title: Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson

text: During his 10 year international strongman career, Hafþór won all major Strongman competitions and titles which were available at that time including World's Strongest Man, Arnold Strongman Classic, Europe's Strongest Man, Strongman Champions League, Giants Live, World's Ultimate Strongman and his 30 international wins ranks him as the 3rd most decorated strongman of all-time. Even though he was noted primarily for his strengths in the moving events during initial years of his career (for example: Medley's and loading races, Keg-tossing, Power stairs, Vehicle pulls and Natural Stones which require good stamina and athleticism), Hafþór kept on improving and upscaled his brute strength which helped him excel in static events as well (for example: Deadlifts, Squats, Log Presses, Axle Presses, Circus Dumbbell etc.) making him a well rounded strongman by the year 2018. Experts believe the three years from that point onwards (2018, 2019 and 2020) as the 'highest peak performance' of any strongman in history considering Hafþór's dominance and having no weaknesses at any event. During these three years, the only instance Hafþór failed to win a competition was due to an injury and apart from it, remained unbeaten. Hafþór's international accolades and winning everything there is in the sport cemented his legacy as one of the greatest strongmen of all-time and due to numerous world records and feats of strength involving brute strength and static lifts, many analysts and strongman experts regard Hafþór as "the strongest man to have ever walked the earth".


title: Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson

text: On 2 May 2020 after breaking the Deadlift World Record, Hafþór challenged its previous record holder Eddie Hall to a boxing match. Despite having no boxing experience whatsoever, Hafþór learnt the fundamentals of boxing and made commendable progress under the guidance of his coaches Billy Nelson, Vilhjálmur Hernandez and support from his two main sparring partners Skúli Ármansson and Bill Hodgson. With a stricter diet which differed from his strongman days, Hafþór also transformed himself to suit the new sport, losing in the process. He started training twice a day (upto five hours per day) with a weekly routine which was segmented into fourteen sessions. They consisted of six boxing training sessions, four strength training sessions (two each for upper and lower body) and four endurance training sessions.


title: Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson

text: Hafþór's first exhibition match was against ex-WBO European light-heavyweight champion Steven Ward in January 2021. For his second exhibition match he faced the 2010 Commonwealth Games Heavyweight Gold Medalist Simon Vallily in May 2021. The two fights provided him his first real ring experience. On 18 September 2021, Hafþór faced Canadian Professional Arm-wrestler Devon Larratt in his first non-exhibition boxing match. Devon volunteered for the fight when Eddie Hall withdrew himself after sustaining a bicep tear during training. Within the first round of the fight, referee was forced to stop the fight awarding Hafþór the win via TKO (technical knockout).


title: Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson

text: On 19 March 2022, after almost two years since its announcement, Hafþór and Eddie finally faced each other in Dubai which was taglined The Heaviest Boxing Match in History. Eddie started the first round with continuous haymakers but Hafþór kept his composure and stuck to the basics, focusing on a solid jab and better footwork. Once he realized Eddie's game plan, Hafþór took control of the fight by bludgeoning and knocking down Eddie twice to the floor in rounds three and six. Eddie sustained bleeding lacerations on top of both eyes and Hafþór won the fight via unanimous decision.


title: Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson

text: Hafþór was cast as Ser Gregor "The Mountain" Clegane for the fourth season of the HBO series "Game of Thrones" in August 2013. This was his first main acting role, and he is the third person to depict the character after Conan Stevens played the role in season 1 and Ian Whyte in season 2 but the first actor to portray Clegane in more than one continuous season with his appearances in seasons four through eight. He was also cast for the lead role in the Philadelphia Renaissance Faire during their debut season in 2015. He appeared as 'King Thor', the leader of a Viking raiding party intent on capturing the city of Amman.


title: Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson

text: In 2018 Hafþór played Mongkut, the main villain in "" opposite Alain Moussi and Jean-Claude Van Damme in a story about a kickboxer (Moussi) who was sedated and taken to a prison in Bangkok, where he is forced to fight a giant for freedom and a large sum. In the same year he also played Big John in the film "Operation Ragnarok" about a town in the south of Sweden isolated after a viral outbreak and the trapped Swedes and immigrants uniting to survive an onslaught.


title: Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson

text: The next year, he starred with Mike Tyson in the action film "Pharaoh's War", about a former soldier (Tyson) with a mysterious past leading a group of Egyptian refugees through the desert to protect them from a group of evil mercenaries.


title: Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson

text: In 2022, Hafþór had a minor role as Thorfinnr the Tooth-Gnasher in the historical epic fantasy "The Northman" which starred Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Ethan Hawke, Claes Bang, Anya Taylor-Joy and Willem Dafoe.


title: Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson

text: Hafþór had some troubled relationships with his former girlfriends during his late teens and early twenties who accused him of domestic violence including Thelma Björk Steimann (the mother of his daughter), who feared for her life once during a vacation. She pressed charges, but the police investigation found no grounds for action and Hafþór has since charged her with slander. However, things escalated to a point where Hafþór was not allowed to see his daughter for 3 years. The situation settled over the years and he frequently visits his daughter, Theresa Líf, who resides in Denmark with her mother.


title: Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson

text: Since late 2017 Hafþór dated Canadian fitness model Kelsey Morgan Henson whom he met in Alberta during a promotional event for Icelandic Mountain Vodka and touring for the Warwick Strongman Festival. The couple garnered a lot of attention because of their height difference. They married in August 2018 and on 26 September 2020 welcomed their son, Stormur Magni Hafþórsson.


title: Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson

text: During his Strongman days, Hafþór had to constantly force feed himself to maintain his size and strength. He used to consume up to 8,000 calories a day during 2012 - 2017 to maintain a 180–190 kg (397–419 lb) physique and increased it up to 10,000 calories a day in his prime which is considered 2018, 2019 and 2020 to maintain a 200–205 kg (441–452 lb) physique. As a general rule, his macro balance was 2:2:1 carbs to protein to fat ratio. A typical breakfast may consist of eggs, bacon and french toast while a typical lunch may consist of rice, steak (or ground bison or salmon), potatoes, spinach, carrots and chicken stock. He had six to eight healthy meals a day with the exception of "one cheat meal once in a while is fine as long as you stay on track the rest of the time".


title: Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson

text: From mid 2020, he downsized his caloric intake to around 5,000 calories a day with a much stricter diet which helped him with his body transformation to suit Boxing.


title: Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson

text: Hafþór has had occasional sleep troubles in the past after heavy meals due to his large body weight. In March 2017, he was diagnosed with Bell's palsy which paralysed half of his face. In an interview, when asked if he had ever used steroids, Hafþór answered: "Yes, I have. When you want to be the best, you do whatever it takes". Hafþór did not provide further information related to the cycles or whether his use of the substances was ongoing however he has never failed a drug test during his entire career. Hafþór recovered from Bell's palsy later that year; however, he still has a slight facial droop on the right side.


title: Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson

text: In 2016, Hafþór co-founded the spirits brand 'Icelandic Mountain Vodka' which is a seven-time distilled Icelandic vodka. The company also produces gin.


title: Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson

text: Together with Unnar Helgi Danielsson and Dylan Sprouse, Hafþór is also a co-founder and brand ambassador of 'Thor's Skyr', a traditional, Icelandic high protein cultured dairy product which is high in probiotics and low in sugar.


title: Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson

text: Hafþór also owns 'Thor's Power Apparel', a family business retailing branded merchandise via an online shop, and is also a brand ambassador for SodaStream.


title: Komi Can't Communicate

text: An eight-episode live-action television drama adaptation was broadcast from September to November 2021, and an anime television series adaptation by OLM aired from October to December of the same year. A second season aired from April to June 2022. The anime series is licensed by Netflix for worldwide streaming.


title: Komi Can't Communicate

text: As of June 2022, the "Komi Can't Communicate" manga had over 7.4 million copies in circulation. In 2022, the manga won the 67th Shogakukan Manga Award for the "shōnen" category.


title: Komi Can't Communicate

text: On her first day attending the elite Itan Private High School, Shoko Komi immediately receives an overwhelming surge in popularity due to the unprecedented stoic beauty and refined elegance her classmates perceive her to possess. However, only Hitohito Tadano, an exceedingly average schoolboy who sits next to her, discovers that behind her "bishōjo" appearance, Komi has a severe communication disorder. Tadano learns that Komi's goal is to make 100 friends, and resolves to help her reach her goal.


title: Komi Can't Communicate

text: "Komi Can't Communicate" is written and illustrated by . Prior to its serialization, a one-shot chapter was published in Shogakukan's "Weekly Shōnen Sunday" on September 16, 2015; the series then began serialization in the same magazine on May 18, 2016. Shogakukan has collected its chapters into individual "tankōbon" volumes. The first volume was published on September 16, 2016. As of October 18, 2022, twenty-seven volumes have been published.


title: Komi Can't Communicate

text: In November 2018, during their panel at Anime NYC, Viz Media announced that they acquired the license for the manga. The first volume was released in North America on June 11, 2019. The manga is licensed in Southeast Asia by Shogakukan Asia, in Taiwan by Chingwin Publishing Group, in South Korea by SomyMedia, in Thailand by Luckpim, in Indonesia by Elex Media Komputindo, in Vietnam by Kim Đồng Publishing House, in France by Pika Édition, in Germany by Tokyopop, in Italy by J-Pop, in Argentina and Spain by Editorial Ivrea and in Brazil and Mexico by Panini Comics. In Turkey, in March 2022, Marmara Cizgi licensed the manga and released on 26 April 2022.


title: Komi Can't Communicate

text: On May 11, 2021, an anime television series adaptation by OLM was announced. The series was directed by Kazuki Kawagoe, with Ayumu Watanabe serving as chief director, scripts by Deko Akao, character designs by Atsuko Nakajima and music by Yukari Hashimoto. The series aired on TV Tokyo from October 7 to December 23, 2021. Netflix streamed the series worldwide on a weekly basis from October 21, 2021, to January 6, 2022. performed the series' opening theme "Cinderella", while performed the series' ending theme "Hikare Inochi".


