title: Bharat Petroleum

text: On 21 November 2019, the Government of India approved the privatization of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL). The government invited bids for the sale of its 52.98% stake in the company on 7 March 2020. The Government decided to consolidate the businesses of BPCL before privatization starting with the Numaligarh Refinery Ltd. (NRL). The Government decided to keep Numaligarh Refinery Ltd. (NRL) in the public sector, honouring the Assam Peace Accord. On Mar 2021, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) sold its entire 61.5% stake in Numaligarh Refinery in Assam to a consortium of Oil India Ltd. and Engineers India Ltd. and Government of Assam for ₹9,876 crore. BPCL also acquired a 36.62% stake in Bharat Oman Refineries (BORL) or Bina refinery situated at Bina in Madhya Pradesh, India from OQ (formerly known as Oman Oil Company), for ₹2,400 crore. BPCL has been holding 63.4 per cent and OQ 36.6 per cent equity in the company. The Government of Madhya Pradesh has a minor stake in the company through compulsorily convertible warrants. With the acquisition of OQ's entire stake in BORL, BPCL will establish control over BORL.


title: Bharat Petroleum

text: The Indian Government attempted to sell BPCL during fiscal year 2021–2022. However, the sale of BPCL has been pushed to fiscal year 2022–2023, and it has been reported that the Government is building a new strategy for the sale of the company. In addition to this, it has also been reported that rising oil prices, along with increasing development and use of green energy, is leading to delays in the privatisation process.


title: 38th parallel north

text: The 38th parallel north is a circle of latitude that is 38 degrees north of the Earth's equatorial plane. It crosses Europe, the Mediterranean Sea, Asia, the Pacific Ocean, North America, and the Atlantic Ocean. The 38th parallel north formed the border between North and South Korea prior to the Korean War.


title: 38th parallel north

text: At this latitude, the Sun is visible for 14 hours, 48 minutes during the summer solstice and 9 hours, 32 minutes during the winter solstice.


title: 38th parallel north

text: Japan had ruled the Korean peninsula between 1910 and 1945. When Japan surrendered in August 1945, the 38th parallel was established as the boundary between Soviet and American occupation zones. This parallel divided the Korean peninsula roughly in the middle. In 1948, this parallel became the boundary between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (South Korea), both of which claim to be the government of the whole of Korea. On 25 June 1950, after a series of cross-border raids and gunfire from both the Northern and the Southern sides, the North Korean Army crossed the 38th parallel and invaded South Korea. This sparked the United Nations Security Council Resolution 82 which called for the North to return its troops to behind the 38th parallel and condemned the Korean War, with United Nations troops (mostly American) helping South Korean troops to defend South Korea.


title: 38th parallel north

text: After the Armistice agreement was signed on July 27, 1953, a new line was established to separate North Korea and South Korea. This Military Demarcation Line is surrounded by a Demilitarized Zone. The demarcation line crosses the 38th parallel, from the southwest to the northeast. The Demarcation Line is often confused with 38th parallel, but as can be seen in the image of the map, the two are not the same.


title: Tom Payne (actor)

text: Thomas Payne (born 21 December 1982) is an English actor. He is known for appearing on AMC's "The Walking Dead" as Paul "Jesus" Rovia, and BBC's "Waterloo Road" as Brett Aspinall. He portrayed Malcolm Bright on the American television series "Prodigal Son" from 2019 to 2021.


title: Tom Payne (actor)

text: Payne was born in Chelmsford, Essex, and grew up in Bath, Somerset, where he attended King Edward's School and was a prolific contributor to the school's drama department. He attended the Royal Central School of Speech & Drama, graduating in June 2005. He then appeared in "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day".


title: Tom Payne (actor)

text: In January 2007, he first appeared in "Waterloo Road" for the BBC, playing sixth former Brett Aspinall. Despite being 24 at the time, Payne portrayed a 17-year-old character. He remained in the series until the end of the following season in March 2008. It was revealed afterwards that he would not be returning for the new season, beginning in January 2009.


title: Tom Payne (actor)

text: In 2009, Payne played George Best in "", a BBC2 film about the legendary footballer. In the same year he appeared in "Marple": "They Do It With Mirrors" and "Wuthering Heights" for ITV.


title: Tom Payne (actor)

text: On 8 March 2010, it was announced that Tom had joined the cast of "Luck" a new pilot for HBO directed by Michael Mann, written by David Milch, starring Dustin Hoffman and Nick Nolte. He plays the role of a Cajun jockey.


title: Tom Payne (actor)

text: In 2012, he was cast in the title role of "The Physician" (based on the book of the same name) alongside Stellan Skarsgård and Ben Kingsley.


title: Tom Payne (actor)

text: Payne was cast with a recurring role in Season 6 of "The Walking Dead", as Paul "Jesus" Rovia, and promoted to series regular for season 7. Tom remained for two further seasons until his character was killed off in season nine.


title: Tom Payne (actor)

text: In 2019, Payne was cast in the lead role as a serial killer's son in the Fox police procedural series "Prodigal Son".


title: Tom Payne (actor)

text: Payne began dating singer Jennifer Åkerman in late 2013. He announced on an episode of "Walking Dead" that they had become engaged. Åkerman later revealed on her Instagram that they married in December 2020 after postponing their wedding due to COVID-19.


title: Tibialis anterior muscle

text: The tibialis anterior muscle is a muscle in humans that originates along the upper two-thirds of the lateral (outside) surface of the tibia and inserts into the medial cuneiform and first metatarsal bones of the foot. It acts to dorsiflex and invert the foot. This muscle is mostly located near the shin.


title: Tibialis anterior muscle

text: It is situated on the lateral side of the tibia; it is thick and fleshy above, tendinous below. The tibialis anterior overlaps the anterior tibial vessels and deep peroneal nerve in the upper part of the leg.


title: Tibialis anterior muscle

text: The fibers of this circumpennate muscle are relatively parallel to the plane of insertion, ending in a tendon, apparent on the anteriomedial dorsal aspect of the foot close to the ankle.


title: Tibialis anterior muscle

text: It passes through the most medial compartments of the transverse and cruciate crural ligaments. It is inserted into the medial and under surface of the medial cuneiform bone and the base of the first metatarsal bone.


title: Tibialis anterior muscle

text: The tibialis anterior muscle is supplied by the deep fibular nerve (L4, L5), a branch of common fibular nerve.


title: Tibialis anterior muscle

text: A deep portion of the muscle is rarely inserted into the talus, or a tendinous slip may pass to the head of the first metatarsal bone or the base of the first phalanx of the great toe.


title: Tibialis anterior muscle

text: The tibiofascialis anterior, a small muscle from the lower part of the tibia to the transverse or cruciate crural ligaments or deep fascia.


title: Tibialis anterior muscle

text: The tibialis anterior muscle is the most medial muscle of the anterior compartment of the leg. It is responsible for dorsiflexing and inverting the foot, and is the largest dorsiflexor of the foot. The muscle has two origins, one being the lateral tibial condyle and the other being the upper lateral surface of the tibia, and inserts on the medial surface of the medial cuneiform and adjoining part of base of the first metatarsal of the foot allowing the toe to be pulled up and held in a locked position. It also allows for the ankle to be inverted giving the ankle horizontal movement allowing for some cushion if the ankle were to be rolled. It is innervated by the deep peroneal nerve and acts as both an antagonist and a synergist of the tibialis posterior. However, the most accurate antagonist of the tibialis anterior is the peroneus longus. The tibialis anterior aides in the activities of walking, running, hiking, kicking a ball, or any activity that requires moving the leg or keeping the leg vertical. It functions to stabilize the ankle as the foot hits the ground during the contact phase of walking (eccentric contraction) and acts later to pull the foot clear of the ground during the swing phase (concentric contraction). It also functions to 'lock' the ankle, as in toe-kicking a ball, when held in an isometric contraction.


title: Tibialis anterior muscle

text: The movements of tibialis anterior are dorsiflexion and inversion of the ankle. However, actions of tibialis anterior are dependent on whether the foot is weight bearing or not (closed or open kinetic chain). When the foot is on the ground, the muscle helps to balance the leg and talus on the other tarsal bones so that the leg is kept vertical even when walking on uneven ground.


title: Tibialis anterior muscle

text: Some clinicians attempt to treat tibialis anterior muscle issues with acupuncture techniques, such as dry needling. There is significant bias in studies evaluating the efficacy of acupuncture versus medical treatments, and the decision to use acupuncture should be made carefully.


title: Tibialis anterior muscle

text: A tibialis anterior hernia is a rare type of hernia in which fat or other material protrudes through a defect in the tibialis anterior muscle. It may be caused by trauma, such as an inadvertent kick to the lower leg from an opposing player in a football match.


title: Age of Sail

text: The Age of Sail is a period that lasted at the latest from the mid-16th (or mid-15th) to the mid-19th centuries, in which the dominance of sailing ships in global trade and warfare culminated, particularly marked by the introduction of naval artillery, and ultimately reached its highest extent at the advent of the analogue Age of Steam. Enabled by the advances of the related Age of Navigation, it is identified as a distinctive element of the early modern period and the Age of Discovery. Especially in context of the latter, it refers to a more particular Eurocentric Age of Sail, while generally the Age of Sail is the culminating period of a long intercontinental history of sailing.


title: Age of Sail

text: Like most periodic eras, the definition is inexact but instead serves as a general description. The term is used differently for warships and merchant vessels.


title: Age of Sail

text: Sailing ships are an ancient technology, making far-reaching trade like the ancient spice trade possible. With the Mongol invasion of Java, cannons started to be used in naval warfare (e.g. Cetbang by the Majapahit), and by the 14th century naval artillery was employed in Europe, documented at the Battle of Arnemuiden (1338). The 15th century, besides the established seapowers of the central Indian Ocean trade, such as the maritime kingdoms of Austronesia, saw a rise in the deployment of oceans voyaging fleets (including carrying naval artillery) from the extreme points of the trade, such as the Ming treasure voyages or the Iberian naval ventures all the way along the African Atlantic coast and across the Atlantic Ocean, starting the Age of Discovery.


title: Age of Sail

text: For warships, the age of sail runs roughly from the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, the last significant engagement in which oar-propelled galleys played a major role, to the development of steam-powered warships.


title: Age of Sail

text: The period between the mid-19th century to the early 20th century, when sailing vessels reached their peak of size and complexity (e.g. Clippers and Windjammers), is sometimes referred to as the "Golden Age of Sail".


