title: Snowdrop (South Korean TV series)

text: By December 21, around 3,000 requests to cancel "Snowdrop" were posted to JTBC's website and around 740 complaints were made to the Korea Communications Standards Commission regarding the drama. On December 21, an official citizen complaint was filed with South Korea's Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission against "Snowdrop"s screenwriter Yoo Hyun-mi and director Jo Hyun-tak for violating the National Security Act. The World Citizen Declaration, a youth civic nonprofit that supports citizens resisting government violence, filed an injunction in the Seoul Western District Court to halt the broadcast of "Snowdrop" on December 22. That same day, Head of JTBC Studios Jung Kyeong-moon held a meeting with The World Citizen Declaration in which JTBC Studios reiterated that it did not intend to distort history. The Seoul Western District Court dismissed The World Citizen Declaration's lawsuit on December 29, finding in its decision that even if there was distortion of history in the plot, there was insufficient evidence to show the infringement of the group's civil rights or that the drama's audience may blindly accept the historical content as genuine.


title: Snowdrop (South Korean TV series)

text: Advertisers such as TEAZEN, Ssarijai, Heung Il Furniture, Ganisong, P&J Group, and Han's Electronics announced they were pulling advertisements from the broadcast of the show and issued apologies. Daegu University, where "Snowdrop" was filmed, stated that it requested the name of the university be taken off of the drama's credits.


title: Snowdrop (South Korean TV series)

text: Memorial institutions of student activists Bak Jong-cheol and Lee Han-yeol, whose deaths became key inciting events of the 1987 June Struggle, have criticized "Snowdrop". The Bak Jong-cheol Memorial Foundation spoke out against the drama, calling it a "disparagement of the democratization movement" and "a drama with an obvious intention to distort." The Lee Han-yeol Memorial Museum also called on the drama to be cancelled. JTBC Studios attempted to arrange a meeting with a representative of the Bak Jong-cheol Memorial Foundation, but its efforts were unsuccessful.


title: Snowdrop (South Korean TV series)

text: On December 21, JTBC released their official statement on the controversy that read, "The background and motif for important incidents in "Snowdrop" are the time of military regime. With this background, it contains a fictional story of the party in power colluding with the North Korean government in order to maintain authority. "Snowdrop" is a creative work that shows the personal stories of individuals who were used and victimized by those in power. There is no spy who leads the democratization movement in "Snowdrop". The male and female leads were not shown as participating in or leading the democratization movement in episodes 1 and 2, and they do not do so in any part of the future script." The statement continued, "Most of the misunderstandings regarding concerns of historical negationism and disparaging the democratization movement will be settled through the progress of the drama's plot. The drama includes the production team's intent of hoping for no repetition of an abnormal era in which individual freedom and happiness are oppressed by unjust power. Although we unfortunately cannot reveal much of the plot ahead of each episode, we ask that you watch over the future progress of the plot." JTBC stated their intention to listen to their official website's real-time chat and viewer message board.


title: Snowdrop (South Korean TV series)

text: JTBC hastened the broadcasting schedule of "Snowdrop" and aired episodes 3, 4, and 5 on December 24, 25 and 26 respectively, with the stated intention to quickly resolve misunderstandings from the beginning of the drama. JTBC stated that episodes 3–5 were released quickly because they explained the backstory of the character Soo-ho and revealed collusion between the ANSP and the North Korean government in the drama's story.


title: Snowdrop (South Korean TV series)

text: On December 23, Sim Sang-jung, 2022 presidential candidate of the Justice Party spoke out against the drama, stating, "If we are going to shine a light in a harsh era, the protagonist should be our ordinary citizens who shed blood, sweat and tears for the democracy of the Republic of Korea, not the security guards and spies of the South faction under the dictatorship." She also said that "creative freedom should be humble when faced with of the scars of history."


title: Snowdrop (South Korean TV series)

text: Defenders of "Snowdrop" have pointed to respect that must be given to freedom of expression. On his Facebook page, film director Jeong Yoon-cheol expressed his belief that censoring the drama's broadcast would be dictatorial in and of itself, and cited the films "Hiroshima mon amour" and "The Lives of Others" as positive examples of similar love stories that include individuals of objectionable political backgrounds. Political commentator Chin Jung-kwon called on the public to "just watch the drama as a drama."


title: Snowdrop (South Korean TV series)

text: On December 30, JTBC issued a last statement regarding the controversy around "Snowdrop". The broadcasting station stated that JTBC is experiencing severe damages due to the spread of false and malicious comments regarding "Snowdrop". JTBC considers the freedom and independence of creativity a key component of successful content creation, as much as they respect the rights of consumers to freely criticize or form opinions about content to a healthy extent. However, "against comments and rumors which openly terrorize those involved in the making of the drama and which have nothing to do with the story's actual content", JTBC plans to proceed with strict legal actions in order to protect the broadcasting station's image as well as the image of the drama's creators and the rights of creative content. JTBC then continued, "the synopsis of "Snowdrop" was leaked in the early stages of production, malicious narratives that falsified the plot were circulated continuously and repeatedly. Even to this day the spreading of false information and baseless accusations regarding the drama's content are swaying the public's opinions severely."


title: Snowdrop (South Korean TV series)

text: On March 30, 2022, Korea Communication Standards Commission investigation results revealed, from the first episode to the final episode, "Snowdrop" did not "distort history" or denigrate "democratization movement." Korea Communications Standards Commission has concluded that the drama was uncontroversial to the extent that it was not even a matter to be discussed in the Broadcasting Subcommittee.


title: Snowdrop (South Korean TV series)

text: On April 7, JTBC said in a phone call with the newspaper company, Money Today News, they had filed the criminal complaint against netizens for defamation. The first netizen Mr. A said, "I was sued by JTBC and Drama House through the above post." JTBC official explained, "Due to the negative public opinions there was a lot of damage done to the production company, team, and actors. We sued them for continuously stating false info different from the actual drama." When asked how many people were sued, they answered, "It's hard to say since it's an ongoing issue."


title: Himalayas

text: The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 100 peaks exceeding in elevation lie in the Himalayas. By contrast, the highest peak outside Asia (Aconcagua, in the Andes) is tall.


title: Himalayas

text: The Himalayas abut or cross five countries: Bhutan, India, Nepal, China, and Pakistan. The sovereignty of the range in the Kashmir region is disputed among India, Pakistan, and China. The Himalayan range is bordered on the northwest by the Karakoram and Hindu Kush ranges, on the north by the Tibetan Plateau, and on the south by the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Some of the world's major rivers, the Indus, the Ganges, and the Tsangpo–Brahmaputra, rise in the vicinity of the Himalayas, and their combined drainage basin is home to some 600 million people; 53 million people live in the Himalayas. The Himalayas have profoundly shaped the cultures of South Asia and Tibet. Many Himalayan peaks are sacred in Hinduism and Buddhism; the summits of several—Kangchenjunga (from the Indian side), Gangkhar Puensum, Machapuchare, Nanda Devi and Kailas in the Tibetan Transhimalaya—are off-limits to climbers.


title: Himalayas

text: Lifted by the subduction of the Indian tectonic plate under the Eurasian Plate, the Himalayan mountain range runs west-northwest to east-southeast in an arc long. Its western anchor, Nanga Parbat, lies just south of the northernmost bend of the Indus river. Its eastern anchor, Namcha Barwa, lies immediately west of the great bend of the Yarlung Tsangpo River. The range varies in width from in the west to in the east.


title: Himalayas

text: The name of the range hails from the Sanskrit ( 'abode of the snow'), from ( 'snow') and ( 'home, dwelling'). They are now known as "", usually shortened to "the Himalayas".


title: Himalayas

text: The mountains are known as the in Nepali and Hindi (both written ), "Himāl" (हिमाल) in Kumaoni, the "Himalaya" () or 'The Land of Snow' () in Tibetan, also known as in Sinhala written as , the "Himāliya" Mountain Range () in Urdu, the "Himaloy Parvatmala" () in Bengali and the "Ximalaya" Mountain Range () in Chinese.


title: Himalayas

text: The name of the range is sometimes also given as Himavan in older writings, including the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata. Himavat (Sanskrit: हिमवत्")" or Himavan Himavān (Sanskrit: हिमवान्) is a Hindu deity who is the personification of the Himalayan Mountain Range. Other epithets include Himaraja (Sanskrit: हिमराज, ) or Parvateshwara (Sanskrit: पर्वतेश्वर, ).


title: Himalayas

text: In western literature, some writers refer to it as "the Himalaya". This was also previously transcribed as "Himmaleh", as in Emily Dickinson's poetry and Henry David Thoreau's essays.


title: Himalayas

text: The Himalayas consist of parallel mountain ranges: the Sivalik Hills on the south; the Lower Himalayan Range; the Great Himalayas, which is the highest and central range; and the Tibetan Himalayas on the north. The Karakoram are generally considered separate from the Himalayas.


title: Himalayas

text: In the middle of the great curve of the Himalayan mountains lie the peaks of Dhaulagiri and Annapurna in Nepal, separated by the Kali Gandaki Gorge. The gorge splits the Himalayas into Western and Eastern sections both ecologically and orographically – the pass at the head of the Kali Gandaki the Kora La is the lowest point on the ridgeline between Everest and K2 (the highest peak of the Karakoram range). To the east of Annapurna are the peaks of Manaslu and across the border in Tibet, Shishapangma. To the south of these lies Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal and the largest city in the Himalayas. East of the Kathmandu Valley lies the valley of the Bhote/Sun Kosi river which rises in Tibet and provides the main overland route between Nepal and China – the Araniko Highway/China National Highway 318. Further east is the Mahalangur Himal with four of the world's six highest mountains, including the highest: Cho Oyu, Everest, Lhotse and Makalu. The Khumbu region, popular for trekking, is found here on the south-western approaches to Everest. The Arun river drains the northern slopes of these mountains, before turning south and flowing to the range to the east of Makalu.


