title: Post (Björk album)

text: "Vibe" included the album in its 1999 list of the 100 Essential Albums of the 20th Century. "Slant Magazine" considered it the second best album of the decade in a 2011 list, only behind Björk's next release, "Homogenic", writing it: "is [her] most scatterbrained work to date, but it's tied together flawlessly by [Björk's] singular whimsicality". In 2003, "Pitchfork" listed it as the 20th best album of the decade, with William Morris writing, "few artists on this list could rival [Björk] in terms of innovation, vision, talent, and high-yield experimentation, and "Post" was the record to establish this." In a 2012 article, "Paste" considered "Post" to be the sixty-fourth best album of the decade, with Ryan Reed stating: "no Björk album is as weird (or weirdly wonderful) as 1995's "Post", a dizzying whirlwind of sonic textures and stylistic shifts that demonstrates every facet of her ever-expanding bag of tricks. [...] Björk clearly aimed to demonstrate the meaninglessness of genre boundaries. She succeeded." "Post" was ranked at number 376 on "Rolling Stone"'s "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list, with the publication praising its "utter lack of musical inhibition," and ranked at number 289 on the 2020 updated list. The American publication "Consequence of Sound" placed the album at number seventy-nine on their 2010 list of the Top 100 Albums Ever, with Harry Painter writing: "Björk is one of few artists who could put out an album juxtaposing blistering electro-pop with big band, club-ready tribal dance with downtempo trip-hop and find both critical and commercial success." In 2015, "Post" placed on number 69 on "Spin"s list of the 300 Best Albums of the Past 30 Years, claiming that "[Björk's] fearless plunge into styles is matched by the aplomb with which she bares her anxieties and aspirations." Also in 2008, "FNAC" placed the album at number 246 in its list of the 1000 best albums of all time. In an unordered list of 500 essential albums compiled for "Vanity Fair" in 2013, English musician Elvis Costello included "Post" and mentioned "Hyperballad" as a highlight of the record. In the album's entry of the "Women Who Rock: The 50 Greatest Albums of All Time" list of 2012, "Rolling Stone" felt, "Björk's artistic stature grew by yards in the course of this strange, affecting work, by turns harshly industrial, meditative and neon jubilant."


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: The varieties (or dialects or vernacular languages) of Arabic, a Semitic language within the Afroasiatic family originating in the Arabian Peninsula, are the linguistic systems that Arabic speakers speak natively. There are considerable variations from region to region, with degrees of mutual intelligibility that are often related to geographical distance and some that are mutually unintelligible. Many aspects of the variability attested to in these modern variants can be found in the ancient Arabic dialects in the peninsula. Likewise, many of the features that characterize (or distinguish) the various modern variants can be attributed to the original settler dialects. Some organizations, such as SIL International, consider these approximately 30 different varieties to be different languages, while others, such as the Library of Congress, consider them all to be dialects of Arabic.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: In terms of sociolinguistics, a major distinction exists between the formal standardized language, found mostly in writing or in prepared speech, and the widely diverging vernaculars, used for everyday speaking situations. The latter vary from country to country, from speaker to speaker (according to personal preferences, education and culture), and depending on the topic and situation. In other words, Arabic in its natural environment usually occurs in a situation of diglossia, which means that its native speakers often learn and use two linguistic forms substantially different from each other, the Modern Standard Arabic (often called MSA in English) as the official language and a local colloquial variety (called , ' in many Arab countries, meaning "slang" or "colloquial"; or called , ', meaning "common or everyday language" in the Maghreb), in different aspects of their lives.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: This situation is often compared in Western literature to the Latin language, which maintained a cultured variant and several vernacular versions for centuries, until it disappeared as a spoken language, while derived Romance languages became new languages, such as Italian, Catalan, French, Castilian, Portuguese and Romanian. The regionally prevalent variety is learned as the speaker's first language whilst the formal language is subsequently learned in school. Though Arabic speakers typically do not make this distinction, the modern iteration of the formal language itself, Modern Standard Arabic, differs from the Classical Arabic that serves as its basis. While vernacular varieties differ substantially, "Fus'ha" (), the formal register, is standardized and universally understood by those literate in Arabic. Western scholars make a distinction between "Classical Arabic" and "Modern Standard Arabic," while speakers of Arabic generally do not consider CA and MSA to be different languages.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: The largest differences between the classical/standard and the colloquial Arabic are the loss of grammatical case; a different and strict word order; the loss of the previous system of grammatical mood, along with the evolution of a new system; the loss of the inflected passive voice, except in a few relic varieties; restriction in the use of the dual number and (for most varieties) the loss of the distinctive conjugation and agreement for feminine plurals. Many Arabic dialects, Maghrebi Arabic in particular, also have significant vowel shifts and unusual consonant clusters. Unlike other dialect groups, in the Maghrebi Arabic group, first-person singular verbs begin with a n- (). Further substantial differences exist between Bedouin and sedentary speech, the countryside and major cities, ethnic groups, religious groups, social classes, men and women, and the young and the old. These differences are to some degree bridgeable. Often, Arabic speakers can adjust their speech in a variety of ways according to the context and to their intentions—for example, to speak with people from different regions, to demonstrate their level of education or to draw on the authority of the spoken language.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: In terms of typological classification, Arabic dialectologists distinguish between two basic norms: Bedouin and Sedentary. This is based on a set of phonological, morphological, and syntactic characteristics that distinguish between these two norms. However, it is not really possible to keep this classification, partly because the modern dialects, especially urban variants, typically amalgamate features from both norms. Geographically, modern Arabic varieties are classified into six groups: Maghrebi, Sudanese, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Levantine and Peninsular Arabic. Speakers from distant areas, across national borders, within countries and even between cities and villages, can struggle to understand each other's dialects.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: The greatest variations between kinds of Arabic are those between regional language groups. Arabic dialectologists formerly distinguished between just two groups: the Mashriqi (eastern) dialects, east of Libya which includes the dialects of Arabian Peninsula, Mesopotamia, Levant, Egypt, Sudan, and the Maghrebi (western) dialects which includes the dialects of North Africa (Maghreb) west of Egypt. The mutual intelligibility is high within each of those two groups, while the intelligibility between the two groups is asymmetric: Maghrebi speakers are more likely to understand Mashriqi than vice versa.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: Arab dialectologists have now adopted a more detailed classification for modern variants of the language, which is divided into six major groups: Peninsular; Mesopotamian; Levantine; Egyptian; Sudanese; and Maghrebi.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: These large regional groups do not correspond to borders of modern states. In the western parts of the Arab world, varieties are referred to as الدارجة "ad-dārija", and in the eastern parts, as العامية "al-ʿāmmiyya". Nearby varieties of Arabic are mostly mutually intelligible, but faraway varieties tend not to be. Varieties west of Egypt are particularly disparate, with Egyptian Arabic speakers claiming difficulty in understanding North African Arabic speakers, while North African Arabic speakers' ability to understand other Arabic speakers is mostly due to the widespread popularity of Egyptian Standard and to a lesser extent, the Levantine popular media, for example Syrian or Lebanese TV shows (this phenomenon is called asymmetric intelligibility). One factor in the differentiation of the varieties is the influence from other languages previously spoken or still presently spoken in the regions, such as Coptic, Greek and English in Egypt; French, Ottoman Turkish, Italian, Spanish, Berber, Punic or Phoenician in North Africa and the Levant; Himyaritic, Modern South Arabian and Old South Arabian in Yemen; and Syriac Aramaic, Akkadian, Babylonian and Sumerian in Mesopotamia (Iraq).


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: Mesopotamian varieties are influenced by the Mesopotamian languages (Sumerian, Akkadian, Mandaic, Eastern Aramaic), Turkish language, and Iranian languages.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: Western Aramaic languages, and to a lesser extent, the Turkish language and Greek and Persian and ancient Egyptian language.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: Jewish varieties are influenced by the Hebrew and Aramaic languages. Though they have features similar to each other, they are not a homogeneous unit and still belong philologically to the same family groupings as their non-Judeo counterpart varieties.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: Arabic is characterized by a wide number of varieties; however, Arabic speakers are often able to manipulate the way they speak based on the circumstances. There can be a number of motives for changing one's speech: the formality of a situation, the need to communicate with people with different dialects, to get social approval, to differentiate oneself from the listener, when citing a written text to differentiate between personal and professional or general matters, to clarify a point, and to shift to a new topic.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: An important factor in the mixing or changing of Arabic is the concept of a prestige dialect. This refers to the level of respect accorded to a language or dialect within a speech community. The formal Arabic language carries a considerable prestige in most Arabic-speaking communities, depending on the context. This is not the only source of prestige, though. Many studies have shown that for most speakers, there is a prestige variety of vernacular Arabic. In Egypt, for non-Cairenes, the prestige dialect is Cairo Arabic. For Jordanian women from Bedouin or rural background, it may be the urban dialects of the big cities, especially including the capital Amman. Moreover, in certain contexts, a dialect relatively different from formal Arabic may carry more prestige than a dialect closer to the formal language—this is the case in Bahrain, for example.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: Language mixes and changes in different ways. Arabic speakers often use more than one variety of Arabic within a conversation or even a sentence. This process is referred to as code-switching. For example, a woman on a TV program could appeal to the authority of the formal language by using elements of it in her speech in order to prevent other speakers from cutting her off. Another process at work is "leveling", the "elimination of very localised dialectical features in favour of more regionally general ones." This can affect all linguistic levels—semantic, syntactic, phonological, etc. The change can be temporary, as when a group of speakers with substantially different Arabics communicate, or it can be permanent, as often happens when people from the countryside move to the city and adopt the more prestigious urban dialect, possibly over a couple of generations.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: This process of accommodation sometimes appeals to the formal language, but often does not. For example, villagers in central Palestine may try to use the dialect of Jerusalem rather than their own when speaking with people with substantially different dialects, particularly since they may have a very weak grasp of the formal language. In another example, groups of educated speakers from different regions will often use dialectical forms that represent a middle ground between their dialects rather than trying to use the formal language, to make communication easier and more comprehensible. For example, to express the existential "there is" (as in, "there is a place where..."), Arabic speakers have access to many different words:


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: In this case, is most likely to be used as it is not associated with a particular region and is the closest to a dialectical middle ground for this group of speakers. Moreover, given the prevalence of movies and TV shows in Egyptian Arabic, the speakers are all likely to be familiar with it. Iraqi "aku", Levantine "fīh" and North African "kayn" all evolve from Classical Arabic forms ("yakūn", "fīhi", "kā'in" respectively), but now sound very different.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: Sometimes a certain dialect may be associated with backwardness and does not carry mainstream prestige—yet it will continue to be used as it carries a kind of covert prestige and serves to differentiate one group from another when necessary.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: A basic distinction that cuts across the entire geography of the Arabic-speaking world is between sedentary and nomadic varieties (often misleadingly called Bedouin). The distinction stems from the settlement patterns in the wake of the Arab conquests. As regions were conquered, army camps were set up that eventually grew into cities, and settlement of the rural areas by nomadic Arabs gradually followed thereafter. In some areas, sedentary dialects are divided further into urban and rural variants.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: The most obvious phonetic difference between the two groups is the pronunciation of the letter ق "qaf", which is pronounced as a voiced in the urban varieties of the Arabian Peninsula (e.g. the Hejazi dialect in the ancient cities of Mecca and Medina) as well as in the Bedouin dialects across all Arabic-speaking countries, but is voiceless mainly in post-Arabized urban centers as either (with being an allophone in a few words mostly in North African cities) or (merging with ) in the urban centers of Egypt and the Levant. The latter were mostly Arabized after the Islamic Conquests.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: The other major phonetic difference is that the rural varieties preserve the Classical Arabic (CA) interdentals ث and ذ, and merge the CA emphatic sounds ض and ظ into rather than sedentary .


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: The most significant differences between rural Arabic and non-rural Arabic are in syntax. The sedentary varieties in particular share a number of common innovations from CA. This has led to the suggestion, first articulated by Charles Ferguson, that a simplified koiné language developed in the army staging camps in Iraq, whence the remaining parts of the modern Arab world were conquered.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: In general the rural varieties are more conservative than the sedentary varieties and the rural varieties within the Arabian peninsula are even more conservative than those elsewhere. Within the sedentary varieties, the western varieties (particularly, Moroccan Arabic) are less conservative than the eastern varieties.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: A number of cities in the Arabic world speak a "Bedouin" variety, which acquires prestige in that context.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: The following example illustrates similarities and differences between the literary, standardized varieties, and major urban dialects of Arabic. Maltese, a highly divergent Siculo-Arabic language descended from Maghrebi Arabic is also provided.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: "True pronunciations differ; transliterations used approach an approximate demonstration. Also, the pronunciation of Modern Standard Arabic differs significantly from region to region."


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: "Peripheral" varieties of Arabic – that is, varieties spoken in countries where Arabic is not a dominant language and a lingua franca (e.g., Turkey, Iran, Cyprus, Chad, Nigeria and Eritrea)– are particularly divergent in some respects, especially in their vocabularies, since they are less influenced by classical Arabic. However, historically they fall within the same dialect classifications as the varieties that are spoken in countries where Arabic is the dominant language. Because most of these peripheral dialects are located in Muslim majority countries, they are now influenced by Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic, the Arabic varieties of the Qur'an and their Arabic-speaking neighbours, respectively.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: Probably the most divergent non-creole Arabic variety is Cypriot Maronite Arabic, a nearly extinct variety that has been heavily influenced by Greek, and written in Greek and Latin alphabets.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: Maltese is descended from Siculo-Arabic. Its vocabulary has acquired a large number of loanwords from Sicilian, Italian and recently English, and it uses only a Latin-based alphabet. It is the only Semitic language among the official languages of the European Union.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: Arabic-based pidgins (which have a limited vocabulary consisting mostly of Arabic words, but lack most Arabic morphological features) are in widespread use along the southern edge of the Sahara, and have been for a long time. In the eleventh century, the medieval geographer al-Bakri records a text in an Arabic-based pidgin, probably one that was spoken in the region corresponding to modern Mauritania. In some regions, particularly around the southern Sudan, the pidgins have creolized (see the list below).


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: Immigrant speakers of Arabic often incorporate a significant amount of vocabulary from the host-country language in their speech, in a situation analogous to Spanglish in the United States.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: Even within countries where the official language is Arabic, different varieties of Arabic are spoken. For example, within Syria, the Arabic spoken in Homs is recognized as different from the Arabic spoken in Damascus, but both are considered to be varieties of "Levantine" Arabic. And within Morocco, the Arabic of the city of Fes is considered different from the Arabic spoken elsewhere in the country.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: Geographically distant colloquial varieties usually differ enough to be mutually unintelligible, and some linguists consider them distinct languages. However, research by Trentman & Shiri indicates a high degree of mutual intelligibility between closely related Arabic variants for native speakers listening to words, sentences, and texts; and between more distantly related dialects in interactional situations.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: Egyptian Arabic is one of the most widely understood Arabic dialects due to a thriving Egyptian television and movie industry, and Egypt's highly influential role in the region for much of the 20th century.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: Another way that varieties of Arabic differ is that some are formal and others are colloquial (that is, vernacular). There are two formal varieties, or اللغة الفصحى "al-lugha(t) al-fuṣḥá", One of these, known in English as "Modern Standard Arabic" ("MSA"), is used in contexts such as writing, broadcasting, interviewing, and speechmaking. The other, Classical Arabic, is the language of the Qur'an. It is rarely used except in reciting the Qur'an or quoting older classical texts. (Arabic speakers typically do not make an explicit distinction between MSA and Classical Arabic.) Modern Standard Arabic was deliberately developed in the early part of the 19th century as a modernized version of Classical Arabic.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: People often use a mixture of both colloquial and formal Arabic. For example, interviewers or speechmakers generally use MSA in asking prepared questions or making prepared remarks, then switch to a colloquial variety to add a spontaneous comment or respond to a question. The ratio of MSA to colloquial varieties depends on the speaker, the topic, and the situation—amongst other factors. Today even the least educated citizens are exposed to MSA through public education and exposure to mass media, and so tend to use elements of it in speaking to others. This is an example of what linguistics researchers call "diglossia". "See Linguistic register."


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: Egyptian linguist Al-Said Badawi proposed the following distinctions between the different "levels of speech" involved when speakers of Egyptian Arabic switch between vernacular and formal Arabic varieties:


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: Almost everyone in Egypt is able to use more than one of these levels of speech, and people often switch between them, sometimes within the same sentence. This is generally true in other Arabic-speaking countries as well.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: The spoken dialects of Arabic have occasionally been written, usually in the Arabic alphabet. Vernacular Arabic was first recognized as a written language distinct from Classical Arabic in 17th century Ottoman Egypt, when the Cairo elite began to trend towards colloquial writing. A record of the Cairo vernacular of the time is found in the dictionary compiled by Yusuf al-Maghribi. More recently, many plays and poems, as well as a few other works exist in Lebanese Arabic and Egyptian Arabic; books of poetry, at least, exist for most varieties. In Algeria, colloquial Maghrebi Arabic was taught as a separate subject under French colonization, and some textbooks exist. Mizrahi Jews throughout the Arab world who spoke Judeo-Arabic dialects rendered newspapers, letters, accounts, stories, and translations of some parts of their liturgy in the Hebrew alphabet, adding diacritics and other conventions for letters that exist in Judeo-Arabic but not Hebrew. The Latin alphabet was advocated for Lebanese Arabic by Said Aql, whose supporters published several books in his transcription. In 1944, Abdelaziz Pasha Fahmi, a member of the Academy of the Arabic Language in Egypt proposed the replacement of the Arabic alphabet with the Latin alphabet. His proposal was discussed in two sessions in the communion but was rejected, and faced strong opposition in cultural circles. The Latin alphabet is used by Arabic speakers over the Internet or for sending messages via cellular phones when the Arabic alphabet is unavailable or difficult to use for technical reasons; this is also used in Modern Standard Arabic when Arabic speakers of different dialects communicate each other.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: Three scientific papers concluded, using various natural language processing techniques, that Levantine dialects (and especially Palestinian) were the closest colloquial varieties, in terms of lexical similarity, to Modern Standard Arabic: Harrat et al. (2015, comparing MSA to two Algerian dialects, Tunisian, Palestinian, and Syrian), El-Haj et al. (2018, comparing MSA to Egyptian, Levantine, Gulf, and North African Arabic), and Abu Kwaik et al. (2018, comparing MSA to Algerian, Tunisian, Palestinian, Syrian, Jordanian, and Egyptian).


