LaPlante entered the Townsend home of Priscilla Gustafson, a nursery school teacher. Gustafson, who was pregnant, was found face-down on her bed, her pillows covered in her blood. LaPlante had raped her and shot her multiple times at point-blank range. LaPlante drowned both of her children (7-year-old Abigail and 5-year-old William) in separate bathrooms. A year later, LaPlante was sentenced to three life sentences for the murders of the Gustafsons.


title: Daniel LaPlante

text: On March 22, 2017, a re-sentencing hearing for LaPlante was held at Middlesex Superior Court in Woburn, Massachusetts. LaPlante asked for a reduction in his sentence. At the hearing, it was mentioned that during his first appeal, previous court rulings were cited saying that juveniles convicted of murder should be given a meaningful opportunity to re-engage with society. There was also a new law allowing “juveniles convicted of murder with extreme cruelty and atrocity to ask for parole after they’ve been behind bars for a minimum of 30 years.” The judge, however, affirmed LaPlante's' sentence of three consecutive terms of life imprisonment, with the possibility of parole after forty-five years, after a forensic psychiatrist evaluated LaPlante and found that he was not remorseful for his crimes.


title: Daniel LaPlante

text: LaPlante was featured in Season 2, Episode 1 of Investigation Discovery's "Your Worst Nightmare" series "Bump in the Night."


title: Daniel LaPlante

text: LaPlante was also featured in Season 1, Episode 2 of Lifetime Channel's "Phrogging: Hider in My House" series "Footsteps in the Attic," which documented crimes committed prior to the Gustafson murders.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: Cuba and the United States restored diplomatic relations on July 20, 2015. Relations had been severed in 1961 during the Cold War. U.S. diplomatic representation in Cuba is handled by the United States Embassy in Havana, and there is a similar Cuban Embassy in Washington, D.C. The United States, however, continues to maintain its commercial, economic, and financial embargo, making it illegal for U.S. corporations to do business with Cuba.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: Relations began in early colonial times and were focused around extensive trade. In the 19th century, manifest destiny increasingly led to American desire to buy, conquer, or otherwise take some control of Cuba. This included an attempt to buy it from Spain in 1848 during the Polk administration, and a secret attempt to buy it in 1854 during the Pierce administration known as the Ostend Manifesto, which backfired, caused a scandal and severely weakened Pierce's presidency. The hold of the Spanish Empire on possessions in the Americas had already been reduced in the 1820s as a result of the Spanish American wars of independence; only Cuba and Puerto Rico remained under Spanish rule until the Spanish–American War (1898) that resulted from the Cuban War of Independence. Under the Treaty of Paris, Cuba became a U.S. protectorate from 1898 to 1902; the U.S. gained a position of economic and political dominance over the island, which persisted after it became formally independent in 1902.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: Following the Cuban Revolution of 1959, bilateral relations deteriorated substantially. On August 6, 1960, the Cuban government, under President Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado and Prime Minister Fidel Castro, nationalized all American owned oil refineries located within Cuba's national borders. Along with sugar factories and mines, Cuba seized approximately $1.7 billion in U.S. oil assets. In October 1960, the U.S. imposed and subsequently tightened a comprehensive set of restrictions and bans against the Cuban government, ostensibly in retaliation for the nationalization of U.S. corporations' property by Cuba. In 1961 the U.S. severed diplomatic ties with Cuba and attempted to use exiles and Central Intelligence Agency officers to invade the country. In November of that year, the U.S. engaged in a campaign of terrorism and covert operations over several years in an attempt to bring down the Cuban government. The terrorist campaign killed a significant number of civilians. In October 1962 the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred between the U.S. and Soviet Union over Soviet deployments of ballistic missiles in Cuba. Throughout the Cold War, the US heavily countered Fidel Castro's attempts to "spread communism" throughout Latin America and Africa. The Nixon, Ford, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations resorted to back-channel talks to negotiate with the Cuban government during the Cold War.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: In 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama and new Cuban President Raúl Castro (the younger brother of Fidel Castro) announced the beginning of a process of normalizing relations between Cuba and the U.S., which media sources have named "the Cuban Thaw". Negotiated in secret in Canada and the Vatican City, and with the assistance of Pope Francis, the agreement led to the lifting of some U.S. travel restrictions, fewer restrictions on remittances, access to the Cuban financial system for U.S. banks, and the establishment of a U.S. embassy in Havana, which closed after Cuba became closely allied with the USSR in 1961. The countries' respective "interests sections" in one another's capitals were upgraded to embassies in 2015. In 2016, President Barack Obama visited Cuba, becoming the first sitting U.S. president in 88 years to visit the island.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: On June 16, 2017, President Donald Trump announced that he was suspending the policy for unconditional sanctions relief for Cuba, while also leaving the door open for a "better deal" between the U.S. and Cuba. On November 8, 2017, it was announced that the business and travel restrictions which were loosened by the Obama administration would be reinstated and they went into effect on 9 November. On June 4, 2019, the Trump administration announced new restrictions on American travel to Cuba.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: Since taking office in 2021, the Biden administration has been labeled as "tougher than Donald Trump on the island's government," although it has later reversed some of the restrictions placed during the Trump administration. However, in May 2022, the United States refused to invite the island nation to attend the 9th Summit of the Americas, drawing criticism from other Latin American countries.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: Relations between the Spanish colony of Cuba and polities on the North American mainland first established themselves in the early 18th century through illicit commercial contracts by the European colonies of the New World, trading to elude colonial taxes. As both legal and illegal trade increased, Cuba became a comparatively prosperous trading partner in the region, and a center of tobacco and sugar production. During this period Cuban merchants increasingly traveled to North American ports, establishing trade contracts that endured for many years.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: The British capture and temporary occupation of Havana in 1762, which many Americans participated in, opened up trade with the colonies in North and South America, and the American Revolution in 1776 provided additional trade opportunities. Spain opened Cuban ports to North American commerce officially in November 1776 and the island became increasingly dependent on that trade.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: After the opening of the island to world trade in 1818, trade agreements began to replace Spanish commercial connections. In 1820 Thomas Jefferson thought Cuba is "the most interesting addition which could ever be made to our system of States" and told Secretary of War John C. Calhoun that the United States "ought, at the first possible opportunity, to take Cuba." In a letter to the U.S. Minister to Spain Hugh Nelson, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams described the likelihood of U.S. "annexation of Cuba" within half a century despite obstacles: "But there are laws of political as well as of physical gravitation; and if an apple severed by the tempest from its native tree cannot choose but fall to the ground, Cuba, forcibly disjoined from its own unnatural connection with Spain, and incapable of self support, can gravitate only towards the North American Union, which by the same law of nature cannot cast her off from its bosom."


