title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: Ayman Al-Zawahiri said that he has a deep affection for his mother. Her brother, Mahfouz Azzam, became a role model for him as a teenager. He has a younger brother, Muhammad al-Zawahiri, and a twin sister, Heba Mohamed al-Zawahiri. Heba became a professor of medical oncology at the National Cancer Institute, Cairo University. She described her brother as "silent and shy". Muhammad was sentenced on charges of undergoing military training in Albania in 1998. He was arrested in the UAE in 1999, and sentenced to death in 1999 after being extradited to Egypt. He was held in Tora Prison in Cairo as a political detainee. Security officials said he was the head of the Special Action Committee of Islamic Jihad, which organized terrorist operations. After the Egyptian popular uprising in the spring of 2011, on March 17, 2011, he was released from prison by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the interim government of Egypt. His lawyer said he had been held to extract information about his brother Ayman al-Zawahiri. On March 20, 2011, he was re-arrested. On August 17, 2013, Egyptian authorities arrested Muhammad al-Zawahiri at his home in Giza. He was acquitted in 2017.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: Ayman al-Zawahiri was reportedly a studious youth. He excelled in school, loved poetry, and "hated violent sports", which he thought were "inhumane." Al-Zawahiri studied medicine at Cairo University and graduated in 1974 with "gayyid giddan", or roughly on par with a grade of "B" in the American grading system. Following that, he served 1974–1978 as a surgeon in the Egyptian Army after which he established a clinic near his parents in Maadi. In 1978, he also earned a master's degree in surgery. He spoke Arabic, English, and French.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: Al-Zawahiri participated in youth activism as a student. He became both quite pious and political, under the influence of his uncle Mahfouz Azzam, and lecturer Mostafa Kamel Wasfi. Sayyid Qutb preached that to restore Islam and free Muslims, a vanguard of true Muslims modeling itself after the original Companions of the Prophet had to be developed. Ayman al-Zawahiri was influenced by Qutb's Manichaean views on Islamic theology and Islamic history.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: By the age of 15, al-Zawahiri had formed an underground cell with the goal to overthrow the government and establish an Islamist state. The following year the Egyptian government executed Sayyid Qutb for conspiracy. Following the execution, al-Zawahiri, along with four other secondary school students, helped form an "underground cell devoted to overthrowing the government and establishing an Islamist state." It was at this early age that al-Zawahiri developed a mission in life, "to put Qutb's vision into action." His cell eventually merged with others to form al-Jihad or Egyptian Islamic Jihad.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: Ayman al-Zawahiri was married at least four times. His wives include Azza Ahmed Nowari and Umaima Hassan.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: In 1978, al-Zawahiri married his first wife, Azza Ahmed Nowari, a student at Cairo University who was studying philosophy. Their wedding, which was held at the Continental Hotel in Opera Square, was very conservative, with separate areas for both men and women, and no music, photographs, or gaiety in general. Many years later, when the United States attacked Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks in October 2001, Azza apparently had no idea that al-Zawahiri had supposedly been a jihadi emir (commander) for the last decade.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: Al-Zawahiri and his wife, Azza, had four daughters, Fatima (born 1981), Umayma (born 1983), Nabila (born 1986), and Khadiga (born 1987), and a son, Mohammed (also born in 1987; the twin brother of Khadiga), who was a "delicate, well-mannered boy" and "the pet of his older sisters," subject to teasing and bullying in a traditionally all-male environment, who preferred to "stay at home and help his mother." In 1997, ten years after the birth of Mohammed, Azza gave birth to their fifth daughter, Aisha, who had Down syndrome. In February 2004, Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded and subsequently stated that Abu Turab Al-Urduni had married one of al-Zawahiri's daughters.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: Ayman al-Zawahiri's first wife Azza and two of their six children, Mohammad and Aisha, were killed in an airstrike on Afghanistan by US forces in late December 2001, following the September 11 attacks on the U.S. After an American aerial bombardment of a Taliban-controlled building at Gardez, Azza was pinned under the debris of a guesthouse roof. Concerned for her modesty, she "refused to be excavated" because "men would see her face" and she died from her injuries the following day. Her son, Mohammad, was also killed outright in the same house. Her four-year-old daughter with Down syndrome, Aisha, had not been hurt by the bombing, but died from exposure in the cold night while Afghan rescuers tried to save Azza.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: In the first half of 2005, one of Al-Zawahiri's three surviving wives gave birth to a daughter, named Nawwar.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: In June 2012, one of al-Zawahiri's four wives, Umaima Hassan, released a statement on the internet congratulating the role played by Muslim women in the Arab Spring. She is also known to have written a leaflet explaining women's role in jihad.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: In 1981, Ayman al-Zawahiri traveled to Peshawar, Pakistan, where he worked in a Red Crescent hospital treating wounded refugees. There, he became friends with Ahmed Khadr, and the two shared a number of conversations about the need for Islamic government and the needs of the Afghan people.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: Ayman al-Zawahiri worked as a surgeon. In 1985, al-Zawahiri went to Saudi Arabia on Hajj and stayed to practice medicine in Jeddah for a year. As a reportedly qualified surgeon, when his organization merged with bin Laden's al-Qaeda, he became bin Laden's personal advisor and physician. He had first met bin Laden in Jeddah in 1986. According to other sources, they met the first time in 1986 at a hospital in Peshawar.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: In 1993, al-Zawahiri traveled to the United States, where he addressed several mosques in California under his "Abdul Mu'iz" pseudonym, relying on his credentials from the Kuwaiti Red Crescent to raise money for Afghan children who had been injured by Soviet land mines—he raised only $2000.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: In 1981, Al-Zawahiri was one of hundreds arrested following the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. Initially, the plan was derailed when authorities were alerted to Al-Jihad's plan by the arrest of an operative carrying crucial information, in February 1981. President Sadat ordered the roundup of more than 1,500 people, including many Al-Jihad members, but missed a cell in the military led by Lieutenant Khalid Islambouli, who succeeded in assassinating Sadat during a military parade that October. His lawyer, Montasser el-Zayat, said that al-Zawahiri was tortured in prison.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: In his book, "Al-Zawahiri as I Knew Him", Al-Zayat maintains that under torture by the Egyptian police, following his arrest in connection with the murder of Sadat in 1981, Al-Zawahiri revealed the hiding place of Essam al-Qamari, a key member of the Maadi cell of al-Jihad, which led to Al-Qamari's "arrest and eventual execution." He was released from prison in 1984.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: In 1993, al-Zawahiri's and Egyptian Islamic Jihad's (EIJ) connection with Iran may have led to a suicide bombing in an attempt on the life of Egyptian Interior Minister Hasan al-Alfi, the man heading the effort to quash the campaign of Islamist killings in Egypt. It failed, as did an attempt to assassinate Egyptian prime minister Atef Sidqi three months later. The bombing of Sidqi's car injured 21 Egyptians and killed a schoolgirl, Shayma Abdel-Halim. It followed two years of killings by another Islamist group, al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, that had killed over 200 people. Her funeral became a public spectacle, with her coffin carried through the streets of Cairo and crowds shouting, "Terrorism is the enemy of God!" The police arrested 280 more of al-Jihad's members and executed six.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: For their leading role in anti-Egyptian Government attacks in the 1990s, al-Zawahiri and his brother Muhammad al-Zawahiri were sentenced to death in the 1999 Egyptian case of the Returnees from Albania.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: The 1995 attack on the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, was carried out by the Egyptian Islamic Jihad under al-Zawahiri's leadership, but Bin Laden had disapproved of the operation. The bombing alienated Pakistan, which was "the best route into Afghanistan".


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: In July 2007, Al-Zawahiri supplied direction for the Lal Masjid siege, codename Operation Silence. This was the first confirmed time that Al-Zawahiri was taking militant steps against the Pakistani Government and guiding Islamic militants against the State of Pakistan. The Pakistan Army troops and Special Service Group taking control of the Lal Masjid ("Red Mosque") in Islamabad found letters from al-Zawahiri directing Islamic militants Abdul Rashid Ghazi and Abdul Aziz Ghazi, who ran the mosque and adjacent madrasah. This conflict resulted in 100 deaths.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: On December 27, 2007, al-Zawahiri was also implicated in the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: In 1994, the sons of Ahmad Salama Mabruk and Mohammed Sharaf were executed under al-Zawahiri's leadership for betraying Egyptian Islamic Jihad; the militants were ordered to leave the Sudan.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: In 1998, Ayman al-Zawahiri was listed as under indictment in the United States for his role in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings: a series of attacks on August 7, 1998, in which hundreds of people were killed in simultaneous truck bomb explosions at the United States embassies in the major East African cities of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: In 2000, the USS "Cole" bombing encouraged several members to depart. Mohammed Atef escaped to Kandahar, al-Zawahiri to Kabul, and Bin Laden also fled to Kabul, later joining Atef when he realised no American reprisal attacks were forthcoming.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: On October 10, 2001, al-Zawahiri appeared on the initial list of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's top 22 Most Wanted Terrorists, which was released to the public by U.S. President George W. Bush. In early November 2001, the Taliban government announced they were bestowing official Afghan citizenship on him, as well as Bin Laden, Mohammed Atef, Saif al-Adl, and Shaykh Asim Abdulrahman.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: In Peshwar, al-Zawahiri was thought to have become radicalized by other Al-Jihad members, abandoning his old strategy of a swift coup d'état to change society from above, and embracing the idea of takfir. In 1991, EIJ broke with al-Zumur, and al-Zawahiri grabbed "the reins of power" to become EIJ leader.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: Ayman al-Zawahiri was previously the second and last "emir" of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, having succeeded Abbud al-Zumar in the latter role when Egyptian authorities sentenced al-Zumar to life imprisonment. Ayman al-Zawahiri eventually became one of Egyptian Islamic Jihad's leading organizers and recruiters. Al-Zawahiri's hope was to recruit military officers and accumulate weapons, waiting for the right moment to launch "a complete overthrow of the existing order." Chief strategist of Al-Jihad was Aboud al-Zumar, a colonel in the military intelligence whose plan was to kill the main leaders of the country, capture the headquarters of the army and State Security, the telephone exchange building, and of course the radio and television building, where news of the Islamic revolution would then be broadcast, unleashing – he expected – "a popular uprising against secular authority all over the country."


