title: Walls and Bridges

text: Inside the booklet were lyrics and instrumental credits for the songs, which conveyed Lennon's trademark sense of humour, with many aliases for himself including Rev. Thumbs Ghurkin, Kaptain Kundalini, Dwarf McDougal, Mel Torment (a pun on Mel Tormé), Hon. John St. John Johnson, Dr. Dream, Dr. Winston O'Boogie and Dad. More 1952 colour drawings from the 11-year-old Lennon were included, with subjects including the American Old West (dedicated to his aunt and guardian, Mimi Smith), landscapes and a portrait of his schoolteacher, Mr. Bolt. Also included was a genealogical treatise on the surname Lennon and related forms from one of Edward MacLysaght's books. While mentioning the British sailor John Lennon and the American labour leader John Brown Lennon of many decades past, the entry ends with a slight about the surname family generally being undistinguished, to which Lennon offered a hand-written "Oh Yeh?". Finally, the booklet contains a claim that Lennon saw an unidentified flying object on the evening of 23 August 1974.


title: Walls and Bridges

text: Unsure of which track should be the album's lead single, Lennon enlisted the help of Al Coury, the vice-president of marketing for Capitol Records. Lennon had been impressed with the "magic" that Coury displayed in the commercial success of McCartney's "Band on the Run" album. Coury chose "Whatever Gets You thru the Night" as the first single. "Walls and Bridges" was released on 26 September 1974 in the US, and on 4 October 1974 in the UK. The release was accompanied by an advertising campaign, created by Lennon, called "Listen To This ..." (button, photo, sticker, ad, poster or T-shirt). The backs of 500 New York City buses were plastered with the slogan "Listen To This Bus". Television commercials depicted the LP jacket with its many "Lennon" faces; as with the radio segments promoting the album, these commercials had a voiceover from Ringo Starr. Lennon returned the favour by supplying the voiceover in commercials for Starr's "Goodnight Vienna" album, which he had also helped record. In the UK, EMI released an interview single to promote "Walls and Bridges", with Lennon in conversation with Bob Mercer.


title: Walls and Bridges

text: In America, the album debuted on the "Billboard" Top LPs & Tape chart on 12 October and reached the top ten on 2 November. It was awarded gold record status on 22 October in the US by the Recording Industry Association of America. The album and the single topped "Billboard"s listings during the same week (16 November). Both releases also topped the US charts compiled by "Cash Box" and "Record World". In the UK, the album reached number 6, and the single peaked at number 36. "Walls and Bridges" spent a total of 27 weeks on "Billboard"s Top LPs & Tape chart.


title: Walls and Bridges

text: "Whatever Gets You thru the Night" was Lennon's first number 1 single on the "Billboard" Hot 100 as a solo artist. This achievement, together with the US success of the album, marked a comeback for Lennon, whose career since "Imagine" in 1971 had trailed that of his former Beatles bandmates in terms of commercial success. When asked for his opinion of "Walls and Bridges" during the press conference for his 1974 North American tour, George Harrison described it as a "lovely" album. Ringo Starr said he admired all of Lennon's work, apart from "Some Time in New York City", and he lauded "Walls and Bridges" as "the finest album in the last five years by anybody". McCartney said it was a "great" record but added: "I know he can do better." McCartney cited the Beatles' "I Am the Walrus" as an example of how Lennon could be "more adventurous … more exciting".


title: Walls and Bridges

text: Shortly after its release, Lennon personally mixed a true quadrophonic version of "Walls and Bridges" ("for the 20 people who buy quad", he joked in his 1974 WNEW-FM radio interview in New York). The quadrophonic mix was issued only on 8-track in the US. "#9 Dream", backed with "What You Got", was released as a single in the US on 16 December 1974, and a month later in the UK, on 24 January 1975. The single peaked at number 9 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and number 23 in the UK.


title: Walls and Bridges

text: During the recording of "Whatever Gets You thru the Night", Elton John had bet Lennon that the song would top the charts. Never believing it would, Lennon agreed to perform live with John if it did. Having lost the wager, Lennon appeared at John's Madison Square Garden show on 28 November, performing "Whatever Gets You thru the Night" together with the Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There" and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". All three tracks were later released on an EP, "28th November 1974", in 1981. Lennon returned to the stage to play tambourine on the encore, John's "The Bitch Is Back". The Madison Square Garden show would be Lennon's last major live performance.


title: Walls and Bridges

text: "Walls and Bridges" received a mixed response from contemporary music critics, although it still garnered Lennon his most favourable reviews since "Imagine". Ben Gerson of "Rolling Stone" magazine said he felt that songs on side two such as "#9 Dream" and "Surprise Surprise" make the album "diverse and spirited", but that side one's songs about Lennon's emotional loss were inconsistent. Gerson also opined that only "Scared" "throbs with the primal fear and sense of confinement of his earlier solo LPs". Robert Christgau, writing for "The Village Voice", felt the album suffered from Lennon's "disorientation and lost conviction". In his review for "Melody Maker", Ray Coleman described Lennon as "the most interesting ex-Beatle" and concluded of "Walls and Bridges": "This is a truly superb album by any standards, words and music a joy to hear, by a musician who has a rare talent for selling love without making you cringe." In another positive review, "Billboard" found the album's production "superb", its ballads "marvelously handled", and all songs "done in a skillfully professional style". The magazine cited it as possibly Lennon's "most versatile and musically excellent album yet".


title: Walls and Bridges

text: Writing for the "NME", Charles Shaar Murray described the musicianship as "faultless, if a trifle pedestrian" and the production "as smooth and silky as any discerning hi-fi buff could want", but considered the songs to be "mostly a drag, and worse, most of them are solidly rooted in the Lennonlore of old". While deriding "Nobody Loves You When You're Down and Out" as "the rankest and most offensive piece of self-pity that Lennon has yet indulged in", Shaar Murray concluded of the album: "None of this mediocre waste is worthy of the man who wrote 'Working Class Hero' and 'I Found Out'." In another unfavourable review, for "Creem", Wayne Robins described "Walls and Bridges" as "the latest chapter in John Lennon's Identity Crisis" and a work made up of "weary cliches". Of the two tracks that he deemed "good", Robins added: "'Old Dirt Road' shows the brilliant instinct for phrasing and rhythm of language that a guy named John Lennon used to have before he started hiding behind walls of aliases like Dr. Winston O'Boogie, and sleeping under bridges played by that Plastic Ono Sominex Band. ZZzzzzz."


title: Walls and Bridges

text: In their 1975 book "", the "NME" journalists Roy Carr and Tony Tyler characterised the album as "generally lacklustre", saying that the lyrics "seem mechanical, cranked-out, like well-worn conversational gambits", while praising the "abrasive" quality of his voice and the "excellent" musicianship. In his "Rolling Stone" feature on Lennon that same year, Pete Hamill wrote that the album's music was "wonderful" and that "the songs were essays in autobiography, the words and music of a man trying to understand a huge part of his life." In his 1977 book "The Beatles Forever", Nicholas Schaffner opined that the album's "searing emotional intensity" recalled Lennon's 1970 "John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band", while the "richly textured arrangements and melodic diversity" harkened back to "Imagine". In the first edition of "The Rolling Stone Record Guide" (1979), Greil Marcus gave the album two stars out of five, saying that it, along with "Mind Games", lacked a real point of view and that "with what appeared to be panic, [Lennon had] substituted production techniques for soul, building a bridge to his listeners with his sound but erecting a wall around himself with empty music."


title: Walls and Bridges

text: Writing in "The All-Music Guide to Rock" (1995), William Ruhlmann described "Walls and Bridges" as "craftsmanlike pop-rock" with "some lovely album tracks". "Uncut" gave it four stars and asserted that "Whatever Gets You Through the Night" "remains one of Lennon's best post-Beatles achievements". AllMusic senior editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine finds the album "decidedly uneven", "containing equal amounts of brilliance and nonsense", with the lesser tracks "weighed down by weak melodies and heavy over-production". In "The New Rolling Stone Album Guide" of 2004, "#9 Dream" was singled out for praise as "a heavily atmospheric number boasting cool cellos and fine singing". Lennon biographer Philip Norman wrote in 2008 that "Most of the tracks had an upbeat, brassy feel, strangely at odds with John's recurrent, often desperate admissions of longing for Yoko", and that the chord sequences used often echoed those from his previous work with Ono.


title: Walls and Bridges

text: "Walls and Bridges" was Lennon's last album of original material until 1980's "Double Fantasy", although a follow-up, titled "Between the Lines", was planned for late 1975. Tony King, an Apple vice-president, confirms this. King also says that Carlos Alomar was to hire a group of black musicians, and that Lennon had written the song "Tennessee" for the album. In a 1975 interview for the "Old Grey Whistle Test", Lennon indicated he was planning a new album and a TV special.


title: Walls and Bridges

text: "Walls and Bridges" was first re-released on vinyl in the US in 1978, then again in 1982, and 1989, on Capitol. After Lennon's death, the album, along with seven other Lennon albums, was reissued by EMI as part of a box set, which was released in the UK on 15 June 1981. It was re-released on vinyl in the UK in 1985, on the Parlophone label. "Walls and Bridges" was first released on CD on 20 July 1987 in the UK, and nearly a year later in the US, on 19 April 1988. The album was released again on vinyl, this time as part of EMI's limited edition "The Millennium Vinyl Collection" series, in 1999.


title: Walls and Bridges

text: "Walls and Bridges" was released in a remixed and remastered form in November 2005 (although four of the original tracks – "Old Dirt Road", "Bless You", "Scared" and "Nobody Loves You" – were not remixed). The remastered version featured an alternative cover. This new cover retained Lennon's signature and hand-written title, but used one of the portraits Bob Gruen took for the album instead of Lennon's childhood drawings. The bonus tracks for the reissue include "Whatever Gets You thru The Night" performed live with Elton John, a previously unreleased acoustic version of "Nobody Loves You (When You're Down And Out)", and a promotional interview with Lennon.


