text: The vigils observed included the Saturday before Pentecost, October 31 (the vigil of All Saints), December 24 (Christmas Eve), December 7 (the vigil of the Immaculate Conception) and August 14 (the vigil of the Assumption). These vigils all required fasting; some also required abstinence. If any of these fell on a Sunday, the vigil, but not the obligation of fasting, was moved to the Saturday before. (Some other liturgical days were also known as vigils but neither fasting nor abstinence was required, particularly the vigils of feasts of the Apostles and the Vigil of the Epiphany.) By 1959 in the United States, the fast for the vigil of Christmas was moved to December 23.


title: Fasting and abstinence in the Catholic Church

text: Ember days occurred four times a year. The Wednesday, Friday and Saturday of the ember week were days of fast and abstinence, though the Wednesday and Saturday were often only days of partial abstinence. In addition, Catholics were required to abstain from meat (but not fast) on all other Fridays, unless the Friday coincided with a holy day of obligation.


text: The former regulations on abstinence obliged Catholics starting as young as age seven, but there were many exceptions. Large classes of people were considered exempt from fasting and abstinence, not only the sick and those with physically demanding jobs, but also people traveling and students. The regulations were adapted to each nation, and so in most dioceses in America abstinence from meat was not required on the Friday after Thanksgiving, to accommodate any meat left over from that US national holiday.


text: On the eve of Vatican II, fasting and abstinence requirements in numerous Catholic countries were already greatly relaxed compared to the beginning of the 20th century, with fasting often reduced to just four days of the year (Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, the vigil of Christmas or the day before, and the vigil either of the Immaculate Conception or of the Assumption).


text: Contemporary legislation is rooted in the 1966 Apostolic Constitution of Pope Paul VI, "Paenitemini". He recommended that fasting be appropriate to the local economic situation and that all Catholics voluntarily fast and abstain. He also allowed that fasting and abstinence might be substituted with prayer and works of charity, although the norms for doing so were to be set down by the Episcopal Conferences.


text: The current practice of fast and abstinence is regulated by Canons 1250–1253 of the 1983 code. They specify that all Fridays throughout the year, and the time of Lent are penitential times throughout the entire Church. The law of fasting binds those who have attained their majority, until the beginning of their sixtieth year. All persons who have completed their fourteenth year are bound by the law of abstinence on all Fridays unless they are solemnities, and again on Ash Wednesday; The number of days that require fasting has been greatly reduced by the Episcopal Conferences because under Canon 1253, it is these Conferences that have the authority determine the local norms for fasting and abstinence and their substitution by other forms of penance, works of charity and exercises of piety in their territories. The precept to both fast and abstinence on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday remains untouched.


text: Absent any specification of the nature of "fasting" in the current Canon Law, the traditional definition is obviously applicable here which is that on the days of mandatory fasting, Catholics may eat only one full meal during the day. Additionally, they may have two smaller meals, known as "collations". Church requirements on fasting only relate to solid food, not to drink, so Church law does not restrict the amount of water or other beverages – even alcoholic drinks – which may be consumed.


text: In some Western countries, Catholics have been encouraged to adopt non-dietary forms of abstinence during Lent. For example, in 2009 Monsignor Benito Cocchi, Archbishop of Modena, urged young Catholics to give up text messaging for Lent.


text: In addition to the fasts mentioned above, Catholics must also observe the Eucharistic Fast, which in the Latin Church involves taking nothing but water or medicine into the body for one hour before receiving the Eucharist. The earliest recorded regular practice was to eat at home before the Lord's Supper if one was hungry (I Corinthians 11:34). The next known ancient practice was to fast from midnight until Mass that day. Pope Pius XII reduced this in 1957 to fasting (from solid food and alcohol) for three hours before the time of reception of Communion, which paved the way for the celebration of evening Masses. A further reduction came in 1964, when Pope Paul VI reduced the Eucharistic Fast to one hour, and less still for priests celebrating more than one Mass on the same day.


text: The Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference decreed on 4 October 1985 that Fridays throughout the year, including in Lent (other than Good Friday), are not obligatory days of abstinence from meat provided that an alternative form of penance is practised. Although this remains the case to this day, support for the return of obligatory Friday abstinence has been gradually increasing since England and Wales returned to Friday abstinence in 2011, with some Australian bishops expressing interest.


text: The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops decrees that the days of fast and abstinence in Canada are Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and specifies that Fridays are days of abstinence. This includes all Fridays year round, not just Fridays of Lent. Catholics, however, can substitute special acts of charity or piety on these days.


text: Current norms for England and Wales, issued by the Bishops' Conference in May 2011, re-introduced the expectation that all Catholics able to do so should abstain from meat on all Fridays of the year, effective Friday, September 16, 2011.


text: On 25 November 2010 the Irish Bishops’ Conference published the resource leaflet "Friday Penance". It followed from the March 2010 Pastoral Letter to the Catholics of Ireland from Pope Benedict XVI suggesting initiatives to support renewal in the Church in Ireland. He asked that Irish Catholics offer their Friday Penances "for an outpouring of God’s mercy and the Holy Spirit’s gifts of holiness and strength", and that fasting, prayer, reading of Scripture and works of mercy be offered in order to obtain healing and renewal for the Church in Ireland.


text: The leaflet states that Penance "arises from the Lord’s call to conversion and repentance" and describes that it is an "essential part of all genuine Christian living":


text: "Friday Penance" also explains why penance is important: "Declaring some days throughout the year as days of fast and abstinence (Ash Wednesday and Good Friday) is meant to intensify penances of the Christian. Lent is the traditional season for renewal and penance but Catholics also observe each Friday of the year as days of penance. The link between Friday and penance is extremely ancient and is even reflected in the Irish language word for Friday: "An Aoine" ("The Fast")."


text: The leaflet suggests ways of fulfilling Friday penance such as abstaining from meat or alcohol, visiting the Blessed Sacrament or helping the poor, sick and lonely as well as other suggestions such as refraining from the use of technology in the context of 21st century activities.


text: The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) produced a statement in 1966 called "Pastoral Statement on Penance and Abstinence", which was modified slightly in 1983.


text: The current, commonly accepted U.S. rules, in effect as such for a decade or more, taken directly from the current U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Fast and Abstinence page are:


text: Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are obligatory days of fasting and abstinence for Catholics. In addition, Fridays during Lent are obligatory days of abstinence.


text: For members of the Latin Catholic Church, the norms on fasting are obligatory from age 18 until age 59. When fasting, a person is permitted to eat one full meal, as well as two smaller meals that together are not equal to a full meal. The norms concerning abstinence from meat are binding upon members of the Latin Catholic Church from age 14 onwards.


text: Those that are excused from fast and abstinence outside the age limits include the physically or mentally ill including individuals suffering from chronic illnesses such as diabetes. Also excluded are pregnant or nursing women. In all cases, common sense should prevail, and ill persons should not further jeopardize their health by fasting.


text: Although some years past the USCCB declared that "the age of fasting is from the completion of the twenty-second year to the beginning of the sixtieth", the USCCB page quoted above also references a "Complementary Norm" explaining the lower minimum age of 18.


text: In accordance with canon 1253 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, the USCCB has also allowed that some other form of penance for the traditional abstinence on all of the Fridays of the year, except for those Fridays in Lent, fulfills the obligation of penance.


text: Abstinence laws consider that meat comes only from animals such as chickens, cows, sheep or pigs – all of which live on land. Birds are also considered meat. Abstinence does not include meat juices and liquid foods made from meat. Thus, such foods as chicken broth, consomme, soups cooked or flavored with meat, meat gravies or sauces, as well as seasonings or condiments made from animal fat are technically not forbidden. However, moral theologians have traditionally taught that we should abstain from all animal-derived products (except foods such as gelatin, butter, cheese and eggs, which do not have any meat taste). Fish are a different category of animal. Salt and freshwater species of fish, amphibians, reptiles, (cold-blooded animals) and shellfish are permitted.


text: Because of this, many Catholic parishes in the United States sponsor a fish fry during Lent. In predominantly Catholic areas, restaurants may adjust their menus during Lent by adding seafood items to the menu in an attempt to appeal to Catholics. However, the same USCCB website says that:While fish, lobster and other shellfish are not considered meat and can be consumed on days of abstinence, indulging in the lavish buffet at your favorite seafood place sort of misses the point. Abstaining from meat and other indulgences during Lent is a penitential practice.


text: The fasting practices of the Sedevacantist Roman Catholic community differ from contemporary practices of the Catholic Church.


text: The Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen (CMRI), a Sedevacantist Roman Catholic religious congregation, requires fasting for its members on all of the forty days of the Christian season of repentance, Lent (except on the Lord's Day). Fasting is also compulsory on the Ember days and the Vigils of Pentecost Day, Immaculate Conception Day and Christmas Day.


text: Abstinence from meat is practiced on all Fridays of the year, Ash Wednesday, Holy Saturday and the Vigils of Christmas Day and Immaculate Conception Day, as well as on Ember Days and the Vigil of Pentecost Sunday.


text: The Eucharistic Fast, for members of the CMRI, means fasting from food and alcohol three hours prior to receiving Holy Communion, and though not obligatory, "Catholics are urged to observe the eucharistic fast from midnight" prior to communing.


