title: Neha Kakkar

text: In 2010, Kakkar made her screen debut with Vidhi Kasliwal's film "Isi Life Mein...!" (2010) in which she played the role of a college student. The same year, she debuted in both the Kannada and Telugu music industry by performing a total of four tracks for Sandeep Chowta. She lent her voice for the title track of the Kannada film "Thamassu" and the song "Nodu Baare" alongside Master Saleem. The former resulted in her only Filmfare Awards South nomination as the Best Female Playback Singer.


title: Neha Kakkar

text: She appeared in the second season of "Comedy Circus Ke Taansen" alongside Kapil Sharma and Ali Asgar. The following year, her collaboration with Pritam for the dance track "Second Hand Jawaani" from "Cocktail" proved to be a major breakthrough for Kakkar. The song went to become popular among the music listeners, though it received mixed to negative reviews from critics. In 2012, she released "SRK Anthem" on YouTube, a tribute to actor Shah Rukh Khan.


title: Neha Kakkar

text: Kakkar's first release of 2013, "Botal Khol" from "Prague" which met with controversy, where Central Board of Film Certification raised objections on the song citing that its lyrics contain double meaning. This was followed by a Sachin–Jigar's item number composed for "Ramaiya Vastavaiya". Titled "Jadoo Ki Jhappi". She next collaborated with Pritam for another item song "Dhating Nach", performed alongside Nakash Aziz and Shefali Alvares.


title: Neha Kakkar

text: 2014 saw the rise of Kakkar with the release of three popular songs. The first release of the year was a collaboration with Yo Yo Honey Singh for the film "Yaariyan". The duo collaborated once again for Bollywood's first trance number, "Manali Trance" from "The Shaukeens". Her first work with Amit Trivedi, a wedding song titled "London Thumakda" was released in the same year, which received positive reviews from critics. On the occasion of Mother's Day, Kakkar shot and released a song for her mother which gained positive response among the audience.


title: Neha Kakkar

text: Kakkar's first release of 2015 came with "Ek Do Teen Chaar" from "Ek Paheli Leela" which was composed, penned and co-sung by Tony Kakkar. She then collaborated with the music composer duo, Amjad-Nadeem where she performed the tracks "Naughty No 1" and "Daaru Peeke Dance" for "Barkhaa" and "Kuch Kuch Locha Hai" respectively Kakkar sang Meet Bros-composed "Tu Isaq Mera" from "Hate Story 3". Her last release of the year was "Tukur Tukur" from "Dilwale", along with Arijit Singh, Kanika Kapoor, Siddharth Mahadevan and Nakash Aziz. The same year, she featured alongside Shilpa Shetty in the video single "Wedding Da Season", composed by Amaal Malik.


title: Neha Kakkar

text: In 2016, she performed the popular song "Mile Ho Tum" from the film "Fever", composed, written and co-sung by Tony Kakkar. Credited as the most-viewed Bollywood song on YouTube, the song received a positive response from critics and audience. Also, she contributed to the soundtrack album of "Baar Baar Dekho" by performing the wedding-song "Kala Chashma" which became the "party anthem of the year". She worked with Epic Bhangra for the film "Sanam Re", where they released the song "Humne Pee Rakhi Hai", a mix of club and EDM. She also provided her vocals for an additional song in the album, "Akkad Bakkad", a rap song performed along with Badshah. Apart from lending her vocals to the party song, "Kar Gayi Chull" from "Kapoor & Sons", which was a remake of the Haryanvi track "Chull" and her first recording for Dharma Productions, Kakkar performed several other recreated songs during the year including, "Maahi Ve"–a remake of the song "Maahi Ve" from "Kaante" (2002)– and "O Janiya"–a remake of the song "Kaante Nahi Kat Te" from "Mr. India" (1987)–for "Wajah Tum Ho" and "Force 2" respectively.


title: Neha Kakkar

text: 2017 marked Kakkar's first of many collaborations with Tanishk Bagchi which resulted in the rehashing of several Bollywood songs in the coming years. Their first release, "Badri Ki Dulhania" from "Badrinath Ki Dulhania" performed with Dev Negi, Ikka Singh and Monali Thakur has few segments lifted from the Shankar-Jaikishen classic, "Chalat Musafir" from "Teesri Kasam" (1966). The version became an instant chart-buster among the audience and was included in the list of most-viewed Indian videos on YouTube with over 500 million views. This was followed by another chart-buster by the duo, "Cheez Badi" from "Machine", a re-creation of the 1994-released "Mohra" song "Tu Cheez Badi Hai Mast Mast", which got mixed reviews from critics. Her next release was the dance song "Main Tera Boyfriend" from "Raabta" which was a recreation of a non-film track "Na Na Na Na". The trend was carried forward with "Judwaa 2" where she rendered two remake songs, co-composed by Sandeep Shirodkar and Anu Malik and one original song composed by Meet Bros. During the year, she appeared as a judge alongside Himesh Reshammiya and Javed Ali in the sixth season of the Indian television music competition, "Sa Re Ga Ma Pa L'il Champs". The year ended with another recreated song, "Mehbooba" from "Fukrey Returns", originally performed by Mohammed Rafi for "Dharam Veer" (1977).


title: Neha Kakkar

text: Kakkar's first release of 2018 was the Yo Yo Honey Singh's "Chhote Chhote Peg" from "Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety", a remake of the Anand Raj Anand-composition "Tote Tote Ho Gaya" from "Bichhoo" (2000). This was followed by Bagchi's recreation of "Aashiq Banaya Apne" included in the soundtrack album of "Hate Story 4", originally performed by Himesh Reshamiyya and Shreya Ghoshal. The duo collaborated for five other projects, from which "Dilbar" from "Satyameva Jayate" and "Aankh Maarey" from "Simmba" became popular with music listeners, both songs reaching the list of most-viewed Indian videos on YouTube and the former being the first Indian song to reach number three on the "Billboard" YouTube Music Chart. Apart from rendering the folk pop song "Dholida" from "Loveyatri" alongside Udit Narayan and Palak Muchhal, Kakkar performed a traditional-themed-contemporary Punjabi track "Bhangra Da Sajda" from "Veere Di Wedding", composed and co-sung by Shashwat Sachdev. The trend continued with the item number "Gali Gali" included in the Hindi-dubbed version of the Kannada film "". During the year, she appeared as a judge alongside Anu Malik and Vishal Dadlani in the tenth season of the Indian television music competition, "Indian Idol".


title: Neha Kakkar

text: 2019 began with the release of three remade songs in collaboration with Bagchi, "Chamma Chamma", recreated for the film "Fraud Saiyyan"–original composition from the film "China Gate" (1998), while "Coca Cola Tu" from "Luka Chuppi" and "Hauli Hauli" from "De De Pyaar De". The year marked her first collaboration with Vishal Mishra and Vishal–Shekhar, where she performed the female version of "Ki Honda Pyaar" from "Jabariya Jodi" for the former and "The Hook Up Song" for the latter, which was well received by critics. The trio of Kakkar, Bagchi and the dancer Nora Fatehi re-united for two other chart-buster songs, "O Saki Saki" from "Batla House" and "Ek Toh Kum Zindagani" from "Marjaavaan". The former being a remake of "Musafir" film's "Saaki", originally performed by Sukhwinder Singh and Sunidhi Chauhan. During the year, Kakkar lent her voice for the "Dheeme Dheeme", composed by Bagchi and the romantic love song "Tu Hi Yaar Mera" composed by Rochak Kohli.


title: Neha Kakkar

text: From 2017 onwards, Kakkar, primarily, in collaboration with Tanishk Bagchi, became more associated with the trend of remaking old to very recent songs, which resulted in several backlashes targeted for the singer.


title: Neha Kakkar

text: Neha Kakkar and her brother Tony Kakkar have been criticized and accused of ravaging and plagiarizing lyrics, visuals, and harmony from several Indian classics on multiple occasions. Several Indian classics and pop hits like Kavita Krishnamurti's "Tu Cheez Badi Hai Mast Mast" and "Tip Tip Barsa Paani", Shreya Ghoshal's "Aashiq Banaya Aapne", Falguni Pathak's "Yaad Piya Ki Aane Lagi", Lata Mangeshkar's "Kaanta Laga", Alka Yagnik's "Chamma Chamma", Poornima's part of "Chalti Hai Kya 9 Se 12", Payal Dev's "Sawan Me Lag Gayi Aag", and several others. Most recently she plagiarized a full theme and harmony of Indian classic singer Falguni Pathak's "Maine Payal Hai Chhankai"(1999) and remade an inferior version of it named "O Sajna". Even after several appeals and requests from the original playback singers and fans to stop remaking original cult classics, Kakkar does not seem to honor their requests and instead claims that nothing can stop her as she has now gained fame and success in recent post.


title: Neha Kakkar

text: Her voice has been described several times in the media as "distinct", "unique", "chirpy", "seductive" and "partially nasal". She did not take any formal vocal training.


title: Neha Kakkar

text: Kakkar admits that she has always looked up to her elder sister Sonu, as her singing inspiration and she "guides me on how to sing particular songs". She named her brother Tony as a constant pillar of strength.


title: Neha Kakkar

text: Kakkar is very active on social media platforms including Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube page, where she interacts with her fans and regularly posts updates about her life. She is one of the most-followed Indian artistes on Instagram. In October 2019, she received the Instagram trophy, celebrating the first Indian musician and the fifth Indian to reach the milestone.


title: Neha Kakkar

text: In 2017, Kakkar was included in the list of 35 boldest entrepreneurs of India who are changing the game in various industries. The same year she appeared in the "Forbes" Celebrity 100, a list based on income and popularity of India's celebrities. She was listed at the sixty-fourth spot in 2017 and twenty-ninth spot in 2019. In 2019, Kakkar was listed on position second among the most-viewed female artists on YouTube with 4.2 billion views worldwide.


title: Neha Kakkar

text: Kakkar and actor Himansh Kohli were in a romantic relationship since 2014. In September 2018, they officially announced their relationship on national television and revealed that they will tie the knot soon. However, three months later, an Instagram post by Kakkar revealed that the couple broke-up.


