title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: Macbeth (or The Tragedy of Macbeth) is a 1971 historical drama film directed by Roman Polanski and co-written by Polanski and Kenneth Tynan. A film adaptation of William Shakespeare's tragedy of the same name, it tells the story of the Highland lord who becomes King of Scotland through treachery and murder. The film stars Jon Finch as the title character and Francesca Annis as Lady Macbeth, noted for their relative youth as actors. Themes of historic recurrence, greater pessimism and internal ugliness in physically beautiful characters are added to Shakespeare's story of moral decline, which is presented in a more realistic style.


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: Polanski opted to create an adaptation of "Macbeth" as a means of coping with the highly publicized Manson Family murder of his wife, Sharon Tate. Finding difficulty obtaining sponsorship from major studios, the production was funded by Playboy Enterprises. Filming was troubled by poor weather around the British Isles. "Macbeth" was screened out of competition at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival, and was a commercial failure in the United States. The film was controversial for its depictions of graphic violence and nudity, but has received generally positive reviews since its release, and was named Best Film by the National Board of Review.


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: In the Middle Ages, a Norwegian invasion of Scotland is suppressed by Macbeth, Thane of Glamis, and Banquo. A traitor, the Thane of Cawdor, is captured, and King Duncan decrees Macbeth shall be awarded the title of Cawdor. Macbeth and Banquo do not hear of this news; when out riding, they happen upon Three Witches, who hail Macbeth as Thane of Cawdor and future King, and Banquo as lesser and greater. At their camp, nobles arrive and inform Macbeth he has been named the Thane of Cawdor, with Macbeth simultaneously awed and frightened at the prospect of usurping Duncan, in further fulfilment of the prophecy. He writes a letter to Lady Macbeth, who is delighted at the news. However, she fears her husband has too much good nature, and vows to be cruel for him. Duncan names his eldest son, Malcolm, Prince of Cumberland, and thus heir apparent, to the displeasure of Macbeth and Malcolm's brother Donalbain. The royal family and nobles then spend the night at Macbeth's castle, with Lady Macbeth greeting the King and dancing with him with duplicity.


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: Urged on by his wife, Macbeth steps into King Duncan's chambers after she has drugged the guards. Duncan wakes and utters Macbeth's name, but Macbeth stabs him to death. He then murders the guards. Fearing a conspiracy, Malcolm and Donalbain flee to England and Ireland, and the Thane of Ross realises Macbeth will be king. An opportunistic courtier, he hails Macbeth at Scone, while the noble Macduff heads back to his home in Fife. When Macbeth begins to fear possible usurpation by Banquo and his son Fleance, he sends two murderers to kill them, and then sends Ross as the mysterious Third Murderer. Banquo is killed, while Fleance escapes. After Banquo appears at a banquet as a ghost, Macbeth seeks out the witches, who are performing a nude ritual. The witches and the spirits they summon deceive Macbeth into thinking he is invincible, as he cannot be killed except by a man not born of woman, and will not be defeated until "Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane."


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: After Macduff flees to England, Ross leaves Fife's castle doors open, so Macbeth's murderers can kill Lady Macduff and the rest of the family and servants. With nobles fleeing Scotland, Macbeth chooses a new Thane of Cawdor, bestowing the title on Seyton over Ross. Disappointed, Ross joins Malcolm and Macduff in England, where the English King has committed forces led by Siward to overthrowing Macbeth and installing Malcolm on the Scottish throne.


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: The English forces invade, covering themselves by cutting down branches from Birnam Wood and holding them in front of their army to hide their numbers as they march on Macbeth in Dunsinane. When the forces storm the castle, Macduff confronts Macbeth, and during the sword fight, Macduff reveals he was delivered by Caesarean section. Macduff beheads Macbeth, and Ross presents the crown to Malcolm. Meanwhile, Donalbain, out riding, encounters the witches.


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: Director Roman Polanski had been interested in adapting a Shakespeare play since he was a student in Kraków, Poland, but he did not begin until after the murder of his pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, and several of his friends by members of the Manson Family at his house in Beverly Hills on the night of 9 August 1969. Following the murders, Polanski sank into deep depression, and was unhappy with the way the incident was depicted in the media, in which his films seemed to be blamed. At the time, he was working on the film "The Day of the Dolphin", a project that collapsed and was turned over to another director, Mike Nichols. While in Gstaad, Switzerland during the start of 1970, Polanski envisioned an adaptation of "Macbeth" and sought out his friend, British theatre critic Kenneth Tynan, for his "encyclopedic knowledge of Shakespeare". In turn, Tynan was interested in working with Polanski because the director demonstrated what Tynan considered "exactly the right combination of fantasy and violence".


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: Tynan and Polanski found it challenging to adapt the text to suit the feel of the film. Tynan wrote to Polanski, saying, "the number one Macbeth problem is to see the events of the film from his point of view". During the writing process, Polanski and Tynan acted out their scenes in a Belgravia, London apartment, with Tynan as Duncan and Polanski as Macbeth. As with the 1948 film version of "Hamlet", the soliloquies are presented naturalistically as voiceover narration.


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: In one scene Polanski and Tynan wrote, Lady Macbeth delivers her sleepwalking soliloquy in the nude. Their decision was motivated by the fact that people in this era always slept in the nude. Likewise, consultations of academic research of the Middle Ages led to the depiction of the nobles, staying at Macbeth's castle, going to bed on hay and the ground, with animals present.


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: The added importance the film gives to Ross did not appear in the first draft of the screenplay, which instead invented a new character called the Bodyguard, who also serves as the Third Murderer. The Bodyguard was merged into Shakespeare's Ross. The screenplay was completed by August 1970, with plans to begin filming in England in October.


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer declined to finance the project, seeing a Shakespeare play as a poor fit for a director who achieved success with "Rosemary's Baby" (1968). Hugh Hefner, who published "Playboy", had produced a few films with Playboy Enterprises and was eager to make more when he met Polanski at a party. The budget was set at $2.4 million.


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: At one stage Richard Burton said he would do the film alongside his then-wife Elizabeth Taylor, but this never came to pass.


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: Due to a feeling that the characters of "Macbeth" were more relatable to young people in the 1960s than experienced, elder actors, Polanski deliberately sought out "young and good-looking" actors for the parts of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Francesca Annis and Jon Finch were 26 and 29, respectively, with Tynan remarking characters over 60 were too old to be ambitious.


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: Polanski wanted to cast either Victoria Tennant or Tuesday Weld in the role of Lady Macbeth. Weld rejected the role, unwilling to perform the nude scene. Annis accepted the role after some reluctance, as she agreed the character should be older, but was easy to persuade to join the cast. Polanski's first choice for Macbeth was Albert Finney, who rejected the role, after which Tynan recommended Nicol Williamson, but Polanski felt he was not attractive enough. Finch was better known for appearing in Hammer Film Productions pictures such as "The Vampire Lovers".


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: For the scene where the Three Witches and numerous others perform "Double, double, toil and trouble" in the nude, Polanski had difficulty hiring extras to perform. As a result, some of the witches are cut from cardboard. Polanski had a few of the elderly extras sing "Happy Birthday to You" while naked for a video, sent to Hefner for his 45th birthday.


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: "Macbeth" was filmed in various locations around the British Isles, starting in Snowdonia in October 1970. Parts of the film were shot in Wales. A considerable amount of shooting took place in Northumberland on the northeast coast of England, including Lindisfarne Castle, Bamburgh Castle and beach, St. Aidan's Church and North Charlton Moors near Alnwick. Interior scenes were shot at Shepperton Studios.


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: The production was troubled by poor weather, and the cast complaining of Polanski's "petulance". Fight director William Hobbs likened the long rehearsals in the rain to "training for the decathlon".


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: Polanski personally handled and demonstrated the props and rode horses before shooting, and walked into animal feces to film goats and sheep. It was common for the director to snatch the camera away from his cameramen. He also decided to use special effects to present the "dagger of the mind", believing viewers may be puzzled or would not enjoy it if the dagger did not appear on screen, but was merely described in the dialogue. The great challenges in portraying the catapult of fireballs into the castle led to Polanski calling it "special defects".


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: At the insistence of financiers who wanted Polanski fired, Peter Collinson was hired and filmed scenes in Shepperton. Polanski justified the film's inefficiency, blaming "shitty weather," and agreed to give up one-third of the rest of his salary, on top of which Hefner contributed another $500,000 to complete the film.


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: For the film score, Polanski employed the Third Ear Band, a musical group which enjoyed initial success after publishing their album "Alchemy" in 1969. The band composed original music for the film, by adding electronic music to hand drums, woodwinds and strings. Recorders and oboes were also used, inspired by Medieval music in Scotland. Additionally, elements of music in India and the Middle East and jazz were incorporated into the score.


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: In the scene where King Duncan is entertained as Macbeth's castle, lutes are played, and Fleance sings "Merciless Beauty" by Geoffrey Chaucer, though his lyrics did not fit the film's time frame. While the score has some Middle Ages influence, this is not found in the scenes where Duncan is assassinated and Macbeth is killed. Polanski and the band used aleatoric music for these scenes, to communicate chaos.


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: James Morrison wrote "Macbeth"s themes of "murderous ambition" fit in with Polanski's filmography, and saw similarities to Orson Welles's 1948 film version of "Macbeth" in downplaying psychology and reviving the "primitive edge". However, unlike Welles, Polanski chooses naturalism over expressionism. Author Ewa Mazierska wrote that, despite supposed realism in presenting soliloquies as voiceovers, Polanski's "Macbeth" was "absurdist", not depicting history as an explanation for current events, but as a "vicious circle of crimes and miseries". Each coronation occurs after the predecessor is violently dispatched, and guests and hosts always betray each other, with Polanski adding Ross leaving Fife's castle doors open.


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: Deanne Williams read the film as not only Polanski's reflections on the murder of Sharon Tate, but on wider issues such as the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Vietnam War. Francesca Royster similarly argues the use of English and Celtic cultures in the clothes and culture of the 1960s and 1970s, pointing to the publications of "The Lord of the Rings" in the U.S. and the music of Led Zeppelin, ties the film's past to the present. While Playboy Enterprises role was mainly to provide funding, Williams also saw Polanski's Lady Macbeth as embodying "Playboy "mythos"" paradoxes, at times warm and sexy, at times a domestic servant, and at times femme fatale.


