title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: Saud was the second son of King Abdulaziz and Wadha bint Muhammad Al Orair. The death of Saud's elder brother, Prince Turki, in 1919 poised Saud to become his father's successor; King Abdulaziz appointed him as crown prince in 1933. Saud served as a commander in Abdulaziz's conquests that led to the founding of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932. He was the viceroy of Nejd from 1926 to 1932, and he also represented his father in neighbouring countries. He played a role in the financial reforms of Saudi Arabia, preparing the first state budget in 1948 and establishing the Saudi Central Bank in 1952. Saud also oversaw the country's infrastructural development.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: Upon his father's death in 1953, Saud ascended to the throne and reorganized the government. He established the convention that the king of Saudi Arabia presides over the Council of Ministers. Saud sought to maintain friendly relations with the United States, whilst also supporting other Arab countries in their conflicts against Israel. Under his reign, Saudi Arabia joined the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961. However, Saud's inability to counter the Saudi national debt brought him into a power struggle with his half-brother, Crown Prince Faisal, culminating in the forced abdication of Saud and the proclamation of Faisal as king. Saud went into exile and made an attempt, supported by some of his sons, to take back the throne, but this was unsuccessful. He died in Athens, Greece, in 1969.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: Prince Saud was born on 15 January 1902 in Kuwait City. The second son of Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman, he was born in the home of his grandfather Abdul Rahman bin Faisal. They lived in Sikkat Inazza district of the city where the family was staying after their exile from Riyadh. When his father conquered Riyadh in 1902, Saud followed him with his mother and brothers.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: Prince Saud's full siblings were Prince Turki, Prince Khalid, Prince Abdullah and Princess Mounira. Of them Khalid and Abdullah died young. Their mother was Abdulaziz's second wife, Wadha bint Muhammad Al Orair, who was from the Bani Khalid tribe. From the age of five, he studied Sharia and the Quran under Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al-Mufaireej. He also learned archery and horse-riding amongst other things under the supervision of his father, as well as tribal lineages, and how to conduct peace agreements, and the art of wars, politics, diplomacy, and administration in the traditional Arabian ways.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: Saud accompanied his father on his many expeditions and, participated in several campaigns during the unification of the Arabian Peninsula. His first political mission was at the age of thirteen, leading a delegation to Qatar. The first battle he fought was at Jarrab in 1915, followed by one at Yatab in the same year, then Trubah in 1919. In 1925, he stopped the Almahmal crisis in Mecca. During his tenure as viceroy of Najd Prince Saud criticised his father due to the limitations on the Ikhwan through the newspaper "Umm Al Qura". However, he later fought to stop the Ikhwan revolt at the battle of Sabilla in 1929.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: On 11 May 1933, Saud was appointed Crown Prince which was announced in "Umm Al Qura" newspaper. His uncle Muhammad bin Abdul Rahman did not pledge his allegiance to Saud as crown prince and before the gathering he left Riyadh for Mecca. Upon his appointment as crown prince, Abdulaziz told his son that he should be devoted to spreading Islam, take good care of his subjects, and pay attention to the advice of religious scholars. Saud then promised his father that he would listen to his father's advice.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: The following year, King Abdulaziz sent two military expeditions; one of them was led by Crown Prince Saud, who regained Najran and advanced secretly through the rugged mountains in the northwest part of Yemen.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: Following the end of the war with Yemen, Abdulaziz decided to encourage Saud to travel abroad. Accompanied by his father's adviser Fuad Hamza and physician Dr. Medhat Sheikh el-Ard and some others, he visited: Transjordan, Palestine, Iraq, Egypt and Europe where he represented his father at the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in 1937. Saud struck a warm friendship with the young King Ghazi of Iraq, and earned plaudits from the Amir of Transjordan (later King Abdullah I of Jordan), who said to him: "in his character, he represented the choicest and purest of the traits and attributes of the Arabian Peninsula." When a crisis erupted between the neighboring Persian Gulf States of Bahrain and Qatar, Saud also visited the former during December 1937 in order to help sort out their differences. This was followed by other visits to the until the eve of the Second World War.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: After the war, when the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine appeared to be imminent, and leaders of the various Arab States met at Inshas in Egypt during 1946 in order to review the situation under the Chairmanship of King Farouk of Egypt, Saud was again selected by his father to represent him and his country, and participated in the adoption of the famous resolution that declared that: "The Palestinian cause is the cause of all Arabs and not merely the Palestinians". In 1947, Saud visited the United States and met with President Harry S. Truman, and also met with leaders in Britain, France, and Italy, in order to acquaint the policymakers with his father's views and the unacceptability of the infringement of the rights of the Palestinians.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: Following Saud's visits, he concentrated on the first areas to be deemed in sore need of modernization and reform in view of increasing revenues and expenditures, these were the governance and handling the country's finances. After seeking advice and expert help from a number of friendly countries, primarily the US, the Saudi riyal was linked to the United States Dollar and apart from structural, regulatory, and procedural reforms within a revamped Ministry of Finance; a Central Bank under the name of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) was established during 1952.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: In keeping with universal practice, a proper annual state budget had first been issued during 1948 and following the establishment of the above central banking body, SAMA, the third Saudi national budget for the year 1952 complied with internationally observed standards. During this period, technical co-operation, primarily in the guise of the arrival of 35 experts during 1952 and aimed at generating planned economic growth within the Kingdom also received a major boost.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: Apart from financial and administrative reforms, the report presented to Abdulaziz by Prince Saud, had commended the implementation of a whole range of vital infrastructure projects relating to the improvement of facilities for the Pilgrims, so important to the Kingdom from a religious and economic point of view, water supply, roads, broadcasting service, health, municipal affairs, port improvements, customs reorganization, and higher education.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: Plans for the paved road between Jeddah and Mecca had been announced by Saud during the Hajj of 1947, and the project for bringing water from the nearby Wadi Fatimah to Jeddah was also inaugurated by him shortly during November 1947. The Hajj of 1950 witnessed the establishment of the Mecca college that was later to be expanded and renamed Umm al-Qura University.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: Many of these reforms, along with the complete reorganisation of the system of public administration, through the establishment or restructuring of new or existing ministries and departments, and conceived and recognised as the "Crown Prince's Reforms", issued from his Office by a Decree under his seal on 19 October 1952, were destined to be developed, built upon and some even implemented after the demise of Abdulaziz on 9 November 1953 and during Saud's reign as King. The traditional Consultative Council in Mecca, the Majlis-ash-Shura or Consultative Assembly of Saudi Arabia was expanded on 17 November 1952.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: Earlier, on 19 October 1953, Abdulaziz had also appointed Crown Prince Saud as Prime Minister for the first Saudi Cabinet. Before that, he appointed him as Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces and Internal Security Units on 25 August 1953. During this period, the Armed Forces of Saudi Arabia, including the Air Force, were modernized on a large scale with American assistance. The Saudi Arabian Airlines fleet was also expanded by the purchase of four new 'Sky Masters' to primarily facilitate the transport of Pilgrims from their homes to the sites of pilgrimage and back, and also within the Kingdom. On 10 June 1953, Saud with the approval of his father also laid the foundation stone for the expansion and refurbishment of the Prophet's Mosque in Medina. Earlier on, following a visit, he had recommended to Abdulaziz the need for the adoption of this step, which the latter had sanctioned.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: Saud succeeded his father Abdulaziz as King on 9 November 1953 upon the latter's death. He ascended the throne in a political climate very different from the time when his father Abdulaziz established his Kingdom.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: King Saud announced to the new council of ministers in his very first speech as King, that, while his father's reign was noted for military conquests, he intended his reign to be "a war on poverty, ignorance, and disease with the equitable application of the dictates of the holy Sharia laws to all without exception, and the creation of a strong army".