text: St. Thomas Aquinas comments on fasting in his homily on the verse "When He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He was afterward an hungered” (Matt. iv. 2.):


text: S. Augustine says that it is the highest religion to imitate what we worship, so that, when Our Lord fasted, we ought to imitate Him in fasting. There are four reasons which ought to move us to fasting—firstly, the command of God; secondly, the example of Christ; thirdly, the manifold harm which befals those who do not fast; fourthly, the manifold benefits which come to them from fasting. I. On the first head it is to be noted, that the Lord commanded us to fast in a fourfold manner—(1) By Himself, to Adam and Eve in Paradise, when He commanded that they should fast—i.e., abstain from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and eat it not. (2) He commanded it by the Law of Moses: Lev. xvi. 31, "It shall be a Sabbath of rest unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls by a statute for ever". (3) God commanded it by the Prophets: Joel ii. 15, "Sanctify a fast". (4) God commanded it by the Apostles: 2 Cor. xi. 27, "In hunger and thirst, in fastings often" – whence he is a manifest transgressor of the precepts of grace who is unwilling to fast.


text: The fruit and advantages of fasting can easily be proved. And first; fasting is most useful in preparing the soul for prayer, and the contemplation of divine things, as the angel Raphael saith: "Prayer is good with fasting". Thus Moses for forty days prepared his soul by fasting, before he presumed to speak with God: so Elias fasted forty days, that thus he might be able, as far as human nature would permit, to hold converse with God: so Daniel, by a fast of three weeks, was prepared for receiving the revelations of God: so the Church has appointed "fasts" on the vigil of great festivals.


title: Jailhouse Rock (song)

text: "Jailhouse Rock" is a song recorded by American singer Elvis Presley for the film of the same name. It was written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. RCA Victor released the song on a 45 rpm single on September 24, 1957, as the first single from the film's soundtrack EP. It reached the top of the charts in the U.S. and the top 10 in several other countries. The song has been recognized by the Grammy Hall of Fame, the American Film Institute, and others.


title: Jailhouse Rock (song)

text: Some of the characters named in the song are real people. Shifty Henry was a well-known Los Angeles musician, not a criminal. The Purple Gang was a real mob. "Sad Sack" was a U.S. Army nickname in World War II for a loser, which was also the name of a popular comic strip and comic book character.


title: Jailhouse Rock (song)

text: According to "Rolling Stone", Leiber and Stoller's "theme song for Presley's third movie was decidedly silly, the kind of tongue-in-cheek goof they had come up with for The Coasters. Presley, however, sang it as straight rock & roll, overlooking the jokes in the lyrics (like the suggestion of gay romance when inmate Number 47 tells Number 3, 'You're the cutest jailbird I ever did see') and then introducing Scotty Moore's guitar solo with a cry so intense that the take almost collapses." Gender studies scholars cite the song for "its famous reference to homoerotics behind bars," while music critic Garry Mulholland writes, "'Jailhouse Rock' was always a queer lyric, in both senses." Douglas Brode writes of the filmed production number that it's "amazing that the sequence passed by the censors".


title: Jailhouse Rock (song)

text: The single, with its B-side "Treat Me Nice" (another song from the film's soundtrack) was a US number one hit for seven weeks in the fall of 1957, and a UK number one hit for three weeks early in 1958. In addition, "Jailhouse Rock" spent one week at the top of the US country charts, and reached the number one position on the R&B chart.


title: Jailhouse Rock (song)

text: Also in 1957, "Jailhouse Rock" was the lead song in an EP (extended play single), together with other songs from the film, namely "Young and Beautiful", "I Want to Be Free", "Don't Leave Me Now" and "(You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care" (but with "Treat Me Nice" omitted). It topped the "Billboard" EP charts, eventually selling two million copies and earning a double-platinum RIAA certification.


title: Jailhouse Rock (song)