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: In one scene, Macbeth's court hosts bear-baiting, a form of entertainment in the Middle Ages in which a bear and dogs are pitted against each other. Williams suggested the scene communicates Macbeth and Lady Macbeth's growing callousness after taking power, while Kenneth S. Rothwell and Morrison matched the scene to Shakespeare's Macbeth describing himself as "bear-like".


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: Literary critic Sylvan Barnet wrote that the younger protagonists suggested "contrast between a fair exterior and an ugly interior". Williams compared Lady Macbeth to Lady Godiva in her "hair and naturalistic pallor", suggesting she could fit in at the Playboy Mansion. More "ugliness" is added by Polanski in the re-imagining of Ross, who becomes a more important character in this film. As with the leads, Ross demonstrates "evil-in-beauty" as he is played by "handsome John Stride".


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: Barnet also wrote the changed ending with Donalbain meeting the witches replaced the message of "measure, time and place" with "unending treachery." Film historian Douglas Brode also commented on the added ending, saying it reflected Polanski's pessimism in contradiction to Shakespeare's optimism. Likewise, Brode believed Macbeth's "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" soliloquy becomes an articulation of nihilism in the film, while Shakespeare did not intend it to reflect his own sentiment.


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: In the United States, the film opened in the Playboy Theater in New York City on 20 December 1971. Polanski bemoaned the release near January as "cinematic suicide" given usually low ticket sales for newly released films in that month. The film opened in London in February 1972. The film was screened at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival, but was not entered into the main competition. Polanski, Finch and Annis attended the Cannes festival in May 1972.


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: After a restoration by Sony Pictures Entertainment, the film was placed in the Venice Classics section in the 2014 Venice Film Festival. In Region 1, The Criterion Collection released the film on DVD and Blu-ray in September 2014.


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: The film was a box office bomb. According to "The Hollywood Reporter", Playboy Enterprises estimated in September 1973 that it would lose $1.8 million on the film, and that it would damage the company as a whole.


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: Total losses were $3.5 million. The losses caused Shakespeare films to appear commercially risky until Kenneth Branagh directed "Henry V" in 1989. Film critic Terrence Rafferty associated the financial failure with the various superstitions surrounding the play.


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: Upon release, "Macbeth" received mixed reviews, with much negative attention on its violence, in light of the Manson murders, and the nudity, blamed on the film's associations with "Playboy". Pauline Kael wrote the film "reduces Shakespeare's meanings to the banal theme of 'life is a jungle'". "Variety" staff dismissed the film, writing, "Does Polanski's "Macbeth" work? Not especially, but it was an admirable try". Derek Malcolm, writing for "The Guardian", called the film shocking but not over-the-top, and Finch and Annis "more or less adequate". However, Roger Ebert gave it four stars, writing it was "full of sound and fury" and "All those noble, tragic Macbeths – Orson Welles and Maurice Evans and the others – look like imposters now, and the king is revealed as a scared kid". Roger Greenspun, writing for "The New York Times", said that despite gossip about the film, it is "neither especially nude nor unnecessarily violent", and that Finch and Annis give great performances. In "New York", Judith Crist defended the film as traditional, appropriately focusing on Macbeth's "moral deterioration", and suited for youthful audiences, and drew parallel with its blood to the title of Akira Kurosawa's 1957 "Macbeth" film, "Throne of Blood".


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: Literary critic Sylvan Barnet wrote that, given Shakespeare's writing, it was arguable "blood might just as well flow abundantly in a film". However, he wrote the perceived inspiration from the Theatre of Cruelty is "hard to take". Troy Patterson, writing for "Entertainment Weekly", gave the film a B, calling it "Shakespeare as fright show" and Annis a better fit for "Melrose Place". The "Time Out" review states the realistic acting did not do justice to the poetry, and the film "never quite spirals into dark, uncontrollable nightmare as the Welles version (for all its faults) does".


title: Macbeth (1971 film)

text: Opinions of the film improved with time, with filmmaker and novelist John Sayles saying, "I think it's a great piece of filmmaking" in 2007, and novelist Martin Amis saying, "I really think the film is without weaknesses" in 2013. In his "2014 Movie Guide", Leonard Maltin gave the film three and a half stars, describing it as "Gripping, atmospheric and extremely violent". The film holds rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on reviews, with the consensus "Roman Polanski's "Macbeth" is unsettling and uneven, but also undeniably compelling."


title: Valero Energy

text: Valero Energy Corporation is a Fortune 500 international manufacturer and marketer of transportation fuels, other petrochemical products, and power. It is headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, United States. Throughout the United States and Canada, the company owns and operates 15 refineries, and one in Wales, with a combined throughput capacity of approximately per day, 11 ethanol plants with a combined production capacity of per year, and a 50-megawatt wind farm. Before the 2013 spinoff of CST Brands, Valero was one of the United States' largest retail operators with approximately 6,800 retail and branded wholesale outlets in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and the Caribbean under the Valero, Diamond Shamrock, Shamrock, Beacon, and Texaco brands.


title: Valero Energy

text: Valero was created on January 1, 1980, as the successor of Coastal States Gas Corporation's Subsidiary, LoVaca Gathering Company. Valero took over the natural gas operations of the LoVaca Gathering Company, later renamed the Valero Transmission Company. The name Valero comes from "Mission San Antonio de Valero," the original name of the Alamo. Valero acquired Corpus Christi Marine Services Company ("CCMS"), a small barge company in Corpus Christi, Texas in April 1981 when it purchased a stake in Saber Energy Inc. of Houston. In May 1985, Valero Refining and Marketing Company was born from Valero's subsidiary, Saber Energy, Inc.


title: Valero Energy

text: In 1997, Valero Energy Company spun off its subsidiary, Valero, to its stockholders. At the same time, the remaining divisions, which consisted of natural gas operations, merged with a wholly owned subsidiary of Pacific Gas and Electric Company. In May of that year, the firm acquired Basis Petroleum, which left it with four refineries in Texas and Louisiana. In 1998, it then acquired a Paulsboro, New Jersey, refinery, the company's first outside of the Gulf Coast area.


title: Valero Energy

text: In 2000, Valero purchased ExxonMobil's Benicia, California, refinery and interest in 350 Exxon-branded service stations in California, mainly in the San Francisco Bay Area. The company also began retailing gasoline under the Valero brand. In June 2001, Valero acquired the Huntway Refining Company, along with two asphalt plants on the West Coast.


title: Valero Energy

text: On December 31, 2001, Valero completed its acquisition of Ultramar Diamond Shamrock. The merger left Valero with over 4,700 Ultramar, Diamond Shamrock, and Beacon retail sites in the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean. With this acquisition, Valero also received ownership of Shamrock Logistics L.P., which was renamed Valero L.P. In 2006, the division was spun off as NuStar Energy. Starting in 2002, Valero has expanded its marketing to the East Coast, specifically the Northeast and Florida, using the Valero brand. The acquisition also includes all past Diamond Shamrock assets, including the former Sigmor Petroleum assets founded by Thomas E. Turner, founder of TETCO Inc. (the Sigmor brand name was the initials of Sigfried Moore, Turner's former employer) which merged with Shamrock Oil and Gas in 1960 forming Sigmor Shamrock - which was merged into Diamond Shamrock in 1982. Turner later repurchased Mission Petroleum Carriers when it was acquired by Diamond Shamrock which was the foundation of TETCO, and the business portfolio of the former National Convenience Stores, which was acquired by Diamond Shamrock in November 1995.


title: Valero Energy

text: On April 25, 2005, Valero agreed to buy Premcor, Inc., for $8 billion in cash and stock to become the largest U.S. refiner, as record prices for gasoline and other fuel boosted profits. On June 30, 2005, Valero announced that it was beginning a two-year process of converting Diamond Shamrock stations to the Valero brand. In the next year, on May 5, 2008, Valero agreed to buy 72 Albertsons gas stations.


title: Valero Energy

text: Valero laid off 500 employees at its refinery in Delaware City, Delaware on November 20, 2009, due to profitability concerns. It was reported the refinery had lost $1 million per day since the beginning of the year.


title: Valero Energy

text: On March 11, 2011, Valero announced that it had agreed to a major European purchase from Chevron Corp. for $730 million in cash, not including working capital that will be determined at closing. Estimates on the value of the working capital would place the total price at $1.73 billion. The acquisition included Chevron's Pembroke Refinery in Wales — one of Europe's largest and most complex — together with marketing and logistical assets throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland, which include 4 pipelines, 11 terminals, an aviation fuel business, about 1,000 retail outlets, inventory and other items.


title: Valero Energy

text: In 2013, Valero spun off its retail operations into a new publicly traded company, CST Brands. Under long-term supply agreements, Valero continues to supply fuel to over 7,400 retail locations, many of which use brand names formerly owned by Valero.


title: Valero Energy

text: A change to the logo, store canopy and facade was announced in April 2018. Known as "Vanguard", with various hues of blue, white, and yellow, Valero explained that applying the new design to all its stores would take several months to complete.


title: Valero Energy

text: For the fiscal year 2017, Valero Energy reported earnings of US$4.065 billion, with an annual revenue of US$93.980 billion, an increase of 24.2% over the previous fiscal cycle. Valero Energy's shares traded at over $67 per share, and its market capitalization was valued at over US$39.2 billion in November 2018. Valero is ranked No. 31 on the Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue as of 2018.


title: Valero Energy

text: The Political Economy Research Institute ranks Valero 28th among corporations that emit airborne pollutants in the United States. The ranking is based on both the quantity (3.4 million pounds in 2005) and the toxicity of the emissions.


title: Valero Energy

text: Valero was the biggest financial backer of the failed 2010 California Proposition 23 and contributed more than $4 million by August 2010. Had it passed, Proposition 23 would have delayed action on greenhouse-gas emissions in the state of California by delaying current implementation of the California's Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 until the state attained an unemployment rate of 5.5% or less for one full year. Critics argued that because that had happened only three times over the last 40 years, the proposition would have had the practical effect of repealing the law.


title: Valero Energy

text: Valero owns two oil refineries in California. The Benicia Refinery is located on the Carquinez Strait, a tributary of the San Francisco Bay. The Wilmington Refinery is located south from downtown Los Angeles.


title: Valero Energy

text: Valero's Wilmington (CA), Benicia (CA), and Port Arthur (TX) refineries are known to carry and process crude oil from the Amazon region of South America, a large concern for environmentalists trying to protect the Amazon rainforest. In 2015, Wilmington and Benicia processed about 13,000 and 7,200 barrels of Amazonian crude oil per day, respectively.