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: In order to cope adequately with the responsibilities of this challenge, and facilitate realistically the implementation of his programme he initially doubled the number of ministries to ten by adding the portfolios of education, agriculture, health, commerce, and industry, plus two directorates: Labour and broadcasting and the bureau of public inspection in 1955, to the existing ministries of foreign affairs, finance, interior, defence, and communications. In 1953, the decision had already been taken to move the ministries, then located in Jeddah, to Riyadh, the country's official capital. This had called for the construction of suitable new buildings and the provision of adequate housing for employees. This was an ignition point for Riyadh's modernization and development. Saud's half-brother and crown prince, Faisal bin Abdulaziz, was appointed prime minister while retaining his former portfolio of foreign minister. A five years plan was started, as mentioned in King Saud's first cabinet speech in 1954. The same year King Saud established the Grievance Board which was attached to the council of ministers which became an independent body in 1955. The board was headed by Musaid bin Abdul Rahman, an uncle of King Saud.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: In January 1954 King Saud signed an agreement with Greek businessman Aristotle Socrates Onassis to establish a state-owned maritime tanker company. Given that the agreement was not in favor of the US interests it was soon terminated as a result of foreign pressures.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: In 1957, King Saud also founded King Saud University in Riyadh. He clarified the duties and responsibilities of the cabinet minister in May 1958. He declared in 1960 that schools would be established to educate girls in religious matters, including Quran, creed, and fiqh as well as in other sciences which were acceptable in Islamic tradition such as house management, and raising and disciplining children.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: King Saud played a role of utmost importance on the regional, Arab, Islamic, and international political stages. He started his worldwide tours after finishing touring of his country's regions. He visited Arab and friendly countries for strategic and political purposes. He began his tour in 1954 in Egypt, followed by Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, Yemen, and Pakistan.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: He announced that his sole purpose was to "unify Muslims all over the world" so they would be like one strong body. King Saud believed in a non-alignment policy between the United States and the Soviet Union, which he discussed thoroughly with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru during an official visit to India. He also strove to keep the region free from coalitions and blocs that only served foreign interests and thus he refused to join the Baghdad Pact. Despite pressure exerted from the West, he approved upon meeting President Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Syrian President Shukri al-Quwatli in Cairo in March 1956 of making a joint statement regarding their understanding of security and defense matters, that coincided with other agreements in the financial, economical and development area.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: In November 1955, King Saud granted a 16 million dollars loan to Syria for five years. He agreed to exchange products and exempt agricultural products from import-export license and custom duties. With the continuous Israeli assault on Jordan in 1955, King Saud invited military leaders of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan to Riyadh in order to discuss procedures to counter the aggression. He agreed to cover all expenses of reinforcing Jordan's National Guard and armed forces. He also supported the Algerian revolution against France, diplomatically and financially. King Saud made a statement inviting people to donate money for the revolution; the donations amounted to $1,200,000. The government donated one million dollars of that amount in 1956, and the rest of the donations were granted yearly. King Saud kept granting donations to Algeria and kept defending it until it established its independence in 1962.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: Imam Ahmad bin Yahya of Yemen joined the Arab endeavors to unify their ranks when he signed the joint defense agreement with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. This event took place after the Imam's meeting with King Saud, President Gamal Abdel Nasser, and President Shukri al-Quwatli on 21 April 1956, following the Jeddah Pact between Saudi Arabia and Yemen.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: Maintaining his support to the Arab countries after the nationalization of the Suez Canal Company on 26 July 1956, although the Egyptian Government did not consult him as it did with Syria in taking that decision contrary to his expectations as a military ally. He succeeded in strengthening his relation with King Faisal II of Iraq after a meeting held in Dammam on 20 September 1956. It was followed that same month and in the same place by a meeting with President Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Syrian President Shukri al-Quwatli during which he confirmed his total support for the Egyptian stand in this crisis. When Britain, France, and Israel invaded Egypt on 29 October 1956 as a result of the nationalization of the canal, King Saud declared a general mobilization and ordered the opening of enlistment offices.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: He offered total assistance to the Egyptian government, personally supervising operations and welcoming Egyptian combat planes into his country for their protection. Among the first to enlist were Fahd bin Abdulaziz, Sultan bin Abdulaziz, Salman bin Abdulaziz and King Saud's son Fahd bin Saud, along with many other princes. As a means of exerting pressure on the British and French governments, he used a weapon never used before, when he blocked oil exports, banning all British and French tankers and other tankers carrying Saudi oil to these two countries. He also broke off relations with Britain and France.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: King Saud had used this economic weapon for the first time although he was aware of the possible repercussions of such a procedure on the national economy. He sustained his support after the war so as to remove the aftermath of the aggression. He offered generous contributions, including 2 million Saudi riyals to the Egyptian Red Crescent to help victims of Port Said.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: King Saud was still keen on keeping the region free of political and defense blocs that only support a superpower against another. Despite his solid relations with the American system, on which he relied in several areas because of the oil discovery and production, he seriously thought of canceling the American access for using Dhahran airport as a means of exerting pressure on the United States of America.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: Despite traditionally intimate ties of his country with the United States of America, and the ingrained alienation of communism and Islamic beliefs, he refused to join the American sponsored the Baghdad Pact of 1955, (later on the Central Treaty Organisation – CENTO), – aimed at opposing the expansion of Communist influence in the region, despite the involvement of the fellow Arab State of Iraq in it, along with Iran, Turkey, Pakistan and Britain. Jordan, which also was keen to join the Pact and Syria as well, had been discouraged from doing so with the aid of political and financial pressure.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: President of the United States Dwight D. Eisenhower invited King Saud to undertake an official visit to the U.S. in 1957 since he believed that King Saud played a crucial role in implementing his doctrine of deterring and fighting communism in the Middle East and the Islamic countries. Once King Saud received the invitation he convened with Presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser and Shukri al-Quwatli in Cairo in January 1957. The three leaders agreed to try to convince Eisenhower to pressure the Israeli government to evacuate occupied Sharm El Sheikh that overlooks the Gulf of Aqaba and to withdraw to the borders of the previous truce on all frontiers.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: He maintained his support to the countries at war with Israel, and signed a ten-year agreement with the Egyptian and Syrian presidents and with King Hussein of Jordan to ease Jordan's financial burdens as a result of this conflict. The annual Egyptian and Saudi financial assistance added up to five million Egyptian pounds from each of the two countries.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: He also discussed with the American President his dispute with Britain over the Al Buraymi Oasis, an oil zone between the frontiers of Saudi Arabia, Oman and Abu Dhabi which was under British protection. The issue of the Al Buraymi Oasis was one of the issues that had been raised since the reign of his father King Abdulaziz and was still pending. After several clashes, the case went to international arbitration. When he accepted the American president's invitation to the United States he received a good welcome, but the Mayor of New York, Robert F. Wagner, Jr., refused to welcome the King because of his national and Islamic politics.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: King Saud delivered an important speech during the banquet held by Dag Hammarskjöld, the Swedish UN Secretary-General in which he addressed the different aspects of the Arab complaints, in accordance with the UN charter and its powers. He invited all countries to value the charter and implement it in full; he also addressed the outcomes and repercussions of the Cold War. During his negotiations with the American president in Washington on 2 February 1957, the American President explained the principles and objectives of his doctrine, known as the Eisenhower Doctrine, and the effective role that he expected of him as a powerful friend of the United States of America and as an eminent Arab and Muslim leader in fighting the communist movement invading the Middle East and the Islamic countries.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: Within this scheme, Dwight D. Eisenhower offered a 25 million dollar loan to the Saudi Government on 24 January 1957. In return, King Saud explained that he had refused Soviet Union military aid to fight Britain and that Britain's policy was what urged the Arabs to seek the Soviet Union's help. He also stressed that the "non-aligned" countries in the region were benefiting from Soviet aid more than the American allied countries were benefiting from American aid. He considered that this aid should double if the American President wished to succeed in his endeavors. King Saud asked Dwight D. Eisenhower to exert pressure on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories of Palestine and settle the Palestinian cause, and to convince France to reach a settlement regarding the independence of Algeria. On the other hand, he promised to inform the Arabs of the Eisenhower Doctrine and its purposes; and to inquire about the Arab reaction on the official and officious levels before making any commitments. King Saud explained to the American President that a large bulk of his country's budget was allocated to development projects and to the five-year plan and that he needed military aid before being able to play any role expected from him in fighting Communism. The American government agreed to give him a 250 million dollar loan and all kinds of land, sea, and air weaponry, and to train the Saudi army on how to use them.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: In return, the American government was to be granted facilities to use Dhahran airport for five years, after which it would be returned with all its equipment to the Saudi Government in 1962.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: Before briefing his Arab peers about the results of this visit and the Eisenhower Doctrine, King Saud visited Spain, Morocco, Tunisia and Libya and informed them of these results. In February 1957 he met the leaders of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan in Cairo and informed them of Dwight D. Eisenhower's objectives. Under the influence of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Syrian President Shukri al-Quwatli, King Saud, wanting to support a unanimous Arab stand, decided to back up the Egyptian and Syrian Presidents in their decision not to contribute to the Eisenhower Doctrine.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: When the Republic of Iraq decided to annex Kuwait in 1961 under Abd al-Karim Qasim, King Saud protested in international forums, declaring "any action against Kuwait is an action against Saudi Arabia."


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: Immediately after Abdulaziz's death, a fierce struggle erupted between his two eldest surviving sons, Saud and Faisal. The increase in oil revenues did not solve the financial problem associated with Saudi Arab debt, estimated to have been $US200 million in 1953. In fact, this debt more than doubled by 1958, when it reached $US450 million. The Saudi riyal lost half of its official value against the United States dollars. Both ARAMCO and international banks declined Saudi's demand for credit. Saud suspended the few government projects he had initiated but continued his spending on luxurious palaces.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: In 1958, Saud was forced to delegate most of his executive powers to Faisal. Saud and Faisal fought an internal battle over the definition of political responsibilities and the division of government functions. Saud was often associated among other things with the plundering of oil revenues, luxurious palaces, and conspiracy inside and outside of Saudi Arabia while Faisal was associated with sobriety, piety, puritanism, thriftiness, and modernization.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: The battle between the two brothers was fought over the role to be assigned to the Council of Ministers. Saud abolished the office of Prime Minister by royal decree, thus enforcing his position as King and "de facto" prime minister. Saud thought of himself as both King and prime minister whereas Faisal envisioned more powers being in his own hand as Crown Prince and deputy prime minister.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: King Saud's family members worried about Saud's profligacy and his inability to meet the challenge of Nasser's Egypt. Corruption and backwardness weakened the regime. Radio Cairo's anti-Saudi broadcasting was finding a receptive audience.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: King Saud and Prince Faisal continued their power struggle until 1962 when Prince Faisal formed a cabinet in the absence of the King, who had gone abroad for medical treatment. Prince Faisal allied with Prince Fahd and Prince Sultan. Prince Faisal's new government excluded the sons of Saud. He promised a ten-point reform that included the drafting of the basic law, the abolition of slavery, and the establishment of a judicial council.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: Upon his return, King Saud rejected Prince Faisal's new arrangement and threatened to mobilize the Royal Guard against his brother. In response, Prince Faisal demanded King Saud make him regent and turn over all royal powers to him. In this, he had the crucial backing of the ulema (elite Islamic scholars), including a "fatwa" (edict) issued by the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, a relative of Prince Faisal on his mother's side, calling on King Saud to accede to his brother's demands.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: King Saud refused, prompting Faisal to order the National Guard to surround Saud's palace. In March 1964 Saud finally relented and named Faisal regent with full executive powers, effectively reducing himself to a figurehead. In November, the ulema, cabinet and senior members of the ruling family forced Saud to abdicate altogether, and Faisal became king in his own right. At the same time Prince Mohammed bin Abdulaziz was sent to Al Naṣariah Palace of King Saud to demand his and his sons' loyalty to the chosen king, Faisal. On 28 November 1964 an official announcement was made in Radio Mecca stating that 11 of Saud's sons had declared allegiance to King Faisal.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: On 6 January 1965 Saud went to the palace with his uncle Abdullah bin Abdul Rahman to declare his allegiance to King Faisal.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: Following this event Saud left Saudi Arabia in January 1965. He was suggested to enter exile in Geneva, Switzerland, and then on to other European cities, but he settled in Athens. Later he unsuccessfully attempted to settle in Beirut. In 1966 Saud was invited by Nasser to live in Egypt; another report claims that King Saud went to Egypt under refuge granted by Nasser and stayed there from 1966 to 1967. King Saud was also allowed to broadcast on Radio Cairo. Some of his sons, including Prince Khalid, Prince Badr, Prince Sultan and Prince Mansour, joined him and supported his attempt to regain the throne. However, after the June 1967 Arab-Israel War, he lost the support of Egypt. In October 1967 he left Egypt and went first to Vienna and then to Athens where he remained until his death on 23 February 1969.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: Saud had 108 children and 3 wives at the time of his death. Only a few of his children have a public role.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: His eldest son, Fahd, was minister of defense from 1956 to 1960. His youngest child is Basmah bint Saud. His third son, Muhammed, was sometime governor of Al Bahah Province and died on 8 July 2012. Prince Mishari, replaced his elder brother as Al Bahah governor with the rank of minister in August 2010.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: Another son, Mishaal, was the governor of Najran Province from 1996 to November 2008. His son Abdul Rahman was a supporter of Al Nassr FC. One son, Badr bin Saud, was governor of Riyadh during his father's reign, while another son, Hussam, is a businessman.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: One of his daughters, called Hajer, died outside the Kingdom following an illness on 17 November 2011. Her funeral prayer was performed at Imam Turki bin Abdullah Mosque in Riyadh after Asr prayer. Another daughter, Noura, was the mother of the former deputy defense minister Fahd bin Abdullah bin Mohammed Al Saud and died in late July 2013. Another daughter, Hessah, was the first Saudi woman to become the principal of a school. His daughter Fahda is an artist.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: In 2001 his daughter Buniah (born 1960) was arrested and charged with assaulting her maid in Florida. She was held for one night in prison and was released on bail of $5,000 and ordered to surrender her passport. After the death of his elder brother Turki, Saud married his wife, Muneera bint Obaid; their daughter, Al Anoud, died in January 2006 aged 83 and was buried in Mecca.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: He was described as "although not as large as his illustrious father, King Saud is about six feet two inches in height and weighs well over two hundred pounds. Like his father, he has weak eyes, but he has also inherited Abdulaziz's magnetic smile and a keen sense of humor, which wins him many friends."