title: Walls and Bridges

text: Capitol again reissued the album on 4 October 2010. This version was a remaster of the original album mixes and used the original cover art; the album was available separately or as part of the "John Lennon Signature Box".


title: Alluvium

text: Alluvium (from Latin "alluvius", from "alluere" 'to wash against') is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. Alluvium is also sometimes called alluvial deposit. Alluvium is typically geologically young and is not consolidated into solid rock. Sediments deposited underwater, in seas, estuaries, lakes, or ponds, are not described as alluvium.


title: Alluvium

text: The present consensus is that "alluvium" refers to loose sediments of all types deposited by running water in floodplains or in alluvial fans or related landforms. However, the meaning of the term has varied considerably since it was first defined in the French dictionary of Antoine Furetière, posthumously published in 1690. Drawing upon concepts from Roman law, Furetière defined "alluvion" (the French term for alluvium) as new land formed by deposition of sediments along rivers and seas. By the 19th century, the term had come to mean recent sediments deposited by rivers on top of older "diluvium", which was similar in character but interpreted as sediments deposited by Noah's flood. With the rejection by geologists of the concept of a primordial universal flood, the term "diluvium" fell into disfavor and was replaced with "older alluvium". At the same time, the term "alluvium" came to mean all sediment deposits due to running water on plains. The definition gradually expanded to include deposits in estuaries and coasts and young rock of both marine and fluvial origin.


title: Alluvium

text: Alluvium and diluvium were grouped together as "colluvium" in the late 19th century. However, "colluvium" is now generally understood to mean sediments produced by gravity-driven transport on steep slopes, while the definition of "alluvium" has switched back to an emphasis on sediments deposited by river action. There continues to be disagreement over what other sediment deposits should be included under the term "alluvium."


title: Alluvium

text: Most alluvium is Quaternary in age and is often referred to as "cover" because these sediments obscure the underlying bedrock. Most sedimentary material that fills a basin ("basin fill") that is not lithified is typically lumped together as "alluvial". Alluvium of Pliocene age occurs, for example, in parts of Idaho. Alluvium of late Miocene age occurs, for example, in the valley of the San Joaquin River, California.


title: Figure of the Earth

text: Figure of the Earth is a term of art in geodesy that refers to the size and shape used to model Earth. The size and shape it refers to depend on context, including the precision needed for the model. A sphere is a well-known historical approximation of the figure of the Earth that is satisfactory for many purposes. Several models with greater accuracy (including ellipsoid) have been developed so that coordinate systems can serve the precise needs of navigation, surveying, cadastre, land use, and various other concerns.


title: Figure of the Earth

text: Earth's topographic surface is apparent with its variety of land forms and water areas. This topographic surface is generally the concern of topographers, hydrographers, and geophysicists. While it is the surface on which Earth measurements are made, mathematically modeling it while taking the irregularities into account would be extremely complicated.


title: Figure of the Earth

text: The Pythagorean concept of a spherical Earth offers a simple surface that is easy to deal with mathematically. Many astronomical and navigational computations use a sphere to model the Earth as a close approximation. However, a more accurate figure is needed for measuring distances and areas on the scale beyond the purely local. Better approximations can be made by modeling the entire surface as an oblate spheroid, using spherical harmonics to approximate the geoid, or modeling a region with a best-fit reference ellipsoid.


title: Figure of the Earth

text: For surveys of small areas, a planar (flat) model of Earth's surface suffices because the local topography overwhelms the curvature. Plane-table surveys are made for relatively small areas without considering the size and shape of the entire Earth. A survey of a city, for example, might be conducted this way.


title: Figure of the Earth

text: By the late 1600s, serious effort was devoted to modeling the Earth as an ellipsoid, beginning with Jean Picard's measurement of a degree of arc along the Paris meridian. Improved maps and better measurement of distances and areas of national territories motivated these early attempts. Surveying instrumentation and techniques improved over the ensuing centuries. Models for the figure of the earth improved in step.


title: Figure of the Earth

text: In the mid- to late 20th century, research across the geosciences contributed to drastic improvements in the accuracy of the figure of the Earth. The primary utility of this improved accuracy was to provide geographical and gravitational data for the inertial guidance systems of ballistic missiles. This funding also drove the expansion of geoscientific disciplines, fostering the creation and growth of various geoscience departments at many universities. These developments benefited many civilian pursuits as well, such as weather and communication satellite control and GPS location-finding, which would be impossible without highly accurate models for the figure of the Earth.


title: Figure of the Earth

text: The models for the figure of the Earth vary in the way they are used, in their complexity, and in the accuracy with which they represent the size and shape of the Earth.


title: Figure of the Earth

text: The simplest model for the shape of the entire Earth is a sphere. The Earth's radius is the distance from Earth's center to its surface, about . While "radius" normally is a characteristic of perfect spheres, the Earth deviates from spherical by only a third of a percent, sufficiently close to treat it as a sphere in many contexts and justifying the term "the radius of the Earth".


title: Figure of the Earth

text: The concept of a spherical Earth dates back to around the 6th century BC, but remained a matter of philosophical speculation until the 3rd century BC. The first scientific estimation of the radius of the Earth was given by Eratosthenes about 240 BC, with estimates of the accuracy of Eratosthenes's measurement ranging from −1% to 15%.


title: Figure of the Earth

text: The Earth is only approximately spherical, so no single value serves as its natural radius. Distances from points on the surface to the center range from to . Several different ways of modeling the Earth as a sphere each yield a mean radius of . Regardless of the model, any radius falls between the polar minimum of about and the equatorial maximum of about . The difference correspond to the polar radius being approximately 0.3% shorter than the equatorial radius.


title: Figure of the Earth

text: Since the Earth is flattened at the poles and bulges at the Equator, geodesy represents the figure of the Earth as an oblate spheroid. The oblate spheroid, or oblate ellipsoid, is an ellipsoid of revolution obtained by rotating an ellipse about its shorter axis. It is the regular geometric shape that most nearly approximates the shape of the Earth. A spheroid describing the figure of the Earth or other celestial body is called a reference ellipsoid. The reference ellipsoid for Earth is called an Earth ellipsoid.


title: Figure of the Earth

text: An ellipsoid of revolution is uniquely defined by two quantities. Several conventions for expressing the two quantities are used in geodesy, but they are all equivalent to and convertible with each other:


title: Figure of the Earth

text: Eccentricity and flattening are different ways of expressing how squashed the ellipsoid is. When flattening appears as one of the defining quantities in geodesy, generally it is expressed by its reciprocal. For example, in the WGS 84 spheroid used by today's GPS systems, the reciprocal of the flattening formula_7 is set to be exactly .


title: Figure of the Earth

text: The difference between a sphere and a reference ellipsoid for Earth is small, only about one part in 300. Historically, flattening was computed from grade measurements. Nowadays, geodetic networks and satellite geodesy are used. In practice, many reference ellipsoids have been developed over the centuries from different surveys. The flattening value varies slightly from one reference ellipsoid to another, reflecting local conditions and whether the reference ellipsoid is intended to model the entire Earth or only some portion of it.


title: Figure of the Earth

text: A sphere has a single radius of curvature, which is simply the radius of the sphere. More complex surfaces have radii of curvature that vary over the surface. The radius of curvature describes the radius of the sphere that best approximates the surface at that point. Oblate ellipsoids have constant radius of curvature east to west along parallels, if a graticule is drawn on the surface, but varying curvature in any other direction. For an oblate ellipsoid, the polar radius of curvature formula_8 is larger than the equatorial


title: Figure of the Earth

text: because the pole is flattened: the flatter the surface, the larger the sphere must be to approximate it. Conversely, the ellipsoid's north–south radius of curvature at the equator formula_10 is smaller than the polar


title: Figure of the Earth

text: where formula_1 is the distance from the center of the ellipsoid to the equator (semi-major axis), and formula_2 is the distance from the center to the pole. (semi-minor axis)


title: Figure of the Earth

text: It was stated earlier that measurements are made on the apparent or topographic surface of the Earth and it has just been explained that computations are performed on an ellipsoid. One other surface is involved in geodetic measurement: the geoid. In geodetic surveying, the computation of the geodetic coordinates of points is commonly performed on a reference ellipsoid closely approximating the size and shape of the Earth in the area of the survey. The actual measurements made on the surface of the Earth with certain instruments are however referred to the geoid. The ellipsoid is a mathematically defined regular surface with specific dimensions. The geoid, on the other hand, coincides with that surface to which the oceans would conform over the entire Earth if free to adjust to the combined effect of the Earth's mass attraction (gravitation) and the centrifugal force of the Earth's rotation. As a result of the uneven distribution of the Earth's mass, the geoidal surface is irregular and, since the ellipsoid is a regular surface, the separations between the two, referred to as geoid undulations, geoid heights, or geoid separations, will be irregular as well.


title: Figure of the Earth

text: The geoid is a surface along which the gravity potential is everywhere equal and to which the direction of gravity is always perpendicular (see equipotential surface). The latter is particularly important because optical instruments containing gravity-reference leveling devices are commonly used to make geodetic measurements. When properly adjusted, the vertical axis of the instrument coincides with the direction of gravity and is, therefore, perpendicular to the geoid. The angle between the plumb line which is perpendicular to the geoid (sometimes called "the vertical") and the perpendicular to the ellipsoid (sometimes called "the ellipsoidal normal") is defined as the deflection of the vertical. It has two components: an east–west and a north–south component.


title: Figure of the Earth

text: The possibility that the Earth's equator is better characterized as an ellipse rather than a circle and therefore that the ellipsoid is triaxial has been a matter of scientific inquiry for many years. Modern technological developments have furnished new and rapid methods for data collection and, since the launch of Sputnik 1, orbital data have been used to investigate the theory of ellipticity. More recent results indicate a 70-m difference between the two equatorial major and minor axes of inertia, with the larger semidiameter pointing to 15° W longitude (and also 180-degree away).


