text: Amidst continuing growth of China's missile forces, US President Donald Trump announced on 20 October 2018 that he was withdrawing the US from the treaty due to Russian non-compliance. The United States claimed another reason for the withdrawal was to counter a Chinese arms buildup in the Pacific, including within the South China Sea, as China was not a signatory to the treaty. The US formally suspended the treaty on 1 February 2019, and Russia did so on the following day in response. The United States formally withdrew from the treaty on 2 August 2019.


title: Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty

text: In March 1976, the Soviet Union first deployed the RSD-10 Pioneer (called "SS-20 Saber" in the West) in its European territories, a mobile, concealable intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) with a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) containing three nuclear 150-kiloton warheads. The SS-20's range of was great enough to reach Western Europe from well within Soviet territory; the range was just below the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks II (SALT II) Treaty minimum range for an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), . The SS-20 replaced aging Soviet systems of the SS-4 Sandal and SS-5 Skean, which were seen to pose a limited threat to Western Europe due to their poor accuracy, limited payload (one warhead), lengthy time to prepare to launch, difficulty of concealment, and a lack of mobility which exposed them to pre-emptive NATO strikes ahead of a planned attack. While the SS-4 and SS-5 were seen as defensive weapons, the SS-20 was seen as a potential offensive system.


text: The US, then under President Jimmy Carter, initially considered its strategic nuclear weapons and nuclear-capable aircraft to be adequate counters to the SS-20 and a sufficient deterrent against possible Soviet aggression. In 1977, however, Chancellor Helmut Schmidt of West Germany argued in a speech that a Western response to the SS-20 deployment should be explored, a call which was echoed by NATO, given a perceived Western disadvantage in European nuclear forces. Leslie H. Gelb, the US Assistant Secretary of State, later recounted that Schmidt's speech pressured the US into developing a response.


text: On 12 December 1979, following European pressure for a response to the SS-20, Western foreign and defense ministers meeting in Brussels made the NATO Double-Track Decision. The ministers argued that the Warsaw Pact had "developed a large and growing capability in nuclear systems that directly threaten Western Europe": "theater" nuclear systems (i.e., tactical nuclear weapons). In describing this "aggravated" situation, the ministers made direct reference to the SS-20 featuring "significant improvements over previous systems in providing greater accuracy, more mobility, and greater range, as well as having multiple warheads". The ministers also attributed the altered situation to the deployment of the Soviet Tupolev Tu-22M strategic bomber, which they believed had "much greater performance" than its predecessors. Furthermore, the ministers expressed concern that the Soviet Union had gained an advantage over NATO in "Long-Range Theater Nuclear Forces" (LRTNF), and also significantly increased short-range theater nuclear capacity.


text: The Double-Track Decision involved two policy "tracks". Initially, of the 7,400 theater nuclear warheads, 1,000 would be removed from Europe and the US would pursue bilateral negotiations with the Soviet Union intended to limit theater nuclear forces. Should these negotiations fail, NATO would modernize its own LRTNF, or intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF), by replacing US Pershing 1a missiles with 108 Pershing II launchers in West Germany and deploying 464 BGM-109G Ground Launched Cruise Missiles (GLCMs) to Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom beginning in December 1983.


text: The Soviet Union and United States agreed to open negotiations and preliminary discussions, named the Preliminary Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Talks, which began in Geneva, Switzerland, in October 1980. On 20 January 1981, Ronald Reagan was sworn into office after defeating Jimmy Carter in the 1980 United States presidential election. Formal talks began on 30 November 1981, with the US negotiators led by Reagan and those of the Soviet Union by General Secretary, Leonid Brezhnev. The core of the US negotiating position reflected the principles put forth under Carter: any limits placed on US INF capabilities, both in terms of "ceilings" and "rights", must be reciprocated with limits on Soviet systems. Additionally, the US insisted that a sufficient verification regime be in place.


text: Paul Nitze, an experienced politician and long-time presidential advisor on defense policy who had participated in the SALT talks, led the US delegation after being recruited by Secretary of State Alexander Haig. Though Nitze had backed the first SALT treaty, he opposed SALT II and had resigned from the US delegation during its negotiation. Nitze was also then a member of the Committee on the Present Danger, a firmly anti-Soviet group composed of neoconservatives and conservative Republicans. Yuli Kvitsinsky, the well-respected second-ranking official at the Soviet embassy in West Germany, headed the Soviet delegation.


text: On 18 November 1981, shortly before the beginning of formal talks, Reagan made the Zero Option or "zero-zero" proposal. It called for a hold on US deployment of GLCM and Pershing II systems, reciprocated by Soviet elimination of its SS-4, SS-5, and SS-20 missiles. There appeared to be little chance of the Zero Option being adopted, but the gesture was well received by the European public. In February 1982, US negotiators put forth a draft treaty containing the Zero Option and a global prohibition on intermediate- and short-range missiles, with compliance ensured via a stringent, though unspecified, verification program.


text: Opinion within the Reagan administration on the Zero Option was mixed. Richard Perle, then the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Strategic Affairs, was the architect of the plan. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, who supported a continued US nuclear presence in Europe, was skeptical of the plan, though eventually accepted it for its value in putting the Soviet Union "on the defensive in the European propaganda war". Reagan later recounted that the "zero option sprang out of the realities of nuclear politics in Western Europe". The Soviet Union rejected the plan shortly after the US tabled it in February 1982, arguing that both the US and Soviet Union should be able to retain intermediate-range missiles in Europe. Specifically, Soviet negotiators proposed that the number of INF missiles and aircraft deployed in Europe by each side be capped at 600 by 1985 and 300 by 1990. Concerned that this proposal would force the US to withdraw aircraft from Europe and not deploy INF missiles, given US cooperation with existing British and French deployments, the US proposed "equal rights and limits"—the US would be permitted to match Soviet SS-20 deployments.


text: Between 1981 and 1983, US and Soviet negotiators gathered for six rounds of talks, each two months in length—a system based on the earlier SALT talks. The US delegation was composed of Nitze, Major General William F. Burns of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), Thomas Graham of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA), and officials from the US Department of State, Office of the Secretary of Defense, and US National Security Council. Colonel Norman Clyne, a SALT talks participant, served as Nitze's chief of staff.


text: There was little convergence between the two sides over these two years. A US effort to separate the question of nuclear-capable aircraft from that of intermediate-range missiles successfully focused attention on the latter, but little clear progress on the subject was made. In the summer of 1982, Nitze and Kvitsinsky took a "walk in the woods" in the Jura Mountains, away from formal negotiations in Geneva, in an independent attempt to bypass bureaucratic procedures and break the negotiating deadlock. Nitze later said that his and Kvitsinsky's goal was to agree to certain concessions that would allow for a summit meeting between Brezhnev and Reagan later in 1982.


text: Nitze's offer to Kvitsinsky was that the US would forego deployment of the Pershing II but limit the deployment of GLCMs to 75. The Soviet Union, in return, would also have to limit itself to 75 intermediate-range missile launchers in Europe and 90 in Asia. Due to each GLCM launcher containing four GLCMs and each SS-20 launcher containing three warheads, such an agreement would have resulted in the US having 75 more intermediate-range warheads in Europe than the Soviet Union, though SS-20s were seen as more advanced and maneuverable than GLCMs. While Kvitsinsky was skeptical that the plan would be well received in Moscow, Nitze was optimistic about its chances in Washington. The deal ultimately found little traction in either capital. In the US, the Office of the Secretary of Defense opposed Nitze's proposal, as it opposed any proposal that would allow the Soviet Union to deploy missiles to Europe while blocking US deployments. Nitze's proposal was relayed by Kvitsinsky to Moscow, where it was also rejected. The plan accordingly was never introduced into formal negotiations.


text: Thomas Graham, a US negotiator, later recalled that Nitze's "walk in the woods" proposal was primarily of Nitze's own design and known beforehand only to Burns and Eugene V. Rostow, the director of ACDA. In a National Security Council meeting following the Nitze-Kvitsinsky walk, the proposal was received positively by the JCS and Reagan. Following protests by Perle, working within the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Reagan informed Nitze that he would not back the plan. The State Department, then led by Haig, also indicated that it would not support Nitze's plan and preferred a return to the Zero Option proposal. Nitze argued that one positive consequence of the walk in the woods was that the European public, which had doubted US interest in arms control, became convinced that the US was participating in the INF negotiations in good faith.


text: In early 1983, US negotiators indicated that they would support a plan beyond the Zero Option if the plan established equal rights and limits for the US and Soviet Union, with such limits valid worldwide, and excluded British and French missile systems (as well as those of any other third party). As a temporary measure, the US negotiators also proposed a cap of 450 deployed INF warheads around the world for both the US and Soviet Union. In response, Soviet negotiators proposed that a plan would have to block all US INF deployments in Europe, cover both missiles and aircraft, include third parties, and focus primarily on Europe for it to gain Soviet backing. In the fall of 1983, just ahead of the scheduled deployment of US Pershing IIs and GLCMs, the US lowered its proposed limit on global INF deployments to 420 missiles, while the Soviet Union proposed "equal reductions": if the US cancelled the planned deployment of Pershing II and GLCM systems, the Soviet Union would reduce its own INF deployment by 572 warheads. In November 1983, after the first Pershing IIs arrived in West Germany, the Soviet Union walked out of negotiations, as it had warned it would do should the US missile deployments occur.


text: British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher played a key role in brokering the negotiations between Reagan and new Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986 to 1987.


text: In March 1986, negotiations between the US and the Soviet Union resumed, covering not only the INF issue, but also the separate Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) and space issues (Nuclear and Space Talks). In late 1985, both sides were moving towards limiting INF systems in Europe and Asia. On 15 January 1986, Gorbachev announced a Soviet proposal for a ban on all nuclear weapons by 2000, which included INF missiles in Europe. This was dismissed by the US and countered with a phased reduction of INF launchers in Europe and Asia with the target of none by 1989. There would be no constraints on British and French nuclear forces.