title: Himalayas

text: In the far east of Nepal, the Himalayas rise to the Kangchenjunga massif on the border with India, the third highest mountain in the world, the most easterly summit and the highest point of India. The eastern side of Kangchenjunga is in the Indian state of Sikkim. Formerly an independent Kingdom, it lies on the main route from India to Lhasa, Tibet, which passes over the Nathu La pass into Tibet. East of Sikkim lies the ancient Buddhist Kingdom of Bhutan. The highest mountain in Bhutan is Gangkhar Puensum, which is also a strong candidate for the highest unclimbed mountain in the world. The Himalayas here are becoming increasingly rugged with heavily forested steep valleys. The Himalayas continue, turning slightly northeast, through the Indian State of Arunachal Pradesh as well as Tibet, before reaching their easterly conclusion in the peak of Namche Barwa, situated in Tibet inside the great bend of the Yarlang Tsangpo river. On the other side of the Tsangpo, to the east, are the Kangri Garpo mountains. The high mountains to the north of the Tsangpo including Gyala Peri, however, are also sometimes included in the Himalayas.


title: Himalayas

text: Going west from Dhaulagiri, Western Nepal is somewhat remote and lacks major high mountains, but is home to Rara Lake, the largest lake in Nepal. The Karnali River rises in Tibet but cuts through the centre of the region. Further west, the border with India follows the Sarda River and provides a trade route into China, where on the Tibetan plateau lies the high peak of Gurla Mandhata. Just across Lake Manasarovar from this lies the sacred Mount Kailash in the Kailash Ranges, which stands close to the source of the four main rivers of Himalayas and is revered in Hinduism, Buddhism, Sufism, Jainism, and Bonpo. In Uttarakhand, the Himalayas rise again as the Kumaon and Garhwal Himalayas with the high peaks of Nanda Devi and Kamet. The state is also home to the important pilgrimage destinations of Chaar Dhaam, with Gangotri, the source of the holy river Ganges, Yamunotri, the source of the river Yamuna, and the temples at Badrinath and Kedarnath. Uttarakhand Himalayas are regionally divided into two, namely, Kumaon hills in Kumaon division and Garhwal hills in Garhwal division.


title: Himalayas

text: The next Himalayan Indian state, Himachal Pradesh, is noted for its hill stations, particularly Shimla, the summer capital of the British Raj, and Dharamsala, the centre of the Tibetan community and government in exile in India. This area marks the start of the Punjab Himalaya and the Sutlej river, the most easterly of the five tributaries of the Indus, cuts through the range here. Further west, the Himalayas form much of the disputed Indian-administered union territory of Jammu and Kashmir where lies the renowned Kashmir Valley and the town and lakes of Srinagar. The Himalayas form most of the south-west portion of the disputed Indian-administered union territory of Ladakh. The twin peaks of Nun Kun are the only mountains over in this part of the Himalayas. Finally, the Himalayas reach their western end in the dramatic 8000 m peak of Nanga Parbat, which rises over above the Indus valley and is the most westerly of the 8000 m summits. The western end terminates at a magnificent point near Nanga Parbat where the Himalayas intersect with the Karakoram and Hindu Kush ranges, in the disputed Pakistani-administered territory of Gilgit-Baltistan. Some portion of the Himalayas, such as the Kaghan Valley, Margalla Hills and Galyat tract, extend into the Pakistani provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab.


title: Himalayas

text: The Himalayan range is one of the youngest mountain ranges on the planet and consists mostly of uplifted sedimentary and metamorphic rock. According to the modern theory of plate tectonics, its formation is a result of a continental collision or orogeny along the convergent boundary (Main Himalayan Thrust) between the Indo-Australian Plate and the Eurasian Plate. The Arakan Yoma highlands in Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal were also formed as a result of this collision.


title: Himalayas

text: During the Upper Cretaceous, about 70 million years ago, the north-moving Indo-Australian Plate (which has subsequently broken into the Indian Plate and the Australian Plate) was moving at about per year. About 50 million years ago this fast-moving Indo-Australian Plate had completely closed the Tethys Ocean, the existence of which has been determined by sedimentary rocks settled on the ocean floor and the volcanoes that fringed its edges. Since both plates were composed of low density continental crust, they were thrust faulted and folded into mountain ranges rather than subducting into the mantle along an oceanic trench. An often-cited fact used to illustrate this process is that the summit of Mount Everest is made of marine limestone from this ancient ocean.


title: Himalayas

text: Today, the Indian plate continues to be driven horizontally at the Tibetan Plateau, which forces the plateau to continue to move upwards. The Indian plate is still moving at 67 mm per year, and over the next 10 million years it will travel about into Asia. About 20 mm per year of the India-Asia convergence is absorbed by thrusting along the Himalaya southern front. This leads to the Himalayas rising by about 5 mm per year, making them geologically active. The movement of the Indian plate into the Asian plate also makes this region seismically active, leading to earthquakes from time to time.


title: Himalayas

text: During the last ice age, there was a connected ice stream of glaciers between Kangchenjunga in the east and Nanga Parbat in the west. In the west, the glaciers joined with the ice stream network in the Karakoram, and in the north, they joined with the former Tibetan inland ice. To the south, outflow glaciers came to an end below an elevation of . While the current valley glaciers of the Himalaya reach at most in length, several of the main valley glaciers were long during the ice age. The glacier snowline (the altitude where accumulation and ablation of a glacier are balanced) was about lower than it is today. Thus, the climate was at least colder than it is today.


title: Himalayas

text: Despite their scale, the Himalayas do not form a major watershed, and a number of rivers cut through the range, particularly in the eastern part of the range. As a result, the main ridge of the Himalayas is not clearly defined, and mountain passes are not as significant for traversing the range as with other mountain ranges. The rivers of the Himalayas drain into two large river systems:


title: Himalayas

text: The northern slopes of Gyala Peri and the peaks beyond the Tsangpo, sometimes included in the Himalayas, drain into the Irrawaddy River, which originates in eastern Tibet and flows south through Myanmar to drain into the Andaman Sea. The Salween, Mekong, Yangtze and Yellow River all originate from parts of the Tibetan Plateau that are geologically distinct from the Himalaya mountains and are therefore not considered true Himalayan rivers. Some geologists refer to all the rivers collectively as the "circum-Himalayan rivers".


title: Himalayas

text: The great ranges of central Asia, including the Himalayas, contain the third-largest deposit of ice and snow in the world, after Antarctica and the Arctic. The Himalayan range encompasses about 15,000 glaciers, which store about of fresh water. Its glaciers include the Gangotri and Yamunotri (Uttarakhand) and Khumbu glaciers (Mount Everest region), Langtang glacier (Langtang region) and Zemu (Sikkim).


title: Himalayas

text: Owing to the mountains' latitude near the Tropic of Cancer, the permanent snow line is among the highest in the world at typically around . In contrast, equatorial mountains in New Guinea, the Rwenzoris and Colombia have a snow line some lower. The higher regions of the Himalayas are snowbound throughout the year, in spite of their proximity to the tropics, and they form the sources of several large perennial rivers.


title: Himalayas

text: In recent years, scientists have monitored a notable increase in the rate of glacier retreat across the region as a result of climate change. For example, glacial lakes have been forming rapidly on the surface of debris-covered glaciers in the Bhutan Himalaya during the last few decades. Although the effect of this will not be known for many years, it potentially could mean disaster for the hundreds of millions of people who rely on the glaciers to feed the rivers during the dry seasons. The global climate change will affect the water resources and livelihoods of the Greater Himalayan region.


title: Himalayas

text: The Himalayan region is dotted with hundreds of lakes. Pangong Tso, which is spread across the border between India and China, at far western end of Tibet, is among the largest with surface areas of .


title: Himalayas

text: South of the main range, the lakes are smaller. Tilicho Lake in Nepal in the Annapurna massif is one of the highest lakes in the world. Other notable lakes include Rara Lake in western Nepal, She-Phoksundo Lake in the Shey Phoksundo National Park of Nepal, Gurudongmar Lake, in North Sikkim, Gokyo Lakes in Solukhumbu district of Nepal and Lake Tsongmo, near the Indo-China border in Sikkim.


title: Himalayas

text: Some of the lakes present a danger of a glacial lake outburst flood. The Tsho Rolpa glacier lake in the Rowaling Valley, in the Dolakha District of Nepal, is rated as the most dangerous. The lake, which is located at an altitude of has grown considerably over the last 50 years due to glacial melting. The mountain lakes are known to geographers as "tarns" if they are caused by glacial activity. Tarns are found mostly in the upper reaches of the Himalaya, above .


title: Himalayas

text: Temperate Himalayan wetlands provide important habitat and layover sites for migratory birds. Many mid and low altitude lakes remain poorly studied in terms of their hydrology and biodiversity, like Khecheopalri in the Sikkim Eastern Himalayas.


title: Himalayas

text: The physical factors determining the climate in any location in the Himalayas include latitude, altitude, and the relative motion of the Southwest monsoon. From south to north, the mountains cover more than eight degrees of latitude, spanning temperate to subtropical zones. The colder air of Central Asia is prevented from blowing down into South Asia by the physical configuration of the Himalayas. This causes the tropical zone to extend farther north in South Asia than anywhere else in the world. The evidence is unmistakable in the Brahmaputra valley as the warm air from the Bay of Bengal bottlenecks and rushes up past Namcha Barwa, the eastern anchor of the Himalayas, and into southeastern Tibet. Temperatures in the Himalayas cool by 2.0 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) for every increase of altitude.


