title: Japanese occupation of the Philippines

text: Japanese occupation of the Philippines was opposed by active and successful underground and guerrilla activity that increased over the years and that eventually covered a large portion of the country. Opposing these guerrillas were a Japanese-formed Bureau of Constabulary (later taking the name of the old Constabulary during the "Second Republic"), Kempeitai, and the Makapili. Postwar investigations showed that about 260,000 people were in guerrilla organizations and that members of the anti-Japanese underground were even more numerous. Such was their effectiveness that by the end of the war, Japan controlled only twelve of the forty-eight provinces.


title: Japanese occupation of the Philippines

text: The Philippine guerrilla movement continued to grow, in spite of Japanese campaigns against them. Throughout Luzon and the southern islands, Filipinos joined various groups and vowed to fight the Japanese. The commanders of these groups made contact with one another, argued about who was in charge of what territory, and began to formulate plans to assist the return of American forces to the islands. They gathered important intelligence information and smuggled it out to the U.S. Army, a process that sometimes took months. General MacArthur formed a clandestine operation to support the guerrillas. He had Lieutenant Commander Charles "Chick" Parsons smuggle guns, radios and supplies to them by submarine. The guerrilla forces, in turn, built up their stashes of arms and explosives and made plans to assist MacArthur's invasion by sabotaging Japanese communications lines and attacking Japanese forces from the rear.


title: Japanese occupation of the Philippines

text: Various guerrilla forces formed throughout the archipelago, ranging from groups of U.S. Armed Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) forces who refused to surrender to local militia initially organized to combat banditry brought about by disorder caused by the invasion. Several islands in the Visayas region had guerrilla forces led by Filipino officers, such as Colonel Macario Peralta in Panay, Major Ismael Ingeniero in Bohol, and Captain Salvador Abcede in Negros.


title: Japanese occupation of the Philippines

text: The island of Mindanao, being farthest from the center of Japanese occupation, had 38,000 guerrillas who were eventually consolidated under the command of American civil engineer Colonel Wendell Fertig. Fertig's guerrillas included many American and Filipino troops who had been part of the force on Mindanao under Major General William F. Sharp. When Wainwright had ordered Sharp's forces to surrender, Sharp considered compelled to obey this order. Many of the American and Filipino officers refused to surrender, since they reasoned that Wainwright, now a prisoner who could be considered under duress, had no authority to issue orders to Sharp. For several reasons it was unknown how many did not surrender, although probably around 100 to 200 Americans ended up with Fertig's guerrillas. The names of new Filipino recruits were purposefully left off the lists of men to be surrendered. In other cases, documents were fabricated to report fewer men than were actually under Sharp. Other troops died for various reasons after getting away and others left Mindanao entirely.


title: Japanese occupation of the Philippines

text: One resistance group in the Central Luzon area was known as the Hukbalahap (Hukbo ng Bayan Laban sa Hapon), or the People's Anti-Japanese Army, organized in early 1942 under the leadership of Luis Taruc, a communist party member since 1939. The Huks armed some 30,000 people and extended their control over portions of Luzon. However, guerrilla activities on Luzon were hampered due to the heavy Japanese presence and infighting between the various groups, including Hukbalahap troops attacking American-led guerrilla units.


title: Japanese occupation of the Philippines

text: Lack of equipment, difficult terrain and undeveloped infrastructure made coordination of these groups nearly impossible, and for several months in 1942, all contact was lost with Philippine resistance forces. Communications were restored in November 1942 when the reformed Philippine 61st Division on Panay island, led by Colonel Macario Peralta, was able to establish radio contact with the USAFFE command in Australia. This enabled the forwarding of intelligence regarding Japanese forces in the Philippines to SWPA command, as well as consolidating the once sporadic guerrilla activities and allowing the guerrillas to help in the war effort.


title: Japanese occupation of the Philippines

text: Increasing amounts of supplies and radios were delivered by submarine to aid the guerrilla effort. By the time of the Leyte invasion, four submarines were dedicated exclusively to the delivery of supplies.


title: Japanese occupation of the Philippines

text: Other guerrilla units were attached to the SWPA, and were active throughout the archipelago. Some of these units were organized or directly connected to pre-surrender units ordered to mount guerrilla actions. An example of this was Troop C, 26th Cavalry. Other guerrilla units were made up of former Philippine Army and Philippine Scouts soldiers who had been released from POW camps by the Japanese. Others were combined units of Americans, military and civilian, who had never surrendered or had escaped after surrendering, and Filipinos, Christians and Moros, who had initially formed their own small units. Colonel Wendell Fertig organized such a group on Mindanao that not only effectively resisted the Japanese, but formed a complete government that often operated in the open throughout the island. Some guerrilla units would later be assisted by American submarines which delivered supplies, evacuate refugees and injured, as well as inserted individuals and whole units, such as the 5217th Reconnaissance Battalion, and Alamo Scouts.


title: Japanese occupation of the Philippines

text: By the end of the war, some 277 separate guerrilla units, made up of some 260,715 individuals, fought in the resistance movement. Select units of the resistance would go on to be reorganized and equipped as units of the Philippine Army and Constabulary.


title: Japanese occupation of the Philippines

text: When General MacArthur returned to the Philippines with his army in late 1944, he was well-supplied with information; it is said that by the time MacArthur returned, he knew what every Japanese lieutenant ate for breakfast and where he had his haircut. But the return was not easy. The Japanese Imperial General Staff decided to make the Philippines their final line of defense, and to stop the American advance towards Japan. They sent every available soldier, airplane and naval vessel to the defense of the Philippines. The kamikaze corps was created specifically to defend the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. The Battle of Leyte Gulf ended in disaster for the Japanese and was the biggest naval battle of World War II. The campaign to liberate the Philippines was the bloodiest campaign of the Pacific War. Intelligence information gathered by the guerrillas averted a disaster—they revealed the plans of Japanese General Yamashita to trap MacArthur's army, and they led the liberating soldiers to the Japanese fortifications.


title: Japanese occupation of the Philippines

text: MacArthur's Allied forces landed on the island of Leyte on 20 October 1944, accompanied by Osmeña, who had succeeded to the commonwealth presidency upon the death of Quezon on 1 August 1944. Landings then followed on the island of Mindoro and around Lingayen Gulf on the west side of Luzon, and the push toward Manila was initiated. The Commonwealth of the Philippines was restored. Fighting was fierce, particularly in the mountains of northern Luzon, where Japanese troops had retreated, and in Manila, where they put up a last-ditch resistance. The Philippine Commonwealth troops and the recognized guerrilla fighter units rose up everywhere for the final offensive. Filipino guerrillas also played a large role during the liberation. One guerrilla unit came to substitute for a regularly constituted American division, and other guerrilla forces of battalion and regimental size supplemented the efforts of the U.S. Army units. Moreover, the cooperative Filipino population eased the problems of supply, construction and civil administration and furthermore eased the task of Allied forces in recapturing the country.


title: Japanese occupation of the Philippines

text: Fighting continued until Japan's formal surrender on 2 September 1945. The Philippines had suffered great loss of life and tremendous physical destruction by the time the war was over. An estimated 527,000 Filipinos, both military and civilians, had been killed from all causes; of these between 131,000 and 164,000 were killed in seventy-two war crime events. According to a United States analysis released years after the war, U.S. casualties were 10,380 dead and 36,550 wounded; Japanese dead were 255,795. Filipino deaths during the occupations, on the other hand, are estimated to be more be around 527,000 (27,000 military dead, 141,000 massacred, 22,500 forced labor deaths and 336,500 deaths due war related famine). The Philippine population decreased continuously for the next five years due to the spread of diseases and the lack of basic needs, far from the Filipino lifestyle prior to the war when the country had been the second richest in Asia after Japan.


title: Makhachkala

text: Makhachkala (), previously known as Petrovskoye (; 1844–1857) and Port-Petrovsk (; 1857–1921), or by the local Kumyk name of Anji, is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Dagestan in Russia. The city is located on the Caspian Sea, covering an area of , with a population of over 603,518 residents, while the urban agglomeration covers over , with a population of roughly 1 million residents. Makhachkala is the fourth-largest city in the Caucasus, the largest city in the North Caucasus and the North Caucasian Federal District, as well as the third-largest city on the Caspian Sea. The city is extremely ethnically diverse, with a minor ethnic Russian population.


title: Makhachkala

text: The city's historic predecessor is the port town of Anji (Andzhi), which was located in Kumykia, and which was a part of possessions of Tarki state, the capital of Kumyks known from the 8th century.


title: Makhachkala

text: The city was named "Petrovskoye" after Peter the Great. After gaining city status in 1857, the Petrovskoye fortress was renamed "Petrovsk-Port". After the Russian Revolution, Petrovsk-Port was renamed Makhachkala on May 14, 1921, after Bolshevik revolutionary . On the same day, it became capital of the newly formed Dagestan ASSR. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the city became the capital of the Republic of Dagestan.


title: Makhachkala

text: Makhachkala is an important economic, educational, scientific, and cultural centre of the North Caucasus. The city is a major Russian seaport on the Caspian Sea, and a transport hub. It is one of the fastest-growing cities in Russia, and is currently going through a construction boom.


title: Makhachkala

text: Makhachkala's historic predecessors were the towns of Tarki and Anji (or Andzhi, or Anji-kala), dating their history, according to some sources, back to Khazar times. Some chronicles suggest that it was the name of a citadel of Khazarian capital of Semender, which was called Anji-kala.


title: Makhachkala

text: During the first Muslim conquests of Dagestan, it was exposed to an influx of Muslims. During the reign of Umayyad Caliph Hisham b. Abdülmelik (724-743), the caliph's brother Maslama succeeded in establishing Islamic dominance in the region with his conquests. In the following years, one of the Umayyad commanders, Marwan b. Mohammed also organized successful raids to Dagestan. However, the Islamic domination in the region ended in 796 (180 AH) when the Khazars captured Derbend. In the early days of the Abbasids, the struggle against the Khazars continued. This struggle, which lasted for two centuries, ended with the victory of the Muslim Arabs. In 815, Sheikh Abu Ishaq and Sheikh Mohammed al-Kindi entered Dagestan with a volunteer army of about 2000 people and tried to spread Islam. In the second half of the 11th century, the Seljuk Turks took a part of the region under their control. Dagestan was invaded by the Mongols in 1222. The Cumans (Kipchaks), who ruled in the north of the Black Sea and the Caucasus, played an important role in the Turkification of the region. Later on, the Ilkhanids, Golden Horde Khanate, Timurids, Shirvanshahs and Safavids dominated Dagestan respectively. Dagestan came under Ottoman rule between 1578-1606.


