title: Indonesian National Revolution

text: During a state visit to Indonesia in March 2020, King Willem-Alexander made a surprise apology for "excessive violence" by Dutch troops.


title: Indonesian National Revolution

text: On February 17, 2022, a major Dutch historical review was released, titled "Independence, Decolonization, Violence and War in Indonesia, 1945-1949". The research was done by three institutions: Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV), Netherlands Institute for Military History (NIMH) and NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies. The review concluded that the Netherlands had used systematic and excessive violence during the war. According to the review, "The use of extreme violence by the Dutch armed forces was not only widespread, but often deliberate, too" and "was condoned at every level: political, military and legal." On the same day, the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte apologized for the atrocities committed by the Dutch during the war and also for the failure of past Dutch governments to acknowledge it.


title: VPN service

text: A virtual private network (VPN) service provides a proxy server to help users bypass Internet censorship such as geoblocking and users who want to protect their communications against data profiling or MitM attacks on hostile networks.


title: VPN service

text: A wide variety of entities provide "VPNs" for several purposes. But depending on the provider and the application, they do not always create a true private network. Instead, many providers simply provide an Internet proxy that uses VPN technologies such as OpenVPN or WireGuard. Commercial VPN services are often used by those wishing to disguise or obfuscate their physical location or IP address, typically as a means to evade Internet censorship or geo-blocking.


title: VPN service

text: Providers often market VPN services as privacy-enhancing, citing security features, such as encryption, from the underlying VPN technology. However, users must consider that when the transmitted content is not encrypted "before" entering the proxy, that content is visible at the receiving endpoint (usually the VPN service provider's site) regardless of whether the VPN tunnel itself is encrypted for the inter-node transport. The "only" secure VPN is where the participants have oversight at "both" ends of the entire data path or when the content is encrypted before it enters the tunnel.


title: VPN service

text: On the client side, configurations intended to use VPN services as proxies are not conventional VPN configurations. However, they do typically utilize the operating system's VPN interfaces to capture the user's data to send to the proxy. This includes virtual network adapters on computer OSes and specialized "VPN" interfaces on mobile operating systems. A less common alternative is to provide a SOCKS proxy interface.


title: VPN service

text: In computer magazines, VPN services are typically judged on connection speeds; privacy protection, including privacy at signup and grade of encryption; server count and locations; interface usability; and cost.


title: VPN service

text: In order to determine the degree of privacy and anonymity, various computer magazines, such as "PC World" and "PC Magazine", also take the provider's own guarantees and its reputation among news items into consideration.


title: VPN service

text: Users are commonly exposed to misinformation on the VPN services market, which makes it difficult for them to tell apart vague and bold claims and facts in advertisements.


title: VPN service

text: In 2019, VPN services were criticized on various grounds by British YouTuber and web developer Tom Scott. In 2022, he revised his position, stating that VPNs do have valid use cases, such as unlocking geoblocked websites, bypassing mobile throttling, and accessing blocked websites in restricted countries.


title: VPN service

text: "The New York Times" has noted that users should reconsider whether a VPN service is worth their money.


title: VPN service

text: In March 2018, the use of unapproved VPN services was banned in China, as they can be used to circumvent the Great Firewall. Operators received prison sentences and were penalized with fines.


title: VPN service

text: "PC Magazine" recommends that users consider choosing a provider based in a country with no data retention laws, since that makes it easier for the service to keep a promise of no logging.


title: VPN service

text: "PC Magazine" and "TechRadar" also suggest that users read the provider's logging policy before signing up for the service,


title: VPN service

text: "PC World" recommends that users avoid free services as a rule of thumb, and asserts that free services either sell their users' browsing data in aggregated form to researchers and marketers, or only offer a minimal amount of data transfer per month. "Logitheque" explains why there are so many VPN comparison websites on the web.


title: Undergraduate education

text: Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-level university student is known as an undergraduate, while students of higher degrees are known as "graduate students".


title: Undergraduate education

text: Upon completion of a number of required and elective courses as part of an undergraduate program, the student would earn the corresponding degree. (In some regions, individual "courses" and the "program" collection are given other terms, such as "units" and "course", respectively.)


title: Undergraduate education

text: In some other educational systems, undergraduate education is postsecondary education up to the level of a master's degree; this is the case for some science courses in Britain and some medicine courses in Europe.


title: Undergraduate education

text: In Nigeria, undergraduate degrees (excluding Medicine, Medical Laboratory Science, Nursing, Engineering, Law and Architecture) are four-year-based courses. Medicine (MBBS) and Architecture normally take six years to complete studies while Medical Laboratory Science, Nursing, Law and Engineering courses take five years to complete studies, usually, all six years are taken to improve their chances. Undergraduate nursing degrees or diplomas usually take two to four years and sometimes 5 years to complete, whereas graduate degrees are an additional two years or more.


title: Undergraduate education

text: The South African system usually has a three-year undergraduate bachelor's degree, with two or three majors. (There are exceptions, such as the medical qualification (MBChB), which is six years, and Engineering which is four.) A fourth year, known as an Honours year, is considered a post-graduate degree. It is usually course-driven, although may include a project or thesis.


title: Undergraduate education

text: Brazil follows the major traits of the continental European system; free public schools are available from kindergarten up to postgraduation, both as a right established in Article 6, "caput" of the Brazilian Constitution and as a duty of the State in Article 208, Items I, IV and V, of the Brazilian Constitution. Students choose their specific course of studies before joining the university. Admission to university is obtained by means of a competitive entrance exam known as Vestibular (a concept somewhat similar to the "Baccalauréat" in France). A later system introduced in 2009, adopted by most federal universities, uses the high school national examination (ENEM) result as part or a replacement of the Vestibular grade. Depending on the chosen course, upon graduating the student is granted: a technologist diploma, 3 years to complete, a bachelor's degree's diploma, which usually takes 4 or, in the case of Law, Veterinary, Geology and Engineering, 5 years to complete; or a professional diploma, which normally require 5 or, in the case of medicine, 6 years to complete.


title: Undergraduate education

text: In the United States, "undergraduate" refers to a student who is studying for a bachelor's degree. The most common bachelor's degrees are Bachelor of Arts (BA or AB) and Bachelor of Science (BS or SB), but other degrees such as Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA), Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA), Bachelor of Music (BM), Bachelor of Social Work (BSW), Bachelor of Engineering (BE), Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN), and Bachelor of Architecture (BArch) are also possible. Most commonly these degrees require four years of full-time study after high school.


title: Undergraduate education

text: Unlike in the British model, degrees in law and medicine are not offered at the undergraduate level and instead are completed at a graduate level, after earning a bachelor's degree. Neither field specifies or prefers any undergraduate major, though medical schools require a set of courses that must be taken before enrollment.


title: Undergraduate education

text: Students can also choose to attend a two-year community college before further study at a four-year college or university. In most states, community colleges are operated either by a division of the state university or by local special districts subject to guidance from a state agency. Community colleges award associate degrees of different types, some intended to prepare students to transfer to four-year institutions (e.g. Associate of Arts (AA), Associate of Science (AS)), and others intended to provide vocational skills and training for students wishing to enter into or advance in a profession. In some states considerable attention has been given to make sure that community college courses in fact prepare the students for the continuation courses they will encounter at the local college; this process of bringing courses into sequence is called articulation. Some community colleges have automatic enrollment agreements with a local college or university, where the community college provides the first two years of study and the university provides the remaining years of study, sometimes all on one campus. The community colleges award associate degrees, while universities and colleges award the bachelor's. However, some community colleges, such as Brazosport College in Lake Jackson, Texas offer bachelor's degrees along with associate degrees. Conversely, some universities such as the University of Delaware also award associate degrees.


title: Undergraduate education

text: In the United States, "college" and "university" are terms used differently in different states; New York's terminology is especially confusing (see University of the State of New York). A university is usually larger than a college, and has programs at the graduate level, but the distinction is not clear-cut. Some colleges (like Smith College) award graduate degrees, for example, and some colleges are larger than some universities. Some states have requirements a college must meet before it is allowed to call itself a university. Institutions seeking to grow have pursued various steps to turn two-year junior colleges into community colleges, community colleges into four-year colleges, awarding baccalaureate degrees, sometimes while still a community college, and colleges into universities, with graduate (post-baccalaureate) programs.


title: Undergraduate education

text: In Bangladesh, 3-year undergraduate programs are known as Degree (Pass) courses and 4-year undergraduate programs are known as Honours courses.


title: Undergraduate education

text: In Hong Kong, the English system is followed. Students sit for the Certificate of Education examinations at around sixteen years of age, and the Advanced-level, or A-level examinations at around eighteen, then follow by three years of undergraduate education, except for a few specific fields, such as medicine, nursing and law. This is due to be changed, with five-year secondary education and two-year matriculation examination combined and shortened to six years matriculation, and undergraduate education lengthened to four years. Students may be able to receive general education in their first years in universities, more akin to the North American system. The first batch of students under the new system will enter universities in 2012.


title: Undergraduate education

text: Alternatives are undergraduate certificates or diplomas, with some equivalent to associate degree in educational level.


title: Undergraduate education

text: India's higher education system is the third largest in the world, next to the United States and China. The main governing body at the tertiary level is the University Grants Commission, which enforces its standards, advises the government, and helps coordinate between the centre and the state. Accreditation for higher learning is overseen by 15 autonomous institutions established by the University Grants Commission (UGC).


title: Undergraduate education

text: In India the Graduation system is classified into two parts: Undergraduate (UG) and Postgraduate (PG). It takes three or four years to complete an undergraduate degree. The three-year undergraduate programs are mostly in the fields of arts, commerce, science etc., and the four-year programs are mostly in the fields of technology, engineering, pharmaceutical sciences, agriculture etc. However, for medicine, law and architecture, the period has been five years. The possessor of the first UG is referred to as graduate and that of the PG degree as post-graduate. Other than UG and PG there are various 1 to 2 year diploma courses available.


