title: Sirolimus

text: mTOR has also been called FRAP (FKBP-rapamycin-associated protein), RAFT (rapamycin and FKBP target), RAPT1, or SEP. The earlier names FRAP and RAFT were coined to reflect the fact that sirolimus must bind FKBP12 first, and only the FKBP12-sirolimus complex can bind mTOR. However, mTOR is now the widely accepted name, since Tor was first discovered via genetic and molecular studies of sirolimus-resistant mutants of "Saccharomyces cerevisiae" that identified FKBP12, Tor1, and Tor2 as the targets of sirolimus and provided robust support that the FKBP12-sirolimus complex binds to and inhibits Tor1 and Tor2.


title: Sirolimus

text: Sirolimus is metabolized by the CYP3A4 enzyme and is a substrate of the P-glycoprotein (P-gp) efflux pump. It has an elimination half-life of 57–63 hours.


title: Sirolimus

text: The absorption of sirolimus into the blood stream from the intestine varies widely between patients, with some patients having up to eight times more exposure than others for the same dose. Drug levels are, therefore, taken to make sure patients get the right dose for their condition. This is determined by taking a blood sample before the next dose, which gives the trough level. However, good correlation is noted between trough concentration levels and drug exposure, known as area under the concentration-time curve, for both sirolimus (SRL) and tacrolimus (TAC) (SRL: r2 = 0.83; TAC: r2 = 0.82), so only one level need be taken to know its pharmacokinetic (PK) profile. PK profiles of SRL and of TAC are unaltered by simultaneous administration. Dose-corrected drug exposure of TAC correlates with SRL (r2 = 0.8), so patients have similar bioavailability of both.


title: Sirolimus

text: The biosynthesis of the rapamycin core is accomplished by a type I polyketide synthase (PKS) in conjunction with a nonribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS). The domains responsible for the biosynthesis of the linear polyketide of rapamycin are organized into three multienzymes, RapA, RapB, and RapC, which contain a total of 14 modules (figure 1). The three multienzymes are organized such that the first four modules of polyketide chain elongation are in RapA, the following six modules for continued elongation are in RapB, and the final four modules to complete the biosynthesis of the linear polyketide are in RapC. Then, the linear polyketide is modified by the NRPS, RapP, which attaches L-pipecolate to the terminal end of the polyketide, and then cyclizes the molecule, yielding the unbound product, prerapamycin.


title: Sirolimus

text: The core macrocycle, prerapamycin (figure 2), is then modified (figure 3) by an additional five enzymes, which lead to the final product, rapamycin. First, the core macrocycle is modified by RapI, SAM-dependent O-methyltransferase (MTase), which O-methylates at C39. Next, a carbonyl is installed at C9 by RapJ, a cytochrome P-450 monooxygenases (P-450). Then, RapM, another MTase, O-methylates at C16. Finally, RapN, another P-450, installs a hydroxyl at C27 immediately followed by O-methylation by Rap Q, a distinct MTase, at C27 to yield rapamycin.


title: Sirolimus

text: The biosynthetic genes responsible for rapamycin synthesis have been identified. As expected, three extremely large open reading frames (ORF's) designated as "rapA", "rapB", and "rapC" encode for three extremely large and complex multienzymes, RapA, RapB, and RapC, respectively. The gene "rapL" has been established to code for a NAD+-dependent lysine cycloamidase, which converts L-lysine to L-pipecolic acid (figure 4) for incorporation at the end of the polyketide. The gene "rapP", which is embedded between the PKS genes and translationally coupled to "rapC", encodes for an additional enzyme, an NPRS responsible for incorporating L-pipecolic acid, chain termination and cyclization of prerapamycin. In addition, genes "rapI", "rapJ", "rapM", "rapN", "rapO", and "rapQ" have been identified as coding for tailoring enzymes that modify the macrocyclic core to give rapamycin (figure 3). Finally, "rapG" and "rapH" have been identified to code for enzymes that have a positive regulatory role in the preparation of rapamycin through the control of rapamycin PKS gene expression.


title: Sirolimus

text: Biosynthesis of this 31-membered macrocycle begins as the loading domain is primed with the starter unit, 4,5-dihydroxocyclohex-1-ene-carboxylic acid, which is derived from the shikimate pathway. Note that the cyclohexane ring of the starting unit is reduced during the transfer to module 1. The starting unit is then modified by a series of Claisen condensations with malonyl or methylmalonyl substrates, which are attached to an acyl carrier protein (ACP) and extend the polyketide by two carbons each. After each successive condensation, the growing polyketide is further modified according to enzymatic domains that are present to reduce and dehydrate it, thereby introducing the diversity of functionalities observed in rapamycin (figure 1). Once the linear polyketide is complete, L-pipecolic acid, which is synthesized by a lysine cycloamidase from an L-lysine, is added to the terminal end of the polyketide by an NRPS. Then, the NSPS cyclizes the polyketide, giving prerapamycin, the first enzyme-free product. The macrocyclic core is then customized by a series of post-PKS enzymes through methylations by MTases and oxidations by P-450s to yield rapamycin.


title: Sirolimus

text: The antiproliferative effects of sirolimus may have a role in treating cancer. When dosed appropriately, sirolimus can enhance the immune response to tumor targeting or otherwise promote tumor regression in clinical trials. Sirolimus seems to lower the cancer risk in some transplant patients.


title: Sirolimus

text: Sirolimus was shown to inhibit the progression of dermal Kaposi's sarcoma in patients with renal transplants. Other mTOR inhibitors, such as temsirolimus (CCI-779) or everolimus (RAD001), are being tested for use in cancers such as glioblastoma multiforme and mantle cell lymphoma. However, these drugs have a higher rate of fatal adverse events in cancer patients than control drugs.


title: Sirolimus

text: A combination therapy of doxorubicin and sirolimus has been shown to drive Akt-positive lymphomas into remission in mice. Akt signalling promotes cell survival in Akt-positive lymphomas and acts to prevent the cytotoxic effects of chemotherapy drugs, such as doxorubicin or cyclophosphamide. Sirolimus blocks Akt signalling and the cells lose their resistance to the chemotherapy. Bcl-2-positive lymphomas were completely resistant to the therapy; eIF4E-expressing lymphomas are not sensitive to sirolimus.


title: Sirolimus

text: Sirolimus also shows promise in treating tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC), a congenital disorder that predisposes those afflicted to benign tumor growth in the brain, heart, kidneys, skin, and other organs. After several studies conclusively linked mTOR inhibitors to remission in TSC tumors, specifically subependymal giant-cell astrocytomas in children and angiomyolipomas in adults, many US doctors began prescribing sirolimus (Wyeth's Rapamune) and everolimus (Novartis's RAD001) to TSC patients off-label. Numerous clinical trials using both rapamycin analogs, involving both children and adults with TSC, are underway in the United States.


title: Sirolimus

text: mTOR, specifically mTORC1, was first shown to be important in aging in 2003, in a study on worms; sirolimus was shown to inhibit and slow aging in worms, yeast, and flies, and then to improve the condition of mouse models of various diseases of aging. Sirolimus was first shown to extend lifespan in wild-type mice in a study published by NIH investigators in 2009; the studies have been replicated in mice of many different genetic backgrounds. A study published in 2020 found late-life sirolimus dosing schedules enhanced mouse lifespan in a sex-specific manner where limited rapamycin exposure enhanced male lifespan but not female, providing evidence for sex differences in sirolimus response. The results are further supported by the finding that genetically modified mice with impaired mTORC1 signalling live longer. Sirolimus has potential for widespread use as a longevity-promoting drug, with evidence pointing to its ability to prevent age-associated decline of cognitive and physical health. Due to known side effects of sirolimus, as well as inadequate evidence for optimal dosing, more research is required before sirolimus could be widely prescribed for this purpose.


title: Sirolimus

text: Sirolimus has complex effects on the immune system—while IL-12 goes up and IL-10 decreases, which suggests an immunostimulatory response, TNF and IL-6 are decreased, which suggests an immunosuppressive response. The duration of the inhibition and the exact extent to which mTORC1 and mTORC2 are inhibited play a role, but are not yet well understood.


title: Sirolimus

text: Rapamycin has been proposed as a treatment for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 insofar as its immunosuppressive effects could prevent or reduce the cytokine storm seen in very serious cases of COVID-19. Moreover, inhibition of cell proliferation by rapamycin could reduce viral replication.


title: Sirolimus

text: Rapamycin can accelerate degradation of oxidized LDL cholesterol in endothelial cells, thereby lowering the risk of atherosclerosis. Oxidized LDL cholesterol is a major contributor to atherosclerosis.


title: Sirolimus

text: As of 2016, studies in cells, animals, and humans have suggested that mTOR activation as process underlying systemic lupus erythematosus and that inhibiting mTOR with rapamycin may be a disease-modifying treatment. As of 2016 rapamycin had been tested in small clinical trials in people with lupus.


title: Sirolimus

text: Lymphatic malformation, or cystic hygroma, is an abnormal growth of lymphatic vessels that usually affects children around the head and neck.. Treatment often consists of to removal of the tissue, but the rate of recurrence is high. Sirolimus has shown evidence of being helpful in alleviating symptoms and reducing the size of the malformation.


title: Sirolimus

text: Due to its immunosuppressant activity, Rapamycin has been assessed as prophylaxis or treatment agent of Graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), a complication of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. While contrasted results were obtained in clinical trials, pre-clinical studies have shown that Rapamycin can mitigate GVHD by increasing the proliferation of regulatory T cells, inhibiting cytotoxic T cells and lowering the differentiation of effector T cells.


title: Sirolimus

text: Rapamycin is used in biology research as an agent for chemically induced dimerization. In this application, rapamycin is added to cells expressing two fusion constructs, one of which contains the rapamycin-binding FRB domain from mTOR and the other of which contains an FKBP domain. Each fusion protein also contains additional domains that are brought into proximity when rapamycin induces binding of FRB and FKBP. In this way, rapamycin can be used to control and study protein localization and interactions.