title: Age of Sail

text: The first sea-going steamboat was Richard Wright's first steamboat "Experiment", an ex-French lugger; she steamed from Leeds to Yarmouth in July 1813. The first iron steamship to go to sea was the 116-ton "Aaron Manby", built in 1821 by Aaron Manby at the Horseley Ironworks, and became the first iron-built vessel to put to sea when she crossed the English Channel in 1822, arriving in Paris on 22 June. She carried passengers and freight to Paris in 1822 at an average speed of 8 knots (9 mph, 14 km/h).


title: Age of Sail

text: The first purpose-built steam battleship was the 90-gun in 1850. Multiple steam battleships saw action during the Crimean war, especially the Allied (British, French and Ottoman) fleet Bombardment of Sevastopol as part of the Siege of Sevastopol (1854–1855). The first ironclad battleship, , was launched by the French Navy in November 1859. In the March 1862 Battle of Hampton Roads, the ironclad fought , making this the first fight between ironclads.


title: Age of Sail

text: The Suez Canal in the Middle East, which opened in 1869, was more practical for steamships than for sailing ships, achieving a much shorter European-Asian sea route, which coincided with more fuel-efficient steamships, starting with in 1865.


title: Age of Sail

text: By 1873, the Age of Sail for warships had ended, with commissioned in 1871. "Devastation" was the first class of ocean-going battleships that did not carry sails.


title: Age of Sail

text: Sailing ships continued to be an economical way to transport bulk cargo on long voyages into the 1920s and 1930s, though steamships soon pushed them out of those trades as well. Sailing ships do not require fuel or complex engines to be powered; thus they tended to be more independent from sophisticated dedicated support bases on land. Crucially though, steam-powered ships held a speed advantage and were rarely hindered by adverse winds, freeing steam-powered vessels from the necessity of following trade winds. As a result, cargo and supplies could reach a foreign port in a fraction of the time it took a sailing ship.


title: Age of Sail

text: Sailing vessels were pushed into narrower and narrower economic niches and gradually disappeared from commercial trade. Today, sailing vessels are only economically viable for small-scale coastal fishing, along with recreational uses such as yachting and passenger sail excursion ships.


title: Age of Sail

text: In recent decades, the commercial shipping industry has been reviving interest in wind assisted ships as a way to conserve fuel in the interest of sustainability.


title: Age of Sail

text: A New Age of Sail has been predicted by some experts to occur by 2030, driven by a revolution in energy technology and a desire to reduce carbon emissions from maritime shipping through wind-assisted propulsion.


The Associated Press NFL Most Valuable Player Award is presented annually by the Associated Press (AP) to a player in the National Football League (NFL) deemed to have been the "most valuable" in that year's regular season. While there have been many selectors of NFL MVPs in the past, today the MVP award presented by the AP is considered the "de facto" official NFL MVP award and the most prestigious. Since 2011, the NFL has held the annual NFL Honors ceremony to recognize the winner of each year's AP MVP award, along with other AP awards, such as the AP NFL Offensive Player of the Year and AP NFL Defensive Player of the Year. The most recent AP NFL MVP is quarterback Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers.


title: Associated Press NFL Most Valuable Player Award

text: The AP has presented an award recognizing the NFL's top player since 1957. The award is voted upon by a panel of 50 sportswriters at the end of the regular season, before the playoffs, though the results are not announced to the public until the day before the Super Bowl. The sportswriters chosen regularly follow the NFL, and remain mostly consistent from year to year. They are chosen based on expertise and are independent of the league itself. Voters for the award have included Troy Aikman of Fox Sports; Cris Collinsworth and Tony Dungy of NBC Sports; and Herm Edwards of ESPN. Only two players in the history of the award have won it unanimously: New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady in 2010 and Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson in 2019.


text: Due to voters' tendency to favor offensive positions, the award has been overwhelmingly dominated by offensive players; of the 57 undisputed winners, 54 played an offensive position: 38 quarterbacks and 16 running backs. Two defensive players have won the award: Alan Page in 1971 as a defensive tackle, and Lawrence Taylor as a linebacker in 1986. The sole special teams player to be named AP NFL MVP was Mark Moseley, who won as a placekicker in 1982.


text: Thirteen awardees also won the Super Bowl (or NFL Championship Game prior to 1966) in the same season. However, this has not occurred since 1999, when MVP Kurt Warner won Super Bowl XXXIV with the St. Louis Rams. Since then, nine AP NFL MVPs have led their team to the Super Bowl and were defeated each time. This has led to tongue-in-cheek claims in recent years that there is a "curse" preventing the awardee's team from winning the Super Bowl.


text: Six NFL franchises have not produced an MVP, the New York Jets (not counting Joe Namath's two AFL MVPs), Houston Texans, Jacksonville Jaguars, Chicago/St. Louis/Phoenix/Arizona Cardinals, New Orleans Saints, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.


text: The Green Bay Packers have the most overall winners with ten; if including disputed awards (see below), the Colts would be tied with ten. The Green Bay Packers also have the most unique winners with five players winning the award.


text: The AP has presented an award recognizing the NFL's top player since the 1957 season, although the pre-1961 awardees are recognized in the "Official NFL Record and Fact Book" as winning the AP's "NFL Most Outstanding Player Award", and the 1962 winner was recognized as the AP's "Player of the Year". The AP considers 1961 to be the first year in which it presented a "Most Valuable Player" award. Thus there are numerous inconsistencies among sources regarding each of the first four awards, and whether or not the winners are included in the overall list of AP MVP winners at all. The discrepancies include 1958's winner being either Jim Brown or Gino Marchetti; the 1959 winner as Johnny Unitas or Charlie Conerly; and whether or not Norm Van Brocklin shared the award in 1960 with Joe Schmidt.


text: In recent years, if a player that won the MVP makes it to the Super Bowl, the MVP often loses the Super Bowl in the year they won the MVP. That includes, Kurt Warner in 2001, Rich Gannon in 2002, Shaun Alexander in 2005, Tom Brady in 2007 and 2017, Peyton Manning in 2009 and 2013, Cam Newton in 2015, and Matt Ryan in 2016.


text: Ten players have won the Super Bowl and MVP in the same season: Bart Starr in 1966, Terry Bradshaw in 1978, Mark Moseley in 1982, Lawrence Taylor in 1986, Joe Montana in 1989, Emmitt Smith in 1993, Steve Young in 1994, Brett Favre in 1996, Terrell Davis in 1998, and Kurt Warner in 1999. In these ten cases, all but four regular season MVP winners were also the Super Bowl MVP for their respective games - with Moseley, Taylor, Favre, and Davis not completing the duplicate MVP year.


title: Fan death

text: Fan death is an urban myth that people have died as a result of running an electric fan in a closed room with no open windows. While the supposed mechanics of fan death are impossible given how electric fans operate, belief in fan death persisted to the mid-2000s in South Korea, and also to a lesser extent in Japan.


title: Fan death

text: Where the idea came from is unclear, but fears about electric fans date back to their introduction to Korea, with stories dating to the 1920s and 1930s warning of the risks of nausea, asphyxiation, and facial paralysis from the new technology.


title: Fan death

text: One conspiracy theory is that the South Korean government created or perpetuated the myth as propaganda to curb the energy consumption of South Korean households during the 1970s energy crisis, but "Slate" reports that the myth is much older than that – probably as far back as the introduction of electric fans in Korea, and cites a 1927 article about "Strange Harm from Electric Fans".


title: Fan death

text: Air movement will increase sweat evaporation, which cools the body. But in extreme heat and high humidity, sweat evaporation becomes ineffective, so the heat stress placed on the body increases, potentially speeding the onset of heat exhaustion and other detrimental conditions: The American Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) discourages people from using fans in closed rooms without ventilation when the heat index (a combination of temperature and humidity) is above 32 °C (89.6 °F). The EPA does, however, approve of using a fan if a window is open and it is cooler outside, or in a closed room when the heat index is lower.


title: Fan death

text: Hypothermia is abnormally low body temperature caused by inadequate thermoregulation. As the metabolism slows down at night, one becomes more sensitive to temperature, and thus supposedly more prone to hypothermia. Most at risk would be someone in frail health over an extended period of time. Investigative autopsies of purported fan death victims showed that with issues like heart problems or alcoholism may have had their condition exacerbated by the temperature drop and thus could succumb to that illness more easily.


title: Fan death

text: It is alleged that fans may cause asphyxiation by oxygen displacement and carbon dioxide intoxication. In the process of human respiration, inhaled fresh air is exhaled with a lower concentration of oxygen gas (O) and higher concentration of carbon dioxide gas (CO), causing a gradual reduction of O and buildup of CO in a completely unventilated room. However, this is true of any room without ventilation, and a running fan will not greatly improve or worsen the problem.


title: Fan death

text: During the summer, mainstream South Korean news sources regularly report alleged cases of fan death. A typical example is this excerpt from the July 4, 2011, edition of "The Korea Herald", an English-language newspaper:


title: Fan death

text: This article also noted there was "no evidence" the fan caused the death, however. University of Miami researcher Larry Kalkstein says a misunderstanding in translation resulted in his accidental endorsement of the fan death theory, which he denies is a real phenomenon.


title: Fan death

text: Ken Jennings, writing for "Slate", says that based on "a recent email survey of contacts in Korea", opinion seems to be shifting among younger Koreans: "A decade of Internet skepticism seems to have accomplished what the preceding 75 years could not: convinced a nation that Korean fan death is probably hot air."


title: Fan death

text: Philip Hiscock, when interviewed by "The Star", suggested that fan death's prevalence in Korean beliefs and its potential as a euphemism contributed to the idea's continuation, "Traditional fairy legends (or) contemporary UFO abductions are used for things that are either inadmissible or untellable in present company. The fact that fan death is well known in Korea (and) can be used to postpone explanations or cover up the truth is very interesting and a very traditional way of going about things."


title: Fan death

text: The Korea Consumer Protection Board (KCPB), a South Korean government-funded public agency, issued a consumer safety alert in 2006 warning that "asphyxiation from electric fans and air conditioners" was among South Korea's five most common summer accidents or injuries, according to data they collected. The KCPB published the following:


title: Disclosure (band)

text: Disclosure is an English electronic music duo consisting of brothers Howard (born 11 May 1994) and Guy Lawrence (born 25 May 1991). They grew up in Reigate, Surrey. Their debut studio album, "Settle", released on 3 June 2013, by PMR Records, was nominated for Best Dance/Electronica Album at the 2014 Grammy Awards. They released a second studio album, "Caracal", on 25 September 2015 which was also nominated for Best Dance/Electronic Album at the 2016 Grammy Awards. Their third studio album, "Energy", was released on 28 August 2020, and was nominated for Best Dance/Electronic Album at the 2021 Grammy Awards, alongside the fourth single from the album, "My High", which was nominated for Best Dance Recording.