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: Sociolinguistics is the study of how language usage is affected by societal factors, e.g., cultural norms and contexts (see also pragmatics). The following sections examine some of the ways that modern Arab societies influence how Arabic is spoken.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: The religion of Arabic speakers is sometimes involved in shaping how they speak Arabic. As is the case with other variables, religion cannot be seen in isolation. It is generally connected with the political systems in the different countries. Religion in the Arab world is not usually seen as an individual choice. Rather, it is matter of group affiliation: one is born a Muslim (and even either Sunni or Shiite among them), Christian, Druze or Jew, and this becomes a bit like one's ethnicity. Religion as a sociolinguistic variable should be understood in this context.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: Bahrain provides an excellent illustration. A major distinction can be made between the Shiite Bahraini, who are the oldest population of Bahrain, and the Sunni population that began to immigrate to Bahrain in the eighteenth century. The Sunni form a minority of the population. The ruling family of Bahrain is Sunni. The colloquial language represented on TV is almost invariably that of the Sunni population. Therefore, power, prestige and financial control are associated with the Sunni Arabs. This is having a major effect on the direction of language change in Bahrain.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: The case of Iraq also illustrates how there can be significant differences in how Arabic is spoken on the basis of religion. Note that the study referred to here was conducted before the Iraq War. In Baghdad, there are significant linguistic differences between Arabic Christian and Muslim inhabitants of the city. The Christians of Baghdad are a well-established community, and their dialect has evolved from the sedentary vernacular of urban medieval Iraq. The typical Muslim dialect of Baghdad is a more recent arrival in the city and comes from Bedouin speech instead. In Baghdad, as elsewhere in the Arab world, the various communities share MSA as a prestige dialect, but the Muslim colloquial dialect is associated with power and money, given that that community is the more dominant. Therefore, the Christian population of the city learns to use the Muslim dialect in more formal situations, for example, when a Christian school teacher is trying to call students in the class to order.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: When it comes to phonetics the Arabic dialects differ in the pronunciation of the short vowels (, and ) and a number of selected consonants, mainly , and the interdental consonants , and , in addition to the dental .


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: Emphasis spreading is a phenomenon where is backed to in the vicinity of emphatic consonants. The domain of emphasis spreading is potentially unbounded; in Egyptian Arabic, the entire word is usually affected, although in Levantine Arabic and some other varieties, it is blocked by or (and sometimes ). It is associated with a concomitant decrease in the amount of pharyngealization of emphatic consonants, so that in some dialects emphasis spreading is the only way to distinguish emphatic consonants from their plain counterparts. It also pharyngealizes consonants between the source consonant and affected vowels, although the effects are much less noticeable than for vowels.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: Emphasis spreading does "not" affect the affrication of non-emphatic in Moroccan Arabic, with the result that these two phonemes are always distinguishable regardless of the nearby presence of other emphatic phonemes.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: Note: most dialects of Arabic will use for in learned words that are borrowed from Standard Arabic into the respective dialect or when Arabs speak Modern Standard Arabic.


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: Classical Arabic (Modern Standard ) varies widely from a dialect to another with , and being the most common:


title: Varieties of Arabic

text: Classical interdental consonants and become or in some words in Egypt, Sudan, most of the Levant, parts of the Arabian peninsula (urban Hejaz and parts of Yemen). In Morocco, Algeria and other parts of North Africa they are consistently . They remain and in most of the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq, Tunisia, parts of Yemen, rural Palestinian, Eastern Libyan, and some rural Algerian dialects. In Arabic-speaking towns of Eastern Turkey (Urfa, Siirt and Mardin), they respectively become .


title: Torque converter

text: A torque converter is a type of fluid coupling that transfers rotating power from a prime mover, like an internal combustion engine, to a rotating driven load. In a vehicle with an automatic transmission, the torque converter connects the power source to the load. It is usually located between the engine's flexplate and the transmission. The equivalent location in a manual transmission would be the mechanical clutch.


title: Torque converter

text: The main characteristic of a torque converter is its ability to increase torque when the output rotational speed is so low that it allows the fluid coming off the curved vanes of the turbine to be deflected off the stator while it is locked against its one-way clutch, thus providing the equivalent of a reduction gear. This is a feature beyond that of the simple fluid coupling, which can match rotational speed but does not multiply torque and thus reduces power.


title: Torque converter

text: By far the most common form of torque converter in automobile transmissions is the hydrokinetic device described in this article. There are also hydrostatic systems which are widely used in small machines such as compact excavators.


title: Torque converter

text: There are also mechanical designs for continuously variable transmissions and these also have the ability to multiply torque. They include the pendulum-based Constantinesco torque converter, the Lambert friction gearing disk drive transmission and the


title: Torque converter

text: Torque converter equations of motion are governed by Leonhard Euler's eighteenth century turbomachine equation:


title: Torque converter

text: The equation expands to include the fifth power of radius; as a result, torque converter properties are very dependent on the size of the device.


title: Torque converter

text: A fluid coupling is a two-element drive that is incapable of multiplying torque, while a torque converter has at least one extra element—the stator—which alters the drive's characteristics during periods of high slippage, producing an increase in output torque.


title: Torque converter

text: In a torque converter there are at least three rotating elements: the impeller, which is mechanically driven by the ; the turbine, which drives the load; and the stator, which is interposed between the impeller and turbine so that it can alter oil flow returning from the turbine to the impeller. The classic torque converter design dictates that the stator be prevented from rotating under any condition, hence the term "stator". In practice, however, the stator is mounted on an overrunning clutch, which prevents the stator from counter-rotating with respect to the prime mover but allows forward rotation.


title: Torque converter

text: Modifications to the basic three element design have been periodically incorporated, especially in applications where higher than normal torque multiplication is required. Most commonly, these have taken the form of multiple turbines and stators, each set being designed to produce differing amounts of torque multiplication. For example, the Buick Dynaflow automatic transmission was a non-shifting design and, under normal conditions, relied solely upon the converter to multiply torque. The Dynaflow used a five element converter to produce the wide range of torque multiplication needed to propel a heavy vehicle.


title: Torque converter

text: Although not strictly a part of classic torque converter design, many automotive converters include a lock-up clutch to improve cruising power transmission efficiency and reduce heat. The application of the clutch locks the turbine to the impeller, causing all power transmission to be mechanical, thus eliminating losses associated with fluid drive.


title: Torque converter

text: The key to the torque converter's ability to multiply torque lies in the stator. In the classic fluid coupling design, periods of high slippage cause the fluid flow returning from the turbine to the impeller to oppose the direction of impeller rotation, leading to a significant loss of efficiency and the generation of considerable waste heat. Under the same condition in a torque converter, the returning fluid will be redirected by the stator so that it aids the rotation of the impeller, instead of impeding it. The result is that much of the energy in the returning fluid is recovered and added to the energy being applied to the impeller by the prime mover. This action causes a substantial increase in the mass of fluid being directed to the turbine, producing an increase in output torque. Since the returning fluid is initially traveling in a direction opposite to impeller rotation, the stator will likewise attempt to counter-rotate as it forces the fluid to change direction, an effect that is prevented by the one-way stator clutch.


title: Torque converter

text: Unlike the radially straight blades used in a plain fluid coupling, a torque converter's turbine and stator use angled and curved blades. The blade shape of the stator is what alters the path of the fluid, forcing it to coincide with the impeller rotation. The matching curve of the turbine blades helps to correctly direct the returning fluid to the stator so the latter can do its job. The shape of the blades is important as minor variations can result in significant changes to the converter's performance.


title: Torque converter

text: During the stall and acceleration phases, in which torque multiplication occurs, the stator remains stationary due to the action of its one-way clutch. However, as the torque converter approaches the coupling phase, the energy and volume of the fluid returning from the turbine will gradually decrease, causing pressure on the stator to likewise decrease. Once in the coupling phase, the returning fluid will reverse direction and now rotate in the direction of the impeller and turbine, an effect which will attempt to forward-rotate the stator. At this point, the stator clutch will release and the impeller, turbine and stator will all (more or less) turn as a unit.


title: Torque converter

text: Unavoidably, some of the fluid's kinetic energy will be lost due to friction and turbulence, causing the converter to generate waste heat (dissipated in many applications by water cooling). This effect, often referred to as pumping loss, will be most pronounced at or near stall conditions. In modern designs, the blade geometry minimizes oil velocity at low impeller speeds, which allows the turbine to be stalled for long periods with little danger of overheating (as when a vehicle with an automatic transmission is stopped at a traffic signal or in traffic congestion while still in gear).


title: Torque converter

text: A torque converter cannot achieve 100 percent coupling efficiency. The classic three element torque converter has an efficiency curve that resembles ∩: zero efficiency at stall, generally increasing efficiency during the acceleration phase and low efficiency in the coupling phase. The loss of efficiency as the converter enters the coupling phase is a result of the turbulence and fluid flow interference generated by the stator, and as previously mentioned, is commonly overcome by mounting the stator on a one-way clutch.


title: Torque converter

text: Even with the benefit of the one-way stator clutch, a converter cannot achieve the same level of efficiency in the coupling phase as an equivalently sized fluid coupling. Some loss is due to the presence of the stator (even though rotating as part of the assembly), as it always generates some power-absorbing turbulence. Most of the loss, however, is caused by the curved and angled turbine blades, which do not absorb kinetic energy from the fluid mass as well as radially straight blades. Since the turbine blade geometry is a crucial factor in the converter's ability to multiply torque, trade-offs between torque multiplication and coupling efficiency are inevitable. In automotive applications, where steady improvements in fuel economy have been mandated by market forces and government edict, the nearly universal use of a lock-up clutch has helped to eliminate the converter from the efficiency equation during cruising operation.


title: Torque converter

text: The maximum amount of torque multiplication produced by a converter is highly dependent on the size and geometry of the turbine and stator blades, and is generated only when the converter is at or near the stall phase of operation. Typical stall torque multiplication ratios range from 1.8:1 to 2.5:1 for most automotive applications (although multi-element designs as used in the Buick Dynaflow and Chevrolet Turboglide could produce more). Specialized converters designed for industrial, rail, or heavy marine power transmission systems are capable of as much as 5.0:1 multiplication. Generally speaking, there is a trade-off between maximum torque multiplication and efficiency—high stall ratio converters tend to be relatively inefficient below the coupling speed, whereas low stall ratio converters tend to provide less possible torque multiplication.


title: Torque converter

text: The characteristics of the torque converter must be carefully matched to the torque curve of the power source and the intended application. Changing the blade geometry of the stator and/or turbine will change the torque-stall characteristics, as well as the overall efficiency of the unit. For example, drag racing automatic transmissions often use converters modified to produce high stall speeds to improve off-the-line torque, and to get into the power band of the engine more quickly. Highway vehicles generally use lower stall torque converters to limit heat production, and provide a more firm feeling to the vehicle's characteristics.