title: The Hate U Give

text: The Hate U Give is a 2017 young adult novel by Angie Thomas. It is Thomas's debut novel, expanded from a short story she wrote in college in reaction to the police shooting of Oscar Grant. The book is narrated by Starr Carter, a 16-year-old African-American girl from a poor neighborhood who attends an elite private school in a predominantly white, affluent part of the city. Starr becomes entangled in a national news story after she witnesses a white police officer shoot and kill her childhood friend, Khalil. She speaks up about the shooting in increasingly public ways, and social tensions culminate in a riot after a grand jury decides not to indict the police officer for the shooting.


title: The Hate U Give

text: "The Hate U Give" was published on February 28, 2017, by HarperCollins imprint Balzer + Bray, which had won a bidding war for the rights to the novel. The book was a commercial success, debuting at number one on "The New York Times" young adult best-seller list, where it remained for 50 weeks. It won several awards and received critical praise for Thomas's writing and timely subject matter. In writing the novel, Thomas attempted to expand readers' understanding of the Black Lives Matter movement as well as difficulties faced by black Americans who employ code switching. These themes, as well as the vulgar language, attracted some controversy and caused the book to be one of the most challenged books of 2017, 2018, and 2020 according to the American Library Association.


title: The Hate U Give

text: The book was adapted into a film by 20th Century Fox in October 2018, which received positive reviews. The novel was also adapted into an audiobook, which won several awards and


title: The Hate U Give

text: Shaken by the 2009 police shooting of Oscar Grant, then-college student Angie Thomas began the project as a short story for her senior project in Belhaven University's creative writing program. While writing the short story, the project quickly expanded, though Thomas put it aside for a few years after graduation. Speaking to her hometown newspaper, Thomas said, "I wanted to make sure I approached it not just in anger, but with love even". The deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and Sandra Bland drew Thomas back to expand the project into a novel, which she titled after Tupac's "THUG LIFE" concept: "The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody". Events surrounding the killings of Alton Sterling, Philando Castile and Michael Brown, and widespread ensuing protests against racism and police brutality, also informed moments in the book.


title: The Hate U Give

text: Unsure whether publishers would be interested in the Black Lives Matter-inspired material, Thomas reached out to literary agent Brooks Sherman on Twitter in June 2015 to ask for advice. In February 2016, HarperCollins' imprint Balzer + Bray bought the rights to the novel in an auction, outbidding 13 other publishing houses, and signed a two-book deal with Thomas. 20th Century Fox optioned the film rights the following month.


title: The Hate U Give

text: The 464-page book was published on February 28, 2017, when the industry was attempting to address a decade-long stagnation in the number of children's books by African-American authors. Since its publication, Thomas has become an example of attempts by publishers to publish more young adult African-American novelists.


title: The Hate U Give

text: Starr Carter is a 16-year-old black girl, who lives in the fictional mostly poor black neighborhood of Garden Heights, but attends an affluent predominantly white private school, Williamson Prep. After a shooting breaks up a party Starr is attending, she is driven home by her childhood best friend and sometimes crush Khalil. They are stopped by a white police officer. The officer instructs Khalil, who is black, to exit the car; while outside the car, Khalil leans into the driver-side window to check in on Starr. The officer assumes he is grabbing a gun and shoots Khalil three times, killing him.


title: The Hate U Give

text: Starr agrees to an interview with police about the shooting after being encouraged by her Uncle Carlos, who is also a detective. Carlos was a father figure to Starr when her father, Maverick, spent three years in prison for gang activity. Following his release, Maverick left the gang and became the owner of the Garden Heights grocery store where Starr and her older half-brother Seven work. Maverick was only allowed to leave his gang, the King Lords, because he confessed to a crime to protect gang-leader King. Widely feared in the neighborhood, King now lives with Seven's mother, Seven's half-sister Kenya, who is friends with Starr, and Kenya's little sister, Lyric.


title: The Hate U Give

text: Khalil's death becomes a national news story. The media portrays Khalil as a gang banger and drug dealer, while portraying the white officer who killed him more favorably. Starr's identity as the witness is initially kept secret from everyone outside Starr's family, including her younger brother Sekani. Keeping the secret from her white boyfriend Chris and her best friends Hailey Grant and Maya Yang – who all attend Williamson Prep – weighs on Starr, as does her need to keep her Williamson and Garden Heights personalities separate. Starr's struggles with her identity are further complicated after her mother gets a higher-paying job and the family moves out of Garden Heights.


title: The Hate U Give

text: After a grand jury fails to indict the white officer, Garden Heights erupts into both peaceful protests and riots. The failure of the criminal justice system to hold the officer accountable pushes Starr to take an increasingly public role, first giving a television interview and then speaking out during the protests, which are met by police in riot gear. Her increasing identification with the people of Garden Heights causes tension with Starr's friends, especially with her boyfriend Chris. But by the end of the novel, Starr and Maya have started standing up to Hailey's racist comments while Chris offers support to Starr.


title: The Hate U Give

text: The climax of the novel occurs during the riot following the grand jury decision. Starr, Chris, Seven, and DeVante – whom Maverick helped leave the King Lords – successfully defend Maverick's store from King. The neighborhood stands up to King and as a result of testimony by DeVante, King is arrested and expected to be imprisoned for a lengthy sentence. Starr promises to keep Khalil's memory alive and to continue her advocacy against injustice.


title: The Hate U Give

text: Vincent Haddad of Central State University reads "The Hate U Give" as an attempt to build empathy with the Black Lives Matter movement, as "the appeals for empathy figured by Starr's first-person account ultimately serve to discipline those who seek solutions deemed too 'un-realistic' to oppose the 'sustained violence against Black communities. By maintaining realism, and explicitly naming real-world victims of police brutality, Haddad contends that Thomas is able to spur action in her readers. However, he ultimately feels that there are limits to this approach because it is about the individual rather than the collective. By contrast, Vox's Constance Grady argues that this realism is what makes the novel ultimately work to larger purposes: "The specificity and whimsy of ideas like the anger scale of breakup songs is what keeps "The Hate U Give" moving so deftly through its heavy subject matter; it stays warm and focused and grounded in character even when it's dealing with big, amorphous ideas like systemic racism."


title: The Hate U Give

text: Race relations are a core theme of the novel. Professor Khalil Muhammad of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government sees the novel as a way to have discussions among people who might not otherwise discuss Black Lives Matter: "The book – and to some degree the movie – has been read and will be read by students in all-white spaces, where otherwise the urgency of these issues has not affected them personally." At the same time, it could offer solace for black teens who have faced similar challenges to Starr. An example of this is Starr's ability to code switch between her private school and home, which Thomas demonstrates through the slang that Starr uses in each context's dialogue. Also helping Starr is her family who offer a variety of points of view, including her Uncle's thoughts as a police officer and her father teaching Starr and her siblings about the Black Panther Party. The novel also shows Starr's parents' struggles with remaining connected to their community while needing to protect and give opportunity to their children.


title: The Hate U Give

text: "The Hate U Give" shows Starr's dual need to respond both to the trauma of witnessing Khalil's death and her need to do so politically. This dual need, combined with Thomas's ability to root these struggles in their historical context, helps give the book its power, according to Jonathan Alexander writing in the "Los Angeles Review of Books". "Los Angeles Times" critic Adriana Ramirez sees Starr as similar to the protagonists of fantasy dystopian novels like "Divergent" and "The Hunger Games" as she seeks to change an entrenched system of power, noting, "it is also a dystopian young adult novel that happens to be set in reality". Nick Smart, a professor at the College of New Rochelle, takes this further, stating, "In "The Hate U Give", there's also a girl – who happens to be a black girl – being sent out against the system, against the world, against an entrenched opposition", while Ramirez notes that Starr's blackness is a core element for some readers. Before its publication, exploring a female perspective on the isolation and need to be a model minority at an elite private school was something which had not been conducted in literature or film with the same frequency as for males. Thomas's ability to capture these feelings stemmed from her own experiences with the reactions of her white classmates following the death of Oscar Grant.


title: The Hate U Give

text: Discussing the title, The Atlantic wrote, "Thomas’s book derives its title from the rapper Tupac Shakur’s philosophy of THUG LIFE—which purportedly stands for “The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody”—and it’s a motif the novel returns to a few times. The acronym tattooed across Tupac’s abdomen could be read as an embrace of a dangerous lifestyle. But, as Khalil explains to Starr, just minutes before the cop pulls them over, it’s really an indictment of systemic inequality and hostility: “What society gives us as youth, it bites them in the ass when we wild out.”


title: The Hate U Give

text: The novel does not shy away from the realities of urban life, exemplified by the title's reference to the Tupac Shakur quote. Starr's feelings about Khalil evolve during the novel. The reader is first introduced to him at the party as a friend of Starr's and as a victim of a police shooting. This narrative is then complicated both for Starr and in the novel's world at large when it is learned that Khalil dealt drugs. However, Starr comes to disagree with the way the media is portraying Khalil. As Starr finds her own agency, she is able to challenge this narrative first for herself and then for others, recognizing that Khalil was forced into these circumstances by poverty, hunger, and a desire to care for his drug addict mother. She is able to show her courage speaking to the grand jury, and realizes that she needs to participate in the protests which follow its decision. How and where Khalil and Starr can find justice also drives Starr's decision to join in the protests.


title: The Hate U Give

text: The book debuted at the top of "The New York Times" young adult (YA) best-seller list, and was on it for more than 80 weeks. The book had 100,000 copies in print in the first month, eventually selling more than 850,000 copies . The book was popular with readers, winning Goodreads annual awards vote in the categories of Best Young Adult Fiction and Debut Author. Critics also widely praised the book. In the "Christian Science Monitor", Katie Ward Beim-Esche wrote, "Believe the hype: "The Hate U Give," Angie Thomas's extraordinary and fearless debut, really is that good." Shannon Ozirny of "The Globe and Mail" also felt it would have wide appeal, "Ignore the YA label – this should be the one book everyone reads this year." On "Salon", Erin Keane wrote that the novel is "topical, urgent, necessary, and if that weren't enough, it's also a highly entertaining and engaging read."


title: The Hate U Give

text: The book also earned starred reviews from multiple review journals. "Kirkus", which nominated the book for its Kirkus Prize, praised both its writing and timelines: "With smooth but powerful prose ... This story is necessary. This story is important." Young adult literature expert Michael Cart, writing in "Booklist", also praised Thomas's writing as Starr: "Beautifully written in Starr's authentic first-person voice, this is a marvel of verisimilitude." While praising the overall book in a starred review, "School Library Journal"s Mahnaz Dar criticized the writing of several characters as "slightly uneven". The "Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books", "Horn Book Magazine", and "VOYA" also gave the book their equivalents of starred reviews.


title: The Hate U Give

text: The American Library Association listed the book as one of the ten most-challenged books of 2017, 2018, and 2020 "because it was considered 'pervasively vulgar,'" contained "drug use, profanity, and offensive language," as well as sexual references, and "was thought to promote an anti-police message."


title: The Hate U Give

text: In July 2018, a South Carolina police union raised objections to the inclusion of the book, as well as the similarly themed "All American Boys" by Brendan Kiely and Jason Reynolds, in the summer reading list for ninth-grade students of Wando High School. A representative of the police lodge described the inclusion of the books as "almost indoctrination of distrust of police" and asserted that "we've got to put a stop to that." The books remained on the list and Wando's principal was later recognized by the state school library association for her defense of the challenged books.


title: The Hate U Give

text: The book was removed from the school libraries of the Katy Independent School District due to its explicit language. Thomas responded to these challenges by defending the book's message and saying that it is a spur for conversation. In December 2021, it was also removed from some Washington County School District libraries for explicit content.


title: The Hate U Give

text: Fox 2000 optioned "The Hate U Give" for a film adaption in March 2017, shortly after the book's auction. Director George Tillman Jr. and actress Amandla Stenberg were immediately attached to the project. The movie also features Issa Rae, Regina Hall, Russell Hornsby, Algee Smith, KJ Apa, Lamar Johnson, Anthony Mackie, Common, and Sabrina Carpenter. The film is based on a screenplay by Audrey Wells, who died one day before it was released. Stenberg's casting received some criticism because of her lighter complexion as compared to the girl on the novel's cover. The movie was given a limited release on October 5, 2018, and a wide release on October 19, 2018. The film was favorably received, with a Rotten Tomatoes critics score of 8.2 out of 10, and an A+ CinemaScore. the film had a worldwide box office gross of $34 million against a budget of $23 million.


title: The Hate U Give

text: An audiobook was released by Harper Audio on the same day as the novel and featured narration by Bahni Turpin, whom Thomas had selected. Audiobook producer Caitlin Garing spoke of the importance of matching the material with the narrator and spoke of Turpin's skill, "you can trust her to get to the heart of a story and lead the listener there". It was well reviewed and won Audie Awards for best YA and best female narrator. In her acceptance speech, Turpin said it was "an important book for our time". It also won the 2018 Odyssey Award for best children's audiobook. Odyssey committee chair Joan Schroeder Kindig said, "Bahni Turpin's powerful narration of this timely novel will inspire listeners to find their own voices." Turpin downplayed the award saying, "I don't think the public is aware of most of our awards, though – in general, I think those who most appreciate the awards are ... the people in the business of books". "Publishers Weekly", in its starred review of the audiobook, praised Turpin's abilities to convey "the complexity of the 16-year-old protagonist who sounds both youthful and mature for her age, as she relies on code-switching to navigate two different social settings". Maggie Knapp in her starred review for "School Library Journal" and Lynette Pitrak in her starred review for "Booklist" also praised Turpin's ability to capture Starr's voice in her performance.


title: Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights)

text: Heathcliff is a fictional character in Emily Brontë's 1847 novel "Wuthering Heights". Owing to the novel's enduring fame and popularity, he is often regarded as an archetype of the tortured antihero whose all-consuming rage, jealousy and anger destroy both him and those around him; in short, the Byronic hero.


title: Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights)

text: He is better known for being a romantic hero due to his youthful love for Catherine Earnshaw, than for his final years of vengeance in the second half of the novel, during which he grows into a bitter, haunted man, and for a number of incidents in his early life that suggest that he was an upset and sometimes malicious individual from the beginning. His complicated, mesmerizing, absorbing, and altogether bizarre nature makes him a rare character, incorporating elements of both the hero and villain. Actors who have portrayed Heathcliff on screen include Laurence Olivier, Timothy Dalton, Richard Burton, Ralph Fiennes and Tom Hardy.


title: Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights)

text: You teach me now how cruel you've been — cruel and false! Why did you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. Yes, you may kiss me, and cry; and wring out my kisses and tears: they'll blight you — they'll damn you. You loved me — then what right had you to leave me? What right — answer me — for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery, and degradation, and death, and nothing God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it. I have not broken your heart — you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me, that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you——oh, God! would you like to live with your soul in the grave?


title: Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights)

text: A foundling discovered on the streets of Liverpool and raised by the Earnshaw family of Wuthering Heights in Yorkshire, Heathcliff's past and early childhood before his mysterious adoption are only hinted at by Brontë. In keeping with the supernatural themes present in the novel, it is speculated that Heathcliff might be a demon or a hellish soul. His appearance would be faithfully interpreted as resembling a Roma, or Gypsy, as he is described with dark hair, dark eyes, and dark skin. Later in life, he becomes a gentleman "in dress and aspect." Nelly Dean states that he could be an "American castaway." Heathcliff may have been of mixed race because he is described in the original book as a "dark-skinned gipsy" and "a little Lascar" – a 19th-century term for Indian sailors. In Chapter Four, Heathcliff is described by Mr Earnshaw to be "as dark almost as if it came from the devil." In Chapter Seven, Nelly Dean asks of him “Who knows but your father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian queen?”


title: Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights)

text: A silent and at first, a solitary child, Heathcliff is initially resented by both Catherine Earnshaw and her elder brother, Hindley; while Catherine later befriends and loves Heathcliff, Hindley continues to resent him, seeing him as an interloper who has stolen his father's affection. Upon Mr Earnshaw's death and his inheritance of the estate, the spiteful Hindley proceeds to treat Heathcliff as little more than a servant boy and makes him work the fields, which compounds Heathcliff's lifelong anger and resentment. Catherine, however, remains close to her foster brother throughout her early years.


title: Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights)

text: As she matures into her young teens, however, Catherine grows close to Edgar Linton, a timid and well-bred young man from the neighbouring estate, "Thrushcross Grange", and accepts his proposal of marriage; but, she insists that her true and only love is Heathcliff. She claims that she cannot marry him because it "would degrade her" and that the two would be beggars were such a union to take place. Nevertheless, she also declares her passion for him in such ways as "whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same", and the famous quote "I "am" Heathcliff." Aware only of Catherine's decision to marry Edgar, rather than her proclamation of true love for him, a bitter Heathcliff leaves "Wuthering Heights" upon overhearing her saying that it would degrade her and while away, by means unknown, makes his fortune.


title: Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights)

text: Nelly Dean describes him as "lazy" when he returns and that his "upright carriage suggested his being in the army." No other hints are given about where Heathcliff was and how he made his fortune over the course of his three-year absence. On returning, he is ruthlessly determined to destroy those who degraded him and prevented him from being with Catherine, cementing his status as an anti-hero, rather than a romantic hero. Not only does he swindle Hindley, who has fallen into alcoholism and gambling after the death of his wife, Frances, out of his ownership of "Wuthering Heights" and Hindley's son's inheritance; he heartlessly takes advantage of Edgar Linton's sister Isabella and marries her, before treating her in a cruel and contemptuous fashion. Although he tells Catherine that he despises Isabella and would "cut (his own) throat" if he imagined Catherine wanted him to marry Edgar's younger sister, his and Isabella's marriage promises to result in his inheriting "Thrushcross Grange" on Linton's death. This can only be achieved, however, by Heathcliff's forcing his and Isabella's son Linton into marriage with Catherine's daughter, who is called Cathy.


title: Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights)

text: After Catherine Earnshaw's death, Heathcliff's vindictive cruelty intensifies, aimed at destroying not only his enemies but also their heirs — Hareton, son of Hindley and Frances Earnshaw, and Catherine, daughter of Edgar Linton and Catherine the elder. Heathcliff forces his sickly son, Linton, who entirely resembles his mother, Isabella, into marriage with Catherine Linton, daughter of Cathy and Edgar, in a bid to gain control of Thrushcross Grange. Shortly after the two are married in their nearly loveless match, the insipid Linton dies, hardly a surprise to either his father or his widow. Heathcliff treats Catherine with relative mercy, turning her into a cold, distant creature, far removed from the bright, lively girl she used to be. Hareton and Catherine eventually fall in love, however, and their relationship in some ways mirrors and in others opposes that between Heathcliff and the elder Catherine. Their union breaks the cycle of hatred at "Wuthering Heights", and Heathcliff no longer cares to continue his vendetta. Hareton, resembling his aunt Catherine Earnshaw much in looks, creates a sense of uneasiness for Heathcliff: Brontë often implies that he has secret regard for Hareton and that Hareton sees Heathcliff as his true father since Heathcliff raised him. The novel ends with the death of Heathcliff, who has become a broken, tormented man, haunted by the ghost of the elder Catherine, next to whom he demands to be buried. His corpse is initially found by Nelly Dean, who, peeping into his room, spots him. Heathcliff grows restless towards the very end of the novel and stops eating. Nelly Dean does not believe that he had the intention to commit suicide, but that his starvation may have been the cause of his death. He wanted to be with Cathy in eternal life.


title: Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights)

text: laid on his back. His eyes met mine so keen and fierce, I started, and then he seemed to smile. I could not think him dead: but his face and throat were washed with rain; the bed-clothes dripped, and he was perfectly still. The lattice, flapping to and fro, had grazed one hand that rested on the sill; no blood trickled from the broken skin, and when I put my fingers to it, I could doubt no more: he was dead and stark!


title: Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights)

text: The implication is that Catherine, having earlier haunted Mr Lockwood at his window, has made a similar visitation on Heathcliff, bearing him away with her so that they may be together beyond the grave, which has long been Heathcliff's aspiration. Nelly relates his revealing admission:


title: Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights)

text: "I got the sexton, who was digging Linton's grave, to remove the earth off her coffin lid, and I opened it. I thought, once, I would have stayed there, when I saw her face again — it is hers yet — he had hard work to stir me; but he said it would change if the air blew on it, and so I struck one side of the coffin loose and covered it up — not Linton's side, damn him! I wish he'd been soldered in lead — and I bribed the sexton to pull it away, when I'm laid there, and slide mine out too. I'll have it made so, and then, by the time Linton gets to us, he'll not know which is which!"


title: Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights)

text: At the very close of the novel, a servant boy tells Nelly that he has seen the ghosts of Heathcliff and Catherine walking the moors together, although Nelly and Lockwood both insist that they must be treated as if their souls were at peace. The novel closes with Lockwood wandering past their graves and wondering "how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth."


title: Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights)

text: As Charlotte Brontë, Emily's older sister wrote, "Heathcliff, indeed, stands unredeemed; never once swerving in his arrow-straight course to perdition", which adds to the uncertainty over whether he not only repented for his sins but was actually a real human being after all; since Lockwood's vision of Catherine at the window was preceded by a dream of a fire-and-brimstone sermon in a church, it is possible that both Heathcliff and Catherine are damned; Catherine herself expresses doubt as to whether she could ever be admitted into Heaven. However, "A Companion to the Brontës" states "Charlotte seems to most willfully "misread" Emily’s tale in order to repackage it to a polite society", adding ""Wuthering Heights" is the very opposite of a linear novel, and there is nothing whatsoever "arrow-straight" about Heathcliff." The uncertain fate of Heathcliff's soul, combined with the mystery that Heathcliff's character leaves behind, ends the novel in a mesmerizing, eerie way, justifying Heathcliff's enduring status as an iconic anti-hero of literature.


title: Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights)

text: In 1939, Laurence Olivier portrayed Heathcliff in "Wuthering Heights", directed by William Wyler. He received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor for his performance.


title: Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights)

text: Indian actor Dilip Kumar played localized versions of the character in three film adaptations of the novel "Arzoo" (1950), "Hulchul" (1951) and "Dil Diya Dard Liya" (1966).


title: Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights)

text: In 1958, Richard Burton played Heathcliff in "Wuthering Heights", a 90-minute television episode of the anthology series "DuPont Show of the Month". In 1970, Timothy Dalton portrayed Heathcliff in "Wuthering Heights", directed by Robert Fuest.


title: Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights)

text: Ralph Fiennes's portrayal of Heathcliff in 1992's "Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights" marked the second film adaptation to attempt to involve Hareton and Cathy in the story as well. The first attempt was made in a 1920 silent film now believed to be lost. ITV's 1998 TV drama, which had Robert Cavanah in the starring role, also told the full story.


title: Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights)

text: In 1997, Cliff Richard played Heathcliff in a stage musical. Focusing mainly on the life of Heathcliff, his quest to win Cathy, and his life after her death. The music is by John Farrar and lyrics are by Sir Tim Rice. Cliff Richard released the movie "Heathcliff" in 1997 and it was such a success that he brought it to the Birmingham stage in 1998.


title: Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights)

text: Masterpiece Theatre presented a 2009 two-part series of "Wuthering Heights" starring Tom Hardy as Heathcliff. In this version, the second-generation characters play a key role, and the telling of the story begins and ends with them.


title: Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights)

text: "Wuthering Heights", a single from Kate Bush's 1978 debut album, "The Kick Inside", is told from the perspective of a ghostly Catherine Earnshaw visiting an aged Heathcliff.


title: Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights)

text: In her song "David Duchovny," Bree Sharp refers to David Duchovny as "American Heathcliff, brooding and comely."


title: Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights)

text: In July 2008, the then British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, compared himself to the character, saying that he was "Maybe an older Heathcliff, a wiser Heathcliff." The comparison was mocked by some. For example, Andrew McCarthy, acting director of the Brontë Parsonage Museum, said that "Heathcliff is a man prone to domestic violence, kidnapping, possible murder and digging up his dead lover. He is moody and unkind to animals. Is this really a good role model for the prime minister?"


title: Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights)

text: The opening track to the UK melodic hard rock band Ten's eleventh studio album "Albion", "Alone in the Dark", is based on Heathcliff's internal struggles as depicted in "Wuthering Heights".


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: Heydar Alirza oghlu Aliyev (, ; , ; 10 May 1923 – 12 December 2003) was a Soviet and Azerbaijani politician who served as the third president of Azerbaijan from October 1993 to October 2003. Originally a high-ranking official in the KGB of the Azerbaijan SSR, serving for 28 years in Soviet state security organs (1941–1969), he led Soviet Azerbaijan from 1969 to 1982 and held the post of First Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union from 1982 to 1987.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: Aliyev became president of independent Azerbaijan while the country was on the brink of civil war and suffering serious losses in the First Nagorno-Karabakh War with neighboring Armenia. Aliyev's supporters credit him with restoring stability to Azerbaijan and turning the country into a major international energy producer. His regime in Azerbaijan has been described as dictatorial, authoritarian, and repressive. He was also said to have run a heavy-handed police state where elections were rigged and dissent was repressed. A cult of personality developed around Aliyev, which has continued after his death in 2003. Shortly before his death, his son Ilham Aliyev was elected president in a controversial election and continues to lead Azerbaijan to this day.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: Aliyev was born on 10 May 1923 in the city of Nakhchivan. His family had moved to Nakhchivan before his birth from the village of Jomardly (modern-day Tanahat in the Syunik Province of Armenia), located only a few miles from Nakhchivan. Some sources claim that Aliyev was actually born 2 years earlier in Jomardly, but that it was later decided that a senior Azerbaijani politician should not have an Armenian place of birth. His father was from Jomardly and his mother was from Vorotan (also in modern-day Syunik Province of Armenia). Aliyev had four brothers: Hasan, Huseyn, Jalal, and Agil, as well as three sisters: Sura, Shafiga and Rafiga.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: After graduating from the Nakhchivan Pedagogical School, Aliyev attended the Azerbaijan Industrial Institute (now the Azerbaijan State Oil and Industry University) from 1939 to 1941, where he studied architecture. In 1949 and 1950, he studied at the USSR Ministry of State Security Higher School in Leningrad. Aliyev's official biography also states that he studied at Baku State University, graduating with a degree in history in 1957. According to American journalist Pete Earley, Aliyev first attended the Ministry of State Security Academy in Leningrad and graduated in 1944. He also took Senior Staff Professional Development courses at the Dzerzhinsky Higher School of the KGB in Moscow in 1966.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: In 1948, Aliyev married Zarifa Aliyeva. On 12 October 1955, their daughter Sevil Aliyeva was born. On 24 December 1961, their son Ilham was born. Zarifa Aliyeva died of cancer in 1985.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: Aliyev served at the archive department of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic from 1941 to 1944, before his appointment as head of the general department of the Council of People's Commissars of the Nakhchivan ASSR. He joined the Azerbaijan SSR People's Commissariat for State Security (NKGB) in 1944 and proceeded to become the department head of the State Security Committee of Azerbaijan SSR in 1950, after he graduated from the Senior Staff Training School of the USSR State Security Committee. In 1954, as part of a government reform, the NKGB, which was previously named the Ministry of State Security (MGB), was again renamed, this time as the KGB. Aliyev rose quickly through the KGB ranks, becoming a Deputy Chairman of the Azerbaijani KGB in 1964 and its chairman in 1967, eventually receiving the rank of major general.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: As head of the Azerbaijani KGB, Aliyev ran an anti-corruption campaign. Following the campaign, he became the undisputed leader of Azerbaijan. He was elected First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Azerbaijan Communist Party at its Plenary Session held on 12 July 1969. Aliyev made some progress in the fight against corruption: a number of people were sentenced to prison terms, and in 1975, five factory and collective farm managers were sentenced to death for gross corruption. In the early 1980s, Aliyev barred the children of certain legal personnel from attending the republic's law school, in a purported effort to curb a self-perpetuating elite based on corruption. In 1977, he visited Iran.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: During the period of his leadership of Soviet Azerbaijan, Aliyev's efforts led to considerably increased economic, social and cultural growth rates in Azerbaijan SSR. Aliyev became perhaps the most successful republican leader, raising the profile of the underprivileged republic and consistently promoting Azerbaijanis to senior posts.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: Aliyev became a candidate (non-voting) member of the Soviet Politburo in 1976. He held this position until December 1982, when Yuri Andropov promoted him to the office of First Deputy Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers and made him a full member of the Politburo. Aliyev also served at the Council of Ministers as the first deputy chairman in 1974–1979. On 22 November 1982, Andropov promoted Aliyev from a candidate to a full member of the Soviet Politburo and appointed him to the post of First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, responsible for transportation and social services. Aliyev thus attained the highest position ever reached by an Azerbaijani in the Soviet Union.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: Aliyev was dismissed from his position as First Deputy Premier and from the Politburo by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987, officially on health grounds.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: After his forced retirement in 1987, Aliyev remained in Moscow until 1990. He suffered a heart attack during this time. Aliyev publicly opposed the January 1990 Soviet military crackdown in Baku, which had followed the continuing conflict regarding Nagorno-Karabakh.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: Almost immediately after this public appearance, Aliyev left Moscow for his native Nakhchivan. There, Aliyev reinvented himself as a moderate nationalist. He was elected the Supreme Soviet of Azerbaijan SSR in Baku in October 1990. Under the pressure and criticism from groups connected to his nemesis, the leader of Soviet Azerbaijan Ayaz Mutallibov, Aliyev again returned to Nakhchivan, where he was elected Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Nakhchivan in 1991. He resigned that same year from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: By December 1991, when the Soviet Union dissolved and Azerbaijan formally became an independent state, Aliyev independently governed Nakhchivan in spite of Mutallibov's presidency. Early 1992 saw increased violence in the First Nagorno-Karabakh War following the fall of Shusha, the last Azerbaijani-populated town in Nagorno-Karabakh. These events resulted in Mutallibov's resignation and the subsequent rise to power of the Azerbaijan Popular Front led by Abulfaz Elchibey. During Elchibey's one year in power, Aliyev continued to govern Nakhchivan without any deference to the official government in Baku. The attempt by the Popular Front's Minister of Interior Isgandar Hamidov to forcibly overthrow Aliyev in Nakhchivan was thwarted by local militia at the regional airport. During the same period, Aliyev independently negotiated a cease-fire agreement in Nakhchivan with the then-President of Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrosyan.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: Aliyev was elected as the leader of New Azerbaijan Party at its constituent congress organized in Nakhchivan on 21 November 1992.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: In May–June 1993, when a crisis in the government led the country to the brink of civil war and loss of independence, the people of Azerbaijan demanded to bring Aliyev to power. The leaders of Azerbaijan were obliged to officially invite Aliyev to Baku. On 24 June 1993, amidst the advancement of insurgent forces under Surat Huseynov's control towards Baku, Elchibey fled from the city to his native village of Keleki in Nakhchivan. Earlier, on 15 June 1993, Aliyev had been elected Chairman of the National Assembly of Azerbaijan, and after Elchibey's flight, he also assumed temporary presidential powers. In August 1993, Elchibey was stripped of his presidency by a nationwide referendum, and in October 1993, Aliyev was elected President of Azerbaijan. In May 1994, Aliyev agreed to ceasefire agreement to end the hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh, which largely held until the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: On 3 October 1993, as a result of nationwide voting, Heydar Aliyev was elected President of the Republic of Azerbaijan with 98.8 percent of the vote. On 11 October 1998, he was re-elected, winning 77 percent of the vote. Aliyev was nominated as a candidate in the 2003 presidential elections, but declined to run in the elections in connection with health problems.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: When Aliyev became chairman of the National Assembly in June 1993, Azerbaijan was suffering from internal division and military collapse, which allowed Armenian forces to capture most of five districts in the southwest of Azerbaijan without meeting significant resistance, leading to the displacement of around 350,000 people. After taking the office of president, Aliyev disbanded units loyal to the ousted Azerbaijani Popular Front and ordered the creation of a new national army. Tens of thousands of young men with no fighting experience were conscripted to this end. At the same time, Aliyev conducted negotiations with the Armenian side: he had already confidentially met with Karabakh Armenian leader Robert Kocharyan twice in Moscow soon before assuming the presidency, and Armenian and Azerbaijani representatives had agreed to prolong a ceasefire in September 1993. The negotiations bore no results and the ceasefire did not hold, however, and Armenian forces captured additional territories soon after Aliyev's inauguration. In the winter of 1993–1994, Azerbaijani forces attempted to recapture territories on different parts of the frontline. While Azerbaijani forces managed to recapture part of Fuzuli District, the operation to retake Kalbajar District was a disastrous failure, with thousands of Azerbaijani soldiers killed or frozen to death in the mountains north of Kalbajar.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: In May 1994, with Aliyev's approval, a ceasefire agreement was signed by representatives of Azerbaijan, Armenia and the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, which successfully put an end to the hostilities in and around Nagorno-Karabakh. While agreeing to the ceasefire, Aliyev rejected Russian proposals to deploy a peacekeeping contingent to Nagorno-Karabakh. Following the ceasefire, Aliyev periodically engaged in negotiations with the Armenian side mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group and its co-chair countries (Russia, France and the United States) for the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. At the OSCE Lisbon Summit in December 1996, all of the OSCE member states except for Armenia signed a declaration affirming Azerbaijan's territorial integrity and stating that Nagorno-Karabakh's right to self-determination should be realized in the form of "the highest degree of self-rule within Azerbaijan."


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: Aliyev reportedly agreed to a "phased solution" to the conflict proposed by the Minsk Group co-chairs in September 1997, which envisioned the withdrawal of Armenian forces from occupied districts surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh (besides Lachin District) and the deployment of international peacekeepers, followed by negotiations on the final status of Nagorno-Karabakh in subsequent phases; the proposal was never realized as Armenian president Levon Ter-Petrosyan failed to win support for it from his own government and was forced to resign in February 1998. Aliyev participated in bilateral talks with the new president of Armenia, Robert Kocharyan, in spring 1999 and again in January 2001. Further, more substantial talks were held in Key West, Florida with American mediation in April 2001. The proposals negotiated at Key West have never been published, although it is reported that Nagorno-Karabakh and the Lachin Corridor were to be effectively ceded to Armenia while Azerbaijan would regain the seven occupied districts and receive land access to Nakhchivan through Armenian territory. Despite initial reports that the two sides were closer than ever to coming to a final agreement, Aliyev, who is said to have met significant opposition to the conditions from his inner circle, declined to go forward with the agreement after returning to Azerbaijan. The Key West negotiations were the last major negotiations on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict during Aliyev's presidency.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: Aliyev assembled the Constitutional Commission in June 1995 to create a constitution to replace the 1978 Azerbaijan SSR Constitution. The first draft was ready in October for public debate and the final version consisted of 5 chapters, 12 sections and 147 articles. The new constitution was confirmed by a referendum held on 12 November 1995. To ensure separation of power, the constitution created 3 divisions: legislative (Milli Majlis), executive (President) and judicial (courts).


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: Aliyev suggested amendments to the Constitution of Azerbaijan in June 2002. The first amendment to the Constitution of Azerbaijan was approved as the result of the 2002 Azerbaijani constitutional referendum. Consequently, 39 amendments to 23 articles of the Constitution of Azerbaijan were made. These included the abolition of proportional party-list elections to Parliament, a change in the presidential line of succession to favor the Prime Minister instead of the Chairman of Milli Majlis, the favoring of a simple majority when calculating presidential election results, and the establishment of rights for citizens, courts and ombudsmen to appeal directly to the Constitutional Court of Azerbaijan.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: Aliyev requested the elimination of the death penalty on 3 February 1998. In his speech addressed to Milli Majlis, Aliyev stated: "I am convinced that the abolition of the death penalty is a crucial step in the humanization of criminal justice policy, moreover it is an important stage in the reform of the legal system as a whole. Taking into consideration all the facts, I am submitting a draft law on amendments and additions to the Criminal, Criminal-Procedure, and Corrective Labour Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan regarding the abolition of capital punishment in the Republic of Azerbaijan in accordance with Article 96 of the Constitution of the Republic of Azerbaijan for the discussion.” Milli Majlis approved the draft law, so on 10 February 1998 the “Law on Amendments and Additions to the Criminal, Criminal-Procedural and Corrective Labour Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan regarding the elimination of the death penalty in the Republic of Azerbaijan” was adopted. As a result, capital punishment was replaced with life imprisonment.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: Azerbaijan joined the “Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty” on 22 January 1999.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: Aliyev issued a decree on “Measures for Ensuring Human and Civil Rights and Freedoms” on 22 February 1998. The State Program on the Protection of Human Rights was confirmed by a Presidential Order dated 18 June 1998. An Ombudsman institution in Azerbaijan was established based on this State Program, the Constitutional Law “On the Commissioner for Human Rights (Ombudsman) of the Republic of Azerbaijan” (28 December 2001), commitments before the Council of Europe, and a Presidential Decree dated 5 March 2002 on implementation of this law. Elmira Süleymanova was appointed the Commissioner for Human Rights (Ombudsman) among 3 nominees requested by President Aliyev, as recorded in Decision No. 362 of the Milli Majlis on 2 July 2002.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: During the Aliyev administration, Azerbaijani foreign policy was rebalanced. The bilateral relations between Azerbaijan and other countries, as well as cooperation with international organizations, deepened.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: During Aliyev's presidency, Azerbaijan began actively participating within international organizations such as the United Nations. Aliyev attended the 49th session of the UN General Assembly (UN GA) in 1994 and the special session of UN GA dedicated to 50th anniversary of United Nations in October 1995. He received former Secretary General of UN Boutros Boutros-Ghali in October 1994 in Baku. Aliyev met with Secretary General Kofi Annan during his trip to the US in 1997 July. Aliyev addressed the Millennium Summit of UN held in September 2000, where he talked about the Armenian invasion of Nagorno-Karabakh and adjacent regions, and mentioned UN resolutions 822, 853, 874, 884, which demanded unconditional withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces from the occupied Azerbaijani territories. After 11 September attacks, Azerbaijan joined the anti-terror coalition of UN and cooperated with Office of Counter-Terrorism and Sanctions Committee of the UN SC. In October 2001, Azerbaijan joined the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism adopted by UN SC in 1999.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: The Partnership for Peace (PfP) Framework Document was signed to enhance security and defense cooperation with NATO on 4 May 1994. Aliyev approved the PfP Presentation Document on 19 April 1996. In November 1997, Azerbaijan joined the PfP Planning and Review Process. NATO PA also made Azerbaijan an associate member of NATO in November.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: The Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between the European Union and the Republic of Azerbaijan was signed in Luxembourg on 22 April 1996, and went into effect on 22 June 1999. It promises cooperation in the fields of trade, investment, economy, legislation, culture, immigration and the prevention of illicit trade. Azerbaijan received assistance from the EU for economic reforms in the country through the TACIS and TRACECA programmes. The “Restoration of the Historic Silk Road” international conference was organized in Baku on 8 September 1998 by Aliyev and President Eduard Shevardnadze of Georgia with the support of the TACIS and TRACECA programmes.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: Azerbaijan participated as a specially invited guest at the Council of Europe (CoE) on 28 June 1996. Consequently, a number of resolutions and legal acts were adopted from 1996–2001 to improve the Azerbaijani legislative system so it could fulfill the requirements of European standards and international law. On 28 June 2000, Azerbaijan's full admission to the CoE was recommended at the session of Parliamentary Assembly of the CoE. Azerbaijan became a full member of the CoE on 17 January 2001; the official ceremony was conducted on 25 January 2001. Presidential orders “On the implementation of the measures of the program of cooperation between the Council of Europe and the Republic of Azerbaijan” (8 July 1996), "On the measures of Deepening Cooperation between the Council of Europe and the Republic of Azerbaijan" (20 January 1998), and “On the measures of expanding cooperation between Azerbaijan and CoE for defending interests of the Republic of Azerbaijan in Council of Europe" (14 May 1999) were adopted by Aliyev.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: Aliyev prioritized establishing warmer relations with Russia more than the previous leadership of Azerbaijan did. He stated in his speech at Milli Majlis on 15 June 1993, after being elected as the head of Parliament of Azerbaijan: "Russia, our northern neighbor, is absolutely a vast state. Undoubtedly, the relation based on independent principles between Azerbaijan and Russia must be better, broader and more fruitful." The Agreement on Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Security between Russia and Azerbaijan was signed on 3 July 1997. Aliyev paid his first official trip to Russia as a President of the Republic of Azerbaijan in July 1997 with the invitation of Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Relations with Russia further developed through Aliyev-Putin negotiations during their bilateral visits (Vladimir Putin visited Azerbaijan in 2001 and Aliyev paid a reciprocal visit to Russia in 2002). The agreements on “The Status and Benefiting Principles of Gabala Radio Location Station”, “Long term economic cooperation agreement between Russian Federation and the Azerbaijan Republic until the year 2010”, and “The common declaration of the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin and President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev” were signed in the latter meeting.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: Establishing closer relations and developing cooperation with the US were among the main goals of Aliyev's foreign policy. He stated in one of his speeches regarding this issue: “The relations of Azerbaijan with the United States are important as we need to learn the Western democracy, culture, achievements, to benefit from them, to use and apply them in Azerbaijan. In this regard, the United States is a special country for us." Relations between the two countries strengthened after oil contracts were signed. Aliyev paid his first official visit to the US and met with President Bill Clinton on 1 August 1997. They signed a Joint Statement on future relations between the US and Azerbaijan in defense and military issues. During this trip (27 July-5 August 1997), a statement on intentions of formation of bilateral dialogue between the US and Azerbaijan regarding energy issues and the general agreement between the Government of the Azerbaijani Republic, the National Bank, and the US Export-Import Bank on the promotion of projects were signed. Additionally, 4 agreements on development and production sharing for the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea were signed. After the visit, Aliyev issued an order on “Measures to expand partnership relations between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the United States” on 2 September 1997. Azerbaijan joined a US-lead international coalition against terrorism after 11 September attacks, and sent a military contingent to Afghanistan. An amendment to the Freedom Support Act was adopted on 24 October 2002 by the US Senate to allow a US president to temporarily waive Section 907, which used to forbid to export any financial or humanitarian support to Azerbaijan.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: Aliyev used the oil potential of Azerbaijan to avoid the difficulties his country faced after the collapse of the Soviet Union by attracting foreign investment into Azerbaijan. After a year-long series of negotiations in Baku, Istanbul and Houston, the “Agreement on the Joint Development and Production Sharing for the Azeri and Chirag Fields and the Deep Water Portion of the Gunashli Field in the Azerbaijan Sector of the Caspian Sea” was signed in Baku on 20 September 1994 by the Government of Azerbaijan and a consortium of 11 oil companies from 6 countries (US, UK, Russia, Norway, Turkey, Saudi Arabia) in the presence of Aliyev.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: The State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan was established by Presidential Decree in December 1999 to gather the income gained from oil profit with the aim of financing social and economic projects. As a result of the oil strategy developed by Aliyev, Azerbaijani oil was planned to be carried through different routes as Baku–Supsa, Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline (BTC), etc. In order to export Azerbaijani oil to the European market, the presidents of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey agreed to construct the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline in 1998 in Ankara. The ground-breaking ceremony of BTC took place in September 2002 with the participation of Aliyev, Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, and Georgian President Edward Shevardnadze.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: The decision to export Azerbaijani crude oil to the Port of Novorossiysk was made through a contract signed in Moscow on 18 February 1996. Oil transportation through this route was realized in October 1997. Establishment of the alternative Baku–Supsa route was agreed on 8 March 1996 by Aliyev and Shevardnadze. The Baku–Supsa route began operation in April 1999.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: Aliyev's health began to fail in 1999 when he had a major heart bypass operation in the United States at the Cleveland Clinic. He later had prostate surgery and a hernia operation. He collapsed while giving a speech on live television in April 2003. On 6 August, Aliyev returned to the US for treatment of congestive heart failure and kidney problems. He stood down from the presidency at the start of October 2003 and appointed his son Ilham as his party's sole presidential candidate. On 12 December 2003, President Aliyev died at the Cleveland Clinic. He was given a large state funeral and buried at the Alley of Honor cemetery in Baku.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: Heydar Aliyev's son Ilham Aliyev won a presidential election on 15 October 2003 widely considered to have been fraudulent. International observers criticized the contest as falling well below expected standards.


title: Heydar Aliyev

text: Throughout his life, Aliyev was awarded a number of state orders and medals, international awards, and elected honourable doctor of universities in many countries. Awards he has received include the Order of Lenin five times, the Order of the Red Star once, and Hero of the Socialist Labor twice. On 27 March 1997 in Kyiv, Ukraine, Aliyev received Ukraine's highest award, the Yaroslav Mudry Order, and on 13 April 1999, Turkey's highest honour, the Atatürk International Peace Prize. On 3 April 2003, he was elected a professor and authorized member of the Academy of Safety of the Russian Federation, and was subsequently awarded the Premium of Yuri Andropov. On 10 May 2003, he was decorated with the Order of St. Andrew the Apostle the First-Called—Russia's supreme award. A statue of Aliyev has been unveiled in a Tašmajdan Park in Belgrade; its renovation was aided by 2 million euros ($2.9 million) from the Azerbaijani government. In August 2012 a statue of Aliyev which had been gifted to Mexico by the Azerbaijani embassy was installed in a park in Mexico City but was removed the following January after proving controversial.


title: Demographics of Iran

text: Iran's population increased dramatically during the later half of the 20th century, reaching about 80 million by 2016. , Iran's population is around 86.5 million. In recent years, however, Iran's birth rate has dropped significantly. Studies project that Iran's rate of population growth will continue to slow until it stabilises above 100 million by 2050. Half of Iran's population was under 35 years old in 2012.


title: Demographics of Iran

text: In 2009, the number of households stood at 15.3 million (4.8 persons per household). Families earn some 11.8 million rials (about $960) per month on average (2012).


title: Demographics of Iran

text: According to the OECD/World Bank statistics population growth in Iran from 1990 to 2008 was 17.6 million and 32%. The literacy rate was 80% in 2002, and 85% in 2016. The fertility rate has fallen to 1.6, below the natural replacement rate of 2.1.


title: Demographics of Iran

text: According to the 2016 population census the population of Iran was 79.9 million, a fourfold increase since 1956. Between 1976 and 1986, an average annual population growth of almost 4% was reached, but due to decreasing fertility levels the growth decreased to 1.2% between 2011 and 2016.


title: Demographics of Iran

text: 1 The population of the provinces of Alborz and Tehran for 2006 and their average annual growth have been calculated based on the data of 2011.


title: Demographics of Iran

text: The largest linguistic group comprises speakers of Iranian languages, like modern Persian, Kurdish, Gilaki, Mazandarani, Luri, Talysh, and Balochi. Speakers of Turkic languages, most notably Azerbaijanis, which is by far the second-most spoken language in the country, but also the Turkmen, and the Qashqai peoples, comprise a substantial minority. The remainder are primarily speakers of Semitic languages such as Arabic and Assyrian. A small number of Mandaeans in Khuzestan speak Mandaic. There are small groups using other Indo-European languages such as Armenian and Russian; also, Georgian (a member of the Kartvelian language family) is spoken in a large pocket only by those Iranian Georgians that live in Fereydan, Fereydunshahr. Most of those Georgians who live in the north Iranian provinces of Gilan, Mazandaran, Isfahan, Tehran Province and the rest of Iran no longer speak the language.


title: Demographics of Iran

text: The Circassians in Iran, a very large minority in the past and speakers of the Circassian language, have been strongly assimilated and absorbed within the population in the past few centuries. However, significant pockets do exist spread over the country, and they are the second-largest Caucasus-derived group in the nation after the Georgians.


title: Demographics of Iran

text: Jews have had a continuous presence in Iran since the time of Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid Empire. In 1948, there were approximately 140,000–150,000 Jews living in Iran. According to the Tehran Jewish Committee, the Jewish population of Iran was (more recently) estimated at 25,000 to 35,000, of which approximately 15,000 are in Tehran with the rest residing in Hamadan, Shiraz, Isfahan, Kermanshah, Yazd, Kerman, Rafsanjan, Borujerd, Sanandaj, Tabriz and Urmia. However, the official 2011 state census recorded only 8,756 Jews in Iran.


title: Demographics of Iran

text: The CIA World Factbook (which is based on 2013 statistics) gives the following numbers for the languages spoken in Iran today: Persian, Luri, Gilaki and Mazandarani 66%; Azerbaijani and other Turkic languages 18%; Kurdish 10%; Arabic 2%; Balochi 2%; others 2% (Armenian, Georgian, Circassian, Assyrian, etc.).


title: Demographics of Iran

text: Other sources, such as the Library of Congress, and the Encyclopedia of Islam (Leiden) give Iran's ethnic groups as following: Persians 65%, Azerbaijanis 16%, Kurds 7%, Lurs 6%, Arabs 2%, Baloch 2%, Turkmens 1%, Turkic tribal groups (e.g. Qashqai) 1%, and non-Persian, non-Turkic groups (e.g. Armenians, Georgians, Assyrians, Circassians, Basseri ) less than 1%. For sources prior to and after 2000, see Languages and ethnicities in Iran.


title: Demographics of Iran

text: In addition to its international migration pattern, Iran also exhibits one of the steepest urban growth rates in the world according to the UN humanitarian information unit. According to 2015 population estimates, approximately 73.4 per cent of Iran's population lives in urban areas, up from 27 per cent in 1950.


title: Demographics of Iran

text: About 99% of the Iranians are Muslims; 90% belong to the Shi'a branch of Islam, the official state religion, and about 9% belong to the Sunni branch, which predominates in neighbouring Muslim countries. Less than 1% non-Muslim minorities include Christians, Zoroastrians, Jews, Baháʼís, Mandaeans, and Yarsan. By far the largest group of Christians in Iran are Armenians under the Armenian Apostolic Church which has between 110,000, 250,000, and 300,000, adherents. There are hundreds of Christian churches in Iran. The Baháʼí Faith, Iran's largest non-Muslim religious minority with a population around 300,000, is not officially recognised (and therefore not included in the census results), and has been persecuted since in inception in Iran. Since the 1979 revolution the persecution of Baháʼís has increased with executions, the denial of civil rights and liberties, and the denial of access to higher education and employment. Unofficial estimates for the Assyrian Christian population range between 20,000, and 70,000. The number of Iranian Mandaeans is a matter of dispute. In 2009, there were an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 Mandaeans in Iran, according to the Associated Press. Whereas Alarabiya has put the number of Iranian Mandaeans as high as 60,000 in 2011.


title: Demographics of Iran

text: The term "Iranian citizens abroad" or " Iranian/Persian diaspora" refers to the Iranian people and their children born in Iran but living outside of Iran. Migrant Iranian workers abroad remitted less than two billion dollars home in 2006.


title: Demographics of Iran

text: As of 2010, there are about four to five million Iranians living abroad, mostly in the United States, Canada, Europe, Persian Gulf States, Turkey, Australia and the broader Middle East. According to the 2000 Census and other independent surveys, there are an estimated 1 million Iranian-Americans living in the U.S., in particular, the Los Angeles area is estimated to be host to approximately 72,000 Iranians, earning the Westwood area of LA the nickname Tehrangeles. Other metropolises that have large Iranian populations include Dubai with 300,000 Iranians, Vancouver, London, Toronto, San Francisco Bay Area, Washington D.C., Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Stockholm, Berlin, Hamburg and Frankfurt. Their combined net worth is estimated to be $1.3 trillion.


title: Demographics of Iran

text: Note that this differs from the other Iranian peoples living in other areas of Greater Iran, who are of related ethnolinguistical family, speaking languages belonging to the Iranian languages which is a branch of Indo-European languages.


title: Demographics of Iran

text: Iran hosts one of the largest refugee population in the world, with more than one million refugees, mostly from Afghanistan (80%) and Iraq (10%). Since 2006, Iranian officials have been working with the UNHCR and Afghan officials for their repatriation. Between 1979 and 1997, UNHCR spent more than US$1 billion on Afghan refugees in Pakistan but only $150 million on those in Iran. In 1999, the Iranian government estimated the cost of maintaining its refugee population at US$10 million per day, compared with the US$18 million UNHCR allocated for all of its operations in Iran in 1999. As of 2016, some 300,000 work permits have been issued for foreign nationals in Iran.


title: Demographics of Iran

text: Y-Chromosome DNA Y-DNA represents the male lineage, the Iranian Y-chromosome pool is as follows where haplogroups, R1 (25%), J2 (23%) G (14%), J1 (8%) E1b1b (5%), L (4%),


title: Demographics of Iran

text: Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) represents the female lineage. West Eurasian mtDNA makes up over 90% of the Iranian population on average. (2013).


title: Demographics of Iran

text: Among them, U3b3 lineages appear to be restricted to populations of Iran and the Caucasus, while the sub-cluster U3b1a is common in the whole Near East region.


title: Demographics of Iran

text: In Iran outliers in the Y-chromosomes and Mitochondrial DNA gene pool are consisted of the north Iranian ethnicities, such as the Gilaks and Mazandarani's, whose genetic build up including chromosomal DNA are nearly identical to the major South Caucasian ethnicities, namely the Georgians, Armenians and Azerbaijani's. Other outliers are made by the Baloch people, representing a mere 1–2% of the total Iranian population, who have more patrilinial and mitochondrial DNA lines leaning towards northwest South Asian ethnic groups.


title: Demographics of Iran

text: Levels of genetic variation in Iranian populations are comparable to the other groups from the Caucasus, Anatolia and Europe.


title: Demographics of Iran

text: The "Tats" are an Iranian people, presently living within Azerbaijan and Russia (mainly Southern Dagestan). The Tats are part of the indigenous peoples of Iranian origin in the Caucasus.


title: Demographics of Iran

text: Tats use the Tat language, a southwestern Iranian language and a variety of Persian Azerbaijani and Russian are also spoken. Tats are mainly Shia Muslims, with a significant Sunni Muslim minority. Likely the ancestors of modern Tats settled in South Caucasus when the Sassanid Empire from the 3rd to 7th centuries built cities and founded military garrisons to strengthen their positions in this region.


title: Demographics of Iran

text: The Parsis are the close-knit Zoroastrian community based primarily in India but also found in Pakistan. Parsis are descended from Persian Zoroastrians who emigrated to the Indian subcontinent over 1,000 years ago. Indian census data (2001) records 69,601 Parsis in India, with a concentration in and around the city of Mumbai (previously known as Bombay). There are approximately 8,000 Parsis elsewhere on the subcontinent, with an estimated 2,500 Parsis in the city of Karachi and approximately 50 Parsi families in Sri Lanka. The number of Parsis worldwide is estimated to be fewer than 100,000 (Eliade, 1991:254).


title: Demographics of Iran

text: In Pakistan and India, the term "Irani" has come to denote Iranian Zoroastrians who have migrated to Pakistan and India within the last two centuries, as opposed to most Parsis who arrived in India over 1000 years ago. Many of them moved during the Qajar era, when persecution of Iranian Zoroastrians was rampant. They are culturally and linguistically closer to the Zoroastrians of Iran. Unlike the Parsis, they speak a Dari dialect, the language spoken by the Iranian Zoroastrians in Yazd and Kerman. Their last names often resemble modern Iranian names, however Irani is a common surname among them. In India they are mostly located in modern-day Mumbai while in Pakistan they are mostly located in modern-day Karachi. In both Pakistan and India, they are famous for their restaurants and tea-houses. Some, such as Ardeshir Irani, have also become very famous in cinema.


title: Demographics of Iran

text: The "Ajam" are an ethnic community of Bahrain, of Iranian origin. They have traditionally been merchants living in specific quarters of Manama and Muharraq. The Iranians who adhere to Shiite sect of Islam are Ajam, and they are different from the Huwala. Ajams are also a large percentage of the populace in UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman.


title: Demographics of Iran

text: In addition to this, many names of ancient villages in Bahrain are of Persian origin. It is believed that these names were given during the Safavid rule of Bahrain (1501–1722). i.e. Karbabad, Salmabad, Karzakan, Duraz, Barbar, which indicates that the history of Ajams is much older.


title: Demographics of Iran

text: Huwala are the descendants of Persians and Arab-Persians who belong to the Sunni sect of Islam. Huwala migrated from Ahvaz in Iran to the Persian Gulf in the seventeenth and eighteenth century.


title: Demographics of Iran

text: Most of the large Circassian migrational waves towards mainland Iran stem from the Safavid and Qajar era, however a certain amount also stem from the relatively recent arrivals that migrated as the Circassians were displaced from the Caucasus in the 19th century. A Black African population exists due to historical slavery.


title: Demographics of Iran

text: A substantial number of Russians arrived in the early 20th century as refugees from the Russian Revolution, but their number has dwindled following the Iran crisis of 1946 and the Iranian Revolution.


title: Demographics of Iran

text: In the 20th to 21st centuries, there has been limited immigration to Iran from Turkey, Iraqis (especially huge numbers during the 1970s known as Moaveds), Afghanistan (mostly arriving as refugees in 1978), Lebanese (especially in Qom, though a Lebanese community has been present in the nation for centuries),


title: Demographics of Iran

text: Indians (mostly arriving temporarily during the 1950s to 1970s, typically working as doctors, engineers, and teachers), Koreans (mostly in the 1970s as labour migrants), China (mostly since the 2000s working in engineering or business projects), and Pakistan, partly due to labour migrants and partly to Balochi ties across the Iranian-Pakistani border.


title: Demographics of Iran

text: About 200,000 Iraqis arrived as refugees in 2003, mostly living in refugee camps near the border; an unknown number of these has since returned to Iraq.


title: Demographics of Iran

text: Over the same period, there has also been substantial emigration from Iran, especially since the Iranian revolution (see Iranian diaspora, Human capital flight from Iran, Jewish exodus from Iran), especially


title: Aaron Pierre (actor)

text: Pierre is from South London. He was into athletics and sprinting as a child and developed an interest in acting as a teenager. He joined the Croydon Young People's Theatre (CRYPT) once he moved areas. He took Performing Arts at Lewisham College before going on to train in Toronto and at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, graduating in 2016.


title: Aaron Pierre (actor)

text: Pierre appeared in 2 episodes of the BBC One series "The A Word" and played a Roman soldier Antonius in series 1 of the Sky Atlantic series "Britannia". In 2018, he began starring as Dev-Em in the Syfy series "Krypton".


title: Aaron Pierre (actor)

text: That same year, Pierre starred as Cassio in "Othello" at Shakespeare's Globe. For his performance, he received an Ian Charleson Award commendation. He played the King opposite Lenny Henry in the 2019 production of "King Hedley II" at the Theatre Royal Stratford East.


title: Aaron Pierre (actor)

text: American director Barry Jenkins saw Pierre in "Othello" and sent him a message after, inviting him to audition for his new series. Pierre landed the role of Caesar in "The Underground Railroad", which would be released on Amazon Prime in May 2021.


title: Aaron Pierre (actor)

text: In August 2021, it was reported that Pierre would reteam with Barry Jenkins as a young Mufasa in a "Lion King" film. In October 2021, Pierre joined the cast of the upcoming films "Rebel Ridge" (after John Boyega stepped down for family reasons) and "Foe", an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Iain Reid.


title: Aaron Pierre (actor)

text: In February 2022, Pierre joined the cast of the upcoming superhero film "Blade", set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and scheduled to be released on September 6, 2024.


title: Environmental, social, and corporate governance

text: ESG (environmental, social, and corporate governance) data reflect the negative externalities (costs to others) caused by an organization with respect to the environment, to society and to corporate governance.