title: Himalayas

text: As the physical features of mountains are irregular, with broken jagged contours, there can be wide variations in temperature over short distances. Temperature at a location on a mountain depends on the season of the year, the bearing of the sun with respect to the face on which the location lies, and the mass of the mountain, i.e. the amount of matter in the mountain. As the temperature is directly proportional to received radiation from the sun, the faces that receive more direct sunlight also have a greater heat buildup. In narrow valleys—lying between steep mountain faces—there can be dramatically different weather along their two margins. The side to the north with a mountain above facing south can have an extra month of the growing season. The mass of the mountain also influences the temperature, as it acts as a heat island, in which more heat is absorbed and retained than the surroundings, and therefore influences the heat budget or the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature from the winter minimum winter to the summer maximum.


title: Himalayas

text: The immense scale of the Himalayas means that many summits can create their own weather, the temperature fluctuating from one summit to another, from one face to another, and all may be quite different from the weather in nearby plateaus or valleys.


title: Himalayas

text: A critical influence on the Himalayan climate is the Southwest Monsoon. This is not so much the rain of the summer months as the wind that carries the rain. Different rates of heating and cooling between the Central Asian continent and the South Asian ocean create large differences in the atmospheric pressure prevailing above each. In the winter, a high-pressure system forms and remains suspended above Central Asia, forcing air to flow in the southerly direction over the Himalayas. But in Central Asia as there is no substantial source for water to be diffused as vapour, the winter winds blowing across South Asia are dry.


title: Himalayas

text: In the summer months the Central Asian plateau heats up more than the ocean waters to its south. As a result, the air above it rises higher and higher, creating a zone of low pressure. Off-shore high-pressure systems in the Indian Ocean push the moist summer air inland toward the low-pressure system. When the moist air meets mountains, it rises and upon subsequent cooling, its moisture condenses and is released as rain, typically heavy rain. The wet summer monsoon winds cause precipitation in India and all along the layered southern slopes of the Himalayas. This forced lifting of air is called the orographic effect.


title: Himalayas

text: The vast size, huge altitude range, and complex topography of the Himalayas mean they experience a wide range of climates, from humid subtropical in the foothills to cold and dry desert conditions on the Tibetan side of the range. For much of the Himalayas—in the areas to the south of the high mountains, the monsoon is the most characteristic feature of the climate and causes most of the precipitation, while the western disturbance brings winter precipitation, especially in the west. Heavy rain arrives on the southwest monsoon in June and persists until September. The monsoon can seriously impact transport and cause major landslides. It restricts tourism – the trekking and mountaineering season is limited to either before the monsoon in April/May or after the monsoon in October/November (autumn). In Nepal and Sikkim, there are often considered to be five seasons: summer, monsoon, autumn, (or post-monsoon), winter, and spring.


title: Himalayas

text: Using the Köppen climate classification, the lower elevations of the Himalayas, reaching in mid-elevations in central Nepal (including the Kathmandu valley), are classified as "Cwa", Humid subtropical climate with dry winters. Higher up, most of the Himalayas have a subtropical highland climate ("Cwb").


title: Himalayas

text: The intensity of the southwest monsoon diminishes as it moves westward along the range, with as much as of rainfall in the monsoon season in Darjeeling in the east, compared to only during the same period in Shimla in the west.


title: Himalayas

text: The northern side of the Himalayas, also known as the Tibetan Himalaya, is dry, cold and, generally, windswept particularly in the west where it has a cold desert climate. The vegetation is sparse and stunted and the winters are severely cold. Most of the precipitation in the region is in the form of snow during the late winter and spring months.


title: Himalayas

text: Local impacts on climate are significant throughout the Himalayas. Temperatures fall by 0.2 to 1.2 °C for every rise in altitude. This gives rise to a variety of climates from a nearly tropical climate in the foothills, to tundra and permanent snow and ice at higher elevations. Local climate is also affected by the topography: The leeward side of the mountains receive less rain while the well exposed slopes get heavy rainfall and the rain shadow of large mountains can be significant, for example leading to near desert conditions in the Upper Mustang which is sheltered from the monsoon rains by the Annapurna and Dhaulagiri massifs and has annual precipitation of around , while Pokhara on the southern side of the massifs has substantial rainfall ( a year). Thus although annual precipitation is generally higher in east than the west, local variations are often more important.


title: Himalayas

text: The Himalayas have a profound effect on the climate of the Indian subcontinent and the Tibetan Plateau. They prevent frigid, dry winds from blowing south into the subcontinent, which keeps South Asia much warmer than corresponding temperate regions in the other continents. It also forms a barrier for the monsoon winds, keeping them from traveling northwards, and causing heavy rainfall in the Terai region. The Himalayas are also believed to play an important part in the formation of Central Asian deserts, such as the Taklamakan and Gobi.


title: Himalayas

text: The flora and fauna of the Himalayas vary with climate, rainfall, altitude, and soils. The climate ranges from tropical at the base of the mountains to permanent ice and snow at the highest elevations. The amount of yearly rainfall increases from west to east along the southern front of the range. This diversity of altitude, rainfall, and soil conditions combined with the very high snow line supports a variety of distinct plant and animal communities. The extremes of high altitude (low atmospheric pressure) combined with extreme cold favor extremophile organisms.


title: Himalayas

text: At high altitudes, the elusive and previously endangered snow leopard is the main predator. Its prey includes members of the goat family grazing on the alpine pastures and living on the rocky terrain, notably the endemic bharal or Himalayan blue sheep. The Himalayan musk deer is also found at high altitudes. Hunted for its musk, it is now rare and endangered. Other endemic or near-endemic herbivores include the Himalayan tahr, the takin, the Himalayan serow, and the Himalayan goral. The critically endangered Himalayan subspecies of the brown bear is found sporadically across the range as is the Asian black bear. In the mountainous mixed deciduous and conifer forests of the eastern Himalayas, Red panda feed in the dense understories of bamboo. Lower down the forests of the foothills are inhabited by several different primates, including the endangered Gee's golden langur and the Kashmir gray langur, with highly restricted ranges in the east and west of the Himalayas respectively.


title: Himalayas

text: The unique floral and faunal wealth of the Himalayas is undergoing structural and compositional changes due to climate change. "Hydrangea hirta" is an example of floral species that can be found in this area. The increase in temperature is shifting various species to higher elevations. The oak forest is being invaded by pine forests in the Garhwal Himalayan region. There are reports of early flowering and fruiting in some tree species, especially rhododendron, apple and "box myrtle". The highest known tree species in the Himalayas is "Juniperus tibetica" located at in Southeastern Tibet.


title: Himalayas

text: There are many cultural and mythological aspects associated with the Himalayas. In Jainism, Mount Ashtapad of the Himalayan mountain range, is a sacred place where the first Jain Tirthankara, Rishabhdeva attained moksha. It is believed that after Rishabhdeva attained "nirvana", his son, Emperor Bharata Chakravartin, had constructed three stupas and twenty four shrines of the 24 Tirthankaras with their idols studded with precious stones over there and named it "Sinhnishdha". For the Hindus, the Himalayas are personified as Himavat, king of all mountains and the father of the goddess Parvati. The Himalayas are also considered to be the father of Ganga (the personification of river Ganges). Two of the most sacred places of pilgrimage for the Hindus are the temple complex in Pashupatinath and Muktinath, also known as Saligrama because of the presence of the sacred black rocks called saligrams.


title: Himalayas

text: The Buddhists also lay a great deal of importance on the Himalayas. Paro Taktsang is the holy place where Buddhism started in Bhutan. The Muktinath is also a place of pilgrimage for the Tibetan Buddhists. They believe that the trees in the poplar grove came from the walking sticks of eighty-four ancient Indian Buddhist magicians or "mahasiddhas". They consider the saligrams to be representatives of the Tibetan serpent deity known as Gawo Jagpa.


title: Himalayas

text: The Himalayan people's diversity shows in many different ways. It shows through their architecture, their languages, and dialects, their beliefs and rituals, as well as their clothing. The shapes and materials of the people's homes reflect their practical needs and beliefs. Another example of the diversity amongst the Himalayan peoples is that handwoven textiles display colors and patterns unique to their ethnic backgrounds. Finally, some people place great importance on jewelry. The Rai and Limbu women wear big gold earrings and nose rings to show their wealth through their jewelry.


title: Himalayas

text: Several places in the Himalayas are of religious significance in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. A notable example of a religious site is Paro Taktsang, where Padmasambhava is said to have founded Buddhism in Bhutan.


title: Himalayas

text: A number of Vajrayana Buddhist sites are situated in the Himalayas, in Tibet, Bhutan and in the Indian regions of Ladakh, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Spiti and Darjeeling. There were over 6,000 monasteries in Tibet, including the residence of the Dalai Lama. Bhutan, Sikkim and Ladakh are also dotted with numerous monasteries.


title: Himalayas

text: The Himalayas are home to a diversity of medicinal resources. Plants from the forests have been used for millennia to treat conditions ranging from simple coughs to snake bites. Different parts of the plants – root, flower, stem, leaves, and bark – are used as remedies for different ailments. For example, a bark extract from an "Abies pindrow" tree is used to treat coughs and bronchitis. Leaf and stem paste from an "Andrachne cordifolia" is used for wounds and as an antidote for snake bites. The bark of a "Callicarpa arborea" is used for skin ailments. Nearly a fifth of the gymnosperms, angiosperms and pteridophytes in the Himalayas are found to have medicinal properties, and more are likely to be discovered.