title: Figure of the Earth

text: The theory of a slightly pear-shaped Earth arose and gained publicity after the first artificial satellites observed long periodic orbital variations, indicating a depression at the South Pole and a bulge of the same degree at the North Pole. This theory contends that the northern middle latitudes are slightly flattened and the southern middle latitudes correspondingly bulged. U.S. Vanguard 1 satellite data from 1958 confirms that the southern equatorial bulge is greater than that of the north, which is corroborated by the South Pole's sea level being lower than that of the north. A pear-shaped Earth had first been theorized in 1498 by Christopher Columbus, based on his incorrect readings of the North Star's diurnal motion.


title: Figure of the Earth

text: John A. O'Keefe and co-authors are credited with the discovery that the Earth had a significant third degree zonal spherical harmonic in its gravitational field using Vanguard 1 satellite data. Based on further satellite geodesy data, Desmond King-Hele refined the estimate to a 45-m difference between north and south polar radii, owing to a 19-m "stem" rising in the North Pole and a 26-m depression in the South Pole. The polar asymmetry is small, though: it is about a thousand times smaller than the earth's flattening and even smaller than the geoidal undulation in some regions of the Earth.


title: Figure of the Earth

text: Modern geodesy tends to retain the ellipsoid of revolution as a reference ellipsoid and treat triaxiality and pear shape as a part of the geoid figure: they are represented by the spherical harmonic coefficients formula_14 and formula_15, respectively, corresponding to degree and order numbers 2.2 for the triaxiality and 3.0 for the pear shape.


title: Figure of the Earth

text: The best local spherical approximation to the ellipsoid in the vicinity of a given point is the "Earth's osculating sphere". Its radius equals Earth's Gaussian radius of curvature, and its radial direction coincides with the geodetic normal direction. The center of the osculating sphere is offset from the center of the ellipsoid, but is at the center of curvature for the given point on the ellipsoid surface. This concept aids the interpretation of terrestrial and planetary radio occultation refraction measurements and in some navigation and surveillance applications.


title: Figure of the Earth

text: Determining the exact figure of the Earth is not only a geometric task of geodesy, but also has geophysical considerations. According to theoretical arguments by Isaac Newton, Leonhard Euler, and others, a body having a uniform density of 5.515 g/cm that rotates like the Earth should have a flattening of 1:229. This can be concluded without any information about the composition of Earth's interior. However, the measured flattening is 1:298.25, which is closer to a sphere and a strong argument that Earth's core is extremely compact. Therefore, the density must be a function of the depth, ranging from 2.6 g/cm at the surface (rock density of granite, etc.), up to 13 g/cm within the inner core.


title: Figure of the Earth

text: Also with implications for the physical exploration of the Earth's interior is the gravitational field, which is the net effect of gravitation (due to mass attraction) and centrifugal force (due to rotation). It can be measured very accurately at the surface and remotely by satellites. True vertical generally does not correspond to theoretical vertical (deflection ranges up to 50") because topography and all "geological masses" disturb the gravitational field. Therefore, the gross structure of the Earth's crust and mantle can be determined by geodetic-geophysical models of the subsurface.


title: McRib

text: The McRib is a barbecue-flavored pork sandwich periodically sold by the international fast food restaurant chain McDonald's. It was first introduced to the McDonald's menu in 1981, following test marketing the year before.


title: McRib

text: After poor sales, it was removed from the menu in 1985. It was reintroduced in 1989, staying on the menu until 2005 in many countries. Since 2006, it has generally been made available for a short time each year in most markets where it is sold, typically during the fall season, although it is a permanent menu item at McDonald's restaurants in Germany and Luxembourg.


title: McRib

text: The McRib consists of a restructured boneless pork patty shaped like a miniature rack of ribs, barbecue sauce, onions, and pickles, served as a sandwich on a 5½ inch (14 cm) roll. Meat restructuring was developed by the US Army to deliver low-cost meat to troops in the field. The process was refined by a Natick Army Labs meat scientist, Dr. Roger Mandigo, leading to the McRib patty. It is primarily composed of ground pork shoulder.


title: McRib

text: Government doesn't patent their intellectual property, so anyone can use it. They (the Natick Center) presented material at technical meetings...The military allowed us to use the processes they'd developed. <br>− Roger Mandigo, Natick Center contractor and meat scientist


title: McRib

text: In an attempt to give pork "the same stature as beef in the institutional market," the National Pork Producers Council funded Mandigo to show how to apply the new technique. Using his roadmap, McDonald's then developed "a patty of pork made from small flakes of meat taken from the shoulders of a pig"


title: McRib

text: The McRib Jr. was available briefly in 2000. This version replaced the roll with a standard hamburger bun, and was served with two pickles and a smaller pork patty.


title: McRib

text: The McRib made its debut in the United States in 1981, as a limited-time item. It was first added to menus around Kansas City. It was developed by McDonald's first Executive Chef René Arend, a native of Luxembourg who invented Chicken McNuggets in 1979. "The McNuggets were so well received that every franchise wanted them," said Arend in a 2009 interview. "There wasn’t a system to supply enough chicken. We had to come up with something to give the other franchises as a new product. So the McRib came about because of the shortage of chickens." It was his inspiration to shape the McRib patty "like a slab of ribs," despite the fact that a round patty would have been cheaper to manufacture and serve on standard hamburger buns. A packet of McRib Hot Sauce was also available when the sandwich was first being sold. The sauce was a clear liquid in a semi-chrome packet the size of a standard ketchup packet.


title: McRib

text: The McRib was not immediately successful. It test-marketed very well in the Midwest, and was added to the restaurant's permanent menu for the United States in 1981. Sales were mediocre, however, and it was removed in 1985 as McDonald's executives determined that pork is not eaten frequently enough in the United States to stay on the menu.


title: McRib

text: After several years, it returned for a promotion. It is more popular in Germany and Luxembourg, where it remains a permanent item. The McRib was also brought back occasionally in 1989, 1990 (together with the "BBQ in a Bag" promotion), 1991, 1992 (with the Western Omelette McMuffin as part of a Western promotion), and 1993.


title: McRib

text: In summer 1994, McDonald's brought back the McRib nationally, as a tie in with the theatrical release of "The Flintstones", comparing the appearance of it with the rack of ribs that topples the Flintmobile in both the animated and live action productions. McDonald's (which was featured in the film as "RocDonald's") supported the return with McRib packaging featuring the Flintstones characters and a television commercial featuring Rosie O'Donnell in her role as Betty Rubble.


title: McRib

text: After that promotion, the McRib was also sold as part of various limited time regional offerings at selected restaurants in the US and Canada from 1995 until 2004.


title: McRib

text: On November 1, 2005, McDonald's issued a press release announcing that the McRib would be permanently removed from the menu following a "McRib Farewell Tour". McRib.com, a website registered to McDonald's, featured a petition to "Save the McRib", which was facetiously sponsored by the "Boneless Pig Farmers Association of America". On October 16, 2006, the "McRib Farewell Tour II" site appeared.


title: McRib

text: The McRib reappeared in the United States in October 2007, beginning a third "farewell tour". McDonald's sold 30 million made with over 7 million pounds (3 million kg) of pork in 2007. Its fourth reintroduction was in the end of October 2008, across the United States, Hong Kong, and Japan, with a promotional website featuring music sponsored by a "McRib DJ Plowman" in tribute to its creator.


title: McRib

text: Additional limited time regional offerings, in various regions of the United States as well as in Canada, were made throughout 2008 and 2009.


title: McRib

text: On November 2, 2010, McDonald's began six weeks of nationwide McRib availability at the "Legends of the McRib" event in New York City, honoring three superfans: Joey Erwin, aka Mr. McRib; Alan Klein, founder of the McRib Locator website; and Adam Winer. The promotion ended December 5, 2010. McDonald's credited it with boosting their November 2010 sales by 4.8%. It was the first national offering of the McRib since 1994.


title: McRib

text: The McRib was offered in Canada from June 21 to August 1, 2011. On October 24, 2011, McDonald's once again made the McRib available for three weeks in a promotion ending November 14.


title: McRib

text: In celebration of the London Olympics 2012, McDonald's Australia and New Zealand reintroduced the McRib as the Atlanta Pork McRib. The McRib was one of six limited edition McDonald's items named after previous host cities. It was released on May 23 and ran until June 5. Sales of the McRib in New Zealand exceeded expectations, exhausting supplies within days of the release of the burger with restaurants running out of their allocations of stock.


title: McRib

text: For 2012, McDonald's announced that the McRib's annual release would be delayed until the December 17, as opposed to its traditional autumn release (which would instead be used to debut the Cheddar Bacon Onion Angus Burger, or "CBO"). The move was an effort to boost sales during the December period in an attempt to match 2011's abnormally high restaurant wide sales figures.


title: McRib

text: The McRib wasn't released nationally and was sold only in a few cities in a few states in the United States (a la the 2005 "McRib Farewell Tour" promotion) in 2013 due to the company introducing several new products (such as the Mighty Wings). The McRib was sold again starting on October 20, 2014, and ending on January 4, 2015, but only in a few cities in a few states in the United States (a la the 2006 "McRib Farewell Tour II" promotion).


title: McRib

text: The McRib made a return in the United Kingdom on December 31, 2014, until February 3, 2015. The McRib was sold again starting in October 2015 and ending in January 2016, but only in a few cities in a few states in the United States (55 percent of McDonald's locations). It became available again in November 2016, but at a limited number of McDonald's locations; and once more since October 2017, but in most areas. Local McDonalds Twitter accounts announced in Southern California and Hawaii that the McRib would be returning to these locations on November 2 and 9, 2017 respectively. The McRib once again made a limited return in the United States and Australia at participating locations starting in October 2018. The McRibs rolled out once again for a limited time beginning October 7, 2019.


title: McRib

text: For 2020, McDonald's announced that the McRib would be made available nationwide in the United States for the first time since 2012, beginning on December 2. It was dubbed as "the most important sandwich of the year." It also returned for a limited run, along with the "El Maco Burger", in Australia.