title: Valero Energy

text: Valero Energy reported Total CO2e emissions (Direct + Indirect) for the twelve months ending 31 December 2020 at 27,500 Kt (-2,000 /-6.8% y-o-y).


title: Valero Energy

text: For many years, Valero Energy Corp. has been awarded contracts worth several hundred millions of dollars by the United States Defense Logistics Agency Energy (DLA Energy) through the U.S. Defense Energy Support Center (DESC) to provide fuel, often JP-8, to Israel.


title: Valero Energy

text: In November 2009, Valero Energy closed its operations at Delaware City. Later, Valero Energy reached an agreement to sell the assets of its Delaware City Refining and Delaware Pipeline to a Petroplus Holdings subsidiary, PBF Energy Partners LP, for approximately $220 million in September 2010.


title: Valero Energy

text: Shortly after the divestiture of Delaware City, the company sold its refinery at the Port of Paulsboro to PBF Holdings, a wholly owned subsidiary of PBF Energy, as well. The sale concluded Valero's refinery ownership on the East Coast.


title: Valero Energy

text: Through acquisitions in 2011, Valero entered the European market while strengthening its position in the United States, by reducing costs in supplying the Atlantic coast.


title: Valero Energy

text: On August 1, 2011, Valero acquired the Pembroke Refinery from Chevron, as well as the marketing and logistics assets, for $730 million, excluding working capital, which was valued at approximately $1 billion. The Pembroke plant is one of the largest and most complex refineries in Western Europe with a total throughput capacity of per day and a Nelson complexity index rating of 11.8. This puts Valero at a total of 15 refineries and per day of throughput capacity overall, solidifying the company’s standing as the world’s largest independent refinery.


title: Valero Energy

text: Valero also purchased ownership interest in four major pipelines and eleven fuel terminals, a -per-day aviation fuel business, and a network of more than 1,000 Texaco-branded wholesale sites, which is the largest branded dealer network in the United Kingdom and the second-largest in Ireland. Valero has continued with the Texaco brand in these markets.


title: Valero Energy

text: Valero retails gasoline branded as Valero, Shamrock, Diamond Shamrock, Beacon, and Total, the last under license from TotalEnergies. While this arm of the company was the most visible to the public, it was, according to CEO Bill Greehey, "a very small part of [Valero's] operations".


title: Valero Energy

text: Valero attempted to shift its focus from being a discount gasoline brand to becoming a premium brand. As part of the shift, Valero began to rebrand its Ultramar, Beacon, Total, and Diamond Shamrock stations to the Valero brand. The Beacon and Shamrock brands are used by retailers as a low-cost alternative to the premium Valero brand. The Shamrock brand is based on the former Shamrock Oil and Gas Company, which merged with Diamond Alkali in 1967 to form Diamond Shamrock, thus declaring the trademark from official abandonment. The name Ultramar, while being eliminated in the United States, continued as Valero's brand name in Canada. Valero introduced its updated "Corner Store" retail concept on December 28, 2007, opening the company's first prototype in western San Antonio. The Corner Store retail division, originally part of Diamond Shamrock, was absorbed into Valero's business portfolio in 2001. Not all Valero gas stations included a Corner Store - one Valero gas station in Euless, Texas east of Fort Worth is co-branded with a 7-Eleven convenience store.


title: Valero Energy

text: On July 31, 2012, during the 2nd Quarter Earnings Conference Call, Valero announced intentions to separate the retail business from the remainder of the company. CFO Mike Ciskowski stated "We believe the separation of our retail business by way of a tax-efficient distribution to our shareholders will create operational flexibility within the business and unlock value for our shareholders." In 2013, Valero completed the spinoff of the retail operations as CST Brands. Valero no longer owns retail operations using the Diamond Shamrock, Shamrock, Beacon, Ultramar, or Texaco names, but Valero continues to supply fuel.


title: Valero Energy

text: Valero issues its own private label credit cards for its stations through its credit card-only subsidiary, DSRM National Bank. The initials stand for "Diamond Shamrock Refining & Marketing", the unit of Diamond Shamrock which created it before being purchased by Valero. The credit card operations are based in Amarillo, Texas, a city where Diamond Shamrock was once previously based.


title: Hi-Point Carbine

text: The Hi-Point carbine is a series of pistol-caliber carbines manufactured by Hi-Point Firearms chambered, for 9×19mm Parabellum, .40 S&W, 10mm Auto, .45 ACP and .380 ACP handgun cartridges. They are inexpensive as they are constructed using polymers and alloyed metals resulting in a reduction of production costs and sale price. It functions via a simple direct blowback action.


title: Hi-Point Carbine

text: Developed during the now-defunct 1994 Federal assault weapons ban, the Hi-Point carbine comes with a ten-round magazine that fits into the pistol grip. With the expiration of the federal assault weapons ban in 2004, aftermarket third-party 15- and 20-round magazines were created.


title: Hi-Point Carbine

text: The proprietary magazines are usable only with Hi-Point firearms. The pistol-style magazines for the 4095 .40 S&W carbine are fully interchangeable with the Hi-Point .40 S&W pistol. No such compatibility was advertised by Hi-Point regarding the original 995 carbine and the 9mm Hi-Point C-9 pistol; owners of both designs have reported that they are not completely interchangeable. The 8 shot pistol magazine is too short to fit the carbine; however, the 10 shot carbine magazine will fit into the pistol but extends past the bottom of the grip.


title: Hi-Point Carbine

text: In the first quarter of 2009, a new model of the 995 carbine was released, the 995TS, which features a new stock and last round hold open. The TS model is slightly more expensive than the "995 Classic," affectionately known as "the Planet of the Apes gun." The 4095 model in .40 S&W and the newest model, the Model 4595 in .45 ACP, are available only in the new TS configuration. As of September 2010, the "995 Classic" or "4095 Classic" are no longer featured on the Hi-Point website.


title: Hi-Point Carbine

text: As of November 2017, Hi-Point has put into production a new carbine in 10mm Auto. Based on the Model 4595TS, the Model 1095TS functions similarly to the 4595TS, with a 10 round single-stack magazine and a telescoping bolt in a blowback action.


title: Hi-Point Carbine

text: The Hipoint carbines have a variety of aftermarket accessories. Hipoint manufactures a muzzle brake and laser system for the first generation models. Various companies manufacture accessories and attachments for the second generation of 995. The 995TS features picatinny rails and an improved design allowing for more versatility and modularity compared to the first generation 995.


title: Hi-Point Carbine

text: The Hi Point Carbine has since been designated an assault weapon in the State of Connecticut with the April 4, 2013 signing of Public Act 13-3. It has been similarly designated by the State of New York with the signing of the NY SAFE Act and as of mid-2013, purchase of any of the unaltered carbines has been restricted to law enforcement officers. However, in 2014 a company developed a shield that prevents the firearm operator from wrapping his or her hand around the pistol grip, which means that "legally" the pistol grip is not a pistol grip within the definition of such under the SAFE Act. With the shield fitted, Hi-Point carbines are again legal to own in New York state.


title: Hi-Point Carbine

text: In 2022, H.R.1808 explicitly mentions "Hi-Point carbine" in Sec2.a.40.H.xii, as a "semiautomatic assault weapon", and subject to the restrictions of the resolution.


title: Hi-Point Carbine

text: The carbine was listed as the 7th most popular pistol caliber carbine in 2019. Some 28,000 were made and sold in 1998 alone, and it continues to sell well. After the success of the 9mm Model 995, the Model 4095 was created in the .40 S&W caliber. It shares much of the success of the Model 995. The Model 4595TS is a success and shares the popularity of the smaller-caliber versions.


title: Hi-Point Carbine

text: The Hi-Point Carbine is infamous for being used in the Columbine High School massacre, as Eric Harris used the weapon throughout the massacre. The first shots were fired with the Hi-Point Carbine.


title: The Adventures of Tintin (TV series)

text: The Adventures of Tintin is an animated television series co-produced, written, and animated by French animation studio Ellipse Programme and Canadian studio Nelvana Limited. The series is based on the comic book series of the same name by Belgian cartoonist Hergé (). 39 half-hour episodes were produced over the course of three seasons, originally airing in France, Canada, and the United States between 1991 and 1992.


title: The Adventures of Tintin (TV series)

text: The television series was directed by French director Stéphane Bernasconi, with Peter Hudecki as the Canadian unit director. Hudecki was the primary director but could not be credited due to co-production restrictions. It was produced by Ellipse (France) and Nelvana (Canada) on behalf of the Hergé Foundation. The series' writers included Toby Mullally, Eric Rondeaux, Martin Brossolet, Amelie Aubert, Dennise Fordham, and Alex Boon. It was the second television adaptation of Hergé's books, following the Belgian animation company Belvision's "Hergé's Adventures of Tintin".


title: The Adventures of Tintin (TV series)

text: The series used traditional animation techniques and adheres closely to the original books, going so far as to transpose some frames from the original books directly to the screen. In the episodes "Destination Moon" and "Explorers on the Moon," 3D animation was used for the moon rocket—an unusual step in 1989. Each frame of the animation was then printed and recopied onto celluloid, hand painted in gouache, and then laid onto a painted background.


title: The Adventures of Tintin (TV series)

text: Artistically, the series chose a constant style, unlike in the books. In the books, the images had been drawn over the course of 47 years, during which Hergé's style developed considerably. However, later televised episodes, such as the "Moon" stories and "Tintin in America", clearly demonstrate the artists' development throughout the production of the television series. The series' original production language was English, but all visuals (road signs, posters, and settings) remained in French. Backgrounds in the show were more detailed and more cinematic shots were featured than in the original books.


title: The Adventures of Tintin (TV series)

text: Along with fans, critics have praised the series for being "generally faithful" to the originals, with compositions having been actually taken directly from the panels in the original comic books.


title: The Adventures of Tintin (TV series)

text: Certain areas of the stories posed significant challenges for the producers who had to adapt features of the books to a younger and more modern audience. Nevertheless, this series was a much more faithful retelling of the books than the previous television adaptation. The frequent instances of violence, death, and the use of firearms were toned down or removed completely. The use of text as a major part of the plot, such as the use of newspaper articles or writing on the wall, was largely cut so these scenes would not have to be reanimated for every language in which "Tintin" was aired. The radio and television are both used more frequently in the TV series to make up for the omission.


