title: Carbon copy

text: Dot matrix and daisy wheel impact printers are also able to use carbon paper to produce several copies of a document in one pass, and most models feature adjustable impact power and head spacing to accommodate up to three copies plus the original printout. Usually, this feature is used in conjunction with continuous, prearranged perforated paper and carbon supplies for use with a tractor feeder, rather than with single sheets of paper, for example, when printing out commercial invoices or receipts.


title: BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role

text: Best Actor in a Leading Role is a British Academy Film Award presented annually by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding leading performance in a film.


text: From 1952 to 1967, there were two Best Actor awards: one for a British actor and another for a foreign actor. In 1968, the two prizes of British and Foreign actor were combined to create a single Best Actor award. Its current title, for Best Actor in a Leading Role, has been used since 1995.


title: Shafia family murders

text: The Shafia family murders took place on June 30, 2009 in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Shafia sisters Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13, along with their father's wife Rona Muhammad Omar, 52 (all of Afghan origin), were found dead inside a car that was discovered underwater in front of the northernmost Kingston Mills lock of the Rideau Canal. Zainab, Sahar, and Geeti were daughters of Mohammad Shafia, 58, and his wife, Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 41. The couple also had a son, Hamed, 20, and three other children. Rona, who was herself infertile, was the first wife of Mohammad Shafia in their polygamous household.


title: Shafia family murders

text: On July 23, 2009, Mohammad, Tooba Yahya, and Hamed were arrested on charges of four counts of first degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder under the guise of honour killing. The jury found them guilty of all four counts in January 2012. The trial, which took place at the Frontenac County Court House, was believed to be the first in Canada conducted in four languages – English, French, Dari and Spanish.


title: Shafia family murders

text: The trial garnered media attention in Canada for several months and raised the debate over Canadian values, honour crimes, and violence among Muslim groups.


title: Shafia family murders

text: In 1979 or 1980, Mohammad Shafia married Rona Mohammed. The couple did not have children, and medical tests confirmed that Rona was unable to have children. In keeping with Afghan custom, and at Rona's behest, Mohammad Shafia took Tooba Yahya as his second wife. The second wedding took place in 1989, and Rona features prominently in many wedding photographs, many of which feature Shafia flanked by his two wives. The three of them lived together in one household, as is customary, and Tooba gave birth to seven children. Rona participated fully in raising and caring for the children and bonded strongly with them as though they were her own. Her relationship with her co-wife, however, was less idyllic.


title: Shafia family murders

text: The Shafia family left Afghanistan in 1992. They moved to Australia for a brief time. Later, they relocated to the United Arab Emirates, where they lived for over a decade. Mohammad Shafia made a considerable fortune in Dubai, working in the used car business and later diversifying into real estate. By 2007, he was a multimillionaire. He soon decided to take advantage of an immigration program introduced by the government of Quebec in Canada which offered permanent residence and eventual citizenship to people who invested significant money in the province. Shafia invested $2 million in purchasing a strip-mall on the outskirts of Montreal; he invested a further $200,000 in building a spacious new house for his family. Shafia, his second wife Tooba, and their seven children immigrated to Canada and settled in the Saint-Léonard borough of Montreal in 2007. Five months later, Shafia sponsored Rona's immigration, telling authorities that she was his cousin and that she would work as a cook and housekeeper.


title: Shafia family murders

text: According to a family member's interview, Rona was trapped in an abusive, loveless marriage, trying in vain to convince her husband to grant her a divorce. Rona's siblings claimed that she feared for her life during the days leading up to her death. Tooba allegedly said to Rona, "You are a slave; you are a servant." Reportedly, the Shafias held all of Rona's identity documents, including her passport, so Rona believed she could not flee to another country where she had relatives. "The Montreal Gazette" reported that Rona emigrated to Canada as a domestic servant on a visitor's visa and that her husband and co-wife "held [the visa's renewal] over her head like an axe ready to fall."


title: Shafia family murders

text: The interviewed family member also stated that the Shafia family's eldest daughter, Zainab, was in a relationship with a Pakistani boy that elicited much anger from her father; the family member claimed to have overheard the father's threats to kill Zainab.


title: Shafia family murders

text: With Mohammad Shafia, Tooba Mohammad Yahya, and their eldest son Hamed Shafia all in custody during the trial, the remaining Shafia children, two girls, and a boy, were being cared for under social services.


title: Shafia family murders

text: On June 30, 2009, a worker at the Kingston Mills locks discovered a black Nissan Sentra with a broken left taillight submerged in the water. Divers discovered four female bodies floating inside. Mohammad Shafia was at the Kingston Police station to report that four of his family members – three teenage daughters and a purported aunt – were missing. Police initially believed that it was a tragic, if bizarre, accident; they first categorized it as a "sudden death investigation."


title: Shafia family murders

text: However, authorities soon learned that Hamed had reported an accident with the family Lexus SUV in an empty parking lot earlier that same morning in Montreal. Despite their suspicions, authorities did not have "reasonable and probable grounds" or sufficient evidence to ask a judge for a search warrant. Kingston Police Det. Steve Koopman, the liaison with the Shafia family, managed to gain the Shafia family's consent to view the Lexus. After assessing the damage on both vehicles, police theorized that the Lexus was used to ram the Nissan into the locks.


title: Shafia family murders

text: It had been reported that the Shafia family purchased the used Nissan Sentra for CAD $5,000 on the day prior to the family leaving Montreal for Niagara Falls.


title: Shafia family murders

text: Jury selection began on October 11, 2011, and the trial officially began on October 20th the same year. Ontario Superior Court Judge Robert Maranger presided over the trial.


title: Shafia family murders

text: On January 29, 2012, after 15 hours of deliberation, a jury found each of the three defendants guilty of four counts of first-degree murder. In Canada, first-degree murder verdicts carry an automatic sentence of life without the possibility of parole for 25 years.


title: Shafia family murders

text: The coverage of the Shafia murder trial was widespread, often being on the front page of newspapers and the top story in TV newscasts. Since the case involved Afghan Canadians, questions arose as to whether or not it was correct, or even appropriate, to call the murders honour killings or simply domestic violence. While the judge who presided over the case referred to the deaths simply as murders, the media chose a different course when it called the murders "honour killings." Across media outlets, the murder was framed as such. A publication ban placed on the case prevented the media from naming the three surviving children in the care of Canadian social services.


title: Shafia family murders

text: CBC News covered the trials extensively from the first day; they went a step further by publishing its audience's comments to show how Canadians felt about the case and its details. The CBC stated that the published comments were a chosen representative "summary" sampling out of the much higher number of comments the story garnered, and moreover that Canadians generally "agreed with the verdict, applauding the court and the jury for its decision after the three-month trial."


title: Shafia family murders

text: CTV News published a piece stating that the trial cast a shadow over Canada's Islamic community, further tarnishing an image that had not yet recovered from the events of 9/11. However, like other media outlets, CTV asked the Muslim community to clarify their stance on the issue of honour killing: "Muslims across the country, however, say the revelations in a Kingston, Ont., courtroom have shone a light on problematic aspects of their culture and illuminated new ways to tackle the issues."


title: Shafia family murders

text: CTV also published a timeline spanning the gamut from the Shafia family's days in Afghanistan to the events that took place in Canada.


title: Shafia family murders

text: Pascale Fournier, writing for "The Ottawa Citizen", said that there was a greater tragedy in the failure of the state to intervene before the murders occurred. He also said that while vulnerable groups from immigrant communities need the most protection, they rarely receive it from authorities.


title: Shafia family murders

text: In addition to covering every detail of the trial, "The Globe and Mail" published a piece with the "ten most shocking quotes" from the Shafia trial. One of the quotes was by Crown attorney Gerard Laarhuis after the verdicts, and it read as follows:


title: Shafia family murders

text: "This jury found that four strong, vivacious and freedom-loving women were murdered by their own family in the most troubling of circumstances. We all think of these four wonderful women now who died needless deaths. This verdict sends a very clear message about our Canadian values and the core principles in a free and democratic society that both Canadians and visitors to Canada enjoy."


title: Shafia family murders

text: This was one of the most criticized quotes by Afghan Canadians; they asserted that intolerance towards violence against women is not just a Canadian value, but a universal value. They also asserted that Afghans, like any other peoples, condemn the acts of the perpetrators.


title: Shafia family murders

text: The "Montreal Gazette" published a column in which it said that labelling the murders as honour killing is a mistake as domestic violence against women is ubiquitous and framing it as a particular paradigm would mean distancing oneself from a crime that is all too common. The authors argue that premeditation is put forth as a core component to differentiate honour killings from other types of murders, such as crimes of convenience or passion. However, recent studies indicate that premeditation is as much a component in other cases of domestic violence and murder as it is in "honour killings".


title: Shafia family murders

text: "Calling the murders 'honour killings' accomplishes two goals. First, it makes it seem as if femicide is a highly unusual event. Second, it makes it seem as if femicide is confined to specific populations within Canada and specific national cultures or religions in the world at large. But Canadian statistics prove otherwise. According to StatsCan figures, from 2000 to 2009 an average of 58 women a year were killed in this country as a result of spousal violence. In that same period, 67 children and young people aged 12 to 17 were murdered by family members. In contrast, recent estimates tell us that there have been 12 or 13 so-called honour killings in Canada in the last decade. It does not take a genius to see that comparing 12 or 13 against the hundreds of women and children who were victims of familial violence serves only to frame 'honour killing' as peculiar, when in reality it is part of a larger pattern of violence against women."


title: Shafia family murders

text: "Maclean's" referred to the four murders as "honouricide." Writer Michael Friscolanti sat throughout the three-month trial and wrote a 22-page comprehensive article detailing the girls' lives and even wrote about how one of the girls' tombstones has the incorrect birthdate.


title: Shafia family murders

text: "In life, and in death, they had no voice," Friscolanti wrote. "No one to save them. No one who even cares enough to fix Geeti's headstone. Nearly three years after she was buried, it is still engraved with Sahar's birth-date, not hers."