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: The "Red Palace" which King Abdulaziz built for King Saud and his mother was opened by the Ministry of Culture in 2019 to the public. It was Saudi Arabia's first concrete building and now exhibits displays about his life.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: King Saud died at the age of 67 on 23 February 1969 in Athens after suffering a heart attack. Two days before his death, he felt ill and asked his doctor Filnger from Austria to examine him. However, his physician arrived after he had died. In the morning of that day, Saud took a short walk on a beach with his daughter Nozhah, near the hotel where he used to live (Hotel Kavouri). His body was taken to Mecca then to Riyadh and the funeral ceremony took place at the Great Mosque in Mecca. He was buried next to his father's and grandfathers' graves at Al Oud cemetery in Riyadh.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: Immediately after his accession to the throne Iranian ruler Mohammad Reza Pahlavi send King Saud the highest decoration of the Imperial Iran, Order of Pahlavi.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: During his reign, King Saud was the recipient of many honors and orders of various nations. In the formal portraits of King Saud in ceremonial uniform, he is wearing the breast stars of the following orders.


title: Saud of Saudi Arabia

text: It was during King Saud's reign that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia instituted, either in 1954 or 1955, its own series of Orders, decorations, and medals. This series of Awards consisted of the following :


title: Prairie dog

text: Prairie dogs (genus Cynomys) are herbivorous burrowing ground squirrels native to the grasslands of North America. Within the genus are five species: black-tailed, white-tailed, Gunnison's, Utah, and Mexican prairie dogs. In Mexico, prairie dogs are found primarily in the northern states, which lie at the southern end of the Great Plains: northeastern Sonora, north and northeastern Chihuahua, northern Coahuila, northern Nuevo León, and northern Tamaulipas. In the United States, they range primarily to the west of the Mississippi River, though they have also been introduced in a few eastern locales. They are also found in the Canadian Prairies. Despite the name, they are not actually canines; prairie dogs, along with the marmots, chipmunks, and several other basal genera belong to the ground squirrels (tribe "Marmotini"), part of the larger squirrel family ("Sciuridae").


title: Prairie dog

text: Prairie dogs are considered a keystone species with their mounds often being used by other species. Their mound-building encourages grass development and renewal of topsoil, with rich mineral, and nutrient renewal in the soil which can be crucial for soil quality and agriculture. They are extremely important in the food chain, being important to the diet of many animals such as the black-footed ferret, swift fox, golden eagle, red tailed hawk, American badger, and coyote. Other species, such as the golden-mantled ground squirrel, mountain plover, and the burrowing owl, also rely on prairie dog burrows for nesting areas. Grazing species, such as plains bison, pronghorn, and mule deer have shown a proclivity for grazing on the same land used by prairie dogs. Prairie dogs have some of the most complex systems of communication and social structures in the animal kingdom.


title: Prairie dog

text: The prairie dog habitat has been affected by direct removal by farmers, as well as the more obvious encroachment of urban development, which has greatly reduced their populations. The removal of prairie dogs "causes undesirable spread of brush", the costs of which to livestock range and soil quality often outweighs the benefits of removal. Other threats include disease. The prairie dog is protected in many areas to maintain local populations and ensure natural ecosystems.


title: Prairie dog

text: Prairie dogs are named for their habitat and warning call, which sounds similar to a dog's bark. The name was in use at least as early as 1774. The 1804 journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition note that in September 1804, they "discovered a Village of an animal the French Call the Prairie Dog". Its genus, "Cynomys", derives from the Greek for "dog mouse" (κυων "kuōn", κυνος "kunos" – dog; μυς "mus", μυός "muos" – mouse).


title: Prairie dog

text: The prairie dog is known by several indigenous names. The name "wishtonwish" was recorded by Lt. Zebulon Pike while on the Arkansas two years after Lewis and Clark's expedition. In Lakota, the word is "pispíza" or "pìspíza".


title: Prairie dog

text: The black-tailed prairie dog ("Cynomys ludovicianus") was first described by Lewis and Clark in 1804. Lewis described it in more detail in 1806, calling it the "barking squirrel".


title: Prairie dog

text: On average, these stout-bodied rodents will grow to be between long, including the short tail, and weigh between . Sexual dimorphism in body mass in the prairie dog varies 105 to 136% between the sexes. Among the species, black-tailed prairie dogs tend to be the least sexually dimorphic, and white-tailed prairie dogs tend to be the most sexually dimorphic. Sexual dimorphism peaks during weaning, when the females lose weight and the males start eating more, and is at its lowest when the females are pregnant, which is also when the males are tired from breeding.


title: Prairie dog

text: Prairie dogs are chiefly herbivorous, though they eat some insects. They feed primarily on grasses and small seeds. In the fall, they eat broadleaf forbs. In the winter, lactating and pregnant females supplement their diets with snow for extra water. They also will eat roots, seeds, fruit, buds, and grasses of various species. Black-tailed prairie dogs in South Dakota eat western bluegrass, blue grama, buffalo grass, six weeks fescue, and tumblegrass, while Gunnison’s prairie dogs eat rabbit brush, tumbleweeds, dandelions, saltbush, and cacti in addition to buffalo grass and blue grama. White-tailed prairie dogs have been observed to kill ground squirrels, a competing herbivore.


title: Prairie dog

text: Prairie dogs live mainly at altitudes ranging from 2,000 to 10,000 ft above sea level. The areas where they live can get as warm as in the summer and as cold as in the winter. As prairie dogs live in areas prone to environmental threats, including hailstorms, blizzards, and floods, as well as drought and prairie fires, burrows provide important protection. Burrows help prairie dogs control their body temperature (thermoregulation) as they are during the winter and in the summer. Prairie dog tunnel systems channel rainwater into the water table which prevents runoff and erosion, and can also change the composition of the soil in a region by reversing soil compaction that can result from cattle grazing.


title: Prairie dog

text: Prairie dog burrows are long and below the ground. The entrance holes are generally in diameter. Prairie dog burrows can have up to six entrances. Sometimes the entrances are simply flat holes in the ground, while at other times they are surrounded by mounds of soil either left as piles or hard packed. Some mounds, known as dome craters, can be as high as high. Other mounds, known as rim craters, can be as high as . Dome craters and rim craters serve as observation posts used by the animals to watch for predators. They also protect the burrows from flooding. The holes also possibly provide ventilation as the air enters through the dome crater and leaves through the rim crater, causing a breeze though the burrow. Prairie dog burrows contain chambers to provide certain functions. They have nursery chambers for their young, chambers for night, and chambers for the winter. They also contain air chambers that may function to protect the burrow from flooding and a listening post for predators. When hiding from predators, prairie dogs use less-deep chambers that are usually below the surface. Nursery chambers tend to be deeper, being below the surface.


title: Prairie dog

text: Highly social, prairie dogs live in large colonies or "towns" and collections of prairie dog families that can span hundreds of acres. The prairie dog family groups are the most basic units of its society. Members of a family group inhabit the same territory. Family groups of black-tailed and Mexican prairie dogs are called "coteries", while "clans" is used to describe family groups of white-tailed, Gunnison’s, and Utah prairie dogs. Although these two family groups are similar, coteries tend to be more closely knit than clans. Members of a family group interact through oral contact or "kissing" and grooming one another. They do not perform these behaviors with prairie dogs from other family groups.


