title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: Nevertheless, neither empire was given any chance to recover, as within a few years they found themselves in conflict with the Arabs (newly united by Islam), which, according to Howard-Johnston, "can only be likened to a human tsunami". According to George Liska, the "unnecessarily prolonged Byzantine–Persian conflict opened the way for Islam".


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: In the late 620s, the Islamic Prophet Muhammad had already managed to unify much of Arabia under Muslim rule via conquest as well as making alliances with neighboring tribes, and it was under his leadership that the first Muslim–Byzantine skirmishes took place. Just a few months after Emperor Heraclius and the Persian general Shahrbaraz agreed on terms for the withdrawal of Persian troops from occupied Byzantine eastern provinces in 629, Arab and Byzantine troops confronted each other at the Battle of Mu'tah in response to the murder of Muhammad's ambassador at the hands of the Ghassanids, a Byzantine vassal kingdom. Muhammad died in 632 and was succeeded by Abu Bakr, the first Caliph with undisputed control of the entire Arabian Peninsula after the successful Ridda wars, which resulted in the consolidation of a powerful Muslim state throughout the peninsula.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: According to Muslim biographies, Muhammed, having received intelligence that Byzantine forces were concentrating in northern Arabia with intentions of invading Arabia, led a Muslim army north to Tabuk in present-day northwestern Saudi Arabia, with the intention of pre-emptively engaging the Byzantine army, however, the Byzantine army had retreated beforehand. Though it was not a battle in the typical sense, nevertheless the event represented the first Arab encounter against the Byzantines. It did not, however, lead immediately to a military confrontation.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: There is no contemporary Byzantine account of the Tabuk expedition, and many of the details come from much later Muslim sources. It has been argued that there is in one Byzantine source possibly referencing the Battle of Mu´tah traditionally dated 629, but this is not certain. The first engagements may have started as conflicts with the Arab client states of the Byzantine and Sassanid empires: the Ghassanids and the Lakhmids of Al-Hirah. In any case, Muslim Arabs after 634 certainly pursued a full-blown offensive against both empires, resulting in the conquest of the Levant, Egypt and Persia for Islam. The most successful Arab generals were Khalid ibn al-Walid and 'Amr ibn al-'As.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: In the Levant, the invading Rashidun army were engaged by a Byzantine army composed of imperial troops as well as local levies. According to Islamic historians, Monophysites and Jews throughout Syria welcomed the Arabs as liberators, as they were discontented with the rule of the Byzantines.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: The Roman Emperor Heraclius had fallen ill and was unable to personally lead his armies to resist the Arab conquests of Syria and Roman Paelestina in 634. In a battle fought near Ajnadayn in the summer of 634, the Rashidun Caliphate army achieved a decisive victory. After their victory at the Fahl, Muslim forces conquered Damascus in 634 under the command of Khalid ibn al-Walid. The Byzantine response involved the collection and dispatch of the maximum number of available troops under major commanders, including Theodore Trithyrius and the Armenian general Vahan, to eject the Muslims from their newly won territories.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: At the Battle of Yarmouk in 636, however, the Muslims, having studied the ground in detail, lured the Byzantines into pitched battle, which the Byzantines usually avoided, and into a series of costly assaults, before turning the deep valleys and cliffs into a catastrophic death-trap. Heraclius' farewell exclamation (according to the 9th-century historian Al-Baladhuri) while departing Antioch for Constantinople, is expressive of his disappointment: "Peace unto thee, O Syria, and what an excellent country this is for the enemy!" The impact of Syria's loss on the Byzantines is illustrated by Joannes Zonaras' words: "[...] since then [after the fall of Syria] the race of the Ishmaelites did not cease from invading and plundering the entire territory of the Romans".


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: In April 637 the Arabs, after a long siege, captured Jerusalem, which was surrendered by Patriarch Sophronius. In the summer of 637, the Muslims conquered Gaza, and, during the same period, the Byzantine authorities in Egypt and Mesopotamia purchased an expensive truce, which lasted three years for Egypt and one year for Mesopotamia. Antioch fell to the Muslim armies in late 637, and by then the Muslims occupied the whole of northern Syria, except for upper Mesopotamia, which they granted a one-year truce.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: At the expiration of this truce in 638–639, the Arabs overran Byzantine Mesopotamia and Byzantine Armenia, and terminated the conquest of Palestine by storming Caesarea Maritima and effecting their final capture of Ascalon. In December 639, the Muslims departed from Palestine to invade Egypt in early 640.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: By the time Heraclius died, much of Egypt had been lost, and by 637–638 the whole of Syria was in the hands of the armies of Islam. With 3,500–4,000 troops under his command, 'Amr ibn al-A'as first crossed into Egypt from Palestine at the end of 639 or the beginning of 640. He was progressively joined by further reinforcements, notably 12,000 soldiers by Zubayr ibn al-Awwam. 'Amr first besieged and conquered Babylon, and then attacked Alexandria. The Byzantines, divided and shocked by the sudden loss of so much territory, agreed to give up the city by September 642. The fall of Alexandria extinguished Byzantine rule in Egypt, and allowed the Muslims to continue their military expansion into North Africa; between 643 and 644 'Amr completed the conquest of Cyrenaica. Uthman succeeded Caliph Umar after his death.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: According to Arab historians, the local Christian Copts welcomed the Arabs just as the Monophysites did in Jerusalem. The loss of this lucrative province deprived the Byzantines of their valuable wheat supply, thereby causing food shortages throughout the Byzantine Empire and weakening its armies in the following decades.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: The Byzantine navy briefly won back Alexandria in 645, but lost it again in 646 shortly after the Battle of Nikiou. The Islamic forces raided Sicily in 652, while Cyprus and Crete were captured in 653.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: In 647, a Rashidun-Arab army led by Abdallah ibn al-Sa’ad invaded the Byzantine Exarchate of Africa. Tripolitania was conquered, followed by Sufetula, south of Carthage, and the governor and self-proclaimed Emperor of Africa Gregory was killed. Abdallah's booty-laden force returned to Egypt in 648 after Gregory's successor, Gennadius, promised them an annual tribute of some 300,000 "nomismata".


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: Following a civil war in the Arab Empire the Umayyads came to power under Muawiyah I. Under the Umayyads the conquest of the remaining Byzantine and northern Berber territories in North Africa was completed and the Arabs were able to move across large parts of the Berber world, invading Visigothic Spain through the Strait of Gibraltar, under the command of the allegedly Berber general Tariq ibn-Ziyad. But this happened only after they developed a naval power of their own, and they conquered and destroyed the Byzantine stronghold of Carthage between 695 and 698. The loss of Africa meant that soon, Byzantine control of the Western Mediterranean was challenged by a new and expanding Arab fleet, operating from Tunisia.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: Muawiyah began consolidating the Arab territory from the Aral Sea to the western border of Egypt. He put a governor in place in Egypt at al-Fustat, and launched raids into Anatolia in 663. Then from 665 to 689 a new North African campaign was launched to protect Egypt "from flank attack by Byzantine Cyrene". An Arab army of 40,000 took Barca, defeating 30,000 Byzantines.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: A vanguard of 10,000 Arabs under Uqba ibn Nafi followed from Damascus. In 670, Kairouan (modern Tunisia) was established as a base for further invasions; Kairouan would become the capital of the Islamic province of Ifriqiya, and one of the main Arabo-Islamic religious centers in the Middle Ages. Then ibn Nafi ""plunged into the heart of the country, traversed the wilderness in which his successors erected the splendid capitals of Fes and Morocco, and at length penetrated to the verge of the Atlantic and the great desert"".


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: In his conquest of the Maghreb, Uqba Ibn Nafi took the coastal cities of Bejaia and Tangier, overwhelming what had once been the Roman province of Mauretania where he was finally halted. As the historian Luis Garcia de Valdeavellano explains:


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: As the first tide of the Muslim conquests in the Near East ebbed off, and a semi-permanent border between the two powers was established, a wide zone, unclaimed by either Byzantines or Arabs and virtually deserted (known in Arabic as "al-Ḍawāḥī", "the outer lands" and in Greek as , "ta akra", "the extremities") emerged in Cilicia, along the southern approaches of the Taurus and Anti-Taurus mountain ranges, leaving Syria in Muslim and the Anatolian plateau in Byzantine hands. Both Emperor Heraclius and the Caliph 'Umar (r. 634–644) pursued a strategy of destruction within this zone, trying to transform it into an effective barrier between the two realms.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: Nevertheless, the Umayyads still considered the complete subjugation of Byzantium as their ultimate objective. Their thinking was dominated by Islamic teaching, which placed the infidel Byzantines in the "Dār al-Ḥarb", the "House of War", which, in the words of Islamic scholar Hugh N. Kennedy, "the Muslims should attack whenever possible; rather than peace interrupted by occasional conflict, the normal pattern was seen to be conflict interrupted by occasional, temporary truce ("hudna"). True peace ("ṣulḥ") could only come when the enemy accepted Islam or tributary status."