title: Undergraduate education

text: Indian higher education system has expanded at a fast pace by adding nearly 20,000 colleges and more than 8 million students in a decade from 2000–01 to 2010–11. As of 2020, India has over 1000 universities, with a break up of 54 central universities, 416 state universities, 125 deemed universities, 361 private universities, 7 Institute under State Legislature Act, and 159 Institutes of National Importance which include IIMs, AIIMS, IITs, IIITs, IISERs and NITs among others. Other institutions include 52,627 colleges as government degree colleges, private colleges, standalone institutes and post-graduate research institutions, functioning under these universities as reported by the MHRD in 2020. Colleges may be Autonomous, i.e. empowered to examine their own degrees, up to PhD level in some cases, or non-autonomous, in which case their examinations are under the supervision of the university to which they are affiliated; in either case, however, degrees are awarded in the name of the university rather than the college.


title: Undergraduate education

text: Undergraduate education in Japan requires four years, which is divided into two stages; associate degree's level first-half two years and bachelor's level second-half two years.


title: Undergraduate education

text: In Pakistan, it generally requires four years to complete a Bachelor's degree in Arts, Sciences, Dentistry, Engineering or Business Administration such as BA, BS, BDS, BE/BS/BSc Engineering or BBA and five years for bachelor's degrees in medicine (MBBS), Physiotherapy (DPT), Pharmacy (Pharm.D) and Architecture (B.Arch.) after successfully completing 12 years of schooling. 4 years bachelor's degree is offered in various universities of Pakistan such as COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (CIIT), University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore (UET Lahore), University of Engineering and Technology, Taxila (UET Taxila), National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) and National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences (NU).


title: Undergraduate education

text: The modern educational system comprises the following five stages: The Primary school lasting five years for children 5–10 years old in grades one to five; a Middle school of three years for children 10 to 13 years old, covering grades six through eight; a two-year secondary, or Matriculation consists of grades nine and ten, for children 13 to 15 years old; a two-year higher secondary, or Intermediate college, leading to an F.A. in arts or F.Sc. in science; and a fifth stage covering college and university programs leading to baccalaureate, professional, master's and doctorate degrees. The pre-primary or preparatory classes, called kachi (literally, unripe) or Nursery school, were formally integrated into the education system in 1988.


title: Undergraduate education

text: Students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland may usually enter university from the age of eighteen, often having studied A-levels and thus having had thirteen to fifteen years of schooling. Occasionally students who finish A Level or equivalent qualifications early (after skipping a year in school on the grounds of academic giftedness) may enter below this age but large universities are now setting minimum age limits of 16 or 17 after a number of well publicised "child prodigies" were found to be emotionally and mentally unprepared for university life.


title: Undergraduate education

text: Applications for undergraduate courses in UK higher education are made through the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS).


title: Undergraduate education

text: For their first degree, most students read for the degree of bachelor, which usually takes three years, however in the sciences and engineering integrated courses covering both undergraduate level and advanced degree level leading to the degree of master, usually taking four years and including a research project or dissertation are popular. Given the integrated nature of these programs someone who gains a master's degree via an integrated program is not usually admitted to the degree of bachelor.


title: Undergraduate education

text: Master's degrees conferred after extended programs are not to be conflated with the degree of Master of Arts conferred at Oxbridge and Dublin, which is not a substantive qualification, but reflects the ancient practice of those three universities of promoting Bachelors of Arts to Masters of Arts (and thus full membership of the university) six or seven years after matriculation.


title: Undergraduate education

text: Honours degrees and integrated master's degrees are awarded with 1st, upper 2nd, lower 2nd or 3rd class honours. If a student passes the course but fails to do so sufficiently well for third class honours to be awarded he will be awarded with an ordinary degree. It is possible to use the abbreviation "Hons" after the degree postnominals to indicate that the degree has been passed with honours and is not an ordinary degree.


title: Undergraduate education

text: Many universities offer sandwich courses or an extramural year, which offer work placements for a short period of time in a relevant industry before students complete their studies. Taking a sandwich course may make the course last a year longer than it would otherwise.


title: Undergraduate education

text: With very few exceptions, nearly all universities with the power to award degrees are heavily state financed. However, they also rely on tuition fees set by the government at a maximum index-linked level, repayable after graduation contingent on attaining a certain level of income, and with the state paying all fees for students from the poorest backgrounds. UK students are generally entitled to student loans for maintenance with repayment contingent on income. Unlike in other European countries, the British government does not own the universities' assets and university staff are not civil servants. United Kingdom universities are therefore better described as autonomous, intellectually-independent institutions with public funding, rather than public universities per se. The crown does not control syllabi, with the exception of teacher training. The crown restricts the power to award degrees to those with a royal charter, in the case of traditional universities, or authorization from the Secretary of State for Universities, in the case of modern universities. Universities accredited in foreign countries, such as Richmond University are, however, free to operate.


title: Undergraduate education

text: In many countries, the English distinction between a bachelor's and master's degree is being introduced by the Bologna process. Under the new Bologna reform, universities in Europe are introducing the Bachelor level (BA or BS) degree, often by dividing a 5-year Master-level program into two parts (3-year Bachelor's + 2-year Master's), where students are not obligated to continue with the second Master's-degree part. These new bachelor's degrees are similar in structure to British bachelor's degrees.


title: Undergraduate education

text: If there is a separate undergraduate degree, higher degrees (License, Master, Doctorat) can be gained after completing the undergraduate degree. In the traditional German system, there were no undergraduate degrees in some fields, such as engineering: students continued to Master's level education without any administrative breakpoints, and employers would not consider half-finished master's degrees.


title: Undergraduate education

text: The Bachelor's phase in The Netherlands can be fulfilled either at university or at a university of applied sciences. These two institutions differ from each other in the level students learn abstract concepts. Education at universities is aimed at research and fundamental principles while at universities of applied sciences it concentrates on applying knowledge in a vocation. Universities of applied sciences typically do not offer master and PhD programs.


title: Undergraduate education

text: Students in Scotland usually enter university in the year they turn eighteen, with many starting at seventeen; courses take a year longer than in the rest of the UK.


title: Undergraduate education

text: At the older universities the degree of Master of Arts is conferred in the arts subjects after four years while the newer universities instead confer the degree of Bachelor of Arts. The degree of Master of Arts conferred by the Ancient Scottish Universities is equivalent to the degree of Bachelor of Arts at other universities and does not require the level of study necessitated for the other degrees of master awarded by these universities. The degree instead reflects the ancient traditions of these universities.


title: Undergraduate education

text: In the sciences, students usually read for the degree of bachelor, which usually takes four years. However, as with the rest of the UK, integrated master's degrees are popular in science and engineering, although in Scotland they last for five years. Degree classification is the same as in the rest of UK.


title: Undergraduate education

text: In many other, particularly continental European systems, an "undergraduate" degree in the American sense does not exist. Because students are expected to have received a sound general education at the secondary level, in a school such as a gymnasium or lycee, students in Europe enroll in a specific course of studies they wish to pursue upon entry into a university. In the US, students only specialize in a "major" during the last years of college. Specializing in a field of study upon entry into a university means most students graduate after four to five years of study. The fields available include those only taught as graduate degrees in the US, such as law or medicine.


title: Undergraduate education

text: In the traditional German system, there is a vocational degree (diploma FH) that is similar in length, and is also considered an academic degree. Though it is designed as a specialist degree, in contrast to the Diplom degree at "university", which claims to be more generalist. Germany itself, however, is currently abolishing the legal distinction between Fachhochschule and university. They are both translated as university and they both provide bologna-compliant and equivalent postgraduate degrees.


title: Undergraduate education

text: Not obligatory and sometimes applied at universities in the Netherlands are the propaedeutic exams. The entire curriculum of the first two semesters of the bachelor's programme is part of the propaedeutic exams. In most bachelor's studies, students are required to obtain their propaedeutic certificate within three semesters after starting the course. A propaedeutic certificate also counts as a requirement for participating in a university level bachelor's study. The propaedeutic exams have the purpose of assessing whether a student has the appropriate capacities in order to complete the course.


title: Undergraduate education

text: At some Swedish universities (such as the Royal Institute of Technology), PhD courses are sometimes referred to as "graduate courses", whereas courses for other students (up to master level) sometimes are referred to as "undergraduate courses". The system at many Finnish universities is similar.


title: Undergraduate education

text: In the French system, the first degree of tertiary education was reached two years after the baccalauréat. Amongst these degrees the university-delivered DEUG has disappeared, whereas Diplôme universitaire de technologie, Brevet de Technicien Supérieur or classe préparatoire aux grandes écoles still exist. According to the Bologna process, this two-year curriculum will be replaced by the three-year "licence", yet existing.


title: Adnan Sami

text: Adnan Sami Khan (born 15 August 1971) is an Indian singer, musician, music composer and pianist. He performs Indian and Western music, including for Hindi, Kannada, Telugu and Tamil movies. He has been awarded with Padma Shri (India's fourth highest civilian award) for his remarkable contribution in music. His most notable instrument is the piano. He has been credited as "the first musician to have played the santoor and Indian classical music on the piano". A review in the US-based "Keyboard" magazine described him as the fastest keyboard player in the world and called him the keyboard discovery of the nineties.


title: Adnan Sami

text: He was raised and educated in the United Kingdom and spent his life in Canada. He was born to Arshad Sami Khan, a Pakistani Air Force veteran and diplomat of Pashtun origin, and Naureen, who was originally from the Indian Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. "The Times of India" has called him the "Sultan of Music". In 2016 he became an Indian citizen. He was awarded the Padma Shri on 26 January 2020.


title: Adnan Sami

text: Sami was born in London, England on 15 August 1971. He was raised and educated in the United Kingdom. His father, Arshad Sami Khan, was a Pakistani Pashtun while his mother Naureen Khan was an Indian from Jammu. Adnan's father served as a Pakistan Air Force pilot, before becoming a senior bureaucrat and serving as Pakistan's ambassador to 14 countries. His paternal great-great-grandfather, General Ahmed Jan, was from Afghanistan and a military advisor to king Abdur Rahman Khan. His paternal great-grandfather Agha Mehfooz Jan was the governor of four Afghan provinces under King Amanullah Khan's reign and was also the King's first cousin, while his paternal grandfather Abdul Sami Khan served as the Deputy Inspector General of Police. Agha Mehfooz Jan was assassinated by Habibullah Kalakani and therefore Sami's father's family migrated to Peshawar, then in British India.