title: McRib

text: On September 30, 2021, McDonald's announced on Twitter that the McRib was returning on November 1 for a limited time. The previous day on September 29, the company tweeted that there was important news coming. The McRib was available at some locations before November 1.


title: McRib

text: On October 23, 2022, McDonald's announced that the McRib would return on October 31, 2022, for what is being called "The McRib Farewell Tour", the fourth such after the 2005 and the 2007 ones. The McRib is available until November 20.


title: McRib

text: In November 2011, the Humane Society of the United States filed a complaint with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission against the producer of McRib meat, Smithfield Foods, alleging cruel and unusual treatment of the animals used in the McRib patty production. The complaint cites the use of gestation crates and poor and unsanitary living conditions, as well as a lack of proper animal welfare.


title: McRib

text: Speculation on the limited availability of the McRib includes theories concerning the fluctuating price and unreliable supply chains of bulk pork, manipulation of availability windows to turn the product into a better loss leader for the company, and the generation of renewed enthusiasm and higher sales as a result of scarcity.


title: McRib

text: An informal study from 2011 entitled "A Conspiracy of Hogs: The McRib as Arbitrage" illustrates a correlation between the price of pork and the timing of McDonald's offering the sandwich; all five of the US McRib offerings between 2005 and 2011 occurred during low points in the price of bulk pork.


title: McRib

text: According to McDonald's, the sandwich's limited availability is due to their desire to provide a varied menu throughout the year.


title: McRib

text: The sandwich, as well as the cultural phenomenon of "chasing the McRib", were the subject of a subplot in "The Simpsons" episode "I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can", in which it is parodied as the "Ribwich" and gains a cult following.


title: Open back unrounded vowel

text: The open back unrounded vowel, or low back unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is codice_1. The letter is called "script a" because it lacks the extra hook on top of a printed letter "a", which corresponds to a different vowel, the open front unrounded vowel. "Script a", which has its linear stroke on the bottom right, should not be confused with "turned script a", , which has its linear stroke on the top left and corresponds to a rounded version of this vowel, the open back rounded vowel.


title: Open back unrounded vowel

text: The open back unrounded vowel is the vocalic equivalent of the pharyngeal approximant . with the non-syllabic diacritic and are used in different transcription systems to represent the same sound.


title: Open back unrounded vowel

text: In some languages (such as Azerbaijani, Estonian, Luxembourgish and Toda) there is the near-open back unrounded vowel (a sound between cardinal and ), which can be transcribed in IPA with or .


title: Open back unrounded vowel

text: The Hamont-Achel dialect of Limburgish has been reported to contrast long open front, central and back unrounded vowels. This is extremely unusual.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: Banking in Switzerland dates to the early eighteenth century through Switzerland's merchant trade and has, over the centuries, grown into a complex, regulated, and international industry. Banking is seen as emblematic of Switzerland, along with the Swiss Alps, Swiss chocolate, watchmaking and mountaineering. Switzerland has a long, kindred history of banking secrecy and client confidentiality reaching back to the early 1700s. Starting as a way to protect wealthy European banking interests, Swiss banking secrecy was codified in 1934 with the passage of the landmark federal law, the Federal Act on Banks and Savings Banks. These laws, which were used to protect assets of persons being persecuted by Nazi authorities, have also been used by people and institutions seeking to illegally evade taxes, hide assets, or generally commit financial crime.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: Controversial protection of foreign accounts and assets during World War II sparked a series of proposed financial regulations seeking to temper bank secrecy, but with little success. Switzerland has been one of the largest offshore financial centers and tax havens in the world since the mid-20th century. Despite an international push to meaningfully roll back banking secrecy laws in the country, Swiss social and political forces have minimized and reverted much of proposed rollbacks. Although disclosing criminal activities by banks, who do not enjoy a good reputation even in Switzerland, is generally well seen by the Swiss public, disclosing client information has been considered a criminal offence since the early 1900s. Employees working in Switzerland and abroad at Swiss banks "have long adhered to an unwritten code similar to that observed by doctors or priests". Since 1934, banking secrecy laws have been violated by four people: Christoph Meili (1997), Bradley Birkenfeld (2007), Rudolf Elmer (2011), and Hervé Falciani (2014).


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: The Swiss Bankers Association (SBA) estimated in 2018 that Swiss banks held US$6.5 trillion in assets or 25% of all global cross-border assets. Switzerland's main lingual hubs, Geneva (for French), Lugano (for Italian), and Zürich (for German) service the different geographical markets. It currently ranks number two behind the United States and on par with Singapore in the Financial Secrecy Index. The banks are regulated by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) and the Swiss National Bank (SNB) which derives its authority from a series of federal statutes. Banking in Switzerland has historically played, and still continues to play, a dominant role in the Swiss economy and society. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), total banking assets amount to 467% of total gross domestic product. Banking in Switzerland has been portrayed, with varying degrees of accuracy, in overall popular culture, books, movies, and television shows.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: Bank secrecy in the Swiss region can be traced to the Great Council of Geneva, which outlawed the disclosure of information about the European upper class in 1713. During the 1780s, Swiss bank accounts began insuring deposits, which contributed to their reputation for financial security. In 1815, the Congress of Vienna formally established Switzerland's international neutrality, which led to a large capital influx. The wealthy, landlocked Switzerland saw banking secrecy as a way to build an empire similar to that of France, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Swiss historian Sébastian Guex notes in "The Origins of Secret Swiss Bank Accounts":After a small scale civil war in the 1840s between the Swiss cantons, the Swiss Federation was founded in 1848. The formation of the state, through a direct democracy, contributed to the political stability needed for banking secrecy. The mountainous terrain of Switzerland provided a natural environment in which to excavate underground vaults for storage of gold and diamonds. In the 1910s, during World War I, Swiss bankers traveled to France to advertise the country's banking secrecy. The war's contribution to political and economic instability sparked a rapid capital movement into Switzerland. As European countries began to increase taxes to finance the war, wealthy clients moved their holdings into Swiss accounts to avoid taxation. The French banked in Geneva, the Italians in Lugano, and the Germans in Zurich.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: The Federal Act on Banks and Savings Banks, colloquially known as the Banking Law of 1934, made the violation of banking secrecy a federal criminal offence. That major step beyond the prior enforcement of banking secrecy under civil law resulted from several developments of the early 1930s, including the introduction in the same legislation of an embryonic form of banking supervision, which Swiss bankers argued could endanger secrecy; evolving jurisprudence of the Federal Supreme Court; and a 1932 campaign against tax evasion in France led by Édouard Herriot's government. Alleged wealthy French tax evaders included military generals, and Catholic bishops. An additional provision, Article 47(b), was drafted before its ratification to protect Jewish assets from the Nazi party.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: During World War II, Switzerland remained diplomatically neutral but its economy and financial system served the Axis powers by storing gold and cash balances in underground vaults, buying gold from the Nazi German state, and lending to both Germany and Italy, thus supporting their aggressive endeavors. Adolf Hitler maintained an account at the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) estimated at . After the United States formally asked the bank to transfer the money in the 1990s, UBS wired US$400 to 700 million worth of Reichsmarks to U.S. authorities. Banking regulations in Switzerland limit the amount of orphaned assets allowed to leave a bank's custody. UBS, with consent from the Swiss government, froze the account containing Hitler's assets indefinitely, and clipped the Reichsmarks, stripping the currency of value. During World War II, UBS also maintained accounts for hundreds of German Jewish businesspeople and households. After the Banking Law of 1934 was passed, the bank aggressively protected assets of the "enemies of Nazi Germany". When Hitler announced an (aborted) invasion of Switzerland in 1940, UBS contracted the Swiss Armed Forces to blockade their retail banks and transport Jewish assets to underground military bunkers. The Swiss Bank Corporation (SBC) and Credit Suisse, did likewise.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: After the end of World War II, Switzerland and its financial system benefited greatly from having remained unharmed while all the neighbouring economies were devastated, but had to face the reputational damage from its support to the Axis powers, which also led to threats to banking secrecy as the Allied victors sought to expropriate Nazi assets held under Swiss custody. By and large, the Swiss banking sector was able to successfully deflect the threat to its secrecy practices, not least as it supported France and the United Kingdom with significant lending.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, numerous international proposals for bank secrecy rollbacks were made by foreign states with little success.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: After the 2008 financial crisis, Switzerland signed the European Union Savings Directive (EUSD) which obliges Swiss banks to report to 43 European countries non-identifying annual tax statistics. On December 3, 2008, the Federal Assembly increased the prison sentence for violations of banking secrecy from a maximum of six months to five years. In late 2008, after an international, multi-state into Switzerland's role in U.S. tax evasion, UBS entered into a limited, deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) with the U.S. Department of Justice. The agreement initiated the landmark Birkenfeld Disclosure of information on more than 4,000 clients.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: In November 2013, the Zürcher Kantonalbank was classified as a systemically important bank in Switzerland by order of the Swiss National Bank (SNB), alongside UBS, Credit Suisse, Raiffeisen (Switzerland) and PostFinance, and must meet stricter capital requirements and prepare contingency plans for times of crisis. In another step toward loosening banking secrecy, Switzerland signed the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), after rejecting it twice in parliament. The FATCA requires Swiss banks to disclose non-identifying U.S. client information annually to the Internal Revenue Service. The agreement does not guarantee the semi-automatic information transfers, which remain at the discretion of Swiss government authorities. If a client does not consent to having their information shared with the IRS, Swiss law prohibits the disclosure. If a client does consent, Swiss banks send the IRS tax-related information about the account holder but are prohibited from disclosing identities pursuant to Article 47 of the Banking Law of 1934. The 2018 Financial Secrecy Index stated: "this [does] not mean that Swiss banking secrecy was finished, as some excitable news reports suggest... the breach was a partial [dent]".