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: Both as governor of Syria and later as caliph, Muawiyah I (r. 661–680) was the driving force of the Muslim effort against Byzantium, especially by his creation of a fleet, which challenged the Byzantine navy and raided the Byzantine islands and coasts. To stop the Byzantine harassment from the sea during the Arab-Byzantine Wars, in 649 Muawiyah set up a navy, manned by Monophysitise Christian, Copt and Jacobite Syrian Christian sailors and Muslim troops. This resulted in the defeat of the Byzantine navy at the Battle of the Masts in 655, opening up the Mediterranean. The shocking defeat of the imperial fleet by the young Muslim navy at the Battle of the Masts in 655 was of critical importance: it opened up the Mediterranean, hitherto a "Roman lake", to Arab expansion, and began a centuries-long series of naval conflicts over the control of the Mediterranean waterways. 500 Byzantine ships were destroyed in the battle, and Emperor Constans II was almost killed. Under the instructions of the caliph Uthman ibn Affan, Muawiyah then prepared for the siege of Constantinople.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: Trade between the Muslim eastern and southern shores and the Christian northern shores almost ceased during this period, isolating Western Europe from developments in the Muslim world: "In antiquity, and again in the high Middle Ages, the voyage from Italy to Alexandria was commonplace; in early Islamic times the two countries were so remote that even the most basic information was unknown" (Kennedy). Muawiyah also initiated the first large-scale raids into Anatolia from 641 on. These expeditions, aiming both at plunder and at weakening and keeping the Byzantines at bay, as well as the corresponding retaliatory Byzantine raids, eventually became established as a fixture of Byzantine–Arab warfare for the next three centuries.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: The outbreak of the Muslim Civil War in 656 bought a precious breathing pause for Byzantium, which Emperor Constans II (r. 641–668) used to shore up his defences, extend and consolidate his control over Armenia and most importantly, initiate a major army reform with lasting effect: the establishment of the "themata", the large territorial commands into which Anatolia, the major contiguous territory remaining to the Empire, was divided. The remains of the old field armies were settled in each of them, and soldiers were allocated land there in payment of their service. The "themata" would form the backbone of the Byzantine defensive system for centuries to come.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: After his victory in the civil war, Muawiyah launched a series of attacks against Byzantine holdings in Africa, Sicily and the East. By 670, the Muslim fleet had penetrated into the Sea of Marmara and stayed at Cyzicus during the winter. Four years later, a massive Muslim fleet reappeared in the Marmara and re-established a base at Cyzicus, from there they raided the Byzantine coasts almost at will. Finally in 676, Muawiyah sent an army to invest Constantinople from land as well, beginning the First Arab Siege of the city. Constantine IV (r. 661–685) however used a devastating new weapon that came to be known as "Greek fire", invented by a Christian refugee from Syria named Kallinikos of Heliopolis, to decisively defeat the attacking Umayyad navy in the Sea of Marmara, resulting in the lifting of the siege in 678. The returning Muslim fleet suffered further losses due to storms, while the army lost many men to the thematic armies who attacked them on their route back.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: Among those killed in the siege was Eyup, the standard bearer of Muhammed and the last of his companions; to Muslims today, his tomb is considered one of the holiest sites in Istanbul. The Byzantine victory over the invading Umayyads halted the Islamic expansion into Europe for almost thirty years.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: The setback at Constantinople was followed by further reverses across the vast Muslim empire. As Gibbon writes, "this Mahometan Alexander, who sighed for new worlds, was unable to preserve his recent conquests. By the universal defection of the Greeks and Africans he was recalled from the shores of the Atlantic." His forces were directed at putting down rebellions, and in one such battle he was surrounded by insurgents and killed. Then, the third governor of Africa, Zuheir, was overthrown by a powerful army, sent from Constantinople by Constantine IV for the relief of Carthage. Meanwhile, a second Arab civil war was raging in Arabia and Syria resulting in a series of four caliphs between the death of Muawiyah in 680 and the ascension of Abd al-Malik in 685, and was ongoing until 692 with the death of the rebel leader.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: The Saracen Wars of Justinian II (r. 685–695 and 705–711), last emperor of the Heraclian Dynasty, "reflected the general chaos of the age". After a successful campaign he made a truce with the Arabs, agreeing on joint possession of Armenia, Iberia and Cyprus; however, by removing 12,000 Christian Mardaites from their native Lebanon, he removed a major obstacle for the Arabs in Syria, and in 692, after the disastrous Battle of Sebastopolis, the Muslims invaded and conquered all of Armenia. Deposed in 695, with Carthage lost in 698, Justinian returned to power from 705 to 711. His second reign was marked by Arab victories in Asia Minor and civil unrest. Reportedly, he ordered his guards to execute the only unit that had not deserted him after one battle, to prevent their desertion in the next.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: Justinian's first and second depositions were followed by internal disorder, with successive revolts and emperors lacking legitimacy or support. In this climate, the Umayyads consolidated their control of Armenia and Cilicia, and began preparing a renewed offensive against Constantinople. In Byzantium, the general Leo the Isaurian (r. 717–741) had just seized the throne in March 717, when the massive Muslim army under the famed Umayyad prince and general Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik began moving towards the imperial capital. The Caliphate's army and navy, led by Maslama, numbered some 120,000 men and 1,800 ships according to the sources. Whatever the real number, it was a huge force, far larger than the imperial army. Thankfully for Leo and the Empire, the capital's sea walls had recently been repaired and strengthened. In addition, the emperor concluded an alliance with the Bulgar khan Tervel, who agreed to harass the invaders' rear.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: From July 717 to August 718, the city was besieged by land and sea by the Muslims, who built an extensive double line of circumvallation and contravallation on the landward side, isolating the capital. Their attempt to complete the blockade by sea however failed when the Byzantine navy employed Greek fire against them; the Arab fleet kept well off the city walls, leaving Constantinople's supply routes open. Forced to extend the siege into winter, the besieging army suffered horrendous casualties from the cold and the lack of provisions.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: In spring, new reinforcements were sent by the new caliph, Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz (r. 717–720), by sea from Africa and Egypt and over land through Asia Minor. The crews of the new fleets were composed mostly of Christians, who began defecting in large numbers, while the land forces were ambushed and defeated in Bithynia. As famine and an epidemic continued to plague the Arab camp, the siege was abandoned on 15 August 718. On its return, the Arab fleet suffered further casualties to storms and an eruption of the volcano of Thera.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: The first wave of the Muslim conquests ended with the siege of Constantinople in 718, and the border between the two empires became stabilized along the mountains of eastern Anatolia. Raids and counter-raids continued on both sides and became almost ritualized, but the prospect of outright conquest of Byzantium by the Caliphate receded. This led to far more regular, and often friendly, diplomatic contacts, as well as a reciprocal recognition of the two empires.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: In response to the Muslim threat, which reached its peak in the first half of the 8th century, the Isaurian emperors adopted the policy of Iconoclasm, which was abandoned in 786 only to be readopted in the 820s and finally abandoned in 843. Under the Macedonian dynasty, exploiting the decline and fragmentation of the Abbasid Caliphate, the Byzantines gradually went on the offensive, and recovered much territory in the 10th century, which was lost however after 1071 to the Seljuk Turks.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: Following the failure to capture Constantinople in 717–718, the Umayyads for a time diverted their attention elsewhere, allowing the Byzantines to take to the offensive, making some gains in Armenia. From 720/721 however the Arab armies resumed their expeditions against Byzantine Anatolia, although now they were no longer aimed at conquest, but rather large-scale raids, plundering and devastating the countryside and only occasionally attacking forts or major settlements.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: Under the late Umayyad and early Abbasid caliphs, the frontier between Byzantium and the Caliphate became stabilized along the line of the Taurus-Antitaurus mountain ranges. On the Arab side, Cilicia was permanently occupied and its deserted cities, such as Adana, Mopsuestia (al-Massisa) and, most importantly, Tarsus, were refortified and resettled under the early Abbasids. Likewise, in Upper Mesopotamia, places like Germanikeia (Mar'ash), Hadath and Melitene (Malatya) became major military centers. These two regions came to form the two-halves of a new fortified frontier zone, the "thughur".


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: Both the Umayyads and later the Abbasids continued to regard the annual expeditions against the Caliphate's "traditional enemy" as an integral part of the continuing "jihad", and they quickly became organized in a regular fashion: one to two summer expeditions (pl. "ṣawā'if", sing. "ṣā'ifa") sometimes accompanied by a naval attack and/or followed by winter expeditions ("shawātī"). The summer expeditions were usually two separate attacks, the "expedition of the left" ("al-ṣā'ifa al-yusrā/al-ṣughrā") launched from the Cilician "thughur" and consisting mostly of Syrian troops, and the usually larger "expedition of the right" ("al-ṣā'ifa al-yumnā/al-kubrā") launched from Malatya and composed of Mesopotamian troops. The raids were also largely confined to the borderlands and the central Anatolian plateau, and only rarely reached the peripheral coastlands, which the Byzantines fortified heavily.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: Under the more aggressive Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik (r. 723–743), the Arab expeditions intensified for a time, and were led by some of the Caliphate's most capable generals, including princes of the Umayyad dynasty like Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik and al-Abbas ibn al-Walid or Hisham's own sons Mu'awiyah, Maslama and Sulayman. This was still a time when Byzantium was fighting for survival, and "the frontier provinces, devastated by war, were a land of ruined cities and deserted villages where a scattered population looked to rocky castles or impenetrable mountains rather than the armies of the empire to provide a minimum of security" (Kennedy).


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: In response to the renewal of Arab invasions, and to a sequence of natural disasters such as the eruptions of the volcanic island of Thera, the Emperor Leo III the Isaurian concluded that the Empire had lost divine favour. Already in 722 he had tried to force the conversion of the Empire's Jews, but soon he began to turn his attention to the veneration of icons, which some bishops had come to regard as idolatrous. In 726, Leo published an edict condemning their use and showed himself increasingly critical of the iconophiles. He formally banned depictions of religious figures in a court council in 730.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: This decision provoked major opposition both from the people and the church, especially the Bishop of Rome, which Leo did not take into account. In the words of Warren Treadgold: "He saw no need to consult the church, and he appears to have been surprised by the depth of the popular opposition he encountered". The controversy weakened the Byzantine Empire, and was a key factor in the schism between the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Bishop of Rome.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: The Umayyad Caliphate however was increasingly distracted by conflicts elsewhere, especially its confrontation with the Khazars, with whom Leo III had concluded an alliance, marrying his son and heir, Constantine V (r. 741–775) to the Khazar princess Tzitzak. Only in the late 730s did the Muslim raids again become a threat, but the great Byzantine victory at Akroinon and the turmoil of the Abbasid Revolution led to a pause in Arab attacks against the Empire. It also opened up the way for a more aggressive stance by Constantine V (r. 741–775), who in 741 attacked the major Arab base of Melitene, and continued scoring further victories. These successes were also interpreted by Leo III and his son Constantine as evidence of God's renewed favour, and strengthened the position of Iconoclasm within the Empire.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: Unlike their Umayyad predecessors, the Abbasid caliphs did not pursue active expansion: in general terms, they were content with the territorial limits achieved, and whatever external campaigns they waged were retaliatory or preemptive, meant to preserve their frontier and impress Abbasid might upon their neighbours. At the same time, the campaigns against Byzantium in particular remained important for domestic consumption. The annual raids, which had almost lapsed in the turmoil following the Abbasid Revolution, were undertaken with renewed vigour from ca. 780 on, and were the only expeditions where the Caliph or his sons participated in person.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: As a symbol of the Caliph's ritual role as the leader of the Muslim community, they were closely paralleled in official propaganda by the leadership by Abbasid family members of the annual pilgrimage ("hajj") to Mecca. In addition, the constant warfare on the Syrian marches was useful to the Abbasids as it provided employment for the Syrian and Iraqi military elites and the various volunteers ("muṭṭawi‘a") who flocked to participate in the "jihad".