title: Disclosure (band)

text: Born to professional musician parents, their father played in rock bands, including 'No Angry Man' and 'The Look Book' alongside his brother and Guy's godfather, and is now a professional auctioneer, whilst their mother, a session musician, fronted bands, toured on cruises, sang advert jingles, and was one of the first performers to entertain the British Army after their recapture of the Falkland Islands. Guy started playing the drums at the age of three, and Howard started playing the bass at the age of eight. Both also learned to play the guitar and the piano and Howard to sing.


title: Disclosure (band)

text: They both attended Reigate College. During this period, the boys studied music and music technology. By the age of 15, Howard listened mainly to funk, soul and maudlin singers, whilst Guy listened predominantly to hip hop, dubstep and was the drummer in an indie-style guitar band with school friends.


title: Disclosure (band)

text: Whilst Guy was attending Reigate College, he enjoyed studying classical music, especially the likes of Bach and Claude Debussy. A teenage interest in the music and production techniques of Detroit-based rapper and record producer J Dilla, led him through hip hop to attending dubstep gigs as a student; but he enjoyed house music more as a creation, and began studying it and introducing his brother to it. Primarily influenced by artists including Joy Orbison, James Blake, Burial and Mount Kimbie, the brothers were led back in time to Chicago house, Detroit techno, UK garage and 2-step garage.


title: Disclosure (band)

text: The brothers started de-constructing and copying the music that Guy had heard at gigs in a room above their father's auction house, and then making music in the same room in a style they refer to as "electronic house music with a pop structure", uploading it to Myspace. This got them an early record deal, and a UK tour, mixing live music gigs with occasional DJ sets, where in Manchester, they played a set before Todd Edwards, and gained after gig all-night conversation.


title: Disclosure (band)

text: The duo's first single, "Offline Dexterity" was released on 29 August 2010. They signed to the new PMR record label on its formation in January 2011, and released their second single, "Carnival"/"I Love...That You Know" on 13 June 2011. This got them a management deal with Sam Evitt and Jack Street's Method Management whom they are still managed by.


title: Disclosure (band)

text: Disclosure picked up their first significant national radio support upon the release of the "Tenderly" / "Flow" single in January 2012. The single led to significant interest in the subsequent June 2012 EP, "The Face", released on Greco-Roman. The EP included the popular remix of "Running" by Jessie Ware a fellow PMR artist which charted in both the Netherlands and Belgium, as well as becoming a fixture of the 2012 Festival Circuit and featuring on the annual edition of Annie Mac presents.


title: Disclosure (band)

text: Through collaboration with other artists signed to Method Management, the group had their first UK hit in October 2012 with "Latch", co-written with Jimmy Napes and featuring the vocals from Sam Smith, which peaked at number 11 in the UK Singles Chart.


title: Disclosure (band)

text: The group maintained their momentum into 2013 – they were voted into the BBC Radio 1xtra 'Hot Ten For 2013' and scored two consecutive top 10 hit singles in "White Noise" (number two) (with AlunaGeorge) and "You & Me" (number 10) (with Eliza Doolittle). These three singles were collected on an EP, "The Singles". They released their debut studio album, "Settle", by PMR Records on 3 June 2013 and was met with commercial and critical success, debuting at number one on the UK Albums Chart, charting in many countries across Europe and Australia, and receiving four stars from "The Guardian" and a 9.1 score on "Pitchfork". They performed twice at Glastonbury Festival 2013 and appeared on "Later... with Jools Holland". The album was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Dance Album.


title: Disclosure (band)

text: In 2013, Disclosure embarked on a worldwide tour of more than 40 European, American, and Canadian cities, including high-profile music festivals such as the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, Lollapalooza Music Festival in Chicago, and Sasquatch! Music Festival in Washington State. The same year, they established the record label Method Records; its roster includes Friend Within, Karen Harding, Lxury, and Tourist. A sub label was introduced in February 2015, called Method White, releasing more underground tracks through it. The first release was "Wolfsbane" by Jonas Rathsman. Since then, M. J. Cole and Eats Everything have released tracks through the label. Disclosure's song "When a Fire Starts to Burn" was used in the sixth episode of the first season of "The 100".


title: Disclosure (band)

text: Following the worldwide success of their debut studio album, "Settle" and a worldwide tour, the duo began working on their second studio album, "Caracal", featuring vocals from Sam Smith, Lorde, Gregory Porter, Lion Babe, Kwabs, The Weeknd, Nao, Miguel, Jordan Rakei and Brendan Reilly. The week of its release, "Caracal" earned the group their second consecutive number one album in the UK Albums Chart.


title: Disclosure (band)

text: The music videos for official singles from the album published on YouTube are interconnected and follow a story line, each newly released video furthering the plot. The videos follow a young woman in a sci-fi, dystopian world who is, for some unknown reason, being chased by the police.


title: Disclosure (band)

text: Three singles were released prior to the album: "Omen", "Holding On" and "Jaded". Two promotional singles were also released: "Willing and Able" and "Hourglass". The album was released on 25 September 2015, by PMR Records and Island Records. The album was also nominated for Best Dance/Electronica Album at the 2016 Grammy Awards.


title: Disclosure (band)

text: In February 2017, the duo announced they were to take a year's hiatus with the exception of "a few special things", including performances with BBC Radio 1 in Ibiza and the return of their festival Wildlife that summer.


title: Disclosure (band)

text: In January 2018, the duo confirmed that they were in the process of recording their third studio album set for release in early 2020, with a single due in between late 2019 and early 2020. After a hiatus, Disclosure released a song in May 2018 called "Ultimatum" featuring Fatoumata Diawara. In August 2018, five new songs were released over a daily basis: "Moonlight", "Where Angels Fear to Tread", "Love Can Be So Hard", "Funky Sensation" and "Where You Come From". In October 2019 Disclosure performed at the Trafalgar Square leg of Extinction Rebellion’s “International Rebellion” protest. The singles, furthermore, announced their comeback into the studio and revealed that they had started to write and produce new material, which would eventually form their third studio album. On February 24, 2020, they released a new track titled "Ecstasy", followed by four tracks released on a daily basis: "Tondo", "Expressing What Matters", "Etran" and "Get Close". An EP titled "Ecstasy", which contained the five tracks, was released on February 28. On the album's release date, Disclosure will have a special Minecraft server for The Energy Minecraft Experience. The music video <nowiki>"My High"</nowiki> featuring Aminé and Slowthai was nominated for Best Editor at the Berlin Music Video Awards 2021. The editor of this music videos is Yorgos Lamprinos.


title: Disclosure (band)

text: The Berlin Music Video Awards is an international festival and a networking event that puts the talents working behind the camera in the spotlight. The festival was founded in 2013 by a producer Aviel Silook. The event is filled with music video marathons, workshops, live performances and since 2016 also a fashion show. The Berlin Music Video Awards offers 14 different categories for the applicants and the winners of each category then compete for the Best Music Video.


title: Rapture (Blondie song)

text: "Rapture" is a song by American rock band Blondie from their fifth studio album "Autoamerican" (1980). Written by band members Debbie Harry and Chris Stein, and produced by Mike Chapman, the song was released as the second and final single from "Autoamerican" on January 12, 1981, by Chrysalis Records. Musically, "Rapture" is a combination of new wave, disco and hip hop with a rap section forming an extended coda.


title: Rapture (Blondie song)

text: "Rapture" was another commercial success for the band, shipping one million copies in the United States, where it was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and spent two weeks at number one on the "Billboard" Hot 100, their fourth and last single to reach the top ten. It was the first number-one single in the United States to feature rap vocals. The single also peaked at number three in Canada, and number five in Australia and the United Kingdom.


title: Rapture (Blondie song)

text: Singer Debbie Harry and guitarist Chris Stein were friends with Brooklyn- and Bronx-based hip-hop artists such as Fab 5 Freddy Brathwaite in the late 1970s. Freddy took Debbie and Chris to a rap event in the Bronx one night in 1978, and they were both impressed by the skill and excitement as MCs rhymed lyrics over the beats of spinning records and people lined up for a chance to take the microphone and freestyle rap. Debbie and Chris went to a few more such events, before deciding to write a rap song of their own in late 1979. They decided to combine what they had seen and heard in the Bronx with Chic-inspired disco music. Keyboardist Jimmy Destri found some tubular bells in the back of the studio, which added a haunting touch to the song. The title "Rapture" was an obvious pun on rap, according to Chris.


title: Rapture (Blondie song)

text: In an early recording the music was slower and simpler. Chris Stein said that "[t]he slower tape was just bass, drums and guitar doubling the bass, I don’t think much else.". This version was put aside and later reworked as "Rapture". For "Rapture", Stein said that "[w]e decided to make it faster." Stein later retrieved the original recording, and Debbie Harry and Braithwaite added vocals. The result was released in the UK as "Yuletide Throwdown", as a flexi disc given away with the magazine Flexipop.


title: Rapture (Blondie song)

text: Chris Stein loved B-movies and science fiction imagery, so he wrote some surreal verses about a man from Mars. For the chorus, Debbie Harry tried to capture the feeling of a crowded hip-hop dance floor in the Bronx: "Toe to toe / Dancing very close / Body breathing / Almost comatose / Wall to wall / People hypnotized / And they're stepping lightly / Hang each night in Rapture." They also referenced their friend Fab 5 Freddy, as well as Grandmaster Flash. The song was the first major hip-hop song to use original music, rather than samples.


title: Rapture (Blondie song)

text: The accompanying music video for "Rapture" made its US television debut on Solid Gold on January 31, 1981, and not only became the first rap video ever broadcast on MTV, but was part of its first 90-video rotation. Set in the East Village section of Manhattan, the "Man from Mars" or "voodoo god" (dancer William Barnes in the white suit and top hat) is the introductory and central figure. Barnes also choreographed the piece. Much of the video is a one-take scene of lead singer Debbie Harry dancing down the street, passing by graffiti artists, Uncle Sam, an American Indian, child ballet dancer and a goat. Fab Five Freddy and graffiti artists Lee Quiñones and Jean-Michel Basquiat make cameo appearances. Basquiat was hired when Grandmaster Flash did not show for the shoot.