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: In Peshawar, he made contact with Osama bin Laden, who was running a base for "mujahideen" called Maktab al-Khadamat (MAK); founded by the Palestinian Sheikh Abdullah Yusuf Azzam. The radical position of al-Zawahiri and the other militants of Al-Jihad put them at odds with Sheikh Azzam, with whom they competed for bin Laden's financial resources. Al-Zawahiri carried two false passports, a Swiss one in the name of Amin Uthman and a Dutch one in the name of Mohmud Hifnawi.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: British journalist Jason Burke wrote: "Al-Zawahiri ran his own operation during the Afghan war, bringing in and training volunteers from the Middle East. Some of the $500 million the CIA poured into Afghanistan reached his group."


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: Former FBI agent Ali Soufan mentioned in his book "The Black Banners" that Ayman al-Zawahiri is suspected of ordering Azzam's assassination in 1989.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: According to reports by a former al-Qaeda member, al-Zawahiri worked in the al-Qaeda organization since its inception and was a senior member of the group's "shura" council. He was often described as a "lieutenant" to Osama bin Laden, though bin Laden's chosen biographer has referred to him as the "real brains" of al-Qaeda.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: On February 23, 1998, al-Zawahiri issued a joint fatwa with Osama bin Laden under the title "World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders". Al-Zawahiri, not bin Laden, is thought to have been the actual author of the fatwa.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri organized an al-Qaeda congress on June 24, 1998. A week prior to the beginning of the conference, a group of well-armed assistants to al-Zawahiri had left by jeeps in the direction of Herat. Following the instructions of their patron, in the town of Koh-i-Doshakh, they met three unknown Slavic-looking men who had arrived from Russia via Iran. After their arrival in Kandahar, they split up. One of the Russians was directly escorted to al-Zawahiri and he did not participate in the conference. Western military intelligence succeeded in acquiring photographs of him, but he disappeared for six years. According to Axis Globe, in 2004, when Qatar and the U.S. investigated Russian embassy officials whom the United Arab Emirates had arrested in connection to the murder of Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev in Qatar, computer software precisely established that a man who had walked to the Russian embassy in Doha was the same one who visited al-Zawahiri prior to the Al-Qaida conference.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: Al-Zawahiri was placed under international sanctions in 1999 by the United Nations' Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee as a member of the Salafi-jihadist group al-Qaeda.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: In late 2001, a computer was seized that was stolen from an office used by al-Qaeda immediately after the fall of Kabul in November. This computer was mainly used by al-Zawahiri and contained the letter with an interview request for Ahmad Shah Massoud. The journalists who conducted the interview assassinated Massoud on September 9, 2001.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: In late 2004 bin Laden named al-Zawahiri officially as his deputy. On April 30, 2009, the U.S. State Department reported that al-Zawahiri had emerged as al-Qaeda's operational and strategic commander, and that Osama bin Laden was now only the ideological figurehead of the organization. After the 2011 death of bin Laden, a senior U.S. intelligence official said intelligence gathered in the raid showed that bin Laden remained deeply involved in planning: "This compound (where bin Laden was killed) in Abbottabad was an active command-and-control center for al-Qaeda's leader. He was active in operational planning and in driving tactical decisions within al-Qaeda."


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: Following the death of bin Laden, former U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating Terrorism Juan Zarate said that al-Zawahiri would "clearly assume the mantle of leadership" of al-Qaeda. A senior U.S. administration official said that although al-Zawahiri was likely to be al-Qaeda's next leader, his authority was not "universally accepted" among al-Qaeda's followers, particularly in the Gulf region. Zarate said that al-Zawahiri was more controversial and less charismatic than bin Laden. Rashad Mohammad Ismail (AKA "Abu Al-Fida"), a leading member of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, stated that al-Zawahiri was the best candidate.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: Hamid Mir is reported to have said that he believed that Ayman al-Zawahiri was the operational head of al-Qaeda, and that "[h]e is the person who can do the things that happened on September 11." Within days of the attacks, al-Zawahiri's name was put forward as bin Laden's second-in-command, with reports suggesting he represented "a more formidable US foe than bin Laden."


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: Al-Zawahiri became the leader of al-Qaeda following the May 2, 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden. His succession to that role was announced on several of their websites on June 16, 2011. On the same day, al-Qaeda renewed its position that Israel was an illegitimate state and that it would not accept any compromise on Palestine.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: The delayed announcement led some analysts to speculate that there was quarreling within al-Qaeda: "It doesn't suggest a vast reservoir of accumulated goodwill for him," said one celebrity journalist on CNN. Both U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen maintain that the delay didn't signal any kind of dispute within al-Qaeda, and Mullen reiterated U.S. death threats toward al-Zawahiri. According to US officials within the Obama administration and Robert Gates, al-Zawahiri would find the leadership difficult as, while intelligent, he lacks combat experience and the charisma of Osama bin Laden.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: Al-Zawahiri allegedly worked with the Islamic Republic of Iran on behalf of al-Qaeda. Author Lawrence Wright reports that EIJ operative Ali Mohammed "told the FBI that al-Jihad had planned a coup in Egypt in 1990." Al-Zawahiri had studied the 1979 Islamist Islamic Revolution and "sought training from the Iranians" as to how to duplicate their feat against the Egyptian government.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: In public, al-Zawahiri harshly denounced the Iranian government. In December 2007, he said, "We discovered Iran collaborating with America in its invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq." In the same video messages, he moreover chides Iran for "repeating the ridiculous joke that says that al-Qaida and the Taliban are agents of America," before playing a video clip in which Ayatollah Rafsanjani says, "In Afghanistan, they were present in Afghanistan, because of Al-Qa'ida; and the Taliban, who created the Taliban? America is the one who created the Taliban, and America's friends in the region are the ones who financed and armed the Taliban."


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: In April 2008, al-Zawahiri blamed Iranian state media and Al-Manar for perpetuating the "lie" that "there are no heroes among the Sunnis who can hurt America as no-one else did in history" in order to discredit the Al Qaeda network. Al-Zawahiri was referring to some 9/11 conspiracy theories that claim that Al Qaeda was not responsible for the 9/11 attacks.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: On the seventh anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001, al-Zawahiri released a 90-minute tape in which he "the guardian of Muslims in Tehran" for recognizing "the two governments" in Iraq and Afghanistan.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: At some point in 1994, al-Zawahiri was said to have "become " but is thought to have traveled widely to "Switzerland and Sarajevo". A fake passport he was using shows that he traveled to Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: On December 1, 1996, Ahmad Salama Mabruk and Mahmud Hisham al-Hennawi – both carrying false passports – accompanied al-Zawahiri on a trip to Chechnya, where they hoped to re-establish the faltering Jihad. Their leader was traveling under the pseudonym "Abdullah Imam Mohammed Amin", and trading on his medical credentials for legitimacy. The group switched vehicles three times, but were arrested within hours of entering Russian territory and spent five months in a Makhachkala prison awaiting trial. The trio pleaded innocence, maintaining their disguise while other al-Jihad members from "Bavari-C" sent the Russian authorities pleas for leniency for their "merchant" colleagues who had been wrongly arrested. Russian Member of Parliament Nadyr Khachiliev echoed the pleas for their speedy release as al-Jihad members Ibrahim Eidarous and Tharwat Salah Shehata traveled to Dagestan to plead for their release. Shehata received permission to visit the prisoners. He is believed to have smuggled $3000 to them, which was later confiscated, and to have given them a letter which the Russians didn't bother to translate. In April 1997 the trio were sentenced to six months, were subsequently released a month later, and absconded without paying their court-appointed attorney Abulkhalik Abdusalamov his $1,800 legal fee, citing "poverty". Shehata was sent on to Chechnya where he met with Ibn Khattab.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: There have been doubts as to the true nature of al-Zawahiri's encounter with the Russians in 1996. Jamestown Foundation scholar Evgenii Novikov has argued that it seems unlikely that the Russians would not have been able to determine who he was, given Russia's well-trained Arabists and the suspicious acts of Muslims crossing borders illegally with multiple Arabic false identities and encrypted documents. Assassinated former FSB secret service officer Alexander Litvinenko alleged, among other things, that during this time al-Zawahiri was trained by the FSB and that he was not the only link between al-Qaeda and the FSB. Former KGB officer, Voice of America commentator and writer Konstantin Preobrazhenskiy supported Litvinenko's claim. He said that Litvinenko "was responsible for securing the secrecy of Al-Zawahiri's arrival in Russia, who was trained by FSB instructors in Dagestan, Northern Caucasus, during 1996–1997."


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: Al-Zawahiri was convicted of dealing in weapons and received a three-year sentence, which he completed in 1984, shortly after his conviction.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: Al-Zawahiri learned of a "Nonviolence Initiative" organized in Egypt to end the terror campaign that had killed hundreds and resulting government crackdown that had imprisoned thousands. Al-Zawahiri angrily opposed this "surrender" in letters to the London newspaper "Al-Sharq al-Awsat". Together with members of al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, he helped organize a massive attack on tourists at the Temple of Hatshepsut to sabotage the initiative by provoking the government into repression.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: The attack by six men dressed in police uniforms succeeded in machine-gunning and hacking to death 58 foreign tourists and four Egyptians, including "a five-year-old British child and four Japanese couples on their honeymoons," and devastated the Egyptian tourist industry for a number of years. Nonetheless, the Egyptian reaction was not what al-Zawahiri had hoped for. The attack so stunned and angered Egyptian society that Islamists denied responsibility. Al-Zawahiri blamed the police for the killing, but also held the tourists responsible for their own deaths for coming to Egypt,