title: Adnan Sami

text: Sami attended Rugby School in Rugby, West Midlands, UK. Adnan followed his bachelor's degree with a law degree (LLB) from King's College London. He went on to qualify as a barrister from Lincoln's Inn, England.


title: Adnan Sami

text: He had played the piano since the age of five and composed his first piece of music when he was nine years old. Sami began taking lessons in Indian classical music from the santoor maestro Pandit Shivkumar Sharma when visiting India during his school vacations. Indian singer Asha Bhosle saw him at age ten at an R. D. Burman concert in London, and encouraged him to take up music as a career. He is an accomplished concert pianist, music composer and singer with a command of Indian and Western classical/semi-classical music, jazz, rock and pop music. As a teenager, Adnan, when performing on the piano on a TV program in Stockholm, was described by the US-based "Keyboard" magazine as the fastest man on keyboard in the world and the keyboard discovery of the nineties. Sami went on to learn Indian classical music from Pandit Shivkumar Sharma, the Santoor maestro in India. At the age of sixteen, Sami was approached to write a song for famine-hit Ethiopia, for which he won a special award from UNICEF.


title: Adnan Sami

text: In his career of 32 years, Sami has won many international awards including the Nigar Award, Bolan Academy Award and Graduate Award. Adnan is the youngest recipient of the Naushad Music Award for Excellence in Music. Previous recipients of this award include Lata Mangeshkar and Music Maestro Khayam. Sami was invited as a member of the jury of the music festival Voice of Asia competition held annually at Almaty, Kazakhstan.


title: Adnan Sami

text: His first single, "Run for His Life", was released in 1986. It was in English, and recorded for UNICEF. It went to No. 1 in the music charts in the Middle East. This was followed by three more No. 1s: "Talk to Me", "Hot Summer Day" and "You're My Best Kept Secret".


title: Adnan Sami

text: His first formal album, "The One & Only" (1989), was a classical album on the piano accompanied by tabla maestro Zakir Hussain. He released his first vocal solo album "Raag Time" in 1991. The song from his album "Teri Yaad" was the title track of his first album, which became a huge hit in Pakistan.


title: Adnan Sami

text: In 1994, he composed music for a film for the first time. The 1995 Pakistani film "Sargam", in which he was the lead actor and Indian playback singer Asha Bhosle did the playback "Sargam", was a box office success. It was also the first time that an Indian playback singer was featured in an album in Pakistan. To date "Sargam" is the only film Sami has acted in, and the score is the best-selling album of all time in Pakistan.


title: Adnan Sami

text: In 2000, Asha Bhosle collaborated with Sami on a collection of love songs named "Kabhi to Nazar Milao" in India. The music was also composed by Adnan. The album became an instant success and topped the Indipop charts for most of 2001 and 2002. According to "Business Week" magazine, the album sold 4 million copies in India alone.


title: Adnan Sami

text: Two songs from the album "Kabhi To Nazar Milao", whose music video featured model Aditi Gowitrikar, and "Lift Karaa De", whose music video starred the popular Indian actor Govinda became popular at that time. The videos were shot by Anil Mehta, who had shot popular Hindi films like "Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam" and "Lagaan". Because of the album's success, Magnasound and Sami released an album named "Always Yours" which was a remix version of numbers from that album.


title: Adnan Sami

text: He soon became popular, which led Hindi filmmaker Boney Kapoor to invite him to provide music for his film. This was the beginning for him to compose and sing for Hindi films and for the top Hindi film producers of the time like Yash Chopra and Subhash Ghai. Due to the popularity of his music videos and live performances, he started getting acting offers at the same time.


title: Adnan Sami

text: The song "Tu Sirf Mera Mehboob" from the Hindi film "Ajnabee", sung by Adnan, became popular and was declared a "superhit" by "Screen Magazine", who called him the pop personality of the year in 2001.


title: Adnan Sami

text: In 2002, Pepsi Foods made Sami its brand ambassador in India, a contract which involved hosting a series of live music concerts across cities as well as featuring in ads for Pepsi products. He is the only artist in all of Asia and Europe to have endorsed Pepsi Cola and Coca-Cola together.


title: Adnan Sami

text: According to the Pakistani newspaper "Dawn", no Pakistani artist has ever managed to gain as much popularity in India as Sami has. According to an article in "The Times of India", Sami is the "most successful face in non-film music in India".


title: Adnan Sami

text: His second studio album, "Tera Chehra", was released in October 2002 to critical acclaim. The music videos for this album were shot by Binod Pradhan, who had shot the popular 2002 Hindi film "Devdas". The album features Bollywood stars Rani Mukerji in the title track and Amitabh Bachchan in the track "Kabhi Nahi", who also sang the duet with Sami. Actress Mahima Chaudhry was also seen in another song. The title track was written by well-known Hindi movie lyricist Sameer. According to "Screen Magazine", it was the only successful pop album of the year. Sami's "Tera Chehra" broke sales records by becoming India's best-selling album of 2002 (including film soundtracks), continuing its No. 1 position in 2003, and by becoming the best-selling Indian album of all time (including film soundtracks) in the U.S. and Canada. The album stayed in the No. 1 position in all the music charts of India from the time of its release in September 2002 for over a year, beating his debut album's No. 1 record.


title: Adnan Sami

text: "Saathiya" (2002) brought him the opportunity to work with A. R. Rahman in the form of "Aye Udi Udi". According to "Screen Magazine", the song was "the highlight of the album". Rediff.com called him the "Reigning King of Indipop" in early 2003 based on the sales of his albums in the previous two years.


title: Adnan Sami

text: His most successful albums have been "Kabhi To Nazar Milao" (with Asha Bhosle) and "Tera Chehra", and his music videos usually have had Bollywood stars in them, including Namrata Shirodkar ("Bheegi Bheegi Raat"), Mahima Chaudhry, Raveena Tandon, Rani Mukerji ("Tera Chehra"), Govinda, Fardeen Khan, Amisha Patel ("O Meri Jaan"), Bhumika Chawla ("Maahiya"), Dia Mirza ("Pal Do Pal") and Amitabh Bachchan (Kabhi Nahi).


title: Adnan Sami

text: Since 2003, he has sung for a few Tamil movies like "Boys", "Aaytha Ezhuthu" composed by A. R. Rahman. The songs, "Boom Boom" from "Boys" and "Nenjamellam Kadhal" from "Aayitha Ezhuthu", were hits. He also sang for the Tamil and Telugu versions besides the Hindi version of songs from the movie "Yuva" (2004), whose music was also composed by A. R. Rahman. Besides Rahman, he has also worked with composer Yuvan Shankar Raja, and sang the Tamil songs "Oh Intha Kadhal" from "Satham Podathey" and "OruKal" from "Siva Manasula Sakthi". He sang the song "Chanchadi Adi Urang Nee" in the Malayalam movie "Makalkku". He has also sung for a Kannada film. His first Kannada song was "Don't Worry Madabeda" for the film "Super Star" starring Upendra. He has also worked with music composers Devi Sri Prasad and M. M. Keeravani and sang songs in Telugu films "Varsham", "Chatrapathi", "Shankar Dada MBBS" and "100% Love".


title: Adnan Sami

text: In 2005, he suffered from lymphoedema and developed an abscess in the knee, which interrupted his career.


title: Adnan Sami

text: In 2006, he took a sabbatical and reportedly lost 130 kg. He came back in April 2007 with the album "Kisi Din". In 2007, he sang the soundtrack "Dil Kya Kare" from the Hindi film "" and "Noor-e-Khuda" from "My Name Is Khan". He was also one of the guest judges on the Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2007.


title: Adnan Sami

text: He has composed film music for several other Hindi films, including "", "Yeh Raaste Hain Pyar Ke", "Dhamaal", "1920", "Chance Pe Dance", "Mumbai Salsa", "Khubsoorat", "Sadiyaan", "Shaurya" and several others.


title: Adnan Sami

text: As a classical concert pianist, Sami has given solo performances before royalty such as the King of Sweden and King Hussein of Jordan. He has performed before heads of state and governments such as President Mitterrand of France, the President of the United Arab Emirates, the President and Prime Minister of India, the President and Prime Minister of Pakistan, the President and Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, the Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan, the Prime Minister of Sweden and Princess Christina of Sweden. Adnan has performed for music festivals to sold-out stadiums of his solo concert tours all over the world in over forty countries.


title: Adnan Sami

text: Sami wrote a song for India during the 2003 Cricket World Cup. The video of this song captures the nationalistic spirit of competition, depicting Adnan performing with the Indian cricket team with guest appearances from Indian film stars like Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Fardeen Khan and Kareena Kapoor.


title: Adnan Sami

text: On 15 December 2002, BBC World Service celebrated 70 years of broadcasting by organizing a worldwide live concert with artists representing different parts of the world who performed before a global audience via satellite. Sami was chosen to represent India.


title: Adnan Sami

text: In the summer of 2003, Sami became the only musical artist from the entire Asian region to have sold out Wembley Stadium in London for two nights in a row; this was recorded in the Limca Book of World Records (Asia's equivalent to the West's "Guinness Book of World Records"). He did this again in 2005, 2008, and 2012.


title: Adnan Sami

text: In 2010, Sami received the "Lifetime Achievement Award" from the Prime Minister of Pakistan at a ceremony by Pakistan Television.


title: Adnan Sami

text: In 2011, Sami was given the "Glory of India Award" by the India International Friendship Society. This was the 350th anniversary of the completion of the Taj Mahal, and Sami gave a solo concert performance in front of the Taj Mahal on the final night of the celebrations. After this performance, the Indian media dubbed him the "Sultan of Music".


title: Adnan Sami

text: He hosted the Indian version of the American music game show "Don't Forget the Lyrics!" called "Bol Baby Bol" on the Star TV network in 2008. Prior to that in 2005, he was the sole jury for the singing competition program on Channel [V] called "Super Singer". In 2011, Adnan returned as a judge on the singing reality show "Sa Re Ga Ma Pa L'il Champs", which became popular worldwide.


title: Adnan Sami

text: He performed a qawwali "Bhar Do Jholi Meri" in the 2015 film "Bajrangi Bhaijaan", he appeared in the movie as well.


