title: Rover V8 engine

text: The Rover V8 began life as the Buick 215, an all-aluminium OHV pushrod engine introduced in 1960 for the 1961 US model year (it was on their drawing boards in the late 1950s). The compact alloy engine was light, at just , and capable of high power outputs: the most powerful Buick version of this engine rated , and the very similar Oldsmobile "Jetfire" turbocharged version made , both numbers SAE gross. Based on sales volume and press reports, the engine was a success. Buick produced 376,799 cars with this engine in just three years. A comparable number of Oldsmobile 215 engines were produced. In addition, some Pontiac models were fitted with the Buick 215, leading to the nickname "BOP 215" for the engine (BOP standing for Buick/Oldsmobile/Pontiac). The aluminium engine was relatively expensive to produce, however, and it suffered problems with oil and coolant sealing, as well as with radiator clogging from use of antifreeze incompatible with aluminium. As a result, GM ceased production of the all-aluminium engine after 1963, although Buick retained a similar 300/340/350 cid engine (iron block and alloy heads, later all-iron) (1964–1980), as well as a V6 derivative (1962–2008) which proved to have a very long and successful life.


title: Rover V8 engine

text: In January 1964 Rover gave American operations head J. Bruce McWilliams permission to investigate the possible purchase of an American V8 engine for Rover cars. History relates that McWilliams first saw the Buick V8 at the works of Mercury Marine, where he was discussing the sale of Rover gas turbines and diesel engines to the company (Mercury did indeed use the Land Rover diesel engine in marinised form). However, it is likely that McWilliams was aware of the Buick engine before this. In any case, McWilliams realised that the lightweight Buick V8 would be ideal for smaller British cars (indeed, it weighed less than many straight-4 engines it would replace). McWilliams and William Martin-Hurst began an aggressive campaign to convince GM to sell the tooling, which they finally agreed to do in January 1965. Retiring Buick engineer Joe Turlay moved to the UK to act as a consultant.


title: Rover V8 engine

text: The Rover V8 has long been a relatively common engine for kit car use in Britain, much as the Chevrolet small-block V8 is for American hot rod builders (though many British hot rods have traditionally used four cylinder engines, like the Ford Pinto and Crossflow units). Even in the US there is a strong contingent of builders who select the Buick or Rover aluminium V8 engine for use in small sporty cars like the MGB . The 1964 Buick iron-block engine had aluminium cylinder heads, 3.75 bore and a longer 3.4" stroke crankshaft, which with modification can be used with the Buick 215 or Rover engine blocks to produce a high-output, very light weight V8 with displacement of up to about . The 300 crank, after machining the mains to the 215 size in the 215 block yields . Traco in the USA were prominent builders of such engines.


title: Rover V8 engine

text: The British made engines were run on two SU carburettors, initially HS6 then HIF6 and HIF44 variants (14 years), then two CD175 Stromberg carburettors (2–3 years), Bosch L-Jetronic (7–8 years, aka Lucas 4CU Flapper), then Hitachi Hotwire (5 years, aka Lucas 14CUX), then the GEMS system (many years) and finally Bosch Motronics for 2 years. The engine is still cast now (2011), in an improved version, by Coscast in Birmingham, UK.


title: Rover V8 engine

text: As well as appearing in Rover cars, the engine was sold by Rover to small car builders, and has appeared in a wide variety of vehicles. Rover V8s feature in some models from Morgan +8, TVR, Triumph TR8, Land Rover and MGB V8, among many others.


title: Rover V8 engine

text: By the early 2000s, the Rover V8 had become uncompetitive with other V8 engines in its class. It produced between 80-100 hp less than more modern V8 engines, it used much more fuel compared to newer V8s, and used an aged 16-valve pushrod architecture, while V8 engines made by other luxury automakers often used dual overhead-cams and 32 valves. After Land Rover switched to the BMW M62 V8 in the 2003 Range Rover, and the Land Rover Discovery 3 switched to Jaguar AJ-V8 engines, the last mass-produced Rover V8 was made in May 2004, after 37 years of production, and just under 1 million engines produced. The 2004 Land Rover Discovery was the last mass-produced vehicle to use it. The last Rover-badged vehicle that used the Rover V8 was the Rover SD1, which was discontinued in 1986 and replaced by the Rover 800,which used a 2.7 litre variant of the Honda C engine as its top engine choice. MG Rover Group used the 4.6 L SOHC 2-valve Ford Modular V8 engine in the Rover 75 and MG ZT 260 from 2003-2005. The Rover V8 remained with Land Rover when it was sold to Ford by BMW. Although Land Rover has switched to the Jaguar AJ-V8 engine for new applications, they wanted production of the engine to continue, and they arranged for production to restart in Weston-super-Mare under MCT, an engineering and manufacturing company. MCT will continue limited production of the engine for the foreseeable future, supplying engines for aftermarket and replacement use.


title: Rover V8 engine

text: The Rover V8 based on the Buick design was not the first V8 engine produced by Rover. When the Rover Company was having engineering differences of opinion regarding the development of the Whittle turbine engine, the Wilks brothers did a deal with Rolls-Royce to swap technologies. The turbine engine project at Barnoldswick went to Rolls-Royce and Rover Co took over the V12 Meteor engine production used in a range of world war two tanks and the post war Centurion Tank - (the Meteor V12 was a 'detuned' version of the Merlin aero engine). From this a V8 variant was developed. The Rover Meteorite, also known as Rolls-Royce Meteorite, was a V8 petrol engine of capacity. In essence it was two-thirds of a V12 Meteor, and it shared the Meteor's 60° bank angle. Meteorites were built for heavy duty vehicles, for marine use and as stationary power units: it powered the Thornycroft Antar or Mighty Antar Tank Transporter – and as such was used to transport Meteor-engined tanks – and also heavy transport on the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme in Australia.


title: Rover V8 engine

text: As the aluminium block made this engine one of the lightest stock V8s built, it was an obvious choice for use in racing. Mickey Thompson entered a car powered by this engine in the 1962 Indianapolis 500. From 1946 to 1962 there had not been a single stock-block car entered in this famous race. In 1962 the Buick 215 was the only non-Offenhauser powered entry in the field of 33 cars. Rookie driver Dan Gurney qualified eighth and raced well for 92 laps before retiring with transmission problems.


title: Rover V8 engine

text: The Rover version of this engine was extensively developed and used for rallying, especially in Triumph TR8 sports cars.


title: Rover V8 engine

text: The Australian Repco V8 F1 engine being based on Buick 215 block is technically a common misconception, as the Rover/Buick V8 had only 5 cylinder head studs around each cylinder unit and that cannot accommodate the 6 stud Repco RB620 heads. The Repco V8 was based on Oldsmobile 215 block of the same era, which was very similar in appearance, size and material, but used 6 cylinderhead studs per cylinder. The subtle difference in block design/head clamping originated in Oldsmobile's intention to produce the higher power, turbo-charged Jetfire version of the small/light V8, however, the public/press tended not to be aware of the internal difference.


title: Rover V8 engine

text: The initial Rover version of the engine had a displacement of . The bore and the stroke was . All Rover V8s were OHV pushrod engines with two valves per cylinder. It used a sand-cast block with pressed-in iron cylinder liners, and a new intake manifold with two HS6 type SU Carburettors. The Rover engine was heavier but stronger than the Buick engine, with a dry weight of about . It was first offered in the 1967 Rover P5B saloon, initially making at 5,200 rpm and of torque at 2,600 rpm on 10.5:1 compression (5-star petrol was then still available in the UK). With the introduction of the Rover SD1 in 1976, the engine was improved with the 'rope' oil seals for the crankshaft ends replaced with lip seals, spark plug dimensions changed and the compression ratio lowered to 9.35:1.


title: Rover V8 engine

text: In the late 1970s, British Leyland became aware of the increasing importance of diesel engined cars to the British, European and (especially) North American markets in the wake of the 1979 energy crisis. It was decided that a new series of diesel engines powerful, refined and economical enough for use in BL cars was needed. However, with development funding tight, it was necessary to use existing BL petrol engines as a base. This included a diesel version of the V8, the development project for which was code-named 'Iceberg'.


title: Rover V8 engine

text: BL collaborated with Perkins Engines of Peterborough to develop the engine. Both naturally aspirated and turbocharged versions were produced, both using a Stanadyne rotary mechanical fuel injection system. Power outputs of around 100 (naturally aspirated) and 150 (turbocharged) horsepower were achieved.


title: Rover V8 engine

text: The Iceberg engine was slated for fitment in the Range Rover, Rover SD1 and the Jaguar XJ but the project encountered problems with failure of the alloy cylinder heads and internal cooling. They were limited by the need to use the same basic block casting as the petrol engine to allow the Iceberg engine to be produced on the same production line to reduce costs. Whilst these problems could have been overcome, the project ran into financial and logistical problems caused by the reorganisation of BL and specifically the splitting of Land Rover and Rover into separate divisions.


title: Rover V8 engine

text: Land Rover took over production of the V8 engine in 1982, moving it from the main BL engine plant at Acock's Green into a new, much lower-capacity production line in the Solihull works, where it was built alongside the other Land Rover engines. This meant that there was no spare capacity to build diesel versions of the engine. Coupled to this, it was clear that the market for large diesel engined cars in North America had not developed as expected.


title: Rover V8 engine

text: BL finally pulled out of the project in 1983. Perkins initially decided to pursue the project alone, and even produced advertising brochures for the engine as an industrial power unit, but BL withdrew all technical support and Project Iceberg was wrapped up in late 1983. BL's other collaboration with Perkins (producing a diesel version of the O-Series engine) produced the highly successful 'Prima' unit. BL (and its Rover Group successor) bought in 2.5-litre 4-cylinder turbodiesel units from VM Motori to use in the SD1 and Range Rover.