title: Himalayas

text: Most of the population in some Asian and African countries depends on medicinal plants rather than prescriptions and such. Since so many people use medicinal plants as their only source of healing in the Himalayas, the plants are an important source of income. This contributes to economic and modern industrial development both inside and outside the region. The only problem is that locals are rapidly clearing the forests on the Himalayas for wood, often illegally.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: Anthony Norman Albanese ( or ; born 2 March 1963) is an Australian politician serving as the 31st and current prime minister of Australia since 2022. He has been leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) since 2019 and the member of parliament (MP) for Grayndler since 1996. Albanese previously served as the 15th deputy prime minister under the second Kevin Rudd government in 2013; he held various ministerial positions in the governments of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard from 2007 to 2013.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: Albanese was born in Sydney to an Italian father and an Irish-Australian mother who raised him as a single parent. He attended St Mary's Cathedral College before going on to the University of Sydney to study economics. He joined the Labor Party as a student, and before entering Parliament worked as a party official and research officer. Albanese was elected to the House of Representatives at the 1996 election, winning the seat of Grayndler in New South Wales. He was first appointed to the shadow cabinet in 2001 by Simon Crean and went on to serve in a number of roles, eventually becoming Manager of Opposition Business in 2006. After Labor's victory in the 2007 election, Albanese was appointed Leader of the House, and was also made Minister for Regional Development and Local Government and Minister for Infrastructure and Transport. In the subsequent leadership tensions between Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard from 2010 to 2013, Albanese was publicly critical of the conduct of both, calling for party unity. After supporting Rudd in the final leadership ballot between the two in June 2013, Albanese was elected the deputy leader of the Labor Party and sworn in as deputy prime minister the following day, a position he held for less than three months, as Labor was defeated at the 2013 election.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: After Rudd resigned the leadership and retired from politics, Albanese stood against Bill Shorten in the ensuing leadership election, the first to include party members in addition to MPs. Although Albanese won a large majority of the membership, Shorten won more heavily among Labor MPs and won the contest; Shorten subsequently appointed Albanese to his Shadow Cabinet. After Labor's surprise defeat in the 2019 election, Shorten resigned as leader, with Albanese becoming the only person nominated in the leadership election to replace him; he was subsequently elected unopposed as leader of the Labor Party, becoming Leader of the Opposition.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: In the 2022 election, Albanese led his party to a decisive victory against Scott Morrison's Liberal-National Coalition. Albanese is the first Italian-Australian to become prime minister, the first Australian prime minister to have a non-Anglo-Celtic surname, and is the last of the 16 Australian prime ministers who have served under Queen Elizabeth II. He was sworn in on 23 May 2022, alongside four senior frontbench colleagues. Albanese's first acts as prime minister included updating Australia's climate targets in an effort to reach carbon neutrality by 2050, and supporting an increase to the national minimum wage. His government legislated a national anti-corruption commission, and made major changes to Australian labour law. In foreign policy, Albanese pledged further logistical support to Ukraine to assist with the Russo-Ukrainian war, has attempted to strengthen relations in the Pacific region, and held a high-level meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping, ending a diplomatic freeze between Australia and China.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: Albanese was born on 2 March 1963 at St Margaret's Hospital in the Sydney suburb of Darlinghurst. He is the son of Carlo Albanese and Maryanne Ellery. His mother was an Australian of Irish descent, while his Italian father was from Barletta in Apulia. The Italian surname Albanese is in reference to the Arbëreshë people, ethnic Albanians indigenous to the part of southern Italy where Albanese's father came from. His parents met in March 1962 on a voyage from Sydney to Southampton, England, on the Sitmar Line's TSS "Fairsky", where his father worked as a steward, but did not continue their relationship afterwards, going their separate ways. Coincidentally, the "Fairsky" was also the ship on which Albanese's future parliamentary colleague Julia Gillard and her family migrated to South Australia from the United Kingdom in 1966.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: Growing up, Albanese was told that his father had died in a car accident; he did not meet his father, who was in fact still alive, until 2009, tracking him down initially with the assistance of John Faulkner, Carnival Australia's CEO Ann Sherry (the parent company of P&O, which acquired the Sitmar Line in 1988) and maritime historian Rob Henderson, and then later the Australian Embassy in Italy and ambassador Amanda Vanstone. He subsequently discovered that he had two half-siblings. During the Australian parliamentary eligibility crisis of 2017, it was noted that, although birth to an Italian father would ordinarily confer citizenship by descent, Albanese had no father recorded on his birth certificate and thus meets the parliamentary eligibility requirements of section 44 of the constitution.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: Albanese's maternal grandfather George Ellery ran a printing business on William Street in Darlinghurst. He provided printing services to the ALP.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: Albanese grew up with his mother and maternal grandparents in a Sydney City Council home in the Inner West suburb of Camperdown, opposite the Camperdown Children's Hospital. His grandfather died in 1970, and the following year his mother married James Williamson. He was given his stepfather's surname, but the marriage lasted only 10 weeks, as Williamson proved to be an abusive alcoholic. Albanese's mother worked part-time as a cleaner but suffered from chronic rheumatoid arthritis, with the family surviving on her disability pension and his grandmother's age pension.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: Albanese attended St Joseph's Primary School in Camperdown and then St Mary's Cathedral College. After finishing school, he worked for the Commonwealth Bank for two years before studying economics at the University of Sydney. There, he became involved in student politics and was elected to the Students' Representative Council. It was also there where he started his rise as a key player in the ALP's Labor Left. During his time in student politics, Albanese led a group within Young Labor that was aligned with the left faction's Hard Left, which maintained "links with broader left-wing groups, such as the Communist Party of Australia, People for Nuclear Disarmament and the African National Congress".


title: Anthony Albanese

text: After completing his economics degree in 1984, Albanese took on a role as a research officer to the then Minister for Local Government and Administrative Services, Tom Uren, who became a mentor to him. In 1989, the position of Assistant General Secretary of the New South Wales branch of the Labor Party became vacant when John Faulkner was elected to the Senate. The election to replace him was closely disputed between the Labor Left's Hard Left and Soft Left groupings, with Albanese being elected with the backing of the Hard Left, taking on that role for the next six years. In 1995, he left the position to work as a senior adviser to New South Wales Premier Bob Carr.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: Albanese's first overseas trip was in 1986, accompanying his friend Jeremy Fisher to Vanuatu. In 1987, Albanese joined his boss Tom Uren on a visit to South-East Asia, which included: a meeting of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok, Thailand; an Anzac Day dawn service at the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery with John Carrick; and a tour of Cambodia alongside Bill Hayden's daughter Ingrid. He then travelled extensively in 1988, visiting Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, Western Europe on a Contiki tour, and Eastern Europe and Scandinavia as a backpacker. Upon returning to Australia, he began dating Carmel Tebbutt, with whom he would holiday in Europe and South-East Asia, plus a backpacking trip to India in 1991. Sometime during his 20s, Albanese also took part in a tour of the United States organised by the State Department, with a thematic focus on the interaction of advocacy groups with the U.S. Government.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: In 1990, Albanese bought a semi-detached two-bedroom house in the Inner West Sydney suburb of Marrickville.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: When Jeannette McHugh announced she would not recontest her seat of Grayndler at the 1996 election, Albanese won preselection for the seat. The campaign was a difficult one, with aircraft noise a big political issue following the opening of the third runway at Sydney Airport, and the newly established No Aircraft Noise party (NAN) having polled strongly in the local area at the 1995 New South Wales election. Veteran political pundit Malcolm Mackerras predicted NAN would win the seat. However, NAN's candidate finished third, with less than 14% of the vote. Despite suffering a six-point swing against Labor, Albanese was elected with a comfortable 16-point margin.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: In his maiden speech to the House of Representatives, he spoke about the building of a third runway at Sydney Airport, aircraft noise and the need to build a second airport to service Sydney, as well as his support for funding public infrastructure in general, multiculturalism, native title, the social wage and childcare. He concluded by saying, "For myself, I will be satisfied if I can be remembered as someone who will stand up for the interests of my electorate, for working-class people, for the labour movement, and for our progressive advancement as a nation into the next century."


title: Anthony Albanese

text: In his first year in Parliament he continued this theme, speaking in favour of the Northern Territory's euthanasia legislation, the rights of the Indigenous community in the Hindmarsh Island bridge controversy, and entitlement to superannuation for same-sex couples.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: This latter issue became a cause to which he was particularly dedicated. In 1998 he unsuccessfully moved a private member's bill that would have given same-sex couples the same rights to superannuation as de facto heterosexual couples. Over the next nine years, he tried three more times without success, until the election of the Rudd Government in 2007 saw the legislation passed. Albanese subsequently turned his attention to campaigning for same-sex marriage.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: In 1998, Albanese was appointed a parliamentary secretary, a position which assists ministers and shadow ministers and is often a stepping stone to a full ministerial position.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: In 2001, he was promoted to the opposition Shadow Cabinet, taking the portfolio of ageing and seniors. A 2002 reshuffle saw him become Shadow Minister for Employment Services and Training, and in 2004 he became Shadow Minister for Environment and Heritage. It was during this latter role that then prime minister John Howard and science minister Brendan Nelson started raising the idea of nuclear power for Australia. Albanese campaigned strongly against them, as well as elements within his own party, arguing that "Nuclear energy doesn't add up economically, environmentally or socially, and after more than 50 years of debate, we still do not have an answer to nuclear proliferation or nuclear waste."