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: The desire to procure Cuba intensified in the 1840s, not only in the context of manifest destiny but also in the interest of Southern power. Cuba, with some half a million slaves, would provide Southerners with extra leverage in Congress. In the late 1840s, President James K. Polk dispatched his minister to Spain Romulus Mitchell Saunders with a mission to offer $100 million to buy Cuba. Saunders however did not speak Spanish, and as then Secretary of State James Buchanan noted "even [English] he sometimes murders". Saunders was a clumsy negotiator, which both entertained and angered the Spanish. Spain replied that they would "prefer seeing [Cuba] sunk in the ocean" than sold. It may have been a moot point anyway, as it is unlikely that the Whig majority House would have accepted such an obviously pro-Southern move. The 1848 election of Zachary Taylor, a Whig, ended formal attempts to purchase the island.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: In August 1851, 40 Americans who took part in Narciso López's filibustering Lopez Expedition in Cuba, including the Attorney General's nephew William L. Crittenden, were executed by Spanish authorities in Havana. News of the executions caused a furor in the South, spawning riots in which the Spanish consulate in New Orleans was burned to the ground. In 1854, a secret proposal known as the Ostend Manifesto was devised by U.S. diplomats, interested in adding a slave state to the Union. The Manifesto proposed buying Cuba from Spain for $130 million. If Spain were to reject the offer, the Manifesto implied that, in the name of Manifest Destiny, war would be necessary. When the plans became public, because of one author's vocal enthusiasm for the plan, the manifesto caused a scandal, and was rejected, in part because of objections from anti-slavery campaigners.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: The Cuban rebellion 1868–1878 against Spanish rule, called by historians the Ten Years' War, gained wide sympathy in the United States. Juntas based in New York raised money and smuggled men and munitions to Cuba while energetically spreading propaganda in American newspapers. The Grant administration turned a blind eye to this violation of American neutrality. In 1869, President Ulysses Grant was urged by popular opinion to support rebels in Cuba with military assistance and to give them U.S. diplomatic recognition. Secretary of State Hamilton Fish wanted stability and favored the Spanish government and did not publicly challenge the popular anti-Spanish American viewpoint. Grant and Fish gave lip service to Cuban independence, called for an end to slavery in Cuba, and quietly opposed American military intervention. Fish worked diligently against popular pressure, and was able to keep Grant from officially recognizing Cuban independence because it would have endangered negotiations with Britain over the Alabama Claims. Daniel Sickles, the American Minister to Madrid, made no headway. Grant and Fish successfully resisted popular pressures. Grant's message to Congress urged strict neutrality and no official recognition of the Cuban revolt.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: By 1877, Americans purchased 83 percent of Cuba's total exports. North Americans were also increasingly taking up residence on the island, and some districts on the northern shore were said to have more the character of America than Spanish settlements. Between 1878 and 1898 American investors took advantage of deteriorating economic conditions of the Ten Years' War to take over estates they had tried unsuccessfully to buy before while others acquired properties at very low prices. Above all this presence facilitated the integration of the Cuban economy into the North American system and weakened Cuba's ties with Spain.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: As Cuban resistance to Spanish rule grew, rebels fighting for independence attempted to get support from U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant. Grant declined and the resistance was curtailed, though American interests in the region continued. U.S. Secretary of State James G. Blaine wrote in 1881 of Cuba, "that rich island, the key to the Gulf of Mexico, and the field for our most extended trade in the Western Hemisphere, is, though in the hands of Spain, a part of the American commercial system ... If ever ceasing to be Spanish, Cuba must necessarily become American and not fall under any other European domination."After some rebel successes in Cuba's second war of independence in 1897, U.S. President William McKinley offered to buy Cuba for $300 million. Rejection of the offer, and an explosion that sank the American battleship USS "Maine" in Havana harbor, led to the Spanish–American War. In Cuba the war became known as "the U.S. intervention in Cuba's War of Independence". On 10 December 1898 Spain and the United States signed the Treaty of Paris and, in accordance with the treaty, Spain renounced all rights to Cuba. The treaty put an end to the Spanish Empire in the Americas and marked the beginning of United States expansion and long-term political dominance in the region. Immediately after the signing of the treaty, the U.S.-owned "Island of Cuba Real Estate Company" opened for business to sell Cuban land to Americans. U.S. military rule of the island lasted until 1902 when Cuba was finally granted formal independence.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: The Teller Amendment to the U.S. declaration of war against Spain in 1898 disavowed any intention of exercising "sovereignty, jurisdiction or control" over Cuba, but the United States only agreed to withdraw its troops from Cuba when Cuba agreed to the eight provisions of the Platt Amendment, an amendment to the 1901 Army Appropriations Act authored by Connecticut Republican Senator Orville H. Platt, which would allow the United States to intervene in Cuban affairs if needed for the maintenance of good government and committed Cuba to lease to the U.S. land for naval bases. Cuba leased to the United States the southern portion of Guantánamo Bay, where a United States Naval Station had been established in 1898. The Platt Amendment defined the terms of Cuban-U.S. relations for the following 33 years and provided the legal basis for U.S. military interventions with varying degrees of support from Cuban governments and political parties.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: Despite recognizing Cuba's transition into an independent republic, United States Governor Charles Edward Magoon assumed temporary military rule for three more years following a rebellion led in part by José Miguel Gómez. In the following 20 years the United States repeatedly intervened militarily in Cuban affairs: 1906–09, 1912 and 1917–22. In 1912 U.S. forces were sent to quell protests by Afro-Cubans against discrimination. At first President Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921) and Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan were determined to stay out of Cuban affairs. The political turmoil continued. Cuba joined in the war against Germany, and prospered from American contracts. US Marines were stationed to protect the major sugar plantations in the Sugar Intervention. However, in 1919 political chaos again threatened the Civil War and Secretary of State Robert Lansing sent General Enoch Crowder to stabilize the situation.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: By 1926 U.S. companies owned 60% of the Cuban sugar industry and imported 95% of the total Cuban crop, and Washington was generally supportive of successive Cuban governments. President Calvin Coolidge led the U.S. delegation to the Sixth International Conference of American States from January 15–17, 1928, in Havana, the only international trip Coolidge made during his presidency; it would be the last time a sitting American president visited Cuba until Barack Obama did so on March 20, 2016. However, internal confrontations between the government of Gerardo Machado and political opposition led to his military overthrow by Cuban rebels in 1933. U.S. Ambassador Sumner Welles requested U.S. military intervention. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, despite his promotion of the Good Neighbor policy toward Latin America, ordered 29 warships to Cuba and Key West, alerting United States Marines, and bombers for use if necessary. Machado's replacement, Ramón Grau assumed the Presidency and immediately nullified the Platt amendment. In protest, the United States denied recognition to Grau's government, Ambassador Welles describing the new regime as "communistic" and "irresponsible".


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: The rise of General Fulgencio Batista in the 1930s to de facto leader and President of Cuba for two terms (1940–44 and 1952–59) led to an era of close co-operation between the governments of Cuba and the United States. The United States and Cuba signed another Treaty of Relations in 1934. Batista's second term as president was initiated by a military coup planned in Florida, and U.S. President Harry S. Truman quickly recognized Batista's return to rule providing military and economic aid. The Batista era witnessed the almost complete domination of Cuba's economy by the United States, as the number of American corporations continued to swell, though corruption was rife and Havana also became a popular sanctuary for American organized crime figures, notably hosting the infamous Havana Conference in 1946. U.S. Ambassador to Cuba Arthur Gardner later described the relationship between the U.S. and Batista during his second term as President:


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: In July 1953, an armed conflict broke out in Cuba between rebels led by Fidel Castro and the Batista government. During the course of the conflict, the U.S. sold 8.238 million dollars worth of weapons to the Cuban government to help quash the rebellion. However, the U.S. was urged to end arms sales to Batista by Cuban president-in-waiting Manuel Urrutia Lleó. Washington made the critical move in March 1958 to end sales of rifles to Batista's forces, thus changing the course of the Cuban Revolution irreversibly towards the rebels. The move was vehemently opposed by U.S. ambassador Earl E. T. Smith, and led U.S. State Department adviser William Wieland to lament that "I know Batista is considered by many as a son of a bitch ... but American interests come first ... at least he was our son of a bitch."


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower officially recognized the new Cuban government after the 1959 Cuban Revolution which had overthrown the Batista government, but relations between the two governments deteriorated rapidly. Within days Earl E. T. Smith, U.S. Ambassador to Cuba, was replaced by Philip Bonsal. The U.S. government became increasingly concerned by Cuba's agrarian reforms and the nationalization of industries owned by U.S. citizens. Between 15 and 26 April 1959, Fidel Castro and a delegation of representatives visited the U.S. as guests of the Press Club. This visit was perceived by many as a charm offensive on the part of Castro and his recently initiated government, and his visit included laying a wreath at the Lincoln memorial. After a meeting between Castro and Vice President Richard Nixon, where Castro outlined his reform plans for Cuba, the U.S. began to impose gradual trade restrictions on the island. On 4 September 1959, Ambassador Bonsal met with Cuban Premier Fidel Castro to express "serious concern at the treatment being given to American private interests in Cuba both agriculture and utilities."