title: Rover V8 engine

text: Land Rover used a version of the Rover V8 throughout the 1990s. Bore was increased to and stroke remained the same at . The engine was revised in 1995 and thereafter referred to as a 4.0 to differentiate it from the earlier version, although displacement was unchanged. The revisions consisted of a new intake and exhaust system, extra block ribbing, revised pistons, and larger cross-bolted main bearings. The 1995 4.0 produced and .


title: Rover V8 engine

text: Production of the 4.0 ended in 2003. The final version of the engine, used until 2004 in the Land Rover Discovery, produced at 4,750 rpm and at 2,600 rpm.


title: Rover V8 engine

text: In the early 1980s TVR approached Andy Rouse with a view to using his race-developed variant of the V8 in their Rover-powered TVR 350i 'wedge'; Rouse had successfully campaigned a Rover SD1 with a modified V8 on the track. For a number of reasons (primarily cost) Rouse's version was not used, but the concept was passed to alternative engineering firms which resulted in a rare variant of the 3.9. This unit has cylinder bores (instead of Rover's own that was introduced some years later) and thus has a capacity of . Flat-topped pistons and high-lift camshaft gave a compression ratio of 10.5:1. TVR claimed 275 bhp as the output and whilst this is generally disregarded by aficionados, a healthy engine will produce in excess of 240 bhp. Once a reproducible specification had been determined, the bulk of engine production was undertaken by North Coventry Kawasaki (NCK), which company was subsequently purchased by TVR to become their in-house engine division known as TVR Power.


title: Rover V8 engine

text: About 100 cars (TVR 390SE) were built with the engine; TVR's later '400' offering being based on the then-current Range Rover 4L of .


title: Rover V8 engine

text: Land Rover extended the engine for the top LSE specification of the Classic Range Rover. The 4.2 L engine had a displacement of , and used the crankshaft castings from the failed "Iceberg" diesel engine project. Bore remained the same at , while stroke increased to .


title: Rover V8 engine

text: For the Griffith and Chimaera, TVR Power, a Coventry-based subsidiary of sportscar maker TVR, built a Rover V8-version with a displacement using the stroke crankshaft and bore size. The bore and stroke were identical to Rover's 4.2 engine but Rover rounded down to 4.2 L while TVR rounded up to 4.3 L.


title: Rover V8 engine

text: The main difference between the Land Rover and TVR versions lies in the usage of Land Rover 3.9 pistons (usually of the 9.35:1 compression version, some report of low compression (8.13:1) pistons being used in a small number of engines) of which the tops were machined down to match the deck height, thus increasing static compression ratio. Head gaskets were originally copper and slightly thicker than the composite gaskets of later engines. TVR 4.3 engines tended to have elaborately ported cylinder heads with minimized valve guide protrusion into the ports, and Duplex timing chain with timing adjustment by vernier gear were specified although in practice, not all engines received it. Camshafts were usually Kent Cams 214 spec, although 'big valve' versions could have a 224 or even a 234 (race) cam installed.


title: Rover V8 engine

text: The so-called 'pre-cat' versions of the Griffith predominantly used this engine, although a 4.0-litre version was also available. The Chimaera was introduced with choice of 4.0- and 4.3-litre engines. A small number of 'Big Valve' versions, sporting modified cylinder heads with intake and exhaust valves and a more radical camshaft profile, found their way to early Griffiths and Chimaeras.


title: Rover V8 engine

text: Leyland of Australia produced a version of the aluminium V8 for their Australia-only 1973 Leyland P76. The bore and the stroke was , making it a square engine. The block deck height was extended and longer conrods were fitted between centres.


title: Rover V8 engine

text: A Bendix Stromberg two-barrel carburettor was used in place of SU carburettors. This rare engine produced and and, although export (to the UK) versions were planned, the closure by British Leyland of their Australian operations in 1975 precluded the widespread application of this engine.


title: Rover V8 engine

text: British Leyland did import one complete P76 engine for assessment but it was never fitted to a vehicle and was sold off on the demise of the company.


title: Rover V8 engine

text: Not to be confused with the later 4.6-litre engine which TVR badged as a '4.5' for the Chimaera, there also existed a version with an crank and bore giving capacity, which was used by TVR in the low-volume special 450 SEAC, the race version thereof and the subsequent Tuscan Challenge racers. A tiny number of Griffith and Chimaera road cars were built with a version of this engine, known as the '450 BV' (Big Valve).


title: Rover V8 engine

text: In 1995, Land Rover enlarged the Rover V8 to . The bore remained the same size as the previous 4.0 at , but the engine was stroked by giving in total. Output was and .


title: Rover V8 engine

text: Production of the 4.6 ended at Solihull, UK, in 2004. The final version, introduced in the Range Rover P38, produced at 4,750 rpm and at 2,600 rpm.


title: Rover V8 engine

text: The last mass-produced application of the Rover V8 was in the Land Rover Discovery, up until the vehicle was redesigned in 2005. It is still used by some hand-built sports cars built by some independent manufacturers.


title: Rover V8 engine

text: A variant of the Rover V8 was used in two models by British sportscar manufacturer TVR. The bore and the stroke was . These models, the Griffith and Chimaera used the unit in their top-end specifications. The factory quotes up to and of torque.


title: Rover V8 engine

text: Moreover, in the mid-1980s, hot rodders discovered the 215 could be stretched to as much as , using the Buick 300 crankshaft, new cylinder sleeves, and an assortment of non-Buick parts. It could also be fitted with high-compression cylinder heads from the Morgan +8. Using the 5-litre Rover block and crankshaft, a displacement of is possible and used primarily in racing applications, stretching the design to its limits it is possible to achieve displacements of over and possibly even displacements near of , though the latter has not been tested in practice as of yet.


title: Rover V8 engine

text: There are also various specialist manufacturers (Merlin-F85, Taper Performance and Wild cat) who offer big valve cylinder heads with Chevy style adjustable roller rocker in standard to stage 4 performance configurations.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: Seymour Myron "Sy" Hersh (born April 8, 1937) is an American investigative journalist and political writer.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: Hersh first gained recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai Massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he received the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. During the 1970s, Hersh covered the Watergate scandal for "The New York Times" and revealed the clandestine bombing of Cambodia. In 2004, he reported on the U.S. military's mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison. He has also won two National Magazine Awards and five George Polk Awards. In 2004, he received the George Orwell Award.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: Hersh has accused the Obama administration of lying about the events surrounding the death of Osama bin Laden and disputed the claim that the Assad regime used chemical weapons on civilians in the Syrian Civil War. Both assertions have stirred controversy.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: Hersh was born on April 8, 1937 in Chicago to Yiddish-speaking Lithuanian Jewish parents who emigrated to the US from Lithuania and Poland and ran a dry-cleaning shop in Chicago's Austin neighborhood. After graduating from the University of Chicago with a history degree, Hersh found himself struggling to find a job. He began working at Walgreens before being accepted into University of Chicago Law School but was soon expelled for poor grades.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: After returning for a short time to Walgreens, Hersh began his career in journalism as a copyboy, then police reporter for the City News Bureau of Chicago in 1959. He was editor-in-chief of "The Southwest Suburbanite" in Oak Lawn, Illinois. He next began a short-lived suburban paper, "The Evergreen Reporter". He then decided to move to Washington, D.C. He later became a correspondent for United Press International in South Dakota.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: In 1963, he went on to become a Chicago and Washington correspondent for the Associated Press. While working in Washington Hersh first met and befriended I. F. Stone, whose "I. F. Stone's Weekly" would serve as an initial inspiration for Hersh's later work. It was during this time that Hersh began to form his investigative style, often walking out of regimented press briefings at the Pentagon and seeking out one-on-one interviews with high-ranking officers. After a falling out with the editors at the AP when they insisted on watering down a story about the US government's work on biological and chemical weapons, Hersh left the AP and sold his story to "The New Republic". During the 1968 presidential election, he served as press secretary for the campaign of Senator Eugene McCarthy.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: After leaving the McCarthy campaign, Hersh returned to journalism as a freelancer covering the Vietnam War. In 1969, Hersh received a tip from Geoffrey Cowan of "The Village Voice" regarding an Army lieutenant being court-martialled for killing civilians in Vietnam. His subsequent investigation, sold to the Dispatch News Service, was run in 33 newspapers and exposed the My Lai massacre, winning him the Pulitzer Prize in 1970.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: In 1972, Hersh was hired as a reporter for the Washington bureau of "The New York Times", where he served from 1972 to 1975, and again in 1979. Hersh reported on the Watergate scandal, though most of the credit for that story went to Carl Bernstein and Hersh's longtime rival Bob Woodward. Nonetheless, Hersh's Watergate investigations led him in 1983 to the publication of "The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House", a portrait of Henry Kissinger that won the National Book Critics Circle Award.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: Hersh's 1974 article claiming the CIA had violated its charter by spying on anti-war activists is credited as contributing factor to the formation of the Church Committee.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: In 1975, Hersh was active in the investigation and reporting of Project Azorian (which he called "Project Jennifer"), the CIA's clandestine effort to raise a Soviet submarine using the Howard Hughes' "Glomar Explorer".


title: Seymour Hersh

text: His 1983 book "The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House" won him the National Book Critics Circle Award and the "Los Angeles Times" book prize in biography. In 1985, Hersh contributed to the PBS television documentary "Buying the Bomb". From 1993 to 2013, Hersh was a regular contributor to "The New Yorker".