text: ESG data can be used by investors to assess the material risk the organization is taking and by the organization itself as metrics for strategic and managerial purposes. Investors may also use ESG data beyond assessing material risks to the organization in their evaluation of enterprise value, specifically by designing models based on assumptions that the identification, assessment and management of sustainability-related risks and opportunities in respect to all organizational stakeholders leads to higher long-term risk-adjusted return. Organizational stakeholders include but not limited to customers, suppliers, employees, leadership, and the environment.


text: Since 2020, there has been accelerating interest in overlaying ESG data with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), developed based on work by United Nations beginning in the 1980s.


text: The term ESG was popularly used first in a 2004 report titled “Who Cares Wins", which was a joint initiative of financial institutions at the invitation of UN. In less than 20 years, the ESG movement has grown from a corporate social responsibility initiative launched by the United Nations into a global phenomenon representing more than US$30 trillion in assets under management. In the year 2019 alone, capital totaling US$17.67 billion flowed into ESG-linked products, an almost 525 percent increase from 2015, according to Morningstar, Inc. Critics claim ESG linked-products have not had and are unlikely to have the intended impact of raising the cost of capital for polluting firms, and have accused the movement of greenwashing.


text: Historical decisions of where financial assets would be placed were based on various criteria with financial return being predominant. However, there have always been many other criteria for deciding where to place money—from political considerations to heavenly reward. It was in the 1950s and 60s that the vast pension funds managed by the trades unions recognised the opportunity to affect the wider social environment using their capital assets—in the United States the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) invested their considerable capital in developing affordable housing projects, whilst the United Mine Workers invested in health facilities.


text: In the 1970s, the worldwide abhorrence of the apartheid regime in South Africa led to one of the most renowned examples of selective disinvestment along ethical lines. As a response to a growing call for sanctions against the regime, the Reverend Leon Sullivan, a board member of General Motors in the United States, drew up a Code of Conduct in 1977 for practising business with South Africa. What became known as the Sullivan Principles (Sullivan Code) attracted a great deal of attention and several reports were commissioned by the government to examine how many US companies were investing in South African companies that were contravening the Sullivan Code. The conclusions of the reports led to a mass disinvestment by the US from many South African companies. The resulting pressure applied to the South African regime by its business community added great weight to the growing impetus for the system of apartheid to be abandoned.


text: In the 1960s and 1970s, Milton Friedman, in direct response to the prevailing mood of philanthropy argued that social responsibility adversely affects a firm's financial performance and that regulation and interference from "big government" will always damage the macro economy. His contention that the valuation of a company or asset should be predicated almost exclusively on the pure bottom line (with the costs incurred by social responsibility being deemed non-essential), underwrote the belief prevalent for most of the 20th century (see Friedman doctrine). Towards the end of the century, however, a contrary theory began to gain ground. In 1988 James S. Coleman wrote an article in the "American Journal of Sociology" titled "Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital", the article challenged the dominance of the concept of 'self-interest' in economics and introduced the concept of social capital into the measurement of value.


text: There was a new form of pressure applied, acting in a coalition with environmental groups: it used the leveraging power of its collective investors to encourage companies and capital markets to incorporate environmental and social challenges into their day-to-day decision-making.


text: Although the concept of selective investment was not a new one, with the demand side of the investment market having a long history of those wishing to control the effects of their investments, what began to develop at the turn of the 21st century was a response from the supply-side of the equation. The investment market began to pick up on the growing need for products geared towards what was becoming known as the Responsible Investor. In 1998 John Elkington, co-founder of the business consultancy SustainAbility, published "Cannibals with Forks: the Triple Bottom Line of 21st Century Business" in which he identified the newly emerging cluster of non financial considerations which should be included in the factors determining a company or equity's value. He coined the phrase the "triple bottom line", referring to the financial, environmental and social factors included in the new calculation. At the same time, the strict division between the environmental sector and the financial sector began to break down. In the City of London in 2002, Chris Yates-Smith, a member of the international panel chosen to oversee the technical construction, accreditation and distribution of the Organic Production Standard and founder of one of the City of London's leading branding consultancies, established one of the first environmental finance research groups. The informal group of financial leaders, city lawyers and environmental stewardship NGOs became known as "The Virtuous Circle", and its brief was to examine the nature of the correlation between environmental and social standards and financial performance. Several of the world's big banks and investment houses began to respond to the growing interest in the ESG investment market with the provision of sell-side services; among the first were the Brazilian bank Unibanco, and Mike Tyrell's Jupiter Fund in London, which used ESG based research to provide both HSBC and Citicorp with selective investment services in 2001.


text: In the early years of the new millennium, the major part of the investment market still accepted the historical assumption that ethically directed investments were by their nature likely to reduce financial return. Philanthropy was not known to be a highly profitable business, and Friedman had provided a widely accepted academic basis for the argument that the costs of behaving in an ethically responsible manner would outweigh the benefits. However, the assumptions were beginning to be fundamentally challenged. In 1998 two journalists Robert Levering and Milton Moskowitz had brought out the "Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For", initially a listing in the magazine "Fortune", then a book compiling a list of the best-practicing companies in the United States with regard to corporate social responsibility and how their financial performance fared as a result. Of the three areas of concern that ESG represented, the environmental and social had received most of the public and media attention, not least because of the growing fears concerning climate change. Moskowitz brought the spotlight onto the corporate governance aspect of responsible investment. His analysis concerned how the companies were managed, what the stockholder relationships were and how the employees were treated. He argued that improving corporate governance procedures did not damage financial performance; on the contrary it maximized productivity, ensured corporate efficiency and led to the sourcing and utilizing of superior management talents. In the early 2000s, the success of Moskowitz's list and its impact on companies' ease of recruitment and brand reputation began to challenge the historical assumptions regarding the financial effect of ESG factors. In 2011, Alex Edmans, a finance professor at Wharton, published a paper in the "Journal of Financial Economics" showing that the "100 Best Companies to Work For" outperformed their peers in terms of stock returns by 2–3% a year over 1984–2009, and delivered earnings that systematically exceeded analyst expectations.


text: In 2005, the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative commissioned a report from the international law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer on the interpretation of the law with respect to investors and ESG issues. The Freshfields report concluded that not only was it permissible for investment companies to integrate ESG issues into investment analysis, but it was also arguably part of their fiduciary duty to do so. In 2014, the Law Commission (England and Wales) confirmed that there was no bar on pension trustees and others from taking account of ESG factors when making investment decisions.


text: Where Friedman had provided the academic support for the argument that the integration of ESG type factors into financial practice would reduce financial performance, numerous reports began to appear in the early years of the century which provided research that supported arguments to the contrary. In 2006 Oxford University's Michael Barnett and New York University's Robert Salomon published an influential study which concluded that the two sides of the argument might even be complementary—they propounded a curvilinear relationship between social responsibility and financial performance. Both selective investment practices and non-selective could maximise the financial performance of an investment portfolio, and the only route likely to damage performance was a middle way of selective investment. Besides the large investment companies and banks taking an interest in matters ESG, an array of investment companies specifically dealing with responsible investment and ESG based portfolios began to spring up throughout the financial world.


text: Many in the investment industry believe the development of ESG factors as considerations in investment analysis to be inevitable. The evidence toward a relationship between consideration for ESG issues and financial performance is becoming greater and the combination of fiduciary duty and a wide recognition of the necessity of the sustainability of investments in the long term has meant that environmental social and corporate governance concerns are now becoming increasingly important in the investment market. ESG has become less a question of philanthropy than practicality.


text: There has been uncertainty and debate as to what to call the inclusion of intangible factors relating to the sustainability and ethical impact of investments. Names have ranged from the early use of buzz words such as "green" and "eco", to the wide array of possible descriptions for the types of investment analysis—"responsible investment", "socially responsible investment" (SRI), "ethical", "extra-financial", "long horizon investment" (LHI), "enhanced business", "corporate health", "non-traditional", and others. But the predominance of the term ESG has now become fairly widely accepted. A survey of 350 global investment professionals conducted by Axa Investment Managers and AQ Research in 2008 concluded the vast majority of professionals preferred the term ESG to describe such data.


text: In January 2016, the PRI, UNEP FI and The Generation Foundation launched a three-year project to end the debate on whether fiduciary duty is a legitimate barrier to the integration of environmental, social, and governance issues in investment practice and decision-making.


text: This follows the publication in September 2015 of "Fiduciary Duty in the 21st Century" by the PRI, UNEP FI, UNEP Inquiry and UN Global Compact. The report concluded that "Failing to consider all long-term investment value drivers, including ESG issues, is a failure of fiduciary duty". It also acknowledged that despite significant progress, many investors have yet to fully integrate ESG issues into their investment decision-making processes. In 2021, several organizations were working to make ESG compliance a better understood process in order to establish standards between rating agencies, amongst industries, and across jurisdictions. This included companies like Workiva working from a technology tool standpoint; agencies like the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) developing common themes in certain industries; and governmental regulations like the EU's Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR).


text: Threat of climate change has grown, so investors may choose to factor sustainability issues into their investment choices. The issues often represent externalities, such as influences on the functioning and revenues of the company that are not exclusively affected by market mechanisms. As with all areas of ESG, the breadth of possible concerns is vast (e.g. greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity, waste management, water management) but some of the chief areas are listed below:


text: The body of research providing evidence of global trends in climate change has led investors—pension funds, holders of insurance reserves—to begin to screen investments in terms of their impact on the perceived factors of climate change. Fossil fuel-reliant industries are less attractive. In the UK, investment policies were particularly affected by the conclusions of the "Stern Review" in 2006, a report commissioned by the British government to provide an economic analysis of the issues associated with climate change. Its conclusions pointed towards the necessity of including considerations of climate change and environmental issues in all financial calculations and that the benefits of early action on climate change would outweigh its costs.


text: In every area of the debate from the depletion of resources to the future of industries dependent upon diminishing raw materials the question of the obsolescence of a company's product or service is becoming central to the value ascribed to that company. The long-term view is becoming prevalent amongst investors.


text: There is a growing belief that the broader the pool of talent open to an employer the greater the chance of finding the optimum person for the job. Innovation and agility are seen as the great benefits of diversity, and there is an increasing awareness of what has come to be known as "the power of difference."