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: Wishing to emphasize his piety and role as the leader of the Muslim community, Caliph Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809) in particular was the most energetic of the early Abbasid rulers in his pursuit of warfare against Byzantium: he established his seat at Raqqa close to the frontier, he complemented the "thughur" in 786 by forming a second defensive line along northern Syria, the "al-'Awasim", and was reputed to be spending alternating years leading the "Hajj" and leading a campaign into Anatolia, including the largest expedition assembled under the Abbasids, in 806.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: Continuing a trend started by his immediate predecessors, his reign also saw the development of far more regular contacts between the Abbasid court and Byzantium, with the exchange of embassies and letters being far more common than under the Umayyad rulers. Despite Harun's hostility, "the existence of embassies is a sign that the Abbasids accepted that the Byzantine empire was a power with which they had to deal on equal terms" (Kennedy).


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: Civil war occurred in the Byzantine Empire, often with Arab support. With the support of Caliph Al-Ma'mun, Arabs under the leadership of Thomas the Slav invaded, so that within a matter of months, only two "themata" in Asia Minor remained loyal to Emperor Michael II. When the Arabs captured Thessalonica, the Empire's second largest city, it was quickly re-captured by the Byzantines. Thomas's 821 siege of Constantinople did not get past the city walls, and he was forced to retreat.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: The Arabs did not relinquish their designs on Asia Minor and in 838 began another invasion, sacking the city of Amorion.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: While a relative equilibrium reigned in the East, the situation in the western Mediterranean was irretrievably altered when the Aghlabids began their slow conquest of Sicily in the 820s. Using Tunisia as their launching pad, the Arabs started by conquering Palermo in 831, Messina in 842, Enna in 859, culminating in the capture of Syracuse in 878.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: This in turn opened up southern Italy and the Adriatic Sea for raids and settlement. Byzantium further suffered an important setback with the loss of Crete to a band of Andalusian exiles, who established a piratical emirate on the island and for more than a century ravaged the coasts of the hitherto secure Aegean Sea.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: In 863 during the reign of Michael III, the Byzantine general Petronas defeated and routed an Arab invasion force under the command of Umar al-Aqta at the Battle of Lalakaon inflicting heavy casualties and removing the Emirate of Melitene as a serious military threat. Umar died in battle and the remnants of his army was annihilated in subsequent clashes, allowing the Byzantines to celebrate the victory as revenge for the earlier Arab sacking of Amorion, while news of the defeats sparked riots in Baghdad and Samarra. In the following months the Byzantines successfully invaded Armenia killing the Muslim governor in Armenia Emir Ali ibn Yahya as well as the Paulician leader Karbeas. These Byzantines victories marked a turning point which ushered in a century long Byzantine offensive eastward into Muslim territory.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: Religious peace came with the emergence of the Macedonian dynasty in 867, as well as a strong and unified Byzantine leadership; while the Abbasid empire had splintered into many factions after 861. Basil I revived the Byzantine Empire into a regional power, during a period of territorial expansion, making the Empire the strongest power in Europe, with an ecclesiastical policy marked by good relations with Rome. Basil allied with the Holy Roman Emperor Louis II against the Arabs, and his fleet cleared the Adriatic Sea of their raids.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: With Byzantine help, Louis II captured Bari from the Arabs in 871. The city became Byzantine territory in 876. The Byzantine position on Sicily deteriorated, and Syracuse fell to the Emirate of Sicily in 878. Catania was lost in 900, and finally the fortress of Taormina in 902. Michael of Zahumlje apparently on 10 July 926 sacked Siponto (), which was a Byzantine town in Apulia. Sicily would remain under Arab control until the Norman invasion in 1071.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: Although Sicily was lost, the general Nikephoros Phokas the Elder succeeded in taking Taranto and much of Calabria in 880, forming the nucleus for the later Catepanate of Italy. The successes in the Italian Peninsula opened a new period of Byzantine domination there. Above all, the Byzantines were beginning to establish a strong presence in the Mediterranean Sea, and especially the Adriatic.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: Under John Kourkouas, the Byzantines conquered the emirate of Melitene, along with Theodosiopolis the strongest of the Muslim border emirates, and advanced into Armenia in the 930s; the next three decades were dominated by the struggle of the Phokas clan and their dependants against the Hamdanid emir of Aleppo, Sayf al-Dawla. Al-Dawla was finally defeated by Nikephoros II Phokas, who conquered Cilicia and northern Syria, including the sack of Aleppo, and recovered Crete. His nephew and successor, John I Tzimiskes, pushed even further south, almost reaching Jerusalem, but his death in 976 ended Byzantine expansion towards Palestine.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: After putting an end to the internal strife, Basil II launched a counter-campaign against the Arabs in 995. The Byzantine civil wars had weakened the Empire's position in the east, and the gains of Nikephoros II Phokas and John I Tzimiskes came close to being lost, with Aleppo besieged and Antioch under threat. Basil won several battles in Syria, relieving Aleppo, taking over the Orontes valley, and raiding further south. Although he did not have the force to drive into Palestine and reclaim Jerusalem, his victories did restore much of Syria to the empire – including the larger city of Antioch which was the seat of its eponymous Patriarch.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: No Byzantine emperor since Heraclius had been able to hold these lands for any length of time, and the Empire would retain them for the next 110 years until 1078. Piers Paul Read writes that by 1025, Byzantine land "stretched from the Straits of Messina and the northern Adriatic in the west to the River Danube and Crimea in the north, and to the cities of Melitene and Edessa beyond the Euphrates in the east."


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: Under Basil II, the Byzantines established a swath of new "themata", stretching northeast from Aleppo (a Byzantine protectorate) to Manzikert. Under the Theme system of military and administrative government, the Byzantines could raise a force at least 200,000 strong, though in practice these were strategically placed throughout the Empire. With Basil's rule, the Byzantine Empire reached its greatest height in nearly five centuries, and indeed for the next four centuries.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: The wars drew near to a closure when the Turks and various Mongol invaders replaced the threat of either power. From the 11th and 12th centuries onwards, the Byzantine conflicts shifted into the Byzantine-Seljuk wars with the continuing Islamic invasion of Anatolia being taken over by the Seljuk Turks.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: After the defeat at the Battle of Manzikert by the Turks in 1071, the Byzantine Empire, with the help of Western Crusaders, re-established its position in the Middle East as a major power. Meanwhile, the major Arab conflicts were in the Crusades, and later against Mongolian invasions, especially that of the Ilkhanate and Timur.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: As with any war of such length, the drawn-out Byzantine–Arab Wars had long-lasting effects for both the Byzantine Empire and the Arab world. The Byzantines experienced extensive territorial loss. However, while the invading Arabs gained strong control in the Middle East and Africa, further conquests in Western Asia were halted. The focus of the Byzantine Empire shifted from the western reconquests of Justinian to a primarily defensive position, against the Islamic armies on its eastern borders. Without Byzantine interference in the emerging Christian states of western Europe, the situation gave a huge stimulus to feudalism and economic self-sufficiency.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: The view of modern historians is that one of the most important effects was the strain it put on the relationship between Rome and Byzantium. While fighting for survival against the Islamic armies, the Empire was no longer able to provide the protection it had once offered to the Papacy; worse still, according to Thomas Woods, the Emperors "routinely intervened in the life of the Church in areas lying clearly beyond the state's competence". The Iconoclast controversy of the 8th and 9th centuries can be taken as a key factor "which drove the Latin Church into the arms of the Franks." Thus it has been argued that Charlemagne was an indirect product of Muhammad:


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: The Holy Roman Empire of Charlemagne's successors would later come to the aid of the Byzantines under Louis II and during the Crusades, but relations between the two empires would be strained; based on the "Salerno Chronicle", we know the Emperor Basil had sent an angry letter to his western counterpart, reprimanding him for usurping the title of emperor. He argued that the Frankish rulers were simple "reges", and that each nation has its own title for the ruler, whereas the imperial title suited only the ruler of the Eastern Romans, Basil himself.


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: Walter Emil Kaegi states that extant Arabic sources have been given much scholarly attention for issues of obscurities and contradictions. However, he points out that Byzantine sources are also problematic, such as the chronicles of Theophanes and Nicephorus and those written in Syriac, which are short and terse while the important question of their sources and their use of sources remains unresolved. Kaegi concludes that scholars must also subject the Byzantine tradition to critical scrutiny, as it "contains bias and cannot serve as an objective standard against which all Muslim sources may be confidently checked".


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: Among the few Latin sources of interest are the 7th-century history of Fredegarius, and two 8th-century Spanish chronicles, all of which draw on some Byzantine and oriental historical traditions. As far as Byzantine military action against the initial Muslim invasions, Kaegi asserts that "Byzantine traditions ... attempt to deflect criticism of the Byzantine debacle from Heraclius to other persons, groups, and things".


title: Arab–Byzantine wars

text: The range of non-historical Byzantine sources is vast: they range from papyri to sermons (most notable those of Sophronius and Anastasius Sinaita), poetry (especially that of Sophronius and George of Pisidia) including the Acritic songs, correspondence often of a patristic provenance, apologetical treatises, apocalypses, hagiography, military manuals (in particular the "Strategikon" of Maurice from the beginning of the 7th century), and other non-literary sources, such as epigraphy, archeology, and numismatics. None of these sources contains a coherent account of any of the campaigns and conquests of the Muslim armies, but some do contain invaluable details that survive nowhere else.


title: Flatfish

text: A flatfish is a member of the ray-finned demersal fish order Pleuronectiformes, also called the Heterosomata, sometimes classified as a suborder of Perciformes. In many species, both eyes lie on one side of the head, one or the other migrating through or around the head during development. Some species face their left sides upward, some face their right sides upward, and others face either side upward.


title: Flatfish

text: Many important food fish are in this order, including the flounders, soles, turbot, plaice, and halibut. Some flatfish can camouflage themselves on the ocean floor.