text: "Rolling Stone" magazine included "Jailhouse Rock" at number 67 on its list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and it was named one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. In 2004, it finished at number 21 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs survey of top tunes in American cinema. On November 27, 2016, the Grammy Hall of Fame announced its induction, along with that of another 24 songs. In 2019, the song ranked number 31 on Spanish radio station Rock FM 500's list of "Five Hundred Rockers of All Time", ahead of any other song of the 1950s.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: The South Thailand insurgency (; ) is an ongoing conflict centered in southern Thailand. It originated in 1948 as an ethnic and religious separatist insurgency in the historical Malay Patani Region, made up of the three southernmost provinces of Thailand and parts of a fourth, but has become more complex and increasingly violent since the early 2000s from drug cartels, oil smuggling networks, and sometimes pirate raids.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: The former Sultanate of Pattani, which included the southern Thai provinces of Pattani (Patani), Yala (Jala), Narathiwat (Menara)—also known as the three Southern Border Provinces (SBP)—as well as neighbouring parts of Songkhla Province (Singgora), and the northeastern part of Malaysia (Kelantan), was conquered by the Kingdom of Siam in 1785 and, except for Kelantan, has been governed by Thailand ever since.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: Although low-level separatist violence had occurred in the region for decades, the campaign escalated after 2001, with a recrudescence in 2004, and has occasionally spilled over into other provinces. Incidents blamed on southern insurgents have occurred in Bangkok and Phuket.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: In July 2005, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra assumed wide-ranging emergency powers to deal with the southern violence, but the insurgency escalated further. On 19 September 2006, a military junta ousted Thaksin Shinawatra in a coup. The junta implemented a major policy shift by replacing Thaksin's earlier approach with a campaign to win over the "hearts and minds" of the insurgents. Despite little progress in curbing the violence, the junta declared that security was improving and that peace would come to the region by 2008. By March 2008, however, the death toll surpassed 3,000.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: During the Democrat-led government of Abhisit Vejjajiva, Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya noted a "sense of optimism" and said that he was confident of bringing peace to the region in 2010. But by the end of 2010 insurgency-related violence had increased, confounding the government's optimism. Finally in March 2011, the government conceded that violence was increasing and could not be solved in a few months.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: Local leaders have persistently demanded at least a level of autonomy from Thailand for the Patani region and some of the separatist insurgent movements have made a series of demands for peace talks and negotiations. However, these groups have been largely sidelined by the Barisan Revolusi Nasional-Koordinasi (BRN-C), the group currently spearheading the insurgency. It sees no reason for negotiations and is against talks with other insurgent groups. The BRN-C has as its immediate aim to make southern Thailand ungovernable and it has largely been successful.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: Estimates of the strength of the insurgency vary greatly. In 2004, General Pallop Pinmanee claimed that there were only 500 hardcore jihadists. Other estimates say there as many as 15,000 armed insurgents. Around 2004, some Thai analysts believed that foreign Islamic terrorist groups were infiltrating the area, and that foreign funds and arms are being brought in, though again, such claims were balanced by an equally large body of opinion suggesting this remains a distinctly local conflict.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: Over 6,500 people died and almost 12,000 were injured between 2004 and 2015 in a formerly ethnic separatist insurgency, which has currently been taken over by hard-line jihadis and pitted them against both the Thai-speaking Buddhist minority and local Muslims who have a moderate approach or who support the Thai government.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: Despite the ethnic affinity of the people of the Patani region with their Malay neighbours to the south, the old Patani Kingdom was led by sultans who historically preferred to pay tribute to the distant Siamese kings in Bangkok. For many centuries the King of Siam restricted himself to exacting a periodic tribute in the form of Bunga mas, ritual trees with gold leaves and flowers that were a symbolic acknowledgment of Siamese suzerainty, leaving the Patani rulers largely alone.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: Thai rule over the historical Patani region was confirmed by the Anglo-Siamese Treaty of 1909. Until well into the 20th century, the government in Bangkok had interfered little locally, relying on local officials for the implementation of policies within the Patani region. This included an exemption in implementing Thai Civil Law, which had allowed Muslims to continue their observance of local Islamic laws regarding issues on inheritance and family. However, by 1934 Marshal Plaek Phibunsongkhram set in motion of a process of Thaification which had as its objective the cultural assimilation of the Patani people, among other ethnic groups in Thailand.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: The National Culture Act was enforced as a result of the Thaification process, promoting the concept of "Thai-ness" and its centralist aims. Its "Mandate 3" was directly aimed at the Patani people. By 1944, Thai civil law was enforced throughout the land including the Patani region, over-riding earlier concessions to local Islamic administrative practices. The school curriculum was revised to be Thai-centric, with all lessons in the Thai language, to the detriment of the local Jawi. Traditional Muslim courts that formerly handled civil cases were removed and replaced with civil courts run and approved by the central government in Bangkok. This forced assimilation process and the perceived imposition of Thai-Buddhist cultural practices upon their society were irritants to the ethnic Malay Patani.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: In 1947, Haji Sulong, founder of the Patani People's Movement, launched a petition campaign, demanding autonomy, language, and cultural rights, and implementation of Islamic law. In January 1948, Sulong was arrested on treason charges along with other local leaders branded as "separatist". Sulong was released from jail in 1952, then disappeared under mysterious circumstances in 1954.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: Denied recognition as a culturally separate ethnic minority, Patani leaders reacted against the Thai government policy towards them. Inspired by ideologies such as Nasserism, in the 1950s a Patani nationalist movement began to grow, leading to the south Thailand insurgency.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: By 1959, Tengku Jalal Nasir established the Patani National Liberation Front (BNPP), the first Malay rebel group. At the time of their foundation the goal of the nationalist movements, such as the Patani United Liberation Organisation (PULO) established in 1968, was secession. The emphasis was laid in pursuing an armed struggle towards an independent state where Patani people could live with dignity without having alien cultural values imposed on them.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: The last third of the 20th century saw the emergence of different insurgent groups in the south. Despite some differences in ideology they shared broadly separatist aims, but all justified the use of violence to reach their goals, setting a pattern of attacking police and military posts, as well as schools and Thai government offices. The effectiveness of these groups was marred, however, by infighting and lack of unity among them.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: A resurgence in violence by Pattani guerrilla groups began after 2001. While the region's traditional separatist insurgents had flags, and leaders, claimed responsibility for the attacks, and made communiques, the new groups attacked more viciously and kept silent. This new development disoriented and confused the Thai authorities, who kept groping in the dark as the identity of the new insurgents in the conflict remained a mystery. Thailand held relatively free elections in February 2005, but no secessionist candidates contested the results in the south. In July of the same year, the chairman of the Narathiwat Islamic Committee admitted, "The attacks look like they are well-organised, but we do not know what group of people is behind them." Despite the shroud of anonymity and the absence of concrete demands, revived groups, such as the GMIP, and particularly the BRN-Coordinate and its alleged armed wing, the Runda Kumpulan Kecil (RKK), have been identified as leading the new insurgency.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: While earlier attacks were typified by drive-by shootings in which patrolling policemen were shot by gunmen on passing motorcycles, after 2001 they have escalated to well-coordinated attacks on police establishments, with police stations and outposts ambushed by well-armed groups subsequently fleeing with stolen arms and ammunition. Other tactics used to gain publicity from shock and horror are slashing to death Buddhist monks, bombing temples, beheadings, intimidating pork vendors and their customers, as well as arson attacks on schools, killing the teachers —mostly female— and burning their bodies. In rare cases, Pattani guerrilla groups had also threaten Thai Christians.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: Current insurgent groups proclaim militant jihadism and are not separatist anymore. Mostly led by Salafist hardliners, they have extreme and transnational religious goals, such as an Islamic Caliphate, to the detriment of a constructive cultural or nationalistic Patani identity. Salafi jihadist groups are hostile to the cultural heritage and practices of traditional Malay Muslims, accusing them of being unIslamic. They are not concerned about an independent separate nation. Instead, their immediate aim is to make the Patani region ungovernable.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: The Thai response to the insurgency has been hampered by clumsy methods, a lack of training in counter-insurgency, a lack of understanding of local culture, and rivalries between the police and the army. Many local policemen are allegedly involved in the local drug trade and other criminal activities, and army commanders from Bangkok treat them with disdain. Often the army responds to the attacks with heavy-handed raids to search Muslim villages, which only results in reprisals. Insurgents routinely provoke the inexperienced Thai government into disproportionate responses, generating sympathy among the Muslim populace.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: Attacks after 2001 concentrated on installations of the police and military. Schools and other symbols of Thai authority in the region have been subject to arson and bombing as well. Local police officers of all ranks and government officials were the primary targets of seemingly random assassinations, with 19 policemen killed and 50 incidents related to the insurgency in the three provinces of Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat by the end of 2001. School teachers have been a prime target. The BRN-C, through its Pejuang Kemerdekaan Patani paramilitary wing, has been the main group behind the murder of 157 teachers in the Southern Border Provinces between 2004 and 2013.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: A massive security presence in the region has failed to stem almost daily violence, usually involving drive-by shootings or small bombings. When the insurgents make a show of strength—generally at least every few months—they have eschewed large-scale attacks, preferring well-coordinated pinprick assaults at many locations while avoiding direct clashes with security forces.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: In a recent development, two consecutive bombs were detonated at the Big C shopping mall in Mueang Pattani District on 9 May 2017 at peak hour. 56 people were wounded, including small children.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: The government at first blamed the attacks on "bandits", and many outside observers believe that local clan, commercial or criminal rivalries played a role in the violence.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: In 2002, Thaksin stated, "There's no separatism, no ideological terrorists, just common bandits." By 2004, however, he had reversed his position and had come to regard the insurgency as a local front in the global war on terrorism. Martial law was instituted in Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat in January 2004.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: Since the 2006 military coup, the Thai government has taken a more conciliatory approach to the insurgency, avoiding the excessive use of force that typified Thaksin's time in office, and opened negotiations with known separatist groups. Violence, however, has escalated. This likely backs the assertion that there are several groups involved in the violence, few of whom have been placated by the government's change of strategy.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: On 3 June 2011, Army Chief Prayut Chan-o-cha stated that the insurgency is orchestrated from abroad and funded via drug and oil smuggling.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: Although Thailand's southern violence is mostly ethnic-based, anonymous leaflets issued by militant groups often contain jihadist language. Many young militants received training and indoctrination from Islamic teachers, some of which took place within Islamic educational institutions. Many see the southern Thai violence as a form of Islamist militancy and Islamic separatism, testifying to the strength of Malay Muslim beliefs and the determination of local people to resist the (Buddhist) Thai state on religious grounds.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: Recently, a religious factor has been brought to discussion due to the rise of the Islamist movement, especially the Salafi movement, which aimed to liberate the Muslim-dominated Malay regions from Thailand.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: Thai authorities claim that the insurgency is not caused by a lack of political representation of the Muslim population. By the late 1990s, Muslims were holding unprecedented senior posts in Thai politics. For example, Wan Muhamad Noor Matha, a Malay Muslim from Yala, served as chairman of parliament from 1996 to 2001 under the Democrats and later as interior minister during the first Thaksin government. Thaksin's first government (2001–2005) also saw 14 Muslim members of parliament (MPs) and several Muslim senators. Muslims dominated provincial legislative assemblies in the border provinces, and several southern municipalities had Muslim mayors. Muslims were able to voice their political grievances openly and enjoy a much greater degree of religious freedom.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: The Thaksin regime, however, began to dismantle the southern administration organisation, replacing it with a notoriously corrupt police force that immediately began widespread crackdowns. Consultation with local community leaders was also abolished. Discontent over the abuses led to growing violence during 2004 and 2005. Muslim politicians and leaders remained silent out of fear of repression, thus eroding their political legitimacy and support. This cost them dearly. In the 2005 general election, all but one of the eleven incumbent Muslim MPs who stood for election were voted out of office.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: Although Thailand's economy has grown dramatically in the past several decades, gains in both northern and southern provinces have been relatively limited. Income differences between Buddhist and Muslim households are especially pronounced in the border region.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: The percentage of people living below the poverty line also fell, from 40%, 36%, and 33% in 2000 to 18%, 10%, and 23% in 2004 for Pattani, Narathiwat, and Yala, respectively. By 2004, the three provinces had 310,000 people living below the poverty line, compared to 610,000 in 2000. However, 45% of all poor southerners lived in the three border provinces.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: Muslims in the border provinces generally have lower levels of educational attainment compared to their Buddhist neighbours. 69.80% of the Muslim population in the border provinces have only a primary school education, compared to 49.6% of Buddhists in the same provinces. Only 9.20% of Muslims have completed secondary education (including those who graduated from private Islamic schools), compared to 13.20% of Buddhists. Just 1.70% of the Muslim population have a bachelor's degree, while 9.70% of Buddhists hold undergraduate degrees. Government schools generally enforce a Thai language curriculum to the exclusion of the region's Patani-Malay languages, a policy which produces low literacy rates and contributes to the view of government schools as antagonistic to Malay culture. The secular educational system is being undermined by the destruction of schools and the murders of teachers by the insurgent groups.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: The lesser educated Muslims also have reduced employment opportunities compared to their Buddhist neighbours. Only 2.4% of all working Muslims in the provinces held government posts, compared with 19.2% of all working Buddhists. Jobs in the Thai public sector are difficult to obtain for those Muslims who never fully accepted the Thai language or the Thai education system. Insurgent attacks on economic targets further reduce employment opportunities for both Muslims and Buddhists in the provinces.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: Currently the most active insurgent movements are the BRN-Coordinate, its alleged armed wing the Runda Kumpulan Kecil (RKK), and the GMIP. PULO, the doyen of the Patani insurgent groups and formerly the most respected secessionist movement in the region, has been largely inactive in recent years.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: The Barisan Revolusi Nasional-Koordinasi (BRN-C) is currently the most important group, spearheading the insurgency in southern Thailand. It was revived after 2001 and its leaders are mainly Salafi religious teachers who have rejected the Pan-Arab socialist ideology of the early BRN, engaging in political activism by recruiting followers in mosques and indoctrinating at Islamic schools. This group has the vision of becoming a mass movement, aiming towards having 400,000 members in its area of operation. The BRN-C has no constructive cultural or nationalistic goals; instead its immediate aim is to make southern Thailand ungovernable. It has been largely successful at spreading and maintaining an atmosphere of terror and uncertainty through well-trained secret militant units that engage in assassinations and calculated destruction.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: The Runda Kumpulan Kecil (RKK), allegedly one of the armed wings of the BRN-C, has been one of the most brutal and ruthless groups of the south Thailand insurgency in recent years. It is composed of young, mostly Salafi, militants who routinely flee to Malaysia after carrying out violent attacks, including bombings, arson, and murders in Yala, Pattani, or Narathiwat Province. Although several RKK members have been arrested or killed by the Thai military in the past decade, it is difficult for those involved in counter-insurgency to penetrate the structure of the group owing to its secrecy and mobility.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: Like the BRN-C, the Gerakan Mujahidin Islam Patani (GMIP) is a group that experienced a revival after 2001 and has currently more hard-line Islamic political goals, to the detriment of its former nationalist cause. Its members are now believed to have sympathies with Al Qaeda and with the establishment of the transnational Islamic Caliphate.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: The Barisan Bersatu Mujahidin Patani (BBMP) was created in 1985 as a radical breakaway of the National Front for the Liberation of Pattani (BNPP), distinguished from the latter by its overt Islamist ideology.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: The Patani United Liberation Organisation (PULO) is a movement that was founded on the nationalist and secular values of Patani nation-building. Its priority was freeing Pattani from Thai rule by all means, including armed struggle.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: However, since 2001 the civil society in the three southern Thai provinces has experienced a widespread imposition of legalistic Salafi norms and the reality on the ground is today very different from what it was in former southern Thailand. Salafism has heavily eroded Patani cultural identity and current insurgent groups have extreme religious goals, such as an Islamic Caliphate, to the detriment of Patani nationalism. Although some of the present-day insurgents are very likely former PULO members, it is still unclear whether they fight for PULO's cause and it is likely that many may have become part of the more active and religious organisations that have overtaken PULO. In recent years PULO's leadership has largely lost control over its insurgents and has a very limited overall degree of influence over the insurgency in southern Thailand.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: On 26 July 2009 Abu Yasir Fikri, President of PULO, and the "emir" of the Group of Mujahidin Islam Patani (GMIP), Me Kuteh, agreed to join forces. Abu Yasir Fikri was allowed to speak on behalf of the GMIP on all political issues. The agreement included a section in which they agreed to form a unified military force, the Patani Liberation Army (PLA). The PLA would be commanded by the First Deputy Military Commander of the Patani United Liberation Organisation (PULO).