title: Rapture (Blondie song)

text: The versions appearing on the US and UK 7" and 12" singles were quite different. The US 7" single, also issued with a different cover picture, used the original album version and the US 12" single used a version with an additional verse, making it 40 seconds longer. For the UK and other market single releases, producer Mike Chapman remixed the track completely. The "Special Disco Mix" has a different introduction, a longer instrumental break with new percussion overdubbed and includes the extra verse, making it 10 minutes long. The UK 7" version (4:59) was an edit of the "Special Disco Mix" without the extra verse. A slightly different edit with the extra verse (5:36) appeared on the band's first greatest hits compilation "The Best of Blondie" (1981). The album track "Live It Up" was also extended and remixed for the B-side of the non-US 12" single. This 8-minute version was included on the 1994 UK CD edition of "Autoamerican" and was reissued as part of EMI's 15-disc Blondie "Singles Box" in 2004. The song is widely regarded as one of Blondie's best; in 2017, "Billboard" ranked the song number two on their list of the 10 greatest Blondie songs, and in 2021, "The Guardian" ranked the song number seven on their list of the 20 greatest Blondie songs.


title: Rapture (Blondie song)

text: Blondie re-recorded the song for their 2014 compilation album "Greatest Hits Deluxe Redux". The compilation was part of a 2-disc set called "Blondie 4(0) Ever" which included their tenth studio album "Ghosts of Download" and marked the 40th anniversary of the forming of the band.


title: Rapture (Blondie song)

text: The picture of Debbie Harry used for the UK editions of the original 7" and 12" "Rapture" singles was later used for the cover of the compilation album "" (1995).


title: Rapture (Blondie song)

text: Other than the original remixes from 1981, the first official remix of "Rapture" can be found on the compilation album "Once More into the Bleach" (1988). The track was remixed again and re-issued as a single in both the UK and the US in 1994, this time peaking at number eight on the US Dance Club Songs chart. This remix was included on the compilations "The Platinum Collection" (1994), "" (1995) and "" (1995).


title: Rapture (Blondie song)

text: In 2005, "Rapture" was mashed with The Doors' 1971 song "Riders on the Storm" into "Rapture Riders" by Go Home Productions. This unofficial mashup remix was later approved by both bands and released as a single credited to Blondie vs. The Doors. It was also included on Blondie's compilation album "" (2005). "Rapture Riders" made the top-ten on the US Dance Club Songs and was a Top 40 hit in Australia and Europe.


title: Rapture (Blondie song)

text: Grandmaster Flash scratch mixed "Rapture" on his single "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel" and also included the track on his DJ mix album "" (2002), editing out all the rap parts.


title: Rapture (Blondie song)

text: KRS-One used a tonally similar version of the intro to "Rapture" for the intro/chorus of his single "Step Into A World (Rapture's Delight)" with lyrics changed slightly to praise KRS-One's rap prowess.


title: Rapture (Blondie song)

text: A soft-jazz instrumental cover version can be heard during the New Year's Eve party scene in Paul Mazursky's 1982 film "Tempest".


title: Rapture (Blondie song)

text: To promote the character's appearances in the third season of "The Boys", Jensen Ackles appeared in several videos depicting Soldier Boy's in-universe promotional campaigns in the 1980s, in particular, serenading the dancers of "Solid Gold" with a spoken-word rendition of "Rapture".


title: Rapture (Blondie song)

text: Ackles' cover received additional praise from the band itself, with original singer Debbie Harry describing the rendition as "epic".


title: Tiffany Haddish filmography

text: Tiffany Haddish is an American stand-up comedian, actress and author. Her breakthrough came in 2017, when she garnered critical acclaim for her performance in the comedy film "Girls Trip". Haddish has won a Primetime Emmy Award for her work as a host on a "Saturday Night Live" episode, and published a memoir, "The Last Black Unicorn". She starred in the TBS series "The Last O.G.", and executive produced and voiced Tuca in the Netflix/Adult Swim animated series "Tuca & Bertie". In 2021, she won a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album for her comedy album "Black Mitzvah", making her the second African-American woman to win this prize after Whoopi Goldberg in 1986.


title: Lao language

text: Lao, sometimes referred to as Laotian (, 'Lao' or , 'Lao language'), is a Kra–Dai language of the Lao people. It is spoken in Laos, where it is the official language for around 7 million people, as well as in northeast Thailand, where it is used by around 23 million people, usually referred to as Isan. Lao serves as a lingua franca among the citizens of Laos, who also speak approximately 90 other languages, many of which are unrelated to Lao.


title: Lao language

text: It is a tonal and analytic language, similar to other Kra-Dai languages as well as to Chinese and Vietnamese. Spoken Lao is mutually intelligible with Thai and Isan, fellow Southwestern Tai languages, to such a degree that their speakers are able to effectively communicate with one another speaking their respective languages. These languages are written with slightly different scripts but are linguistically similar and effectively form a dialect continuum.


title: Lao language

text: Although there is no official standard, the Vientiane dialect became the de facto standard language in Lao PDR, and the Khonkaen dialect became the de facto standard language in Isan in the second half of the 20th century.


title: Lao language

text: The Lao language falls within the Lao-Phuthai group of languages, including its closest relatives, Phuthai (BGN/PCGN "Phouthai") and Tai Yo. Together with Northwestern Tai—which includes Shan, Ahom and most Dai languages of China, the Chiang Saen languages—which include Standard Thai, Khorat Thai, and Tai Lanna—and Southern Tai form the Southwestern branch of Tai languages. Lao (including Isan) and Thai, although they occupy separate groups, are mutually intelligible and were pushed closer through contact and Khmer influence, but all Southwestern Tai languages are mutually intelligible to some degree. The Tai languages also include the languages of the Zhuang, which are split into the Northern and Central branches of the Tai languages. The Tai languages form a major division within the Kra-Dai language family, distantly related to other languages of southern China, such as the Hlai and Be languages of Hainan and the Kra and Kam-Sui languages on the Chinese Mainland and in neighbouring regions of northern Vietnam.


title: Lao language

text: The ancestors of the Lao people were speakers of Southwestern Tai dialects that migrated from what is now southeastern China, specifically what is now Guangxi and northern Vietnam where the diversity of various Tai languages suggests an "Urheimat". The Southwestern Tai languages began to diverge from the Northern and Central branches of the Tai languages, covered mainly by various Zhuang languages, sometime around 112 CE, but likely completed by the sixth century. Due to the influx of Han Chinese soldiers and settlers, the end of the Chinese occupation of Vietnam, the fall of Jiaozhi and turbulence associated with the decline and fall of the Tang Dynasty led some of the Tai peoples speaking Southwestern Tai to flee into Southeast Asia, with the small-scale migration mainly taking place between the eighth and twelfth centuries. The Tais split and followed the major river courses, with the ancestral Lao originating in the Tai migrants that followed the Mekong River.


title: Lao language

text: As the Southwestern Tai-speaking peoples diverged, following paths down waterways, their dialects began to diverge into the various languages today, such as the Lao-Phuthai languages that developed along the Mekong River and includes Lao and its Isan sub-variety and the Chiang Saen languages which includes the Central Thai dialect that is the basis of Standard Thai. Despite their close relationship, there were several phonological divergences that drifted the languages apart with time such as the following examples:


title: Lao language

text: Similar influences and proximity allowed for both languages to converge in many aspects as well. Thai and Lao, although separated, passively influenced each other through centuries of proximity. For instance, the Proto-Southwestern Tai *"mlɛːŋ" has produced the expected Lao /m/ outcome "maeng" ( "mèng", ) and the expected Thai /l/ outcome "laeng" ( ), although this is only used in Royal Thai or restricted academic usage, with the common form "malaeng" ( ), actually an archaic variant. In slang and relaxed speech, Thai also has "maeng" ( ), likely due to influence of Lao.


title: Lao language

text: Thai and Lao also share similar sources of loan words. Aside from many of the deeply embedded Sinitic loan words adopted at various points in the evolution of Southwestern Tai at the periphery of Chinese influence, the Tais in Southeast Asia encountered the Khmer. Khmer loan words dominate all areas and registers of both languages and many are shared between them. Khmer loan words include body parts, urban living, tools, administration and local plants. The Thai, and likely the Lao, were able to make Khmer-style coinages that were later exported back to Khmer. The heavy imprint of Khmer is shown in the genetics of Tai speakers, with samples from Thai and Isan people of Lao descent showing proof of both the Tai migration but also intermarriage and assimilation of local populations. Scholars such as Khanittanan propose that the deep genetic and linguistic impact of the autochthonous Khmer and their language indicates that the earliest days of Ayutthaya had a largely bilingual population. Although evidence and research in Lao is lacking, major Lao cities were known to have been built atop existing Khmer settlements, suggesting assimilation of the locals. Isan and Lao commonly use a Khmer loan not found in Thai, "khanong" ( "khanông", ), 'doorframe', from Khmer "khnâng" (, ), which means 'building', 'foundation' or 'dorsal ridge'.


title: Lao language

text: Indic languages also pushed Thai and Lao closer together, particularly Sanskrit and Pali loan words that they share. Many Sanskrit words were adopted via the Khmer language, particularly concerning Indian concepts of astrology, astronomy, ritual, science, kingship, art, music, dance and mythology. New words were historically coined from Sanskrit roots just as European languages, including English, share Greek and Latin roots used for these purposes, such as 'telephone' from Greek roots "tēle", 'distant' and "phōnē" which was introduced in Thai as "thorasap" (, ) and spread to Isan as "thorasap" ( "thôrasap", ) from Sanskrit "dura" (, ), 'distant', and "śabda" (, ), 'sound'. Indic influences also came via Pali, the liturgical language of Theravada Buddhism.


title: Lao language

text: The effects of Khmer and Indic vocabulary did not affect all the Tai languages of Southeast Asia equally. The Tai Dam of northern Vietnam were shielded from the influence of the Khmer language and the Indic cultural influences that came with them and remain traditionally a non-Buddhist people. Although the Tai Dam language is a Chiang Saen language, albeit with a lexicon and phonology closer to Lao, the lack of Khmer, Sanskrit and Pali loan words makes the language unintelligible to Thai and Lao speakers.