title: Neha Kakkar

text: Kakkar met Punjabi musical artist Rohanpreet Singh in Chandigarh for the first time and they soon fell in love. On 24 October 2020, they got married in a Gurdwara in New Delhi.


title: White hole

text: In general relativity, a white hole is a hypothetical region of spacetime and singularity that cannot be entered from the outside, although energy-matter, light and information can escape from it. In this sense, it is the reverse of a black hole, which can be entered only from the outside and from which energy-matter, light and information cannot escape. White holes appear in the theory of eternal black holes. In addition to a black hole region in the future, such a solution of the Einstein field equations has a white hole region in its past. This region does not exist for black holes that have formed through gravitational collapse, however, nor are there any observed physical processes through which a white hole could be formed.


title: White hole

text: Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are theoretically predicted to be at the center of every galaxy and that possibly, a galaxy cannot form without one. Stephen Hawking and others have proposed that these supermassive black holes spawn a supermassive white hole.


title: White hole

text: Like black holes, white holes have properties like mass, charge, and angular momentum. They attract matter like any other mass, but objects falling towards a white hole would never actually reach the white hole's event horizon (though in the case of the maximally extended Schwarzschild solution, discussed below, the white hole event horizon in the past becomes a black hole event horizon in the future, so any object falling towards it will eventually reach the black hole horizon).


title: White hole

text: Imagine a gravitational field, without a surface. Acceleration due to gravity is the greatest on the surface of any body. But since black holes lack a surface, acceleration due to gravity increases exponentially, but never reaches a final value as there is no considered surface in a singularity.


title: White hole

text: In quantum mechanics, the black hole emits Hawking radiation and so it can come to thermal equilibrium with a gas of radiation (not compulsory). Because a thermal-equilibrium state is time-reversal-invariant, Stephen Hawking argued that the time reversal of a black hole in thermal equilibrium results in a white hole in thermal equilibrium (each absorbing and emitting energy to equivalent degrees). Consequently, this may imply that black holes and white holes are reciprocal in structure, wherein the Hawking radiation from an ordinary black hole is identified with a white hole's emission of energy and matter. Hawking's semi-classical argument is reproduced in a quantum mechanical AdS/CFT treatment, where a black hole in anti-de Sitter space is described by a thermal gas in a gauge theory, whose time reversal is the same as itself.


title: White hole

text: The possibility of the existence of white holes was put forward by Russian cosmologist Igor Novikov in 1964. White holes are predicted as part of a solution to the Einstein field equations known as the maximally extended version of the Schwarzschild metric describing an eternal black hole with no charge and no rotation. Here, "maximally extended" refers to the idea that the spacetime should not have any "edges": for any possible trajectory of a free-falling particle (following a geodesic) in the spacetime, it should be possible to continue this path arbitrarily far into the particle's future, unless the trajectory hits a gravitational singularity like the one at the center of the black hole's interior. In order to satisfy this requirement, it turns out that in addition to the black hole interior region that particles enter when they fall through the event horizon from the outside, there must be a separate white hole interior region, which allows us to extrapolate the trajectories of particles that an outside observer sees rising up "away" from the event horizon. For an observer outside using Schwarzschild coordinates, infalling particles take an infinite time to reach the black hole horizon infinitely far in the future, while outgoing particles that pass the observer have been traveling outward for an infinite time since crossing the white hole horizon infinitely far in the past (however, the particles or other objects experience only a finite proper time between crossing the horizon and passing the outside observer). The black hole/white hole appears "eternal" from the perspective of an outside observer, in the sense that particles traveling outward from the white hole interior region can pass the observer at any time, and particles traveling inward, which will eventually reach the black hole interior region can also pass the observer at any time.


title: White hole

text: Just as there are two separate interior regions of the maximally extended spacetime, there are also two separate exterior regions, sometimes called two different "universes", with the second universe allowing us to extrapolate some possible particle trajectories in the two interior regions. This means that the interior black-hole region can contain a mix of particles that fell in from either universe (and thus an observer who fell in from one universe might be able to see light that fell in from the other one), and likewise particles from the interior white-hole region can escape into either universe. All four regions can be seen in a spacetime diagram that uses Kruskal–Szekeres coordinates (see figure).


title: White hole

text: In this spacetime, it is possible to come up with coordinate systems such that if you pick a hypersurface of constant time (a set of points that all have the same time coordinate, such that every point on the surface has a space-like separation, giving what is called a 'space-like surface') and draw an "embedding diagram" depicting the curvature of space at that time, the embedding diagram will look like a tube connecting the two exterior regions, known as an "Einstein-Rosen bridge" or Schwarzschild wormhole. Depending on where the space-like hypersurface is chosen, the Einstein-Rosen bridge can either connect two black hole event horizons in each universe (with points in the interior of the bridge being part of the black hole region of the spacetime), or two white hole event horizons in each universe (with points in the interior of the bridge being part of the white hole region). It is impossible to use the bridge to cross from one universe to the other, however, because it is impossible to enter a white hole event horizon from the outside, and anyone entering a black hole horizon from either universe will inevitably hit the black hole singularity.


title: White hole

text: Note that the maximally extended Schwarzschild metric describes an idealized black hole/white hole that exists eternally from the perspective of external observers; a more realistic black hole that forms at some particular time from a collapsing star would require a different metric. When the infalling stellar matter is added to a diagram of a black hole's history, it removes the part of the diagram corresponding to the white hole interior region. But because the equations of general relativity are time-reversible – they exhibit Time reversal symmetry – general relativity must also allow the time-reverse of this type of "realistic" black hole that forms from collapsing matter. The time-reversed case would be a white hole that has existed since the beginning of the universe, and that emits matter until it finally "explodes" and disappears. Despite the fact that such objects are permitted theoretically, they are not taken as seriously as black holes by physicists, since there would be no processes that would naturally lead to their formation; they could exist only if they were built into the initial conditions of the Big Bang. Additionally, it is predicted that such a white hole would be highly "unstable" in the sense that if any small amount of matter fell towards the horizon from the outside, this would prevent the white hole's explosion as seen by distant observers, with the matter emitted from the singularity never able to escape the white hole's gravitational radius.


title: White hole

text: A view of black holes first proposed in the late 1980s might be interpreted as shedding some light on the nature of classical white holes. Some researchers have proposed that when a black hole forms, a Big Bang may occur at the core/singularity, which would create a new universe that expands outside of the "parent universe". See also Fecund universes.


title: White hole

text: The Einstein–Cartan–Sciama–Kibble theory of gravity extends general relativity by removing a constraint of the symmetry of the affine connection and regarding its antisymmetric part, the torsion tensor, as a dynamical variable. Torsion naturally accounts for the quantum-mechanical, intrinsic angular momentum (spin) of matter.


title: White hole

text: According to general relativity, the gravitational collapse of a sufficiently compact mass forms a singular black hole. In the Einstein–Cartan theory, however, the minimal coupling between torsion and Dirac spinors generates a repulsive spin–spin interaction that is significant in fermionic matter at extremely high densities. Such an interaction prevents the formation of a gravitational singularity. Instead, the collapsing matter on the other side of the event horizon reaches an enormous but finite density and rebounds, forming a regular Einstein–Rosen bridge. The other side of the bridge becomes a new, growing baby universe. For observers in the baby universe, the parent universe appears as the only white hole. Accordingly, the observable universe is the Einstein–Rosen interior of a black hole existing as one of possibly many inside a larger universe. The Big Bang was a nonsingular Big Bounce at which the observable universe had a finite, minimum scale factor.


title: White hole

text: A 2012 paper argues that the Big Bang itself is a white hole. It further suggests that the emergence of a white hole, which was named a "Small Bang", is spontaneous—all the matter is ejected at a single pulse. Thus, unlike black holes, white holes cannot be continuously observed; rather, their effects can be detected only around the event itself. The paper even proposed identifying a new group of gamma-ray bursts with white holes.


title: White hole

text: In 2014, the idea of the Big Bang being produced by a supermassive white hole explosion was explored in the framework of a five-dimensional vacuum by Madriz Aguilar, Moreno and Bellini.


title: Chris Pontius

text: Chris Pontius (born July 16, 1974) is an American stunt performer and television personality. He is best known as a cast member of the reality comedy show "Jackass" and co-host of its spinoff "Wildboyz" with fellow cast member Steve-O.


title: Chris Pontius

text: Pontius was born on July 16, 1974, in Pasadena, California, and raised in San Luis Obispo. As a teenager, he met his future "Jackass" collaborators when he was interviewed in skateboarding magazine "Big Brother". Pontius went on to write for "Big Brother", and was part of the "Jackass" cast starting with the first episode in 2000.


title: Chris Pontius

text: Pontius mostly performs stunts involving nudity, such as him dancing out in public while wearing nothing but a thong. He also mostly performs stunts involving his penis, most notably getting it bitten by a snake, and flying an RC helicopter with his penis by tying thread around it to the RC helicopter. He also performs stunts and pranks which involve playing different characters, such as dressing up as the devil while walking through the streets and holding up a sign that reads "Keep God out of California".


title: Chris Pontius

text: In 2004, Pontius married Claire Nolan. The couple split in 2009. In 2011, Nolan filed for divorce and finalized in 2013. Pontius is currently married to Mae Quijada. They have one son born in 2019.


title: PlatinumGames

text: PlatinumGames Inc. is a Japanese video game developer that was founded in October 2007 as result of a merger between two companies, Seeds Inc. and Odd Inc. Shinji Mikami, Atsushi Inaba, and Hideki Kamiya founded Seeds Inc. after the closure of Capcom's Clover Studio, while Odd Inc. was founded by Tatsuya Minami. A year after the studio was founded, video game publisher Sega announced that it would be publishing four intellectual properties developed by the company: "MadWorld", "Infinite Space", "Bayonetta", and "Vanquish". Their partnership later extended to include "Anarchy Reigns". Most of these games were met with positive reception. Over the years, PlatinumGames had developed an expertise in action games and one of their key philosophies was that the team would not follow conventional game design concepts.