title: Flatfish

text: Over 800 described species are placed into 16 families. Broadly, the flatfishes are divided into two suborders, Psettodoidei and Pleuronectoidei, with > 99% of the species diversity found within the Pleuronectoidei. The largest families are Soleidae, Bothidae and Cynoglossidae with more than 150 species each. There also exist two monotypic families (Paralichthodidae and Oncopteridae). Some families are the results of relatively recent splits. For example, the Achiridae were classified as a subfamily of Soleidae in the past, and the Samaridae were considered a subfamily of the Pleuronectidae. The families Paralichthodidae, Poecilopsettidae, and Rhombosoleidae were also traditionally treated as subfamilies of Pleuronectidae, but are now recognised as families in their own right. The Paralichthyidae has long been indicated to be paraphyletic, with the formal description of Cyclopsettidae in 2019 resulting in the split of this family as well.


title: Flatfish

text: The taxonomy of some groups is in need of a review, as the last monograph covering the entire order was John Roxborough Norman's "Monograph of the Flatfishes" published in 1934. In particular, "Tephrinectes sinensis" may represent a family-level lineage and requires further evaluation e.g. New species are described with some regularity and undescribed species likely remain.


title: Flatfish

text: Hybrids are well known in flatfishes. The Pleuronectidae, of marine fishes, have the largest number of reported hybrids. Two of the most famous intergeneric hybrids are between the European plaice ("Pleuronectes platessa") and European flounder ("Platichthys flesus") in the Baltic Sea, and between the English sole ("Parophrys vetulus") and starry flounder ("Platichthys stellatus") in Puget Sound. The offspring of the latter species pair is popularly known as the hybrid sole and was initially believed to be a valid species in its own right.


title: Flatfish

text: Flatfishes are found in oceans worldwide, ranging from the Arctic, through the tropics, to Antarctica. Species diversity is centered in the Indo-West Pacific and declines following both latitudinal and longitudinal gradients away from the Indo-West Pacific. Most species are found in depths between 0 and , but a few have been recorded from depths in excess of . None have been confirmed from the abyssal or hadal zones. An observation of a flatfish from the Bathyscaphe Trieste at the bottom of the Mariana Trench at a depth of almost has been questioned by fish experts, and recent authorities do not recognize it as valid. Among the deepwater species, "Symphurus thermophilus" lives congregating around "ponds" of sulphur at hydrothermal vents on the seafloor. No other flatfish is known from hydrothermal vents. Many species will enter brackish or fresh water, and a smaller number of soles (families Achiridae and Soleidae) and tonguefish (Cynoglossidae) are entirely restricted to fresh water.


title: Flatfish

text: The most obvious characteristic of the flatfish is its asymmetry, with both eyes lying on the same side of the head in the adult fish. In some families, the eyes are usually on the right side of the body (dextral or right-eyed flatfish), and in others, they are usually on the left (sinistral or left-eyed flatfish). The primitive spiny turbots include equal numbers of right- and left-sided individuals, and are generally less asymmetrical than the other families. Other distinguishing features of the order are the presence of protrusible eyes, another adaptation to living on the seabed (benthos), and the extension of the dorsal fin onto the head.


title: Flatfish

text: The surface of the fish facing away from the sea floor is pigmented, often serving to camouflage the fish, but sometimes with striking coloured patterns. Some flatfishes are also able to change their pigmentation to match the background, in a manner similar to some cephalopods. The side of the body without the eyes, facing the seabed, is usually colourless or very pale.


title: Flatfish

text: In general, flatfishes rely on their camouflage for avoiding predators, but some have aposematic traits such as conspicuous eyespots (e.g., "Microchirus ocellatus") and several small tropical species (at least "Aseraggodes", "Pardachirus" and "Zebrias") are poisonous. Juveniles of "Soleichthys maculosus" mimic toxic flatworms of the genus "Pseudobiceros" in both colours and swimming mode. Conversely, a few octopus species have been reported to mimic flatfishes in colours, shape and swimming mode.


title: Flatfish

text: The flounders and spiny turbots eat smaller fish, and have well-developed teeth. They sometimes seek prey in the midwater, away from the bottom, and show fewer extreme adaptations than other families. The soles, by contrast, are almost exclusively bottom-dwellers, and feed on invertebrates. They show a more extreme asymmetry, and may lack teeth on one side of the jaw.


title: Flatfish

text: Flatfishes range in size from "Tarphops oligolepis", measuring about in length, and weighing , to the Atlantic halibut, at and .


title: Flatfish

text: Flatfishes lay eggs that hatch into larvae resembling typical, symmetrical, fish. These are initially elongated, but quickly develop into a more rounded form. The larvae typically have protective spines on the head, over the gills, and in the pelvic and pectoral fins. They also possess a swim bladder, and do not dwell on the bottom, instead dispersing from their hatching grounds as plankton.


title: Flatfish

text: The length of the planktonic stage varies between different types of flatfishes, but eventually they begin to metamorphose into the adult form. One of the eyes migrates across the top of the head and onto the other side of the body, leaving the fish blind on one side. The larva also loses its swim bladder and spines, and sinks to the bottom, laying its blind side on the underlying surface.


title: Flatfish

text: In 2008, a 50-million-year-old fossil, "Amphistium", was identified as an early relative of the flatfish and transitional fossil. In a typical modern flatfish, the head is asymmetric, with both eyes on one side of the head. In "Amphistium", the transition from the typical symmetric head of a vertebrate is incomplete, with one eye placed near the top of the head. The researchers concluded, "the change happened gradually, in a way consistent with evolution via natural selection—not suddenly, as researchers once had little choice but to believe."


title: Flatfish

text: Flatfishes have been cited as dramatic examples of evolutionary adaptation. Richard Dawkins, in "The Blind Watchmaker", explains the flatfishes' evolutionary history thus:


title: Flatfish

text: …bony fish as a rule have a marked tendency to be flattened in a vertical direction…. It was natural, therefore, that when the ancestors of [flatfish] took to the sea bottom, they should have lain on one "side"…. But this raised the problem that one eye was always looking down into the sand and was effectively useless. In evolution this problem was solved by the lower eye ‘moving’ round to the upper side.


title: Flatfish

text: Flatfish is considered a Whitefish because of the high concentration of oils within its liver. Its lean flesh makes for a unique flavor that differs from species to species. Methods of cooking include grilling, pan-frying, baking and deep-frying.


title: American Eskimo Dog

text: The American Eskimo Dog is a breed of companion dog, originating in Germany. The American Eskimo Dog is a member of the Spitz family. It is considered an ancient dog breed due to its recent admixture with wolves. The breed's progenitors were German Spitz, but due to anti-German sentiment during the First World War, it was renamed "American Eskimo Dog." Although modern American Eskimo Dogs have been exported as German Spitz Gross (or Mittel, depending on the dog's height), the breeds have diverged and the standards are significantly different. In addition to serving as a watchdog and companion, the American Eskimo Dog also achieved a high degree of popularity in the United States in the 1930s and 1940s as a circus performer.


title: American Eskimo Dog

text: There are three size varieties of the American Eskimo Dog breed, the toy, the miniature and the standard. They share a common resemblance with Japanese Spitz, Danish Spitz, Volpino Italiano, German Spitz, Indian Spitz, and Samoyeds.


title: American Eskimo Dog

text: In Northern Europe, smaller Spitz were eventually developed into the various German Spitz breeds. European immigrants brought their Spitz pets with them to the United States, especially New York, in the early 1900s, "all of them descended from the larger German Spitz, the Keeshond, the white Pomeranian, and the Italian Spitz, the Volpino Italiano."<ref name="Clark/Brace"></ref>


title: American Eskimo Dog

text: Although white was not always a recognized color in the various German Spitz breeds, it was generally the preferred color in the US. In a display of patriotism in the era around World War I, dog owners began referring to their pets as American Spitz rather than German Spitz.


title: American Eskimo Dog

text: After World War I, the small Spitz dogs came to the attention of the American public when the dogs became popular entertainers in the American circus. In 1917, the Cooper Brothers’ Railroad Circus featured the dogs. A dog named Stout's Pal Pierre was famous for walking a tightrope with the Barnum and Bailey Circus in the 1930s, and also contributing to their popularity, they sold puppies after the show. Due to the popularity of the circus dogs, many of today's American Eskimo Dogs can trace their lineage back to these circus dogs.


title: American Eskimo Dog

text: After World War II, the dogs continued to be popular pets. Postwar contact with Japan led to importation into the United States of the Japanese Spitz, which may have been crossed into the breed at this time. The breed was first officially recognized as the "American Eskimo" as early as 1919 by the American United Kennel Club (UKC), and the first written record and history of the breed was printed in 1958 by the UKC. At that time there was no official breed club and no breed standard, and dogs were accepted for registration as single dogs, based on appearance. In 1970 the National American Eskimo Dog Association (NAEDA) was founded, and single dog registrations ceased. In 1985 the American Eskimo Dog Club of America (AEDCA) was formed by fanciers who wished to register the breed with the American Kennel Club (AKC). Following the AKC's requirements for breed recognition, the AEDCA collected the pedigree information from 1,750 dogs that now form the basis of the AKC recognized breed, which is called the American Eskimo Dog. The breed was recognized by the American Kennel Club in 1995. The stud book was opened from 2000 to 2003 in an attempt to register more of the original UKC registered lines, and today many American Eskimo Dogs are dual-registered with both American kennel clubs. The breed was recognized by the Canadian Kennel Club in 2006.


title: Basketball at the 2020 Summer Olympics – Men's tournament

text: The men's basketball tournament at the 2020 Summer Olympics was the 20th edition of the event for men at the Summer Olympic Games. It was held from 25 July to 7 August 2021. All games were played at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan.


text: It was originally scheduled to be held in 2020, but on 24 March 2020, the Olympics were postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of this pandemic, the games were played behind closed doors.


text: The United States won their 16th overall and fourth consecutive gold medal, after defeating France in the final. Australia won the bronze with a 107–93 win over Slovenia, winning its first medal in men's basketball after a series of losses in bronze medal games.


text: The medals for the competition were presented by Anita DeFrantz, United States; IOC Vice-President, Olympian, one Bronze Medal; and the medalists' bouquets were presented by Sheikh Saud Ali Al-Thani, Qatar; FIBA First-Vice President.