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: The Escambray rebellion was a six-year rebellion (1959–1965) in the Escambray Mountains by a group of insurgents who opposed the Cuban government led by Fidel Castro. The rebelling group of insurgents was a mix of former Batista soldiers, local farmers, and former allied guerrillas who had fought alongside Castro against Batista during the Cuban Revolution.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: As state intervention and take-over of privately owned businesses continued, trade restrictions on Cuba increased. The U.S. stopped buying Cuban sugar and refused to supply its former trading partner with much needed oil, with a devastating effect on the island's economy, leading to Cuba turning to their newfound trading partner, the Soviet Union, for petroleum. In March 1960, tensions increased when the French freighter "La Coubre" exploded in Havana Harbor, killing over 75 people. Fidel Castro blamed the United States and compared the incident to the sinking of the "Maine", though admitting he could provide no evidence for his accusation. That same month, President Eisenhower quietly authorized the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to organize, train, and equip Cuban refugees as a guerrilla force to overthrow Castro.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: Each time the Cuban government nationalized property belonging to American citizens, the American government took countermeasures, resulting in the prohibition of all exports to Cuba on 19 October 1960. Consequently, Cuba began to consolidate trade relations with the USSR, leading the U.S. to break off all remaining official diplomatic relations. Later that year, U.S. diplomats Edwin L. Sweet and William G. Friedman were arrested and expelled from the island having been charged with "encouraging terrorist acts, granting asylum, financing subversive publications and smuggling weapons". On 3 January 1961 the U.S. withdrew diplomatic recognition of the Cuban government and closed the embassy in Havana.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy believed that Eisenhower's policy toward Cuba had been mistaken. He criticized what he saw as use of U.S. government influence to advance the interest and increase the profits of private U.S. companies instead of helping Cuba to achieve economic progress, saying that Americans dominated the island's economy and had given support to one of the bloodiest and most repressive dictatorships in the history of Latin America. "We let Batista put the U.S. on the side of tyranny, and we did nothing to convince the people of Cuba and Latin America that we wanted to be on the side of freedom".


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: In April 1961, an armed invasion by about 1,500 CIA trained Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs was defeated by the Cuban armed forces. President Kennedy's complete assumption of responsibility for the venture, which provoked a popular reaction against the invasion, proved to be a further propaganda boost for the Cuban government. The U.S. began the formulation of new plans aimed at destabilizing the Cuban government. The U.S. government engaged in an extensive series of terrorist attacks in Cuba. These activities were collectively known as the "Cuban Project" or "Operation Mongoose". The attacks formed a CIA-coordinated program of terrorist bombings, political and military sabotage, and psychological operations, as well as assassination attempts on key political leaders. The Joint Chiefs of Staff also proposed attacks on mainland U.S. targets, hijackings and assaults on Cuban refugee boats to generate U.S. public support for military action against the Cuban government, these proposals were known collectively as Operation Northwoods.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: A U.S. Senate Select Intelligence Committee report later confirmed over eight attempted plots to kill Castro between 1960 and 1965, as well as additional plans against other Cuban leaders. After weathering the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, Cuba observed as U.S. armed forces staged a mock invasion of a Caribbean island in 1962 named Operation Ortsac. The purpose of the invasion was to overthrow a leader whose name, Ortsac, was Castro spelled backwards. Tensions between the two nations reached their peak in 1962, after U.S. reconnaissance aircraft photographed the Soviet construction of intermediate-range missile sites. The discovery led to the Cuban Missile Crisis.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: Trade relations also deteriorated in equal measure. In 1962, President Kennedy broadened the partial trade restrictions imposed after the revolution by Eisenhower to a ban on all trade with Cuba, except for non-subsidized sale of foods and medicines. A year later travel and financial transactions by U.S. citizens with Cuba was prohibited. The United States embargo against Cuba was to continue in varying forms. Despite tensions between the United States and Cuba during the Kennedy years, relations began to thaw somewhat after the Cuban Missile Crisis. Back channels that had already been established at the height of tensions between the two nations began to expand in 1963. Though Attorney General Robert Kennedy worried that such contact would hurt his brother's chances of re-election, President John Kennedy continued these contacts resulting in several meetings U.S. ambassador William Atwood and Cuban officials such as Carlos Lechuga. Other contacts would be established directly between President Kennedy and Fidel Castro through media figures such as Lisa Howard and French reporter Jean Daniel days before the Kennedy Assassination with Castro stating "I am willing to declare Goldwater my friend if that will guarantee Kennedy's re-election".


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: Castro would continue efforts to improve relations with the incoming Johnson administration sending a message to Johnson encouraging dialogue saying:


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: Continued tensions over various issues would hamper further efforts to normalization relations that started at the end of the Kennedy administration such as the Guantanamo dispute of 1964, or Cuba's embrace of American political dissidents such as Black Panther leaders who took refuge in Cuba during the 1960s. Perhaps the biggest clash during the Johnson administration would be the capture of Che Guevara in 1967 by Bolivia forces assisted by the CIA and U.S. Special forces.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: Through the late 1960s and early 1970s a sustained period of aircraft hijackings between Cuba and the U.S. by citizens of both nations led to a need for cooperation. By 1974, U.S. elected officials had begun to visit the island. Three years later, during the Carter administration, the U.S. and Cuba simultaneously opened interests sections in each other's capitals.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: In 1977, Cuba and the United States signed a maritime boundary treaty, agreeing on the location of their border in the Straits of Florida. The treaty was never sent to the United States Senate for ratification, but the agreement has been implemented by the U.S. State Department. In 1980, after 10,000 Cubans crammed into the Peruvian embassy seeking political asylum, Castro stated that any who wished to do so could leave Cuba, in what became known as the Mariel boatlift. Approximately 125,000 people left Cuba for the United States.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: Beginning in the 1970s a growing and coordinated effort by US-based Cuban dissident groups organized to confront the Castro regime through international bodies such as the United Nations. The United Nations Human Rights Council in particular would become a major front in these confrontations as issues of human rights became more widely known, especially in the 1980s as the United States itself became more directly involved during the Reagan administration, which had a tougher anti-Castro stance. In 1981 the Reagan administration announced a tightening of the embargo. The U.S. also re-established the travel ban, prohibiting U.S. citizens from spending money in Cuba. The ban was later supplemented to include Cuban government officials or their representatives visiting the U.S.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: A significant turning point in the international United Nations efforts came in 1984 when the Miami-based Center for Human Rights led by Jesus Permuy successfully lobbied to have Cuba's diplomatic representative, Luis Sola Vila, removed from a key subcommittee of the UN Human Rights Council and replaced with a representative from Ireland, a Christian-Democratic ally in opposition of the Castro government. The following year Radio y Televisión Martí, backed by the Reagan administration, began to broadcast news and information from the U.S. to Cuba. In 1987 when US President Ronald Reagan appointed Armando Valladares, former Cuban political prisoner of 22 years, as the US ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Committee.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: Since 1990, the United States has presented various resolutions to the annual UN Human Rights Commission criticizing Cuba's human rights record. The proposals and subsequent diplomatic disagreements have been described as a "nearly annual ritual". Long-term consensus between Latin American nations has not emerged. By the end of the Cold War in 1992, there had been a substantial change in Geneva as the United Nations Human Rights Committee representatives had shifted from initial rejection, then indifference and towards embrace of the anti-Castro Cuban human rights movement's diplomatic efforts.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: The Cold War ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, leaving Cuba without its major international sponsor. The ensuing years were marked by economic difficulty in Cuba, a time known as the Special Period. U.S. law allowed private humanitarian aid to Cuba for part of this time. However, the long-standing U.S. embargo was reinforced in October 1992 by the Cuban Democracy Act (the "Torricelli Law") and in 1996 by the Cuban Liberty and Democracy Solidarity Act (known as the Helms-Burton Act). The 1992 act prohibited foreign-based subsidiaries of U.S. companies from trading with Cuba, travel to Cuba by U.S. citizens, and family remittances to Cuba. Sanctions could also be applied to non-U.S. companies trading with Cuba. As a result, multinational companies had to choose between Cuba and the U.S., the latter being a much larger market.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: On 24 February 1996, two unarmed Cessna 337s flown by the group "Brothers to the Rescue" were shot down by Cuban Air Force MiG-29, killing three Cuban-Americans and one Cuban U.S. resident. The Cuban government claimed that the planes had entered into Cuban airspace.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: Some veterans of CIA's 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, while no longer being sponsored by the CIA, are still active, though they are now in their seventies or older. Members of Alpha 66, an anti-Castro paramilitary organization, continue to practice their AK-47 skills in a camp in South Florida.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: In January 1999, U.S. President Bill Clinton eased travel restrictions to Cuba in an effort to increase cultural exchanges between the two nations. The Clinton administration approved a two-game exhibition series between the Baltimore Orioles and the Cuba national baseball team, marking the end of the hiatus since 1959 that a Major League Baseball team played in Cuba.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: At the United Nations Millennium Summit in September 2000, Castro and Clinton spoke briefly at a group photo session and shook hands. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan commented afterwards, "For a U.S. president and a Cuban president to shake hands for the first time in over 40 years—I think it is a major symbolic achievement". While Castro said it was a gesture of "dignity and courtesy", the White House denied the encounter was of any significance. In November 2001, U.S. companies began selling food to the country for the first time since Washington imposed the trade embargo after the revolution. In 2002, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter became the first former or sitting U.S. president to visit Cuba since 1928.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: Relations deteriorated again following the election of George W. Bush. During his campaign Bush appealed for the support of Cuban-Americans by emphasizing his opposition to the government of Fidel Castro and supporting tighter embargo restrictions. Cuban Americans, who until 2008 tended to vote Republican, expected effective policies and greater participation in the formation of policies regarding Cuba-U.S. relations. Approximately three months after his inauguration, the Bush administration began expanding travel restrictions. The United States Department of the Treasury issued greater efforts to deter American citizens from illegally traveling to the island. Also in 2001, five Cuban agents were convicted on 26 counts of espionage, conspiracy to commit murder, and other illegal activities in the United States. On 15 June 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court denied review of their case. Tensions heightened as the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, John R. Bolton, accused Cuba of maintaining a biological weapons program. Many in the United States, including ex-president Carter, expressed doubts about the claim. Later, Bolton was criticized for pressuring subordinates who questioned the quality of the intelligence John Bolton had used as the basis for his assertion. Bolton identified the Castro government as part of America's "axis of evil," highlighting the fact that the Cuban leader visited several U.S. foes, including Libya, Iran and Syria.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: Following his 2004 reelection, Bush declared Cuba to be one of the few "outposts of tyranny" remaining in the world.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: In January 2006, United States Interests Section in Havana began, in an attempt to break Cuba's "information blockade", displaying messages, including quotes from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, on a scrolling "electronic billboard" in the windows of their top floor. Following a protest march organized by the Cuban government, the government erected a large number of poles, carrying black flags with single white stars, obscuring the messages.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: On 10 October 2006, the United States announced the creation of a task force made up of officials from several U.S. agencies to pursue more aggressively American violators of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, with penalties as severe as 10 years of prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for violators of the embargo.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: In November 2006, U.S. Congressional auditors accused the development agency USAID of failing properly to administer its program for promoting democracy in Cuba. They said USAID had channeled tens of millions of dollars through exile groups in Miami, which were sometimes wasteful or kept questionable accounts. The report said the organizations had sent items such as chocolate and cashmere jerseys to Cuba. Their report concluded that 30% of the exile groups who received USAID grants showed questionable expenditures.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: After Fidel Castro's announcement of resignation in 2008, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said that the United States would maintain its embargo.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: In 2003, the United States Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba was formed to "explore ways the U.S. can help hasten and ease a democratic transition in Cuba." The commission immediately announced a series of measures that included a tightening of the travel embargo to the island, a crackdown on illegal cash transfers, and a more robust information campaign aimed at Cuba. Castro insisted that, in spite of the formation of the commission, Cuba is itself "in transition: to socialism [and] to communism" and that it was "ridiculous for the U.S. to threaten Cuba now".