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: On 18 April 2009, PULO outlined a solution to conflict at the OICs Twelfth Meeting of the Intergovernmental Group of Experts to consider the Conditions of Muslim Communities and Minorities in Jeddah.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: In the last decade of the unrest in south Thailand, the Black Standard flag has largely replaced the colourful secessionist flags formerly used by the different groups involved in the insurgency against the Thai government.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: On 28 April 2004, more than 100 militants carried out terrorist attacks against 10 police outposts across Pattani, Yala, and Songkhla Provinces in south Thailand. Thirty-two gunmen retreated to the 16th-century Krue Se Mosque, regarded by Muslims as the holiest mosque in Pattani.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: General Pallop Pinmanee, commander of the "Southern Peace Enhancement Center" and Deputy Director of the Internal Security Operations Command, was the senior army officer on the scene. After a tense seven-hour stand-off, Pallop ordered an all-out assault on the mosque. All of the gunmen were killed. He later insisted, "I had no choice. I was afraid that as time passed the crowd would be sympathetic to the insurgents, to the point of trying to rescue them".


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: It was later revealed that Pallop's order to storm the mosque contravened a direct order by Defense Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh to seek a peaceful resolution to the stand-off no matter how long it took. Pallop was immediately ordered out of the area, and later tendered his resignation as commander of the Southern Peace Enhancement Center. The forward command of the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC), which Pallop headed, was also dissolved. A government investigative commission found that the security forces had over-reacted. The Asian Centre for Human Rights questioned the independence and impartiality of the investigative commission. On 3 May 2004 during a senate hearing, Senator Kraisak Choonhavan noted that most of those killed at Krue Se Mosque had been shot in the head and there were signs that ropes had been tied around their wrists, suggesting they had been executed after being captured.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: The incident resulted in a personal conflict between Pallop and Defense Minister Chavalit, who was also director of the ISOC. Pallop later demanded that the defence minister cease any involvement in the management of the southern insurgency.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: In October 2004 the town of Tak Bai in Narathiwat Province saw the most publicised incident of the insurgency. Six local men were arrested for having supplied weapons to insurgents. A demonstration was organised to demand their release and the police called in army reinforcements. The army used tear gas and water cannons on the crowd, and shooting started in which seven men were killed.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: Hundreds of local people, mostly young men, were arrested. They were made to take off their shirts and lie on the ground. Their hands were tied behind their backs. Later that afternoon, they were thrown by soldiers into trucks to be taken to the Ingkayutthaboriharn army camp in the nearby province of Pattani. The prisoners were stacked five or six deep in the trucks, and by the time the trucks reached their destination five hours later, in the heat of the day, 78 men had died of suffocation.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: This incident sparked widespread protests across the south, and across Thailand, as even non-Muslim Thais were appalled at the army's behaviour. Thaksin, however, gave the army his full support. Those responsible for the ill-treatment and death of the detainees received the most minor of non-custodial punishments. Thaksin's initial response was to defend the army's actions, saying that the 78 men died "because they were already weak from fasting during the month of Ramadan".


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: Charges were filed against 58 suspects accused of participating in the demonstration however the case was dropped in November 2006 as it would not be good for the public and "it might affect national security".


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: On 2 November 2006, then Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont gave a formal apology for the incident. This caused a large rise in violent incidents the next day.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: This standoff between insurgents and Thai police and military took place in Yala, Thailand on 27 June 2009 at 7:55 am local time. A combined force of 200 district police officers and soldiers of Taskforce 15 sealed off a house in the Bannang Sata district of Yala province after locals tipped them of the presence of separatist militants.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: As police and the army stormed the building, militants holed up inside opened fire, killing Sgt Maj Pongsathorn Niraphai of the Bannang Sata police station and Sergeant Major 3rd Class Sangsun Kalong, 39, a soldier. A suspected militant, Sopepun Buenae, 26 was killed when he tried to escape. At least two rebels managed to escape despite being cornered for nearly 5 hours.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: During the preceding weeks, attacks by separatists had increased; 41 people were killed and 60 wounded in June alone. Earlier in June, masked gunmen killed 11 worshippers in a mosque in the Narathiwat province. The incident, which also wounded 12 people was considered as one of the worst attacks in 5 years. A$5,900 reward for leads on the attack was announced.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: In May 2004, Wan Kadir Che Man, exiled leader of Bersatu and for years one of the key symbolic figures in the guerrilla movement, stated that he would be willing to negotiate with the government to end the southern violence. He also hinted that Bersatu would be willing to soften its previous demands for an independent state.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: The government initially welcomed the request to negotiate. However, the government response was severely criticised as being "knee-jerk" and "just looking to score cheap political points." But when it became apparent that, despite his softened demand for limited autonomy, Wan Kadir Che Man had no influence over the violence, the negotiations were cancelled. The government then began a policy of not attempting to officially negotiate with the insurgents.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: After being appointed army commander in 2005, General Sonthi Boonyaratglin expressed confidence that he could resolve the insurgency. He claimed that he would take a "new and effective" approach to a crisis and that "The Army is informed [of who the insurgents are] and will carry out their duties."


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: On 1 September 2006, a day after 22 commercial banks were simultaneously bombed in Yala Province, Sonthi announced that he would break with the government's no-negotiation policy. However, he noted that "We still don't know who is the real head of the militants we are fighting with." In a press conference the next day, he attacked the government for criticising him for trying to negotiate with the anonymous insurgents, and demanded that the government "Free the military and let it do the job." His confrontation with the government made his call for negotiation extremely popular with the media. Afterwards, insurgents bombed six department stores in Hat Yai city, which until then had been free of insurgent activities. The identity of the insurgents was not revealed. Sonthi was granted an extraordinary increase in executive powers to combat unrest in the far south. By 19 September 2006 (after Sonthi overthrew the Thai government), the army admitted that it was still unsure whom to negotiate with.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: In March 2005, respected former Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun was appointed chairman of a National Reconciliation Commission, tasked with overseeing the restoration of peace to the south. A fierce critic of the Thaksin-government, Anand frequently criticised the handling of southern unrest, and in particular the State of Emergency Decree. He has been quoted to have said, "The authorities have worked inefficiently. They have arrested innocent people instead of the real culprits, leading to mistrust among locals. So, giving them broader power may lead to increased violence and eventually a real crisis".


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: The Thaksin government vowed to implement the recommendations. However, the recommendations were vigorously opposed by Prem Tinsulanonda, the president of King Bhumibol Adulyadej's Privy Council, who stated "We cannot accept that [proposal] as we are Thai. The country is Thai and the language is Thai... We have to be proud to be Thai and have the Thai language as the sole national language".