title: Seymour Hersh

text: On November 12, 1969, Hersh reported the story of the Mỹ Lai massacre, in which hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians were murdered by US soldiers in March 1968.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: Documents declassified in 2017 show that Hersh was on the National Security Agency watchlist possibly because of hostility towards his journalism including his writings about the Mỹ Lai massacre.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: In early 1974, Hersh had planned to publish a story on "Project Jennifer" (later revealed to be named Project Azorian and Operation Matador), a covert CIA project to recover a sunken Soviet navy submarine from the floor of the Pacific Ocean. CIA director William Colby discussed the operation with Hersh in 1974, but obtained his promise not to publish while the operation was active. Bill Kovach, "The New York Times" Washington, D.C. bureau chief at the time, said in 2005 that the government offered a convincing argument to delay publication in early 1974—exposure at that time, while the project was ongoing, "would have caused an international incident". The "New York Times" eventually published Hersh's account on March 19, 1975, after a story appeared in the "Los Angeles Times". The story included a five-paragraph explanation of the delay in publication.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: In "The Target Is Destroyed" (1986), Hersh alleged that the shooting down of Korean Air Flight 007 in September 1983 by the Soviet Union was due to a combination of Soviet incompetence and United States intelligence operations intended to confuse Soviet responses.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: Later releases of government information confirmed that there was a PSYOPS campaign against the Soviet Union that had been in place from the first few months of the Reagan administration. This campaign included the largest US Pacific Fleet exercise ever held, in April to May 1983.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: In "The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy" (1991), Hersh wrote that Nicholas Davies, the foreign editor of the "Daily Mirror", had tipped off the Israeli embassy in London about Mordechai Vanunu. Vanunu had given information about Israel's nuclear weapons program first to "The Sunday Times" and later to the "Sunday Mirror". At the time, the "Sunday Mirror" and its sibling newspaper, the "Daily Mirror" were owned by media magnate Robert Maxwell who was alleged to have had contacts with Israel's intelligence services. According to Hersh, Davies had worked for the Mossad. Vanunu was later lured by Mossad from London to Rome, kidnapped, returned to Israel, and sentenced to 18 years in jail. Davies and Maxwell published an anti-Vanunu story that was claimed by critics to be part of a disinformation campaign on behalf of the Israeli government.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: Hersh repeated the allegations during a press conference held in London to publicize his book. No British newspaper would publish the allegations because of Maxwell's famed litigiousness. However, two British MPs raised the matter in the House of Commons, which meant that British newspapers were able to report what had been said without fear of being sued for libel. Maxwell called the claims "ludicrous, a total invention". He fired Davies shortly thereafter.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: Ari Ben-Menashe was Hersh's primary source for the claims that Davies was a paid Israeli agent and that Maxwell collaborated with Mossad.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: Hersh strongly criticized Bill Clinton's decision to destroy, on August 20, 1998, the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan. Al-Shifa, the largest pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, accounted for half the country's domestically produced medicines.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: Hersh wrote a series of articles for "The New Yorker" magazine detailing military and security matters surrounding the US-led invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. In March 2002, he described the planning process for a new invasion of Iraq that he alleged had been on-going since the end of the First Gulf War, under the leadership of Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and other neo-conservatives. In a 2004 article, he alleged that Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld circumvented the normal intelligence analysis function of the CIA in their quest to make the case for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. A 2003 article, "Lunch with the Chairman", led Richard Perle, a subject of the article, to call Hersh the "closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist".


title: Seymour Hersh

text: In May 2004, Hersh published a series of articles which described the treatment of detainees by US military police at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, Iraq. The articles included allegations that private military contractors contributed to prisoner mistreatment and that intelligence agencies such as the CIA ordered torture in order to break prisoners for interrogations. They also alleged that torture was a usual practice in other US-run prisons as well, e.g., in Bagram Theater Internment Facility and Guantanamo. In subsequent articles, Hersh wrote that the abuses were part of a secret interrogation program, known as "Copper Green". According to Hersh's sources, the program was expanded to Iraq with the direct approval of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, both in an attempt to deal with the growing insurgency there and as part of "Rumsfeld's long-standing desire to wrest control of America's clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A." Some of his material for these articles was based on the Army's own internal investigations.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: Scott Ritter, a former arms inspector, stated in an October 19, 2005 interview with Hersh that the US policy to remove Iraqi president Saddam Hussein from power started with US president George H. W. Bush in August 1990. Ritter stated that, while disarmament was used as the justification for the imposition of sanctions on Iraq, the real reason was the removal of Saddam Hussein from power. The CIA believed that containing Hussein through sanctions for six months would result in the collapse of his government. According to Hersh, this policy resulted in the invasion and occupation of Iraq.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: A March 7, 2007, article entitled, "The Redirection" described a recent shift in the George W. Bush administration's Iraq policy, the goal of which Hersh said was to "contain" Iran. Hersh asserted that "a by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda."


title: Seymour Hersh

text: In January 2005, Hersh alleged that the US was conducting covert operations in Iran to identify targets for possible strikes. Hersh also wrote that Pakistan and the United States had struck a "Khan-for-Iran" deal in which Washington would look the other way at Pakistan's nuclear transgressions and not demand handing over of its infamous nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan, in return for Islamabad's cooperation in neutralizing Iran's nuclear plans. This was also denied by officials of the governments of the US and Pakistan.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: In the April 17, 2006 issue of "The New Yorker", Hersh wrote that the Bush administration had plans for an air strike on Iran. Of particular note in his article was that a US nuclear first strike (possibly using the B61-11 bunker-buster nuclear weapon) was being considered to eliminate underground Iranian uranium enrichment facilities. In response, President Bush cited Hersh's reportage as "wild speculation".


title: Seymour Hersh

text: When, in October 2007, he was asked in a Democracy Now! interview about presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's hawkish views on Iran, Hersh stated that Jewish donations were the main reason for these:


title: Seymour Hersh

text: During one journalism conference, Hersh claimed that after the Strait of Hormuz incident, members of the Bush administration met in Vice President Dick Cheney's office to consider methods of initiating a war with Iran. One idea considered was staging a false flag operation involving the use of Navy SEALs dressed as Iranian PT boaters who would engage in a firefight with US ships. According to Hersh this proposed provocation was rejected.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: In September 2013, during an interview with "The Guardian", Hersh commented that the 2011 raid that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden was "one big lie, not one word of it is true". He said that the Obama administration lied systematically, and that American media outlets were reluctant to challenge the administration, saying "It's pathetic, they are more than obsequious, they are afraid to pick on this guy [Obama]". Hersh later clarified that he didn't dispute Bin Laden's death in Pakistan, and rather meant that the lying began in the aftermath of bin Laden's death.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: On May 10, 2015, Hersh published the 10,000-word article "The Killing of Osama bin Laden" in the "London Review of Books" ("LRB") on the fourth anniversary of the Abbottabad raid that killed bin Laden (Operation Neptune Spear). It immediately went viral, crashing the LRB website.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: Hersh's story drew harsh criticism from reporters, academics, media commentators and officials. "Politico"'s Jack Shafer described the story as "a messy omelet of a piece that offers little of substance for readers or journalists who may want to verify its many claims". Peter Bergen disputed Hersh's contentions, saying they "defy common sense"; Hersh responded that Bergen simply "views himself as the trustee of all things Bin Laden". A similar dismissal of Hersh's account came from former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell. A former intelligence official who had direct knowledge of the operation speculated that the Pakistanis, who were furious that the operation took place without being detected by them, were behind the false story as a way to save face.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: Others criticized the press response. In an article for the "Columbia Journalism Review", Trevor Timm wrote that "barely any follow-up reporting has been done to corroborate or refute his [Hersh's] claims", and observed that "Slate", for example, "ran five hit jobs on Hersh within 36 hours".


title: Seymour Hersh

text: On May 12, the Pakistan-based journalist Amir Mir disclosed that the "walk-in" who had provided the CIA with the information about bin Laden's whereabouts was Brigadier Usman Khalid of ISI.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: On May 20, 2015, a former CIA officer and conspiracy theorist, Philip Giraldi, wrote in "The American Conservative" that he found Hersh's story credible.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: In 2018, Hersh told an interviewer, "I don't necessarily buy the story that Bin Laden was responsible for 9/11. We really don't have an ending to the story. I’ve known people in the [intelligence] community. We don't know anything empirical about who did what."


title: Seymour Hersh

text: On December 8, 2013, the "London Review of Books" published "Whose Sarin?", an article rejected by the "New Yorker" and "Washington Post." Hersh wrote that the Obama administration had used "cherry picked intelligence" to try to justify a military strike against Syria after the Ghouta chemical attack and had ignored evidence the Syrian rebels could also have obtained Sarin gas. The White House denied the allegations made in the article, and a number of Syria and chemical weapons experts were critical of the article.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: On June 25, 2017, "Welt am Sonntag" published Hersh's article "Trump's Red Line". This had been rejected by the "London Review of Books". He said there was a split between the U.S. intelligence community and president Donald Trump over the alleged 'sarin attack' at the rebel-held town of Khan Shaykhun in Idlib on April 4, 2017: "Trump issued the order despite having been warned by the U.S. intelligence community that it had found no evidence that the Syrians had used a chemical weapon". Bellingcat accused Hersh of sloppy journalism: "Hersh based his case on a tiny number of anonymous sources, presented no other evidence to support his case, and ignored or dismissed evidence that countered the alternative narrative he was trying to build." Journalist George Monbiot criticized Hersh for not giving the building coordinates to enable verification from satellite imagery and for relying on refuted analysis by Ted Postol.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: Critics have accused Hersh of being a conspiracy theorist. He has been criticised for contradicting the official account of the killing of Osama Bin Laden and for questioning the claim that the Syrian government used chemical weapons on Syrian civilians. In 2015, "Vox's" Max Fisher wrote that "Hersh has appeared increasingly to have gone off the rails. His stories, often alleging vast and shadowy conspiracies, have made startling — and often internally inconsistent — accusations, based on little or no proof beyond a handful of anonymous "officials".


title: Seymour Hersh

text: Hersh's 1997 book about John F. Kennedy, "The Dark Side of Camelot", made a number of controversial assertions about the former president, including that:


title: Seymour Hersh

text: For many of these allegations, Hersh relied only on hearsay collected decades after the event. In a "Los Angeles Times" review, Edward Jay Epstein cast doubt on these and other assertions, writing, "this book turns out to be, alas, more about the deficiencies of investigative journalism than about the deficiencies of John F. Kennedy." Responding to the book, historian and former Kennedy aide Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. called Hersh "the most gullible investigative reporter I've ever encountered".