title: Prairie dog

text: A prairie dog town may contain 15–26 family groups. There may also be subgroups within a town, called "wards", which are separated by a physical barrier. Family groups exist within these wards. Most prairie dog family groups are made up of one adult breeding male, two to three adult females and one to two male offspring and one to two female offspring. Females remain in their natal groups for life and are thus the source of stability in the groups. Males leave their natal groups when they mature to find another family group to defend and breed in. Some family groups contain more breeding females than one male can control, so have more than one breeding adult male in them. Among these multiple-male groups, some may contain males that have friendly relationships, but the majority contain males that have largely antagonistic relationships. In the former, the males tend to be related, while in the latter, they tend not to be related. Two to three groups of females may be controlled by one male. However, among these female groups, there are no friendly relations.


title: Prairie dog

text: The average prairie dog territory takes up . Territories have well-established borders that coincide with physical barriers such as rocks and trees. The resident male of a territory defends it and antagonistic behavior will occur between two males of different families to defend their territories. These interactions may happen 20 times per day and last five minutes. When two prairie dogs encounter each other at the edges of their territories, they will start staring, make bluff charges, flare their tails, chatter their teeth, and sniff each other's perianal scent glands. When fighting, prairie dogs will bite, kick and ram each other. If their competitor is around their size or smaller, the females will participate in fighting. Otherwise, if a competitor is sighted, the females signal for the resident male.


title: Prairie dog

text: Prairie dog copulation occurs in the burrows, and this reduces the risk of interruption by a competing male. They are also at less risk of predation. Behaviors that signal that a female is in estrus include underground consorting, self-licking of genitals, dust-bathing, and late entrances into the burrow at night. The licking of genitals may protect against sexually transmitted diseases and genital infections, while dust-bathing may protect against fleas and other parasites. Prairie dogs also have a mating call which consists of a set of 2 to 25 barks with a 3- to 15-second pause between each one. Females may try to increase their reproduction success by mating with males outside their family groups. When copulation is over, the male is no longer interested in the female sexually, but will prevent other males from mating with her by inserting copulatory plugs.


title: Prairie dog

text: For black-tailed prairie dogs, the resident male of the family group fathers all the offspring. Multiple paternity in litters seems to be more common in Utah and Gunnison’s prairie dogs. Mother prairie dogs do most of the care for the young. In addition to nursing the young, the mother also defends the nursery chamber and collects grass for the nest. Males play their part by defending the territories and maintaining the burrows. The young spend their first six weeks below the ground being nursed. They are then weaned and begin to surface from the burrow. By five months, they are fully grown. The subject of cooperative breeding in prairie dogs has been debated among biologists. Some argue prairie dogs will defend and feed young that are not theirs, and it seems young will sleep in a nursery chamber with other mothers; since most nursing occurs at night, this may be a case of communal nursing. In the case of the latter, others suggest communal nursing occurs only when mothers mistake another female's young for their own.


title: Prairie dog

text: Infanticide is known to occur in prairie dogs. Males which take over a family group will kill the offspring of the previous male. This causes the mother to go into estrus sooner. However, most infanticide is done by close relatives. Lactating females will kill the offspring of a related female both to decrease competition for the female’s offspring and for increased foraging area due to a decrease in territorial defense by the victimized mother. Supporters of the theory that prairie dogs are communal breeders state that another reason for this type of infanticide is so that the female can get a possible helper. With their own offspring gone, the victimized mother may help raise the young of other females.


title: Prairie dog

text: The prairie dog is well adapted to predators. Using its dichromatic color vision, it can detect predators from a great distance; it then alerts other prairie dogs of the danger with a special, high-pitched call. Constantine Slobodchikoff and others assert that prairie dogs use a sophisticated system of vocal communication to describe specific predators. According to them, prairie dog calls contain specific information as to what the predator is, how big it is and how fast it is approaching. These have been described as a form of grammar. According to Slobodchikoff, these calls, with their individuality in response to a specific predator, imply that prairie dogs have highly developed cognitive abilities. He also writes that prairie dogs have calls for things that are not predators to them. This is cited as evidence that the animals have a very descriptive language and have calls for any potential threat.


title: Prairie dog

text: Alarm response behavior varies according to the type of predator announced. If the alarm indicates a hawk diving toward the colony, all the prairie dogs in its flight path dive into their holes, while those outside the flight path stand and watch. If the alarm is for a human, all members of the colony immediately rush inside the burrows. For coyotes, the prairie dogs move to the entrance of a burrow and stand outside the entrance, observing the coyote, while those prairie dogs that were inside the burrows will come out to stand and watch as well. For domestic dogs, the response is to observe, standing in place where they were when the alarm was sounded, again with the underground prairie dogs emerging to watch.There is debate over whether the alarm calling of prairie dogs is selfish or altruistic. It is possible that prairie dogs alert others to the presence of a predator so they can protect themselves. However, it is also possible that the calls are meant to cause confusion and panic in the groups and cause the others to be more conspicuous to the predator than the caller. Studies of black-tailed prairie dogs suggest that alarm-calling is a form of kin selection, as a prairie dog’s call alerts both offspring and nondescended kin, such as cousins, nephews and nieces. Prairie dogs with kin close by called more often than those that did not have kin nearby. In addition, the caller may be trying to make itself more noticeable to the predator. Predators, though, seem to have difficulty determining which prairie dog is making the call due to its "ventriloquistic" nature.


title: Prairie dog

text: Perhaps the most striking of prairie dog communications is the territorial call or "jump-yip" display of the black-tailed prairie dog. A black-tailed prairie dog will stretch the length of its body vertically and throw its forefeet into the air while making a call. A jump-yip from one prairie dog causes others nearby to do the same.


title: Prairie dog

text: Ecologists consider this rodent to be a keystone species. They are an important prey species, being the primary diet in prairie species such as the black-footed ferret, swift fox, golden eagle, red tailed hawk, American badger, coyote and ferruginous hawk. Other species, such as the golden-mantled ground squirrel, mountain plover, and the burrowing owl, also rely on prairie dog burrows for nesting areas. Even grazing species, such as plains bison, pronghorn, and mule deer have shown a proclivity for grazing on the same land used by prairie dogs.


title: Prairie dog

text: Nevertheless, prairie dogs are often identified as pests and exterminated from agricultural properties because they are capable of damaging crops, as they clear the immediate area around their burrows of most vegetation.


title: Prairie dog

text: As a result, prairie dog habitat has been affected by direct removal by farmers, as well as the more obvious encroachment of urban development, which has greatly reduced their populations. The removal of prairie dogs "causes undesirable spread of brush", the costs of which to livestock range may outweigh the benefits of removal. Black-tailed prairie dogs comprise the largest remaining community. In spite of human encroachment, prairie dogs have adapted, continuing to dig burrows in open areas of western cities.


title: Prairie dog

text: One common concern which led to the widespread extermination of prairie dog colonies was that their digging activities could injure horses by fracturing their limbs. However, according to writer Fred Durso, Jr., of "E Magazine", "after years of asking ranchers this question, we have found not one example."


title: Prairie dog

text: Until 2003, primarily black-tailed prairie dogs were collected from the wild for the exotic pet trade in Canada, the United States, Japan, and Europe. They were removed from their burrows each spring, as young pups, with a large vacuum device. They can be difficult to breed in captivity, but breed well in zoos. Removing them from the wild was a far more common method of supplying the market demand.


title: Prairie dog

text: They can be difficult pets to care for, requiring regular attention and a very specific diet of grasses and hay. Each year, they go into a period called rut that can last for several months, in which their personalities can drastically change, often becoming defensive or even aggressive. Despite their needs, prairie dogs are very social animals and come to seem as though they treat humans as members of their colony.


title: Prairie dog

text: In mid-2003, due to cross-contamination at a Madison, Wisconsin-area pet swap from an unquarantined Gambian pouched rat imported from Ghana, several prairie dogs in captivity acquired monkeypox, and subsequently a few humans were also infected. This led the CDC and FDA to issue a joint order banning the sale, trade, and transport within the United States of prairie dogs (with a few exceptions). The disease was never introduced to any wild populations. The European Union also banned importation of prairie dogs in response.


title: Prairie dog

text: All "Cynomys" species are classed as a "prohibited new organism" under New Zealand's Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996, preventing it from being imported into the country.


title: Prairie dog

text: Prairie dogs are also very susceptible to bubonic plague, and many wild colonies have been wiped out by it. Also, in 2002, a large group of prairie dogs in captivity in Texas were found to have contracted tularemia. The prairie dog ban is frequently cited by the CDC as a successful response to the threat of zoonosis.


title: Prairie dog

text: Prairie dogs that were in captivity at the time of the ban in 2003 were allowed to be kept under a grandfather clause, but were not to be bought, traded, or sold, and transport was permitted only to and from a veterinarian under quarantine procedures.


title: Prairie dog

text: On 8 September 2008, the FDA and CDC rescinded the ban, making it once again legal to capture, sell, and transport prairie dogs. Although the federal ban has been lifted, several states still have in place their own ban on prairie dogs.


title: Prairie dog

text: The European Union has not lifted its ban on imports from the U.S. of animals captured in the wild. Major European Prairie Dog Associations, such as the Italian "Associazione Italiana Cani della Prateria" (AICDP), remain against import from the United States, due to the high death rate of wild captures. Several zoos in Europe have stable prairie dog colonies that generate enough surplus pups to saturate the EU internal demand, and several associations help owners to give adoption to captive-born animals.


title: Prairie dog

text: In companies that use large numbers of cubicles in a common space, employees sometimes use the term "prairie dogging" to refer to the action of several people simultaneously looking over the walls of their cubicles in response to a noise or other distraction. This action is thought to resemble the startled response of a group of prairie dogs. The same term is also vulgar slang to refer to one who is on the verge of defecating (often involuntarily), with the implication that fecal matter has already begun partially exiting the anus.