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: In mid 2021, the BRN sent a document to the government include three demands, a political solution that suits Thai Malays in the deep south, a decrease in military controls, and an inclusivity. The three demands marked a baseline of talk in Kuala Lumpur between Wanlop Rugsanaoh, chief negotiator from the government, and Anas Abdulrahman, the BRN representative.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: According to government data, from 2004 until the end of 2012 the conflict had resulted in at least 3,380 deaths, including 2,316 civilians, 372 troops, 278 police, 250 suspected insurgents, 157 education officials, and seven Buddhist monks. According to one report in the Patani Post in late May 2014, about 6,000 people have been killed in the conflict during the previous decade. A January 2016 article in the "Bangkok Post" reported a total of 6,543 deaths and 11,919 injuries from 2004 until the end of 2015, with an estimated 15,374 "insurgency-related" incidents occurring during the same period. From 2016 to November 2017, 160 more people have died. Though the insurgency is geared against the government, Thai security forces, and Buddhist civilians, in the general period of the conflict 60% of casualties have been Muslim - most of whom were killed at the hands of insurgents.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: Human Rights Watch (HRW) cites abuses on both sides. Numerous times the insurgents have murdered Buddhist monks collecting alms, and Buddhist villagers have been killed going about routine work such as rubber tapping, even though Buddhists have lived in the region for centuries. School teachers, headmasters, and students have been killed and schools torched presumably because schools represent a symbol of the Thai government. Civil servants, regardless of religion, have been targeted for assassination. According to the Thai Journalists Association, during the year 2008 alone there were over 500 attacks, resulting in more than 300 deaths in the four provinces where the insurgents operate.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: Meanwhile, local Muslims have been beaten, killed, or simply "disappeared" during police questioning and custody. Human Rights Watch has documented at least 20 such disappearances. Soldiers and police have sometimes been indiscriminate when pursuing suspected insurgents, resulting in civilian collateral damage.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: Of the 2,463 people killed in attacks from 2004 to 2007, almost 90% were civilians. Buddhist Thais and ethnic Malay Muslims were killed in bomb attacks, shootings, assassinations, ambushes, and machete attacks. At least 29 victims have been beheaded and mutilated. "There have been hundreds of militant attacks on teachers, schools, public health workers, hospital staff, and community health centers. For the first time in the region's history of separatist insurgencies, Buddhist monks and novices are now among those killed and injured by separatist militants," HRW said in a 2007 report.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: "Village-based militants called Pejuang Kemerdekaan Patani (Patani Freedom Fighters) in the loose network of BRN-Coordinate (National Revolution Front-Coordinate) have now emerged as the backbone of the new generation of separatist militants. "Increasingly, they claim that the southern border provinces are not the land of Buddhist Thais, but a religious 'conflict zone' which must be divided between ethnic Malay Muslims and 'infidels'. The separatists seek to forcibly liberate Patani Darulsalam (Islamic Land of Patani), from what they call a Buddhist Thai occupation", HRW continued.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: The 2010 World Report from Human Rights Watch highlighted escalating human rights abuses throughout Thailand, with the south reflecting overall policies against individual human rights. Sharply increased powers for police and the military were accompanied by a perceived lack of accountability.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: The Asian Human Rights Commission accused the military of beating and torturing suspected insurgents by burning their genitals with cigarettes, smashing beer bottles over their knees, and chaining them to dogs. Such abuses were alleged to have occurred in October 2006, after the military seized power.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: In December 2006, a group of 20 Muslims, nine men and 11 women aged between two and 55, sought political asylum in Malaysia. They claimed that the post-coup regime was more aggressive against civilians and that they were continuously harassed by the army.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: A group of Muslims from Narathiwat who fled to Malaysia in March 2007 claimed that they were escaping intimidation and brutality by the military. The group complained that they were beaten and that their sons have been missing or detained since 2005. It also claimed that some youths died after they were poisoned during detention.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: In late January 2012, an unknown number of insurgents ambushed a "thahan pran" base before retreating. Rangers chased the insurgents and were fired upon from a pick-up truck. The rangers fired back in self-defence resulting in four dead civilians in the truck with others wounded. The rangers found AK-47 assault rifles, but also claimed that the four dead civilians were not affiliated with insurgents in any way. Soldiers from the 4th army regiment are investigating. This killing has angered many Thai Muslims as the four dead persons were mosque leaders (an imam, a moulana, a khatib, and a bilai).


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: In early February, the Ministry of Interior proposed a 7.5 million baht compensation payment to all victims of the insurgency including those from the Tak Bai Massacre and the Kru Se Mosque Incident.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: Suicide of Khanakorn Pianchana sparked a public criticism in the justice system in deep south of Thailand, a Thai judge who made a suicide attempt in October 2019 and died in his second attempt in 2020, in order to protest against interference by the senior judge. At the time of his first suicide attempt, he was a senior judge in the Yala Provincial Court in south Thailand. It called for improvement on the justice in Muslim community. Judge Khanakorn told the accused, five Muslims, and their family members that he wanted to acquit them due to lack of evidence, but was being forced from above to convict.


title: South Thailand insurgency

text: The Emergency Decree was extended for the 68th time in 2022, since its first issue in July 2005. Academics, legal experts and rights activists called on the government to lift the law, amid human rights abuses and illegal activities by the government official.


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: The terms human–animal hybrid and animal–human hybrid refer to an entity that incorporates elements from both humans and non-human animals, these hybrids existing throughout social cultures for a long time (particularly in terms of mythology) while also being thought to be theoretically possible via scientific experimentation in the context of 20th century and 21st century research. In fiction, these hybrids have been a part of storytelling across multiple continents and particularly have been incorporated into comic books, films, video games, and related such mass media in recent decades.


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: For thousands of years, these hybrids have been one of the most common themes in storytelling about animals throughout the world. The lack of a strong divide between humanity and animal nature in multiple traditional and ancient cultures has provided the underlying historical context for the popularity of tales where humans and animals have mingling relationships, such as in which one turns into the other or in which some mixed being goes through a journey. Interspecies friendships within the animal kingdom, as well as between humans and their pets, additionally provides an underlying root for the popularity of such beings.


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: In various mythologies throughout history, many particularly famous hybrids have existed, including as a part of Egyptian and Indian spirituality. The entities have also been characters in fictional media more recently in history such as in H. G. Wells' work "The Island of Doctor Moreau", adapted into the popular 1932 film "Island of Lost Souls". In legendary terms, the hybrids have played varying roles from that of trickster and/or villain to serving as divine heroes in very different contexts, depending on the given culture.


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: For example, Pan is a deity in Greek mythology that rules over and symbolizes the untamed wild, being worshiped by hunters, fishermen, and shepherds in particular. The mischievous yet cheerful character is a Satyr who has the hindquarters, legs, and horns of a goat while otherwise being essentially human in appearance, with stories of his encounters with different gods, humans, and others being retold for centuries on after the days of early Greece by groups such as the Delphian Society. Specifically, the human-animal hybrid has appeared in acclaimed works of art by figures such as Francis Bacon. Additional famous mythological hybrids include the Egyptian god of death, named Anubis, and the fox-like Japanese beings that are called Kitsune.


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: When looked at scientifically, outside of a fictional and/or mythical context, the real-life creation of human-animal hybrids has served as a subject of legal, moral, and technological debate in the context of recent advances in genetic engineering. Defined by the magazine "H+" as "genetic alterations that are blendings [sic] of animal and human forms", such hybrids may be referred by other names occasionally such as "para-humans". They may additionally may be called "humanized animals". Technically speaking, they are also related to "cybrids" (cytoplasmic hybrids), with "cybrid" cells featuring foreign human nuclei inside of them being a topic of interest. Possibly, a real-world human-animal hybrid may be an entity formed from either a human egg fertilized by a nonhuman sperm or a nonhuman egg fertilized by a human sperm. While at first being a concept in the likes of legends and thought experiments, the first stable human-animal chimeras (not hybrids but related) to actually exist were first created by Shanghai Second Medical University scientists in 2003, the result of having fused human cells with rabbit eggs. As well, a U.S. patent has notably been granted for a mouse chimera with a human immune system.


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: In terms of scientific ethics, restrictions on the creation of human–animal hybrids have proved a controversial matter in multiple countries. While the state of Arizona banned the practice altogether in 2010, a proposal on the subject that sparked some interest in the United States Senate from 2011 to 2012 ended up going nowhere. Although the two concepts are not strictly related, discussions of experimentation into blended human and animal creatures has paralleled the discussions around embryonic stem-cell research (the 'stem cell controversy'). The creation of genetically modified organisms for a multitude of purposes has taken place in the modern world for decades, examples being specifically designed foodstuffs made to have features such as higher crop yields through better disease resistance.


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: Despite the legal and moral controversy over the possible real-life making of such beings, then President George W. Bush even speaking on the subject in his 2006 State of the Union, the concept of humanoid creatures with hybrid characteristics from animals, played in a dramatic and sensationalized fashion, has continued to be a popular element of fictional media in the digital age. Examples include "Splice", a 2009 movie about experimental genetic research, and "The Evil Within", a survival horror video game released in 2014 in which the protagonist fights grotesque hybrid creatures among other enemies.


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: Beings displaying a mixture of human and animal traits while also having a similarly blended appearance have played a vast and varied role in multiple traditions around the world. Artist and scholar Pietro Gaietto has written that "representations of human-animal hybrids always have their origins in religion". In "successive traditions they may change in meaning but they still remain within spiritual culture", Gaietto has argued, when looking back in an evolution-minded point of view. The beings show up in both Greek and Roman mythology, with various elements of ancient Egyptian society ebbing and flowing into those cultures in particular. Prominent examples in ancient Egyptian religion, featuring some of the earliest such hybrid beings, include the canine-like god of death known as Anubis and the lion-like Sphinx. Other instances of these types of characters include figures within both Chinese and Japanese mythology. The observation of interspecies friendships within the animal kingdom, as well as the bonds existing between humans and their pets, have been a source of the appeal in such stories.


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: A prominent hybrid figure that's internationally known is the mythological Greek figure of Pan. A deity that rules over and symbolizes the untamed wild, he helps express the inherent beauty of the natural world as the Greeks saw things. He specifically received reverence by ancient hunters, fishermen, shepherds, and other groups with a close connection to nature. Pan is a Satyr who possesses the hindquarters, legs, and horns of a goat while otherwise being essentially human in appearance; stories of his encounters with different gods, humans, and others have been a part of popular culture in several different cultures for many years. The human-animal hybrid has appeared in acclaimed works of art by figures such as Francis Bacon, also being mentioned in poetic pieces such as in John Fletcher's writings.


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: In Chinese mythology, the figure of Chu Pa-chieh undergoes a personal journey in which he gives up wickedness for virtue. After causing a disturbance in heaven from his licentious actions, he is exiled to Earth. By mistake, he enters the womb of a sow and ends up being born as a half-man/half-pig entity. With the head and ears of a pig coupled with a human body, his already animal-like sense of selfishness from his past life remains. Killing and eating his mother as well as devouring his brothers, he makes his way to a mountain hideout, spending his days preying on unwary travelers unlucky enough to cross his path. However, the exhortations of the kind goddess Kuan Yin, journeying in China, persuade him to seek a nobler path, and his life's journey and the side of goodness proceeds on such that he even is ordained a priest by the goddess herself. Remarking on the character's role in the religious novel "Journey to the West", where the being first appears, professor Victor H. Mair has commented that "[p]ig-human hybrids represent descent and the grotesque, a capitulation to the basest appetites" rather than "self-improvement".