title: Seymour Hersh

text: A month before the publication of "The Dark Side of Camelot", newspapers, including "USA Today", reported Hersh had announced the removal from the galleys at the last minute a segment about legal documents allegedly containing JFK's signature. The documents supposedly signed by John F. Kennedy included a provision, in 1960, for a trust fund to be set up for the institutionalized mother of Marilyn Monroe. A paralegal named Lawrence X. "Lex" Cusack had shared them with Hersh and encouraged the author to discuss them in the book.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: Shortly before Hersh's announcement that he had removed all references to Cusack's documents, federal investigators began probing Cusack's sale of the documents. After "The Dark Side of Camelot" became a bestseller, Cusack was convicted by a federal jury in Manhattan on 13 counts of fraud and forging the documents, and was subsequently sentenced to 10 years and three months in prison. In 1997, the Kennedy family also denied Cusack's claim that his late father had been an attorney who had represented JFK in 1960.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: There has been sustained criticism of Hersh's use of anonymous sources. Critics, including Edward Jay Epstein and Amir Taheri, say he is over-reliant on them. Taheri, for example, when reviewing Hersh's "Chain of Command" (2004), complained:


title: Seymour Hersh

text: In response to an article in "The New Yorker" in which Hersh alleged that the U.S. government was planning a strike on Iran, U.S. Defense Department spokesman Bryan G. Whitman said, "This reporter has a solid and well-earned reputation for making dramatic assertions based on thinly sourced, unverifiable anonymous sources."


title: Seymour Hersh

text: In his Bin Laden story, "Hersh relied at least 55 times on an anonymous retired senior intelligence official." "Slate" magazine's James Kirchick wrote, "Readers are expected to believe that the story of the Bin Laden assassination is a giant ‘fairy tale’ on the word of a single, unnamed source... Hersh's problem is that he evinces no skepticism whatsoever toward what his crank sources tell him, which is ironic considering how cynical he is regarding the pronouncements of the U.S. national security bureaucracy." "Politico" wrote in 2015 that Hersh's reporting had increasingly been called into question due to "his almost exclusive reliance on anonymous sources".


title: Seymour Hersh

text: David Remnick, the editor of "The New Yorker", maintains that he is aware of the identity of all of Hersh's unnamed sources, telling the "Columbia Journalism Review" that "I know every single source that is in his pieces. ... Every 'retired intelligence officer,' every general with reason to know, and all those phrases that one has to use, alas, by necessity, I say, 'Who is it? What's his interest?' We talk it through."


title: Seymour Hersh

text: In an interview with "New York" magazine, Hersh made a distinction between the standards of strict factual accuracy for his print reporting and the leeway he allows himself in speeches, in which he may talk informally about stories still being worked on or blur information to protect his sources. "Sometimes I change events, dates, and places in a certain way to protect people. ... I can't fudge what I write. But I can certainly fudge what I say."


title: Seymour Hersh

text: Some of Hersh's speeches concerning the Iraq War have described violent incidents involving U.S. troops in Iraq. In July 2004, during the height of the Abu Ghraib scandal, he alleged that American troops sexually assaulted young boys:


title: Seymour Hersh

text: In a subsequent interview with "New York" magazine, Hersh regretted that "I actually didn't quite say what I wanted to say correctly. ... It wasn't that inaccurate, but it was misstated. The next thing I know, it was all over the blogs. And I just realized then, the power of—and so you have to try and be more careful." In "Chain of Command", he wrote that one of the witness statements he had read described the rape of a boy by a foreign contract interpreter at Abu Ghraib, during which a woman took pictures.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: In March 2007, Hersh asserted in a "New Yorker" piece that the United States and Saudi governments were funding the terrorist organization Fatah al-Islam through aid to Lebanese Sunni Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. Following the publication of the story, journalist Emmanuel Sivan in Beirut wrote that Hersh put forth the allegation without any reliable sources.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: Hersh wrote in his 1983 book, "The Price of Power", that former Indian Prime Minister Morarji Desai had been paid $20,000 a year by the CIA during the Johnson and Nixon administrations. Desai called the allegation "a scandalous and malicious lie" and filed a $50 million libel suit against Hersh. By the time the case went to trial Desai, by then 93, was too ill to attend. CIA director Richard Helms and Henry Kissinger testified under oath that at no time did Desai act in any capacity for the CIA, paid or otherwise. A Chicago jury ruled in favor of Hersh, saying Desai did not provide sufficient evidence that Hersh had published the information with intent to do harm or with reckless disregard for the truth, either of which must be proven in a libel suit.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: In a January 2017 recorded telephone conversation about the 2016 death of former Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich, Hersh told former financial adviser Ed Butowsky that he had spoken to a Federal Bureau of Investigation source who confirmed the existence of information on Rich's laptop computer showing he had been in contact with WikiLeaks prior to his death. Although cautioned by Hersh that the information may not be true, Butowsky forwarded the secretly taped discussion to the Rich family setting off a flurry of activity in the media. Hersh later said that he had heard "gossip" and that he was fishing for information.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: In August 2018, Hersh said about the Skripal poisoning that "the story of novichok poisoning has not held up very well. He [ Sergei Skripal ] was most likely talking to British intelligence services about Russian organised crime". He said the contamination of other victims was “suggestive ... of organised crime elements rather than state-sponsored actions – though this files in the face of the UK government's position”.


title: Seymour Hersh

text: His journalism and publishing awards include the 1970 Pulitzer Prize, the 2004 National Council of Teachers of English George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language, two National Magazine Awards, five George Polk Awards - making him that award's most honored laureate - and more than a dozen other prizes for investigative reporting:


title: Sarbananda Sonowal

text: Sarbananda Sonowal (Assamese: সৰ্বানন্দ সোণোৱাল / IPA: xɔɹbanɔndɔ xʊnʊwal; born 31 October 1962) is an Indian politician from Assam who is the current Cabinet Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways and Cabinet Minister of AYUSH in the Government of India. He is a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of India's Parliament) from Assam and also a member of the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs. He is a former Chief Minister of Assam and a former Member of the Legislative Assembly (India) in Assam Legislative Assembly. Sonowal earlier served as the Assam state President of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from 2012 to 2014 and again in 2015 to 2016. He has also served as the Minister for Sports and Youth Affairs, Government of India, from 2014 to 2016. He was chosen to be the Chief Minister of Assam after the 2016 Assam Legislative Assembly election and he became the first Chief Minister of Assam from Bharatiya Janata Party. During the cabinet reshuffle on 7 July 2021, he was inducted Cabinet minister in the 2nd Modi Cabinet.


title: Sarbananda Sonowal

text: Sarbananda Sonowal was born on 31 October 1962 to an Assamese Hindu family in Muluk Gaon located in the Dibrugarh district of Assam to Jibeswar Sonowal "(father)" and Dineswari Sonowal "(mother)". He completed his B.A.(Hons) in English from Dibrugarh Hanumanbax Surajmall Kanoi College under Dibrugarh University and his LLB form Dibrugarh University and B.C.J from Gauhati University.


title: Sarbananda Sonowal

text: Sarbananda Sonowal was the President of Assam's oldest student body, the All Assam Students Union (AASU) from 1992 to 1999. After that, he became a member of the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP). In 2001, he was elected as the MLA from Moran constituency of Assam. In 2004, he became a Lok Sabha member representing the Dibrugarh constituency. He lost Lok Sabha election from Dibrugarh in 2009. He joined Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2011.


title: Sarbananda Sonowal

text: He was appointed president of BJP's Assam Unit in 2012 and is also a member of the party's National Executive. In the 2014 general election for Lok Sabha he was appointed to head Assam State's Lok Sabha Elections by BJP, and in the same year he was also elected as Member of Parliament, 16th Lok Sabha, from Lakhimpur Constituency. He was then appointed as Union Minister of State-Independent Charge, of the Government of India under the Modi Government at the center.


title: Sarbananda Sonowal

text: He was selected as the CM candidate of BJP for the 2016 Assam Assembly Election. On 19 May 2016, Sarbananda Sonowal won the Assembly Election from Majuli Constituency, and he became Chief Minister of Assam, the first CM of the state from Bharatiya Janata Party. In 2021 he was re-elected to Assam Vidhan Sabha from Majuli. He resigned as Chief Minister and proposed Himanta Biswa Sarma's name as his successor. He became Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways and Minister of AYUSH in Second Modi ministry when cabinet overhaul happened.


title: Sarbananda Sonowal

text: Sarbananda Sonowal resigned from all executive posts within AGP and left the party, due to dissatisfaction with and amongst the senior leadership of the party who were trying to forge an alliance with a party that was against the scrapping of the controversial IMDT Act. On 8 February 2011, Sonowal joined BJP in the presence of the then BJP National President Nitin Gadkari and senior leaders like Varun Gandhi, Vijay Goel, Bijoya Chakravarty and state BJP president Ranjit Dutta. He was immediately appointed as a member of the BJP National Executive and later on the State Spokesperson of the BJP unit, prior to his current assignment to head the state as the new president. On 28 January 2016, BJP Parliamentary Board announced Sarbananda Sonowal as BJP Chief Ministerial candidate of Assam. He is not married.


title: Sarbananda Sonowal

text: The annual Guwahati International Film Festival was started during his tenure. It is organised by the State Government-owned Jyoti Chitraban (Film Studio) Society in association with the Dr. Bhupen Hazarika Regional Government Film and Television Institute. The first edition was held in Oct 2018. The second, in Oct-Nov 2019. The 3rd edition has been postponed owing to the present COVID-19 pandemic to early 2021.


title: Sarbananda Sonowal

text: Faced with the problem of massive migration from Bangladesh into Assam, the government tried to put up legislation in place to detect and deport foreign nationals. Eventually, the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act, 1983 (IMDT Act) came into being following the Assam Accord signed between the Government of India and the All Assam Students Union (AASU) to end the decade-long anti-foreigner agitation.