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: In a 2004 meeting with members of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, President Bush stated, "We're not waiting for the day of Cuban freedom; we are working for the day of freedom in Cuba." The President reaffirmed his commitment to Cuban-Americans just in time for his 2004 re-election with promises to "work" rather than wait for freedom in Cuba.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: In April 2006, the Bush administration appointed Caleb McCarry "transition coordinator" for Cuba, providing a budget of $59 million, with the task of promoting the governmental shift to democracy after Castro's death. Official Cuban news service Granma alleges that these transition plans were created at the behest of Cuban exile groups in Miami, and that McCarry was responsible for engineering the overthrow of the Aristide government in Haiti.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: In 2006, the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba released a 93-page report. The report included a plan that suggested the United States spend $80 million to ensure that Cuba's communist system did not outlive the death of Fidel Castro. The plan also featured a classified annex that Cuban officials mistakenly claimed could be a plot to assassinate Fidel Castro or a United States military invasion of Cuba.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: While relations between Cuba and the United States remained tenuous, by the late 2000s they began to improve. Fidel Castro stepped down from his leadership of the Cuban state in 2006 but officially from 2008 and Barack Obama became the president of the United States in 2009.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: In April 2009, Obama, who had received nearly half of the Cuban Americans vote in the 2008 presidential election, began implementing a less strict policy towards Cuba. Obama stated that he was open to dialogue with Cuba, but that he would only lift the trade embargo if Cuba underwent political change. In March 2009, Obama signed into law a congressional spending bill which eased some economic sanctions on Cuba and eased travel restrictions on Cuban-Americans (defined as persons with a relative "who is no more than three generations removed from that person") traveling to Cuba. The April executive decision further removed time limits on Cuban-American travel to the island. Another restriction loosened in April 2009 was in the realm of telecommunications, which would allow quicker and easier access to the internet for Cuba. The loosening of restrictions is likely to help nonprofits and scientists from both countries who work together on issues of mutual concern, such as destruction of shared biodiversity and diseases that affect both populations. At the 2009 5th Summit of the Americas, President Obama signaled the opening of a new beginning with Cuba.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: Obama's overtures were reciprocated, to some degree, by new Cuban leader Raúl Castro. On 27 July 2012, Raúl Castro said that the Government of Cuba is willing to hold talks with the United States government to "discuss anything". On 10 December 2013, at a state memorial service for Nelson Mandela, Barack Obama and Raúl Castro shook hands, with Castro saying in English: "Mr. President, I am Castro." Though both sides played down the handshake (much like the Clinton handshake of 2000), an adviser to Obama said that Obama wanted to improve relations with Cuba, yet had concerns about human rights on the island.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: Beginning in 2013, Cuban and U.S. officials held secret talks brokered in part by Pope Francis and hosted in Canada and Vatican City to start the process of restoring diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States. On 17 December 2014, the framework of an agreement to normalize relations and eventually end the longstanding embargo was announced by Castro in Cuba and Obama in the United States. Cuba and the United States pledged to start official negotiations with the aim of reopening their respective embassies in Havana and Washington. As part of the agreement, aid worker Alan Gross and Rolando Sarraff Trujillo, a Cuban national working as a U.S. intelligence officer, were released by the Cuban government, which also promised to free an unspecified number of Cuban nationals from a list of political prisoners earlier submitted by the United States. For its part, the U.S. government released the last three remaining members of the Cuban Five. Reaction to this change in policy within the Cuban-American community was mixed, and Cuban-American senators Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Ted Cruz (R-TX) all condemned the Obama administration's change in policy. However, opinion polls indicated the thaw in relations was broadly popular with the American public.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: High-level diplomats from Cuba and the United States met in Havana in January 2015. While the talks did not produce a significant breakthrough, both sides described them as "productive", and Cuban Foreign Ministry official Josefina Vidal said further talks would be scheduled.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: Under new rules implemented by the Obama administration, restrictions on travel by Americans to Cuba are significantly relaxed as of 16 January 2015, and the limited import of items like Cuban cigars and rum to the United States is allowed, as is the export of American computer and telecommunications technology to Cuba.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: On 14 April 2015, the Obama administration announced that Cuba would be removed from the United States "State Sponsors of Terrorism" list. The House and Senate had 45 days from 14 April 2015 to review and possibly block this action, but this did not occur, and on 29 May 2015, the 45 days lapsed, therefore officially removing Cuba from the United States' list of state sponsors of terrorism. On 1 July 2015, President Barack Obama announced that formal diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States would resume, and embassies would be opened in Washington and Havana. Relations between Cuba and the United States were formally re-established on 20 July 2015, with the opening of the Cuban embassy in Washington and the U.S. embassy in Havana. Barack Obama visited Cuba for three days in March 2016. In August 2016, JetBlue Flight 387 landed in Santa Clara, becoming the first direct commercial flight to travel between the two countries since the early 1960s. On 28 November 2016, the first normally scheduled commercial flight after more than 50 years landed in Havana from Miami on an American Airlines jet.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: With the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president, the state of relations between the United States and Cuba was unclear as of January 2017. While a candidate for the presidency, Trump criticized aspects of the Cuban Thaw, suggesting he could suspend the normalization process unless he can negotiate "a good agreement".