title: Komi Can't Communicate

text: On December 23, 2021, Netflix announced that a second season was green-lit. It aired from April 7 to June 23, 2022, in Japan, while Netflix streamed it worldwide from April 27 to July 13, 2022. Miku Itō performed the opening theme "Ao 100 Shoku", while performed the ending theme "Koshaberi Biyori".


title: Komi Can't Communicate

text: On December 12, 2022, the official "Komi Can't Communicate" Twitter account announced that the anime production team did retakes of the animation for episodes in both seasons that had already been posted to Netflix.


title: Komi Can't Communicate

text: An eight-episode live-action television drama adaptation was broadcast on NHK General TV from September 6 to November 1, 2021. Aiko performed the series' theme song.


title: Komi Can't Communicate

text: "Komi Can't Communicate" won the 67th Shogakukan Manga Award in the "shōnen" category in 2022. "Polygon" named the manga as one of the best comics of 2019.


title: Komi Can't Communicate

text: As of September 2018, the first ten "tankōbon" volumes had over 2 million copies in circulation. As of February 2021, the first twenty "tankōbon" volumes had over 5.2 million copies in circulation. As of December 2021, the manga had over 6 million copies in circulation. As of June 2022, the manga had over 7.4 million copies in circulation.


title: Komi Can't Communicate

text: The series ranked first in a 2020 poll conducted by AnimeJapan of "Most Wanted Anime Adaptation". The series won the Crunchyroll Anime Award for best comedy at the 6th Crunchyroll Anime Awards in 2022. Shoko Komi was also nominated for the "Best Girl" category while the series was nominated for the "Best Romance" award.


title: Komi Can't Communicate

text: In a review of the first volume from "Anime News Network", Rebecca Silverman called the series "a nice little story with humor and a distinct lack of cruelty that doesn't break any new barriers but is definitely fun to read." Faye Hopper considered that it is hard to tell if the humor of the series lies in Komi's "seemingly outlandish, absurd behavior" or if it is a "legitimate depiction of anxiety that we laugh at because we relate." Hopper also called the character of Najimi a "transphobic punchline", criticizing the jokes about their gender fluidity, calling them "extremely tasteless", and that they "undermines the book's message by making light of an already marginalized community." Nevertheless, Hopper stated that the series "succeeds in spite of a potentially noxious premise," pointing out that the other characters are "just as dysfunctional as the eponymous Komi, creating a solid base of compassion and doing a good job [of] not casting her as a weird social outlier."


title: The Expanse (novel series)

text: The Expanse is a series of science fiction novels (and related novellas and short stories) by James S. A. Corey, the joint pen name of authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. The first novel, "Leviathan Wakes", was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2012. The complete series was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Series in 2017. It later won, following its second nomination for the same award in 2020.


title: The Expanse (novel series)

text: The book series is made up of nine novels, nine shorter works and a story collection book. The series was adapted for television by the Syfy Network, also under the title of "The Expanse". When Syfy canceled the TV series after three seasons, Amazon acquired it, produced three more seasons, and streams all six seasons on Amazon Prime Video.


title: The Expanse (novel series)

text: The book "Memory's Legion" is a collection of all eight short stories and novellas, except for "The Last Flight of the Cassandra" (which remains exclusive to the RPG). The collection includes authors' notes and the final novella "The Sins of Our Fathers" which is an epilogue to the series.


title: The Expanse (novel series)

text: All novels and short works except the RPG exclusive short story have been released as audiobooks, with Jefferson Mays as the narrator for the novels and short works that include "Drive", "The Butcher of Anderson Station", "The Vital Abyss", "Strange Dogs", "Auberon", and "The Sins of Our Fathers". Erik Davies was originally the narrator for the novellas "The Churn" and "Gods of Risk"; but both have been re-released with Jefferson Mays narrating them as of December 28, 2021. While most of Memory's Legion is narrated by Jefferson Mays, the author's note portions are narrated by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck.


title: The Expanse (novel series)

text: "The Expanse" is set in a future in which humanity has colonized much of the Solar System, but does not have interstellar travel. Travel over the vast distances between planets of the solar system has been made possible with the "Epstein drive", a constant acceleration propulsion system, though the G-force exerted during acceleration is debilitating without the use of special drugs. Once underway, the equivalence principle allows the travellers to experience earth-like gravity. In the asteroid belt and beyond, tensions are rising between Earth's United Nations, Mars, and the outer planets. The residents of the outer planets have developed a creole language due to their physical isolation from Earth and Mars. The series initially takes place in the Solar System, using many real locations such as Ceres and Eros in the asteroid belt, several moons of Jupiter, with Ganymede and Europa the most developed, and small science bases as far out as Phoebe around Saturn and Titania around Uranus, as well as well-established domed settlements on Mars and the Moon.


title: The Expanse (novel series)

text: The authors have suggested that "The Expanse" might well take place in the future of Andy Weir's novel "The Martian". In support of this, they created a ship named the "Mark Watney" after the titular Martian. However, Andy Weir has publicly clarified that the reference was solely a fun reference.


title: The Expanse (novel series)

text: As the series progresses, humanity gains access to thousands of new worlds by use of the ring, an artificially sustained Einstein-Rosen bridge or wormhole, created by a long-dead alien race. The ring in our solar system is two AU from the orbit of Uranus. Passing through it leads to a hub of starless space approximately one million kilometers across, with more than 1,300 other rings, each with a star system on the other side. In the center of the hub, which is also referred to as the "slow zone," an alien space station controls the gates and can also set instantaneous speed limits on objects inside the hub as a means of defense.


title: The Expanse (novel series)

text: The story is told through multiple main point-of-view characters. There are two POV characters in the first book and four in books two through five. In the sixth and seventh books, the number of POV characters increases, with several characters having only one or two chapters. The eighth book returned to a more limited number with five. In the final ninth book, there is an increase in POVs with some chapters having multiple POV Characters. Every book also begins and ends with a prologue and epilogue told from a unique character's perspective.


title: The Expanse (novel series)

text: The central characters are the crew of the "Rocinante", a salvaged Martian naval gunship. The main crew consists of:


title: The Expanse (novel series)

text: Ty Franck began developing the world of "The Expanse" initially as the setting for a MMORPG and, after a number of years, for a tabletop roleplaying game. Daniel Abraham, who had authored a number of novels on his own, suggested, given the depth of the setting, that it could serve for the basis for a series of novels, noting: "People who write books don't do this much research."


title: The Expanse (novel series)

text: The authors have stated that the series gets some of its inspirations from Fred Pohl's "Gateway" and the other Heechee books.


title: The Expanse (novel series)

text: It has also been observed that there are similarities in the political and social setting of the series to Alfred Bester's classic science fiction novel "The Stars My Destination".


title: The Expanse (novel series)

text: Ty Franck has also stated Ridley Scott's "Alien" as having "the single largest influence on "The Expanse"."


title: The Expanse (novel series)

text: Franck writes all the Holden, Bobbie, and Anna chapters, while Abraham writes the Miller, Melba, Avasarala, Bull, and Prax chapters. The writers meet weekly to discuss upcoming chapters and swap completed chapters for the other to edit.


title: The Expanse (novel series)

text: The novels are written in third-person limited. Each chapter is told from the point of view of a character central to the story, while the prologue and epilogue are told by a recurring character or a one-off viewpoint. Most of the books employ four point-of-view characters (plus the prologue and epilogue viewpoints). "Leviathan Wakes" features two, "Babylon's Ashes" features sixteen, "Persepolis Rising" features eight, and "Tiamat's Wrath" features five. James Holden is the only character to be used as a viewpoint character in all nine novels.


title: The Expanse (novel series)

text: The series overall has been well received, with the first novel "Leviathan Wakes" being the highest praised. For "Caliban's War", Wired.com's Geek Dad and "Publishers Weekly" both praised the novel. GeekDad cited the book's "believable human personalities and technology that is easily recognizable" as a highlight. "Publishers Weekly" gave "Abaddon's Gate" a starred review saying "series fans will find this installment the best yet." The same publication gave "Cibola Burn" a starred review and called it "splendid" and it "blends adventure with uncommon decency." "The Expanse" won the 2020 "Hugo Award" for Best Series.


title: The Expanse (novel series)

text: The American television channel Syfy announced a straight-to-series commitment to a television adaptation of "The Expanse" in April 2014, ordering the production of ten hour-long episodes for a first season which premiered in December 2015. six seasons consisting of a total of 62 episodes have been produced, with the final episode of each season sharing its name with the respective book. The series stars Thomas Jane as Josephus Miller and Steven Strait as Jim Holden. As for the other crew of the "Rocinante", Dominique Tipper was cast as Naomi Nagata, Cas Anvar as Alex Kamal, and Wes Chatham as Amos Burton. The other major cast members are Shohreh Aghdashloo as Chrisjen Avasarala, Chad Coleman as Fred Johnson, and Florence Faivre as Julie Mao. In season 2, Frankie Adams joined the cast as Bobbie Draper.


title: The Expanse (novel series)

text: Four digital comics based on the books and tying into the television series were published by ComiXology. The comics were written by James S. A. Corey, Hallie Lambert and Georgia Lee and illustrated by Huang Danlan, Triona Farrell, Juan Useche and Rahzzah. "The Expanse: Origins" reveals the untold backstories of the crew members of the "Rocinante" before the start of the series. All four comics were also released in print as a compilation titled "The Expanse Vol. 1: Origins" by BOOM! Studios, which also featured a new story about Detective Miller.