text: A series of meetings in August and September 1986 culminated in the Reykjavík Summit between Reagan and Gorbachev on 11 and 12 October 1986. Both agreed in principle to remove INF systems from Europe and to equal global limits of 100 INF missile warheads. Gorbachev also proposed deeper and more fundamental changes in the strategic relationship. More detailed negotiations extended throughout 1987, aided by the decision of West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in August to unilaterally remove the joint US-West German Pershing 1a systems. Initially, Kohl had opposed the total elimination of the Pershing missiles, claiming that such a move would increase his nation's vulnerability to an attack by Warsaw Pact Forces. The treaty text was finally agreed in September 1987. On 8 December 1987, the treaty was officially signed by Reagan and Gorbachev at a summit in Washington and ratified the following May in a 93–5 vote by the United States Senate.


text: The treaty prohibited both parties from possessing, producing, or flight-testing ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of . Possessing or producing ground-based launchers of those missiles was also prohibited. The ban extended to weapons with both nuclear and conventional warheads, but did not cover air-delivered or sea-based missiles. Existing weapons had to be destroyed, and a protocol for mutual inspection was agreed upon. Each party had the right to withdraw from the treaty with six months' notice, "if it decides that extraordinary events related to the subject matter of this Treaty have jeopardized its supreme interests".


text: By the treaty's deadline of 1 June 1991, a total of 2,692 of such weapons had been destroyed, 846 by the US and 1,846 by the Soviet Union. The following specific missiles, their launcher systems, and their transporter vehicles were destroyed:


text: Five months prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the United States and the Soviet Union completed the dismantling of their intermediate-range missiles on May 28 as outlined by the INF Treaty.  At the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States focused on negotiations with Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine to preserve the START 1 treaty that further decreased nuclear armament.   The United States did not focus immediate attention on the preservation of the INF Treaty because the disarmament of INF missiles already occurred.  Eventually, the United States began negotiations to maintain the treaty in the six newly independent states of the former Soviet Union that contained INF sites subject to inspection: Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. From these six countries, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine entered agreements to continue the fulfillment of the INF Treaty.  The remaining two states, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, became passive participants in the negotiations with approval from the other participating states due to the presence of a single inspection site in each country. Inspection of INF missile sites continued until May 31, 2001, as stipulated by the 13-year inspection agreement within the treaty. After this period, the United States and Russia continued to share national technical means of verification and notifications to ensure that each state maintained compliance. The treaty states continued to meet at Special Verification Committees after the end of the inspection period.  There were 30 total meetings with the final meeting occurring in November 2016 in Geneva, Switzerland with the United States, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine meeting to discuss compliance obligations.


text: In February 2007, the Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin gave a speech at the Munich Security Conference in which he said the INF Treaty should be revisited to ensure security, as it only restricted Russia and the US but not other countries. The Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Army General Yuri Baluyevsky, contemporaneously said that Russia was planning to unilaterally withdraw from the treaty in response to deployment of the NATO missile defence system and because other countries were not bound to the treaty.


text: According to US officials, Russia violated the treaty in 2008 by testing the SSC-8 cruise missile, which has a range of . Russia rejected the claim that their SSC-8 missiles violated the treaty, and claiming that the SSC-8 has a maximum range of only . In 2013, it was reported that Russia had tested and planned to continue testing two missiles in ways that could violate the terms of the treaty: the road-mobile SS-25 and the newer RS-26 ICBMs. The US representatives briefed NATO on other Russian breaches of the INF Treaty in 2014 and 2017, and in 2018, NATO formally supported the US accusations and accused Russia of breaking the treaty. Russia denied the accusation and Putin said it was a pretext for the US to withdraw from the treaty. A BBC analysis of the meeting that culminated in the NATO statement said that "NATO allies here share Washington's concerns and have backed the US position, thankful perhaps that it includes this short grace period during which Russia might change its mind."


text: In 2011, Dan Blumenthal of the American Enterprise Institute wrote that the actual Russian problem with the INF Treaty was that China was not bound by it and continued to build up their own intermediate-range forces.


text: According to Russian officials and the American academic Theodore Postol, the US decision to deploy its missile defense system in Europe was a violation of the treaty as they claim they could be quickly retrofitted with offensive capabilities; this accusation has in turn been rejected by US and NATO officials and analyst Jeffrey Lewis. Russian experts also stated that the US usage of target missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles, such as the MQ-9 Reaper and MQ-4 Triton, violated the INF Treaty which has also in turn been rejected by US officials.


text: The US declared its intention to withdraw from the treaty on 20 October 2018. Donald Trump mentioned at a campaign rally that the reason for the pullout was because "they've [Russia has] been violating it for many years". This prompted Putin to state that Russia would not launch first in a nuclear conflict but would "annihilate" any adversary, essentially re-stating the policy of "Mutually Assured Destruction". Putin claimed Russians killed in such a conflict "will go to heaven as martyrs".


text: It was also reported that the US need to counter a Chinese arms buildup in the Pacific, including within South China Sea, was another reason for their move to withdraw, because China was not a signatory to the treaty. US officials extending back to the presidency of Barack Obama have noted this. For example, Kelly Magsamen, who helped craft the Pentagon's Asian policy under the Obama administration, said China's ability to work outside of the INF treaty had vexed policymakers in Washington, long before Trump came into office. A "Politico" article noted the different responses US officials gave to this issue: "either find ways to bring China into the treaty or develop new American weapons to counter it" or "negotiating a new treaty with that country". The deployment since 2016 of the Chinese DF-26 IRBM with a range of meant that US forces as far as Guam can be threatened. The United States Secretary of Defense at the time, Jim Mattis, was quoted stating that "the Chinese are stockpiling missiles because they’re not bound by it at all". Bringing an ascendant China into the treaty, or into a new comprehensive treaty including other nuclear powers, was further complicated by relationships between China, India and Pakistan.


text: The Chinese Foreign Ministry said a unilateral US withdrawal would have a negative impact and urged the US to "think thrice before acting". On 23 October 2018, John R. Bolton, the US National Security Advisor, said on the Russian radio station Echo of Moscow that recent Chinese statements indicate that it wants Washington to stay in the treaty, while China itself is not bound by the treaty. On the same day, a report in "Politico" suggested that China was "the real target of the [pull out]". It was estimated that 90% of China's ground missile arsenal would be outlawed if China were a party to the treaty. Bolton said in an interview with Elena Chernenko from the Russian newspaper "Kommersant" on 22 October 2018: "we see China, Iran, North Korea all developing capabilities which would violate the treaty if they were parties to it. So the possibility that could have existed fifteen years ago to enlarge the treaty and make it universal today just simply was not practical."


text: On 26 October 2018, Russia unsuccessfully called for a vote to get the United Nations General Assembly to consider calling on Washington and Moscow to preserve and strengthen the treaty. Russia had proposed a draft resolution in the 193-member General Assembly's disarmament committee, but missed 18 October submission deadline so it instead called for a vote on whether the committee should be allowed to consider the draft. On the same day, Bolton said in an interview with Reuters that the INF Treaty was a Cold War relic and he wanted to hold strategic talks with Russia about Chinese missile capabilities.


text: Four days later at a news conference in Norway, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called on Russia to comply with the treaty saying "The problem is the deployment of new Russian missiles". Putin announced on 20 November 2018 that the Kremlin was prepared to discuss the INF Treaty with Washington but would "retaliate" if the United States withdrew.


text: Starting on 4 December 2018, the US asserted that Russia had 60 days to comply with the treaty. On 5 December 2018, Russia responded by revealing their Peresvet combat laser, stating the weapon system had been deployed with the Russian Armed Forces as early as 2017 "as part of the state procurement program".


text: Russia presented the 9M729 (SSC-8) missile and its technical parameters to foreign military attachés at a military briefing on 23 January 2019, held in what it said was an exercise in transparency it hoped would persuade Washington to stay in the treaty. The Russian Defence Ministry said diplomats from the US, Britain, France and Germany had been invited to attend the static display of the missile, but they declined to attend. The US had previously rejected a Russian offer to do so because it said such an exercise would not allow it to verify the true range of the missile. A summit between US and Russia on 30 January 2019 failed to find a way to preserve the treaty.


text: The US suspended its compliance with the INF Treaty on 2 February 2019 following an announcement by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo the day prior. In a statement, Trump said there was a six-month timeline for full withdrawal and INF Treaty termination if the Russian Federation did not come back into compliance within that period. The same day, Putin announced that Russia had also suspended the INF Treaty in a 'mirror response' to Trump's decision to suspend the treaty, effective that day. The next day, Russia started work on new intermediate range (ballistic) hypersonic missiles along with land-based 3M-54 Kalibr systems (both nuclear armed) in response to the US announcing it would start to conduct research and development of weapons prohibited under the treaty.


text: Following the six-month US suspension of the INF Treaty, the Trump administration formally announced it had withdrawn from the treaty on 2 August 2019. On that day, Pompeo stated that "Russia is solely responsible for the treaty's demise". While formally ratifying a treaty requires the support of two-thirds of the members of the US Senate, because Congress has rarely acted to stop such actions a number of presidential decisions during the 20th and 21st centuries have established a precedent that the president and executive branch can unilaterally withdraw from a treaty without congressional approval.


text: On the day of the withdrawal, the US Department of Defense announced plans to test a new type of missile that would have violated the treaty, from an eastern NATO base. Military leaders stated the need for this new missile to stay ahead of both Russia and China, in response to Russia's continued violations of the treaty.


text: The US withdrawal was backed by several of its NATO allies, citing years of Russian non-compliance with the treaty. In response to the withdrawal, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov invited the US and NATO "to assess the possibility of declaring the same moratorium on deploying intermediate-range and shorter-range equipment as we have, the same moratorium Vladimir Putin declared, saying that Russia will refrain from deploying these systems when we acquire them unless the American equipment is deployed in certain regions." This moratorium request was rejected by NATO's Stoltenberg who said that it was not credible as Moscow had already deployed such warheads. On 5 August 2019, Putin stated, "As of August 2, 2019 the INF Treaty no longer exists. Our US colleagues sent it to the archives, making it a thing of the past."


text: On 18 August 2019, the US conducted a test firing of a missile that would not have been allowed under the treaty. The Pentagon said that the data collected and lessons learned from this test would inform its future development of intermediate-range capabilities while the Russian foreign ministry said that it was a cause for regret, and accused the US of escalating military tensions.


text: Numerous prominent nuclear arms control experts, including George Shultz, Richard Lugar and Sam Nunn, urged Trump to preserve the treaty. Gorbachev criticized Trump's nuclear treaty withdrawal as "not the work of a great mind" and stated "a new arms race has been announced". The decision was criticized by the chairmen of the United States House of Representatives Committees on Foreign Affairs and Armed Services who said that instead of crafting a plan to hold Russia accountable and pressure it into compliance, the Trump administration had offered Putin an easy way out of the treaty and played right into his hands. Similar arguments had been brought previously on 25 October 2018 by European members of NATO who urged the US "to try to bring Russia back into compliance with the treaty rather than quit it, seeking to avoid a split in the alliance that Moscow could exploit".


text: NATO chief Stoltenberg suggested the INF Treaty could be expanded to include countries such as China and India, an idea that both the US and Russia had indicated being open to, although Russia had expressed skepticism that such an expansion could be achieved.


text: There were contrasting opinions on the withdrawal among American lawmakers. The INF Treaty Compliance Act (H.R. 1249) was introduced to stop the United States from using Government funds to develop missiles prohibited by the treaty, while Republican senators Jim Inhofe and Jim Risch issued statements of support for the withdrawal.


text: On 8 March 2019, the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine announced that since the US and Russia had both pulled out of the treaty, it now had the right to develop intermediate-range missiles, citing Russian aggression as a serious threat to the European continent, and the presence of Russian Iskander-M nuclear-capable missile systems in Russian-annexed Crimea. Ukraine was home to about forty percent of the Soviet space industry, but never developed a missile with the range to strike Moscow, only having both longer and shorter-ranged missiles, but has the capability to develop intermediate-range missiles. Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko said "We need high-precision missiles and we are not going to repeat the mistakes of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum", which had provided security assurances relating to the accession of Ukraine and other former Soviet states to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.


text: After the US withdrew from the treaty, some commentators wrote that this might allow the country to more effectively counter Russia and China's missile forces.


text: The INF Treaty’s demise also needs to be understood in the broader context of the gradual erosion of the strategic arms control regime that started with the U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, one of the foundations of strategic stability.


title: Lisa Gerrard

text: Lisa Germaine Gerrard (; born 12 April 1961) is an Australian musician, singer and composer who rose to prominence as part of the music group Dead Can Dance with music partner Brendan Perry. She is known for her unique singing style technique (glossolalia), influenced by her childhood spent in multicultural areas of Melbourne. She has a dramatic contralto voice and has a vocal range of three octaves.


title: Lisa Gerrard

text: Born and raised in Melbourne, Gerrard played a pivotal role in the city's Little Band scene and fronted post-punk group Microfilm before co-founding Dead Can Dance in 1981. With Perry, she explored numerous traditional and modern styles, laying the foundations for what became known as neoclassical dark wave. She sings sometimes in English and often in a unique language that she invented. In addition to singing, she is an instrumentalist for much of her work, most prolifically using the yangqin (a Chinese hammered dulcimer). Gerrard's first solo album, "The Mirror Pool", was released in 1995. She has been involved in a wide range of projects, starting her first collaborative album in 1998 with Pieter Bourke, and then with various artists throughout her career, who comprised Patrick Cassidy, Klaus Schulze, Hans Zimmer, among others. She has scored numerous award-winning motion picture soundtracks.


title: Lisa Gerrard

text: As of 2020, Gerrard has released four solo albums and collaborated on sixteen albums. She composed and contributed the scores to more than 48 movies. She received a Golden Globe Award for the music score to the 2000 film "Gladiator", on which she collaborated with Hans Zimmer. She wrote the score of "Balibo" which went on to win an ARIA award for Best Original Soundtrack and an APRA Screen music award for Best feature film score. Overall she has won 11 awards receiving 23 nominations. Gerrard has been nominated for a Grammy Award twice.


title: Lisa Gerrard

text: Lisa Gerrard was born in Melbourne to Irish immigrant parents, and grew up in Prahran, an inner suburb with a substantial Greek population. She recalled growing up with "Mediterranean music blaring out of the houses" and said that this influenced her music, particularly on later Dead Can Dance albums and in her solo and collaborative works.


title: Lisa Gerrard

text: Gerrard first began forming bands and creating original music as a member of Melbourne's Little Band scene, an experimental post-punk scene which flourished from 1978 until 1981. It was in this scene that she first met Dead Can Dance co-founder Brendan Perry. Perry recalls, "It never occurred to me that we would one day collaborate musically together because at the time I thought her music was too "avant-garde". I particularly remember one song that she sang about finding a man in the park and asking her mother if she could bring him home to keep in her wardrobe as she attacked this chinese dulcimer with two bamboo sticks". Around this time, Gerrard became the lead vocalist of Microfilm, which released "Window", and one single, "Centrefold", in 1980, via Unforgettable Music label. The group issued a third song, "Summer House", on Ron Rude's "From Belgrave With Love" compilation, which was released by Cleopatra Records in 1981.


title: Lisa Gerrard

text: Dead Can Dance originally formed as a quartet in 1981 in Melbourne, with members Gerrard, Perry, bassist Paul Erikson, and drummer Simon Monroe. By 1982, Gerrard, Perry and Erikson decided to relocate to London, but Monroe decided to stay in Australia, leaving the band as a trio.


title: Lisa Gerrard

text: In 2012, the band announced a new world tour to coincide with the release of their new album, "Anastasis". Dead Can Dance's albums "Spiritchaser" (1996) and "Anastasis" (2012) both reached No. 1 on the "Billboard" Top World Music Albums Chart.


title: Lisa Gerrard

text: Dead Can Dance recorded seven studio albums on the 4AD Records recording label—beginning with the self-titled "Dead Can Dance" LP in 1984, and two studio albums released by PIAS Recordings.


title: Lisa Gerrard

text: In 1995, Gerrard recorded and released her first solo album, "The Mirror Pool", accompanied by the Victorian Philharmonic Orchestra. The album peaked at No. 38 on the "Billboard" Heatseekers Albums Chart on 9 September 1995, and was on that chart for one week.


title: Lisa Gerrard

text: In 1998 she recorded "Duality" in collaboration with composer Pieter Bourke. The album went to No. 23 on the "Billboard" Heatseekers Albums Chart on 2 May 1998; it was present on the chart for two weeks. "Duality" would mark the beginning of an extensive collaboration for a number of film scores, including "The Insider" and "Ali".


title: Lisa Gerrard

text: Gerrard began a new collaboration with composer Patrick Cassidy in 2004 with the release of "Immortal Memory". Again, this collaboration was furthered in film work, including "Salem's Lot".


title: Lisa Gerrard

text: The following year in 2005, Gerrard contributed to the "Ashes and Snow Soundtrack". For the songs "Womb" and "Wisdom", she and Patrick Cassidy wrote and performed together. Her collaboration with Cassidy extended to include work with conductor Julie Rogers on the songs "Devota" and "Vespers".


title: Lisa Gerrard

text: In 2006, "Sanctuary", a documentary about the life and work of Gerrard, was recorded and released in September. It is the work of producer and director Clive Collier and features extensive interviews with Gerrard and various people who have collaborated with her in the past, including Michael Mann, Russell Crowe, Hans Zimmer and Niki Caro. The documentary was released on DVD by Milan Entertainment on 24 April 2007. "Sanctuary" debuted at the Raindance Film Festival in London, on 27 September 2006. On 20 November 2006, Gerrard released her second solo album, "The Silver Tree". The album climbed to No. 4 on the "Billboard" New Age Albums Chart on 26 May 2007, spending nine weeks on the chart. This album was markedly different from her previous work and was also her first album released outside 4AD Records. "The Silver Tree" was first released on iTunes, with a wider physical release planned at a future date. The album was nominated for the Australian Music Prize for 2006.


title: Lisa Gerrard

text: In 2007 a retrospective album,"The Best of Lisa Gerrard", a compilation of fifteen songs, was released covering her career in Dead Can Dance, solo work and film work. It was released on 12 February 2007 in the UK and 7 November 2007 in the US. The album peaked at No. 5 on the "Billboard" New Age albums chart on 16 February 2008 and stayed in the chart for ten weeks. A world tour was undertaken in 2007 beginning in April in Melbourne, Australia. The tour marked the first time that Gerrard toured in Australia, with a performance in three cities. The tour was followed by performances in Europe and North America. More performances took place in Europe and Russia from 30 October to 22 November 2007. In November 2007, Gerrard collaborated with German electronic musician Klaus Schulze on the double-album "Farscape". The album was released on 4 July 2008, followed by a European tour, and the release of a DVD, "Klaus Schulze featuring Lisa Gerrard: Rheingold, Live at Loreley", recorded during the Night Of The Prog Festival III in Loreley, Germany on the 18 July 2008.


title: Lisa Gerrard

text: In 2009, Gerrard completed work on the documentary by Australian adventurer Tim Cope called "On the Trail of Genghis Khan" and contributed her voice to the soundtrack, which began airing in 2010, of the Japanese NHK taiga drama "Ryōmaden", a story based on the life of Sakamoto Ryōma. Furthermore, in 2009, Gerrard created her own record label, Gerrard Records, which, aside from being a conduit for the release of Gerrard's future works, will also act to promote and support unrecognised artists of all genres. This tour coincided with the release of "Come Quietly", a joint project between Gerrard and Schulze that was released exclusively during the tour. In September 2009, Gerrard and Schulze performed another tour in six European cities – Warsaw, Berlin, Amsterdam, Essen, Paris, and Brussels. In October 2009, Gerrard released her third solo album, "The Black Opal". The album included collaborations with Patrick Cassidy, Michael Edwards, Pieter Bourke and James Orr and was the first release to come from Gerrard Records.


title: Lisa Gerrard

text: In 2010, Gerrard released a new album entitled "Departum" from Gerrard Records, with composer Marcello De Francisci, which was followed by the singles "Coming Home" (as featured in ""), "Come This Way" and "Entry". Gerrard also collaborated with multi-instrumentalist Prash Mistry, from UK based live dubstep collective Engine Earz Experiment, on a track titled "Spirit Guide", which appeared on his 2011 album. On 1 December 2010, Gerrard released the soundtrack album with Cye Wood titled "The Trail of Genghis Khan" which contains music from the Gerrard and Wood score to the documentary TV series by Tim Cope.


title: Lisa Gerrard

text: In July 2014, Gerrard released a new solo album entitled "Twilight Kingdom" through her own record label, Gerrard Records. The album was recorded in collaboration with Daniel Johns, Astrid Williamson, Patrick Cassidy, and words by Russell Crowe. The album was on the "Billboard" New Age Albums Chart for one week, peaking at No. 5 on 6 September 2014. In 2014, Gerrard collaborated with British composer, songwriter and producer, Chicane, on the album "The Sum of Its Parts", released on 25 January 2015 by Modena Records.


title: Lisa Gerrard

text: Gerrard's vocals are featured in the video game "Armello" launched on 1 September 2015, titled "Wyld's Call"; her vocals feature towards a Celtic theme of the soundtracks, released on 2 September 2015, on the music composed by Michael Allen and Gerrard.


title: Lisa Gerrard

text: On 14 March 2018, Gerrard performed a concert at the National Palace of Culture in Sofia with Genesis Orchestra, conducted by Yordan Kamdzhalov, entitled Symphony of Sorrowful Songs by Henryk Górecki. During the concert, she also sang her own songs from both her solo career and those of Dead Can Dance. Kamdzhalov said of the event, "for me personally, this is more than a dream come true. I cannot think of a better combination than Gerrard-Gorecki-Kamdzhalov in Gorecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs". In 2018, she appeared on "BooCheeMish", a collaborative album with the Mystery of Bulgarian Voices, with whom she co-wrote some of the songs. Gerrard emphasized that she—and her collaborators—had strived not to impair the women's essential sound, she said "we're walking toward them, not the other way around"—adding, "if anybody is changed by this, it's me'. The album, that combines the choir's folkloric harmonies and a multitude of instruments, was arranged and produced by Petar Dundakov. Also in 2018, Gerrard teamed with solo percussionist David Kuckhermann to compose and record an album, "Hiraeth", released on 6 August 2018.


title: Lisa Gerrard

text: "Hiraeth" was nominated in the Best New Age Album category during the 61st Annual Grammy Awards at Staples Center, held on 10 February 2019. Gerrard toured as a special guest with the eighteen choir members of the Mystery of Bulgarian Voices, performing fifteen select dates across Europe from 12 March to 20 October 2019. In 2019, she collaborated again with Yordan Kamdzhalov and Genesis Orchestra, for a reworked and rearranged recording of Henryk Górecki's Symphony No. 3: Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, captured in Sofia at the Bulgarian National Radio Studio, which was released on 17 January 2020.


title: Lisa Gerrard

text: Gerrard's first experience in composing music for a film came with the 1989 Spanish film "El Niño de la Luna", directed by Agustí Villaronga. The film score was composed by Dead Can Dance and the film featured Lisa Gerrard in her first acting role. "El Niño de la Luna" describes the story of David, a young orphan with special powers, escaping an institution with the help of a fellow institute inmate, Georgina, played by Lisa Gerrard.


title: Lisa Gerrard

text: Gerrard participated in a number of musical scores but came to fame as a film composer after recording "The Insider" in 1999, with Pieter Bourke, and "Gladiator" in 2000, with Hans Zimmer, which received an Academy Award nomination for best music score, although only Zimmer was nominated. It did, however, win a Golden Globe Award for both composers. Gerrard's score for the New Zealand independent film "Whale Rider" consisted entirely of solo material; a soundtrack album was released by 4AD.


title: Lisa Gerrard

text: In 2005 Gerrard collaborated with Ennio Morricone for "Fateless" followed by a collaboration with Jeff Rona on the score for the feature film "A Thousand Roads" and the song "On an Ocean" for the "Henry Poole Is Here" score. Gerrard along with Dead Can Dance also provided several contributions to the soundtrack of "Baraka", a visual journey showcasing mankind's impact on our planet. Gerrard was also invited by Denez Prigent to collaborate with him on his piece "Gortoz a ran – J'attends" (meaning "I await"), a piece that was later used in the soundtrack of Ridley Scott's film "Black Hawk Down".


title: Lisa Gerrard

text: In 2009 Gerrard wrote the score for "Balibo", for which she won a Best Feature Film Score award at the 2009 APRA Screen Music Awards and an Aria Award for Best Original Soundtrack/Cast/Show Album at the 2009 Aria Awards. Gerrard finished 2009 by contributing her voice to the theme song for the Japanese NHK taiga drama "Ryōmaden", which began airing in 2010.


title: Lisa Gerrard

text: In 2010 Gerrard completed the score for "Tears of Gaza" with Marcello De Francisci which was well received despite its controversial theme. Gerrard also scored the Jim Loach-directed "Oranges and Sunshine", starring Emily Watson and Hugo Weaving, released in April 2011, which gained her another nomination at the 2011 IF Awards for Best Music Score.


title: Lisa Gerrard

text: In November 2010 Gerrard provided vocals and additional music for the post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller "Priest", scored by Christopher Young, which was released in 2011.


title: Lisa Gerrard

text: On 28 May 2011, the song "Now We Are Free", part of Gladiator original soundtrack, composed by Hans Zimmer and Gerrard, peaked at No. 2 on the "Billboard" 200 and remained in the chart for 460 weeks. In November 2011 Gerrard completed the score for "Burning Man", which won her Best Music Score at the 2012 Film Critics Circle of Australia awards, beating scores for "Snowtown", "The Hunter" and "Red Dog".


title: Lisa Gerrard

text: Gerrard possesses the vocal range of a contralto but can also reach upward into the dramatic mezzo-soprano range. She has a vocal range from A2 to F♯5. Her vocal timbre has been described as "rich, deep" which creates a "mournful sound", and her voice is regarded by critics as "simply not of this world". More predominantly, Gerrard's vocal range spans from contralto to dramatic contralto, displayed for examples in "Sanvean", "Sacrifice", "Largo", and "Not Yet"; — to the dramatic mezzo-soprano voice in her other songs, such as "The Host of Seraphim", "Elegy", "Space Weaver", and "Come this Way".


title: Lisa Gerrard

text: Jon Pareles of "The New York Times" describes that she uses "distinct voices that drew on far-flung traditions: an opalescent tone from Baroque opera, a reedy hint of Celtic folk style, the sharp and quavering approach of Balkan women's music, blue notes bent like Billie Holiday's...".


title: Lisa Gerrard

text: Gerrard sings many of her songs, such as "Now We Are Free", "Come Tenderness", "Serenity", "The Valley of the Moon", "Tempest", "Pilgrimage of Lost Children", "Coming Home" and "Sanvean" in idioglossia — although she also sings in English. With respect to such work she has said, "I sing in the language of the Heart. [...] It's an invented language that I've had for a very long time. I believe I started singing in it when I was about 12. Roughly that time. And I believed that I was speaking to God when I sang in that language."


title: Lisa Gerrard

text: Her early, formative singing experience, was influenced by the Bulgarian choir's technique. Gerrard's influences on the language she sings since her youth has been exerted mainly by the conversations and the music she heard in the Melbourne area where she had grown up, where a large Greco-Turkish community lived. Gerrard's first musical influences came from her father, as she grew up listening to sean-nós songs in an Irish family, and also the "abstract forms" with which Antonin Artaud worked that she heard on radio documentaries.


title: Kendrick Nunn

text: Kendrick Melvin Nunn (born August 3, 1995) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Illinois Fighting Illini and the Oakland Golden Grizzlies.


title: Kendrick Nunn

text: Nunn played three seasons at the University of Illinois, where he was named to the 2013–14 Big Ten All-Freshman team. He was dismissed from the Illini after the 2015–16 season, and had to sit out a season after transferring to Oakland University due to National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) transfer rules. He won the 2018 Horizon League Men's Basketball Player of the Year award at Oakland after leading the nation in three-point shots made per game.


title: Kendrick Nunn

text: After going undrafted in the 2018 NBA draft, Nunn spent the 2018–19 season with the Santa Cruz Warriors of the NBA G League. In April 2019, he signed with the Miami Heat and reached the 2020 NBA Finals. He was also named to the NBA All-Rookie First Team. In August 2021, Nunn signed with the Lakers. However, he missed the entire 2021–22 season with a knee injury.


title: Kendrick Nunn

text: Nunn attended Simeon Career Academy in Chicago. As a freshman, he received his first basketball scholarship offer from Rick Majerus, then the head coach at Saint Louis University. Nunn listed among the schools he was considering Illinois, Marquette, Memphis, Ohio State, Oklahoma State, Texas A&M, and UCLA.


title: Kendrick Nunn

text: During his senior season, Simeon honored his contribution by retiring his jersey, No. 20, along with that of fellow senior standout Jabari Parker, No. 22. Nunn and Parker joined Derrick Rose, Bobby Simmons, and Benji Wilson as the only Wolverine basketball players to have their jersey numbers retired. Nunn helped lead Simeon to four Illinois High School Association (IHSA) state titles.


title: Kendrick Nunn

text: Nunn verbally committed to Texas A&M before his junior year in August 2011, but about two months later he announced his de-commitment from that school and intent to reopen his recruiting process. His father, Melvin, explained that Kendrick felt he had committed prematurely and wished to explore all his options.


title: Kendrick Nunn

text: On September 15, 2012, after his official visit to Illinois, Nunn committed to play there under head coach John Groce.


title: Kendrick Nunn

text: As a freshman at the University of Illinois, Nunn played for the Fighting Illini in all 35 games of their 2013–14 season and started in the last 12. He debuted as a starter on February 9, 2014, against Penn State, finishing the contest with 19 points and helping the team snap an eight-game losing streak. Nunn tied his career-high on February 19, with 19 points, to lead the Illini to a 62–49 victory at Minnesota; for this performance, he was named the Big Ten Freshman of the Week five days later. On the heels of wins over Nebraska and Michigan State, in which Nunn averaged 10.5 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 3.5 assists, he repeated as the Big Ten Freshman of the Week on March 3. At season's end, Nunn made the Big Ten All-Freshman Team selected by the coaches. Nunn was a co-captain of the 2015–16 Fighting Illini team.


title: Kendrick Nunn

text: Nunn was dismissed from the Illinois basketball team on May 24, 2016, after pleading guilty to a charge of misdemeanor battery two months earlier. About a month later, he transferred to Oakland University, where he had the opportunity to revitalize his career with the Golden Grizzlies. As required by NCAA transfer rules, Nunn sat out his first year there, relegated to the bench for the 2016–17 season. While playing in the Golden Grizzlies' 2017–18 campaign, Nunn earned Horizon League Player of the Week on November 13 and did so again on December 18 and January 22.


title: Kendrick Nunn

text: As a senior, Nunn led the NCAA Division I in three-point shooting, with an average of 4.47 three-point field goals made per game; and he finished second in scoring to Trae Young, with 25.9 points per contest. On February 28, 2018, Nunn was voted the Horizon League Player of the Year and also earned First Team All-League honors. His 4.47 3-point shots per game average was a school single-season record. Nunn's 84 three-point shots made was a Horizon League single-season record for conference games.


title: Kendrick Nunn

text: After going undrafted in the 2018 NBA draft, Nunn signed a partially guaranteed contract with the Golden State Warriors; it guaranteed him at least a spot on their Summer League roster and an invitation to their fall camp, as well as some money. The Warriors ultimately declined to take him on, releasing him on October 12. He was then added to the roster of their G League affiliate, the Santa Cruz Warriors. In his November 4 professional debut for the team, Nunn recorded 15 points in a 118–108 win versus the Northern Arizona Suns. On November 10, he scored 32 points off the bench against the Iowa Energy. Despite starting in only one of 49 games, he averaged 19.3 points, 3.8 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 1.4 steals, 0.3 blocks across 29 minutes per contest.


title: Kendrick Nunn

text: The Miami Heat announced that they had signed Nunn on April 10, 2019. On October 18, Nunn made a significant impression during the preseason finale against the Houston Rockets by posting 40 points, the highest score by a Heat player in a preseason game in the last 20 years. His NBA debut came on October 23 in the Heat's season opener against the Memphis Grizzlies, when he started and had 24 points, 2 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 steals during the 120–101 victory. After his first week in the league, his three-game average of 22.3 points earned him an NBA Player of the Week nomination. In his first five NBA games, Nunn posted 112 points to break the record for the most points in as many games by an undrafted player; Connie Hawkins had set the previous record with 105 points in 1969. The 112-point tally was also the most recorded by a rookie in his first five games since Kevin Durant scored 113 in 2007. On December 3, Nunn was named Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month after averaging 16.4 points, 3.2 assists and 1.3 steals per contest. On December 10, he posted a career-high 36 points to help the Heat secure a 135–121 overtime win versus the Atlanta Hawks. In that game teammate Duncan Robinson added 34 points, establishing an NBA record for points by an undrafted duo (70). After scoring 504 points in his 31st career game, he became the fastest rookie to reach 500 points in franchise history (one game faster than Dwyane Wade). On January 2, Nunn became the first undrafted player in NBA history to win multiple Rookie of the Month awards and joined Caron Butler (4) as the only Heat players with multiple awards. He won the Rookie of the Month award for a third time for his January performance. He was named to the Rising Stars Challenge at the 2020 NBA All-Star Game, scoring 16 points for Team USA. On September 15, 2020, Nunn was named 2019–20 NBA All-Rookie First Team and finished second in Rookie of the Year voting.


title: Kendrick Nunn

text: On September 30, 2020, Nunn tallied 18 points during Game 1 of the 2020 NBA Finals against the Los Angeles Lakers, which is the most points scored by a rookie off the bench in a Finals game since Elden Campbell's 21 points in 1991. The Heat went on to lose the series in 6 games.


title: Kendrick Nunn

text: On May 15, 2021, Nunn scored a season-high 31 points, alongside six rebounds and three assists, in a 108–122 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks. The Heat lost in 4 games to the Bucks during the first round of the 2021 NBA playoffs. On August 3, the Heat rescinded Nunn's qualifying offer, making him an unrestricted free agent.


title: Kendrick Nunn

text: On August 6, 2021, Nunn signed a two-year, $10 million contract with the Los Angeles Lakers. On October 21, he was diagnosed with a bone bruise in his right knee and was expected to miss multiple weeks. On December 6, coach Frank Vogel said that Nunn was likely to not return during December. On January 17, 2022, Nunn suffered a setback in his rehab. On February 8, he was ruled out until at least late March. He ultimately missed the entire season because of the knee injury.


title: Kendrick Nunn

text: In March 2011, Nunn was among the 24 high school players invited to the United States Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, to try out for the FIBA Americas Under-16 Championship. Nunn was one of four Chicago talents to make it past the 27-man tryouts and join the 12-man national team. He went on to win a gold medal with Team USA in the 2011 FIBA Under-16 Americas Championship in Cancun, Mexico. The team, coached by Don Showalter of Mid-Prairie High, scored over 100 points in each victorious matchup.


title: Kendrick Nunn

text: Nunn, along with teammate Jabari Parker of Simeon and rival Jahlil Okafor of Whitney Young high school, was selected to play in the 2012 FIBA Under-17 World Championship held in Kaunas, Lithuania, from June 29 to July 8, 2012. As with the 2011 FIBA Under-16 Americas Championship, Nunn once again helped Team USA capture a gold medal.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC, previously the British Board of Film Censors) is a non-governmental organisation founded by the British film industry in 1912 and responsible for the national classification and censorship of films exhibited at cinemas and video works (such as television programmes, trailers, adverts, public information/campaigning films, menus, bonus content, etc.) released on physical media within the United Kingdom. It has a statutory requirement to classify all video works released on VHS, DVD, Blu-ray (including 3D and 4K UHD formats), and, to a lesser extent, some video games under the Video Recordings Act 1984. The BBFC was also the designated regulator for the UK age-verification scheme which was abandoned before being implemented.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: The BBFC was established in 1912 as the British Board of Film Censors by members of the film industry, who preferred to manage their own censorship than to have national or local government do it for them. The immediate impetus for the board's formation stemmed from the furore surrounding the release in the UK in October 1912 of the film "From the Manger to the Cross", about the life of Jesus. The film, shown at the Queen's Hall, London, gained considerable publicity from a great outcry in the "Daily Mail", which demanded: "Is nothing sacred to the film maker?", and waxed indignant about the profits for its American film producers. Although the clergy were invited to see it and found little to be affronted by, the controversy resulted in the voluntary creation of the BBFC, which began operating on 1 January 1913.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: The Cinematograph Act 1909 required cinemas to have licences from local authorities. The Act was introduced for reasons of public safety after nitrate film fires in unsuitable venues (fairgrounds and shops that had been hastily converted into cinemas) but the following year a court ruling determined that the criteria for granting or refusing a licence did not have to be restricted to issues of health and safety. Given that the law now allowed councils to grant or refuse licences to cinemas according to the content of the films they showed, the 1909 Act, therefore, enabled the introduction of censorship.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: The film industry, fearing the economic consequences of a largely unregulated censorship infrastructure, therefore formed the BBFC to take the process 'in house' and establish its own system of self-regulation. By paying a fee of £2 for every reel of film viewed, and by appointing a panel of viewers under a censor, none of whom had any film trade interests, the growing cinema industry neatly created a censorship body which was both self-supporting and strictly impartial, and therefore was not swayed by any sectional interests inside the film trade or outside it. The board's offices were originally at 133–135 Oxford Street, London; the building is located at the junction of Wardour Street, a centre of the British film industry for many years.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: Unlike the American Production Code Administration, which had a written list of violations in their Motion Picture Production Code, the BBFC did not have a written code and were vague in their translation to producers on what constituted a violation. However, some clarity would come in 1916 when the then president of the BBFC, T. P. O'Connor, listed forty-three infractions, from the BBFC 1913–1915 annual reports, during the "National Council of Public Morals: Cinema Commission of Inquiry" (1916), indicating where a cut in a film may be required. These included:


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: In 1926, the BBFC annual report outlined grounds on seven broad categories that justified censorship, including issues related to religious, political, military, social, questions of sex, crime and cruelty. Some decisions from the early years are now subjected to derision. In 1928, the board's examiners report famously claimed that Germaine Dulac's surrealist film "The Seashell and the Clergyman" was "almost meaningless", but: "If there is a meaning, it is doubtless objectionable."


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: Informal links, to varying degrees of closeness, have been maintained between the BBFC and the Government throughout the Board's existence. In the period before the Second World War, an extensive but unofficial system of political censorship was implemented by the BBFC for the Home Office. As the cinema became a socially powerful mass-medium, governments feared the effect of its use by others for propaganda and as happened in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany discouraged any expression of controversial political views in British films. This trend reached its climax during the 1930s. Following protests from the German Embassy after the release of a film depicting the execution of Edith Cavell ("Dawn", 1928, dir. Herbert Wilcox), intense political pressure was brought to bear on the BBFC by the Home Office. A system of script vetting was introduced, whereby British studios were invited to submit screenplays to the BBFC before shooting started. Imported Hollywood films were not treated as strictly as British films, as the BBFC believed that audiences would recognise American cinema as representing a foreign culture and therefore would not apply any political messages therein to their own lives. So while the Warners gangster films and other 1930s Hollywood films that dealt explicitly with crime and the effects of the Great Depression were released in the UK largely uncut, these subjects were strictly off-limits for British film-makers.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: During the Second World War, the BBFC's political censorship function effectively passed to the Films Division of the Ministry of Information, and the BBFC never regained this to the same extent as before the war. The increasing climate of post-war liberalism ensured that from the 1950s onwards, controversies involving the BBFC centred more on depictions of sex and violence than on political expression. There were some notable exceptions: "Yield to the Night" (UK, 1956, dir. J. Lee Thompson), which opposed capital punishment; "Room at the Top" (UK, 1959, dir. Jack Clayton), which dealt with class divisions; "Victim" (UK, 1961, dir. Basil Dearden), which implicitly argued for the legalisation of homosexuality, all involved the BBFC in controversy.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: In autumn 1972, Lord Longford and Raymond Blackburn decided to pursue a matter of pornography classification for the film "Language of Love" at the Court of Appeal before Lord Denning, MR; they failed to obtain a writ of mandamus against the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, who had refused to intrude upon the BBFC's remit.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: In 1984, the organisation changed its name to "reflect the fact that classification plays a far larger part in the board's work than censorship". At that time it was given responsibility for classifying videos for hire or purchase to view in the home as well as films shown in cinemas. Home video and cinema versions of a film usually receive the same certificate, although occasionally a film may receive a more restrictive certificate for the home video market (sometimes due to the bonus features), as it is easier for children to watch a home video than to be admitted into a cinema.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: In December 1986, the first computer game to be certified by the BBFC was an illustrated text adventure called "Dracula", based on the Bram Stoker novel, published by CRL; the game received a 15 certificate. The first computer game to receive an 18 certificate, on 11 December 1987, was another illustrated text adventure called "Jack the Ripper", also by CRL, which dealt with the infamous real life murders in Victorian London. The horror in both games came through largely in their detailed prose. Had the game publishers reprinted the games' text in book form, it would not have carried a certificate, as the BBFC has no oversight over print media. Both games had numerous certificate stickers all over their covers to emphasise to parents and retailers that they were not intended for children, as computer games carrying BBFC certificates were previously unheard of.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: The first video game to be refused classification by the BBFC was "Carmageddon" in 1997, however a modified version of the game was later awarded an 18 certificate. In June 2007, "Manhunt 2" was refused classification for both its PlayStation 2 and Wii versions, meaning that the game was illegal to sell or supply in the United Kingdom. A modified version was made that was accepted by the ESRB but was still refused classification from the BBFC. The second decision was later overturned by the Video Appeals Committee (an independent body set up by legislation); the BBFC then asked the High Court for a judicial review of the VAC decision. The High Court ruled that the VAC had made errors in law and instructed it to reconsider its decision, the VAC subsequently ruled that the modified version of the game should receive an 18 certificate, which the BBFC accepted.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: On 16 June 2009, the UK's Department of Culture, Media and Sport ruled in favour of the PEGI system to be the sole classification system for videogames and software in the UK. This decision would also, unlike beforehand, allow PEGI ratings to be legally enforced much like the BBFC ratings. Initially expected to take effect from 1 April 2011, the legislation was put into effect on 30 July 2012.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: Netflix and the BBFC announced an age classification partnership on 13 March 2019 where the former will classify their content in the United Kingdom with BBFC ratings. The partnership came at the time when digital media is on the rise worldwide and when parents are concerned about children seeing inappropriate content on video on demand or online gaming platforms. The implementation of BBFC ratings into Netflix UK content took effect at the end of October 2019.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: The board is a self-funded quango. Its business affairs are controlled by a council of management selected from leading figures in the manufacturing and servicing sectors of the film industry. This council appoints the President, who has statutory responsibility for the classification of videos and the Director who has executive responsibility and formulates policy. The board, which is based in Soho Square, London, is financed from the fees it charges for classifying films and videos and is run on a not-for-profit basis.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: The BBFC can also advise cuts for a less-restrictive rating. This generally occurs in borderline cases where distributors have requested a certificate and the BBFC has rated the work at a more-restrictive level; however, some cuts are compulsory, such as scenes that violate the Protection of Children Act 1978 or Cinematograph Films (Animals) Act 1937. The final certificate then depends on the distributor's decision on whether or not to make the suggested cuts. Some works are even rejected if the distributor refuses the cut.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: The examiners and the directors of the BBFC are hired on a permanent basis. Examiners are required to watch five hours and twenty minutes of media, to a maximum of thirty-five hours a week. Turnover is low and vacancies, when available, appear on its London job vacancies website.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: In the case of films shown in cinemas, local authorities have the final legal authorisation over who can view a particular film. The majority of the time, local authorities accept the board's recommendation for a certificate for a film. There have been some notable exceptions – particularly in the 1970s when the board allowed films such as "Last Tango in Paris" (1972) and "The Exorcist" (1973) to be released with an X certificate (essentially the same as today's "18") – but many local authorities chose to ban the films regardless. Thirty-nine local authorities in the UK either imposed an outright ban, or imposed an X certificate, on "Monty Python's Life of Brian" (1979), which the BBFC had rated as AA (Suitable for ages 14+).


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: Conversely, in 2002, a few local authorities regraded "Spider-Man" from 12 to PG, allowing children younger than 12 to see the film. However, the BBFC were already in the process of replacing the 12 rating with a new 12A, which allowed under-12s to see the film if accompanied by an adult, so shortly afterwards, the BBFC reclassified "Spider-Man" as 12A. The first 12A certificate awarded was for "The Bourne Identity".


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: The Video Recordings Act requires that video releases not exempt (music, documentary, non-fiction, video games, etc.) under the Act had to be classified, making it illegal to supply any recording that had not been certified. Certificates could restrict release to any age of 18 or under, or only to licensed sex-shops. The government currently designate the BBFC as the authority for certifying video releases. As the law requires the certificate to be displayed on the packaging and media labels of the video recording, in practice only UK releases can be legally sold or hired in the UK, even if a foreign release had identical content.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: Local authorities do not have such power for video recordings. Under the Video Recording Act 1984, all non-exempt recordings must be classified by an authority chosen by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. This classification is legally binding, in that supply of material contrary to its certificate (recordings that have been refused a certificate, or supplying to someone younger than the certified age) is a criminal offence. However, possession is not an offence in itself, other than in the case of "possession with intent to supply". Since the introduction of the Act, the BBFC has been the chosen authority. In theory this authority could be revoked, but in practice such a revocation has never been suggested, since most local authorities simply don't have the resources needed to do such things as remove cuts, pass films that the BBFC rejected and vice versa, put in place new cuts, etc., regularly.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: The BBFC has also rated some video games. Normally these are exempt from classification, unless they depict human sexual activity, human genital organs or gross acts of violence, in which case the publishers should submit the game for classification. Publishers may opt to submit a game for classification even if they are not obliged to.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: Under the Digital Economy Act 2010, the responsibility for rating video games in the United Kingdom has passed from the BBFC to the Video Standards Council using the PEGI system. A game is only submitted to the BBFC if it contains strong pornographic material or if it includes video material that is not directly accessible through the game itself (e.g. a documentary).


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: The BBFC also provide a classification service for mobile phone operators. BBFC guidelines for film and video are used to calibrate the filters used by the operators to restrict access to internet content. The default assumption is that mobile phone users are under 18 years of age. The BBFC guidelines are based on public consultations conducted every four to five years.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: Under the Digital Economy Act 2017 the BBFC was appointed as the UK's regulator for pornographic websites. As regulator, the BBFC was intended to be responsible for identifying commercial pornographic websites accessible in the UK and empowered to take action against any which did not age-verify their users, including placing restrictions on their payment transactions or ordering their blocking by Internet service providers. This was to be the case regardless of whether the websites were UK-based or foreign-based. The BBFC had been informally named as the likely regulator in 2016, and in November of that year it was invited to take on the role and agreed to do so. The formal appointment of the BBFC took place in February 2018. Before the BBFC was due to begin its role, it conducted a public consultation on its draft guidance beginning in March 2018. In 2018 the BBFC estimated that five million commercial pornographic websites existed on the Internet.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: In March 2019 the BBFC published its guidance, which stated that social media would not fall under the BBFC's jurisdiction, and nor would websites where pornography made up a third or less of the website's material. The BBFC proposed that a voluntary certification scheme should cover age verification providers. Margot James, the UK government's digital minister, said that the government had asked HM Treasury to provide indemnity of up to £10 million to the BBFC to protect it against legal challenges, as the uncertainty surrounding the possibility of such challenges would leave the BBFC unable to get commercial insurance. There were numerous delays to the date at which the BBFC would begin its regulatory role, until in 2019 the UK government announced that the part of the Act dealing with the regulation of pornographic websites would not be implemented.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: The BBFC currently issues the following certificates. The current category symbols were introduced in cinemas in October 2019 and on home media since April 2020, replacing the previous ones that had been in place since 2002.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: Material that is exempt from classification sometimes uses symbols similar to BBFC certificates, for example an "E" certificate. There is no legal obligation, nor a particular scheme, for labelling material that is exempt from classification. On the BBFC's online classification database, material that has been refused a classification uses an "N/A" symbol in place of a rating symbol.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: As part of the implementation of the Digital Economy Act 2017, the BBFC and NCC Group were planning to introduce an age-verification certificate ( or AV Certificate), a voluntary, non-statutory certificate awarded to Internet age-verification providers who meet standards of privacy and data security. Plans to mandate online age-verification to deny those who do not prove they are aged over 18 access to pornographic website content were subsequently abandoned.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: Historically the Board has faced strong criticism for their perceived overzealous attitude towards censoring films. Prior to the liberalising decade of the 1960s, films were routinely and extensively censored as a means of social control. For example, "Rebel Without a Cause" (1955) was cut to reduce the "possibility of teenage rebellion". Ingmar Bergman's 1955 comedy "Smiles of a Summer Night" was cut to remove "overtly sexual or provocative" language.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: The BBFC's attitude became more liberal during the 1960s, and it concentrated on censoring films that featured graphic sex and violence. However, some Board decisions caused controversy in the 1970s when it banned a series of films that were released uncut and were popular in other countries (such as "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" and "Last House on the Left"), or released other controversial films, such as "Straw Dogs" and "A Clockwork Orange". However, under recent presidents Andreas Whittam Smith and Sir Quentin Thomas, guidelines were relaxed again, allowing the release, usually uncut, of these previously banned films on video and in cinemas. Some films from the 1970s remain unreleased. However, many of these titles remain banned primarily because their distributors have not chosen to re-submit the films to the BBFC, almost certainly for commercial reasons; if re-submitted, they would be likely to receive a more sympathetic hearing than 30 to 40 years ago. Two notable examples from this period include the 1969 film "Love Camp 7", rejected in 2002, and "Women in Cellblock 9", released in 1977 and rejected in 2004. Both films contain substantial scenes of sexual violence and have remained completely banned following a re-submission since 2000.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: In general, attitudes to what material is suitable for viewing by younger audiences have changed over the years, and this is reflected by the reclassification of older films being re-released on video. For example, a 1913 film given the former A rating could very probably be rated PG today. An extreme example of this is the rating of the horror film "Revenge of the Zombies", with a U certificate upon its video release in the late 1990s, whereas, when it was first examined as a film in 1951, it was given one of the first X ratings. The Bela Lugosi horror film "Island of Lost Souls" was refused a certificate when first submitted in 1932, was granted an X in the 1950s, and a 12 for home video release in 1996 – when submitted for a modern video classification in 2011, it was re-classified as a PG.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: The BBFC are also known to cut the words "spaz" and "retard" from U certified films and videos on the grounds of discriminating against disabled people.One example of this was when "Marmaduke" was passed U after the word "spaz" was removed. The uncut version would have been rated 12. They also award higher ratings to films that contain potentially imitable and dangerous behaviour; this includes all four "Jackass" films being passed 18, and "" being passed 12. They are also serious about suicide themes, references, or attempts, and will either cut them or award a higher rating. An example of this was in 2010, when the Board cut the Hindi film "Anjaana Anjaani" by two minutes and thirty-one seconds to remove references to and sight of someone attempting suicide by asphyxiation so the distributor could get a cinema 12A certificate. In its uncut form the film was released on home video with an 18 certificate. "The Hunger Games" (2012) was assessed before formal classification, with the film's studio wishing to obtain a 12A for financial and marketing reasons. To get this, seven seconds of footage was cut and blood splashes were digitally removed to reduce emphasis on blood and injury, as an alternative to the uncut film being rated 15.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: There has been considerable relaxation since 1999. The relaxation of guidelines has also made hardcore pornography widely available to adult audiences through the R18 rating. Films with this rating are only legally available from licensed sex shops, of which there are about three hundred in the UK. They may also be seen in specially licensed cinemas.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: There are also examples of films with stronger sexual content, some including real images of sexual intercourse, being approved at "18" level. Recent examples include the passing of "Irreversible", "9 Songs", "Antichrist", and numerous other films uncut for cinema and video viewing. Despite this trend towards liberalisation, anti-censorship campaigners are still critical of the BBFC. It has attracted criticism from conservative press, in particular the "Daily Mail", on the grounds that the release of sexually explicit and violent films was corrupting the nation. The newspaper's most famous clash with the BBFC came in 1997 when the board released the David Cronenberg film "Crash" without cuts. The following day (19 March 1997) the "Daily Mail" led with the banner headline "Censor's Yes To Depraved Sex Film". Westminster City Council imposed its own ban on the film after the decision, although anyone wanting to watch the film in a cinema only had to walk along to the non-Westminster half of Shaftesbury Avenue, which is in the neighbouring borough of Camden.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: The BBFC's current guidelines identify a number of specific areas considered when awarding certificates or requiring cuts:


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: The BBFC also continues to demand cuts of any material it believes breaches the provisions of the Obscene Publications Act or any other legislation (most notably the Cinematograph Films (Animals) Act 1937 [which forbids the depiction of animals being abused or in distress] and the Protection of Children Act 1978 [which, as amended, forbids the depiction of minors engaged in sex or in sexually suggestive poses or situations]). In 2009, 2% of cinema films had material cut, and 3.6% of videos. Most cuts actually occur in videos rated for 18 or R18, rather than videos intended for viewing by under-18s. In 2009, 16.8% of 18 videos, and 27.3% of R18 videos, had material cut.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: There is no theme or subject matter considered inherently unsuitable for classification at any level, although more controversial topics may drive a movie to be given a more restrictive rating. This is in keeping with current practice in most liberal democracies, but in sharp contrast to the early days of the BBFC in which such adult themes as prostitution, incest, and the relations of capital and labour were unacceptable regardless of the rating.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: "'Adult" or "strong" language can earn a film a more restrictive certificate, though BBFC policy states that there are no constraints on language use in films awarded an 18 certificate. It is difficult to compare the BBFC's policies in this area with those in other countries as there are different taboos regarding profanity in other languages and indeed in other English-speaking countries. For example, the use of "strong" language has little effect on a film's classification in France. The BBFC's policy proved particularly controversial in the case of Ken Loach's "Sweet Sixteen" in 2002, which was passed uncut only at 18 certificate, even though its main characters were teenagers who frequently used profanities that the director argued were typical of the social group his film depicted. The film received similar certificates in Ireland (also an 18 certificate) and the United States. Shane Meadows' film "This Is England" was also passed uncut only at 18 due to its repeated use of racist terms, and the climactic scene where Combo becomes irate and pummels his friend Milky while insulting him. On the other hand, some films feature strong language but nevertheless do not carry particularly restrictive certificates. "The King's Speech" was passed for a 12A rating despite its repeated use of the word "fuck" in two scenes, which would normally raise the rating to a 15 certificate; the BBFC justified its decision, saying that the profanity was "in a speech therapy context". As of November 2021, the word "nigger" should not be classified lower than 12 unless in an educational or historical context.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: There are minimal restrictions of the depiction of non-sexual nudity, which is allowed in even U and PG certificate films (for example, "The Simpsons Movie"—which was given a PG-13 rating in the US – was given a PG certificate in the UK, leaving the sequence where Bart skateboards naked through town and his genitals are shown through an open space in a hedge unedited), but scenes of (simulated) sexual activity are limited to more restricted certificates. With regard to material that is intended primarily as pornographic the Board's policy, as stated on its website is "Material which appears to be simulated is generally passed "18", while images of real sex are confined to the "R18" category." However, for some years depictions of real sex have been allowed in 18-certificate videos intended as educational and, relatively recently, a number of works such as Patrice Chéreau's "Intimacy" (2001) and Michael Winterbottom's "9 Songs" (2004), which feature apparently unsimulated sex have been passed uncut for theatrical release.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: Violence remains one of the most problematic areas for censorship in the UK, especially when it's in conjunction with sex or likely to sway more impressionable viewers into thinking the violence depicted is "glamorous" or "fun" and "risk-free." However, the Board takes into account issues of context and whether it considers scenes of sexual violence to "eroticise" or "endorse" sexual assault. In 2002, the board passed Gaspar Noé's "Irréversible" uncut, but less than a month later cut Takashi Miike's "Ichi the Killer" by three and a quarter minutes to remove scenes of sexual violence. "A Serbian Film" (2010) suffered forty-nine individual cuts by the BBFC, which totalled four minutes and eleven seconds of cuts. The cuts were made to remove "portrayals of children in a sexualised or abusive context and images of sexual and sexualised violence which have a tendency to eroticise or endorse the behaviour" as the Board's website states.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: Criminal and dangerous acts that can be easily imitated, as well as scenes condoning, glamorising, or showing clear instruction of how to abuse drugs have also been the subject of UK editing. The issue of depicting dangerous acts that can easily be imitated in real life is one that does not seem to figure especially highly in the censorship systems of most other countries (though the US has done this on occasion, often as the result of public backlash, as seen on the MTV shows "Beavis and Butt-head" and "Jackass"). In the UK, numerous minor cuts have been made, primarily to films whose distributors want a PG or 12A certificate, to scenes of characters performing acts that would be considered dangerous, criminal, or harmful if done in real life. For example, in 2006, issues involving suicide by hanging became problematic; "The Ren & Stimpy Show" Series 1 DVD set (classified PG) was edited to remove the song "The Lord Loves a Hangin because the song implied that hanging is "comedic, fun, and risk-free". "Paranoia Agent" Volume 3 DVD set (classified 18) was also cut to remove the depiction of a child nearly hanging herself for the same reason.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: The requirement to have films classified and censored can cost film producers up to thousands of pounds. The North West New Wave, a blanket term recently used by both film makers and local press to describe independent filmmakers in the Northwest of England, is currently campaigning for the introduction of a voluntary 'Unrated 18' classification in the UK.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: On 6 June 2011, the BBFC refused a classification for the horror film "The Human Centipede II". The previous film in the series was passed uncut at 18, but due to a shift in context and focus, the BBFC judged that the sequel could fall foul of the Obscene Publications Act. The film was eventually passed 18 after cuts were made.


title: British Board of Film Classification

text: During James Ferman's time, the title of the chief executive officer at the BBFC changed from "Secretary of the Board" to the current "Director". With David Austin's appointment in 2016 however, this title reverted to CEO. At the same time, the title card displaying a film's certificate, which opens all theatrically screened films in the United Kingdom, stopped carrying the chief executive's signature. The President's signature is now used instead.


title: London Borough of Islington

text: The London Borough of Islington ( ) is a London borough in Inner London. Whilst the majority of the district is located in north London, the borough also includes a significant area to the south which forms part of central London. Islington has an estimated population of 215,667. It was formed in 1965 under the London Government Act 1963, which simultaneously abolished the metropolitan boroughs of Islington and Finsbury.


title: London Borough of Islington

text: The new entity remains the second smallest borough in London and the third-smallest district in England. The borough contains two Westminster parliamentary constituencies, both formerly represented by Labour Members of Parliament: Jeremy Corbyn, the party's leader from 2015 to 2020, represents Islington North and currently sits as an independent after the whip was withdrawn from him in October 2020, and Emily Thornberry represents Islington South & Finsbury. The local authority is Islington Council. The borough is home to football club Arsenal, one of the premier league clubs in England and its home Emirates Stadium.


title: London Borough of Islington

text: The southern part of the borough, south of the A501 Pentonville Road and City Road, forms part of central London, central London congestion charging zone and the Ultra Low Emission Zone. A significant part of the southern section of the borough borders the City of London, with the area to the west bordering the London Borough of Camden. The central London area includes Farringdon and Old Street stations both in Zone 1.


title: London Borough of Islington

text: Islington was originally named by the Saxons "Giseldone" (1005), then "Gislandune" (1062). The name means 'Gīsla's hill' from the Old English personal name Gīsla and "dun" 'hill', 'down'. The name then later mutated to "Isledon", which remained in use well into the 17th century when the modern form arose. In medieval times, Islington was just one of many small manors in the area, along with "Bernersbury", "Neweton Berewe" or "Hey-bury", and "Canonesbury" (Barnsbury, Highbury and Canonbury – names first recorded in the 13th and 14th centuries). "Islington" came to be applied as the name for the parish covering these villages and was the name chosen for the Metropolitan Borough of Islington on its formation in 1899. On the merger with Finsbury to form the modern borough, this name came to be applied to the whole borough.


title: London Borough of Islington

text: Islington Council is the borough's local authority. It is a London borough council, one of thirty-two principal subdivisions of the administrative area of Greater London. The council was created by the London Government Act 1963 and replaced two local authorities: Finsbury Metropolitan Borough Council and Islington Metropolitan Borough Council. The former Islington Metropolitan Town Hall, at the intersection of Upper Street and Richmond Grove, serves as the present Borough's council building.


title: London Borough of Islington

text: Islington is divided into 17 wards, each electing three councillors. Following the May 2022 election, Islington Council comprises 48 Labour Party councillors and 3 Green Party councillors. Of these 51 councillors, the Leader of the council is Councillor Kaya Comer-Schwartz and Councillor Caroline Russell is the leader of the Green opposition group.


title: London Borough of Islington

text: Islington is represented by two parliamentary constituencies. Islington North is represented by Jeremy Corbyn of the Labour Party, the Leader of the Opposition between 2015 and 2020. Islington South and Finsbury is represented by Emily Thornberry, former Shadow First Secretary of State and Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and current Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade of the Labour Party.


title: London Borough of Islington

text: Islington forms part of the North East constituency for the London Assembly, represented by Jennette Arnold, also of the Labour Party.


title: London Borough of Islington

text: In the Victorian Age, some parts of Islington such as Clerkenwell were known for their poverty, which George Gissing describes in his naturalist novel, The Nether World (1889).


title: London Borough of Islington

text: There is one prison in Islington, a men's prison, HM Prison Pentonville. Until it closed in 2016 there was also a women's prison HM Prison Holloway, which in the early 20th century was used to hold many suffragettes.


title: London Borough of Islington

text: There are ten London Underground stations in the borough across London fare zones 1, 2 and 3. These stations are principally served by the Northern, Piccadilly and Victoria lines, although the Circle, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines also pass through the Borough:


title: London Borough of Islington

text: The Piccadilly line carries passengers to key London destinations, including the West End and Heathrow Airport (). The Northern and Victoria lines also link the Borough to the West End, whilst the Northern line (Bank Branch) also passes through the City of London.


title: London Borough of Islington

text: Just beyond the Borough's borders are King's Cross St Pancras (in the London Borough of Camden) and Moorgate (in the city).


title: London Borough of Islington

text: There are also several London Overground stations in the borough, all but one of which are in London fare zone 2:


title: London Borough of Islington

text: There are several other National Rail stations in Islington, which offer direct services to destinations across London, East Anglia and South East England:


title: London Borough of Islington

text: Farringdon and Finsbury Park are served by Thameslink services, with some trains travelling direct to Gatwick Airport (), as well as destinations including Cambridge, Peterborough, Brighton and Sevenoaks. Other stations, including Finsbury Park, are served by Great Northern trains which normally operate between Moorgate and Welwyn Garden City. The Elizabeth line calls at Farringdon.


title: London Borough of Islington

text: Moorgate lies just to the south of the Borough, in the City of London, whilst King's Cross lies to the Borough's immediate west, with destinations including Sheffield, Leeds, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Inverness.


title: London Borough of Islington

text: In March 2011, the main forms of transport that residents used to travel to work were: underground, metro, light rail, tram, 19.4% of all residents aged 16–74; bus, minibus or coach, 10.3%; on foot, 10.3%; bicycle, 6.2%; driving a car or van, 6.0%; train, 3.7%; work mainly at or from home, 3.6%.


title: London Borough of Islington

text: In 1801, the civil parishes that form the modern borough had a total population of 65,721. This rose steadily throughout the 19th century, as the district became built up; exceeding 200,000 in the middle of the century. When the railways arrived the rate of population growth increased—reaching nearly 400,000 by the turn of the century; with the Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury particularly suffering deprivation, poverty and severe overcrowding. The increase in population peaked before World War I, falling slowly in the aftermath until World War II began an exodus from London towards the new towns under the Abercrombie Plan for London (1944). The decline in population reversed in the 1980s, but it remains below its 1951 level.


title: London Borough of Islington

text: According to the 2001 census Islington had a population of 175,797. It was 75% White, including 5% White Irish, 6% Black African, 5% Black Caribbean and 2% Bangladeshi. Thirty-two per cent of the borough's residents were owner–occupiers.


title: London Borough of Islington

text: According to the 2011 census, Islington has the highest population density of local authorities in England and Wales—13,875 people per square kilometre.


title: London Borough of Islington

text: Islington has the second highest proportion of Irish people in the country, behind London Borough of Brent.


title: London Borough of Islington

text: A 2017 study by Trust for London and the New Policy Institute found that a third of Islington residents live in poverty. This is above the London average of 27%. It also found that just 14% of local employees are in jobs which pay below the London Living Wage - which is the 4th lowest figure of any London borough.


title: London Borough of Islington

text: 39% of the borough are Christian, 12.8% Muslim, 1.7% are Jewish and 42.7% have no religion. Christians and Muslims live throughout the borough, while the Jewish population is highest in the north of the borough in the Hillrise and Junction wards (bordering Highgate and Crouch End).


title: London Borough of Islington

text: The following shows the religious identity of residents residing in Islington according to the 2001, 2011 and the 2021 censuses.


title: London Borough of Islington

text: Moorfields Eye Hospital is a major centre for postgraduate training of ophthalmologists, orthoptists, optometrists, and nurses.


title: London Borough of Islington

text: There are two performing arts colleges. The Urdang Academy and the Musical Theatre Academy are both based in Islington.


title: London Borough of Islington

text: The borough currently maintains 47 primary schools, 10 secondary schools, three special schools and five Pupil Referral Units. In 2000, Cambridge Education Associates, a private firm, took over the management of the Islington's state schools from the local education authority.


title: Białystok

text: Białystok is the largest city in northeastern Poland and the capital of the Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is the tenth-largest city in Poland, second in terms of population density, and thirteenth in area.


title: Białystok

text: Białystok is located in the Białystok Uplands of the Podlachian Plain on the banks of the Biała River, by road northeast of Warsaw. It has historically attracted migrants from elsewhere in Poland and beyond, particularly from Central and Eastern Europe. This is facilitated by the nearby border with Belarus also being the eastern border of the European Union, as well as the Schengen Area. The city and its adjacent municipalities constitute Metropolitan Białystok. The city has a , characterized by warm summers and long frosty winters. Forests are an important part of Białystok's character and occupy around (18% of the administrative area of the city) which places it as the fifth-most forested city in Poland.


title: Białystok

text: The first settlers arrived in the 14th century. A town grew up and received its municipal charter in 1692. Białystok has traditionally been one of the leading centers of academic, cultural, and artistic life in Podlachia and the most important economic center in northeastern Poland. Białystok was once an important center for light industry, which was the reason for the substantial growth of the city's population. The city continues to reshape itself into a modern middle-sized city. Białystok, in 2010, was on the short-list, but ultimately lost the competition, to become a finalist for European Capital of Culture in 2016.


title: Białystok

text: Although nowadays "stok" is translated as "slope", the initial name of the settlement came from the river flowing through it. In old Polish, biały stok was a clean, swift river (biały - clean, stok - stream; river that "slides" down the slope). So inconspicuous today, the Biała River (usually called Białka), flowing through the city center, gave it its name.


title: Białystok

text: Due to changing borders and demographics over the centuries, the city has been known as ("Byelastok", "Biełastok" ), ("Byalistok", "Bjalistok"), , and ("Belostok", "Byelostok").