title: Prairie dog

text: The Amarillo Sod Poodles, a minor league baseball team, use a nickname for prairie dogs as their cognomen.


title: Wild Wild Country

text: Wild Wild Country is a Netflix documentary series about the controversial Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho), his one-time personal assistant Ma Anand Sheela, and their community of followers in the Rajneeshpuram community located in Wasco County, Oregon, US. It was released on Netflix on March 16, 2018, after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival. The title of the series is drawn from the Bill Callahan song "Drover", which features prominently in the final episode, and it also echoes the comments of Jane Stork ("Ma Shanti B") about first seeing the ranch, shown at the beginning of episode 2: "it was just so wild, so rugged, but vast—really wild country".


title: Wild Wild Country

text: The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes surveyed 46 critical responses and judged 98% of them to be positive, with an average rating of 8.1 out of 10. The website's critical consensus reads, ""Wild Wild Country" succeeds as an intriguing examination of a forgotten piece of American history that must be seen to be believed." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 79 out of 100, based on 8 critics, indicating generally favorable reviews.


title: Wild Wild Country

text: Sam Wollaston of "The Guardian" praised "Wild Wild Country", giving it a 5 out of 5, stating that "It doesn’t matter how well you know the Rajneeshpuram story – you won’t have seen or heard it told as thoroughly as this".


title: Wild Wild Country

text: Nick Allen of "RogerEbert.com" wrote "by handling this story so intelligently and by opening its heart to a very complicated idea of good and evil, "Wild Wild Country" has a profound, mesmerizing power itself". Robert Lloyd of "Los Angeles Times" asserts that "The greater point of the series is its storytelling and wonderful variety of human self-representation, a useful reminder that no two people have the same story to tell. Every speaker is respectfully presented and allowed to speak their piece, and every one is well spoken; rancher or Rajneeshee, government lawyer or commune attorney, each can seem reasonable in turn".


title: Wild Wild Country

text: An article published in "The New Republic" criticized "Wild Wild Country" for leaving out critical information regarding the activities of the Rajneesh followers, particularly regarding sexual assault of women and children as well as possible intent to unleash an AIDS epidemic. In the same article, journalist Win McCormack wrote that "Where the filmmakers have fallen down on the job is in the area of interpretation. They have not addressed squarely some of the more important issues raised by their film, and have left others out completely. The latter category includes a few of the cult’s most odious practices, as well as the true extent of the threat it posed not only to its immediate neighbors in Oregon, but to the entire world."


title: Wild Wild Country

text: Jane Stork, one of the main sources for this documentary, reported in her autobiography "" (2009) that her own children were sexually abused during her time in Rajneeshpuram. This was not included in the documentary.


title: Wild Wild Country

text: The Osho International Foundation, which co-administers Rajneesh's estate and operates the Osho International Meditation Resort in Pune, India, responded to the docuseries on their website "Osho Times", saying that "Unfortunately, the docuseries fails to explore key aspects and so does not give a clear account of the real story behind the story", and arguing that the events in Oregon were part of "a U.S. government conspiracy, from the White House on down, aimed at thwarting Osho’s vision of a community based on conscious living."


title: Wild Wild Country

text: The show's score album was released on September 21, 2018, via Western Vinyl Records. The soundtrack was composed by Brocker Way. Apart from the score, numerous pre-released songs were also used throughout the series.


title: Wild Wild Country

text: In January 2019, Priyanka Chopra announced that she will be starring as Ma Anand Sheela in an Amazon Studios feature film adaptation of "Wild Wild Country". Titled "Sheela", the drama film was written by Nick Yarborough and will be directed by Barry Levinson.


title: Wild Wild Country

text: In November 2019, Netflix announced a documentary titled "Searching for Sheela", which follows Osho's former top aide on her first journey home to India in more than 30 years. The documentary aims to give insight into Sheela's involvement and later prosecution for the 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack in Oregon. The documentary premiered on Netflix on April 22, 2021.


title: Corona (beer)

text: Corona is a brand of beer produced by Mexican brewery Cervecería Modelo and owned by Belgian company AB InBev. It is the top-selling brand of imported beer in the United States. It is often served with a wedge of lime or lemon in the neck of the bottle to add tartness and flavor. The recipe for the mash bill includes corn as well as the barley malt and hops traditionally used for making beer.


title: Corona (beer)

text: The brand's most popular variation is Corona Extra, a pale lager. It is one of the top-selling beers worldwide, and Corona Extra has been the top-selling imported drink in the U.S. since 1998.


title: Corona (beer)

text: Other variants of the Corona beer brand include Corona Light, Corona Premier, and Corona Familiar. A variety of flavored hard seltzers marketed under the Corona brand name was launched in March 2020.


title: Corona (beer)

text: According to Sinebrychoff, a Finnish company owned by the Carlsberg Group, Corona Extra contains barley malt, corn, hops, yeast, antioxidants (ascorbic acid), and propylene glycol alginate as a stabilizer.


title: Corona (beer)

text: Corona beer is available in a variety of bottle presentations, ranging from the "ampolleta" (labeled "Coronita" and just referred as the "cuartito") up to the "Corona Familiar" (known as the "familiar", "Litro" or "Mega"). A draught version also exists, as does canned Corona in some markets.


title: Corona (beer)

text: In Spain, the beer is branded as (literally, 'little crown'), as winemaker Bodegas Torres has owned the trademark for "Coronas" since 1907. The packaging is otherwise the same in Spain as in Mexico and the United States. In the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and the United States, smaller, 210ml (7 fl. oz) bottles of the beer are also branded as "Coronita".


title: Corona (beer)

text: Corona was a longtime sponsor of boxing in Mexico, including sponsorship of Saturday night fights on Televisa, but reduced its sponsorship after Anheuser-Busch InBev took full control of the brand. In the United States, Constellation Brands continues to sponsor boxing through Corona, most notably with undefeated featherweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr.


title: Corona (beer)

text: Corona was the title sponsor of the LPGA Tour tournament Corona Championship (later Tres Marias Championship) from 2005 to 2009, and of the NASCAR Mexico Corona Series (now NASCAR PEAK Mexico Series) from 2004 to 2011, the most followed stock car racing series in Mexico.


title: Corona (beer)

text: In addition, Corona is a "second sponsor" for four of the top-flight professional football teams of Mexico's first division, Liga MX. The teams sponsored by Corona are Atlas, Santos Laguna, Querétaro, Puebla, Chiapas, América, Pachuca, Morelia, León, Toluca, and Necaxa. Corona also sponsored the Mexico national football team.


title: Corona (beer)

text: Corona and the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) had a 5½–year sponsorship in which Corona was the ATP's premier worldwide sponsor. Corona was also the title sponsor of the SBK Superbike World Championship from 1998 until 2007.


title: Corona (beer)

text: Corona commercials for both Corona Extra and Corona Light typically take place on a beach with the tagline "Miles Away From Ordinary" from 2000 to 2007. Since the early 2010s, the tagline "Find Your Beach" was used.


title: Corona (beer)

text: In 1990, Corona debuted "O Tannenpalm" which celebrated the Holidays. It featured a whistling rendition of the popular Christmas song "O Christmas Tree" as the lights go on one of the palm trees. The commercial has been played every year ever since during the month of December.


title: Corona (beer)

text: Some bars and restaurants serve a "Coronarita", a beer cocktail that consists of a bottle of Corona upturned to drain into a margarita.


title: Corona (beer)

text: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the beer saw some controversy due to its similarity in name to coronaviruses. There was some reduction in the sales of the brand in China, but not in the United States (where the brand is much more popular than in China and where sales of the brand actually rose by 5% in early 2020), and the sales slump in China affected various brands, not just Corona. CNN reported that a survey by 5W Public Relations said that 38% of Americans would not buy Corona "under any circumstances" because they associate the name with the coronavirus outbreak, and another 14% said they would not order a Corona in public. The survey of 737 American beer drinkers over the age of 21 was conducted via phone on February 25 and 26, 2020. The PR firm's news release said the survey was carried out "regarding their opinions about the popular Mexican beer brand, Corona, as a result of the deadly COVID-19 coronavirus that's spreading around the world". However, the question responsible for the 38% statistic did not actually mention COVID-19 as a motivation, which might have instead simply indicated a preference for a different brand of beer. Among regular Corona drinkers, only 4% said they planned to stop drinking the brand. Snopes and FactCheck.org reported that the notion that the pandemic caused a sharp reduction in sales due to confusion over the name of the brand was simply false.


title: Corona (beer)

text: Production of the brand was briefly suspended in April 2020 because of government orders to temporarily close businesses, although the sales of the brand had not been harmed by the brand name's similarity with the virus' name. The company said that sales of the brand were up 8.9% in the first three months of 2020, and showed year-over-year growth of 24% in the first three weeks of March 2020, as American consumers were drinking more beer and alcoholic beverages while staying at home during the emerging pandemic.


title: John Campbell (YouTuber)

text: John Lorimer Campbell is a British YouTuber and retired nurse educator who has posted YouTube videos commenting on the COVID-19 pandemic since January 2020 on his channel, "Dr. John Campbell." Initially, his videos received some praise, but later veered into misinformation, such as the suggestion that deaths from COVID-19 have been over-counted, repeated false claims about the use of the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment, and misleading commentary about vaccine safety. His videos have been viewed more than 550 million times.


title: John Campbell (YouTuber)

text: Campbell received a diploma in nursing from the University of London and Bachelor of Science in biology from the Open University. He subsequently earned a Master of Science in health science from the University of Lancaster and a Ph.D. in nursing from the University of Bolton. The doctorate was awarded in 2013 for work on developing teaching methods using digital media such as online videos.


title: John Campbell (YouTuber)

text: Campbell worked as a nursing educator at the University of Cumbria, and has experience as an Accident and Emergency (A&E) nurse. He has also taught health workers in India and Cambodia. He is the author of "Campbell's Physiology Notes" and "Campbell's Pathophysiology Notes" nursing-related biosciences text books. A 2011 book review in "Emergency Nurse" magazine said "Campbell's Physiology Notes" was "excellent, inexpensive notes on the causes, pathophysiological changes and clinical features seen in disease processes".