title: Makhachkala

text: The Safavids started operations to spread Shiism in Dagestan at the beginning of the 19th century but were met with fierce resistance of Dagestanis. Shah Abbas II established a significant influence in Dagestan in 1639. It started to attract the attention of the Russians from the 17th century onwards. It remained the scene of a struggle for influence between Iranians, Russians and Ottomans from the beginning of the 17th century.


title: Makhachkala

text: When the Safavids began to lose their power at the beginning of the 17th century, the people of Dagestan united under the leadership of Çolak Surhay Khan of the Gazikumukh Khanate, and they won a victory against Iran in 1712. In order to continue their success, he took the people of Dagestan, who asked for help from the Ottoman administration, under his protection by sending gifts to the sultans of the Sublime Porte.


title: Makhachkala

text: Although the Russians could not hold on to the interior of Dagestan, they expanded their sovereignty towards the Caspian coast and could only be stopped in front of Baku with the help of the Ottoman forces under the command of Mustafa Pasha. With a treaty signed between Russia and Iran in 1724, Derbend, Baku and some other places in the region were left to Russia. As a result of his struggles against the Russians, Nadir Shah captured the south of Dagestan, Derbend and Baku with the Rasht Treaty signed in 1732, and some lands between the Sulak and Kura (Kür) rivers with the 1735 treaty. After 1747, the Russians regained influence in Dagestan.


title: Makhachkala

text: In the 1840s, after Russian Empire seized the Kumyk plateau, Anji-kala became the place where fort Petrovskoye was founded. A town status was granted to the fortress in 1857. The Russian name of the city was Petrovskoye ()—after the Russian Tsar Peter the Great, who waged war in the region in 1722 during his Persian Campaign. However, among the local Kumyks the city was still known as Anzhi-Qala, "The Pearl Fortress" ("Qala" means fortress or a city with walls, while "Anzhi / Inzhi / Inji" means pearl in Kumyk). There is also still a hill called Anji-arqa, meaning "the hill of Anji".


title: Makhachkala

text: After gaining town status in 1857, the Petrovskoye fortress was renamed Petrovsk-Port (), sometimes simply Petrovsk.


title: Makhachkala

text: In 1894, a railway line linked the city to Vladikavkaz (in present-day North Ossetia-Alania) and Baku (in present-day Azerbaijan). However, despite the development, a report from 1904 detailed the spread of malaria and unsuitable drinking water in the city.


title: Makhachkala

text: In January 1919, during the Russian Civil War, the British No. 221 Squadron Royal Air Force based themselves at Petrovsk. In March they were joined by No. 266 Squadron and both squadrons were involved in bombing operations against Bolshevik forces in Astrakhan and elsewhere. In August 1919 both squadrons were withdrawn from Petrovsk. The city was invaded by the Red Army in March 1920.


title: Makhachkala

text: As part of the Soviet revolution, place names relating to monarchy or religion were changed, and thus on 14 May 1921, Petrovsk was renamed Makhachkala, after Dagestani revolutionary Magomed-Ali 'Makhach' Dakhadaev. On the same day, it became capital of the newly formed Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. The city incurred major damage during an earthquake on 14 May 1970. The city was briefly renamed "Shamilkala" during the disintegration of the Soviet Union in honor of the Dagestani freedom fighter Imam Shamil.


title: Makhachkala

text: The area was used as a Soviet-era naval testing station, leaving behind a curious sea fort off nearby Kaspiysk ().


title: Makhachkala

text: A report of the International Crisis Group from 2013 describes the city as being "a city of almost one million and gained spectacular economic resources due to a construction boom, skyrocketing land prices, substantial federal funds for reconstruction, infrastructure, transport, housing, courts and administrative services. But even a short visit revealed acute problems, including dirty streets, dilapidated buildings, inadequate utilities, hectic construction, lack of planning and poorly organised public transport".


title: Makhachkala

text: On April 12, 1944, a decision was made to resettle the inhabitants of Kumyk villages of Tarki, Kyakhulay and Alburikent, which owned the surrounding areas, to the settlements of the deported Chechens. Most of the released land was distributed to the Makhachkala city council (6243 out of 8166 hectares), in addition to the collective farms of the mountainous regions and industrial enterprises of Makhachkala.


title: Makhachkala

text: After the return of the Kumyk population in 1957, the lands of the collective farms were not restored, personal property was also lost, many houses were occupied by people resettled from mountainous areas. The historical monuments of the ancient city were destroyed and used as construction materials for the infrastructure of Makhachkala.


title: Makhachkala

text: Protests and violent police clashes occurred in Makhachkala, as was the case in other Russian cities, in response to the 2022 Russian mobilization, as well as a call-up of 110 men from the village of Endirey to be conscripted into the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. According to the BBC, 301 Dagestani soldiers died in Ukraine, more than in any other region of Russia.


title: Makhachkala

text: The most important industrial sector is the oil refineries, as well as mechanical engineering and textile factories. Numerous administrative and educational institutions are based in the city, including a regional research centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences with around 20 research departments. The city is also the media centre of the region. Numerous newspapers are published in Makhachkala, including Dagestanskaya Pravda and the Islamic As-Salam. In addition, several regional television stations are based in the city.


title: Makhachkala

text: Within the framework of administrative divisions, it is, together with eight urban-type settlements and six rural localities, incorporated as the City of Makhachkala—an administrative unit with the status equal to that of the districts. As a municipal division, the City of Makhachkala is incorporated as Makhachkala Urban Okrug.


title: Makhachkala

text: For the purposes of administration, the city is divided into three city districts, from west to east: Kirovsky, Sovetsky and Leninsky. In May 2015, these three city districts were granted municipal status.


title: Makhachkala

text: The coat of arms and flag of Makhachkala were adopted on 15 December 2006. The coat of arms shows the city's historic fortress in silver on a red field, with flames coming from either tower and a solar symbol above. It is supported by a golden eagle on each side, a crown on top, and crossed anchors (representing its maritime history) entangled with grapevines at the bottom.


title: Makhachkala

text: Makhachkala is close to areas of fighting and therefore it and the surrounding region has a heavy security service presence. On 25 November 2011, a protest took place in Makhachkala attended by up to 3,000 people demanding an end to illegal activities perpetrated by the security services.


title: Makhachkala

text: On December 15, 2011, Gadzhimurat Kamalov, a Russian investigative journalist and founder of the independent Chernovik newspaper was shot dead in an apparent assassination.


title: Makhachkala

text: The city is served by Uytash Airport, a regional airport providing connections to other Russian cities. Russian Railways via the North Caucasus Railway provides freight and passenger traffic to and from Makhachkala.


title: Makhachkala

text: The Caspian Sea International Port handles crude oil, petroleum, construction materials, grain, cargo and timber and operates 24 hours a day. The port offers communications with the rest of Russia, as well as with Belarus, Ukraine, the Baltic states, Iran, Turkey and Central Asia. A railyard at the port connects the port to the North Caucasus Railway network.


title: Makhachkala

text: Founded in 1991, the side returned to the Premier League in 2009 and in January 2011 were purchased by Dagestani commodities billionaire Suleyman Kerimov, whose investments allowed the club to sign players such as Brazilian World Cup winner Roberto Carlos and Cameroonian striker Samuel Eto'o who, during his time at the club, became the world's highest paid player. The club lived its golden era, finished in the Top 5 for two consecutive seasons (2011-12 and 2012-13) and qualified for the UEFA Europa League, reaching the round of 16 on both occasions.


title: Makhachkala

text: However, after 2013, due to unrest in the region, the players moved to live and train in Moscow, while the local matches in Makhachkala were guarded by armed patrols. This situation, followed by severe budget cuts, made the club lost most of its key players and went on to finish bottom of the table in the 2013–14 Season.


title: Makhachkala

text: Makhachkala has a cold semi-arid climate (Köppen: "BSk") with warm, relatively dry summers and, cool relatively moist winters. The strong rain shadow of the Caucasus and the ability of the Siberian High to freely move westwards from its source in the Tibetan and Mongolian plateaus makes the climate quite dry, although frequently overcast throughout the winter, which is owing to the relatively low latitude and nearness to the Caspian Sea very mild by Russian standards. Summers are sunnier but also dry as the region is exposed to steep descending vertical velocity from the Indian monsoon, and the greatest rainfall occurs in the autumn season from September to November. October 1987 with has been the wettest month, whilst no precipitation occurred in February 1958, October 1974 and April 1986.


title: Makhachkala

text: The coldest month since records began in 1882 has been February 1929 with a mean monthly temperature of , whilst the hottest have been July 2010 and August 2014 with means of each, although 9 August 2017 is the hottest day, reaching . The coldest night was on February 9, 2012, when the mercury fell to , beating the previous record of from December 28, 1888.


title: Manoj Kumar

text: Harikrishan Goswami (born 24 July 1937), better known by his screen name Manoj Kumar, is an Indian actor, filmmaker, screenwriter, lyricist and editor who worked in Hindi cinema. He is known for acting and making films with patriotic themes, and has been given the nickname Bharat Kumar. He is the recipient of a National Film Award and seven Filmfare Awards, in varied categories.


title: Manoj Kumar

text: Kumar was born into a Hindu Brahmin family Abbottabad, a town in the North-West Frontier Province, British India (present-day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan). His original birth name was Harikrishan Giri Goswami. When he was 10, his family had to migrate from Jandiala Sher Khan to Delhi due to the Partition


title: Manoj Kumar

text: When he was young, he admired actors Dilip Kumar, Ashok Kumar and Kamini Kaushal and decided to name himself Manoj Kumar, after Dilip Kumar's character in "Shabnam".