title: Adnan Sami

text: Sami first married to actress Zeba Bakhtiar in 1993, with whom he had a son named Azaan Sami Khan. They divorced after three years.


title: Adnan Sami

text: Sami began living in India since 13 March 2001, on a visitor's visa which was extended from time to time.


title: Adnan Sami

text: In 2001, Sami married Dubai-based Arab Sabah Galadari. This was his second marriage and Sabah's second marriage as well; she had a son from her previous marriage. This relationship also ended in divorce, a year-and-a-half later.


title: Adnan Sami

text: In June 2006, he weighed 230 kilograms (506 lb); he claimed his doctor had given him just six months to live. By diet and exercise, he lost in 16 months.


title: Adnan Sami

text: In 2008, his wife Sabah returned to Mumbai, remarried him and began living with him, but the marriage only lasted one year, after which Sabah filed for divorce again.


title: Adnan Sami

text: In 2009, his father died of pancreatic cancer, which he described as the "biggest blow" of his life, saying that he had been extremely close to his father.


title: Adnan Sami

text: On 29 January 2010 Sami married Roya Sami Khan, the daughter of a retired diplomat and army general. He first met Roya in India during her visit in 2010 and proposed to her after some time. On 10 May 2017, he became a father to a daughter, Medina Sami Khan.


title: Adnan Sami

text: On 26 May 2015, he submitted a request for Indian citizenship to the Ministry of Home Affairs, when his Pakistani passport expired, he had lived an adequate number of years in India that made him eligible for Indian citizenship hence he naturalised as an Indian citizen. In late December 2015, the Indian Home Ministry approved his request for legal status as a citizen of India, effective as of 1 January 2016.


title: Adnan Sami

text: Sami has won a number of international awards, including the Nigar Award, the Bolan Academy Award, and the Graduate Award. He was given a special award by UNICEF for the song he wrote for famine-hit Ethiopia as a teenager and a United Nations Peace Medal for a song he wrote and performed for Africa.


title: Adnan Sami

text: A review of his piano solo performance on British TV Channel 4 in "Keyboard" magazine called him the "Keyboard Discovery of the 90s".


title: Adnan Sami

text: Swedish and British radio and television have often referred to him as the fastest keyboard player in the world. Adnan has performed for prestigious music festivals to sold-out stadiums of his solo concert tours all over the world in over forty countries. In summer 2003, he became the only Asian artist to have sold out Wembley Stadium, London, for two consecutive nights, which won him a place in the Limca Book of Records.


title: Adnan Sami

text: As a classical concert pianist, Sami has given performances before the King of Sweden and King Hussein of Jordan.


title: Adnan Sami

text: In 2007, Sami was given a Special Award from the U.K. Parliament (House of Commons) for his 'Outstanding Contribution to Sub-Continental Music'.


title: Adnan Sami

text: In 2008, he was presented the "Naushad Music Award" by Andhra Pradesh Department of Culture, in Hyderabad.


title: Adnan Sami

text: In 2013, he was given the BrandLaureate International Brand Personality award by the President of The BrandLaureate, Dr KK Johan, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.


title: Adnan Sami

text: Later in 2013, Sami was given a Special Award by the Canadian Parliament for his 'Exceptional Services to Indian Music'.


title: Adnan Sami

text: In April 2017, Sami became the first South Asian to have performed at London's Wembley Stadium 8 times; tickets were sold out on all 8 occasions. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, attended the concert.


title: Adnan Sami

text: In January 2020, he was awarded the Padma Shri, India's fourth highest civilian honour in the field of Arts, by Government of India. He received the award from President of India on 8 November 2021


title: Bling Ring

text: The Bling Ring (also known as Hollywood Hills Burglar Bunch, The Burglar Bunch, and the Hollywood Hills Burglars) were a group of seven teenagers and young adults based in and around Calabasas, California, convicted of multiple thefts.


title: Bling Ring

text: They broke into the homes of several high-profile celebrities over a period believed to have been between October 2008 through August 2009. Their activities resulted in the theft of about $3 million in cash and belongings. Much of the stolen property belonged to socialite Paris Hilton, whose house was broken into several times, though over fifty homes were reportedly targeted.


title: Bling Ring

text: Lee, the supposed ringleader of the group, lived in Calabasas with her mother. She was expelled from Calabasas High School and later attended Indian Hills High School, an alternative school that awarded her a creative arts scholarship upon graduating. A year later, she was fined and put on probation for petty theft after she and Diana Tamayo stole $85 of merchandise from a Sephora cosmetics store. According to fellow burglar Nick Prugo, Lee was obsessed with reality television. Toward the end of the crime spree, Lee moved to Las Vegas to live with her father.


title: Bling Ring

text: Nicholas Frank Prugo transferred to Indian Hills High School after being expelled from Calabasas High School for excessive absences. In 2003, Prugo had a role as "Kenny" in "Little Lost Souls: Children Possessed", a made-for-TV quasi-documentary about the exorcism of children whose parents believed them to be possessed by evil. Lee befriended Prugo after he arrived at Indian Hills and introduced him to most of the other people who would eventually join the crime spree. The two initially bonded over their interest in fashion and social media. After being accepted into her circle of friends and participating in their nightlife activities, Prugo became hooked on drugs and began stealing from his parents to support his addiction. The first home they burgled together occurred during the summer after tenth grade, when he claims that Lee suggested they burgle the residence of an acquaintance from Woodland Hills whom Prugo knew to be out of town at the time. Prugo claims to have been reluctant but did not want to risk losing her friendship. During that first burglary, they reportedly discovered $8,000 in cash hidden under a bed. They split the money, and the next day went on a shopping spree on Rodeo Drive. Prugo and Lee began checking the doors of expensive cars parked in their neighborhood to see if they were unlocked on an almost nightly basis. They would take credit cards found in the cars and go shopping the next day in areas like Melrose Avenue. They would be dressed well, and according to Prugo, merchants never questioned their use of the cards. He was sentenced to two years in state prison after pleading no contest to 3 counts of first-degree residential burglary. He was released from prison on probation after serving one year.


title: Bling Ring

text: Police searched her home and reported that they found stolen items in the possession of Neiers, her sister Gabrielle, and their adopted sister Tess Taylor, and that she was caught on camera leaving the scene of the crime with stolen bags. She initially denied any wrongdoing, but later changed her plea in court to no contest.


title: Bling Ring

text: Diana Tamayo was the student body president at Indian Hills, where she had been voted "best smile" and been awarded a $1,500 "Future Teacher" scholarship after graduation. Along with Lee, she had been fined and put on probation for engaging in petty theft. According to Prugo, her entire wardrobe consisted of stolen items. Her small size was utilized during one burglary in which she gained the group access to a home by crawling through a dog door. She was also an undocumented immigrant and was initially threatened with deportation by the police to get her to cooperate.


title: Bling Ring

text: Courtney Ames was a Calabasas High School student and an "old friend" of Lee's. It was through Ames that the others met Lopez and Ajar, her boyfriend.


title: Bling Ring

text: Johnny Ajar, a former convict, is not believed to have participated in the burglaries, but was recruited by Ames, his girlfriend, to sell some of the stolen items for cash. He was raised in housing projects around Reseda, outside of the group's community, the son of a career criminal and drug addict. He had previously spent two years in federal prison, having been convicted for drug trafficking in Wyoming at age 22. Ajar first met Ames and her friends at a nightclub called The Green Door and allowed them access, even though they used fake identification documents. At the time of the burglaries, he worked as a promoter for club Les Deux Café.


title: Bling Ring

text: Roy Lopez and Ames had worked together at a restaurant and bar in Calabasas. Ames had recruited him as a reseller, and he also participated in burglarizing at least one victim, Paris Hilton, from whom he is alleged to have stolen $2 million in jewelry, which he carried out with him in a Louis Vuitton bag. He was unable to sell most of it.


title: Bling Ring

text: The group targeted media figures known for their fashionable tastes and stylish, status-driven lifestyles. Their primary targets were female, having been chosen, in the words of Prugo, "mainly because [of] women wanting women's stuff". If the members liked a celebrity's style, they became determined to steal the celebrity's clothes. Lee referred to their capers as "going shopping." They found the houses of their targets using Google Maps and website celebrityaddressaerial.com, and determined when the victims would be away by researching their schedules, such as appearances at celebrity events, through websites including Facebook and Twitter. When Lee wanted to add to her wardrobe, or more cash was desired, a burglary would be undertaken. The Los Angeles Police Department report later stated that what began as a "twisted adventure" fueled by celebrity worship "quickly mushroomed into an organized criminal enterprise." In the words of Neiers, Lee "was so manipulating, so conniving. Nick always did what she said. Rachel was in charge. She started it all."


title: Bling Ring

text: For their first celebrity target, Prugo claims that he and Lee asked themselves, "Who would leave a door unlocked? Who would leave a lot of money lying around?" and chose Paris Hilton because they figured she was "dumb." On their maiden trip to Hilton's home, Prugo and Lee went alone, having used Google Earth to find a place to access her community via a hill climb. They went up to the front door and tried ringing the doorbell to see if anyone was there. They discovered a key under the doormat, but then realized it was not needed because the door was unlocked. Once inside, Prugo served as a lookout near the stairs. At the same time, Lee went into the bedroom and searched through Hilton's belongings. Prugo and Lee, later accompanied by other members of their group, ended up burgling Hilton's residence at least five different times, mostly of designer clothing and money. However, it was not until Lopez single-handedly stole nearly $2 million in jewelry, clothing, cash, and other items from Hilton that she reported having been burgled. Antics during the Hilton burglaries included snorting cocaine, which Prugo claims they found inside the residence. According to Ames, at one point Prugo discovered that he could fit into Hilton's footwear, and did a "victory dance" wearing a pair of her high-heeled shoes; Prugo subsequently denied ever wearing Hilton's shoes. Later, Hilton agreed to having the film "The Bling Ring" shot in her house where the burglaries took place.


title: Bling Ring

text: The ring burgled the home of Audrina Patridge on February 22, 2009, the night of that year's Academy Awards ceremony. They accessed her home in Hollywood Hills by entering an unlocked door and took jewelry, her passport, her laptop computer, and custom-fit jeans. The value of what they took was estimated to amount to around $43,000. Lee and Prugo were recorded on Patridge's surveillance videos, which Patridge uploaded to her website. Despite the videos being posted, the burglaries continued.