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: In December 2001, al-Zawahiri published a book entitled "Fursan Rayat al Nabi" ("Knights Under the Prophet's Banner") which outlined ideologies of al-Qaeda. English translations of this book were published; excerpts are available online.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: Following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, al-Zawahiri's whereabouts were unknown, but he was generally thought to be in tribal Pakistan. Although he released videos of himself frequently, al-Zawahiri did not appear alongside bin Laden in any of them after 2003. In 2003, it was rumored that he was under arrest in Iran, although this was later discovered to be false.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: On January 13, 2006, the Central Intelligence Agency, aided by Pakistan's ISI, launched an airstrike on Damadola, a Pakistani village near the Afghan border where they believed al-Zawahiri was located. The airstrike was supposed to kill al-Zawahiri and this was reported in international news over the following days. Many victims of the airstrike were buried unidentified. Anonymous U.S. government officials claimed that some terrorists were killed and the Bajaur tribal area government confirmed that at least four terrorists were among the dead. Anti-American protests broke out around the country and the Pakistani government condemned the U.S. attack and the loss of innocent life.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: On August 1, 2008, CBS News reported that it had obtained a copy of an intercepted letter dated July 29, 2008, from unnamed sources in Pakistan, which urgently requested a doctor to treat al-Zawahiri. The letter indicated that al-Zawahiri was critically injured in a US missile strike at Azam Warsak village in South Waziristan on July 28 that also reportedly killed al Qaeda explosives expert Abu Khabab al-Masri. Taliban Mehsud spokesman Maulvi Umar told the Associated Press on August 2, 2008, that the report of al-Zawahiri's injury was false.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: In early September 2008, Pakistan Army claimed that they "almost" captured al-Zawahiri after getting information that he and his wife were in the Mohmand Agency, in northwest Pakistan. After raiding the area, officials didn't find him.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: In two videos posted on Jihadist websites in 2012, al-Zawahiri called on Muslims to "capture" foreign citizens to leverage the release of Omar Abdel-Rahman, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. In the videos, al-Zawahiri cited to the successful kidnapping of Jewish American Warren Weinstein in 2011 as precedent for further kidnappings. Al-Zawahiri also called for the institution of Sharia law in Egypt and questioned the views of then-President of Egypt Mohamed Morsi.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: In June 2013, al-Zawahiri arbitrated against the merger of the Islamic State of Iraq with the Syrian-based Jabhat al-Nusra into Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant as was declared in April by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Abu Mohammad al-Julani, leader of al-Nusra Front, affirmed the group's allegiance to al-Qaeda and al-Zawahiri.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: In September 2015, al-Zawahiri urged Islamic State (ISIL) to stop fighting al-Nusra Front, the official al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, and to unite with all other jihadists against the supposed alliance between America, Russia, Europe, Shiites and Iran, and Bashar al-Assad's Alawite regime.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: Ayman al-Zawahiri released a statement supporting jihad in Xinjiang against Chinese, jihad in the Caucasus against the Russians and naming Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan as battlegrounds. al-Zawahiri endorsed "jihad to liberate every span of land of the Muslims that has been usurped and violated, from Kashgar to Andalusia, and from the Caucasus to Somalia and Central Africa". Uyghurs inhabit Kashgar, the city which was mentioned by al-Zawahiri. In another statement he said, "My mujahideen brothers in all places and of all groups ... we face aggression from America, Europe, and Russia ... so it's up to us to stand together as one from East Turkestan to Morocco". In 2015, the Turkistan Islamic Party (East Turkistan Islamic Movement) released an image showing Al Qaeda leaders Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama Bin Laden meeting with Hasan Mahsum.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: The Uyghurs East Turkestan independence movement was endorsed in the serial "Islamic Spring"'s 9th release by Al-Zawahiri. Al-Zawahiri confirmed that the Afghanistan war after 9/11 included the participation of Uyghurs and that the jihadists like Zarwaqi, Bin Ladin and the Uyghur Hasan Mahsum were provided with refuge together in Afghanistan under Taliban rule. Uyghur fighters were praised by al-Zawahiri, before a Turkistan Islamic Party performed a Bishkek bombing on August 30. Uighur jihadists were hailed by Ayman al-Zawahiri.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: Doğu Türkistan Bülteni Haber Ajansı reported that the Uyghur Turkistan Islamic Party was praised by Abu Qatada along with Abdul Razzaq al Mahdi, Maqdisi, Muhaysini and al-Zawahiri.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and Abu Qatada were referenced by Muhaysini. Osama bin Laden and al-Zawahiri were by Muhaysini.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: The Rewards for Justice Program of the U.S. Department of State offered a reward of up to US$25 million for information about al-Zawahiri's location.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: On July 31, 2022, al-Zawahiri was killed in a US strike in Kabul, Afghanistan. He had been rumoured to be in Pakistan's tribal area or inside Afghanistan. His death is considered to be the biggest hit to the terrorist group since Osama Bin Laden was killed in 2011. Others described his death as "anticlimactic to Al Qaeda's demise", stating "[h]is moves as leader of the shrinking group were watched more by analysts than by jihadists" at the time of his death.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: As a leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, al-Zawahiri conceived of Islamism in Egypt as a revolutionary movement of heroic fighters who the masses would join in the wake of their victories. The movement was mostly a failure, including its crushing defeat and suppression by the Egyptian government following the assassination of Anwar Sadat. The popular uprising envisioned by al-Zawahiri never came to be, and some Islamist leaders agreed to cease-fire terms with the government. After these events, al-Zawahiri joined Al-Qaeda, which had aims that were international in scope and was focused on the conflict with the United States rather than the ongoing localized conflict with the secular regime in Egypt.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: In a lengthy treatise titled "Loyalty and Enmity", al-Zawahiri said that Muslims must at all times be loyal to Islam and to one another, while hating or avoiding everything and everyone outside of Islam.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: Al-Zawahiri said in an April 2008 interview that the group does not have women combatants and that a woman's role is limited to caring for the homes and children of al-Qaeda fighters. This resulted in a debate regarding the role of mujahid women like Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: In 2008 he claimed that "Persians" are the enemy of Arabs and that Iran cooperated with the U.S. during the occupation of Iraq.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: Al-Zawahiri placed supreme importance on winning public support, and castigated Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in this regard: "In the absence of this popular support, the Islamic mujahid movement would be crushed in the shadows."


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: In mid-December 2007, al-Zawahiri's spokespeople announced plans for an "open interview" on a handful of Islamic Web sites. The administrators of four known jihadist web sites have been authorized to collect and forward questions, "unedited", they pledge, and "regardless of whether they are in support of or are against" al-Qaeda, which would be forwarded to al-Zawahiri on January 16. al-Zawahiri responded to the questions later in 2008; among the things he said were that al-Qaeda didn't kill innocents, and that al-Qaeda would move to target Israel "after expelling the occupier from Iraq".


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: Al-Zawahiri was killed on July 31, 2022, shortly after 6:00 AM local time in an early-morning drone strike conducted by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in the upscale Sherpur neighborhood of Kabul, reportedly in a house owned by a top aide to Sirajuddin Haqqani, a senior official in the Taliban government.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: In a statement to reporters, a senior administration official said "over the weekend, the United States conducted a counterterrorism operation against a significant Al Qaeda target in Afghanistan. The operation was successful and there were no civilian casualties." The United States Department of Defense denied responsibility for the strike, while the United States Central Command declined to comment. On August 1, delayed by two days to allow time for proper verification of the operation's success, President Joe Biden announced at the White House that the U.S. Intelligence Community had located al-Zawahiri as he moved into downtown Kabul in early 2022 and that President Biden had authorized the operation a week prior. Biden also stated that the operation did not harm any members of al-Zawahiri's family or other civilians.


title: Ayman al-Zawahiri

text: According to U.S. government sources, Al-Zawahiri was killed by Hellfire missiles fired from a Reaper drone. Press sources have speculated that the missiles may have been R9X Hellfire missiles, which are designed to kill by impact and with blades instead of explosion to avoid unintended casualties.


title: Milk

text: Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digest solid food. Immune factors and immune-modulating components in milk contribute to milk immunity. Early-lactation milk, which is called colostrum, contains antibodies that strengthen the immune system, and thus reduces the risk of many diseases. Milk contains many nutrients, including protein and lactose.


title: Milk

text: As an agricultural product, dairy milk is collected from farm animals. In 2011, dairy farms produced around of milk from 260 million dairy cows. India is the world's largest producer of milk and the leading exporter of skimmed milk powder, but it exports few other milk products. Because there is an ever-increasing demand for dairy products within India, it could eventually become a net importer of dairy products. New Zealand, Germany and the Netherlands are the largest exporters of milk products. The US CDC recommends that children over the age of 12 months should have two servings of dairy milk products a day.


title: Milk

text: More than six billion people worldwide consume milk and milk products, and between 750 and 900 million people live in dairy-farming households.


title: Milk

text: The term "milk" comes from "Old English "meoluc" (West Saxon), "milc" (Anglian), from Proto-Germanic *"meluks" "milk" (source also of Old Norse "mjolk", Old Frisian "melok", Old Saxon "miluk", Dutch "melk", Old High German "miluh", German "Milch", Gothic "miluks")".


title: Milk

text: In food use, from 1961, the term "milk" has been defined under Codex Alimentarius standards as: "the normal mammary secretion of milking animals obtained from one or more milkings without either addition to it or extraction from it, intended for consumption as liquid milk or for further processing." The term "dairy" relates to animal milk and animal milk production.


title: Milk

text: There are two distinct categories of milk consumption: all infant mammals drink milk directly from their mothers’ bodies, and it is their primary source of nutrition; and humans obtain milk from other mammals for consumption by humans of all ages, as one component of a varied diet.


title: Milk

text: In almost all mammals, milk is fed to infants through breastfeeding, either directly or by expressing the milk to be stored and consumed later. The early milk from mammals is called colostrum. Colostrum contains antibodies that provide protection to the newborn baby as well as nutrients and growth factors. The makeup of the colostrum and the period of secretion varies from species to species.


title: Milk

text: For humans, the World Health Organization recommends exclusive breastfeeding for six months and breastfeeding in addition to other food for up to two years of age or more. In some cultures it is common to breastfeed children for three to five years, and the period may be longer.


title: Milk

text: Fresh goats' milk is sometimes substituted for breast milk, which introduces the risk of the child developing electrolyte imbalances, metabolic acidosis, megaloblastic anemia, and a host of allergic reactions.