text: The twelve teams were split in to what was believed to be three groups of four teams, and a single round-robin was held within each group. The first- and second-placed teams of each group advanced to the quarterfinals as well as the two best third-placed teams. After the preliminary round, the teams were grouped according to their results (top four and bottom four), and a draw paired teams between the groups for the quarterfinals. From there on a knockout system was used.


text: In the preliminary round, teams received 2 classification points for a win, 1 classification point for a loss, and 0 classification points for a forfeit.


text: A draw after the preliminary round decided the pairings, where a seeded team played an unseeded team. The draw was held after the last group stage match on 1 August. Teams qualified were divided into two pots:


title: FIFA 23

text: FIFA 23 is a football simulation video game published by Electronic Arts. It is the 30th installment in the "FIFA" series that is developed by EA Sports, and the final installment under the "FIFA" banner, and released worldwide on 30 September 2022 for PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Google Stadia.


title: FIFA 23

text: Listed in Guinness World Records as the best-selling sports video game franchise in the world, the game is the final under the 29-year partnership between EA and FIFA. Future football games by EA are set to be named under the banner of "EA Sports FC".


title: FIFA 23

text: "FIFA 23" features a degree of crossplay. Crossplay is available in FIFA Ultimate Team (FUT) Division Rivals (excluding co-op), FUT Champions, FUT Ultimate Online Draft, FUT Online Friendlies (excluding Co-Op), FUT Play a Friend, Online Friendlies, Online Seasons (excluding Co-Op Seasons) and the Virtual representation of the Bundesliga. However, crossplay is limited to consoles that fall within the same console generation. For example, those on the PlayStation 4 are be able to play with and against players on Xbox One, but not the PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X/S and vice versa. Pro Clubs will not support crossplay.


title: FIFA 23

text: The game features what's being dubbed as "HyperMotion2", a system of match capture with machine learning from real life football matches to create over 6,000 in-game animations. "Technical Dribbling" uses what is being called the "Active Touch" system to improve the footballer's path to the ball and improve a player's turning and dribbling with more responsiveness. Both systems are exclusive to current-generation versions (i.e. PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Stadia and PC).


title: FIFA 23

text: "FIFA 23" features both men's and women's World Cup game modes, replicating the 2022 FIFA World Cup and the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup.


title: FIFA 23

text: The 2022 FIFA World Cup mode was released on November 9 for all platforms except for the Nintendo Switch Legacy Edition. The mode contains only two out of eight stadiums: Al Bayt and Lusail Iconic Stadium. The mode also contains as well each of the 32 teams that qualified for the 2022 tournament, along with fifteen other national teams that did not qualify: Austria, China, Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Norway, Republic of Ireland, Romania, Scotland, Sweden and Ukraine.


title: FIFA 23

text: "FIFA 23" features three new icons to its ICON Collection with the addition of Gerd Müller, Xabi Alonso and Jairzinho. With new addition to these three, 8 of the previously added icons are missing from the Icons List released by EA Sports. Diego Maradona, Ryan Giggs, Pep Guardiola, Deco, Marc Overmars and Filippo Inzaghi have been removed as icons for "FIFA 23". Jay-Jay Okocha and Hidetoshi Nakata have been removed as icons for "FIFA 23", but are now featured as heroes.


title: FIFA 23

text: FIFA 23, in an exclusive deal with Marvel, features 21 new heroes to the existing heroes collection from FIFA 22 with the additions of: Lúcio, Jean-Pierre Papin, Rudi Völler, Diego Forlán, Rafael Márquez, Javier Mascherano, Ricardo Carvalho, Tomas Brolin, Harry Kewell, Yaya Touré, Claudio Marchisio, Landon Donovan, Joan Capdevila, Sidney Govou, Dirk Kuyt, Park Ji-sung, Włodzimierz Smolarek, Saeed Al-Owairan and Peter Crouch.


title: FIFA 23

text: This entry in the "FIFA" video game series is the first to introduce women's club football. England's FA Women's Super League and the French Division 1 Féminine are included at launch, with more women's football leagues planned to be added later on. This comes alongside Sam Kerr, who plays for Chelsea Women, becoming the first female footballer to feature on the global front cover of the game. On 18 October 2022, EA Sports announced the inclusion of the UEFA Women's Champions League in the game, already released in 2023.


title: FIFA 23

text: "FIFA 23" contains over 30 licensed leagues, over 100 licensed stadiums, over 700 clubs and more than 19,000 players. Roma, Atalanta, Lazio and Napoli are not featured in "FIFA 23" due to their exclusivity agreements with rival game "eFootball", and are instead known as Roma FC, Bergamo Calcio, Latium and Napoli FC respectively. The game retains the players' likenesses, but the official badge, kits and stadiums are replaced with custom designs and generic stadiums created by EA Sports. The game no longer feature the teams of the J1 League, due to EA and J.League's six-year partnership coming to an end. Also, almost all Latin American leagues were removed from the game, with only the Argentine Primera División remaining; the teams that contend the Copa Libertadores and Copa Sudamericana are also still present. Juventus, having been similarly absent for the past three entries and thus known as Piemonte Calcio, are featured in the game however. The game features fictional club AFC Richmond and their stadium Nelson Road from the Apple TV+ series "Ted Lasso". Bayern Munich and Barcelona are also featured in the game with licensed players and kits, but do not have their stadium licenses and thus play in generic stadiums.


title: FIFA 23

text: New stadiums added to the game include the Philips Stadion, home of PSV Eindhoven, the Europa-Park Stadion, home of SC Freiburg, the Banc of California Stadium, home of Los Angeles FC, and the Academy Stadium, home of Manchester City Women. The Juventus Stadium, home of Juventus, is also added, having been absent from the past few entries due to licence issues. Nottingham Forest's home ground, The City Ground, has been added post-launch via an update.


title: FIFA 23

text: "FIFA 23" received "generally favorable" reviews for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S, according to review aggregator Metacritic. The Nintendo Switch version was widely panned, with critics deriding EA for not adding any significant improvements over previous versions of the game. Writing for "GamesRadar+", Ben Wilson criticized the gameplay, citing the game's pay-to-win aspects, along with moments where "player control felt sabotaged"; though stated that the series bowed out on a high and expressed encouragement for EA Sports FC scheduled for next year. "Game Informer" praised the title, stating that it’s “flashy, fun to play and has a lot of modes”, but criticized its similarity to previous installments of the series.


title: Trace Lysette

text: Trace Lysette is an American actress and recording artist whose most notable roles include Shea in the television series "Transparent" (2014–2019) and Tracey in the feature film "Hustlers" (2019). She also featured in the Netflix documentary "" as herself.


title: Trace Lysette

text: In her late teens, she was a track athlete and performed as a showgirl in bars and clubs in Dayton and Columbus, Ohio. She moved to New York City after high school in search of opportunities. Lysette was estranged from her biological family and struggled financially due to her gender transition which led her to find acceptance in the underground New York ball culture scene, of which she has been a member since young adulthood. She began her actor training in New York City, studying at various acting studios in 2007. Her television debut was a guest appearance as Lila in an episode of "" in 2013, making her one of the first trans people to appear in a cisgender speaking role on primetime television in the US.


title: Trace Lysette

text: After working in non-transgender roles, Lysette came out publicly as trans through her role as Shea on the Amazon series "Transparent", which debuted in 2014. On the show, she plays a transgender yoga teacher and friend of Maura Pfefferman (Jeffrey Tambor). Lysette originally auditioned for the role of Davina. The third season of "Transparent" contains a storyline in which Shea has a romantic relationship with a cisgender heterosexual man, which has been called "a groundbreaking TV moment for a trans character." Lysette was an unpaid consultant for the 2015 film "The Danish Girl".


title: Trace Lysette

text: Lysette made her major feature debut in 2019 starring alongside Jennifer Lopez and Constance Wu among others in the critically acclaimed box office hit "Hustlers." Lysette’s role in "Hustlers" is one of the first times a trans actor has starred in a major US movie (not indie) alongside A-list celebrities and is arguably the first time that an out trans actor has starred in a feature film by a major studio where the character was not specifically defined as trans in the film.


title: Trace Lysette

text: She has also appeared in guest roles in shows such as "Blunt Talk", "David Makes Man", "Midnight, Texas", "Pose" and "Drunk History". She also made an appearance in Caitlyn Jenner's documentary series "I Am Cait". Additionally, she has appeared as a muse in several high-profile music videos for artists such as Maroon 5, Cher, Teyana Taylor, The Shins, and Laverne Cox.


title: Trace Lysette

text: In 2017, transgender actors and actresses including Lysette (with the help of GLAAD and ScreenCrush) were part of a filmed letter to Hollywood written by Jen Richards, asking for more and improved roles for transgender people.


title: Trace Lysette

text: In June 2020, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the first LGBTQ Pride parade, "Queerty" named her among the fifty heroes "leading the nation toward equality, acceptance, and dignity for all people". An article published in July 2020 by "Variety" revealed that Lysette had signed on as an Executive Producer of "Trans in Trumpland", a forthcoming documentary series about being transgender in the Trump Administration era.


title: Trace Lysette

text: In 2021, Lysette released her first single, "SMB", which she described as a hip hop track. She also featured on Cazwell's single, “Taser in My Telfar Bag,” with Chanel Jole. She hosted "", a podcast re-examining the 2004 dating show, "There's Something About Miriam". The first episode of the eight episode series was released on iTunes on November 29th, 2021.


title: Trace Lysette

text: Lysette has spoken at various events and colleges across the country, including Women’s March Las Vegas, and Out & Equal in Philadelphia, about her experiences in hopes of highlighting the injustices that members of the trans community face. In 2017, she recorded an online PSA with Trevor Project dedicated to suicide prevention awareness for LGBTQ youth.


title: Trace Lysette

text: In 2018, Lysette commented on Twitter about actress Scarlett Johansson’s decision to accept the role of a transgender man Dante "Tex" Gill in crime drama "Rub & Tug", stating that opportunities for trans actors were already so limited. Johansson eventually withdrew from the role.


title: Trace Lysette

text: Although Lysette was estranged from her family for a period of time when she transitioned, her mother later became supportive. She has stated publicly that her mother has since “come full circle“, fully accepts her now, and “is her biggest cheerleader.”