title: Anthony Albanese

text: In 2005, he was given the additional role of Shadow Minister for Water alongside his existing responsibilities, and was also appointed Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House. In December 2006, when Kevin Rudd first became Leader of the Labor Party, Albanese took over from Julia Gillard as Manager of Opposition Business in the House, a senior tactical role on the floor of the parliament, and was appointed Shadow Minister for Water and Infrastructure.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: Following Labor's victory at the 2007 election, Albanese's rise in standing within the party was evidenced by his appointment as Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Regional Development and Local Government and Leader of the House of Representatives in the Rudd ministry. Rudd was sworn in alongside his colleagues on 3 December 2007.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: The Labor Party had gone to the election criticising the previous government for ignoring "long-term nation building in favour of short-term political spending". One of Albanese's first moves as Minister for Infrastructure and Transport was the establishment of an independent statutory body, Infrastructure Australia, to advise the Government on infrastructure priorities. Armed with advice from this independent body and his own persuasive skills in the Cabinet, he was able to argue for a doubling of the roads budget and a tenfold increase in rail investment. The establishment of Infrastructure Australia was regarded by many as a success; projects delivered through the Infrastructure Australia process included Melbourne's Regional Rail Link, the Hunter Expressway, the Ipswich Motorway, the Gold Coast light rail system , the Redcliffe Peninsula railway line, the extension of the Noarlunga Centre railway line to Seaford, South Australia and various projects along the Pacific Highway in NSW and Bruce Highway in Queensland.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: After Julia Gillard replaced Rudd as prime minister following the leadership spill in June 2010 she retained Albanese in his roles. Following the 2010 election, which resulted in a hung parliament, Albanese was a key player in negotiating the support of independent members Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott through his role of Leader of the House. Albanese was also responsible for managing legislation through the House in the first hung parliament since the 1940s.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: In 2011, Albanese introduced two more major policy reforms. The first on urban planning drew on the work of Danish designer Jan Gehl and set out plans for urban design with better transport links and safety. The second, on shipping, was notable for gaining the approval of both the conservative Australian Shipowners Associations and the radical Maritime Union of Australia. However, he also attracted controversy when a convoy of trucks from North Queensland dubbed the "convoy of no confidence" descended on Canberra's Parliament House to protest against rising fuel costs and carbon pricing. During question time, Albanese labelled the protesters outside as "the convoy of no consequence". This caused outrage among supporters of the protest and a week later a public rally in support of the truckies was held outside Albanese's electorate office in , New South Wales.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: Following a series of poor polls, leadership instability descended again on the Labor Government. Former prime minister Kevin Rudd resigned as Minister for Foreign Affairs in February 2012 to unsuccessfully challenge Julia Gillard for the leadership. Shortly before the ballot, Albanese came out in support of Rudd, stating that he had always been unhappy with the manner of Rudd's removal. He tearfully explained how he had offered his resignation as Leader of the House to the prime minister, but that she had refused to accept it, and called on Labor to cease leadership divisions and unify. In response to a question on his personal feelings around the leadership spill, he stated "I like fighting Tories. That's what I do."


title: Anthony Albanese

text: In June 2013, Rudd defeated Gillard in a final leadership election. That same ballot saw Albanese elected by the caucus as Deputy Leader of the Labor Party, and the following day Albanese was sworn in as deputy prime minister. He held this role until Labor's defeat at the 2013 election, and was replaced by Warren Truss on 18 September.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: Following the defeat of Labor at the 2013 election, Albanese announced his candidacy to be Leader of the Labor Party, standing against Bill Shorten. Shorten was announced as the winner after a month-long contest that was the first to involve a combined vote of MPs and rank-and-file members. Although Albanese won comfortably among party members, Shorten held a greater lead among MPs, and was subsequently elected.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: In October 2013, shortly after the leadership election, Shorten appointed Albanese Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and Shadow Minister for Tourism; he held these roles throughout Shorten's time as leader. In September 2014, Albanese was given the additional role of Shadow Minister for Cities.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: Bill Shorten announced his resignation as Leader of the Labor Party on 18 May 2019, following Labor's unexpected defeat in the 2019 election. The day after, Albanese announced his candidacy in the subsequent leadership election. On 21 May, Chris Bowen announced he would also contest the ballot; however, the next day, he announced his withdrawal, citing his lack of support among the party membership. With no other candidate stepping forward, Albanese took the leadership unopposed on 30 May, with Richard Marles as his deputy. Aged 56 when he took office, he became the oldest first-time Opposition Leader in 59 years, since Arthur Calwell (aged 63) took office in 1960. Albanese unveiled his shadow ministry on 1 June 2019.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: Albanese led the Labor Party into the 2022 federal election. On the first day of campaigning, Albanese was unable to name either the official cash rate or unemployment rate, which drew criticism. On 20 April, Albanese faced prime minister Scott Morrison in a debate hosted by Sky News, with Albanese being deemed the winner through an audience vote. However, the next day, Albanese tested positive for COVID-19, forcing him to isolate at home in Sydney. He returned to campaigning the following week and, on 1 May, hosted Labor's campaign launch in Perth, unveiling policies to reduce the cost of medicine and childcare, increase manufacturing in Australia, and introduce a shared equity housing scheme to assist first-time home buyers. Albanese faced Morrison in two further debates, hosted by Channel Nine and Channel Seven, respectively. Opinion polling indicated that support for the two major parties would reach record lows, due to high levels of support for third parties and independent candidates.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: Labor was victorious over the incumbent Liberal-National Coalition at the federal election on 21 May 2022, with Albanese becoming the 31st prime minister of Australia. Despite a fall in the party's primary vote, Labor won a number of seats from the Coalition, helped by a particularly large swing to the party in Western Australia; the result was also assisted by a number of "teal independents" winning seats from "moderate" Liberal members.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: Although it was not certain that Labor would win a majority, it soon became apparent that no other party could realistically form a government. Accordingly, two days after the election, Albanese, deputy leader Richard Marles, former shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers, and senators Penny Wong and Katy Gallagher were sworn in as an interim five-person ministry. According to Australia's ABC News, the Governor-General, David Hurley, would not have sworn in Albanese without assurances that Labor could provide stable government, as well as legal advice that this was the proper course of action. Albanese is the first Italian-Australian prime minister in the country's history.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: Albanese secured confidence and supply from several crossbenchers in the event that he was unable to form majority government. However, on 30 May, it was projected that Labor had won at least 76 seats, enough to win a majority for the first time at the federal level since the 2007 election. Albanese's full ministry was sworn in on 1 June.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: On 16 June 2022, Albanese submitted a new Nationally Determined Contribution to the United Nations which formally committed Australia to reducing carbon emissions by 43% on 2005 levels. This represented an increase from the 26 to 28% target under the previous government. In September 2022, the Albanese government passed legislation to write this climate target into law. Albanese's government also entered a bid for Australia and its Pacific island neighbours to host the 2024 United Nations Climate Change conference.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: On 27 May 2022, Albanese sent correspondence to the Fair Work Commission confirming that his government would seek to make a submission to the Commission in support of an increase to the minimum wage. The government announced that a submission had been formally made to the Commission on 3 June 2022 and that a "deliberate" policy of lower wages was not the policy of the new government. The Fair Work Commission subsequently announced on 15 June 2022 that the minimum wage would be raised by 5.2%.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: During the 2022 election campaign, Albanese pledged to establish a national anti-corruption commission, saying that it would be one of his "first priorities". On 27 September, attorney-general Mark Dreyfus introduced the relevant legislation to Parliament. The bill passed on 30 November 2022 in line with Albanese's commitment to legislate an anti-corruption commission prior to the end of the calendar year.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: In his victory speech, Albanese expressed his support for the "Uluru Statement from the Heart", and stated that his government would implement it in full within its first term. He has pledged to release a referendum, which if successful, will enshrine an Indigenous Voice to Parliament to assist the government with Indigenous issues, and recognise Indigenous Australians in Australia's constitution.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: The government passed new workplace harassment laws through the Parliament on 28 November 2022. The news laws are in line with Albanese's promise to implement the recommendations of the Respect@Work Report by creating a positive duty requiring employers to implement measures to prevent sexual harassment.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: On 2 December 2022, the government's "Secure Jobs, Better Pay" bill passed the Parliament. Under the new laws, unions can now negotiate multi-employer pay deals in an effort to secure wage increases across particular sectors such as child care and aged care. The law also aims to close the gender pay gap by prohibiting pay secrecy employment clauses and secures the right of workers to seek flexible working arrangements.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: Albanese took his first international trip on 23 May 2022 immediately after being sworn in as prime minister when he flew to Tokyo to attend a Quadrilateral Security Dialogue meeting with fellow world leaders: US president Joe Biden, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida. At the meeting, Albanese committed his new government to the goals of the Quad and confirmed that his government would seek to take stronger action in reducing carbon emissions. On 5 June, Albanese and Penny Wong visited Indonesian president Joko Widodo in Jakarta to develop Australia–Indonesia relations. Albanese said he would not "publicly intervene" to prevent WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from being extradited to the United States.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: Later in June, Albanese attended the 2022 NATO Madrid summit to discuss security threats facing the Pacific region. On 30 June, Albanese met with French president Emmanuel Macron in Paris to "reset" Australia–France relations, which had been damaged following the cancellation of a submarine deal by the preceding government. The next day, Albanese travelled to Ukraine to meet with president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, making him the first Australian prime minister to make a diplomatic visit to Ukraine. Albanese pledged a further $100 million in aid to assist with the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: On 26 September 2022, Albanese travelled to Japan to attend the state funeral of former prime minister Shinzo Abe.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: In November 2022, Albanese held a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, bringing an end to the longest diplomatic freeze in 50 years between Australia and China.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: Albanese has described his political views as progressive, and is aligned with the Labor Left faction.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: Albanese is a republican, and supports replacing Australia's current constitutional monarchy. In a debate to mark the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, he told the Australian Parliament, "Even many Australians who do not hold with the principle of monarchy feel regard for her. You can be a republican, as I am, and still have the deepest respect for the Queen. She has done her duty with fidelity, integrity, humanity and, as she sometimes lets slip, a sly sense of humour." He has stated his desire to give constitutional recognition to Indigenous Australians, and pledged to hold a referendum regarding an Indigenous Voice to Parliament upon becoming prime minister.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: Albanese supports abortion rights, stating in an interview in August 2019 that he believes "women do have a right to choose". He is also in favour of legalising voluntary euthanasia. Albanese is a supporter and advocate for LGBT rights, and often participates in the annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. When Labor Party members were granted a conscience vote on the "Marriage Amendment Bill 2012", which would have legalised same-sex marriage in Australia, Albanese voted in favour of the bill, which was unsuccessful. He opposed holding a plebiscite for same-sex marriage, stating that "we shouldn't be having a public vote where we get to judge other families". In 2017, Albanese also voted in favour of the "Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Act 2017", the bill which ultimately legalised same-sex marriage.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: Early in his political career, Albanese supported drug decriminalisation, telling Parliament in 1997 that "drug use by individuals is a health issue, not a criminal issue". However, in February 2022, he declined to commit to decriminalisation of hard drugs, commenting that the "current settings are appropriate".