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: In March 2015, the Swiss government entered into bilateral "Rubik Agreements" with Germany, Austria, and the United Kingdom allowing foreign holders of Swiss bank accounts to retain their anonymity in exchange for paying predetermined back taxes. Switzerland adopted the International Convention on the Automatic Exchange of Banking Information (AEOI) in 2017, agreeing to automatically release limited financial information to certain countries for the sole purpose of tax auditing. This agreement includes the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) which obliges Swiss banks to automatically send foreign tax authorities the client's name, address, domicile, tax number, date of birth, account number, account balance at years end, and the gross investment income. The CRS does not, however, override the Swiss Banking Law of 1934, so the client's expenses (withdrawals) and investments are not disclosed. Thus tax authorities cannot "go fishing" for tax evaders, they must directly link a financial crime to the client's account. The disclosed information can "only" be used for tax auditing and Swiss authorities may prevent disclosure.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: In December 2017, the Swiss parliament launched a standing initiative and expressed an interest in formally embedding banking secrecy within the Swiss Constitution, making it a federally-protected constitutional right. In January 2018, a U.S. district court ruled that Swiss bankers "[have] nothing to do with the choice that an American taxpayer makes to not declare offshore assets", later clarifying they should not be seen as facilitating tax evasion but rather provide a legal service that is made illegal by the client. The Swiss Justice Ministry announced in March 2018 that disclosure of client information in a pending court case involving a Swiss bank is subject to federal espionage and extortion charges in addition to charges relating to banking secrecy laws.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: Switzerland is a prosperous nation with a per capita gross domestic product higher than that of most Western European nations. The value of the Swiss franc (CHF) has been relatively stable compared with that of many others. Swiss neutrality and national sovereignty, long recognized by foreign nations, have fostered a stable environment for the banking sector to develop and thrive. Switzerland maintained neutrality through both World Wars, is not a member of the European Union, and did not join the United Nations until 2002. The Bank of International Settlements (BIS), an organization that facilitates cooperation among the world's central banks, is headquartered in Basel. Founded in 1930, the BIS chose to locate in Switzerland because of the country's neutrality, which was important to the organization founded by countries that had been enemies in World War I.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: Banking has played a dominant role in the Swiss economy for two centuries. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), total banking assets amount to 467% of total gross domestic product.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: Most of the wealth from overseas in Switzerland originates in Germany, France and Saudi Arabia (2018).


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) is a public law institution that supervises most banking-related activities as well as securities markets and investment funds. Regulatory authority is derived from the Swiss Financial Market Supervision Act (FINMASA) and Article 98 of the Swiss Federal Constitution. The office of the Swiss Banking Ombudsman, founded in 1993, is sponsored by the Swiss Banking Ombudsman Foundation, which was established by the Swiss Bankers Association. The ombudsman's services, which are offered free of charge, include mediation and assistance to persons searching for dormant assets. The ombudsman handles about 1,500 complaints raised against banks yearly.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: In February 2013, the Swiss Federal Council allowed the signing of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) with the US. These agreements force all Swiss banks to inform the Internal Revenue Service of undeclared, offshore accounts. These new regulations are applicable from 2014, and in turn assure Swiss banks of continued operations within the US.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: In July 2019, the US Senate approved the Double Taxation Treaty (DTA) with Switzerland, which had already been accepted by the Swiss parliament in 2010. The new agreement, applicable to accounts from September 23, 1999, onward, amends the tax treaty of 1996 and regulates requests for information on financial accounts by US authorities, as well as exemptions for retirement savings by US persons.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: Starting in 2019, Switzerland began to share (with the country of origin or residence) the details of 3.1 million bank accounts held by foreigners, as part of the agreed automatic exchange of information. Swiss banks, insurance companies and trusts have a legal obligation to comply but charitable Swiss foundations are so far exempt. As of 2019, Switzerland received financial data from 75 countries and shared data with 63 (96 countries starting in 2021).