title: John Campbell (YouTuber)

text: In 2008, Campbell established a YouTube channel to provide educational lectures on topics in health science and nursing. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Campbell started to focus on major issues related to the pandemic. Until 2020, his videos received an average of several thousand views each, but after starting to report on COVID-19, his channel began to receive significant traffic. Between February and March 2020, his channel increased from an average of 500,000 views per month to 9.6 million, the plurality of which originated from the United States. By September 2020, his videos had been viewed more than 50 million times. Campbell has spoken of the importance of "a calm and measured approach that is as informed as possible" and aims to assist people in making informed decisions about their health, giving a counterbalance to what he perceived were other persons on social media "spreading absolutely bonkers – and sometimes dangerous – information".


title: John Campbell (YouTuber)

text: In August 2020, UNICEF's regional office for Europe and Central Asia cited Campbell's YouTube channel as an excellent example of how experts might engage with social media to combat misinformation, citing a March 2020 briefing by Social Science in Action. In an October 2020 interview on DW, Campbell is introduced as "an independent health analyst and one of the UK's on-line authorities on this pandemic."


title: John Campbell (YouTuber)

text: Campbell began posting YouTube videos about COVID-19 daily in January 2020. In March 2020, he argued that China's COVID-19 statistics were grossly underestimated and that the US and UK were doing too little to contain COVID-19. In September 2020, Campbell argued that more ventilation in pubs, restaurants and cafes was needed in addition to the existing mitigations.


title: John Campbell (YouTuber)

text: In August 2022 David Gorski wrote for Science-Based Medicine that while at the beginning of the pandemic Campbell had "seemed semi-reasonable", he later became a "total COVID-19 crank".


title: John Campbell (YouTuber)

text: In September 2021, Campbell posted a video saying, "I think most people in the UK and the United States are giving the vaccines wrongly." Referencing a mouse study, he said when not performing aspiration (checking the needle does not hit a blood vessel by initially drawing back the plunger) myocarditis could result. Aspiration is a common technique but not without disadvantages so it has not been recommended by many countries. The video was referenced by American comedian Jimmy Dore on his YouTube talk show to make the misleading claim that a failure to aspirate was a cause of myocarditis.


title: John Campbell (YouTuber)

text: In November 2021, Campbell said in a video that ivermectin might have been responsible for a sudden decline in COVID-19 cases in Japan. However, the drug had never been officially authorised for such use in the country; its use was merely promoted by the chair of a non-governmental medical association in Tokyo, and it has no established benefit as a COVID-19 treatment. Meaghan Kall, the lead epidemiologist for COVID-19 at the UK Health Security Agency, said that Campbell was confusing causation and correlation. Further, Kall said that there was no evidence of ivermectin being used in large numbers in Japan; rather, she said it "appears this was based on anecdata on social media driving wildly damaging misinformation".


title: John Campbell (YouTuber)

text: In March 2022, Campbell posted another video on ivermectin, in which he misrepresented a conference abstract to make the claim that it "unequivocally" showed ivermectin to be effective at reducing COVID-19 mortality, and that ivermectin was going to be a "huge scandal" because information about it had been suppressed. The authors of the study have had to rebut such misrepresentations of their paper; one tweeted that "people like John Campbell are calling this a 'great thought out study' when in reality it's an abstract with preliminary data. We have randomized controlled trials why are we still interested in retrospective cohort data abstracts?".


title: John Campbell (YouTuber)

text: In November 2021, Campbell quoted from a non-peer-reviewed journal abstract by Steven Gundry saying that mRNA vaccines might cause heart problems. Campbell's video was viewed over 2 million times within a few weeks and was used by anti-vaccination activists as support for the misinformation that COVID-19 vaccination will cause a wave of heart attacks. According to a FactCheck review, Campbell had in his video drawn attention to typos in the abstract, and a lack of methodology and data, but he did not mention the expression of concern that had been published for the abstract, saying instead that it could be "incredibly significant".


title: John Campbell (YouTuber)

text: In March 2022, Campbell posted a misleading video about the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, claiming that a Pfizer document showed it was associated with 1,223 deaths. The video was viewed over 750,000 times and shared widely on social media. In reality, the documents cited explicitly disclaimed any connection between vaccinations and deaths reported.


title: John Campbell (YouTuber)

text: In July 2022, Campbell gave an error-laden account of the content of an article published in the "New England Journal of Medicine" and claimed, falsely, that it showed the risk to children from COVID-19 vaccination was much greater than the risk of getting seriously ill from COVID-19 itself. the video had received over 700,000 views. In reality the article showed that COVID-19 vaccination greatly reduced the risk of children getting seriously ill from COVID-19.


title: John Campbell (YouTuber)

text: A popular misconception throughout the pandemic has been that deaths have been overreported. In January 2022, Campbell posted a YouTube video in which he cited figures from the UK's Office of National Statistics (ONS) suggesting they showed deaths from COVID-19 were "much lower than mainstream media seems to have been intimating" and concentrated on a figure of 17,371 death certificates where only COVID-19 was recorded as a cause of death. Within a few days the video had been viewed over 1.5 million times. It was shared by British Conservative politician David Davis who called it "excellent" and said that it was "disentangling the statistics", and American comedian Jimmy Dore used it to claim that COVID-19 deaths had been overreported and that it proved the public had been the victim of a "scaremongering campaign". The ONS responded by debunking the claims as spurious and wrong. An ONS spokesman said "to suggest that [the 17,000] figure represents the real extent of deaths from the virus is both factually incorrect and highly misleading". The official figure for COVID-19-related deaths in the UK for the period was over 175,000; in 140,000 of those cases the underlying cause of death was listed as COVID-19.


title: John Campbell (YouTuber)

text: In July 2022, Campbell posted a video in which he promoted the misleading idea that "parallels" could be drawn between the 2022 monkeypox outbreak and SARS-CoV-2 virus, because the pathogens were being studied in laboratories prior to an outbreak occurring. The misinformation was embraced and amplified by Jimmy Dore and his comedy co-host Kurt Metzger, achieving wide currency on social media.


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: Witness is a 1985 American neo-noir dramatic crime thriller film directed by Peter Weir, and starring Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis and Lukas Haas, with Jan Rubeš, Danny Glover, Josef Sommer, Alexander Godunov, Patti LuPone and Viggo Mortensen in supporting roles. The film focuses on a police detective (Ford) protecting an Amish woman (McGillis) and her young son (Haas), who becomes a target after he witnesses a brutal murder in a Philadelphia train station.


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: Filmed in 1984, "Witness" was released theatrically by Paramount Pictures in February 1985. The film went on to become a sleeper hit, grossing over $116 million worldwide. At the 58th Academy Awards, it earned eight nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Ford, winning Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing. It was also nominated for seven BAFTA Awards, winning one for Maurice Jarre's score, and six Golden Globe Awards. William Kelley and Earl W. Wallace won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay and the 1986 Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay presented by the Mystery Writers of America.


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: In 1984, an Amish community outside Lancaster, Pennsylvania, attends the funeral of Jacob Lapp, who leaves behind his wife Rachel and eight-year-old son Samuel. Rachel and Samuel travel by train to visit Rachel's sister, which takes them into Philadelphia. While at 30th Street Station waiting for a connecting train, Samuel goes into the men's room and witnesses the brutal murder of an undercover police officer.


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: Detective John Book and his partner, Sergeant Elton Carter, are assigned to the case. They question Samuel, who is unable to identify the perpetrator from mugshots or a line-up. Samuel then sees a newspaper clipping in a trophy case of officer James McFee receiving an award, and points him out to Book. Book investigates and finds out that McFee was previously responsible for a seizure of expensive chemicals used to make black-market amphetamines, but the evidence has now disappeared. Book surmises that McFee sold the chemicals to drug dealers, and that the murdered detective had been investigating the theft. Book expresses his suspicions to Chief of Police Paul Schaeffer, who advises Book to keep the case secret so they can work out how to proceed. Book is later ambushed and shot in a parking garage by McFee and left badly wounded. Since only Schaeffer knew of Book's suspicions, he realizes Schaeffer is also corrupt and tipped off McFee.


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: Knowing Samuel and Rachel are now in danger, Book orders his partner to remove all traces of the Lapps from his files, and drives the boy and his mother back to their community where he passes out in front of their farm. Book insists that going to a hospital would allow the corrupt police officers to find him and put Samuel in danger. Rachel's father-in-law Eli reluctantly agrees to shelter him.


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: Book slowly recovers in their care and begins to blend into the community. He and Rachel are also drawn to each other romantically, although they refrain from acting on their feelings. Meanwhile, Schaeffer searches for Book by contacting authorities in the Amish area but, as Amish communities have no modern means of communication and little contact with the outside world, he hits repeated dead ends.


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: Book eventually goes into town with Eli to use a payphone to call his precinct, and learns that Carter has been killed. While in town, a group harasses the Amish. Book retaliates, breaking with the Amish tradition of nonviolence. The fight is reported to the local police and eventually gets back to Schaeffer.


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: The next day, Schaeffer, McFee, and another corrupt cop, Ferguson, arrive at the Lapp farm, taking Rachel and Eli hostage. Book tricks Ferguson into the corn silo and suffocates him under tons of corn, then uses Ferguson's shotgun to kill McFee. Schaeffer holds Rachel and Eli at gunpoint but Eli signals to Samuel to ring the farm's bell. Book confronts Schaeffer who threatens to kill Rachel, but the loud bell has summoned their neighbors. With so many witnesses present, Schaeffer gives up and Book arrests him.


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: Book says goodbye to Samuel in the fields and Eli wishes him well "out there among them English," and Book departs.