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: On 16 June 2017, President Trump announced that he was suspending what he called a "completely one-sided deal with Cuba". Trump characterized Obama's policy as having granted Cuba economic sanctions relief for nothing in return. Since then, the administration's new policy has aimed to impose new restrictions with regards to travel and funding; however, traveling via airlines and cruise lines has not been prohibited completely. Moreover, diplomatic relations remain intact and embassies in Washington D.C. and Havana stay open.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: On 12 January 2021, the U.S. State Department added Cuba to its list of state sponsors of terrorism. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated that Cuba harboured several American fugitives, including Assata Shakur, as well as members of the Colombian National Liberation Army and supported the regime of Nicolás Maduro. This decision was interpreted as being linked to the support of President Trump by the Cuban-American community during the 2020 U.S. election.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: In August 2017, reports surfaced that American and Canadian diplomats stationed in Havana had experienced unusual physical symptoms affecting the brain—including hearing loss, dizziness, and nausea. American investigators have been unable to identify the cause of these symptoms. In September 2017, the U.S. ordered nonessential diplomats and families out of Cuba as a result of these mysterious health issues.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: Initially, the Biden administration has kept the sanctions against Cuba that were issued by the previous presidential administration, despite one of Biden's campaign promises being to lift restrictions against the country.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: In June 2021, the Biden administration continued America's tradition of voting against an annual United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for an end to the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba. The resolution was adopted for the 29th time with 184 votes in favor, three abstentions, and two no votes: the U.S. and Israel.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: In July 2021, protesters gathered in front of the White House and demonstrators called on President Joe Biden to take action in Cuba. The Biden administration sanctioned a key Cuban official and a government special forces unit known as the Boinas Negras for human rights abuses in the wake of historic protests on the island. On July 22, 2021, directly before hosting a meeting with Cuban American leaders, President Biden stated "I unequivocally condemn the mass detentions and sham trials that are unjustly sentencing to prison those who dared to speak out in an effort to intimidate and threaten the Cuban people into silence." President Biden has also ordered government specialists to develop ideas for the U.S. to unilaterally extend internet access on the island, and he has promised to enhance backing for Cuban dissidents.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: In August 2021, Biden sanctioned three additional Cuban officials who were also reportedly involved in the suppression of anti-government protesters in Cuba.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: In December 2021, 114 Democratic House members signed a letter that urged President Biden to lift restrictions and sanctions against Cuba in order to make their access to food and medicine easier.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: In January 2022, Biden again sanctioned Cuba officials, this time placing travel restrictions on eight members of the Cuban government.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: In May 2022, the Biden administration lifted some sanctions on Cuba, with policy changes such as expansion of flights to Cuba and resumption of a family reunification program.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: On May 20, 2022, the Biden administration added Cuba to a small list of countries that the US accuses of "not cooperating fully" in the battle against terrorism.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: Under the Trade Sanctions Reform and Enhancement Act of 2000, exports from the United States to Cuba in the industries of food and medical products are permitted with the proper licensing and permissions from the U.S. Department of Commerce and the United States Department of the Treasury.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: The Obama administration eased specific travel and other restrictions on Cuba in January 2011. A delegation from the United States Congress called on Cuban leader Raúl Castro on 24 February 2012 to discuss bilateral relations. The Congress delegation included Patrick Leahy, Democratic Senator from the state of Vermont and chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, and Richard Shelby, Republican Senator from the state of Alabama and ranking member of the Committee of Banking, Housing and Urban Matters; they went to Cuba as part of a delegation of Senators and Representatives of the Congress of United States.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: Travel and import restrictions imposed by the United States were further relaxed by executive action in January 2015 as part of the Cuban Thaw.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: Academic relations between the two nations have fluctuated, but have generally been limited since 1959. Breaking diplomatic ties 1961 stopped the routine flow of intellectual exchanges. As relations improve between United States and Soviet Union in the 1970s, increased academic ties with Cuba became possible. For example, several American universities established departments of Cuban studies, while some Cuban universities set up American studies programs. Typically the main emphasis was on literary and cultural history. The Carter administration relaxed travel restrictions in the late 1970s, but Reagan reimposed them after 1981. As the Cold War ended in the late 1980s, restrictions were again relaxed. In 1992, the Toricelli Law set up "Track 2," which facilitated intellectual cooperation between the two countries. Under Democratic President Bill Clinton, a 1999 executive directive granted licenses to universities for study abroad programs in Cuba in 1999. In 2001, however, Republican President George W. Bush reversed that decision, restricting travel through new legislation and the renewal of older laws. Under Democrat Barack Obama restrictions were cut back, but were reimposed under Pres. Donald Trump.


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: The U.S. continues to operate a naval base at Guantánamo Bay under a 1903 lease agreement "for the time required for the purposes of coaling and naval stations". The U.S. issues a check to Cuba annually for its lease, but since the revolution, Cuba has cashed only one payment. The Cuban government opposes the treaty, arguing that it violates article 52 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, titled "Coercion of a State by the threat or use of force".


title: Cuba–United States relations

text: The leasing of land like the Guantánamo Bay tract was one of the requirements of the Platt Amendment, conditions for the withdrawal of United States troops remaining in Cuba following the Spanish–American War.


title: Bobby (rapper)

text: Kim Ji-won (; born December 21, 1995), known by his stage name Bobby () is a South Korean rapper, singer-songwriter and member of iKon under YG Entertainment. In 2016, he formed a sub-unit with Mino under the name MOBB. He is best known for finishing in first place on Mnet's survival show: "Show Me The Money 3".


title: Bobby (rapper)

text: Kim Ji-won was born on December 21, 1995, in Seoul, South Korea. In 2005, his family moved to Fairfax, Virginia, United States. There, he auditioned for YG Entertainment and later met Kim Jinwoo of Jinusean in New York. Bobby was officially recruited as a trainee under the label on January 10, 2011.


title: Bobby (rapper)

text: After over two years of training, Bobby participated in the 2013 survival show "Win: Who Is Next?" under Team B. He started using his stage name Bobby, named after his idol, Bob Marley. Because Team A won the program, Bobby continued training under YG Entertainment. In November 2013, while still a trainee, Bobby appeared in the music video for "Ringa Linga" by label-mate Taeyang of Big Bang alongside B.I and Jinhwan from Team B, Winner's Mino and Taehyun, and Blackpink's Lisa.


title: Bobby (rapper)

text: In May 2014, together with B.I, Bobby competed on Mnet's "Show Me The Money 3". He finished in first place under Team Illionaire, mentored by Dok2 and The Quiett. Throughout the show, Bobby released the singles "Go", "L4L (Lookin' for Luv)", "YGGR#HipHop", and "Guard Up and Bounce". Following the show's conclusion, he participated in "Mix & Match", where filming began in midst of appearance of "Show Me The Money". The show resulted in the debut of Team B, alongside trainee Jung Chan-woo, under the group name iKon.


title: Bobby (rapper)

text: In October 2014, Bobby featured in Epik High's single "Born Hater" alongside Beenzino, Verbal Jint, B.I, and Mino, and in November 11, he featured in "I'm Different" by Hi Suhyun, a project unit composed of Lee Hi and Lee Su-hyun of Akdong Musician. In the same month, he also featured with Dok2 in Masta Wu's track "Come Here". He performed "Born Hater" with Epik High at the 2014 Mnet Asian Music Awards, also performing "Come Here" and his single "YGGR" together with Dok2, The Quiett and Masta Wu. He was featured on GQ Korea's 2014 Men of the Year list and on December 4, 2014, he appeared as a guest at GQ Party.


title: Bobby (rapper)

text: On September 15, 2015. iKon released the warm-up single "My Type", followed by lead singles "Rhythm Ta" and "Airplane". On October 4, the group attended their first music show, SBS' "Inkigayo", receiving their third win for "My Type". The group released their debut album on December 24, 2015.


title: Bobby (rapper)

text: In March 2016, Bobby featured on Lee Hi's single "Video" from her studio album "Seoulite". Bobby also made an appearance on the ninth episode of "Show Me the Money 5", featuring in Reddy's song "Like This", which they performed onstage together. In September 2016, Bobby released the single "Holup!" (Korean: ) as part of a four-track extended play (EP), "The MOBB", a collaboration between Bobby and Winner's Mino under the group name MOBB. They released the lead singles "Full House" (Korean: ) and "Hit Me" (Korean: ) on September 9 alongside the music videos.