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: Swiss banks have a legal obligation to record the ultimate beneficial owners of all assets they handle worldwide, but doing so accurately can be tricky in jurisdictions where it is easy for third parties to mask who the owners are. Thus, loopholes exist through the use of shell companies, trust funds, and proxy directors signing the paperwork without owning the assets.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: Loopholes exist also with people with multiple nationalities who only declare one citizenship to the authorities for the purpose of tax reporting.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: Another loophole consists (for US citizens) in setting up shell companies abroad and registering them with the IRS as "offshore financial institutions". The IRS issues the entities unique Global Intermediary Identification Numbers, or GIINs, which relieve the banks of FATCA's requirement to investigate whether they're held by Americans. This loophole was allegedly used by billionaire Robert Brockman to avoid taxation.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: To improve the tracking down and freezing of assets, Swiss NGO Public Eye has called for a national task force, a register of the beneficial owners of front companies and a reporting obligation for lawyers. The Tax Justice Network made similar recommendations in 2018, including breaking up the Big Four accounting firms. As of 2022, the Swiss government is following-up on some of those recommendations.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: The "enabling industry" refers to lawyers, fiduciaries, notaries, and real estate agents who assist the criminals invest or hide their ill-gotten wealth. Their activity is not covered by the Swiss Anti-Money Laundering Act as long as they are only advising clients to place money in a particular financial institution or country. Besides, lawyers in Switzerland can refuse to disclose almost anything to the authorities about their clients.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: Under the Swiss Anti-Money Laundering Act, banks must report suspicious clients and transactions to the authorities. Lawyers and other advisors have no such obligation if they simply create trusts and other constructs rather than handle assets.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: Under current rules, banking institutions and cantonal authorities can only report what is in their registers; looking into the origins of assets or connections between individuals is not permitted. For example, in 2022, a Russian oligarch reportedly handed his Swiss company over to his wife to avoid the sanctions against Russia.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: Swiss authorities can "freeze" assets if the law requires them to. However, "seizing" assets is only permitted in cases involving crime or for destituted potentates.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: Breaches of banking secrecy laws in Switzerland are automatically processed pursuant to Article 47 of the Banking Law of 1934: those who disclose client information are subject to a maximum of five years imprisonment and 250,000 francs (€215,000 or US$250,000) in fines. Whistleblowers and leakers of client information often face hostility from the public and sustain professional set backs. Denounced as a criminal in Switzerland, a federal arrest warrant has been in place for Bradley Birkenfeld since 2008, after he disclosed UBS client information to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service in 2007. After the 2008 financial crisis, the Swiss Parliament initiated a series of international tax treaties that rolled back banking secrecy protections for foreign clients in response to pressure from the European Union, United States, and United Kingdom.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: , there are more than 400 securities dealers and banking institutions in Switzerland, ranging from the "Two Big Banks" down to small banks serving the needs of a single community or a few special clients. The largest and second largest Swiss banks are UBS Group AG and Credit Suisse Group AG, respectively. They account for over 50% of all deposits in Switzerland; each has extensive branch networks throughout the country and most international centers. Due to their size and complexity, UBS and Credit Suisse are subject to an extra degree of supervision from the Federal Banking Commission.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: The Swiss National Bank (SNB) serves as the country's central bank. Founded by the Federal Act on the Swiss National Bank (16 January 1906), it began conducting business on 20 June 1907. Its shares are publicly traded, and are held by the cantons, cantonal banks, and individual investors; the federal government does not hold any shares. Although a central bank often has regulatory authority over the country's banking system, the SNB does not; regulation is solely the role of the Federal Banking Commission.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: Raiffeisen Banks "assumes the role of central bank" in providing treasury services, and is the third largest group consisting of 328 banks in 2011, 390 in 2012 with 1,155 branches. According to the bank in 2012 non-U.S. businesses of Wegelin & Co, the oldest Swiss bank, would be bought by the Raiffeisen group. The group has 3 million plus clients within Switzerland.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: UBS Group AG came into existence in June 1998, when Union Bank of Switzerland, founded in 1862, and Swiss Bank Corporation, founded in 1872, merged. Headquartered in Zurich and Basel, it is Switzerland's largest bank. It maintains seven main offices around the world (four in the United States and one each in London, Tokyo, and Hong Kong) and branches on five continents. UBS has been at the center of various tax evasion investigations and other criminal investigations since its founding. UBS was fined $100 million by the U.S. FED in 2004 for trading in dollars with Iran and other sanctioned countries.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: Credit Suisse Group is the second-largest Swiss bank. Based in Zurich and founded in 1856, Credit Suisse offers private banking, investment banking and asset management services. It acquired the First Boston Corporation in 1988 and merged with the Winterthur insurance company in 1997; the latter was sold to AXA in 2006. The asset management services were sold to Aberdeen Asset Management during the 2008 financial crisis. Credit Suisse has been at the center of various tax evasion investigations or money laundering activities since its founding.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: The term private bank refers to a bank that offers private banking services and in its legal form is a partnership. The first private banks were created in St. Gallen in the mid-18th century and in Geneva in the late 18th century as partnerships, and some are still in the hands of the original families such as Hottinger and Mirabaud. In Switzerland, such private banks are called "private bankers" (in the local languages, a protected term) to distinguish them from the other private banks which are typically shared corporations. Historically in Switzerland a minimum of CHF1 million was required to open an account, however, over the last years many private banks have lowered their entry hurdles to CHF250,000 for private investors.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: There are, as of 2006, 24 cantonal banks; these banks are state-guaranteed semi-governmental organizations controlled by one of Switzerland's 26 cantons that engage in all banking businesses. Together the cantonal banks account for about 30% of the banking sector in Switzerland, with a network of over 800 branches and 16 000 employees in Switzerland. In 2014 consolidated total assets of all cantonal banks accounted around 500 bln CHF, which is comparable with those of one the "Big Banks", UBS and Credit Suisse. The largest cantonal bank, the Zurich Cantonal Bank, has approximately 5 000 employees had a 2005 net income of CHF810 million.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: Switzerland, considered the "grandfather of bank secrecy", has been one of the largest offshore financial centers and tax havens in the world since the mid-20th century. Despite an international push to meaningfully roll back banking secrecy laws in the country, Swiss political forces have minimized and reverted much of the proposed rollbacks. Disclosing client information has been considered a serious social and criminal offense since the early 1900s. Whistleblowers, despite legal protections, often face professional set backs in Switzerland. Swiss bankers who maintain offices "exclusively" in Switzerland are shielded from a foreign state's lawsuits, extradition requests, and criminal charges, as long as they remain "within" the country's legal jurisdiction. In spite of minor adjustments to bank secrecy, bankers working in Switzerland and abroad at Swiss banks "have long adhered to an unwritten code similar to that observed by doctors or priests". Switzerland's main lingual hubs, Geneva (for French), Lugano (for Italian), and Zürich (for German) service the different geographical markets. It consistently ranks in the top three states on the Financial Secrecy Index and was named first many times, most recently in 2018. The Swiss Bankers Association estimated in 2018 that Swiss banks held US$6.5 trillion in assets or 25% of all global cross-border assets. These secrecy laws have linked the Swiss banking system with individuals and institutions seeking to illegally evade taxes, hide assets, or generally commit financial crime.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: Secrecy laws have been violated by four people since 1934: Christoph Meili (1997), Bradley Birkenfeld (2007), Rudolf Elmer (2011), and Hervé Falciani (2014). In all four cases, the whistleblowers were served with federal arrest warrants, fined, and sustained professional setbacks in Switzerland.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: As of 2015, Swiss banking secrecy was considered "dead" because of FATCA, but according to the Tax Justice Network in 2018, these schemes are "full of loopholes and shortcomings" which can still be exploited by lawyers to hide the assets of their clients. Besides, some autocratic or developing countries don't have any automatic exchange of tax information with Switzerland.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: Since leaking financial data is a criminal offense in Switzerland (even if it is in the public interest) punishable with up to five years in jail, Swiss media argued in February 2022 that the banking secrecy law runs contrary to freedom of speech and freedom of the press in some cases. In 2022, the United Nations Human Rights Council has asked for a better protection of journalists and whistleblowers in this regard.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: A handful of larger Swiss banks operate undisclosed or otherwise secretive bank vaults, storage facilities or underground bunkers for gold bars, diamonds, or other valuable physical assets. Most of these underground bunkers are located near or at the foothills of the mountainous regions of the Swiss Alps. These facilities are not subject to the same banking regulations as banks in Switzerland and do not have to report holdings to regulatory agencies. The Swiss defense department estimates that of the ten former military bunkers available for sale, six of them were sold to Swiss banks to house assets during the 1980s and 1990s. Storage in these underground bunkers and bank vaults is typically reserved for clients that pass a multi-stage security clearance. Some of these bunkers are not accessible by road or foot and require aircraft transportation.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: Many banks in Switzerland offer clients numbered bank accounts, accounts where the identity of the holder is replaced with a multi-digit number known only to the client and select private bankers. Although these accounts do add another layer of banking secrecy, they are not completely anonymous as the name of the client is still recorded by the bank and subject to limited, warranted disclosure. Some Swiss banks supplement the number with a code name such as "Cardinal", "Octopussy" or "Cello" that provide an alternative means of identifying the client. However, to open this type of account in Switzerland, clients must pass a multi-stage clearance procedure and prove to the bank the lawful origins of their assets.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: Swiss banks have served as safe havens for the wealth of dictators, despots, mobsters, arms dealers, corrupt officials, and tax cheats of all kinds.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: At least a dozen of destituted autocrats have had their assets frozen or seized by the Swiss government over the years. The amounts can be counted in billions of dollars. According to the Swiss media, some of the amounts have not yet been restituted to the people of the countries of origin to whom it properly belongs.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: Swiss banks have been commonly identified as holding ill-gotten Nazi gold. The Swiss National Bank, the largest gold distribution centre in continental Europe before the war, was the logical venue through which Nazi Germany could dispose of its gold.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: "Time" magazine reported that throughout 1981 and 1982, the Israelis reportedly set up Swiss bank accounts to handle the financial end of the annual multi-million dollars arms deals between Iran and Israel during the Iran–Iraq War.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: According to the Swiss Federal Prosecutor's office and media, during the 1990s and early 2000s Al Qaeda members had accounts at Swiss banks, including at UBS.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: Switzerland finally released a total of $683 million in Marcos funds to the Philippines Treasury in 2004.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: Mark Pieth, a Swiss professor of criminal law, said Mobutu of Zaire had stolen US$30 billion over his 30 years in power but much of it he used to oil the wheels of power and pay off political and military allies. Billions were hidden in Swiss bank accounts illegally.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: According to Haitian authorities, Jean Claude Duvalier had nearly $300 million of Haitian people's money hidden in Swiss bank accounts.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: In 2013, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit news organization, obtained records of companies and trusts created by two offshore companies. These included information on at least 23 companies linked to an alleged $230 million tax fraud in Russia, a case that was being investigated by Sergei Magnitsky. The ICIJ investigation also revealed that the husband of one of the Russian tax officials deposited millions in a Swiss bank account set up by one of the offshore companies.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: Over the past 20 years, Switzerland has returned about $2 billion of ill-gotten money in at least ten cases, including to Tunisia, Egypt, Brazil, Nigeria, Malaysia and Uzbekistan (2022). Swiss bank accounts were utilised by the perpetrators of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad corruption and money laundering scandal.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: More recent studies show that Credit Suisse alone held assets worth $100 billion over several decades which were linked to corruption and bribery to drug and human trafficking for more than 30,000 clients. Apart from the 2022 "Suisse secrets" revelations, Credit Suisse had several other cases of scandals reported by the media over the last decades.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: In 2018, London-based Tax Justice Network ranks Switzerland's banking sector as the "most corrupt" in the world due to a large offshore banking industry and very strict secrecy laws. The ranking attempts to measure how much assistance the country's legal systems provide to money laundering, and to protecting corruptly obtained wealth.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: As of 2019, key criminal probes involving Swiss banks were the Petrobras bribery case, the Mozambique "tuna bonds", Credit Suisse "spygate" affair, Raiffeisen insider trading and UBS tax evasion in France.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: In 2021, the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation reported that the Zurich police are investigating CHF 9 billion from Venezuela that has been received by 30 Swiss banks. A Swiss bank account was used to bribe a Venezuelan minister. Other major cases involving the Credit Suisse money laundering case for drug-traffickers in Bulgaria, Falcon Bank, 1MBD, Glencore, SICPA, SBM Offshore, PKB, J. Safra Sarasin, Cramer Bank and Lombard Odier Bank.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: In 2021, Swiss firm Allied Finance Trust AG and five Swiss bankers were charged with tax fraud conspiracy in New York.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: In 2021, UBS was criminally convicted by an appeals court in France for money laundering the proceeds of tax evasion by French citizens and fined €1.8 billion.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: Switzerland has been ranked among the top three tax havens in the world every single year since the financial crisis, most recently in 2018. In 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden also called Switzerland a "tax haven" during his speech to a joint session of Congress.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: According to the 2018 Financial Secrecy Index, Switzerland's banking secrecy laws have rendered it a premier tax haven since the 1900s. It also noted that this status has been frequently abused by criminals to illegally evade paying taxes in their home country. One of the most prominent attractions of the disclosure protection laws is the distinction between tax evasion (non-reporting of income) and tax fraud (active deception). Akin to the distinction between legal tax avoidance and illegal tax evasion in the U.S., the non-reporting of income is only a civil offense in Switzerland while tax fraud is a financial crime. When foreign clients deposit holdings into a Swiss bank account, the bank is legally prohibited from disclosing balances or client information to tax authorities. This prohibition can only be waived if the client has produced a written statement of consent or a financial crime has been directly linked to the bank account. More often than not, clients do not consent to foreign tax authorities, which leaves only the latter (financial crime) provision available. Many client services available in Switzerland (e.g. numbered bank accounts) are used to shield client data from tax authorities.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: Many sovereign states do not legally require private bankers to confirm whether or not a client has paid their taxes, in any capacity. On top of this, Switzerland's banking secrecy laws prohibit the disclosure of client information under a variety of federal, cantonal, and civil policies. Many foreign nationals open Swiss bank accounts to take advantage of these laws and tax distinctions. While citizens of Switzerland retain the full force of banking secrecy protections, foreign clients are afforded some of the most stringent bank–client confidentiality protections in the world. In exchange for banking services, the Swiss government charges "a low, lump-sum option on the money they bank", after which Swiss tax authorities consider client tax burdens "settled". After the Banking Law of 1934 was passed, Swiss bankers traveled across Europe to advertise the country's banking secrecy during World War II. As European countries began to increase taxes to finance the war, wealthy clients moved their holdings into Swiss accounts to avoid taxation.