title: Milk

text: In many cultures, especially in the West, humans continue to consume milk beyond infancy, using the milk of other mammals (especially cattle, goats and sheep) as a food product. Initially, the ability to digest milk was limited to children as adults did not produce lactase, an enzyme necessary for digesting the lactose in milk. People therefore converted milk to curd, cheese, and other products to reduce the levels of lactose. Thousands of years ago, a chance mutation spread in human populations in northwestern Europe that enabled the production of lactase in adulthood. This mutation allowed milk to be used as a new source of nutrition which could sustain populations when other food sources failed. Milk is processed into a variety of products such as cream, butter, yogurt, kefir, ice cream, and cheese. Modern industrial processes use milk to produce casein, whey protein, lactose, condensed milk, powdered milk, and many other food-additives and industrial products.


title: Milk

text: Whole milk, butter, and cream have high levels of saturated fat. The sugar lactose is found only in milk, and possibly in forsythia flowers and a few tropical shrubs. Lactase, the enzyme needed to digest lactose, reaches its highest levels in the human small intestine immediately after birth, and then begins a slow decline unless milk is consumed regularly. Those groups who continue to tolerate milk have often exercised great creativity in using the milk of domesticated ungulates, not only cattle, but also sheep, goats, yaks, water buffalo, horses, reindeer and camels. India is the largest producer and consumer of cattle- and buffalo milk in the world.


title: Milk

text: Humans first learned to consume the milk of other mammals regularly following the domestication of animals during the Neolithic Revolution or the development of agriculture. This development occurred independently in several global locations from as early as 9000–7000BC in Mesopotamia to 3500–3000BC in the Americas. People first domesticated the most important dairy animals – cattle, sheep and goats – in Southwest Asia, although domestic cattle had been independently derived from wild aurochs populations several times since. Initially animals were kept for meat, and archaeologist Andrew Sherratt has suggested that dairying, along with the exploitation of domestic animals for hair and labor, began much later in a separate secondary products revolution in the fourth millennium BC. Sherratt's model is not supported by recent findings, based on the analysis of lipid residue in prehistoric pottery, that shows that dairying was practiced in the early phases of agriculture in Southwest Asia, by at least the seventh millennium BC.


title: Milk

text: From Southwest Asia domestic dairy animals spread to Europe (beginning around 7000 BC but did not reach Britain and Scandinavia until after 4000 BC), and South Asia (7000–5500 BC). The first farmers in central Europe and Britain milked their animals. Pastoral and pastoral nomadic economies, which rely predominantly or exclusively on domestic animals and their products rather than crop farming, were developed as European farmers moved into the Pontic–Caspian steppe in the fourth millennium BC, and subsequently spread across much of the Eurasian steppe. Sheep and goats were introduced to Africa from Southwest Asia, but African cattle may have been independently domesticated around 7000–6000BC. Camels, domesticated in central Arabia in the fourth millennium BC, have also been used as dairy animals in North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. The earliest Egyptian records of burn treatments describe burn dressings using milk from mothers of male babies. In the rest of the world (i.e., East and Southeast Asia, the Americas and Australia) milk and dairy products were historically not a large part of the diet, either because they remained populated by hunter-gatherers who did not keep animals or the local agricultural economies did not include domesticated dairy species. Milk consumption became common in these regions comparatively recently, as a consequence of European colonialism and political domination over much of the world in the last 500 years.


title: Milk

text: In the Middle Ages, milk was called the "virtuous white liquor" because alcoholic beverages were safer to consume than the water generally available. Incorrectly thought to be blood diverted from the womb to the breast, it was also known as "white blood", and treated like blood for religious dietary purposes and in humoral theory.


title: Milk

text: James Rosier's record of the 1605 voyage made by George Weymouth to New England did report the Wabanaki people Weymouth captured in Maine did report milking "Rain-Deere and Fallo-Deere." But Journalist Avery Yale Kamila and food historians said Rosier "misinterpreted the evidence." Historians report the Wabanaki did not domesticate deer. The tribes of the northern woodlands have historically been making nut milk. Cows were imported to New England in 1624.


title: Milk

text: The growth in urban population, coupled with the expansion of the railway network in the mid-19th century, brought about a revolution in milk production and supply. Individual railway firms began transporting milk from rural areas to London from the 1840s and 1850s. Possibly the first such instance was in 1846, when St Thomas's Hospital in Southwark contracted with milk suppliers outside London to ship milk by rail. The Great Western Railway was an early and enthusiastic adopter, and began to transport milk into London from Maidenhead in 1860, despite much criticism. By 1900, the company was transporting over annually. The milk trade grew slowly through the 1860s, but went through a period of extensive, structural change in the 1870s and 1880s.


title: Milk

text: Urban demand began to grow, as consumer purchasing power increased and milk became regarded as a required daily commodity. Over the last three decades of the 19th century, demand for milk in most parts of the country doubled or, in some cases, tripled. Legislation in 1875 made the adulteration of milk illegal– This combined with a marketing campaign to change the image of milk. The proportion of rural imports by rail as a percentage of total milk consumption in London grew from under 5% in the 1860s to over 96% by the early 20th century. By that point, the supply system for milk was the most highly organized and integrated of any food product. Milk was analyzed for infection with tuberculosis. In 1907 180 samples were tested in Birmingham and 13.3% were found to be infected.


title: Milk

text: The first glass bottle packaging for milk was used in the 1870s. The first company to do so may have been the New York Dairy Company in 1877. The Express Dairy Company in England began glass bottle production in 1880. In 1884, Hervey Thatcher, an American inventor from New York, invented a glass milk bottle, called "Thatcher's Common Sense Milk Jar," which was sealed with a waxed paper disk. Later, in 1932, plastic-coated paper milk cartons were introduced commercially.


title: Milk

text: In 1863, French chemist and biologist Louis Pasteur invented pasteurization, a method of killing harmful bacteria in beverages and food products. He developed this method while on summer vacation in Arbois, to remedy the frequent acidity of the local wines. He found out experimentally that it is sufficient to heat a young wine to only about for a brief time to kill the microbes, and that the wine could be nevertheless properly aged without sacrificing the final quality. In honor of Pasteur, the process became known as "pasteurization". Pasteurization was originally used as a way of preventing wine and beer from souring. Commercial pasteurizing equipment was produced in Germany in the 1880s, and producers adopted the process in Copenhagen and Stockholm by 1885.


title: Milk

text: The females of all mammal species can, by definition, produce milk, but cow's milk dominates commercial production. In 2011, FAO estimates 85% of all milk worldwide was produced from cows. Human milk is not produced or distributed industrially or commercially; however, human milk banks collect donated human breastmilk and redistribute it to infants who may benefit from human milk for various reasons (premature neonates, babies with allergies, metabolic diseases, etc.) but who cannot breastfeed.


title: Milk

text: In the Western world, cow's milk is produced on an industrial scale and is, by far, the most commonly consumed form of milk. Commercial dairy farming using automated milking equipment produces the vast majority of milk in developed countries. Dairy cattle, such as the Holstein, have been bred selectively for increased milk production. About 90% of the dairy cows in the United States and 85% in Great Britain are Holsteins. Other dairy cows in the United States include Ayrshire, Brown Swiss, Guernsey, Jersey and Milking Shorthorn (Dairy Shorthorn).


title: Milk

text: Aside from cattle, many kinds of livestock provide milk used by humans for dairy products. These animals include water buffalo, goat, sheep, camel, donkey, horse, reindeer and yak. The first four respectively produced about 11%, 2%, 1.4% and 0.2% of all milk worldwide in 2011.


title: Milk

text: According to the US National Bison Association, American bison (also called American buffalo) are not milked commercially; however, various sources report cows resulting from cross-breeding bison and domestic cattle are good milk producers, and have been used both during the European settlement of North America and during the development of commercial Beefalo in the 1970s and 1980s.


title: Milk

text: Swine are almost never milked, even though their milk is similar to cow's milk and perfectly suitable for human consumption. The main reasons for this are that milking a sow's numerous small teats is very cumbersome, and that sows can not store their milk as cows can. A few pig farms do sell pig cheese as a novelty item; these cheeses are exceedingly expensive.


title: Milk

text: In 2012, the largest producer of milk and milk products was India followed by the United States of America, China, Pakistan and Brazil. All 28 European Union members together produced of milk in 2013, the largest by any politico-economic union.


title: Milk

text: Increasing affluence in developing countries, as well as increased promotion of milk and milk products, has led to a rise in milk consumption in developing countries in recent years. In turn, the opportunities presented by these growing markets have attracted investments by multinational dairy firms. Nevertheless, in many countries production remains on a small scale and presents significant opportunities for diversification of income sources by small farms. Local milk collection centers, where milk is collected and chilled prior to being transferred to urban dairies, are a good example of where farmers have been able to work on a cooperative basis, particularly in countries such as India.


title: Milk

text: FAO reports Israel dairy farms are the most productive in the world, with a yield of milk per cow per year. This survey over 2001 and 2007 was conducted by ICAR (International Committee for Animal Recording) across 17 developed countries. The survey found that the average herd size in these developed countries increased from 74 to 99 cows per herd between 2001 and 2007. A dairy farm had an average of 19 cows per herd in Norway, and 337 in New Zealand. Annual milk production in the same period increased from per cow in these developed countries. The lowest average production was in New Zealand at per cow. The milk yield per cow depended on production systems, nutrition of the cows, and only to a minor extent different genetic potential of the animals. What the cow ate made the most impact on the production obtained. New Zealand cows with the lowest yield per year grazed all year, in contrast to Israel with the highest yield where the cows ate in barns with an energy-rich mixed diet.


title: Milk

text: The milk yield per cow in the United States was per year in 2010. In contrast, the milk yields per cow in India and China– the second and third largest producers– were respectively and per year.


title: Milk

text: It was reported in 2007 that with increased worldwide prosperity and the competition of bio-fuel production for feed stocks, both the demand for and the price of milk had substantially increased worldwide. Particularly notable was the rapid increase of consumption of milk in China and the rise of the price of milk in the United States above the government subsidized price. In 2010 the Department of Agriculture predicted farmers would receive an average of of cow's milk, which is down from 2007 and below the break-even point for many cattle farmers.


title: Milk

text: Milk is an emulsion or colloid of butterfat globules within a water-based fluid that contains dissolved carbohydrates and protein aggregates with minerals. Because it is produced as a food source for the young, all of its contents provide benefits for growth. The principal requirements are energy (lipids, lactose, and protein), biosynthesis of non-essential amino acids supplied by proteins (essential amino acids and amino groups), essential fatty acids, vitamins and inorganic elements, and water.