title: Trace Lysette

text: In 2017, Lysette claimed that she had experienced sexual harassment from her "Transparent" co-star Jeffrey Tambor, a week after Tambor's former assistant Van Barnes made similar allegations. Two more women, Rain Valdez and Tamara Delbridge would also follow with more allegations. In response, Tambor issued a statement denying the allegations of all the women. Showrunner Joey Soloway published a statement expressing "great respect and admiration for Van Barnes and Trace Lysette, whose courage in speaking out about their experience on "Transparent" is an example of the leadership this moment in our culture requires." In 2018, after an extensive internal investigation by Amazon, the show's producers confirmed that Tambor would not be returning to the show.


title: Tadao Ando

text: Ando was born a few minutes before his twin brother in 1941 in Osaka, Japan. At the age of two, his family chose to separate them, and have Tadao live with his great grandmother. He worked as a boxer and fighter before settling on the profession of architect, despite never having formal training in the field. Struck by the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Imperial Hotel on a trip to Tokyo as a second-year high school student, he eventually decided to end his boxing career less than two years after graduating from high school to pursue architecture. He attended night classes to learn drawing and took correspondence courses on interior design. He visited buildings designed by renowned architects like Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Louis Kahn before returning to Osaka in 1968 to establish his own design studio, Tadao Ando Architects and Associates.


title: Tadao Ando

text: Ando was raised in Japan where the religion and style of life strongly influenced his architecture and design. Ando's architectural style is said to create a "haiku" effect, emphasizing nothingness and empty space to represent the beauty of simplicity. He favors designing complex spatial circulation while maintaining the appearance of simplicity. A self-taught architect, he keeps his Japanese culture and language in mind while he travels around Europe for research. As an architect, he believes that architecture can change society, that "to change the dwelling is to change the city and to reform society". "Reform society" could be a promotion of a place or a change of the identity of that place. Werner Blaser has said, "Good buildings by Tadao Ando create memorable identity and therefore publicity, which in turn attracts the public and promotes market penetration".


title: Tadao Ando

text: The simplicity of his architecture emphasizes the concept of sensation and physical experiences, mainly influenced by Japanese culture. The religious term Zen, focuses on the concept of simplicity and concentrates on inner feeling rather than outward appearance. Zen influences vividly show in Ando's work and became its distinguishing mark. In order to practice the idea of simplicity, Ando's architecture is mostly constructed with concrete, providing a sense of cleanliness and weightlessness (even though concrete is a heavy material) at the same time. Due to the simplicity of the exterior, construction, and organization of the space are relatively potential in order to represent the aesthetic of sensation.


title: Tadao Ando

text: Besides Japanese religious architecture, Ando has also designed Christian churches, such as the Church of the Light (1989) and the Church in Tarumi (1993). Although Japanese and Christian churches display distinct characteristics, Ando treats them in a similar way. He believes there should be no difference in designing religious architecture and houses. As he explains,


title: Tadao Ando

text: We do not need to differentiate one from the other. Dwelling in a house is not only a functional issue, but also a spiritual one. The house is the locus of heart (kokoro), and the heart is the locus of god. Dwelling in a house is a search for the heart (kokoro) as the locus of god, just as one goes to church to search for god. An important role of the church is to enhance this sense of the spiritual. In a spiritual place, people find peace in their heart (kokoro), as in their homeland.


title: Tadao Ando

text: Besides speaking of the spirit of architecture, Ando also emphasises the association between nature and architecture. He intends for people to easily experience the spirit and beauty of nature through architecture. He believes architecture is responsible for performing the attitude of the site and makes it visible. This not only represents his theory of the role of architecture in society but also shows why he spends so much time studying architecture from physical experience.


title: Tadao Ando

text: In 1995, Ando won the Pritzker Prize for architecture, considered the highest distinction in the field. He donated the $100,000 prize money to the orphans of the 1995 Kobe earthquake.


title: Tadao Ando

text: Tadao Ando's body of work is known for the creative use of natural light and for structures that follow natural forms of the landscape, rather than disturbing the landscape by making it conform to the constructed space of a building. Ando's buildings are often characterized by complex three-dimensional circulation paths. These paths weave in between interior and exterior spaces formed both inside large-scale geometric shapes and in the spaces between them.


title: Tadao Ando

text: His "Row House in Sumiyoshi" (Azuma House, 住吉の長屋), a small two-story, cast-in-place concrete house completed in 1976, is an early work which began to show elements of his characteristic style. It consists of three equal rectangular volumes: two enclosed volumes of interior spaces separated by an open courtyard. The courtyard's position between the two interior volumes becomes an integral part of the house's circulation system. The house is famous for the contrast between appearance and spatial organization which allow people to experience the richness of the space within the geometry.


title: Tadao Ando

text: Ando's housing complex at Rokko, just outside Kobe, is a complex warren of terraces and balconies, atriums and shafts. The designs for Rokko Housing One (1983) and for Rokko Housing Two (1993) illustrate a range of issues in traditional architectural vocabulary—the interplay of solid and void, the alternatives of open and closed, the contrasts of light and darkness. More significantly, Ando's noteworthy engineering achievement in these clustered buildings is site specific—the structures survived undamaged after the Great Hanshin earthquake of 1995. "New York Times" architectural critic Paul Goldberger argues that:


title: Tadao Ando

text: Ando is right in the Japanese tradition: spareness has always been a part of Japanese architecture, at least since the 16th century; [and] it is not without reason that Frank Lloyd Wright more freely admitted to the influences of Japanese architecture than of anything American."


title: Tadao Ando

text: Like Wright's Imperial Hotel in Tokyo Second Imperial Hotel 1923-1968, which did survive the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923, site specific decision-making, anticipates seismic activity in several of Ando's Hyōgo-Awaji buildings.


title: Rosatom

text: Rosatom, () also known as Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation, the State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom or Rosatom State Corporation, is a Russian state corporation headquartered in Moscow that specializes in nuclear energy, nuclear non-energy goods and high-tech products. Established in 2007, the organization comprises more than 350 enterprises, including scientific research organizations, the nuclear weapons complex, and the world's only nuclear icebreaker fleet.


title: Rosatom

text: The state corporation is one of the largest in the world's nuclear energy industry. The organization ranks first as the largest electricity generating company in Russia, producing 215.746 TWh of electricity, 20.28% of the country's total electricity production. The corporation also ranks first in the overseas NPP construction, responsible for 76% of global nuclear technology exports: 35 nuclear power plant units, at different stages of development, in 12 countries, as of December 2020. Rosatom also manufactures equipment and produces isotopes for nuclear medicine, carries out research, material studies; it also produces supercomputers and software as well as different nuclear and non-nuclear innovative products. Rosatom's strategy is to further develop renewable energy and wind power. Two units are being built in Russia at Kursk-2 NPP with plans announced for 2 more units at Kola NPP. Rosatom with its 38% world market share, in 2019, takes the lead in global uranium enrichment services (36%) and covers 16% of the global nuclear fuel market.


title: Rosatom

text: In 2020, Rosatom approved its updated strategy emphasizing the role of new products, both nuclear non-energy and non-nuclear, in approximately 100 new business areas, including nuclear medicine, composites, wind energy, hydrogen, waste management, additive technology, production of hydrogen.


title: Rosatom

text: Rosatom is a nonprofit organization, and while its tasks include the development of nuclear energy, the growth of enterprises of the nuclear fuel cycle, and the fulfillment of the functions assigned to it by the state, it also ensures national security (nuclear deterrence), nuclear and radiation safety, as well as development of applied and fundamental science. In addition, the state corporation is authorized on behalf of the state to fulfill Russia's international obligations in the field of the use of nuclear energy and of non-proliferation of nuclear materials. Rosatom is also involved with large-scale projects such as ITER and FAIR.


title: Rosatom

text: As of February 2021, the total portfolio orders of Rosatom reached $250 billion. According to the 2020 corporate report, its 10-year foreign order portfolio stood at $138.3 billion, while revenue reached $7.5 billion. The 10-year order portfolio for new products stood at ₽1,602.1 billion while revenue reached ₽261.1 billion.


title: Rosatom

text: Several Soviet and Russian government entities with different tasks are among the Rosatom predecessors. On June 26, 1953, the Council of Ministers transformed the First Main Directorate in charge of nuclear weapons program into the Ministry of Medium Machine Building (MinSredMash). The ministry was entrusted with the development of the civic nuclear power program. In 1989, Minsredmash and the Ministry of Atomic Energy merged to form the Ministry of Nuclear Engineering and Industry of the USSR.


title: Rosatom

text: The Ministry for Atomic Energy of the Russian Federation [(Russian: Министерство по атомной энергии Российской Федерации, also known as Minatom (Russian: Минaтом)] was established as a successor to the Russian part of the Ministry of Nuclear Engineering and Industry of the USSR on January 29, 1992, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The newly created ministry received about 80% of the enterprises of the union department, including 9 nuclear power plants with 28 power units. Under this name, the ministry existed until March 9, 2004, when it was transformed into the Federal Agency on Atomic Energy.


title: Rosatom

text: On 1 December 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law adopted by the Federal Assembly under which the Federal Atomic Energy Agency were to be abolished, and its powers and assets were to be transferred to the newly created "State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom." On 12 December of the same year, the agency transformed into a state corporation.


title: Rosatom

text: In 2017, Rosatom decided to invest in wind power, believing that rapid cost reductions in the renewable industry will become a competitive threat to nuclear power, and started to build wind turbines. Rosatom was also concerned that nuclear export opportunities were becoming exhausted. In October, Rosatom was reported to be considering postponing commissioning new nuclear plants in Russia due to excess generation capacity and that new nuclear electricity prices are higher than for existing plant. The Russian government is considering reducing support for new nuclear under its support contracts, called Dogovor Postavki Moshnosti (DPM), which guarantee developers a return on investment through increased payments from consumers for 20 years.


title: Rosatom

text: On 28 June 2017, "The Financial Times" criticized Rosatom for lack of transparency regarding an alleged expansionist agenda through its role as a "Kremlin-controlled company". On 20 March 2018, this criticism was underlined by the Bellona Foundation, who focused on the scarce data available on Rosatom's progress in Sudan.


title: Rosatom

text: On 20 August 2020, Rosatom marked the 75th anniversary of the Russian nuclear industry. As part of the celebration, Rosatom launched its rebranding campaign “United Rosatom,” which made subsidiaries in the nuclear industry utilize the Rosatom's Moebius strip logo. In 2020, Rosatom set a goal of tripling its revenue to ₽4 trillion by 2030, 40% of which is set to come from new lines of business, with primarily focus on sustainable tech.