title: PlatinumGames

text: While PlatinumGames' core goal was to create new and original intellectual property, the team also accepted several contract works from Activision on several licensed projects, most of which received mediocre reviews. Since 2013, PlatinumGames had held a close relationship with console manufacturer Nintendo, which funded several of their original titles, including "The Wonderful 101" and "Astral Chain", and handled licensing between Sega that would allow Platinum to continue the "Bayonetta" series. The studio worked on creating new installments in other studios' franchises, with the studio taking major development duties on "" for Konami, "Star Fox Zero" for Nintendo, and "" for Square Enix. "Nier: Automata", which was both a critical and commercial success, was an important project for PlatinumGames, since it was their first game released after the cancellation of "Scalebound", a project funded by Microsoft Studios.


title: PlatinumGames

text: PlatinumGames was founded by the merger of Seeds Inc. and Odd Inc. in October 2007. Seeds Inc. had been founded by Shinji Mikami, Atsushi Inaba, and Hideki Kamiya on August 1, 2006. Prior to establishing the company, the three worked for Capcom, and were key members of the Osaka-based Clover Studio, which specialized in making new and creative intellectual properties. They worked closely together developing popular Capcom franchises including "Resident Evil", "Devil May Cry", "Viewtiful Joe" and "Ōkami". Most of these titles received critical acclaim, but under-performed commercially, leading to Capcom's decision to close the studio. Prior to the closure, the three founders had already left the studio to form their own company in mid-2006. In January 2006, the company expanded to 51 employees, including more former Capcom employees such as Masami Ueda, composer for the early "Resident Evil" games, and Mari Shimazaki, "Ōkami"s artist. Yusuke Hashimoto and Kenji Saito, who would eventually become PlatinumGames' directors, joined during its establishment period. The new company revealed its existence by launching its website in February 2007.


title: PlatinumGames

text: Odd Ltd. was founded by Tatsuya Minami in February 2006, and later renamed Odd Inc. in July 2007. Like the founders of Clover Studio, Minami worked at Capcom prior to founding his own studio. He joined Capcom and for 20 years was involved in titles such as "Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts" and the "Mega Man" franchise. However, he decided to leave as he became tired of making sequels. Minami became the studio's head and focused on the company's management and administration, while Mikami, Inaba and Kamiya remained in the positions of director or producer.


title: PlatinumGames

text: The company had not revealed anything about upcoming projects for a year, until 2008, when Sega announced that it would be publishing four PlatinumGames' titles. According to Minami, the titles were unique and creative, and it was courageous of Sega to publish these risky titles. Minami added further that the partnership with Sega allowed them to bring these titles to Western markets. The four games included "MadWorld", "Infinite Space", "Bayonetta" and " Vanquish". Each was released in 2009. All the intellectual properties created by PlatinumGames as part of the partnership are owned by Sega.


title: PlatinumGames

text: "MadWorld" was the first game to be released. Produced by Inaba, the game was designed to appeal to a western audience and had a unique art style inspired by that of "Sin City". The original story was written by Yasumi Matsuno, who had previously worked on Square Enix's "Ogre Battle" and "Final Fantasy Tactics", while PlatinumGames and Sega jointly localized the title for the West. The team created the game with a vision of bringing a unique game to the Wii. While the game received positive reviews, it was a commercial failure, despite Sega's heavy marketing. Though the game was a commercial failure, Sega felt that sales were "encouraging", and said that they would continue to make mature games for the Wii. They released the "Welcome To Violence" pack, which bundles "MadWorld" with "", and "The Conduit", each of which were commercial failures. In 2010, Sega announced that they would cease publishing mature video games for the Wii, citing the disappointing sales of "MadWorld" as a contributing factor. However, PlatinumGames announced several days later that they would like to do a sequel to the game.


title: PlatinumGames

text: The company's second game was "Infinite Space". Announced as "Infinite Line", it is a role-playing video game with real-time strategy, and space simulation elements. Inspired by the works of Arthur C. Clarke and Greg Egan, PlatinumGames collaborated closely with Nude Maker while developing the game. Produced by Inaba, the title was released in June 2009 in Japan, and its localized release for western territories was in March 2010. The game was a moderate success in Japan, but sales of the game in the West were unsatisfactory. PlatinumGames blamed Sega for not producing enough copies of the game, as the game "sold out instantly".


title: PlatinumGames

text: The third game is "Bayonetta", an action game "evolved" from the "Devil May Cry" series. The title was directed by Kamiya, who originally pitched several "casual" projects for the studio before starting the development of "Bayonetta". The game features an original story, with inspirations drawn from Scandinavian mythology, while the design of the titular character was based on Kamiya's own vision of an "ideal woman". The development team was credited as "Team Little Angels", as opposed to "Devil May Cry"s "Team Little Devils". The game received critical acclaim on its release, with critics praising its action as "genre-topping", as well as its characters and innovation. However, according to Inaba, the team had set an overly high standard for themselves and became extremely frustrated by the end of the project's development. Inaba added that the game's development "nearly broke" PlatinumGames. The team's morale was restored after hearing players' positive opinions of the game. In addition, Inaba called the PlayStation 3 version of the game the company's "biggest failure", as the team did not have sufficient skills to develop that version of the game. More than 1.35 million units of the game were shipped, but according to Minami, the company was disappointed with its sales, despite it being one of the most commercially successful games produced by the company. An animated film based on the game, called "", was later released by Gonzo.


title: PlatinumGames

text: The Sega-PlatinumGames original partnership announcement teased a mysterious fourth game from Mikami. The title was later revealed to be "Vanquish". The team drew inspiration from "Casshern" when creating the game's visuals. Mikami decided the game's third-person perspective through trial and error, and hoped that with it, the team could increase its gameplay pace. It was originally designed to be an open world game, but this idea was later abandoned and the game's direction shifted to become linear. On its release, the game was positively reviewed, with critics calling it innovative for introducing new elements into the shooter genre. Sega added that the company was encouraged by the game's first and second-day sales. After its release, Mikami left PlatinumGames and formed a new company, Tango Gameworks. According to Minami, Mikami "always wanted to be his own man, and his own developer".


title: PlatinumGames

text: In late 2010, PlatinumGames revealed that it was in discussions with Sega to extend their partnership. Inaba added that Sega is a publisher which allows the team to have much creative control over their games. In 2011, PlatinumGames announced that they had extended their partnership with a new title called "Max Anarchy". The game was released in western territories as "Anarchy Reigns" in 2013. The game serves as a sequel to "MadWorld", but it does not feature the "Sin City" graphic style, though players assume control of "MadWorld"s protagonist Jack Cayman for most parts of the game. The game received mixed reviews on its release, and it was a commercial failure. "Anarchy Reigns" is the last game developed by PlatinumGames to be published by Sega.


title: PlatinumGames

text: In 2011, Hideo Kojima and his studio Kojima Productions were working on a new "Metal Gear" game focused on one of its main characters Raiden, a ninja equipped with swords. Unable to continue working on the game, Kojima contacted Minami to ask PlatinumGames to work on it. According to Kojima, PlatinumGames was the only studio capable of working on an action game with sword-based combat. The team added stealth elements to the game finding its system too boring and straightforward. Directed by Kenji Saito, the game, titled "", was released in 2013 and received generally positive reviews from critics, and was a commercial success. It also became the company's first licensed title.


title: PlatinumGames

text: The same year also saw the release of PlatinumGames' second game, "The Wonderful 101" for the Wii U. While Kamiya was the game's director, Minami offered creative advice. According to Kamiya, inspiration was drawn from classic "tokusatsu" series like "Super Sentai", and that the game was designed to appeal to all types of audiences. The game was originally planned for the Wii, and was set to feature classic Nintendo characters. However, as the team found that it was difficult to use these characters creatively, the game was put on hold temporarily. Its development was restarted later, with 50 original characters being featured in the final game. Nintendo provided feedback during the game's development hoping that it would reach a larger audience. The game received critical acclaim. It was considered one of the best games in the Wii U library, and was voted one of community's Nintendo favorites. However, the game underperformed in Japan, and was outsold by "Pikmin 3", which had already been released before the launch of "The Wonderful 101". VG247 attributed the game's failure to the low sales of the Wii U.


title: PlatinumGames

text: Their partnership continued with 2014's "Bayonetta 2", which sparked controversy for being a Wii U exclusive when its predecessor is a multi-platform title. According to executive producer Atsushi Inaba, the company worked with Sega to create the game's sequel. It was later cancelled in the middle of the game's development until Nintendo offered to work with the company to revive it and fund the project. Sega only served as the game's advisor. Inaba added that Nintendo did not actively interfere with the game's development, and compared its role to that of an observer. Kamiya, who originally did not expect a sequel to the game, served as the game's supervisor. Replacing Kamiya as the game's director is Yusuke Hashimoto. Hashimoto focused on refining the original's combat, and extending the game's replay value. "Bayonetta 2" received critical acclaim on its launch, with several gaming publications awarding the game a perfect score. Though Nintendo did not comment on the game's sales, the title sold only 38,828 copies in Japan in its first week of release, faring much worse than the original. It became the seventh best-selling retail game in the UK in its first week of release, but sales declined significantly in the second week.


title: PlatinumGames

text: The company gradually developed more and more licensed titles based on existing properties. Their partners grant them creative freedom while creating these games' gameplay. Their first licensed title is "The Legend of Korra" (2014), based on Nickelodeon's animated series of the same name. Published by Activision, the game's story was written by Tim Hedrick, the show writer. The game received a mixed reception when it was launched. Following "The Legend of Korra" is "", based on Hasbro's "Transformers: Generations". Directed by Saito, the game was designed to look and feel different from previous "Transformers" games. The title received favorable reviews when it was released in 2015. The third licensed title, "" was released in May 2016. According to game designer Eiro Shirahama, the team watched the "TMNT" animated series and also played the old "TMNT" games for the Super Famicom while working on the game so as to understand the universe and the characters. The game garnered mixed reception when it was released.