title: Bling Ring

text: Rachel Bilson's home was burgled by the group three to six times during April and May 2009, amounting to between $130,000 and $300,000 of stolen property.


title: Bling Ring

text: Prugo claimed to have always been very nervous during the burglaries, but said that Lee was always very calm and focused — so much so that during a burglary of Bilson's home on May 9, Lee used Bilson's bathroom.


title: Bling Ring

text: The Bilson burglaries yielded so much in the way of clothes and accessories that members tried to relieve themselves of some of it by selling it at the Venice Beach boardwalk, where they were able to make a few thousand dollars.


title: Bling Ring

text: The Ring targeted Orlando Bloom's home on July 13, 2009, because Lee wanted the lingerie of Bloom's then-live-in girlfriend (and later ex-wife), Victoria's Secret model Miranda Kerr. Prugo, Neiers, Lee and Tamayo accessed the premises by cutting through a security fence. Once inside, they stole a large amount of high fashion-label clothing, Bloom's vintage Rolex watch collection, Louis Vuitton luggage, and artworks; in all totaling nearly half a million dollars. Neiers, who denies having gone there knowingly, was high on heroin at the time and was reported as having gone outside to vomit and then urinate in the bushes. Tamayo and Lee went back inside because the latter was planning to move to her father's home in Las Vegas and wanted Bloom's art to decorate with.


title: Bling Ring

text: Brian Austin Green's home was targeted, because, according to Prugo, Lee liked the clothes of his wife at the time, actress Megan Fox. While there, the group also found and took Green's SIG Sauer .380 semi-automatic handgun, which police later found in the possession of Ajar.


title: Bling Ring

text: Even though by August 2009 Lee had moved into her father's place in Las Vegas, she felt compelled to return to California for yet another burglary, the target being Lindsay Lohan, who was Lee's "ultimate fashion icon" and "biggest conquest." On the 23rd, Lee, Prugo, and Tamayo allegedly stole around $130,000 worth of clothes and jewelry from Lohan's home in Hollywood Hills. According to Prugo, Tamayo and Lee were "freaking out" over Lohan's things. By that time, they were well-publicized criminals at large. Prugo was especially worried about the burglary, knowing that if they were captured by surveillance cameras stealing from the star's home, the footage would be widely seen.


title: Bling Ring

text: Alexis Neiers informed police that Lee and Prugo were responsible for the Lohan burglary during an anonymous phone call. Prugo's face had been captured on surveillance at the home, and the police determined through Facebook that Lee and Prugo were friends. Prugo was arrested and initially denied having had anything to do with the burglaries, but said that anxiety due to his involvement was preventing him from being able to eat, sleep, and breathe normally, and made him lose his hair. He confessed to the police without first getting a plea deal, telling them about crimes they were not even aware had been committed. He also told the police the ring was still researching other potential targets, among them Miley Cyrus, Zac Efron, Hilary Duff, and Vanessa Hudgens.


title: Bling Ring

text: Two weeks after Prugo's confessions, search warrants for the other ring participants were issued by the Los Angeles Police Department. Lee, Tamayo, Ames, Neiers, and Lopez were all subsequently arrested for their connection to the burglaries. Lee was taken into custody while at her father's home in Las Vegas. Police reported that she calmly asked them hypothetical questions about how it might help her if she did have information and shared that information with the police. Their report stated that she believed she had removed all incriminating evidence from her home. However, police found a coat identified as belonging to Lohan and topless pictures of Hilton left in an unlocked safe in Hilton's home. Seeing this, Lee was reported to have instantly turned hysterical, acting as though she were suddenly sick and gagging as though she were going to vomit. Other items reported to have been seized from Lee were a jar of marijuana and more than $20,000 in $100 bills.


title: Bling Ring

text: "People" magazine reported that the ring members except for Lee were booked for residential burglary, with bail set at $50,000. Simultaneously, Lee was held for "possession of stolen property," with bail set at only $3,000. However, "Vanity Fair" reported that Lee was charged with residential burglary for the Lohan, Hilton, and Patridge heists. At the time of the arrests it was unclear whether the burglary of the Bilson residence and other burglaries of the Kourtney Kardashian and Hayden Panettiere homes had been committed by the group. Among items reportedly seized by police from Ajar were three guns, drugs, and a laptop computer with aerial photos of 51 homes in Hollywood Hills. He was thus charged with additional offenses related to weapons and drug possession. Whereas Lee was reportedly charged with three residential burglary counts, Prugo was charged with seven, each count carrying sentences between 2 and 6 years. All members initially pleaded not guilty.


title: Bling Ring

text: Ajar, who had previously been sentenced to three years in prison for selling cocaine, was initially faced with ten felony charges — six counts of possession for sale of a controlled substance, three counts of possession of a firearm by a felon, and one count of possession of ammunition — and pleaded not guilty to all of them. Later, however, he pleaded no contest for selling cocaine, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and one count of receiving stolen property. The stolen property charge referred to a Rolex watch owned by Orlando Bloom.


title: Bling Ring

text: On April 15, 2010, Ajar was sentenced to three years in jail. He was released less than a year later, in March 2011.


title: Bling Ring

text: After learning that Orlando Bloom was willing to testify against her, Neiers agreed to plead no contest to residential burglary. She was sentenced on May 10, 2010, to a jail term of 180 days, with an additional three years of probation, and was ordered to pay $600,000 worth restitution to the actor. During her stay at the Century Regional Detention Facility, she occupied the same cell block as Bling Ring victim Lindsay Lohan, but says they never spoke to each other. After serving 30 days of her sentence, she was released.


title: Bling Ring

text: In December 2010, Neiers was arrested again, this time for possession of heroin. Rather than being sentenced to further time behind bars, she was allowed to live at a luxury rehab facility in Malibu for a year, having been offered her stay free of charge by the facility's owner, who attended her hearing. She was at the facility from December 2010 until December 2011. In an entry posted to her blog in April 2013, she stated that she has been sober since then and has become a counselor interning at the facility. She is now married to Canadian businessman Evan Haines, whom she met at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.


title: Bling Ring

text: As of early 2022, both Neiers and Haines announced their separation on Instagram. They both still co-parent their children.


title: Bling Ring

text: Alleged ringleader Lee was sentenced on October 26, 2011. She had pleaded no contest to the burglary of over $25,000 worth of valuables from Audrina Patridge's home. Judge Larry Fidler dismissed a charge of conspiracy to commit burglary as well as two counts filed against her for receiving stolen property. He had also previously dismissed charges against her involving the Lohan burglary. Lee was sentenced to four years in prison.


title: Bling Ring

text: Lee's prison coach, Wendy Feldman, was quoted as saying, "She has taken full responsibility for her actions. Her attitude is that she is very much ready to go to prison and face the consequences." Regarding the role Lee played in the burglaries, Feldman went on to state, "To be honest, Rachel has a learning disability, she doesn't have a particularly high IQ, and I find it hard to think she could have been the one to instigate the whole thing."


title: Bling Ring

text: While serving time, Lee participated in a disaster relief training program called Fire Camp. In March 2013, after having served 1 year and 4 months, she was released on parole.


title: Bling Ring

text: On October 19, 2012, after pleading no contest to having burgled Lindsay Lohan's house, Diana Tamayo was sentenced to three years of probation, as well as 60 days of community service. If convicted at trial, she would have faced up to six years in prison. Her lawyer claimed she had admitted to police that she broke in after they threatened her family with "immigration consequences." She is reportedly pursuing a career in fitness and nutrition, and has credited her found relationship with God that turned her life around.


title: Bling Ring

text: Roy Lopez Jr. was sentenced on November 8, 2012, after pleading no contest to stealing over $2 million of jewelry from Paris Hilton. He was given three years of probation and credited for 100 days he had already served in jail. He reportedly left California for a job in Texas.


title: Bling Ring

text: Courtney Ames was sentenced on December 14, 2012, to three years of probation and two months of community service. She had admitted to having received a jacket stolen from Paris Hilton. Still, charges against her of conspiracy to commit burglary, burglary, and receiving stolen property were dismissed in light of possible ethics violations on the part of detective Brett Goodkin, the main investigator in the Bling Ring case. She enrolled in college, where, according to her lawyer, she was studying psychology, speech, and child development.


title: Bling Ring

text: Having pleaded no contest to the burglaries of Patridge and Lohan, Nicholas Prugo was sentenced on April 15, 2013, to two years in prison. He received credit for a year of time already served, and was further credited with a year for good behavior and work time. He was reported to be living in Studio City as of June 2013.


title: Bling Ring

text: Brett Goodkin, the chief investigator in the case, was approached as a consultant for "The Bling Ring", Sofia Coppola's film adaptation of the case. He was later offered the opportunity to play himself in the film. However, he allegedly wasn't granted permission from his superiors to work on the film, and his involvement led to him being investigated. A potential conflict of interest was cited because when he was working with the filmmakers, the cases against the defendants had not yet been resolved.


title: Bling Ring

text: "The Bling Ring", a television film documenting the group's activities, aired on Lifetime on September 26, 2011. This adaptation changes the names of the gang members. It starred Austin Butler as Zack Garvey (based on Nick Prugo), Yin Chang as Natalie Kim (based on Rachel Lee), Tracey Fairaway as Cherry Cox (based on Diana Tamayo), and Tom Irwin as Detective Archie Fishman (loosely based on Det. Brett Goodkin). Jennifer Grey had a supporting role as Garvey's mother, Iris.


title: Bling Ring

text: Another film adaptation, also titled "The Bling Ring", directed by Sofia Coppola was released theatrically in June 2013. The film, which starred Emma Watson (Alexis Neiers), Taissa Farmiga (Tess Taylor) and Leslie Mann (Laurie), as well as newcomers Israel Broussard (Prugo), Katie Chang (Lee), Claire Julien (Courtney Ames), and Georgia Rock (Gabby Niers), also changes the names of the members. One of the ring's real-life victims, Paris Hilton, appeared as herself in the film. Tamayo or a character based on her was written out of the film, but her act of crawling through a pet flap remained, having been done by a relative of a ring member.