title: Rosatom

text: Within the next two days after Russian military forces occupied Ukraine's Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on 24 February 2022, Rosatom employees have gained an unauthorized access to the plant, threatened the Ukrainian personnel and demanded the plant's manuals, procedures and other documentation.


title: Rosatom

text: Since 12 March 2022, once Russian military forces occupied Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Rosatom employees have gained an access and set a base there without permission of the plant's owner Energoatom. Rosatom engineers have demanded documentation and manuals on the plant's operation. Rosatom spokeswoman said that its employees are present at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant to ensure the safety of the plant and are not involved in its management or security.


title: Rosatom

text: On 29 September 2022 the International Atomic Energy Agency was told by a Ukrainian ambassador that Rosatom had sent more officials to Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant to enforce the change in ownership from Ukraine to Russia and to give the plant employees two weeks to apply for work with Rosatom. Allowing Russia to claim ownership of Zaporizhzhia would represent the biggest nuclear theft in history.


title: Rosatom

text: As of early 2021, Rosatom included 356 of various organizational and legal forms. Some belong to the enterprises of the nuclear power complex, which comprises organizations of nuclear energy, nuclear engineering, and the nuclear fuel cycle, including enterprises for the exploration and production of natural uranium, conversion and enrichment of uranium, production of nuclear fuel, electricity and equipment, development of new technologies for the nuclear fuel and gas centrifuge platform. Others belong to the growing number of new businesses outside of nuclear power, including wind energy, composite materials, additive technologies, nuclear medicine, among others. The civilian assets of the Russian nuclear industry are concentrated within Rosatom's holding company Atomenergoprom, which unites 204 enterprises as of December 2020.


title: Rosatom

text: The holding company of the Rosatom mining division is JSC Atomredmetzoloto, which consolidates Russian uranium mining assets. Key daughter companies include JSC Khiagda and JSC Dalur.


title: Rosatom

text: Uranium One is a separate global mining company that operates directly under Rosatom with a diverse portfolio of assets in Kazakhstan, USA and Tanzania.


title: Rosatom

text: The managing company of the Rosatom fuel division is JSC TVEL, which is a leading organization on the global nuclear fuel cycle front-end market and the only supplier of nuclear fuel for Russian NPPs and the nuclear-powered icebreaker fleet.


title: Rosatom

text: Key daughter companies include Bochvar National Research Institute for Inorganic Materials, Siberian Chemical Combine, and Chepetskiy Mechanical Plant.


title: Rosatom

text: The division's tasks include the fabrication of nuclear fuel, conversion and enrichment of uranium, and the production of gas centrifuges.


title: Rosatom

text: Uranium enrichment is carried out at four TVEL Fuel Company plants, including Angarsk Electrochemical Plant in Angarsk, Irkutsk oblast, Zelenogorsk Electrochemical Plant in Zelenogorsk, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Ural Electrochemical Plant in Novouralsk, Sverdlovsk oblast, and the Siberian Chemical Plant in Seversk, Tomsk oblast. Uranium is enriched using an advanced gas centrifuge technology to separate uranium isotopes. Depleted uranium hexafluoride is converted to an oxide form at the W-ECP unit of Zelenogorsk Electrochemical Plant.


title: Rosatom

text: Nuclear fuel is produced at Rosatom's Machine-building plant (JSC MSZ) and Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrates Plant (JSC NCCP). The plants produce UO-based (enriched fresh and reprocessed uranium) nuclear fuel for all models of Russian power and research reactors, as well as for many foreign power and research reactor models and for Russian ship-based power installations. The development of accident tolerant fuel for VVER and PWR reactors has now entered the stage of testing.


title: Rosatom

text: MOX fuel for fast sodium reactors is produced at the Mining and Chemical Combine, while uranium-plutonium mixed fuel will be produced at the Siberian Chemical Plant, which is currently under construction. A uranium-plutonium fuel REMIX (regenerated mixture) being tested for VVER reactors; its commercial production is expected to take place at the Mining and Chemical Combine.


title: Rosatom

text: SNF reprocessing is carried out at the Mayak Production Association at the RT-1 plant. The plant is currently processing the spent nuclear fuel (of various compositions) from power reactors (BN-350, VVER-440, BN-600, RBMK-1000, VVER-1000; BN-MOX), from the research reactors of Russian and foreign scientific centres, and from the reactors of submarine and surface naval fleet transport power plants.


title: Rosatom

text: The managing company is JSC Atomenergomash. It is one of Russia's largest groups of mechanical engineering enterprises offering a full range of solutions for the design, manufacture and supply of equipment for the nuclear power industry. The division comprises more than 10 production sites, including production enterprises, engineering centers and research organizations in Russia, Ukraine, Czechia, and Hungary.


title: Rosatom

text: According to the group's own data, 14% of nuclear power plants in the world and 40% of thermal power stations in the CIS and the Baltic states use the holding equipment. In addition, the division is the largest producer of equipment for the VVER reactor and the world's only producer of the fast-neutron reactor (BN reactor). Its enterprises are also responsible for design and manufacturing of reactors for SMR nuclear power plants, both onshore and offshore, as well as nuclear icebreakers.


title: Rosatom

text: Key daughter companies include OKB Gidropress, OKBM Afrikantov, JSC Machine-Building Factory of Podolsk, and AEM-technology.


title: Rosatom

text: The managing company is JSC ASE EC, which has extensive capabilities for managing the construction of complex engineering facilities. The main business areas of the division include design and construction of large NPPs in Russia and abroad, and developing digital technologies for managing complex engineering facilities based on the Multi-D platform.


title: Rosatom

text: The managing company is JSC Rosenergoatom. It is the only NPP operator in Russia and a key player in the Russian electricity market. Its main business areas include power and heat generation at NPPs and acting as the operator of nuclear facilities (nuclear power plants), radiation sources and facilities storing nuclear materials and radioactive substances


title: Rosatom

text: Key companies include all Russian NPPs, JSC AtomEnergoRemont, JSC AtomEnergoSbyt, and TITAN-2 construction holding.


title: Rosatom

text: The managing company is JSC Federal Center for Nuclear and Radiation Safety. It is dedicated to a centralized system for management of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste, as well as decommissioning of hazardous nuclear and radiological facilities.


title: Rosatom

text: The managing company is JSC Science and Innovations. Key companies include Russian Scientific Center (RSC) – A.I. Leipunskiy IPPE, NII NPO Luch, and the Research Institute of Atomic Reactors.


title: Rosatom

text: The development of the Northern Sea Route has become a Rosatom priority after the company was appointed its infrastructure operator in late 2018. Rosatom seeks to organize ship navigation within the NSR, develop the infrastructure of seaports, including energy, create a navigation safety system, as well as navigational and hydrographic support. In addition, several Rosatom entities are involved in the development of international transit sea freight traffic along the Northern Sea Transit Corridor.


title: Rosatom

text: In 2017, Rosatom decided to invest in wind turbine manufacturing, believing that rapid cost reductions in the renewable industry will become a competitive threat to nuclear power. Russia had recently offered subsidies for domestically built renewable technology.


title: Rosatom

text: The managing company is JSC NovaWind. This Rosatom's division concentrates its efforts in advanced areas of wind energy generation technology.


title: Rosatom

text: The managing company is JSC Rusatom Healthcare. It has been historically developed at various enterprises of the Russian nuclear industry. In 2017, Rosatom established the division to bring together assets and expertise in healthcare. The nuclear medicine division is in charge of nuclear medicine, manufacturing and distribution of radioisotope products and radiation sterilisation equipment, as well as creation of integrated turnkey solutions for medicine.


title: Rosatom

text: Key companies include JSC Isotope and NIITFA. In February 2022, Rusatom Healthcare acquired 25,001% of shares of Medscan group, the rest of shares still being hold by its major shareholder, Yevgeny Tugolukov.


title: Rosatom

text: The managing company is JSC UMATEX, which is engaged in production of carbon fiber and fiber-based items, as well as R&D and engineering support to its partners.


title: Rosatom

text: The managing company is the Digitalization Unit of Rosatom, which is engaged in solving tasks in three main areas:


title: Rosatom

text: The participation in the digitalization of Russia, as Rosatom is the center of competences of the Federal Project Digital Technologies within the National Program Digital Economy.


title: Rosatom

text: The internal digitalization of the Russian nuclear industry, making it independent from foreign technologies in critical areas.


title: Rosatom

text: The managing company is JSC Rusatom Infrastructure Solutions. It is responsible for the coordination of innovation and advanced technologies of Rosatom organizations for effective urban management, improving quality of life, creating a comfortable and safe urban environment as part of the “Smart City” program. Another area of expertise is the production of fresh water, which includes the development of solutions for desalination, water treatment, and water purification. The company develops, builds, modernizes, maintains water supply, water purification and water treatment facilities for energy, petrochemical, food, and other industries.


title: Rosatom

text: The managing company is Rusatom Additive Technologies. It connects together the scientific and production companies of Rosatom in order to develop the area of additive production in Russia. It controls design and production of 3D-printers, additive powders, complete sets, software, and 3D-printing services.


title: Rosatom

text: The managing company is LLC RENERA, which is engaged in the development of lithium-ion traction batteries for electric transport and fixed systems for energy accumulation, as well as products for emergency and uninterruptible power supply and storage systems for renewable energy.


title: Rosatom

text: The managing company is JSC Rusatom Automated Control Systems. It builds comprehensive solutions for automation of production processes, manufactures and supplies electrical equipment, designs and constructs electricity supply facilities.


title: Rosatom

text: The managing company is Techsnabexport (TENEX), which is in charge of international export of uranium enrichment services and products. Techsnabexport was founded in 1963 as a foreign trade agent of the Soviet nuclear industry, the company is known on the foreign market under the trademark "TENEX". In 1993, a Russian-American intergovernmental program, the Megatons to Megawatts Program, in which the aims were converting highly enriched uranium extracted from Russian nuclear warheads into low-enriched uranium for use by American nuclear power plants, was signed thanks to Techsnabexport's efforts, and lasted until 2013. By the end of the agreement, about 500 tons of weapons-grade uranium were recycled from 20,000 Russian warheads. The fuel thus produced provided about half of all energy produced by US nuclear power plants (and about 10% of all electricity produced in the US).