title: Manoj Kumar

text: After making a little-noticed début in "Fashion" in 1957, Kumar landed his first leading role in "Kaanch Ki Gudia" (1960) opposite Saida Khan. "Piya Milan Ki Aas" and "Reshmi Roomal" followed, setting the stage for the Vijay Bhatt-directed "Hariyali Aur Raasta" (1962) opposite Mala Sinha. Kumar then appeared with Sadhana in Raj Khosla's "Woh Kaun Thi" (1964), and reunited with Vijay Bhatt and Mala Sinha in "Himalaya Ki God Mein" (1965). Kumar and Raj Khosla repeated their successful actor-director partnership with the film "Do Badan", which was remembered for many reasons, including Raj Khosla's direction, Kumar and the heroine Asha Parekh's performance and songs written by the lyricist Shakeel Badayuni, among others.


title: Manoj Kumar

text: In the 1960s his successful films included romantic films like "Honeymoon", "Apna Banake Dekho", "Naqli Nawab", "Paththar Ke Sanam", "Sajan" and "Sawan Ki Ghata" and social films such as "Shaadi", "Grihasti", "Apne Huye Paraye", and "Aadmi" and thrillers such as "Gumnaam", "Anita", and "Woh Kaun Thi" and comedy film like "Picnic".


title: Manoj Kumar

text: Kumar's starred in the 1965 film "Shaheed", based on the life of Bhagat Singh, the Independence revolutionary. After the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri asked him to create a film based on the popular slogan "Jai Jawan Jai Kissan" (hail the soldier, hail the farmer).


title: Manoj Kumar

text: The result was Kumar's directorial debut "Upkaar" (1967). In this award-winning film, he played both a soldier and a farmer. The film was also noted for the song "Mere Desh Ki Dharti", written by Gulshan Bawra, composed by Kalyanji-Anandji and sung by Mahendra Kapoor. "Upkaar" won him his first Filmfare Best Director Award.


title: Manoj Kumar

text: He returned to patriotic themes in "Purab Aur Paschim" (1970), in which life in the East and West are juxtaposed. The film "Pehchaan" directed by Sohanlal Kanwar had Kumar opposite Babita and was successful.


title: Manoj Kumar

text: In 1972, he starred in "Be-Imaan" (for which he won the Best Actor) and later directed and starred in "Shor" (1972). The latter, opposite Nanda, was not a huge box office success on its release, but has gained cult status over the years. It featured the memorable song "Ek Pyar Ka Nagma Hai", a duet by Lata Mangeshkar and Mukesh, which was composed by Laxmikant-Pyarelal and written by Santosh Anand.


title: Manoj Kumar

text: He consistently liked working with actors Prem Nath, Pran, Prem Chopra, Kamini Kaushal and Hema Malini in his career. His closest friends from the industry included Raj Kapoor, Mukesh, Mahendra Kapoor, Dharmendra, Rajendra Kumar, Shashi Kapoor and Rajesh Khanna.


title: Manoj Kumar

text: In the mid-1970s Kumar starred in three hit films; "Roti Kapda Aur Makaan" (1974) which was a social commentary, featuring an all-star cast including Zeenat Aman, Shashi Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan. He won his second Filmfare Award for Best Director for the film Roti Kapda Makan. "Sanyasi", a religious-themed comedy, starring Kumar and Hema Malini, was hugely successful. "Dus Numbri" (1976) also gave Kumar, Pran, Prem Nath and Hema top billing.


title: Manoj Kumar

text: In 1981, Kumar reached the peak of his career when he got the opportunity to direct his idol, Dilip Kumar, as well as to star in "Kranti", a story about the struggle for Indian independence in the 19th century. "Kranti" was the last notable successful Hindi film in his career. He also starred in the hit Punjabi film "Jat Punjabi".


title: Manoj Kumar

text: After "Kranti" in 1981, Kumar's career began to decline, when the films he did with him in lead role like Kalyug Aur Ramayan in 1987 and later Clerk in 1989 failed at the box office. In 1989, he cast Pakistani actors Mohammad Ali and Zeba in his film "Clerk". He quit acting after his appearance in the 1995 film "Maidan-E-Jung". He directed his son, Kunal Goswami, in the 1999 film "Jai Hind" which had a patriotic theme. The film was a flop and was the last film Kumar worked on.


title: Manoj Kumar

text: His trademark hand-covering-the-face was very popular and continues to be the butt of jokes of latter day stand-up comedians. In 2007, the Shah Rukh Khan film "Om Shanti Om" featured the lead character pretending to be Manoj Kumar so as to sneak into a movie premiere, by holding his hand over his face. Kumar filed a lawsuit, which was settled out of court.


title: Manoj Kumar

text: Like many other Bollywood stars, Kumar decided to enter politics following his retirement. Before the 2004 general election in India, he officially joined Bharatiya Janta Party.


title: Bloody Benders

text: The Bender family, more well known as the Bloody Benders, were a family of serial killers who lived and operated in Labette County, Kansas, United States, from May 1871 to December 1872. The family consisted of John Bender, his wife Elvira and their son John Jr. and daughter Kate. While popular retelling of the story holds that John Jr. and Kate were siblings, contemporary newspapers reported that several of the Benders' neighbors had stated that they claimed to be married, possibly in a common law marriage.


title: Bloody Benders

text: While there is no definitive number, estimates report that the Benders killed at least a dozen travelers before their crimes were discovered. The fate of the family remains unknown, with theories ranging from a lynching of the family to a successful escape. Much folklore and legend surrounds the Benders, making it difficult to separate fact from fiction.


title: Bloody Benders

text: In October 1870, five families of spiritualists homesteaded in and around the township of Osage in northwestern Labette County, approximately northeast of where Cherryvale was established seven months later. One of the families was John Bender Sr. and John Bender Jr., who registered of land located adjacent to the Great Osage Trail, which was then the only open road for traveling farther west. After a cabin, a barn with a corral, and a well were built, in the fall of 1871, Elvira Bender and daughter Kate arrived, and the cabin was divided into two rooms by a canvas wagon-cover. The Benders used the smaller room at the rear for living quarters, while the front room was converted into a "general store" where a few dry goods were sold. The front section also contained the kitchen and dining table, where travelers could stop for a meal or even spend the night. Elvira and Kate Bender also planted a vegetable garden and apple orchard north of the cabin.


title: Bloody Benders

text: John Bender, Sr. was around 60 years old and spoke little English. What little he did speak was so guttural that it was usually unintelligible. According to the May 23, 1873 edition of "The Emporia News", he was identified with the name of William Bender. Elvira Bender, who also allegedly spoke little English, was 55 years old and so unfriendly that her neighbors took to calling her a "she-devil."


title: Bloody Benders

text: John Bender Jr. was around 25 years old and handsome, with auburn hair and a mustache, and spoke English fluently with a German accent. John was prone to laughing aimlessly, which led many to consider him a "half-wit." Kate Bender, who was around 23, was cultivated and attractive and spoke English well, with little accent. A self-proclaimed healer and psychic, she distributed flyers advertising her supernatural powers and her ability to cure illnesses. She also conducted séances and gave lectures on spiritualism, for which she gained notoriety for advocating free love. Kate's popularity became a large attraction for the Benders' inn. Although the elder Benders kept to themselves, Kate and her brother regularly attended Sunday school in nearby Harmony Grove.


title: Bloody Benders

text: The Benders were widely believed to be German immigrants. No documentation or definitive proof of their relationships to one another, or where they were born, has ever been found. John Bender, Sr. was from either Germany, Norway, or the Netherlands and may have been born John Flickinger. According to contemporary newspapers, Elvira was born Almira Hill Mark (often misreported as "Meik") in the Adirondack Mountains; she married Simon Mark, with whom she claimed to have had 12 children. Later she married William Stephen Griffith. Elvira was rumored to have murdered several husbands, but none of these rumors was ever proven. Kate was purportedly Elvira's fifth daughter. Some of the Benders' neighbors claimed that John and Kate were not brother and sister, but actually husband and wife.


title: Bloody Benders

text: She professed to be a medium of spiritualism, and delivered lectures on that subject. In her lectures she publicly declared that murder might be a dictation for good; that in what the world might deem villainy, her soul might read bravery, nobility, and humanity. She advocated "free love," and denounced all social regulations for the promotion of purity and the prevention of carnality, which she called "miserable requirements of self-constituted society." She maintained carnal relations with her brother, and boldly proclaimed her right to do so in the following words found in her lecture manuscript: "Shall we confine ourselves to a single love, and deny our natures their proper sway?...Even though it be a brother's passion for his own sister, I say it should not be smothered."


title: Bloody Benders

text: In May 1871, the body of a man named Jones, whose skull had been crushed and throat cut, was discovered in Drum Creek. The owner of the Drum Creek claim was suspected, but no action was taken. In February 1872, the bodies of two men were found with the same injuries as Jones. By 1873, reports of missing people who had passed through the area had become so common that travelers began to avoid the trail.


title: Bloody Benders

text: The area was already widely known for "horse thieves and villains”, and vigilance committees often "arrested" some for the disappearances, only for them to be later released by the authorities. Many innocent men under suspicion were also run out of the county by these committees.


title: Bloody Benders

text: In the winter of 1872, George Newton Longcor left Independence, Kansas with his infant daughter Mary Ann to resettle in Iowa; they were never seen again. In the spring of 1873, Longcor's former neighbor, Dr. William Henry York, went looking for them and questioned homesteaders along the trail. York reached Fort Scott, and on March 9 began the return journey to Independence, but never arrived.


title: Bloody Benders

text: York had two brothers: Ed York living in Fort Scott, and Colonel Alexander M. York, a Civil War veteran, lawyer, and member of the Kansas State Senate from Independence who, in November 1872, had been instrumental in exposing U.S. Senator Samuel C. Pomeroy's bribery of state legislators in his bid for re-election. Both knew of William's travel plans and, when he failed to return, an all-out search began for the missing doctor. Colonel York, leading a company of some 50 men, questioned every traveler along the trail and visited all the area homesteads.


title: Bloody Benders

text: On March 28, 1873, Colonel York arrived at the Benders' inn with a Mr. Johnson, explaining to them that his brother had gone missing and asked if they had seen him. They admitted Dr. York had stayed with them and suggested the possibility that he had run into trouble with Indians. Colonel York agreed that this was possible and remained for dinner. On April 3, Colonel York returned to the inn with armed men after being informed that a woman had fled from the inn after Elvira Bender had threatened her with knives. Elvira allegedly could not understand English, while the younger Benders denied the claim.