title: Bling Ring

text: On April 25, 2022, a three-part documentary series called "Bling Ring: Hollywood Heist" premiered on Channel 4, featuring interviews with Prugo and Alexis Neiers, as well as reconstructions of the group's crime sprees in the late 2000s. The docuseries was subsequently picked up by Netflix and released as "The Real Bling Ring: Hollywood Heist" on September 21, 2022.


title: Colitis

text: Colitis is swelling or inflammation of the large intestine (colon). Colitis may be acute and self-limited or long-term. It broadly fits into the category of digestive diseases.


title: Colitis

text: The signs and symptoms of colitis are quite variable and dependent on the cause of the given colitis and factors that modify its course and severity.


title: Colitis

text: Common symptoms of colitis may include: mild to severe abdominal pains and tenderness (depending on the stage of the disease), persistent hemorrhagic diarrhea with pus either present or absent in the stools, fecal incontinence, flatulence, fatigue, loss of appetite and unexplained weight loss.


title: Colitis

text: Other less common or rare non-specific symptoms that may accompany colitis include: arthritis, mouth ulcers, painful, red and swollen skin and irritated, bloodshot eyes.


title: Colitis

text: Signs seen on colonoscopy include: colonic mucosal erythema (redness of the colon's inner surface), ulcerations and hemorrhage.


title: Colitis

text: Symptoms suggestive of colitis are worked-up by obtaining the medical history, a physical examination and laboratory tests (CBC, electrolytes, stool culture and sensitivity, stool ova and parasites et cetera). Additional tests may include medical imaging (e.g. abdominal computed tomography, abdominal X-rays) and an examination with a camera inserted into the rectum (sigmoidoscopy, colonoscopy).


title: Colitis

text: An important investigation in the assessment of colitis is biopsy. A very small piece of tissue (usually about 2mm) is removed from the bowel mucosa during endoscopy and examined under the microscope by a histopathologist. It can provide important information regarding the cause of the disease and the extent of bowel damage.


title: Colitis

text: A subtype of infectious colitis is "Clostridioides difficile" colitis, which is informally abbreviated as "C-diff colitis". It classically forms pseudomembranes and is often referred to as pseudomembranous colitis, which is its (nonspecific) histomorphologic description.


title: Colitis

text: Enterohemorrhagic colitis may be caused by Shiga toxin in "Shigella dysenteriae" or "Shigatoxigenic group" of "Escherichia coli" (STEC), which includes serotype and other enterohemorrhagic "E. coli".


title: Colitis

text: "Indeterminate colitis" is the classification for colitis that has features of both "Crohn's disease" and "ulcerative colitis". Indeterminate colitis' behaviour is usually closer to ulcerative colitis than Crohn's disease.


title: Colitis

text: "Atypical colitis" is a phrase that is occasionally used by physicians for a colitis that does not conform to criteria for accepted types of colitis. It is not an accepted diagnosis "per se" and, as such, a colitis that cannot be definitively classified.


title: Colitis

text: Some people may be admitted into the hospital following the colonoscopy depending on results. It is sometimes necessary to get the patient started on a steroid to speed up the healing of the colon. It may also be necessary to get the patient hydrated from the fluid loss and iron replaced from the loss of blood. After a hospital stay, the patient may be put on a daily medication to manage their chronic colitis. The medication can be an anti-inflammatory or an immunosuppressant. There are many different types of medication used and the doctor will prescribe the one they see fit. If the patient doesn't respond, new medications will be tried until there is a good fit.


title: Colitis

text: Moreover, several studies recently have found significant relationship between colitis and dairy allergy (including: cow milk, cow milk UHT and casein), suggesting some patients may benefit from an elimination diet.


title: Colitis

text: In the lab, the CRISPR-Cas systems effectively killed "C. difficile" bacteria. Researchers tested this approach in mice infected with "C. difficile". Two days after the CRISPR treatment, the mice showed reduced "C. difficile" levels. Next steps include retooling the phage to prevent "C. difficile" from returning after the initial effective killing.


title: Colitis

text: In 2022 Yang "et al." published a report on a successful treatment, using mesenchymal stem cells, of experimental colitis in mice.


title: Colitis

text: Additional research was conducted by Huang "et al." that analyzed specific genes and biological markers that are associated with the risk of colon cancer development in patients with colitis. The results showed a correlation between certain biomarkers and the development of disease.


title: Colitis

text: Colitis is common in parts of the world where helminthic colonisation is rare, and uncommon in those areas where most people carry worms. Infections with helminths may alter the autoimmune response that causes the disease. Early trials of "Trichuris suis" ova (TSO) showed promising results when used in people with IBD but later trials failed at Phase 2, and most were eventually discontinued. However, the phase 2 trials had used a different formulation of TSO from the one that had been used in the earlier studies that had shown positive outcomes.


title: Ricki Lake

text: Ricki Pamela Lake (born September 21, 1968) is an American television host and actress. She is known for her lead role as Tracy Turnblad in the 1988 film "Hairspray", for which she received a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead. She is also known for her talk show, "Ricki Lake", which was broadcast internationally from September 1993 until May 2004. When the show debuted, Lake was 24 and credited as being the youngest person to host a syndicated talk show at the time. In late 2012, Lake began hosting a second syndicated talk show, "The Ricki Lake Show". The series was canceled in 2013 after a single season, but Lake won her first Daytime Emmy Award for the project.


title: Ricki Lake

text: Lake was born in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, to a secular Jewish family. Her parents are Jill (a homemaker) and Barry Lake (a pharmacist), though Lake was largely brought up by her paternal grandmother, Sylvia Lake, until Sylvia's death in 1978.


title: Ricki Lake

text: Lake made her film debut as Tracy Turnblad, the lead character in John Waters's 1988 cult classic "Hairspray". Lake also starred in other Waters films including "Cry-Baby" (with Johnny Depp and Susan Tyrrell), "Cecil B. Demented" (with Melanie Griffith and Stephen Dorff), and "Serial Mom" (with Kathleen Turner and Sam Waterston). She starred in "Mrs. Winterbourne" with Shirley MacLaine and Brendan Fraser, "Cabin Boy", "Last Exit to Brooklyn", "Cookie", and "Inside Monkey Zetterland".


title: Ricki Lake

text: She joined the cast of the Vietnam War drama series "China Beach" as a Red Cross volunteer, Holly "the Donut Dolly" Pelegrino, for the show's third season. She also had a recurring role on the CBS sitcom "The King of Queens" as Doug's sister Stephanie. She guest-starred on television series including "Drop Dead Diva" and a voice role on "King of the Hill", and starred in the television movie "Baby Cakes". She had a cameo appearance in the 2007 remake of the original cult-classic "Hairspray" as a William Morris talent agent, and teamed up with star Nikki Blonsky (who played Tracy Turnblad in the 2007 movie musical remake) and Marissa Jaret Winokur (who played Tracy Turnblad in the Broadway musical based on the original 1988 film) to record "Mama I'm a Big Girl Now" for the soundtrack. The song is played during the film's end credits. She later reunited with original "Hairspray" co-star Deborah Harry for the film "Hotel Gramercy Park", which was released in 2008.


title: Ricki Lake

text: "Ricki Lake" was Lake's first daytime talk show and at 24, she was the youngest person at the time to host one. The show specialized in topics involving invited guests and incorporated questions and comments from a studio audience.


title: Ricki Lake

text: The show debuted in syndication on September 13, 1993, and ended first-run episodes on May 25, 2004. In 2000, Lake told Rosie O'Donnell in an interview that she had signed on for four additional years. Although Sony Pictures Television had many stations contracted through the 2004–2005 season, Lake decided to end the show in August 2004, citing (among other things) a desire to spend time with her family. She moved from Los Angeles to New York to tape the 11th season of the show, then returned to California when taping was complete. Lake returned to the talk show platform when she hosted a revived version of her original talk show which premiered in September 2012 and was cancelled after one season.


title: Ricki Lake

text: After her talk show had wrapped production on its final season, Lake went on to host the 2006 CBS limited series "Gameshow Marathon", which re-created classic game shows with celebrity contestants. She also signed a development deal with "Gameshow Marathon" production company FremantleMedia for other ventures, including creating and producing future programs and projects. In October 2007, Lake appeared in the Lifetime TV movie "Matters of Life and Dating". Lake also had a cameo in the 2007 film "Hairspray" as a talent agent and also sang "Mama I'm A Big Girl Now" with Nikki Blonsky and Marissa Jaret Winokur for the film's end credits. "The Business of Being Born", Lake's documentary about home birth and midwifery, was released in limited markets on January 18, 2008. The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and Red Envelope released the film in New York, L.A. and San Francisco in October; it also screened in Australia.


title: Ricki Lake

text: "The Business of Being Born" included footage and details of Lake's own "life-changing" home-birthing experience and followed a midwife going about her work. Tribeca called it "The Inconvenient Truth of Childbirth". Lake described it as her life's work for the last three years and expressed hopes that the film educated and empowered people to really know their choices in childbirth. She performed in the CBS television special "Loving Leah" in January of that year. Lake also jointly wrote a book on the world of natural childbirth and birthing options, along with Abby Epstein and Jacques Moritz, "Your Best Birth", which was published by Wellness Central on May 1, 2009. Lake and Epstein also launched MyBestBirth.com, an online social network, powered by Ning, intended to allow parents and medical professionals to dialogue about varying birthing options and resources. Lake returned to television on May 11, 2009, succeeding Sharon Osbourne as host for the third season of VH1's "Charm School". On November 10, 2010, Lake joined fellow talkers Phil Donahue, Sally Jessy Raphael, Geraldo Rivera, and Montel Williams as guests of Oprah Winfrey on "The Oprah Winfrey Show", marking the first time those hosts appeared together on one show since their respective programs left the air.


title: Ricki Lake

text: In March 2011, reports said that three television studios, Twentieth Television, Universal Media Studios and CBS Television Distribution, were interested in bringing Lake back to the talk-show realm in 2012. This after Lake began appearing on various programs in which she expressed a desire to return to the genre. Lake competed on the 13th season of "Dancing with the Stars". She was partnered with three-time champion Derek Hough and cited Kirstie Alley's appearance as an inspiration to do the show. Lake achieved tremendous success, consistently achieving high scores. After making the finals, Lake was announced as the contestant in third place, losing to television personality Rob Kardashian and actor and Army veteran J. R. Martinez, despite having higher scores than either.


