title: Norman's Cay

text: As part of the Medellín Cartel, Lehder used the island as a transshipment base for smuggling cocaine into the United States. Lehder, before with his partner George Jung and later through Norman's Cay, is often credited with revolutionizing drug smuggling. The typical method of transporting small shipments, often carried by human drug mules, either through ingestion or in their luggage, onto commercial airlines, was surpassed by the use of small aircraft shipping entire loads of cocaine.


title: Norman's Cay

text: Lehder eventually extended the airstrip to a length of for his fleet of aircraft. In order to protect the island, armed guards and attack dogs patrolled the beaches and runway, and radar was employed. Any pilot foolish enough to land there was quickly warned off by heavily armed guards. The island was a strategic point for Colombian drug flights to refuel and rest before proceeding to the United States.


title: Norman's Cay

text: The island became a location for partying. Carlos Toro, a friend of Lehder's who worked as a representative for the Medellín Cartel, remembered that "Norman's Cay was a playground. I have a vivid picture of being picked up in a Land Rover with the top down and naked women driving to come and welcome me from my airplane... And there we partied. And it was a Sodom and Gomorrah... drugs, sex, no police... you made the rules... and it was fun."


title: Norman's Cay

text: Marine biologist Richard E. Novak, the island's former dive master, fought back, waging a heroic but ultimately futile one-man war to liberate Norman's Cay. Not until 1982, under pressure from US law enforcement, and despite years of turning a blind eye, did the Bahamian government begin to crack down on the island's drug smuggling operations. In 1987, after Lehder was arrested in Colombia and extradited to stand trial in the U.S., his property was confiscated. It is now a tourist destination reachable by charter flight.


title: Norman's Cay

text: The island was again a subject of controversy when the newly elected Progressive Liberal government honored a pre-election in-principle agreement to sell the government-owned portion of the island, valued at $40.5 million, despite the objections of the local MP. The government believes it may encourage further foreign investment.


title: Norman's Cay

text: The island's consortium of local and foreign owners, including Bahamians Mark Holowesko, Martin Solomon, Greg Cleare, James Cole, US investor J. Steven Manolis and Jonathan Breene, had planned to include a resort chain Aman Resorts. The island has purportedly been sold to the Miami-based Fort Capital Group.


title: Norman's Cay

text: In 2017, Billy McFarland arranged to lease the island from its owners to hold the Fyre Festival, with the Cay's owners giving the strict condition that McFarland make no reference to Pablo Escobar's connection (via the Medellín Cartel). Promotional footage for the festival was shot on Norman's Cay, and planning for the festival went ahead. In early 2017, the video was released on social media, which (erroneously) advertised the island as "once owned by Pablo Escobar". The owners immediately cancelled the arrangement, and on short notice, planning was relocated to Great Exuma.


title: Norman's Cay

text: The island is served by Norman's Cay Airport. As of 2018, the airport has no commercial airline service.


title: Georgia King

text: Although King grew up dreaming of being a director, she got her break into acting when she was 18 and still working at a cheese shop, making her professional debut as Rosamond Oliver in "Jane Eyre". It was her very first audition "and I booked it," she said. "I was like, 'Oh my Lord, this is amazing!'" However, she was nearly unable to play the role. A source stated that "a week before the day she began filming, King felt stomach pains, then had her appendix rupture. Her agent told the producers that she was unlikely to recover from the operation to remove it for at least ten days." Another actress was cast, but King recovered in time and was able to get the required medical clearance to film.


title: Georgia King

text: She is best known as Goldie, a surrogate mother in the American sitcom, "The New Normal". Formerly, she was well known for her acclaimed performance as the tyrannical head-girl Harriet Bentley in 2008's "Wild Child", and as cruel, conniving Sophie in the 2009 slasher film "Tormented". Also in 2009 King received positive acclaim for her performance as the manipulative Victoria in the film "Tanner Hall". She also performed in "One Night in November" at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, from October to November 2010, as well as being featured in the 2011 film "Chalet Girl". She appeared as Princess Elena in the episode "The Changeling" of the third series of the BBC's "Merlin". She appeared in the comedy horror film "Cockneys vs Zombies" as a bank robbery hostage trying to escape from a zombie-infested London.


title: Georgia King

text: King also appeared as series regular Amanda Snodgrass across both seasons in the 2016–2017 HBO comedy "Vice Principals".


title: Jadis (The Walking Dead)

text: Jadis (also known as Anne and later Jadis Stokes) is a fictional character from the horror drama television series "The Walking Dead" and "", which air on AMC in the United States and are based on the comic book series of the same name. She is portrayed by Pollyanna McIntosh. Jadis is an original character in the television series and has no counterpart in the comics.


title: Jadis (The Walking Dead)

text: Jadis is initially introduced as the oddly-spoken and enigmatic leader of the Scavengers. She is calm and collected, but also very cunning and sly. Though she originally only speaks in contrived broken English (and complains that others talk too much), she reverts to full sentences following the murders of the Scavengers, by Simon and members of the Saviors. Later, as Anne, she is a fully accepted member of the Alexandria community, beginning in season 9, and starts a relationship with Fr. Gabriel Stokes, which does not last the full run of the season. She keeps secret details of her connection with a mysterious organization still flying helicopters many years into the apocalypse and eventually leaves to rejoin them, taking a critically injured Rick Grimes with her by helicopter. In "The Walking Dead: World Beyond", Jadis has become completely loyal to the CRM and is hardened and ruthless in her actions. Jadis tells Huck that she truly believes that the CRM is the last light in the world and that they must be allowed to succeed in their plans.


title: Jadis (The Walking Dead)

text: In the mid-season premiere "Rock in the Road", Jadis's group kidnapped Gabriel and then ambushed Rick's team as they searched for him. In the episode "New Best Friends", when asked by Rick to join forces to defeat the Saviors, Jadis is reluctant but takes it into consideration after being told that they could gain more supplies. Jadis tells Rick he needs to prove his worth and she pushes him down a trash heap into a pit of trash and metal. After watching Rick kill a heavily armored walker, she tells him that she and her people will help him, but that they need a lot of guns. In the episode "Say Yes", when Rick's group delivers 63 guns to her, she tells him that it is not enough, claiming they need nearly twice as many guns. Rick and Jadis renegotiate and agree that he will keep 20 of the guns while he searches for more. He finds the needed guns at Oceanside in the episode "Something They Need", seemingly clinching the Scavengers' support. In the season finale "The First Day of the Rest of Your Life", on the day of the battle, she crudely propositions Rick upon arrival at Alexandria. Together, the Scavengers and the Alexandrians wire up bombs at the gates ready for the enemy. When the explosion fails as Negan and his men wait by the gates, Jadis pulls a gun on Rick and the Scavengers follow suit with the rest of the Alexandrians. She reveals that she told Negan of Rick's plan and was offered a "better deal" by the Saviors. When the Saviors get distracted by the re-animated Sasha, Rick attempts to make another deal with her, but Jadis refuses and shoots him in the abdomen; she pushes him off the platform. During the battle, she flees with her group through smoke bombs.


title: Jadis (The Walking Dead)

text: In the episode "The King, the Widow, and Rick", after the war between the Saviors and the banded survivors has begun, Rick again attempts to get Jadis on his side. She imprisons him in a shipping container. In the episode "Time for After", Jadis releases him to fight with another armed walker. He decapitates the walker and disarms her men, giving her new terms which she appears to accept. In the mid-season finale "How It's Gotta Be", Rick is abandoned by Jadis and her Scavengers when they discover the aftermath of Daryl's attack on the Sanctuary and are fired on by Savior soldiers.


title: Jadis (The Walking Dead)

text: In the episode "The Lost and the Plunderers", Simon, not pleased with Negan's approach and knowing the Hilltop has the rest of his 38 men in captivity, goes to the Scavengers' junkyard and accuses Jadis of going back on their deal with the Saviors, but gives her Negan's offer of returning to the original terms of their deal and giving over all their guns. Jadis agrees, but Simon does not believe Jadis is showing enough remorse and kills her two lieutenants, Tamiel and Brion, in cold blood. She punches him, causing Simon to then order his men to kill the rest of the Scavengers. By the time Rick and Michonne arrive at the junkyard, all of the Scavengers but Jadis have reanimated. They find Jadis alone, having dropped her aloof nature. She explains that she had been an artist before the outbreak, having used the junkyard for materials, but afterwards, she and the Scavengers saw the junkyard as a way to keep themselves isolated from the rest of the world while using the entire yard as their canvas.


title: Jadis (The Walking Dead)

text: Rick, tired of Jadis' double-crosses, decides to abandon her as he and Michonne escape. Jadis lures the remaining walkers into an industrial shredder to protect herself, crying to herself as she watches her former friends be destroyed. In the episode "The Key", Jadis captures Negan at gunpoint. In the episode "Still Gotta Mean Something", in flashback, Jadis plays dead to save herself from the massacre of the Scavengers by Simon and the Saviors. In the present, she takes time to compose herself before collecting a captive Negan and carrying his modified baseball bat, "Lucille", and a suitcase. Negan tries to apologize for what happened to her people, recognizing that Simon had gone against his orders in wiping out the Scavengers, but Jadis is steadfast and still threatens to kill him. While she is out of sight, he is able to access her suitcase, containing a gun and pictures from her past, convincing her to talk lest he destroy them with a flare. He reveals that he named his bat after his late wife, Lucille, and, like Jadis' pictures, his bat is the last thing he has to remember his previous life. Jadis suddenly rushes him, more to get at the flare, but it is knocked out of their hands into a puddle, and extinguishes. She runs off to get another flare as a helicopter hovers briefly overhead before disappearing, too late to see Jadis' second flare. Jadis breaks down into tears. Jadis lets Negan go; he offers her to come with him and follow a new path, but she refuses. In the season finale "Wrath", Jadis tells Morgan that he can call her "Anne". Morgan comes to the junkyard and tells her she can go anywhere she wants now that Negan has been defeated, so she leaves, but he stays in her place.