title: Bloody Benders

text: When York repeated the claim, Elvira became enraged, said the woman was a witch who had cursed her coffee, and ordered the men to leave her house, revealing for the first time that "her sense of the English language" was much better than was let on. Before York left, Kate asked him to return alone the following Friday night, and she would use her clairvoyant abilities to help him find his brother. The men with York were convinced the Benders and a neighboring family, the Roaches, were guilty and wanted to hang them all, but York insisted that evidence must be found.


title: Bloody Benders

text: Around the same time, neighboring communities began to make accusations that the Osage community was responsible for the disappearances, and Osage township arranged a meeting in the Harmony Grove schoolhouse. Seventy-five locals attended the meeting, including Colonel York and both John Bender Sr. and John Bender Jr. After discussing the disappearances, including that of William York, they agreed to obtain a warrant to search every homestead between Big Hill Creek and Drum Creek. Despite York's strong suspicions regarding the Benders since his visit several weeks earlier, no one had watched them, and it was not noticed for several days that they had fled.


title: Bloody Benders

text: Three days after the township meeting, Billy Tole was driving cattle past the Bender property when he noticed that the inn was abandoned and the farm animals were unfed. Tole reported the fact to the township trustee, but due to inclement weather, several days lapsed before the abandonment could be investigated. The township trustee called for volunteers, and several hundred turned out to form a search party that included Colonel York. When the party arrived at the inn they found the cabin empty of food, clothing, and personal possessions.


title: Bloody Benders

text: A bad odor was noticed and traced to a trap door underneath a bed, nailed shut. After opening the trap, the party found clotted blood on the floor of the empty room underneath, deep and square at the top by square at the bottom. They broke up the stone slab floor with sledgehammers, but found no bodies, and determined that the smell was from blood that had soaked into the soil. The men then physically lifted the cabin and moved it to the side to dig under it, but no bodies were found.


title: Bloody Benders

text: They then probed the ground around the cabin with a metal rod, especially in the disturbed soil of the vegetable garden and orchard, where Dr. York's body was found later that evening, buried face down with his feet barely below the surface. The probing continued until midnight, with another nine suspected grave sites marked before the men were satisfied they had found them all and retired for the night. The next morning, another eight bodies were found in seven of the nine suspected graves, while one was found in the well, along with a number of body parts. All but one had their heads bashed with a hammer and throats cut, and newspapers reported that all were "indecently mutilated”. The body of a young girl was found with no injuries sufficient to cause death. It was speculated that she had been strangled or buried alive.


title: Bloody Benders

text: A Kansas newspaper reported that the crowd was so incensed after finding the bodies that a friend of the Benders named Brockman, who was among the onlookers, was hanged from a beam in the inn until unconscious, revived, interrogated, then hanged again. After the third hanging, they released him and he staggered home "as one who was drunken or deranged." A Roman Catholic prayer book was found in the house with notes inside written in German, which were later translated. The texts read "Johannah Bender. Born July 30, 1848," "John Gebhardt came to America on July 1 18??," "big slaughter day, Jan eighth", and "hell departed."


title: Bloody Benders

text: Word of the murders spread quickly, and more than three thousand people, including reporters from as far away as New York City and Chicago, visited the site. The Bender cabin was destroyed by souvenir hunters who took everything, including the bricks that lined the cellar and the stones lining the well.


title: Bloody Benders

text: State Senator Alexander York offered a $1,000 ($ as of 2022) reward for the family's arrest. On May 17, Kansas Governor Thomas A. Osborn offered a $2,000 ($ as of 2022) reward for the apprehension of all four.


title: Bloody Benders

text: It is conjectured that when a guest stayed at the Benders' bed and breakfast inn, the hosts would give the guest a seat of honor at the table that was positioned over a trap door into the cellar. With the victim's back to the curtain, Kate would distract the guest while John Bender or his son came from behind the curtain and struck the guest on the right side of the skull with a hammer. One of the women would cut the victim's throat to ensure death, and the body was then dropped through the trap door. Once in the cellar, the body would be stripped and later buried somewhere on the property, often in the orchard. Although some of the victims were wealthy, others carried little of value on them, and it was surmised that the Benders had killed them simply for the sheer thrill.


title: Bloody Benders

text: Testimony from people who had stayed at the Benders' inn and managed to escape before they could be killed appeared to support the presumed execution method of the Benders. William Pickering said that when he had refused to sit near the wagon cloth because of the stains on it, Kate Bender had threatened him with a knife, whereupon he fled the premises. A Catholic priest claimed to have seen one of the Bender men concealing a large hammer, at which point he became uncomfortable and quickly departed.


title: Bloody Benders

text: Two men who had traveled to the inn to experience Kate Bender's psychic powers stayed for dinner, but had refused to sit at the table next to the cloth, instead preferring to eat their meal at the main shop counter. Kate then became abusive toward them, and shortly afterward the Bender men emerged from behind the cloth. At this point the customers felt uneasy and decided to leave, a move that almost certainly saved their lives.


title: Bloody Benders

text: More than a dozen bullet holes were found in the roof and sides of the cabin. The media speculated that some of the victims had attempted to fight back after being hit with the hammer.


title: Bloody Benders

text: Detectives following wagon tracks discovered the Benders' wagon, abandoned with a starving team of horses with one of the mares lame, just outside the city limits of Thayer, north of the inn. It was confirmed that the family had bought tickets on the Leavenworth, Lawrence & Galveston Railroad for Humboldt. At Chanute, John Jr. and Kate left the train and caught the MK&T train south to the terminus in Red River County near Denison, Texas. From there, they traveled to an outlaw colony thought to be in the border region between Texas and New Mexico. They were not pursued, as lawmen following outlaws into this region often never returned.


title: Bloody Benders

text: One detective later claimed that he had traced the pair to the border, where he had found that John Jr. had died of apoplexy. The elder Benders did not leave the train at Humboldt, but instead continued north to Kansas City, where it is believed they purchased tickets for St. Louis, Missouri.


title: Bloody Benders

text: Several groups of vigilantes were formed to search for the Benders. Many stories say that one vigilante group actually caught the Benders and shot all of them but Kate, whom they burned alive. Another group claimed they had caught the Benders and lynched them before throwing their bodies into the Verdigris River. Yet another claimed to have killed the Benders during a gunfight and buried their bodies on the prairie. No one ever claimed the $3,000 reward ($ as of 2022), however.


title: Bloody Benders

text: The story of the Benders' escape spread, and the search continued on and off for the next 50 years. Often two women traveling together were accused of being Kate Bender and her mother.


title: Bloody Benders

text: In 1884, it was reported that John Flickinger had committed suicide in Lake Michigan. Also in 1884, an elderly man matching John Bender Sr.'s description was arrested in Montana for a murder committed near Salmon, Idaho, where the victim had been killed by a hammer blow to the head. A message requesting positive identification was sent to Cherryvale, but the suspect severed his foot to escape his leg irons and bled to death. By the time a deputy from Cherryvale arrived, identification was impossible due to decomposition. Despite the lack of identification, the man's skull was displayed as that of "Pa Bender" in a Salmon saloon until Prohibition forced its closure in 1920 and the skull disappeared. Whether John Flickinger was really John Bender is unknown.


title: Bloody Benders

text: Several weeks after the discovery of the bodies, Addison Roach and his son-in-law, William Buxton, were arrested as accessories. In total, 12 men "of bad repute in general" would be arrested, including Brockman. All had been involved in disposing of the victims' stolen goods with Mit Cherry, a member of the vigilance committee, implicated for forging a letter from one of the victims, informing the man's wife that he had arrived safely at his destination in Illinois. Brockman would be arrested again 23 years later for the rape and murder of his own 18-year-old daughter.


title: Bloody Benders

text: On October 31, 1889, it was reported that a Mrs. Almira Monroe (a.k.a. Mrs. Almira Griffith) and Mrs. Sarah Eliza Davis had been arrested in Niles, Michigan (often misreported as Detroit) several weeks earlier for larceny. They were released after being found not guilty, but were then immediately re-arrested for the Bender murders. According to the "Pittsburgh Dispatch", the daughter of one of the Benders' victims, Mrs. Frances E. McCann, had reported the pair to authorities in early October after tracking them down. Mrs. McCann's story came from dreams about her father's murder, which she discussed with Sarah Eliza. The women's identities were later confirmed by two Osage township witnesses from a tintype photograph. In mid-October, Deputy Sheriff LeRoy Dick, the Osage Township trustee who had headed the search of the Bender property, arrived in Michigan and arrested the couple on October 30, following their release on the larceny charges. Mrs. Monroe resisted, declaring that she would not be taken alive, but was subdued by local deputies.


title: Bloody Benders

text: Mrs. Davis claimed that Mrs. Monroe was Elvira Bender, but that she herself was not Kate, but her sister Sarah; she later signed an affidavit to that effect, while Monroe continued to deny the identification and in turn accused Sarah Eliza of being the real Kate Bender. Deputy Sheriff Dick, along with Mrs. McCann, escorted the pair to Oswego, Kansas, where seven members of a 13-member panel confirmed the identification and committed them for trial. Another of Mrs. Monroe's daughters, Mary Gardei, later provided an affidavit claiming that her mother (then Almira Shearer), under the name of Almira Marks, was actually serving two years in the Detroit House of Corrections in 1872 for the manslaughter of her daughter-in-law, Emily Mark. Records of the incarceration back up this affidavit. At her hearing, Mrs. Monroe denied any knowledge of Shearer or the manslaughter charge and remained incarcerated with her daughter. Originally scheduled for February 1890, the trial was held over to May. Mrs. Monroe now admitted she had married a Mr. Shearer in 1872 and claimed she had previously denied it, as she did not want the court to know that her name was Shearer at that time and that she had a conviction for manslaughter. Their attorney also produced a marriage certificate indicating that Mrs. Davis had been married in Michigan in 1872, the time when several of the murders were committed. Eyewitness testimony was given that Mrs. Monroe was Elvira Bender. Judge Calvin dismissed Mary Gardei's affidavit as she was a "chip off the old block"; he found that other affidavits supporting Gardei's were sufficient proof that the women could never be convicted, however, and he discharged them both. The affidavits and other papers are missing from the file in LaBette County, so further examination is impossible. A number of researchers question the ready acceptance of the affidavit's authenticity and suggest that the county was unwilling to accept the expense of boarding the two women for an extended period. While the two women were certainly criminals and liars, as their own defense attorney admitted, the charges were weak and many people doubted their identification as the Benders.