title: Torque converter

text: A design feature once found in some General Motors automatic transmissions was the variable-pitch stator, in which the blades' angle of attack could be varied in response to changes in engine speed and load. The effect of this was to vary the amount of torque multiplication produced by the converter. At the normal angle of attack, the stator caused the converter to produce a moderate amount of multiplication but with a higher level of efficiency. If the driver abruptly opened the throttle, a valve would switch the stator pitch to a different angle of attack, increasing torque multiplication at the expense of efficiency.


title: Torque converter

text: Some torque converters use multiple stators and/or multiple turbines to provide a wider range of torque multiplication. Such multiple-element converters are more common in industrial environments than in automotive transmissions, but automotive applications such as Buick's Triple Turbine Dynaflow and Chevrolet's Turboglide also existed. The Buick Dynaflow utilized the torque-multiplying characteristics of its planetary gear set in conjunction with the torque converter for low gear and bypassed the first turbine, using only the second turbine as vehicle speed increased. The unavoidable trade-off with this arrangement was low efficiency and eventually these transmissions were discontinued in favor of the more efficient three speed units with a conventional three element torque converter.


title: Torque converter

text: As described above, impelling losses within the torque converter reduce efficiency and generate waste heat. In modern automotive applications, this problem is commonly avoided by use of a lock-up clutch that physically links the impeller and turbine, effectively changing the converter into a purely mechanical coupling. The result is no slippage, and virtually no power loss.


title: Torque converter

text: The first automotive application of the lock-up principle was Packard's Ultramatic transmission, introduced in 1949, which locked up the converter at cruising speeds, unlocking when the throttle was floored for quick acceleration or as the vehicle slowed. This feature was also present in some Borg-Warner transmissions produced during the 1950s. It fell out of favor in subsequent years due to its extra complexity and cost. In the late 1970s lock-up clutches started to reappear in response to demands for improved fuel economy, and are now nearly universal in automotive applications.


title: Torque converter

text: As with a basic fluid coupling the theoretical torque capacity of a converter is proportional to formula_2, where formula_3 is the mass density of the fluid (kg/m), formula_4 is the impeller speed (rpm), and formula_5 is the diameter (m). In practice, the maximum torque capacity is limited by the mechanical characteristics of the materials used in the converter's components, as well as the ability of the converter to dissipate heat (often through water cooling). As an aid to strength, reliability and economy of production, most automotive converter housings are of welded construction. Industrial units are usually assembled with bolted housings, a design feature that eases the process of inspection and repair, but adds to the cost of producing the converter.


title: Torque converter

text: In high performance, racing and heavy duty commercial converters, the pump and turbine may be further strengthened by a process called furnace brazing, in which molten brass is drawn into seams and joints to produce a stronger bond between the blades, hubs and annular ring(s). Because the furnace brazing process creates a small radius at the point where a blade meets with a hub or annular ring, a theoretical decrease in turbulence will occur, resulting in a corresponding increase in efficiency.


title: Torque converter

text: Overloading a converter can result in several failure modes, some of them potentially dangerous in nature:


title: Taylor Hill (model)

text: Taylor Marie Hill (born March 5, 1996) is an American model. A former Victoria's Secret Angel, she appeared in the brand's annual fashion show from 2014 to 2018. She has worked for brands including Ralph Lauren, Michael Kors, and Carolina Herrera. She has also appeared in magazines such as "Vogue", "Elle", and "Harper's Bazaar".


title: Taylor Hill (model)

text: Hill was born in Palatine, Illinois, and raised in Arvada, Colorado. Beginning at an early age, she was a gymnast, before becoming a model. She has three siblings: sisters Logan Rae and Mackinley, and a brother Chase. Mackinley and Chase are also models. She graduated from Pomona High School in Arvada at the age of 16.


title: Taylor Hill (model)

text: Hill was discovered in 2011 at the age of 14 by talent agent Jim Jordan at a ranch in Granby, Colorado where Hill and her family rode horses. Jordan photographed Hill and subsequently shopped the images, securing her contracts with a number of modeling agencies.


title: Taylor Hill (model)

text: In 2013, she started out her modeling career when she was featured on Intimissimi's catalog. She has been in print campaigns for Forever 21.


title: Taylor Hill (model)

text: In 2014 she modeled for H&M and walked the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show for the first time, the youngest model on their rotation at the age of 18. That year she became the face of Rosa Cha.


title: Taylor Hill (model)

text: She was voted "2015's Most Promising Model" by "Couturesque"'s readers. In 2015, she hosted an event for Victoria's Secret PINK. That same year she became a Victoria's Secret Angel. Also she advertised Versus Versace. In August 2015, she won "Model of the Year" in social media at Fashion Media Awards.


title: Taylor Hill (model)

text: In 2016, she played a model in the film "The Neon Demon" and made her debut at No. 17 on "Forbes"' "The World's Top-Earning Models" list, with estimated earnings of $4 million between 2015 and 2016. In July 2016, she was named as the new face of French beauty brand Lancôme.


title: Taylor Hill (model)

text: She has appeared in editorials for American, British, French, Spanish, Japanese, Arabian, Mexican and Turkish "Vogue", Harper's Bazaar, French, Dutch and Australian "Elle", "W", "Madame Figaro", "Dazed", "LOVE", "V", Russian "Número", "Pop Magazine", British, Spanish, Turkish, Italian Cosmopolitan, "Russh Magazine", "Grazia", "Glamour" and Italian "Marie Claire".


title: Taylor Hill (model)

text: In 2016 her name has reached No. 9 with 3.6 million followers on the "Most Followed Models" list by "Harper's Bazaar". She has 21 million Instagram followers as of October 2022.


title: Taylor Hill (model)

text: After working in campaigns and photoshoots, she walked for high fashion designers Versace, Valentino, Chanel, Armani, Moschino, Dolce & Gabbana, Brandon Maxwell, Balmain, Givenchy, Tommy Hilfiger, Fendi, H&M, Ralph Lauren, Kenzo, Alexander Wang, Lanvin, DKNY, Marc Jacobs, Miu Miu, Michael Kors and Bottega Veneta during the New York, Milan and Paris Fashion Weeks. She has been the face for advertisements of Jimmy Choo by Craig McDean, Michael Kors by Mario Testino, Topshop by Giampaolo Sgura, David Yurman by Bruce Weber and Joe's Jeans by Mario Sorrenti between 2016 and 2018.


title: Taylor Hill (model)

text: She began a relationship with British cannabis entrepreneur Daniel Fryer in 2020. In June 2021, she announced their engagement.


title: Friedrich Fromm

text: Friedrich Wilhelm Waldemar Fromm (8 October 1888 – 12 March 1945) was a German Army officer. In World War II, Fromm was Commander in Chief of the Replacement Army ("Ersatzheer"), in charge of training and personnel replacement for combat divisions of the German Army, a position he occupied for most of the war. A recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, he was executed for failing to act against the plot of 20 July 1944 to assassinate Hitler.


title: Friedrich Fromm

text: When Operation Barbarossa stalled outside of Moscow in December 1941 and the Russian counter-attack started, Hitler took direct command of the Army and re-organized the armed forces' command structure. The Office of the Chief of Army Armament and the Reserve Army under "Generaloberst" Friedrich Fromm was created, subordinate to the commander in chief, army (head of the OKH, Hitler). Fromm had enough power at his disposal to control the German state because his position controlled army procurement and production and commanded all army troops inside Germany.


title: Friedrich Fromm

text: At the beginning of 1942, Fromm apparently recommended a defensive strategy for the entire year because of exhausted army stockpiles and the diversion of production, after the initial successes of "Barbarossa" in the summer of 1941.


title: Friedrich Fromm

text: In World War II, Fromm was Commander in Chief of the Reserve Army (Ersatzheer), in charge of training and personnel replacement for the German Army, a position he occupied for most of the war. Fromm was aware that some of his subordinates, most notably Claus von Stauffenberg, his chief of staff, were planning an assassination attempt against Adolf Hitler, but did not have any direct involvement in the conspiracy. When the attempt to proceed with a mutiny on 15 July 1944 failed, he refused to have any further part in it.


title: Friedrich Fromm

text: On 20 July, news broke that Hitler and several officers of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces had become victims of an explosion in the German military's headquarters on the Eastern Front, the Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair), near Rastenburg, East Prussia (now Kętrzyn, Poland). Fromm quickly concluded that it was Stauffenberg and the plotters who were behind the explosion, and when he attempted to arrest them, Fromm was quickly overwhelmed and confined to a prison cell in the Bendlerblock, the Berlin headquarters of the Replacement Army, among other branches of the Wehrmacht, after he had refused to join the plotters in Operation Valkyrie (they had forged Fromm's signature to begin the operation).


title: Friedrich Fromm

text: After the coup failed, Fromm was found by men of the "Ersatzheer" and freed. Despite Hitler's direct orders to take the conspirators alive, Fromm held a summary court-martial of the active soldiers at his headquarters who had been identified or suspected of being part of the coup. As presiding official, Fromm condemned the officers to death and ordered their immediate execution by firing squad. As for retired Colonel-General Ludwig Beck, Fromm allowed his request to commit suicide, but since the suicide attempt failed, Fromm ordered him to be shot.


title: Friedrich Fromm

text: After the Bendlerblock executions, Fromm went to Goebbels to claim credit for suppressing the coup, to which Goebbels only said, "You have been in a damn hurry to get your witnesses below ground." On the morning of 22 July 1944, Fromm and other members of the conspiracy were arrested. Since the court failed to prove a direct association with the 20 July plotters, he was instead charged and convicted for cowardice before the enemy. However, because he had executed the conspirators within reach, he was spared torture and execution by hanging with a thin rope, and sentenced to a military execution.