title: Milk

text: The pH of milk ranges from 6.7 to 6.9. Milk from other bovines and non-bovine mammals varies in composition, but has a similar pH.


title: Milk

text: Initially milk fat is secreted in the form of a fat globule surrounded by a membrane. Each fat globule is composed almost entirely of triacylglycerols and is surrounded by a membrane consisting of complex lipids such as phospholipids, along with proteins. These act as emulsifiers which keep the individual globules from coalescing and protect the contents of these globules from various enzymes in the fluid portion of the milk. Although 97–98% of lipids are triacylglycerols, small amounts of di- and monoacylglycerols, free cholesterol and cholesterol esters, free fatty acids, and phospholipids are also present. Unlike protein and carbohydrates, fat composition in milk varies widely due to genetic, lactational, and nutritional factor difference between different species.


title: Milk

text: Like composition, fat globules vary in size from less than 0.2 to about 15 micrometers in diameter between different species. Diameter may also vary between animals within a species and at different times within a milking of a single animal. In unhomogenized cow's milk, the fat globules have an average diameter of two to four micrometers and with homogenization, average around 0.4 micrometers. The fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K along with essential fatty acids such as linoleic and linolenic acid are found within the milk fat portion of the milk.


title: Milk

text: Normal bovine milk contains 30–35 grams of protein per liter of which about 80% is arranged in casein micelles. Total proteins in milk represent 3.2% of its composition (nutrition table).


title: Milk

text: The largest structures in the fluid portion of the milk are "casein micelles": aggregates of several thousand protein molecules with superficial resemblance to a surfactant micelle, bonded with the help of nanometer-scale particles of calcium phosphate. Each casein micelle is roughly spherical and about a tenth of a micrometer across. There are four different types of casein proteins: αs1-, αs2-, β-, and κ-caseins. Most of the casein proteins are bound into the micelles. There are several competing theories regarding the precise structure of the micelles, but they share one important feature: the outermost layer consists of strands of one type of protein, k-casein, reaching out from the body of the micelle into the surrounding fluid. These kappa-casein molecules all have a negative electrical charge and therefore repel each other, keeping the micelles separated under normal conditions and in a stable colloidal suspension in the water-based surrounding fluid.


title: Milk

text: Milk contains dozens of other types of proteins beside caseins and including enzymes. These other proteins are more water-soluble than caseins and do not form larger structures. Because the proteins remain suspended in whey remaining when caseins coagulate into curds, they are collectively known as "whey proteins". Lactoglobulin is the most common whey protein by a large margin. The ratio of caseins to whey proteins varies greatly between species; for example, it is 82:18 in cows and around 32:68 in humans.


title: Milk

text: Minerals or milk salts, are traditional names for a variety of cations and anions within bovine milk. Calcium, phosphate, magnesium, sodium, potassium, citrate, and chloride are all included and they typically occur at concentrations of 5–40mM. The milk salts strongly interact with casein, most notably calcium phosphate. It is present in excess and often, much greater excess of solubility of solid calcium phosphate. In addition to calcium, milk is a good source of many other vitamins. Vitamins A, B6, B12, C, D, K, E, thiamine, niacin, biotin, riboflavin, folates, and pantothenic acid are all present in milk.


title: Milk

text: For many years the most widely accepted theory of the structure of a micelle was that it was composed of spherical casein aggregates, called submicelles, that were held together by calcium phosphate linkages. However, there are two recent models of the casein micelle that refute the distinct micellular structures within the micelle.


title: Milk

text: The first theory, attributed to de Kruif and Holt, proposes that nanoclusters of calcium phosphate and the phosphopeptide fraction of beta-casein are the centerpiece to micellar structure. Specifically in this view unstructured proteins organize around the calcium phosphate, giving rise to their structure, and thus no specific structure is formed.


title: Milk

text: Under the second theory, proposed by Horne, the growth of calcium phosphate nanoclusters begins the process of micelle formation, but is limited by binding phosphopeptide loop regions of the caseins. Once bound, protein-protein interactions are formed and polymerization occurs, in which K-casein is used as an end cap to form micelles with trapped calcium phosphate nanoclusters.


title: Milk

text: Milk contains several different carbohydrate including lactose, glucose, galactose, and other oligosaccharides. The lactose gives milk its sweet taste and contributes approximately 40% of whole cow's milk's calories. Lactose is a disaccharide composite of two simple sugars, glucose and galactose. Bovine milk averages 4.8% anhydrous lactose, which amounts to about 50% of the total solids of skimmed milk. Levels of lactose are dependent upon the type of milk as other carbohydrates can be present at higher concentrations than lactose in milks.


title: Milk

text: Other components found in raw cow's milk are living white blood cells, mammary gland cells, various bacteria, vitamin C, and a large number of active enzymes.


title: Milk

text: Both the fat globules and the smaller casein micelles, which are just large enough to deflect light, contribute to the opaque white color of milk. The fat globules contain some yellow-orange carotene, enough in some breeds (such as Guernsey and Jersey cattle) to impart a golden or "creamy" hue to a glass of milk. The riboflavin in the whey portion of milk has a greenish color, which sometimes can be discerned in skimmed milk or whey products. Fat-free skimmed milk has only the casein micelles to scatter light, and they tend to scatter shorter-wavelength blue light more than they do red, giving skimmed milk a bluish tint.


title: Milk

text: In most Western countries, centralized dairy facilities process milk and products obtained from milk, such as cream, butter, and cheese. In the US, these dairies usually are local companies, while in the Southern Hemisphere facilities may be run by large multi-national corporations such as Fonterra.


title: Milk

text: Pasteurization is used to kill harmful pathogenic bacteria such as "M. paratuberculosis" and "" by heating the milk for a short time and then immediately cooling it. Types of pasteurized milk include full cream, reduced fat, skim milk, calcium enriched, flavored, and UHT. The standard high temperature short time (HTST) process of for 15 seconds completely kills pathogenic bacteria in milk, rendering it safe to drink for up to three weeks if continually refrigerated. Dairies print best before dates on each container, after which stores remove any unsold milk from their shelves.


title: Milk

text: A side effect of the heating of pasteurization is that some vitamin and mineral content is lost. Soluble calcium and phosphorus decrease by 5%, thiamin and vitamin B12 by 10%, and vitamin C by 20% or greater (even to complete loss). Because losses are small in comparison to the large amount of the two B-vitamins present, milk continues to provide significant amounts of thiamin and vitamin B12. The loss of vitamin C is not nutritionally significant in a well-balanced diet, as milk is not an important dietary source of vitamin C.


title: Milk

text: Microfiltration is a process that partially replaces pasteurization and produces milk with fewer microorganisms and longer shelf life without a change in the taste of the milk. In this process, cream is separated from the skimmed milk and is pasteurized in the usual way, but the skimmed milk is forced through ceramic microfilters that trap 99.9% of microorganisms in the milk (as compared to 99.999% killing of microorganisms in standard HTST pasteurization). The skimmed milk then is recombined with the pasteurized cream to reconstitute the original milk composition.


title: Milk

text: Ultrafiltration uses finer filters than microfiltration, which allow lactose and water to pass through while retaining fats, calcium and protein. As with microfiltration, the fat may be removed before filtration and added back in afterwards. Ultrafiltered milk is used in cheesemaking, since it has reduced volume for a given protein content, and is sold directly to consumers as a higher protein, lower sugar content, and creamier alternative to regular milk.


title: Milk

text: Upon standing for 12 to 24 hours, fresh milk has a tendency to separate into a high-fat cream layer on top of a larger, low-fat milk layer. The cream often is sold as a separate product with its own uses. Today the separation of the cream from the milk usually is accomplished rapidly in centrifugal cream separators. The fat globules rise to the top of a container of milk because fat is less dense than water.


title: Milk

text: The smaller the globules, the more other molecular-level forces prevent this from happening. The cream rises in cow's milk much more quickly than a simple model would predict: rather than isolated globules, the fat in the milk tends to form into clusters containing about a million globules, held together by a number of minor whey proteins. These clusters rise faster than individual globules can. The fat globules in milk from goats, sheep, and water buffalo do not form clusters as readily and are smaller to begin with, resulting in a slower separation of cream from these milks.


title: Milk

text: Milk often is homogenized, a treatment that prevents a cream layer from separating out of the milk. The milk is pumped at high pressures through very narrow tubes, breaking up the fat globules through turbulence and cavitation. A greater number of smaller particles possess more total surface area than a smaller number of larger ones, and the original fat globule membranes cannot completely cover them. Casein micelles are attracted to the newly exposed fat surfaces.


title: Milk

text: Nearly one-third of the micelles in the milk end up participating in this new membrane structure. The casein weighs down the globules and interferes with the clustering that accelerated separation. The exposed fat globules are vulnerable to certain enzymes present in milk, which could break down the fats and produce rancid flavors. To prevent this, the enzymes are inactivated by pasteurizing the milk immediately before or during homogenization.


title: Milk

text: Homogenized milk tastes blander but feels creamier in the mouth than unhomogenized. It is whiter and more resistant to developing off flavors. Creamline (or cream-top) milk is unhomogenized. It may or may not have been pasteurized. Milk that has undergone high-pressure homogenization, sometimes labeled as "ultra-homogenized", has a longer shelf life than milk that has undergone ordinary homogenization at lower pressures.


title: Milk

text: Ultra Heat Treatment (UHT) is a type of milk processing where all bacteria are destroyed with high heat to extend its shelf life for up to 6 months, as long as the package is not opened. Milk is firstly homogenized and then is heated to 138 degrees Celsius for 1–3seconds. The milk is immediately cooled down and packed into a sterile container. As a result of this treatment, all the pathogenic bacteria within the milk are destroyed, unlike when the milk is just pasteurized. The treated milk will keep for up for 6 months if unopened. UHT milk does not need to be refrigerated until the package is opened, which makes it easier to ship and store. However, in this process there is a loss of vitamin B1 and vitamin C, and there is also a slight change in the taste of the milk.