title: The Expanse (novel series)

text: A second series was also published by Boom and written by James S.A. Corey and Corinna Bechko, and illustrated by Alejandro Aragon, Francesco Segala and Ed Dukeshire. To date 4 issues have been published.


title: The Expanse (novel series)

text: An Expanse board game, designed by Geoff Engelstein and published by WizKids, was released in October 2017. The authors of the book series collaborated with Engelstein on its development.


title: The Expanse (novel series)

text: The game focuses on politics, conquest and intrigue similar to the board game Twilight Struggle, although with a shorter playing time. Players represent Earth's UN forces, the military of Mars, the O.P.A., and Protogen Inc, each struggling to become the dominant power in the Solar System. They use cards and action points to move and place Fleets and expand their Influence in contested areas. The cards represent characters and events from the universe of The Expanse, each bearing key images from the show. Each character has special abilities that must be correctly exploited in order to gain the upper hand in the struggle for control.


title: The Expanse (novel series)

text: The Expanse: Doors & Corners Expansion has been announced for release by WizKids in February 2019. It contains five new modules that can be used independently or in any combination together with the base game.


title: The Expanse (novel series)

text: "The Expanse Roleplaying Game" uses the AGE (Adventure Game Engine) system designed by Chris Pramas to bring James S. A. Corey's universe to life. The core rulebook and Gamemaster's Kit launched on Kickstarter in July 2018 and gathered over $400,000 from their campaign. The book was written by game designer Steve Kenson and is published by Pramas' company Green Ronin Publishing. The game allows players to create their own character of the various Solar System factions and adventure through the Solar System and beyond at the various settings or even on their own ships. It includes a bonus short story by James S. A. Corey titled "The Last Flight of the "Cassandra"".


title: Russian Sleep Experiment

text: The Russian Sleep Experiment is a creepypasta which tells the tale of 5 test subjects being exposed to an experimental sleep-inhibiting stimulant in a Soviet-era scientific experiment, which has become the basis of an urban legend. Many news organizations, including Snopes, News.com.au, and LiveAbout, trace the story's origins to a website, now known as the Creepypasta Wiki, being posted on August 10, 2010, by a user named OrangeSoda, whose real name is unknown.


title: Russian Sleep Experiment

text: The story recounts an experiment set in 1947 at a covert Soviet test facility. In a military-sanctioned scientific experiment, five prisoners that were deemed Enemies of the State were kept in a sealed gas chamber, with an experimental gas-based stimulant compound continually administered to keep the subjects awake for 30 consecutive days. The prisoners were falsely promised that they would be set free from the prison if they completed the experiment in the specified 30 days. The subjects behaved as usual during the initial 5 days, talking to each other and whispering to the researchers through the one-way glass, though it was noted that their discussions gradually became darker in the subject matter. After 9 days, one subject began screaming uncontrollably for hours while the others did not react to his outburst. The man screamed for so long that he tore his vocal cords, and was rendered mute as a result. When the second one started screaming, the others prevented the researchers from looking inside by pasting torn book pages and their own feces on the porthole windows. A few days passed without the researchers being able to look inside, during which the chamber was completely silent. The researchers used the intercom to test if the subjects were still alive, and got a short response of a subject expressing compliance.


title: Russian Sleep Experiment

text: On the 15th day, the researchers decided to turn off the stimulating gas and reopen the chamber. The subjects did not want the gas to turn off, for fear they would fall asleep. Upon looking inside, they discovered that the four surviving subjects had performed lethal and severe mutilation and disembowelment on themselves during the past days, including tearing off sections of skin and muscles, removing multiple abdominal internal organs, practicing self-cannibalism on themselves, as well as cannibalism of the second subject, and allowing of blood and water to accumulate on the floor by jamming paper and pieces of flesh they tore from the second subject into several drains, who was found dead on the floor as soon as the chamber was opened. The subjects violently refused to leave the chamber and begged the scientists to continue administering the stimulant, murdering one soldier and severely injuring another that attempted to remove them. After eventually being removed from the chamber, all subjects were shown to exhibit extreme strength, unprecedented resistance to anaesthetics and sedatives, the ability to remain alive despite lethal injuries, and a desperate desire to stay awake and be given the stimulant. It was also found that if any one of the subjects fell asleep, they would die.


title: Russian Sleep Experiment

text: After being somewhat treated for their severe injuries, the surviving three subjects were prepared to return to the gas chamber with the stimulant by the orders of the military officials (though against the will of the researchers), with EEG monitors showing short recurring moments of brain death. Before the chamber was sealed, one of the subjects fell asleep and died, and the only subject that could speak screamed to be immediately sealed in the chamber. The military commander ordered for three other researchers to be closed inside the chamber alongside the two remaining subjects. One researcher immediately drew his gun and killed the commander and the mute subject by shooting both of them in the head, causing the other person to flee the room. With only one surviving subject, the terrified researcher explained that he would not allow himself to be locked in a room with monsters that could no longer be called people. He desperately asked what the subject was, to which the subject smiled and identified himself and the other fallen subjects as an inherent evil inside the human mind that is kept in check by the act of sleeping. After a brief pause, the researcher shot the prisoner in the heart, and with his dying breath on the floor, the subject muttered his final words; "So...nearly...free..."


title: Russian Sleep Experiment

text: The Russian Sleep Experiment became immensely popular upon its original publication. It is considered by some to be the greatest and most shared creepypasta story ever made and Dread Central's Josh Millican has called it "one of the most shocking and impactful urban legends of the Internet Age". Much of the online and offline debate surrounds the belief held by many that the story is real rather than fiction, and many articles therefore seek to debunk this claim.


title: Russian Sleep Experiment

text: The creepypasta is often shared alongside an image of a grotesque, demonic figure, which is implied to be one of the test subjects. The image is actually of a life-size animatronic Halloween prop called "Spazm".


title: Russian Sleep Experiment

text: In the chapter "Horror Memes and Digital Culture" in "The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Gothic", Tosha R. Taylor wrote that the creepypasta "reflects residual political anxieties as it purports to reveal a top-secret effort by Russian scientists in World War II." Aleksandra Serwotka and Anna Stwora examined "Russian Sleep Experiment" and other creepypasta, stating that most creepypasta that focused on experiments feature scientists who "are frequently somehow related either to Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia".


title: Russian Sleep Experiment

text: Sonali Srivastav and Shikha Rai drew comparisons between "Russian Sleep Experiment" and the 2018 miniseries "Ghoul", noting that the series took inspiration from the creepypasta.


title: Russian Sleep Experiment

text: The Russian Sleep Experiment's popularity has led to various adaptations over the years. A novel inspired by the original short story was published in 2015 but is now out-of-print.


title: Russian Sleep Experiment

text: In early 2018, a psychological thriller based on the short story began production in Ireland, directed by John Farrelly.


title: Russian Sleep Experiment

text: In July 2019, horror author Jeremy Bates published "The Sleep Experiment", a novel closely based on the original short story.


title: Russian Sleep Experiment

text: Several other adaptations have been created, including a film based on the short story entitled "The Soviet Sleep Experiment", with Chris Kattan starring and Barry Andersson directing. Filming for the movie took place in Lakeville, Minnesota during 2018.


title: Russian Sleep Experiment

text: In November 2022, "The Sleep Experiment" by director John Farrelly was released which was based on this incident.


title: Caspian Sea

text: The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central Asia, south of the fertile plains of Southern Russia in Eastern Europe, and north of the mountainous Iranian Plateau of Western Asia. It covers a surface area of (excluding the highly saline lagoon of Garabogazköl to its east) and a volume of . It has a salinity of approximately 1.2% (12 g/L), about a third of the salinity of average seawater. It is bounded by Kazakhstan to the northeast, Russia to the northwest, Azerbaijan to the southwest, Iran to the south, and Turkmenistan to the southeast.


title: Caspian Sea

text: The sea stretches nearly from north to south, with an average width of . Its gross coverage is and the surface is about below sea level. Its main freshwater inflow, Europe's longest river, the Volga, enters at the shallow north end. Two deep basins form its central and southern zones. These lead to horizontal differences in temperature, salinity, and ecology. The seabed in the south reaches below sea level, which is the second-lowest natural non-oceanic depression on Earth after Lake Baikal (). Written accounts from the ancient inhabitants of its coast perceived the Caspian Sea as an ocean, probably because of its salinity and large size.


title: Caspian Sea

text: The Caspian Sea is home to a wide range of species and is known for its caviar and oil industries. Pollution from the oil industry and dams on rivers draining into it have harmed its ecology.


title: Caspian Sea

text: The lake's name stems from Caspi, an ancient people who lived to the southwest of the sea in Transcaucasia. Strabo (died circa AD 24) wrote that "to the country of the Albanians (Caucasus Albania not to be confused with the country of Albania) belongs also the territory called Caspiane, which was named after the Caspian tribe, as was also the sea; but the tribe has now disappeared". Moreover, the Caspian Gates, part of Iran's Tehran province, may evince such a people migrated to the south. The Iranian city of Qazvin shares the root of its name with this common name for the sea. The traditional and medieval Arabic name for the sea was Bahr(sea) Xazar but in recent centuries common and standard name in Arabic language is Baḥr Qazvin Arabized from Caspian. In modern , "Kaspiyskoye more".


title: Caspian Sea

text: Some Turkic ethnic groups refer to it with the Caspi(an) descriptor; in Kazakh it is called , "Kaspiy teñizi", , . Others refer to it as the "Khazar sea": ; , . In all these the first word refers to the historical Khazars who had a large empire based to the north of the Caspian Sea between the 7th and 10th centuries.


title: Caspian Sea

text: In Iran, the lake is referred to as the "Mazandaran Sea" (), after the historic Mazandaran Province at its southern shores.


title: Caspian Sea

text: Renaissance European maps labelled it as the "Abbacuch Sea" (Oronce Fine's 1531 world map), "Mar de Bachu" (Ortellius' 1570 map), or "Mar de Sala" (Mercator's 1569 map).


title: Caspian Sea

text: It was also sometimes called the Kumyk Sea and Tarki Sea (derived from the name of the Kumyks and their historical capital Tarki).


title: Caspian Sea

text: The Caspian Sea, like the Black Sea, is a remnant of the ancient Paratethys Sea. Its seafloor is, therefore, a standard oceanic basalt and not a continental granite body. It became landlocked in the Late Miocene, about 5.5 million years ago, due to tectonic uplift and a fall in sea level. The Caspian Sea was a comparatively small endorheic lake during the Pliocene, but its surface area increased fivefold around the time of the Pliocene-Pleistocene transition. During warm and dry climatic periods, the landlocked sea almost dried up, depositing evaporitic sediments like halite that were covered by wind-blown deposits and were sealed off as an evaporite sink when cool, wet climates refilled the basin. (Comparable evaporite beds underlie the Mediterranean.) Due to the current inflow of fresh water in the north, the Caspian Sea water is almost fresh in its northern portions, getting more brackish toward the south. It is most saline on the Iranian shore, where the catchment basin contributes little flow. Currently, the mean salinity of the Caspian is one third that of Earth's oceans. The Garabogazköl embayment, which dried up when water flow from the main body of the Caspian was blocked in the 1980s but has since been restored, routinely exceeds oceanic salinity by a factor of 10.


title: Caspian Sea

text: The Caspian Sea is the largest inland body of water in the world by area and accounts for 40 to 44% of the total lacustrine waters of the world, and covers an area larger than Germany. The coastlines of the Caspian are shared by Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan. The Caspian is divided into three distinct physical regions: the Northern, Middle, and Southern Caspian. The Northern–Middle boundary is the Mangyshlak Threshold, which runs through Chechen Island and Cape Tiub-Karagan. The Middle–Southern boundary is the Apsheron Threshold, a sill of tectonic origin between the Eurasian continent and an oceanic remnant, that runs through Zhiloi Island and Cape Kuuli. The Garabogazköl Bay is the saline eastern inlet of the Caspian, which is part of Turkmenistan and at times has been a lake in its own right due to the isthmus that cuts it off from the Caspian.


title: Caspian Sea

text: Differences between the three regions are dramatic. The Northern Caspian only includes the Caspian shelf, and is very shallow; it accounts for less than 1% of the total water volume with an average depth of only . The sea noticeably drops off towards the Middle Caspian, where the average depth is . The Southern Caspian is the deepest, with oceanic depths of over , greatly exceeding the depth of other regional seas, such as the Persian Gulf. The Middle and Southern Caspian account for 33% and 66% of the total water volume, respectively. The northern portion of the Caspian Sea typically freezes in the winter, and in the coldest winters ice forms in the south as well.


title: Caspian Sea

text: Over 130 rivers provide inflow to the Caspian, the Volga River being the largest. A second affluent, the Ural River, flows in from the north, and the Kura River from the west. In the past, the Amu Darya (Oxus) of Central Asia in the east often changed course to empty into the Caspian through a now-desiccated riverbed called the Uzboy River, as did the Syr Darya farther north. The Caspian has several small islands, primarily located in the north with a collective land area of roughly . Adjacent to the North Caspian is the Caspian Depression, a low-lying region below sea level. The Central Asian steppes stretch across the northeast coast, while the Caucasus mountains hug the western shore. The biomes to both the north and east are characterized by cold, continental deserts. Conversely, the climate to the southwest and south are generally warm with uneven elevation due to a mix of highlands and mountain ranges; the drastic changes in climate alongside the Caspian have led to a great deal of biodiversity in the region.


title: Caspian Sea

text: The Caspian Sea has numerous islands near the coasts, but none in the deeper parts of the sea. Ogurja Ada is the largest island. The island is long, with gazelles roaming freely on it. In the North Caspian, the majority of the islands are small and uninhabited, like the Tyuleniy Archipelago, an Important Bird Area (IBA).


title: Caspian Sea

text: The climate of the Caspian Sea is variable, with the cold desert climate (BWk), cold semi-arid climate (BSk), and humid continental climate (Dsa, Dfa) being present in the northern portions of the Caspian Sea, while the Mediterranean climate (Csa) and humid subtropical climate (Cfa) are present in the southern portions of the Caspian Sea.


title: Caspian Sea

text: The Caspian has characteristics common to both seas and lakes. It is often listed as the world's largest lake, although it is not freshwater: the 1.2% salinity classes it with brackish water bodies.


title: Caspian Sea

text: It contains about 3.5 times as much water, by volume, as all five of North America's Great Lakes combined. The Volga River (about 80% of the inflow) and the Ural River discharge into the Caspian Sea, but it has no natural outflow other than by evaporation. Thus the Caspian ecosystem is a closed basin, with its own sea level history that is independent of the eustatic level of the world's oceans.


title: Caspian Sea

text: The sea level of the Caspian has fallen and risen, often rapidly, many times over the centuries. Some Russian historians claim that a medieval rising of the Caspian, perhaps caused by the Amu Darya changing its inflow to the Caspian from the 13th century to the 16th century, caused the coastal towns of Khazaria, such as Atil, to flood. In 2004, the water level was below sea level.


title: Caspian Sea

text: Over the centuries, Caspian Sea levels have changed in synchrony with the estimated discharge of the Volga, which in turn depends on rainfall levels in its vast catchment basin. Precipitation is related to variations in the amount of North Atlantic depressions that reach the interior, and they in turn are affected by cycles of the North Atlantic oscillation. Thus levels in the Caspian Sea relate to atmospheric conditions in the North Atlantic, thousands of kilometres to the northwest.


title: Caspian Sea

text: The last short-term sea-level cycle started with a sea-level fall of from 1929 to 1977, followed by a rise of from 1977 until 1995. Since then smaller oscillations have taken place.


title: Caspian Sea

text: A study by the Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences estimated that the level of the sea was dropping by more than six centimetres per year due to increased evaporation due to rising temperatures caused by climate change.


title: Caspian Sea

text: The Volga River, the longest river in Europe, drains 20% of the European land area and is the source of 80% of the Caspian's inflow. Heavy development in its lower reaches has caused numerous unregulated releases of chemical and biological pollutants. The UN Environment Programme warns that the Caspian "suffers from an enormous burden of pollution from oil extraction and refining, offshore oil fields, radioactive wastes from nuclear power plants and huge volumes of untreated sewage and industrial waste introduced mainly by the Volga River".


title: Caspian Sea

text: The magnitude of fossil fuel extraction and transport activity in the Caspian also poses a risk to the environment. The island of Vulf off Baku, for example, has suffered ecological damage as a result of the petrochemical industry; this has significantly decreased the number of species of marine birds in the area. Existing and planned oil and gas pipelines under the sea further increase the potential threat to the environment.


title: Caspian Sea

text: The high concentration of mud volcanoes under the Caspian Sea were thought to be the cause of a fire that broke out 75 kilometers from Baku on July 5, 2021. The State oil company of Azerbaijan SOCAR said preliminary information indicated it was a mud volcano which spewed both mud and flammable gas.


title: Caspian Sea

text: It is calculated that during the 21st century, the water level of the Caspian Sea will decrease by 9–18 m (30–60 ft) due to the acceleration of evaporation due to global warming and the process of desertification.


title: Caspian Sea

text: On October 23, 2021, Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed the Protocol for the Protection of the Caspian Sea against Pollution from Land-based Sources in order to ensure better protection for the biodiversity of the Caspian Sea.


title: Caspian Sea

text: The rising level of the Caspian Sea between 1994 and 1996 reduced the number of habitats for rare species of aquatic vegetation. This has been attributed to a general lack of seeding material in newly formed coastal lagoons and water bodies.


title: Caspian Sea

text: Many rare and endemic plant species of Russia are associated with the tidal areas of the Volga delta and riparian forests of the Samur River delta. The shoreline is also a unique refuge for plants adapted to the loose sands of the Central Asian Deserts. The principal limiting factors to successful establishment of plant species are hydrological imbalances within the surrounding deltas, water pollution, and various land reclamation activities. The water level change within the Caspian Sea is an indirect reason for which plants may not get established.


title: Caspian Sea

text: These affect aquatic plants of the Volga Delta, such as "Aldrovanda vesiculosa" and the native "Nelumbo caspica". About 11 plant species are found in the Samur River delta, including the unique liana forests that date back to the Tertiary period.


title: Caspian Sea

text: Since 2019 UNESCO has admitted the lush Hyrcanian forests of Mazandaran, Iran as World Heritage Site under category (ix).


title: Caspian Sea

text: The Caspian turtle ("Mauremys caspica"), although found in neighboring areas, is a wholly freshwater species. The zebra mussel is native to the Caspian and Black Sea basins, but has become an invasive species elsewhere, when introduced. The area has given its name to several species, including the Caspian gull and the Caspian tern. The Caspian seal ("Pusa caspica") is the only aquatic mammal endemic to the Caspian Sea, being one of very few seal species that live in inland waters, but it is different from those inhabiting freshwaters due to the hydrological environment of the sea. A century ago the Caspian was home to more than one million seals. Today, fewer than 10% remain.


title: Caspian Sea

text: Archeological studies of Gobustan Rock Art have identified what may be dolphins and porpoises, likely present in the Caspian Sea at least until the Quaternary or much more recent periods such as the last glacial period or antiquity. Although the rock art on Kichikdash Mountain is assumed to be of a dolphin it might instead represent the famous beluga sturgeon due to its size (430 cm in length), but fossil records suggest certain ancestors of modern dolphins and whales, such as "Macrokentriodon morani" (bottlenose dolphins) and "Balaenoptera sibbaldina" (blue whales) were presumably larger than their present descendants. From the same artworks, auks, like Brunnich's Guillemot could also have been in the sea as well, and these petroglyphs suggest marine inflow between the current Caspian Sea and the Arctic Ocean or North Sea, or the Black Sea. This is supported by the existences of current endemic, oceanic species such as lagoon cockles which was genetically identified to originate in Caspian/Black Seas regions.


title: Caspian Sea

text: The sea's basin (including associated waters such as rivers) has 160 native species and subspecies of fish in more than 60 genera. About 62% of the species and subspecies are endemic, as are 4–6 genera (depending on taxonomic treatment). The lake proper has 115 natives, including 73 endemics (63.5%). Among the more than 50 genera in the lake proper, 3–4 are endemic: "Anatirostrum", "Caspiomyzon", "Chasar" (often included in "Ponticola") and "Hyrcanogobius". By far the most numerous families in the lake proper are gobies (35 species and subspecies), cyprinids (32) and clupeids (22). Two particularly rich genera are "Alosa" with 18 endemic species/subspecies and "Benthophilus" with 16 endemic species. Other examples of endemics are four species of "Clupeonella", "Gobio volgensis", two "Rutilus", three "Sabanejewia", "Stenodus leucichthys", two "Salmo", two "Mesogobius" and three "Neogobius". Most non-endemic natives are either shared with the Black Sea basin or widespread Palearctic species such as crucian carp, Prussian carp, common carp, common bream, common bleak, asp, white bream, sunbleak, common dace, common roach, common rudd, European chub, sichel, tench, European weatherfish, wels catfish, northern pike, burbot, European perch and zander. Almost 30 non-indigenous, introduced fish species have been reported from the Caspian Sea, but only a few have become established.


title: Caspian Sea

text: Six sturgeon species, the Russian, bastard, Persian, sterlet, starry and beluga, are native to the Caspian Sea. The last of these is arguably the largest freshwater fish in the world. The sturgeon yield roe (eggs) that are processed into caviar. Overfishing has depleted a number of the historic fisheries. In recent years, overfishing has threatened the sturgeon population to the point that environmentalists advocate banning sturgeon fishing completely until the population recovers. The high price of sturgeon caviar—more than 1,500 Azerbaijani manats (US$880 ) per kilo—allows fishermen to afford bribes to ensure the authorities look the other way, making regulations in many locations ineffective. Caviar harvesting further endangers the fish stocks, since it targets reproductive females.


title: Caspian Sea

text: Reptiles native to the region include the spur-thighed tortoise ("Testudo graeca buxtoni") and Horsfield's tortoise.


title: Caspian Sea

text: The main geologic history locally had two stages. The first is the Miocene, determined by tectonic events that correlate with the closing of the Tethys Sea. The second is the Pleistocene noted for its glaciation cycles and the full run of the present Volga. During the first stage, the Tethys Sea had evolved into the Sarmatian Lake, that was created from the modern Black Sea and south Caspian, when the collision of the Arabian peninsula with Western Asia pushed up the Kopet Dag and Caucasus Mountains, lasting south and west limits to the basin. This orogeneic movement was continuous, while the Caspian was regularly disconnected from the Black Sea. In the late Pontian, a mountain arch rose across the south basin and divided it into the Khachmaz and Lankaran Lakes (or early Balaxani). The period of restriction to the south basin was reversed during the Akchagylian – the lake became more than three times its size today and took again the first of a series of contacts with the Black Sea and with Lake Aral. A recession of Lake Akchagyl completed stage one.


title: Caspian Sea

text: The earliest hominid remains found around the Caspian Sea are from Dmanisi dating back to around 1.8 Ma and yielded a number of skeletal remains of Homo erectus or Homo ergaster. More later evidence for human occupation of the region came from a number of caves in Georgia and Azerbaijan such as Kudaro and Azykh Caves. There is evidence for Lower Palaeolithic human occupation south of the Caspian from western Alburz. These are Ganj Par and Darband Cave sites.


title: Caspian Sea

text: Neanderthal remains also have been discovered at a cave in Georgia. Discoveries in the Hotu cave and the adjacent Kamarband cave, near the town of Behshahr, Mazandaran south of the Caspian in Iran, suggest human habitation of the area as early as 11,000 years ago. Ancient Greeks focused on the civilization on the south shore – they call it the (H)yr(c/k)anian Sea (, with sources noting the latter word was evolving then to today's "Thelessa": late ).


title: Caspian Sea

text: The area is rich in fossil fuels. Oil wells were being dug in the region as early as the 10th century to reach oil "for use in everyday life, both for medicinal purposes and for heating and lighting in homes". By the 16th century, Europeans were aware of the rich oil and gas deposits locally. English traders Thomas Bannister and Jeffrey Duckett described the area around Baku as "a strange thing to behold, for there issueth out of the ground a marvelous quantity of oil, which serveth all the country to burn in their houses. This oil is black and is called nefte. There is also by the town of Baku, another kind of oil which is white and very precious [i.e., petroleum]."


title: Caspian Sea

text: During the rule of Peter I the Great, Fedor I. Soimonov was a pioneering explorer of the sea. He was a hydrographer who charted and greatly expanded knowledge of the sea. He drew a set of four maps and wrote "Pilot of the Caspian Sea", the first lengthy report and modern maps. These were published in 1720 by the Russian Academy of Sciences.


title: Caspian Sea

text: Countries in the Caspian region, particularly Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, have high-value natural-resource-based economies, where the oil and gas compose more than 10 percent of their GDP and 40 percent of their exports. All the Caspian region economies are highly dependent on this type of mineral wealth. The world energy markets were influenced by Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, as they became strategically crucial in this sphere, thus attracting the largest share of FDI (foreign direct investment).


title: Caspian Sea

text: All of the countries are rich in solar energy and harnessing potential, with the highest rainfall much less than the mountains of central Europe in the mountains of the west, which are also rich in hydroelectricity sources.


title: Caspian Sea

text: Iran has high fossil fuel energy potential. It has reserves of 137.5 billion barrels of crude oil, the fourth largest in the world, producing around four million barrels a day. Iran has an estimated 988.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, around 16 percent of world reserves, thus key to current paradigms in global energy security.


title: Caspian Sea

text: Russia's economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russia's extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it the second leading producer of oil and natural gas globally.


title: Caspian Sea

text: Caspian littoral states join efforts to develop infrastructure, tourism and trade in the region. The first Caspian Economic Forum was convened on August 12, 2019, in Turkmenistan and brought together representatives of Kazakhstan, Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran and that state. It hosted several meetings of their ministers of economy and transport.


title: Caspian Sea

text: The Caspian countries develop robust cooperation in the tech and digital field as part of the Caspian Digital Hub. The project helps expand data transmission capabilities in Kazakhstan as well as data transit capabilities between Asia and Europe. The project generated interest from investors from all over the world, including the UK.


title: Caspian Sea

text: The Caspian Sea region presently is a significant, but not major, supplier of crude oil to world markets, based upon estimates by BP Amoco and the U.S. Energy Information Administration, U.S. Department of Energy. The region output about 1.4–1.5 million barrels per day plus natural gas liquids in 2001, 1.9% of total world output. More than a dozen countries output more than this top figure. Caspian region production has been higher, but waned during and after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Kazakhstan accounts for 55% and Azerbaijan for about 20% of the states' oil output.


title: Caspian Sea

text: The world's first offshore wells and machine-drilled wells were made in Bibi-Heybat Bay, near Baku, Azerbaijan. In 1873, exploration and development of oil began in some of the largest fields known to exist in the world at that time on the Absheron Peninsula near the villages of Balakhanli, Sabunchi, Ramana, and Bibi Heybat. Total recoverable reserves were more than 500 million tons. By 1900, Baku had more than 3,000 oil wells, 2,000 of which were producing at industrial levels. By the end of the 19th century, Baku became known as the "black gold capital", and many skilled workers and specialists flocked to the city.


title: Caspian Sea

text: By the beginning of the 20th century, Baku was the center of the international oil industry. In 1920, when the Bolsheviks captured Azerbaijan, all private property, including oil wells and factories, was confiscated. Rapidly the republic's oil industry came under the control of the Soviet Union. By 1941, Azerbaijan was producing a record 23.5 million tons of oil per year – its Baku region output was nearly 72 percent of the Soviet Union's oil.


title: Caspian Sea

text: In 1994, the "Contract of the Century" was signed, heralding extra-regional development of the Baku oil fields. The large Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline conveys Azeri oil to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan and opened in 2006.


title: Caspian Sea

text: The oil field in the Russian section of the body of water was discovered in 2005. It is reportedly the largest found in 25 years. It was announced in October 2016 that Lukoil would start production from it.


title: Caspian Sea

text: Baku has the main moorings of all large vessels, such as oil tankers, in Azerbaijan. It is the largest port of the Caspian Sea. The port (and tankers) have access to the oceans along the Caspian Sea–Volga–Don Canal, and the Don–Sea of Azov. A northern alternate is the Volga–Baltic (a sea which has a connection to the North Sea of the Atlantic, as the White Sea does via the White Sea-Baltic canal. Baku Sea Trade Port and Caspian Shipping Company CJSC, have a big role in the sea transportation of Azerbaijan. The Caspian Sea Shipping Company CJSC has two fleets plus shipyards. Its transport fleet has 51 vessels: 20 tankers, 13 ferries, 15 universal dry cargo vessels, 2 Ro-Ro vessels, as well as 1 technical vessel and 1 floating workshop. Its specialized fleet has 210 vessels: 20 cranes, 25 towing and supplying vehicles, 26 passenger, two pipe-laying, six fire-fighting, seven engineering-geological, two diving and 88 auxiliary vessels.


title: Caspian Sea

text: The Caspian Sea Shipping Company of Azerbaijan, which acts as a liaison in the Transport Corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia (TRACECA), simultaneously with the transportation of cargo and passengers in the Trans-Caspian direction, also performs work to fully ensure the processes of oil and gas production at sea. In the 19th century, the sharp increase in oil production in Baku gave a huge impetus to the development of shipping in the Caspian Sea, and as a result, there was a need to create fundamentally new floating facilities for the transportation of oil and oil products.


title: Caspian Sea

text: Many of the islands along the Azerbaijani coast retain great geopolitical and economic importance for demarcation-line oil fields relying on their national status. Bulla Island, Pirallahı Island, and Nargin, which is still used as a former Soviet base and is the largest island in the Baku bay, hold oil reserves.


title: Caspian Sea

text: The collapse of the Soviet Union allowed the market opening of the region. This led to intense investment and development by international oil companies. In 1998, Dick Cheney commented that "I can't think of a time when we've had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian."


title: Caspian Sea

text: A key problem to further local development is arriving at precise, agreed demarcation lines among the five littoral states. The current disputes along Azerbaijan's maritime borders with Turkmenistan and Iran could impinge future development.


title: Caspian Sea

text: Much controversy currently exists over the proposed Trans-Caspian oil and gas pipelines. These projects would allow Western markets easier access to Kazakh oil and, potentially, Uzbek and Turkmen gas as well. Russia officially opposes the project on environmental grounds. However, analysts note that the pipelines would bypass Russia completely, thereby denying the country valuable transit fees, as well as destroying its current monopoly on westward-bound hydrocarbon exports from the region. Recently, both Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have expressed their support for the Trans-Caspian Pipeline.


title: Caspian Sea

text: U.S. diplomatic cables disclosed by WikiLeaks revealed that BP covered up a gas leak and blowout incident in September 2008 at an operating gas field in the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshi area of the Azerbaijan Caspian Sea.


title: Caspian Sea

text: Five states are located along about of Caspian coastline. The length of the coastline of these countries:


title: Caspian Sea

text: In 2000, negotiations as to the demarcation of the sea had been going on for nearly a decade among all the states bordering it. Whether it was by law a sea, a lake, or an agreed hybrid, the decision would set the demarcation rules and was heavily debated. Access to mineral resources (oil and natural gas), access for fishing, and access to international waters (through Russia's Volga river and the canals connecting it to the Black Sea and Baltic Sea) all rest on the negotiations' outcome. Access to the Volga is key for market efficiency and economic diversity of the landlocked states of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan. This concerns Russia as more traffic seeks to use — and at some points congest — its inland waterways. If the body of water is, by law, a sea, many precedents and international treaties oblige free access to foreign vessels. If it is a lake there are no such obligations.


title: Caspian Sea

text: According to a treaty signed between Iran and the Soviet Union, the sea is technically a lake and was divided into two sectors (Iranian and Soviet), but the resources (then mainly fish) were commonly shared. The line between the two sectors was considered an international border in a common lake, like Lake Albert. The Soviet sector was sub-divided into the four littoral republics' administrative sectors.


title: Caspian Sea

text: Russia, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan have bilateral agreements with each other based on median lines. Because of their use by the three nations, median lines seem to be the most likely method of delineating territory in future agreements. However, Iran insists on a single, multilateral agreement between the five nations (aiming for a one-fifth share). Azerbaijan is at odds with Iran over some of the sea's oil fields. Occasionally, Iranian patrol boats have fired at vessels sent by Azerbaijan for exploration into the disputed region. There are similar tensions between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan (the latter claims that the former has pumped more oil than agreed from a field, recognized by both parties as shared).


title: Caspian Sea

text: The Caspian littoral states' meeting in 2007 signed an accord that only allows littoral-state flag-bearing ships to enter the sea.


title: Caspian Sea

text: Negotiations among the five states ebbed and flowed, from about 1990 to 2018. Progress was notable in the fourth Caspian Summit held in Astrakhan in 2014.


title: Caspian Sea

text: The Caspian Summit is a head of state-level meeting of the five littoral states. The fifth Caspian Summit took place on August 12, 2018, in the Kazakh port city of Aktau . The five leaders signed the ‘Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea’.


title: Caspian Sea

text: Representatives of the Caspian littoral states held a meeting in the capital of Kazakhstan on September 28, 2018, as a follow-up to the Aktau Summit. The conference was hosted by the Kazakh Ministry of Investment and Development. The participants in the meeting agreed to host an investment forum for the Caspian region every two years.


title: Caspian Sea

text: The five littoral states build consensus on legally binding governance of the Caspian Sea through Special Working Groups of a Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea. In advance of a Caspian Summit, the 51st Special Working Group took place in Astana in May 2018 and found consensus on multiple agreements: Agreements on cooperation in the field of transport; trade and economic cooperation; prevention of incidents on the sea; combating terrorism; fighting against organized crime; and border security cooperation.


title: Caspian Sea

text: The convention grants jurisdiction over of territorial waters to each neighboring country, plus an additional of exclusive fishing rights on the surface, while the rest is international waters. The seabed, on the other hand, remains undefined, subject to bilateral agreements between countries. Thus, the Caspian Sea is legally neither fully a sea nor a lake.


title: Caspian Sea

text: While the convention addresses caviar production, oil and gas extraction, and military uses, it does not touch on environmental issues.


title: Caspian Sea

text: Although the Caspian Sea is endorheic, its main tributary, the Volga, is connected by important shipping canals with the Don River (and thus the Black Sea) and with the Baltic Sea, with branch canals to Northern Dvina and to the White Sea.


title: Caspian Sea

text: Another Caspian tributary, the Kuma River, is connected by an irrigation canal with the Don basin as well.


title: Caspian Sea

text: As an endorheic basin, the Caspian Sea basin has no natural connection with the ocean. Since the medieval period, traders reached the Caspian via a number of portages that connected the Volga and its tributaries with the Don River (which flows into the Sea of Azov) and various rivers that flow into the Baltic Sea. Primitive canals connecting the Volga Basin with the Baltic were constructed as early as the early 18th century. Since then, a number of canal projects have been completed.


title: Caspian Sea

text: The two modern canal systems that connect the Volga Basin, and hence the Caspian Sea, with the ocean are the Volga–Baltic Waterway and the Volga–Don Canal.


title: Caspian Sea

text: The proposed Pechora–Kama Canal was a project that was widely discussed between the 1930s and 1980s. Shipping was a secondary consideration. Its main goal was to redirect some of the water of the Pechora River (which flows into the Arctic Ocean) via the Kama River into the Volga. The goals were both irrigation and the stabilization of the water level in the Caspian, which was thought to be falling dangerously fast at the time. During 1971, some peaceful nuclear construction experiments were carried out in the region by the U.S.S.R.


title: Caspian Sea

text: In June 2007, in order to boost his oil-rich country's access to markets, Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev proposed a link between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea. It is hoped that the "Eurasia Canal" (Manych Ship Canal) would transform landlocked Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries into maritime states, enabling them to significantly increase trade volume. Although the canal would traverse Russian territory, it would benefit Kazakhstan through its Caspian Sea ports. The most likely route for the canal, the officials at the Committee on Water Resources at Kazakhstan's Agriculture Ministry say, would follow the Kuma–Manych Depression, where currently a chain of rivers and lakes is already connected by an irrigation canal (the Kuma–Manych Canal). Upgrading the Volga–Don Canal would be another option.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, the FBI is also a member of the U.S. Intelligence Community and reports to both the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence. A leading U.S. counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and criminal investigative organization, the FBI has jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crimes.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: Although many of the FBI's functions are unique, its activities in support of national security are comparable to those of the British MI5 and NCA; the New Zealand GCSB and the Russian FSB. Unlike the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which has no law enforcement authority and is focused on intelligence collection abroad, the FBI is primarily a domestic agency, maintaining 56 field offices in major cities throughout the United States, and more than 400 resident agencies in smaller cities and areas across the nation. At an FBI field office, a senior-level FBI officer concurrently serves as the representative of the Director of National Intelligence.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: Despite its domestic focus, the FBI also maintains a significant international footprint, operating 60 Legal Attache (LEGAT) offices and 15 sub-offices in U.S. embassies and consulates across the globe. These foreign offices exist primarily for the purpose of coordination with foreign security services and do not usually conduct unilateral operations in the host countries. The FBI can and does at times carry out secret activities overseas, just as the CIA has a limited domestic function; these activities generally require coordination across government agencies.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: The FBI was established in 1908 as the Bureau of Investigation, the BOI or BI for short. Its name was changed to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1935. The FBI headquarters is the J. Edgar Hoover Building, located in Washington, D.C.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: The mission of the FBI is:Protect the American people and uphold the Constitution of the United States


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: In the Authorization and Budget Request to Congress for fiscal year 2021, the FBI asked for $9,800,724,000. Of that money, $9,748,829,000 would be used for Salaries and Expenses (S&E) and $51,895,000 for Construction. The S&E program saw an increase of $199,673,000.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: In 1896, the National Bureau of Criminal Identification was founded, which provided agencies across the country with information to identify known criminals. The 1901 assassination of President William McKinley created a perception that the United States was under threat from anarchists. The Departments of Justice and Labor had been keeping records on anarchists for years, but President Theodore Roosevelt wanted more power to monitor them.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: The Justice Department had been tasked with the regulation of interstate commerce since 1887, though it lacked the staff to do so. It had made little effort to relieve its staff shortage until the Oregon land fraud scandal at the turn of the 20th century. President Roosevelt instructed Attorney General Charles Bonaparte to organize an autonomous investigative service that would report only to the Attorney General.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: Bonaparte reached out to other agencies, including the U.S. Secret Service, for personnel, investigators in particular. On May 27, 1908, Congress forbade this use of Treasury employees by the Justice Department, citing fears that the new agency would serve as a secret police department. Again at Roosevelt's urging, Bonaparte moved to organize a formal Bureau of Investigation, which would then have its own staff of special agents.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: The Bureau of Investigation (BOI) was created on July 26, 1908. Attorney General Bonaparte, using Department of Justice expense funds, hired thirty-four people, including some veterans of the Secret Service, to work for a new investigative agency. Its first "chief" (the title is now "director") was Stanley Finch. Bonaparte notified the Congress of these actions in December 1908.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: The bureau's first official task was visiting and making surveys of the houses of prostitution in preparation for enforcing the "White Slave Traffic Act" or Mann Act, passed on June 25, 1910. In 1932, the bureau was renamed the United States Bureau of Investigation.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: The following year, 1933, the BOI was linked to the Bureau of Prohibition and rechristened the Division of Investigation (DOI); it became an independent service within the Department of Justice in 1935. In the same year, its name was officially changed from the Division of Investigation to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: J. Edgar Hoover served as FBI director from 1924 to 1972, a combined 48 years with the BOI, DOI, and FBI. He was chiefly responsible for creating the Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory, or the FBI Laboratory, which officially opened in 1932, as part of his work to professionalize investigations by the government. Hoover was substantially involved in most major cases and projects that the FBI handled during his tenure. But as detailed below, his proved to be a highly controversial tenure as Bureau director, especially in its later years. After Hoover's death, Congress passed legislation that limited the tenure of future FBI directors to ten years.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: Early homicide investigations of the new agency included the Osage Indian murders. During the "War on Crime" of the 1930s, FBI agents apprehended or killed a number of notorious criminals who committed kidnappings, bank robberies, and murders throughout the nation, including John Dillinger, "Baby Face" Nelson, Kate "Ma" Barker, Alvin "Creepy" Karpis, and George "Machine Gun" Kelly.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: Other activities of its early decades focused on the scope and influence of the white supremacist group Ku Klux Klan, a group with which the FBI was evidenced to be working in the Viola Liuzzo lynching case. Earlier, through the work of Edwin Atherton, the BOI claimed to have successfully apprehended an entire army of Mexican neo-revolutionaries under the leadership of General Enrique Estrada in the mid-1920s, east of San Diego, California.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: Hoover began using wiretapping in the 1920s during Prohibition to arrest bootleggers. In the 1927 case "Olmstead v. United States", in which a bootlegger was caught through telephone tapping, the United States Supreme Court ruled that FBI wiretaps did not violate the Fourth Amendment as unlawful search and seizure, as long as the FBI did not break into a person's home to complete the tapping. After Prohibition's repeal, Congress passed the Communications Act of 1934, which outlawed non-consensual phone tapping, but did allow bugging. In the 1939 case "Nardone v. United States", the court ruled that due to the 1934 law, evidence the FBI obtained by phone tapping was inadmissible in court. After "Katz v. United States" (1967) overturned "Olmstead", Congress passed the Omnibus Crime Control Act, allowing public authorities to tap telephones during investigations, as long as they obtained warrants beforehand.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: Beginning in the 1940s and continuing into the 1970s, the bureau investigated cases of espionage against the United States and its allies. Eight Nazi agents who had planned sabotage operations against American targets were arrested, and six were executed ("Ex parte Quirin") under their sentences. Also during this time, a joint US/UK code-breaking effort called "The Venona Project"—with which the FBI was heavily involved—broke Soviet diplomatic and intelligence communications codes, allowing the US and British governments to read Soviet communications. This effort confirmed the existence of Americans working in the United States for Soviet intelligence. Hoover was administering this project, but he failed to notify the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of it until 1952. Another notable case was the arrest of Soviet spy Rudolf Abel in 1957. The discovery of Soviet spies operating in the US motivated Hoover to pursue his longstanding concern with the threat he perceived from the American Left.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: In 1939, the Bureau began compiling a custodial detention list with the names of those who would be taken into custody in the event of war with Axis nations. The majority of the names on the list belonged to Issei community leaders, as the FBI investigation built on an existing Naval Intelligence index that had focused on Japanese Americans in Hawaii and the West Coast, but many German and Italian nationals also found their way onto the FBI Index list. Robert Shivers, head of the Honolulu office, obtained permission from Hoover to start detaining those on the list on December 7, 1941, while bombs were still falling over Pearl Harbor. Mass arrests and searches of homes (in most cases conducted without warrants) began a few hours after the attack, and over the next several weeks more than 5,500 Issei men were taken into FBI custody. On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, authorizing the removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast. FBI Director Hoover opposed the subsequent mass removal and confinement of Japanese Americans authorized under Executive Order 9066, but Roosevelt prevailed. The vast majority went along with the subsequent exclusion orders, but in a handful of cases where Japanese Americans refused to obey the new military regulations, FBI agents handled their arrests. The Bureau continued surveillance on Japanese Americans throughout the war, conducting background checks on applicants for resettlement outside camp, and entering the camps (usually without the permission of War Relocation Authority officials) and grooming informants to monitor dissidents and "troublemakers". After the war, the FBI was assigned to protect returning Japanese Americans from attacks by hostile white communities.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: According to Douglas M. Charles, the FBI's "sex deviates" program began on April 10, 1950, when J. Edgar Hoover forwarded to the White House, to the U.S. Civil Service Commission, and to branches of the armed services a list of 393 alleged federal employees who had allegedly been arrested in Washington, D.C., since 1947, on charges of "sexual irregularities". On June 20, 1951, Hoover expanded the program by issuing a memo establishing a "uniform policy for the handling of the increasing number of reports and allegations concerning present and past employees of the United States Government who assertedly [sic] are sex deviates." The program was expanded to include non-government jobs. According to Athan Theoharis, "In 1951 he [Hoover] had unilaterally instituted a Sex Deviates program to purge alleged homosexuals from any position in the federal government, from the lowliest clerk to the more powerful position of White house aide." On May 27, 1953, Executive Order 10450 went into effect. The program was expanded further by this executive order by making all federal employment of homosexuals illegal. On July 8, 1953, the FBI forwarded to the U.S. Civil Service Commission information from the sex deviates program. In 1977–1978, 300,000 pages, collected between 1930 and the mid-1970s, in the sex deviates program were destroyed by FBI officials.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: During the 1950s and 1960s, FBI officials became increasingly concerned about the influence of civil rights leaders, whom they believed either had communist ties or were unduly influenced by communists or "fellow travelers". In 1956, for example, Hoover sent an open letter denouncing Dr. T. R. M. Howard, a civil rights leader, surgeon, and wealthy entrepreneur in Mississippi who had criticized FBI inaction in solving recent murders of George W. Lee, Emmett Till, and other blacks in the South. The FBI carried out controversial domestic surveillance in an operation it called the COINTELPRO, from "COunter-INTELligence PROgram". It was to investigate and disrupt the activities of dissident political organizations within the United States, including both militant and non-violent organizations. Among its targets was the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a leading civil rights organization whose clergy leadership included the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who is addressed in more detail below.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: The FBI frequently investigated King. In the mid-1960s, King began to criticize the Bureau for giving insufficient attention to the use of terrorism by white supremacists. Hoover responded by publicly calling King the most "notorious liar" in the United States. In his 1991 memoir, "Washington Post" journalist Carl Rowan asserted that the FBI had sent at least one anonymous letter to King encouraging him to commit suicide. Historian Taylor Branch documents an anonymous November 1964 "suicide package" sent by the Bureau that combined a letter to the civil rights leader telling him "You are done. There is only one way out for you." with audio recordings of King's sexual indiscretions.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: In March 1971, the residential office of an FBI agent in Media, Pennsylvania was burgled by a group calling itself the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI. Numerous files were taken and distributed to a range of newspapers, including "The Harvard Crimson". The files detailed the FBI's extensive COINTELPRO program, which included investigations into lives of ordinary citizens—including a black student group at a Pennsylvania military college and the daughter of Congressman Henry S. Reuss of Wisconsin. The country was "jolted" by the revelations, which included assassinations of political activists, and the actions were denounced by members of the Congress, including House Majority Leader Hale Boggs. The phones of some members of the Congress, including Boggs, had allegedly been tapped.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: When President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed, the jurisdiction fell to the local police departments until President Lyndon B. Johnson directed the FBI to take over the investigation. To ensure clarity about the responsibility for investigation of homicides of federal officials, the Congress passed a law that included investigations of such deaths of federal officials, especially by homicide, within FBI jurisdiction. This new law was passed in 1965.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: In response to organized crime, on August 25, 1953, the FBI created the Top Hoodlum Program. The national office directed field offices to gather information on mobsters in their territories and to report it regularly to Washington for a centralized collection of intelligence on racketeers. After the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO Act, took effect, the FBI began investigating the former Prohibition-organized groups, which had become fronts for crime in major cities and small towns. All of the FBI work was done undercover and from within these organizations, using the provisions provided in the RICO Act. Gradually the agency dismantled many of the groups. Although Hoover initially denied the existence of a National Crime Syndicate in the United States, the Bureau later conducted operations against known organized crime syndicates and families, including those headed by Sam Giancana and John Gotti. The RICO Act is still used today for all organized crime and any individuals who may fall under the Act's provisions.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: In 2003, a congressional committee called the FBI's organized crime informant program "one of the greatest failures in the history of federal law enforcement." The FBI allowed four innocent men to be convicted of the March 1965 gangland murder of Edward "Teddy" Deegan in order to protect Vincent Flemmi, an FBI informant. Three of the men were sentenced to death (which was later reduced to life in prison), and the fourth defendant was sentenced to life in prison. Two of the four men died in prison after serving almost 30 years, and two others were released after serving 32 and 36 years. In July 2007, U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner in Boston found that the Bureau had helped convict the four men using false witness accounts given by mobster Joseph Barboza. The U.S. Government was ordered to pay $100 million in damages to the four defendants.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: In 1982, the FBI formed an elite unit to help with problems that might arise at the 1984 Summer Olympics to be held in Los Angeles, particularly terrorism and major-crime. This was a result of the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, when terrorists murdered the Israeli athletes. Named the Hostage Rescue Team, or HRT, it acts as a dedicated FBI SWAT team dealing primarily with counter-terrorism scenarios. Unlike the special agents serving on local FBI SWAT teams, HRT does not conduct investigations. Instead, HRT focuses solely on additional tactical proficiency and capabilities. Also formed in 1984 was the "Computer Analysis and Response Team", or CART.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: From the end of the 1980s to the early 1990s, the FBI reassigned more than 300 agents from foreign counter-intelligence duties to violent crime, and made violent crime the sixth national priority. With cuts to other well-established departments, and because terrorism was no longer considered a threat after the end of the Cold War, the FBI assisted local and state police forces in tracking fugitives who had crossed state lines, which is a federal offense. The FBI Laboratory helped develop DNA testing, continuing its pioneering role in identification that began with its fingerprinting system in 1924.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: On May 1, 1992, FBI SWAT and HRT personnel in Los Angeles County, California aided local officials in securing peace within the area during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. HRT operators, for instance, spent 10 days conducting vehicle-mounted patrols throughout Los Angeles, before returning to Virginia.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: Between 1993 and 1996, the FBI increased its counter-terrorism role following the first 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York City, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and the arrest of the Unabomber in 1996. Technological innovation and the skills of FBI Laboratory analysts helped ensure that the three cases were successfully prosecuted. However, Justice Department investigations into the FBI's roles in the Ruby Ridge and Waco incidents were found to have been obstructed by agents within the Bureau. During the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, the FBI was criticized for its investigation of the Centennial Olympic Park bombing. It has settled a dispute with Richard Jewell, who was a private security guard at the venue, along with some media organizations, in regard to the leaking of his name during the investigation; this had briefly led to his being wrongly suspected of the bombing.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: After Congress passed the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA, 1994), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA, 1996), and the Economic Espionage Act (EEA, 1996), the FBI followed suit and underwent a technological upgrade in 1998, just as it did with its CART team in 1991. Computer Investigations and Infrastructure Threat Assessment Center (CITAC) and the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) were created to deal with the increase in Internet-related problems, such as computer viruses, worms, and other malicious programs that threatened U.S. operations. With these developments, the FBI increased its electronic surveillance in public safety and national security investigations, adapting to the telecommunications advancements that changed the nature of such problems.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: During the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center, FBI agent Leonard W. Hatton Jr. was killed during the rescue effort while helping the rescue personnel evacuate the occupants of the South Tower, and he stayed when it collapsed. Within months after the attacks, FBI Director Robert Mueller, who had been sworn in a week before the attacks, called for a re-engineering of FBI structure and operations. He made countering every federal crime a top priority, including the prevention of terrorism, countering foreign intelligence operations, addressing cybersecurity threats, other high-tech crimes, protecting civil rights, combating public corruption, organized crime, white-collar crime, and major acts of violent crime.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: In February 2001, Robert Hanssen was caught selling information to the Russian government. It was later learned that Hanssen, who had reached a high position within the FBI, had been selling intelligence since as early as 1979. He pleaded guilty to espionage and received a life sentence in 2002, but the incident led many to question the security practices employed by the FBI. There was also a claim that Hanssen might have contributed information that led to the September 11, 2001, attacks.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: The 9/11 Commission's final report on July 22, 2004, stated that the FBI and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) were both partially to blame for not pursuing intelligence reports that could have prevented the September 11 attacks. In its most damning assessment, the report concluded that the country had "not been well served" by either agency and listed numerous recommendations for changes within the FBI. While the FBI did accede to most of the recommendations, including oversight by the new Director of National Intelligence, some former members of the 9/11 Commission publicly criticized the FBI in October 2005, claiming it was resisting any meaningful changes.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: On July 8, 2007, "The Washington Post" published excerpts from UCLA Professor Amy Zegart's book "Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins of 9/11". The "Post" reported, from Zegart's book, that government documents showed that both the CIA and the FBI had missed 23 potential chances to disrupt the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The primary reasons for the failures included: agency cultures resistant to change and new ideas; inappropriate incentives for promotion; and a lack of cooperation between the FBI, CIA, and the rest of the United States Intelligence Community. The book blamed the FBI's decentralized structure, which prevented effective communication and cooperation among different FBI offices. The book suggested that the FBI had not evolved into an effective counter-terrorism or counter-intelligence agency, due in large part to deeply ingrained agency cultural resistance to change. For example, FBI personnel practices continued to treat all staff other than special agents as support staff, classifying intelligence analysts alongside the FBI's auto mechanics and janitors.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: For over 40 years, the FBI crime lab in Quantico had believed that lead alloys used in bullets had unique chemical signatures. It was analyzing the bullets with the goal of matching them chemically, not only to a single batch of ammunition coming out of a factory, but also to a single box of bullets. The National Academy of Sciences conducted an 18-month independent review of comparative bullet-lead analysis. In 2003, its National Research Council published a report whose conclusions called into question 30 years of FBI testimony. It found the analytic model used by the FBI for interpreting results was deeply flawed, and the conclusion, that bullet fragments could be matched to a box of ammunition, was so overstated that it was misleading under the rules of evidence. One year later, the FBI decided to stop conducting bullet lead analyses.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: After a "60 Minutes"/"The Washington Post" investigation in November 2007, two years later, the Bureau agreed to identify, review, and release all pertinent cases, and notify prosecutors about cases in which faulty testimony was given.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: In 2012, the FBI formed the National Domestic Communications Assistance Center to develop technology for assisting law enforcement with technical knowledge regarding communication services, technologies, and electronic surveillance.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: The FBI is organized into functional branches and the Office of the Director, which contains most administrative offices. An executive assistant director manages each branch. Each branch is then divided into offices and divisions, each headed by an assistant director. The various divisions are further divided into sub-branches, led by deputy assistant directors. Within these sub-branches, there are various sections headed by section chiefs. Section chiefs are ranked analogous to special agents in charge. Four of the branches report to the deputy director while two report to the associate director.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: Each branch focuses on different tasks, and some focus on more than one. Here are some of the tasks that different branches are in charge of:


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: The Office of the Director serves as the central administrative organ of the FBI. The office provides staff support functions (such as finance and facilities management) to the five function branches and the various field divisions. The office is managed by the FBI associate director, who also oversees the operations of both the Information and Technology and Human Resources Branches.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: The FBI's mandate is established in Title 28 of the United States Code (U.S. Code), Section 533, which authorizes the Attorney General to "appoint officials to detect and prosecute crimes against the United States." Other federal statutes give the FBI the authority and responsibility to investigate specific crimes.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: The FBI's chief tool against organized crime is the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. The FBI is also charged with the responsibility of enforcing compliance of the United States Civil Rights Act of 1964 and investigating violations of the act in addition to prosecuting such violations with the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). The FBI also shares concurrent jurisdiction with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in the enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act of 1970.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: The USA PATRIOT Act increased the powers allotted to the FBI, especially in wiretapping and monitoring of Internet activity. One of the most controversial provisions of the act is the so-called "sneak and peek" provision, granting the FBI powers to search a house while the residents are away, and not requiring them to notify the residents for several weeks afterward. Under the PATRIOT Act's provisions, the FBI also resumed inquiring into the library records of those who are suspected of terrorism (something it had supposedly not done since the 1970s).


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: In the early 1980s, Senate hearings were held to examine FBI undercover operations in the wake of the Abscam controversy, which had allegations of entrapment of elected officials. As a result, in the following years a number of guidelines were issued to constrain FBI activities.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: A March 2007 report by the inspector general of the Justice Department described the FBI's "widespread and serious misuse" of national security letters, a form of administrative subpoena used to demand records and data pertaining to individuals. The report said that between 2003 and 2005, the FBI had issued more than 140,000 national security letters, many involving people with no obvious connections to terrorism.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: Information obtained through an FBI investigation is presented to the appropriate U.S. Attorney or Department of Justice official, who decides if prosecution or other action is warranted.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: The FBI often works in conjunction with other federal agencies, including the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in seaport and airport security, and the National Transportation Safety Board in investigating airplane crashes and other critical incidents. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) has nearly the same amount of investigative manpower as the FBI and investigates the largest range of crimes. In the wake of the September 11 attacks, then–Attorney General Ashcroft assigned the FBI as the designated lead organization in terrorism investigations after the creation of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. HSI and the FBI are both integral members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: The federal government has the primary responsibility for investigating and prosecuting serious crime on Indian reservations.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: The FBI does not specifically list crimes in Native American land as one of its priorities. Often serious crimes have been either poorly investigated or prosecution has been declined. Tribal courts can impose sentences of up to three years, under certain restrictions.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: The FBI is headquartered at the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C., with 56 field offices in major cities across the United States. The FBI also maintains over 400 resident agencies across the United States, as well as over 50 legal attachés at United States embassies and consulates. Many specialized FBI functions are located at facilities in Quantico, Virginia, as well as a "data campus" in Clarksburg, West Virginia, where 96 million sets of fingerprints "from across the United States are stored, along with others collected by American authorities from prisoners in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan." The FBI is in process of moving its Records Management Division, which processes Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, to Winchester, Virginia.


title: Federal Bureau of Investigation

text: According to "The Washington Post", the FBI "is building a vast repository controlled by people who work in a top-secret vault on the fourth floor of the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington. This one stores the profiles of tens of thousands of Americans and legal residents who are not accused of any crime. What they have done is appear to be acting suspiciously to a town sheriff, a traffic cop or even a neighbor."