title: Lao language

text: Taking advantage of rapid decline in the Khmer Empire, Phra Chao Fa Ngoum ( ) defeated the Khmer and united the Tai "mueang" of what is now Laos and Isan into the mandala kingdom of Lan Xang in 1354. Fa Ngoum was a grandson of the ruler of Muang Xoua (RTGS "Mueang Sawa"), modern-day Louang Phrabang. Lan Xang was powerful enough to thwart Siamese designs from their base at Sukhothai and later Ayutthaya.


title: Lao language

text: Khmer, and Sanskrit via Khmer, continued to influence the Lao language. Since Fa Ngoum was raised in the Khmer court, married to a Khmer princess and had numerous Khmer officials in his court, a now-extinct speech register known as "raxasap" ( ) was developed to address or discuss the king and high-ranking clergy. Khmer and Sanskrit also contributed many belles-lettres as well as numerous technical, academic and cultural vocabulary, thus differentiating the Lao language from the tribal Tai peoples, but pushing the language closer to Thai, which underwent a similar process. The end of the Lao monarchy in 1975 made the Lao "raxasap" obsolete, but as Thailand retains its monarchy, Thai "rachasap" is still active.


title: Lao language

text: The 16th century would see the establishment of many of the hallmarks of the contemporary Lao language. Scribes abandoned the use of written Khmer or Lao written in the Khmer alphabet, adopting a simplified, cursive form of the script known as "Tai Noi" that with a few modifications survives as the Lao script. Lao literature was also given a major boost with the brief union of Lan Xang with Lan Na during the reign of Xay Xétthathirat ( ) (1546–1551). The libraries of Chiang Mai were copied, introducing the "tua tham" (BGN/PCGN "toua tham") or 'dharma letters' which was essentially the Mon-influenced script of Lan Na but was used in Lao specifically for religious literature. The influence of the related Tai Lan Na language was strengthened after the capitulation of Lan Na to the Burmese, leading many courtiers and people to flee to safety to Lan Xang.


title: Lao language

text: Lan Xang was religiously diverse, with most of the people practicing Tai folk religion albeit somewhat influenced by local Austroasiatic animism, as well as the Brahmanism and Mahayana Buddhism introduced via the Khmer and Theravada Buddhism which had been adopted and spread by the Mon people. Although Lao belief is that the era of Lan Xang began the period of Theravada Buddhism for the Lao people, it was not until the mid-sixteenth century that the religion had become the dominant religion.


title: Lao language

text: The earliest and continuously used Theravada temple, "Vat Vixoun" was built in 1513 by King Vixounnarat () (1500-1521). His successor, Phôthisarat () (1520-1550), banned Tai folk religion and destroyed important animist shrines, diminished the role of the royal Brahmins and promoted Theravada Buddhism. Phôthisarat married a princess of Lan Na, increasing contact with the kingdom that had long adopted the religion via contacts with the Mon people, a process that would continue when Phôthisarat's son assumed the thrones of Lan Xang and Lan Na.


title: Lao language

text: With Theravada Buddhism came its liturgical language, Pali, an Indic language derived from the Prakrit. Many Pali terms existed alongside earlier Sanskrit borrowings or were Sanskritized, leading to doublets such as Sanskrit "maitri" ( ) and Pali "metta" ( ), both of which signify 'loving kindness' although the Sanskrit term is more generally used for 'friendship'. The spread of Theravada Buddhism spread literacy, as monks served as teachers, teaching reading and writing as well other basic skills to village boys, and the Tai Noi script was used for personal letters, record-keeping, and signage, as well as to record short stories and the "klon" ( ) poetry that were often incorporated into traditional folksongs.


title: Lao language

text: Despite the long presence of Lan Xang and Lao settlements along the riverbanks, the Khorat Plateau remained depopulated since the Post-Angkor Period and a long series of droughts during 13th—15th centuries. The Lao settlements were found only along the banks of the Mekong River and in the wetter northern areas such as Nong Bua Lamphu, Loei, Nong Khai, with most of the population inhabiting the wetter left banks. This began to change when the golden age of Lao prosperity and cultural achievements under King Sourignavôngsa ( ) (1637-1694) ended with a successional dispute, with his grandsons, with Siamese intervention, carving out their separate kingdoms in 1707. From its ashes arose the kingdoms of Louang Phrabang, Vientiane and later in 1713, the Champasak. The arid hinterlands, deforested and depopulated after a series of droughts, likely led to the collapse of the Khmer Empire, was only occupied by small groups of Austroasiatic peoples and scattered outposts of Lao "mueang" in the far north. In 1718, Mueang Suwannaphum ( "Muang Suovannaphoum", ) in 1718 in what is now Roi Et Province, was founded as an outpost of Champasak, establishing the first major Lao presence and the beginning of the expansion of Lao settlement along the Si ( ) and Mun () rivers.


title: Lao language

text: The bulk of the Lao, however, settled after 1778 when King Taksin, Siamese king during the Thonburi Period (1767—1782) conquered Champasak and Vientiane and raided Phuan areas for slaves, seizing the Emerald Buddha and Phra Bang (although the latter was eventually returned) and forcing some of the Lao across the river to settle in Isan. Louang Phrabang was spared most of the destruction by submitting to Siamese overlordship. Although the kingdoms remained nominally autonomous, the Siamese demanded tribute and taxes, kept members of the respective royal houses as hostages to ensure loyalty and required the three Lao kings to come to the capital several times a year to hold an audience with the Siamese king. When the kingdoms revolted, the Siamese armies retaliated by rounding up entire villages, tattooing them to mark them as slaves and forced to settle what is now Isan, forced to serve as soldiers or manpower in corvée projects to build roads, to grow food, build canals, or serve as domestics. The greatest population transfer occurred after the Laotian Rebellion by Chao Anouvông (, ) in 1828 which led to the death of Anouvông and most of his family. The Siamese abducted nearly the entire population of Vientiane and its surrounding area and forced them to the right bank. Continued raids of people continued until the end of the nineteenth century.


title: Lao language

text: In addition to forced transfers, many Lao were encouraged to settle in Isan, with some disillusioned princes granted lofty titles in exchange for loyalty and taxation, robbing the Lao kings of taxation and wealth as well as what little nominal authority they had left. This greatly expanded the Lao population of Isan and caused assimilation of the local peoples into the mix, a process that is occurring on a smaller scale even now. Siamese intervention paradoxically strengthened the Lao character of the region as the Siamese left the Lao areas alone as long as they continued to produce rice and continued to pay tribute. Direct Siamese rule did not extend past Nakhon Ratchasima, and the Lao "mueang", whether paying their tribute directly to Bangkok or the remaining Lao kings and princes, were still nominally part of the separate kingdoms. Temples built in what is now Isan still featured the Tai Noi script on its murals and although Siam would intervene in some matters, daily administration was still left to the remaining kings and various Lao princes that served as governors of the larger "mueang". The end result of the population movements re-centered the Lao world to the right bank, as today, if Isan and Lao speakers are counted together, Isan speakers form 80 percent of the Lao-speaking population.


title: Lao language

text: During French rule, missing words for new technologies and political realities were borrowed from French or Vietnamese, repurposed from old Lao vocabulary as well as coined from Sanskrit. These Sanskrit-derived neologisms were generally the same, although not always, as those that developed in Thai.


title: Lao language

text: Whilst previously written in a mixture of etymological and phonetical spellings, depending on audience or author, Lao underwent several reforms that moved the language towards a purely phonetical spelling. During the restoration of the king of Louang Phabang as King of Laos under the last years of French rule in Laos, the government standardized the spelling of the Lao language, with movement towards a phonetical spelling with preservation of a semi-etymological spelling for Pali, Sanskrit and French loan words and the addition of archaic letters for words of Pali and Sanskrit origin concerning Indic culture and Buddhism.


title: Lao language

text: Spelling reforms under the communist rule of Laos in 1975 were more radical, with the complete abolition of semi-etymological spelling in favor of phonetical spelling, with the removal of silent letters, removal of special letters for Indic loan words, all vowels being written out implicitly and even the elimination or replacement of the letter 'ຣ' (but usually pronounced /l/) in official publications, although older people and many in the Lao diaspora continue to use some of the older spelling conventions.


title: Lao language

text: The standard written Lao based on the speech of Vientiane has leveled many lexical differences between dialects found in Laos, and although spoken regional variations remain strong, speakers will adjust to it in formal situations and in dealings with outsiders.


title: Lao language

text: In Laos, the written language has been mainly based on Vientiane Lao for centuries after the capital of Lan Xang was moved in 1560. The speech of the old élite families was cultivated into Standard Lao as emulated by television and radio broadcasts from the capital as well as taught to foreign students of Lao. The speech of the Isan city of Nong Khai, which sits on the opposite bank of the Mekong, is almost indistinguishable in tone and accent from the speech of Vientiane. Vientiane Lao predominates in Vientiane City, the surrounding Vientiane Province and portions of Bolikhamxai and some areas of Xaisômboun.


title: Lao language

text: In Isan, Vientiane Lao is the primary form of Isan spoken in the northern third of the region which was long settled since the days of Lan Xang and was ruled as part of the Kingdom of Vientiane, including most of Nong Khai, Nong Bua Lamphu, eastern Loei and portions of Saiyaphum and Bueng Kan. As a result of the Lao rebellion of 1826 the "Tai Wiang" (), ), 'Vientiane people' of the city and surrounding parts of the kingdom, were rounded up by Siamese armies and forced to the right bank, greatly boosting the Lao population of what is now Isan. The Tai Wiang strengthened numbers in the northern third, where Vientiane Lao was traditionally spoken, but were scattered across the Isan region overall, with heavier concentrations in Yasothon, Khon Kaen, and Hoi Et provinces. This likely had a leveling effect on the Lao language as spoken in Isan, as most Isan speakers regardless of speech variety are prone to using /ʋ/ as opposed to /w/ and the informal conversion of syllable-initial /k/ to /tɕ/ in relaxed, informal speech, which in Laos, is particularly characteristic of Vientiane speech. For example, the word "kaem" ( "kèm", ), 'cheek', is often pronounced *"chaem" (* "chèm", *).


title: Lao language

text: Northern Lao is a very distinct dialect, exhibiting several features and lexical differences quite apart from other Lao dialects except Northeastern Lao (Phuan). Even though it borders the Vientiane Lao dialect region, there is a sharp boundary that divides them. The dialect shares many similarities with Tai Lanna and is classified accordingly as a Chiang Saen language by Ethnologue. The dialect is not common in Isan, restricted to western portions of Loei and pockets of villages spread throughout Udon Thani provinces. The Isan people of Phitsanulok and Uttaradit provinces, particularly the narrow strip hugging the shore of the Mekong and bordering Loei, outside of Isan are generally speakers of Northern Lao. In Laos, it is the primary dialect spoken in Louang Phrabang and Xaignabouli provinces. In the other northern Laotian provinces of Oudômxai, Houaphan, Louang Namtha and Phôngsali, native Lao speakers are a small minority in the major market towns but Northern Lao, highly influenced by the local languages, is spoken as the "lingua franca" across ethnic groups of the area.