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: In his book "The Amish in the American Imagination" (2001), scholar David Weaver-Zercher notes that "Witness" is primarily concerned with the intersection of contrasting cultures, a common theme present in several of director Peter Weir's other films, such as "The Last Wave" (1977) and "The Year of Living Dangerously" (1982). Weaver-Zercher notes that the conflict between Amish and non-Amish as depicted in "Witness" "reflect[s] well on the Amish ways" and also serves as a redemption story for Sergeant Book, who regains a new sense of humanity during his displacement in the Amish community.


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: Producer Edward S. Feldman, who was in a "first-look" development deal with 20th Century Fox at the time, first received the screenplay for "Witness" in 1983. Originally entitled "Called Home" (which is the Amish term for death), it ran for 182 pages, the equivalent of three hours of screen time. The script, which had been circulating in Hollywood for several years, had been inspired by an episode of "Gunsmoke" William Kelley and Earl W. Wallace had written in the 1970s, which had been based upon an idea by novelist Pamela Wallace.


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: Feldman liked the concept, but felt too much of the script was devoted to Amish traditions, diluting the thriller aspects of the story. He offered Kelley and Wallace $25,000 for a one-year option and one rewrite, and an additional $225,000 if the film actually were made. They submitted the revised screenplay in less than six weeks, and Feldman delivered it to Fox. Joe Wizan, the studio's head of production, rejected it with the statement that Fox did not make "rural movies".


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: Feldman sent the screenplay to Harrison Ford's agent Phil Gersh, who contacted the producer four days later and advised him his client was willing to commit to the film. Certain the attachment of a major star would change Wizan's mind, Feldman approached him once again, but Wizan insisted that as much as the studio liked Ford, they still were not interested in making a "rural movie."


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: Feldman sent the screenplay to numerous studios, and was rejected by all of them, until Paramount Pictures finally expressed interest. Feldman's first choice of director was Peter Weir, but he was involved in preproduction work for "The Mosquito Coast" and passed on the project. John Badham dismissed it as "just another cop movie", and others Feldman approached either were committed to other projects or had no interest. Then, as financial backing for "The Mosquito Coast" fell through, Weir became free to direct "Witness", which was his first American film. Starting the film immediately was imperative, because a Directors Guild of America strike was looming.


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: Lynne Littman had originally been in talks to direct the film, and though she ultimately did not, she recommended Lukas Haas for the part of Samuel because she had recently worked with him on her film "Testament". The role of Rachel was the most difficult to cast, and after Weir grew frustrated with the auditions he had seen, he asked the casting director to look for actors in Italy because he thought they would be more "womanly". As they were reviewing audition tapes from Italy, Kelly McGillis came to audition, and the moment she put on the bonnet and spoke a few lines, Weir knew she was the one. The casting director recommended her old friend Alexander Godunov, who had never acted before, but she thought his personality would be right, and Weir agreed.


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: Viggo Mortensen was cast because Weir thought he had the right face for the part of an Amish man. Mortensen had just started his acting career, so this was his first film acting role, and he had to turn down another role as a soldier in Shakespeare in the Park's production of" Henry V". He credited that decision and the very positive experience on the film as the start of his film career.


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: During the weeks before filming, Ford spent time with the homicide department of the Philadelphia Police Department, researching the important details of working as a homicide detective. McGillis did research by moving in with an Amish widow and her seven children, learning how to milk cows and practicing their Pennsylvania German dialect.


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: Weir and cinematographer John Seale went on a trip to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which was running an exhibition of 17th-century Dutch Masters. Weir drew attention to the paintings of Johannes Vermeer, which were used as inspiration for the lighting and composition of the film, especially in the scenes where John Book is recovering from a gunshot wound in Rachel's house.


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: The film was shot on location in Philadelphia and the city and towns of Intercourse, Lancaster, Strasburg, and Parkesburg. Local Amish were willing to work as carpenters and electricians, but declined to appear on film, so many of the extras were actually Mennonites. Halfway through filming, the title was changed from "Called Home" to "Witness" at the behest of Paramount's marketing department, which felt the original title posed too much of a promotional challenge. Principal photography was completed three days before the scheduled DGA strike, which ultimately failed to materialize.


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: During the set-up and rehearsal of each scene, as well as during dailies, Weir would play music to set the mood, with the idea that it prevented the actors from thinking too much and let them listen to their other instincts. The barn-raising scene was only a short paragraph in the script, but Weir thought it was important to highlight that aspect of Amish community life. They shot the scene in a day and did, in fact, build a barn, albeit with the aid of cranes off-camera. To film the scene in the corn silo, corn was actually dropped onto the actor, while a scuba diving regulator with a compressed air tank was hidden on the floor so the actor would be able to breathe.


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: Originally, the script ended with a scene of Book and Rachel each explaining their feelings for each other to the audience, but Weir felt the scene was unnecessary and decided not to shoot it. The studio executives were concerned that the audience would not understand the conclusion, and tried to convince him otherwise, but Weir insisted that the characters' emotions could be expressed only with visuals.


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: "Witness" had its world premiere at the Fulton Opera House in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in on February 7, 1985. The film was screened out of competition at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival.


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: The film opened theatrically in 876 theaters in the United States on February 8, 1985, and grossed $4,539,990 in its opening weekend, ranking number two behind "Beverly Hills Cop". The film went on to become a sleeper hit, topping the charts in its fifth week of release. It eventually earned a total of $68,706,993 in North America. Internationally, it grossed $47.4 million for a worldwide total of $116.1 million.


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 93% based on 41 reviews, with an average rating of 8.4/10. The site's critics consensus states: "A wonderfully entertaining thriller within an unusual setting, with Harrison Ford delivering a surprisingly emotive and sympathetic performance." On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 76 out of 100 based on 14 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" rated the film four out of four stars, calling it: Ebert also praised Ford's work and claimed he had "never given a better performance in a movie."


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: "Variety" said the film was "at times a gentle, affecting story of star-crossed lovers limited within the fascinating Amish community. Too often, however, this fragile romance is crushed by a thoroughly absurd shoot-'em-up, like ketchup poured over a delicate Pennsylvania Dutch dinner."


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: "Time Out New York" observed, "Powerful, assured, full of beautiful imagery and thankfully devoid of easy moralizing, it also offers a performance of surprising skill and sensitivity from Ford."


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: "Halliwell's Film Guide" chose "Witness" as one of only two films from 1985 to receive a four-star review, describing it as "one of those lucky movies which works out well on all counts and shows that there are still craftsmen lurking in Hollywood."


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: "Radio Times" called the film "partly a love story and partly a thriller, but mainly a study of cultural collision – it's as if the world of "Dirty Harry" had suddenly stumbled into a canvas by Brueghel." It added, "[I]t's Weir's delicacy of touch that impresses the most. He ably juggles the various elements of the story and makes the violence seem even more shocking when it's played out on the fields of Amish denial."


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: Leading up to and following its release, "Witness" was met with controversy from the Amish communities where it was filmed, and was subject to debate from editors, scholars, and other parties regarding its depiction of the Amish. Some accused the film of exploiting the Amish community for commercial purposes, while others felt that the depiction of Amish characters in an R-rated film featuring graphic violence was insensitive to the Amish's beliefs.


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: A statement released by a law firm associated with the Amish claimed that their portrayal in the movie was not accurate. The National Committee For Amish Religious Freedom called for a boycott of the movie soon after its release, citing fears that these communities were being "overrun by tourists" as a result of the popularity of the movie, and worried that "the crowding, souvenir-hunting, photographing and trespassing on Amish farmsteads will increase." After the movie was completed, Pennsylvania governor Dick Thornburgh agreed not to promote Amish communities as future film sites. A similar concern was voiced within the movie itself, where Rachel tells a recovering Book that tourists often consider her fellow Amish something to stare at, with some even being so rude as to trespass on their private property.


title: Witness (1985 film)

text: Negotiation expert William Ury summarised the film's climactic scene in a chapter titled "The Witness" in his 1999 book "Getting to Peace" (later republished with the alternative title "The Third Side: Why We Fight and How We Can Stop") and used the scene as a symbol of the power of ordinary citizens to resolve conflicts and stop violence.


title: BAE Systems Hawk

text: The BAE Systems Hawk is a British single-engine, jet-powered advanced trainer aircraft. It was first flown at Dunsfold, Surrey, in 1974 as the Hawker Siddeley Hawk, and subsequently produced by its successor companies, British Aerospace and BAE Systems. It has been used in a training capacity and as a low-cost combat aircraft.


title: BAE Systems Hawk

text: Operators of the Hawk include the Royal Air Force (notably the Red Arrows display team) and several foreign military operators. The Hawk is still in production in the UK and under licence in India by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), with over 900 Hawks sold to 18 operators around the world.


title: BAE Systems Hawk

text: In 1964, the Royal Air Force specified a requirement (Air Staff Target, AST, 362) for a new fast jet trainer to replace the Folland Gnat. The SEPECAT Jaguar was originally intended for this role, but it was soon realised that it would be too complex an aircraft for fast jet training and only a small number of two-seat versions were purchased. Accordingly, in 1968, Hawker Siddeley Aviation (HSA) began studies for a simpler aircraft, initially as special project (SP) 117. The design team was led by Ralph Hooper.


title: BAE Systems Hawk

text: This project was funded by the company as a private venture, in anticipation of possible RAF interest. The design was conceived of as having tandem seating and a combat capability in addition to training, as it was felt the latter would improve export sales potential. By the end of the year HSA had submitted a proposal to the Ministry of Defence based on the design concept, and in early 1970 the RAF issued Air Staff Target (AST) 397 which formalised the requirement for new trainers of this type. The RAF selected the HS.1182 for their requirement on 1 October 1971 and the principal contract, for 175 aircraft, was signed in March 1972.