title: Bloody Benders

text: By including the recovered body parts not matched to the bodies found, the finds are speculated to represent the remains of more than 20 victims. With the exception of McKenzie and York, who were buried in Independence; the Longcors, who were buried in Montgomery County; and McCrotty, who was buried in Parsons, Kansas, none of the other bodies were claimed, and they were reburied at the base of a small hill southeast of the Benders' orchard, one of several at the location now known as "The Benders Mounds".


title: Bloody Benders

text: The search of the cabin resulted in the recovery of three hammers: a shoe hammer, a claw hammer, and a sledgehammer that appeared to match indentations in some of the skulls. These hammers were given to the Bender Museum in 1967 by the son of LeRoy Dick, the Osage Township trustee who headed the search of the Bender property. The hammers were displayed at the Bender Museum in Cherryvale, Kansas from 1967 to 1978, when the site was acquired for a fire station. When attempts were made to relocate the museum it became a point of controversy, some locals objecting to the town being known for the Bender murders. The Bender artifacts were eventually given to the Cherryvale Museum, where they remain in a wall-mounted display case. A knife with a four-inch tapered blade was reportedly found hidden in a mantel clock in the Bender house by Colonel York. In 1923 it was donated to the Kansas Museum of History by York's wife but is not on display; still bearing reddish-brown stains on the blade, it can be seen upon request.


title: Bloody Benders

text: A historical marker describing the Benders' crimes is located in the rest area at the junction of U.S. Route 400 and U.S. Route 169 north of Cherryvale.


title: Bloody Benders

text: The Ingalls family, made famous in the books and television series "Little House on the Prairie", lived near Independence, and Laura Ingalls Wilder mentioned the Bender family in her writing and speeches. In 1937 she gave a speech at a book fair which was later transcribed and printed in the September 1978 "Saturday Evening Post" and in the 1988 book "A Little House Sampler". She mentioned stopping at the inn, as well as recounting the rumors of the murders spreading through their community. She alleged that her father, "Pa Ingalls," joined in a vigilante hunt for the killers, and when he spoke of later searches for them she recalled, "At such times Pa always said in a strange tone of finality, 'They will never be found.' They were never found and later I formed my own conclusions why." Some have cast doubt on the story, saying that Laura would have been only 4 when her family moved away from the area, and that the Benders were exposed in 1873, two years after the Ingalls family left.


title: Quantum

text: In physics, a quantum (plural quanta) is the minimum amount of any physical entity (physical property) involved in an interaction. The fundamental notion that a physical property can be "quantized" is referred to as "the hypothesis of quantization". This means that the magnitude of the physical property can take on only values consisting of integer multiples of one quantum.


title: Quantum

text: For example, a photon is a single quantum of light (or of any other form of electromagnetic radiation). Similarly, the energy of an electron bound within an atom is quantized and can exist only in certain discrete values. (Atoms and matter in general are stable because electrons can exist only at discrete energy levels within an atom.) Quantization is one of the foundations of the much broader physics of quantum mechanics. Quantization of energy and its influence on how energy and matter interact (quantum electrodynamics) is part of the fundamental framework for understanding and describing nature.


title: Quantum

text: The word "quantum" is the neuter singular of the Latin interrogative adjective "quantus", meaning "how much". "Quanta", the neuter plural, short for "quanta of electricity" (electrons), was used in a 1902 article on the photoelectric effect by Philipp Lenard, who credited Hermann von Helmholtz for using the word in the area of electricity. However, the word "quantum" in general was well known before 1900, e.g. "quantum" was used in E.A. Poe's Loss of Breath. It was often used by physicians, such as in the term "quantum satis", "the amount which is enough". Both Helmholtz and Julius von Mayer were physicians as well as physicists. Helmholtz used "quantum" with reference to heat in his article on Mayer's work, and the word "quantum" can be found in the formulation of the first law of thermodynamics by Mayer in his letter dated July 24, 1841.


title: Quantum

text: In 1901, Max Planck used "quanta" to mean "quanta of matter and electricity", gas, and heat. In 1905, in response to Planck's work and the experimental work of Lenard (who explained his results by using the term "quanta of electricity"), Albert Einstein suggested that radiation existed in spatially localized packets which he called "quanta of light" ("Lichtquanta").


title: Quantum

text: The concept of quantization of radiation was discovered in 1900 by Max Planck, who had been trying to understand the emission of radiation from heated objects, known as black-body radiation. By assuming that energy can be absorbed or released only in tiny, differential, discrete packets (which he called "bundles", or "energy elements"), Planck accounted for certain objects changing color when heated. On December 14, 1900, Planck reported his findings to the German Physical Society, and introduced the idea of quantization for the first time as a part of his research on black-body radiation. As a result of his experiments, Planck deduced the numerical value of "h", known as the Planck constant, and reported more precise values for the unit of electrical charge and the Avogadro–Loschmidt number, the number of real molecules in a mole, to the German Physical Society. After his theory was validated, Planck was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery in 1918.


title: Quantum

text: While quantization was first discovered in electromagnetic radiation, it describes a fundamental aspect of energy not just restricted to photons.


title: Quantum

text: In the attempt to bring theory into agreement with experiment, Max Planck postulated that electromagnetic energy is absorbed or emitted in discrete packets, or quanta.


title: OneCoin

text: OneCoin is a fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme conducted by offshore companies OneCoin Ltd, based in Bulgaria and registered in Dubai, and OneLife Network Ltd (registered in Belize), both founded by Ruja Ignatova in concert with Sebastian Greenwood. OneCoin is considered a Ponzi scheme due to its organisational structure of paying early investors using money obtained from newer ones. It was also a pyramid scheme due to the recruiting of investors without providing any actual product. The company secretly conducted database entry scam simulating transactions not registered by an actual blockchain, and with no mining behind the apparent cryptocurrency release and circulation. Many of those characters central to OneCoin had been previously involved in similar and different other schemes and business malpractices separate from each other. OneCoin was described by "The Times" as "one of the biggest scams in history".


title: OneCoin

text: US prosecutors have alleged the scheme brought in approximately $4 billion worldwide. In China, law enforcement recovered 1.7 billion yuan (US$267.5 million) while prosecuting 98 people. Ignatova disappeared in 2017 near the time a secret US warrant was filed for her arrest and her brother, Konstantin Ignatov, took her position. Most of the leaders have now disappeared or been arrested, though Ignatova has escaped arrest. Greenwood was arrested in 2018, as was Konstantin Ignatov in March 2019. In November 2019, Ignatov pleaded guilty to charges of money laundering and fraud. The total maximum sentence for the charges is 90 years in prison.


title: OneCoin

text: OneCoin was launched in late 2014. It was not a decentralized cryptocurrency but rather a centralized currency hosted on OneCoin Ltd's servers.


title: OneCoin

text: According to OneCoin, its main business was selling educational material for cryptocurrency trading: investors could buy "educational packages" costing anywhere from 100 euros to 118,000 euros, or—according to one industry blog—225,500 euros. According to a suit filed by former investors, much of the content in those packages was plagiarized from various free sources, including Wikipedia. Investors also received "tokens" that could be assigned to mine OneCoins. Mining was said to be taking place at two sites in Bulgaria and one in Hong Kong.


title: OneCoin

text: In typical OneCoin recruiting meetings, recruiters would focus on cryptocurrency investment, and the "educational material" was barely mentioned.


title: OneCoin

text: The only way to exchange OneCoins for other currencies was the "OneCoin Exchange" ("xcoinx"), an internal marketplace for members who had invested more than a set amount. OneCoins could be exchanged for euros, which were placed in a "virtual wallet", from which they could request a wire transfer. The marketplace had daily selling limits based on which package the seller had invested in, greatly limiting the amount of OneCoins which could be exchanged.


title: OneCoin

text: On 1 March 2016, without notice, OneCoin issued an internal notice that the marketplace would be closed for two weeks for maintenance, explaining that this was necessary due to the "high number of miners" and for "better integration with blockchain". On 15 March 2016, the market re-opened. It was shut down again without notice in January 2017, though individuals affiliated with the company continued to accept funds.


title: OneCoin

text: On 30 September 2015, Bulgaria's Financial Supervision Commission (FSC) issued a warning of potential risks in new cryptocurrencies, citing OneCoin as an example. After the warning, OneCoin ceased all activity in Bulgaria and started to use banks in foreign countries to handle wire transfers from participants.


title: OneCoin

text: In February 2016, the British newspaper "Daily Mirror" wrote that OneCoin / OneLife is a get-rich-quick scheme scam and a cult, calling it "virtually worthless".


title: OneCoin

text: The company and the scheme is on the observation lists of many authorities; among them are authorities in Bulgaria, Finland, Sweden, Norway and Latvia. Authorities in many countries have warned of potential risks involved in businesses like OneCoin and undertaken prosecutions against persons linked to OneCoin, including CEO Ruja Ignatova and her brother Konstantin Ignatov.


title: OneCoin

text: In March 2016, the Direct Selling Association in Norway warned against OneCoin, comparing it to a pyramid scheme.


title: OneCoin

text: In December 2016, the Italian Antitrust Authority () "adopted an interim injunction against the company One Network Services Ltd., active in the promotion and dissemination of cryptocurrency OneCoin", and its representatives in Italy, describing their activities as an "illegal pyramid sales system" (), and ordering them to cease promoting and selling OneCoin in Italy On 27 February 2017, after concluding their investigation, AGCM banned all activity on OneCoin until further notice.


title: OneCoin

text: In December 2016, the Hungarian Central Bank issued a warning that OneCoin is a pyramid scheme, and in China that same year several members and investors of OneCoin were arrested and US$30.8 million worth of assets seized.


title: OneCoin

text: In March 2017, the Croatian National Bank (HNB) advised the public to "exercise a high degree of caution" in decisions involving OneCoin, noted that OneCoin operations are not supervised by the HNB, and warned that possible losses will be fully borne by the investors.