title: Sarbananda Sonowal

text: The IMDT Act is an instrument passed by Indian Parliament to detect illegal immigrants (from Bangladesh) and expel them from Assam. While the IMDT Act operates only in Assam, the Foreigners Act (1946) applies to the rest of the country. It is applicable to those Bangladeshi nationals who settled in Assam on or after 25 March 1971. Under the Act, the onus of proving the citizenship of a suspected illegal alien rests on the complainant, often the police. On the other hand, according to the provisions of the Foreigners Act, the onus lies with the person suspected to be an alien.


title: Sarbananda Sonowal

text: Sonowal took the issue of Bangladeshi infiltration to the Supreme Court. By its judgement dated 12 July 2005, the court struck down the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act, 1983, as unconstitutional and termed Bangladeshi infiltration an "external aggression" and directed that "the Bangladesh nationals who have illegally crossed the border and have trespassed into Assam or are living in other parts of the country have no legal right of any kind to remain in India and they are liable to be deported."


title: Kinnikuman

text: The manga was originally published in Shueisha's "shōnen" manga magazine "Weekly Shōnen Jump" from 1979 to 1987, and was first adapted by Toei Animation into a 137-episode anime series broadcast on Nippon Television from 1983 to 1986. It restarted publication in 2011 in Shueisha's web magazine "Shū Play News", and has spawned spin-off manga and anime series, video games, anime films, and several "Kinnikuman"-related merchandise.


title: Kinnikuman

text: There is also a sequel, the manga that was serialized in "Weekly Playboy" between 1998 and 2004. It was published in North America by Viz Media under the title of "Ultimate Muscle". It was also adapted into three different television series, all of which were broadcast on TV Tokyo in Japan and released in North America by 4Kids Entertainment.


title: Kinnikuman

text: "Kinnikuman" is one of the best-selling manga series in Japan, selling over 77 million copies by 2021. As popular as was the anime series and its merchandise, such as Kinkeshi, a line of action figures released as M.U.S.C.L.E. in North America. Although it received the Shogakukan Manga Award for children's manga in 1984, it has received mixed reviews from Western critics.


title: Kinnikuman

text: The story involves Kinnikuman (real name Suguru Kinniku), a clumsy, foolish, comical superhero who discovers that he is the missing prince of the planet Kinniku (known for producing the greatest superheroes in the universe). Since he is a clumsy fool, however, he must prove himself worthy of the throne. To do so he enters wrestling competitions and battles evil Chojin, culminating in a tournament between Kinnikuman and five pretenders to the throne: Kinnikuman Big Body, Soldier, Zebra, Mariposa and Super Phoenix. Many of Kinnikuman's allies begin as villains (Ramenman, Buffalo Man, Ashuraman and Warsman) or arrogant heroes (Terryman, Robin Mask and Wolfman). The heroes and villains are collectively known as , which literally means "supermen".


title: Kinnikuman

text: Mantaro Muscle (also known as Kid Muscle, "Mantaro Kinniku" in the Japanese version) is the spoiled son of superhero wrestler King Muscle ("Kinnikuman" in the Japanese version). After 28 years of peace, the Seigi Choujins' (Muscle League) old enemies regroup and form the Demon Manufacturing Plant (dMp, known in the English version as Destruction, Mayhem and Pain). The Muscle League has lost its edge and are overwhelmed by the young, well-trained fighters. Recognizing their weakness, the Seigi Chojin reopen the Hercules Factory (a school for superheroes) and begin training a new generation of heroes to take on the dMp. At first unwilling, Mantaro (Kid Muscle) is one of the young heroes and defeats his father to prove his readiness to graduate. He and the other new Seigi Choujin defeat several members of the dMp and meet Kevin Mask, who quits dMp when he discovers their lack of honor. They also battle Sunshine and his pupils, who destroy the dMp after developing a renewed respect for the fighting spirit of the Seigi Choujins. The manga continues with the New Generation Replacement Tournament, Mantaro's challenge to master his inherited potential ("Kajiba no Kuso Chikara", "burning inner strength" or "the fire"), the return of the Chojin Olympics, a fight with the Demon Seed (a villainous group), a backstory for Robin Mask and a tag-team tournament set in the past. Although the manga begins as a fairly lighthearted, humorous (albeit violent) story, later arcs (the No Respect and Demon Seed storylines in particular) have a darker tone and frequently deal with psychological trauma.


title: Kinnikuman

text: Yoshinori Nakai and Takashi Shimada (collectively known as "Yudetamago"), friends since fourth grade, decided to create a manga series in high school. Before its regular publication, the series (originally a parody of "Ultraman") was released as two one-shots in Shueisha's magazine "Weekly Shōnen Jump" in December 1978 and March 1979: which won the Akatsuka Award, and Its serialization began in the May 1979 issue and concluded in March 1987. Shueisha collected its 387 chapters into 36 "tankōbon", releasing them from February 15, 1980, to April 15, 1988.


title: Kinnikuman

text: The first 36 volumes were re-published as part of the "Jump Comics Selection" line in 26 volumes from July 19, 1994, to August 26, 1996, as part of the "Jump Comics Deluxe" line in 18 "aizōban" volumes from January 14 to November 18, 1999 and on June 6, 2013, all 36 were published in "shinsōban" format.


title: Kinnikuman

text: A one-shot, , was published in Kadokawa Shoten's "Kakutō Ace" in January 1996. Despite the title, the series only began regular publication on November 28, 2011, in "Shū Play News", Shueisha's web version of "Weekly Playboy". The 37th "tankōbon" was released on January 29, 2010, and the latest—the 80th volume—was released on November 4, 2022. Starting on July 5, 2012, e-book volumes began to be published as part of the "Jump Comics Digital" line; the latest digital volume publication date coincides with the print edition.


title: Kinnikuman

text: Since the series' 2011 restart, Yudetamago has published two related one-shots in Shueisha's magazines. In 2015, a 43-page one-shot titled "Kinnikuman Chōjin Retsuden" (Kinnikuman Superman Biographies) was released in "Grand Jump" to unfold the story of "supermen" characters. Four years later, the 47-page "Sayonara, Kinnikuman!! no Maki" (The 'Goodbye, Kinnikuman' Story) appeared in "Weekly Shōnen Jump", depicting these supermen's arrival during the main character's retirement ceremony.


title: Kinnikuman

text: The first manga spun off from "Kinnikuman" was , a series focused on Ramenman which was published in "Fresh Jump" from 1982 to 1988. It was compiled into twelve "tankōbon" volumes released between 1983 and 1989. In 1998 and 1999, "Tatakae!! Ramenman" was re-published in 9 volumes, in 2002 in 8 volumes, between 2004 and 2006 in 12 volumes, and in 2009 in 5 volumes. Toei Animation adapted it into a 35-episode anime series, which was broadcast from January 10 to September 11, 1988. In 1988, a film was released on July, and a video game on August. On March 21, 2009, the anime series and film were released in a box set. Also, a spin-off of "Tatake!! Ramenman", subtitled , was released in 1995.


title: Kinnikuman

text: After the publication of several one-shots of from August 1997 to February 1998, it began appearing regularly in "Weekly Playboy" from April 1998 to 2004 and was published in 29 "tankōbon" volumes from October 19, 1998, to August 19, 2005. This 29 volumes were released by Viz Media in North America between July 5, 2004, and July 5, 2011. It was re-released in 21 "aizoban" volumes from September 18, 2009, to January 18, 2011. Three one-shots of "Kinnikuman Legacy" were published in 2002. The first, , was released on February 22, and the second, , was released on May 24. A guidebook titled was released on July 19, 2002.


title: Kinnikuman

text: , an "Ultimate Muscle: The Kinnikuman Legacy" spin-off, was serialized in "V Jump" from May 2001 to March 2007 and its four "tankōbon" were published from August 2, 2002, to August 2007. To continue "Ultimate Muscle: The Kinnikuman Legacy"s storyline, was published in serial form from 2004 to 2011 and released in 28 "tankōbon" from November 18, 2005, to December 19, 2011.


title: Kinnikuman

text: A feminized version of the series, , was created by Masashi Ogawa and began as a webcomic on the "Ultra Jump Egg" site in June 2008. Its first "tankōbon" was published on March 19, 2009, and in 2011 it was moved to the "Ultra Jump" website. The series concluded with the release of its 46 chapter on "Ultra Jump", and the release of third "tankōbon", both on June 19, 2013.


title: Kinnikuman

text: The first animated series based on "Kinnikuman" was produced by Toei Animation and directed by Yasuo Yamayoshi, Takenori Kawada and Tetsuo Imazawa. The 137-episode series was originally broadcast in Japan on Nippon TV from April 3, 1983, to October 1, 1986. It was followed by , directed by Takeshi Shirato and Atsutoshi Umezawa. This 46-episode series was produced by Toei and aired on Nippon TV from October 6, 1991, to September 27, 1992. The first series was packaged into 12 DVDs, released from December 6, 2002, to November 21, 2003, and the second series was released on four DVDs from December 5, 2003, to March 21, 2004.


title: Kinnikuman

text: On January 9, 2002, "Kinnikuman: Second Generation" premiered; the 51-episode series aired until December 25 of that year, and was released on 12 DVDs from September 21, 2002, to August 8, 2003. Licensed by 4Kids Entertainment as "Ultimate Muscle: The Kinnikuman Legacy", it was broadcast on Fox Box in the United States. In 2003 a 13-episode sequel primarily focused on non-Japanese audiences was announced; it aired on Fox Box in North America, and from April 7 to June 30, 2004, in Japan. Another 13-episode spin-off, "Kinnikuman Second Generation: Ultimate Muscle 2", was broadcast from January 4 to March 29, 2006, in Japan. All three series were directed by Toshiaki Komura, produced by Toei Animation and broadcast in Japan by TV Tokyo. The two spin-off series were released as two-DVD box sets on February 24 and June 23, 2006. In October 2022, Discotek Media announced that they had licensed "Ultimate Muscle" and will release the 77 episodes on Blu-ray Disc in early 2023.