title: Jadis (The Walking Dead)

text: In the season premiere "A New Beginning," Anne, now a fully accepted member of the Alexandria community, joins a supply run into Washington, D.C. Having visited the Smithsonian Museum once with her class when she was still a teacher, Anne is able to lead the group to a cache of supplies in the basement of the museum. On their return, they find the bridge to Hilltop is out, and Rick develops a plan to rebuild it. In the episode "The Bridge", Anne helps with this reconstruction, during which she and Father Gabriel start to discover feelings for each other. However, while on watch one night, she spots a helicopter flying overhead. In the episode "Warning Signs", the next day she departs from the construction camp, unaware Gabriel is following her. Back at the scrapyard, she recovers a walkie-talkie and talks to an unidentified man on the other end. The man tells her she missed her pickup and they will only pick her up if she brings an "A" with her. Anne discovers Gabriel and subdues him. In the episode "The Obliged", she prepares to feed Gabriel to a walker but cannot come to do it, but she still tells the man on the other end of the walkie-talkie that she has his "A". Gabriel recognizes that Anne has been engaging in human trafficking, but she lets him go while she flees to meet with the helicopter. In the episode "What Comes After", she races to the meeting point, insisting to the man she still has her "A". While waiting at the site, she witnesses the smoke set up by Rick's destruction of the bridge, and among the various walker bodies that float down river, she finds a heavily-wounded Rick washed ashore. She reports to the landing helicopter that she has a "B" and he needs their help. Anne and Rick are loaded on the helicopter and taken away.


title: Jadis (The Walking Dead)

text: Jadis first appears in a mid-credits scene in the episode "Quatervois", revealing that Lieutenant Colonel Elizabeth Kublek has been recalled to the Civic Republic and that she is now in charge of the Civic Republic Military (CRM) research facility for the time being. Now a warrant officer in the CRM, she is going by the name of Jadis Stokes. Jadis has now become a full believer in the CRM cause, stating that the CRM truly is the last light in the world. In the episode "Who Are You?", while talking with Huck, Jadis confirms that her real name is not in fact Jadis, but "that name - that identity - it helped me live so Jadis is who I am." Jadis tells Huck, who used to be her mentor, that she has spent six years with the CRM at this point and she briefly mentions several events such as being the leader of a group and their massacre. Jadis also states that she had traded "something very valuable" to get a new life with the CRM. Jadis later tells Huck in the series finale "The Last Light" that while she had an 'A', she lied and said that they were a 'B' because she owed them more then letting them become a test subject in the CRM's experiments.


title: Jadis (The Walking Dead)

text: In "Who Are You?", Jadis begins running a full security audit which is interrupted by the theft of a vial of a variant of chlorine gas. After Silas Plaskett is captured, Jadis personally interrogates him and grows to like the young man, showing an interest in him as a future CRM soldier. In the episode "Blood and Lies", Jadis releases him into the custody of Dennis Graham who backs up Silas' story despite knowing that he is actually lying. Recognizing Jadis, Dennis is clearly not pleased to see her or to learn of her investigation. Working with Huck, she interrogates Dr. Leo Bennett, only to have Dr. Lyla Belshaw reveal that Leo had stolen the vial and the true nature of her secret work which involves studying reanimation as it happens in her test subjects, many of whom have been killed by the CRM either directly or indirectly. After pressuring Leo into agreeing to work for them on the project, Jadis reveals that she had always known the truth and was testing Huck's allegiance and using the situation to back Leo into a corner. On Jadis' orders, Huck reluctantly kills Lyla by unleashing one of her own test subjects, Barca, onto her while Jadis mocks the dying scientist. With Huck having proved her allegiance and earned her full trust, Jadis reveals to her the next stage of the CRM's plan: wipe out the survivor settlement in Portland, Oregon which is over 87,000 people.


title: Jadis (The Walking Dead)

text: In the episode "Returning Point", as the scientists begin their rebellion after learning the truth from Leo, Jadis has the facility locked down in order to "learn how far the rot has spread," resulting in the Bennett's, Percy, Felix, the scientists, their bodyguards and a captured Mason Beale getting locked in the bio-containment unit. However, the facility's own lockdown protocols prevent Jadis and her men from reaching them for a few hours until the system can be rebooted. Brody, one of the council of the nearby artist community known as the Perimeter, betrays his people and reveals their alliance with the Endlings to Jadis, causing her to send men to kill everyone in the Perimeter. However, Huck kills Brody after he tries to blackmail her into securing him a permanent home in the Civic Republic. The Perimeter's leader Indira tries to talk Jadis down and although Jadis respects Indira for her art, referencing her past as the leader of the Scavengers, Jadis believes that Indira and her people cannot survive for long in this world and that their destruction by a larger group is as inevitable as the destruction of the Scavengers was. Jadis orders her men to carry out the execution, but the intervention of Will Campbell, Dennis Graham and Silas Plaskett leads to the deaths of all of her men with only a few losses on the other side. At the same time, the scientists escape into the old mining tunnels below the facility, setting C4 charges to cover their escape. Jadis reports to Huck that the scientists have wiped all of their research from the facility's mainframe and are trying to take it with them in a full rebellion. Concerned that such a betrayal could lead to the end of everything that they have built, Jadis orders her men into the tunnels where they are to kill everyone as an example to those who come after them. In the episode "Death and the Dead", when the scientists escape the area, they are cornered by Jadis and several soldiers. Jadis attempts to convince Iris to stop the rebellion, but she refuses, saying the CRM are evil, citing the genocide of Omaha and the Campus Colony as an example. Jadis defends the destruction of Omaha and the Campus Colony, saying they and Portland have become too reliant on the Civic Republic and will eventually fall to famine and disease, so the CRM destroyed Omaha and the Campus Colony as well as planning on destroying Portland as a form of euthanasia to spare the residents the famine and disease that will eventually befall Omaha, the Campus Colony and Portland. In "The Last Light", when Iris still refuses to surrender, Jadis orders the soldiers to open fire on the Iris and the scientists. Huck then turns on Jadis, shooting several of the soldiers and buying Iris and the scientists time to escape. Fleeing back into the research facility, Jadis and Huck fight, which Jadis wins by stabbing Huck in the stomach with a knife. However, Huck revealed that she has rigged the research facility with explosives timed to explode soon. Jadis quickly flees the scene in a helicopter as the facility explodes, destroying the final sources of chlorine gas.


title: Jadis (The Walking Dead)

text: Back at the Civic Republic, Jadis meets with Kublek, who she charges with treason against the Civic Republic and has her sentenced to prison. Silas later joins the CRM to become a soldier, but also to act as a secret informant, unbeknownst to Jadis, who takes him on as her protégé.


title: Jadis (The Walking Dead)

text: Pollyanna McIntosh appears as Jadis in what was initially just a recurring role in 3 episodes of "The Walking Dead"'s seventh season. However, for the eighth season of the show she was promoted to the main cast.


title: Jadis (The Walking Dead)

text: Ron Hagan for "Den of Geek!" in his review of season 7 episode "Something They Need" said, "Jadis and the garbage men (best band name ever) are a prime example of the writers having a little fun with the show, creating a new faction that is both wholly original and fits in with the overall mythology of the show." Kevin Fitzpatrick of "Screen Crush" reviewed the season finale "The First Day of the Rest of Your Life" and said that "there's a notable dichotomy between treating that reveal [of Sasha's death] as a moment of surprise, and having Jadis and the junkyard folks' betrayal actually catch viewers off-guard. The outbreak of war itself isn't any major shock, nor is the lack of any notable casualties, but a non-comic element like Jadis felt like the one true wild card in an otherwise predictable showdown." He also commented that "as much as Jadis' interaction with Negan reiterates the amusing distinction* her group provides, the 'Heapsters' heel-turn does mean we spent two or three episodes building these characters up as allies, only to have them turn with little explanation, and essentially guarantee their role as enemies next season" and that "Jadis' proposition to 'lay with' Rick offered another wonderful moment of weirdness for this oddly monosyllabic group, but why even bother, given what she knew of how the exchange would go down?" Blair Marnell of CraveOnline commented on how "Jadis and her Scavengers had betrayed Rick's group to the Saviors. Really? You mean it wasn’t a good idea to hunt down guns and give them to these cartoon psychos that they barely knew? There are times when the TV show improves upon the comic book’s storyline, but this was not one of those occasions. From the start, the Scavengers have felt out of place on this series, and it would have been refreshing to see all of them end up as tiger food." Marnell also said that "At least Jadis had a very funny moment in which she propositioned Rick right in front of Michonne and basically asked if Michonne had a problem with that. The facial expressions of Danai Gurira and Andrew Lincoln were really priceless. That take on Jadis could have had more potential, if all of her followers didn't also have the same strange way of speaking. There was simply nothing more to Jadis or the Scavengers other than their bizarre trash motif." Stuart Jeffries of "The Guardian" called her hairstyle "the fringe that's an unwitting homage to King Henry V of England c1415" and said that "Jadis and her gang turned their guns on the Alexandrians. Even Michonne found herself in the cross hairs of a former ally on the roof. Why did it have to be this way, Jadis, why? 'I got a better deal,' quoth she. Just hope, for her sake, the deal she struck with Negan includes a few hours at a top salon, if you catch my drift." Elise Nakhnikian of "Slant Magazine" was critical that "the mystery isn't so much why Jadis betrayed Rick as why he ever trusted her in the first place. She clearly never gave a damn about his safety or well-being, tossing him off her trash heap to fight with the armored walker on their first meeting, and she was a mercurial and unreasonable trading partner, insisting that Rick's people go back for more guns after they'd risked so much to bring her the first batch. Yet he keeps trying to negotiate with her even after she shoots him, offering to strike a new deal until she casually pushes him off yet another high platform, annoyed that he failed to obey her command to kneel down."


title: Jadis (The Walking Dead)

text: Zack Handlen of "The A.V. Club" reviewed the season eight episode "Time for After" and said: "After capitulating to Rick because he beat up some people, Jadis tries negotiating. She wants to sculpt him in the nude. He refuses, and while I get that posing naked in a garbage dump for strangers isn’t everybody’s idea of a good time, I’m a little disappointed." Steve Ford of "TV Fanatic" reviewed the same episode, saying "It was interesting how Jadis came around after having her face inches away from that walker head's gnawing teeth. Perhaps she admires Rick's tenacity. However, I wouldn't put it past Jadis to turn on Rick yet again, but I think she'll follow Rick at least for the time being. "


title: Jadis (The Walking Dead)

text: The season 9 episode "What Comes After" marked the last appearance of both Andrew Lincoln (Rick Grimes) as well as Pollyanna McIntosh (Jadis/Anne). Both actors have been confirmed to take a role in a series of three AMC Original Films to continue Rick's story, with production on the first to initially start in 2019. Lincoln had been working with Scott Gimple, the former showrunner and now current content manager for all of AMC's "The Walking Dead" properties, about how Rick's story could continue for some time. They had established early on that it needed to involve Jadis and the helicopter, and established these elements in earlier seasons to prepare for this point.