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: Several hybrid entities have long played a major role in Japanese media and in traditional beliefs within the country. For example, a warrior god known as Amida received worship as a part of Japanese mythology for many years; he possessed a generally humanoid appearance while having a canine-like head. However, the god's devotional popularity fell in about the middle of the 19th century. A Tanuki resembles a raccoon or badger, but its shape-shifting talents allow it to turn into humans for the purposes of trickery, such as impersonating Buddhist monks. The fox-like creatures known as Kitsune also possess similar powers, and stories abound of them tricking human men into marriage by turning into seductive women.


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: Other examples include characters in ancient Anatolia and Mesopotamia. The latter region has had the tradition of a malevolent human-animal hybrid deity in Pazuzu, the demon featuring a humanoid shape yet having grotesque features such as sharp talons. The character picked up revived attention when an interpretation of it appeared in William Peter Blatty's 1971 novel "The Exorcist" and the Academy Award winning 1973 film adaption of the same name, with the demon possessing the body of an innocent young girl. The movie, regarded as one of the greatest horror films of all time, has a prologue in which co-protagonist Father Merrin (Max von Sydow) visits an archaeological dig in Iraq and ominously discovers an old statue of the monstrous being.


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: "Theriocephaly" (from Greek θηρίον "therion" 'beast' and κεφαλή "kefalí" 'head') is the anthropomorphic condition or quality of having the head of an animal with a body either mostly or entirely looking human – the term being commonly used to refer the depiction of deities or otherwise specially able individuals. An entity with such qualities is said to be "theriomorphous". Many of the gods and goddesses worshipped by the ancient Egyptians, for example, were commonly depicted as being theriocephalic. Notable examples include:


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: Many prominent pieces of children's literature over the past two centuries have featured humanized animal characters, often as protagonists in the stores. In the opinion of popular educator Lucy Sprague Mitchell, the appeal of such mythical and fantastic beings comes from how children desire "direct" language "told in terms of images— visual, auditory, tactile, muscle images". Another author has remarked that an "animal costume" provides "a way to emphasize or even exaggerate a particular characteristic".


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: The anthropomorphic characters in the seminal works by English writer Beatrix Potter in particular live an ambiguous situation, having human dress yet displaying many instinctive animal traits. Writing on the popularity of Peter Rabbit, a later author commented that in "balancing humanized domesticity against wild rabbit foraging, Potter subverted parental authority and its built in hypocrisy" in Potter's child-centered books. Writer Lisa Fraustino has cited on the subject R.M. Lockley's tongue-in-cheek observation: "Rabbits are so human. Or is it the other way around— humans are so rabbit?"


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: Writer H. G. Wells created his famous work "The Island of Doctor Moreau", featuring a mixture of horror and science fiction elements, to promote the anti-vivisection cause as a part of his long-time advocacy for animal rights. Wells' story describes a man stuck on an island ruled over by the titular Dr. Moreau, a morally depraved scientist who has created several human-animal hybrids referred to as 'Beast Folk' through vivisection and even by combining parts of other animals for some of the 'Beast Folk'. The story has been adapted into film several times, with varying success. The most acclaimed version is the 1932 black-and-white treatment called "Island of Lost Souls". Wells himself wrote that "this story was the response of an imaginative mind to the reminder that humanity is but animal rough-hewn to a reasonable shape and in perpetual internal conflict between instinct and injunction," with the scandals surrounding Oscar Wilde being the impetus for the English writer's treatment of themes such as ethics and psychology. Challenging the Victorian era viewpoints of its time, the 1896 work presents a complex situation in which enhancing animals into hybrids involves both terrifying violence and pain as well as appears essentially futile, given the power of raw instinct. A pessimistic view towards the ability of human civilization to live by law-abiding, moral standards for long thus follows.


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: The 1986 horror film "The Fly" features a deformed and monstrous human-animal hybrid, played by actor Jeff Goldblum. His character, scientist Seth Brundle, undergoes a teleportation experiment that goes awry and fuses him at a fundamental genetic level with a common fly caught besides him. Brundle experiences drastic mutations as a result that horrify him. Movie critic Gerardo Valero has written that the famous horror work, "released at the dawn of the AIDS epidemic", "was seen by many as a metaphor for the disease" while also playing on bodily fears about dismemberment and coming apart that human beings inherently share.


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: The science fiction film "Splice", released 2009, shows scientists mixing together human and animal DNA in the hopes of advancing medical research at the pharmaceutical company that they work at. Calamitous results occur when the hybrid named Dren is born.


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: The H.P. Lovecraft inspired movie "Dagon", released in 2001, additionally features grotesque hybrid beings. In terms of comic books, examples of fictional human-animal hybrids include the characters in Charles Burns' "Black Hole" series. In those comics, a set of teenagers in a 1970s era town become afflicted by a bizarre disease; the sexually transmitted affliction mutates them into monstrous forms.


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: Multiple video games have featured human-animal hybrids as enemies for the protagonist(s) to defeat, including powerful boss characters. For instance, the 2014 survival horror release "The Evil Within" includes grotesque hybrid beings, looking like the undead, attacking main character Detective Sebastian Castellanos. With partners Joseph Oda and Julie Kidman, the protagonist attempts investigate a multiple homicide at a mental hospital yet discovers a mysterious figure who turns the world around them into a living nightmare, Castellanos having to find the truth about the criminal psychopath.


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: Heroic character examples of human-animal anthropomorphic characters include the two protagonists of the 2002 movie "The Cat Returns" (Japanese title: 猫の恩返し), with the animated film featuring a young girl (named "Haru") being transformed against her will into a feline-human hybrid and fighting a villainous king of the cats with the help of a dashing male cat companion (known as the "Baron") at her side.


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: With general U.S. popular culture and its various subcultures, the furry fandom consists of individuals interested in a variety of artistic materials, this often featuring "furry art... [that] depicts a human-animal hybrid in everyday life". Specific people involved in creative media will frequently come up with a "fursona" depicting a version or versions of themselves as a hybrid creature. This practice functions as an outlet based on "on personal ideas of self-expression" (self-realization).


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: Influential SpaceX and Tesla, Inc. businessman Elon Musk, known for his interests in Japanese cultural media involving human–animal hybrids, has been subject to a long-running satirical joke that he will eventually biologically and/or electronically engineer "catgirl" creatures for human companionship. Such humor has been covered by news websites such as BoingBoing.net and Futurism.com


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: Broadly speaking, a hybrid being has one cell line throughout its entire body and came originally from a mix of entities, with different species involved to make a new genetic combination. For instance, a liger has a lion father and a tigress mother, such a creature only existing in captivity. Such hybridization has frequently caused difficult health problems that caregivers for the captive animals struggle with.


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: A chimera is not the same thing as a hybrid because it is a being composed of two or more genetically distinct cell lines in one entity. The entity does not exist as a member of a separate species but has differing elements inside of it. An animal that has experienced an organ transplant or related surgery involving tissues from a different species is an example.


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: Throughout past human evolution, hybridization occurred in many different instances, such as cross-breeding between Neanderthals and ancient versions of what are now modern humans. Some scientists have believed that particular genes of the Neanderthal may have been key to ancient humans adapting to the harsh climates they faced when they left Africa. However, mixing between species in the wild both now and through natural history have generally resulted in sterile offspring, thus being a kind of dead end in reproductive terms.


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: For much of modern history, the creation of genetically modified organisms in general was a topic rooted in fiction rather than practical research. This has changed significantly over the past few decades such that a number of plants and animals are commonly subject to genetic engineering for commercial purposes. For example, as of 2013 about 85% of the corn grown in the US as well as about 90% of its canola crops have been genetically modified. As well, many Americans that have had cardiovascular surgery have had heart valves initially from pigs used in their procedures.


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: Issues relating to possible human-animal hybrids outside of a fictional, historical, or mythic context but as real, engineered beings received major international attention in 2003, after some Chinese scientists at the Shanghai Second Medical University managed to successfully fuse human cells with rabbit eggs. The embryos formed reportedly were the first stable human-animal chimeras in existence. Research in similar areas continued into 2004 and 2005, with the topic picking up coverage from publications such as "National Geographic News". The National Academy of Sciences soon began to look into the ethical questions involved. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office additionally stirred interest into the topic by granting a patent request for a genetically modified mouse with a human immune system. Scientists announced in 2017 that they successfully created the first human-pig chimeric embryo. The embryo consisted mostly pig cells and some human cells. Scientists stated that they hope to use this technology to address the shortage of donor organs.


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: In July 2019, Japanese scientist Hiromitsu Nakauchi got the approval of the Japanese government to experiment with inserting human stem cells into animal (particularly rodent) embryos. Although its main use will be to make organ transplantation easier, this can be considered the first more effective step of making animal-human hybrids real. In April 2021, scientists reported the creation, for the first time, of human-monkey hybrid embryos.


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: Advances in genetic engineering have generally caused a large number of debates and discussions in the fields related to bioethics, and research relating to the hypothetical creation of human-animal hybrids in the future has been no exception. The technical analyses of intermingling human-based and animal-based genetic material are ongoing; the ethical, moral, and legal issues arising from actual research using chimeras (rather than hybrids per se) at the moment also touch more speculative concerns as well. While laws against the creation of hybrid beings have been proposed in U.S. states and in the U.S. Congress, several scientists have argued that legal barriers might go too far and prohibit medically beneficial studies into human modification. Although the two topics are not strictly related, the debates involving the creation of human-animal hybrids have paralleled that of the debates around the stem-cell research controversy.