title: Anthony Albanese

text: In July 2015, Albanese stated his opposition to the government's policy of turning back asylum seekers who arrive to the country via boat, saying: "I couldn't ask someone else to do something that I couldn't see myself doing ... if people were in a boat including families and children, I myself couldn't turn that around." During the 2022 federal election campaign, Albanese clarified that boat turnbacks would be incorporated into his government's policy, leading to some critics accusing him of "flip-flopping" on the issue. In August 2021, after the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan, Albanese urged the Morrison government to give Afghan refugees permanent residency in Australia.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: While serving in the Gillard government, Albanese supported the introduction of carbon pricing, and voted, along with the rest of the Labor Party, to establish the "Clean Energy Act 2011", which instituted a carbon pricing scheme in Australia. After the Abbott government abolished the scheme in July 2014, Albanese stated that carbon pricing was no longer needed, as "the circumstances have changed".


title: Anthony Albanese

text: Albanese is a prominent backer of renewable energy in Australia and has declared that the country's "long-term future lies in renewable energy sources". Upon his election in 2022, he said he would "end the climate wars" and mitigation and policies to address climate change in Australia would be a priority for his government, in contrast with those preceding it.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: In February 2003, he criticized the planned US-led invasion of Iraq, saying that "Whatever criticisms can be made of the Iraqi regime, Islamic fundamentalism is not one of them. This is one of the reasons the United States supported Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, including supplying his regime with weapons of mass destruction, which he then used against both the Iranians and the Kurds."


title: Anthony Albanese

text: Albanese's views on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have shifted over the years. During the 2014 Gaza War, he called Israel's bombardment of the Gaza Strip a "collective punishment" that was "completely unacceptable". In 2018, he challenged a decision by the Australian government to vote against a UN human rights council motion calling for an investigation into the killings of Palestinian protesters during the Great March of Return. Shortly before the 2022 election, however, Albanese told "The Australian Jewish News" that any decision he takes on Israel-Palestine will contribute "to a peaceful resolution of the conflict and to progress towards a two-state solution". When asked about a 2018 resolution to recognise the State of Palestine, Albanese insisted the motion "has no greater or lesser weight" than it did previously. In October 2022, his government reversed the Morrison government's decision to recognise West Jerusalem as Israel's capital.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: In February 2022, Albanese condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine, remarking in a press release that it was a "grave moment for humanity".


title: Anthony Albanese

text: In May 2022, Albanese said Australia's relationship with China would remain "a difficult one". He said that "Australia values human rights. We have spoken out about the treatment of Uyghurs, about what's occurred in Hong Kong, about Taiwan, about other minorities including in Tibet, that are suffering from human rights abuses."


title: Anthony Albanese

text: In 2000, Albanese married Carmel Tebbutt, a future Deputy Premier of New South Wales. They had met in Young Labor during the late 1980s, and have one son together. The two separated in January 2019. In June 2020, it was reported that Albanese was in a relationship with Jodie Haydon. Albanese said they had met at a dinner event in Melbourne a year after his separation from Tebbutt. Albanese is the first divorcé to be appointed prime minister.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: Albanese describes himself as "half-Italian and half-Irish" and a "non-practising Catholic". He is also a music fan who, not long after becoming prime minister, attended a Gang of Youths concert at the Enmore Theatre and previously intervened as transport minister to save a Dolly Parton tour from bureaucratic red tape. In 2013, he co-hosted a pre-election special of music program "Rage" and his song selection included the Pixies, the Pogues, the Smiths, the Triffids, PJ Harvey, Nirvana, Hunters & Collectors and Joy Division.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: As a lifelong supporter of the South Sydney Rabbitohs rugby league club, he was a board member of the club from 1999 to 2002 and influential in the fight to have the club readmitted to the National Rugby League (NRL) competition. During October 2009, "The Sydney Morning Herald" reported that Albanese had opposed an attempt to appoint the former Liberal prime minister John Howard to a senior position in the NRL. Albanese stated he had phoned the NRL chief executive, David Gallop, as well as other league officials, to advise them against the idea. He then implored officials at Souths to help stop the suggestion from gaining momentum. In 2013, he was made a life member of the club.


title: Anthony Albanese

text: Albanese was injured in a side collision while driving in Marrickville, New South Wales, on 8 January 2021. He underwent treatment at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and was reportedly "injured externally and internally and had suffered considerable shock in the immediate aftermath of the impact". The other driver was a 17-year-old who received a ticket for negligent driving. Emergency workers told Albanese that if the teen's car had hit just 30 centimetres either side of where it did, Albanese "would almost certainly have been killed". Shortly following this accident, Albanese lost over 18 kilograms (39 pounds) by cutting out carbohydrates and reducing his alcohol intake, in an effort to be "match fit" for his election campaign.


title: Neoliberalism

text: Neoliberalism (also neo-liberalism) is a term used to signify the late 20th century political reappearance of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism after it fell into decline following the Second World War. A prominent factor in the rise of conservative and libertarian organizations, political parties, and think tanks, and predominantly advocated by them, it is generally associated with policies of economic liberalization, including privatization, deregulation, globalization, free trade, monetarism, austerity, and reductions in government spending in order to increase the role of the private sector in the economy and society. The defining features of neoliberalism in both thought and practice have been the subject of substantial scholarly debate.


title: Neoliberalism

text: As an economic philosophy, neoliberalism emerged among European liberal scholars in the 1930s as they attempted to revive and renew central ideas from classical liberalism as they saw these ideas diminish in popularity, overtaken by a desire to control markets, following the Great Depression and manifested in policies designed with the intention to counter the volatility of free markets. One impetus for the formulation of policies to mitigate free-market volatility was a desire to avoid repeating the economic failures of the early 1930s, failures sometimes attributed principally to the economic policy of classical liberalism. In policymaking, neoliberalism often refers to what was part of a paradigm shift that followed the failure of the Keynesian consensus in economics to address the stagflation of the 1970s. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War also made possible the triumph of neoliberalism in the United States and around the world.


title: Neoliberalism

text: The term has multiple, competing definitions, and a pejorative valence. English speakers have used the term since the start of the 20th century with different meanings, but it became more prevalent in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, used by scholars in a wide variety of social sciences as well as by critics to describe the transformation of society in recent decades due to market-based reforms. The term is rarely used by proponents of free-market policies. Some scholars reject the idea that neoliberalism is a monolithic ideology and have described the term as meaning different things to different people as neoliberalism has "mutated" into multiple, geopolitically distinct hybrids as it travelled around the world. Neoliberalism shares many attributes with other concepts that have contested meanings, including representative democracy.


title: Neoliberalism

text: When the term entered into common use in the 1980s in connection with Augusto Pinochet's economic reforms in Chile, it quickly took on negative connotations and was employed principally by critics of market reform and laissez-faire capitalism. Scholars tended to associate it with the theories of Mont Pelerin Society economists Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises and James M. Buchanan, along with politicians and policy-makers such as Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and Alan Greenspan. Once the new meaning of neoliberalism became established as a common usage among Spanish-speaking scholars, it diffused into the English-language study of political economy. By 1994, with the passage of NAFTA and with the Zapatistas' reaction to this development in Chiapas, the term entered global circulation. Scholarship on the phenomenon of neoliberalism has grown over the last few decades.


title: Neoliberalism

text: An early use of the term in English was in 1898 by the French economist Charles Gide to describe the economic beliefs of the Italian economist Maffeo Pantaleoni, with the term previously existing in French, and the term was later used by others including the classical liberal economist Milton Friedman in his 1951 essay "Neo-Liberalism and its Prospects". In 1938 at the Colloque Walter Lippmann, the term "neoliberalism" was proposed, among other terms, and ultimately chosen to be used to describe a certain set of economic beliefs. The colloquium defined the concept of neoliberalism as involving "the priority of the price mechanism, free enterprise, the system of competition, and a strong and impartial state". According to attendees Louis Rougier and Friedrich Hayek, the competition of neoliberalism would establish an elite structure of successful individuals that would assume power in society, with these elites replacing the existing representative democracy acting on the behalf of the majority. To be "neoliberal" meant advocating a modern economic policy with state intervention. Neoliberal state interventionism brought a clash with the opposing "laissez-faire" camp of classical liberals, like Ludwig von Mises. Most scholars in the 1950s and 1960s understood neoliberalism as referring to the social market economy and its principal economic theorists such as Walter Eucken, Wilhelm Röpke, Alexander Rüstow and Alfred Müller-Armack. Although Hayek had intellectual ties to the German neoliberals, his name was only occasionally mentioned in conjunction with neoliberalism during this period due to his more pro-free market stance.


title: Neoliberalism

text: During the military rule under Augusto Pinochet (1973–1990) in Chile, opposition scholars took up the expression to describe the economic reforms implemented there and its proponents (the Chicago Boys). Once this new meaning was established among Spanish-speaking scholars, it diffused into the English-language study of political economy. According to one study of 148 scholarly articles, neoliberalism is almost never defined but used in several senses to describe ideology, economic theory, development theory, or economic reform policy. It has become used largely as a term of abuse and/or to imply a "laissez-faire" market fundamentalism virtually identical to that of classical liberalism – rather than the ideas of those who attended the 1938 colloquium. As a result there is controversy as to the precise meaning of the term and its usefulness as a descriptor in the social sciences, especially as the number of different kinds of market economies have proliferated in recent years.