title: Milk

text: The composition of milk differs widely among species. Factors such as the type of protein; the proportion of protein, fat, and sugar; the levels of various vitamins and minerals; and the size of the butterfat globules, and the strength of the curd are among those that may vary. For example:


title: Milk

text: Donkey and horse milk have the lowest fat content, while the milk of seals and whales may contain more than 50% fat.


title: Milk

text: Milk fat percentages may be manipulated by dairy farmers' stock diet formulation strategies. The infection known as mastitis, especially in dairy cattle, can cause fat levels to decline.


title: Milk

text: Processed cow's milk was formulated to contain differing amounts of fat during the 1950s. One cup (250 mL) of 2%-fat cow's milk contains 285 mg of calcium, which represents 22% to 29% of the daily recommended intake (DRI) of calcium for an adult. Depending on its age, milk contains 8 grams of protein, and a number of other nutrients (either naturally or through fortification).


title: Milk

text: One of the most common food allergies in infants is to cow's milk. This is an immunologically mediated adverse reaction, rarely fatal, to one or more cow's milk proteins. Milk allergy affects between 2% and 3% of babies and young children. To reduce risk, recommendations are that babies should be exclusively breastfed for at least four months, preferably six months, before introducing cow's milk. The majority of children outgrow milk allergy, but for about 0.4% the condition persists into adulthood.


title: Milk

text: Lactose intolerance is a condition in which people have symptoms due to deficiency or absence of the enzyme lactase in the small intestine, causing poor absorption of milk lactose. People affected vary in the amount of lactose they can tolerate before symptoms develop, which may include abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhea, gas, and nausea. Severity depends on the amount of milk consumed. Those affected are usually able to drink at least one cup of milk without developing significant symptoms, with greater amounts tolerated if drunk with a meal or throughout the day.


title: Milk

text: The mammary gland is thought to have derived from apocrine skin glands. It has been suggested that the original function of lactation (milk production) was keeping eggs moist. Much of the argument is based on monotremes (egg-laying mammals). The original adaptive significance of milk secretions may have been nutrition or immunological protection. This secretion gradually became more copious and accrued nutritional complexity over evolutionary time.


title: Milk

text: Tritylodontid cynodonts seem to have displayed lactation, based on their dental replacement patterns.


title: Milk

text: Since November 1993, recombinant bovine somatotropin (rbST), also called rBGH, has been sold to dairy farmers with FDA approval. Cows produce bovine growth hormone naturally, but some producers administer an additional recombinant version of BGH which is produced through genetically engineered E. coli to increase milk production. Bovine growth hormone also stimulates liver production of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1). The US Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and the World Health Organization have reported that both of these compounds are safe for human consumption at the amounts present.


title: Milk

text: Milk from cows given rBST may be sold in the United States, and the FDA stated that no significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rBST-treated and that from non-rBST-treated cows. Milk that advertises that it comes from cows not treated with rBST, is required to state this finding on its label.


title: Milk

text: Cows receiving rBGH supplements may more frequently contract an udder infection known as mastitis. Problems with mastitis have led to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan banning milk from rBST treated cows. Mastitis, among other diseases, may be responsible for the fact that levels of white blood cells in milk vary naturally.


title: Milk

text: Milk preserved by the UHT process does not need to be refrigerated before opening and has a much longer shelf life (six months) than milk in ordinary packaging. It is typically sold unrefrigerated in the UK, US, Europe, Latin America, and Australia.


title: Milk

text: Lactose-free milk can be produced by passing milk over lactase enzyme bound to an inert carrier. Once the molecule is cleaved, there are no lactose ill effects. Forms are available with reduced amounts of lactose (typically 30% of normal), and alternatively with nearly 0%. The only noticeable difference from regular milk is a slightly sweeter taste due to the cleavage of lactose into glucose and galactose. Lactose-reduced milk can also be produced via ultra filtration, which removes smaller molecules such as lactose and water while leaving calcium and proteins behind. Milk produced via these methods has a lower sugar content than regular milk. To aid digestion in those with lactose intolerance, another alternative is dairy foods, milk and yogurt, with added bacterial cultures such as "Lactobacillus acidophilus" ("acidophilus milk") and bifidobacteria. Another milk with "Lactococcus lactis" bacteria cultures ("cultured buttermilk") often is used in cooking to replace the traditional use of naturally soured milk, which has become rare due to the ubiquity of pasteurization, which also kills the naturally occurring Lactococcus bacteria.


title: Milk

text: Commercially sold milk commonly has vitamin D added to it to make up for lack of exposure to UVB radiation. Reduced-fat milks often have added vitamin A palmitate to compensate for the loss of the vitamin during fat removal; in the United States this results in reduced fat milks having a higher vitamin A content than whole milk. Milk often has flavoring added to it for better taste or as a means of improving sales. Chocolate milk has been sold for many years and has been followed more recently by strawberry milk and others. Some nutritionists have criticized flavored milk for adding sugar, usually in the form of high-fructose corn syrup, to the diets of children who are already commonly obese in the US.


title: Milk

text: Due to the short shelf life of normal milk, it used to be delivered to households daily in many countries; however, improved refrigeration at home, changing food shopping patterns because of supermarkets, and the higher cost of home delivery mean that daily deliveries by a milkman are no longer available in most countries.


title: Milk

text: In Australia and New Zealand, prior to metrication, milk was generally distributed in 1 pint (568mL) glass bottles. In Australia and Ireland there was a government funded "free milk for school children" program, and milk was distributed at morning recess in 1/3 pint bottles. With the conversion to metric measures, the milk industry was concerned that the replacement of the pint bottles with 500mL bottles would result in a 13.6% drop in milk consumption; hence, all pint bottles were recalled and replaced by 600mL bottles. With time, due to the steadily increasing cost of collecting, transporting, storing and cleaning glass bottles, they were replaced by cardboard cartons. A number of designs were used, including a tetrahedron which could be close-packed without waste space, and could not be knocked over accidentally (slogan: "No more crying over spilt milk"). However, the industry eventually settled on a design similar to that used in the United States.


title: Milk

text: Milk is now available in a variety of sizes in paperboard milk cartons (250 mL, 375 mL, 600 mL, 1 liter and 1.5 liters) and plastic bottles (1, 2 and 3 liters). A significant addition to the marketplace has been "long-life" milk (UHT), generally available in 1 and 2 liter rectangular cardboard cartons. In urban and suburban areas where there is sufficient demand, home delivery is still available, though in suburban areas this is often 3 times per week rather than daily. Another significant and popular addition to the marketplace has been flavored milks; for example, as mentioned above, Farmers Union Iced Coffee outsells Coca-Cola in South Australia.


title: Milk

text: In rural India, milk is home delivered, daily, by local milkmen carrying bulk quantities in a metal container, usually on a bicycle. In other parts of metropolitan India, milk is usually bought or delivered in plastic bags or cartons via shops or supermarkets.


title: Milk

text: The current milk chain flow in India is from milk producer to milk collection agent. Then it is transported to a milk chilling center and bulk transported to the processing plant, then to the sales agent and finally to the consumer.


title: Milk

text: A 2011 survey by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India found that nearly 70% of samples had not conformed to the standards set for milk. The study found that due to lack of hygiene and sanitation in milk handling and packaging, detergents (used during cleaning operations) were not washed properly and found their way into the milk. About 8% of samples in the survey were found to have detergents, which are hazardous to health.


title: Milk

text: In Pakistan, milk is supplied in jugs. Milk has been a staple food, especially among the pastoral tribes in this country.


title: Milk

text: Since the late 1990s, milk-buying patterns have changed drastically in the UK. The classic milkman, who travels his local milk round (route) using a milk float (often battery powered) during the early hours and delivers milk in 1-pint glass bottles with aluminum foil tops directly to households, has almost disappeared. Two of the main reasons for the decline of UK home deliveries by milkmen are household refrigerators (which lessen the need for daily milk deliveries) and private car usage (which has increased supermarket shopping). Another factor is that it is cheaper to purchase milk from a supermarket than from home delivery. In 1996, more than 2.5 billion liters of milk were still being delivered by milkmen, but by 2006 only 637 million liters (13% of milk consumed) was delivered by some 9,500 milkmen. By 2010, the estimated number of milkmen had dropped to 6,000. Assuming that delivery per milkman is the same as it was in 2006, this means milkmen deliveries now only account for 6–7% of all milk consumed by UK households (6.7 billion liters in 2008/2009).


title: Milk

text: Almost 95% of all milk in the UK is thus sold in shops today, most of it in plastic bottles of various sizes, but some also in milk cartons. Milk is hardly ever sold in glass bottles in UK shops.


title: Milk

text: In the United States, glass milk bottles have been replaced mostly with milk cartons and plastic jugs. Gallons of milk are almost always sold in jugs, while half gallons and quarts may be found in both paper cartons and plastic jugs, and smaller sizes are almost always in cartons.


title: Milk

text: The "half pint" () milk carton is the traditional unit as a component of school lunches, though some companies have replaced that unit size with a plastic bottle, which is also available at retail in 6- and 12-pack size.


title: Milk

text: Glass milk bottles are now rare. Most people purchase milk in bags, plastic bottles, or plastic-coated paper cartons. Ultraviolet (UV) light from fluorescent lighting can alter the flavor of milk, so many companies that once distributed milk in transparent or highly translucent containers are now using thicker materials that block the UV light.


title: Milk

text: Practically everywhere, condensed milk and evaporated milk are distributed in metal cans, 250 and 125 mL paper containers and 100 and 200 mL squeeze tubes, and powdered milk (skim and whole) is distributed in boxes or bags.


title: Milk

text: When raw milk is left standing for a while, it turns "sour". This is the result of fermentation, where lactic acid bacteria ferment the lactose in the milk into lactic acid. Prolonged fermentation may render the milk unpleasant to consume. This fermentation process is exploited by the introduction of bacterial cultures (e.g. "Lactobacilli sp., Streptococcus sp., Leuconostoc sp.", etc.) to produce a variety of fermented milk products. The reduced pH from lactic acid accumulation denatures proteins and causes the milk to undergo a variety of different transformations in appearance and texture, ranging from an aggregate to smooth consistency. Some of these products include sour cream, yogurt, cheese, buttermilk, viili, kefir, and kumis. "See Dairy product" for more information.