title: PlatinumGames

text: In 2013, Kamiya revealed that he would like to have an opportunity to continue PlatinumGames' partnership with Nintendo, creating new properties or working on extending the universe of their existing franchises such as "Star Fox". Shigeru Miyamoto who produced "Star Fox Zero" expressed his desire to work with external developers so that the project can have a shorter development cycle. The team was asked to serve as the game's co-developer after Nintendo saw the Arwing stage of "Bayonetta 2". "Zero", along with its spin-off tower defense game "Star Fox Guard", was released in April 2016 to mixed reception. By the end of March 2016, Minami stepped down from his position as president and CEO, with executive producer Kenichi Sato succeeding him.


title: PlatinumGames

text: In August 2016, PlatinumGames was revealed to be in a collaboration with Cygames in the development of the action role-playing game "", but in February 2019 it was announced that PlatinumGames would no longer be involved in the project, leaving Cygames to handle the rest of development.


title: PlatinumGames

text: In 2017, Kamiya and his team were working on "Scalebound" for Microsoft Studios until it was cancelled in January 2017. Shortly after the cancellation, creative producer Jean-Pierre Kellams left the company, while Kamiya stopped working as a director, continuing his work at PlatinumGames as vice president. The studio collaborated with Square Enix and released "" for PlayStation 4 and Windows in 2017, with an Xbox One version being released in 2018. Directed by "Nier" creator Yoko Taro, the game received critical acclaim and more than 2 million copies were sold. According to Kamiya, Taro "saved" PlatinumGames after the cancellation of "Scalebound". The positive reception of "Nier Automata" had sparked public interest in Platinum's work once again. In May of the same year, Inaba announced the company was working on a new intellectual property. At The Game Awards 2017, "Bayonetta 3" was revealed, which will be released for the Nintendo Switch. It was also announced that ports of the first two "Bayonetta" games would be released for the same platform two months later. At the ceremony, "Nier: Automata" also won in the Best Score/Music category.


title: PlatinumGames

text: In April 2018, the company announced a partnership with DeNA for an action game that explores Japanese folklore for Android and iOS devices, titled "World of Demons". Its development began in 2015 with 30 employees attached to it, including staff who had worked on "Star Fox Zero" and "Bayonetta 2", was soft launched in some countries in 2018, but was pulled from storefronts the following year. Platinum then released "World of Demons" for Apple Arcade on April 2, 2021. Another game, "Astral Chain", was released for the Nintendo Switch on August 30, 2019.


title: PlatinumGames

text: In 2019, PlatinumGames studio head Atsushi Inaba revealed that the studio was working on two new unannounced intellectual properties owned by the studio, one of which he described as "truly unlike anything else."


title: PlatinumGames

text: Tencent Holdings supplied capital investment into Platinum in January 2020, which will allow the studio to self-publish its future titles. Platinum's CEO Kenichi Sato stated that the Tencent investment changed no aspect of Platinum's ownership and they remain an independent developer.


title: PlatinumGames

text: On February 3, 2020, PlatinumGames launched a website titled "Platinum 4", revolving around four announcements, which included:


title: PlatinumGames

text: In addition to these announcements, the research and development side of Platinum had been developing a new in-house game engine named PlatinumEngine to power its new titles. Chief technology officer Wataru Ohmori said that the need for a custom engine over other existing solutions like Unreal or Unity was needed to give them better customization and control over their games, and to improve their performance. He said, "We came to the frightening realization that if we don’t make our work more efficient, we’re simply not going to be able to keep making the games that we want to make as technology and expectations grow." For example, Bayonetta 3, one of title using the engine.


title: PlatinumGames

text: On January 13, 2022, former CEO Kenichi Sato stepped down from the position after five years and eight months in the role, with studio head and co-founder Atsushi Inaba succeeding him in the role.


title: PlatinumGames

text: According to Inaba, the core goal of the company is to make new and original intellectual property, and that taking risks is a crucial part of video game development. However, the company also worked on licensed titles later, as the team considered creating original titles "difficult", sometimes too risky, with sales that were unsatisfactory for the team. According to Minami, working on both licensed properties and original games provides the company with stability. Despite having a new focus, PlatinumGames retains their original vision of making games and the team hopes to become one of "the three top game studios in the world". While PlatinumGames is a Japanese development company, the development team also attempts to add elements to their games that will attract a large global audience. Minami says that the company is keen to work with both Japanese and Western publishers.


title: PlatinumGames

text: According to Inaba, the company values the idea of "change", and that "the people who are not looking for constant change are not necessarily welcome in what I think the company should be". According to Minami, PlatinumGames only made games that the development team were passionate about. Inaba described the studio as "loud", as every one on the development team is allowed to express their opinions on their projects and their visions will not be compromised. The studio also invites employees who are not involved in game design, such as artists and programmers, to provide creative input to their projects. Saito added that every game that company developed has a "Platinum taste". While the company developed an expertise in action games, Saito claimed that the studio learned from every project and will apply this knowledge to their new games and genres. The company also hopes to innovate by introducing new elements in both original titles or licensed games. According to PlatinumGames, a good action game should be "passive" and feature a "unique selling point"; replay value that allows players to hone their skills; a strong leading character; and should not follow conventional design philosophy.


title: Agatha Christie bibliography

text: Agatha Christie (1890–1976) was an English crime novelist, short-story writer and playwright. Her reputation rests on 66 detective novels and 15 short-story collections that have sold over two billion copies, an amount surpassed only by the Bible and the works of William Shakespeare. She is also the most translated individual author in the world with her books having been translated into more than 100 languages. Her works contain several regular characters with whom the public became familiar, including Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, Parker Pyne and Harley Quin. Christie wrote more Poirot stories than any of the others, even though she thought the character to be "rather insufferable". Following the publication of the 1975 novel "Curtain", Poirot's obituary appeared on the front page of "The New York Times".


title: Agatha Christie bibliography

text: She married Archibald Christie in December 1914, but the couple divorced in 1928. After he was sent to the Western Front in the First World War, she worked with the Voluntary Aid Detachment and in the chemist dispensary, giving her a working background knowledge of medicines and poisons. Christie's writing career began during the war, after she was challenged by her sister to write a detective story; she produced "The Mysterious Affair at Styles", which was turned down by two publishers before being published in 1920. Following the limited success of the novel, she continued to write and steadily built up a fan base. She went on to write over a hundred works, including further novels, short stories, plays, poetry, and two autobiographies. She also wrote six romantic novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott.


title: Agatha Christie bibliography

text: One of Christie's plays, "The Mousetrap", opened in West End theatre in 1952, and ran continuously until 16 March 2020, when the stage performances had to be temporarily discontinued during the COVID-19 pandemic. It then re-opened on 17 May 2021. In 2009, the London run exceeded 25,000 performances.


title: Agatha Christie bibliography

text: In September 2015, a public vote identified "And Then There Were None"—as the public's favourite Christie novel; the book was the writer's favourite, and the one she found most difficult to write.


title: Agatha Christie bibliography

text: In September 1930, Christie married the archaeologist Max Mallowan. The pair travelled frequently on archaeological expeditions, and she utilized the experiences she had while on her many adventures as a basis for some plots, including "Murder on the Orient Express" (1934), "Murder in Mesopotamia" (1936) and "Death on the Nile" (1937). She also wrote the autobiographical travel book "Come, Tell Me How You Live" (1946), which described their life in Syria. Her biographer, Janet Morgan, reports that "archaeologists have celebrated ... [Christie's] contribution to Near Eastern exploration". Christie died in 1976, her reputation as a crime novelist high.


title: Agatha Christie bibliography

text: Initially in chronological order by UK publication date, even when the book was published first in the US or serialised in a magazine in advance of publication in book form.


title: Agatha Christie bibliography

text: Many of Christie's stories first appeared in journals, newspapers and magazines. This list consists of the published collections of stories, in chronological order by UK publication date, even when the book was published first in the US or serialised in a magazine in advance of publication in book form.


title: Agatha Christie bibliography

text: A total of 166 stories have been written and published in 15 collections in the US and the UK. 164 stories were published in the UK, with the omission of "Three Blind Mice" and "The Wife of the Kenite.” The 12 original short stories that were used for "The Big Four" were published in the UK in 2017. 153 other stories were published in the US, however, “Christmas Adventure,” which was the original version of "The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding” was not included. Some stories were published under different names in the US collections.


title: Agatha Christie bibliography

text: Four short stories, including "The Submarine Plans,” "Christmas Adventure,” "The Mystery of the Baghdad Chest,” and "The Second Gong,” were expanded into longer stories by Christie (respectively "The Incredible Theft,” "The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding,” "The Mystery of the Spanish Chest,” and "Dead Man's Mirror"). All four of the original versions were published in the UK, and three of them were published in the US (with "Christmas Adventure" being the exception).


title: Agatha Christie bibliography

text: There are 14 US collections, excluding "Poirot's Early Cases", since all of its eighteen stories appeared in earlier collections, and "The Last Séance: Tales of the Supernatural", which includes only one previously unavailable Christie story.


title: Agatha Christie bibliography

text: Several of Christie's works have been adapted for stage and screen; the following is a list of only those works written by her on her own or as a member of a group.


title: Agatha Christie bibliography

text: The definitive study of Agatha Christie's stage plays is "Curtain Up: Agatha Christie, a Life in Theatre" by Julius Green.


title: Jiiva

text: Amar Choudary (born 4 January 1984), known professionally as Jiiva, is an Indian actor and film producer who works mainly in Tamil cinema and a few Hindi films. He is the youngest son of film producer R. B. Choudary. He began his career as a child actor in 1991 in films produced by his father. He made his debut as a lead actor in his father's 50th production, "Aasai Aasaiyai" (2003). After Sivaji Ganesan, Jiiva is the only Tamil actor to have been awarded at the Cyprus International Film Festival, particularly for his performance in "Raam" (2005).


title: Jiiva

text: After this, he has acted in other movies that have been successful, such as "E" (2006), "Katradhu Tamizh" (2007), "Siva Manasula Sakthi" (2009), "Ko" (2011), "Nanban" (2012), "Mugamoodi" (2012), "Neethaane En Ponvasantham" (2012), "Endrendrum Punnagai" (2013), "Kalakalappu 2" (2018) and "Kalathil Santhippom" (2021). He made his Hindi cinema debut with the film "83" (2021), in which he portrayed cricketer Krishnamachari Srikkanth.