title: Neoliberalism

text: Unrelated to the economic philosophy described in this article, the term "neoliberalism" is also used to describe a center-left political movement from modern American liberalism in the 1970s. According to political commentator David Brooks, prominent neoliberal politicians included Al Gore and Bill Clinton of the Democratic Party of the United States. The neoliberals coalesced around two magazines, "The New Republic" and the "Washington Monthly", and often supported Third Way policies. The "godfather" of this version of neoliberalism was the journalist Charles Peters, who in 1983 published "A Neoliberal's Manifesto".


title: Neoliberalism

text: Historian Elizabeth Shermer argued that the term gained popularity largely among left-leaning academics in the 1970s to "describe and decry a late twentieth-century effort by policy makers, think-tank experts, and industrialists to condemn social-democratic reforms and unapologetically implement free-market policies"; economic historian Phillip W. Magness notes its reemergence in academic literature in the mid-1980s, after French philosopher Michel Foucault brought attention to it.


title: Neoliberalism

text: "Neoliberalism" is contemporarily used to refer to market-oriented reform policies such as "eliminating price controls, deregulating capital markets, lowering trade barriers" and reducing, especially through privatization and austerity, state influence in the economy. It is also commonly associated with the economic policies introduced by Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom and Ronald Reagan in the United States. Some scholars note it has a number of distinct usages in different spheres:


title: Neoliberalism

text: There is, however, debate over the meaning of the term. Sociologists Fred L. Block and Margaret Somers claim there is a dispute over what to call the influence of free-market ideas which have been used to justify the retrenchment of New Deal programs and policies since the 1980s: neoliberalism, "laissez-faire" or "free market ideology". Other academics such as Susan Braedley and Med Luxton assert that neoliberalism is a political philosophy which seeks to "liberate" the processes of capital accumulation. In contrast, Frances Fox Piven sees neoliberalism as essentially hyper-capitalism. However, Robert W. McChesney, while defining neoliberalism similarly as "capitalism with the gloves off", goes on to assert that the term is largely unknown by the general public, particularly in the United States. Lester Spence uses the term to critique trends in Black politics, defining neoliberalism as "the general idea that society works best when the people and the institutions within it work or are shaped to work according to market principles". According to Philip Mirowski, neoliberalism views the market as the greatest information processor superior to any human being. It is hence considered as the arbiter of truth. Adam Kotsko describes neoliberalism as political theology, as it goes beyond simply being a formula for economic policy agenda and instead infuses it with a moral ethos that "aspires to be a complete way of life and a holistic worldview, in a way that previous models of capitalism did not."


title: Neoliberalism

text: Neoliberalism is distinct from liberalism insofar as it does not advocate "laissez-faire" economic policy but instead is highly constructivist and advocates a strong state to bring about market-like reforms in every aspect of society. Anthropologist Jason Hickel also rejects the notion that neoliberalism necessitates the retreat of the state in favor of totally free markets, arguing that the spread of neoliberalism required substantial state intervention to establish a global 'free market'. Naomi Klein states that the three policy pillars of neoliberalism are "privatization of the public sphere, deregulation of the corporate sector, and the lowering of income and corporate taxes, paid for with cuts to public spending".


title: Neoliberalism

text: Neoliberalism is also, according to some scholars, commonly used as a pejorative by critics, outpacing similar terms such as monetarism, neoconservatism, the Washington Consensus and "market reform" in much scholarly writing. "The Handbook of Neoliberalism", for instance, posits that the term has "become a means of identifying a seemingly ubiquitous set of market-oriented policies as being largely responsible for a wide range of social, political, ecological and economic problems". Its use in this manner has been criticized by those who advocate for policies characterized as neoliberal. The "Handbook", for example, further argues that "such lack of specificity [for the term] reduces its capacity as an analytic frame. If neoliberalism is to serve as a way of understanding the transformation of society over the last few decades then the concept is in need of unpacking". Historian Daniel Stedman Jones has similarly said that the term "is too often used as a catch-all shorthand for the horrors associated with globalization and recurring financial crises". On the other hand, many scholars believe it retains a meaningful definition. Writing in "The Guardian", Stephen Metcalf posits that the publication of the 2016 IMF paper "Neoliberalism: Oversold?" helps "put to rest the idea that the word is nothing more than a political slur, or a term without any analytic power". Gary Gerstle argues that neoliberalism is a legitimate term, and describes it as "a creed that calls explicitly for unleashing capitalism's power." He distinguishes neoliberalism from traditional conservatism as the latter values respect for traditions and bolstering the institutions which reinforce them, whereas the former seeks to disrupt and overcome any institutions which stand in the way.


title: Neoliberalism

text: The Great Depression in the 1930s, which severely decreased economic output throughout the world and produced high unemployment and widespread poverty, was widely regarded as a failure of economic liberalism. To renew the damaged ideology, a group of 25 liberal intellectuals, including a number of prominent academics and journalists like Walter Lippmann, Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Wilhelm Röpke, Alexander Rüstow, and Louis Rougier, organized the Walter Lippmann Colloquium, named in honor of Lippman to celebrate the publication of the French translation of Lippmann's pro-market book "An Inquiry into the Principles of the Good Society". Meeting in Paris in August 1938, they called for a new liberal project, with "neoliberalism" one name floated for the fledgling movement. They further agreed to develop the Colloquium into a permanent think tank based in Paris called the Centre International d'Études pour la Rénovation du Libéralisme.


title: Neoliberalism

text: While most agreed that the "status quo" liberalism promoting "laissez-faire" economics had failed, deep disagreements arose around the proper role of the state. A group of "true (third way) neoliberals" centered around Rüstow and Lippmann advocated for strong state supervision of the economy while a group of old school liberals centered around Mises and Hayek continued to insist that the only legitimate role for the state was to abolish barriers to market entry. Rüstow wrote that Hayek and Mises were relics of the liberalism that caused the Great Depression while Mises denounced the other faction, complaining that the ordoliberalism they advocated really meant "ordo-interventionism".


title: Neoliberalism

text: Divided in opinion and short on funding, the Colloquium was mostly ineffectual; related attempts to further neoliberal ideas, such as the effort by Colloque-attendee Wilhelm Röpke to establish a journal of neoliberal ideas, mostly floundered. Fatefully, the efforts of the Colloquium would be overwhelmed by the outbreak of World War II and were largely forgotten. However, the Colloquium did serve as the first meeting of the nascent "neoliberal" movement and would serve as the precursor to the Mont Pelerin Society, a far more successful effort created after the war by many of those who had been present at the Colloquium.


title: Neoliberalism

text: Neoliberalism began accelerating in importance with the establishment of the Mont Pelerin Society in 1947, whose founding members included Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Karl Popper, George Stigler and Ludwig von Mises. Meeting annually, it became a "kind of international 'who's who' of the classical liberal and neo-liberal intellectuals." While the first conference in 1947 was almost half American, the Europeans dominated by 1951. Europe would remain the epicenter of the community as Europeans dominated the leadership roles.


title: Neoliberalism

text: Established during a time when central planning was in the ascendancy worldwide and there were few avenues for neoliberals to influence policymakers, the society became a "rallying point" for neoliberals, as Milton Friedman phrased it, bringing together isolated advocates of liberalism and capitalism. They were united in their belief that individual freedom in the developed world was under threat from collectivist trends, which they outlined in their statement of aims:


title: Neoliberalism

text: The central values of civilization are in danger. Over large stretches of the Earth's surface the essential conditions of human dignity and freedom have already disappeared. In others, they are under constant menace from the development of current tendencies of policy. The position of the individual and the voluntary group are progressively undermined by extensions of arbitrary power. Even that most precious possession of Western Man, freedom of thought and expression, is threatened by the spread of creeds which, claiming the privilege of tolerance when in the position of a minority, seek only to establish a position of power in which they can suppress and obliterate all views but their own...The group holds that these developments have been fostered by the growth of a view of history which denies all absolute moral standards and by the growth of theories which question the desirability of the rule of law. It holds further that they have been fostered by a decline of belief in private property and the competitive market...[This group's] object is solely, by facilitating the exchange of views among minds inspired by certain ideals and broad conceptions held in common, to contribute to the preservation and improvement of the free society.


title: Neoliberalism

text: The society set out to develop a neoliberal alternative to, on the one hand, the laissez-faire economic consensus that had collapsed with the Great Depression and, on the other, New Deal liberalism and British social democracy, collectivist trends which they believed posed a threat to individual freedom. They believed that classical liberalism had failed because of crippling conceptual flaws which could only be diagnosed and rectified by withdrawing into an intensive discussion group of similarly minded intellectuals; however, they were determined that the liberal focus on individualism and economic freedom must not be abandoned to collectivism.


title: Neoliberalism

text: For decades after the formation of the Mont Pelerin Society, the ideas of the society would remain largely on the fringes of political policy, confined to a number of think-tanks and universities and achieving only measured success with the ordoliberals in Germany, who maintained the need for strong state influence in the economy. It would not be until a succession of economic downturns and crises in the 1970s that neoliberal policy proposals would be widely implemented. By this time, however, neoliberal thought had evolved. The early neoliberal ideas of the Mont Pelerin Society had sought to chart a middle way between the trend of increasing government intervention implemented after the Great Depression and the laissez-faire economics many in the society believed had produced the Great Depression. Milton Friedman, for instance, wrote in his early essay "Neo-liberalism and Its Prospects" that "Neo-liberalism would accept the nineteenth-century liberal emphasis on the fundamental importance of the individual, but it would substitute for the nineteenth century goal of "laissez-faire" as a means to this end, the goal of the competitive order", which requires limited state intervention to "police the system, establish conditions favorable to competition and prevent monopoly, provide a stable monetary framework, and relieve acute misery and distress". But by the 1970s, neoliberal thought—including Friedman's—focused almost exclusively on market liberalization and was adamant in its opposition to nearly all forms of state interference in the economy.