title: Milk

text: Pasteurization of cow's milk initially destroys any potential pathogens and increases the shelf life, but eventually results in spoilage that makes it unsuitable for consumption. This causes it to assume an unpleasant odor, and the milk is deemed non-consumable due to unpleasant taste and an increased risk of food poisoning. In raw milk, the presence of lactic acid-producing bacteria, under suitable conditions, ferments the lactose present to lactic acid. The increasing acidity in turn prevents the growth of other organisms, or slows their growth significantly. During pasteurization, however, these lactic acid bacteria are mostly destroyed.


title: Milk

text: In order to prevent spoilage, milk can be kept refrigerated and stored between in bulk tanks. Most milk is pasteurized by heating briefly and then refrigerated to allow transport from factory farms to local markets. The spoilage of milk can be forestalled by using ultra-high temperature (UHT) treatment. Milk so treated can be stored unrefrigerated for several months until opened but has a characteristic "cooked" taste. Condensed milk, made by removing most of the water, can be stored in cans for many years, unrefrigerated, as can evaporated milk.


title: Milk

text: The most durable form of milk is powdered milk, which is produced from milk by removing almost all water. The moisture content is usually less than 5% in both drum- and spray-dried powdered milk.


title: Milk

text: Freezing of milk can cause fat globule aggregation upon thawing, resulting in milky layers and butterfat lumps. These can be dispersed again by warming and stirring the milk. It can change the taste by destruction of milk-fat globule membranes, releasing oxidized flavors.


title: Milk

text: Milk is used to make yogurt, cheese, ice milk, pudding, hot chocolate and french toast, among many other products. Milk is often added to dry breakfast cereal, porridge and granola. Milk is mixed with ice cream and flavored syrups in a blender to make milkshakes. Milk is often served in coffee and tea. Frothy steamed milk is used to prepare espresso-based drinks such as cafe latte.


title: Milk

text: The importance of milk in human culture is attested to by the numerous expressions embedded in our languages, for example, "the milk of human kindness", the expression "there's no use crying over spilt milk" (which means don't "be unhappy about what cannot be undone"), "don't milk the ram" (this means "to do or attempt something futile") and "Why buy a cow when you can get milk for free?" (which means "why pay for something that you can get for free otherwise").


title: Milk

text: In Greek mythology, the Milky Way was formed after the trickster god Hermes suckled the infant Heracles at the breast of Hera, the queen of the gods, while she was asleep. When Hera awoke, she tore Heracles away from her breast and splattered her breast milk across the heavens. In another version of the story, Athena, the patron goddess of heroes, tricked Hera into suckling Heracles voluntarily, but he bit her nipple so hard that she flung him away, spraying milk everywhere.


title: Milk

text: In many African and Asian countries, butter is traditionally made from fermented milk rather than cream. It can take several hours of churning to produce workable butter grains from fermented milk.


title: Milk

text: Holy books have also mentioned milk. The Bible contains references to the "Land of Milk and Honey" as a metaphor for the bounty of the Promised Land. In the Qur'an, there is a request to wonder on milk as follows: "And surely in the livestock there is a lesson for you, We give you to drink of that which is in their bellies from the midst of digested food and blood, pure milk palatable for the drinkers" (16-The Honeybee, 66). The Ramadan fast is traditionally broken with a glass of milk and dates.


title: Milk

text: Abhisheka is conducted by Hindu and Jain priests, by pouring libations on the idol of a deity being worshipped, amidst the chanting of mantras. Usually offerings such as milk, yogurt, ghee, honey may be poured among other offerings depending on the type of abhishekam being performed.


title: Milk

text: A milksop is an "effeminate spiritless man," an expression which is attested to in the late 14th century. Milk toast is a dish consisting of milk and toast. Its soft blandness served as inspiration for the name of the timid and ineffectual comic strip character Caspar Milquetoast, drawn by H. T. Webster from 1924 to 1952. Thus, the term "milquetoast" entered the language as the label for a timid, shrinking, apologetic person. Milk toast also appeared in Disney's "Follow Me Boys" as an undesirable breakfast for the aging main character Lem Siddons.


title: Milk

text: To "milk" someone, in the vernacular of many English-speaking countries, is to take advantage of the person, by analogy to the way a farmer "milks" a cow and takes its milk. The word "milk" has had many slang meanings over time. In the 19th century, milk was used to describe a cheap and very poisonous alcoholic drink made from methylated spirits (methanol) mixed with water. The word was also used to mean defraud, to be idle, to intercept telegrams addressed to someone else, and a weakling or "milksop." In the mid-1930s, the word was used in Australia to refer to siphoning gas from a car.


title: Milk

text: Besides serving as a beverage or source of food, milk has been described as used by farmers and gardeners as an organic fungicide and fertilizer, however, its effectiveness is debated. Diluted milk solutions have been demonstrated to provide an effective method of preventing powdery mildew on grape vines, while showing it is unlikely to harm the plant.


title: Milk

text: Milk paint is a nontoxic water-based paint. It can be made from milk and lime, generally with pigments added for color. In other recipes, borax is mixed with milk's casein protein in order to activate the casein and as a preservative.


title: Milk

text: A milk bath is a bath taken in milk rather than just water. Often additives such as oatmeal, honey, and scents such as rose, daisies and essential oils are mixed in. Milk baths use lactic acid, an alpha hydroxy acid, to dissolve the proteins which hold together dead skin cells.


title: Milk

text: The consumption of milk between species is not unique to humans. Although the occurrence of this utilization is not vastly documented, interspecies consumption of milk has been observed among the red-billed oxpecker —a bird that can perch on the udders of an impala and suck its milk. Seagulls, Sheathbills, Skuas, Western Gulls and African feral cats have been reported to directly pilfer milk from the elephant seals’ teats.


title: Silence (2016 film)

text: Silence is a 2016 epic historical drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and with a screenplay by Jay Cocks and Scorsese, based on the 1966 novel of the same name by Shūsaku Endō. The film stars Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, Liam Neeson, Tadanobu Asano, and Ciarán Hinds. The plot follows two 17th-century Jesuit priests who travel from Portugal to Edo-era Japan via Macau to locate their missing mentor and spread Catholic Christianity. The story is set in a time when it was common for the faith's Japanese adherents to hide from the persecution that resulted from the suppression of Christianity in Japan after the Shimabara Rebellion (1637–1638) against the Tokugawa shogunate. These are now called the "kakure kirishitan", or "hidden Christians". It is the second filmed adaptation of Endō's novel, following a 1971 film of the same name.


title: Silence (2016 film)

text: The pre-production phase of the filmmaking for "Silence" went through a cycle of over two decades of setbacks and reassessments. After filming of "The Wolf of Wall Street" concluded in January 2013, Scorsese committed to following it up with "Silence". On April 19, 2013, Scorsese indicated that he would begin production on "Silence" in 2014. Irwin Winkler was then announced as a producer, as were Randall Emmett and George Furla, who would provide financing through their company Emmett/Furla Films. Soon thereafter, planning was made for the film to be shot in Taiwan.


title: Silence (2016 film)

text: A long-time passion project for Scorsese, which he had developed for over 25 years, the film premiered in Rome on November 29, 2016, and was released in the United States on December 23, 2016. It received critical acclaim, with both the National Board of Review and American Film Institute selecting "Silence" as one of their top ten films of the year. It also received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography. However, the film was a box office bomb, grossing just $22 million against its $50 million budget. "Silence" is the third of Scorsese's films about religious figures struggling with challenges of faith, following "The Last Temptation of Christ" (1988) and "Kundun" (1997).


title: Silence (2016 film)

text: In the opening scene, veteran Portuguese Jesuit priest Cristóvão Ferreira is forced to watch as Japanese converts to Christianity are tortured to death for refusing to renounce their faith.


title: Silence (2016 film)

text: A few years later, at St. Paul's College in Macau, an Italian Jesuit priest, Alessandro Valignano, receives news that Ferreira renounced his faith in Japan. In disbelief, Ferreira's Portuguese pupils, the young Jesuit priests Sebastião Rodrigues and Francisco Garupe, set off to find him, guided by Kichijirō, a fisherman stranded in Macau. Kichijirō is seeking redemption, as he renounced his faith to save himself while the rest of his family was put to death.


title: Silence (2016 film)

text: Arriving in the Japanese village of Tomogi, the priests find local Christian populations driven underground in fear of "the Inquisitor." The villagers hide the two priests, but they are horrified when officials of the shogunate arrive to ferret out hidden Christians and force them to step on a fumi-e, a carved image of Christ. The villagers who refuse are left to drown on the shore and their bodies cremated so they cannot be properly buried. Garupe leaves for Hirado Island and Rodrigues to Gotō Island, the last place Ferreira was seen.


title: Silence (2016 film)

text: Rodrigues finds the village destroyed and Kichijirō betrays him to the authorities, who imprison him in Nagasaki. Rodrigues is forced by the Inquisitor, the samurai Inoue Masashige, to watch as converts are tortured. He is shocked to see an emaciated Garupe among them; as the Inquistor tries to compel Garupe to renounce his faith, the priest refuses and instead swims out to try and save a dying woman. The guards hold him underwater and he drowns. Rodrigues' faith in God is shaken. When Kichijirō is imprisoned alongside him, Rodrigues reluctantly takes his confession.


title: Silence (2016 film)

text: Rodrigues is taken to meet Ferreira, who has assimilated into Japanese society. Ferreira apostatized while being tortured to save his fellow Christians, and now believes that Christianity has no place in Japan. That night, Rodrigues is brought to watch five Christians being tortured. He learns that they have already apostatized but will continue to suffer until he also abandons his faith. Rodrigues struggles over whether it is self-centered to refuse to recant when doing so will end others' suffering. He hears the voice of Jesus, giving him permission to step on the fumi-e, and he does.


title: Silence (2016 film)

text: Rodrigues takes a Japanese name and wife and is tasked by the Inquisitor to assist Ferreira in his efforts to prevent Dutch traders from smuggling Christian paraphernalia into Dejima. He hears the voice of Jesus, who assures him that rather than remaining silent as Rodrigues had thought, Jesus also suffered alongside those who were killed.