title: Friedrich Fromm

text: On 12 March 1945, Fromm was executed at the Brandenburg-Görden Prison by firing squad as part of the post-conspiracy purge. His last words before the firing squad were reported to be "I die, because it was ordered. I had always wanted only the best for Germany."


title: 2021 New York City mayoral election

text: The 2021 New York City mayoral election was held on November 2, 2021. Incumbent Mayor Bill de Blasio was term-limited and ineligible to run for re-election.


title: 2021 New York City mayoral election

text: On June 22, 2021, the primary elections for the Democratic and Republican primaries were held. The 2021 primaries were the first New York City mayoral election primaries to use ranked-choice voting rather than the plurality voting of previous primaries. On election night, Guardian Angels founder and radio talk show host Curtis Sliwa won the Republican primary with 67.9% of the vote, defeating New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers founder Fernando Mateo. Brooklyn Borough President and former police officer Eric Adams had a lead on election night in the Democratic primary but did not reach 50% of the vote, meaning that ranked-choice voting would come into play. In the final round of ranked-choice voting in the Democratic primary, Adams defeated former New York City Department of Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia, 50.4%–49.6%.


title: 2021 New York City mayoral election

text: In the general election, Adams handily defeated Sliwa with 67.0% of the vote to become the 110th mayor of New York City and the city's second African-American mayor.


title: 2021 New York City mayoral election

text: In 2019, New York City voters passed Ballot Question #1 to amend the City Charter to "give voters the choice of ranking up to five candidates in primary and special elections for mayor, public advocate, comptroller, borough president, and city council beginning in January 2021". The first election in the city to use ranked-choice voting was in the 24th council district in Queens, which took place on February 2, 2021. This was the first time ranked-choice voting was used in the New York City mayoral election.


title: 2021 New York City mayoral election

text: In 2019, journalists and political commentators predicted several potential 2021 mayoral candidates, including Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, Bronx Borough President Rubén Díaz Jr., NYC Council Speaker Corey Johnson, NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer, and NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams.


title: 2021 New York City mayoral election

text: By May 2021, thirteen candidates had qualified for the Democratic Party primary, and two for the Republican Party primary. There are also minor party and independent campaigns for the general election in November.


title: 2021 New York City mayoral election

text: Polling in late January and early February 2021 showed businessman Andrew Yang as the Democratic primary frontrunner, with Adams in second place and Stringer in third place.


title: 2021 New York City mayoral election

text: In April, Scott Stringer was accused of sexual abuse by Jean Kim. Stringer denied the allegations, claiming that the relationship had been consensual. In June, a second woman accused him of sexual misconduct.


title: 2021 New York City mayoral election

text: On May 5, 2021, "Politico" reported that a recent poll found that Eric Adams was leading the Democratic primary contest; this marked the first time since January that any Democratic candidate other than Yang had led in a public poll. On June 7, "Spectrum News" reported that Adams had maintained a lead in the Democratic primary.


title: 2021 New York City mayoral election

text: On July 6, the Associated Press reported that Adams had won the Democratic primary. "The Guardian" stated that Adams, a "former police captain", had prevailed "after appealing to the political center and promising to strike the right balance between fighting crime and ending racial injustice in policing". An earlier report from "The New York Times" asserted that Adams had run as a "working-class underdog" and had "hammered away at the message that he was the only candidate who could tackle both crime and police reform".


title: 2021 New York City mayoral election

text: Sliwa ran on a platform opposing the Defund the Police movement, supporting a property tax overhaul so that wealthy citizens pay more in comparison to working-class residents, keeping in place the Specialized High School Admissions Test while increasing opportunities for vocational training in charter schools, and focusing on fiscal restraint. He also opposes the killing of unwanted animals and supports making all animal shelters no-kill shelters.


title: 2021 New York City mayoral election

text: Though Adams won the election easily in the heavily Democratic city, he received fewer votes than Bill de Blasio in either of his two mayoral runs, and lost many heavily Asian American precincts. This is partly attributed to Sliwa's pledge to halt the construction of homeless shelters which were proposed by Adams to be built in neighborhoods such as Asian-majority Sunset Park. Other issues of importance to Asian American activist leaders included proposed reforms to the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test in high schools, bail reform, and plans to build new jails in neighborhoods such as Chinatown, Manhattan.


title: Galeazzo Ciano

text: Gian Galeazzo Ciano, 2nd Count of Cortellazzo and Buccari ( , ; 18 March 1903 – 11 January 1944) was an Italian diplomat and politician who served as Foreign Minister in the government of his father-in-law, Benito Mussolini, from 1936 until 1943. During this period, he was widely seen as Mussolini's most probable successor as head of government.


title: Galeazzo Ciano

text: He was the son of Admiral Costanzo Ciano, a founding member of the National Fascist Party; father and son both took part in Mussolini's March on Rome in 1922. Ciano saw action in the Italo-Ethiopian War (1935–36) and was appointed Foreign Minister on his return. Following a series of Axis defeats in the Second World War, Ciano began pushing for Italy's exit, and he was dismissed from his post as a result. He then served as ambassador to the Vatican.


title: Galeazzo Ciano

text: In July 1943, Ciano was among the members of the Grand Council of Fascism that forced Mussolini's ousting and subsequent arrest. Ciano proceeded to flee to Germany but was arrested and handed over to Mussolini's new regime based in Salo, the Italian Social Republic. Under German pressure, Mussolini ordered Ciano's death, and in January 1944 he was executed by firing squad.


title: Galeazzo Ciano

text: Ciano wrote and left behind a diary that has been used as a source by several historians, including William Shirer in his "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" and in the four-hour HBO documentary-drama "Mussolini and I".


title: Galeazzo Ciano

text: Gian Galeazzo Ciano was born in Livorno, Italy, in 1903. He was the son of Costanzo Ciano and his wife Carolina Pini; his father was an Admiral and World War I hero in the Royal Italian Navy (for which service he was given the aristocratic title of Count by Victor Emmanuel III). The elder Ciano, nicknamed "Ganascia" ("The Jaw"), was a founding member of the National Fascist Party and re-organizer of the Italian merchant navy in the 1920s. Costanzo Ciano was not above extracting private profit from his public office. He would use his influence to depress the stock of a company, after which he would buy a controlling interest, then increase his wealth after its value rebounded. Among other holdings, Costanzo Ciano owned a newspaper, farmland in Tuscany and other properties worth huge sums of money. As a result, his son Galeazzo was accustomed to living a high-profile and glamorous lifestyle, which he maintained almost until the end of his life. Father and son both took part in Mussolini's 1922 March on Rome.


title: Galeazzo Ciano

text: After studying Philosophy of Law at the University of Rome, Galeazzo Ciano worked briefly as a journalist before choosing a diplomatic career; soon, he served as an attaché in Rio de Janeiro.


title: Galeazzo Ciano

text: On 24 April 1930, when he was 27 years old, he married Benito Mussolini's daughter Edda Mussolini, and they had three children (Fabrizio, Raimonda and Marzio), though he was known to have had several affairs while married. Soon after their marriage, Ciano left for Shanghai to serve as Italian consul, where his wife had an affair with the Chinese warlord Zhang Xueliang. On his return to Italy in 1935, he became the minister of press and propaganda in the government of his father-in-law.


title: Galeazzo Ciano

text: Ciano volunteered for action in the Italian invasion of Ethiopia (1935–36) as a bomber squadron commander. He received two silver medals of valor and reached the rank of captain. His future opponent Alessandro Pavolini served in the same squadron as a lieutenant. Upon his highly trumpeted return from the war as a "hero" in 1936, he was appointed by Mussolini as replacement Foreign Minister. Ciano began to keep a diary a short time after his appointment and kept it active up to his 1943 dismissal as foreign minister. In 1937, he was allegedly involved in planning the murder of the brothers Carlo and Nello Rosselli, two exiled anti-fascist activists killed in the French spa town of Bagnoles-de-l'Orne on 9 June. Also in 1937, prior to the Italian annexation in 1939, Gian Galeazzo Ciano was named an Honorary Citizen of Tirana, Albania.


title: Galeazzo Ciano

text: Before World War II, Mussolini may have been preparing Ciano to succeed him as "Duce". (In 1938, he sought treatment for his throat ailment, by the famed Jewish professor Heinrich Neumann. As treatment required lengthy time, the Anschluss interrupted and Neumann was jailed as a Jew). At the start of the war in 1939, Ciano did not agree with Mussolini's plans and knew that Italy's armed forces were ill-prepared for a major war. When Mussolini formally declared war on France in 1940, he wrote in his diary, ""I am sad, very sad. The adventure begins. May God help Italy!"" Ciano became increasingly disenchanted with Nazi Germany and the course of World War II, although when the Italian regime embarked on an ill-advised "parallel war" alongside Germany, he went along, despite the terribly-executed Italian invasion of Greece and its subsequent setbacks. Prior to the German campaign in France in 1940, Ciano leaked a warning of imminent invasion to neutral Belgium.


title: Galeazzo Ciano

text: Throughout 1941 and thereafter, Ciano made derogatory and sarcastic comments about Mussolini behind his back and was surprised that these comments were reported to the Duce, who did not take them lightly; for his part, Ciano ignored well meaning friends who advised moderation. On top of that, friends and acquaintances sought his protection and aid on various matters not having to do with his official position, which in turn resulted in further caustic remarks. In addition, two relatively minor incidents wounded his overblown self-importance and vanity. One was his being excluded from a projected meeting between Mussolini and Franco. The other involved him being reprimanded for a rowdy celebration of an aviator in Bari; he wrote a letter to Mussolini stating that the Duce had "opened a wound in him which can never be closed." His own self-worth seemed to cloud his judgement, forgetting that he had acquired his position by marrying Mussolini's daughter.