title: Jiiva

text: Jiiva was born on 4 January 1984 in Chennai to film producer R. B. Choudary. His mother is a Tamilian while his father is a Rajasthani. He is the youngest of four boys; his brothers are Suresh Choudary (co-producer in their home banner, Super Good Films), Jeevan Choudary (entrepreneur of a steel company), and Jithan Ramesh Choudary (actor and producer). R. B. Choudary is a noted independent south Indian film producer (Super Good Films) who has been a launchpad for now-famous directors and actors.


title: Jiiva

text: Jiiva made his debut in his father's production (Super Good Films), "Aasai Aasaiyai", directed by Ravi Mariya in 2003. The film performed averagely at the box office, but critics felt that Jiiva left an impression.


title: Jiiva

text: His second film "Thithikudhe" (the Tamil remake of Uday Kiran's Telugu movie "Manasantha Nuvve") which also released in the same year was also produced by Super Good Films. The film opened to mixed reviews but the actor gained appreciation for his good looks and expressive emotions. It was his third movie, Ameer's crime thriller, "Raam" (2005) that was called a 'dream break' for his calling in the film industry. The racy screenplay and his role of an eccentric 17-year-old gained positive feedback from audience and critics. The movie was screened at the International Film Festival in Goa and later at the Cyprus International Film Festival, where he won the Best Actor award.


title: Jiiva

text: Jiiva next starred in "Dishyum" (2006), opposite Sandhya of "Kaadhal" fame. "A feel-good movie for youngsters", reviewed various local publications. "Jeeva continues from this point and has matured as an actor. His acting is impeccable and natural; his emoting, expressions, emotions expressed by looks, body-language – all are perfect," remarked "Galatta." The same year, he made his debut as an NSG Commando in Malayalam cinema with Major Ravi's film "Keerthi Chakra" (2006) starring Mohanlal. The movie had a great opening and was one of the highest-grossing Malayalam films of the year. Jiiva also won the Best Pair Award along with Gopika at Asianet Film Awards. "Jeeva the Tamil actor has a more heroic role which he has done with felicity. The physical energy he imparts to the role has to be seen to be believed," wrote Sify. Later, the movie was dubbed and released in Tamil as "Aran". His last movie in 2006 was "E", where he portrayed the role of a slum dweller, opposite Nayanthara.The film received positive reviews and was a commercial hit.


title: Jiiva

text: The release of "Kattradhu Thamizh" (2007), which turned out to be a super hit. Jiiva had two more releases after that, "Rameswaram" in 2007 and "Thenavattu" in 2008.


title: Jiiva

text: Among his releases in the 2000s, Jiiva garnered the most appreciation for portraying various roles that were critically and commercially successful. In 2009, Jiiva experienced major commercial success with Director Rajesh's maiden venture, "Siva Manasula Sakthi" (2009), opposite Anuya, still hailed as one of the best romantic comedies of all time and has since become a cult rom-com in the Tamil film industry. In 2010, he signed up with Super Good Films for a movie titled "Kacheri Arambam", which was described as entertaining, action-packed and comical by various news channels "(Behindwoods, Indiaglitz, IANS)"


title: Jiiva

text: His next film was "Singam Puli" (2011), where he played dual roles, following which K. V. Anand's political thriller "Ko" (2011) with Karthika Nair as the lead-role actress and Piaa Bajpai in a supporting role. "Rediff" stated that his role as Ashwin in "Ko" was a "cake-walk for Jiiva: he's had a ball with the camera, clicking shots in almost impossible situations and making sure his trademark effervescence is present at all times", while "Sify" said that "with this performance he was going to be a force to reckon with in Tamil cinema". His next films were "Rowthiram" (2011), directed by Gokul, and "Vandhaan Vendraan" (2011) by R. Kannan, released in quick succession. In fact, in Rowthiram, his agility in action sequences is very impressive."


title: Jiiva

text: In 2012, he appeared in S. Shankar's comedy-drama "Nanban" (a remake of the Bollywood blockbuster "3 Idiots"). Jiiva reprised the role of Sharman Joshi in the Tamil version as Sevarkodi Senthil and starred alongside Vijay, and Srikanth. At the cost of 550 million (INR), it was one of the most expensive films to be made at that point, and was released on Pongal in 622 screens worldwide. The movie received highly positive reviews and became a blockbuster. Malathi Rangarajan of "The Hindu" stated, "As for Jiiva, you give him characters with scope and he delivers".


title: Jiiva

text: His next project was Mysskin's "Mugamoodi" (2012), the first ever Tamil superhero movie. Reports claimed that Jiiva underwent special training at Mansuria Kung Fu YMCA, Nandanam, Chennai, the same place where he had trained in Kung-Fu for a few years before venturing into movies. High-end gadgets were used in the film, designed by the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), while teams from the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) created the costumes and looks of the characters. It is said that Jiiva's super hero costume, designed by Gabriella Wilkins, weighed more than 10 kg.


title: Jiiva

text: The movie opened to positive reviews, and a few cited it as "different and refreshing". The movie received much attention from children. Jiiva received appreciation from critics for his role as Lee. "The titular role fits Jiiva well, very much like the armour he dons. But your heart goes out to him — performing stunts in a costume that looks unbearably heavy, with a face-mask to boot must have been quite a task," commented "The Hindu" review. "Firstpost" called Jiiva's role a "rewarding performance". "Jiiva has obviously given his best, and his martial arts sequences are worthy of applause," said "Rediff".


title: Jiiva

text: Jiiva's next venture was Gautham Vasudev Menon's "Neethaane En Ponvasantham" (2012), starring opposite Samantha Ruth Prabhu. The film had an average run at the box office. Critics and audiences felt that the actor brought dignity to the screen as Varun Krishnan. After this, he worked on Bejoy Nambiar's "David" (2013) alongside Vikram, which garnered positive reviews, but failed at the box office. His next movie was "Endrendrum Punnagai", where he was paired with Trisha for the first time. The film, based on friendship, was a commercial success. In 2014, he worked in cinematographer Ravi K. Chandran's directorial debut "Yaan". Despite the pre-release hype, the film received negative reviews and was a box office failure.


title: Jiiva

text: Jiiva took a break for a year in 2015 and returned with three releases in 2016. He starred in his 25th film "Pokkiri Raja", which opened to mixed to negative reviews. His next film was the long delayed "Thirunaal" in which he united with Nayantara for the second time. He was next seen in a romantic comedy, "Kavalai Vendam" (2016), directed by Deekay, where he was paired opposite Kajal Aggarwal. The movie had mixed reviews. "Jiiva seems like the perfect choice for the role, being effortlessly flippant, funny and intensely emotional", said Rediff.com's review.


title: Jiiva

text: His 2017 release, "Sangili Bungili Kadhava Thorae", a horror comedy by debut director Ike, received a mixed reviews to positive reviews and performed well at the box office. His next movie was "Kalakalappu 2" (2018), directed by Sundar C., released in February. Jiiva was seen alongside Shiva, Jai, Nikki Galrani and Catherine Tresa. A comedy entertainer, the movie received mixed reviews but performed well at the box office and was a super hit.


title: Jiiva

text: Jiiva's next film "Kee", a cyber thriller, released in May 2019 was received with mixed reviews, had an average run at the box-office. Jiiva's next film "Gorilla", directed by Don Sandy released in July 2019. This film had a chimpanzee in a key role which was the first ever instance in Indian film history. It was also revealed that the chimpanzee named Kong was hired from the Samut training station of Thailand. Most of the sequences related to the chimpanzee were shot in Thailand and the remaining portions were shot in Chennai.


title: Jiiva

text: In 2021, he acted in Kabir Khan's film "83", playing the role of Kris Srikkanth, and therefore being part of the main ensemble alongside Ranveer Singh.


title: Jiiva

text: Jiiva was a judge on STAR Vijay's reality dance competition "Jodi Number One" in its third season along with Sangeetha and Aishwarya Rajinikanth. He was also a judge on "Astro's Yuttha Medai All Stars" Grand Finals in Malaysia.


title: Octane rating

text: An octane rating, or octane number, is a standard measure of a fuel's ability to withstand compression in an internal combustion engine without detonating. The higher the octane number, the more compression the fuel can withstand before detonating. Octane rating does not relate directly to the power output or the energy content of the fuel per unit mass or volume, but simply indicates gasoline's capability against compression.


title: Octane rating

text: Whether or not a higher octane fuel improves or impairs an engine's performance depends on the design of the engine. In broad terms, fuels with a higher octane rating are used in higher-compression gasoline engines, which may yield higher power for these engines. Such higher power comes from the fuel's higher compression by the engine design, and not directly from the gasoline.


title: Octane rating

text: In contrast, fuels with lower octane (but higher cetane numbers) are ideal for diesel engines because diesel engines (also called compression-ignition engines) do not compress the fuel, but rather compress only air and then inject fuel into the air that was heated by compression. Gasoline engines rely on ignition of air and fuel compressed together as a mixture, which is ignited near the end of the compression stroke by electric spark plugs. Therefore, high compressibility of the fuel matters mainly for gasoline engines. Using gasoline with lower octane may cause engine knocking (pre-ignition).


title: Octane rating

text: The octane rating of aviation gasoline was extremely important in determining aero engine performance in the aircraft of World War II. The octane rating alone did not only determine the performance of the gasoline, but also the versatility of the fuel in handling a range of lean to rich operating conditions.


title: Octane rating

text: In a typical Otto cycle spark-ignition engine, the air-fuel mixture is heated as a result of being compressed and is then ignited by the spark plug. This burning normally takes place via rapid propagation of a flame front through the mixture, but if the unburnt portion of the fuel in the combustion chamber is heated (or compressed) too much, pockets of unburnt fuel may self-ignite (detonate) before the main flame front reaches them. Shockwaves produced by detonation can cause much higher pressures than engine components are designed for, and can cause a "knocking" or "pinging" sound. Knocking can cause major engine damage if severe.