title: Lao language

text: Northern Lao, specifically the speech of the city of Louang Phrabang was originally the prestigious variety of the language with the city serving as the capital of Lan Xang for the first half of its existence, with the kings of the city made kings of all of Laos by the French. Although the language lost its prestige to Vientiane Lao, Northern Lao is important for its history, as many of the earliest Lao literary works were composed in the dialect, and it served, in a refined form, as the royal speech of the Laotian kings until 1975 when the monarchy was abolished. Louang Phrabang remains the largest city in the northern region of Laos, serving as an important center of trade and communication with the surrounding areas.


title: Lao language

text: Despite the proximity to speakers of Vientiane Lao, Northern Lao is quite distinct. Unlike other Lao dialects with six tones, Northern Lao speakers use only five. Due to the distinctive high-pitch, high-falling tone on words with live syllables starting with low-class consonants, the dialect is said to sound softer, sweeter and more effeminate than other Lao dialects, likely aided by the slower speed of speaking. Similar in tonal structure and quality to Tai Lanna, likely facilitated by the immigration of Lanna people to Louang Phrabang after Chiang Mai's fall to the Burmese in 1551, the dialect is classified apart from other Lao dialects as Chiang Saen language by Ethnologue. Northern Lao also resisted the merger of Proto-Tai * and * that occurred in all other Lao dialects, except Northeastern Lao. This affects the twenty or so words represented by Thai " and Lao ", which preserve /aɰ/ in Northern Lao. This vowel has become /aj/, similar to Thai " and Lao " which is also /aj/. Northern Lao also contains numerous terms not familiar to other Lao speakers.


title: Lao language

text: The Phuan language is a Chiang Saen language rather than part of the Lao–Phutai languages, but it is considered a Lao dialect in Laos. As a Tai language of northern Southeast Asia, it shares many similarities with Tai Dam and Tai Lan Na. In contrast to other minority languages of Isan, it is not losing ground to the Thai or Isan language in Isan.


title: Lao language

text: Central Lao represents a transitional variety, with northern varieties closer to Vientiane Lao and southern varieties, roughly south of the confluence of the Xé Noi river with the Mekong, the speech varieties begin to approach Southern Lao. Some linguists, such as Hartmann, place Vientiane Lao and Central Lao together as a singular dialect region. More Vientiane-like speech predominates in the Isan provinces of Bueng Kan, Sakon Nakhon, most of Nakhon Phanom and some areas of Nong Khai provinces and on the Laotian side, portions of eastern and southern Bolikhamxai and Khammouan provinces. More Southern Lao features are found in the speech of Mukdahan and southern Nakhon Phanom provinces of Thailand and Savannakhét Province of Laos.


title: Lao language

text: Nevertheless, the tones of the southern Central varieties, such as spoken in Mukdahan, Thailand and Savannakhét, Laos have a tonal structure more akin to Vientiane Lao, sharing certain splits and contours. These areas do, however, exhibit some Southern features of their lexicon, such as the common use of "se" ( "xé", ), 'river', which is typical of Southern Lao as opposed to "nam" (, ), which is the more common word and also signifies 'water' in general. Mukdahan-Savannakhét area speakers also understand "mae thao" (, ) as a respectful term for an 'old lady' (as opposed to Vientiane 'mother-in-law') and use "pen sang" (, ) instead of Vientiane "pen yang" (, ), 'what's wrong?', as is typical of Southern Lao.


title: Lao language

text: Southern Lao is spoken along the southern third of Isan and Laos. This region covers the Thai provinces of Surin, Buriram and Sisaket, where a large minority of speakers are Khmer people speaking the archaic northern variety of Khmer and another Austroasiatic people, the Kuy people, use Southern Lao as a second language to engage with their Isan neighbors. It is also spoken in Ubon Ratsathani, Amnat Charoen and portions of Yasothon and Nakhon Ratsasima. In Laos, it is the primary dialect of Champasak, Salavan, Attapeu and Xékong provinces. There are also small pockets of speakers located in Steung Treng Province, Cambodia or "Siang Taeng" (, ), particularly near the Mekong River close to the Laotian border. Many of the areas where Southern Lao is spoken were formerly part of the Kingdom of Champasak, one of the three successor states to the Kingdom of Lan Xang, prior to the division of the Lao-speaking world between France and Siam.


title: Lao language

text: Compared to other Isan and Lao dialects, Southern Lao has low tones in syllables that begin with high- or middle-class consonants and have long vowels. High- and middle-class consonants marked with the "mai tho" tone mark are low and low-falling, respectively, but in these cases are pronounced with very strong glottalization, which can be described as 'creaky'. Combined with the somewhat faster manner of speaking and reduced tendency to soften consonants at the end of words, Southern Lao sounds very rough and harsh to speakers of other dialects. Many of these features, such as the faster speaking pace and glottalization may be influences from Austroasiatic languages as most of the region was inhabited by the Khmer, Kuy and various other Austroasiatic peoples until the eighteenth century when the Lao began to settle and even now, Khmer speakers comprise half the population of Surin and roughly a quarter each of the populations of Sisaket and Buriram provinces.


title: Lao language

text: Specific dialectal words include "don" (, ), 'riparian island', "se" ( xé, /sȅː/)) and many of the words used in Savannakhét that are more typical of Southern Lao such as "mae thao" (, ) as a respectful term for an 'old lady' (as opposed to Vientiane 'mother-in-law') and use "pen sang" (, ) instead of Vientiane "pen yang" ( "pén gnang", ), 'what's wrong?'. Possibly as a result of historical Khmer influence and current influences from Thai, Southern dialects tend to pronounce some words with initial Proto-Southwestern Tai * as either the rhotic tap or a strongly velarized which is confused with by speakers of other Lao dialects which have /h/. For example, Vientiane Lao "hap" (, ), 'to receive', and "honghaem" ( "hônghèm", ) are pronounced as "lap" (, ) and "honglaem" ( "hônglèm", ), respectively but may sound like *"dap" and *"hongdaem" ("hông dèm") to other Lao, but are really a strongly velarized /ɬ/ or a rhotic tap /ɾ/. Southerners also tend to use "chak" (, ) to mean 'to know someone' as opposed to "hu chak" ( "hou chak", ) used in all other dialects.


title: Lao language

text: Western Lao does not occur in Laos but is the primary dialect of Kalasin, Hoi Et, and Maha Sarakham in Isan, Thailand. It is also spoken in much of Saiyaphum and portions of Nakhon Ratsasima.


title: Lao language

text: The Lao language consists primarily of native Lao words. Because of Buddhism, however, Pali has contributed numerous terms, especially relating to religion and in conversation with members of the sangha. Due to their proximity, Lao has influenced the Khmer and Thai languages and vice versa.


title: Lao language

text: Formal writing has a larger number of loanwords, especially Pali and Sanskrit, much as Latin and Greek have influenced European languages. For politeness, pronouns (and more formal pronouns) are used, plus ending statements with (dǣ ) or (dœ̄ ). Negative statements are made more polite by ending with (dǭk ). The following are formal register examples.


title: Lao language

text: After the division of the Lao-speaking world in 1893, French would serve as the administrative language of the French Protectorate of Laos, carved from the Lao lands of the left bank, for sixty years until 1953 when Laos achieved full independence. The close relationship of the Lao monarchy with France continued the promotion and spread of French until the end of the Laotian Civil War when the monarchy was removed and the privileged position of French began its decline. Many of the initial borrowings for terms from Western culture were imported via French. For instance, Lao uses "xangtimèt" ( ) in an approximation of French "centimètre" (). Lao people also tend to use French forms of geographic place names, thus the Republic of Guinea is "kiné" ( ) from French "Guinée" ().


title: Lao language

text: Although English has mostly surpassed French as the preferred foreign language of international diplomacy and higher education since the country began opening up to foreign investment in the 1990s, the position of French is stronger in Laos than in Cambodia and Vietnam. Since 1972, Laos has been associated with La Francophonie, achieving full-member status in 1992. Many of the royalists and high-ranking families of Laos left Laos in the wake of the end of the Laotian Civil War for France, but as of 2010, it was estimated that 173,800 people, or three percent of the population, were fluent in French and French is studied by 35% of the population as a second language as a required subject and many courses in engineering, medicine, law, administration and other advanced studies are only available in French.


title: Lao language

text: Laos maintains the French-language weekly "Le Rénovateur", but French-language content is sometimes seen alongside English in publications in older issues of "Khaosane Phathét Lao News" and sporadically on television ad radio. French still appears on signage, is the language of major civil engineering projects and is the language of the élite, especially the older generations that received secondary and tertiary education in French-medium schools or studied in France. France maintains a large Lao diaspora and some of the very well-to-do still send their children to France for study. The result of this long-standing French influence is the use of hundreds of loan words of French origin in the Lao language of Laos—although many are old-fashioned and somewhat obsolete or co-exist alongside more predominant native usages. They may be contrasted with the neighbouring languages in Thailand, which borrowed from English instead of French.


title: Lao language

text: Because of the depopulation of the left bank to Siam prior to French colonization, the French who were already active in Vietnam brought Vietnamese to boost the population of the cities and help administer the region. Many Lao that received a French-language education during the period of French Indochina were educated in French-language schools in Vietnam, exposing them to French and Vietnamese languages and cultures. As the Vietnamese communists supported the "Pathét Lao" forces, supplying Lao communist militia with weaponry and training during the two-decade-long Laotian Civil War, large numbers of Vietnamese troops have been stationed at various times in Laos' post-independence history, although the Vietnamese military presence began to wane in the late 1980s as Laos pursued closer relations with its other neighbors and entered the market economy. Since market reforms in Vietnam, market liberalization has been the main focus between the two countries now.


title: Lao language

text: Many consonants in Lao have a labialized and plain form, thus creating a phonemic contrast. The complete inventory of Lao consonants is as shown in the table below:


title: Lao language

text: All plosive sounds are unreleased in final position. Hence, final , , and sounds are pronounced as , , and respectively.