title: Jadis (The Walking Dead)

text: On the role in "The Walking Dead: World Beyond", AMC Network's Scott Gimple confirmed in a press release: "In our story, years have passed—we'll get hints of what happened with that fateful helicopter ride and learn Jadis has new allies and alliances; she is a big part of connecting the CRM and Three Circles mythology that's seen throughout all three series. We can't wait to share it all with fans of the TWDU."


title: Jadis (The Walking Dead)

text: Writing about the return, Alec Bojalad for Den of Geek said that Jadis has come a long way since, "First introduced as a quite literal garbage person in The Walking Dead season 7, Jadis received the honor of being the character that brought Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) to safety so that he could live another day…and get his own spinoff movie franchise. Now the character is on to big things once again." Bojalad speculated that the new role could be setting up the movie spin-off.


title: Jadis (The Walking Dead)

text: McIntosh said of her return: "I love the character of Jadis, and I love this world, so getting to inhabit her again in collaboration with the talented team at The Walking Dead: World Beyond in beautiful Richmond, Virginia was a joy."


title: Jadis (The Walking Dead)

text: Walking Dead Chief Content Officer Scott Gimple has said that McIntosh as Jadis/Anne is planned to appear in the upcoming movie spin-offs, telling the story of what happened after Rick and Jadis departed in a helicopter.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Junichiro Koizumi (; , "Koizumi Jun'ichirō" ; born 8 January 1942) is a former Japanese politician who was Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from 2001 to 2006. He retired from politics in 2009. He is the sixth-longest serving Prime Minister in Japanese history.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Widely seen as a maverick leader of the LDP upon his election to the position in 2001, he became known as a neoliberal economic reformer, focusing on reducing Japan's government debt and the privatisation of its postal service. In the 2005 election, Koizumi led the LDP to win one of the largest parliamentary majorities in modern Japanese history. Koizumi also attracted international attention through his deployment of the Japan Self-Defense Forces to Iraq, and through his visits to the Yasukuni Shrine that fueled diplomatic tensions with neighbouring China and South Korea. Koizumi resigned as Prime Minister in 2006.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Although Koizumi maintained a low profile for several years after he left office, he returned to national attention in 2013 as an advocate for abandoning nuclear power in Japan, in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, which contrasted with the pro-nuclear views espoused by the LDP governments both during and after Koizumi's term in office.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Koizumi is a third-generation politician of the Koizumi family. His father, Jun'ya Koizumi, was director general of the Japan Defense Agency (now Minister of Defense) and a member of the House of Representatives. His grandfather, Koizumi Matajirō, called "Tattoo Minister" because of the big tattoo on his body, and the leader of Koizumi Gumi in Kanagawa (a big group of "yakuza"), was Minister of Posts and Telecommunications under Prime Ministers Hamaguchi and Wakatsuki and an early advocate of postal privatization.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Born in Yokosuka, Kanagawa on 8 January 1942, Koizumi was educated at Yokosuka High School. He graduated with a Bachelor of Economics degree from Keio University. He attended University College London before returning to Japan in August 1969 upon the death of his father.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: He stood for election to the lower house in December; however, he did not earn enough votes to win election as a Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) representative. In 1970, he was hired as a secretary to Takeo Fukuda, who was Minister of Finance at the time and was elected as Prime Minister in 1976.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: In the general elections of December 1972, Koizumi was elected as a member of the Lower House for the Kanagawa 11th district. He joined Fukuda's faction within the LDP. Since then, he has been re-elected ten times.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Koizumi gained his first senior post in 1979 as Parliamentary Vice Minister of Finance, and his first ministerial post in 1988 as Minister of Health and Welfare under Prime Ministers Noboru Takeshita and Sōsuke Uno. He held cabinet posts again in 1992 (Minister of Posts and Telecommunications in the Miyazawa cabinet) and 1996–1998 (Minister of Health and Welfare in the Hashimoto cabinets).


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: In 1994, with the LDP in opposition, Koizumi became part of a new LDP faction, Shinseiki, made up of younger and more motivated parliamentarians led by Taku Yamasaki, Koichi Kato and Koizumi, a group popularly dubbed "YKK" after the zipper manufacturer YKK.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: After Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa resigned in 1994 and the LDP returned to power in a coalition government, Koizumi and Hosokawa teamed up with Shusei Tanaka of New Party Sakigake in a strategic dialogue across party lines regarding Japan becoming a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Although this idea was not popular within the LDP and never came to fruition, Koizumi and Hosokawa maintained a close working relationship across party lines, with Hosokawa tacitly serving as Koizumi's personal envoy to China during times of strained Sino-Japanese relations.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Koizumi competed for the presidency of the LDP in September 1995 and July 1998, but he gained little support losing decisively to Ryutaro Hashimoto and then Keizō Obuchi, both of whom had broader bases of support within the party. However, after Yamasaki and Kato were humiliated in a disastrous attempt to force a vote of no confidence against Prime Minister Yoshirō Mori in 2000, Koizumi became the last remaining credible member of the YKK trio, which gave him leverage over the reform-minded wing of the party.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: On 24 April 2001, Koizumi was elected president of the LDP. He was initially considered an outside candidate against Hashimoto, who was running for his second term as Prime Minister. However, in the first poll of prefectural party organizations, Koizumi won 87 to 11 percent; in the second vote of Diet members, Koizumi won 51 to 40 percent. He defeated Hashimoto by a final tally of 298 to 155 votes. He was made Prime Minister of Japan on 26 April, and his coalition secured 78 of 121 seats in the Upper House elections in July.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Within Japan, Koizumi pushed for new ways to revitalise the moribund economy, aiming to act against bad debts with commercial banks, privatize the postal savings system, and reorganize the factional structure of the LDP. He spoke of the need for a period of painful restructuring in order to improve the future. To design policy initiatives in 2001 he used the new Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy (Keizai Zaisei Seisaku Tanto Daijin) or CEFP. It issued an annual planning document, "Basic Policies for Economic and Fiscal Management and Reform". It planned a major reorganization of the central government, and shaped economic policy in cooperation with key cabinet members. To meet the challenge of economic stagnation CEFP took an integrated approach, a worldwide economic view, and, promoted greater transparency; its philosophy was neoliberal.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: In the fall of 2002, Koizumi appointed Keio University economist and frequent television commentator Heizō Takenaka as Minister of State for Financial Services and head of the Financial Services Agency (FSA) to fix the country's banking crisis. Bad debts of banks were dramatically cut with the NPL ratio of major banks approaching half the level of 2001. The Japanese economy has been through a slow but steady recovery, and the stock market has dramatically rebounded. The GDP growth for 2004 was one of the highest among G7 nations, according to the International Monetary Fund and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Takenaka was appointed as a Postal Reform Minister in 2004 for the privatization of Japan Post, operator of the country's Postal Savings system.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Koizumi moved the LDP away from its traditional rural agrarian base toward a more urban, neoliberal core, as Japan's population grew in major cities and declined in less populated areas, although under current purely geographical districting, rural votes in Japan are still many times more powerful than urban ones. In addition to the privatization of Japan Post (which many rural residents fear will reduce their access to basic services such as banking), Koizumi also slowed down the LDP's heavy subsidies for infrastructure and industrial development in rural areas. These tensions made Koizumi a controversial but popular figure within his own party and among the Japanese electorate.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Although Koizumi's foreign policy was focused on closer relations with the United States and UN-centered diplomacy, which were adopted by all of his predecessors, he went further, supporting the US policies in the War on Terrorism. He decided to deploy the Japan Self-Defense Forces to Iraq, which was the first military mission in active foreign war zones since the end of the World War II. Many Japanese commentators indicated that the favorable US-Japan relation was based on the Koizumi's personal friendship with the US President George W. Bush. White House officials described the first meeting between Koizumi and Bush at Camp David as "incredibly warm", with the two men playing catch with a baseball. Since leaving office, he has defended his decision to send Japanese troops to Iraq. In the North Korean abductions and nuclear development issues, Koizumi took more assertive attitudes than his predecessors.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Although Koizumi did not initially campaign on the issue of defense reform, he approved the expansion of the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) and in October 2001 they were given greater scope to operate outside of the country. Some of these troops were dispatched to Iraq. Koizumi's government also introduced a bill to upgrade the Defense Agency to ministry status; finally, the Defense Agency became the Japanese Ministry of Defense on 9 January 2007.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Koizumi has often been noted for his controversial visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, starting on 13 August 2001. He visited the shrine six times as prime minister. Because the shrine honors Japan's war dead, which also include many convicted Japanese war criminals and 14 executed Class A war criminals, these visits drew strong condemnation and protests from both Japan's neighbours, mainly China and South Korea, and many Japanese citizens. China and South Korea's people hold bitter memories of Japanese invasion and occupation during the first half of the 20th century. China and South Korea refused to have their representatives meet Koizumi in Japan and their countries. There were no mutual visits between Chinese and Japanese leaders from October 2001, and between South Korean and Japanese leaders from June 2005. The standstill ended when the next prime minister Abe visited China and South Korea in October 2006.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: In China, the visits led to massive anti-Japanese riots. The president, ruling and opposition parties, and much of the media of South Korea openly condemned Koizumi's pilgrimages. Many Koreans applauded the president's speeches criticizing Japan, despite the South Korean President's low popularity. When asked about the reaction, Koizumi said the speeches were "for the domestic (audience)".