title: Galeazzo Ciano

text: In late 1942 and early 1943, following the Axis defeat in North Africa, other major setbacks on the Eastern Front, and with an Anglo-American assault on Sicily looming, Ciano turned against the doomed war and actively pushed for Italy's exit from the conflict. He was silenced by being removed from his post as foreign minister. The rest of the cabinet was removed as well on 5 February 1943. He was offered the post of ambassador to the Holy See, and presented his credentials to Pope Pius XII on 1 March. In this role he remained in Rome, watched closely by Mussolini. The regime's position had become even more unstable by the coming summer, however, and court circles were already probing the Allied commands for some sort of agreement.


title: Galeazzo Ciano

text: On the afternoon of 24 July 1943, Mussolini summoned the Fascist Grand Council to its first meeting since 1939, prompted by the Allied invasion of Sicily. At that meeting, Mussolini announced that the Germans were thinking of evacuating the south. This led Dino Grandi to launch a blistering attack on his longtime comrade. Grandi put on the table a resolution asking King Victor Emmanuel III to resume his full constitutional powers – in effect, a vote leading to Mussolini's ousting from leadership. The motion won by an unexpectedly large margin, 19–8, with Ciano voting in favor. Mussolini's replacement was Pietro Badoglio, an Italian general in both World Wars.


title: Galeazzo Ciano

text: Mussolini did not expect the vote to have substantive effect, and showed up for work the next morning as usual. That afternoon, the king summoned him to Villa Savoia and dismissed him from office. Upon leaving the villa, Mussolini was arrested. For the next two months he was moved from place to place to hide him and prevent his rescue by the Germans. Ultimately, Mussolini was sent to Gran Sasso, a mountain resort in Abruzzo. He was kept in complete isolation in a hotel in Campo Imperatore until rescued by German paratroopers on 12 September 1943. Mussolini then set up a puppet government in the area of northern Italy still under German occupation called the Italian Social Republic.


title: Galeazzo Ciano

text: Ciano was dismissed from his post by the new government of Italy put in place after his father-in-law was overthrown. Ciano, Edda and their three children fled to Germany on 28 August 1943 in fear of being arrested by the new Italian government. The Germans turned him over to Mussolini's administration. He was then formally arrested on charges of treason. Under German and Fascist pressure, Mussolini had Ciano imprisoned before he was tried and found guilty. After the Verona trial and sentence, on 11 January 1944, Ciano was executed by a firing squad along with 4 others (Emilio De Bono, Luciano Gottardi, Giovanni Marinelli and Carlo Pareschi) who had voted for Mussolini's ousting. As a further humiliation, the condemned men were tied to chairs and shot in the back, though Ciano managed to twist his chair around at the last minute to face the firing squad before uttering his final words, "Long live Italy!"


title: Galeazzo Ciano

text: Ciano is remembered for his "Diaries 1937–1943", a revealing daily record of his meetings with Mussolini, Hitler, Ribbentrop, foreign ambassadors and other political figures. Edda tried to barter his papers to the Germans in return for his life; Gestapo agents helped her confidant Emilio Pucci rescue some of them from Rome. Pucci was then a lieutenant in the Italian Air Force, but would find fame after the war as a fashion designer. When Hitler vetoed the plan, she hid the bulk of the papers at a clinic in Ramiola, near Medesano and on 9 January 1944, Pucci helped Edda escape to Switzerland with five diaries covering the war years which were then buried beneath a rose garden. The diary was first published in English in London in 1946, edited by Malcolm Muggeridge, covering 1939 to 1943. The complete English version was published in 2002.


title: Bantustan

text: A Bantustan (also known as Bantu homeland, black homeland, black state or simply homeland; ) was a territory that the National Party administration of South Africa set aside for black inhabitants of South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia), as part of its policy of apartheid. By extension, outside South Africa the term refers to regions that lack any real legitimacy, consisting often of several unconnected enclaves, or which have emerged from national or international gerrymandering.


title: Bantustan

text: The term, first used in the late 1940s, was coined from "Bantu" (meaning "people" in some of the Bantu languages) and "-stan" (a suffix meaning "land" in the Persian language and some Persian-influenced languages of western, central, and southern Asia). It subsequently came to be regarded as a disparaging term by some critics of the apartheid-era government's "homelands". The Pretoria government established ten Bantustans in South Africa, and ten in neighbouring South West Africa (then under South African administration), for the purpose of concentrating the members of designated ethnic groups, thus making each of those territories ethnically homogeneous as the basis for creating autonomous nation states for South Africa's different black ethnic groups. Under the Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act of 1970, the government stripped black South Africans of their South African citizenship, depriving them of their few remaining political and civil rights in South Africa, and declared them to be citizens of these homelands.


title: Bantustan

text: The government of South Africa declared as independent four of the South African Bantustans—Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda, and Ciskei (the so-called "TBVC States"), but this declaration was never recognised by anti-apartheid forces in South Africa or by any international government. Other Bantustans (like KwaZulu, Lebowa, and QwaQwa) were assigned "autonomy" but never granted "independence". In South West Africa, Ovamboland, Kavangoland, and East Caprivi were declared to be self-governing, with a handful of other ostensible homelands never being given autonomy. A new constitution effectively abolished the Bantustans with the end of apartheid in South Africa in 1994.


title: Bantustan

text: Beginning in 1913, successive white-minority South African governments established "reserves" for the black population in order to racially segregate them from the white population. The Natives Land Act, 1913, limited blacks to seven percent of the land in the country. In 1936 the government planned to raise this to 13.6 percent of the land, but it was slow to purchase land and this plan was not fully implemented.


title: Bantustan

text: When the National Party came to power in 1948, Minister for Native Affairs (and later Prime Minister of South Africa) Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd built on this, introducing a series of "grand apartheid" measures such as the Group Areas Acts and the Natives Resettlement Act, 1954 that reshaped South African society such that whites would be the demographic majority. The creation of the homelands or Bantustans was a central element of this strategy, as the long-term goal was to make the Bantustans independent. As a result, blacks would lose their South African citizenship and voting rights, allowing whites to remain in control of South Africa.


title: Bantustan

text: The term "Bantustan" for the Bantu homelands was intended to draw a parallel with the creation of Pakistan and India ("Hindustan"), which had taken place just a few months before at the end of 1947, and was coined by supporters of the policy. However, it quickly became a pejorative term, with the National Party preferring the term "homelands". As Nelson Mandela explained in a 1959 article:


title: Bantustan

text: The newspapers have christened the Nationalists' plan as one for "Bantustans". The hybrid word is, in many ways, extremely misleading. It relates to the partitioning of India, after the reluctant departure of the British, and as a condition thereof, into two separate States, Hindustan and Pakistan. There is no real parallel with the Nationalists' proposals, for (a) India and Pakistan constitute two completely separate and politically independent States, (b) Muslims enjoy equal rights in India; Hindus enjoy equal rights in Pakistan, (c) Partition was submitted to and approved by both parties, or at any rate fairly widespread and Influential sections of each. The Government's plans do not envisage the partitioning of this country into separate, self-governing States. They do not envisage equal rights, or any rights at all, for Africans outside the reserves. Partition has never been approved of by Africans and never will be. For that matter it has never been really submitted to or approved of by the Whites. The term "Bantustan" is therefore a complete misnomer, and merely tends to help the Nationalists perpetrate a fraud.


title: Bantustan

text: "While apartheid was an ideology born of the will to survive or, put differently, the fear of extinction, Afrikaner leaders differed on how best to implement it. While some were satisfied with segregationist policies placing them at the top of a social and economic hierarchy, others truly believed in the concept of 'separate but equal'. For the latter, the ideological justification for the classification, segregation, and denial of political rights was the plan to set aside special land reserves for black South Africans, later called 'bantustans' or 'homelands'. Each ethnic group would have its own state with its own political system and economy, and each would rely on its own labour force. These independent states would then coexist alongside white South Africa in a spirit of friendship and collaboration. In their own areas, black citizens would enjoy full rights."


title: Bantustan

text: Verwoerd argued that the Bantustans were the "original homes" of the black peoples of South Africa. In 1951, the government of Daniel François Malan introduced the Bantu Authorities Act to establish "homelands" allocated to the country's black ethnic groups. These amounted to 13% of the country's land, the remainder being reserved for the white population. The homelands were run by cooperative tribal leaders, while uncooperative chiefs were forcibly deposed. Over time, a ruling black elite emerged with a personal and financial interest in the preservation of the homelands. While this aided the homelands' political stability to an extent, their position was still entirely dependent on South African support.


title: Bantustan

text: The role of the homelands was expanded in 1959 with the passage of the Bantu Self-Government Act, which set out a plan called "Separate Development". This enabled the homelands to establish themselves in the long term as self-governing territories and ultimately as nominally fully "independent" states.


title: Bantustan

text: This general framework was not in each case followed in a clear-cut way, but often with a number of intermediate and overlapping steps.


title: Bantustan

text: The homeland of Transkei served in many regards as a "testing ground" for apartheid policies; its institutional development started already before the 1959 act, and its attainment of self-government and independence were therefore implemented earlier than for the other homelands.


title: Bantustan

text: This plan was stepped up under Verwoerd's successor as prime minister, John Vorster, as part of his "enlightened" approach to apartheid. However, the true intention of this policy was to fulfill Verwoerd's original plan to make South Africa's blacks nationals of the homelands rather than of South Africa—thus removing the few rights they still had as citizens. The homelands were encouraged to opt for independence, as this would greatly reduce the number of black citizens of South Africa. The process of creating the legal framework for this plan was completed by the Black Homelands Citizenship Act of 1970, which formally designated all black South Africans as citizens of the homelands, even if they lived in "white South Africa", and cancelled their South African citizenship, and the Bantu Homelands Constitution Act of 1971, which provided a general blueprint for the stages of constitutional development of all homelands (except Transkei) from the establishment of Territorial Authorities up to full independence.