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: Swiss banks have collectively paid more than $12 billion in fines in recent years to the tax authorities in France, Germany, Italy, the United States and other countries for helping with tax evasion. Starting in 2022, fines on Swiss banks abroad will be tax deductible (unless crime is involved).


title: Banking in Switzerland

text: Banking in Switzerland, in particular Swiss banking secrecy practices, has been detailed in global popular culture to varying degrees of accuracy. According to official statements from the Swiss National Film Archives, inaccurate or exaggerated portrayals negatively impact Switzerland by reducing bankers to unflattering "caricatures" that are "ever disposed to accept funds from questionable sources". In 2014, Sindy Schmiegel, a spokeswoman for the Swiss Bankers Association (SBA), stressed that financial regulation in Switzerland is dramatically more strict than portrayed fictionally. "The Economic Times" noted that popular culture portrays Swiss bank accounts as "completely anonymous", later adding "this is simply not true."


title: Glossary of botanical terms

text: This glossary of botanical terms is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to botany and plants in general. Terms of plant morphology are included here as well as at the more specific Glossary of plant morphology and Glossary of leaf morphology. For other related terms, see Glossary of phytopathology, Glossary of lichen terms, and List of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names.


title: Refried beans

text: Refried beans (from , ) is a dish of cooked and mashed beans that is a traditional staple of Mexican and Tex-Mex cuisine, although each cuisine has a different approach when making the dish. Refried beans are also popular in many other Latin American countries.


title: Refried beans

text: In this dish, after being boiled and then mashed into a paste, the beans are fried or baked, though as they are fried only once, the term ""re"fried" is misleading. As described by Rick Bayless, "they're "refritos"—not fried "again", as you might assume, but 'well fried' or 'intensely fried.'"


title: Refried beans

text: In northern Mexico and Tex-Mex cuisine, refried beans are usually prepared with pinto beans, but many other varieties of bean are used in other parts of Mexico, such as black, Peruano, or red kidney beans. The raw beans can be cooked when dry or soaked overnight, then stewed, drained of most of the remaining liquid, and converted into a paste with a masher (such as a potato masher), or pressed through a fine mesh sieve (to remove the skins). Some of the drained liquid, or chicken or vegetable stock, is added if the consistency is too dry. The paste is then baked or fried, usually with onion and garlic in a small amount of lard, vegetable oil, bacon drippings or butter, and seasoned to taste with salt and spices. In Mexico lard is most often used, and this has a large effect on flavor. Epazote is a common herb used to add flavor to the dish. It is also a carminative (i.e. it reduces the intestinal gas associated with beans).


title: Refried beans

text: In home cooking, refried beans are often served as a side dish accompanying a larger meal, or rolled in a tortilla to form a bean burrito.


title: Refried beans

text: In the United States, refried beans are most commonly made from pinto beans. They are served as a side dish with most Tex-Mex restaurant meals. They also have become very popular as a dip for corn tortilla chips. Refried beans are also a primary ingredient in many tostada, chimichanga, and pupusa recipes. Additionally, they are a typical ingredient in layered dips, such as seven-layer dip, or in nachos.


title: Patrick Hemingway

text: Patrick Miller Hemingway (born June 28, 1928) is an American wildlife manager and writer who is novelist Ernest Hemingway's second son, and the first born to Hemingway's second wife Pauline Pfeiffer. During his childhood he travelled frequently with his parents, and then attended Harvard University, graduated in 1950, and shortly thereafter moved to East Africa where he lived for 25 years. In Tanzania, Patrick was a professional big-game hunter and for over a decade he owned a safari business. In the 1960s he was appointed by the United Nations to the Wildlife Management College in Tanzania as a teacher of conservation and wildlife. In the 1970s he moved to Montana where he managed the intellectual property of his father's estate. He edited his father's unpublished novel about a 1950s safari to Africa and published it with the title "True at First Light" (1999).


title: Patrick Hemingway

text: Born in Kansas City, Missouri, he traveled with his parents to Europe in 1929 and again in 1933, to Wyoming and Idaho during his summers, though his permanent residence was in Key West. In 1940, his parents divorced, after which his father married Martha Gellhorn. After their marriage, they moved to Cuba where Patrick visited often. At the beginning of World War II, Patrick helped crew his father's boat, the Pilar, on improvised missions to hunt for German U-boats operating in the Gulf of Mexico. Patrick attended Stanford University for two years, transferred to Harvard and graduated in 1950 with a BA in History and Literature.


title: Patrick Hemingway

text: On April 5, 2021, "Hemingway", a three-episode, six-hour documentary, a recapitulation of Hemingway's life, labors, and loves, debuted on the Public Broadcasting Service. It was co-produced and directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. It contains considerable footage and photographs of Patrick, and interviews with him about his life with his father. Patrick was married to Henrietta Broyles, with whom he has a daughter, Mina Hemingway (born 1960).


title: Patrick Hemingway

text: Having studied agriculture at his mother's plantation in Piggott, Arkansas, Patrick used his inheritance after her death to buy a farm near Dar-es-Salaam. He and his wife moved to Africa, where he lived for 25 years. Patrick lived for much of his life in Tanganyika where he ran a safari expedition company; served as a white hunter to wealthy patrons; and as an honorary game warden in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. He started his safari business, called Tanganyika Safari Business, near Mount Kilimanjaro in 1955, which he gave up in the early 1960s when his wife was ill. For 12 years he taught conservation of wildlife at the College of African Wildlife Management in Tanzania, as part of his job as forestry officer in the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. The College of African Wildlife Management at Mweka trains armed officers to enforce wildlife protection laws in Sub-Saharan Africa.


title: Patrick Hemingway

text: His father Ernest died in 1961, and his wife Henrietta died in 1963. When he left Africa he moved to Bozeman, Montana, where he has lived since 1975. He oversees the management of Ernest Hemingway's intellectual property, which includes projects in publishing, electronic media, and movies in the United States and worldwide.


title: Patrick Hemingway

text: Hemingway edited his father's "Africa book" that was published in 1999 with the title "True at First Light". The book is a blend of fact and fiction from the East Africa expedition Ernest and fourth wife Mary went on from late 1953 to early 1954, in part to visit Patrick and his wife. Toward the end of the trip Ernest Hemingway was in two successive plane crashes and was reported dead. He sustained a severe head injury which went largely undiagnosed until he left Africa. Upon his return to Cuba he worked sporadically on "True at First Light", but eventually set it aside.


title: Patrick Hemingway

text: The manuscript was in the John F. Kennedy Library Hemingway Archives, and Patrick edited the 800 pages down to half the size. He had been present with his father during much of the expedition and was familiar with the events of Africa during that year, which he describes in the "Foreword" to "True at First Light".


title: Patrick Hemingway

text: Hemingway contributed an introduction to the 1990 "Green Hills of Africa"; the 1991 "Valley of Life: Africa's Great Rift"; the 2003" Hemingway on Hunting"; the 2003 "Hemingway on War"; and a "foreword" to the 2009 republished edition of his father's "A Moveable Feast". For the 2012 special edition of "A Farewell to Arms", containing all forty-seven alternative endings, Patrick wrote a personal foreword. His nephew, grandson of Ernest Hemingway, Seán Hemingway, wrote the introduction.


title: MRT Line 3 (Metro Manila)

text: The Metro Rail Transit Line 3, also known as the MRT Line 3, MRT-3 or Metrostar Express, is a light rapid transit system line of Metro Manila, Philippines. Originally referred to as the Blue Line, MRT Line 3 was reclassified to be the Yellow Line in 2012. The line runs in an orbital north to south route following the alignment of Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA). Although it has the characteristics of light rail, such as with the type of rolling stock used, it is more akin to a rapid transit system owing to its total grade separation and high passenger throughput.


title: MRT Line 3 (Metro Manila)

text: Envisioned in the 1970s and 1980s as part of various feasibility studies, the thirteen-station, line was the second rapid transit line to be built in Metro Manila when it started full operations in 2000 under a 25-year concession agreement between its private owners and the Philippine government's Department of Transportation (DOTr).


title: MRT Line 3 (Metro Manila)

text: The line is owned by the Metro Rail Transit Corporation (MRTC), a private company operating in partnership with the DOTr under a Build-Lease-Transfer agreement.


title: MRT Line 3 (Metro Manila)

text: Serving close to 550,000 passengers on a daily basis when MRTC's maintenance provider, Sumitomo Corporation of Japan, was handling the maintenance of the system, the line is the busiest among Metro Manila's three rapid transit lines, built with essential standards such as barrier-free access and the use of contact-less card tickets to better facilitate passenger access. Total ridership significantly exceeds its built maximum capacity of 350,000 passengers a day, with various solutions being proposed or implemented to alleviate chronic congestion in addition to the procurement of new rolling stock.


title: MRT Line 3 (Metro Manila)

text: Since 2006, the system's private owners had been offering various capacity expansion proposals to the DOTC. In 2014, after the DOTC's handling of the line's maintenance for two years amid questions about the line's structural integrity owing to the poor maintenance and the pronouncements that the system, in general, was safe, experts from MTR HK were commissioned to review the system. MTR HK made the opinion that the rail system was compromised due to the DOTC's poor maintenance.


title: MRT Line 3 (Metro Manila)

text: From 2019 to 2021, the line underwent a comprehensive rehabilitation program funded by Japan's official development assistance. This resulted in upgraded facilities, railway tracks, trains, and other systems.


title: MRT Line 3 (Metro Manila)

text: It is integrated with the public transit system in Metro Manila, and passengers also take various forms of road-based public transport, such as buses, to and from a station to reach their intended destination. Although the line is aimed at reducing traffic congestion and travel time along EDSA, the transportation system has only been partially successful due to the DOTC's inaction on the private sector's proposals to expand the capacity of the system to take up to 1.1 million passengers a day. Expanding the network's capacity to accommodate the rising number of passengers is currently set on tackling this problem.


title: MRT Line 3 (Metro Manila)

text: The lines run along the alignment of Epifanio de los Santos Avenue from North Avenue in Quezon City to the intersection of EDSA and Taft Avenue in Pasay. The rails are mostly elevated and erected either over or along the roads covered, with cut and underground sections between and stations, the only underground stations on the line. The rail line serves the cities that Circumferential Road 4 (Epifanio de los Santos Avenue) passes through: Pasay, Makati, Mandaluyong, San Juan and Quezon City. The line crosses South Luzon Expressway (SLEX) at Magallanes Interchange in Makati.


title: MRT Line 3 (Metro Manila)

text: Early on during the construction of the line, a plan was drafted for a spur line which run from Buendia to Gil Puyat stations, built between Ayala and Buendia stations. The remaining evidence of this abandoned plan is an underground tunnel between Buendia and Ayala stations turning right, heading towards Ayala Avenue. The planned spur line was cancelled due to the Asian financial crisis in 1997, which resulted the spur line area to be abandoned since the line's opening in 1999. Although occasionally mentioned, there are currently no plans to revisit this abandoned plan.