title: Kinnikuman

text: Seven films based on the original "Kinnikuman" were released from 1984 to 1986. The first, "Kinnikuman", was directed by Takeshi Shirato and released on July 14, 1984. , the last film, was released on December 20, 1986, and was directed by Yasuo Yamayoshi. All seven films were compiled on a DVD released April 21, 2004.


title: Kinnikuman

text: Two films based on "Kinnikuman: Second Generation" were directed by Toshiaki Komura. The first (eponymous) film was released at the Anime Fair on July 14, 2001 and the second, , was released at the same venue on July 20, 2002. The films were released on DVD on May 12, 2002, and April 21, 2003, respectively.


title: Kinnikuman

text: With the manga's popularity, Bandai produced a brand of eraser-like action figures (keshi) titled Kinkeshi between 1983 and 1987. In Japan, Bandai has released 418 different types of figures, and it was mainly sold through Gashapon. As it attracted Northern American market's interest it was brought by Mattel under the name M.U.S.C.L.E., and a total of 236 figures were traded domestically in the 1980s. In 2007, Toei asked fans if they would like to see all 418 figure types included in the "Kinnikuman" complete box set. On December 20, 2008, the box set with all the two first series episodes, all seven films, a TV special, and all the figures was released. Aside from this most known series of products, a myriad of other "Kinnikuman"-based merchandise were released both in Japan and in the America, which vary from action figures to plush dolls, from key holders to pen drives, from picture books to trading card games.


title: Kinnikuman

text: Several video games based on the series were released. The first were for home computers; a simulation game was released for the PC-88 in November 1984, followed by the 1985 fighting game . The first console game ("") was released on November 8, 1985, for Nintendo Entertainment System, and the last game () was released for PlayStation 2 on September 25, 2008. The social networking service GREE released on February 27, 2014.


title: Kinnikuman

text: The manga series has received several awards and sold well during both its 1980s serialization and its 2010s revival. In 1984, "Kinnikuman" won the 30th Shogakukan Manga Award in the category Best Children's Manga. The 2013 edition of Takarajimasha's guidebook "Kono Manga ga Sugoi!", a survey of the manga and publishing industries, named "Kinnikuman" the seventh-best manga series for male readers. Media Factory's "Da Vinci" magazine ranked it 23rd on the "Book of the Year" in 2019. Several volumes of the series have been featured on Oricon's weekly chart of best-selling manga in Japan; all volumes between the 40th and the 66th have reached the top 20. Between 2008 and 2010, five volumes of "Kinnikuman II Sei: Kyūkyoku no Chōjin Tag Hen" also ranked on Oricon's top 30 list. The series as whole has sold more than 77 million copies in Japan as of 2021. As well as "Kinnikuman"s manga was considered a hit, the series' merchandise in general was also successful. Bandai reports that over 180 million units of Kinkeshi were sold in Japan. Shaenon K. Garrity said, "The M.U.S.C.L.E. figurines ... were the sole American extrusion of a 1980s manga/anime/licensing phenomenon."


title: Kinnikuman

text: The original 1983 anime series was popular, premiering with a rating over 20 percent. Despite being considered "too old to be marketable on American television" by 4Kids in the 2000s, the 2008 "Kinnikuman" complete box set had 25,000 reservation requests by August in Japan. In 2005, Japanese television network TV Asahi conducted a "Top 100" online web poll and nationwide survey; "Kinnikuman" placed 97th in the online poll and "Ultimate Muscle" placed 39th in the survey. In 2006, TV Asahi conducted another online poll for the top one hundred anime, and "Kinnikuman" placed 12th in the "Celebrity List". In France, however, it caused some controversy because of the depiction of a character's garment featuring a swastika; the episode in which the character appeared was requested to be removed from air.


title: Kinnikuman

text: Garrity called "Kinnikuman" a "cross between superhero parody and pro-wrestling goofiness". Liann Cooper of the Anime News Network said that the "artwork alone is enough to clothesline itself and the whole concept of superhero wrestlers is like a manga-fied "Mucha Lucha"", but "Ultimate Muscle" "is actually pretty funny". Eduardo M. Chavez of Mania.com wrote that in 1979, "the series relied on its comedy and action to bring in an audience." "Ultimate Muscle", while "keeping some of the old silliness", adds "some depth through a mature writing style and better action scenes." On T.H.E.M Anime Reviews, Christi wrote, "Overall, "Ultimate Muscle" is the best thing about the Fox Box anthology." She praised the "funny, and in their own disgusting way, charming" characters, its "crisp and well-done" animation and the "very clean and appealing" character designs.


title: Kinnikuman

text: Widely regarded as a classic manga series, it has been cited by "Fullmetal Alchemist" creator Hiromu Arakawa as a series she "love[s]" and as an influence to her work, as well as by "Fairy Tail"s Hiro Mashima. "Assassination Classroom"s Yūsei Matsui cited it as one of his favorite mangas, while Yoshihiro Togashi was influenced by "Kinnikuman" on shifting the focus of his "Yu Yu Hakusho" from occult detective fiction to the martial arts genre based on a similar shift "Kinnikuman" did from comedy to action.


title: Kinnikuman

text: Moreover, "Kinnikuman" has inspired real life wrestling events. At the Fight Entertainment Group's Dynamite!! 2008 martial arts event at the Saitama Super Arena, Bob Sapp fought Kid Muscle (played by Akihiko Tanaka) in an MMA match. Toei Animation announced a Kinnikumania 2009 wrestling event, scheduled at the JCB Hall in Tokyo Dome City on May 29, 2009, for the manga's 30th anniversary.


title: Kinnikuman

text: Kinnikuman's enduring popularity is also shown by it being used to co-promote "Green Lantern" in 2011 for the Japanese release of the film, and other characters of it appearing other merchandise, such as a series-themed "onigiri" and a pollen mask advertisement.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public research university in Berlin, Germany. It is consistently ranked among Germany's best universities, with particular strengths in political science and the humanities. It is recognised as a leading university in international university rankings.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: The Free University of Berlin was founded in West Berlin in 1948 with American support during the early Cold War period as a Western continuation of the Friedrich Wilhelm University, or the University of Berlin, whose traditions and faculty members it retained. The Friedrich Wilhelm University (which was renamed the Humboldt University), being in East Berlin, faced strong communist repression; the Free University's name referred to West Berlin's status as part of the Western Free World, in contrast to communist-controlled East Berlin.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: In 2008, as part of a joint effort, the Free University of Berlin, along with the Hertie School of Governance, and WZB Social Science Research Center Berlin, created the Berlin Graduate School for Transnational Studies.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: As one of Germany's most prestigious institutions of higher education, the Free University of Berlin was conferred the title of "University of Excellence" under the German Universities Excellence Initiative, of which it is part. As an institution of the Berlin University Alliance, the FU Berlin was included in the second funding line in 2019 as part of the Excellence Strategy.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: The Free University of Berlin was established by students and scholars on 4 December 1948. The foundation is strongly connected to the beginning of the Cold War period.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: The University of Berlin was located in the former Soviet sector of Berlin and was granted permission to continue teaching by the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD) in January 1946. The university came under increased communist influence and repression, as it became a battlefield for the political disputes of the postwar period. This led to protests by students critical of the prevailing system. Between 1945 and 1948, more than 18 students were brutally beaten and arrested or persecuted, and some were even executed by the Soviet secret police (NKVD).


title: Free University of Berlin

text: At the end of 1947, students demanded a university free from political influence. The climax of the protests was reached on 23 April 1948: after three students were expelled from the university without a trial, about 2,000 students protested at the "Hotel Esplanade". By the end of April, the governor of the United States Army Lucius D. Clay gave the order to legally examine the formation of a new university in the western sectors of Berlin. On 19 June 1948, the ""preparatory committee for establishing a free university"" consisting of politicians, professors, administrative staff members and students, met. With a manifesto titled ""Request for establishing a free university in Berlin"", the committee appealed to the public for support.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: The municipal authorities of Berlin granted the foundation of a free university and requested the opening for the coming 1948/49 winter semester. Meanwhile, the students' committee in the German Democratic Republic protested against the formation, the GDR described the new university as the "so-called free university" in official documents until the fall of the Berlin Wall.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: The council-manager government accepted the by-law on 4 November 1948. The by-law achieved prominence under its alias ""the Berlin model"":