title: OneCoin

text: On 23 April 2017, Indian police arrested 18 people in Navi Mumbai for organizing a OneCoin recruitment event. The police attended the event undercover to judge the accusations before they decided to act. Further investigation was begun with the intent of revealing the higher levels of the pyramid. In May, the investigation recovered Rs 24.57 crores ($ million USD) in nine bank accounts. A further Rs 75 crores ($ million USD) were transferred out before authorities were able to seize it. Early in the month of May, two more people were arrested and a further Rs 24 crores ($ million USD) were seized from bank accounts. A special investigation team of 15 individuals including 4 assistant police inspectors was formed under Senior Police Inspector Shivaji Awate with the stated goal of following the money trail and possibly lead to further arrests.


title: OneCoin

text: On 27 April 2017, Germany's Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) issued cease and desist orders to Onecoin Ltd, Dubai, and OneLife Network Ltd, Belize. The Authority concluded that trading in OneCoins was fraudulent "own funds" trading.


title: OneCoin

text: On 28 April 2017, Bank of Thailand issued a warning against OneCoin, stating it was an illegal digital currency and that it should not be used in trade.


title: OneCoin

text: On 29 May 2017, International Financial Services Commission of Belize (IFSC) issued a warning about OneLife Network Ltd conducting trading business without license or permission from "IFSC" or any other authority. OneLife Network Ltd was directed to cease and desist from carrying on with the illegal trading business.


title: OneCoin

text: On 16 June 2017, the CEO of OneCoin Ltd. claimed OneCoin was licensed by the Vietnamese government, that it was legally permissible to use them as a digital currency and that it was the first cryptocurrency in Asia officially licensed by any government. On 20 June 2017, Vietnam's Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) issued a statement that the document which OneCoin used as proof was forged. They stated that the document was against the MPI regulations and that the person who supposedly signed the document was not in the position claimed by the document at the time when the document was created. MPI warned individuals and enterprises to be vigilant if they encounter the document during business.


title: OneCoin

text: On 10 July 2017, Ruja Ignatova, the CEO, was charged in India with duping investors as a part of the Indian investigation.


title: OneCoin

text: On 17 and 18 January 2018, Bulgarian police raided OneCoin's office in Sofia at the request of the prosecutor's office in Bielefeld, Germany. German police and Europol took part in the bust and the investigation. Also 14 other companies, tied to OneCoin, were investigated and 50 witnesses were questioned. OneCoin's servers and other material evidence were seized.


title: OneCoin

text: On 3 May 2018, the Central Bank of Samoa (CBS) banned all foreign exchange transactions related to OneCoin and OneLife. The bank had earlier in March issued a warning about OneCoin. CBS describes OneCoin as a very-high-risk pyramid scheme.


title: OneCoin

text: In 2019 (plea deal, 4 October; made public, 12 November), Ruja Ignatova's brother Konstantin Ignatov pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering in connection with the scheme.


title: OneCoin

text: On 21 November 2019 the New York Federal Court found lawyer Mark Scott guilty of money laundering and bank fraud for his role in routing US$400m out of the US.


title: OneCoin

text: On 24 November 2019 the BBC published a detailed investigation of OneCoin and Ignatova titled "Cryptoqueen: How this woman scammed the world, then vanished". The reporters believe that Ignatova resides in Frankfurt under a false identity.


title: OneCoin

text: In 2020 the FinCEN Files showed that BNY Mellon flagged to FinCEN $137m of transactions related to OneCoin.


title: OneCoin

text: The company OneCoin, Ruja Ignatova and Gilbert Armenta have been found in default at an ongoing trial in the US.


title: OneCoin

text: In May 2022, Europol added Ignatova to their "Europe's Most Wanted" list, offering a €5,000 reward for information leading to her arrest. On June 30, the Federal Bureau of Investigation added Ignatova to the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, offering a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading to her arrest.


title: African buffalo

text: The African buffalo (Syncerus caffer) is a large sub-Saharan African bovine. "Syncerus caffer caffer", the Cape buffalo, is the typical subspecies, and the largest one, found in Southern and East Africa. "S. c. nanus" (the forest buffalo) is the smallest subspecies, common in forest areas of Central and West Africa, while "S. c. brachyceros" is in West Africa and "S. c. aequinoctialis" is in the savannas of East Africa. The adult African buffalo's horns are its characteristic feature: they have fused bases, forming a continuous bone shield across the top of the head referred to as a "boss". It is widely regarded as one of the most dangerous animals on the African continent, and according to some estimates it gores, tramples, and kills over 200 people every year.


title: African buffalo

text: The African buffalo is not an ancestor of domestic cattle and is only distantly related to other larger bovines. Its unpredictable temperament may have been part of the reason that the African buffalo has never been domesticated, unlike its Asian counterpart, the water buffalo. Natural predators of adult African buffaloes include lions, hyenas, and crocodiles. As a member of the big five game, the Cape buffalo is a sought-after trophy in hunting.


title: African buffalo

text: The African buffalo is a very robust species. Its shoulder height can range from and its head-and-body length can range from . The tail can range from long. Compared with other large bovids, it has a long but stocky body (the body length can exceed the wild water buffalo, which is heavier and taller) and short but thickset legs, resulting in a relatively short standing height. Cape buffaloes weigh (males weigh about more than females). In comparison, African forest buffaloes, at , are only half that size. Its head is carried low; its top is located below the backline. The front hooves of the buffalo are wider than the rear, which is associated with the need to support the weight of the front part of the body, which is heavier and more powerful than the back.


title: African buffalo

text: Savannah-type buffaloes have black or dark brown coats with age. Old bulls often have whitish circles around their eyes and on their face. Females tend to have more-reddish coats. Forest-type buffaloes are 30-40% smaller, reddish brown in colour, with much more hair growth around the ears and with horns that curve back and slightly up. Calves of both types have red coats.


title: African buffalo

text: A characteristic feature of the horns of adult male African buffalo (southern and eastern populations) is that the bases come very close together, forming a shield referred to as a "boss". From the base, the horns diverge downwards, then smoothly curve upwards and outwards and in some cases inwards and or backwards. In large bulls, the distance between the ends of the horns can reach upwards of one metre (the record being 64.5 inches 164 cm). The horns form fully when the animal reaches the age of 5 or 6 years old, but the bosses do not become "hard" until it reaches the age of 8 to 9 years old. In cows, the horns are, on average, 10–20% smaller, and they do not have a boss. Forest-type buffalo horns are smaller than those of the savanna-type buffaloes from Southern and East Africa, usually measuring less than , and are almost never fused.


title: African buffalo

text: The African buffalo is one of the most successful grazers in Africa. It lives in savannas, swamps and floodplains, as well as mopane grasslands, and the forests of the major mountains of Africa. This buffalo prefers a habitat with dense cover, such as reeds and thickets, but can also be found in open woodland. While not particularly demanding in regard to habitat, they require water daily, and so they depend on perennial sources of water. Like the plains zebra, the buffalo can live on tall, coarse grasses. Herds of buffalo mow down grasses and make way for more selective grazers. When feeding, the buffalo makes use of its tongue and wide incisor row to eat grass more quickly than most other African herbivores. Buffaloes do not stay on trampled or depleted areas for long.


title: African buffalo

text: Other than humans, African buffaloes have few predators and are capable of defending themselves against (and killing) lions. Lions do kill and eat buffaloes regularly, and in some regions, the buffaloes are the lions' primary prey. It often takes several lions to bring down a single adult buffalo, and the entire pride may join in the hunt. However, several incidents have been reported in which lone adult male lions have successfully brought down adult buffaloes. The average-sized Nile crocodile typically attacks only old solitary animals and young calves, though they can kill healthy adults. Exceptionally large, old male crocodiles may become semi-habitual predators of buffaloes. The cheetah, leopard, African wild dog and spotted hyena are normally a threat only to newborn calves, though larger clans of hyenas have been recorded killing cows (mainly pregnant ones) and, on rare occasions, full-grown bulls. Large packs of wild dogs have been observed to hunt calves and sick adults.


title: African buffalo

text: The African buffalo is susceptible to many diseases, including those shared with domestic cattle, such as bovine tuberculosis, corridor disease, and foot and mouth disease. As with many diseases, these problems remain dormant within a population as long as the health of the animals is good. These diseases do, however, restrict the legal movements of the animals and fencing infected areas from unaffected areas is enforced. Some wardens and game managers have managed to protect and breed "disease-free" herds which become very valuable because they can be transported. Most well-known are Lindsay Hunt's efforts to source uninfected animals from the Kruger National Park in South Africa. Some disease-free buffaloes in South Africa have been sold to breeders for close to US$130,000.


title: African buffalo

text: Herd size is highly variable. The core of the herds is made up of related females, and their offspring, in an almost linear dominance hierarchy. The basic herds are surrounded by subherds of subordinate males, high-ranking males and females, and old or invalid animals.


title: African buffalo

text: African buffaloes engage in several types of group behavior. Females appear to exhibit a sort of "voting behavior". During resting time, the females stand up, shuffle around, and sit back down again. They sit in the direction they think they should move. After an hour of more shuffling, the females travel in the direction they decide. This decision is communal and not based on hierarchy or dominance.


title: African buffalo

text: When chased by predators, a herd sticks close together and makes it hard for the predators to pick off one member. Calves are gathered in the middle. A buffalo herd responds to the distress call of a threatened member and tries to rescue it. A calf's distress call gets the attention of not only the mother, but also the herd. Buffaloes engage in mobbing behavior when fighting off predators. They have been recorded killing lions and chasing lions up trees and keeping them there for two hours, after the lions have killed a member of their group. Lion cubs can get trampled and killed. In one videotaped instance, known as the Battle at Kruger, a calf survived an attack by both lions and a crocodile after intervention of the herd.


title: African buffalo

text: Males have a linear dominance hierarchy based on age and size. Since a buffalo is safer when a herd is larger, dominant bulls may rely on subordinate bulls and sometimes tolerate their copulation. The young males keep their distance from the dominant bull, which is recognizable by the thickness of his horns.