title: Rosatom

text: The management company Rosenergoatom operates all of Russia's nuclear power plants and represents the electric power division of the state corporation Rosatom. As of April 2021, 11 nuclear power plants (38 power units) operated in Russia with a total capacity of 30.5 GW, producing about 20.28% of all electricity produced in Russia.


title: Rosatom

text: As a result of reforms and reassignments in the period from 2012 to 2014, Rosatom's engineering activities were concentrated within the management company Atomenergoproekt-Atomstroyexport (NIAEP-ASE), based in Nizhny Novgorod. Earlier, Atomstroyexport was engaged in foreign construction, and a number of independent engineering institutes with the name Atomenergoproekt were engaged in the design and construction of facilities in Russia: Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Nizhny Novgorod. Since October 2014 on the basis of NIAEP-ASE, Rosatom forms a unified engineering division, not including design company on nuclear power facilities and technologies Atomproekt. According to Kommersant, such a strategy is aimed at eliminating internal competition, deliberately created earlier. This measure can be effective from the economic point of view in view of a large number of domestic and foreign orders.


title: Rosatom

text: Rosatom is one of the world leaders in the number of simultaneously constructed power units. As of late 2021, Rosatom is building two new power units in Russia at Kursk Nuclear Power Plant II, and there are 35 power units at different stages of implementation abroad. Construction of a nuclear power plant in Kaliningrad started on 25 February 2010, but was suspended for the project to be redesigned.


title: Rosatom

text: There are also plans to build two more units at Leningrad NPP, two units at Smolensk NPP, two more units at Novovoronezh NPP and two more units at Kursk NPP. In mid-June 2021, Rosatom announced that two 600 MW VVER reactors will be added to Kola NPP with the first coming online in 2034. In early June 2021, construction of the BREST-OD-300 reactor started. It will be the world's first experimental demonstration power unit featuring a lead-cooled fast neutron reactor.


title: Rosatom

text: Rosatom has the world's largest portfolio of foreign NNP construction projects with a market share of 74%. Rosatom has taken the lead in offering nuclear power plants to emerging countries. 37% of nuclear reactors under construction worldwide being built by Rosatom itself, usually the OKB Gidropress' VVER type. Rosatom received $66.5 billion of foreign orders in 2012, including $28.9 billion for nuclear plant construction, $24.7 billion for uranium products and $12.9 billion for nuclear fuel exports and associated activities. In 2020, Rosatom received $138.3 billion of foreign orders, including $89.1 billion for nuclear plant construction, $13.3 billion for uranium products and $35.8 billion for nuclear fuel exports and associated activities. Nuclear power plants in China, India, and Iran, were either designed and built by Rosatom or with the corporation's participation. Rosatom is involved with the construction of the Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant in China, the construction of Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant in India, and the construction of the Belarusian Nuclear Power Plant in Belarus.


title: Rosatom

text: In December 2013, Rosatom signed a €6.4 billion contract with Fennovoima in Finland of the single-unit Hanhikivi NPP using OKB Gidropress' VVER-1200 pressurized water reactor in the town of Pyhäjoki, with construction planned to start after 2021, but the contract was cancelled in May 2022 by Finland for Russian invasion of Ukraine. In December 2014, Rosatom and the MVM Group of Hungary signed an agreement for the construction of new station units of the Paks NPP with construction planned to start in 2022. Rosatom also started construction of Turkey's Akkuyu NPP on April 3, 2018. Rosatom  has signed agreements with Egypt on construction of the El-Dabaa NPP and with Bangladesh on construction of the Rooppur NPP, with construction starting on November 30, 2017.


title: Rosatom

text: Rosatom has practical experience operating small reactors in the Far North, including the four EGP-6 reactor-equipped power units of Bilibino NPP. In 2019, the floating nuclear power plant Akademik Lomonosov, equipped with two KLT-40 reactors, was connected to the grid in the Russian town of Pevek. Akademic Lomonosov has an electric power capacity of 70 MW and a thermal power capacity of 50 Gcal/h. Rosatom's new floating nuclear power plant projects will be equipped with RITM-200 reactors, which are used in Project 22220 icebreakers. Rosatom also has ground-based small nuclear power plant projects equipped with RITM-200 reactors. In November 2020, Rosatom announced plans to place a land-based RITM-200 SMR in the isolated town of Ust-Kuyga, Yakutia. In early August 2021, the Russian nuclear regulator granted a license to Rusatom Overseas JSC, allowing the company to build nuclear installations at nuclear power plants within the framework of the project in Yakutia.


title: Rosatom

text: Rosatom offers land, water, and submarine versions of the small modular reactor “Shelf” for consumers in the ≤ 10 MW power range. The company also developed the SVBR-100 lead-bismuth fast reactor for consumers in the ≤ 100 MW power range, though the latter project is currently frozen.


title: Rosatom

text: According to the Research Reactor Database (RRDB), maintained by the IAEA, Russia has 54 research reactors, which are largely based at Rosatom enterprises and institutes. Most of Russia's research reactors were built in the USSR, in the early stages of the development of the nuclear energy sector. Today, Rosatom's largest research reactor project is the Multipurpose Fast Neutron Research Reactor (MBIR), which is currently under construction. Based in Dimitrovgrad, Ulyanovsk oblast, the reactor will be the world leader among high-flux research facilities. Its unique physical characteristics are best suited for material science experiments, such as testing innovative fuel and new coolants.


title: Rosatom

text: Rosatom provides support to its foreign partners in the creation of nuclear science and technology centres, including scientific laboratories and research reactors. The company is currently building the first centre of such type in Bolivia, which will be commissioned in 2024. Another contract to build similar facilities in Zambia was signed in 2018.


title: Rosatom

text: In 2018, Rosatom adopted a long-term strategy through year 2100, for the development of nuclear energy in accordance with the following goals:


title: Rosatom

text: In pursuit of achieving these goals, Rosatom is transitioning to a two-component nuclear power structure that operates in a closed-loop heavy metal (uranium, plutonium, and minor actinides) fuel cycle that simultaneously involves thermal and fast reactors. VVER reactors, with their improved adjustments, were selected as thermal reactors and BN (sodium-cooled) and BREST/BR (lead-cooled) reactors were selected as fast reactors. In such a system, spent nuclear fuel is considered a valuable raw material instead of nuclear waste, as it could be further used for fresh fuel fabrication. Rosatom is currently at the first stage of transitioning to a two-component structure.


title: Rosatom

text: Since 2008, the structure of Rosatom includes the Russian nuclear icebreaker fleet, which is the largest in the world with five nuclear-powered icebreakers , a container ship, and four service vessels. Its tasks include navigation on the routes of the Northern Sea Route and rescue operations in ice. Operation and maintenance of the fleet is carried out by FSUE Atomflot, also known as Rosatomflot, a company based in Murmansk.


title: Rosatom

text: The highest executive body of Rosatom is the supervisory board, consisting of nine people, including the chairman. The board is headed since 2005 by chairman Sergey Kiriyenko. Other Board members are:


title: Rosatom

text: Strategies, policies and objectives of Rosatom are established by its management board, consisting of fourteen people, including the General Director. The board is headed since 2016 by General Director Alexey Likhachev.


title: Rosatom

text: The sole executive body of Rosatom is the General Director, who manages the day-to-day operations. Sergey Kiriyenko, who headed the Russian nuclear industry in 2005, became general director of Rosatom since its creation until he got replaced on October 5, 2016, by Alexey Likhachev, former Deputy Minister for Economic Development.


title: Rosatom

text: The Public Council of Rosatom works with civic organizations to utilize nuclear power, protect the environment, and ensure nuclear and radiation safety. Objectives of the council are:


title: Rock Believer

text: Rock Believer is the nineteenth studio album by German rock band Scorpions, released on 22 February 2022 in the United Kingdom and 25 February elsewhere. This is the band's first studio album with drummer Mikkey Dee, who replaced James Kottak in 2016, and their first studio album in seven years since "Return to Forever" (2015), making it their longest gap between studio albums.


title: Rock Believer

text: Scorpions toured for over a year in support of "Return to Forever", where the band celebrated its 50th anniversary, and about three months before the album's tour cycle ended in December 2016, drummer James Kottak was fired from the band and Mikkey Dee was officially announced as his replacement. Scorpions toured for another three years, and a follow-up album from the band was uncertain, until August 2018 when guitarist Rudolf Schenker expressed interest in recording another album, telling the "Digital Journal": "We are still waiting for a moment for inspiration to do another album, like Judas Priest and Metallica did. You have to wait until the time is right." In May 2019, frontman Klaus Meine hinted that "there might be a new album out in 2020."


title: Rock Believer

text: Progress on "Rock Believer" had slowly been taking shape for nearly three years, with the writing sessions commencing as early as early-to-mid 2019, and the recording sessions beginning in July 2020 at Peppermint Park Studios in Hanover and wrapping up around the following summer/fall. The sessions were supposed to take place in Los Angeles, but the COVID-19 pandemic meant that the band would record the album remotely in Germany, with producer Greg Fidelman participating via Zoom. In a March 2021 interview with Robb Flynn of Machine Head, however, Dee revealed that Scorpions were forced to scrap plans to work with Fidelman because of the pandemic. Five months later, Scorpions posted a video on Facebook from the studio where they rehearsed an as-yet-untitled song for an upcoming tour.


title: Rock Believer

text: On 29 September 2021, the band announced the release of "Rock Believer" with the first single "Peacemaker", which was released on 4 November, as well as a world tour, scheduled to begin with nine consecutive concerts in March 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada.


title: Rock Believer

text: "Rock Believer" has received mostly positive reviews. Jason Roche of Blabbermouth.net wrote that, with this album, "The rock icons revisit many of the sounds that fueled their superstardom's peak. The level of energy and songcraft present though keep those tracks from feeling tired, and perhaps for the first time in several records, there are even a few anthems that hold up next to the classics we've been re-purchasing on multiple formats over the decades." Roche also referred to it as a "testament to the band's self-confidence that on the fiftieth anniversary of their 1972 debut album, "Lonesome Crow", the band's course of action was to simply do the things that they have always done best throughout their existence", and concluded that ""Rock Believer" serves as a comforting reminder that Scorpions are still capable of generating catchy rock anthems in their later years."