title: Lao language

text: All vowels make a phonemic length distinction. Diphthongs are all centering diphthongs with falling sonority. The monophthongs and diphthongs are as shown in the following table:


title: Lao language

text: Lao has six lexical tones. However, the Vientiane and the Luang Prabang dialects have five tones (see below) (Brown 1965; Osatananda, 1997, 2015).


title: Lao language

text: There are six phonemic tones in smooth syllables, that is, in syllables ending in a vowel or other sonorant sound ( and ).


title: Lao language

text: The number of contrastive tones is reduced to four in checked syllables, that is, in syllables ending in an obstruent sound ( or the


title: Lao language

text: Lao syllables are of the form (C)V(C), i.e., they consist of a vowel in the syllable nucleus, optionally preceded by a single consonant in the syllable onset and optionally followed by a single consonant in the syllable coda. The only consonant clusters allowed are syllable initial clusters . Any consonant may appear in the onset, but the labialized consonants do not occur before rounded vowels.


title: Lao language

text: One difference between Thai and Lao is that in Lao initial clusters are simplified. For example, the official name of Laos is Romanized as "Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao", with the Thai analog being "Satharanarat Prachathipatai Prachachon Lao" (), indicating the simplification of Thai "pr" to Lao "p".


title: Lao language

text: Only may appear in the coda. If the vowel in the nucleus is short, it must be followed by a consonant in the coda; in the coda can be preceded only by a short vowel. Open syllables (i.e., those with no coda consonant) and syllables ending in one of the sonorants take one of the six tones, syllables ending in take one of four tones, and syllables ending in take one of only two tones.


title: Lao language

text: The majority of Lao words are monosyllabic, and are not inflected to reflect declension or verbal tense, making Lao an analytic language. Special particle words serve the purpose of prepositions and verb tenses in lieu of conjugations and declensions. Lao is a subject–verb–object (SVO) language, although the subject is often dropped. In contrast to Thai, Lao uses pronouns more frequently.


title: Lao language

text: The Lao script, derived from the Khmer alphabet of the Khmer Empire in the 14th century, is ultimately rooted in the Pallava script of South India, one of the Brahmi scripts. Although the Lao script bears resemblance to Thai, the former contains fewer letters than Thai because by 1960 it was simplified to be fairly "phonemic", whereas Thai maintains many etymological spellings that are pronounced the same.


title: Lao language

text: The script is traditionally classified as an abugida, but Lao consonant letters are conceived of as simply representing the consonant sound, rather than a syllable with an inherent vowel. Vowels are written as diacritic marks and can be placed above, below, in front of, or behind consonants. The script also contains distinct symbols for numerals, although Arabic numerals are more commonly used.


title: Lao language

text: Lao is written in the Tai Tham script for liturgical purposes and is still used in temples in Laos and Isan.


title: Lao language

text: Experts disagree on the number and nature of tones in the various dialects of Lao. According to some, most dialects of Lao and Isan have six tones, those of Luang Prabang have five. Tones are determined as follows:


title: Lao language

text: A silent () placed before certain consonants will place the proceeding consonant in the high class tone. This can occur before the letters , , , and and combined in special ligatures (considered separate letters) such as , , and . In addition to (low tone) and (falling tone), there also exists the rare (high) (rising) tone marks.


title: Lao language

text: Traditionally, only secular literature was written with the Lao alphabet. Religious literature was often written in "Tai Tham", a Mon-based script that is still used for the Tai Khün, Tai Lü, and formerly for Kham Mueang. The Lao style of this script is known as "Lao Tham".


title: Lao language

text: Mystical, magical, and some religious literature was written in "Khom script" (Aksar Khom), a modified version of the Khmer script.


title: Sweden–NATO relations

text: The Kingdom of Sweden and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have a close relationship and regularly carry out joint exercises, cooperate in peacekeeping operations and share information. Sweden is one of six members of the European Union that are not members of NATO. Sweden joined the Partnership for Peace on 9 May 1994.


title: Sweden–NATO relations

text: Historically, a minority of the Swedish population has been in favour of NATO membership, but the question of membership rose in popularity following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Sweden applied to join the organization on 18 May 2022. On 5 July 2022, NATO signed the accession protocol for Sweden to join the alliance.


title: Sweden–NATO relations

text: In the 19th century, Sweden adopted a policy of neutrality, largely as a result of Sweden's involvement in the Napoleonic Wars during which over a third of the country's territory was lost in the Finnish War (1808–1809), including the traumatic loss of Finland to Russia. From this point onwards, Finland remained a part of Russia until it gained independence in 1917. Resentment towards the Swedish king Gustav IV Adolf, who had consistently pursued an anti-napoleonic policy and thereby caused the war, precipitated a "coup d'état" known as the Coup of 1809. The new regime deposed the king and introduced the Instrument of Government (1809), later formulating a new foreign policy, which became known as "The Policy of 1812". Since the time of the Napoleonic Wars, Sweden has not initiated any direct armed conflict.


title: Sweden–NATO relations

text: Sweden chose not to join NATO when it was founded in 1949 and declared a security policy aiming for non-alignment in peace and neutrality in war. A modified version now qualifies non-alignment in peace for possible neutrality in war. Sweden maintained its policy of neutrality during the Cold War, despite substantial cooperation with the West. Former Prime Minister of Sweden Carl Bildt has noted that this policy was in response to fears that if Sweden were to join NATO the Soviet Union might respond by invading neighbouring Finland, with which Sweden retained close relations. While nominally independent, Finland adopted a policy of neutrality on foreign affairs during the Cold War in deference to the neighbouring Soviet Union, which was commonly referred to as Finlandization.


title: Sweden–NATO relations

text: The accession of Sweden to the European Union in 1995 meant that neutrality as a principle was abolished. Since the 1990s, there has been an active debate in Sweden on the question of NATO membership in the post–Cold War era. These ideological divides were visible in November 2006, when Sweden could either buy two new transport planes or join NATO's plane pool, and in December 2006, when Sweden was invited to join the NATO Response Force. Sweden joined NATO's Partnership for Peace on 9 May 1994, and has been an active participant in NATO-led missions in Bosnia (IFOR and SFOR), Kosovo (KFOR), Afghanistan (ISAF), and Libya (Operation Unified Protector). Sweden signed in 2014 and ratified in 2016 a host country agreement with NATO, allowing NATO forces to conduct joint training exercises on Swedish soil and allowing NATO member states' forces to be deployed in Sweden in response to threats to Sweden's national security.


title: Sweden–NATO relations

text: If the situation in and around the Baltic countries were to escalate, Swedish NATO membership, possibly together with Finland, would reduce barriers to NATO intervention in the region. NATO reported in 2015 that Russia simulated a nuclear attack on Sweden in 2013. Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov threatened in 2016 to "take necessary measures" to prevent Swedish NATO membership. A government-sponsored report on the future of Sweden's NATO membership was released in September 2016.


title: Sweden–NATO relations

text: Support for NATO membership rose between 2012 and 2015, when the SOM Institute showed it growing from 17% to 31%. Events like the annexation of Crimea and reports of Russian submarine activity in 2014, as well as a 2013 report that Sweden could hold out for only a week if attacked, were credited with that rise in support. In October 2014, an opinion poll found for the first time more Swedes in favor of NATO membership (37%) than opposed (36%).


title: Sweden–NATO relations

text: Ipsos has conducted regular polling, and they have documented a decline in the opposition to membership from 56% in April 2015 to 35% in December 2020, when their poll showed a three-way split among Swedes, with 33% supporting NATO membership and 32% undecided on the issue. The decline largely corresponds to an increase in undecideds, as the percent of Swedes who support NATO membership has stayed mostly steady since 2014. According to a poll conducted by Sifo in June 2016, more Swedes were against a Swedish NATO membership than in favour, while a May 2017 poll by Pew also showed that 48% supported membership, and in November 2020, they showed that 65% of Swedes viewed NATO positively, the highest percent of any non-NATO member polled.


title: Sweden–NATO relations

text: A Novus poll conducted 24–25 February 2022 found 41% in favour of NATO membership and 35% opposed. On 4 March 2022, a poll was released that showed 51% support NATO membership, the first time a poll has shown a majority supporting this position.


title: Sweden–NATO relations

text: Former Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt stated on 18 September 2007 that Swedish membership in NATO would require a "very wide" majority in Parliament, including the Social Democrats, and coordination with Finland.


title: Sweden–NATO relations

text: The Swedish left wing, including the Social Democratic Party, the Green Party and the Left Party, along with the nationalist Sweden Democrats, have historically favored neutrality and non-alignment, while the parties on the right wing have supported NATO membership, especially since the 2014 Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation. The centre-right Moderate Party is the largest party by current parliamentary representation in favour of NATO membership, even making it their top election pledge in 2022, and (like the centre-right Liberal Party) has generally supported NATO membership since the end of the Cold War. The centrist Centre Party was opposed to NATO membership until September 2015, when party leadership under Annie Lööf announced that they would motion to change the party policy to push for Sweden to join NATO at their next party conference. The conservative Christian Democrats, also previously opposed, likewise voted to support NATO membership at their October 2015 party meeting. When the nationalist Sweden Democrats adjusted their stance in December 2020 to allow for NATO membership if coordinated with neighboring Finland and ratified in a referendum, a majority of the members of the Swedish Riksdag for the first time belonged to parties that were open to NATO membership, and a motion to allow for future NATO membership passed the parliament that month by 204 votes to 145.


title: Sweden–NATO relations

text: However, many political positions on NATO membership were reviewed since the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The nationalist Sweden Democrats revised their stance in April 2022 and announced that they would support Swedish membership in NATO if Finland also joins. Around the same time, the ruling Swedish Social Democratic Party announced that they would be conducting an internal dialogue on NATO membership, for a second time in 6 months. The first time, the party decided to oppose membership. However, on 15 May 2022 they announced that they would now support an application to join the organization. Of their coalition partners, the Green Party remain opposed, while the Left Party would like to hold a referendum on the subject, something Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson and the leading opposition Moderate party have opposed.


title: Sweden–NATO relations

text: On 17 May 2022, Ann Linde, Sweden's foreign minister, signed Sweden's application to join NATO, following Finland's earlier intention to join NATO. On 18 May 2022, both countries formally applied to join NATO.