title: Ricki Lake

text: On April 20, 2011, Lake signed with Twentieth Television to develop "The Ricki Lake Show", which premiered in September 2012. The new program had a more "Oprah"-like format as compared to her earlier talk show. It was cancelled after one season. Lake won the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show Host in 2013.


title: Ricki Lake

text: On December 7, 2016, Lake made a cameo in the television musical "Hairspray Live!" On February 11, 2017, Lake appeared as a guest judge on the British talent show "Let It Shine" with Gary Barlow, Dannii Minogue, and Martin Kemp on the BBC. On February 17, 2018, Lake appeared on the British television show "Through the Keyhole" hosted by Keith Lemon.


title: Ricki Lake

text: In March 2018, at SXSW, Lake and Epstein premiered their documentary film "Weed the People", examining the use of cannabis as medicine and its status as a Schedule I prohibited drug in the United States. The film focused in particular on the use of cannabis in the treatment of pediatric cancer.


title: Ricki Lake

text: On February 6, 2019, she was revealed to be "Raven" in the Fox series "The Masked Singer". She performed "Rainbow" by Kesha, "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga and "Brave" by Sara Bareilles. In October 2019, she began competing in "".


title: Ricki Lake

text: On October 28, Ricki made a guest appearance on the ITV Daytime program "Loose Women". Ricki was said to be a last minute addition to the panel with one of the original panellist off sick at short notice.


title: Ricki Lake

text: Lake has discussed drastic weight changes in interviews, including swings of up to 100 pounds and extreme diets that left her "fainting on, like, the spot. I'd be standing up and then, black out, and not remember anything."


title: Ricki Lake

text: Lake met illustrator Rob Sussman in October 1993, on Halloween. The couple married in Las Vegas on March 26, 1994. They have two sons: Milo Sebastian Sussman (b. March 22, 1997), and Owen Tyler Sussman (b. June 18, 2001), whose actual water birth was shown in "The Business of Being Born," which Lake also produced. The couple filed for divorce in August 2003; it was finalized on February 25, 2004.


title: Ricki Lake

text: Lake began dating jewelry designer Christian Evans in mid-2009. They became engaged in August 2011, and married on April 8, 2012. On October 29, 2014, Lake filed for divorce from Evans, citing "irreconcilable differences". In December 2014, however, they announced they had put their divorce on hold; it was finalized in 2015. Christian Evans died by suicide on February 11, 2017.


title: Ricki Lake

text: On September 18, 2010, Lake's rented Malibu home was destroyed by a fire. She and her sons escaped without injury.


title: Ricki Lake

text: On January 15, 2011, Lake finished in sixth place in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Luxury Ladies Poker Event, collecting $5,587 of the prize pool.


title: Ricki Lake

text: On January 1, 2020, Lake posted a picture on her social media accounts, in which she revealed that she had been dealing with hair loss that had resulted from years of depression, weight loss, pregnancy and the use of chemicals in her hair dating back to her work in "Hairspray" (Lake confirmed that it was her actual hair that was used during the filming: "I went from "Hairspray" to 'Hairless'"), which caused her to finally cut her receding hair and then reveal her new buzz-cut (she also noted that her first talk show, in which they did outrageous hairstyle episodes, was another factor in her decision). Lake said the struggle had been "debilitating, embarrassing, painful, scary, depressing, lonely", noting that "there have been a few times where I have even felt suicidal over it. Almost no one in my life knew the level of deep pain and trauma I was experiencing". Lake assured everyone that she had not been diagnosed with other medical conditions related to the hair loss, and wanted to embrace her new look, saying that "I am liberated. I am free. I am releasing and letting go. I am brave. I am beautiful. I am love".


title: Ricki Lake

text: In February 2021 she announced that she was engaged to Ross Burningham. They married in January 2022.


title: Bill Browder

text: William Felix Browder (born April 23, 1964) is an American-born British financier and political activist. He is the CEO and co-founder of Hermitage Capital Management, the investment advisor to the Hermitage Fund, which at one time was the largest foreign portfolio investor in Russia. The Hermitage Fund was founded in partnership with Republic National Bank, with $25 million in seed capital. The fund, and associated accounts, eventually grew to $4.5 billion of assets under management. In 1997, the Hermitage Fund was the best-performing fund in the world, up by 238%. The primary investment strategy of Browder was shareholder rights activism. Browder took on large Russian companies such as Gazprom, Surgutneftegaz, Unified Energy Systems, and Sidanco. In retaliation, on November 13, 2005, Browder was refused entry to Russia, deported to the UK, and declared a threat to Russian national security.


title: Bill Browder

text: Eighteen months after Browder was deported, on June 4, 2007, Hermitage Capital's offices in Moscow were raided by twenty-five officers of Russia's Interior Ministry. Twenty-five more officers raided the Moscow office of Browder's American law firm, Firestone Duncan, seizing the corporate registration documents for Hermitage's investment holding companies. Browder assigned Sergei Magnitsky, head of the tax practice at Firestone Duncan, to investigate the purpose of the raid. Magnitsky discovered that while those documents were in the custody of the police, they had been used to fraudulently re-register Hermitage's holding companies to the name of an ex-convict. Magnitsky was subsequently arrested by Russian authorities and died in prison, having been denied proper medical treatment.


title: Bill Browder

text: The reregistration of the Hermitage holding companies was an intermediate step before the perpetrators used those companies to apply for a fraudulent $230 million tax refund, awarded on December 24, 2007.


title: Bill Browder

text: After Magnitsky's death, Browder lobbied for Congress to pass the Magnitsky Act, a law to punish Russian human rights violators, which was signed into law in 2012 by President Barack Obama. In 2013, both Magnitsky and Browder were tried in absentia in Russia for tax fraud. Both men—Magnitsky had died four years prior—were convicted and sentenced to imprisonment. Interpol rejected Russian requests to arrest Browder, saying the case was political. In 2014, the European Parliament voted for sanctions against 30 Russians believed complicit in the Magnitsky case; this was the first time it had taken such action.


title: Bill Browder

text: On October 21, 2017, the Russian government attempted to place Browder on Interpol's arrest list of criminal fugitives, the fifth such request, which Interpol eventually rejected on October 26, 2017. After the initial request, Browder's visa waiver for the United States was automatically suspended. After a bipartisan protest by U.S. Congressional leaders, his visa waiver was restored the following day. While visiting Spain in May 2018, Browder was arrested by Spanish authorities on a new Russian Interpol warrant and transferred to an undisclosed Spanish police station. He was released two hours later, after Interpol confirmed that this was a political case.


title: Bill Browder

text: William Felix Browder was born in Princeton, New Jersey, and he grew up in Chicago, Illinois. He is the son of mathematician Felix Browder, and the grandson of Earl Browder. He attended the University of Colorado, Boulder, before transferring to the University of Chicago, from which he graduated with a degree in economics. He earned an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1989 and entered the financial sector.


title: Bill Browder

text: Browder's paternal grandfather Earl Browder was born in Kansas in 1891. He was a radical and had lived in the Soviet Union for several years from 1927 and married Raisa Berkman, a Jewish Russian woman while living there. After his return to the United States in 1931, Earl Browder became the leader of the Communist Party USA from 1930 to 1945 and ran for U.S. president in 1936 and 1940. After World War II, Browder lost favor with Moscow and was expelled from the U.S. Communist Party.


title: Bill Browder

text: Earl and his wife Raisa had three children, all sons, and all three became mathematicians who headed the mathematics departments of top American universities, including Bill Browder's father Felix Browder, who married Eva (Tislowitz). Felix was a mathematics prodigy who had entered MIT at 16, acquired his bachelor's degree in two years, and by the age of 20 received a Ph.D. from Princeton. But during the McCarthy era, he could not find work because he was the son of the onetime head of the Communist Party USA. After a series of job rejections in the 1950s, he was championed by Eleanor Roosevelt, the former First Lady who was then chairman of the board of Brandeis University; she overrode the rest of the board who were afraid to hire him, and he gained a position at Brandeis. Felix went on to chair the mathematics department at the University of Chicago, and in 1999 became the president of the American Mathematical Society.


title: Bill Browder

text: Felix Browder was renowned in the field of nonlinear functional analysis—a branch of mathematics with wide applications to such fields as physics, engineering, and finance. He was instrumental in establishing a science and technology center in conjunction with Princeton University and Bell Labs. In 1999, he was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Bill Clinton, for his "key role in the explosive growth of nonlinear functional analysis and its applications to partial differential equations in recent years".


title: Bill Browder

text: Bill Browder has one sibling, Tom Browder, who entered the University of Chicago at 15, and became a leading particle physicist. Bill Browder's son Joshua is the founder of DoNotPay, a startup that helps to automate certain legal services.


title: Bill Browder

text: Browder started his career in the Eastern European practice of the Boston Consulting Group in London, then worked for Robert Maxwell's MCC conglomerate, and after that managed the Russian proprietary investments desk at Salomon Brothers.


title: Bill Browder

text: In 1999, Browder received naturalization as a British citizen. Meanwhile, he relinquished his U.S. citizenship in 1998. He cited that he did so because of "a legacy of bad feeling about the rule of law" as a result of his family having been "viciously persecuted" by U.S. authorities in the 1950s, citing especially his communist grandfather, Earl Browder who was imprisoned twice during the era of McCarthyism.


title: Bill Browder

text: Browder and Edmond Safra (1932–1999) founded Hermitage Capital Management in 1996 for the purpose of investing initial seed capital of $25 million in Russia during the period of the mass privatization after the fall of the Soviet Union. Beny Steinmetz was another of the original investors in Hermitage.


title: Bill Browder

text: Following the Russian financial crisis of 1998, Browder remained committed to Hermitage's original mission of investing in Russia, despite significant outflows from the fund. Hermitage became a prominent activist shareholder in the Russian gas giant Gazprom, the large oil company Surgutneftegas, RAO UES, Sberbank, Sidanco, Avisma, and Volzhanka. Browder exposed management corruption and corporate malfeasance in these partly state-owned companies. He has been quoted as saying: "You had to become a shareholder activist if you didn't want everything stolen from you".


