title: Samanea saman

text: "Samanea saman" is a well-known tree, rivaled perhaps only by lebbeck and pink siris among its genus. It is well represented in many languages and has numerous local names in its native range.


title: Samanea saman

text: In English it is usually known as rain tree or saman. It is also known as monkey pod, giant thibet, inga saman, cow tamarind, East Indian walnut, soar, or suar. In English-speaking regions of the Caribbean, it is known as coco tamarind in Grenada; French tamarind in Guyana; and samaan tree in Trinidad. In Philippine English, it is confusingly simply known as "acacia", due to its resemblance to native "Acacia" species.


title: Samanea saman

text: The original name, saman - known in many languages and used for the specific epithet - derives from "zamang", meaning "Mimosoideae tree" in some Cariban languages of northern Venezuela.


title: Samanea saman

text: The origin of the name "rain tree" is unknown. It has been variously attributed to the way the leaves fold during rainy days (allowing rain to fall through the tree); the relative abundance of grass under the tree in comparison to surrounding areas; the steady drizzle of honeydew-like discharge of cicadas feeding on the leaves; the occasional shower of sugary secretions from the nectaries on the leaf petioles; to the shedding of stamens during heavy flowering.


title: Samanea saman

text: In the Caribbean, it is sometimes known as "marsave". It is also known as "algarrobo" in Cuba; "guannegoul(e)" in Haiti; and "goango" or "guango" in Jamaica. In French-speaking islands, it is known as "gouannegoul" or "saman".


title: Samanea saman

text: In Latin America, it is variously known as "samán", "cenízaro", "cenicero", "genízaro", "carreto", "carreto negro", "delmonte", "dormilón", "guannegoul", "algarrobo del país", "algarrobo", "campano", "carabeli", "couji", "lara", "urero", or "zarza" in Spanish; and "chorona" in Portuguese.


title: Samanea saman

text: In the Pacific Islands, it is known as "filinganga" in the Northern Marianas; "trongkon-mames" in Guam; "gumorni spanis" in Yap; "kasia kula" or "mohemohe" in Tonga; "marmar" in New Guinea; "ohai" in Hawaii; "tamalini" or "tamaligi" in Samoa; and "vaivai ni vavalangi" or "sirsa" in Fiji. The latter comes from "vaivai" "watery" (in allusion to the tree's "rain") + "vavalagi" "foreign". In some parts of Vanua Levu, Fiji the word "vaivai" is used to describe the lebbeck, because of the sound the seedpods make, and the word "mocemoce" (sleepy, or sleeping) is used for "A. saman" due to the 'sleepiness' of its leaves.


title: Samanea saman

text: In Southeast Asia, it is known as "akasya" or "palo de China" in the Philippines; "ki hujan" ("rain tree"), "meh" or "trembesi" in Indonesia; "pukul lima" ("five o'clock tree") or "pokok hujan" ("rain tree") in Malaysia; "ampil barang" ("Western tamarind") in Cambodia; ก้ามปู ("kampu"), ฉำฉา ("chamcha"), จามจุรีแดง ("chamchuri daeng"), จามจุรี ("chamchuri") in Thai; ကုက္ကို ("kokko") in Myanmar; and "còng", "muồng tím", or "cây mưa" ("rain tree") in Vietnam.


title: Samanea saman

text: In South Asia, it is known as "shiriisha" in Sanskrit; শিরীষ ("shirish") in Bengali; "shirish" in Gujarati; सीरस ("vilaiti siris") in Hindi; "bagaya mara" in Kannada; ചക്കരക്കായ് മരം ("chakkarakkay maram") in Malayalam; विलायती शिरीश in Marathi; "mara" in Sinhalese; தூங்குமூஞ்சி மரம் ("thoongu moonji maram", "sleepy faced tree") in Tamil; and నిద్ర గన్నేరు ("nidra ganneru") in Telugu.


title: Samanea saman

text: In Madagascar, it is also known as "bonara (mbaza), kily vazaha, madiromany, mampihe", or "mampohehy".


title: Samanea saman

text: In European regions where the tree does not usually grow, its names are usually direct translations of "rain tree". These include "arbre à (la) pluie" (France), "árbol de lluvia" (Spain); and "Regenbaum" (Germany).


title: Samanea saman

text: Since its introduction to Cambodia, the "Samanea saman" is known locally as "chankiri" (ចន្ទគិរី). It has been widely planted across the country thanks to its tall height and expansive branches that can shade large areas, and as an ornamental. The fruit is eaten, and in famine times the young leaves are eaten in salads.


title: Samanea saman

text: Multiple "chankiri" can also be found in the Killing Fields, an execution field used by the Khmer Rouge during the Cambodian genocide, though the trees were planted at the field long before. Children and infants were smashed against trees because their parents were accused of crimes against the regime. It was so the children "wouldn't grow up and take revenge for their parents' deaths".


title: Samanea saman

text: During the production of the 1960 film "Swiss Family Robinson", a "Samanea saman" tree in Tobago, said to be tall, was used for the construction of the family's famous tree house. The set was left intact after filming but was destroyed by Hurricane Flora in 1963. The tree itself has survived and is located approximately near Goldsborough, Tobago. The figure for the tree's height comes from the motion picture company and has not been independently confirmed.


title: Samanea saman

text: Carbon sequestration is the capture and long-term removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. According to a research conducted at the School of Forestry of the Bogor Agricultural Institute, Indonesia, a mature tree with a crown diameter measuring absorbed of CO annually. The trees have been planted in cities of Kudus and Demak and also will be planted along the shoulder of the road from Semarang to Losari.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: The bilateral relations between People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) (, ) have been generally friendly, although they were sometimes strained in recent years because of North Korea's nuclear program. They have a close special relationship and China is often considered to be North Korea's closest ally. China and North Korea have a mutual aid and co-operation treaty, which is currently the only defense treaty either country has with any nation.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: China maintains an embassy in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang and a consulate general in Chongjin. The embassy of North Korea in China is located in Beijing's Chaoyang District, while a consulate general is in Shenyang. North Korea has adhered to the One China principle, where it recognizes the PRC as the only representative of "China", and neither does not recognize the legitimacy of the Republic of China (ROC) nor the so-called "Taiwan independence".


title: China–North Korea relations

text: China and North Korea have, in the past, enjoyed close diplomatic relations. However, China–North Korea relations have declined markedly over the past few years until 2018. Since 2018, ties between North Korea and China also appear to have improved and returned to normalcy, with Workers' Party of Korea chairman Kim Jong-un making multiple trips to Beijing to meet Chinese Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping. In the past, decline in China–North Korea relations was primarily due to growing concern in China over issues such as North Korea's impoundment of Chinese fishing boats and more importantly its nuclear weapons program. Relations have again been increasingly close since 2018, especially after Xi Jinping visited Pyongyang in June 2019.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: Favorable views of North Korea among Chinese people appear to be receding. According to a 2014 BBC World Service Poll, 20% of Chinese people view North Korea's influence positively, with 46% expressing a negative view.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: The Beiyang government of the Republic of China recognized the Korean Government-in-exile on April 13, 1919, during the period of Japanese colonial rule over Korea. After World War II, the northern half of Korea was placed under Soviet administration. The People's Republic of China and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea exchanged diplomatic recognition on 6 October 1949 with the PRC recognized the DPRK as the sole legitimate authority of Korea.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: In May 1950, North Korea's Supreme Leader Kim Il-sung secretly visited Beijing to brief Chinese Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong and the Chinese leadership on his war plans. Following setbacks sustained by the Korean People's Army and the crossing of the 38th parallel by the United Nations Command led by the United States Armed Forces, in October 1950 Chinese forces secretly crossed into North Korea in response to security concern of a possible U.S. invasion of Chinese territory. The China–North Korea border assumed great strategic value for the Chinese Communist Party after the Empire of Japan invaded China through Korea twice in the First Sino-Japanese War and the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. It subsequently entered the Korean War in support of North Korea. China had cautioned that they would go as far as risking an all-war with the US-forces if they advanced towards the Yalu River. However, Douglas MacArthur defied US and UN orders and pushed towards the Yalu River, which enlarged the conflict when Chinese forces fought back and caught the UN forces by surprise, resulting them to retreat back to the 38th parallel, eventually turning into a stalemate and also the current boundary between North Korea and South Korea.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: In addition to dispatching the Chinese People's Volunteers to Korea to fight against the United Nations Command, China also received North Korean refugees and students and provided economic aid during the war. Following the signing of the Korean War Armistice in 1953, China, along with members of the Eastern Bloc led by the Soviet Union, provided extensive economic assistance to Pyongyang to support the reconstruction and economic development of North Korea. After the war China continued to station 300,000 troops in North Korea for five years. National Defense Minister and commander of the Chinese forces in Korea Peng Dehuai urged Mao to remove Kim from power, but he was sidelined after he criticized the Great Leap Forward.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: In 1956, at the 2nd Plenary Session of the 3rd Central Committee, leading pro-China Korean figures known as the Yan'an faction attempted to remove Kim Il-sung from power with the support of China and the Soviet Union, but failed. This incident has become known as the August Faction Incident and forms the historical basis for North Korean fears of Chinese interference. At the same time, China tried to maintain good relations with North Korea because of the Sino-Soviet split and de-Stalinization.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: The 1960s have been characterized as a "contentious" period in China-North Korean relations. The Korean Workers' Party criticized the Cultural Revolution and described Mao Zedong as “an old fool who has gone out of his mind.” The People's Republic of China recalled its Ambassador from Pyongyang in October 1966, and the Red Guard criticized North Korea as being "revisionist" in the "Dongfanghong" newspaper. Tensions between Chinese Red Guards and North Korea led to some armed clashes in 1969. In 1970, Chinese premier Zhou Enlai traveled to Pyongyang to apologize for the treatment of North Korea by China. In the 1970s relations with North Korea improved, although Deng Xiaoping urged political and economic reforms after the Chinese economic reform and criticized the North Korean cult of personality and provocative actions such as the Rangoon bombing.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: In 1961, the two countries signed the Sino-North Korean Mutual Aid and Cooperation Friendship Treaty, whereby China pledged to immediately render military and other assistance by all means to its ally against any outside attack.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: In 1992, DPRK-PRC relations worsened after China increased trade relations with North Korea's rival South Korea in the 1980s, culminating with the full normalization of diplomatic relations in 1992. China subsequently stopped selling goods to North Korea at discounted "friendship prices" and providing interest-free loans, leading to the decline of DPRK-PRC trade in the 1990s, although it began subsidizing trade to North Korea again in order to prevent a refugee crisis in Northeast China during the North Korean famine.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: On 1 January 2009, Chinese paramount leader Hu Jintao and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il exchanged greetings and declared 2009 as the "year of China–DPRK friendship," marking 60 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries. In March 2010, Kim visited Beijing to meet with the Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: In August 2012, Jang Song-thaek, uncle of Kim Jong-un, met Hu Jintao, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing. It has since been widely reported that during their meeting, Jang told Hu Jintao he wished to replace Kim Jong-un with his brother Kim Jong-nam. The meeting was allegedly taped by Zhou Yongkang, then secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, who informed Kim Jong-un of the plot. In December 2013, Jang was executed for treason while in July 2014 Zhou was publicly put under investigation for corruption and other crimes and was arrested in December 2014. These events are said to have marked the beginning of Kim Jong-un's distrust of China, since they had failed to inform him of a plot against his rule, while China took a dislike to Kim for executing their trusted intermediary.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: On 5 May 2013, North Korea "grabbed," according to Jiang Yaxian, a Chinese government official, another Chinese fishing boat in a series of impounding Chinese fishing boats. "North Korea was demanding 600,000 yuan ($97,600) for its safe return, along with its 16 crew." According to a December 2014 article in "The New York Times", relations had reached a low point.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: In March 2016 the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visited a missile factory, which China strongly condemned, in a report by the state newspaper the "People's Daily" revealed that the North Korean politics causes instability on the Korean Peninsula and is comparable to the situation in Syria.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: The involvement of the United States in the peninsula's affairs in April–May 2017 presented a major issue for China-American relations in organiser Li Xiaolin's preparations for Xi's visit to the US.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: Since 2003, China has been a participant in six-party talks aimed at resolving the issue of North Korea's nuclear weapons programme.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: China condemned the 2006 North Korean nuclear test and approved United Nations Security Council Resolution 1718 expanding sanctions against North Korea. President Hu Jintao sent Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing to Pyongyang to negotiate with Kim Jong-il to halt the nuclear program. According to U.S. National Security Council Director for Asian Affairs Victor Cha, Hu Jintao and the Chinese government were genuinely outraged by the test because North Korea had led it to believe that it did not have nuclear weapons and ignored its advice against building them. China was also concerned that the Liberal Democratic Party government of Japan would respond by expanding its military.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: The Foreign Minister of the People's Republic of China Yang Jiechi said that China "resolutely" opposed the 2013 North Korean nuclear test conducted by North Korea. The North Korean ambassador to China, Ji Jae-ryong, was personally informed of this position on 12 February 2013 in a meeting with Yang Jiechi.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: In 2016, right after the North Korean nuclear test in January tensions between China and North Korea have further grown, the reaction of China was, "We strongly urge the DPRK side to remain committed to its denuclearization commitment, and stop taking any actions that would make the situation worse," spokesperson Hua Chunying said. On 24 February 2016 the United States and China introduced new sanctions against the North Korean regime conducted within the United Nations context.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: The " Times of India" reported that the then British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson saying at a dinner to mark India's independence that the Chinese control 90% of North Korea's trade and it is in the Chinese government's hands to exercise economic pressure on Kim Jong-un to achieve the diplomatic resolution needed to de-escalate tensions in the region.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: The United States has sanctioned many Chinese companies for violating North Korean sanctions, possibly aiding their nuclear program.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: Due to Chinese support for sanctions against North Korea, relations in 2017 took a negative turn with North Korean state media attacking China directly on at least three occasions.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: In February 2017, after China halted imports of coal from North Korea, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, "this country [China], styling itself a big power, is dancing to the tune of the US while defending its mean behaviour with such excuses that it was meant not to have a negative impact on the living of the people in the DPRK but to check its nuclear program".


title: China–North Korea relations

text: In May 2017, KCNA made an unprecedented criticism of China, saying "a string of absurd and reckless remarks are now heard from China every day only to render the present bad situation tenser" and that "China had better ponder over the grave consequences to be entailed by its reckless act of chopping down the pillar of the DPRK-China relations". Accusing China of "big-power chauvinism", KCNA said Chinese support for sanctions against North Korea were "an undisguised threat to an honest-minded neighboring country which has a long history and tradition of friendship" and that "The DPRK will never beg for the maintenance of friendship with China".


title: China–North Korea relations

text: In September 2017, KCNA slammed negative editorials by the "People's Daily" and "Global Times", saying "some media of China are seriously hurting the line and social system of the DPRK and threatening the DPRK" and calling them "the dirty excrement of the reactionaries of history" who "spouted such extremely ill-boding words".


title: China–North Korea relations

text: In February 2018, the KCNA again criticized Chinese media. According to KCNA, China Central Television "seriously spoiled the atmosphere of the feast by publishing presumptuous comments of individual experts" and the "Global Times" was condemned for "the behavior of scattering ashes on other's happy day as they bring the denuclearization issue".


title: China–North Korea relations

text: In March 2018, Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un met with Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping for the first time in Beijing. Xinhua News Agency reported that the North Korean leader's trip lasted four days. Kim and his wife Ri Sol-ju were met with honour guards and a lavish banquet hosted by Xi Jinping.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: Xi was likewise received in the same-fashion when he visited Pyongyang in June 2019 on two-day state visit, the first of such since Hu Jintao's 2006 visit. In a North Korean mass games that Xi attended, he was depicted inside a gold-framed circle surrounded by red — the same style previously used to depict Kim Jong-un's father, Kim Jong-il, and grandfather, Kim Il-sung. It is also the first time a visit by a Chinese leader to North Korea has been called a "state visit" by the Chinese government.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: In July 2019, North Korea was one of the 50 countries which signed a letter defending Xinjiang re-education camps and praising "China's remarkable achievements in the field of human rights in Xinjiang." North Korea has also defended China's position in the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests, with North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho saying that "North Korea fully supports the stand and measures of China to defend the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of the country and safeguard the prosperity and stability of Hong Kong, and concerns about foreign forces interference in Hong Kong issue." During an official visit to North Korea in September 2019, State Councilor Wang Yi said that "China will always stand on the road as comrades and friends" of North Korea.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: In June 2020, North Korea was one of 53 countries that backed the Hong Kong national security law at the United Nations.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: China and North Korea share a 1,416 km long land border that corresponds almost entirely to the course of the Yalu and Tumen rivers.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: The two countries signed a border treaty in 1962 to resolve their un-demarcated land border. China received 40% of the disputed crater lake on Paektu Mountain (known as Changbai Mountain in China), while North Korea held the remaining land.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: In the 1950s and 1960s, many ethnic Koreans in Northeast China crossed the border into North Korea to escape economic hardship and famine in China. In recent years, the flow of refugees has reversed, with a considerable number of North Koreans fleeing to China. Much of China's trade with North Korea goes through the port of Dandong on the Yalu River.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: In May 2012, China and North Korea signed an agreement on the construction and management of the cross-border bridge between Manpo in the Jagang Province of North Korea and Jian in China.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: In 2015, a single rogue North Korean soldier killed four ethnic Korean citizens of China who lived along the border of China with North Korea.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: In April 2019, both countries opened the bridge connecting the cities of Ji'an, Jilin and Manpo after three years of construction.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: Many North Korean defectors travel through their 880-mile-long border with China rather than through the de facto Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) to reach South Korea. In 1982, China joined both the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the Protocols Relating to the Status of Refugees. The Chinese government does not have refugee-related laws relying instead on the Refugee Convention and Protocols to make decisions on refugee cases. China’s membership in these two organizations requires them to provide personal rights (economic and social rights presented in the CSR and PRSR) to any refugee entering their borders. They are also a member of the UN Human Rights Council and accept many refugees held in countries such as Hong Kong, Macau, Vietnam, Japan, and Australia. Unlike refugees from these countries, China does not recognize North Korean defectors as refugees but rather classifies them as ‘economic refugees’ referring to their immigration due to food and financial struggles. Under the Refugee Conventions and Protocols, this would not classify North Korean defectors as refugees, but rather, border crossers, however, there is much debate over this. The Chinese government will, on rare occasions, allow North Korean Defectors to pass through China into a third country or, most commonly, force them to return back to North Korea.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: In 1986 China and North Korea intensified their monitoring of illegal border crossers, or North Korean defectors through the Mutual Cooperation Protocols for the National Security and Maintenance of Social Order in the Border Regions. This required China to detain North Korean defectors and provide the North Korean government with a list of any. Since then, China has classified North Korean defectors as illegal border crossers, or criminals, forcing them to return back to North Korea. However, the issue here is that repatriating defectors as illegal border crossers defies the Forced Repatriation Prohibition Principle (part of international law according to South Korean legal experts).


title: China–North Korea relations

text: Tensions regarding migrants crossing the Sino-North Korean border flared up in 2002 with a string of incidents of North Korean defectors reaching Spanish, Japanese, German, American, Canadian, and South Korean consulates in the Chinese city of Shenyang and embassies in the capital of Beijing. Incidents in which Chinese state forces physically dragged defectors who were seeking asylum from the front steps of Japanese and South Korean consulates received much international media attention and caused diplomatic rifts between involved countries. In one such case, a North Korean defector father and his 13-year-old son were separated as Chinese police pushed through a human wall of South Korean diplomats in an attempt to seize the migrants, ending in the father’s capture and son’s placement within the South Korean embassy in Beijing. In most cases of seizure, defectors are taken into custody by Chinese forces in order to be repatriated back to North Korea. Once in North Korea, most defectors are placed in penal camps which are known to be relatively liberal but still deadly.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: China's economic assistance to North Korea accounts for about half of all Chinese foreign aid. Beijing provides the aid directly to Pyongyang, thereby enabling it to bypass the United Nations.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: During the period of severe food shortage between 1996 and 1998, Beijing provided unconditional food aid to North Korea.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: China is North Korea's largest trade partner, while North Korea itself ranks relatively low as a source of imports to China. North Korea is dependent on trade and aid from China, although international sanctions against North Korea have decreased overall official volume of trade. Between 2000 and 2015, trade between the two countries grew over ten-fold, reaching a peak of $6.86 billion in 2014. China is a major investor in North Korea's mining and metallurgical industries including steel and iron, copper, coal, copper, and rare-earth minerals. PRC-DPRK trade also provides an important source of revenue to Jilin and Liaoning Provinces, which have suffered deindustrialization since the 1970s. In return, North Korea is dependent on China for imports of food and fuel, particularly since the end of South Korea's Sunshine Policy in 2008.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: In February 2017, China restricted all coal imports from North Korea until 2018. In 2016, coal briquettes had been the single largest good exported by North Korea, accounting for 46% of its trade with China. China has said this was in line with the UN sanctions against North Korea, but it is speculated that this occurred because of a mix of events, including recent nuclear tests, the suspected assassination of Kim Jong-nam, brother of ruler Kim Jong-un, and pressure on China from the rest of the world and especially the United States. However, despite this, North Korea has been reported to evade sanctions and continue to sell coal to China through a loophole. On 28 September 2017, in response to new UN Security Council sanctions over a nuclear test earlier in the month, China ordered all North Korean companies operating in China to cease operations within 120 days.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: By January 2018 customs statistics showed that trade between the two countries had fallen to a historic low, although volume again increased by 15.4% to $1.25 billion in the first half of 2019. China closed its border in late January 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and trade between the two countries nearly halted, with North Korean imports from and exports to China both down by over 90% year-over-year in March.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: In 2020, trade fell by more than 80% due to Covid-19 pandemic. Chinese-North Korean trade was severely affected by the pandemic in 2020 onwards. Chinese-North Korean trade equaled 318 million USD in 2021, compared to the 539 million USD in 2020 and 2.78 billion USD in 2019. Scholars have hinted that the prolonged Covid-19 restrictions from both North Korea and China have aided in the rapid decrease of trade revenue. Furthermore, there has been a lack of raw materials in North Korea, leading to less work, and thus less workers. This lack of raw materials can be attributed to China’s lockdowns and restrictions during Covid-19. North Korea, due to their Enterprise Law in 2013 and 2015 allowed companies more freedom to control their own production, leading to an influx in Chinese raw materials and boosting bilateral trade.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: North Korea had been one of the first countries to close their borders to China in order to avoid the virus, yet China is working to repair its ties with North Korea regardless. South Korea’s central bank, the Bank of Korea, approximates that North Korea’s economy shrank by around 4.5 percent. China and North Korea maintained informal trade, with China violating UN sanctions on North Korea. These sanctions include the illicit ship to ship transfers of 1.6 million barrels of refined oil to North Korea although the UN imposed a limit of 5,000 barrels per year. In September 2021, reports indicated that the Chinese government continued to smuggle imports of North Korean coal due to energy shortage issues throughout China. China has attempted to decrease the severity of sanctions against North Korean goods to address trade issues by appealing to the United Nations Security Council in November of the same year.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: On 7 May 2013, Bank of China, China's biggest foreign exchange bank, joined other international banks in closing the accounts of North Korea's Foreign Trade Bank, its main foreign exchange bank. Although neither entity stated reasons for the closure, it is widely assumed that it was in response to sanctions placed against Bank of China by the United States for its alleged assistance in financing the North Korean nuclear weapons program.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: In 2012, a $45 million investment by China's Haicheng Xiyang Group into an iron-ore powder processing plant failed under what the Chinese called "a nightmare". On 21 February 2016 China quietly ended financial support of North Korea without any media publicity. It is reported to be due to the fallout of relations between the two governments.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: In July 2019, "Washington Post" reported that Huawei "secretly helped" North Korea to build and maintain its commercial wireless network in conjunction with Chinese state-owned enterprise Panda International Information Technology Co.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: China assisted North Korea during the Korean War (1950–53) against South Korean and UN forces on the Korean peninsula. Although China itself remained neutral, three million Chinese soldiers participated in the conflict as part of the People's Volunteer Army fighting alongside the Korean People's Army. As many as 180,000 were killed.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: Since the end of the Korean War, the two states have closely cooperated in security and defense issues. In 1975, Kim Il-sung visited Beijing in a failed attempt to solicit support from China for a military invasion of South Korea. On 23 November 2009, Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie visited Pyongyang, the first defense chief to visit since 2006.


title: China–North Korea relations

text: In August 2019, director of the General Political Bureau of the KPA Kim Su Gil visited Beijing to meet with Zhang Youxia. Zhang told Kim that the delegation's visit as was of “crucial significance in bilateral exchange.“


title: China–North Korea relations

text: In 1978, the DPRK celebrated the 30th anniversary of the republic, in which Deng Xiaoping attended in his official capacities as the First Vice Premier of the State Council and the Vice Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party.


title: Edgar Ray Killen

text: Edgar Ray Killen (January 17, 1925 – January 11, 2018) was an American Ku Klux Klan organizer who planned and directed the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, three civil rights activists participating in the Freedom Summer of 1964. He was found guilty in state court of three counts of manslaughter on June 21, 2005, the forty-first anniversary of the crime, and sentenced to 60 years in prison. He appealed the verdict, but the sentence was upheld on April 12, 2007, by the Supreme Court of Mississippi. He died in prison on January 11, 2018, six days before his 93rd birthday.


title: Edgar Ray Killen

text: Edgar Ray Killen was born in Philadelphia, Mississippi, as the oldest of eight children to Lonie Ray Killen (1901–1992) and Jetta Killen (née Hitt; 1903–1983). Killen was a sawmill operator and a part-time Baptist minister. He was a kleagle, or klavern recruiter and organizer, for the Neshoba and Lauderdale County chapters of the Ku Klux Klan.


title: Edgar Ray Killen

text: During the "Freedom Summer" of 1964, James Chaney, 21, a young black man from Meridian, Mississippi and Andrew Goodman, 20, and Michael Schwerner, 24, two Jewish men from New York, were murdered in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Killen, along with deputy sheriff of Neshoba County Cecil Price, was found to have assembled a group of armed men who conspired against, pursued, and killed the three civil rights workers. Samuel Bowers, who served as the Grand Wizard of the local White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and had ordered the murders to take place, acknowledged that Killen was "the main instigator".


title: Edgar Ray Killen

text: At the time of the murders, the state of Mississippi made almost no effort to prosecute the guilty parties. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), under President Lyndon B. Johnson, conducted a vigorous investigation. Circumventing dismissals by federal judges, federal prosecutor John Doar convened a grand jury in December 1964. In November 1965 Solicitor General Thurgood Marshall appeared before the Supreme Court to defend the federal government's authority in bringing charges. Eighteen men, including Killen, were arrested and charged with conspiracy to violate the victims' civil rights in "United States v. Price".


title: Edgar Ray Killen

text: The trial, which began in 1966 at the federal courthouse of Meridian before an all-white jury, convicted seven conspirators, including the deputy sheriff, and acquitted eight others. It was the first time a white jury convicted a white official of civil rights killings. For three men, including Killen, the trial ended in a hung jury, with the jurors deadlocked 11–1 in favor of conviction. The lone holdout said that she could not convict a preacher. The prosecution decided not to retry Killen and he was released. None of the men found guilty would serve more than six years in prison.


title: Edgar Ray Killen

text: More than 20 years later, Jerry Mitchell, an award-winning investigative reporter for "The Clarion-Ledger" in Jackson, Mississippi, wrote extensively about the case for six years. Mitchell helped to secure convictions in other high-profile Civil Rights Era murder cases, including the assassination of Medgar Evers, the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, and the murder of Vernon Dahmer. Mitchell assembled new evidence regarding the murders of the three civil rights workers. He also located new witnesses and pressured the state to take action. Assisting Mitchell were high school teacher Barry Bradford and a team of three students from Illinois.


title: Edgar Ray Killen

text: The students persuaded Killen to do his only taped interview (to that point) about the murders. The tape showed Killen competent, aware, and clinging to his segregationist views. The student-teacher team found more potential witnesses, created a website, lobbied the United States Congress, and focused national media attention on reopening the case. Carolyn Goodman, the mother of one of the victims, called them "super heroes".


title: Edgar Ray Killen

text: In early January 2004, a multiracial group of citizens in Neshoba County formed the Philadelphia Coalition, to seek justice for the 1964 murders. Led by co-chairs Leroy Clemons and Jim Prince, the group met over several months and then issued a call for justice, first in March 2004 and then on June 21, the 40th anniversary of the murders. That event was attended by over 1500 people. The sitting Mississippi governor was present and four congressmen, including Rep. John Lewis and Rep. Bennie Thompson. Former Mississippi Secretary of State Dick Molpus made a lauded speech imploring those with information about the crimes to come forward. The Coalition met over the summer with state attorney general Jim Hood, along with Andrew Goodman's mother Carolyn Goodman and brother David Goodman. They asked Hood to re-open the case. The group also met with local district attorney Mark Duncan. The group was supported throughout by the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation. In the fall of 2004, an anonymous donor provided funds through the Mississippi Religious Leadership Council for anyone with information leading to an arrest.


title: Edgar Ray Killen

text: On January 6, 2005, AG Hood and DA Duncan convened a local grand jury, which indicted Edgar Ray Killen for the murders.


title: Edgar Ray Killen

text: In 2004, Killen said he would attend a petition-drive on his behalf, conducted by the Nationalist Movement at the 2004 Mississippi Annual State Fair in Jackson. The Nationalist Movement is a white supremacy organization. Hinds County sheriff Malcolm McMillin conducted a counter-petition calling for a reopening of the state case against Killen. Killen was arrested for three counts of murder on January 6, 2005. He was freed on bond.


title: Edgar Ray Killen

text: Killen's trial was scheduled for April 18, 2005. It was deferred after the 80-year-old Killen broke both legs while chopping lumber. The trial began on June 13, 2005, with Killen attending in a wheelchair. He was found guilty of manslaughter on June 21, 2005, 41 years to the day after the crime. The jury of nine white jurors and three black jurors rejected the murder charges but found him guilty of manslaughter for recruiting the mob that carried out the killings. He was sentenced on June 23, 2005, by Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon to the maximum sentence of 60 years in prison, 20 years for each count of manslaughter, to be served consecutively. He would have been eligible for parole after 20 years. In his sentencing remarks Gordon said that each life lost was valuable, that the law made no distinction of age for the crime, and that the maximum sentence should be imposed regardless of Killen's age. Prosecuting the case were Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood and Neshoba County District Attorney Mark Duncan.


title: Edgar Ray Killen

text: Killen entered the Mississippi Department of Corrections system on June 27, 2005, to serve his sixty-year sentence. On August 12 he was released on a $600,000 appeal bond, having claimed he could not use his right hand (using his left hand to place his right hand on the Bible during swearing-in) and that he was permanently confined to his wheelchair. Judge Gordon said he was convinced Killen was neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community. On September 3, "The Clarion-Ledger" reported that a deputy sheriff saw Killen walking around "with no problem". At a hearing on September 9, several other deputies testified to seeing Killen driving in various locations. One deputy said Killen shook hands with him using his right hand. Gordon revoked the bond and ordered Killen back to prison, saying Killen had committed a fraud against the court.


title: Edgar Ray Killen

text: Killen's request for a new trial was denied by a circuit court judge and he was transferred to the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility near Pearl. On March 29, 2006, Killen was moved to a City of Jackson hospital to treat complications of his leg injury sustained in the 2005 logging incident. On August 12, 2007, the Supreme Court of Mississippi affirmed Killen's conviction by a vote of 8–0 (one judge not participating).


title: Edgar Ray Killen

text: In February 2010, Killen filed a lawsuit against the FBI alleging that one of his lawyers in his 1967 trial, Clayton Lewis, was an FBI informant, and that the FBI had hired "gangster and killer" Gregory Scarpa to coerce witnesses. On March 23, 2011, District Judge Daniel P. Jordan III adopted Magistrate F. Keith Ball's recommendation to dismiss the case.


title: Edgar Ray Killen

text: James Hart Stern, a black preacher from California, shared a prison cell with Edgar Ray Killen from August 2010 to November 2011 while serving time for wire fraud. Killen and Stern forged a close relationship, and Killen wrote dozens of letters to Stern outlining his views on race and confessing to other crimes. He also signed over his land in Mississippi to Stern and gave him power of attorney. Stern detailed his experience in the 2017 book "Killen the KKK," co-authored by Autumn K. Robinson. On January 5, 2016, Stern used his power of attorney to dissolve Killen's branch of the KKK.


title: Edgar Ray Killen

text: Killen died on January 12, 2018 at the age of 92 at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman, Mississippi.


title: 2018 Ohio gubernatorial election

text: The 2018 Ohio gubernatorial election took place on November 6, 2018, to elect the next governor of Ohio, concurrently with the election of Ohio's Class I U.S. Senate seat, as well as other elections to the United States Senate in other states, elections to the United States House of Representatives, and various Ohio and local elections. Incumbent Republican Governor John Kasich was term-limited and could not seek re-election for a third consecutive term.


title: 2018 Ohio gubernatorial election

text: Republicans nominated Ohio Attorney General and former U.S. Senator Mike DeWine, while Democrats nominated former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director and former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray. This was the second contest between DeWine and Cordray, following the 2010 attorney general election, which DeWine won, 47.5% to 46.3%.


title: 2018 Ohio gubernatorial election

text: In 2018, DeWine defeated Cordray 50.4% to 46.7%, in what was considered a minor upset. Despite Cordray's loss, he became the first Democratic gubernatorial candidate to win Cincinnati's Hamilton County since Dick Celeste in 1982. Likewise, DeWine became the first Republican to win in the historically Democratic Monroe County in a gubernatorial election since 2002 as the county took a sharp turn to the right. With Democratic senator Sherrod Brown winning re-election in the same year, this was the first election since 1974 in which Ohio simultaneously voted for a governor and senator of opposite parties.


title: Hatay State

text: Hatay State (; ; "Dawlat Hatāy"), also known informally as the Republic of Hatay ( "Jumhūriyya Hatāy"), was a transitional political entity that existed from 7 September 1938 to 29 June 1939, being located in the territory of the Sanjak of Alexandretta of the French Mandate of Syria. The state was transformed "de jure" into the Hatay Province of Turkey on 7 July 1939, "de facto" joining the country on 23 July 1939.


title: Hatay State

text: Formerly part of the Aleppo Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire, the Sanjak of Alexandretta was occupied by France at the end of the First World War and constituted part of the French Mandate of Syria.


title: Hatay State

text: The Sanjak of Alexandretta was an autonomous "sanjak" from 1921 to 1923, as a result of the Franco-Turkish Treaty of Ankara, as it had a large Turkish community as well as its Arab and Armenian population. Then it was attached to the State of Aleppo, then in 1925 it was directly attached to the State of Syria, still with a special administrative status.


title: Hatay State

text: Marshal Mustafa Kemal Pasha (later known as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk), refused to accept the Sanjak of Alexandretta as part of the Mandate and, in a speech on 15 March 1923 in Adana, he described the Sanjak as "A homeland where Turks lived for centuries and can't be a captive at the hands of enemy". Turkish policy aimed at annexing the Sanjak of Alexandretta when the French mandate of Syria was due to expire in 1935. Turks in Alexandretta initiated reforms in the style of Atatürk's, and formed various organisations and institutions in order to promote the idea of union with the Republic of Turkey.


title: Hatay State

text: In 1936, the elections returned two Syrian independentist MPs (favouring the independence of Syria from France) in the "sanjak", and this prompted communal riots and passionate articles in the Turkish and Syrian press. In particular, Arab nationalist Zaki al-Arsuzi was influential.


title: Hatay State

text: In response, the Atatürk government coined the name "Hatay" for the Sanjak of Alexandretta, as a reference to Hittites (Syro-Hittite states), and raised the "Issue of Hatay" () at the League of Nations. On behalf of the League of Nations, representatives of France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium and Turkey prepared a constitution for the "sanjak". The new statute came into power in November 1937, the "sanjak" becoming 'distinct but not separated' from Syria on the diplomatic level, linked to both France and Turkey for military matters.


title: Hatay State

text: On 2 September 1938, the "sanjak" assembly proclaimed the Sanjak of Alexandretta as the Hatay State. The State lasted for one year under joint French and Turkish military supervision.


title: Hatay State

text: On 29 June 1939, following a referendum, the Hatay legislature voted to disestablish the Hatay State and join Turkey. This referendum has been labelled both "phoney" and "rigged", as the Turkish government organised tens of thousands of Turks from outside Alexandretta to register as citizens and vote. The French encouraged the annexation, hoping it would act as an incentive to Turkey to reject an alliance with Nazi Germany.


title: Hatay State

text: Hashim al-Atassi, the President of the Syrian Republic, resigned in protest at the continued French intervention in Syrian affairs, maintaining that the French were obliged to refuse the annexation under the Franco-Syrian Treaty of Independence of 1936.


title: Hatay State

text: The Hatay State Peoples Assembly () consisted of 40 members, consisting of 22 Turks, nine Alawites, five Armenians, two Orthodox Greeks and two Sunni Arabs.


title: Hatay State

text: On 7 July 1939, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey approved the law establishing the Hatay Province and incorporating districts from Adana Province (then Seyhan Province) and Gaziantep Province. By 23 July 1939, the last vestiges of the French Mandate authorities had left Antakya, and the territory was fully annexed by Turkey. The result was a flight of many Arabs and Armenians to Syria. The region's Armenian population, having been survivors of the Armenian genocide, had fled for their lives to the French Mandate of Syria and therefore weren't able to contemplate Turkish sovereignty. Following the annexation, almost the entire Armenian population of Hatay had settled in Aleppo, with many others moving to Lebanon where they founded the modern town of Anjar near the ruins of its historic castle.


title: Hatay State

text: According to the estimates of the French High Commission in 1936, out of a population of 220,000, 39% were Turks, 28% Alawite Arabs, 11% Armenians, 10% Sunni Arabs, 8% other Christians and 4% were Circassians, Kurds and Jews. Although Turks formed the largest single ethno-religious minority, Arabic speakers, including Sunnis, Alawites and Christians, were more numerous.


title: Hatay State

text: In 1937, most sources pointed that out of a total population of 186 thousand people (which is according to the French government's 1932 report) in sanjak of Alexandretta, 85 thousand people were Turks, 25 thousand were Armenians, and the rest was largely made up of Arabs with some Greeks, Jews, Kurds, and Circassians.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: The uniforms of the Royal Navy have evolved gradually since the first uniform regulations for officers were issued in 1748. The predominant colours of Royal Navy uniforms are navy blue and white. Since reforms in 1997 male and female ratings have worn the same ceremonial uniform.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: RN uniforms have served as the template for many maritime uniforms throughout the world, especially in the British Empire and Commonwealth. The uniforms of the Royal Naval Reserve, Royal Fleet Auxiliary, the Maritime Volunteer Service, the Sea Cadet Corps, the Navy branch of the Combined Cadet Force and the Volunteer Cadet Corps as well as modern uniforms of Trinity House, the Royal Australian Navy, the Royal New Zealand Navy and Royal Malaysian Navy are virtually identical to RN uniforms, with the exception of flashes at shoulder height and on rank slides. Royal Canadian Navy uniforms are also very similar, though the traditional sailor suit is no longer used and some distinctly Canadian rank insignia and titles are used; e.g., master sailor.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: Uniform regulations for officers were first issued by Lord Anson in 1748, and remained unchanged for nearly twenty years. Reportedly, the officers themselves advocated its adoption, as they "wished to be recognised as being in the service of the Crown." The "best uniform", consisting of an embroidered blue coat with white facings, worn unbuttoned with white breeches and stockings, was worn for ceremonial occasions; the "working rig" was a simpler, less embroidered uniform for day-to-day use. In 1767 the best uniform was abolished and replaced by the working rig, with a simpler "undress" uniform for day-to-day use. By 1795, as a result of the French Revolutionary Wars, a plain blue "undress" coat had been introduced for everyday use, and epaulettes were officially introduced. By 1846, all officers wore epaulettes. The white facings came and went over the years, briefly becoming scarlet (1830-1843). Though stripes of lace on the cuffs had been used to distinguish the different ranks of admiral since 1795, the first version of current rank insignia, consisting of stripes with a "curl" in the top one, was introduced for all officers in 1856.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: In 1825, the white breeches were replaced by trousers for officers serving in the United Kingdom, although the practice of wearing white trousers with naval uniforms (popularly known as “Wei-Wei Rig”) continued for officers serving overseas (e.g. in the West Indies and China) until 1939. Throughout the nineteenth century, there was great variation in uniform; officers paid for their own uniform, and often adapted it to fit civilian fashion of the time, as the Admiralty regulations governing uniform were not highly prescriptive.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: For service in tropical climates, a white tunic and trousers were introduced in 1877. During World War II, a blue working dress on the lines of battledress was approved. Caps were to have white tops all year around, and blue caps were abolished in 1956.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: Uniform for ratings was first established by the Admiralty in 1857. Prior to this, most seamen wore "slops", or ready-made clothing sold to the ship's crew by a contractor; many captains established general standards of appearance for the seamen on their vessel, but there was little or no uniformity between ships. On one occasion in 1853, the commanding officer of paid for his boat crews to dress as harlequins, an incident which may have contributed to the Admiralty's decision to adopt a standard uniform.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: A number of changes have been introduced since the introduction of the first rating uniform, notably the removal of the blue jacket in 1890, and the replacement of bell-bottoms by flared trousers in 1977. In 1997 there was a major standardisation programme, meaning that all ratings now wear the same ceremonial uniform for the first time in history.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: Present-day Royal Navy officers and ratings have several different uniforms; some are blue, others are white.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: This is worn only by a few senior Officers (Admirals and Admirals of the Fleet, members of the Royal Family or Royal Household of Flag Rank, and the Vice-Admiral of the United Kingdom). In addition, in the past several members of the Royal Family below flag rank; most notably King Charles III and Andrew, Duke of York wore this uniform whilst holding the ranks of commander and captain. It consists of a navy blue double-breasted tailcoat with standing collar faced white with gold edging, worn with gold shoulder boards, and gold laced blue trousers. Officers of the rank of Admiral of the Fleet, and also officers holding the appointments of First Sea Lord, Chief of the Defence Staff or the Defence Services Secretary (if a naval officer) wear a full dress sword belt embroidered with oak leaves; others wear a full dress sword belt with three stripes. It is worn at parades such as Lord High Admiral's Divisions (BRNC) or at state occasions. Introduced in 1960, it is essentially the same Full Dress uniform worn for ceremonial occasions before that date only with the cocked hat replaced by the peaked hat and the epaulettes replaced by shoulder boards, and without the cuff slash and gold lace on the rear pockets. The ceremonial day coats worn by women button up the opposite way, and the tricorn hat is worn instead of the peaked cap (as worn by the Princess Royal).


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: This is the formal uniform worn on ceremonial occasions. For all commissioned officers it consists of a double-breasted, navy blue reefer jacket with four rows of two buttons, matching trousers, white shirt, black tie, peaked cap, black socks, and black leather shoes. It is divided into 1A (with medals and bearing arms), 1B (same as 1A, but without arms), and 1C (with medal ribbons). Female personnel may wear skirts except when carrying a sword or rifle. It was originally introduced in 1889 and was initially known as the 'undress coat'.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: This mess dress is worn in the evenings for dining. 2A is the formal evening dress for ceremonial dinners; it consists of a navy blue mess jacket with a white waistcoat (black cummerbund for female officers) with miniature medals. For officers of the rank of captain and above, a navy blue tailcoat (known as an 'undress tailcoat') may optionally be worn in lieu of the mess jacket. For officers of these ranks; in addition, gold-laced trousers (known informally as 'lightning conductors') may also be optionally worn either with the tailcoat or the mess jacket. 2B is "mess undress" for other mess functions, and is worn with either a black cummerbund or navy blue waistcoat and miniature medals. 2C, "red sea rig", is worn for informal evening wear on board ship; it consists of a white short sleeved shirt, worn with shoulder boards, without medals and with black trousers, black shoes and a black cummerbund.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: This is worn all year round for general duties. It consists of a white shirt with rank insignia on the shoulders, and appropriate headgear. For officers 3A dress includes a long-sleeved shirt and tie, while 3B includes a short-sleeved shirt but without the tie. 3C is the same in all respects as 3A but with the addition of a navy blue woollen jersey. Shoulder boards may also be worn with 3C dress. The beret may be worn with this dress only on certain occasions.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: The Royal Navy Personal Clothing System (RNPCS) was adopted navy-wide during 2015 after being tested beginning in 2012. It is similar to the British Army's Personal Clothing System Combat Uniform (PCSCU), but in navy blue instead of multi-terrain pattern. It is divided into two categories: Number 4 dress, which consists of a navy blue fire-retardant jacket (worn tucked in and with the sleeves rolled up or down as personal preference), navy blue beret, navy blue stable belt, navy blue fire-retardant trousers, steaming boots, navy blue T-shirt and an optional navy blue microfleece, and Number 4R dress, which is the same only without the jacket and with an optional baseball cap, to be worn at sea. The peaked cap or sailor's cap may be worn with this dress on certain semi-ceremonial occasions.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: As of 2020, the Royal Navy has been testing a modified design that changes the top from a zippered jacket-like design to a buttoning shirt, with the rank insignia moving back to the shoulder position, and a removable, Velcro-backed name tape. The reasoning behind the changes to make the uniform more comfortable to wear in warmer climates.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: The RNPCS replaced No. 4 Action Working Dress (AWD), which consisted of blue shirt and trousers, both with flame retardant properties, worn with pullover (optional) and cap or beret. Specialist badges are worn on the sleeves; each branch and specialisation has its own insignia and are to be worn accordingly. This is worn by all ranks and rates.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: No. 5 refers to the wide range of job-specific working kit worn by different personnel (e.g. medical, flight deck, boat crews, chefs, divers, etc.) for particular tasks. They are worn as required for duties.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: In the tropics on formal occasions officers wear a short sleeved white bush jacket with an open collar and shoulder boards, matching trousers, peaked cap and white leather shoes. Like temperate number 1 dress, it is divided into three categories: 1WA (with medals and when bearing arms), 1WB (with medals but when not bearing arms), and 1WC (with medal ribbons rather than medals and when not bearing arms.)


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: Officers above the rank of commander, and those holding certain appointments, may optionally wear instead a long-sleeved, high-necked white tunic, with five buttons down the front, worn with white trousers and white shoes. Other officers may be instructed to wear this uniform "when required to conform with accepted international standards of dress on state or major ceremonial occasions".


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: There is also a white version of No. 2 dress; gold-laced navy blue trousers may be optionally worn with white No. 2 dress by officers of the rank of captain and above.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: White No. 3 dress is the same as 3B dress, but is worn with white trousers, socks, and shoes in place of the black versions normally worn. White number 3B and 3C uniforms have been abolished. They consisted of a white short sleeve shirt and white shorts; 3B was worn with long white socks and white shoes, while 3C was worn with boat shoes. Both white 3B and white 3C dress have been replaced by the new number 4 RNPCS dress.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: For senior rates, petty officer and above, No. 1 Dress consists of a double-breasted jacket similar to that worn by commissioned officers but with only six buttons. Historically, this was originally known as the 'long jacket', and was first introduced for engine room artificers, masters-at-arms, and schoolmasters. Later, its use was extended to all Chief Petty Officers (1879) and Petty Officers (1920). Relevant rate insignia is worn on the left arm of the jacket by petty officers. Like their counterparts as worn by commissioned officers, it is divided into 1A, 1B and 1C dress. In 1A dress, when armed, a white web belt and white gaiters are worn by senior ratings as they are by junior ratings. WO1s wear a sword and sword belt with 1A dress. However this differs from that worn by commissioned officers in that it has a black grip instead of a white one, and it has a plain stepped pommel instead of the officers' lion mane one.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: This mess undress is optional wear in the evenings for dining by all senior rates and warrant officers. It is worn with a black cummerbund and miniature medals. The cut of the jacket is different from that worn by officers: it is double breasted, but features a shawl collar and only four buttons instead of six. Trade badges and other non-substantive badges are not worn on the mess jacket, but cuff buttons and substantive rate badges are. This is worn with plain blue mess trousers and (optionally) the peaked cap. Those senior ratings who have not applied for mess dress for 2B dress may instead wear 1C dress with a black bow tie substituted for the black straight tie.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: This is the same as the various types of number 3 dress as worn by commissioned officers. Senior ratings wear shoulder rank slides with 3A, 3B and 3C but WO1s may optionally wear shoulder boards with 3A and 3C dress.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: These are the same as the white uniforms currently worn by commissioned officers. Like with commissioned officers, a white tunic may be worn with 1AW dress and 1BW dress when "required to conform with accepted international standards of dress on state or major ceremonial occasions, but the white tunic worn by senior rates differs from that of commissioned officers in that it only has four buttons rather than five and does not feature shoulder boards nor fittings for them. Petty officers wear blue on white versions of their substantive rate, trade, and good conduct badges with the tunic, Chief Petty Officers wear their cuff buttons and a gold on blue trade badge above the right cuff, and Warrant officers wear gold on white versions of their sleeve rank badges.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: Medals and rate shoulder badges only are worn with the bush jacket. WO1s may wear optional shoulder boards with the bush jacket as well. When armed, senior ratings wear white gaiters and white webbing belts, as with the blue version.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: This is the formal uniform worn on ceremonial occasions. For junior ratings it is a traditional navy blue suit. It is divided into 1A (with medals and bearing arms), 1B (same as 1A, but without arms), and 1C (with medal ribbons). Female personnel may wear skirts except when carrying a sword or rifle. In 1A dress, when armed, a white web belt and white gaiters are worn.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: The current uniform for junior ratings dates in its present form from 1906, replacing an earlier version introduced in 1856 that featured an untucked frock instead of the navy blue seaman's jumper, that was itself based on the traditional (but unregulated) dress of the seaman.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: Mess dress is not worn by junior ratings but 1C dress is worn instead. 2C, "red sea rig", is worn for informal evening wear on board ship. However, the black cummerbund is not worn by junior ratings in this rig.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: This is the same as for Officer's No. 3 dress but with the relevant rate insignia and seaman's cap (or beret). Junior rates are only issued with short-sleeve shirts and are not issued with ties. Thus No.3 dress is divided into 3B (without jersey) and 3C dress (navy blue jersey worn over the shirt with the shirt collar out). There is no equivalent of 3A dress for junior ratings.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: Junior ratings, in common with all ranks and rates of the Royal Navy, are currently issued the new No. 4 RNPCS uniform.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: No. 5 is the collective category for all specialist working uniforms. They are worn as required for duties. These include overalls, dry and wet suits, physical training uniform, and dental and medical scrubs. Included in this category as well is the Multi-Terrain Pattern (MTP) PCS (personal clothing system) uniform.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: For junior ratings, the white warm climate No. 1 dress is a white version of the traditional sailor's suit. The white warm climate versions of No. 2 and No. 3 dress are the same for the counterparts worn by officers and senior rates. However, only short-sleeved shirts are issued and worn and ties are not worn by junior ratings in these rigs.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: Introduced in its ultimate form in 1827, but had steadily evolved from the undress uniform introduced in 1748; this uniform was worn by all commissioned officers from sub-lieutenant upwards, as well as warrant officers. It consisted of a blue double-breasted tailcoat with eight gold buttons worn with blue trousers with gold lace down the side, bicorn hat, sword belt and sword with scabbard, and gold epaulettes (gold 'scales' were worn by sub-lieutenants and neither epaulettes nor scales were worn by warrant officers). It was placed 'in abeyance' (i.e. not used but not abolished) in January 1916 until the end of the First World War. It was restricted between the world wars to court levees. On all other ceremonial occasions, Frock Coat (with epaulettes) was prescribed. In July 1930, officers of the rank of commander and above were required to provide themselves with Full Dress.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: It was again declared in abeyance with the outbreak of war in 1939, but was not formally abolished. Used on several ceremonial occasions after the war (such as the coronation of Elizabeth II), it was replaced in 1960 with the current Ceremonial Day Dress. A version of Royal Navy Full Dress, complete with epaulettes and cocked hat, is still worn by the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, but the current incumbent (Lord Boyce) wears his Royal Navy ceremonial day coat in lieu of this. It was last worn by Sir Robert Menzies during his tenure as Lord Warden from 1966 to 1978.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: Colloquially known as 'the jacket', this was originally a more practical 'working' version of the full dress coat that was improvised by officers cutting off the tails of a spare undress coat. This practice was already informally widespread amongst officers at sea but in the 1825 regulations, the round jacket was finally given official sanction. It was only worn at sea, and was worn with either a peaked cap or a round (similar to a top) hat. It was abolished for all commissioned officers in 1891, but cadets and midshipmen still wore it for formal occasions until it was finally abolished for them in 1951.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: This was introduced in 1847 and was divided into several categories: Frock Coat with epaulettes; which was worn with the bicorn hat and medals, Frock Coat without epaulettes, which was worn with the peaked cap. It became official 'working dress' in 1858. It was altered in 1933 by having only four buttons (instead of five) each side, three of which were to be buttoned. This enabled longer lapels to be incorporated, reflecting civilian fashions of the time.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: Frock Coat Dress was (like Full Dress) placed in abeyance and 'landed' in 1939, and although not formally abolished was not worn until it was finally abolished in 1949. A modified version of this uniform is still worn; usually with peaked cap and without epaulettes, by the Master and Elder Brethren of Trinity House.


title: Uniforms of the Royal Navy

text: This was not introduced until comparatively late in World War II, in contrast to its Army and RAF equivalents. From 1941, Army battledress was approved for use by Royal Navy personnel until 1943, when a Navy Blue version of battledress was introduced to be used only by the Royal Navy. Battledress stock from WW2 was still being worn at BRNC Dartmouth by Officers under Training (OUTs – now known as cadets or YOs – Young Officers) until the late 1980s. It was used as a formal ceremonial uniform until those officers received their bespoke tailored outfits towards the end of training.


title: Central heating

text: A central heating system provides warmth to a number of spaces within a building from one main source of heat. It is a component of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (short: HVAC) systems, which can both cool and warm interior spaces.


title: Central heating

text: A central heating system has a furnace that converts fuel or electricity to heat. The heat is circulated through the building either by fans forcing heated air through ducts, circulation of low-pressure steam to radiators in each heated room, or pumps that circulate hot water through room radiators. Primary energy sources may be fuels like coal or wood, oil, kerosene, natural gas, or electricity.


title: Central heating

text: Compared with systems such as fireplaces and wood stoves, a central heating plant offers improved uniformity of temperature control over a building, usually including automatic control of the furnace. Large homes or buildings may be divided into individually controllable zones with their own temperature controls. Automatic fuel (and sometimes ash) handling provides improved convenience over separate fireplaces. Where a system includes ducts for air circulation, central air conditioning can be added to the system. A central heating system may take up considerable space in a home or other building, and may require supply and return ductwork to be installed at the time of construction.


title: Central heating

text: Central heating differs from space heating in that the heat generation occurs in one place, such as a furnace room or basement in a house or a mechanical room in a large building (though not necessarily at the geometrically "central" point). The heat is distributed throughout the building, typically by forced-air through ductwork, by water circulating through pipes, or by steam fed through pipes. The most common method of heat generation involves the combustion of fossil fuel in a furnace or boiler.


title: Central heating

text: In much of the temperate climate zone, most detached housing has had central heating installed since before the Second World War. Where coal was readily available (i.e. the anthracite coal region in northeast Pennsylvania) coal-fired steam or hot water systems were common. Later in the 20th century, these were updated to burn fuel oil or gas, eliminating the need for a large coal storage bin near the boiler and the need to remove and discard coal ashes.


title: Central heating

text: A cheaper alternative to hot water or steam heat is forced hot air. A furnace burns fuel oil or gas, which heats air in a heat exchanger, and blower fans circulate the warmed air through a network of ducts to the rooms in the building. This system is cheaper because the air moves through a series of ducts instead of pipes, and does not require a pipe fitter to install. The space between floor joists can be boxed in and used as some of the ductwork, further lowering costs.


title: Central heating

text: Electrical heating systems occur less commonly and are practical only with low-cost electricity or when ground source heat pumps are used. Considering the combined system of thermal power station and electric resistance heating, the overall efficiency will be less than for direct use of fossil fuel for space heating.


title: Central heating

text: Some other buildings utilize central solar heating, in which case the distribution system normally uses water circulation.


title: Central heating

text: Alternatives to such systems are gas heaters and district heating. District heating uses the waste heat from an industrial process or electrical generating plant to provide heat for neighboring buildings. Similar to cogeneration, this requires underground piping to circulate hot water or steam.


title: Central heating

text: Use of the "ondol" has been found at archaeological sites in present-day North Korea. A Neolithic Age archaeological site, circa 5000 BC, discovered in Unggi, Hamgyeongbuk-do, in present-day North Korea, shows a clear vestige of gudeul in the excavated dwelling ().


title: Central heating

text: The main components of the traditional "ondol" are an "agungi" (firebox or stove) accessible from an adjoining room (typically kitchen or master bedroom), a raised masonry floor underlain by horizontal smoke passages, and a vertical, freestanding chimney on the opposite exterior wall providing a draft. The heated floor, supported by stone piers or baffles to distribute the smoke, is covered by stone slabs, clay and an impervious layer such as oiled paper.


title: Central heating

text: Early "ondol"s began as "gudeul" that provided the heating for a home and for cooking. When a fire was lit in the furnace to cook rice for dinner, the flame would extend horizontally because the flue entry was beside the furnace. This arrangement was essential, as it would not allow the smoke to travel upward, which would cause the flame to go out too soon. As the flame would pass through the flue entrance, it would be guided through the network of passages with the smoke. Entire rooms would be built on the furnace flue to create ondol floored rooms.


title: Central heating

text: Ondol had traditionally been used as a living space for sitting, eating, sleeping and other pastimes in most Korean homes before the 1960s. Koreans are accustomed to sitting and sleeping on the floor, and working and eating at low tables instead of raised tables with chairs. The furnace burned mainly rice paddy straws, agricultural crop waste, biomass or any kind of dried firewood. For short-term cooking, rice paddy straws or crop waste was preferred, while long hours of cooking and floor heating needed longer-burning firewood. Unlike modern-day water heaters, the fuel was either sporadically or regularly burned (two to five times a day), depending on frequency of cooking and seasonal weather conditions.


title: Central heating

text: The ancient Greeks originally developed central heating. The temple of Ephesus was heated by flues planted in the ground and circulating the heat which was generated by fire. Some buildings in the Roman Empire used central heating systems, conducting air heated by furnaces through empty spaces under the floors and out of pipes (called "caliducts") in the walls—a system known as a "hypocaust".


title: Central heating

text: The Roman hypocaust continued to be used on a smaller scale during late Antiquity and by the Umayyad caliphate, while later Muslim builders employed a simpler system of underfloor pipes.


title: Central heating

text: After the collapse of the Roman Empire, overwhelmingly across Europe, heating reverted to more primitive fireplaces for almost a thousand years.


title: Central heating

text: In the early medieval Alpine upland, a simpler central heating system where heat travelled through underfloor channels from the furnace room replaced the Roman hypocaust at some places. In Reichenau Abbey a network of interconnected underfloor channels heated the 300 m² large assembly room of the monks during the winter months. The degree of efficiency of the system has been calculated at 90%.


title: Central heating

text: In the 13th century, the Cistercian monks revived central heating in Christian Europe using river diversions combined with indoor wood-fired furnaces. The well-preserved Royal Monastery of Our Lady of the Wheel (founded 1202) on the Ebro River in the Aragon region of Spain provides an excellent example of such an application.


title: Central heating

text: William Strutt designed a new mill building in Derby with a central hot air furnace in 1793, although the idea had been already proposed by John Evelyn almost a hundred years earlier. Strutt's design consisted of a large stove that heated air brought from the outside by a large underground passage. The air was ventilated through the building by large central ducts.


title: Central heating

text: In 1807, he collaborated with another eminent engineer, Charles Sylvester, on the construction of a new building to house Derby's Royal Infirmary. Sylvester was instrumental in applying Strutt's novel heating system for the new hospital. He published his ideas in "The Philosophy of Domestic Economy; as exemplified in the mode of Warming, Ventilating, Washing, Drying, & Cooking, ... in the Derbyshire General Infirmary" in 1819. Sylvester documented the new ways of heating hospitals that were included in the design, and the healthier features such as self-cleaning and air-refreshing toilets. The infirmary's novel heating system allowed the patients to breathe fresh heated air whilst old air was channeled up to a glass and iron dome at the centre.


title: Central heating

text: Their designs proved very influential. They were widely copied in the new mills of the Midlands and were constantly improved, reaching maturity with the work of de Chabannes on the ventilation of the House of Commons in the 1810s. This system remained the standard for heating small buildings for the rest of the century.


title: Central heating

text: The English writer Hugh Plat proposed a steam-based central heating system for a greenhouse in 1594, although this was an isolated occurrence and was not followed up until the 18th century. Colonel Coke devised a system of pipes that would carry steam around the house from a central boiler, but it was James Watt the Scottish inventor who was the first to build a working system in his house.


title: Central heating

text: A central boiler supplied high-pressure steam that then distributed the heat within the building through a system of pipes embedded in the columns. He implemented the system on a much larger scale at a textile factory in Manchester. Robertson Buchanan wrote the definitive description of these installations in his treatises published in 1807 and 1815. Thomas Tredgold's work "Principles of Warming and Ventilating Public Buildings", delineated the method of the application of hot steam heating to smaller, non-industrial buildings. This method had superseded the hot air systems by the late 19th century.


title: Central heating

text: Early hot water systems were used in Ancient Rome for heating the Thermæ. Another early hot water system was developed in Russia for central heating of the Summer Palace (1710–1714) of Peter the Great in Saint Petersburg. Slightly later, in 1716, came the first use of water in Sweden to distribute heating in buildings. Mårten Triewald, a Swedish engineer, used this method for a greenhouse at Newcastle upon Tyne. Jean Simon Bonnemain (1743–1830), a French architect, introduced the technique to industry on a cooperative, at Château du Pêcq, near Paris.


title: Central heating

text: However, these scattered attempts were isolated and mainly confined in their application to greenhouses. Tredgold originally dismissed its use as impractical, but changed his mind in 1836, when the technology went into a phase of rapid development.


title: Central heating

text: Early systems had used low pressure water systems, which required very large pipes. One of the first modern hot water central heating systems to remedy this deficiency was installed by Angier March Perkins in London in the 1830s. At that time central heating was coming into fashion in Britain, with steam or hot air systems generally being used.


title: Central heating

text: Perkins' 1832 apparatus distributed water at 200 degrees Celsius (392 °F) through small diameter pipes at high pressure. A crucial invention to make the system viable was the thread screwed joint, that allowed the joint between the pipes to bear a similar pressure to the pipe itself. He also separated the boiler from the heat source to reduce the risk of explosion. The first unit was installed in the home of Governor of the Bank of England John Horsley Palmer so that he could grow grapes in England's cold climate.


title: Central heating

text: His systems were installed in factories and churches across the country, many of them remaining in usable condition for over 150 years. His system was also adapted for use by bakers in the heating of their ovens and in the making of paper from wood pulp.


title: Central heating

text: Franz San Galli, a Prussian-born Russian businessman living in St. Petersburg, invented the radiator between 1855 and 1857, which was a major step in the final shaping of modern central heating. The Victorian cast iron radiator became widespread by the end of the 19th century as companies, such as the American Radiator Company, expanded the market for low cost radiators in the US and Europe.


title: Central heating

text: The energy source selected for a central heating system varies by region. The primary energy source is selected on the basis of cost, convenience, efficiency and reliability. The energy cost of heating is one of the main costs of operating a building in a cold climate. Some central heating plants can switch fuels for reasons of economy and convenience; for example, a home owner may install a wood-fired furnace with electrical backup for occasional unattended operation.


title: Central heating

text: Solid fuels such as wood, peat or coal can be stockpiled at the point of use, but are inconvenient to handle and difficult to automatically control. Wood fuel is still used where the supply is plentiful and the occupants of the building don't mind the work involved in hauling in fuel, removing ashes, and tending the fire. Pellet fuel systems can automatically stoke the fire, but still need manual removal of ash. Coal was once an important residential heating fuel but today is uncommon, and smokeless fuel is preferred as a substitute in open fireplaces or stoves.


title: Central heating

text: Liquid fuels are petroleum products such as heating oil and kerosene. These are still widely applied where other heat sources are unavailable. Fuel oil can be automatically fired in a central heating system and requires no ash removal and little maintenance of the combustion system. However, the variable price of oil on world markets leads to erratic and high prices compared to some other energy sources. Institutional heating systems (office buildings or schools, for example) can use low-grade, inexpensive bunker fuel to run their heating plants, but capital cost is high compared to more easily managed liquid fuels.


title: Central heating

text: Natural gas is a widespread heating fuel in North America and northern Europe. Gas burners are automatically controlled and require no ash removal and little maintenance. However, not all areas have access to a natural gas distribution system. Liquefied petroleum gas or propane can be stored at the point of use and periodically replenished by a truck-mounted mobile tank.


title: Central heating

text: Some areas have low cost electric power, making electric heating economically practical. Electric heating can either be purely resistance-type heating or make use of a heat pump system to take advantage of low-grade heat in the air or ground.


title: Central heating

text: A district heating system uses centrally located boilers or water heaters and circulates heat energy to individual customers by circulating hot water or steam. This has the advantage of a central highly efficient energy converter that can use the best available pollution controls, and that is professionally operated. The district heating system can use heat sources impractical to deploy to individual homes, such as heavy oil, wood byproducts, or (hypothetically) nuclear fission. The distribution network is more costly to build than for gas or electric heating, and so is only found in densely populated areas or compact communities.


title: Central heating

text: Not all central heating systems require purchased energy. A few buildings are served by local geothermal heat, using hot water or steam from a local well to provide building heat. Such areas are uncommon. A passive solar system requires no purchased fuel but needs to be carefully designed for the site.


title: Central heating

text: Heater outputs are measured in kilowatts or BTUs per hour. For placement in a house, the heater, and the level of output required for the house, needs to be calculated. This calculation is achieved by recording a variety of factors – namely, what is above and below the room you wish to heat, how many windows there are, the type of external walls in the property and a variety of other factors that will determine the level of heat output that is required to adequately heat the space. This calculation is called a heat loss calculation and can be done with a BTU Calculator. Depending on the outcome of this calculation, the heater can be exactly matched to the house.


title: Central heating

text: Heat output can be measured by Heat cost allocators, so that each unit can be individually billed even though there is only one centralized system.


title: Central heating

text: Circulating hot water can be used for central heating. Sometimes these systems are called hydronic heating systems.


title: Central heating

text: The circulating water systems use a closed loop; the same water is heated and then reheated. A sealed system provides a form of central heating in which the water used for heating circulates independently of the building's normal water supply.


title: Central heating

text: An expansion tank contains compressed gas, separated from the sealed-system water by a diaphragm. This allows for normal variations of pressure in the system. A safety valve allows water to escape from the system when pressure becomes too high, and a valve can open to replenish water from the normal water supply if the pressure drops too low. Sealed systems offer an alternative to open-vent systems, in which steam can escape from the system, and gets replaced from the building's water supply via a feed and central storage system.


title: Central heating

text: Heating systems in the United Kingdom and in other parts of Europe commonly combine the needs of space heating with domestic hot-water heating. These systems occur less commonly in the USA. In this case, the heated water in a sealed system flows through a heat exchanger in a hot-water tank or hot-water cylinder where it heats water from the regular potable water supply for use at hot-water taps or appliances such as washing machines or dishwashers.


title: Central heating

text: Hydronic radiant floor heating systems use a boiler or district heating to heat water and a pump to circulate the hot water in plastic pipes installed in a concrete slab. The pipes, embedded in the floor, carry heated water that conducts warmth to the surface of the floor, where it broadcasts heat energy to the room above. Hydronic heating systems are also used with antifreeze solutions in ice and snow melt systems for walkways, parking lots and streets. They are more commonly used in commercial and whole house radiant floor heat projects, whereas electric radiant heat systems are more commonly used in smaller "spot warming" applications.


title: Central heating

text: A steam heating system takes advantage of the high latent heat which is given off when steam condenses to liquid water. In a steam heating system, each room is equipped with a radiator which is connected to a source of low-pressure steam (a boiler). Steam entering the radiator condenses and gives up its latent heat, returning to liquid water. The radiator in turn heats the air of the room, and provides some direct radiant heat. The condensate water returns to the boiler either by gravity or with the assistance of a pump. Some systems use only a single pipe for combined steam and condensate return. Since trapped air prevents proper circulation, such systems have vent valves to allow air to be purged. In domestic and small commercial buildings, the steam is generated at relatively low pressure, less than 15 psig (200 kPa).


title: Central heating

text: Steam heating systems are rarely installed in new single-family residential construction owing to the cost of the piping installation. Pipes must be carefully sloped to prevent trapped condensate blockage. Compared to other methods of heating, it is more difficult to control the output of a steam system. However, steam can be sent, for example, between buildings on a campus to allow use of an efficient central boiler and low cost fuel. Tall buildings take advantage of the low density of steam to avoid the excessive pressure required to circulate hot water from a basement-mounted boiler. In industrial systems, process steam used for power generation or other purposes can also be tapped for space heating. Steam for heating systems may also be obtained from heat recovery boilers using otherwise wasted heat from industrial processes.


title: Central heating

text: Electric heating or resistance heating converts electricity directly to heat. Electric heat is often more expensive than heat produced by combustion appliances like natural gas, propane, and oil. Electric resistance heat can be provided by baseboard heaters, space heaters, radiant heaters, furnaces, wall heaters, or thermal storage systems.


title: Central heating

text: Electric heaters are usually part of a fan coil which is part of a central air conditioner. They circulate heat by blowing air across the heating element which is supplied to the furnace through return air ducts. Blowers in electric furnaces move air over one to five resistance coils or elements which are usually rated at five kilowatts. The heating elements activate one at a time to avoid overloading the electrical system. Overheating is prevented by a safety switch called a limit controller or limit switch. This limit controller may shut the furnace off if the blower fails or if something is blocking the air flow. The heated air is then sent back through the home through supply ducts.


title: Central heating

text: In larger commercial applications, central heating is provided through an air handler which incorporates similar components as a furnace but on a larger scale.


title: Central heating

text: In mild climates an air source heat pump can be used to air condition the building during hot weather, and to warm the building using heat extracted from outdoor air in cold weather. Air-source heat pumps are generally uneconomic for outdoor temperatures much below freezing. In colder climates, geothermal heat pumps can be used to extract heat from the ground. For economy, these systems are designed for average low winter temperatures and use supplemental heating for extreme low temperature conditions. The advantage of the heat pump is that it reduces the purchased energy required for building heating; often geothermal source systems also supply domestic hot water. Even in places where fossil fuels provide most electricity, a geothermal system may offset greenhouse gas production since most of the heat is supplied from the surrounding environment, with only 15–30% as electrical consumption.


title: Central heating

text: From an energy-efficiency standpoint considerable heat gets lost or goes to waste if only a single room needs heating, since central heating has distribution losses and (in the case of forced-air systems particularly) may heat some unoccupied rooms without need. In such buildings which require isolated heating, one may wish to consider non-central systems such as individual room heaters, fireplaces or other devices. Alternatively, architects can design new buildings which can virtually eliminate the need for heating, such as those built to the Passive House standard.


title: Central heating

text: However, if a building does need full heating, combustion central heating may offer a more environmentally friendly solution than electric resistance heating. This applies when electricity originates from a fossil fuel power station, with up to 60% of the energy in the fuel lost (unless utilized for district heating) and about 6% in transmission losses. In Sweden proposals exist to phase out direct electric heating for this reason (see oil phase-out in Sweden). Nuclear, wind, solar and hydroelectric sources reduce this factor.


title: Central heating

text: In contrast, hot-water central heating systems can use water heated in or close to the building using high-efficiency condensing boilers, biofuels, or district heating. Wet underfloor heating has proven ideal. This offers the option of relatively easy conversion in the future to use developing technologies such as heat pumps and solar combisystems, thereby also providing future-proofing.


title: Central heating

text: Oil storage tanks, especially underground storage tanks, can also impact the environment. Even if a building's heating system was converted from oil long ago, oil may still be impacting the environment by contaminating soil and groundwater. Building owners can find themselves liable to remove buried tanks and the remediation costs.


title: Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv

text: Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, Ukraine, is an architectural monument of Kyivan Rus. The former cathedral is one of the city's best known landmarks and the first heritage site in Ukraine to be inscribed on the World Heritage List along with the Kyiv Cave Monastery complex. Aside from its main building, the cathedral includes an ensemble of supporting structures such as a bell tower and the House of Metropolitan. In 2011 the historic site was reassigned from the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Regional Development of Ukraine to the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine. One of the reasons for the move was that both Saint Sophia Cathedral and Kyiv Pechersk Lavra are recognized by the UNESCO World Heritage Program as one complex, while in Ukraine the two were governed by different government entities. It is currently a museum.


title: Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv

text: The complex of the cathedral is the main component and museum of the National Sanctuary "Sophia of Kyiv" which is the state institution responsible for the preservation of the cathedral complex as well as four other historic landmarks across the nation.


title: Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv

text: The cathedral is named after the 6th-century Hagia Sophia ("Holy Wisdom") cathedral in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul), which was dedicated to the Holy Wisdom rather than to a specific saint named Sophia.


title: Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv

text: The first foundations were laid in 1037 or 1011, but the cathedral took two decades to complete. According to one theory, Yaroslav the Wise sponsored the construction of the Saint Sophia Cathedral in 1037 to celebrate his decisive victory over the nomadic Pechenegs in 1036 (who thereafter were never a threat to Kyiv). According to Dr. Nadia Nikitenko, a historian who has studied the cathedral for 30 years, the cathedral was founded in 1011, under the reign of Yaroslav's father, Grand Prince of Kievan Rus, Vladimir the Great. This has been accepted by both UNESCO and Ukraine, which officially celebrated the 1000th anniversary of the cathedral during 2011. The structure has 5 naves, 5 apses, and (quite surprisingly for Byzantine architecture) 13 cupolas. It is surrounded by two-tier galleries from three sides. Measuring , the exterior used to be faced with plinths. On the inside, it retains mosaics and frescos from the 11th century, including a dilapidated representation of Yaroslav's family, and the Orans.


title: Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv

text: Originally the cathedral was a burial place of the Kievan rulers including Vladimir Monomakh, Vsevolod Yaroslavich and the cathedral's founder Yaroslav I the Wise, although only the latter's grave survived to this day (see ).


title: Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv

text: After the pillaging of Kyiv by Andrei Bogolyubsky of Vladimir-Suzdal in 1169, followed by the Mongol invasion of Rus' in 1240, the cathedral fell into disrepair. It was greatly rebuilt in its modern splendor in the 16th century when the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was trying to unite Catholic and Orthodox churches. Following the 1595-96 Union of Brest, the Cathedral of Holy Sophia belonged to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church which commissioned the repair work and the upper part of the building was thoroughly rebuilt, modeled by the Italian architect Octaviano Mancini in the distinct Ukrainian Baroque style, while preserving the Byzantine interior, keeping its splendor intact. The work continued under the Cossack Hetman Ivan Mazepa until 1767. During this period around Holy Sophia Cathedral a bell tower, a monastery canteen, a bakery, a "House of Metropolitan", the western gates (Zborovski gates), a Monastic Inn, a Brotherhood campus and a bursa (seminary) were all erected. All of these buildings, as well as the cathedral after the reconstruction, have distinctive features of Ukrainian Baroque.


title: Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv

text: After the Russian Revolution of 1917 and during the Soviet anti-religious campaign of the 1920s, the government plan called for the cathedral's destruction and transformation of the grounds into a park "Heroes of Perekop" (after a Red Army victory in the Russian Civil War in Crimea). The cathedral was saved from destruction (the opposite St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery was destroyed in 1935) primarily with the effort of many scientists and historians. Nevertheless, in 1934, Soviet authorities confiscated the structure from the church, including the surrounding 17th–18th-century architectural complex and designated it as an architectural and historical museum.