title: BAE Systems Hawk

text: The prototype aircraft XX154 first flew on 21 August 1974 from Dunsfold piloted by Duncan Simpson, Chief Test Pilot of HSA (Kingston), reaching 20,000 ft in a flight lasting 53 minutes. All development aircraft were built on production jigs; the program remained on time and to budget throughout. The Hawk T1 entered RAF service in late 1976. The first export Hawk 50 flew on 17 May 1976. This variant had been specifically designed for the dual role of lightweight fighter and advanced trainer; it had a greater weapons capacity than the T.1.


title: BAE Systems Hawk

text: More variants of the Hawk followed, and common improvements to the base design typically included increased range, more powerful engines, redesigned wing and undercarriage, the addition of radar and forward-looking infrared, GPS navigation, and night-vision compatibility. Later models were manufactured with a great variety in terms of avionics fittings and system compatibility to suit the individual customer nation; cockpit functionality was often rearranged and programmed to be common to an operator's main fighter fleet to increase the Hawk's training value.


title: BAE Systems Hawk

text: In 1981, a derivative of the Hawk was selected by the United States Navy as their new trainer aircraft. Designated the McDonnell Douglas T-45 Goshawk, the design was adapted to naval service and strengthened to withstand operating directly from the decks of carriers, in addition to typical land-based duties. This T-45 entered service in 1994; initial aircraft had analogue cockpits, while later deliveries featured a digital glass cockpit. All airframes were planned to undergo avionics upgrades to a common standard.


title: BAE Systems Hawk

text: A major competitor to the Hawk for export sales has been the Dassault/Dornier Alpha Jet; aviation expert John W. R. Taylor commented: "What Europe must avoid is the kind of wasteful competition that has the Hawker Siddeley Hawk and Dassault-Breguet/Dornier Alpha Jet battling against each other in the world market." By early 1998, a total of 734 Hawks had been sold, more than 550 of which had been sold to export customers. Military customers often procured the Hawk as a replacement for older aircraft such as the BAC Strikemaster, Hawker Hunter, and Douglas A-4 Skyhawk.


title: BAE Systems Hawk

text: During the 1980s and 1990s, British Aerospace, the successor company to Hawker Siddeley, was trying to gain export sales of the variable-wing Panavia Tornado strike aircraft; however, countries such as Thailand and Indonesia, which had shown initial interest in the Tornado, concluded that the Hawk is a more suitable and preferable aircraft for their requirements. Malaysia and Oman cancelled their arranged Tornado orders in the early 1990s, both choosing to procure the Hawk, instead. Aviation authors Norman Polmar and Dana Bell stated of the Hawk: "Of the many similar designs competing for a share of the world market, the Hawk has been without equal in performance as well as sales".


title: BAE Systems Hawk

text: On 22 December 2004, the Ministry of Defence awarded a contract to BAE Systems to develop an advanced model of the Hawk for the RAF and Royal Navy. The Hawk Mk. 128, otherwise designated as Hawk T2, replaces conventional instrumentation with a glass cockpit, to better resemble modern fighter aircraft such as the new mainstay of the RAF, the Eurofighter Typhoon. In October 2006, a £450 million contract was signed for the production of 28 Hawk 128s. The aircraft's maiden flight occurred on 27 July 2005 from BAE Systems' Warton Aerodrome.


title: BAE Systems Hawk

text: According to BAE Systems, as of July 2012, they had sold nearly 1000 Hawks, with sales continuing. In July 2012, Australian Defence Minister Stephen Smith confirmed that Australia's fleet of Hawk Mk 127s would be upgraded to a similar configuration to the RAF's Hawk T2 as part of a major mid-life upgrade. The Hawk T2 was considered to be a competitor for the United States Air Force's T-X program to acquire a new trainer fleet, but in February 2015, Northrop Grumman determined the Hawk's shortfalls made it ill-suited for the program requirements and dropped it as their offering.


title: BAE Systems Hawk

text: In May 2015, Indian aerospace manufacturer Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL) revealed that it was examining the prospects of performing its own Hawk upgrades, including armed light attack variants. The Indian Air Force, which were in the process of receiving trainer Hawks built under licence by HAL, were reportedly interested in the upgrade proposals, which would also include avionics and cockpit modifications; HAL has stated that it also aims to export combat Hawks to other countries in partnership with BAE. Missile developer and manufacturer MBDA may provide their ASRAAM and Brimstone missiles to arm the new attack type.


title: BAE Systems Hawk

text: The Hawk is an advanced 2-seat trainer with a tandem cockpit, a low-mounted cantilever wing and is powered by a single turbofan engine. Unlike many of the previous trainers in RAF service, the Hawk was specifically designed for training. Hawker had developed the aircraft to have a high level of serviceability, as well as lower purchasing and operating costs than previous trainers like the Jet Provost. The Hawk has been praised by pilots for its agility, in particular its roll and turn handling.


title: BAE Systems Hawk

text: The design of the fuselage included a height differential between the two seats of the cockpit; this provided generous levels of visibility for the instructor in the rear seat. Each cockpit is fitted with a Martin-Baker Mk 10B zero-zero rocket-assisted ejection seat. Air is fed to the aircraft's rear-mounted Rolls-Royce Turbomeca Adour engine via intakes on each of the forward wing roots. During the aircraft's development, Hawker had worked closely with Rolls-Royce to reduce the engine's fuel consumption and to ensure a high level of reliability.


title: BAE Systems Hawk

text: Even within the development stages, a Hawk variant was intended to also serve as a single-seat ground-attack fighter; both the trainer and fighter models were developed with the export market in mind. On single seat models, the forward cockpit area which normally houses a pilot is replaced by an electronics bay for avionics and onboard systems, including a fire control computer, multi-mode radar, laser rangefinder and forward-looking infrared (FLIR). Some export customers, such as Malaysia, have extensive modifications to their aircraft, including the addition of wingtip hardpoint stations and a fittable inflight refuelling probe.


title: BAE Systems Hawk

text: The Hawk was designed to be manoeuvrable and can reach Mach 0.88 in level flight and Mach 1.15 in a dive, thus allowing trainees to experience transonic flight before advancing to a supersonic trainer. The airframe is very durable and strong, stressed for +9 g; the normal limit in RAF service is +7.5/-4 g. A dual hydraulic system supplies power to operate systems such as the aircraft's flaps, airbrakes and landing gear, together with the flight controls. A ram air turbine is fitted in front of the single tail fin to provide backup hydraulic power for the flight controls in the event of an engine failure; additionally, a gas turbine auxiliary power unit is housed directly above the engine.


title: BAE Systems Hawk

text: The Hawk is designed to carry a centreline gun pod, such as the 30 mm ADEN cannon, two under-wing pylons, and up to four hardpoints for fitting armaments and equipment. In RAF service, Hawks have been equipped to operate the Sidewinder air-to-air missiles. In the early 1990s, British Aerospace investigated the possibility of arming the Hawk with the Sea Eagle anti-ship missile for export customers. In 2016, BAE Systems was developing the so-called 'Advanced Hawk' with a new wing using leading-edge slats, and potentially additional sensors and weapons, a head-mounted display, and a single large-screen display in the forward cockpit.


title: BAE Systems Hawk

text: The Hawk entered RAF service in April 1976, replacing the Folland Gnat and Hawker Hunter for advanced training and weapons training. The "Hawk T1" was the original version used by the RAF, deliveries commencing in November 1976. The most famous users of the Hawk are the Red Arrows aerobatic team, who adopted the plane in 1979.


title: BAE Systems Hawk

text: From 1983 to 1986, some Hawks were equipped as short-range interceptor aircraft. 88 T1s were modified to carry two AIM-9L Sidewinder air-to-air missiles in addition to a 30 mm ADEN cannon gun pod; these aircraft were redesignated as "Hawk T1A". In a wartime scenario, they would have worked in collaboration with the RAF's Tornado F3 interceptors, which would use their Foxhunter search radars and more sophisticated navigation systems to vector the Hawks against enemy targets.


title: BAE Systems Hawk

text: The Hawk subsequently replaced the English Electric Canberra for target towing duties. The Royal Navy acquired a dozen Hawk T1/1As from the RAF; these are typically operated in a support role, often to conduct simulated combat training onboard ships.


title: BAE Systems Hawk

text: During the 1990s and 2000s, 80 Hawk T1/1A aircraft were upgraded under the Fuselage Replacement Programme (FRP) to extend their operational lifespan; sections of the centre and rear fuselage sections were entirely replaced. In 2009, the RAF began receiving the first Hawk T2, in the long term, T2 aircraft will replace the ageing T1s. Training operations on the Hawk T2 began in April 2012.


title: BAE Systems Hawk

text: In August 2011, a Red Arrows pilot was killed when his Hawk T1 crashed following a display at the Bournemouth Air Festival; the inquest found "G-force impairment" may have caused the pilot to lose control. The Hawk T1 fleet was grounded as a precautionary measure and returned to flight status a few days later.


title: BAE Systems Hawk

text: In November 2011, the Red Arrows suffered another pilot fatality when the Martin-Baker Mk.10 ejection seat fitted to the Hawk T1 activated while the aircraft was stationary; the veteran combat pilot died on ground impact when the ejector seat parachute also failed to deploy. This resulted in the UK Ministry of Defence implementing a ban on non-essential flying in aircraft fitted with ejector seats similar to those fitted in the Hawk T1 after the death. The ban was lifted for Tornado attack jets but remained on Hawk T1, Hawk T2 and Tucano flights while the RAF reviewed evidence on those aircraft.


title: BAE Systems Hawk

text: In October 2017, the RAF and Royal Navy operated 75 Hawk T1 and 28 Hawk T2. According to the Ministry of Defence, the planned out-of-service date for the Hawk T1 was 2030, with the aircraft selected to meet the requirements of the Air Support to Defence Operational Training (ASDOT) programme beginning to replace the Hawk from 2027. However, in July 2021, it was announced that all UK military units operating the Hawk T1 aircraft, apart from the Red Arrows, would see their airframes retired by 31 March 2022.