title: Bobby (rapper)

text: In March 2017, Bobby and B.I featured in Psy's single "Bomb" from his studio album "4x2=8". Bobby released his first solo studio album, "Love and Fall", on September 14, 2017, for which he served producer and participated in writing and composing for all songs on the album. Bandmate Donghyuk and Katie Kim featured on the track "Secret", and label-mate Mino featured in the track "Up". On November 29, Bobby released the Japanese version of his debut solo album. He released his second studio album, "Lucky Man", on January 25, 2021.


title: Bobby (rapper)

text: On August 20, 2021, Bobby announced in his Instagram post his upcoming wedding to his fiancée, who was expecting their first child in September. In September 2021, YG Entertainment announced that Bobby's fiancée had given birth to a son.


title: State of nature

text: The state of nature, in moral and political philosophy, religion, social contract theories and international law, is the hypothetical life of people before societies came into existence. Philosophers of the state of nature theory deduce that there must have been a time before organized societies existed, and this presumption thus raises questions such as: "What was life like before civil society?"; "How did government first emerge from such a starting position?," and; "What are the hypothetical reasons for entering a state of society by establishing a nation-state?".


title: State of nature

text: In some versions of social contract theory, there are no rights in the state of nature, only freedoms, and it is the contract that creates rights and obligations. In other versions the opposite occurs: the contract imposes restrictions upon individuals that curtail their natural rights.


title: State of nature

text: Societies existing before or without a political state are currently studied in such fields as palaeolithic history, and the anthropological subfields of archaeology, cultural anthropology, social anthropology, and ethnology, which investigate the social and power-related structures of indigenous and uncontacted peoples. This has been criticized as an essentialist and othering view, similar to the concept of the noble savage.


title: State of nature

text: The early Warring States philosopher Mozi was one of the first thinkers in recorded history to develop the idea of the state of nature. He developed the idea to defend the need for a single overall ruler. According to Mozi, in the state of nature each person has their own moral rules (yi, 義). As a result, people were unable to reach agreements and resources were wasted. Since Mozi promoted ways of strengthening and unifying the state (li, ), such natural dis-organization was rejected:"In the beginning of human life, when there was yet no law and government, the custom was "everybody according to his rule (yi, 義)." Accordingly each man had his own rule, two men had two different rules and ten men had eleven different rules -- the more people the more different notions. And everybody approved his own moral views and disapproved the views of others, and so arose mutual disapproval among men. As a result, father and son and elder and younger brothers became enemies and were estranged from each other, since they were unable to reach any agreement. Everybody worked for the disadvantage of the others with water, fire, and poison. Surplus energy was not spent for mutual aid; surplus goods were allowed to rot without sharing; excellent teachings (dao, ) were kept secret and not revealed." Chapter 3 - 1His proposal was to unify rules according to a single moral system or standard (fa, 法) that can be used by anyone: calculating benefit of each act. In that way, the ruler of the state and his subjects will have the same moral system; cooperation and joint efforts will be the rule. Later his proposal was strongly rejected by confucianism (especially Mencius) because of the preference of benefit over morals.


title: State of nature

text: The pure state of nature, or "the natural condition of mankind", was described by the 17th century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes in "Leviathan" and his earlier work "De Cive". Hobbes argued that natural inequalities between humans are not so great as to give anyone clear superiority; and thus all must live in constant fear of loss or violence; so that "during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man". In this state, every person has a natural right to do anything one thinks necessary for preserving one's own life, and life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" ("Leviathan," Chapters XIII–XIV). Hobbes described this natural condition with the Latin phrase (bellum omnium contra omnes) meaning (war of all against all), in "De Cive".


title: State of nature

text: Within the state of nature, there is neither personal property nor injustice since there is no law, except for certain natural precepts discovered by reason ("laws of nature"): the first of which is "that every man ought to endeavour peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it" ("Leviathan", Ch. XIV); and the second is "that a man be willing, when others are so too, as far forth as for peace and defence of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow other men against himself" ("loc. cit."). From here, Hobbes developed the way out of the state of nature into political society and government by mutual contracts.


title: State of nature

text: According to Hobbes, the state of nature exists at all times among independent countries, over whom there is no law except for those same precepts or laws of nature ("Leviathan", Chapters XIII, XXX end). His view of the state of nature helped to serve as a basis for theories of international law and relations and even some theories about domestic relations.


title: State of nature

text: John Locke considers the state of nature in his "Second Treatise on Civil Government" written around the time of the Exclusion Crisis in England during the 1680s. For Locke, in the state of nature all men are free "to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature." (2nd Tr., §4). "The state of Nature has a law of Nature to govern it", and that law is reason. Locke believes that reason teaches that "no one ought to harm another in his life, liberty, and or property" (2nd Tr., §6) ; and that transgressions of this may be punished. Locke describes the state of nature and civil society to be opposites of each other, and the need for civil society comes in part from the perpetual existence of the state of nature. This view of the state of nature is partly deduced from Christian belief (unlike Hobbes, whose philosophy is not dependent upon any prior theology).


title: State of nature

text: Although it may be natural to assume that Locke was responding to Hobbes, Locke never refers to Hobbes by name, and may instead have been responding to other writers of the day, like Robert Filmer. In fact, Locke's First Treatise is entirely a response to Filmer's "Patriarcha", and takes a step by step method to refuting Filmer's theory set out in "Patriarcha". The conservative party at the time had rallied behind Filmer's "Patriarcha", whereas the Whigs, scared of another persecution of Protestants, rallied behind the theory set out by Locke in his "Two Treatises of Government" as it gave a clear theory as to why the people would be justified in overthrowing a monarchy which abuses the trust they had placed in it.


title: State of nature

text: Montesquieu makes use of the concept of the state of nature in his "The Spirit of the Laws", first printed in 1748. Montesquieu states the thought process behind early human beings before the formation of society. He says that human beings would have the faculty of knowing and would first think to preserve their life in the state. Human beings would also at first feel themselves to be impotent and weak. As a result, humans would not be likely to attack each other in this state. Next, humans would seek nourishment and out of fear, and impulse would eventually unite to create society. Once society was created, a state of war would ensue amongst societies which would have been all created the same way. The purpose of war is the preservation of the society and the self. The formation of law within society is the reflection and application of reason for Montesquieu.


title: State of nature

text: Hobbes' view was challenged in the eighteenth century by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who claimed that Hobbes was taking socialized people and simply imagining them living outside of the society in which they were raised. He affirmed instead that people were neither good nor bad, but were born as a blank slate, and later society and the environment influence which way we lean. In Rousseau's state of nature, people did not know each other enough to come into serious conflict and they did have normal values. The modern society, and the ownership it entails, is blamed for the disruption of the state of nature which Rousseau sees as true freedom.


title: State of nature

text: David Hume offers in "A Treatise of Human Nature" (1739) that human beings are naturally social: "'Tis utterly impossible for men to remain any considerable time in that savage condition, which precedes society; but that his very first state and situation may justly be esteem'd social. This, however, hinders not, but that philosophers may, if they please, extend their reasoning to the suppos'd state of nature; provided they allow it to be a mere philosophical fiction, which never had, and never could have any reality."


title: State of nature

text: Hume's ideas about human nature expressed in the "Treatise" suggest that he would be happy with neither Hobbes' nor his contemporary Rousseau's thought-experiments. He explicitly derides as incredible the hypothetical humanity described in Hobbes' "Leviathan". Additionally, he argues in "Of the Origin of Justice and Property" that if mankind were universally benevolent, we would not hold Justice to be a virtue: "’tis only from the selfishness and confin’d generosity of men, along with the scanty provision nature has made for his wants, that justice derives its origin."


title: State of nature

text: John C. Calhoun, in his "Disquisition on Government", (1850) wrote that a state of nature is merely hypothetical and argues that the concept is self-contradictory and that political states naturally always existed. "It is, indeed, difficult to explain how an opinion so destitute of all sound reasoning, ever could have been so extensively entertained, ... I refer to the assertion, that all men are equal in the state of nature; meaning, by a state of nature, a state of individuality, supposed to have existed prior to the social and political state; and in which men lived apart and independent of each other... But such a state is purely hypothetical. It never did, nor can exist; as it is inconsistent with the preservation and perpetuation of the race. It is, therefore, a great misnomer to call it the state of nature. Instead of being the natural state of man, it is, of all conceivable states, the most opposed to his nature—most repugnant to his feelings, and most incompatible with his wants. His natural state is, the social and political—the one for which his Creator made him, and the only one in which he can preserve and perfect his race. As, then, there never was such a state as the, so called, state of nature, and never can be, it follows, that men, instead of being born in it, are born in the social and political state; and of course, instead of being born free and equal, are born subject, not only to parental authority, but to the laws and institutions of the country where born, and under whose protection they draw their first breath."