title: The Adventures of Tintin (TV series)

text: Captain Haddock's penchant for whisky posed a problem for audience sensitivities. While the original books did not promote alcohol, they featured it heavily, with much humor based on drinking. However, in many countries where the producers hoped to sell the series, alcoholism was a sensitive issue. Therefore, international versions of the series had some alterations. "The Crab with the Golden Claws" is the only episode where Haddock's drinking is not significantly downplayed though it still played a pivotal role in several other episodes. In "Tintin in Tibet", Haddock is seen taking a sip from a flask of whisky to set up a scene in which Snowy, Tintin's dog, is tempted to lap up some spilled whisky and subsequently falls over a cliff. In "Tintin and the Picaros", Haddock is the only person taking wine with dinner, foreshadowing the use of Professor Calculus' tablets to "cure" the drunken Picaros. Haddock is also seen drinking in "The Calculus Affair" and "Explorers on the Moon", setting up the scene where he leaves the rocket in a drunken state. He does not hide the bottle in an astronomy book, as he does in the book, but keeps it in the refrigerator, making it less obvious for young viewers that it is alcohol.


title: The Adventures of Tintin (TV series)

text: Throughout the books, Snowy is frequently seen to be "talking". It is understood that his voice is only heard through the fourth wall, but this verbal commentary is completely absent in the television series. The only time it is maintained is in the ending of "Flight 714", when he "speaks" with Tintin's voice.


title: The Adventures of Tintin (TV series)

text: The character Jolyon Wagg only appeared in three stories ("The Calculus Affair," "The Seven Crystal Balls," and "Tintin and the Picaros") despite being in all but one installment of the book series.


title: The Adventures of Tintin (TV series)

text: Hergé, the creator of Tintin, makes cameo appearances reminiscent of Stan Lee and Alfred Hitchcock in each episode of the cartoon series, as he often did in the original books. Most of the time, he is just a passing figure in the street, such as when he is a passerby checking his watch in "The Blue Lotus", a reporter in "The Broken Ear", or a technician in "Explorers on the Moon". His letterbox can be seen next to Tintin in "The Crab with the Golden Claws". He also appeared as a gangster in "Tintin in America" and an asylum inmate at the in "Cigars of the Pharaoh", along with his fellow artist and collaborator Edgar P. Jacobs.


title: The Adventures of Tintin (TV series)

text: The underscore music and the main title theme for the series were written by Ray Parker and Tom Szczesniak, and recorded by engineer James Morgan. Excerpts from the score were released by Lé Studio Ellipse on CD and cassette in conjunction with Universal Music Group on the StudioCanal label. It is now out of print in both formats.


title: The Adventures of Tintin (TV series)

text: Since its remastering into 1080p widescreen high definition, Amazon Prime and Netflix have both made the series available in certain territories.


title: Lands of the Bohemian Crown

text: The Lands of the Bohemian Crown were a number of incorporated states in Central Europe during the medieval and early modern periods connected by feudal relations under the Bohemian kings. The crown lands primarily consisted of the Kingdom of Bohemia, an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire according to the Golden Bull of 1356, the Margraviate of Moravia, the Duchies of Silesia, and the two Lusatias, known as the Margraviate of Upper Lusatia and the Margraviate of Lower Lusatia, as well as other territories throughout its history. This agglomeration of states nominally under the rule of the Bohemian kings was historically referred to simply as Bohemia. They are now sometimes referred to in scholarship as the Czech lands, a direct translation of the Czech abbreviated name.


title: Lands of the Bohemian Crown

text: The joint rule of "Corona regni Bohemiae" was legally established by decree of King Charles IV issued on 7 April 1348, on the foundation of the original Czech lands ruled by the Přemyslid dynasty until 1306. By linking the territories, the interconnection of crown lands thus no more belonged to a king or a dynasty but to the Bohemian monarchy itself, symbolically personalized by the Crown of Saint Wenceslas. During the reign of King Ferdinand I from 1526, the lands of the Bohemian Crown became a constituent part of the Habsburg monarchy. A large part of Silesia was lost in mid-18th century, but the rest of the Lands passed to the Austrian Empire and the Cisleithanian half of Austria-Hungary. By the Czechoslovak declaration of independence in 1918, the remaining Czech lands became part of the First Czechoslovak Republic.


title: Lands of the Bohemian Crown

text: The Bohemian Crown was neither a personal union nor a federation of equal members. Rather, the Kingdom of Bohemia had a higher status than the other incorporated constituent countries. There were only some common state institutions of the Bohemian Crown and they did not survive the centralization of the Habsburg monarchy under Queen Maria Theresa in the 18th century. The most important of them was the Bohemian Court Chancellery which was united with the Austrian Chancellery in 1749.


title: Lands of the Bohemian Crown

text: The Lands of the Bohemian Crown () are called "země Koruny české" or simply "Koruna česká" (Crown of Bohemia or Bohemian Crown) and "České země" (i.e. Czech lands), the Czech adjective "český" referring to both "Bohemian" and "Czech". The German term "Länder der Böhmischen Krone" is likewise shortened to "Böhmische Krone" or "Böhmische Kronländer". Native names include , , and . The denotation Lands of the Crown of Saint Wenceslas ("země Koruny svatováclavské") refers to the Crown of Saint Wenceslas, part of the regalia of the Bohemian monarchs.


title: Lands of the Bohemian Crown

text: In the 10th and 11th century the Duchy of Bohemia, together with Moravia (the Margraviate of Moravia from 1182 on), and Kłodzko Land were consolidated under the ruling Přemyslid dynasty.


title: Lands of the Bohemian Crown

text: Duke Ottokar I of Bohemia gained the hereditary royal title to the Duchy of Bohemia in 1198, from the German (anti)−king Philip of Swabia, for his support. Along with the title, Philip also raised the duchy to the Kingdom of Bohemia rank. The regality was ultimately confirmed by Philip's nephew the German king Frederick II, later the Holy Roman Emperor (1220−1250), in the Golden Bull of Sicily issued in 1212.


title: Lands of the Bohemian Crown

text: The Přemyslid king Ottokar II of Bohemia acquired the Duchy of Austria in 1251, the Duchy of Styria in 1261, the Egerland in 1266, the Duchy of Carinthia with the March of Carniola and the Windic March in 1269 as well as the March of Friuli in 1272. His plans to turn Bohemia into the leading Imperial State were aborted by his Habsburg rival King Rudolph I of Germany, who seized his acquisitions and finally defeated him in the 1278 Battle on the Marchfeld.


title: Lands of the Bohemian Crown

text: In 1306 the House of Luxembourg began producing Bohemian kings upon the extinction of the Přemyslids. They significantly enlarged the Bohemian lands again, including when King John the Blind vassalized most Polish Piast dukes of Silesia. His suzerainty was acknowledged by the Polish king Casimir III the Great in the 1335 Treaty of Trentschin. John also achieved the enfeoffment with the Upper Lusatian lands of Bautzen (1319) and Görlitz (1329), by the German king Louis IV.


title: Lands of the Bohemian Crown

text: King John's eldest son Charles IV was elected King of the Romans in 1346 and succeeded his father as King of Bohemia in the same year. In 1348, Charles IV introduced the concept of the "Crown of Bohemia" ("Corona regni Bohemiae" in Latin), a term which designated the whole state hereditarily ruled by the kings of Bohemia, not only its core territory of Bohemia but also the incorporated provinces.


title: Lands of the Bohemian Crown

text: The Luxembourg dynasty reached its high point, when Charles was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 1355. By his Imperial authority he decreed that the united Bohemian lands should endure regardless of dynastic developments, even if the Luxembourgs should die out.


title: Lands of the Bohemian Crown

text: In 1367 he purchased Lower Lusatia from his stepson Margrave Otto V of Brandenburg and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. Beside their home County of Luxembourg itself, the dynasty held further non-contiguous Imperial fiefs in the Low Countries, such as: the Duchy of Brabant and Duchy of Limburg, acquired through marriage by Charles' younger half-brother Wenceslaus of Luxembourg in 1355; as well as the Margraviate of Brandenburg purchased in 1373. As both the King of Bohemia and the Margrave of Brandenburg had been designated Prince-electors in the Golden Bull of 1356, the Luxembourgs held two votes in the electoral college, securing the succession of Charles's son Wenceslaus in 1376.


title: Lands of the Bohemian Crown

text: With King Wenceslaus, the decline of the Luxembourg dynasty began. He himself was deposed as King of the Romans in 1400. The Duchies of Brabant, Limburg (in 1406), and even Luxembourg itself (in 1411) were ceded to the French House of Valois-Burgundy; while the Margraviate of Brandenburg passed to the House of Hohenzollern (in 1415). Nevertheless, the joint rule of the Bohemian Lands outlived the Hussite Wars and the extinction of the Luxembourg male line upon the death of Emperor Sigismund in 1437.


title: Lands of the Bohemian Crown

text: Vladislas II of the Jagiellon dynasty, son of the Polish king Casimir IV, was designated King of Bohemia in 1471, while the crown lands of Moravia, Silesia, and the Lusatias were occupied by rivaling King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary. In 1479 both kings signed the Treaty of Olomouc, whereby the unity of the Bohemian crown lands was officially retained unchanged and the monarchs appointed each other as sole heir. Upon the death of King Matthias in 1490, Vladislas ruled the Bohemian crown lands and the Kingdom of Hungary in personal union.


title: Lands of the Bohemian Crown

text: When Vladislas' only son Louis was killed at the Battle of Mohács in 1526 ending the Jagiellon dynasty rule in Bohemia, a convention of Bohemian nobles elected his brother-in-law, the Habsburg archduke Ferdinand I of Austria, as the new king of the Bohemian crown lands. Together with the Archduchy of Austria "hereditary lands" and the Hungarian kingdom, they formed the Habsburg monarchy, which in the following centuries grew out of the Holy Roman Empire into a separate European power. Attempts by the Bohemian Protestant Reformation estates to build up an autonomous confederation were dashed at the 1620 Battle of White Mountain, whereafter the administration was centralised at Vienna. Moreover, the Habsburg rulers lost the Lusatias to the Electorate of Saxony after the Thirty Years' War in the 1635 Peace of Prague, and also most of Silesia with Kladsko to the Kingdom of Prussia after the First Silesian War in the 1742 Treaty of Breslau.


title: Lands of the Bohemian Crown

text: In the Modern era, the remaining crown lands of Bohemia, Moravia and Austrian Silesia became constituent parts of the Austrian Empire in 1804, and later the Cisleithanian half of Austria-Hungary in 1867.