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Although Koizumi signed the shrine's visitor book as "Junichiro Koizumi, the Prime Minister of Japan", he claimed that his visits were as a private citizen and not an endorsement of any political stance. China and Korea considered this excuse insufficient. Several journals and news reports in Japan, such as one published by Kyodo News Agency on 15 August 2006, questioned Koizumi's statement of private purpose, as he recorded his position on the shrine's guestbook as prime minister. He visited the shrine annually in fulfillment of a campaign pledge. Koizumi's last visit as prime minister was on 15 August 2006, fulfilling a campaign pledge to visit on the anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Eleven months after his resignation as prime minister, Koizumi revisited the shrine on 15 August 2007, to mark the 62nd anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II. His 2007 visit attracted less attention from the media than his prior visits while he was in office.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: On 15 August 2005, the sixtieth anniversary of the end of World War II, Koizumi publicly stated that "I would like to express keen remorse and heartfelt apologies" and vowed Japan would never again take "the path to war". However, Koizumi was criticized for actions which allegedly ran contrary to this expression of remorse (e.g. the Yasukuni visits), which resulted in worsening relations with China and South Korea.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Koizumi was at certain points in his tenure an extremely popular leader. Most people know him very well due to his trademark wavy grey hair. His outspoken nature and colourful past contributed to that; his nicknames included "Lionheart", due to his hair style and fierce spirit, and "Maverick". During his tenure in office, the Japanese public referred to him as "Jun-chan" (the suffix "chan" in the Japanese language is used as a term of familiarity, typically between children, "Jun" is a contraction of Junichiro). In June 2001, he enjoyed an approval rating of 80 percent.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: In January 2002, Koizumi fired his popular Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka, replacing her with Yoriko Kawaguchi. A few days before the sacking of Tanaka, when she was filmed crying after a dispute with government officials, Koizumi generated controversy with his statement "tears are women's ultimate weapons". Following an economic slump and a series of LDP scandals that claimed the career of YKK member Koichi Kato, by April Koizumi's popularity rating had fallen 30 percentage points since his nomination as prime minister.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Koizumi was re-elected in 2003 and his popularity surged as the economy recovered. His proposal to cut pension benefits as a move to fiscal reform turned out to be highly unpopular. Two visits to North Korea to solve the issue of abducted Japanese nationals only somewhat raised his popularity, as he could not secure several abductees' returns to Japan. In the House of Councilors elections in 2004, the LDP performed only marginally better than the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), winning 32 more seats than the latter obtained.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: In 2005, the House of Councilors rejected the contentious postal privatization bills. Koizumi previously made it clear that he would dissolve the lower house if the bill failed to pass. The Democratic Party, while expressing support for the privatization, made a tactical vote against the bill. Fifty-one LDP members also either voted against the bills or abstained.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: On 8 August 2005, Koizumi, as promised, dissolved the House of Representatives and called for snap elections. He expelled rebel LDP members for not supporting the bill. The LDP's chances for success were initially uncertain; the secretary general of New Komeito (a junior coalition partner with Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party) said that his party would entertain forming a coalition government with the Democratic Party of Japan if the DPJ took a majority in the House of Representatives.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Koizumi's popularity rose almost twenty points after he dissolved the House and expelled rebel LDP members. Opinion polls ranked the government's approval ratings between 58 and 65 percent. The electorate saw the election in terms of a vote for or against reform of the postal service, which the Democratic Party and rebel LDP members were seen as being against.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: The September 2005 elections were the LDP's largest victory since 1986, giving the party a large majority in the House of Representatives and nullifying opposing voices in the House of Councilors. In the following Diet session, the last to be held under Koizumi's government, the LDP passed 82 of its 91 proposed bills, including postal privatization. A number of Koizumi-supported candidates known as "Koizumi Children" joined the Diet in this election and supported successive LDP governments until the 2009 elections, when most were defeated.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Koizumi announced that he would step down from office in 2006, per LDP rules, and would not personally choose a successor as many LDP prime ministers have in the past. On 20 September 2006, Shinzo Abe was elected to succeed Koizumi as president of the LDP. Abe succeeded Koizumi as prime minister on 26 September 2006.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Koizumi remained in the Diet through the administrations of Abe and Yasuo Fukuda, but announced his retirement from politics on 25 September 2008, shortly following the election of Taro Aso as Prime Minister. He retained his Diet seat until the next general election, when his son Shinjiro was elected into the same seat representing the Kanagawa 11th district in 2009. Koizumi supported Yuriko Koike in the LDP leadership election held earlier in September 2008, but Koike placed a distant third.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Since leaving office as prime minister, Koizumi has not granted a single request for an interview or television appearance, although he has given speeches and had private interactions with journalists.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Koizumi returned to the national spotlight in October 2013, after seven years of largely avoiding attention, when he gave a speech to business executives in Nagoya in which he stated: "We should aim to be nuclear-free... If the Liberal Democratic Party were to adopt a zero-nuclear policy, then we'd see a groundswell of support for getting rid of nuclear energy." He recalled Japan's reconstruction in the wake of World War II and called for the country to "unite toward a dream of achieving a society based on renewable energy."


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Koizumi had been a proponent of nuclear power throughout his term as prime minister, and was one of the first pro-nuclear politicians to change his stance on the issue in the wake of the Fukushima disaster of 2011. His dramatic remarks were widely covered in the Japanese media, with some tabloids speculating that he may break away from the LDP to form a new party with his son Shinjiro. Economy Minister Akira Amari characterized Koizumi's stance as pure but simplistic, while other LDP administration officials downplayed the potential impact of Koizumi's views. Former prime minister Naoto Kan, however, expressed hope that Koizumi's status as then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's "boss" would help put pressure on the government to minimize or eliminate nuclear power in Japan.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Koizumi defended his change of stance, stating in November that "it is overly optimistic and much more irresponsible to think nuclear power plants can be maintained just with the completion of disposal facilities... We had failed to secure sites for final disposal even before an accident occurred," concluding that "it's better to spend money on developing natural energy resources--citizens are more likely to agree with that idea--than using such large amounts of expenses and energy to advance such a feckless project [as nuclear power]." He explained that in August, he had visited a nuclear waste disposal facility in Finland, where he learned that nuclear waste would have to be sealed up for 100,000 years. A poll by the "Asahi Shimbun" in November 2013 found that 54% of the public supported Koizumi's anti-nuclear statements. Koizumi told one reporter that he felt lied to by the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan, which characterized nuclear power as a safe alternative to fossil fuels, stating that "we certainly had no idea how difficult it is to control nuclear energy."


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Koizumi reportedly approached Morihiro Hosokawa, who served as Prime Minister in an anti-LDP coalition cabinet in the 1990s, to run for Governor of Tokyo in the February 2014 gubernatorial election on the platform of opposing the Abe government's pro-nuclear policy.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Hosokawa ran in the election with Koizumi's support, but lost to the LDP-supported candidate Yōichi Masuzoe. Koizumi and Hosokawa continued their collaboration in the wake of this defeat, organizing an anti-nuclear forum to be held in May 2014.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Koizumi traveled to the United States in 2016 in support of a lawsuit by Operation Tomodachi participants who claimed illness from radiation exposure caused by the Fukushima disaster.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Koizumi married 21-year-old university student Kayoko Miyamoto in 1978. The couple had been formally introduced to each other as potential spouses, a common practice known as "omiai". The wedding ceremony at the Tokyo Prince Hotel was attended by about 2,500 people, including Takeo Fukuda (then Prime Minister), and featured a wedding cake shaped like the National Diet Building. The marriage ended in divorce in 1982, as Kayoko was reportedly unhappy with her married life for several reasons. After this divorce, Koizumi never married again, saying that divorce consumed ten times more energy than marriage.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Koizumi had custody of two of his three sons: Kōtarō Koizumi and Shinjirō Koizumi, who were reared by one of his sisters. Shinjiro is the representative for Kanagawa's 11th district, a position his father has also filled, while Kotaro is an actor. The youngest son, Yoshinaga Miyamoto, now a graduate of Keio University, was born following the divorce and did not meet Koizumi for many years. Yoshinaga is known to have attended one of Koizumi's rallies, but was turned away from trying to meet his father. He was also turned away from attending his paternal grandmother's funeral. Koizumi's ex-wife Kayoko Miyamoto also asked unsuccessfully several times to meet their two oldest sons. Yoshinaga met his father and brothers for the first time in 2010, at a meeting arranged by Shinjiro. Koizumi and his two elder sons also attended Yoshinaga's wedding in 2013.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Koizumi is known to have a cousin in Brazil, and was overwhelmed to the point of tears when he visited Brazil in 2004 and was met by a group of Japanese immigrants.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Koizumi is a fan of German composer Richard Wagner and has released a CD of his favorite pieces by contemporary Italian composer Ennio Morricone. He is also a fan of the heavy metal band X Japan, with the LDP having even used their song "Forever Love" in television commercials in 2001. It was also reported that he was influential in getting the museum honoring X Japan's deceased guitarist Hide made.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Koizumi is also a noted fan of Elvis Presley, with whom he shares a birthday (8 January). In 2001, he released a collection of his favorite Presley songs on CD, with his comments about each song. His brother is Senior Advisor of the Tokyo Elvis Presley Fan Club. Koizumi and his brother helped finance a statue of Presley in Tokyo's Harajuku district. On 30 June 2006, Koizumi visited Presley's estate, Graceland, accompanied by U.S. President George W. Bush, and First Lady Laura Bush. After arriving in Memphis aboard Air Force One, they headed to Graceland. While there, Koizumi briefly sang a few bars of his favourite Presley tunes, whilst warmly impersonating Presley, and wearing Presley's trademark oversized golden sunglasses.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: Koizumi is also a fan of Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. On 8 September 2006, he and Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen visited the Sibelius' home, where Koizumi showed respect to the late composer with a moment of silence. He owns reproductions of the manuscripts of all seven symphonies by Sibelius.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: In 2009, Koizumi made a voice acting appearance in an Ultra Series feature film, "", playing the voice of Ultraman King. Koizumi said he took on the role at the urging of his son Shinjiro. His political career is parodied in a seinen manga, "Mudazumo Naki Kaikaku", which re-interprets his life as a mahjong master.


title: Junichiro Koizumi

text: He has been compared many times to American actor Richard Gere, because of their similar hair style. In 2005, he used the latter as a boost for his falling popularity, by staging an "impromptu ballroom dance performance".


title: Skateboard

text: A skateboard is a type of sports equipment used for skateboarding. They are usually made of a specially designed 7-8 ply maple plywood deck and polyurethane wheels attached to the underside by a pair of skateboarding trucks.


title: Skateboard

text: The skateboarder moves by pushing with one foot while the other foot remains balanced on the board, or by pumping one's legs in structures such as a bowl or half pipe. A skateboard can also be used by simply standing on the deck while on a downward slope and allowing gravity to propel the board and rider. If the rider's leading foot is their right foot, they are said to ride "goofy".


title: Skateboard

text: The two main types of skateboards are the longboard and the shortboard. The shape of the board is also important: the skateboard must be concaved to perform tricks.


title: Skateboard

text: Skateboarding started in California in the 1950s. The first skateboards were made from roller skates attached to a board. Skateboarding gained in popularity because of surfing: in fact, skateboarding was initially referred to as "sidewalk surfing". The very first skateboards were handmade from wooden boxes and planks by individuals. Companies started manufacturing skateboards in 1959, as the sport became more popular. In postwar America, society was carefree with children commonly playing in the streets.


title: Skateboard

text: Skateboarding is a very individual activity, and it continues to evolve. Since 2000, due to attention in the media and products like skateboarding video games, children's skateboards and commercialization, skateboarding has been pulled into the mainstream. As more interest and money has been invested into skateboarding, more skate parks, and better skateboards have become available. In addition, the continuing interest has motivated skateboarding companies to keep innovating and inventing new things. Skateboarding appeared for the first time in the 2020 Summer Olympics.


title: Skateboard

text: "Long" boards are usually over long. Plastic "penny" boards are typically about long. Some larger penny boards over long are called "nickel" boards.


title: Skateboard

text: The longboard, a common variant of the skateboard, is used for higher speed and rough surface boarding, and they are much more expensive. "Old school" boards (those made in the 1970s–80s or modern boards that mimic their shape) are generally wider and often have only one kicktail. Variants of the 1970s often have little or no concavity.


title: Skateboard

text: The wheels allow for movement on the skateboard and helps determine the speed while riding. There are typically four wheels on a skateboard that are attached to the trucks. Ranging in size from around 48mm to around 60mm, smaller wheels are lighter in weight and are used for shorter distances and tricks. Larger wheels are heavier in weight, which are better for maintaining speed and longer distances. Wheels that are larger than 60mm are typically used for longboards.


title: Skateboard

text: Each skateboard wheel is mounted on its axle via two ball bearings. With few exceptions, the bearings are the industrial standard "608" size, with a bore of depending on the axle), an outer diameter of , and a width of . These are usually made of steel, though silicon nitride, a high-tech ceramic, is sometimes used. Many skateboard bearings are graded according to the ABEC scale. The starts with ABEC1 as the lowest, followed by 3, 5, 7, and 9. It is a common misconception that the higher ABECs are better for skateboarding, as the ABEC rating only measures tolerances, which do not necessarily apply to skateboards. Bearing performance is determined by how well maintained the bearings are. Maintenance on bearings includes periodically cleaning and lubricating them.


title: Skateboard

text: While not part of a skateboard, an all-in-one skateboard tool capable of mounting and removing trucks & wheels and adjusting truck kingpins are commonly sold by skate shops.


title: Skateboard

text: Deck rails are thin, plastic strips usually screwed into the bottom section of a skateboard to decrease friction while performing slide tricks and protecting the board’s graphic from damage.


title: Staphylococcus epidermidis

text: Staphylococcus epidermidis is a Gram-positive bacterium, and one of over 40 species belonging to the genus "Staphylococcus". It is part of the normal human microbiota, typically the skin microbiota, and less commonly the mucosal microbiota and also found in marine sponges. It is a facultative anaerobic bacteria. Although "S. epidermidis" is not usually pathogenic, patients with compromised immune systems are at risk of developing infection. These infections are generally hospital-acquired. "S. epidermidis" is a particular concern for people with catheters or other surgical implants because it is known to form biofilms that grow on these devices. Being part of the normal skin microbiota, "S. epidermidis" is a frequent contaminant of specimens sent to the diagnostic laboratory.


title: Staphylococcus epidermidis

text: Some strains of "S. epidermidis" are highly salt tolerant and commonly found in marine environment. S.I. Paul et al. (2021) isolated and identified salt tolerant strains of "S. epidermidis" (strains ISP111A, ISP111B and ISP111C) from "Cliona viridis" sponges of the Saint Martin's Island Area of the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh.


title: Staphylococcus epidermidis

text: Friedrich Julius Rosenbach distinguished "S. epidermidis" from "S. aureus" in 1884, initially naming "S. epidermidis" as "S. albus". He chose "aureus" and "albus" since the bacteria formed yellow and white colonies, respectively.


title: Staphylococcus epidermidis

text: "Staphylococcus epidermidis" is a very hardy microorganism, consisting of nonmotile, Gram-positive cocci, arranged in grape-like clusters. It forms white, raised, cohesive colonies about 1–2 mm in diameter after overnight incubation, and is not hemolytic on blood agar. It is a catalase-positive, coagulase-negative, facultative anaerobe that can grow by aerobic respiration or by fermentation. Some strains may not ferment.


title: Staphylococcus epidermidis

text: Biochemical tests indicate this microorganism also carries out a weakly positive reaction to the nitrate reductase test. It is positive for urease production, is oxidase negative, and can use glucose, sucrose, and lactose to form acid products. In the presence of lactose, it will also produce gas. Nonpathogenic "S. epidermidis" unlike pathogenic "S. aureus" does not possess the gelatinase enzyme, so it cannot hydrolyze gelatin. It is sensitive to novobiocin, providing an important test to distinguish it from "Staphylococcus saprophyticus", which is coagulase-negative, as well, but novobiocin-resistant.


title: Staphylococcus epidermidis

text: Similar to those of "S. aureus", the cell walls of "S. epidermidis" have a transferrin-binding protein that helps the organism obtain iron from transferrin. The tetramers of a surface exposed protein, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, are believed to bind to transferrin and remove its iron. Subsequent steps include iron being transferred to surface lipoproteins, then to transport proteins which carry the iron into the cell.


title: Staphylococcus epidermidis

text: Colony, morphological, physiological, and biochemical characteristics of marine "S. epidermidis" are shown in the table below.


title: Staphylococcus epidermidis

text: The ability to form biofilms on plastic devices is a major virulence factor for "S. epidermidis". One probable cause is surface proteins that bind blood and extracellular matrix proteins.


title: Staphylococcus epidermidis

text: It produces an extracellular material known as polysaccharide intercellular adhesin (PIA), which is made up of sulfated polysaccharides. It allows other bacteria to bind to the already existing biofilm, creating a multilayer biofilm.


title: Staphylococcus epidermidis

text: Such biofilms decrease the metabolic activity of bacteria within them. This decreased metabolism, in combination with impaired diffusion of antibiotics, makes it difficult for antibiotics to effectively clear this type of infection.


title: Staphylococcus epidermidis

text: "S. epidermidis" strains are often resistant to antibiotics, including rifamycin, fluoroquinolones, gentamicin, tetracycline, clindamycin, and sulfonamides. Methicillin resistance is particularly widespread, with 75-90% of hospital isolates resistance to methicillin. Resistant organisms are most commonly found in the intestine, but organisms living freely on the skin can also become resistant due to routine exposure to antibiotics secreted in sweat.


title: Staphylococcus epidermidis

text: As mentioned above, "S. epidermidis" causes biofilms to grow on plastic devices placed within the body. This occurs most commonly on intravenous catheters and on medical prostheses. Infection can also occur in dialysis patients or anyone with an implanted plastic device that may have been contaminated. It also causes endocarditis, most often in patients with defective heart valves. In some other cases, sepsis can occur in hospital patients.


title: Staphylococcus epidermidis

text: Antibiotics are largely ineffective in clearing biofilms. The most common treatment for these infections is to remove or replace the infected implant, though in all cases, prevention is ideal. The drug of choice is often vancomycin, to which rifampin or an aminoglycoside can be added. Hand washing has been shown to reduce the spread of infection.


title: Staphylococcus epidermidis

text: Preliminary research also indicates "S. epidermidis" is universally found inside affected acne vulgaris pores, where "Cutibacterium acnes" is normally the sole resident.


title: Staphylococcus epidermidis

text: "Staphylococcus epidermidis" in the normal skin is nonpathogenic. But in abnormal lesions, it becomes pathogenic, likely in acne vulgaris. "Staphylococcus epidermidis" enters the sebaceous gland (colonized by "Propionibacterium acnes", the main bacterium that causes acne vulgaris) and damages the hair follicles by producing lipolytic enzymes that change the sebum from fraction to dense (thick) form leading to inflammatory effect.


title: Staphylococcus epidermidis

text: Moreover, "S. epidermidis" biofilm formation by releasing the exopolysaccharide intercellular adhesion (PIA) provides the susceptible anaerobic environment to "P. acnes" colonisation and protects it from the innate human immunity molecules.


title: Staphylococcus epidermidis

text: Both "P. acnes" and "S. epidermidis" can interact to protect the host skin health from pathogens colonisation. But in the case of competition, they use the same carbon source (i.e. glycerol) to produce short chain fatty acids which act as antibacterial agent against each other. Also, "S. epidermidis" helps in skin homeostasis and reduces the "P. acnes" pathogenic inflammation by decreasing the TLR2 protein production that induces the skin inflammation.


title: Staphylococcus epidermidis

text: The normal practice of detecting "S. epidermidis" is by using appearance of colonies on selective media, bacterial morphology by light microscopy, catalase and slide coagulase testing. Zobell agar is useful for the isolation of "Staphylococcus epidermidis" from marine organisms. On the Baird-Parker agar with egg yolk supplement, colonies appear small and black. Increasingly, techniques such as quantitative PCR are being employed for the rapid detection and identification of "Staphylococcus" strains. Normally, sensitivity to desferrioxamine can also be used to distinguish it from most other staphylococci, except in the case of "Staphylococcus hominis", which is also sensitive. In this case, the production of acid from trehalose by "S. hominis" can be used to tell the two species apart.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: Afonso de Albuquerque, 1st Duke of Goa (; – 16 December 1515) was a Portuguese general, admiral, and statesman. He served as viceroy of Portuguese India from 1509 to 1515, during which he expanded Portuguese influence across the Indian Ocean and built a reputation as a fierce and skilled military commander.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: Albuquerque advanced the three-fold Portuguese grand scheme of combating Islam, spreading Christianity, and securing the trade of spices by establishing a Portuguese Asian empire. Among his achievements, Albuquerque managed to conquer Goa and was the first European of the Renaissance to raid the Persian Gulf, and he led the first voyage by a European fleet into the Red Sea. He is generally considered a highly effective military commander, and "probably the greatest naval commander of the age", given his successful strategy — he attempted to close all the Indian Ocean naval passages to the Atlantic, Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and to the Pacific, transforming it into a Portuguese "mare clausum". He was appointed head of the "fleet of the Arabian and Persian sea" in 1506.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: Many of the conflicts in which he was directly involved took place in the Indian Ocean, in the Persian Gulf regions for control of the trade routes, and on the coasts of India. It was his military brilliance in these initial campaigns that enabled Portugal to become the first global empire in history. He led the Portuguese forces in numerous battles, including the conquest of Goa in 1510 and the capture of Malacca in 1511.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: During the last five years of his life, he turned to administration, where his actions as the second governor of Portuguese India were crucial to the longevity of the Portuguese Empire. He oversaw expeditions that resulted in the establishment of diplomatic contacts: with Thailand through his envoy Duarte Fernandes, with Pegu in Myanmar, and with Timor and the Moluccas through a voyage headed by António de Abreu and Francisco Serrão. He laid the path for European trade with Ming China through Rafael Perestrello. He also aided in establishing diplomatic relations with Ethiopia, and established diplomatic ties with Persia during the Safavid dynasty.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: Throughout his career, he received epithets such as "the Terrible", "the Great", "the Lion of the Seas", "the Portuguese Mars", and "the Caesar of the East".


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: Afonso de Albuquerque was born in 1453 in Alhandra, near Lisbon. He was the second son of Gonçalo de Albuquerque, Lord of Vila Verde dos Francos, and Dona Leonor de Menezes. His father held an important position at court and was connected by remote illegitimate descent with the Portuguese monarchy. He was a descendant of King Denis’s illegitimate son, Afonso Sanches, Lord of Albuquerque. He was educated in mathematics and Latin at the court of Afonso V of Portugal, where he befriended Prince John, the future King John II of Portugal.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: In 1471, under the command of Afonso V, he was present at the conquest of Tangier and Arzila in Morocco, and he served there as an officer for some years. In 1476 he accompanied Prince John in wars against Castile, including the Battle of Toro. He participated in the campaign on the Italian peninsula in 1480 to assist Ferdinand I of Naples in repelling the Ottoman invasion of Otranto. On his return in 1481, when Prince John was crowned as King John II, Albuquerque was made Master of the Horse and chief equerry ("estribeiro-mor") to the King, a post which he held throughout John's reign. In 1489 he returned to military campaigning in North Africa, as commander of defense in the Graciosa fortress, an island in the river Luco near the city of Larache. In 1490 Albuquerque was part of the guard of King John II. He returned to Arzila in 1495, where his younger brother Martim died fighting by his side.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: When King Manuel I of Portugal ascended to the throne following the death of his cousin John II, he held a cautious attitude towards Albuquerque, who was a close friend of his predecessor and seventeen years Manuel's senior. Eight years later, on 6 April 1503 Albuquerque was sent on his first expedition to India together with his cousin Francisco de Albuquerque. Each commanded three ships, sailing with Duarte Pacheco Pereira and Nicolau Coelho. They engaged in several battles against the forces of the Zamorin of Calicut ("Calecute", Kozhikode) and succeeded in establishing the King of Cochin ("Cohim", Kochi) securely on his throne. In return, the King of Cochin gave the Portuguese permission to build the Portuguese fort "Immanuel" (Fort Kochi) and establish trade relations with Quilon ("Coulão", Kollam). This laid the foundation for the eastern Portuguese Empire.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: Albuquerque returned home in July 1504 and was well received by King Manuel I. After he assisted with the creation of a strategy for the Portuguese efforts in the east, King Manuel entrusted him with the command of a squadron of five vessels in the fleet of sixteen sailing for India in early 1506, headed by Tristão da Cunha. The aim of the expedition was to conquer Socotra and build a fortress there, hoping to close the trade in the Red Sea.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: Albuquerque went as "chief-captain for the Coast of Arabia", sailing under da Cunha's orders until reaching Mozambique. He carried a sealed letter with a secret mission ordered by the King: after fulfilling the first mission, he was to replace the first viceroy of India, Francisco de Almeida, whose term ended two years later. Before departing, he legitimized his son Brás ("Braz" in the old Portuguese spelling), born to a common Portuguese woman named Joana Vicente in 1500.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: The fleet left Lisbon on 6 April 1506. Albuquerque piloted his ship himself, having lost his appointed pilot on departure. In Mozambique Channel, they rescued Captain João da Nova, who had encountered difficulties on his return from India; da Nova and his ship, the "Frol de la mar", joined da Cunha's fleet. From Malindi, da Cunha sent envoys to Ethiopia, which at the time was thought to be closer to India than it actually is, under the aegis of Albuquerque. After failing to reach Ethiopia, he managed to land the envoys in Filuk. After successful attacks on Arab cities on the East African coast, the expedition conquered the island of Socotra and built a fortress at Suq, hoping to establish a base to stop the Red Sea commerce to the Indian Ocean. However, Socotra was abandoned four years later, as it was eventually realised to be a poor location for a base.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: At Socotra, they parted ways: Tristão da Cunha sailed for India, where he would relieve the Portuguese besieged at Cannanore, while Afonso took seven ships and 500 men to Ormuz in the Persian Gulf, one of the chief eastern centers of commerce. On his way, he conquered the cities of Curiati (Kuryat), Muscat in July 1507, and Khor Fakkan, accepting the submission of the cities of Kalhat and Sohar. He arrived at Hormuz on 25 September and soon captured the city, which agreed to become a tributary state of the Portuguese king.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: Ormuz was then a tributary state of Shah Ismail of Persia. In a famous episode, shortly after its conquest, Albuquerque was confronted by Persian envoys, who demanded the payment of the due tribute from him instead. He ordered them to be given a stock of cannonballs, arrows and weapons, retorting that "such was the currency struck in Portugal to pay the tribute demanded from the dominions of King Manuel". According to Brás de Albuquerque, it was Shah Ismael who first addressed Albuquerque as "Lion of the seas".


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: Afonso began building the Fort of Our Lady of Victory (later renamed Fort of Our Lady of the Conception) on Hormuz Island, engaging his men of all ranks in the work. However, some of his officers, claiming that Afonso was exceeding his orders, revolted against the heavy work and climate and departed for India. With his fleet reduced to two ships and left without supplies, he was unable to maintain his position. In January 1508, he was forced to abandon Ormuz. He raided coastal villages to resupply the settlement of Socotra, returned to Ormuz, and then headed to India.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: Afonso arrived at Cannanore on the Malabar coast in December 1508, where he opened the sealed letter that he had received from the King before the viceroy, Dom Francisco de Almeida, which named him as governor to succeed Almeida. The viceroy, supported by the officers who had abandoned Afonso at Ormuz, had a matching royal order but declined to yield. He protested that his term ended only in January and stated his intention to avenge his son's death by fighting the Mamluk fleet of Mirocem, refusing Afonso's offer to fight the Mamluk fleet himself. Afonso avoided confrontation, which could have led to civil war, and moved to Kochi, India, to await further instruction from the King. Increasingly isolated, he wrote to Diogo Lopes de Sequeira, who arrived in India with a new fleet, but was ignored as Sequeira joined Almeida. At the same time, Afonso refused approaches from opponents of Almeida who encouraged him to seize power.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: On 3 February 1509, Almeida fought the naval Battle of Diu against a joint fleet of Mamluks, Ottomans, the Zamorin of Calicut, and the Sultan of Gujarat. His victory was decisive: the Ottomans and Mamluks abandoned the Indian Ocean, easing the way for Portuguese rule there for the next century. In August, after a petition from Afonso's former officers with the support of Diogo Lopes de Sequeira claiming him unfit for governance, Afonso was sent in custody to St. Angelo Fort in Cannanore. There he remained under what he considered as imprisonment.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: Afonso was released after three months' confinement, on the arrival at Cannanore of the Marshal of Portugal Fernando Coutinho with a large fleet sent by the King. Coutinho was the most important Portuguese noble to visit India up to that point. He brought an armada of fifteen ships and 3,000 men to defend Afonso's rights, and to take Calicut.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: On 4 November 1509, Afonso became the second Governor of Portuguese India, a position he would hold until his death. Almeida set off to return to Portugal, but he was killed before he got there in a skirmish with the Khoekhoe. Upon his assuming office, Afonso intended to dominate the Muslim world and control the Spice trade.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: Initially, King Manuel I and his council in Lisbon tried to distribute the power by outlining three areas of jurisdiction in the Indian Ocean. In 1509, the nobleman Diogo Lopes de Sequeira was sent with a fleet to Southeast Asia, to seek an agreement with Sultan Mahmud Shah of Malacca, but failed and returned to Portugal. To Jorge de Aguiar was given the region between the Cape of Good Hope and Gujarat. He was succeeded by Duarte de Lemos, but left for Cochin and then for Portugal, leaving his fleet to Afonso.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: In January 1510, obeying the orders from the King and aware of the absence of the Zamorin, Afonso advanced on Calicut. The attack was initially successful, but unravelled when Marshal Coutinho, infuriated by Albuquerque's success against Calicut and desiring glory for himself, attacked the Zamorin's palace against Albuquerque's advice, and was ambushed. During the retreat, Afonso was badly wounded and was forced to flee to the ships, barely escaping with his life, while Coutinho was killed.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: Soon after the failed attack, Afonso assembled a fleet of 23 ships and 1200 men. Contemporary reports state that he wanted to fight the Egyptian Mamluk Sultanate fleet in the Red Sea or return to Hormuz. However, he had been informed by Timoji (a privateer in the service of the Hindu Vijayanagara Empire) that it would be easier to fight them in Goa, where they had sheltered after the Battle of Diu, and also of the illness of the Sultan Yusuf Adil Shah, and war between the Deccan sultanates. So he relied on surprise in the capture of Goa from the Sultanate of Bijapur.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: A first assault took place in Goa from 4 March to 20 May 1510. After the initial occupation, feeling unable to hold the city given the poor condition of its fortifications, the cooling of Hindu residents' support and insubordination among his ranks following an attack by Ismail Adil Shah, Afonso refused a truce offered by the Sultan and abandoned the city in August. His fleet was scattered, and a palace revolt in Kochi hindered his recovery, so he headed to Fort Anjediva. New ships arrived from Portugal, which were intended for the nobleman Diogo Mendes de Vasconcelos at Malacca, who had been given a rival command of the region.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: Three months later, on 25 November Afonso reappeared at Goa with a renovated fleet. Diogo Mendes de Vasconcelos was compelled to accompany him with the reinforcements for Malacca and about 300 Malabari reinforcements from Cannanore. In less than a day, they took Goa from Ismail Adil Shah and his Ottoman allies, who surrendered on 10 December. It is estimated that 6000 of the 9000 Muslim defenders of the city died, either in the fierce battle in the streets or by drowning while trying to escape. Afonso regained the support of the Hindu population, although he frustrated the initial expectations of Timoji, who aspired to become governor. Afonso rewarded him by appointing him chief "Aguazil" of the city, an administrator and representative of the Hindu and Muslim people, as a knowledgeable interpreter of the local customs. He then made an agreement to lower the yearly tribute.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: In Goa, Afonso established the first Portuguese mint in the East, after Timoja's merchants had complained of the scarcity of currency, taking it as an opportunity to solidify the territorial conquest. The new coin, based on the existing local coins, showed a cross on the obverse and an armillary sphere (or "esfera"), King Manuel's badge, on the reverse. Gold cruzados or "manueis", silver "esferas" and "alf-esferas", and bronze "leais" were issued.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: Albuquerque founded at Goa the "Hospital Real de Goa" or Royal Hospital of Goa, by the Church of Santa Catarina. Upon hearing that the doctors were extorting the sickly with excessive fees, Albuquerque summoned them, declaring that "You charge a physician's pay and don't know what disease the men who serve our lord the King suffer from. Thus, I want to teach you what is it that they die from" and put them to work building the city walls all day till nightfall before releasing them.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: Despite constant attacks, Goa became the center of Portuguese India, with the conquest triggering the compliance of neighbouring kingdoms: the Sultan of Gujarat and the Zamorin of Calicut sent embassies, offering alliances and local grants to fortify.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: Afonso then used Goa to secure the Spice trade in favor of Portugal and sell Persian horses to Vijayanagara and Hindu princes in return for their assistance.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: In February 1511, through a friendly Hindu merchant, Nina Chatu, Afonso received a letter from Rui de Araújo, one of the nineteen Portuguese held at Malacca since 1509. It urged moving forward with the largest possible fleet to demand their release, and gave details of the fortifications. Afonso showed it to Diogo Mendes de Vasconcelos, as an argument to advance as a joint fleet. In April 1511, after fortifying Goa, he gathered a force of about 900 Portuguese, 200 Hindu mercenaries and about eighteen ships. He then sailed to Malacca against orders and despite the protest of Diogo Mendes, who claimed command of the expedition. Afonso eventually centralized the Portuguese government in the Indian Ocean. After the Malaccan conquest, he wrote a letter to the King to explain his disagreement with Diogo Mendes, suggesting that further divisions could be harmful to the Portuguese in India. Under his command was Ferdinand Magellan, who had participated in the failed embassy of Diogo Lopes de Sequeira in 1509.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: After a false start towards the Red Sea, they sailed to the Strait of Malacca. It was the richest city that the Portuguese tried to take, and a focal point in the trade network where Malay traders met Gujarati, Chinese, Japanese, Javanese, Bengali, Persian and Arabic, among others, described by Tomé Pires as of invaluable richness. Despite its wealth, it was mostly a wooden-built city, with few masonry buildings but was defended by a mercenary force estimated at 20,000 men and more than 2000 pieces of artillery. Its greatest weakness was the unpopularity of the government of Sultan Mahmud Shah, who favoured Muslims, arousing dissatisfaction amongst other merchants.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: Afonso made a bold approach to the city, his ships decorated with banners, firing cannon volleys. He declared himself lord of all the navigation, demanded the Sultan release the prisoners and pay for damages, and demanded consent to build a fortified trading post. The Sultan eventually freed the prisoners, but was unimpressed by the small Portuguese contingent. Afonso then burned some ships at the port and four coastal buildings as a demonstration. The city being divided by the Malacca River, the connecting bridge was a strategic point, so at dawn on 25 July, the Portuguese landed and fought a tough battle, facing poisoned arrows, taking the bridge in the evening. After fruitlessly waiting for the Sultan's reaction, they returned to the ships and prepared a junk (offered by Chinese merchants), filling it with men, artillery and sandbags. Commanded by António de Abreu, it sailed upriver at high tide to the bridge. The day after, all had landed. After a fierce fight during which the Sultan appeared with an army of war elephants, the defenders were dispersed and the Sultan fled. Afonso waited for the reaction of the Sultan. Merchants approached, asking for Portuguese protection. They were given banners to mark their premises, a sign that they would not be looted. On 15 August, the Portuguese attacked again, but the Sultan had fled the city. Under strict orders, they looted the city, but respected the banners.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: Afonso prepared Malacca's defenses against a Malay counterattack, building a fortress, assigning his men to shifts and using stones from the mosque and the cemetery. Despite the delays caused by heat and malaria, it was completed in November 1511, its surviving door now known as "A Famosa" ('the famous'). It was possibly then that Afonso had a large stone engraved with the names of the participants in the conquest. To quell disagreements over the order of the names, he had it set facing the wall, with the single inscription "Lapidem quem reprobaverunt aedificantes" (Latin for "The stone the builders rejected", from David's prophecy, Psalm 118:22–23) on the front.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: He settled the Portuguese administration, reappointing Rui de Araújo as factor, a post assigned before his 1509 arrest, and appointing rich merchant Nina Chatu to replace the previous Bendahara. Besides assisting in the governance of the city and the first Portuguese coinage, he provided the junks for several diplomatic missions. Meanwhile, Afonso arrested and had executed the powerful Javanese merchant Utimuti Raja who, after being appointed to a position in the Portuguese administration as representative of the Javanese population, had maintained contacts with the exiled royal family.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: On 20 November 1511 Afonso sailed from Malacca to the coast of Malabar on the old "Flor de la Mar" carrack that had served to support the conquest of Malacca. Despite its unsound condition, he used it to transport the treasure amassed in the conquest, given its large capacity. He wanted to give the court of King Manuel a show of Malaccan treasures. There were also offerings from the Kingdom of Siam (Thailand) to the King of Portugal, and all his own fortune. On the voyage, the "Flor de la Mar" was wrecked in a storm, and Afonso barely escaped drowning.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: Most Muslim and Gujarati merchants having fled the city, Afonso invested in diplomatic efforts demonstrating generosity to Southeast Asian merchants, like the Chinese, to encourage good relations with the Portuguese. Trade and diplomatic missions were sent to continental kingdoms: Rui Nunes da Cunha was sent to Pegu (Burma), from where King Binyaram sent back a friendly emissary to Kochi in 1514 and Sumatra, Sumatran kings of Kampar and Indragiri sending emissaries to Afonso accepting the new power, as vassal states of Malacca. Knowing of Siamese ambitions over Malacca, Afonso sent Duarte Fernandes in a diplomatic mission to the Kingdom of Siam (Thailand), returning in a Chinese junk. He was one of the Portuguese who had been arrested in Malacca, having gathered knowledge about the culture of the region. There he was the first European to arrive, establishing amicable relations between the kingdom of Portugal and the court of the King of Siam Ramathibodi II, returning with a Siamese envoy bearing gifts and letters to Afonso and the King of Portugal.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: In November, after having secured Malacca and learning the location of the then secret "spice islands", Afonso sent three ships to find them, led by trusted António de Abreu with deputy commander Francisco Serrão. Malay sailors were recruited to guide them through Java, the Lesser Sunda Islands and the Ambon Island to Banda Islands, where they arrived in early 1512. There they remained for a month, buying and filling their ships with nutmeg and cloves. António de Abreu then sailed to Amboina whilst Serrão sailed towards the Moluccas, but he was shipwrecked near Seram. Sultan Abu Lais of Ternate heard of their stranding, and, seeing a chance to ally himself with a powerful foreign nation, brought them to Ternate in 1512 where they were permitted to build a fort on the island, the "", built in 1522.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: Afonso returned from Malacca to Cochin, but could not sail to Goa as it faced a serious revolt headed by the forces of Ismael Adil Shah, the Sultan of Bijapur, commanded by Rasul Khan and his countrymen. During Afonso's absence from Malacca, the Portuguese who opposed the taking of Goa had waived its possession, even writing to the King that it would be best to let it go. Held up by the monsoon and with few forces available, Afonso had to wait for the arrival of reinforcement fleets headed by his nephew D. Garcia de Noronha, and Jorge de Mello Pereira.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: While at Cochin, Albuquerque started a school. In a private letter to King Manuel I, he stated that he had found a chest full of books with which to teach the children of married Portuguese settlers ("casados") and Christian converts, of which there were about a hundred, to read and write.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: On 10 September 1512, Afonso sailed from Cochin to Goa with fourteen ships carrying 1,700 soldiers. Determined to recapture the fortress, he ordered trenches dug and a wall breached. But on the day of the planned final assault, Rasul Khan surrendered. Afonso demanded the fort be handed over with its artillery, ammunition and horses, and the deserters to be given up. Some had joined Rasul Khan when the Portuguese were forced to flee Goa in May 1510, others during the recent siege. Rasul Khan consented, on condition that their lives be spared. Afonso agreed and he left Goa. He did spare the lives of the deserters, but had them horribly mutilated. One such renegade was Fernão Lopes, bound for Portugal in custody, who escaped at the island of Saint Helena and led a 'Robinson Crusoe' life for many years. After such measures the town became the most prosperous Portuguese settlement in India.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: In December 1512 an envoy from Ethiopia arrived at Goa. Mateus was sent by the regent queen Eleni, following the arrival of the Portuguese from Socotra in 1507, as an ambassador for the king of Portugal in search of a coalition to help face growing Muslim influence. He was received in Goa with great honour by Afonso, as a long-sought "Prester John" envoy. His arrival was announced by King Manuel to Pope Leo X in 1513. Although Mateus faced the distrust of Afonso's rivals, who tried to prove he was some impostor or Muslim spy, Afonso sent him to Portugal. The King is described as having wept with joy at their report.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: In February 1513, while Mateus was in Portugal, Afonso sailed to the Red Sea with a force of about 1000 Portuguese and 400 Malabaris. He was under orders to secure that channel for Portugal. Socotra had proved ineffective to control the Red Sea entrance and was abandoned, and Afonso's hint that Massawa could be a good Portuguese base might have been influenced by Mateus' reports.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: Knowing that the Mamluks were preparing a second fleet at Suez, he wanted to advance before reinforcements arrived in Aden, and accordingly laid siege to the city. Aden was a fortified city, but although he had scaling ladders they broke during the chaotic attack. After half a day of fierce battle, Afonso was forced to retreat. He cruised the Red Sea inside the Bab al-Mandab, with the first European fleet to have sailed this route. He attempted to reach Jeddah, but the winds were unfavourable and so he sheltered at Kamaran island in May, until sickness among the men and lack of fresh water forced him to retreat. In August 1513, after a second attempt to reach Aden, he returned to India with no substantial results. In order to destroy the power of Egypt, he wrote to King Manuel of the idea of diverting the course of the Nile river to render the whole country barren. He also intended to steal the body of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad, and hold it for ransom until all Muslims had left the Holy Land.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: Although Albuquerque's expedition failed to reach Suez, such an incursion into the Red Sea by a Christian fleet for the first time in history stunned the Muslim world, and panic spread in Cairo.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: Albuquerque achieved during his term a favourable end to hostilities between the Portuguese and the Zamorin of Calicut, which had lasted since the massacre of the Portuguese in Calicut in 1502. As naval trade faltered and vassals defected, with no foreseeable solutions to the conflict with the Portuguese, the court of the Zamorin fell to in-fighting. The ruling Zamorin was assassinated and replaced by a rival, under the instigation of Albuquerque, permitting peace talks to commence. The Portuguese were allowed to build a fortress in Calicut itself, and acquired rights to obtain as much pepper and ginger as they wished, at stipulated prices, and half the customs duties of Calicut as yearly tribute. Construction of the fortress began immediately, under the supervision of chief architect Tomás Fernandes.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: With peace concluded, in 1514 Afonso devoted himself to governing Goa and receiving embassies from Indian governors, strengthening the city and encouraging marriages of Portuguese men and local women. At that time, Portuguese women were barred from traveling overseas in order to maintain discipline among the men on board the ships. In 1511 under a policy which Afonso promulgated, the Portuguese government encouraged their explorers to marry local women. To promote settlement, the King of Portugal granted freeman status and exemption from Crown taxes to Portuguese men (known as "casados", or "married men") who ventured overseas and married local women. With Afonso's encouragement, mixed marriages flourished, giving birth to Portuguese-Indians or "mestiços". He appointed local people for positions in the Portuguese administration and did not interfere with local traditions (except "sati", the practice of immolating widows, which he banned).


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: In March 1514 King Manuel sent to Pope Leo X a huge and exotic embassy led by Tristão da Cunha, who toured the streets of Rome in an extravagant procession of animals from the colonies and wealth from the Indies. His reputation reached its peak, laying foundations of the Portuguese Empire in the East.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: In early 1514, Afonso sent ambassadors to Gujarat's Sultan Muzaffar Shah II, ruler of Cambay, to seek permission to build a fort on Diu, India. The mission returned without an agreement, but diplomatic gifts were exchanged, including an Indian rhinoceros, Afonso sent the rhino to King Manuel, making it the first living example of a rhinoceros seen in Europe since the Roman Empire.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: In 1513, at Cannanore, Afonso was visited by a Persian ambassador from Shah Ismail I, who had sent ambassadors to Gujarat, Ormuz and Bijapur. The shah's ambassador to Bijapur invited Afonso to send back an envoy to Persia. Miguel Ferreira was sent via Ormuz to Tabriz, where he had several interviews with the shah about common goals of defeating the Mamluk sultan.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: At the same time, Albuquerque decided to conclude the effective conquest of Hormuz. He had learned that after the Portuguese retreat in 1507, a young king was reigning under the influence of a powerful Persian vizier, Reis Hamed, whom the king greatly feared. At Ormuz in March 1515, Afonso met the king and asked the vizier to be present. He then had him immediately stabbed and killed by his entourage, thus "freeing" the terrified king, so the island in the Persian Gulf yielded to him without resistance and remained a vassal state of the Portuguese Empire. Ormuz itself would not be Persian territory for another century, until an English-Persian alliance finally expelled the Portuguese in 1622. At Ormuz, Afonso met with Miguel Ferreira, returning with rich presents and an ambassador, carrying a letter from the Persian potentate Shah Ismael, inviting Afonso to become a leading lord in Persia. There he remained, engaging in diplomatic efforts, receiving envoys and overseeing the construction of the new fortress, while becoming increasingly ill. His illness was reported as early as September 1515. In November 1515, he embarked on a journey back to Goa.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: At this time, his political enemies at the Portuguese court were planning his downfall. They had lost no opportunity in stirring up the jealousy of King Manuel against him, insinuating that Afonso intended to usurp power in Portuguese India. While on his return voyage from Ormuz in the Persian Gulf, near the harbor of Chaul, he received news of a Portuguese fleet arriving from Europe, bearing dispatches announcing that he was to be replaced by his personal foe, Lopo Soares de Albergaria. Realizing the plot that his enemies had moved against him, profoundly disillusioned, he voiced his bitterness: "Grave must be my sins before the King, for I am in ill favor with the King for love of the men, and with the men for love of the King."


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: Feeling himself near death, he donned the surcoat of the Order of Santiago, of which he was a knight, and drew up his will, appointed the captain and senior officials of Ormuz, and organized a final council with his captains to decide the main matters affecting the Portuguese State of India. He wrote a brief letter to King Manuel, asking him to confer onto his natural son "all of the high honors and rewards" that Afonso had received, and assuring Manuel of his loyalty.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: On 16 December 1515, Afonso de Albuquerque died within sight of Goa. As his death was known, in the city "great wailing arose", and many took to the streets to witness his body carried on a chair by his main captains, in a procession lit by torches amidst the crowd. Afonso's body was buried in Goa, according to his will, in the Church of Nossa Senhora da Serra (Our Lady of the Hill), which he had been built in 1513 to thank the Madonna for his escape from Kamaran island. That night, the population of Goa, both Hindu and Portuguese, gathered to mourn his death.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: In Portugal, King Manuel's zigzagging policies continued, still trapped by the constraints of real-time medieval communication between Lisbon and India and unaware that Afonso was dead. Hearing rumours that the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt was preparing a magnificent army at Suez to prevent the conquest of Ormuz, he repented of having replaced Afonso, and in March 1516 urgently wrote to Albergaria to return the command of all operations to Afonso and provide him with resources to face the Egyptian threat. He organized a new Portuguese navy in Asia, with orders that Afonso (if he was still in India), be made commander-in-chief against the Sultan of Cairo's armies. Manuel would afterwards learn that Afonso had died many months earlier, and that his reversed decision had been delivered many months too late.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: After 51 years, in 1566, his body was moved to Nossa Senhora da Graça church in Lisbon, which was ruined and rebuilt after the 1755 Great Lisbon earthquake.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: King Manuel I of Portugal was belatedly convinced of Afonso's loyalty, and endeavoured to atone for his lack of confidence in Afonso by heaping honours upon his son, Brás de Albuquerque (1500–1580), whom he renamed "Afonso" in memory of the father. Afonso de Albuquerque was a prolific writer, having sent numerous letters during his governorship, covering topics from minor issues to major strategies. In 1557 his son published his biography under the title "Commentarios do Grande Affonso d'Alboquerque".


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: In 1572, Afonso's actions were described in "The Lusiads", the Portuguese main epic poem by Luís Vaz de Camões (Canto X, strophes 40–49). The poet praises his achievements, but has the muses frown upon the harsh rule of his men, of whom Camões was almost a contemporary fellow. In 1934, Afonso was celebrated by Fernando Pessoa in "Mensagem", a symbolist epic. In the first part of this work, called "Brasão" (Coat-of-Arms), he relates Portuguese historical protagonists to each of the fields in the Portuguese coat-of-arms, Afonso being one of the wings of the griffin headed by Henry the Navigator, the other wing being King John II.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: A variety of mango, which was created by Portuguese Jesuits in Goa via grafting techniques, was named in his honour.


title: Afonso de Albuquerque

text: Numerous homages have been paid to Afonso; he is featured in the Padrão dos Descobrimentos monument; there is a square named after him in Lisbon, which also features a bronze statue, and two Portuguese Navy ships have been named in his honour: the sloop NRP "Afonso de Albuquerque" (1884) and the warship NRP "Afonso de Albuquerque".


title: Stephen Carpenter

text: Stephen "Steph" Carpenter ( ; born August 3, 1970) is an American musician, known as the co-founder and a guitarist of the alternative metal band Deftones.


title: Stephen Carpenter

text: His guitar technique makes use of both ringing open strings and dissonant chord voicings, as well as stock power chords in polyrhythms. Carpenter began his musical career with Deftones playing the traditional six-string guitar. After becoming influenced by such bands as Fear Factory and Meshuggah, he began playing a seven-string guitar in the late 1990s. After Deftones' third album "White Pony", subsequent releases would be written with seven-strings, until 2010's "Diamond Eyes" and 2012's "Koi No Yokan", which were written with an eight-string guitar. Starting with 2020’s Ohms, songs have been written with nine-string guitars.


title: Stephen Carpenter

text: Stephen Carpenter was born on August 3, 1970 in Sacramento, California, to an American father and a Mexican mother. He has a sister named Marci. He is first cousin to Testament singer Chuck Billy. He grew up in the Sacramento area and pursued many hobbies, including skateboarding.