title: Sweden–NATO relations

text: Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan voiced his opposition to Finland and Sweden joining NATO, saying that it would be "impossible" for Turkey to support their application while the two countries allow groups which Turkey classifies as terrorist organizations, including the Kurdish militant groups Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), Democratic Union Party (Syria) (PYD), and People's Defense Units (YPG) and the supporters of Fethullah Gülen, a US-based Muslim cleric accused by Turkey of orchestrating a failed 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt, to operate on their territory. (The PKK is on the European Union's list of terrorist organizations and Sweden was the first country after Turkey to label them as such in 1984.) Turkey has requested the extradition of several members of the PKK from the Nordic countries. People that Turkey has requested to be extradited include independent Member of the Swedish Parliament Amineh Kakabaveh due to her support of Kurdish organisations, writer and poet Mehmet Sıraç Bilgin (who died in 2015) and the Turkish publisher and Human Rights activist Ragip Zarakolu. In addition, the Turkish government has demanded that the arms embargo imposed by the Finnish and Swedish governments in response to its operations against the YPG in Syria be lifted, and the dismissal of defence minister Peter Hultqvist due to a meeting dating back to 2011 with members of the PKK. Turkey's demands for extradition of Kurdish and other political dissidents has been met with hostility by Kurdish activists and some human rights organizations, due to Turkey's poor human rights record and suppression of the Kurdish minority in Turkey. On May 18, 2022, Turkey quickly prevented Finland and Sweden from starting NATO membership negotiations.


title: Sweden–NATO relations

text: Opposition parties CHP and HDP in Turkey announced that they support the membership of Finland and Sweden. The ruling parties in Turkey, the AKP and MHP have announced that they will not support the membership of Finland and Sweden. Turkey asked Finland and Sweden to end their support for the PKK, PYD, YPG and Gülen movement and to cease their activities.


title: Sweden–NATO relations

text: The position of the governing Social Democratic Party is complicated by the fact that it relies on the support of Kakabaveh, who is of Iranian Kurdish descent, to retain the confidence of the Riksdag for their minority government. Kakabaveh was a member of the Kurdish guerilla Komala in Iran since her youth, and took refuge in Sweden at the age of nineteen. In the 2021 Swedish government crisis, Kakabaveh only agreed to support the formation of a government headed by Magdalena Andersson after some political demands concerning support for Syrian Kurds were met. She is opposed to the NATO accession of Sweden, due to her own experiences of war, and is a defender of the Swedish policy of non-alignment. In May she declared that she would no longer support the governing Swedish Social Democratic Party in important votes in the parliament since she considered parts of the previous agreement had not been followed.


title: Sweden–NATO relations

text: Ibrahim Kalin, spokesman for Erdoğan, said that approving Swedish membership was not being ruled out, but that the status of these groups was "a matter of national security for Turkey" and that negotiation would be required. However, after Ibrahim Kalin's statement, Erdoğan reitarated his threat to block Finland's and Sweden's membership applications. NATO leadership and the United States have said they were confident Turkey would not hold up the two countries accession process. Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly also held talks with Turkey to convince the Turkish government of the need for the two Nordic nations integration. On May 20, Ann Linde, Sweden's minister for foreign affairs, pushed back against Erdoğan's claim they support PKK calling it "disinformation", and pointing out Sweden listed PKK as a terrorist organization in 1984, while the EU followed suit in 2002. Spokesperson İbrahim Kalın, who led the talks on behalf of Turkey, stated after the first meeting in Ankara that the process would not progress until Turkey's expectations were met and they did not feel any time pressure on them. After a delegation consisting of Swedish and Finnish diplomats held talks on the matter with its Turkish counterparts, Erdogan repeated that he would not consent to their accession bid as the same day the talks were held in Ankara, Salih Muslim, who is considered a terrorist by Erdogan, appeared on Swedish television. Nationalist Movement Party leader Devlet Bahçeli suggested that a scenario in which Turkey would leave NATO should be considered an option, in which case a new military alliance could be founded. In late May 2022, opposition leader Kemal Kiliçdaroglu argued that in case the accession row persisted and AKP and MHP decided to close the Inçirlik Airbase, the CHP would support this.


title: Sweden–NATO relations

text: To address Turkey's concerns, in June Sweden pointed to reforms to its anti-terrorism laws which will come into force on 1 July, and announced that it would review its policies on weapons exports to reflect its NATO membership. Meanwhile, Finnish president Sauli Niinistö stated that his country would not move forward with their application without Sweden, and that the two countries would join NATO "hand in hand".


title: Sweden–NATO relations

text: At the 2022 Madrid summit, Andersson, Niinistö, and Erdoğan signed an agreement to address Turkey's security concerns, and Niinistö announced that Turkey had agreed to support membership of NATO for Finland and Sweden. While NATO members unanimously agreed to formally invite the counties to join the following day and the accession protocols for Sweden and Finland to join the alliance were signed on 5 July, Erdogan reiterated his threat to veto of their membership, stating that he expected the applicant countries to meet their obligations under the agreement before Turkey's parliament would consider approving their accession protocol. Finland, Sweden, and Turkey held their first trilateral memorandum meeting on 26 August 2022 in Vantaa, Finland. The second memorandum meeting between Finland, Sweden and Turkey was held on 25 November 2022 in Stockholm, Sweden.


title: Sweden–NATO relations

text: Turkey has announced that it will not approve NATO membership in the Turkish Grand National Assembly if Finland and Sweden do not fulfill their triple memorandum commitments.


title: Sweden–NATO relations

text: By November, Sweden's NATO membership had been ratified by 28 out of 30 member states, with only Hungary and Turkey yet to complete their procedures. During the process of application, Sweden held elections resulting in a center-right government that pledged to continue the NATO process, reaffirming a united front with Finland's application, and suggesting that they would be more able to meet Turkish requirements. On 24 November 2022 Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban announced he was backing Sweden and Finland's accession to NATO, promising Hungary will ratify NATO membership in January.


title: Sweden–NATO relations

text: The ratification process began with the invitation of Finland and Sweden to become members at the NATO summit in Madrid. Member negotiations were held on 4 July, and the Accession Protocols were signed in Brussels on the 5th.


title: National Air and Space Museum

text: The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, also called the Air and Space Museum, is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States.


title: National Air and Space Museum

text: Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, it opened its main building on the National Mall near L'Enfant Plaza in 1976. In 2018, the museum saw about 6.2 million visitors, making it the fifth-most-visited museum in the world, and the second-most-visited museum in the United States. In 2020, due to long closures and a drop in foreign tourism caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, museum attendance dropped to 267,000.


title: National Air and Space Museum

text: The National Air and Space Museum is a center for research into the history and science of aviation and spaceflight, as well as planetary science and terrestrial geology and geophysics. Almost all spacecraft and aircraft on display are originals or the original backup craft. The museum contains the Apollo 11 Command Module "Columbia", the "Friendship 7" capsule which was flown by John Glenn, Charles Lindbergh's "Spirit of St. Louis", the Bell X-1 which broke the sound barrier, the model of the starship "Enterprise" used in the science fiction television show "", and the Wright brothers "Wright Flyer" airplane near the entrance.


title: National Air and Space Museum

text: The museum operates a annex, the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, at Dulles International Airport. It includes the Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar, which houses the museum's restoration and archival activities. Other preservation and restoration efforts take place at the Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration, and Storage Facility in Suitland, Maryland.


title: National Air and Space Museum

text: As of October 2022, the main museum complex on the National Mall was undergoing renovation that closed some spaces.


title: National Air and Space Museum

text: The Air and Space Museum was originally called the National Air Museum when formed on August 12, 1946, by an act of Congress and signed into law by President Harry S. Truman. Some pieces in the National Air and Space Museum collection date back to the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia after which the Chinese Imperial Commission donated a group of kites to the Smithsonian after Smithsonian Secretary Spencer Fullerton Baird convinced exhibiters that shipping them home would be too costly. The Stringfellow steam engine intended for aircraft was added to the collection in 1989, the first piece actively acquired by the Smithsonian now in the current NASM collection.


title: National Air and Space Museum

text: After the establishment of the museum, there was no one building that could hold all the items to be displayed, many obtained from the United States Army and United States Navy collections of domestic and captured aircraft from World War I. Some pieces were on display in the Arts and Industries Building, some were stored in the Aircraft Building (also known as the "Tin Shed"), a large temporary metal shed in the Smithsonian Castle's south yard. Larger missiles and rockets were displayed outdoors in what was known as Rocket Row. The shed housed a large Martin bomber, a LePere fighter-bomber, and an Aeromarine 39B floatplane. Still, much of the collection remained in storage due to a lack of display space.


title: National Air and Space Museum

text: The combination of the large numbers of aircraft donated to the Smithsonian after World War II and the need for hangar and factory space for the Korean War drove the Smithsonian to look for its own facility to store and restore aircraft. The current Garber Facility was ceded to the Smithsonian by the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission in 1952 after the curator Paul E. Garber spotted the wooded area from the air. Bulldozers from Fort Belvoir and prefabricated buildings from the United States Navy kept the initial costs low.


title: National Air and Space Museum

text: The museum's prominent site on the National Mall once housed the city's armory, which became Armory Square Hospital during the Civil War; it nursed the worst wounded cases who were transported to Washington after battles. The rest of the site was occupied by a cluster of temporary war buildings that existed from World War I until the 1960s.


title: National Air and Space Museum

text: The space race in the 1950s and 1960s led to the renaming of the museum to the National Air and Space Museum, and finally congressional passage of appropriations for the construction of the new exhibition hall, which opened July 1, 1976 at the height of the United States Bicentennial festivities under the leadership of Director Michael Collins, who had flown to the Moon on Apollo 11.


title: National Air and Space Museum

text: In 1988, a glass-enclosed pavilion named the Wright Place was constructed and opened at the east end of the museum. It contained a restaurant known as Flight Lane, but the restaurant closed in 2001 and reopened as a food court on May 24, 2002, with McDonald's (later added with a McCafé), Boston Market, and Donato's Pizza serving as the tenants.


title: National Air and Space Museum

text: The museum received COSTAR, the corrective optics instrument installed in the Hubble Space Telescope during its first servicing mission (STS-61), when it was removed and returned to Earth after Space Shuttle mission STS-125. The museum also holds the backup mirror for the Hubble which, unlike the one that was launched, was ground to the correct shape. There were once plans for it to be installed to the Hubble itself, but plans to return the satellite to Earth were scrapped after the Space Shuttle "Columbia" disaster in 2003; the mission was re-considered as too risky.


title: National Air and Space Museum

text: The Smithsonian has also been promised the International Cometary Explorer, which is currently in a solar orbit that occasionally brings it back to Earth, should NASA attempt to recover it.