title: African buffalo

text: Adult bulls spar in play, dominance interactions, or actual fights. A bull approaches another, lowing, with his horns down, and waits for the other bull to do the same thing. When sparring, the bulls twist their horns from side to side. If the sparring is for play, the bull may rub his opponent's face and body during the sparring session. Actual fights are violent but rare and brief. Calves may also spar in play, but adult females rarely spar at all.


title: African buffalo

text: During the dry season, males split from the herd and form bachelor groups. Two types of bachelor herds occur: ones made of males aged four to seven years and those of males 12 years or older. During the wet season, the younger bulls rejoin a herd to mate with the females. They stay with them throughout the season to protect the calves. Some older bulls cease to rejoin the herd, as they can no longer compete with the younger, more aggressive males. The old bachelors are called "dagga boy"s ("mud covered"), and are considered the most dangerous to humans.


title: African buffalo

text: African buffaloes make various vocalizations. Many calls are lower-pitched versions of those emitted by domestic cattle. They emit low-pitched, two- to four-second calls intermittently at three- to six-second intervals to signal the herd to move. To signal to the herd to change direction, leaders emit "gritty", "creaking gate" sounds. When moving to drinking places, some individuals make long "maaa" calls up to 20 times a minute. When being aggressive, they make explosive grunts that may last long or turn into a rumbling growl. Cows produce croaking calls when looking for their calves. Calves make a similar call of a higher pitch when in distress. When threatened by predators, they make drawn-out "waaaa" calls. Dominant individuals make calls to announce their presence and location. A version of the same call, but more intense, is emitted as a warning to an encroaching inferior. When grazing, they make various sounds, such as brief bellows, grunts, honks, and croaks.


title: African buffalo

text: Females reach sexual maturity at around five years of age while males are sexually matured at four to six. African buffaloes mate and give birth only during the rainy seasons. Birth peak takes place early in the season, while mating peaks later. A bull closely guards a cow that comes into heat, while keeping other bulls at bay. This is difficult, as cows are quite evasive and attract many males to the scene. By the time a cow is in full estrus, only the most dominant bull in the herd/subherd is there.


title: African buffalo

text: Cows first calve at five years of age, after a gestation period of 11.5 months. Newborn calves remain hidden in vegetation for the first few weeks while being nursed occasionally by the mother before joining the main herd. Older calves are held in the centre of the herd for safety. The maternal bond between mother and calf lasts longer than in most bovids. That bonding ends when a new calf is born, and the mother then keeps her previous offspring at bay with horn jabs. Nevertheless, the yearling follows its mother for another year or so. Males leave their mothers when they are two years old and join the bachelor groups. Young calves, unusually for bovids, suckle from behind their mothers, pushing their heads between the mothers' legs.


title: African buffalo

text: In the wild African buffaloes have an average lifespan of 11 years but they've been recorded to reach 22 years of age. In captivity they can live for a maximum of 29.5 years though they only live 16 years on average.


title: African buffalo

text: The current status of the African buffalo is dependent on the animal's value to both trophy hunters and tourists, paving the way for conservation efforts through anti-poaching patrols, village crop damage payouts, and CAMPFIRE payback programs to local areas.


title: African buffalo

text: The African buffalo is listed as Near threatened by the IUCN, with a decreasing population of 400,000 individuals. While some populations (subspecies) are decreasing, others will remain unchanged in the long term if large, healthy populations continue to persist in a substantial number of national parks, equivalent reserves and hunting zones in southern and eastern Africa."


title: African buffalo

text: In the most recent and available census data at continental scale, the total estimated numbers of the three savanna-type African buffalo subspecies ("S. c. caffer", "S. c. brachyceros" and "S. c. aequinoctialis") are at 513,000 individuals.


title: African buffalo

text: In the past, numbers of African buffaloes suffered their most severe collapse during the great rinderpest epidemic of the 1890s, which, coupled with pleuro-pneumonia, caused mortalities as high as 95% among livestock and wild ungulates.


title: African buffalo

text: Being a member of the big five game group, a term originally used to describe the five most dangerous animals to hunt, the Cape buffalo is a sought-after trophy, with some hunters paying over $10,000 for the opportunity to hunt one. The larger bulls are targeted for their trophy value, although in some areas, buffaloes are still hunted for meat.


title: African buffalo

text: One of the "big five" African game, it is known as "the Black Death" or "the widowmaker", and is widely regarded as a very dangerous animal. According to some estimates, it gores and kills over 200 people every year. African buffaloes are sometimes reported to kill more


title: African buffalo

text: people in Africa than any other animal, although the same claim is also made of hippopotamuses and crocodiles. These numbers may be somewhat overestimated; for example, in the country of Mozambique, attacks, especially fatal ones, were much less frequent on humans than those by hippos and, especially, Nile crocodiles. In Uganda, on the other hand, large herbivores were found to attack more people on average than lions or leopards and have a higher rate of inflicting fatalities during attacks than the predators (the African buffalo, in particular, killing humans in 49.5% of attacks on them), but hippos and even elephants may still kill more people per annum here than buffaloes. African buffaloes are notorious among big-game hunters as very dangerous animals, with wounded animals reported to ambush and attack pursuers.


title: Lobbying

text: In politics, lobbying, persuasion or interest representation is the act of lawfully attempting to influence the actions, policies, or decisions of government officials, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies. Lobbying, which usually involves direct, face-to-face contact, is done by many types of people, associations and organized groups, including individuals in the private sector, corporations, fellow legislators or government officials, or advocacy groups (interest groups). Lobbyists may be among a legislator's constituencies, meaning a voter or bloc of voters within their electoral district; they may engage in lobbying as a business. Professional lobbyists are people whose business is trying to influence legislation, regulation, or other government decisions, actions, or policies on behalf of a group or individual who hires them. Individuals and nonprofit organizations can also lobby as an act of volunteering or as a small part of their normal job. Governments often define "lobbying" for legal purposes, and regulate organized group lobbying that has become influential.


title: Lobbying

text: The ethics and morals involved with legally bribing or lobbying or influence peddling are controversial. Lobbying can, at times, be spoken of with contempt, when the implication is that people with inordinate socioeconomic power are corrupting the law in order to serve their own interests. When people who have a duty to act on behalf of others, such as elected officials with a duty to serve their constituents' interests or more broadly the public good, can benefit by shaping the law to serve the interests of some private parties, a conflict of interest exists. Many critiques of lobbying point to the potential for conflicts of interest to lead to agent misdirection or the intentional failure of an agent with a duty to serve an employer, client, or constituent to perform those duties. The failure of government officials to serve the public interest as a consequence of lobbying by special interests who provide benefits to the official is an example of agent misdirection. That is why lobbying is seen as one of the causes of a democratic deficit.


title: Lobbying

text: In a report carried by the BBC, an OED lexicographer has shown that "lobbying" finds its roots in the gathering of Members of Parliament and peers in the hallways ("lobbies") of the UK Houses of Parliament before and after parliamentary debates where members of the public can meet their representatives.


title: Lobbying

text: One story held that the term originated at the Willard Hotel in Washington, DC, where it was supposedly used by President Ulysses S. Grant to describe the political advocates who frequented the hotel's lobby to access Grant—who was often there in the evenings to enjoy a cigar and brandy—and then tried to buy the president drinks in an attempt to influence his political decisions. Although the term may have gained more widespread currency in Washington, D.C. by virtue of this practice during the Grant Administration, the OED cites numerous documented uses of the word well before Grant's presidency, including use in Pennsylvania as early as 1808.


title: Lobbying

text: Governments often define and regulate organized group lobbying as part of laws to prevent political corruption and by establishing transparency about possible influences by public lobby registers.


title: Lobbying

text: Lobby groups may concentrate their efforts on the legislatures, where laws are created, but may also use the judicial branch to advance their causes. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, for example, filed suits in state and federal courts in the 1950s to challenge segregation laws. Their efforts resulted in the Supreme Court declaring such laws unconstitutional.


title: Lobbying

text: Lobbyists may use a legal device known as "amicus curiae" (literally: "friend of the court") briefs to try to influence court cases. Briefs are written documents filed with a court, typically by parties to a lawsuit. "Amici curiae" briefs are briefs filed by people or groups who are not parties to a suit. These briefs are entered into the court records, and give additional background on the matter being decided upon. Advocacy groups use these briefs both to share their expertise and to promote their positions.


title: Lobbying

text: The lobbying industry is affected by the revolving door concept, a movement of personnel between roles as legislators and regulators and roles in the industries affected by legislation and regulation, as the main asset for a lobbyist is contacts with and influence on government officials. This climate is attractive for ex-government officials. It can also mean substantial monetary rewards for lobbying firms, and government projects and contracts worth in the hundreds of millions for those they represent.


title: Lobbying

text: The international standards for the regulation of lobbying were introduced at four international organizations and supranational associations: 1) the European Union; 2) the Council of Europe; 3) the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development; 4) the Commonwealth of Independent States.


title: Lobbying

text: In 2013, the director general of the World Health Organization, Margaret Chan, illustrated the methods used in lobbying against public health:


title: Lobbying

text: In pre-modern political systems, royal courts provided incidental opportunities for gaining the ear of monarchs and their councilors.


title: Lobbying

text: Since the 1980s, lobbying in Australia has grown from a small industry of a few hundred employees to a multi-billion dollar per year industry. What was once the preserve of big multinational companies and at a more local level (property developers, for example Urban Taskforce Australia) has morphed into an industry that employs more than 10,000 people and represents every facet of human endeavour.


title: Lobbying

text: Academic John Warhurst from the Australian National University noted that over this time, retired politicians have increasingly turned political lobbyists to leverage their networks and experience for private gain. In 2018 he noted that two of the top three Howard government ministers had become lobbyists: Alexander Downer and John Costello, and that the trend could be traced back to the Hawke Government of 1983. Mick Young stated that by 1983 the lobbying profession an established part of the democratic political process in Canberra. Warhurst attests that by 2018, "political leader-lobbyists" were an established part of the same process. During the 1980s, political leaders traded on their own names, like Bob Hawke, or joined the "respectable" end of the lobbying spectrum, working for law firms or banks, like former New South Wales premiers Nick Greiner and Bob Carr. In 2008, Alexander Downer formed the lobbying firm Bespoke Approach, along with former Labor minister Nick Bolkus and Ian Smith, who is married to former Australian Democrats leader, Natasha Stott-Despoja. Peter Costello carried two former staffers to work with him in his lobbying firm, ECG Consulting: Jonathan Epstein and David Gazard. Politicians can become exposed to allegations of conflicts of interest when they both lobby and advise governments. Examples include Peter Costello.


title: Lobbying

text: Political party staff often form lobbying firms, or dominate their ranks. Former Howard chief-of-staff Grahame Morris is director of Barton Deakin Government Relations. His colleagues there include David Alexander (former Costello staffer), Sallyanne Atkinson (former Lord Mayor of Brisbane and former federal Liberal Party candidate), Howard staffer John Griffin and former New South Wales Liberal Party leader, Peter Collins. The Labor "sister" company is Hawker Britton, so named as both firms are owned by STW Group. In 2013, Hawker Britton had 113 client companies on its books.


title: Lobbying

text: In 2013, there were just under 280 firms on the Federal Australian Register of Lobbyists. Steve Carney of Carney Associated says that lobbyists "try to leave no thumbprints on the glass, no footprints in the sand. The best lobbying is when nobody knows you were there.” Mark Textor of campaign advisory group Crosby Textor describes political lobbying as a "pathetic miserable industry".


title: Lobbying

text: Supermarket chains in Australia engage lobbying firms with political weight in their ranks. Australian Supermarket giant Coles is represented by both ECG Consulting and Bespoke Approach, while its own parent company, Wesfarmers, has former West Australian premier Alan Carpenter in charge of corporate affairs. Competitor Woolworths has a government relations team composed of former Labor and Liberal advisers, under the direction of a former leader of the National Party, Andrew Hall. Aldi engages GRA (Government Relations Australia), one of Australia's largest lobbying firms, whose staff includes former Federal Labor treasurer, John Dawkins.


title: Lobbying

text: A register of federal lobbyists is kept by the Australian Government and is accessible to the public via its website. Similar registers for State government lobbyists were introduced between 2007 and 2009 around Australia. Since April 2007 in Western Australia, only lobbyists listed on the state's register are allowed to contact a government representative for the purpose of lobbying. Similar rules have applied in Tasmania since 1 September 2009 and in South Australia and Victoria since 1 December 2009. A criticism of the lobbyist register is that it only captures professional third-party lobbyists, not employees of companies which directly lobby government. An example of this is BHP, which employs Geoff Walsh, a key advisor to Bob Hawke as an in-house lobbyist.


title: Lobbying

text: In 2022, The Mercury published a complete list of lobbyists registered at the Tasmanian Parliament. The field was dominated by former politicians, advisers and journalists in 2016.


title: Lobbying

text: The first step towards specialized regulation of lobbying in the European Union was a Written Question tabled by Alman Metten, in 1989. In 1991, Marc Galle, Chairman of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, was appointed to submit proposals for a Code of conduct and a register of lobbyists. Today lobbying in the European Union is an integral and important part of decision-making in the EU. From year to year lobbying regulation in the EU is constantly improving and the number of lobbyists increases.


title: Lobbying

text: In 2003 there were around 15,000 lobbyists (consultants, lawyers, associations, corporations, NGOs etc.) in Brussels seeking to influence the EU's legislation. Some 2,600 special interest groups had a permanent office in Brussels. Their distribution was roughly as follows: European trade federations (32%), consultants (20%), companies (13%), NGOs (11%), national associations (10%), regional representations (6%), international organizations (5%) and think tanks (1%), (Lehmann, 2003, pp iii). In addition to this, lobby organisations sometimes hire former EU employees (a phenomenon known as the revolving door) who possess inside knowledge of the EU institutions and policy process A report by Transparency International EU published in January 2017 analysed the career paths of former EU officials and found that 30% of Members of the European Parliament who left politics went to work for organisations on the EU lobby register after their mandate and approximately one third of Commissioners serving under Barroso took jobs in the private sector after their mandate, including for Uber, ArcelorMittal, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. These potential conflicts of interest could be avoided if a stronger ethics framework were established at the EU level, including an independent ethics body and longer cooling-off periods for MEPs.


title: Lobbying

text: In the wake of the Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal in Washington D.C. and the massive impact this had on the lobbying scene in the United States, the rules for lobbying in the EU—which until now consisted of only a non-binding code of conduct—may also be tightened.


title: Lobbying

text: Eventually, on 31 January 2019 the European Parliament adopted binding rules on lobby transparency. Amending its Rules of Procedure, the Parliament stipulated that MEPs involved in drafting and negotiating legislation must publish online their meetings with lobbyists. The amendment says that “rapporteurs, shadow rapporteurs or committee chairs shall, for each report, publish online all scheduled meetings with interest representatives falling under the scope of the Transparency Register”-database of the EU.


title: Lobbying

text: There is currently no regulation at all for lobbying activities in France. There is no regulated access to the French institutions and no register specific to France, but there is one for the European Union where French lobbyists are able to register themselves. For example, the internal rule of the National Assembly (art. 23 and 79) forbids members of Parliament to be linked with a particular interest. Also, there is no rule at all for consultation of interest groups by the Parliament and the Government. Nevertheless, a recent parliamentary initiative (motion for a resolution) has been launched by several MPs so as to establish a register for representatives of interest groups and lobbyists who intend to lobby the MPs.


title: Lobbying

text: A 2016 study found evidence of significant indirect lobbying of then-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi through business proxies. The authors document a significant pro-Mediaset (the mass media company founded and controlled by Berlusconi) bias in the allocation of advertising spending during Berlusconi's political tenure, in particular for companies operating in more regulated sectors.


title: Lobbying

text: Romanian legislation does not include an express regulation on lobbying activity. The legislative proposals initiated by various parliamentarians have not been finalized.


title: Lobbying

text: Attempts to regulate lobbying in Romania have appeared in the context of the fight against corruption. Anti-corruption strategies adopted in 2011 and 2004 mentions the purposes of the elaboration of a draft law on lobbying, as well as ensuring transparency in the decision-making activity.


title: Lobbying

text: In 2008 and 2011, the emphasis was mainly on transparency in the decision-making activity of the public authorities, regulation of lobbying activities no longer appearing as a distinct or expressly mentioned objective.


title: Lobbying

text: The Romanian Lobby Registry Association (ARRL) was founded in June 2010 to popularize and promote lobbying activity. ARRL is a non-profit legal entity that works under private law.


title: Lobbying

text: The majority of lobbying companies represent non-governmental organizations which activities include education, ecology, fundamental freedoms, health, consumer rights etc. Other entities that deal with lobby practice are multinational companies, Romanian companies, law firms and specialized lobby firms.


title: Lobbying

text: In the United States, some special interests hire professional advocates to argue for specific legislation in decision-making bodies, such as Congress. Some lobbyists are now using social media to reduce the cost of traditional campaigns, and to more precisely target public officials with political messages.


title: Lobbying

text: A 2011 study of the 50 firms that spent the most on lobbying relative to their assets compared their financial performance against that of the S&P 500, and concluded that spending on lobbying was a "spectacular investment" yielding "blistering" returns comparable to a high-flying hedge fund, even despite the financial downturn. A 2011 meta-analysis of previous research findings found a positive correlation between corporate political activity and firm performance. A 2009 study found that lobbying brought a return on investment of as much as 22,000% in some cases. Major American corporations spent $345 million lobbying for just three pro-immigration bills between 2006 and 2008. A review of 30 food and beverage companies spent $38.2 million on lobbying in 2020 to strengthen and maintain their influence in Washington, D.C.


title: Lobbying

text: A study from the Kellogg School of Management found that political donations by corporations do not increase shareholder value.


title: Lobbying

text: Wall Street spent a record $2 billion trying to influence the 2016 United States presidential election.


title: Lobbying

text: Foreign-funded lobbying efforts include those of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, and China lobbies. In 2010 alone, foreign governments spent approximately $460 million on lobbying members of Congress and government officials.


title: Lobbying

text: In the US, lobbying for foreign governments isn’t illegal, but it requires registering as a foreign agent with the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Another condition is to not represent the countries with poor human rights records or that have strained relations with the US. Between 2015 and 2017, around 145 registered lobbyists were paid $18 million by Saudi Arabia to influence the U.S. government.


title: Lobbying

text: In January 2017, an order by Donald Trump led to a lifetime ban on administration officials from lobbying for foreign governments and a five-year ban on other forms of lobbying. However, the rule was revoked by Trump right before the end of his presidency. A number of Trump allies were found guilty to lobbying on behalf of foreign governments during the 2016 US elections, including Paul Manafort and Elliott Broidy. A longtime Trump ally Thomas Barrack was arrested in July 2021 for illegally lobbying the Trump administration on behalf of the United Arab Emirates. In May 2022, the indictment was updated, stating that Barrack received millions of dollars from the UAE to boost Trump’s agenda and get advantage from his presidency. Barrack was found not guilty on all charges in November 2022.


title: Lobbying

text: The United Arab Emirates has a long history of lobbying government and politicians in the West for its conflict of interest concerning building influence and using it to impact the country’s foreign policy. In November 2022 it was accused of hiring PR and lobbying firms in order to promote to the politicians in the United States about its selection to host the COP28 Climate Conference. The problem was that the promotion started even before Egypt hosted 2022’s COP27 Climate event. Fleishmann Hillard were hired to compose letters that proposed the idea of Emirati ministers attending conferences and events and using the phrase “the UAE is hosting COP28 next year”. Whereas, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld were hired to reach out to US politicians particularly pushing the environmental policies or favouring fossil fuels in addition to informing them about the UAE hosting COP28. The gulf nation even declared its intentions of achieving net zero emissions by 2050, even though 30% of their GDP relies on oil and gas directly, while the remaining relies upon industry run on heavy energy consumption.


title: Lobbying

text: A report by Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft revealed the lobbying efforts of the UAE in the US, which aimed at winning advanced military materiel contracts worth tens of billions of dollars. A group of US–based lobbyists assisted the UAE to exert its influence in the US. This included 25 organizations that registered under FARA to work on behalf of the Emirates, between 2020 and 2021. There firms made nearly 10,765 contacts for their Emirati clients, which paid over $64 million to these organizations.