title: Lands of the Bohemian Crown

text: After World War I and the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, these became the historic regions usually referred to as the Czech lands forming the Czech Republic. Austrian Silesia with the Hlučín Region is today known as Czech Silesia, with the exception of eastern Cieszyn Silesia which passed to the Second Polish Republic in 1920.


title: Ian Goodfellow

text: Ian J. Goodfellow (born ) is a computer scientist, engineer, and executive, most noted for his work on artificial neural networks and deep learning. He was previously employed as a research scientist at Google Brain and director of machine learning at Apple and has made several important contributions to the field of deep learning including the invention of the generative adversarial network (GAN). Goodfellow co-wrote the textbook "Deep Learning" (2016) and wrote the chapter on deep learning in the most popular textbook in the field of artificial intelligence, "" (used in more than 1,500 universities in 135 countries).


title: Ian Goodfellow

text: Goodfellow obtained his B.S. and M.S. in computer science from Stanford University under the supervision of Andrew Ng (co-founder and head of Google Brain), and his Ph.D. in machine learning from the Université de Montréal in April 2014, under the supervision of Yoshua Bengio and Aaron Courville. Goodfellow's thesis is titled "Deep learning of representations and its application to computer vision".


title: Ian Goodfellow

text: After graduation, Goodfellow joined Google as part of the Google Brain research team. In March 2016 he left Google to join the newly founded OpenAI research laboratory. Barely 11 months later, in March 2017, Goodfellow returned to Google Research but left again in 2019.


title: Ian Goodfellow

text: In 2019 Goodfellow joined Apple as director of machine learning in the Special Projects Group. He resigned from Apple in April 2022 to protest Apple's plan to require in-person work for its employees. Goodfellow then joined DeepMind as a research scientist.


title: Ian Goodfellow

text: Goodfellow is best known for inventing generative adversarial networks (GAN), using deep learning to generate images. This approach uses two neural networks to competitively improve an image’s quality. A “generator” network creates a synthetic image based on an initial set of images such as a collection of faces. A “discriminator” network tries to detect whether or not the generator's output is real or fake. Then the generate-detect cycle is repeated. For each iteration, the generator and the discriminator use the other's feedback to improve or detect the generated images, until the discriminator can no longer distinguish between the fakes generated by its opponent and the real thing. The ability to create high quality generated imagery has increased rapidly. Unfortunately, so has its malicious use, to create deepfakes and generate video-based disinformation.


title: Ian Goodfellow

text: At Google, Goodfellow developed a system enabling Google Maps to automatically transcribe addresses from photos taken by Street View cars and demonstrated security vulnerabilities of machine learning systems.


title: Ian Goodfellow

text: In 2017, Goodfellow was cited in MIT Technology Review's 35 Innovators Under 35. In 2019, he was included in Foreign Policy's list of 100 Global Thinkers.


title: Hormoaning

text: Hormoaning is an EP by the American rock band Nirvana. It was released on January 27, 1992 through DGC Records and Geffen Records. It was released in Australia and Japan only, during the band's tour there.


title: Hormoaning

text: Four of the songs on "Hormoaning" are covers which had not been released previously. The remaining two songs are Nirvana originals which previously appeared as b-sides to singles for "Nevermind".


title: Hormoaning

text: "Aneurysm" and "Even in His Youth", two Nirvana originals produced and engineered by Craig Montgomery, also appear as b-sides on the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" single. This version of "Aneurysm" later appeared on disc two of the rarities box set "With the Lights Out" in 2004 and is different from the version released on "Incesticide" in 1992.


title: Hormoaning

text: The other four songs are from a Peel Session, recorded for BBC Radio on October 21, 1990. "Turnaround" (originally by Devo), "Son of a Gun" and "Molly's Lips" (originally by The Vaselines) appear on the "Incesticide" album. "D-7" is a cover of the Wipers song and appears on the UK version of the "Lithium" single and later on disc 2 of "With the Lights Out" in 2004.


title: Hormoaning

text: In Australia, 15,000 official copies were released: 4,000 on burgundy 12" vinyl, 10,000 on CD, and 1,000 on cassette. There were two different pressings of the Australian CD, one with a silver CD and one with a blue CD. In Japan it was released on CD in large quantities. The Australian and Japanese releases have entirely different artwork. The Australian version is considered rare due to the limited numbers. There were only two official Japanese pressings, both on CD with barely noticeable variations in artwork. The Japanese CDs were rushed out without prior consent from the US parent company and as a result the cover art is taken from the inside artwork of the "Nevermind" album. All Japanese vinyl copies were counterfeit. Counterfeit versions of the Japanese CDs also exist and the Australian blue CD version has also been counterfeited. The Australian silver CD is the only official version of which counterfeit copies are not known to exist.


title: Hormoaning

text: In a contemporary review for "The Village Voice", Robert Christgau gave "Hormoaning" an "A−" and found it almost as good as their second album, "Nevermind" (1991), and far superior to their first record, "Bleach" (1989), particularly because "without David Grohl they're sludge monkeys". He named it the 33rd best album of 1992 in his list for the Pazz & Jop, an annual poll of American critics published by "The Village Voice". In a retrospective review, AllMusic's Steve Bekkala gave the EP four out of five stars and called it "a revealing entry in the catalog of the most influential rock band of the '90s".


title: Hormoaning

text: "Hormoaning" was officially re-released on Record Store Day (April 16, 2011) as a 12" vinyl. Only 6,000 unnumbered copies were released.


title: Franny and Zooey

text: Franny "and" Zooey is a book by American author J. D. Salinger which comprises his short story "Franny" and novella "Zooey" . The two works were published together as a book in 1961, having originally appeared in "The New Yorker" in 1955 and 1957 respectively. The book focuses on siblings Franny and Zooey, the two youngest members of the Glass family, which was a frequent focus of Salinger's writings.


title: Franny and Zooey

text: "Franny" tells the story of Franny Glass, Zooey's sister, undergraduate at a small liberal arts college, probably Wellesley College. The story takes place in an unnamed college town during Franny's weekend visit to her boyfriend Lane. Disenchanted with the selfishness and inauthenticity she perceives all around her, she aims to escape it through spiritual means.


title: Franny and Zooey

text: "Zooey" is set shortly after "Franny" in the Glass family apartment in New York City's Upper East Side. While actor Zooey's younger sister Franny suffers a spiritual and existential breakdown in their parents' Manhattan living room, leaving their mother Bessie deeply concerned, Zooey comes to Franny's aid, offering what he thinks is brotherly love, understanding, and words of sage advice.


title: Franny and Zooey

text: The short story concerns Franny's weekend date with her collegiate boyfriend, Lane Coutell. Lane takes her to a fashionable lunch room, where Franny quickly becomes exasperated when he only appears interested in conversing about the minutiae of his academic frustrations. Franny questions the importance of college education and the worth of Lane's friends. She eats nothing, feels faint, and becomes progressively more uncomfortable talking to Lane. Eventually she excuses herself to visit the restroom, where, after a breakdown, she regains her composure.


title: Franny and Zooey

text: Franny returns to the table, where she expresses her feeling of being troubled with egotism and the need to be accomplished. Lane then spots the small book that Franny has been carrying and asks her about it. She explains that the book is titled "The Way of a Pilgrim" and tells the story of how a Russian wanderer learns the power of "praying without ceasing". The Jesus Prayer involves internalizing the prayer "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me" to a point where, in a manner similar to a Zen koan, it becomes unconscious, almost like a heartbeat. Lane is less interested in the story than in keeping their timetable for the party and football game, though when Franny faints due to the fact that she has not been eating, he tends to her and postpones the weekend's activities. After she wakes, he goes to call a taxi to take her to her lodging, and leaves Franny alone. The story concludes with Franny lying in the restaurant, her lips moving soundlessly, suggesting that she is practising the act of praying without ceasing.


title: Franny and Zooey

text: Zooey reads a four-year-old letter from his brother Buddy in the bath in his family's home. In the letter, Buddy discusses their eldest brother Seymour's suicide several years previously, and encourages Zooey to pursue an acting career if he is drawn to it. Zooey's mother, Bessie, enters the bathroom, and the two have a long discussion, centering upon Bessie's worries about his sister, Franny, who is in a state of emotional collapse and is refusing food. During the conversation, Zooey verbally spars and banters with his mother and repeatedly requests that she leave. Bessie tolerates Zooey's behavior, and simply states that he's becoming more and more like his brother Buddy and wonders what has happened to her children that were once so "sweet and loving".


title: Franny and Zooey

text: After Bessie leaves, Zooey gets dressed and goes to the living room, where he finds Franny on the sofa with their cat Bloomberg. He begins speaking with her, and ends up upsetting Franny by claiming that her motives for reciting the "Jesus Prayer" are rooted in ego-reinforcement. Zooey feels guilty and retreats into the former bedroom of Seymour and Buddy, and reads the back of their door, covered in philosophical and religious quotations. After contemplation, Zooey telephones Franny, pretending to be Buddy. Franny eventually discovers the ruse, but she and Zooey continue to talk. Zooey shares with her some words of wisdom that Seymour once gave him, suggesting that one should live with optimism and love because, even if nobody else does, Jesus notices. After Zooey hangs up, Franny lies in their parents' bed and smiles at the ceiling before eventually falling asleep.


title: Franny and Zooey

text: The story reflects Salinger's known interest in Eastern religious philosophy such as Zen Buddhism and Hindu Advaita Vedanta, as well as Eastern Orthodox Christian spirituality, particularly in a brief section in the second part that includes quotations from spiritual texts. There is also a discussion of whether the book is a "mystical story" or a "love story" in the introduction to the second section, as speculated by the book's narrator, Buddy Glass (who decides it's the latter). Gerald Rosen, in his short 1977 book "Zen in the Art of J. D. Salinger", observes that "Franny and Zooey" could be interpreted as a modern Zen tale, with the main character Franny progressing over the course of the short story and novella from a state of ignorance to the deep wisdom of enlightenment. Jennifer Dunn, in an essay, mentioned that the “disparity between bright busy surfaces and inner emptiness” found in "Franny and Zooey" can be read as a metaphor for modern society. Carl Bode, in a University of Wisconsin journal, suggested that Salinger, while writing in "Franny and Zooey" that “the phoney and the genuine equally deserve our love”, found this as an answer to some of his own emotional problems.


title: Franny and Zooey

text: "Franny" and "Zooey" were originally published separately in "The New Yorker" magazine. "Franny" appeared in the magazine in January 1955, and "Zooey" in May 1957. Salinger published "Franny" and "Zooey" together as a book in July 1961, through Little, Brown and Company, and dedicated the book to "New Yorker" editor William Shawn.


title: Franny and Zooey

text: Since the misconception that Franny was pregnant was nearly universal at the time of original publication (the New Yorker’s editors themselves believed Franny was pregnant), Salinger first edited the text before reconsidering, torn between his annoyance at the notion readers might interpret the story through the lens of a pregnant Franny on one hand, and his reluctance of delivering clear-cut messages on the other. In the end he made only a single change; having Lane Coutell say "Too goddam long between drinks. To put it crassly," in the hope this was seen as a reference to sex rather than menstruation. According to the Salinger scholar Warren French, the change was insufficient.


title: Franny and Zooey

text: The book was very popular with the reading public, spending 26 weeks at the top of The New York Times Fiction Best Sellers list in 1961 and 1962, but critics gave it mixed reviews. John Updike felt that Salinger's work was more than adequate. He praised Salinger's characterizations, saying that they "melt indistinguishably together in an impossible radiance of personal beauty and intelligence". He also pointed out that Salinger has a "correctly unctuous and apprehensive tone". But some thought that Salinger shamed himself with this particular piece of work. Janet Malcolm quotes Maxwell Geismar who called it an "appallingly bad story", and George Steiner called it "a piece of shapeless self indulgence". More recently, in 2011 Jay McInerney criticized the creation of the "self satisfied Glass family", but also said that the story showed Salinger's "evolving beliefs".


title: Franny and Zooey

text: The book's characters inspired much of the child prodigy material present in Wes Anderson's 2001 movie "The Royal Tenenbaums".


title: Franny and Zooey

text: The book plays a central role in the 2016 film "Carrie Pilby", as well as in the romance of the protagonists in the 2020 Netflix series "Dash & Lily".


title: Breathe (TV series)

text: Breathe is an Indian crime drama thriller streaming television series. It premiered on Amazon Video on 26 January 2018. It is Amazon Prime Video’s second Indian original series after 2017's "Inside Edge". The series stars R. Madhavan, Amit Sadh, Hrishikesh Joshi, Sapna Pabbi, Atharva Vishwakarma and Neena Kulkarni. The sequel series starring Abhishek Bachchan is called "" and debuted on July 10, 2020.


title: Breathe (TV series)

text: "Two desperate and driven men must engage in the ultimate cat and mouse game to save the one they love.A dying kid and endless killings.What might one do for the one they love"


title: Breathe (TV series)

text: A follow-up titled starring Amit Sadh, Abhishek Bachchan and Nithya Menen premiered on Amazon Prime Video on July 10, 2020.


title: Breathe (TV series)

text: Writing in "Hindustan Times" Rohan Naahar states "Madhavan and Amazon have created the single weirdest show on TV right now, like an adaptation of one of Keigo Higashino’s least popular novels directed by an Anurag Kashyap minion."


title: Grosvenor Group

text: Grosvenor Group Limited is an internationally diversified property group, which traces its origins to 1677 and has its headquarters in London, England. It has a global reach, now in 62 international cities, with offices in 14 of them, operated on behalf of its owners, the Duke of Westminster and his family. It has four regional development and investment businesses (Britain and Ireland, the Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific) and a portfolio of indirect investments. Its sectors include residential, office, retail, industrial, along with hotels.


title: Grosvenor Group

text: The history of the Grosvenor Estate begins in 1677, with the marriage of the heiress Mary Davies to Sir Thomas Grosvenor, 3rd Baronet (1655–1700). Mary had inherited the manor of Ebury, 500 acres of land north of the Thames to the west of the City of London. This area remained largely untouched by the Grosvenors until the 1720s, when they developed the northern part, now known as Mayfair, around Grosvenor Square. A few generations later, in the 1820s, their focus moved south, to what is now Belgravia, developing Eaton Square, Chester Square, and other famous addresses. Later in the 19th century, the area of Pimlico was developed; this was sold in 1953.


title: Grosvenor Group

text: Many of the streets within the estate are named after the Grosvenor family and its connections. The Grosvenor family became established in England before the 15th century, on the manor of Eaton in Cheshire, where is still located its principal seat, Eaton Hall. Many of the family's early members sat as the Member of Parliament for Chester.


title: Grosvenor Group

text: In 1874, Hugh Grosvenor was created Duke of Westminster; other titles held by the current duke are: Marquess of Westminster, Earl Grosvenor, Viscount Belgrave, and Baron Grosvenor. The title of Baron Ebury was granted in 1857 to the 3rd son of the 1st Marquess of Westminster, after the name of the original manor of Ebury (whence Ebury Street, etc. in Pimlico), and the 2nd son of the 1st Marquess succeeded his maternal grandfather under special remainder in 1814 to the title of Earl of Wilton (whence Wilton Crescent etc. in Belgravia). "The Cheshire villages of Lupus, Eccleston and Belgrave, within or near the family estate, are recognised in street names of the London estate."


title: Grosvenor Group

text: Although the Grosvenor Group is often identified with its core asset, the Grosvenor Estate in London, which is now managed within Grosvenor Britain & Ireland, the present-day investment and development portfolio is now also in other parts of Britain and Ireland. International expansion began in the 1950s, in Canada, and later in the United States, hence businesses in the Americas.


title: Grosvenor Group

text: In the 1960s, the businesses expanded into Australia and, in the 1990s, into Asia Pacific. Also in the 1990s, Grosvenor expanded into Continental Europe, where most current activity relates to Grosvenor's fund management business. This was formally established in 2005 and now encompasses the Americas, Asia Pacific (including Australia), and Europe (including the UK).


title: RTL Group

text: RTL Group (for "Radio Television Luxembourg") is a Luxembourg-based international media conglomerate, with another corporate centre in Cologne, Germany. The company operates 68 television channels and 31 radio stations in Germany, France and other European countries. It also offers national streaming platforms, content productions and a range of digital services. Important segments of RTL Group are RTL Deutschland, Groupe M6, Fremantle and RTL Nederland.


title: RTL Group

text: The company, in its present form, was established by Bertelsmann, Groupe Bruxelles Lambert (GBL) and Pearson in the year 2000. Over the years, Bertelsmann, a conglomerate based in the German city of Gütersloh, continued to increase its stake in RTL Group and currently owns just over 75% of the shares in the company after holding a stake of more than 90% in the past. RTL Group is one of a total of eight divisions of Bertelsmann: It is responsible for more than a third of its revenue and a large share of its operating profit.


title: RTL Group

text: The roots of RTL Group date back to the 1920s. The company itself was established in 1931 as the Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Radiodiffusion (known as CLR for short). It was one of the world's first private broadcasting companies. After the Second World War, the company ventured into the world of television broadcasting. It was renamed Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Télédiffusion (CLT) to reflect this new service in 1954. Under the name RTL (for Radio Télévision Luxembourg), it went on to provide its private broadcasting services in several European countries. When the European media markets were liberalised in the 1980s, television became increasingly important and started to overtake radio.


title: RTL Group

text: In the 1980s, Belgian and French media companies made up the majority of the shareholders of CLR and CLT. The following decades witnessed repeated conflicts for domination within the company and among its subsidiaries. In the 1990s, Bertelsmann ultimately came out on top after having gradually increased its stake in the German television channel RTL. Following a legal dispute with RTL/CLT, Bertelsmann announced plans to merge the television businesses of UFA to form the joint venture CLT-UFA in April 1996. A merger agreement was signed on 8 July 1996. It was approved by the CLT board of directors on 5 December, and the formation of CLT-UFA was completed on 14 January 1997. As a result, German television channels such as RTL Television and VOX and international broadcasting services, including M6 in France, were all brought together under one roof.


title: RTL Group

text: CLT-UFA not only grew organically but also increased in size due to a number of acquisitions. In the year 2000, Bertelsmann and Pearson announced plans to merge their television, radio and production activities. The two companies joined forces to create RTL Group, Europe's leading network of television channels and radio stations with a global content business, which was rebranded FremantleMedia in 2001 (now called Fremantle). This merger was designed to provide a strong European response to U.S. media dominance.


title: RTL Group

text: RTL Group was first listed on the London Stock Exchange on 26 July 2000. The existing shell of Audiofina, which was already a listed company, was used to simplify the administrative effort involved in the stock market launch. The issue price of the RTL Group share was calculated based on the closing prices of Audiofina in Luxembourg and Brussels. The RTL Group share consequently replaced the Audiofina listing.


title: RTL Group

text: Although Bertelsmann initially only held a minority share in RTL Group, the German conglomerate managed by Thomas Middelhoff set its sights on playing a leading role within the group. After exchanging shares with the Groupe Bruxelles Lambert (GBL) in 2001, Bertelsmann achieved its goal of becoming the majority shareholder of RTL Group and thus secured a leading position in the European television market.


title: RTL Group

text: Over the years, Bertelsmann increased its stake in RTL Group to more than 90%. Bertelsmann's initial aim was to acquire full ownership of RTL Group to reduce administrative costs, but this plan failed in 2007 due to uncertainties in Luxembourg law. The conglomerate responded by altering its strategy and in 2013, it sold a minority interest in RTL Group on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange to finance the growth of Bertelsmann and especially its digital transformation. Media reports responded positively to the secondary listing of RTL Group and the resulting availability of shares open to external investors.


title: RTL Group

text: RTL Group was already responsible for a large part of the revenue and profit of Bertelsmann in 2001. In the new structure of Bertelsmann, which was introduced in 2016, the company maintained its position as an important division. Since April 2019, Thomas Rabe, chairman and chief executive officer of Bertelsmann, has also simultaneously been at the helm of RTL Group. Under his management, the company is pursuing the objective of strengthening its core businesses, establishing local streaming services and further developing advertising technologies. Fostering its alliances and partnerships with other companies in the European media industry also plays an important role in the current strategy of RTL Group.


title: RTL Group

text: RTL Group S.A. is the parent company of the entire corporate group. Its legal form is a société anonyme, a public limited company under Luxembourg law. It was entered into the Luxembourg Trade Register on 29 March 1973. The company's main corporate objective is to develop audio-visual media and to lead and manage other companies active in the same field.


title: RTL Group

text: RTL Group S.A. currently has a net worth of €191,845,074. It is divided into 154,742,806 shares without nominal value, which are traded on the Luxembourg and Frankfurt Stock Exchanges. RTL Group S.A. shares are included in the German SDAX, a stock index for medium-sized companies. They are also included in the SXMP, a sector index for the European media industry.