title: State of nature

text: John Rawls used what amounted to an artificial state of nature. To develop his theory of justice, Rawls places everyone in the original position. The original position is a hypothetical state of nature used as a thought experiment. People in the original position have no society and are under a veil of ignorance that prevents them from knowing how they may benefit from society. They lack foreknowledge of their intelligence, wealth, or abilities. Rawls reasons that people in the original position would want a society where they had their basic liberties protected and where they had some economic guarantees as well. If society were to be constructed from scratch through a social agreement between individuals, these principles would be the expected basis of such an agreement. Thus, these principles should form the basis of real, modern societies since everyone should consent to them if society were organized from scratch in fair agreements.


title: State of nature

text: Rawls' Harvard colleague Robert Nozick countered the liberal "A Theory of Justice" with the libertarian "Anarchy, State, and Utopia", also grounded in the state of nature tradition. Nozick argued that a minimalist state of property rights and basic law enforcement would develop out of a state of nature without violating anyone's rights or using force. Mutual agreements among individuals rather than social contract would lead to this minimal state.


title: State of nature

text: In Hobbes' view, once a civil government is instituted, the state of nature has disappeared between individuals because of the civil power which exists to enforce contracts and the laws of nature generally. Between nations, however, no such power exists and therefore nations have the same rights to preserve themselves—including making war—as individuals possessed. Such a conclusion led some writers to the idea of an association of nations or worldwide civil society, an example being Immanuel Kant's work on perpetual peace.


title: State of nature

text: Rawls also examines the state of nature between nations. In his work the "Law of Peoples", Rawls applies a modified version of his original position thought experiment to international relationships. Rawls says that peoples, not states, form the basic unit that should be examined. States should be encouraged to follow the principles from Rawls' earlier "A Theory of Justice". Democracy seems like it would be the most logical means of accomplishing these goals, but benign non-democracies should be seen as acceptable at the international stage. Rawls develops eight principles for how a people should act on an international stage.


title: State of nature

text: Within international relations theory, anarchy is the state of affairs wherein nations exist without a higher power to govern them. The three principal schools of international relations theory hold different beliefs about anarchy and how to approach it. Realism approaches global politics as if the world's nations were each an individual under a state of nature: it tends to take anarchy for granted, and does not see a solution to it as possible or even necessarily desirable. Liberalism claims that anarchy may be mitigated through the spread of liberal democracy and the use of international organizations, thus creating a global civil society; this approach may be summed up by the words of George H. W. Bush, who sought to create "a world where the rule of law, not the law of the jungle, governs the conduct of nations". Constructivist theorists, like liberals, also do not see anarchy as a given in international affairs, but are open to other approaches besides those given by realists and liberals.


title: Esophagogastroduodenoscopy

text: Esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) or oesophagogastroduodenoscopy (OGD), also called by various other names, is a diagnostic endoscopic procedure that visualizes the upper part of the gastrointestinal tract down to the duodenum. It is considered a minimally invasive procedure since it does not require an incision into one of the major body cavities and does not require any significant recovery after the procedure (unless sedation or anesthesia has been used). However, a sore throat is common.


title: Esophagogastroduodenoscopy

text: The words "esophagogastroduodenoscopy" (EGD; American English) and "oesophagogastroduodenoscopy" (OGD; British English; see spelling differences) are both pronounced . It is also called "panendoscopy" (PES) and "upper GI endoscopy". It is also often called just "upper endoscopy", "upper GI", or even just "endoscopy"; because EGD is the most commonly performed type of endoscopy, the ambiguous term "endoscopy" is sometimes informally used to refer to EGD by default. The term "gastroscopy" literally focuses on the stomach alone, but in practice, the usage overlaps.


title: Esophagogastroduodenoscopy

text: When used in infants, the esophagogastroduodenoscope may compress the trachealis muscle, which narrows the trachea. This can result in reduced airflow to the lungs. Infants may be intubated to make sure that the trachea is fixed open.


title: Esophagogastroduodenoscopy

text: Problems of gastrointestinal "function" are usually not well diagnosed by endoscopy since "motion" or "secretion" of the gastrointestinal tract is not easily inspected by EGD. Nonetheless, findings such as excess fluid or poor motion of the gut during endoscopy can be suggestive of disorders of function. Irritable bowel syndrome and functional dyspepsia are not diagnosed with EGD, but EGD may be helpful in excluding other diseases that mimic these common disorders.


title: Esophagogastroduodenoscopy

text: The tip of the endoscope should be lubricated and checked for critical functions including tip angulations, air and water suction, and image quality.


title: Esophagogastroduodenoscopy

text: The patient is kept NPO (nil per os) or NBM (nothing by mouth) for at least 4 hours before the procedure. Most patients tolerate the procedure with only topical anesthesia of the oropharynx using lidocaine spray. However, some patients may need sedation and the very anxious/agitated patient may even need a general anesthetic. Informed consent is obtained before the procedure. The main risks are bleeding and perforation. The risk is increased when a biopsy or other intervention is performed.


title: Esophagogastroduodenoscopy

text: The patient lies on their left side with the head resting comfortably on a pillow. A mouth-guard is placed between the teeth to prevent the patient from biting on the endoscope. The endoscope is then passed over the tongue and into the oropharynx. This is the most uncomfortable stage for the patient. Quick and gentle manipulation under vision guides the endoscope into the esophagus. The endoscope is gradually advanced down the esophagus making note of any pathology. Excessive insufflation of the stomach is avoided at this stage. The endoscope is quickly passed through the stomach and through the pylorus to examine the first and second parts of the duodenum. Once this has been completed, the endoscope is withdrawn into the stomach and a more thorough examination is performed including a J-maneuver. This involves retroflexing the tip of the scope so it resembles a 'J' shape in order to examine the fundus and gastroesophageal junction. Any additional procedures are performed at this stage. The air in the stomach is aspirated before removing the endoscope. Still photographs can be made during the procedure and later shown to the patient to help explain any findings.


title: Esophagogastroduodenoscopy

text: In its most basic use, the endoscope is used to inspect the internal anatomy of the digestive tract. Often inspection alone is sufficient, but biopsy is a valuable adjunct to endoscopy. Small biopsies can be made with a pincer (biopsy forceps) which is passed through the scope and allows sampling of 1 to 3 mm pieces of tissue under direct vision. The intestinal mucosa heals quickly from such biopsies.


title: Vitol

text: Vitol is a Swiss-based multinational energy and commodity trading company that was founded in Rotterdam in 1966 by Henk Viëtor and Jacques Detiger. Though trading, logistics and distribution are at the core of its business, these are complemented by refining, shipping, terminals, exploration and production, power generation, and retail businesses. Vitol has 40 offices worldwide and its largest operations are in Geneva, Houston, London, and Singapore.


title: Vitol

text: With revenues of $279 billion in 2021, Vitol is the largest independent energy trader in the world, and would be the sixth largest company worldwide as measured by revenue on the "Fortune" Global 500 list. Given the secrecy Vitol maintains around all its business activities and the limited nature of its statutory disclosures, it is excluded from rankings. The company, however, does provide some more financial information to its lenders and to a few other entities with which it trades. The company ships more than 350 million tonnes of crude oil per year and controls 250 supertankers and other vessels to move it around the world. On average it handles more than 7.6 million barrels a day of oil and products - roughly equivalent to the daily consumption of Japan - the world's fourth largest oil consumer after the United States, China, and India.


title: Vitol

text: Vitol is a privately held company by about 400 partners who are current and former employees, who are known for their intense culture of privacy and secrecy from both competitors and the general public. It is reported that Vitol made a payout of $2.9 Billion to all its partners in 2021.


title: Vitol

text: In addition to the global crude and product trading businesses, the company trades coal, natural gas, power, ethanol, methanol, gasoline, LNG, LPG, naphtha, bitumen, base oils and carbon emissions.


title: Vitol

text: Vitol (45% stake), along with IFM Investors (45% stake) and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (10% stake), own VTTI B.V., a storage and terminals business with a capacity of around 8.7 million cubic meters (MCM) in 11 countries: Netherlands (1.328 MCM + 1.118 MCM), Latvia (1.195 MCM), UAE (1.180 MCM), Belgium (0.965 MCM), Malaysia (0.893 MCM), Cyprus (0.544 MCM), USA (0.452 MCM), Argentina (0.218 MCM), Kenya (0.111 MCM), Russia (0.049 MCM), Nigeria (0.016 MCM). MISC Berhad held a 50% stake in VTTI from May 2010 until August 2015. In April 2022, Vitol announced its intention to stop trading Russian petrol by the end of 2022 due to International sanctions during the Russo-Ukrainian War.


title: Vitol

text: In January 2012 Vitol acquired a stake in a subsidiary of the South African shipping firm Grindrod, which gives it access to a coal terminal in Mozambique.


title: Vitol

text: In addition to offices in Dubai and Bahrain, Vitol's key strategic asset in the Middle East is the Fujairah Refinery Company Limited (FRCL), which operates an 82,000 barrel per day refinery and a 1,034,000 cubic meter tank farm. FRCL has further development plans in place, which include a 140,000 cubic meter expansion of the tank farm, refurbishment of existing refining units and the installation of additional processing units. Vitol also has invested in refining assets in Bayernoil (Germany), Cressier (Switzerland), Antwerp (Belgium) and the Geelong refinery near Melbourne (Australia). In 2018, Vitol bought the 85,000 barrel per day Rotterdam Condensate Splitter from Koch Industries.


title: Vitol

text: Vitol, through its wholly owned subsidiaries Arawak Energy Limited and Vitol E&P, has interests in various exploration and production projects worldwide. Arawak Energy is mainly focused on the FSU where it produces oil and gas in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, while Vitol E&P holds a portfolio of exploration and development assets along the West African Transform Margin in Ghana and the Ivory Coast.


title: Vitol

text: In February 2014, it was reported that Vitol, in concert with the Abu Dhabi Investment Council, had bought the downstream businesses of Shell Australia (excluding aviation) for a total of approximately AU$2.9 billion. The purchase included Shell's Geelong Refinery and its 870-site retail business, along with its bulk fuels, bitumen, chemicals and part of its lubricants businesses in Australia. The business trades as Viva Energy, although the Shell brand remains on many of its retail products.


title: Vitol

text: Further in January 2015, Vitol in collaboration with Eni signed a $7 billion agreement with the government, for the production of oil and gas at Cape Three Points in Western Region of Ghana. The contract is expected to help meet Ghana's burgeoning energy needs.


title: Vitol

text: Vitol Aviation is focused on Europe, North America and Africa, serving the world’s largest airlines and military customers with 5.7 million tonnes of jet fuel a year into wing.


title: Vitol

text: In 2013, Vitol invested in its first power plant, VPI Immingham in the UK. The combined heat and power plant (CHP) is one of the largest of its kind in Europe, capable of generating 1,240 MW and up to 930 tonnes of steam per hour which is used by nearby refineries. The gas-fired plant provides approximately 2.5% of UK peak electricity demand.


title: Vitol

text: In 2021 Vitol had 1.2 GW of renewable power generation currently operational, planned & with further investments across the energy spectrum.


title: Vitol

text: A 2001 article in The Observer stated that in 1995 Vitol had secretly paid US$1 million to Serbian war criminal Arkan to settle a deal with a Serbian Oil company, Orion. Vitol has denied all charges, arguing that no government agency has ever prosecuted the company in this respect.


title: Vitol

text: In 2007, Vitol pleaded guilty to grand larceny in a New York court for paying surcharges to Iraq's national oil company during Saddam's regime and circumventing the UN oil-for-food program. Vitol subsequently paid $17.5 million in restitution for its actions.


title: Vitol

text: According to an article in the Financial Times, Vitol was the company to organise the first controversial sale of Libyan rebel oil to Tesoro Corporation in early April 2011. According to the "Financial Times", the company was approached by the Qatari national oil company to sell a cargo of crude oil supplied by the Libyans in exchange for technological supplies and fuel for the National Transitional Council of Libya.


title: Vitol

text: In September 2012, an article in "Reuters" alleged that the company had bought and sold Iranian fuel oil, bypassing an EU embargo against Tehran. Vitol bought 2 million barrels using a ship-to-ship transfer off the coast of Malaysia from a National Iranian Tanker Company vessel and sold it to Chinese traders. The article stated that as Vitol is based in Switzerland, which did not implement Western sanctions, Vitol had skirted the charges.


title: Vitol

text: In 2013, The Telegraph alleged that the company had been using, for over a decade, an Employee Benefit Trust, avoiding paying income tax for its UK staff.


title: Vitol

text: In 2018, The Dispute Settlement and Sanctions Committee of CRE, the French Energy Regulatory Commission, fined VITOL S.A. €5 million for engaging in market manipulation on the French Southern virtual Gas Trading Point (“PEG Sud”) between 1 June 2013 and 31 March 2014. Vitol appealed this decision, but the French Council of State confirmed the sanction in June 2021.


title: Vitol

text: In 2020, Vitol Inc. agreed to pay a combined total criminal penalty of $135 million to resolve bribery charges with law enforcement authorities in the United States and Brazil. The resolution arises out of Vitol schemes to pay bribes to officials in Brazil, Ecuador and Mexico.


title: Vitol

text: Vitol Asia Pte Ltd operates as an energy and commodities company, and offers refining, trading, shipping, and storage of crude oil and energy products.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: The Arab–Byzantine wars were a series of wars between a number of Muslim Arab dynasties and the Byzantine Empire between the 7th and 11th centuries AD. Conflict started during the initial Muslim conquests, under the expansionist Rashidun and Umayyad caliphs, in the 7th century and continued by their successors until the mid-11th century.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: The emergence of Muslim Arabs from Arabia in the 630s resulted in the rapid loss of Byzantium's southern provinces (Syria and Egypt) to the Arab Caliphate. Over the next fifty years, under the Umayyad caliphs, the Arabs would launch repeated raids into still-Byzantine Asia Minor, twice besiege the Byzantine capital of Constantinople, and conquer the Byzantine Exarchate of Africa. The situation did not stabilize until after the failure of the Second Arab Siege of Constantinople in 718, when the Taurus Mountains on the eastern rim of Asia Minor became established as the mutual, heavily fortified and largely depopulated frontier. Under the Abbasid Empire, relations became more normal, with embassies exchanged and even periods of truce, but conflict remained the norm, with almost annual raids and counter-raids, sponsored either by the Abbasid government or by local rulers, well into the 10th century.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: During the first centuries, the Byzantines were usually on the defensive, and avoided open field battles, preferring to retreat to their fortified strongholds. Only after 740 did they begin to launch their raids in an attempt to combat the Arabs and take the lands they had lost, but still the Abbasid Empire was able to retaliate with often massive and destructive invasions of Asia Minor. With the decline and fragmentation of the Abbasid state after 861 and the concurrent strengthening of the Byzantine Empire under the Macedonian dynasty, the tide gradually turned. Over a period of fifty years from ca. 920 to 976, the Byzantines finally broke through the Muslim defences and restored their control over northern Syria and Greater Armenia. The last century of the Arab–Byzantine wars was dominated by frontier conflicts with the Fatimids in Syria, but the border remained stable until the appearance of a new people, the Seljuk Turks, after 1060.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: The Arabs also took to the sea, and from the 650s on, the entire Mediterranean Sea became a battleground, with raids and counter-raids being launched against islands and the coastal settlements. Arab raids reached a peak in the 9th and early 10th centuries, after the conquests of Crete, Malta and Sicily, with their fleets reaching the coasts of France and Dalmatia and even the suburbs of Constantinople.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: The prolonged and escalating Byzantine–Sasanian wars of the 6th and 7th centuries and the recurring outbreaks of bubonic plague (Plague of Justinian) left both empires exhausted and vulnerable in the face of the sudden emergence and expansion of the Arabs. The last of the wars between the Roman and Persian empires ended with victory for the Byzantines: Emperor Heraclius regained all lost territories, and restored the True Cross to Jerusalem in 629.