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: The question of what line exists between a 'human being and a 'non-human' being has been a difficult one for many researchers to answer. While animals having one percent or less of their cells originally coming from humans may clearly appear to be in the same boat as other animals, no consensus exists on how to think about beings in a genetic middle ground that have something like an even mix. "I don't think anyone knows in terms of crude percentages how to differentiate between humans and nonhumans," U.S. patent office official John Doll has stated. Critics of increased government restrictions include scientists such as Dr. Douglas Kniss, head of the Laboratory of Perinatal Research at Ohio State University, who has remarked that formal laws aren't the best option since the "notion of animal-human hybrids is very complex." He's also argued that their creation is inherent "not the kind of thing we support" in his kind of research since scientists should "want to respect human life". "There are chimeras out there that serve very valuable purposes in medical research, such as mice that make human antibodies," Michael Werner, the chief of policy for the Biotechnology Industry Organization, has commented.


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: In contrast, notable socio-economic theorist Jeremy Rifkin has expressed opposition to research that creates beings crossing species boundaries, arguing that it interferes with the fundamental 'right to exist' possessed by each animal species. "One doesn't have to be religious or into animal rights to think this doesn't make sense," he has argued when expressing support for anti-chimera and anti-hybrid legislation. As well, William Cheshire, associate professor of neurology at the Mayo Clinic's Florida branch, has called the issue "unexplored biologic territory" and advocated for a "moral threshold of human neural development" to restrict the destroying a human embryo to obtain cell material and/or the creation of an organism that's partly human and partly animal." He has said, "We must be cautious not to violate the integrity of humanity or of animal life over which we have a stewardship responsibility".


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: In the U.S., efforts into creating a hybrid entity appeared to be legal when the topic first came up. Developmental biologist Stuart Newman, a professor at New York Medical College in Valhalla, N.Y., applied for a patent on a human-animal chimera in 1997 as a challenge to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the U.S. Congress, motivated by his moral and scientific opposition to the notion that living things can be patented at all. Prior legal precedent had established that genetically engineered entities, in general, could be patented, even if they were based on beings occurring in nature.


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: After a seven-year process, Newman's patent finally received a flat rejection. The legal process had created a paper trail of arguments, giving Newman what he claimed was a victory. "The Washington Post" ran an article on the controversy that stated that it had raised "profound questions about the differences-- and similarities-- between humans and other animals, and the limits of treating animals as property."


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: President George W. Bush brought up the topic in his 2006 State of the Union Address, in which he called for the prohibition of "human cloning in all its forms", "creating or implanting embryos for experiments", "creating "human-animal hybrids"", and also "buying, selling, or patenting human embryos". He argued, "A hopeful society has institutions of science and medicine that do not cut ethical corners and that recognize the matchless value of every life." He also stated that humanity "should never be discarded, devalued or put up for sale."


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: A 2005 appropriations bill passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Bush contained specific wording forbidding any patents on humans or human embryos. In terms of outright bans on hybrid research in the first place, a measure came up in the 110th Congress entitled the "Human-Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act of 2008". Congressman Chris Smith (R, NJ-4) introduced it on April 24, 2008. The text of the proposed act stated that "human dignity and the integrity of the human species are compromised" if such hybrids exist and set up the punishment of imprisonment for up to ten years as well as a fine of over one million dollars. Though attracting support from many co-sponsors such as then Representatives Mary Fallin, Duncan Hunter, Joseph R. Pitts, and Rick Renzi among others, the Act failed to get through Congress.


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: A related proposal had come up in the U.S. Senate the prior year, the "Human-Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act of 2007", and it also had failed. That effort was proposed by then-Senator Sam Brownback (R, KS) on November 15, 2007. Featuring the same language as the later measure in the House, its bipartisan group of cosponsors included then Senators Tom Coburn, Jim DeMint, and Mary Landrieu.


title: Human–animal hybrid

text: A localized measure designed to ban the creation of hybrid entities came up in the state of Arizona in 2010. The proposal was signed into law by then Governor Jan Brewer. Its sponsor stated that it was needed to clarify important "ethical boundaries" in research.


title: Zug

text: Zug (Standard German: , Alemannic German: ; ; ; ; New Latin: "Tugium") is the largest town and capital of the Swiss canton of Zug in Switzerland. Its name originates from the fishing vocabulary; in the Middle Ages it referred to the right to "pull up" fishing nets and hence to the right to fish.


title: Zug

text: The municipality had a total population of in . The official language of Zug is the Swiss variety of Standard German, but the main spoken language is the local variant of the Alemannic Swiss German dialect.


title: Zug

text: The oldest evidence of humans in the area trace back to 14,000 BC. There have been Paleolithic finds on the north bank of Lake Zug, which come from nomadic hunters and gatherers. Archaeologists have also found over forty lake-shore settlements, known as pile dwellings, on the shores of Lake Zug from the epoch of the first settled farmers in the Neolithic period (5,500-2,200 BC). The peak in these lake-shore village settlements was between 3800 and 2450 BC. For the same epoch, the first pre-alpine land use has been found in Menzingen and in the Ägeri valley. The well-known, historically-researched lake-shore village " 'Sumpf' " (the swamp), dated from the late Bronze Age (up until 850 BC). Evidence from these finds resulted in a quite different picture of life in former times, which is on display at the Zug Museum for Prehistory. In addition, finds from the Iron Age (850-50 BC) and the Roman and Celtic-Roman time (from 50 BC) have been unearthed.


title: Zug

text: In around AD 600, Alemannic families and tribes immigrated to the area of present-day canton Zug. The name Blickensdorf, and place names with '- ikon' endings, prove this as the first Alemannic living space. The churches of Baar and Risch also date back to the early Middle Ages.


title: Zug

text: The first written document on the area originates from the year 858, and refers to King Ludwig the German giving the farm "Chama" (Cham) to the Zürich Fraumünster convent. At this time, the area of present-day Zug belonged to completely different monastic and secular landlords, the most important of whom were the Habsburgs, and who, in 1264, inherited the Kyburg rights and remained a central political power until about 1400.


title: Zug

text: In the course of the high medieval town construction, the settlement of Zug also received a town wall at some point after 1200. The town founders were probably the counts of Kyburg. The town, first mentioned in AD 1240, was called an "oppidum" in 1242 and a "castrum" in 1255. In 1273, it was bought by Rudolph of Habsburg from Anna, the heiress of Kyburg and wife of Eberhard, head of the cadet line of Habsburg. Through this purchase it passed into the control of the Habsburgs and was placed under a Habsburg bailiff. The "Aeusser Amt" or Outer District consisted of the villages and towns surrounding Zug, which each had their own "Landsgemeinden" but were ruled by a single Habsburg bailiff. Zug was important as an administrative center of the Kyburg and the Habsburg district, then as a local market place, and, thereafter, as a stage town for the transport of goods (particularly salt and iron) over the Hirzel hill towards Lucerne.


title: Zug

text: On 27 June 1352, both the town of Zug and the "Aeusser Amt" entered the Swiss Confederation, the latter being received on exactly the same terms as the town, and not, as was usual in the case of outer districts, as a subject land. However, in September 1352 Zug had to acknowledge its own lords again, and in 1355 was obliged to break off its connection with the league. About 1364, the town and the Aeusser Amt were recovered for the league by the men of Schwyz, and from this time Zug took part as a full member in all the acts of the league. In 1379, the Holy Roman Emperor Wenceslaus exempted Zug from all external jurisdictions, and in 1389 the Habsburgs renounced their claims, reserving only an annual payment of 20 silver marks, which came to an end in 1415. In 1400 Wenceslaus gave all criminal jurisdiction to the town only. The Aeusser Amt, in 1404, then claimed that the banner and seal of Zug should be kept in one of the country districts and were supported in this claim by Schwyz. The matter was finally settled in 1412 by arbitration, and the banner was to be kept in the town. Finally in 1415, the right of electing their "landammann" was given to Zug by the Confederation, and a share in the criminal jurisdiction was granted to the Aeusser Amt by German king Sigismund.


title: Zug

text: The alliance of the four forest cantons of Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden and Lucerne with the city of Zürich in 1351 set much in motion. The town of Zug was seen as having Habsburg ties with the cities of Zürich and Lucerne, and therefore had to be conquered. It is likely that this was more for political than economic reasons: the Lucerne market was very important for central Switzerland, but also strongly dependent on the city of Zürich. Zürich initiated a siege on Zug with the federal army in June 1352. Zug surrendered. On 27 June 1352 Zürich, Luzern, Zug, Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden formed an alliance. Zürich's saw this 'Zugerbund' (Zug alliance) as an alliance of convenience. For the town of Zug, little changed, and Zug remained Habsburg. That same year, the Zug alliance was declared invalid by all parties. A period of Schwyz domination then followed. Only gradually did Zug become sovereign and federal.


title: Zug

text: Simultaneously, Zug expanded its territory, acquiring a number of rural areas in the form of bailiwicks (Walchwil, Cham, Gangolfswil [Risch] Hünenberg and Steinhausen, and Oberrüti, now part of the canton of Aargau). Zug became a confederation in itself – with the town and its subject territories, and the three outer ('free') municipalities, Ägeri, Menzingen (with Neuheim) and Baar. This problematic dualism dominated until 1798, i.e. until the end of the old confederation, the political structure of the Canton Zug. The unifying element of this miniature confederation was, among others, the rural municipalities and the forty-member city council.


title: Zug

text: In 1385, Zug joined the league of the Swabian cities against Leopold III of Austria and shared in the victory of Sempach, as well as in the various Argovian (1415) and Thurgovian (1460) conquests of the Confederates, and later in those of Italy (1512), having already taken part in the occupation of the Val d'Ossola. Between 1379 (Walchwil) and 1477 (Cham), Zug had acquired various districts in its own neighborhood, principally to the north and the west, which were ruled till 1798 by the town alone as subject lands.


title: Zug

text: In 1478, the building of a larger town wall began, which increased the town area six-fold – the same year as the building of the late gothic St. Oswald Church began. The building master of the new town wall was Hans Felder from Bavarian Swabia. The ground plan of the town wall is indicative of an ideal symmetric plan of the Renaissance period – something very rare at that time. The overall urban planning implemented in the small town of Zug was modern for its time.


title: Zug

text: During the turmoil of the Reformation, Zug remained on the Catholic side of central Switzerland and retained the old faith. Warring religious confederates fought at Kappel am Albis (1531) and at Gubel in Menzingen. Its location on the edge of central Switzerland made Zug a confessional border town. During the Reformation, Zug clung to the old faith and was a member of the "Christliche Vereinigung" of 1529. In 1586, it became a member of the Golden League.


title: Zug

text: The period up until 1798 was marked by internal political rivalries and turbulence. The invasion of the French troops marked the end of the old order, and with the Helvetic order came a radical political change. Zug became part of the canton Waldstätten, and the cantonal capital for a short time. After a 50-year struggle between federalism and centralism, between confederation and central state, between conservative and liberal-radical vision, in 1848, today's federal government of Switzerland emerged. Zug was given its current cantonal structure, consisting of eleven local municipalities.


title: Zug

text: Until well into the 19th century, Zug consisted of agricultural land. Actual industrialization began with the entrepreneur Wolfgang Henggeler, who in 1834 built a cotton mill in Unterägeri. This was followed by the two companies in Neuägeri and Baar.


title: Zug

text: In 1866, the American George Ham Page founded the first European condensed milk factory in Cham, which later merged with Nestlé. Industry in Zug was dominated by the company Landis+Gyr, founded in 1896, and now owned by Toshiba. The connection to the Swiss railway network in 1864 was important, as was the connection of mountain and valley with an electric tram at the beginning of the 20th century.


title: Zug

text: In the second half of the century, dynamic expansion took place and Zug became a national and international financial and trading center, aided by its proximity to Zürich, and by an attractive tax policy. In parallel, large industrial and commercial zones evolved; employment increased rapidly; the population rose sharply, and the building boom skyrocketed. Canton Zug catapulted itself into being at the top of the financially strong cantons. And the town today has become, as the British Guardian once wrote, 'a compass of the global economy'.


title: Zug

text: Zug is a low tax region and is headquarters for a number of multinational enterprises. The Expat City Ranking in 2019, based on a study of more than 20,000 respondents, rated the quality of life in Zug highest among all cities in the survey. The town's best-known agricultural product is Kirsch.


title: Zug

text: On 27 September 2001, an angry, unstable gunman, Friedrich Leibacher, shot and killed 15 people including himself in the cantonal parliament of Zug. The event became known as the Zug Massacre.


title: Zug

text: Zug has an area (as of the 2004 survey) of . Of this area, about 33.1% is used for agricultural purposes, while 37.9% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 26.6% is settled (buildings or roads) and 2.5% is unproductive land. In the 2004 survey a total of or about 16.3% of the total area was covered with buildings, an increase of over the 1982 amount. Over the same time period, the amount of recreational space in the municipality increased by and is now about 2.53% of the total area. Of the agricultural land, is used for orchards and vineyards, is fields and grasslands and consists of alpine grazing areas. Since 1982 the amount of agricultural land has decreased by . Over the same time period the amount of forested land has increased by . Rivers and lakes cover in the municipality.


title: Zug

text: Zug has an average of 136.1 days of rain per year and on average receives of precipitation. It has an average of 5.5 days per year with visibility reduced to less than 1 km, the international definition of fog. The wettest month is August during which time Zug receives an average of of precipitation. During this month there is precipitation for an average of 12.7 days. The month with the most days of precipitation is June, with an average of 13.7, but with only of precipitation. The driest month of the year is January with an average of of precipitation over 12.7 days.


title: Zug

text: The City Council (Stadtrat) constitutes the executive government of the Town of Zug and operates as a collegiate authority. It is composed of five councillors (), each presiding over a department ("Departement") comprising several bureaus. The president of the executive department acts as mayor ("Stadtpräsident"). In the mandate period 2015–2018 ("Legislatur") the City Council is presided by "Stadtpräsident" Karl Kobelt. Departmental tasks, coordination measures and implementation of laws decreed by the Grand Municipal Council are carried by the City Council. The regular election of the City Council by any inhabitant valid to vote is held every four years. The current mandate period ("Legislatur") is from 2019 to 2022. Any resident of Zug allowed to vote can be elected as a member of the City Council. The delegates are selected by means of a system of Majorz (since 2014). The mayor is elected as such as well by public election while the heads of the other departments are assigned by the collegiate. The executive body holds its meetings in the "Stadthaus" (Town Hall) on Kolinplatz., Zug's City Council is made up of two of FDP (FDP.The Liberals, of whom one is also the mayor), and one each of CVP (Christian Democratic Party), CSP (Christian Social Party), and SVP (Swiss People's Party). The last regular election was held on 7 October 2018.


title: Zug

text: Martin Würmli is Town Chronicler ("Stadtschreiber") since 2014 and presides the Town Office ("Stadtkanzlei"). He has been elected by the collegiate.


title: Zug

text: In the 2015 federal election the most popular party was the SVP with 25.4% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the CVP (22.5%), the FDP (19.5%) and the SP (17.2%). In the federal election, a total of 9,438 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 55.4%. The 2015 election saw a large change in the voting when compared to 2011. The percentage of the vote received by the SP increased sharply from 6.4% in 2011 to 17.2% in 2015, while the percentage that the GPS received dropped from 21.3% to 9.5%.


title: Zug

text: After World War II, Zug helped the town of Fürstenfeld, Styria in Austria. In 1986 they decided to become sister cities.


title: Zug

text: Zug has a population (as of ) of . , 31.7% of which are foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years the population has grown at a rate of 11.4%. Most of the population () speaks German (81.8%), with Italian being second most common (3.8%) and Serbo-Croatian being third (3.2%).


title: Zug

text: In Zug about 76% of the population (between age 25–64) have completed either non-mandatory upper secondary education or additional higher education (either university or a "Fachhochschule").


title: Zug

text: Zug has an unemployment rate of 2.28%. , there were 172 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 51 businesses involved in this sector. 5,821 people are employed in the secondary sector and there are 269 businesses in this sector. 21,445 people are employed in the tertiary sector, with 3,205 businesses in this sector.


title: Zug

text: Zug is known as a hockey town in Switzerland. The town's main team is EV Zug, which plays in the National League (NL). They play their home games in the 7,200-seat Bossard Arena. Their affiliate team, the EV Zug Academy, competes in the Swiss League (SL) and their home games are either held in the 7,200-seat Bossard Arena or in the 1,500-seat Academy Arena. EV Zug II plays in the Second Regio League, the fifth highest league in Switzerland. Their home games are held in the Academy Arena. HC Zugerland plays in the Third Regio League, the sixth highest league in Switzerland. The team plays its home games in the Bossard Arena. Zug also has numerous junior teams that compete in the different junior leagues of Switzerland.


title: Zug

text: There are also an amateur association football team, Zug 94, which was formed in 1994 and two amateur Rugby Teams, the Rugby Club Zug, which has a junior team, The Saints Rugby School and the Rugby Bombers Zug, which was founded by former members of the Rugby Club Zug. Additionally there is an amateur floorball team, Zug United. Zug has a rowing club See-Club Zug, which is repeatedly the highest ranked rowing club in Switzerland.


title: Zug

text: , there were a total of 40,166 people employed in the municipality. Of these, a total of 142 people worked in 42 businesses in the primary economic sector. The secondary sector employed 5,939 workers in 351 separate businesses. Finally, the tertiary sector provided 34,085 jobs in 6,592 businesses. In 2013 a total of 15.3% of the population received social assistance.


title: Zug

text: Since 2016, Zug has accepted digital currency, first for small payments of municipal fees up to CH200. To reduce risk, Zug immediately converts any cryptocurrency received into Swiss francs. This is part of a strategy to associate Zug with new technologies.


title: Zug

text: Zug is a popular location for incorporation of companies, such as Siemens Building Technologies, and Nord Stream AG. Zug has also been referred to as Crypto Valley because of the large number of companies engaged in cryptocurrency in the city. These include Ethereum, Cardano, Polkadot and Bitcoin Suisse. By 2018, a Crypto Valley Association had been formed, with Oliver Bussmann as its president.


title: Zug

text: The lake shore has been embanked and forms a promenade, from which views of the Rigi and Pilatus, as well as of the snowy peaks of the Bernese Oberland, are gained. Towards its northerly end, a monument marks the spot where a part of the shore slipped into the lake in 1887.


title: Zug

text: The older part of the town is rather crowded together, though only four of the wall towers and a small part of the town walls still survive.


title: Zug

text: The most striking old building in the town is the parish church of St Oswald (late 15th century), dedicated to St Oswald, king of Northumbria (d. 642), one of whose arms was brought to Zug in 1485. The town hall, also a 15th-century building, now houses the Historical and Antiquarian Museum. There are some quaint old painted houses close by. A little way higher up the hillside is a Capuchin convent in a striking position, close to the town wall and leaning against it. Still higher, and outside the old town, is the fine new parish church of St Michael, consecrated in 1902.


title: Zug

text: The business quarter is on the rising ground north of the old town, near the railway station. Several fine modern buildings rise on or close to the shore in the town and to its south, whilst to the southwest is a convent of Capuchin nuns, who manage a large girls' school and several other educational establishments.


title: Zug

text: The "Museum of Prehistory Zug" houses an important collection of archaeological remains, especially from the late Bronze Age (urnfield culture) settlement of Zug-Sumpf. Many of Catharine II of Russia's relatives descended from Zug and became known as the Volga Germans.