title: MRT Line 3 (Metro Manila)

text: The line has 13 stations along its route, spaced on average around apart. The southern terminus of the line is at Pasay Rotonda, the intersection between Epifanio de los Santos Avenue and Taft Avenue, while the northern terminus is the along Epifanio de los Santos Avenue in Barangay Bagong Pag-asa, Quezon City. Three stations serve as connecting stations with the lines operated by the Light Rail Manila Corporation (LRMC), Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA), and Philippine National Railways (PNR). The Magallanes station is near PNR's station, while is indirectly connected to the LRT Line 2 station of the same, and is connected via a covered walkway to the LRT Line 1 station. No stations are connected to other rapid transit lines within the paid areas, though that is set to change when the North Triangle Common Station, which has interchanges to LRT Line 1 and MRT Line 7, opens in 2022.


title: MRT Line 3 (Metro Manila)

text: There are plans to temporarily close to facilitate the construction of the North Triangle Common Station. This is to minimize the operational and safety risks to the overhead catenary wires above the turn back siding north of the North Avenue station. Should this closure proposal be approved, will be the temporary terminus of the line. The closure will take place for 30 days.


title: MRT Line 3 (Metro Manila)

text: The line is open from 4:40 a.m. PHT (UTC+8) until 10:10 p.m. on a daily basis. It operates almost every day of the year unless otherwise announced. Special schedules are announced via the public address system in every station and also in newspapers and other mass media. During Holy Week, a public holiday in the Philippines, the line is closed for annual maintenance, owing to fewer commuters and traffic around the metro, leaving the EDSA Carousel as an alternative mode of transport. Normal operation resumes after Easter Sunday. The first day of the 2022 Holy Week closure, which falls on the last working day of the week, has been criticized by many commuters, due to the insufficient number of buses along the EDSA Carousel. During the Christmas and year-end holidays, the operating hours of the line are shortened due to the low ridership of the line during the holidays.


title: MRT Line 3 (Metro Manila)

text: It has experimented with extended opening hours, the first of which included 24-hour operations beginning on June 1, 2009 (primarily aimed at serving call center agents and other workers in the business process outsourcing sector). Citing low ridership figures and financial losses, this was suspended after two days, and operations were instead extended from 5:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. Operations subsequently returned to the former schedule (5:30 a.m. until 11:00 p.m. on weekdays, and 5:30 a.m. until 10:00 pm during weekends and holidays) by April 2010, but services were again extended starting March 10, 2014, with trains running on a trial basis from 4:30 am to 11:30 pm in anticipation of major traffic buildup in light of several major road projects beginning in 2014.


title: MRT Line 3 (Metro Manila)

text: In 1973, the Overseas Technical Cooperation Agency (OTCA; predecessor of the Japan International Cooperation Agency) presented a plan to construct five subway lines in Metro Manila. The study was known as the Urban Transport Study in the Manila Metropolitan Area. One of the five lines, Line 3, was planned as a line along Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA), the region's busiest road corridor. The plan would have resolved the traffic problems of Metro Manila and would have taken 15 years to complete.


title: MRT Line 3 (Metro Manila)

text: Another study by JICA was presented in 1976 which included the five lines proposed in 1973. The study recommended heavy rail due to the rising population.


title: MRT Line 3 (Metro Manila)

text: During the construction of the first line of the Manila Light Rail Transit System in the early 1980s, Electrowatt Engineering Services of Zürich designed a comprehensive plan for metro service in Metro Manila. The plan—still used as the basis for planning new metro lines—consisted of a network of rapid transit lines spanning all major corridors within 20 years. The study integrated the previous 1973 OTCA study, the 1976 JICA study, and the 1977 Freeman Fox and Associates study, which was used as the basis for the LRT Line 1.


title: MRT Line 3 (Metro Manila)

text: The project was restarted as a light rail project in 1989, originally known as the LRT-3 project. It was to be bid out as a build-operate-transfer project, with the Hong Kong-based EDSA LRT Corporation winning the public bidding for the line's construction in 1991 during the term of President Corazon Aquino. However, construction could not commence, with the project stalled as the Philippine government conducted several investigations into alleged irregularities with the project's contract. In 1995, the Supreme Court upheld the regularity of the project which paved the way for construction to finally begin during the term of President Fidel V. Ramos. A consortium of local companies, led by Fil-Estate Management was later joined by Ayala Land, and 5 others, later formed the Metro Rail Transit Corporation (MRTC) in June 1995 and took over the EDSA LRT Corporation.


title: MRT Line 3 (Metro Manila)

text: The MRTC was subsequently awarded a Build-Lease-Transfer contract by the DOTC, which meant that the latter would possess ownership of the system after the 25-year concession period. Meanwhile, the DOTC would assume all administrative functions, such as the regulation of fares and operations, leaving the MRTC responsibility over construction and maintenance of the system as well as the procurement of spare parts for trains. MRTC would later transfer the responsibility of maintaining the system to the DOTC in November 2010. In exchange, the DOTC would pay the MRTC monthly fees for a certain number of years to reimburse any incurred costs.


title: MRT Line 3 (Metro Manila)

text: Construction began on October 15, 1996, with a BLT agreement signed between the Philippine government and the MRTC. An amended turnkey agreement was later signed on September 16, 1997, with Sumitomo Corporation and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Sumitomo and Mitsubishi subcontracted EEI Corporation and AsiaKonstrukt for the civil works. A separate agreement was signed with ČKD Dopravní Systémy (ČKD Tatra, now part of Siemens AG), the leading builder of trams and light rail vehicles for the Eastern Bloc, on rolling stock. MRTC also retained the services of ICF Kaiser Engineers and Constructors to provide program management and technical oversight of the services for the design, construction management, and commissioning. MRTC would later sign a maintenance agreement with Sumitomo and Mitsubishi for the maintenance of the line on December 10 of the same year.


title: MRT Line 3 (Metro Manila)

text: During construction, the MRTC oversaw the design, construction, equipping, testing, and commissioning, while the DOTC oversaw technical supervision of the project activities covered by the BLT contract between the DOTC and MRTC. The DOTC also sought the services of SYSTRA, a French consultant firm, with regards to the technical competence, experience and track record in the construction and operations.


title: MRT Line 3 (Metro Manila)

text: On December 15, 1999, the initial section from to was inaugurated by President Joseph Estrada, with all remaining stations opening on July 20, 2000, a little over a month past the original deadline, due to DOTC's inclusion of additional work orders such as the Tramo overpass in Pasay leading to the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. However, ridership was initially far below expectations when the line was still partially open, with passengers complaining of the tickets' steep price and the general lack of connectivity of the stations with other modes of public transportation. Passengers' complaint of high ticket prices pointed to the maximum fare of ₱34, which at the time was significantly higher than a comparable journey on those lines operated by the LRTA and the PNR or a similar bus ride along EDSA. Although the MRTC projected 300,000–400,000 passengers riding the system daily, in the first month of operation the system saw a ridership of only 40,000 passengers daily (the ridership improved quickly, however, when passengers experienced significantly faster and convenient travel along EDSA, which experience soon spread by word of mouth). The system was also initially criticized as a white elephant, comparing it to the Manila Light Rail Transit System and the Metro Manila Skyway. To alleviate passenger complaints, the MRTC later reduced passenger fares to ₱15, as per the request of then President Joseph Estrada and a subsequent government subsidy.


title: MRT Line 3 (Metro Manila)

text: MRTC projected a capacity breach in the system by 2002. By 2004, the line had the highest ridership of the three lines, with 400,000 passengers daily. By early 2012, the system was carrying around 550,000 to 600,000 commuters during weekdays and was often badly overcrowded during peak times of access during the day and night. The line operated beyond its original designed capacity from 2004 to 2019, and since 2022. In 2011, Sumitomo, through TES Philippines, issued a warning about the overcrowding situation of the line, in which a failure to immediately upgrade the line's trains and systems would result in damage to the trains and systems.


title: MRT Line 3 (Metro Manila)

text: By October 2012, DOTC removed Sumitomo as the maintenance provider of the line due to the high costs of the contract. With the entry of the joint venture of Philippine Trans Rail Management and Services Corporation (PH Trams) and Comm Builders & Technology Philippines Corporation (CB&T) as the maintenance provider in 2012, and APT Global in 2013, it marked the start of the deterioration of the line due to poor maintenance by the aforementioned maintenance providers that DOTC appointed. In 2014, there were reported daily incidents and disruptions, and a derailment of one train coach on August 13 of that year. The government of Benigno Aquino III had been planning to buy the line from the MRT Corporation (MRTC), the private concessionaire that built the line, and then bid it out to private bidders. The Aquino government accused the MRTC of neglecting and not improving the services of the line under its watch.


title: MRT Line 3 (Metro Manila)

text: In February 2016, the Philippine Senate released a report stating that DOTC Secretary Jun Abaya and other DOTC officials "may have violated" the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act in relation to questionable contracts with the subsequent maintenance providers. In a Senate report where the line's condition was found to be in "poor maintenance" as per studies made by MTR HK, DOTC officials were reported to be involved in graft in relation to questionable contracts, especially those for the maintenance of the line.


title: MRT Line 3 (Metro Manila)

text: The DOTC tried to bid out a three-year maintenance contract in 2014 and 2015, but both biddings failed because no bidders submitted a bid. Through a negotiated procurement, the Busan joint venture, a joint venture of Busan Transportation Corporation, Edison Development & Construction, Tramat Mercantile Inc., TMICorp Inc., and Castan Corporation, was awarded a three-year maintenance contract by the DOTC. The contract started in January 2016 and was slated to end by January 2019. In 2017, DOTC's succeeding agency, the Department of Transportation (DOTr) attributed the operation's disruptions of the rail system to the Busan joint venture, later known as Busan Universal Rail, Inc. (BURI), with DOTr Transport Undersecretary for Rails Cesar Chavez noting 98 service interruptions and 833 passenger unloadings (or average of twice daily) as well as train derailments in April–June 2017. BURI insisted that the disruptions the railway line was experiencing is due to "inherent design and quality concerns" and not to poor maintenance or normal tear or wear. It said that glitches started occurring since 2000, a claim that MRTC dismissed when Sumitomo was maintaining the system. The maintenance contract was terminated by the DOTr on November 6, 2017.