title: RTL Group

text: Bertelsmann holds more than 75% of the shares in RTL Group S.A. The second-largest shareholder is Silchester International Investors, a British investment company based in London, which has a stake of around 5%. This shareholding forms part of the group's free float, which has at a stable value of between 20 and 25%.


title: RTL Group

text: The highest authority of RTL Group S.A. is its board of directors, in which the power to manage and control the group's business is vested. The Board of Directors has 13 members; there are currently eleven men and two women serving on the Board. Martin Taylor is the Chairman of the Board of Directors; the other members are Thomas Götz, Elmar Heggen, Immanuel Hermreck, Bernd Hirsch, Bernd Kundrun, Guillaume de Posch, Thomas Rabe, Jean-Louis Schiltz, Rolf Schmidt-Holtz, James Singh, Bettina Wulf and Lauren Zalaznick.


title: RTL Group

text: The operational business of RTL Group is headed by Thomas Rabe (Chief Executive Officer, CEO), Elmar Heggen (Chief Operating Officer, COO and Deputy CEO) and Björn Bauer (Chief Financial Officer, CFO). Together they form the executive committee of RTL Group S.A., which is supported by the group management committee and operations management committee. The management boards of RTL Group are based in Luxembourg and Cologne, Germany.


title: RTL Group

text: The headquarters of RTL Group, according to trade law, is located in the so-called "RTL City", which is located at Boulevard Pierre Frieden in the Kirchberg quarter in the north-east of Luxembourg City. Bertelsmann initially planned to sell the complex and lease it back in 2017 but ultimately decided to delay the transaction for an indefinite period. Besides the Luxembourg headquarters, there is another corporate centre located in the Cologne borough of Deutz, North Rhine-Westphalia.


title: RTL Group

text: In the 2019 financial year, RTL Group generated revenue of around €6.7 billion with a profit of €1.1 billion. The revenue mainly came from advertising (44% television, 4% radio), content production (22%), digital activities (16%) and platform businesses (6%). RTL Group generated 32% of its revenue in Germany, 22% in France, 16% in the United States, 8% in the Netherlands, 4% in Great Britain and 3% in Belgium.


title: RTL Group

text: RTL Group operates television channels, radio stations, streaming platforms, content production, a range of digital services and advertising sales. All of its business activities are assigned to 14 areas. The main segments of RTL Group are Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland, Groupe M6, Fremantle and RTL Nederland. We Are Era, RTL Hungary, RTL Luxembourg, SpotX and other businesses all fall into the "others" segment, as does the Group's minority interest in Atresmedia, a leading Spanish media company.


title: RTL Group

text: RTL Deutschland is based in Cologne and operates the free-to-air channels RTL Television, VOX (entertainment), RTLup, RTL Nitro, VOXup, and ntv (news), along with holding a significant stake in RTLZWEI. Most of these channels have Austrian and Swiss versions for the insertion of nation-specific advertising. It also offers pay-TV channels such as RTL Crime, RTL Living, RTL Passion and GEO Television. The company additionally operates a streaming service under the name RTL+ (formerly TV Now).


title: RTL Group

text: Advertising space for RTL Deutschland is sold by the advertising company Ad Alliance, which also works with other Bertelsmann companies and further partners. RTL Deutschland is also part of Bertelsmann's Content Alliance.


title: RTL Group

text: The headquarters of the Groupe M6 media holding company are located in Neuilly-sur-Seine in Paris. The company operates the television channels 6ter, M6 and W9, the channels Paris Première and Téva, as well as children's channel Gulli. These channels are joined by radio stations such as RTL Radio France and Fun Radio and the streaming service 6play. Salto, a joint streaming service by France Télévisions, Groupe M6 and TF1, is currently in its test phase. Groupe M6 subsidiaries M6 Film, M6 Studio, SND and Studio 89 Productions are among the best-known production and film rights companies in the French-speaking world. Although RTL Group only owns a minority interest in Groupe M6, it controls the listed company and consolidates it in its balance sheet. On 18 May 2021, Groupe M6 and Groupe TF1 announced that they had begun negotiations to merge. On 16 September 2022, the merger was officially abandoned. On September 22, 2022, Thomas Rabe, CEO of RTL Group's parent company, Bertelsmann confirmed that Groupe M6 is up for sale, after the failed merger with TF1 Group. On October 3, 2022, RTL Group confirmed that they wouldn't be selling their stake in Groupe M6


title: RTL Group

text: The head office of Fremantle (formerly FremantleMedia) is located in London. The company, which operates in 31 countries, creates, produces and distributes content for broadcasters of RTL Group (including TV channels and streaming platforms) and other clients, for example Amazon Prime Video and Netflix. It not only produces films and series (for example "Deutschland 86") but also shows. Fremantle has attracted global attention with its casting shows such as "Got Talent" and "Idols", which have been adapted in a multitude of countries worldwide, and owns popular game shows like "The Price Is Right" and "Family Feud".


title: RTL Group

text: RTL Nederland (formerly the Holland Media Group) is a Dutch company based in Hilversum. Its television channels RTL 4, RTL 5, RTL 7, RTL 8, RTL Z, RTL Crime, RTL Lounge and RTL Telekids all have licences issued by Luxembourg. RTL Nederland also operates the streaming service Videoland and the free streaming service RTL XL. In June 2021 Talpa Network and RTL Nederland announced an intent to merge; RTL is to hold 70% and Talpa is to hold 30% in the new company, pending approval by the Dutch ACM and the European Commission. In January 2022 the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets stated that it could not approve the merger as of yet and that further investigation to the consequences of price, quality and innovation is necessary.


title: RTL Group

text: RTL Group or its prececessors previously operated or owned stakes in other TV channels or channel families, including RTL Belgium, RTL9, Channel 5, REN TV, RTL Croatia, Alpha TV, RTL 7, and TVI.


title: RTL Group

text: The headquarters of RTL Belgium are located in Brussels in the so-called "RTL House". The television channel RTL-TVI and related channels such as Club RTL and Plug RTL form the core of the company's business activities. These channels also have licences issued by Luxembourg, causing numerous problems to them. Being Luxembourgish channels, they do not face the same requirements and laws as for the Belgian TV channels, creating potential problems for disloyal competition. RTL Belgium additionally operates radio stations such as Bel RTL. Almost all of its services are provided in French. In June 2021 it was announced that RTL Belgium would be sold for €250 million to DPG Media and "Rossel", pending regulatory approval.the sale was effectuated On March 31, 2022.


title: RTL Group

text: Observers have repeatedly criticised RTL Group for having "missed the boat in the streaming era". Thomas Rabe, chairman and chief executive officer of Bertelsmann, has responded to this criticism by campaigning for the deregulation of the highly competitive television market to enable the establishment of national alternatives to the "giants of Silicon Valley".


title: 1954 Geneva Conference

text: The Geneva Conference, intended to settle outstanding issues resulting from the Korean War and the First Indochina War, was a conference involving several nations that took place in Geneva, Switzerland, from 26 April to 20 July 1954. The part of the conference on the Korean question ended without adopting any declarations or proposals, so is generally considered less relevant. The Geneva Accords that dealt with the dismantling of French Indochina proved to have long-lasting repercussions, however. The crumbling of the French colonial empire in Southeast Asia led to the formation of the states of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam), the State of Vietnam (the future Republic of Vietnam, South Vietnam), the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Kingdom of Laos.


title: 1954 Geneva Conference

text: Diplomats from South Korea, North Korea, the People's Republic of China (PRC), the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the United States of America (US) dealt with the Korean side of the Conference. For the Indochina side, the Accords were between France, the Viet Minh, the USSR, the PRC, the US, the United Kingdom and the future states being made from French Indochina. The agreement temporarily separated Vietnam into two zones, a northern zone to be governed by the Viet Minh and a southern zone to be governed by the State of Vietnam, then headed by former emperor Bảo Đại. A Conference Final Declaration, issued by the British chairman of the conference, provided that a general election be held by July 1956 to create a unified Vietnamese state. Despite helping create some of the agreements, they were not directly signed onto nor accepted by delegates of both the State of Vietnam and the United States. The State of Vietnam, under Ngo Dinh Diem, subsequently refused to allow elections, leading to the Vietnam War. Three separate ceasefire accords, covering Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, were signed at the conference.


title: 1954 Geneva Conference

text: On 18 February 1954, at the Berlin Conference, participants agreed that "the problem of restoring peace in Indochina will also be discussed at the Conference [on the Korean question] to which representatives of the United States, France, the United Kingdom, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Chinese People's Republic and other interested states will be invited."


title: 1954 Geneva Conference

text: The conference was held at the Palace of Nations in Geneva, commencing on 26 April 1954. The first agenda item was the Korean question to be followed by Indochina.


title: 1954 Geneva Conference

text: The armistice signed at end of the Korean War required a political conference within three months—a timeline which was not met—"to settle through negotiation the questions of the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Korea, the peaceful settlement of the Korean question, etc."


title: 1954 Geneva Conference

text: As decolonization took place in Asia, France had to relinquish its power over Indochina (Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam). While Laos and Cambodia were both given independence, France chose to stay in Vietnam. This ended with a war between French troops and the Vietnamese nationalists led by Ho Chi Minh. The latter's army, the Viet Minh, fought a guerrilla war, while the French employed traditional Western technology. The deciding factor was the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, where the French were decisively defeated. This resulted in French withdrawals, and the Geneva conference.


title: 1954 Geneva Conference

text: It was decided that Vietnam would be divided at the 17th parallel until 1956, when democratic elections would be held under international supervision. All parties involved agreed to this (Ho Chi Minh had strong support in the north, which was more populous than the south, and was thus confident that he would win an election), except for the U.S., which, in the spirit of the Cold War, feared seeing communism spreading in a domino effect throughout Asia.


title: 1954 Geneva Conference

text: The South Korean representative proposed that the South Korean government was the only legal government in Korea, that UN-supervised elections should be held in the North, that Chinese forces should withdraw, and that UN forces, a belligerent party in the war, should remain as a police force. The North Korean representative suggested that elections be held throughout all of Korea, that all foreign forces leave beforehand, that the elections be run by an all-Korean Commission to be made up of equal parts from North and South Korea, and to increase general relations economically and culturally between the North and the South.


title: 1954 Geneva Conference

text: The Chinese delegation proposed an amendment to have a group of neutral nations supervise the elections, which the North accepted. The U.S. supported the South Korean position, saying that the USSR wanted to turn North Korea into a puppet state. Most allies remained silent and at least one, Britain, thought that the South Korean–U.S. proposal would be deemed unreasonable.


title: 1954 Geneva Conference

text: The South Korean representative proposed all-Korea elections, to be held according to South Korean constitutional procedures and still under UN-supervision. On June 15, the last day of the conference on the Korean question, the USSR and China both submitted declarations in support of a unified, democratic, independent Korea, saying that negotiations to that end should resume at an appropriate time. The Belgian and British delegations said that while they were not going to accept "the Soviet and Chinese proposals, that did not mean a rejection of the ideas they contained". In the end, however, the conference participants did not agree on any declaration.


title: 1954 Geneva Conference

text: While the delegates began to assemble in Geneva from late April, the discussions on Indochina did not begin until 8 May 1954. The Viet Minh had achieved their decisive victory over the French Union forces at Dien Bien Phu the previous day.


title: 1954 Geneva Conference

text: The Western allies did not have a unified position on what the Conference was to achieve in relation to Indochina. Anthony Eden, leading the British delegation, favored a negotiated settlement to the conflict. Georges Bidault, leading the French delegation, vacillated and was keen to preserve something of France's position in Indochina to justify past sacrifices, even as the nation's military situation deteriorated. The U.S. had been supporting the French in Indochina for many years and the Republican Eisenhower administration wanted to ensure that it could not be accused of another "Yalta" or having "lost" Indochina to the Communists. Its leaders had previously accused the Democratic Truman administration of having "lost China" when the Communists were successful in taking control of the country.


title: 1954 Geneva Conference

text: The Eisenhower administration had considered air strikes in support of the French at Dien Bien Phu but was unable to obtain a commitment to united action from key allies such as the United Kingdom. Eisenhower was wary of becoming drawn into "another Korea" that would be deeply unpopular with the American public. U.S. domestic policy considerations strongly influenced the country's position at Geneva. Columnist Walter Lippmann wrote on 29 April that "the American position at Geneva is an impossible one, so long as leading Republican senators have no terms for peace except unconditional surrender of the enemy and no terms for entering the war except as a collective action in which nobody is now willing to engage." At the time of the conference, the U.S. did not recognize the People's Republic of China. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, an anticommunist, forbade any contact with the Chinese delegation, refusing to shake hands with Zhou Enlai, the lead Chinese negotiator.


title: 1954 Geneva Conference

text: Dulles fell out with the UK delegate Anthony Eden over the perceived failure of the UK to support united action and U.S. positions on Indochina; he left Geneva on 3 May and was replaced by his deputy Walter Bedell Smith. The State of Vietnam refused to attend the negotiations until Bidault wrote to Bảo Đại, assuring him that any agreement would not partition Vietnam.


title: 1954 Geneva Conference

text: Bidault opened the conference on 8 May by proposing a cessation of hostilities, a ceasefire in place, a release of prisoners, and a disarming of irregulars, despite the French surrender at Dien Bien Phu the previous day in northwestern Vietnam.


title: 1954 Geneva Conference

text: On 10 May, Phạm Văn Đồng, the leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) delegation set out their position, proposing a ceasefire; separation of the opposing forces; a ban on the introduction of new forces into Indochina; the exchange of prisoners; independence and sovereignty for Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos; elections for unified governments in each country, the withdrawal of all foreign forces; and the inclusion of the Pathet Lao and Khmer Issarak representatives at the Conference. Pham Van Dong first proposed a temporary partition of Vietnam on 25 May. Following their victory at Dien Bien Phu and given the worsening French security position around the Red River Delta, a ceasefire and partition would not appear to have been in the interests of the DRV. It appears that the DRV leadership thought the balance of forces was uncomfortably close and was worried about morale problems in the troops and supporters, after eight years of war. Turner has argued that the Viet Minh might have prolonged the negotiations and continued fighting to achieve a more favorable position militarily, if not for Chinese and Soviet pressure on them to end the fighting. In addition, there was a widespread perception that the Diem government would collapse, leaving the Viet Minh free to take control of the area.


title: 1954 Geneva Conference

text: On 12 May, the State of Vietnam rejected any partition of the country, and the U.S. expressed a similar position the next day. The French sought to implement a physical separation of the opposing forces into enclaves throughout the country, known as the "leopard-skin" approach. The DRV/Viet Minh would be given the Cà Mau Peninsula, three enclaves near Saigon, large areas of Annam and Tonkin; the French Union forces would retain most urban areas and the Red River Delta, including Hanoi and Haiphong, allowing it to resume combat operation in the north, if necessary.


title: 1954 Geneva Conference

text: Behind the scenes, the U.S. and the French governments continued to discuss the terms for possible U.S. military intervention in Indochina. By 29 May, the U.S. and the French had reached agreement that if the Conference failed to deliver an acceptable peace deal, Eisenhower would seek Congressional approval for military intervention in Indochina. However, after discussions with the Australian and New Zealand governments in which it became evident that neither would support U.S. military intervention, reports of the plummeting morale among the French Union forces and opposition from Army Chief of Staff Matthew Ridgway, the U.S. began to shift away from intervention and continued to oppose a negotiated settlement. By early to mid-June, the U.S. began to consider the possibility that rather than supporting the French in Indochina, it might be preferable for the French to leave and for the U.S. to support the new Indochinese states. That would remove the taint of French colonialism. Unwilling to support the proposed partition or intervention, by mid-June, the U.S. decided to withdraw from major participation in the Conference.


title: 1954 Geneva Conference

text: On 15 June, Vyacheslav Molotov had proposed that the ceasefire should be monitored by a supervisory commission, chaired by non-aligned India. On 16 June, Zhou Enlai stated that the situations in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos were not the same and should be treated separately. He proposed that Laos and Cambodia could be treated as neutral nations if they had no foreign bases. On 18 June, Pham Van Dong said the Viet Minh would be prepared to withdraw their forces from Laos and Cambodia if no foreign bases were established in Indochina. The apparent softening of the Communist position appeared to arise from a meeting among the DRV, Chinese and Soviet delegations on 15 June in which Zhou warned the Viet Minh that its military presence in Laos and Cambodia threatened to undermine negotiations in relation to Vietnam. That represented a major blow to the DRV, which had tried to ensure that the Pathet Lao and Khmer Issarak would join the governments in Laos and Cambodia, respectively, under the leadership of the DRV. The Chinese likely also sought to ensure that Laos and Cambodia were not under Vietnam's influence in the future but under China's.


title: 1954 Geneva Conference

text: On 18 June, following a vote of no-confidence, the French Laniel government fell and was replaced by a coalition with Radical Pierre Mendès France as Prime Minister, by a vote of 419 to 47, with 143 abstentions. Prior to the collapse of the Laniel government, France recognized Vietnam as "a fully independent and sovereign state" on 4 June. A long-time opponent of the war, Mendès France had pledged to the National Assembly that he would resign if he failed to achieve a ceasefire within 30 days. Mendès France retained the Foreign Ministry for himself, and Bidault left the Conference. The new French government abandoned earlier assurances to the State of Vietnam that France would not pursue or accept partition, and it engaged in secret negotiations with the Viet Minh delegation, bypassing the State of Vietnam to meet Mendès France's self-imposed deadline. On 23 June, Mendès France secretly met with Zhou Enlai at the French embassy in Bern. Zhou outlined the Chinese position that an immediate ceasefire was required, the three nations should be treated separately, and that two governments existed in Vietnam would be recognized.


title: 1954 Geneva Conference

text: Mendès France returned to Paris. The following day he met with his main advisers on Indochina. General Paul Ély outlined the deteriorating military position in Vietnam, and Jean Chauvel suggested that the situation on the ground called for partition at the 16th or 17th parallel. The three agreed that the Bao Dai government would need time to consolidate its position and that U.S. assistance would be vital. The possibility of retaining Hanoi and Haiphong or just Haiphong was dismissed, as the French believed it was preferable to seek partition with no Viet Minh enclaves in the south.


title: 1954 Geneva Conference

text: On 16 June, twelve days after France granted full independence to the State of Vietnam, Bao Dai appointed Ngo Dinh Diem as Prime Minister to replace Bửu Lộc. Diem was a staunch nationalist, both anti-French and anticommunist, with strong political connections in the U.S. Diem agreed to take the position if he received all civilian and military powers. Diem and his foreign minister, Tran Van Do, were strongly opposed to partition.


title: 1954 Geneva Conference

text: At Geneva, the State of Vietnam's proposal included "a ceasefire without a demarcation line" and "control by the United Nations... of the administration of the entire country [and] of the general elections, when the United Nations believes that order and security will have been everywhere truly restored."


title: 1954 Geneva Conference

text: On 28 June following an Anglo-US summit in Washington, the UK and the U.S. issued a joint communique, which included a statement that if the Conference failed, "the international situation will be seriously aggravated." The parties also agreed to a secret list of seven minimum outcomes that both parties would "respect": the preservation of a noncommunist South Vietnam (plus an enclave in the Red River Delta if possible), future reunification of divided Vietnam, and the integrity of Cambodia and Laos, including the removal of all Viet Minh forces.


title: 1954 Geneva Conference

text: Also on 28 June, Tạ Quang Bửu, a senior DRV negotiator, called for the line of partition to be at the 13th parallel, the withdrawal of all French Union forces from the north within three months of the ceasefire, and the Pathet Lao to have virtual sovereignty over eastern Laos.


title: 1954 Geneva Conference

text: From 3 to 5 July, Zhou Enlai met with Ho Chi Minh and other senior DRV leaders in Liuzhou. Most of the first day was spent to discuss the military situation and balance of forces in Vietnam, Giáp explained that while


title: 1954 Geneva Conference

text: Dien Bien Phu had represented a colossal defeat for France ... she was far from defeated. She retained a superiority in numbers - some 470,000 troops, roughly half of them Vietnamese, versus 310,000 on the Viet Minh side as well as control of Vietnam's major cities (Hanoi, Saigon, Huế, Tourane (Da Nang)). A fundamental alteration of the balance of forces had thus yet to occur, Giap continued, despite Dien Bien Phu.


title: 1954 Geneva Conference

text: Wei Guoqing, the chief Chinese military adviser to the Viet Minh, said he agreed. "If the U.S. does not interfere,' Zhou asked, "and assuming France will dispatch more troops, how long will it take for us to seize the whole of Indochina?" In the best scenario, Giap replied, "full victory could be achieved in two to three years. Worst case? Three to five years."