title: Shafia family murders

text: The murders gave rise to the debate about the relationship between honour killing and Islam. Islamic organizations based in Canada condemned the murders. The Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, along with other Canadian Muslim organizations, have publicly denounced domestic violence and honour killing as un-Islamic. Ali Falih Altaie, the family imam, said that the murders were unforgivable; he also cautioned against associating honour crimes with Islam, calling the actions incompatible with any religion.


title: Shafia family murders

text: In 2012 imams from across Canada and the U.S. issued a moral ruling officially condemning honour killings, domestic violence, and misogyny as un-Islamic. Thirty-four imams belonging to the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, including a handful of American members, signed the fatwa in an effort to counter misinterpretations of the Qur'an.


title: Shafia family murders

text: In an interview with CTVS News, the Afghan Embassy in Ottawa condemned the murders of the four members of the Shafia family. The embassy called the deaths of the three teenage sisters and their father's first wife a heinous crime against humanity. Moreover, they claimed that this kind of crime is not part of Afghan or Islamic culture and is not acceptable in any way.


title: BMW i

text: The BMW i is a sub-brand of BMW founded in 2011 to design and manufacture plug-in electric vehicles. The company initially released two vehicles: the i3 all-electric car and the i8 plug-in hybrid. The all-electric iX3 SUV was released in late 2020, while iX SUV and the i4 all-electric liftback sedan followed later in 2021.


title: BMW i

text: Concept versions of both the i3 and i8 were shown at the 2009 Frankfurt Motor Show. Series production of the BMW i3 for retail customers began in September 2013, and the European market launch took place in November 2013, with the first retail deliveries in Germany. The BMW i8 was launched in Germany in June 2014. The United States, Norway, Germany, and the UK are the main markets for both models.


title: BMW i

text: In February 2016, BMW announced the introduction of the "iPerformance" model designation, which is being given to all BMW plug-in hybrid vehicles from July 2016. The aim is to provide a visible indicator of the transfer of technology from BMW i to the BMW core brand. , seven BMW electrified models have been released using BMW i technology, the X1 xDrive25e, X3 xDrive30e, X5 xDrive45e, 225xe Active Tourer, 320e/330e iPerformance, 520e/530e/545e iPerformance, and 745e/745Le iPerformance. The Mini Cooper S E Countryman ALL4 plug-in hybrid also shares the i technology.


title: BMW i

text: Combined global sales of BMW Group electrified vehicles achieved the 500,000th unit milestone in December 2019, including BMW i, iPerformance, xDrive, and MINI brand electrified cars. Global sales of all variants of the BMW i3 reached over 165,000 units delivered at the beginning of 2020. Production of the BMW i8 ended in June 2020, with worldwide sales of more than 20,000 units.


title: BMW i

text: BMW's "Project i" is a program created to develop lightweight eco-friendly urban electric car concepts designed to address the mobility and sustainability needs for people who live in megacities. According to BMW, "Project i" has three phases. The Mini E demonstration was the first phase of this project, and it was followed by a similar field testing that began in January 2012 with the BMW ActiveE all-electric vehicle. The ActiveE was based on the BMW 1 Series Coupe and built considering the lessons learned from the Mini E trial. The last phase of "Project i" was the development of the i3 and i8 electric cars.


title: BMW i

text: The automaker expected that its first series production all-electric drive vehicle would help it achieve an overall fleet fuel economy average of 6.63 L/100 km (35.5 mpg) by 2016, as mandated by U.S. federal regulations. BMW expected high volume sales of the i3 to allow the company to continue selling several of its high-performance cars with low fuel economy in the U.S.


title: BMW i

text: In February 2011, BMW announced a new sub-brand, BMW i, to market the vehicles produced under Project i. BMW i vehicles are to be sold separately from BMW or Mini. The first two production models are the BEV (battery electric) Mega City Vehicle, now called BMW i3, and a plug-in hybrid called BMW i8, which is the production version of the Vision Efficient Dynamics concept unveiled at the 2009 Frankfurt Motor Show and has an all-electric range of . Production of both plug-in electric cars was scheduled to start in Leipzig in 2013.


title: BMW i

text: Global i3 sales passed the 25,000 unit milestone in May 2015. Combined global sales of the BMW i brand models passed the 30,000 mark in June 2015, and the 50,000 unit milestone in January 2016. Global sales of the BMW i3 achieved the 50,000 unit milestone in July 2016.


title: BMW i

text: , BMW expects a stable development in the plug-in electric market with low profits the next 5-7 years, until batteries have doubled their capacity, with the goal to expand the share of its electrified models to between 15% and 25% of sales by 2025.


title: BMW i

text: In 2017, BMW cancelled development of the third distinct model for the BMW i range with the company focusing on electrifying models in the mainstream BMW range and the self-driving iNext. Referred as "Project i 2.0", the iNext was developed to address key questions for the future of motoring, with a focus on electrification, connectivity and autonomy. The BMW iX was unveiled as fully production-ready in November 2020.


title: BMW i

text: The electric models of the "Power of Choice" sustainability plan are based on the modular FAAR and CLAR architectures, where up to four different powertrain variants in each of its main model lines can be built on the same production line. These models use the fifth-generation eDrive system that incorporates the electric motor, transmission and power electronics into a single compact central housing. The BMW iX3 is the first model to be electrified and was unveiled in July 2020. The BMW i4 was revealed in March 2021 and is sold in several variants at different performance levels. The China-exclusive BMW i3, based on the long-wheelbase G28 3 Series, was revealed in March 2022. The BMW i7 and BMW iX1 were announced in April 2022 and June 2022, respectively. The BMW i5 is scheduled by 2023.


title: BMW i

text: In 2019, BMW contracted Contemporary Amperex Technology and Samsung SDI to deliver lithium-ion cells for $10 billion over a decade, and BMW intends to supply them with cobalt and lithium to increase transparency.


title: BMW i

text: BMW presented the BMW i Hydrogen Next SUV, a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle based on the G05 X5, at the 2019 Frankfurt Motor Show. BMW was testing the fuel cell technology with a road test fleet of F07 5 Series Gran Turismo in 2015. The BMW iX5 Hydrogen went into a small series-production in September 2022 as it wont be offered to customers.


title: BMW i

text: There had been hints to a future electric-only platform; BMW announced the Neue Klasse platform designed for electric powertrains arriving in 2025. An all-electric 3-Series-sized sedan on the Neue Klasse architecture is in development. The new platform will switch to 46mm cylindrical batteries and use an 800V electrical architecture.


title: BMW i

text: The first BMW i store opened in June 2012 at BMW's London Park Lane showroom. The carmaker premiered an updated version of the BMW i3 concept electric car and unveiled its i Pedelec electric bicycle concept. On 15 November 2013, retail deliveries for the i3 began with a special ceremony in Munich.


title: BMW i

text: On 1 December 2014, BMW announced the group is planning to offer plug-in hybrid versions of all its core-brand models using eDrive technology developed for its BMW i brand plug-in vehicles. The goal of the company is to use plug-in technology to continue offering high performance vehicles while reducing emissions below 100g/km. In February 2016, BMW announced the introduction of the "iPerformance" model designation, which will be given to all BMW plug-in hybrid vehicles from July 2016. The aim is to provide a visible indicator of the transfer of technology from BMW i to the BMW core brand.


title: BMW i

text: Sales of BMW i and iPerformance designated plug-in hybrid drive models have grown strongly in Europe, accounting for 4% of all BMW vehicles sold in Western Europe in June 2016. The percentage is significantly higher in markets with strong incentives and infrastructural measures, such as Netherlands, with 14.9% of all BMW vehicles sold in June were BMW i or BMW iPerformance models, and Scandinavia with 13.2%. Combined global sales of BMW i or BMW iPerformance models totalled 23,675 units during the first half of 2016. This is the result of the expanded range of electrified models, which includes seven electrified models including plug-in hybrids. Sales of this type of vehicle during the first half of 2016 were just under 87% higher than the same period in 2015. Combined global sales of BMW i and iPerformance plug-in hybrid models achieved the 100,000 unit milestone in early November 2016, three years after the inception of the BMW i3.


title: BMW i

text: , Around 7 BMW i models are offered, the BMW i3 all-electric car with optional range-extender (REx), and the BMW i8 plug-in hybrid. , BMW i vehicles are sold in 74 countries. In November 2016, BMW announced the company expected to deliver 60,000 of its electrified i and iPerformance models in 2016, and set a sales target of 100,000 units for 2017. BMW set the goal to expand the share of its electrified models to between 15% and 25% of sales by 2025.


title: BMW i

text: The demand for BMW i and iPerformance vehicles increased significantly during the first half of 2016. In June 2016, 4% of all BMW sales in Western Europe were electrified cars, and again in July 2016, the electrified models captured 4% of all BMW sales in the region.


title: BMW i

text: Global sales of all plug-in electrified models achieved the 100,000 unit milestone in early November 2016, consisting of more than 60,000 i3s, over 10,000 i8s, and about 30,000 from combined sales of all BMW iPerformance plug-in hybrid models. Combined global sales of BMW's electrified models totalled more than 62,000 units in 2016, and 103,080 in 2017, including MINI brand electrified vehicles.


title: BMW i

text: Global sales of BMW Group's electrified vehicles passed the 250,000 unit milestone in April 2018, and the 300,000 mark in September 2018. A total of 142,617 electrified vehicles were delivered worldwide in 2018, and 145,815 in 2019. Since inception of the BMW i3, BMW Group cumulative global sales totalled 500,000 BMW and MINI electrified vehicles by mid December 2019.


title: BMW i

text: The BMW i3 is an electric car, BMW's first zero emissions mass-produced vehicle. The i3 is the first volume production vehicle on the market featuring carbon-fiber reinforced plastic. This vehicle gets its power from an electric motor powered by lithium-ion batteries. The i3 is built for everyday use, with an all-electric range of . BMW is offering a range extender ("REx") option powered by a 647 cc two-cylinder gasoline engine with a fuel tank that engages when the battery level drops to a pre-specified point, acting purely as a generator to produce electricity to extend the range to about .


title: BMW i

text: According to BMW, at the beginning of the i3 release, the use of range-extender was much more than the carmaker expected, more than 60%. Over time it has decreased significantly, with some people almost never using it, and by early 2016 it is being regularly used in fewer than 5% of i3s.


title: BMW i

text: In May 2016, BMW announced that the 2017 model year (MY) BMW i3 will come with an improved battery pack with 50% more capacity (33 kWh) than the previous model with a corresponding range increase expected to achieve under the EPA cycle, and under the New European Driving Cycle. The Range Extender (REx) variant features the same higher capacity battery as the all-electric model, with a corresponding all-electric range increase. Deliveries of the 2017 MY i3 in the U.S. market began in the third quarter of 2016. Both variants with the improved battery are available in the UK starting in July 2016.


title: BMW i

text: BMW invested million to build a plant in Moses Lake, Washington to manufacture the carbon-fiber reinforced plastic used on the vehicles' body panels. The plant is located in an area that has large access to hydroelectric power. The carbon fibre is then shipped to Germany, where it first gets fabricated and is then shipped to the automotive production plant in Leipzig. In October 2017 the BMW Group reported that the 100,000th BMW i3 had been built. BMW sold its stake in the Moses Lake plant in 2017, but continues to receive fibre from the plant. , BMW plans to continue i3 production until 2024, and there are no plans for an i3 successor. The 200,000th i3 was produced in the Leipzig plant on 15 October 2020.


title: BMW i

text: The first i3 deliveries to retail customers in Europe took place at the official market launch ceremony held in Munich on 15 November 2013. The i3 was also launched in the UK in November 2013. The release in the American market took place in May 2014. , the core phase of the market introduction of the i3 was finished, with only some smaller markets are still to follow.


title: BMW i

text: The i3 ranked third among all-electric cars sold worldwide in 2014. By mid-2014, Norway had the world's largest i3 market penetration per capita due to its population size, BMW i3 sales grew from 16,052 units in 2014 to 24,057 in 2015, allowing the i3 to rank for the second year in a row as the world's third best selling all-electric car. Also in 2015 the i3 ranked fifth among the world's top selling plug-in electric cars. About 25,500 units were delivered worldwide in 2016, up 6% from 2015, allowing the BMW i3 to rank in 2016 for the third year running as the world's third best-selling all-electric car. In 2016 the i3 also ranked as the fifth top selling plug-in electric car. Global sales totalled 31,482 i3s in 2017, and 34,829 in 2018. All sales figures include the REx variant.


title: BMW i

text: Since its introduction, global cumulative sales totalled about 65,500 units through December 2016, making the i3 the world's all-time third best-selling all-electric car after the Nissan Leaf and the Tesla Model S. These figure includes REx sales. The BMW i3 ranked as the top selling new passenger car model in Norway in November 2016, capturing a market share of 7.7% of total monthly new car sales. , the i3 continued as the top selling BMW electrified model, and accounted for 60% of combined BMW i and BMW iPerformance models.


title: BMW i

text: BMW i3 sales since inception totalled more than 165,000 units delivered worldwide . The United States is the largest market with 41,988 units delivered through December 2019. Norway is also a top market with 25,156 new units registered through mid-June 2020. Sales in the UK 10,000 units in March 2018.


title: BMW i

text: The BMW i8 plug-in hybrid was the production version of the BMW Vision Efficient Dynamics concept unveiled at the 2009 Frankfurt Motor Show. The i8 had an all-electric range of . Powering the front wheels was an electric motor (131 hp), while the rear wheels made use of a 1.5-litre 3-cylinder gasoline engine (231 hp). Zero to 60 mph sprint timings was estimated to be less than 4.5 seconds using both power sources. The positioning of the motor and engine over the axles also makes it benefit from a 50/50 weight distribution.


title: BMW i

text: The production version of the i8 was unveiled at the 2013 Frankfurt Motor Show, together with the all electric BMW i3. Since 2014 through 2019, the BMW i8 has been the safety car in the FIA Formula E Championship.


title: BMW i

text: The BMW i8 Roadster concept was unveiled at the 2012 Beijing Auto Show. The production version of the BMW i8 Roadster was premiered in late 2017, and delivery of the first 18 exclusive first edition units took place in May 2018.


title: BMW i

text: The battery capacity of both models, coupé and roadster, was increased to a gross energy content of 11.6 kWh. This, and other improvements, made possible to rise the all-electric range to for the BMW i8 Coupé and for the BMW i8 Roadster, both under the NEDC.


title: BMW i

text: The 20,000th i8 was produced in December 2019, one of the limited Ultimate Sophisto Edition models. The production cycle ended with the last remaining units of the 200 Ultimate Sophisto Edition vehicles in June 2020.


title: BMW i

text: BMW expected the U.S. to be the largest sales market. In Europe, the UK, Germany and France are expected to be the top markets. Retail deliveries began in Germany in June 2014. Deliveries to retail customers in the U.S. started in August 2014.


title: BMW i

text: , global sales totalled 7,197 i8s, of which, 1,741 units were sold in 2014, and 5,456 in 2015. In 2015 global sales of the BMW i8 exceeded the combined figure of all other hybrid sports cars produced by other manufacturers. Global cumulative sales reached more than 10,000 BMW i8s by early November 2016. The U.S. was the top i8 market with 6,776 units sold through December 2019. By March 2020, worldwide sales since inception totalled more than 20,000 units, making the i8 the world's top selling plug-in electric sports cars, and exceeding sales of all competitors in its segment combined.


title: BMW i

text: The BMW iX is the first purpose-built electric vehicle by BMW since the i3 from 2013. The iX nameplate was chosen to signify the model's position at the top of the electric BMW i line-up and its role in showcasing technology. The electric platform is a "totally new development", though it is "highly compatible" with the modular CLAR platform. BMW plans the iX to become the basis for fleets of fully autonomous vehicles for highway use, and eventually to be available as Robo-Taxis in cities.


title: BMW i

text: Both the i3 and i8 will benefit from BMW's Life-Drive platform which makes use of light-weight materials. Both cars will come with an aluminium chassis, and in the case of the i8, the windshield, top, doors and fenders are made from polycarbonate glass, with the body having a drag coefficient of 0.26.


title: BMW i

text: The following are the BMW i3 (both 60 and 94 ampere hour per hour batteries) and i8 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ratings for all-electric range and fuel economy.


title: BMW i

text: Launched in Europe and the U.S. in 2015, the BMW X5 xDrive40e is the first plug-in hybrid released under the core BMW brand. The use of BMW's eDrive technology on the established X5 platform is a direct technology transfer from the BMW i cars, in particular, from the BMW i8 technology.


title: BMW i

text: In February 2016, BMW announced the introduction of the "iPerformance" model designation, which was given to all BMW plug-in hybrid vehicles from July 2016. The aim is to provide a visible indicator of the transfer of technology from BMW i to the BMW core brand. The first BMW car launched to the market with the "iPerformance" model designation was the BMW 330e iPerformance, initially named the 330e. Deliveries in the American market began in the second quarter of 2016. The new designation was also used on the plug-in hybrid variants of the new BMW 7 Series, the BMW 740e iPerformance. The iPerformance models have a BMW i logo on the front side panel, BMW i-style blue elements in the kidney grille and wheel hubs, and an eDrive logo on the C-pillar.


title: BMW i

text: , four BMW electrified models had been released, the BMW X5 xDrive40e, BMW 225xe Active Tourer, BMW 330e iPerformance, and the BMW 740e iPerformance. The BMW 530e iPerformance was released in Europe March 2017 as part of the seventh generation BMW 5 Series line-up. The Mini Cooper S E Countryman ALL4 plug-in hybrid was released in June 2017. The BMW X1 xDrive25e crossover was introduced in January 2020. The BMW X3 xDrive30e was released in Europe in the first quarter of 2020. Sales of the BMW X2 xDrive25e crossover are slated to begin in Europe in July 2020.


title: The Book of Taliesyn

text: The Book of Taliesyn is the second studio album by the English rock band Deep Purple, recorded only three months after "Shades of Deep Purple" and released by Tetragrammaton Records in October 1968, just before their first US tour. The name for the album was taken from the 14th-century Book of Taliesin.


title: The Book of Taliesyn

text: The structure of the album is similar to that of their first, with four original songs and three rearranged covers; however, the tracks are longer, the arrangements more complex and the sound more polished than on "Shades of Deep Purple". The music style is a mix of psychedelic rock, progressive rock and hard rock, with several inserts of classical music arranged by the band's keyboard player Jon Lord.


title: The Book of Taliesyn

text: Deep Purple's American record label aimed for a hippie audience, which was very influential in the US at the time, but the chart results of the album and singles were not as high as expected. This setback did not hinder the success of the three-month US tour, when the band played in many important venues and festivals and received positive feedback from audiences and the press. Deep Purple were still an underground band which played in small clubs and colleges in the United Kingdom, largely ignored by the media and the public. The British record company EMI did not release "The Book of Taliesyn" until June 1969, on the new underground prog rock sub-label Harvest Records, and the album did not chart. Even the release of the new single "Emmaretta" and new dates in the UK in summer 1969 did not increase album sales or the popularity of Deep Purple in the UK. Perception of the album has changed in later years and it has been reviewed more favourably.


title: The Book of Taliesyn

text: Deep Purple were booked for a long tour in the United States, starting in October 1968, as a result of the unexpected success in the US and Canada of their first album "Shades of Deep Purple", fronted by the hit single "Hush". The single, released in June, had reached No. 4 in the US Singles Chart and No. 2 in Canada and was the main reason of their sudden popularity overseas. The situation was quite the opposite at home, where the band had been heavily criticized by the media and audiences.


title: The Book of Taliesyn

text: In July, band and crew relocated from West Sussex to London. Their management rented a house at 13 Second Avenue, Acton Vale, which was used as living quarters and to prepare for the upcoming US tour when they were not away for gigs or promotion. Guitarist Ritchie Blackmore went to live there with his German fiancée Babs Hardie.


title: The Book of Taliesyn

text: Executives at Tetragrammaton Records, Deep Purple's American label, thought it would be more profitable to have a new album to promote during the US tour, besides the already successful "Shades of Deep Purple". Moreover, the eight tracks recorded in May for Deep Purple's debut album and performed live in the British gigs of July and August were deemed insufficient for their shows as headliners in the US. For these reasons, they were pushed back into the studio just a couple of months before the tour began, even though their debut album had not been released in the United Kingdom yet.


title: The Book of Taliesyn

text: The request of the record label to record a new album only three months after their debut found the band unprepared, because the intense activity after the release of "Shades of Deep Purple" had left very little time for writing and rehearsing new songs. Under pressure, the musicians eventually came up with four lengthy original compositions, but to fill up the new album they reworked and expanded three cover songs, following again the example of the American band Vanilla Fudge, which many band members admired. The first was "Kentucky Woman", a hit single for Neil Diamond in 1967 which Deep Purple performed live at a BBC session in August. Though the song was written by Diamond, Deep Purple's version musically leans toward the style of Mitch Ryder's recording of "Devil with a Blue Dress On". The second cover was "River Deep – Mountain High", a single released by Ike & Tina Turner in 1966. Finally, the 1965 Beatles song "We Can Work It Out" was chosen after Paul McCartney himself had reportedly expressed appreciation for Deep Purple's version of "Help!"


title: The Book of Taliesyn

text: On the first of August 1968, Deep Purple entered De Lane Lea Studios in Kingsway, London, with producer Derek Lawrence and sound engineer Brian Aintsworth, who had both worked on their previous album. Tetragrammaton's advance of $250,000 had been used to book two weeks in the studio, a time which covered songwriting, rehearsals and recording sessions. Time was granted in larger amount than for the making of "Shades of Deep Purple" in May, feeding the band’s ambition of coming up with better original material than their previous effort.


title: The Book of Taliesyn

text: Deep Purple recorded "Shield" and "Anthem" on the first day. On the first song Ian Paice plays a complex drum pattern which sounds like a repeated clash of glass objects, while the second one required a string quartet for the baroque style interlude in the middle. The following days they proceeded with the composition and recording of "Exposition/We Can Work It Out" and of the original track "Listen, Learn, Read On". On 19 August, they concluded these sessions with the recording of "Kentucky Woman" and of the heavy and up-tempo instrumental "Wring That Neck", which came out from a tight collaboration between Blackmore and bass player Nick Simper. The name "Wring That Neck" comes from a phrase the band used when they were playing live, describing the bassist or guitarist really bursting at their instruments to create a hard noise (i.e., squeezing, or "wringing", the neck of the guitar). Another instrumental called "Playground" was written and recorded on 18 August, but the lyrics were never completed and it was eventually discarded. "River Deep - Mountain High" was always intended as the final track, so its recording was postponed until the other tracks were finished. The musicians’ perfectionism required extra time to complete the track and it was taped only on 10 October, a long time after the planned deadline for studio recording.


title: The Book of Taliesyn

text: The mixing was supposed to be overseen by the band members, but their schedule in October was so tight that Lawrence did it without them. This dismayed the band at first, but the sound turned out cleaner, heavier and more polished than on their debut. The tapes were mixed in both mono and stereo, but the mono tapes were trashed, as neither Tetragrammaton nor EMI, Deep Purple's British label, had any use for them.


title: The Book of Taliesyn

text: The album was released in the United States in October 1968, just in time for the tour. The American label insisted on changing the title of the instrumental "Wring That Neck", considered too violent, to "Hard Road". The track was used as the B-side of the single "Kentucky Woman", issued in October 1968. "The Book of Taliesyn" reached No. 54 in the US chart and No. 48 in the Canadian chart. The single peaked at No. 38 in the US and received much airplay, but did not replicate the success of "Hush".


title: The Book of Taliesyn

text: In an attempt to improve sales of the album, a shorter and heavily edited version of "River Deep - Mountain High" was released as a single exclusively in the United States and Canada in February 1969, with "Listen, Learn, Read On" as the B-side. It reached No. 53 and No. 42, respectively, in the two countries and was not a success, charting lower than "Kentucky Woman". The album was distributed in Canada (in 1968) and Japan (in June 1969) by Polydor Records.


title: The Book of Taliesyn

text: EMI delayed the release of the album in the UK to June 1969, after the band had come back from the US and set up a proper tour of their home country. By that time, the band had already recorded and released their third album "Deep Purple" in the US, and recorded a single with a new line-up. "The Book of Taliesyn" was the first release by Harvest Records, a new sub-label which EMI executives had devised as an outlet for British underground progressive rock groups. "Kentucky Woman", with "Wring That Neck" as B-side, was the only single released in the UK in December 1968, but it was retired after only six weeks. Just as had happened with "Shades of Deep Purple" the year before, both album and single received little promotion and were widely overlooked, selling much less in the UK than overseas.


title: The Book of Taliesyn

text: "The Book of Taliesyn" was reissued many times all over the world, often in a set with the two other albums recorded by the Mk. I line-up. Besides the original issues, the most significant version of the album is the Remastered CD edition of 2000 by EMI, which contains previously unreleased recordings taken from the sessions of August and December 1968 and from TV shows appearances as bonus tracks. All the songs were digitally remastered by Peter Mew at Abbey Road Studios in London. Other notable re-releases of the album include a white vinyl collector's edition issued in 2015 for a Record Store Day.


title: The Book of Taliesyn

text: The musical style of "The Book of Taliesyn" is a mix of progressive rock, psychedelic rock and hard rock and different observers think that in this album the band is more mature and in greater control of its own means of expression. Critics highlight how the compositions are generally longer and more complex than in their debut album. Deep Purple biographer Dave Thompson writes that a dark mood permeates "The Book of Taliesyn" with little indulgence to pop rock, citing influences of the American band The Doors in the original tracks written for this album.


title: The Book of Taliesyn

text: The influence of keyboard player Jon Lord's classical music upbringing is felt strongly in all the tracks, but this time he was not the main person responsible for songwriting and arrangements, which are considered by critics Deep Purple's first real group effort. Lord's interest in mixing rock and classical music would culminate in late 1969 with his "Concerto for Group and Orchestra" suite, but he already defined Deep Purple as a symphonic rock band in a 1968 interview. Nick Simper complained about Lord's excessive influence in composition and arrangements in a 1983 interview, which he said "resulted in a lack of direction for the band." "Anthem" is perhaps the band's deepest venture into classical music on a regular studio album, with its baroque-style interlude reminiscent of a Bach fugue written by Lord and performed using Mellotron and string quartet. A similar approach can be found on King Crimson's debut album, released a year later. Rearranged excerpts from the second movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 and Tchaikovsky's Ouverture-Fantasy "Romeo and Juliet" are in the instrumental intro "Exposition", while "River Deep, Mountain High" is introduced by the notes of "Also sprach Zarathustra", written in 1896 by Richard Strauss and very popular after its inclusion in the film "", screened earlier in 1968.


title: The Book of Taliesyn

text: "Wring that Neck" and "Kentucky Woman" show more traces of the heavier music that the band would embrace in their 70s albums with the Mk.II line-up. Blackmore's guitar work is generally praised by critics. However, in a recent interview, the guitarist defined the album as "lame" and remembered that he had not yet found his own style of guitar playing at the time of recording.


title: The Book of Taliesyn

text: The lyrics written by the band's singer Rod Evans are very functional to the music and the marketing Deep Purple's record label was building up for the American hippie audience. Evans took inspiration for the fantasy-themed "Listen, Learn, Read On", which contains lyrical reference to the album's title, from the 14th-century Welsh manuscript Book of Taliesin, a collection of poems attributed to the 6th-century poet Taliesin. The title and cover art of the album were also inspired by the manuscript. Instead psychedelia and its rituals play a large part in the lyrics of "Shield". Simper thinks that Evans' lyrics are "far better than anything (...) has ever been written in other line ups, in Deep Purple."


title: The Book of Taliesyn

text: Cover art and sleeve notes convey Tetragrammaton's decision to aim the album at the vast American hippie audience, which was very influential in the US at the time. The notes in particular were written in a mystical tone, evoking the bard Taliesyn as a spiritual guide and comparing listening to the songs to an exploration in the band members' souls. The original cover was drawn in pen, ink and color by the British illustrator and author John Vernon Lord, who coincidentally appears to share the same name as Deep Purple's keyboard player. "The Book of Taliesyn" was the only record cover John Vernon Lord ever designed and, according to the artist's recent retrospective book "Drawing upon Drawing", the original artwork was never returned. In his book, John Vernon Lord remembers the assignment received from his agency Saxon Artists:


title: The Book of Taliesyn

text: The fee for the job was £30, minus 25% for the agent. John Vernon Lord was, until 1999, Professor of Illustration at the University of Brighton.


title: The Book of Taliesyn

text: Deep Purple arrived in California on 15 October 1968 and their first public appearance on American soil was at "The Dating Game" TV show on ABC on 17 October. They were the first rock band to perform on the show, where Jon Lord was one of the contestants. The next two days the band played live in the US for the first time as supporting act of Cream in their "Goodbye" tour. The concerts were held at the Inglewood Forum near Los Angeles, California, in front of more than 16,000 people each night. Recordings of those live shows were issued in 2002 as "Inglewood – Live in California". The next gig at San Diego was the last one supporting Cream, whose management apparently did not appreciate the cheerful reaction of the audience to Deep Purple and dropped them. After a week of forced stop, their American manager succeeded in setting up a tour which included the San Francisco International Pop Festival and venues on the West Coast. This opportunity was very useful for the young musicians, who as headliners could lengthen their live shows up to 90 minutes and gained much needed experience on the road. This was particularly true for Blackmore, who developed and extended his guitar solos, incorporating more improvisations.


title: The Book of Taliesyn

text: The tour was a success and Deep Purple's popularity in the US received another boost from a TV appearance at "Playboy After Dark" alongside Hugh Hefner on 23 October 1968. The band had become a much requested act and more dates were added on the East Coast till the end of the year, including a two nights gig at the Fillmore East with Creedence Clearwater Revival and the James Cotton Blues Band, and Christmas holiday shows at the famous Electric Circus club in New York.


title: The Book of Taliesyn

text: In late December, the band managers Tony Edwards and John Coletta booked some studio time in New York to record a new single, after the relative failure of "Kentucky Woman" and "River Deep, Mountain High". The band recorded the cover of Ben E. King's song "Oh No No No" and tried "Lay Lady Lay" by Bob Dylan and "Glory Road" by Neil Diamond, without satisfying results. The record label did not publish those recordings and a surviving take of "Oh No No No" can be heard only in the 2000 remastered edition of "The Book of Taliesyn".


title: The Book of Taliesyn

text: The band returned in England on 3 January 1969 and went straight into De Lane Lea Studios to record new songs. The recording sessions were interspersed with gigs and lasted from January to March; most of the songs ended up in their eponymous album, which would be released by Tetragrammaton in the US only in June 1969.


title: The Book of Taliesyn

text: Deep Purple debuted the new single "Emmaretta", new material and new takes on songs from their released albums at BBC sessions for the "Top Gear" radio show on 14 January. The song "Hey Bop a Re Bop" played at those sessions would later become "The Painter". Starting on the first of February the band went on tour in Denmark and the UK, with gigs in colleges and small clubs. In an interview, the band commented that in comparison with what they earned in America "they were actually losing a couple of thousand pounds every night they played in Britain." The last UK gig was on 22 March and on 1 April 1969 the band was again on tour in the US, despite the lack of a new album to promote. It was at this time that Blackmore and Lord decided to change Deep Purple's musical style, veering towards straight hard rock, which led to Evans and Simper's dismissal in July.


title: The Book of Taliesyn

text: When "The Book of Taliesyn" was finally released in the UK in June 1969 a few more dates in the band's home country were added to promote the album release, even if the Mk.II line-up with new members Ian Gillan and Roger Glover was already rehearsing and recording new material in secret.


title: The Book of Taliesyn

text: Songs from this album were performed regularly by the Mk. I line-up. The exceptions were "Exposition/We Can Work It Out" and "Anthem", whose complex arrangements could not be easily reproduced in a live setting. The Mk. II formation performed "Kentucky Woman" in their first shows, but dropped it from the set list together with the few other songs from the first three albums, in favour of new material. Only the instrumental "Wring That Neck" remained a staple of Deep Purple's performances for a couple of years, working as a frame for Blackmore and Lord's long improvisations and coming back in the set list of the current line-up in the 2000s.


title: The Book of Taliesyn

text: Deep Purple's albums and singles were almost completely ignored in the UK, a fact that puzzled American reporters. In an interview, Simper tried to explain their lack of success in their home country, saying that the British audience was more interested in a fancy presentation than music and that blues rock "was becoming very big" at the time in England. John Peel, head of the "Top Gear" radio show, who had met the band in 1968 and had great expectations for "The Book of Taliesyn", was not too pleased with the final result:


title: The Book of Taliesyn

text: American reviewers were enthusiastic of Deep Purple's live performances and the lack of a new successful single apparently did not ruin the positive perception of the band in the US, to the point that they were often addressed as an American band. Band members even thought about transferring their residence to the United States, but abandoned the idea when they learned that the 21-year-old Paice could be drafted for the Vietnam War.


title: The Book of Taliesyn

text: Modern reviews of the album go from positive to mixed. Joe Viglione of AllMusic compares Deep Purple's production to Vanilla Fudge's, underlining how the two bands covered songs from the same authors and used similar arrangements. He writes that on "The Book of Taliesyn" Deep Purple veered more towards progressive rock than their American counterparts, combining meaningful lyrics and "innovative musical passages". On the contrary, PopMatters criticizes the "Spinal Tapish" lyrics and the lack of hit material on the album with the exception of "Wring That Neck", considered "perhaps the first real Deep Purple composition." Blogcritics reviewers stress how the original material, and "Wring That Neck" in particular, "stands the test of time well". However, Greg Barbrick finds "Jon Lord’s classical leanings (...) a bit too much" on tracks like "Exposition" and "Anthem", where they "threaten to derail the proceedings". Canadian journalist Martin Popoff in his "Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal" described the album's sound as a mix of hard rock and psychedelic rock usually associated with bands such as Mad River and The 13th Floor Elevators. He found "The Book of Taliesyn" very similar in structure and just "a bit darker, more bombastic and theatrical" than its predecessor, and considered the song "Shield" a "buried gem".


title: Primordial black hole

text: Primordial black holes (also abbreviated as PBH) are hypothetical black holes that formed soon after the Big Bang. Due to the extreme environment of the newly born universe, extremely dense pockets of sub-atomic matter had been tightly packed to the point of gravitational collapse, creating a primordial black hole that bypasses the density needed to make black holes today due to the densely packed, high energy state present in the moments just after the Big Bang. Seeing as the creation of primordial black holes pre-date the creation of known stars, they can be formed with less mass than what are known as stellar black holes. Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich and Igor Dmitriyevich Novikov in 1966 first proposed the existence of such black holes, while the first in-depth study was conducted by Stephen Hawking in 1971. However, their existence has not been proven and remains theoretical.


title: Primordial black hole

text: Depending on the model, primordial black holes could have initial masses ranging from (the so-called Planck relics) to more than thousands of solar masses. However, primordial black holes originally having mass lower than would not have survived to the present due to Hawking radiation, which causes complete evaporation in a time much shorter than the age of the Universe. Primordial black holes are non-baryonic, and as such are plausible dark matter candidates. Primordial black holes are also good candidates for being the seeds of the supermassive black holes at the center of massive galaxies, as well as of intermediate-mass black holes.


title: Primordial black hole

text: Primordial black holes belong to the class of massive compact halo objects (MACHOs). They are naturally a good dark matter candidate: they are (nearly) collision-less and stable (if sufficiently massive), they have non-relativistic velocities, and they form very early in the history of the Universe (typically less than one second after the Big Bang). Nevertheless, critics maintain that tight limits on their abundance have been set up from various astrophysical and cosmological observations, which would exclude that they contribute significantly to dark matter over most of the plausible mass range. However, new research has provided for the possibility again, whereby these black holes would sit in clusters with a 30-solar-mass primordial black hole at the center.


title: Primordial black hole

text: In March 2016, one month after the announcement of the detection by Advanced LIGO/VIRGO of gravitational waves emitted by the merging of two 30 solar mass black holes (about ), three groups of researchers proposed independently that the detected black holes had a primordial origin. Two of the groups found that the merging rates inferred by LIGO are consistent with a scenario in which all the dark matter is made of primordial black holes, if a non-negligible fraction of them are somehow clustered within halos such as faint dwarf galaxies or globular clusters, as expected by the standard theory of cosmic structure formation. The third group claimed that these merging rates are incompatible with an all-dark-matter scenario and that primordial black holes could only contribute to less than one percent of the total dark matter. The unexpected large mass of the black holes detected by LIGO has strongly revived interest in primordial black holes with masses in the range of 1 to 100 solar masses. It is still debated whether this range is excluded or not by other observations, such as the absence of micro-lensing of stars, the cosmic microwave background anisotropies, the size of faint dwarf galaxies, and the absence of correlation between X-ray and radio sources towards the galactic center.


title: Primordial black hole

text: In May 2016, Alexander Kashlinsky suggested that the observed spatial correlations in the unresolved gamma-ray and X-ray background radiations could be due to primordial black holes with similar masses, if their abundance is comparable to that of dark matter.


title: Primordial black hole

text: In April 2019, a study was published suggesting this hypothesis may be a dead end. An international team of researchers has put a theory speculated by the late Stephen Hawking to its most rigorous test to date, and their results have ruled out the possibility that primordial black holes smaller than a tenth of a millimeter (7 × 10 kg) make up most of dark matter.


title: Primordial black hole

text: In August 2019, a study was published opening up the possibility of making up all dark matter with asteroid-mass primordial black holes (3.5 × 10 – 4 × 10 solar masses, or 7 × 10 – 8 × 10 kg).


title: Primordial black hole

text: In September 2019, a report by James Unwin and Jakub Scholtz proposed the possibility of a primordial black hole (PBH) with mass 5–15  (Earth masses), about the diameter of a tennis ball, existing in the extended Kuiper Belt to explain the orbital anomalies that are theorized to be the result of a 9th planet in the solar system.


title: Primordial black hole

text: Primordial black holes could have formed in the very early Universe (less than one second after the Big Bang), during the so-called "radiation dominated era". The essential ingredient for the formation of a primordial black hole is a fluctuation in the density of the Universe, inducing its gravitational collapse. One typically requires density contrasts formula_1 (where formula_2 is the density of the Universe) to form a black hole. There are several mechanisms able to produce such inhomogeneities in the context of cosmic inflation (in hybrid inflation models, for example axion inflation), reheating, or cosmological phase transitions.


title: Primordial black hole

text: A variety of observations have been interpreted to place limits on the abundance and mass of primordial black holes:


title: Primordial black hole

text: At the time of the detection by LIGO of the gravitational waves emitted during the final coalescence of two 30 solar mass black holes, the mass range between 10 and 100 solar masses was still only poorly constrained. Since then, new observations have been claimed to close this window, at least for models in which the primordial black holes have all the same mass:


title: Primordial black hole

text: Problems deemed to be related to the existence of primordial black holes include the dark matter problem, the cosmological domain wall problem and the cosmological monopole problem. Since primordial black holes do not necessarily have to be small (they can have any size), they may have contributed to the later formation of galaxies.


title: Primordial black hole

text: Even if they do not solve these problems, the low number of primordial black holes (as of 2010, only two intermediate mass black holes were confirmed) aids cosmologists by putting constraints on the spectrum of density fluctuations in the early universe.


title: Primordial black hole

text: General relativity predicts the smallest primordial black holes would have evaporated by now, but if there were a fourth spatial dimension – as predicted by string theory – it would affect how gravity acts on small scales and "slow down the evaporation quite substantially". In essence, the energy stored in the fourth spatial dimension as a stationary wave would bestow a significant rest mass to the object when regarded in the conventional four-dimensional space-time. This could mean there are several thousand black holes in our galaxy. To test this theory, scientists will use the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope which was put in orbit by NASA on June 11, 2008. If they observe specific small interference patterns within gamma-ray bursts, it could be the first indirect evidence for primordial black holes and string theory.


title: Human interaction with cats

text: The human interaction with cats entails hundreds of millions of cats that are kept as pets around the world. Cats have either a mutualistic or commensal relationship with humans.


title: Human interaction with cats

text: Cats are common pets in all continents of the world permanently inhabited by humans, and their global population is difficult to ascertain, with estimates ranging from anywhere between 200 million to 600 million.


title: Human interaction with cats

text: In 1998 there were around 76 million cats in Europe, 7 million in Japan and 3 million in Australia. A 2007 report stated that about 37 million US households owned cats, with an average of 2.2 cats per household giving a total population of around 82 million; in contrast, there are about 72 million pet dogs in that country. Cats exceeded dogs in number as pets in the United States in 1985 for the first time, in part because the development of kitty litter in the mid-20th century eliminated the unpleasantly powerful smell of cat urine.


title: Human interaction with cats

text: Although cat ownership has commonly been associated with women, a 2007 Gallup poll reported that men and women in the United States of America were equally likely to own a cat. The ratio of pedigree/purebred cats to random-bred cats varies from country to country. However, generally speaking, purebreds are less than 10% of the total population.


title: Human interaction with cats

text: According to the Humane Society of the United States, as well as being kept as pets, cats are also used in the international fur trade. Cat fur is used in coats, gloves, hats, shoes, blankets and stuffed toys. About 24 cats are needed to make a cat fur coat. This use has now been outlawed in several countries, including the United States, Australia and the European Union countries. However, despite being outlawed, some cat furs are still made into blankets in Switzerland as folk remedies that are believed to help rheumatism.


title: Human interaction with cats

text: Cats, as with the traditional farm cat and ship's cat, are also used for pest control, particularly in the case of rat or mouse infestation. As such, they are sometimes referred to as a "mouser", and in the United Kingdom there is even the official title of 'Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office' since the 1500s (additional duties include "greeting guests to the house, inspecting security defences, and testing antique furniture for napping quality").


title: Human interaction with cats

text: The current list of cat breeds is quite large: with the US Cat Fanciers' Association recognizing 41 breeds, of which 16 are "natural breeds" that probably emerged before humans began breeding pedigree cats, while the others were developed over the latter half of the 20th century. Because of common crossbreeding, many cats are simply identified as belonging to the homogeneous breeds of domestic longhair and domestic shorthair, depending on their type of fur.


title: Human interaction with cats

text: Because of their small size, domesticated house cats pose little physical danger to adult humans. However, in the US cats inflict about 400,000 bites per year. This number represents about one in ten of all animal bites. Cat bites may become infected, sometimes with serious consequences such as cat-scratch disease, or, very rarely, rabies. Cats may also pose a danger to pregnant women and immunosuppressed individuals, since their feces, in rare cases, can transmit toxoplasmosis. A large percentage of cats are infected with this parasite, with infection rates ranging from around 40 to 60% in both domestic and stray cats worldwide. Research indicates a correlation between the parasite "Toxoplasma gondii", which sexually reproduces exclusively in cats, and numerous human psychiatric conditions, including OCD. The compulsive hoarding of cats, a symptom of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), has long been associated with "crazy cat ladies".


title: Human interaction with cats

text: Allergic reactions to cats are relatively common, happening in as many as every 3 in 10 Americans. The major allergen, Fel d 1, is found in the saliva and/or dander of all cat breeds. There have been attempts to breed hypoallergenic cats, which would be less likely to provoke an allergic reaction. Some humans who are allergic to cats—typically manifested by hay fever, asthma, or a skin rash—quickly acclimate themselves to a particular animal and live comfortably in the same house with it, while retaining an allergy to cats in general. Whether the risk of developing allergic diseases such as asthma is increased or decreased by cat ownership is uncertain. Some owners cope with this problem by taking allergy medicine, along with bathing their cats frequently, since weekly bathing will reduce the amount of dander shed by a cat.


title: Human interaction with cats

text: As well as posing health risks, interactions with cats may improve health and reduce physical responses to stress: for example the presence of cats may moderately decrease blood pressure. Cat ownership may also improve psychological health by providing emotional support and dispelling feelings of depression, anxiety and loneliness. Their ability to provide companionship and friendship are common reasons given for owning a cat.


title: Human interaction with cats

text: From another point of view, cats are thought to be able to improve the general mood of their owners by alleviating negative attitudes. According to a Swiss study carried out in 2003, cats may change the overall psychological state of their owner as their company's effect appears to be comparable to that of a human partner. The researchers concluded that, while cats were not shown to promote positive moods, they do alleviate negative ones.


title: Human interaction with cats

text: The purring from cats is also believed to contain healing properties. An individual cat's purring can range from 20 Hz up to 150 Hz. These vibration levels are believed to aid in bone growth and repair. A year-long study done by Dr. Clinton Rubin and his team found that bones of older sheep began showing signs of repair after being exposed to 30 Hz of vibrations for 20 minutes, five days a week. For humans, vibrational therapy has been found to not only aid in bone repair but also strengthen tendons and joints. Cats purrs are believed to work similarly on the human body alongside reducing risk of blood pressure, heart disease, and symptoms of dyspnea.


title: Human interaction with cats

text: One study found that cat ownership is associated with a reduced risk of heart attacks and strokes at the 95% confidence interval.


title: Human interaction with cats

text: Several studies have shown that cats develop affection towards their owners. However, the effect of these pets on human health is closely related to the time and effort the cat owner is able to invest in it, in terms of bonding and playing.


title: Human interaction with cats

text: Ailurophobia is a rare animal phobia affecting humans characterized by the persistent and excessive fear or hate of cats.


title: Human interaction with cats

text: Some cats, called "therapy cats" are trained to help ailing humans in a medically beneficial way to take advantage of the human-animal interaction for purposes of relaxation and healing. Certain breeds are desirable when looking into therapy cats due to their personality and temperament. Some examples of preferred breeds are Ragdolls, Maine Coons, American Shorthairs, Siamese, and Persians. The important traits to look for in a cat include a steady demeanor with tolerance to sights and sounds that are unfamiliar or sudden, petting that could be awkward or rough, and the ability to stay calm when being poked or pulled in unusual manners. Therapy cats must also be acclimated to humans of all ages and enjoy engaging with strangers daily. Some therapy cats are used as alternatives to therapy dogs due to the cats size and nature, allowing them to work with patients/people who might otherwise be scared of dogs. Therapy cats should still be accustomed to dogs since most visits happen in conjunction with one another.


title: Human interaction with cats

text: The presence of cats in addition to their purring as well as petting them can deliver both psychological and physical benefits. Therapy cats are being used as companions to help the recovery and well-being of people who have had strokes, high blood pressure, anxiety, and/or depression to name a few.


title: Human interaction with cats

text: Therapy cats are utilized as companions at juvenile detention centers; for children with developmental disabilities; and for children with language, speech and hearing difficulties. Therapy cats are also sometimes used in hospitals to relax children who are staying there, as well as helping those in hospice care cope with their terminal illness.


title: Human interaction with cats

text: A natural behavior in cats is to hook their front claws periodically into suitable surfaces and pull backwards. Cats, like humans, keep their muscles trim and their body flexible by stretching. Additionally, such periodic scratching serves to clean and sharpen their claws. Indoor cats may benefit from being provided with a scratching post so that they are less likely to use carpet or furniture, which they can easily ruin. However, some cats may simply ignore such a device. Commercial scratching posts typically are covered in carpeting or upholstery. Using a plain wooden surface, or reversing the carpeting on the posts so that the rougher texture of the carpet backing, may be a more attractive alternative to the cat than the floor covering. Scratching posts made of sisal rope or corrugated cardboard are also common.


title: Human interaction with cats

text: Although scratching can serve cats to keep their claws from growing excessively long, their nails can be trimmed if necessary. Another response to indoor scratching is onychectomy, commonly known as declawing. This is a surgical procedure to remove the claw and first bone of each digit of a cat's paws. Declawing is most commonly only performed on the front feet. A related procedure is tendonectomy, which involves cutting a tendon needed for cats to extend their claws. Declawing is a major surgical procedure and can produce pain and infections.


title: Human interaction with cats

text: Since this surgery is almost always performed for the benefit of owners, it is controversial and remains uncommon outside of North America. In many countries, declawing is prohibited by animal welfare laws and it is ethically controversial within the veterinary community. While both the Humane Society of the United States and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals strongly discourage or condemn the procedure, the American Veterinary Medical Association supports the procedure under certain guidelines and finds "no scientific evidence that declawing leads to behavioral abnormalities when the behavior of declawed cats is compared with that of cats in control groups." They further argue that many cats would be given up and euthanized were declawing not performed.


title: Human interaction with cats

text: Being fastidious self-cleaners, cats detest their own waste and instinctually bury their urine and feces. House cats are usually provided with a box containing litter, generally consisting of bentonite, but sometimes other absorbent material such as shredded paper or wood chips, or sometimes sand or similar material can be used. It should be cleaned daily and changed often, depending on the number of cats using it and the type of litter; if it is not kept clean, a cat may be fastidious enough to find other locations for urination or defecation. This may also happen for other reasons; for instance, if a cat becomes constipated and defecation is uncomfortable, it may associate the discomfort with the litter box and avoid it in favor of another location.


title: Human interaction with cats

text: Daily attention to the litter box also serves as a monitor of the cat's health. Bentonite or clumping litter is a variation which absorbs urine into clumps which can be sifted out along with feces, and thus stays cleaner longer with regular sifting, but has sometimes been reported to cause health problems in some cats.


title: Human interaction with cats

text: Some cats can be trained to use the human toilet, eliminating the litter box and its attendant expense, unpleasant odor, and the need to use landfill space for disposal.


title: Human interaction with cats

text: An exhibit at the San Diego Natural History Museum states that cat feces from urban runoff carry "Toxoplasma gondii" parasites to the ocean and kill sea otters.


title: Human interaction with cats

text: Cats and humans evolutionarily diverged from a common ancestor (boreoeutherian ancestor) approximately 80 million years ago, accumulating only 10–12 chromosomal translocations. The order of eight genes on the cats' Y chromosome closely resembles that in humans. Genes on X chromosomes of cats and humans are arranged in a similar way.


title: Human interaction with cats

text: Domestic cats are affected by over 250 naturally occurring hereditary disorders, many of which are similar to those in humans, such as diabetes, hemophilia and Tay–Sachs disease. For example, Abyssinian cat's pedigree contains a genetic mutation that causes retinitis pigmentosa, which also affects humans. The domestic cat is also an excellent model for human infectious diseases, including HIV/AIDS. Feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) is a genetic relative of HIV.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: Western Europe countries, especially, saw high growth in immigration after World War II and many European nations today (particularly those of the EU-15) have sizeable immigrant populations, both of European and non-European origin. In contemporary globalization, migrations to Europe have accelerated in speed and scale. Over the last decades, there has been an increase in negative attitudes towards immigration, and many studies have emphasized marked differences in the strength of anti-immigrant attitudes among European countries.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: EU citizens a freedom of movement and residence within the EU, and the term "immigrant" has since been used to refer to non-EU citizens, meaning that EU citizens are not to be defined as immigrants within the EU territory. The European Commission defines "immigration" as the action by which a person from a non-EU country establishes his or her usual residence in the territory of an EU country for a period that is or is expected to be at least twelve months. Between 2010 and 2013, around 1.4 million non-EU nationals, excluding asylum seekers and refugees, immigrated into the EU each year using regular means, with a slight decrease since 2010.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: Historical migration into or within Europe has mostly taken the form of military invasion, but there have been exceptions; this concerns notably population movements within the Roman Empire under the "Pax Romana"; the Jewish diaspora in Europe was the result of the First Jewish–Roman War of AD 66–73.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: With the collapse of the Roman Empire, migration was again mostly coupled with warlike invasion, not least during the so-called migration period (Germanic), the Slavic migrations, the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin, the Islamic conquests and the Turkic expansion into Eastern Europe (Kipchaks, Tatars, Cumans).


title: Immigration to Europe

text: The Ottomans once again established a multi-ethnic imperial structure across Western Asia and Southeastern Europe, but Turkification in Southeastern Europe was due more to cultural assimilation than to mass immigration.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: There were substantial population movements within Europe throughout the Early Modern period, mostly in the context of the Reformation and the European wars of religion, and again


title: Immigration to Europe

text: From the late 15th century until the late 1960s and early 1970s, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom were primarily sources of emigration, sending large numbers of emigrants to the Americas, Australia, Siberia and Southern Africa. A number also went to other European countries (notably France, Switzerland, Germany and Belgium). As living standards in these countries have risen, the trend has reversed and they were a magnet for immigration (most notably from Morocco, Somalia, Egypt to Italy and Greece; from Morocco, Algeria and Latin America to Spain and Portugal; and from Ireland, India, Pakistan, Germany, the United States, Bangladesh, and Jamaica to the United Kingdom).


title: Immigration to Europe

text: As a result of the Schengen Agreement, signed on June 14, 1985, there is free travel within part of Europe — known as the Schengen area — for all citizens and residents of all 27 member states; however, non-citizens may only do so for tourism purpose, and for up to three months.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: Moreover, EU citizens and their families have the right to live and work anywhere within the EU; citizens of non-EU or non-EEA states may obtain a Blue Card or long-term residency.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: A large proportion of immigrants in western European states have come from former eastern bloc states in the 1990s, especially in Spain, Greece, Germany, Italy, Portugal and the United Kingdom. There are frequently specific migration patterns, with geography, language and culture playing a role. For example, there are large numbers of Poles who have moved to the United Kingdom and Ireland and Iceland, while Romanians and also Bulgarians have chosen Spain and Italy. With the earlier of the two recent enlargements of the EU, although most countries restricted free movement by nationals of the acceding countries, the United Kingdom did not restrict for the 2004 enlargement of the European Union and received Polish, Latvian and other citizens of the new EU states. Spain was not restricted for the 2007 enlargement of the European Union and received many Romanians and Bulgarians as well other citizens of the new EU states.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: Many of these Polish immigrants to the UK have since returned to Poland, after the serious economic crisis in the UK. Nevertheless, free movement of EU nationals is now an important aspect of migration within the EU, since there are now 27 member states, and has resulted in serious political tensions between Italy and Romania, since Italy has expressed the intention of restricting free movement of EU nationals (contrary to Treaty obligations and the clear jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice).


title: Immigration to Europe

text: Another migration trend has been that of Northern Europeans moving toward Southern Europe. Citizens from the European Union make up a growing proportion of immigrants in Spain, coming chiefly from the United Kingdom and Germany, but also from Italy, France, Portugal, The Netherlands, Belgium, etc. British authorities estimate that the population of British citizens living in Spain is much larger than Spanish official figures suggest, establishing them at about 1,000,000, with 800,000 being permanent residents. According to the "Financial Times", Spain is the most favoured destination for Western Europeans considering to move from their own country and seek jobs elsewhere in the EU.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: While most immigrant populations in European countries are dominated by other Europeans, many immigrants and their descendants have ancestral origins outside the continent. For the former colonial powers France, Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, and Portugal, most immigrants, and their descendants have ties to former colonies in Africa, the Americas, and Asia. In addition, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Belgium recruited Turkish and Moroccan guest workers beginning in the 1960s, and many current immigrants in those countries today have ties to such recruitment programs.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: Moroccan immigrants also began migrating substantially to Spain and Italy for work opportunities in the 1980s. In the Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland, the bulk of non-Western immigrants are refugees and asylum seekers from the Middle East, East Africa, and other regions of the world arriving since the 1980s and 1990s. Increasing globalization has brought a population of students, professionals, and workers from all over the world into major European cities, most notably London, Paris, and Frankfurt. The introduction of the EU Blue Card in May 2009 has further increased the number of skilled professional immigrants from outside of the continent.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: Illegal immigration and asylum-seeking in Europe from outside the continent have been occurring since at least the 1990s. While the number of migrants was relatively small for years, it began to rise in 2013. In 2015, the number of asylum seekers arriving from outside Europe increased substantially during the European migrant crisis (see timeline). However, the EU-Turkey deal enacted in March 2016 dramatically reduced this number, and anti-immigrant measures starting in 2017 by the Italian government further cut illegal immigration from the Mediterranean route.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: Some scholars claim that the increase in immigration flows from the 1980s is due to global inequalities between poor and rich countries. In 2017, approximately 825,000 persons acquired citizenship of a member state of the European Union, down from 995,000 in 2016. The largest groups were nationals of Morocco, Albania, India, Turkey and Pakistan. 2.4 million non-EU migrants entered the EU in 2017. In addition, cheaper transportation and more advanced technology have further aided migration.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: The Nordic countries have differed in their approach to immigration. While Norway and Sweden used to have generous immigration policies, Denmark and Finland had more restricted immigration. Although both Denmark and Finland have experienced a significant increase in their immigrant populations between 2000 and 2020 (6.8% points in Denmark and 5.0% in Finland), Norway (11.9%) and Sweden (11.0%) have seen far greater relative increases.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: The table below shows the percentage of the total population in the Nordic countries that are either (1) immigrants or (2) children of two immigrant parents:


title: Immigration to Europe

text: For decades, Danish immigration and integration policy were built upon the assumption that with the right kind of help, immigrants and their descendants will eventually tend to the same levels of education and employment as Danes. This assumption was proven by a 2019 study by the Danish Immigration Service and the Ministry of Education, while the second generation non-Western immigrants do better than the first generation, the third generation of immigrants with non-Western background do even better education and employment wise than the second generation. One of the reasons was that second-generation immigrants from non-Western countries marry someone from their country of origin and so Danish is not spoken at home which disadvantages children in school. Thereby the process of integration has to start from the beginning for each generation.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: In January 2015 the "immigrant population" in Norway consisted of approximately 805,000 people, including 669,000 foreign-born and 136,000 born in Norway to two immigrant parents. This corresponds to 15.6% of the total population. The cities with the highest share of immigrants are Oslo (32%) and Drammen (27%). The six largest immigrant groups in Norway are Poles, Swedes, Somalis, Lithuanians, Pakistanis and Iraqis.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: In the years since 1970, the largest increase in the immigrant population has come from countries in Asia (including Turkey), Africa and South America, increasing from about 3500 in 1970 to about 300,000 in 2011. In the same period, the immigrant population from other Nordic countries and Western Europe has increased modestly from around 42,000 to around 130,000.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: In 2014 the "immigrant population" in Sweden consisted of approximately 2.09 million people, including 1.60 million foreign-born and 489,000 born in Sweden to two immigrant parents. This corresponds to 21.5% of the total population.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: Of the major cities Malmö has the largest immigrant population, estimated to be 41.7% in 2014. However, the smaller municipalities Botkyrka (56.2%), Haparanda (55.5%) and Södertälje (49.4%) all have a higher share of immigrants. In the Swedish capital Stockholm 31.1% (in 2014) of the population are either foreign-born or born in Sweden by two foreign-born parents.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: In 2014 127,000 people immigrated to Sweden, while 51,000 left the country. Net immigration was 76,000.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: Sweden has been transformed from a nation of emigration ending after World War I to a nation of immigration from World War II onwards. In 2009, Sweden had the fourth largest number of asylum applications in the EU and the largest number per capita after Cyprus and Malta. Immigrants in Sweden are mostly concentrated in the urban areas of Svealand and Götaland and the five largest foreign born populations in Sweden come from Finland, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Poland and Iran.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: Immigration has been a major source of population growth and cultural change throughout much of the history of Finland. The economic, social, and political aspects of immigration have caused controversy regarding ethnicity, economic benefits, jobs for non-immigrants, settlement patterns, impact on upward social mobility, crime, and voting behavior.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: At the end of 2017, there were 372,802 foreign born people residing in Finland, which corresponds to 6.8% of the population, while there are 384,123 people with a foreign background, corresponding to 7.0% of the population. Proportionally speaking, Finland has had one of the fastest increases in its foreign-born population between 2000 and 2010 in all of Europe. The majority of immigrants in Finland settle in the Helsinki area, although Tampere, Turku, and Kuopio have had their share of immigrants in recent years.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: As of 2008, the French national institute of statistics (INSEE) estimated that 5.3 million foreign-born immigrants and 6.5 million direct descendants of immigrants (born in France with at least one immigrant parent) lived in France. This represents a total of 11.8 million, or 19% of the population. In terms of origin, about 5.5 million are European, four million Maghrebi, one million Sub-Saharan African, and 400,000 Turkish. Among the 5.3 million foreign-born immigrants, 38% are from Europe, 30% from Maghreb, 12.5% from Sub-Saharan Africa, 14.2% from Asia and 5.3% from America and Oceania The most significant countries of origin as of 2008 were Algeria (713,000), Morocco (653,000), Portugal (580,000), Italy (317,000), Spain (257,000), Turkey (238,000) and Tunisia (234,000). However, immigration from Asia (especially China, as well as the former French colonies of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos), and from Sub-Saharan Africa (Senegal, Mali, Nigeria and others), is gaining in importance.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: The region with the largest proportion of immigrants is the Île-de-France (Greater Paris), where 40% of immigrants live. Other important regions are Rhône-Alpes (Lyon) and Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (Marseille).


title: Immigration to Europe

text: Among the 802,000 newborns in metropolitan France in 2010, 27.3% had at least one foreign-born parent and about one quarter (23.9%) had at least one parent born outside Europe. Including grandparents; almost 40% of newborns in France between 2006 and 2008 had at least one foreign-born grandparent. (11% were born in another European country, 16% in Maghreb, and 12% in another region of the world.)


title: Immigration to Europe

text: In 2014, the number of people who became naturalised British citizens rose to a record 140,795 - a 12% increase from the previous year, and a dramatic increase since 2009. Most new citizens came from Asia (40%) or Africa (32%); the largest three countries of origin were India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh with Indians making the largest group. In 2005, an estimated 565,000 migrants arrived to live in the United Kingdom for at least a year, primarily from Asia and Africa, while 380,000 people emigrated from the country for a year or more, chiefly to Australia, Spain and the United States.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: In 2014 the net increase was 318,000: immigration was 641,000, up from 526,000 in 2013, while the number of people emigrating (for more than 12 months) was 323,000.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: The total immigrant population of the country is now of 5 million and 73 thousand, about 8.3 percent of the population (2014). However, over 6 million people residing in Italy have an immigration background. Since the expansion of the European Union, the most recent wave of migration has been from surrounding European nations, particularly Eastern Europe, and increasingly Asia, replacing North Africa as the major immigration area. Some 1,200,000 Romanians are officially registered as living in Italy, replacing Albanians (500,000) and Moroccans (520,000) as the largest ethnic minority group. Others immigrants from Central-Eastern Europe are Ukrainians (230,000), Polish (110,000), Moldovans (150,000), Macedonians (100,000), Serbs (110,000), Bulgarians (54,000) Germany (41,000), Bosnians (40,000), Russians (39,600), Croatians (25,000), Slovaks (9,000), Hungarians (8,600). Other major countries of origin are China (300,000), Philippines (180,000), India (150,000), Bangladesh (120,000), Egypt (110,000), Peru (105,000), Tunisia (105,000), Sri Lanka (100.000), Pakistan (100,000), Ecuador (90,000) and Nigeria (80,000). In addition, around 1 million people live in Italy illegally. (As of 2014, the distribution of foreign born population is largely uneven in Italy: 84.9% of immigrants live in the northern and central parts of the country (the most economically developed areas), while only 15.1% live in the southern half of the peninsula.)


title: Immigration to Europe

text: Since 2000, Spain has absorbed around six million immigrants, adding 12% to its population. The total immigrant population of the country now exceeds 5,730,677 (12.2% of the total population). According to residence permit data for 2011, more than 710,000 were Moroccan, another 410,000 were Ecuadorian, 300,000 were Colombian, 230,000 were Bolivian and 150,000 were Chinese; from the EU around 800,000 were Romanian, 370,000 (though estimates place the true figure significantly higher, ranging from 700,000 to more than 1,000,000) were British, 190,000 were German, 170,000 were Italian and 160,000 were Bulgarian. A 2005 regularisation programme increased the legal immigrant population by 700,000 people that year. By world regions, in 2006 there were around 2,300,000 from the EU-27, 1,600,000 from South America, 1,000,000 from Africa, 300,000 from Asia, 200,000 from Central America & Caribbean, 200,000 from the rest of Europe, while 50,000 from North America and 3,000 from the rest of the world.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: Portugal, long a country of emigration, has now become a country of net immigration, from both its former colonies and other sources. By the end of 2003, legal immigrants represented about 4% of the population, and the largest communities were from Cape Verde, Brazil, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, the United Kingdom, Spain, France, China and Ukraine.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: On 1 January 2011 there were almost 229,000 people (11.1%) living in Slovenia with foreign country of birth. At the end of March 2002 when data on the country of birth for total population were for the first and last time collected by a conventional (field) census, the number was almost 170,000 (8.6%).


title: Immigration to Europe

text: Immigration from abroad, mostly from republics of former Yugoslavia, was the deciding factor for demographic and socioeconomic development of Slovenia in the last fifty years. Also after independence of Slovenia the direction of migration flows between Slovenia and abroad did not change significantly. Migration topics remain closely connected with the territory of former Yugoslavia. Slovenia was and still is the destination country for numerous people from the territory of former Yugoslavia. The share of residents of Slovenia with countries of birth from the territory of former Yugoslavia among all foreign-born residents was 88.9% at the 2002 Census and on 1 January 2011 despite new migration flows from EU Member States and from non-European countries still 86.7%.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: Since the years 1970s–1980s, the European continent has been increasingly targeted by waves of unauthorized immigrants from Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and other regions of the world, primarily affecting the countries of Southern Europe (such as Spain, Italy, Greece, and Malta). Among the member states of the European Union, "migration constitutes the greatest concern to EU citizens".


title: Immigration to Europe

text: According to a Yougov poll in 2018, majorities in all seven polled countries were opposed to accepting more migrants: Germany (72%), Denmark (65%), Finland (64%), Sweden (60%), United Kingdom (58%), France (58%), and Norway (52%).


title: Immigration to Europe

text: A February 2017 poll of 10,000 people in 10 European countries by Chatham House found on average a majority (55%) were opposed to further Muslim immigration, with opposition especially pronounced in a number of countries: Poland (71%), Austria (65%), Hungary (64%), Belgium (64%), and France (61%). Except for Poland, all of those had recently suffered jihadist terror attacks or been at the centre of a refugee crisis. Of those opposed to further Muslim immigration, 3/4 classify themselves as on the right of the political spectrum. Of those self-classifying as on the left of the political spectrum, 1/3 supported a halt.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: In Denmark, the parliamentary party most strongly associated with anti-immigration policies is the Danish People's Party.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: According to a Gallup poll in 2017, two out of three (64%) wished for limiting immigration from Muslim countries which was an increase from 2015 (54%).


title: Immigration to Europe

text: On August 14, 2020, the Ministry of Immigration and Integration in Denmark revealed that it denied 83 people Danish citizenship in the past two years because they have committed serious crimes.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: In France, the National Front seeks to limit immigration. Major media, political parties, and a large share of the public believe that anti-immigration sentiment has increased since the country's riots of 2005.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: In 2018, a poll by Pew Research found that a majority (58%) wanted fewer immigrants to be allowed into the country, 30% wanted to keep the current level and 10% wanted to increase immigration.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: In February 2020, more than 10 000 individuals attempted to cross the border between Greece and Turkey after Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan opened its border to Europe, but they were blocked by Greek army and police forces. Hundreds of Greek soldiers and armed police resisted the trespassers and fired tear gas at them. Among those who attempted to cross were individuals from Africa, Iran and Afghanistan. Greece responded by refusing to accept asylum applications for a month.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: In March 2020, migrants set fires and threw Molotov cocktail firebombs over to the Greek side in order to break down the border fence. Greek and European forces responded with tear gas and by trying to keep the fence intact. By 11 March, 348 people had been arrested and 44.353 cases of unlawful entry had been prevented.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: Public anti-immigrant discourse started in Italy in 1985 by the Bettino Craxi government, which in a public speech drew a direct link between the high number of clandestine immigrants and some terrorist incidents. Public discourse by the media hold that the phenomenon of immigration is uncontrollable and of undefined proportions.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: According to poll published by "Corriere della Sera", one of two respondents (51%) approved closing Italy's ports to further boat migrants arriving via the Mediterranean, while 19% welcomed further boat migrants.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: In 2018, a poll by Pew Research found that a majority (71%) wanted fewer immigrants to be allowed into the country, 18% wanted to keep the current level and 5% wanted to increase immigration.


title: Immigration to Europe

text: In Norway, the only parliamentary party that seeks to limit immigration is the Progress Party. Minor Norwegian parties seeking to limit immigration are the Democrats in Norway, the Christian Unity Party, the Pensioners' Party and the Coastal Party.