title: Neoliberalism

text: One of the earliest and most influential turns to neoliberal reform occurred in Chile after an economic crisis in the early 1970s. After several years of socialist economic policies under president Salvador Allende, a 1973 "coup d'état", which established a military junta under dictator Augusto Pinochet, led to the implementation of a number of sweeping neoliberal economic reforms that had been proposed by the Chicago Boys, a group of Chilean economists educated under Milton Friedman. This "neoliberal project" served as "the first experiment with neoliberal state formation" and provided an example for neoliberal reforms elsewhere. Beginning in the early 1980s, the Reagan administration and Thatcher government implemented a series of neoliberal economic reforms to counter the chronic stagflation the United States and United Kingdom had each experienced throughout the 1970s. Neoliberal policies continued to dominate American and British politics until the Great Recession. Following British and American reform, neoliberal policies were exported abroad, with countries in Latin America, the Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and even communist China implementing significant neoliberal reform. Additionally, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank encouraged neoliberal reforms in many developing countries by placing reform requirements on loans, in a process known as structural adjustment.


title: Neoliberalism

text: Neoliberal ideas were first implemented in West Germany. The economists around Ludwig Erhard drew on the theories they had developed in the 1930s and 1940s and contributed to West Germany's reconstruction after the Second World War. Erhard was a member of the Mont Pelerin Society and in constant contact with other neoliberals. He pointed out that he is commonly classified as neoliberal and that he accepted this classification.


title: Neoliberalism

text: The ordoliberal Freiburg School was more pragmatic. The German neoliberals accepted the classical liberal notion that competition drives economic prosperity, but they argued that a laissez-faire state policy stifles competition, as the strong devour the weak since monopolies and cartels could pose a threat to freedom of competition. They supported the creation of a well-developed legal system and capable regulatory apparatus. While still opposed to full-scale Keynesian employment policies or an extensive welfare state, German neoliberal theory was marked by the willingness to place humanistic and social values on par with economic efficiency. Alfred Müller-Armack coined the phrase "social market economy" to emphasize the egalitarian and humanistic bent of the idea. According to Boas and Gans-Morse, Walter Eucken stated that "social security and social justice are the greatest concerns of our time".


title: Neoliberalism

text: Erhard emphasized that the market was inherently social and did not need to be made so. He hoped that growing prosperity would enable the population to manage much of their social security by self-reliance and end the necessity for a widespread welfare state. By the name of "Volkskapitalismus", there were some efforts to foster private savings. However, although average contributions to the public old age insurance were quite small, it remained by far the most important old age income source for a majority of the German population, therefore despite liberal rhetoric the 1950s witnessed what has been called a "reluctant expansion of the welfare state". To end widespread poverty among the elderly the pension reform of 1957 brought a significant extension of the German welfare state which already had been established under Otto von Bismarck. Rüstow, who had coined the label "neoliberalism", criticized that development tendency and pressed for a more limited welfare program.


title: Neoliberalism

text: Hayek did not like the expression "social market economy", but stated in 1976 that some of his friends in Germany had succeeded in implementing the sort of social order for which he was pleading while using that phrase. However, in Hayek's view the social market economy's aiming for both a market economy and social justice was a muddle of inconsistent aims. Despite his controversies with the German neoliberals at the Mont Pelerin Society, Ludwig von Mises stated that Erhard and Müller-Armack accomplished a great act of liberalism to restore the German economy and called this "a lesson for the US". However, according to different research Mises believed that the ordoliberals were hardly better than socialists. As an answer to Hans Hellwig's complaints about the interventionist excesses of the Erhard ministry and the ordoliberals, Mises wrote: "I have no illusions about the true character of the politics and politicians of the social market economy". According to Mises, Erhard's teacher Franz Oppenheimer "taught more or less the New Frontier line of" President Kennedy's "Harvard consultants (Schlesinger, Galbraith, etc.)".


title: Neoliberalism

text: In Germany, neoliberalism at first was synonymous with both ordoliberalism and social market economy. But over time the original term neoliberalism gradually disappeared since social market economy was a much more positive term and fit better into the "Wirtschaftswunder" (economic miracle) mentality of the 1950s and 1960s.


title: Neoliberalism

text: Chile was among the earliest nations to implement neoliberal reform. Marxist economic geographer David Harvey has described the substantial neoliberal reforms in Chile beginning in the 1970s as "the first experiment with neoliberal state formation", which would provide "helpful evidence to support the subsequent turn to neoliberalism in both Britain... and the United States." Similarly, Vincent Bevins says that Chile under Augusto Pinochet "became the world's first test case for 'neoliberal' economics."


title: Neoliberalism

text: The turn to neoliberal policies in Chile originated with the Chicago Boys, a select group of Chilean students who, beginning in 1955, were invited to the University of Chicago to pursue postgraduate studies in economics. They studied directly under Milton Friedman and his disciple, Arnold Harberger, and were exposed to Friedrich Hayek. Upon their return to Chile, their neoliberal policy proposals—which centered on widespread deregulation, privatization, reductions to government spending to counter high inflation, and other free-market policies—would remain largely on the fringes of Chilean economic and political thought for a number of years, as the presidency of Salvador Allende (1970–1973) brought about a socialist reorientation of the economy.


title: Neoliberalism

text: During the Allende presidency, Chile experienced a severe economic crisis, in which inflation peaked near 150%. Following an extended period of social unrest and political tension, as well as diplomatic, economic, and covert pressure from the United States, the Chilean armed forces and national police overthrew the Allende government in a coup d'état. They established a repressive military "junta", known for its violent suppression of opposition, and appointed army chief Augusto Pinochet Supreme Head of the nation. His rule was later given legal legitimacy through a controversial 1980 plebiscite, which approved a new constitution drafted by a government-appointed commission that ensured Pinochet would remain as President for a further eight years—with increased powers—after which he would face a re-election referendum.


title: Neoliberalism

text: The Chicago Boys were given significant political influence within the military dictatorship, and they implemented sweeping economic reform. In contrast to the extensive nationalization and centrally planned economic programs supported by Allende, the Chicago Boys implemented rapid and extensive privatization of state enterprises, deregulation, and significant reductions in trade barriers during the latter half of the 1970s. In 1978, policies that would further reduce the role of the state and infuse competition and individualism into areas such as labor relations, pensions, health and education were introduced. Additionally, the central bank raised interest rates from 49.9% to 178% to counter high inflation.


title: Neoliberalism

text: These policies amounted to a shock therapy, which rapidly transformed Chile from an economy with a protected market and strong government intervention into a liberalized, world-integrated economy, where market forces were left free to guide most of the economy's decisions. Inflation was tempered, falling from over 600% in 1974, to below 50% by 1979, to below 10% right before the economic crisis of 1982. GDP growth spiked (see chart) to 10%. However, inequality widened as wages and benefits to the working class were reduced.


title: Neoliberalism

text: In 1982, Chile again experienced a severe economic recession. The cause of this is contested, however most scholars believe the Latin American debt crisis—which swept nearly all of Latin America into financial crisis—was a primary cause. Some scholars argue the neoliberal policies of the Chicago boys heightened the crisis (for instance, percent GDP decrease was higher than in any other Latin American country) or even caused it; for instance, some scholars criticize the high interest rates of the period which—while stabilizing inflation—hampered investment and contributed to widespread bankruptcy in the banking industry. Other scholars fault governmental departures from the neoliberal agenda; for instance, the government pegged the Chilean peso to the US dollar, against the wishes of the Chicago Boys, which economists believe led to an overvalued peso.


title: Neoliberalism

text: After the recession, Chilean economic growth rose quickly, eventually hovering between 5% and 10% and significantly outpacing the Latin American average (see chart). Additionally, unemployment decreased and the percent of the population below the poverty line declined from 50% in 1984 to 34% by 1989. This led Milton Friedman to call the period the "Miracle of Chile", and he attributed the successes to the neoliberal policies of the Chicago boys. Some scholars, however, attribute the successes to the re-regulation of the banking industry and a number of targeted social programs designed to alleviate poverty. Others note that while the economy had stabilized and was growing by the late 1980s, inequality widened: nearly 45% of the population had fallen into poverty while the wealthiest 10% had seen their incomes rise by 83%. According to Chilean economist Alejandro Foxley, when Pinochet finished his 17-year term by 1990, around 44% of Chilean families were living below the poverty line.


title: Neoliberalism

text: Despite years of suppression by the Pinochet junta, in 1988 a presidential election was held, as dictated by the 1980 constitution (though not without Pinochet first holding another plebiscite in an attempt to amend the constitution). In 1990, Patricio Aylwin was democratically elected, bringing an end to the military dictatorship. The reasons cited for Pinochet's acceptance of democratic transition are numerous. Hayek, echoing arguments he had made years earlier in "The Road to Serfdom," argued that the increased economic freedom he believed the neoliberal reforms had brought had put pressure on the dictatorship over time, resulting in a gradual increase in political freedom and, ultimately, the restoration of democracy. The Chilean scholars Javier Martínez and Alvaro Díaz, however, reject this argument, pointing to the long tradition of democracy in Chile. They assert that the defeat of the Pinochet regime and the return of democracy came primarily from large-scale mass rebellion that eventually forced party elites to use existing institutional mechanisms to restore democracy.


title: Neoliberalism

text: In the 1990s, neoliberal economic policies broadened and deepened, including unilateral tariff reductions and the adoption of free trade agreements with a number of Latin American countries and Canada. However, the decade also brought increases in government expenditure on social programs to tackle poverty and poor quality housing. Throughout the 1990s, Chile maintained high growth, averaging 7.3% from 1990 to 1998. Eduardo Aninat, writing for the IMF journal "Finance & Development", called the period from 1986 to 2000 "the longest, strongest, and most stable period of growth in [Chile's] history." In 1999 there was a brief recession brought about by the Asian financial crisis, with growth resuming in 2000 and remaining near 5% until the Great Recession.