title: Silence (2016 film)

text: Despite having apostatized, Rodrigues is forced by shogunate officials to prove that he is not practicing his former religion in secret. Kichijirō is arrested after being caught with a Christian amulet and Rodrigues never sees him again. The former priest lives out the remainder of his life in Japan. After his death, he is given a traditional Japanese funeral. His wife is allowed to place an offering in his hand to ward off evil spirits - she places the tiny crudely made crucifix that was given to him when he first came to Tomogi, indicating that in his heart, Rodrigues remained a Christian all his life.


title: Silence (2016 film)

text: In an interview with "America Magazine" in December 2016, Scorsese stated that he first read Shūsaku Endō's novel "Silence" in 1989, when he was invited by Akira Kurosawa to Japan to play the part of Vincent van Gogh in Kurosawa's film "Dreams" (1990). Scorsese obtained the film rights soon afterwards.


title: Silence (2016 film)

text: Scorsese considered "Silence" a "passion project": it had been in development since 1990, two years after the release of his film "The Last Temptation of Christ", which also carried strongly religious themes. When asked why he retained interest in the project for over 26 years, Scorsese said,As you get older, ideas go and come. Questions, answers, loss of the answer again and more questions, and this is what really interests me. Yes, the cinema and the people in my life and my family are most important, but ultimately as you get older, there's got to be more ... "Silence" is just something that I'm drawn to in that way. It's been an obsession, it has to be done ... it's a strong, wonderful true story, a thriller in a way, but it deals with those questions.In 2009, with the production beginning to coalesce, Scorsese and a production crew went to Nagasaki, Japan, visiting the original sites that served as the setting for Endō's novel. Additional location scouting was conducted in Canada. However, "Silence" entered a state of development hell soon afterwards, and Scorsese decided to work on "Shutter Island" and "Hugo" instead. In December 2011, Scorsese stated that "Silence" would be his next film. By March, although he originally put it on the back burner and consequently dropped out, Scorsese signed back on to "The Wolf of Wall Street" and opted to direct it ahead of "Silence". However, at the time, Scorsese's publicist stated that "Silence" would come first. In May, the film picked up another producer in the recently revived Cecchi Gori Pictures, which placed the project first on its slate of upcoming films. Cecchi Gori was involved in pre-production for "Silence", but years of unrelated legal disputes had interrupted its association to the film.


title: Silence (2016 film)

text: After filming of "The Wolf of Wall Street" concluded in January 2013, Scorsese committed to following it up with "Silence". On April 19, 2013, it was announced that Scorsese would begin production on "Silence" in 2014, after a reputed 23-year wait. Irwin Winkler was announced as a producer the same day, as were Randall Emmett and George Furla, who would finance the production through their company Emmett/Furla Films. Paul Breuls' Corsan Films was also reportedly funding the project. Additionally, it was announced that the film would be shot in Taiwan.


title: Silence (2016 film)

text: Producer Irwin Winkler stated the choice to film in Taiwan was due to lower costs. "[The movie] was very, very expensive, and it was budgeted, because it takes place in 1670 in Japan. We got lucky and found out about Taipei, and in and around Taipei and Taiwan, we found great, great locations. The prices were very cheap, and we were able to make it for a price." Winkler disclosed that the tight budget forced many of the cast and crew, including himself, to work for minimum pay: "And all the actors, Liam Neeson, Adam Driver, everybody worked for scale. Marty worked for scale, I worked for under scale. We gave back money." James Martin, a Jesuit priest and published Catholic scholar, as well as Catholic scholar Liam Brockey, worked closely with the filmmakers to ensure an accurate portrayal of the Jesuits.


title: Silence (2016 film)

text: Scorsese's complex filmmaking commitments to multiple film projects resulted in an early legal challenge before filming of "Silence" could be initiated. In August 2012, Cecchi Gori Pictures sued Scorsese over an alleged breach of contract agreements related to "Silence". According to the company, in 1990 Scorsese signed a written agreement to direct "Silence". Scorsese was supposed to shoot the film following 1997's "Kundun", and Cecchi Gori Pictures had apparently invested more than $750,000 for this purpose. However, Scorsese chose to make "Bringing Out the Dead", "Gangs of New York", and "The Aviator" first.


title: Silence (2016 film)

text: In 2004, Scorsese purportedly signed deals to postpone the film further in order to direct "The Departed" and "Shutter Island". In 2011, Scorsese ostensibly agreed to one more deal, delaying "Silence" to direct "Hugo". Cecchi Gori Pictures asserted that Scorsese agreed to pay "substantial compensation and other valuable benefits" in order to first direct "The Departed", "Shutter Island", and "Hugo". The company said the fees were "$1 million to $1.5 million per film plus up to 20 percent of Scorsese's backend compensation". The complaint was founded on the company's allegation that Scorsese failed to pay the fees agreed upon for "Hugo", and that he breached the contract's terms by filming "The Wolf of Wall Street" ahead of "Silence". Scorsese, via his representatives, responded, "The claims asserted are completely contradicted by, inconsistent with, and contrary to the express terms of an agreement entered into by the parties last year." He also denounced the lawsuit as a "media stunt" and a "meritless action". The lawsuit was settled on January 17, 2014. The terms of the settlement are sealed.


title: Silence (2016 film)

text: This film marks the second adaptation of Shūsaku Endō's novel, which was previously adapted by Masahiro Shinoda into the 1971 film of the same name. Scorsese penned the initial screenplay in 1991 with co-writer and long-time collaborator Jay Cocks. However, they were unsatisfied with the script and conducted rewrites for an additional 15 years. Later, Endō's official translator, Van C. Gessel, who has translated eight of his novels, assisted as a consultant on the film. The screenplay as finally filmed was assessed in critical review as an accurate depiction of the novel as written by Endō. Religious historian Haruko Nawata Ward has indicated that the inclusion of the small crucifix in the deceased priest's hand at the end of the film was an auteur decision made by Scorsese not included in Endō's original book.


title: Silence (2016 film)

text: Beginning in 2009 and into 2010, Daniel Day-Lewis, Benicio del Toro, and Gael García Bernal were in negotiations to star. In 2011, the film officially lost the involvement of Day-Lewis, del Toro, and García Bernal. In May 2013, Andrew Garfield and Ken Watanabe joined the cast with Watanabe as the priests' translator. However, due to scheduling conflicts, Watanabe was replaced by Tadanobu Asano in January 2015. In January 2014, Adam Driver and Liam Neeson joined the film, with Driver as Francisco Garupe, the second Jesuit priest, and Neeson as the priests' mentor, Cristóvão Ferreira.


title: Silence (2016 film)

text: Having completed the "Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola" for playing a Jesuit in the movie, Andrew Garfield said how "What was really easy was falling in love with this person, was falling in love with Jesus Christ. That was the most surprising thing."


title: Silence (2016 film)

text: In January 2012, Scorsese discussed the possibility of utilizing 3D, however reconsidered. By February 2014, Scorsese had begun scouting locations in Taiwan, with filming set for the summer, and eventually pushed back to early 2015. Principal photography took place in Taiwan from January 30 to May 15, 2015, using studios in Taipei and Taichung and locations in Hualien County.


title: Silence (2016 film)

text: On January 28, 2015, the production experienced an accident at Taiwan's CMPC Studios. According to a spokesperson for the film, a tragic incident occurred in one of the backlots of the production when a ceiling collapsed, which resulted in the death of one contracted employee and the injury of two others.


title: Silence (2016 film)

text: Scorsese and cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto drew inspiration from painters from the Baroque period when determining the color palettes of the film, using blue and cyan tones at the beginning and later a golden-yellow hue, which in Prieto's opinion, gave the film a sense of progression in color. While Prieto shot the landscapes and the actors using film stock, he resorted to digital when it came to the night scenes.


title: Silence (2016 film)

text: Prieto found some difficulties when shooting the film. With the weather constantly changing, he would have inconsistencies in terms of lighting that he solved by filming some sequences at night time that would be lit for either dusk or sunset. To simulate moonlight for many of the night scenes, Prieto used a rig of blue-green lights called the "UFO" and hung them on a crane.


title: Silence (2016 film)

text: The music for the film was composed by Kim Allen Kluge, the former music director at Quad City Symphony Orchestra, and Kathryn Kluge. Much of the soundtrack includes ambient nocturnal and ocean sounds repeated over several of the tracks. A 51-minute soundtrack of 25 tracks was released on February 17, 2017 by the recording studio for Rhino Warner Classics under ASIN release number B01N7S3IB9. An extended track of 12 minutes titled "Meditation" is included as the leading track on the soundtrack release.


title: Silence (2016 film)

text: Scorsese brokered several distribution deals when he attended the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. In July 2014, Paramount Pictures acquired distribution rights for the United States and optimistically eyed a late 2015 release. Discussing the film in March 2016, Winkler revealed the film was in the editing process and that the film would be released "at the end of the year", confirming a 2016 release date. In August 2016, Scorsese stated the film would be completed in October, and the 2016 release of the film depended on Paramount. Paramount Pictures released the first trailer for the film on November 22, 2016.


title: Silence (2016 film)

text: The world premiere of the film was held at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome on November 29, followed by a special screening the next day in Vatican City. It received a limited release (in four theaters) on December 23, 2016 in order to qualify for 2017 Oscar nominations, which expanded to 1580 theaters on January 20.


title: Silence (2016 film)

text: The film was released on Blu-ray and DVD on March 28, 2017, with a slightly earlier release date of March 14, 2017, set for digital streaming of the film.


title: Silence (2016 film)

text: "Silence" grossed $7.1 million in the United States and Canada and $16.6 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $23.7 million, against a production budget of $40–50 million.


title: Silence (2016 film)

text: In North America, the film had its expansion alongside the openings of "Monster Trucks", "The Bye Bye Man" and "Sleepless", as well as the wide expansions of "Live by Night" and "Patriots Day." The film was expected to gross $4–6 million from 747 theaters in its four-day MLK opening weekend. It ended up debuting to $1.9 million (a four-day total of $2.3 million), finishing 15th at the box office. "Deadline Hollywood" attributed the film's low opening to its 161-minute runtime and lack of major award nominations to create buzz. Similarly, "The Hollywood Reporter" noted that, unlike some of the other films released, "Silence" was playing in fewer cinemas and had been released at a time when the marketplace had "too many adult dramas" and "a lack of interest in the subject matter".