title: Bill Browder

text: In 1999, Avisma filed a RICO lawsuit against Browder and other Avisma investors including Kenneth Dart, alleging they illegally siphoned company assets into offshore accounts and then transferred the funds to U.S. accounts at Barclays. Browder and his co-defendants settled with Avisma in 2000; they sold their Avisma shares as part of the confidential settlement agreement.


title: Bill Browder

text: From 1995 to 2006, Hermitage Capital Management was one of the largest foreign investors in Russia, and Browder amassed millions through his management of the fund. In both 2006 and 2007, he earned an estimated £125–150 million.


title: Bill Browder

text: In March 2013, HSBC, a bank that serves as the trustee and manager of Hermitage Capital Management, announced that it would end the fund's operations in Russia. The decision was taken amid two legal cases against Browder: a libel court case in London and a trial "in absentia" for tax evasion in Moscow.


title: Bill Browder

text: In June 2018, HSBC reached a settlement with the Russian government to pay a £17 million fine to Russian authorities for its part in alleged tax avoidance.


title: Bill Browder

text: In 2005, after ten years of business deals in Russia, Browder was blacklisted by the Russian government as a "threat to national security" and denied entry to the country. "The Economist" wrote that the Russian government blacklisted Browder because he interfered with the flow of money to "corrupt bureaucrats and their businessmen accomplices". Other experts on the activities of Western "investors" in Russia in the 1990s were more sympathetic to the Russian government's assessment, citing Browder's earlier settlement agreement with Avisma, which seemed to indicate a long-standing habit of siphoning off funds to offshore accounts. He also had been found guilty of evading some $40 million in taxes by using fake deductions. Browder had earlier supported Russian president Vladimir Putin.


title: Bill Browder

text: As reported in 2008 by "The New York Times", "over the next two years (according to Browder) several of his associates and lawyers, as well as their relatives, became victims of crimes, including severe beatings and robberies during which documents were taken". In June 2007, dozens of police officers "swooped down on the Moscow offices of Hermitage and its law firm, confiscating documents and computers. When a member of the firm protested that the search was illegal, he was beaten by officers and hospitalized for two weeks, said the firm's head, Jamison R. Firestone." Hermitage became "victim of what is known in Russia as 'corporate raiding': seizing companies and other assets with the aid of corrupt law enforcement officials and judges". Three Hermitage holding companies were seized on what the company's lawyers insist were bogus charges.


title: Bill Browder

text: The raids in June 2007 enabled corrupt law enforcement officers to steal the corporate registration documents of three Hermitage holding companies. They perpetrated a fraud, claiming (and receiving) a rebate of $230 million in taxes paid by those companies to the Russian state in 2006. In November 2008, one of Hermitage's auditors, Sergei Magnitsky, was arrested. He was "charged with two counts of aggravated tax evasion committed in conspiracy with Mr. Browder in respect of Dalnyaya Step and Saturn" (ECHR § 35). Magnitsky died on November 16, 2009, in prison, after eleven months in pretrial detention, nearly the limit allowed under the law.


title: Bill Browder

text: On August 27, 2019, the European Court for Human Rights, in judging a case brought against Russia by the Magnitsky family, ruled that Magnitsky was detained in conditions which amounted to "inhuman and degrading treatment in breach of Article 3 of the Convention" (§ 193). This, combined with negligence, lack of adequate medical care, and ill-treatment also amounted to a breach of the convention (§ 240). Magnitsky's family was awarded €34,000.


title: Bill Browder

text: As a result of the controversy related to his arrest and evidence of mistreatment and claimed abuse, his death aroused international coverage and outrage. Magnitsky's death was the catalyst for passage by the U.S. Congress, of the Magnitsky Act, signed into law by President Barack Obama on December 14, 2012. The act directly targeted individuals involved in the Magnitsky affair by prohibiting their entrance to the United States and their use of its banking system.


title: Bill Browder

text: In February 2013, Russian officials announced that Browder and Magnitsky would both be tried for evading $16.8 million in taxes. In March 2013, Russian authorities announced that they would be investigating Hermitage's acquisition of Gazprom shares worth $70 million. The investigation was to focus on whether Browder violated any Russian laws when Hermitage used Russian companies registered in the region of Kalmykia to buy shares. An investigation by the Council of Europe's Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights cleared Browder of the accusations of improprieties that surfaced at this time. Browder was also charged with trying to gain access to Gazprom's financial reports.


title: Bill Browder

text: Browder admitted having sought influence in Gazprom, but denied any wrongdoing. He said that purchasing Gazprom shares was an investment in the Russian economy, and the desire to influence the Gazprom management was driven by the need to expose a "huge fraud going on at the company". However, at the time it was illegal for foreigners to buy Gazprom shares in Russia, and he did it through shell companies that hid his ownership. He also said that the scheme of using Russian-registered subsidiaries entitled to tax advantages was practised by other foreign investors at the time and was not illegal. He also said that he believed the trial was a response to the United States passing the Magnitsky Act, which had blacklisted Russian officials involved in Magnitsky's death, preventing them from entering the U.S. The "Financial Times" reported that this trial was the first in Russian history that included a dead defendant.


title: Bill Browder

text: Amnesty International described the trial as "a whole new chapter in Russia's worsening human rights record" and a "sinister attempt to deflect attention from those who committed the crimes Magnitsky exposed".


title: Bill Browder

text: On July 11, 2013, Browder was convicted "in absentia" by a district criminal court in Moscow on charges under article 199 of the RF Criminal Code (tax-evasion by organisations), and sentenced to nine years. Magnitsky, according to Browder, was posthumously convicted of fraud. In May 2013 and again in July 2013, Interpol rejected requests by Russia's Interior Ministry to put Browder on its search list and locate and arrest him, saying that Russia's case against him was "predominantly political".


title: Bill Browder

text: In April 2014, the European Parliament unanimously passed a resolution to impose sanctions on more than 30 Russians complicit in the Magnitsky case; the first time in the parliament's history that a vote was held to establish a public sanctions list. However, the vote was only advisory to the European Commission, which did not act on it.


title: Bill Browder

text: In December 2017, Browder was tried in absentia and convicted of tax evasion and deliberate bankruptcy by a Russian court, receiving a sentence of nine years of imprisonment.


title: Bill Browder

text: On May 30, 2018, Browder was arrested by Spanish police in Madrid on a Russian Interpol arrest warrant. He was freed soon after when the General Secretary of Interpol warned the Spanish police not to follow the Russian arrest warrant. Browder had come to Spain to brief anti-mafia prosecutor José Grinda. After briefing him, Browder returned to the United Kingdom later that evening.


title: Bill Browder

text: In November 2018, Russian prosecutors announced new charges against Browder, accusing him of organising a "transnational criminal group" and claimed he may have poisoned Sergei Magnitsky.


title: Bill Browder

text: At the World Economic Forum in Davos in May 2022, Browder criticized Germany for its earlier Russia course: "Putin is 95 percent to blame for this war, because he is the one who throws the bombs and murders civilians" but "the West is also responsible for five percent and especially Germany to blame for what is happening in Ukraine," Browder told the media. "Merkel fought hard to make Germany and Europe dependent on Moscow and open to blackmail. Putin's attack on Ukraine is therefore also Merkel's war!", said Browder.


title: Bill Browder

text: On July 27, 2017, Browder testified to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Russia's alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election in regards to the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and Fusion GPS. The latter is the opposition research firm based in Washington D.C. that commissioned former MI6 staffer Christopher Steele to collect information on Donald Trump's ties with Russia. The hearing was set up to examine the firm's separate work on a legal case involving the Magnitsky Act. He directly discussed the President of Russia Vladimir Putin. Browder testified that President Putin is "the biggest oligarch in Russia and the richest man in the world", building a fortune by threatening Russian oligarchs and getting a 50% cut of their profits:


title: Bill Browder

text: I estimate that he has accumulated $200 billion of ill-gotten gains from these types of operations over his 17 years in power. He keeps his money in the West and all of his money in the West is potentially exposed to asset freezes and confiscation. Therefore, he has a significant and very personal interest in finding a way to get rid of the Magnitsky sanctions.


title: Bill Browder

text: Browder concluded his statement by reviewing the circumstances that led to U.S. passage of the Magnitsky Act:


title: Bill Browder

text: I hope that my story will help you understand the methods of Russian operatives in Washington and how they use U.S. enablers to achieve major foreign policy goals without disclosing those interests. I also hope that this story and others like it may lead to a change in the FARA enforcement regime in the future.


title: Bill Browder

text: In February 2015, Browder published a book about his career, "Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice", focusing on his years spent in Russia and the Russian government's attacks on Hermitage Capital Management. Browder's responses to Russian corruption and his support of the investigation into the death of his attorney Sergei Magnitsky are at the heart of the book. A film adaptation written by William Nicholson was reportedly in the works in 2015.


title: Bill Browder

text: A new book by Browder was published on April 12, 2022: "Freezing Order: A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder and Surviving Vladimir Putins Wrath".


title: Bill Browder

text: In 2013, the U.S. Attorney's Office for New York's Southern District filed a civil asset forfeiture case against Prevezon Holdings Limited, a real estate holding company belonging to Russian businessman Denis Katsyv, based on information from Browder. Prevezon and the Department of Justice settled the case in May 2017 for $5.9 million. Pursuant to a subpoena, Browder gave deposition testimony in the case.


title: Bill Browder

text: Browder has been the recipient of dozens of awards and recognitions. Some of the most significant are listed below.


title: Bill Browder

text: In 2018, Browder was named the 67th most powerful person in the world by "Worth" magazine. The magazine noted, "Browder has become one of the biggest thorns in Putin's side—and appears to be a key reason Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election."


title: Bill Browder

text: Browder's interview with Preet Bharara on the "Stay Tuned with Preet" podcast received the People's Choice Webby Award for Best Individual Podcast.


title: Bill Browder

text: In 2018, Browder received the Aspen Institute Henry Crown Leadership Award, a prize honoring "an outstanding leader whose achievements reflect the high standards of honor, integrity, industry, and philanthropy."