title: Bantustan

text: By 1984, all ten homelands in South Africa had attained self-government and four of them (Transkei, Boputhatswana, Venda and Ciskei) had been declared fully independent between 1976 and 1981.


title: Bantustan

text: The following table shows the time-frame of the institutional and legal development of the ten South African Bantustans in light of the above-mentioned four major steps:


title: Bantustan

text: In parallel with the creation of the homelands, South Africa's black population was subjected to a massive programme of forced relocation. It has been estimated that 3.5 million people were forced from their homes from the 1960s through the 1980s, many being resettled in the Bantustans.


title: Bantustan

text: The government made clear that its ultimate aim was the total removal of the black population from South Africa. Connie Mulder, the Minister of Plural Relations and Development, told the House of Assembly on 7 February 1978:


title: Bantustan

text: But this goal was not achieved. Only a minority (about 39% in 1986) of South Africa's black population lived in the Bantustans; the remainder lived in South Africa proper, many in townships, shanty-towns and slums on the outskirts of South African cities.


title: Bantustan

text: Bantustans within the borders of South Africa were classified as "self-governing" or "independent". In theory, self-governing Bantustans had control over many aspects of their internal functioning but were not yet sovereign nations. Independent Bantustans (Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei; also known as the TBVC states) were intended to be fully sovereign. These areas received little attention from the colonial and later South African governments however, and were still very undeveloped. This greatly decreased these states' ability to govern and made them very reliant on the South African government.


title: Bantustan

text: Throughout the existence of the independent Bantustans, South Africa remained the only country to recognise their independence. The South African government lobbied for their recognition. In 1976, leading up to a United States House of Representatives resolution urging the President not to recognise Transkei, the South African government intensely lobbied lawmakers to oppose the bill. Arbitrary and unrecognized amateur radio call signs were created for the independent states and QSL cards were sent by operators using them, but the International Telecommunication Union never accepted these stations as legitimate. Each TBVC state extended recognition to the other independent Bantustans while South Africa showed its commitment to the notion of TBVC sovereignty by building embassies in the TBVC capitals.


title: Bantustan

text: The Bantustans were generally poor, with few local employment opportunities. However, some opportunities did exist for advancement for blacks and some advances in education and infrastructure were made. The four Bantustans which attained nominal independence (Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei), repealed all Apartheid legislation upon independence.


title: Bantustan

text: Laws in the Bantustans differed from those in South Africa proper. The South African elite often took advantage of these differences, for example by constructing large casinos, such as Sun City in the homeland of Bophuthatswana.


title: Bantustan

text: Bophuthatswana also possessed deposits of platinum, and other natural resources, which made it the wealthiest of the Bantustans.


title: Bantustan

text: However, the homelands were only kept afloat by massive subsidies from the South African government; for instance, by 1985 in Transkei, 85% of the homeland's income came from direct transfer payments from Pretoria. The Bantustans' governments were invariably corrupt and little wealth trickled down to the local populations, who were forced to seek employment as "guest workers" in South Africa proper. Millions of people had to work in often appalling conditions, away from their homes for months at a time. On the other hand, only 40% of Bophuthatswana's population worked outside the 'homeland' because the homeland was able to create industrial sites like Zone 15 and Babelegi.


title: Bantustan

text: The homelands were extremely unpopular among the urban black population, many of whom lived in squalor in slum housing. Their working conditions were often equally poor, as they were denied any significant rights or protections in South Africa proper. The allocation of individuals to specific homelands was often quite arbitrary. Many individuals assigned to homelands did not live in or originate from the homelands to which they were assigned, and the division into designated ethnic groups often took place on an arbitrary basis, particularly in the case of people of mixed ethnic ancestry.


title: Bantustan

text: Bantustan leaders were widely perceived as collaborators with the apartheid system, although some were successful in acquiring a following. Most homeland leaders had an ambivalent stance regarding the independence of their homelands: a majority was sceptical, remained cautious and avoided a definite decision, some outright rejected it due to their rejection of "separate development" and a professed commitment to "opposing apartheid from within the system", whilst others believed that nominal independence could serve to consolidate their power bases (to an even higher degree than the, in fact, already quite powerful status they enjoyed as rulers of self-governing homelands) and presented an opportunity to build a society relatively free from racial discrimination. In general, the leaders of the Bantustans, despite their overall collaboration and often collusion with the apartheid regime, did not shy away from occasionally attacking the South African government's racial policies and calling for the repeal or softening of apartheid laws (most of which were repealed in nominally independent states). Various plans for a federal solution were at times mooted, both by the Bantustan governments and by opposition parties in South Africa as well as circles inside the white ruling National Party.


title: Bantustan

text: In January 1985, State President P. W. Botha declared that blacks in South Africa proper would no longer be deprived of South African citizenship in favour of Bantustan citizenship and that black citizens within the independent Bantustans could reapply for South African citizenship; F. W. de Klerk stated on behalf of the National Party during the 1987 general election that "every effort to turn the tide [of black workers] streaming into the urban areas failed. It does not help to bluff ourselves about this. The economy demands the permanent presence of the majority of blacks in urban areas ... They cannot stay in South Africa year after year without political representation." In March 1990, de Klerk, who succeeded Botha as State President in 1989, announced that his government would not grant independence to any more Bantustans.


title: Bantustan

text: These remarks were however by no means meant as a rejection of the Bantustan system in general: the goal of the apartheid regime during the second half of the 1980s was to "modernize" the organisational framework of apartheid while leaving its fundamental principles (including the homelands) unchanged.


title: Bantustan

text: The government was forced to accept the permanent presence of blacks in urban areas as well as the practical unfeasibility of the hitherto very strict forms of "influx control" (replacing it by "softer" means of control), not to mention the impossibility of a total removal of all blacks to the homelands even in the long run. It was hoping to "pacify" the black urban population by developing various plans to confer upon them limited rights at the local level (but not the upper levels of government). Furthermore, the urban (and rural) residential areas remained segregated based on race in accordance with the Group Areas Act.


title: Bantustan

text: "Separate development" as a principle remained in force, and the apartheid regime went on to rely on the Bantustans as one of the main pillars of its policy in dealing with the black population. Until 1990, attempts continued to urge self-governing homelands to opt for independence (e.g. Lebowa, Gazankulu and KwaZulu) and on occasion the governments of self-governing homelands (e.g. KwaNdebele) themselves expressed interest in obtaining eventual independence.


title: Bantustan

text: It was also contemplated in circles of the ruling National Party to create additional nominally independent entities in the urban areas in the form of "independent" black "city states".


title: Bantustan

text: The long-term vision during this time was the creation of some form of a multi-racial "confederation of South African states" with a common citizenship, but separated into racially defined areas. Plans were made (of which only very few were realised) for the development of different "joint" institutions charged with mutual consultation, deliberation and a number of executive functions in relation to "general affairs" common to all population groups, insofar as these institutions would pose no threat to apartheid and the preservation of overall white rule. This "confederation" would include the so-called "common area"—meaning the bulk of South African territory outside of the homelands—under continued white-minority rule and limited power-sharing arrangements with the segregated Coloured and Indian/Asian population groups, the independent and self-governing homelands as well as possible additional black entities in urban areas.


title: Bantustan

text: From 1990 to 1994, these "confederational" ideas were in principle still entertained by large parts of the National Party (and in various forms also by certain parties and groups of the white liberal opposition), but their overtly race-based foundations gradually became less pronounced in the course of the negotiations to end apartheid, and the focus shifted to securing "minority rights" (having in mind primarily the white population in particular) after an expected handover of power to the black majority. Federalist plans also met with support from some homeland governments and parties, most importantly the Inkatha Freedom Party, which was the ruling party of KwaZulu. But since especially the African National Congress made it clear that the principles of "one man - one vote" and a unitary state were non-negotiable, (con-)federal schemes were eventually dropped. Because of this, the Inkatha Freedom Party threatened to boycott the April 1994 elections that ended apartheid and decided only in the last minute to participate in them after concessions had been made to them and as well as to the still-ruling National Party and several white opposition groups.


title: Bantustan

text: In the period leading up to the elections in 1994, several leaders in the independent and self-governing homelands (e.g. in Boputhatswana), who did not wish to relinquish their power, vehemently opposed the dismantling of the Bantustans and, in doing so, received support from white far-right parties, sections of the apartheid state apparatus and radical pro-apartheid groups like the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging.


title: Bantustan

text: With the demise of the apartheid regime in South Africa in 1994, all Bantustans (both nominally independent and self-governing) were dismantled and their territories reincorporated into the Republic of South Africa with effect from 27 April 1994 (the day on which the Interim Constitution, which formally ended apartheid, came into force and the first democratic elections began) in terms of and of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1993 ("Interim Constitution").


title: Bantustan

text: The drive to achieve this was spearheaded by the African National Congress (ANC) as a central element of its programme of reform. Reincorporation was mostly achieved peacefully, although there was some resistance from the local elites, who stood to lose out on the opportunities for wealth and political power provided by the homelands. The dismantling of the homelands of Bophuthatswana and Ciskei was particularly difficult. In Ciskei, South African security forces had to intervene in March 1994 to defuse a political crisis.


title: Bantustan

text: Nevertheless, many leaders of former Bantustans or Homelands have had a role in South African politics since their abolition. Some had entered their own parties into the first non-racial election while others joined the ANC. Mangosuthu Buthelezi was chief minister of his KwaZulu homeland from 1976 until 1994. In post-apartheid South Africa he has served as president of the Inkatha Freedom Party and Minister of Home Affairs. Bantubonke Holomisa, who was a general in the homeland of Transkei from 1987, has served as the president of the United Democratic Movement since 1997. General Constand Viljoen, an Afrikaner who served as chief of the South African Defence Force, sent 1,500 of his militiamen to protect Lucas Mangope and to contest the termination of Bophuthatswana as a homeland in 1994. He founded the Freedom Front in 1994. Lucas Mangope, former chief of the Motsweda Ba hurutshe-Boo-Manyane tribe of the Tswana and head of Bophuthatswana is president of the United Christian Democratic Party, effectively a continuation of the ruling party of the homeland. Oupa Gqozo, the last ruler of Ciskei, entered his African Democratic Movement in the 1994 elections but was unsuccessful. The Dikwankwetla Party, which ruled Qwaqwa, remains a force in the Maluti a Phofung council where it is the largest opposition party. The Ximoko Party, which ruled Gazankulu, has a presence in local government in Giyani. Similarly, the former KwaNdebele chief minister George Mahlangu and others formed the Sindawonye Progressive Party which is one of the major opposition parties in Thembisile Hani Local Municipality and Dr JS Moroka Local Municipality (encompassing the territory of the former homeland).


title: Bantustan

text: The homelands are listed below with the ethnic group for which each homeland was designated. Four were nominally independent (the so-called TBVC states of the Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and the Ciskei). The other six had limited self-government:


title: Bantustan

text: The first Bantustan was the Transkei, under the leadership of Chief Kaizer Daliwonga Matanzima in the Cape Province for the Xhosa nation. KwaZulu, for the Zulu nation in Natal Province, was headed by a member of the Zulu royal family chief Mangosuthu ("Gatsha") Buthelezi in the name of the Zulu king.


title: Bantustan

text: Lesotho and Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland) were not Bantustans; they have been independent countries and former British protectorates. These countries are mostly or entirely surrounded by South African territory and are almost totally dependent on South Africa. They have never had any formal political dependence on South Africa and were recognised as sovereign states by the international community from the time they were granted their independence by the UK in the 1960s.


title: Bantustan

text: In the 1960s South Africa, which was administering South West Africa under a League of Nations mandate, came under increased international pressure regarding its minority White rule over the majority of Blacks. The solution envisaged by South Africa—the Odendaal Plan—was to separate the white and the non-white population, grant self-government to the isolated black territories, and thus make Whites the majority population in the vast remainder of the country. Moreover, it was envisaged that by separating each ethnic group and confining people by law to their restricted areas, discrimination by race would automatically disappear. The inspiration for the Odendaal Plan came, in part, from South African anthropologists.


title: Bantustan

text: The demarcated territories were called the "bantustans", and the remainder of the land was called the "Police Zone". Forthwith, all non-white people employed in the Police Zone became "migrant workers", and pass laws were established to police movement in and out of the bantustans.


title: Bantustan

text: The combined territory of all bantustans was roughly equal in size to the Police Zone. However, all bantustans were predominantly rural and excluded major towns. All harbours, most of the railway network and the tarred road infrastructure, all larger airports, the profitable diamond areas and the national parks were situated in the Police Zone.


title: Bantustan

text: Beginning in 1968, following the 1964 recommendations of the commission headed by Fox Odendaal, ten homelands similar to those in South Africa were established in South West Africa (present-day Namibia). The term "Bantustan" is somewhat inappropriate in this context, since some of the peoples involved were Khoisan not Bantu, and the Rehoboth Basters are a complex case. Of these ten South West African homelands, only three were granted self-government (comparable to the Bantustans in South Africa) between 1973 and 1976.


title: Bantustan

text: In July 1980 the system was changed to one of separate governments ("representative authorities") as second-tier administrative units (responsible for a number of affairs like land tenure, agriculture, education up to the level of primary school teachers' training, health services, and social welfare and pensions) on the basis of ethnicity only and no longer based on geographically defined areas. Building upon institutions that had already been in existence since 1925 and 1962 respectively, representative authorities were also instituted for the White and Coloured population groups. No such representative authorities were established for the Himba and San peoples (mainly occupying their former homelands of Kaokoland and Bushmanland).


title: Bantustan

text: These ethnic second-tier governments were "de facto" suspended in May 1989, at the start of the transition to independence, and "de jure" abolished on 21 March 1990 (the day Namibia became independent) in accordance with Schedule 8 of the Constitution of Namibia. The Basters lobbied unsuccessfully to maintain the autonomous status of Rehoboth, which had previously been autonomous under German rule. In the former Bantustan of East Caprivi, Lozi nationalists launched an unsuccessful insurgency in an attempt to gain independence from Namibia which lasted until 1999.


title: Bantustan

text: The term "bantustan" has become a generic term to refer in a disapproving sense to any area in which people are forced to live without full civil and political rights.


title: Bantustan

text: In the Middle East, the Palestinian enclaves in the West Bank, as well as the Gaza Strip, are often described as bantustans by critics of Israel's policies in the Palestinian territories. The term is used to refer to either the proposed areas in the West Bank designated for Palestinians under a variety of US and Israeli-led proposals to end the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, or the existing 165 "islands" which first took official form as Areas A and B under the 1995 Oslo II Accord. The Israeli-US peace plans, including the Allon Plan, the Drobles World Zionist Organization plan, Menachem Begin's plan, Benjamin Netanyahu's "Allon Plus" plan, the 2000 Camp David Summit, and Sharon's vision of a Palestinian state have proposed an enclave-type territory, as has the more recent Trump peace plan. This has been criticized as the "Bantustan option".


title: Bantustan

text: In Indian subcontinent, the Sinhalese government of Sri Lanka has been accused of turning Tamil areas into "bantustans". The term has also been used to refer to the living conditions of Dalits in India.


title: Bantustan

text: In Southeastern Europe, the increasing numbers of small states in the Balkans, following the breakup of Yugoslavia, have been referred to as "bantustans".


title: Bantustan

text: In Nigeria, Catholic bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah has referred to southern Kaduna State as "one huge Bantustan of government neglect."


title: Bantustan

text: In Canada, Indian reserves are often compared to Bantustans due to the shared relationship between the two countries' systems of racial segregation.


title: Provinces of Spain

text: A province in Spain is a territorial division defined as a collection of municipalities, although their origin dates back to 1833 with a similar predecessor from 1822 (during the Trienio Liberal) and with roots in the Napoleonic division of Spain into 84 prefectures in 1810. In addition to their political function, provinces are commonly used today as geographical references for example to disambiguate small towns whose names occur frequently throughout Spain. There are many other groupings of municipalities that comprise the local government of Spain.


title: Provinces of Spain

text: The boundaries of provinces can only be altered by the Spanish Parliament, giving rise to the common view that the 17 autonomous communities are "subdivided" into 50 provinces. In reality the system is not hierarchical but defined according to jurisdiction ().


title: Provinces of Spain

text: The body charged with government and administration of a province is the Provincial council, but their existence is controversial (see Provincial council for a discussion). As the province is defined as a "local entity" in the Constitution, the Provincial council belongs to the sphere of local government.


title: Provinces of Spain

text: The layout of Spain's provinces closely follows the pattern of the territorial division of the country carried out in 1833. The only major change of provincial borders since that time has been the subdivision of the Canary Islands into two provinces rather than one.


title: Provinces of Spain

text: Historically, the provinces served mainly as transmission belts for policies enacted in Madrid, as Spain was a highly centralised state for most of its modern history. The importance of the provinces has declined since the adoption of the system of autonomous communities in the period of the Spanish transition to democracy. They nevertheless remain electoral districts for national elections and as geographical references: for instance in postal addresses and telephone codes. National media will also frequently use the province to disambiguate small towns or communities whose names occur frequently throughout Spain.


title: Provinces of Spain

text: A small town would normally be identified as being in, say, Valladolid province rather than the autonomous community of Castile and León. The provinces were the "building-blocks" from which the autonomous communities were created. Consequently, no province is divided between more than one of these communities.


title: Provinces of Spain

text: Most of the provinces—with the exceptions of Álava, Asturias, Biscay, Cantabria, Gipuzkoa, the Balearic Islands, La Rioja, and Navarre—are named after their principal town. Only two capitals of autonomous communities—Mérida in Extremadura and Santiago de Compostela in Galicia—are not also the capitals of provinces.


title: Provinces of Spain

text: Seven of the autonomous communities comprise no more than one province each: Asturias, the Balearic Islands, Cantabria, La Rioja, Madrid, Murcia, and Navarre. These are sometimes referred to as "uniprovincial" communities. Ceuta, Melilla, and the plazas de soberanía are not part of any provinces.


title: Provinces of Spain

text: The table below lists the provinces of Spain. For each, the capital city is given, together with an indication of the autonomous community to which it belongs and a link to a list of municipalities in the province. The names of the provinces and their capitals are ordered alphabetically according to the form in which they appear in the main Wikipedia articles describing them. Unless otherwise indicated, their Spanish-language names are the same; locally valid names in Spain's other co-official languages (Basque, Catalan, which is officially called Valencian in the Valencian Community, Galician) are also indicated where they differ.


title: Leporidae

text: Leporidae is the family of rabbits and hares, containing over 60 species of extant mammals in all. The Latin word "Leporidae" means "those that resemble "lepus"" (hare). Together with the pikas, the Leporidae constitute the mammalian order Lagomorpha. Leporidae differ from pikas in that they have short, furry tails and elongated ears and hind legs.


title: Leporidae

text: The common name "rabbit" usually applies to all genera in the family except "Lepus", while members of "Lepus" (almost half the species) usually are called hares. Like most common names, however, the distinction does not match current taxonomy completely; jackrabbits are members of "Lepus", and members of the genera "Pronolagus" and "Caprolagus" sometimes are called hares.


title: Leporidae

text: Various countries across all continents except Antarctica and Australia have indigenous species of Leporidae. Furthermore, rabbits, most significantly the European rabbit, "Oryctolagus cuniculus", also have been introduced to most of Oceania and to many other islands, where they pose serious ecological and commercial threats.