title: Free University of Berlin

text: The university was founded as a statutory corporation ("Körperschaft des öffentlichen Rechts") and was not directly subjected to the state, as it was controlled by a supervisory board consisting of six representatives of the state of Berlin, three representatives of the university and students. This form was unique in Germany at that time, as the students had much more influence on the system than before. Until the 1970s, the involvement of the students in the committees was slowly cut back while adapting to the model of the western German universities in order to be fully recognized as an equivalent university.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: On 15 November 1948, the first lectures were held in the buildings of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Advancement of Science. The actual foundation took place on 4 December 1948 in the Titania palace, the film theater with the biggest hall available in the western sectors of Berlin. Attendants of the event were not only scientists, politicians (the Governing Mayor Ernst Reuter amongst others) and students, but also representatives of American universities, among them Stanford University and Yale University. The first elected president of the Free University of Berlin was the historian Friedrich Meinecke.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: By 1949, the Free University had registered 4,946 students. Until the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, many students came from the Soviet sector, often supported through the ""Währungsstipendium"" of the senate.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: On 26 June 1963, the same day he delivered his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech at Rathaus Schöneberg, John F. Kennedy was awarded honorary citizen status by the Free University and gave a ceremonial speech in front of the Henry Ford building, in which he addressed the future of Berlin and Germany under the consideration of the motto of the FU. Amongst the attendant crowd are also the Governing Mayor of Berlin Willy Brandt and the Chancellor of Germany Konrad Adenauer. His brother, Robert F. Kennedy visited the university in 1962 for the first time and in June 1964 for receiving his honorary degree from the "Department of Philosophy". The speech he held at the event was dedicated to John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated the year before.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: In the late 1960s, the Free University of Berlin was one of the main scenes of the German student movement of 68 as a reaction to the global student protests during that time. Significant issues included better living standards and education at the university, the Vietnam War, the presence of former Nazi Party members in the government as epitomized by the Globke affair, and continuing institutional authoritarianism. After the assassination of student Benno Ohnesorg and the attempt on the life of Rudi Dutschke, protests quickly escalated to violence throughout Germany. The events of the 68-movement provided the impulse for more openness, equality, and democracy in German society.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: During the 1970s and the 1980s, the university became a ""Massenuniversität"" ("mass/mega university") with 50,298 registered students in 1983. After reunification, the Free University of Berlin was the second-largest university in Germany (after the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich) with 62,072 students in the winter term of 1991/92. Shortly thereafter, the senate of Berlin decided to drastically reduce enrollment until 2003, the number of students shrank to 43,885 in the winter term of 2002/03.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: Since 2000, the Free University of Berlin has revamped itself. The university's research performance increased markedly with regard to the number of graduates, PhDs granted, and publications.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: Since 2003, the FU Berlin has been regrouping its research capacities into interdisciplinary research focus areas called clusters.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: Due to financial cutbacks and restructuring of medical schools in the same year, the medical institutions of the Free and Humboldt Universities of Berlin merged to create a joint department, the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: The year 2007 was another crucial year for the Free University of Berlin as it was the university with the most approved funding applications in the German Universities Excellence Initiative, and it is now one of nine elite German universities to receive funding for its future development strategy. In the same year, Free University of Berlin dedicated a monument to the founding students who were murdered during the protests. The university presents its Freedom Award to personalities who have made a special contribution toward the cause of freedom. The university received a total of 108 million euros from the Excellence Initiative for its approved projects between 2007 and 2012.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: Based on its founding tradition, the Free University of Berlin seal to this day bears the Latin terms for Truth, Justice, and Liberty. The designer of the seal was art historian and former president of the Free University of Berlin, Edwin Redslob.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: Most of the facilities of Free University of Berlin are located in the residential garden district of Dahlem in southwestern Berlin.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: Around the beginning of the 20th century, Dahlem was established as a center for research of the highest caliber. Academic activity in Dahlem was supported by Friedrich Althoff, Ministerial Director in the Prussian Ministry of Culture, who initially proposed the foundation of a ""German Oxford"".


title: Free University of Berlin

text: The first new buildings housed government science agencies and new research institutes of the University of Berlin. The Kaiser Wilhelm Society – forerunner of the present-day Max Planck Society – was founded in 1911 and established several institutes in Dahlem.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: A dynamic group of researchers carried out pioneering research resulting in numerous Nobel Prizes. Since its foundation, the Free University of Berlin has been using buildings formerly belonging to the Kaiser Wilhelm Society and, in addition, has added numerous architecturally innovative buildings.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: The Free University of Berlin central campus consists of building ensembles within walking distance of each other (about 1.5 km radius). The planners oriented themselves along the type of campus found in the United States – a novelty in post-war Germany. The first independent structure to be completed on campus was the Henry Ford building, funded by the Ford Foundation. To that point, the university was housed in several older structures around the neighborhood, including the Otto Hahn building, which houses the "Department of Biochemistry" to this day. Thanks to further donations from the United States, Free University of Berlin was able to construct several new central building complexes including the Benjamin Franklin university clinic complex.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: The largest single complex of university buildings is the "Rost- und Silberlaube", which translates roughly to the "Rust and Silver Lodges". This complex consists of a series of interlinked structures corresponding to either a deep bronze (hence, "rust") or shiny white ("silver") hue, surrounding a variety of leafy courtyards. It has been complemented in 2005 by a new centerpiece, the brain-shaped Philological Library, designed by British architect Lord Norman Foster.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: With 43 ha and around 22,000 species of plants, FU's Berlin Botanical Garden in nearby Lichterfelde West is one of the largest of its kind.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: The main campus in Dahlem is well connected to central Berlin by public transportation. The stations Dahlem Dorf and Freie Universität (Thielplatz) connect the university to the Berlin U-Bahn system's U3 line. The Lichterfelde West station of the S1 line of the Berlin S-Bahn connects the university to Berlin Mitte.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: The campus in Lankwitz, formerly part of a teacher training college, is now home to the department of earth sciences and a part of the university archives. Until their move to Dahlem in 2008, the "Institute for Media and Communication Studies" was located there.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: Most of the divisions of the "Department of Veterinary Medicine" are based in Düppel. It is 2 km southwest of the main campus and consists of numerous clinics and institutes, amongst them a small animal clinic, a clinic for horses and an institute of poultry diseases.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: Since the formation of the FU in 1948, it has used public hospitals as part of the medical faculty. Between 1959 and 1969, the "Steglitz Clinic", located in Lichterfelde West about 3 km southeast of Dahlem, was built with large financial supports of the United States. The medical center became one of the biggest European medical establishments unifying all institutes, clinics and lecture halls. In honor of the support by the United States, the clinic was renamed "University Clinic Benjamin Franklin". In 1994, it consists of 36 scientific institutes and 1,200 hospital beds. After the merger in 2003, it became part of the Charité medical school.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: Today, the district of Dahlem is a hotspot for research and culture: Beside several institutes of the Max Planck Society (amongst others: The Max Planck Institute for Research in Education (MPIB), the MPI for the History of Science, the MPI for Molecular Genetics, the Fritz Haber Institute (FHI) working in the fields of molecular physics and physical chemistry and the archive of the MPG), the campus is home to the Zuse Institute Berlin as well as some federal institutions like the Federal Institute for Materials Research (BAM) and the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR).


title: Free University of Berlin

text: The Berlin Geography Society founded in 1828, the "Berlin University for Professional Studies" and the German Archeological Institute (DAI) are also located on the campus. In addition, Dahlem is an important location for the Berlin State Museums group, housing the Ethnological Museum of Berlin and the Museum of Asian Art.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: During the 1960s, a student village with 27 buildings was constructed near Schlachtensee lake serving as housing opportunities for students.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: With an inventory of 8.5 million volumes and over 25,000 journals distributed in the central university library (UB) and 49 specialized libraries of the institutes, the library system of the FU is the largest in Germany. Items published since 1990 are fully digitalized and accessible through an OPAC. The UB is granted the status "United Nations Depository Library" and is linked to the global library system of the UN under direction of the Dag Hammarskjöld Library in New York. The European Union also uses the UB as a "European Documentation Center". As part of the library of the UN and the EU, it contains all publications of the UN General Assembly, the UN Security Council, the International Court of Justice as well as publications from the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: Although the UB is generally a lending library, some smaller libraries of the departments are so called "Präsenzbibliotheken", where students are only able to read books or journals.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: Since 2005, the FU creates a new library with about 12,250 m of usable space. It is planned to include all libraries of the natural science departments and the smaller institutes in the humanities (e.g. Egyptology). The projected costs are around 51 million euros. Construction work started in March 2012 with plans on finishing at the end of 2014.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: The executive board consists of the president (Prof. Dr. Günter M. Ziegler), an executive vice president (Prof. Dr. Klaus Hoffmann-Holland) and three other vice presidents, as well as the Director of Administration and Finance (Dr.-Ing. Andrea Bör).


title: Free University of Berlin

text: The ISQ ("Institut für Schulqualität der Länder Berlin und Brandenburg", "Institute for Quality of Schools in Berlin and Brandenburg") is an independent facility on the campus. It consults local schools and the senate to achieve and develop a high standard of school quality in Berlin and Brandenburg and closely cooperates with the "Department of Education and Psychology" of the FU.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: The Collegium Musicum of Free University of Berlin was founded during the first semester in 1948/49. Under conductor Karl Forster, it merged with the ensemble of the Technical University Berlin in 1954. Today, the Collegium Musicum has around 500 members from all fields of studies who spend their leisure time making music. It currently consists of five ensembles: a big choir, a chamber choir, two symphony orchestras and a big band. There are frequently events on which the Collegium Musicum plays, for instance on ceremonies.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: With 12 departments (FB) and three interdisciplinary central institutes, the university can be seen as an "universitas litterarum" (a traditional university where studies in all basic sciences is possible).


title: Free University of Berlin

text: Despite the variety of subjects, apart from computer science, studies in the field of engineering can only be done at the Technical University or universities of applied science "(Fachhochschulen)".


title: Free University of Berlin

text: With 33,000 applicants for the undergraduate programs (Bachelor) in 2013, admissions at Free University of Berlin remain highly competitive as the university only offers about 4,300 places each year. Due to the high numbers of applicants, most undergraduate programs at Free University of Berlin have limitations determined through the NC.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: The general deadline for students directly from high school applying to limited programs in the coming winter semester is 15 July every year at all universities in Germany.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: In some cases (especially Medicine, Psychology and Political Science), the NC every year is as high as 1.0 ("see Grades in Germany and Abitur").


title: Free University of Berlin

text: Critical applicants which just scored slightly below the NC can be invited to a selective interview or an entry exam, depending on the department/faculty.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: Applicants at Charité medical school who do not directly fulfill the NC-criteria have to pass an entry exam, which covers the basic fields of Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry and Physics in addition to passing a selective interview. Both results are then added to the Abitur grade. The final decision depends on the results of the competitors.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: Free University of Berlin operates on a semester calendar where the winter term begins on 1 October and ends on 31 March. The exact same model can be found at almost every university in Germany. The time where lectures are being held varies each year, normally beginning around mid-October and ending as early as mid-February.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: Free University of Berlin offers a broad spectrum of subjects in over 190 degree programs. A speciality of the FU is the possibility to study a vast number of "small subjects" (e.g. theater and film studies, Egyptology, Byzantine studies, Jewish studies, Turkology, Sinology, Communication studies, Meteorology, Bioinformatics, Biochemistry) with a high level of specialization. Due to the Bologna process, most of the undergraduate programs are now leading to the three-year Bachelor's degree with 180 ECTS. At Free University of Berlin, Bachelor programs are generally divided into three categories: a regular Bachelor called "Mono-Bachelor", a combined Bachelor ("Kombi-Bachelor") consisting of two fields of studies and a combined Bachelor with a teaching option. Besides the core subject(s), all students are required to complete a series of courses related to general professional skills (ABV).