title: Octane rating

text: Most engine management systems commonly found in automobiles today (typically EFI-Electronic Fuel Injection) have a knock sensor that monitors if knock is being produced by the fuel being used. In modern computer-controlled engines, the ignition timing will be automatically altered by the engine management system to reduce the knock to an acceptable level.


title: Octane rating

text: Octanes are a family of hydrocarbons that are typical components of gasoline. They are colorless liquids that boil around 125 °C (260 °F). One member of the octane family, iso-octane, is used as a reference standard to benchmark the tendency of gasoline or LPG fuels to resist self-ignition.


title: Octane rating

text: The octane rating of gasoline is measured in a test engine and is defined by comparison with the mixture of 2,2,4-trimethylpentane (iso-octane) and normal heptane that would have the same anti-knocking capability as the fuel under test. The percentage, by volume, of 2,2,4-trimethylpentane in that mixture is the octane number of the fuel. For example, gasoline with the same knocking characteristics as a mixture of 90% iso-octane and 10% heptane would have an octane rating of 90. A rating of 90 does not mean that the gasoline contains just iso-octane and heptane in these proportions, but that it has the same detonation resistance properties (generally, gasoline sold for common use never consists solely of iso-octane and heptane; it is a mixture of many hydrocarbons and often other additives).


title: Octane rating

text: Octane ratings are not indicators of the energy content of fuels. (See Effects below and Heat of combustion). They are only a measure of the fuel's tendency to burn in a controlled manner, rather than exploding in an uncontrolled manner.


title: Octane rating

text: This is important to know when choosing a fuel for a particular engine. Performance is optimized when the lowest octane rated fuel that can be used without detonation is used.


title: Octane rating

text: Where the octane number is raised by blending in ethanol, energy content per volume is reduced. Ethanol energy density can be compared with gasoline in heat-of-combustion tables.


title: Octane rating

text: It is possible for a fuel to have a Research Octane Number (RON) more than 100, because iso-octane is not the most knock-resistant substance available today. Racing fuels, avgas, LPG and alcohol fuels such as methanol may have octane ratings of 110 or significantly higher. Typical "octane booster" gasoline additives include MTBE, ETBE, isooctane and toluene. Lead in the form of tetraethyllead was once a common additive, but its use for fuels for road vehicles has been progressively phased out worldwide, beginning in the 1970s.


title: Octane rating

text: The most common type of octane rating worldwide is the Research Octane Number (RON). RON is determined by running the fuel in a test engine with a variable compression ratio under controlled conditions, and comparing the results with those for mixtures of iso-octane and n-heptane. The compression ratio is varied during the test to challenge the fuel's antiknocking tendency, as an increase in the compression ratio will increase the chances of knocking.


title: Octane rating

text: Another type of octane rating, called Motor Octane Number (MON), is determined at 900 rpm engine speed instead of the 600 rpm for RON. MON testing uses a similar test engine to that used in RON testing, but with a preheated fuel mixture, higher engine speed, and variable ignition timing to further stress the fuel's knock resistance. Depending on the composition of the fuel, the MON of a modern pump gasoline will be about 8 to 12 octane lower than the RON, but there is no direct link between RON and MON. Pump gasoline specifications typically require both a minimum RON and a minimum MON.


title: Octane rating

text: In most countries in Europe (also in Australia, Pakistan and New Zealand) the "headline" octane rating shown on the pump is the RON, but in Canada, the United States, and Mexico, the headline number is the simple mean or average of the RON and the MON, called the Anti-Knock Index (AKI), and often written on pumps as (R+M)/2.


title: Octane rating

text: Because of the 8 to 12 octane number difference between RON and MON noted above, the AKI shown in Canada and the United States is 4 to 6 octane numbers lower than elsewhere in the world for the same fuel. This difference between RON and MON is known as the fuel's sensitivity, and is not typically published for those countries that use the Anti-Knock Index labelling system.


title: Octane rating

text: Another type of octane rating, called Observed Road Octane Number (RdON), is derived from testing gasolines in real world multi-cylinder engines, normally at wide open throttle. It was developed in the 1920s and is still reliable today. The original testing was done in cars on the road but as technology developed the testing was moved to chassis dynamometers with environmental controls to improve consistency.


title: Octane rating

text: The evaluation of the octane number by the two laboratory methods requires a standard engine, and the test procedure can be both expensive and time-consuming. The standard engine required for the test may not always be available, especially in out-of-the-way places or in small or mobile laboratories. These and other considerations led to the search for a rapid method for the evaluation of the anti-knock quality of gasoline. Such methods include FTIR, near infrared on-line analyzers and others. Deriving an equation that can be used for calculating the octane quality would also serve the same purpose with added advantages. The term Octane Index is often used to refer to the calculated octane quality in contradistinction to the (measured) research or motor octane numbers. The octane index can be of great service in the blending of gasoline. Motor gasoline, as marketed, is usually a blend of several types of refinery grades that are derived from different processes such as straight-run gasoline, reformate, cracked gasoline etc. These different grades are considered as one group when blending to meet final product specifications. Most refiners produce and market more than one grade of motor gasoline, differing principally in their anti-knock quality. The ability to predict the octane quality of the blends prior to blending is essential, something for which the calculated octane index is specially suited.


title: Octane rating

text: Aviation gasolines used in piston aircraft engines common in general aviation have a slightly different method of measuring the octane of the fuel. Similar to an AKI, it has two different ratings, although it is usually referred to only by the lower of the two. One is referred to as the "aviation lean" rating and is the same as the MON of the fuel up to 100. The second is the "aviation rich" rating and corresponds to the octane rating of a test engine under forced induction operation common in high-performance and military piston aircraft. This utilizes a supercharger, and uses a significantly richer fuel/air ratio for improved detonation resistance.


title: Octane rating

text: The most commonly used current fuel, 100LL, has an aviation lean rating of 100 octane, and an aviation rich rating of 130.


title: Octane rating

text: The RON/MON values of n-heptane and iso-octane are exactly 0 and 100, respectively, by the definition of octane rating. The following table lists octane ratings for various other fuels.


title: Octane rating

text: Higher octane ratings correlate to higher activation energies: the amount of applied energy required to initiate combustion. Since higher octane fuels have higher activation energy requirements, it is less likely that a given compression will cause uncontrolled ignition, otherwise known as autoignition, selfignition, pre-ignition, detonation, or knocking.


title: Octane rating

text: Because octane is a measured and/or calculated rating of the fuel's ability to resist autoignition, the higher the octane of the fuel, the harder that fuel is to ignite and the more heat is required to ignite it. The result is that a hotter ignition spark is required for ignition. Creating a hotter spark requires more energy from the ignition system, which in turn increases the parasitic electrical load on the engine. The spark also must begin earlier in order to generate sufficient heat at the proper time for precise ignition. As octane, ignition spark energy, and the need for precise timing increase, the engine becomes more difficult to "tune" and keep "in tune". The resulting sub-optimal spark energy and timing can cause major engine problems, from a simple "miss" to uncontrolled detonation and catastrophic engine failure.


title: Octane rating

text: The other rarely-discussed reality with high-octane fuels associated with "high performance" is that as octane increases, the specific gravity and energy content of the fuel per unit of weight are reduced. The net result is that to make a given amount of power, more high-octane fuel must be burned in the engine. Lighter and "thinner" fuel also has a lower specific heat, so the practice of running an engine "rich" to use excess fuel to aid in cooling requires richer and richer mixtures as octane increases.


title: Octane rating

text: Higher-octane, lower-energy-dense "thinner" fuels often contain alcohol compounds incompatible with the stock fuel system components, which also makes them hygroscopic. They also evaporate away much more easily than heavier, lower-octane fuel which leads to more accumulated contaminants in the fuel system. Its typically the and the compounds in the fuel that have the most detrimental effects on the engine fuel system components, as such acids corrode many metals used in gasoline fuel systems.


title: Octane rating

text: During the compression stroke of an internal combustion engine, the temperature of the air-fuel mix rises as it is compressed, in accordance with the ideal gas law. Higher compression ratios necessarily add parasitic load to the engine, and are only necessary if the engine is being specifically designed to run on high-octane fuel. Aircraft engines run at relatively low speeds and are "undersquare". They run best on lower-octane, slower-burning fuels that require less heat and a lower compression ratio for optimum vaporization and uniform fuel-air mixing, with the ignition spark coming as late as possible in order to extend the production of cylinder pressure and torque as far down the power stroke as possible. The main reason for using high-octane fuel in air-cooled engines is that it is more easily vaporized in a cold carburetor and engine and absorbs less intake air heat which greatly reduces the tendency for carburetor icing to occur.


title: Octane rating

text: With their reduced densities and weight per volume of fuel, the other obvious benefit is that an aircraft with any given volume of fuel in the tanks is automatically lighter. And since many airplanes are flown only occasionally and may sit unused for weeks or months, the lighter fuels tend to evaporate away and leave behind fewer deposits such as "varnish" (gasoline components, particularly alkenes and oxygenates slowly polymerize into solids). Aircraft also typically have dual "redundant" ignition systems which are nearly impossible to tune and time to produce identical ignition timing, so using a lighter fuel that's less prone to autoignition is a wise "insurance policy". For the same reasons, those lighter fuels which are better solvents are much less likely to cause any "varnish" or other fouling on the "backup" spark plugs.


title: Octane rating

text: In almost all general aviation piston engines, the fuel mixture is directly controlled by the pilot, via a knob and cable or lever similar to (and next to) the throttle control. Leaning — reducing the mixture from its maximum amount — must be done with knowledge, as some combinations of fuel mixture and throttle position (that produce the highest ) can cause detonation and/or pre-ignition, in the worst case destroying the engine within seconds. Pilots are taught in primary training to avoid settings that produce the highest exhaust gas temperatures, and run the engine either "rich of peak EGT" (more fuel than can be burned with the available air) or "lean of peak" (less fuel, leaving some oxygen in the exhaust) as either will keep the fuel-air mixture from detonating prematurely. Because of the high cost of unleaded, high-octane avgas, and possible increased range before refueling, some general aviation pilots attempt to save money by tuning their fuel-air mixtures and ignition timing to run "lean of peak". Additionally, the decreased air density at higher altitudes (such as Colorado) and temperatures (as in summer) requires leaning (reduction in amount of fuel per volume or mass of air) for the peak EGT and power (crucial for takeoff).


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: Yoweri Kaguta Museveni Tibuhaburwa (born 15 September 1944) is a Ugandan politician and retired senior military officer who has been the 9th and current President of Uganda since 26 January 1986. Museveni spearheaded rebellions with aid of then current military general Tito Okello and general Bale Travor that toppled Ugandan presidents Milton Obote and Idi Amin before he captured power in 1986.


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: In the mid-to-late 1990s, Museveni was celebrated by the Western world as part of a new generation of African leaders. Museveni's presidency has been marred by involvement in the First Congo War, the Rwandan Civil War, and other African Great Lakes conflicts; the Lord's Resistance Army insurgency in Northern Uganda, which caused a humanitarian emergency; and constitutional amendments, scrapping presidential term limits in 2005, and the presidential age limit in 2017.


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: Museveni's rule has been described by scholars as competitive authoritarianism, or illiberal democracy. Press has been under the authority of government. None of the Ugandan elections of the last 30 years (since 1986) have been found to be free and transparent. On 16 January 2021, Museveni was re-elected for a sixth term with 58.6% of the vote, despite many videos and reports that show ballot box stuffing, over 400 polling stations with 100% voter turnout, and human rights violations. Museveni has recently insisted on retiring; according to a presidential adviser, Museveni does not want to preside at 80 years of age. Museveni has been endorsed by the vice president as a presidential candidate in 2026. , after 36 years of his authoritarian rule, Uganda is ranked 166th in GDP (nominal) per capita and 167th by Human Development Index.


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: Museveni was born on 15 September 1944 to parents Mzee Amos Kaguta (1916–2013), a cattle keeper, and Esteri Kokundeka Nganzi (1918–2001), in Rukungiri. He is an ethnic Hima of the kingdom of Mpororo (now part of Ankole).


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: According to Julius Nyerere, Museveni's father, Amos Kaguta, was a soldier in the King's African Rifles during the Second World War. He was in the 7th battalion. So when Yoweri was born, relatives used to say, "His father was a mu-seven" (meaning “in the seventh”). This is how he obtained the name Museveni.


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: His family later migrated to Ntungamo, then within the British Protectorate of Uganda. Museveni attended Kyamate Elementary School, Mbarara High School, and Ntare School for his primary and secondary education. He also attended the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania for his tertiary education. He studied economics and political science. The university at the time was a hotbed of radical pan-African and Marxist political thought. While at university, he formed the University Students' African Revolutionary Front student activist group and led a student delegation to FRELIMO-held territory in Portuguese Mozambique where they received military training. Studying under the leftist Walter Rodney, among others, Museveni wrote a university thesis on the applicability of Frantz Fanon's ideas on revolutionary violence to post-colonial Africa.


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: The exile forces opposed to Amin invaded Uganda from Tanzania in September 1972 and were repelled. In October, Tanzania and Uganda signed the Mogadishu Agreement that denied the rebels the use of Tanzanian soil for aggression against Uganda. Museveni broke away from the mainstream opposition and formed the Front for National Salvation (FRONASA) in 1973. In August of the same year, he married Janet Kainembabazi.


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: In October 1978 Ugandan troops invaded the Kagera Salient in northern Tanzania, initiating the Uganda–Tanzania War. Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere ordered the Tanzania People's Defence Force (TPDF) to counter-attack and mobilised Ugandan dissidents to fight Amin's regime. Museveni was pleased by this development. In December 1978 Nyerere attached Museveni and his forces to Tanzanian troops under Brigadier Silas Mayunga. Museveni and his FRONASA troops subsequently accompanied the Tanzanians during the counter-invasion of Uganda. He was present during the capture and destruction of Mbarara in February 1979, and involved in the Western Uganda campaign of 1979. In course of these operations, he alternatively spent time at the frontlines and in Tanzania where he discussed the cooperation of various anti-Amin rebel groups as well as the political future of Uganda with Tanzanian politicans and other Ugandan opposition figures such as Obote. He played a significant part in the Moshi Conference which led to the unification of the opposition as the Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF). Yusuf Lule was appointed as UNLF chairman and the potential President of Uganda after Amin's overthrow. Museveni felt dissatisfied with the results of the conference, believing that he and his followers were not granted enough representation.


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: With the overthrow of Amin in 1979 and the contested election that returned Milton Obote to power in 1980, Museveni returned to Uganda with his supporters to gather strength in their rural strongholds in the Bantu-dominated south and south-west to form the Popular Resistance Army (PRA). They then planned a rebellion against the second Obote regime (Obote II) and its armed forces, the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA). The insurgency began with an attack on an army installation in the central Mubende district on 6 February 1981. The PRA later merged with former president Yusufu Lule's fighting group, the Uganda Freedom Fighters, to create the National Resistance Army (NRA) with its political wing, the National Resistance Movement (NRM). Two other rebel groups, the Uganda National Rescue Front (UNRF) and the Former Uganda National Army (FUNA), engaged Obote's forces. The FUNA was formed in the West Nile sub-region from the remnants of Amin's supporters.


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: The NRA/NRM developed a "Ten-point Programme" for an eventual government, covering: democracy; security; consolidation of national unity; defending national independence; building an independent, integrated, and self-sustaining economy; improvement of social services; elimination of corruption and misuse of power; redressing inequality; cooperation with other African countries; and a mixed economy.


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: The Central Intelligence Agency's "World Factbook" estimates that the Obote regime was responsible for more 100,000 civilian deaths across Uganda.


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: On 27 July 1985, subfactionalism within the Uganda People's Congress government led to a successful military coup against Obote by his former army commander, Lieutenant-General Tito Okello, an Acholi. Museveni and the NRM/NRA were angry that the revolution for which they had fought for four years had been "hijacked" by the UNLA, which they viewed as having been discredited by gross human rights violations during Obote II.


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: Despite these reservations, however, the NRM/NRA eventually agreed to peace talks presided over by a Kenyan delegation headed by President Daniel arap Moi. The talks, which lasted from 26 August to 17 December, were notoriously acrimonious and the resultant ceasefire broke down almost immediately. The final agreement, signed in Nairobi, called for a ceasefire, demilitarisation of Kampala, integration of the NRA and government forces, and absorption of the NRA leadership into the Military Council. These conditions were never met.


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: While involved in the peace negotiations, Museveni was courting General Mobutu Sésé Seko of Zaire to forestall the involvement of Zairean forces in support of Okello's military junta. On 20 January 1986, however, several hundred troops loyal to Amin were accompanied into Ugandan territory by the Zairean military. The forces intervened following secret training in Zaire and an appeal from Okello ten days previously.


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: By 22 January, government troops in Kampala had begun to quit their posts en masse as the rebels gained ground from the south and south-west.


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: Museveni was sworn in as president on 29 January. "This is not a mere change of guard, it is a fundamental change," said Museveni, after a ceremony conducted by British-born Chief Justice Peter Allen. Speaking to crowds of thousands outside the Ugandan parliament, the new president promised a return to democracy: "The people of Africa, the people of Uganda, are entitled to a democratic government. It is not a favour from any regime. The sovereign people must be the public, not the government."


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: Uganda began participating in an IMF Economic Recovery Program in 1987. Its objectives included the restoration of incentives in order to encourage growth, investment, employment, and exports; the promotion and diversification of trade with particular emphasis on export promotion; the removal of bureaucratic constraints and divestment from ailing public enterprises so as to enhance sustainable economic growth and development through the private sector and the liberalisation of trade at all levels.


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: The NRM came to power promising to restore security and respect for human rights. Indeed, this was part of the NRM's ten-point programme, as Museveni noted in his swearing in speech:


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: Although Museveni now headed up a new government in Kampala, the NRM could not project its influence fully across Ugandan territory, finding itself fighting a number of insurgencies. From the beginning of Museveni's presidency, he drew strong support from the Bantu-speaking south and south-west, where Museveni had his base. Museveni managed to get the Karamojong, a group of semi-nomads in the sparsely populated north-east that had never had a significant political voice, to align with him by offering them a stake in the new government. The northern region along the Sudanese border, however, proved more troublesome. In the West Nile sub-region, inhabited by Kakwa and Lugbara (who had previously supported Amin), the UNRF and FUNA rebel groups fought for years until a combination of military offensives and diplomacy pacified the region. The leader of the UNRF, Moses Ali, gave up his struggle to become the second deputy prime minister. People from the northern parts of the country viewed the rise of a government led by a person from the south with great trepidation. Rebel groups sprang up among the Lango, Acholi, and Teso peoples, though they were overwhelmed by the strength of the NRA except in the far north where the Sudanese border provided a safe haven. The Acholi rebel Uganda People's Democratic Army (UPDA) failed to dislodge the NRA occupation of Acholiland, leading to the desperate chiliasm of the Holy Spirit Movement (HSM). The defeat of both the UPDA and HSM left the rebellion to a group that eventually became known as the Lord's Resistance Army, which would turn upon the Acholi themselves.


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: The NRA subsequently earned a reputation for respecting the rights of civilians, although Museveni later received criticism for using child soldiers. Undisciplined elements within the NRA soon tarnished a hard-won reputation for fairness. "When Museveni's men first came they acted very well – we welcomed them," said one villager, "but then they started to arrest people and kill them."


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: In March 1989, Amnesty International published a human rights report on Uganda, entitled "Uganda, the Human Rights Record 1986–1989". It documented gross human rights violations committed by NRA troops. According to Olara Otunnu, a United Nations Diplomat argued that Museveni pursued a genocide to nilotic – luo people living in the Northern part of the country. In one of the most intense phases of the war, between October and December 1988, the NRA forcibly cleared approximately 100,000 people from their homes in and around Gulu town. Soldiers committed hundreds of extrajudicial executions as they forcibly moved people, burning down homes and granaries. In its conclusion, however, the report offered some hope:


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: However, on 13 September 2019, Museveni's former Inspector General of Police (IGP) General Kale Kayihura was placed on the United States Department of the Treasury sanctions list for gross violation of Human rights during his reign as the IGP (from 2005 to March 2018). This was due to activities of the Uganda Police's Flying Squad Unit that involved torture and corruption. Kayihura was subsequently replaced with Martin Okoth Ochola.


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: The first elections under Museveni's government were held on 9 May 1996. Museveni defeated Paul Ssemogerere of the Democratic Party, who contested the election as a candidate for the "Inter-party forces coalition", and the upstart candidate Kibirige Mayanja. Museveni won with 75.5 percent of the vote from a turnout of 72.6 percent of eligible voters. Although international and domestic observers described the vote as valid, both the losing candidates rejected the results. Museveni was sworn in as president for the second time on 12 May 1996.


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: The second set of elections were held in 2001. President Museveni got 69 percent of the vote to beat his rival Kizza Besigye. Besigye had been a close confidant of the president and was his bush war physician. They, however, had a fallout shortly before the 2001 elections, when Besigye decided to stand for the presidency. The 2001 election campaigns were a heated affair with President Museveni threatening to put his rival "six feet under".


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: The election culminated in a petition filed by Besigye at the Supreme Court of Uganda. The court ruled that the elections were not free and fair but declined to nullify the outcome by a 3–2 majority decision. The court held that although there were many cases of election malpractice, they did not affect the result in a substantial manner. Chief Justice Benjamin Odoki and Justices Alfred Karokora and Joseph Mulenga ruled in favor of the respondents while Justices Aurthur Haggai Oder and John Tsekoko ruled in favor of Besigye.


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: Perhaps Museveni's most widely noted accomplishment has been his government's successful campaign against AIDS. During the 1980s, Uganda had one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the world, but now Uganda's rates are comparatively low, and the country stands as a rare success story in the global battle against the virus (see "AIDS in Africa"). One of the campaigns headed by Museveni to fight against HIV/AIDS was the ABC program. The ABC program had three main parts "Abstain, Be faithful, or use Condoms if A and B are not practiced." In April 1998, Uganda became the first country to be declared eligible for debt relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative, receiving some US$700 million in aid.


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: Museveni was lauded by some for his affirmative action program for women in the country. He served with a female vice-president, Specioza Kazibwe, for nearly a decade, and has done much to encourage women to go to college. On the other hand, Museveni has resisted calls for greater women's family land rights (the right of women to own a share of their matrimonial homes).


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: These are heady days for the former guerilla who runs Uganda. He moves with the measured gait and sure gestures of a leader secure in his power and his vision. It is little wonder. To hear some of the diplomats and African experts tell it, President Yoweri K. Museveni started an ideological movement that is reshaping much of Africa, spelling the end of the corrupt, strong-man governments that characterized the cold-war era. These days, political pundits across the continent are calling Mr. Museveni an African Bismarck. Some people now refer to him as Africa's "other statesman," second only to the venerated South African President Nelson Mandela.


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: In official briefing papers from Madeleine Albright's December 1997 Africa tour as Secretary of State, Museveni was claimed by the Clinton administration to be a "beacon of hope" who runs a "uni-party democracy", despite Uganda not permitting multiparty politics.


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: Following the Rwandan genocide of 1994, the new Rwandan government felt threatened by the presence across the Rwandan border in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) of former Rwandan soldiers and members of the previous regime. These soldiers were aided by Mobutu Sese Seko, leading Rwanda (with the aid of Museveni) and Laurent Kabila's rebels during the First Congo War to overthrow Mobutu and take power in the DRC.


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: In August 1998, Rwanda and Uganda invaded the DRC again during the Second Congo War, this time to overthrow Kabila, who was a former ally of Museveni and Kagame. Museveni and a few close military advisers alone made the decision to send the Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF) into the DRC. A number of highly placed sources indicate that the Ugandan parliament and civilian advisers were not consulted over the matter, as is required by the 1995 constitution. Museveni apparently persuaded an initially reluctant High Command to go along with the venture. "We felt that the Rwandese started the war and it was their duty to go ahead and finish the job, but our President took time and convinced us that we had a stake in what is going on in Congo", one senior officer is reported as saying. The official reasons Uganda gave for the intervention were to stop a "genocide" against the Banyamulenge in the DRC in concert with Rwandan forces, and that Kabila had failed to provide security along the border and was allowing the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) to attack Uganda from rear bases in the DRC. In reality, the UPDF were deployed deep inside the DRC, more than to the west of Uganda's border with the DRC.


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: Troops from Rwanda and Uganda plundered the country's rich mineral deposits and timber. The United States responded to the invasion by suspending all military aid to Uganda, a disappointment to the Clinton administration, which had hoped to make Uganda the centrepiece of the African Crisis Response Initiative. In 2000, Rwandan and Ugandan troops exchanged fire on three occasions in the DRC city of Kisangani, leading to tensions and a deterioration in relations between Kagame and Museveni. The Ugandan government has also been criticised for aggravating the Ituri conflict, a sub-conflict of the Second Congo War. The Ugandan army officially withdrew from the Congo in 2003 and a contingent of UN peace keepers was deployed. In December 2005, the International Court of Justice ruled that Uganda must pay compensation to the DRC for human rights violations during the Second Congo War.


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: In 2001, Museveni won the presidential elections by a substantial majority, with his former friend and personal physician Kizza Besigye as the only real challenger. In a populist publicity stunt, a pentagenarian Museveni travelled on a "bodaboda" motorcycle taxi to submit his nomination form for the election. "Bodaboda" is a cheap and somewhat dangerous (by western standards) method of transporting passengers around towns and villages in East Africa.


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: There was much recrimination and bitterness during the 2001 presidential elections campaign, and incidents of violence occurred following the announcement of the win by Museveni. Besigye challenged the election results in the Supreme Court of Uganda. Two of the five judges concluded that there were such illegalities in the elections and that the results should be rejected. The other three judges decided that the illegalities did not affect the result of the election in a substantial manner, but stated that "there was evidence that in a significant number of polling stations there was cheating" and that in some areas of the country, "the principle of free and fair election was compromised."


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: After the elections, political forces allied to Museveni began a campaign to loosen constitutional limits on the presidential term, allowing him to stand for election again in 2006. The 1995 Ugandan constitution provided for a two-term limit on the tenure of the president.


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: Moves to alter the constitution and alleged attempts to suppress opposition political forces have attracted criticism from domestic commentators, the international community, and Uganda's aid donors. In a press release, the main opposition party, the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), accused Museveni of engaging in a "life presidency project", and for bribing members of parliament to vote against constitutional amendments, FDC leaders claimed:


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: As observed by some political commentators, including Wafula Oguttu, Museveni had previously stated that he considered the idea of clinging to office for "15 or more" years ill-advised. Comments by the Irish anti-poverty campaigner Bob Geldof sparked a protest by Museveni supporters outside the British High Commission in Kampala. "Get a grip Museveni. Your time is up, go away," said the former rock star in March 2005, explaining that moves to change the constitution were compromising Museveni's record against fighting poverty and HIV/AIDS. In an opinion article in the "Boston Globe" and in a speech delivered at the Wilson Center, former U.S. Ambassador to Uganda Johnnie Carson heaped more criticism on Museveni. Despite recognising the president as a "genuine reformer" whose "leadership [has] led to stability and growth", Carson also said, "we may be looking at another Mugabe and Zimbabwe in the making". "Many observers see Museveni's efforts to amend the constitution as a re-run of a common problem that afflicts many African leaders – an unwillingness to follow constitutional norms and give up power".


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: In July 2005, Norway became the third European country in as many months to announce symbolic cutbacks in foreign aid to Uganda in response to political leadership in the country. The UK and Ireland made similar moves in May. "Our foreign ministry wanted to highlight two issues: the changing of the constitution to lift term limits, and problems with opening the political space, human rights and corruption", said Norwegian Ambassador Tore Gjos. Of particular significance was the arrest of two opposition MPs from the FDC. Human rights campaigners charged that the arrests were politically motivated. Human Rights Watch stated that "the arrest of these opposition MPs smacks of political opportunism". A confidential World Bank report leaked in May suggested that the international lender might cut its support to non-humanitarian programmes in Uganda. "We regret that we cannot be more positive about the present political situation in Uganda, especially given the country's admirable record through the late 1990s", said the paper. "The Government has largely failed to integrate the country's diverse peoples into a single political process that is viable over the long term...Perhaps most significant, the political trend-lines, as a result of the President's apparent determination to press for a third term, point downward."


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: Museveni responded to the mounting international pressure by accusing donors of interfering with domestic politics and using aid to manipulate poor countries. "Let the partners give advice and leave it to the country to decide ... [developed] countries must get out of the habit of trying to use aid to dictate the management of our countries." "The problem with those people is not the third term or fighting corruption or multipartism," added Museveni at a meeting with other African leaders, "the problem is that they want to keep us there without growing.".


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: In July 2005, a constitutional referendum lifted a 19-year restriction on the activities of political parties. In the non-party "Movement system" (so-called "the movement") instituted by Museveni in 1986, parties continued to exist, but candidates were required to stand for election as individuals rather than representative of any political grouping. This measure was ostensibly designed to reduce ethnic divisions, although many observers have subsequently claimed that the system had become nothing more than a restriction on opposition activity. Before the vote, the FDC spokesperson stated, "Key sectors of the economy are headed by people from the president's home area... We have got the most sectarian regime in the history of the country in spite of the fact that there are no parties." Many Ugandans saw Museveni's conversion to political pluralism as a concession to donors – aimed at softening the blow when he announces he wants to stay on for a third term. Opposition MP Omara Atubo has said Museveni's desire for change was merely "a facade behind which he is trying to hide ambitions to rule for life".


title: Yoweri Museveni

text: On 30 July 2005, Sudanese vice-president John Garang was killed when the Ugandan presidential helicopter crashed while he was flying back to Sudan from talks in Uganda. Garang had been Sudan's vice-president for only three weeks before his death.