title: Free University of Berlin

text: The old Diplom and Magister artium programs are still running, but do not accept new admissions anymore. In the fields of Medicine, Veterinary Medicine, Dentistry, Pharmacy and the law, students enroll in programs with "Staatsexamen". Free University of Berlin also offers a variety of graduate degrees, from the master's degree to doctoral degrees.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: Apart from the regular Master's programs, there are a variety of international programs taught in English, especially in the life sciences.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: Free University of Berlin does not charge any tuition fees in the classical sense. Since 2003, public universities in Berlin introduced the model of semester contributions ("Semesterbeiträge"). It consists of an enrollment/re-registration fee, a contribution to the student union ("Studentenwerk"), a contribution for the student government and the fee for the semester ticket (public transportation pass) for the current semester. The fees for the semester ticket is defined by a contract with the local transportation company, the Verkehrsverbund Berlin-Brandenburg and allows students to move freely in the ABC zones of Berlin. In the winter semester of 2013/14, students are required to pay €285.83 in total.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: Since 2011, Free University of Berlin participates in the national "Germany Scholarship" program organized by the federal government, universities and numerous private companies. Highly talented and committed students can get €300 monthly.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: In terms of external endowments by the DFG, Free University of Berlin ranks third behind the RWTH Aachen University and LMU Munich. Between 2009 and 2013, 289 foreign guest researchers came to the university through fellowships granted by the renowned Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, making the FU the most popular destination for foreign researchers in Germany.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: In the field of natural sciences, research focuses on basic research with a strong emphasis on interdisciplinarity, whereas research in the humanities focuses on the current economical, political and cultural development of society (transformation processes, effects of globalization and environmental politics).


title: Free University of Berlin

text: In the field of Earth sciences, the FU has contributed to various aeronautical missions, e.g. the Mars Express and the Cassini-Huygens to Saturn.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: Excluding the Charité medical school, which is co-administered by the university with the Humboldt University, Free University of Berlin is currently the lead university for eight collaborative research centers of the German Research Foundation and also has five DFG research units. It is part of the Berlin University Alliance.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: As part of the "MATHEON – Mathematics for Key Technologies" research center of the DFG, Free University of Berlin together with the TU Berlin, HU Berlin and the Zuse Institute Berlin is working on mathematical modeling, simulation and optimization of real-world processes.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: Twice every year, the "Dahlem Conferences" are held at Free University of Berlin. Over the course of one week, international renowned scientists and Nobel laureates come together and discuss current problems in all fields of studies.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: The annual "Einstein Lectures Dahlem" hosted by the university and several external institutions since 2005 are dedicated to Albert Einstein, who was the director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics for more than 15 years. It is an colloquium which presents fields in science which were influenced by Einstein's thinking.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: The 2022 British QS World University Rankings ranked the university 130th internationally, with the Political science program at Otto Suhr Institute being the top rated in Germany and no. 4 in Europe. The 2020 QS WUR for law and legal studies ranked the FU at 51-100th internationally, 3rd in Germany and 17th best in Europe. In the QS WUR 2014, Free University of Berlin was placed at the 81–90 slot being the fifth German university ranked in the list.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: In 2020, the American "U.S. News & World Report" listed Free University of Berlin as the 111th best in the world, climbing five positions. Being among the 100 best in the world in 18 areas of 28 ranked.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: According to the British "Times Higher Education World University Rankings" 2022 the FU Berlin ranks 83rd globally and seventh in Germany.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: In the German "ExcellenceRanking" of the CHE ("Center for Higher Education Development") in 2013, Free University of Berlin ranks top in the fields of Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Political science. In the CHE "SubjectRanking", Freie Universität has been evaluated as one of Germany's best universities in Earth sciences, Computer science and Philosophy and also ranks among the Top 5 in Psychology, English studies and Education.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: Because of an unresolved dispute over the Nobel laureates before the Second World War (both Humboldt and Free University of Berlin claim to be the rightful successor of the University of Berlin), they do not appear in the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), anymore. The last ARWU, also known as Shanghai Ranking, placed the FU at 83rd in the world in 2007.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: Free University of Berlin maintains wide-ranging international contacts with top universities and organizations which provide key impulses for research and teaching. In the 1950s, the Free University of Berlin had already established partnerships with leading universities in the United States such as the University of California System (including the University of California, Berkeley, the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of California, Santa Cruz), the University of Chicago, Cornell University, Stanford University (which also has a small campus within the FU), Duke University, Princeton University, Yale University, and Columbia University, as well as with Western European universities such as the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, University College London, the University of Sussex and the École Normale Supérieure in Paris.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: The university is a founding member of the global educational center for the study of transnational law, the Centre for Transnational Legal Studies in London.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: First contacts with universities in Eastern Europe were made in the 1970s. In the 1990s, links were in particular extended to include growing numbers of institutions in Canada (McGill University, University of Alberta, York University), Eastern Europe, and the Far East (China: Peking University, Fudan University, Nanjing University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University; Japan: University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, Nagoya University, Waseda University; South Korea: Korea University, Yonsei University, Seoul National University). The newly established "Centre for International Cooperation (CIC)" concentrates on identifying new strategic partners for international projects.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: Today, Free University of Berlin has established over 400 partnerships in five continents, many of them as part of the European ERASMUS program.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: Every year, about 600 visiting scientists contribute to the university teaching and research. For the grant programs in Germany, the Free University of Berlin is one of the first choices both for the ERASMUS and Tempus as well as for the Fulbright program and the international programs of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).


title: Free University of Berlin

text: An International Summer and Winter University (FUBiS) has been set up for international students offering (semi-)intensive German courses and numerous subject courses.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: The Free University of Berlin operates foreign branch offices in New York City, Brussels, Moscow, Beijing, Cairo, São Paulo, and New Delhi. The foreign branch offices work to expand upon cooperation partnerships already existing with universities in the country.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: In April 2005, the Free University of Berlin, in conjunction with Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU Munich), opened a joint representative office in New York. This German University Alliance, located in German House, the seat of the German Consulate General and the German UN Mission, represents the interests of the two universities in the United States and Canada and works to increase the exchange of students and scientists.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: In addition, the Free University of Berlin, as the first German institution of higher education, founded an alumni and fundraising organization, the Friends of the Freie Universität Berlin (FFUB) in New York. Since 2003 this organization has maintained close contact with alumni and scientists of the Free University of Berlin in the U.S. and attempts to gain alumni and friends as sponsors, to strengthen the long-lasting trans-Atlantic relations. Some of the proceeds from these fundraising activities were contributed to the renovation of the Henry Ford Building.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: In April 2006 Peking University opened its first branch in Germany. Its objectives include the promotion of knowledge of Chinese culture, the cultivation of Chinese-German cooperation, and the spread of the Chinese language. Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, has a Berlin program (Duke in Berlin) that is held in cooperation with the Free University of Berlin and Humboldt University. The University of California System organizes programs for American students in Berlin and Potsdam. The UC System maintains an office at the Free University of Berlin to attend to the needs of exchange students from the California campuses.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: The Office of Global Programs of Columbia University in New York administrates the Berlin Consortium for German Studies. Students from Columbia University and the other colleges and universities included in the consortium (University of Chicago, Cornell University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Vassar College) can attend classes at the Free University of Berlin for one or two semesters as external students. This temporary enrollment is preceded by a six-week intensive language program.


title: Free University of Berlin

text: Alumni of the Free University of Berlin include several scientists, philosophers and politicians, amongst them five Nobel Prize winners and 15 Leibniz laureates.


title: FASTA format

text: In bioinformatics and biochemistry, the FASTA format is a text-based format for representing either nucleotide sequences or amino acid (protein) sequences, in which nucleotides or amino acids are represented using single-letter codes. The format also allows for sequence names and comments to precede the sequences. The format originates from the FASTA software package, but has now become a near universal standard in the field of bioinformatics.


title: FASTA format

text: The simplicity of FASTA format makes it easy to manipulate and parse sequences using text-processing tools and scripting languages like the R programming language, Python, Ruby, Haskell, and Perl.


title: FASTA format

text: The original FASTA/Pearson format is described in the documentation for the FASTA suite of programs. It can be downloaded with any free distribution of FASTA (see fasta20.doc, fastaVN.doc or fastaVN.me—where VN is the Version Number).


title: FASTA format

text: In the original format, a sequence was represented as a series of lines, each of which was no longer than 120 characters and usually


title: FASTA format

text: did not exceed 80 characters. This probably was to allow for preallocation of fixed line sizes in software: at the time most users relied on Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) VT220 (or compatible) terminals which could display 80 or 132 characters per line. Most people preferred the bigger font in 80-character modes and so it became the recommended fashion to use 80 characters or less (often 70) in FASTA lines. Also, the width of a standard printed page is 70 to 80 characters (depending on the font). Hence, 80 characters became the norm.


title: FASTA format

text: The first line in a FASTA file started either with a ">" (greater-than) symbol or, less frequently, a ";" (semicolon) was taken as a comment. Subsequent lines starting with a semicolon would be ignored by software. Since the only comment used was the first, it quickly became used to hold a summary description of the sequence, often starting with a unique library accession number, and with time it has become commonplace to always use ">" for the first line and to not use ";" comments (which would otherwise be ignored).


title: FASTA format

text: Following the initial line (used for a unique description of the sequence) was the actual sequence itself in standard


title: FASTA format

text: one-letter character string. Anything other than a valid character would be ignored (including spaces, tabulators, asterisks, etc...). It was also common to end the sequence with an "*" (asterisk) character (in analogy with use in PIR formatted sequences) and, for the same reason, to leave a blank line between the description and the sequence. Below are a few sample sequences: