title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: Derenko "et al." (2007) tested a sample of 47 Mongolians from Ulaanbaatar and found that they were 8/47 = 17.0% haplogroup C (including 4/47 = 8.5% C4, 3/47 = 6.4% C(xC1, C4, C5), and 1/47 = 2.1% C5), 7/47 = 14.9% haplogroup B (including 5/47 = 10.6% B4 and 2/47 = 4.3% B5), 6/47 = 12.8% haplogroup A(xA2, A5, A8), 5/47 = 10.6% haplogroup D4(xD2, D3), 5/47 = 10.6% haplogroup G (including 4/47 = 8.5% G2a and 1/47 = 2.1% G1), 4/47 = 8.5% haplogroup U (including 3/47 = 6.4% haplogroup U4 and 1/47 = 2.1% haplogroup K), 3/47 = 6.4% haplogroup F1, 2/47 = 4.3% haplogroup M8a2, 1/47 = 2.1% haplogroup M7, 1/47 = 2.1% haplogroup M9a, 1/47 = 2.1% haplogroup M10, 1/47 = 2.1% haplogroup Z, 1/47 = 2.1% haplogroup M*, 1/47 = 2.1% haplogroup N9a, and 1/47 = 2.1% haplogroup N1.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: Jin "et al." (2009) tested another sample of 47 Mongolians from Ulaanbaatar and found that they were 10/47 = 21.3% haplogroup C, 8/47 = 17.0% haplogroup G (including 5/47 = 10.6% G2a, 2/47 = 4.3% G(xG1a, G2, G3), and 1/47 = 2.1% G3), 7/47 = 14.9% haplogroup F (including 3/47 = 6.4% F1a, 3/47 = 6.4% F1b, and 1/47 = 2.1% F2a), 6/47 = 12.8% haplogroup D4 (including 5/47 = 10.6% D4(xD4a, D4b) and 1/47 = 2.1% D4b), 4/47 = 8.5% haplogroup B (including 2/47 = 4.3% B4(xB4a, B4b, B4c), 1/47 = 2.1% B4a, and 1/47 = 2.1% B5b), 2/47 = 4.3% haplogroup A(xA5), 2/47 = 4.3% haplogroup M7 (including 1/47 = 2.1% M7b(xM7b1, M7b2) and 1/47 = 2.1% M7c(xM7c1)), 2/47 = 4.3% haplogroup N9a, 1/47 = 2.1% haplogroup M*, 1/47 = 2.1% haplogroup M8a, 1/47 = 2.1% haplogroup U5a, 1/47 = 2.1% haplogroup Y1, 1/47 = 2.1% haplogroup pre-Z, and 1/47 = 2.1% haplogroup Z.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: Bai "et al." (2018) tested a sample of 35 Khalkha from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and found that they were 10/35 = 28.6% haplogroup M80'D, 6/35 = 17.1% haplogroup R11'B, 4/35 = 11.4% haplogroup C/Z, 4/35 = 11.4% haplogroup U/K, 2/35 = 5.7% haplogroup M12'G, 2/35 = 5.7% haplogroup R9'F, 2/35 = 5.7% haplogroup N9/Y, 2/35 = 5.7% haplogroup N/A, 1/35 = 2.9% haplogroup M7, 1/35 = 2.9% haplogroup M9, and 1/35 = 2.9% haplogroup R0'HV/H.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: West Eurasian mtDNA haplogroups Haplogroup HV, Haplogroup U, Haplogroup K, Haplogroup I, Haplogroup J, represents 14% in western Xingjang Mongolian, 10% in Mongolia, 8.4% in central Inner Mongolian samples, 2% in eastern Xin Barage Zuoqi County samples. West Eurasian mtDNA haplogroups haplogroup U/K, haplogroup R0'HV/H represents 14.3% in Khalkha.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: A 2018 study calculated pairwise F (a measure of genetic difference) based on genome-wide SNPs, among the Han Chinese (Northern Han from Beijing and Southern Han from Hunan, Jiangsu and Fujian provinces), Japanese and Korean populations sampled. It found that the smallest F value was between Northern Han Chinese (Beijing) (CHB) and Southern Han (Hunan and Fujian etc.) Chinese (CHS) (F = 0.0014), while CHB and Korean (KOR) (F = 0.0026) and between KOR and Japanese (JPT) (F = 0.0033). Generally, pairwise F between Han Chinese, Japanese and Korean (0.0026~ 0.0090) are greater than that within Han Chinese (0.0014). These results suggested Han Chinese, Japanese and Korean are different in terms of genetic make-up, and the differences among the three groups are much larger than that between northern and southern Han Chinese.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: Another study shows that the northern and southern Han Chinese are genetically closest to each other and it finds that the genetic characteristics of present-day northern Han Chinese were already formed prior to three thousand years ago in the Central Plain area.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: A recent genetic study on the remains of people (~4000 years BP) from the Mogou site in the Gansu-Qinghai (or Ganqing) region of China revealed more information on the genetic contributions of these ancient Di-Qiang people to the ancestors of the Northern Han. It was deduced that 3300–3800 years ago some Mogou people had merged into the ancestral Han population, resulting in the Mogou people being similar to some northern Han in sharing up to ~33% paternal (O3a) and ~70% maternal (D, A, F, M10) haplogroups. The mixture rate was possibly 13-18%.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: The estimated contribution of northern Han to southern Han is substantial in both paternal and maternal lineages and a geographic cline exists for mtDNA. As a result, the northern Han are the primary contributors to the gene pool of the southern Han. However, it is noteworthy that the expansion process was dominated by males, as is shown by a greater contribution to the Y-chromosome than the mtDNA from northern Han to southern Han. These genetic observations are in line with historical records of continuous and large migratory waves of northern China inhabitants escaping warfare and famine, to southern China. Aside from these large migratory waves, other smaller southward migrations occurred during almost all periods in the past two millennia. A study by the Chinese Academy of Sciences into the gene frequency data of Han subpopulations and ethnic minorities in China, showed that Han subpopulations in different regions are also genetically quite close to the local ethnic minorities, meaning that in many cases, blood of ethnic minorities had mixed into Han, while at the same time, the blood of Han had also mixed into the local ethnic minorities.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: A recent, and to date the most extensive, genome-wide association study of the Han population, shows that geographic-genetic stratification from north to south has occurred and centrally placed populations act as the conduit for outlying ones. Ultimately, with the exception in some ethnolinguistic branches of the Han Chinese, such as Pinghua, there is "coherent genetic structure" (homogeneity) in all Han Chinese.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: Y-chromosome haplogroup O2-M122 is a common DNA marker in Han Chinese, as it appeared in China in prehistoric times. It is found in more than 50% of Chinese males, with frequencies tending to be high toward the east of the country (30/101 = 29.7% Guangxi Pinghua Han, 13/40 = 32.5% Guangdong Han, 11/30 = 36.7% Lanzhou Han, 26/60 = 43.3% Yunnan Han, 251/565 = 44.4% Zhaotong Han, 15/32 = 46.9% Yili Han, 23/49 = 46.9% Lanzhou Han, 32/65 = 49.2% South China Han, 18/35 = 51.4% Meixian Han, 22/42 = 52.4% Northern Han, 43/82 = 52.4% Northern Han, 18/34 = 52.9% Chengdu Han, 154/280 = 55.0% Southern Han, 27/49 = 55.1% Northern Han, 73/129 = 56.6% North China Han, 49/84 = 58.3% Taiwan Han, 35/60 = 58.3% Taiwan Minnan, 99/167 = 59.3% East China Han, 33/55 = 60.0% Fujian Han, 157/258 = 60.9% Taiwan Han, 13/21 = 61.9% Taiwan Han, 189/305 = 62.0% Zibo Han, 23/35 = 65.7% Harbin Han, 29/44 = 65.9% Northern Han, 23/34 = 67.6% Taiwan Hakka, 35/51 = 68.6% Beijing Han). Other Y-DNA haplogroups that have been found with notable frequency in samples of Han Chinese include O-P203 (15/165 = 9.1%, 47/361 = 13.0%), C-M217 (10/168 = 6.0%, 27/361 = 7.5%, 187/1730 = 10.8%, 20/166 = 12.0%), N-M231 (6/166 = 3.6%, 18/361 = 5.0%, 117/1729 = 6.8%, 17/165 = 10.3%), O-M268(xM95, M176) (54/1147 = 4.7%, 8/168 = 4.8%, 23/361 = 6.4%, 12/166 = 7.2%), and Q-M242 (2/168 = 1.2%, 49/1729 = 2.8%, 12/361 = 3.3%, 48/1147 = 4.2%). However, the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of Han Chinese increases in diversity as one looks from northern to southern China, which suggests that male migrants from northern China married with women from local peoples after arriving in modern-day Guangdong, Shanghai, Nanjing, Fujian, and other regions of southern China. Despite this, tests comparing the genetic profiles of northern Han, southern Han and southern natives determined that haplogroups O1b-M110, O2a1-M88 and O3d-M7, which are prevalent in southern natives, were only observed in some southern Han (4% on average), but not in northern Han. Therefore, this proves that the male contribution of southern natives in southern Han is limited, assuming that the frequency distribution of Y lineages in southern natives represents that before the expansion of Han culture that started two-thousand years ago. In contrast, there are consistent strong genetic similarities in the Y chromosome haplogroup distribution between the southern and northern Chinese population, and the result of principal component analysis indicates almost all Han populations form a tight cluster in their Y chromosome. However, other research has also shown that the paternal lineages Y-DNA O-M119, O-P201, O-P203 and O-M95 are found in both southern Han Chinese and South Chinese minorities, but more commonly in the latter. In fact, these paternal markers are in turn less frequent in northern Han Chinese.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: The mitochondrial-DNA haplogroups of the Han Chinese can be classified into the northern East Asian-dominating haplogroups, including A, C, D, G, M8, M9, and Z, and the southern East Asian-dominating haplogroups, including B, F, M7, N*, and R. These haplogroups account for 52.7% and 33.85% of those in the Northern Han, respectively. Therefore, haplogroups D is the most (Haplogroups D is the most(Haplogroup D is the modal mtDNA haplogroup among northern East Asians (Manchus, Tuoba Xianbei, Oroqens, Manchurian Evenks). Among these haplogroups, D, B, F, and A were predominant in the Northern Han, with frequencies of 25.77%, 11.54%, 11.54%, and 8.08%, respectively. However, in the Southern Han, the northern and southern East Asian-dominating haplogroups accounted for 35.62% and 51.91%, respectively. The frequencies of haplogroups D, B, F, and A reached 15.68%, 20.85%, 16.29%, and 5.63%, respectively.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: Modern Tibetan populations are genetically most similar to other modern East Asian populations. They also show more genetic affinity for modern Central Asian than modern Siberian populations.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: A 2016 study found that the Tibetan gene pool diverged from that of Han Chinese around 15,000 years ago, which can be largely attributed to post-LGM (Last Glacial Maximum) arrivals. Analysis of around 200 contemporary populations showed that Tibetans share ancestry with populations from East Asia (~82%), Central Asia and Siberia (~11%), South Asia (~6%), and western Eurasia and Oceania (~1%). These results support that Tibetans arose from a mixture of multiple ancestral gene pools but that their origins are much more complicated and ancient than previously suspected.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: A study in 2010 suggested that the majority of the Tibetan gene pool may have diverged from the Zang around 15,000 years ago. However, there are possibilities of much earlier human inhabitation of Tibet, and these early residents may have contributed to the modern Tibetan gene pool.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: The date of divergence between Tibetans and Sherpas was estimated to have taken place around 11,000 to 7,000 years ago.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: After modern Oceanic populations, modern Tibetan populations show the highest rate of allele sharing with archaic hominins at over 6%. Modern Tibetans show genetic affinities to three archaic populations: Denisovans, Neanderthals, and an unidentified archaic population.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: In comparison to modern Han populations, modern Tibetans show greater genetic affinity to Denisovans; however, both the Han and Tibetans have similar ratios of genetic affinity to general Neanderthal populations.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: Modern Tibetans were identified as the modern population that has the most alleles in common with Ust'-Ishim man.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: The distribution of Haplogroup D-M174 (subclade Haplogroup D-Z27276) is found among nearly all the populations of Central Asia and Northeast Asia south of the Russian border, although generally at a low frequency of 2% or less. A dramatic spike in the frequency of D-M174 occurs as one approaches the Tibetan Plateau. D-M174 is also found at high frequencies among Japanese people, but it fades into low frequencies in Korea and China proper between Japan and Tibet. The claim that the Navajo people and Tibetans are related, while discussed among linguists since Edward Sapir, has not found support in genetic studies. Some light has been shed on their origins, however, by one genetic study in which it was indicated that Tibetan Y-chromosomes had multiple origins, one from Central Asia and the other from East Asia.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: The Turkic peoples are a collection of ethno-linguistic groups of Central-, Eastern-, Northern- and Western-Asia as well as parts of Europe and North Africa. They speak related languages belonging to the Turkic language family.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: Proposals for the homeland of the Turkic peoples and their language are far-ranging, from the Transcaspian steppe to Northeastern Asia (Manchuria).


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: According to Yunusbayev, genetic evidence points to an origin in the region near South Siberia and Mongolia as the "Inner Asian Homeland" of the Turkic ethnicity.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: More recent genetic and archeologic studies suggest that the Turkic peoples were descended from a Transeurasian agricultural community based in northeast China, which is to be associated with the Xinglongwa culture and the succeeding Hongshan culture. The East Asian agricultural origin of the Turkic peoples has been corroborated in multiple recent studies. Around 2,200 BC, due to the desertification of northeast China, the agricultural ancestors of the Turkic peoples probably migrated westwards into Mongolia, where they adopted a pastoral lifestyle.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: Linguistic and genetic evidence strongly suggests an early presence of Turkic peoples in eastern Mongolia. Genetic studies have shown that the early Turkic peoples were of predominantly East Asian origins with medieval Turkic samples being more heterogeneous, and that Turkic culture and language was spread westwards through elite dominance. The genetic evidence suggests that the Turkification of Central Asia was carried out by East Asian dominant minorities migrating out of Mongolia.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: Common Y-DNA haplogroups in Turkic peoples are Haplogroup N-M231 (found with especially high frequency among Turkic peoples living in present-day Russia), Haplogroup C-M217 (especially in Central Asia and, in particular, Kazakhstan), Haplogroup Q-M242 (especially in Southern Siberia and among Turkmens and the Qangly tribe of Kazakhs), and Haplogroup O-M175 (especially among Turkic peoples living in present-day China and the Naiman tribe of Kazakhs). Some groups also have Haplogroup R1b (notably frequent among the Teleuts and Kumandins of Southern Siberia, the Bashkirs of the Southern Ural region of Russia, and the Qypshaq tribe of Kazakhs), Haplogroup R1a (notably frequent among the Kyrgyz, Altaians, and several other Turkic peoples living in present-day Russia), Haplogroup J-M172 (especially frequent among Uyghurs, Uzbeks, Azerbaijanis, and Turkish people), and Haplogroup D-M174 (especially among Yugurs, but also observed regularly with low frequency among Uyghurs, Southern Altaians, Nogais, Kazakhs, and Uzbeks).


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: The modern Turkic groups in Anatolia (Turkey) and Europe have less relation to East-Asian groups than their Central-Asian relatives. Various studies estimate about 15-30% East-Asian lineages in Anatolian/European Turks with the average at 21.7%.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: A study in 2015 found that ""Previous genetic studies have generally used Turks as representatives of ancient populations from Turkey. Our results show that Turks are genetically shifted towards modern Central Asians, a pattern consistent with a history of mixture with populations from this region"". The authors found "7.9% (±0.4) East Asian ancestry in Turks from admixture occurring 800 (±170) years ago." A 2019 study found that Turkish people cluster with Southern and Mediterranean Europe populations along with groups in the northern part of Southwest Asia (such as the populations from Caucasus, Northern Iraq, and Iranians). Another study found the Circassians are closest to the Turkish population among sampled European (French, Italian, Sardinian), Middle Eastern (Druze, Palestinian), and Central (Kyrgyz, Hazaras, Uyghur), South (Pakistani), and East Asian (Mongolian, Han) populations. Another 2019 study found that Turkish people have the lowest Fst distances with Caucasus population group and Iranian-Syrian group, compared to East-Central European, European (including Northern and Eastern European), Sardinian, Roma, and Turkmen groups or populations. Caucasus group in the study included samples from "Abkhazians, Adyghe, Armenians, Balkars, Chechens, Georgians, Kumyks, Kurds, Lezgins, Nogays, and North Ossetia."


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: A study involving mitochondrial analysis of a Byzantine-era population, whose samples were gathered from excavations in the archaeological site of Sagalassos, found that Sagalassos samples were closest to modern samples from "Turkey, Crimea, Iran and Italy (Campania and Apulia), Cyprus and the Balkans (Bulgaria, Croatia and Greece)." Modern-day samples from the nearby town of Ağlasun showed that lineages of East Eurasian descent assigned to macro-haplogroup M were found in the modern samples from Ağlasun. This haplogroup is significantly more frequent in Ağlasun (15%) than in Byzantine Sagalassos, but the study concluded that there is "no genetic discontinuity across two millennia in the region." Another study concluded that the true Central Asian contributions to Anatolia was 13% for males and 22% for females (with wide ranges of confidence intervals), and


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: the language replacement in Turkey and Azerbaijan might not have been in accordance with the elite dominance model.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: The most common male haplogroup in Anatolia is J2=24% - J2 (M172) J-M172 (or J2) may reflect the spread of Anatolian farmers. J2-M172 is "mainly confined to the Mediterranean coastal areas, southeastern Europe and Anatolia", as well as West Asia and southern Central Asia.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: The genetic evidence suggests that the Turkification of Central Asia was carried out by East Asian dominant minorities migrating out of Mongolia. According to a recent study, the Turkic Central Asian populations, such as Kyrgyz, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, and Turkmens share more of their gene pool with various East Asian and Siberian populations than with West Asian or European populations. The study further suggests that both migration and linguistic assimilation helped to spread the Turkic languages in Eurasia.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: Genetic data suggests that Siberia was populated during the Terminal Upper-Paleolithic (36+-1,5ka) period from both, a deeply European-related population, which was once widespread in Northern Eurasia, and from an early East Asian-related group, which migrated northwards into Siberia, merging with this deeply European-related population, forming the Ancient North Eurasian cline (ANE), which are estimated to have harbored ~69% deeply European-related ancestry and ~31% East Asian-related ancestry (represented by a population ancestral to modern East Asians).


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: These population dynamics and later constant northwards geneflow of East Asian-related ancestry, during the late Paleolithic, would later give rise to the "Ancestral Native Americans" and Paleosiberians, which harbor East Asian ancestry at a mean frequency of ~85%, and which replaced the ANE as the dominant population of Siberia. Further geneflow from Northeast Asia resulted in the modern distribution of "Neo-Siberians" (associated with 'Altaic speakers').


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: Genomic studies have described the genetic landscape of South Asia as a composite of West-Eurasian and East Asian exogenous components that mixed with the indigenous East-Eurasian South Asian groups (termed Ancient Ancestral South Indians ("AASI"), who are genetically most closely related to the Andamanese people, and more distantly to Aboriginal Australians and East Asians) to create modern-day South Asians. The East Asian-related ancestry component forms the major ancestral component among Sino-Tibetan speaking populations in the Northeast India including Himalayan foothills, and is generally distributed throughout the rest of the Indian subcontinent at lower frequency but found substantially among Austroasiatic-speaking groups, as well as among Sinhalese and Bengalis.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: According to a genetic research (2015) including linguistic analyses, suggests an East Asian origin for proto-Austroasiatic groups, which first migrated to Southeast Asia and later into India. According to Ness, there are three broad theories on the origins of the Austroasiatic speakers, namely northeastern India, central or southern China, or southeast Asia. Multiple researches indicate that the Austroasiatic populations in India are derived from (mostly male dominated) migrations from Southeast Asia during the Holocene. According to Van Driem (2007), "...the mitochondrial picture indicates that the Munda maternal lineage derives from the earliest human settlers on the Subcontinent, whilst the predominant Y chromosome haplogroup argues for a Southeast Asian paternal homeland for Austroasiatic language communities in India."


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: According to Chaubey et al. (2011), "Austroasiatic speakers in India today are derived from dispersal from Southeast Asia, followed by extensive sex-specific admixture with local Indian populations." According to Zhang et al. (2015), Austroasiatic (male) migrations from southeast Asia into India took place after the lates Glacial maximum, circa 4000 years ago. According to Arunkumar et al. (2015), Y-chromosomal haplogroup O2a1-M95, which is typical for Austroasiatic speaking peoples, clearly decreases from Laos to east India, with "a serial decrease in expansion time from east to west," namely "5.7 ± 0.3 Kya in Laos, 5.2 ± 0.6 in Northeast India, and 4.3 ± 0.2 in East India." This suggests "a late Neolithic east to west spread of the lineage O2a1-M95 from Laos." According to Riccio et al. (2011), the Munda people are likely descended from Austroasiatic migrants from southeast Asia. According to Ness, the Khasi probably migrated into India in the first millennium BCE.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: According to Yelmen et al. 2019, the indigenous South Asians (AASI) ""separated from East Asian and Andamanese populations"".


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: Geneflow from Southeast Asians (particularly Austroasiatic groups) to South Asian peoples is associated with the introduction of rice-agriculture to South Asia. There is significant cultural, linguistic, and political Mon-Khmer (Austroasiatic) influence on early India, which can also be observed by the presence of Austroasiatic loanwords within Indo-Aryan languages.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: A 2020 genetic study about Southeast Asian populations, found that mostly all Southeast Asians are closely related to East Asians and have mostly "East Asian-related" ancestry.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: Ancient remains of hunter-gatherers in Maritime Southeast Asia, such as one Holocene hunter-gatherer from South Sulawesi, had ancestry from both, the South-Eurasian lineage (represented by Papuans and Aboriginal Australians), and the East-Eurasian lineage (represented by East Asians and or Andamanese Onge). The hunter-gatherer individual had approximately ~50% "Basal-East Asian" ancestry, and was positioned in between modern East Asians and Papuans of Oceania. The authors concluded that East Asian-related ancestry expanded from Mainland Southeast Asia into Maritime Southeast Asia much earlier than previously suggested, as early as 25,000BC, long before the expansion of Austroasiatic and Austronesian groups.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: A 2022 genetic study confirmed the close link between East Asians and Southeast Asians, which the authors term "East/Southeast Asian" (ESEA) populations, and also found a low but consistent proportion of South Asian-associated "SAS ancestry" (best samplified by modern Bengalis) among specific Mainland Southeast Asian (MESA) ethnic groups (~2–16% as inferred by "qpAdm"), likely as a result of cultural diffision; mainly of South Asian merchants spreading Hinduism and Buddhism among the Indianized kingdoms of Southeast Asia. The authors however caution that Bengalis harbor significant East Asian ancestry, which may affect the estimation of shared haplotypes. Overall, the geneflow event is estimated to have happened between 500–1000 YBP.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: A 2018 study analyzed 11,500 BCE old indigenous samples. The genetic evidence suggests that all Native Americans ultimately descended from a single founding population that initially split from a Basal-East Asian source population in Mainland Southeast Asia around 36,000 years ago, at the same time at which the proper Jōmon people split from Basal-East Asians, either together with Ancestral Native Americans or during a separate expansion wave. The authors also provided evidence that the basal northern and southern Native American branches, to which all other Indigenous peoples belong, diverged around 16,000 years ago. An indigenous American sample from 16,000BC in Idaho, which is craniometrically similar to modern Native Americans as well as Paleosiberias, was found to have been largely East-Eurasian genetically, and showed high affinity with contemporary East Asians, as well as Jōmon period samples of Japan, confirming that Ancestral Native Americans split from an East-Eurasian source population somewhere in eastern Siberia.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: A study published in the Nature journal in 2018 concluded that Native Americans descended from a single founding population which initially split from East Asians at about ~36,000 BC, with gene flow between Ancestral Native Americans and Siberians persisting until ~25,000BC, before becoming isolated in the Americas at ~22,000BC. Northern and Southern Native American subpopulations split from each other at ~17,500BC. There is also some evidence for a back-migration from the Americas into Siberia after ~11,500BC.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: A study published in the Cell journal in 2019, analyzed 49 ancient Native American samples from all over North and South America and concluded that all Native American populations descended from a single ancestral source population that split from Siberian and East Asians, and gave rise to the Ancestral Native Americans, which later diverged into the various indigenous groups. The authors further dismissed previous claims for the possibility of two distinct population groups among the peopling of the Americas. Both, Northern and Southern Native Americans are closest to each other, and do not show evidence of admixture with hypothetical previous populations.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: Another study published in the Nature journal in 2021, which analyzed a large number of ancient genomes, similarly concluded that all Native Americans descended from the movement of people from Northeast Asia into the Americas. These Ancestral Americans, once south of the continental ice sheets, spread and expanded rapidly, and branched into multiple groups, which later gave rise to the major subgroups of Native American populations. The study also dismissed the existence of a hypothetical distinct non-Native American population (suggested to have been related to Indigenous Australians and Papuans), sometimes called "Paleoamerican". The authors explained that these previous claims were based on a misinterpreted genetic echo, which was revealed to represent early East-Eurasian geneflow (close but distinct to the 40,000BC old Tianyuan lineage) into Aboriginal Australians and Papuans.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: Genetic studies have revealed that Aboriginal Australians largely descended from an Eastern Eurasian population wave, and are most closely related to other Oceanians, such as Melanesians such as Papuans and also show affinity to other Asian and Pacific populations, such as Negritos, indigenous South Asians and East Asian peoples. Phylogenetic data suggests that an early initial eastern lineage (ENA) trifurcated somewhere in South Asia, and gave rise to Australasians (Oceanians), the indigenous South Asians/Andamanese, and the East/Southeast Asian lineage including the ancestors of Native Americans.


title: Genetic history of East Asians

text: Phylogenetic data suggests that an early initial Eastern Eurasian (eastern non-African ENA) lineage trifurcated somewhere in South Asia, and gave rise to Australasians (Oceanians), the AASI, as well as East/Southeast Asians, although Oceanians (Papuans and Aboriginal Australians) may have also received some geneflow from an earlier group (xOoA), around 2%, next to additional archaic admixture in the Sahul region. Vallini et al. 2022 study confirmed the position of Papuans, who belong to the broader Melanesian peoples of the Pacific Islands, as a sister lineage of East Asians: Papuan ancestry can be modelled either as an almost unadmixed sister lineage of East Asians (with potential minimal ingressions from basal Out-of-Africa populations) or as an approximately even mixture of East Asians and a basal East-Eurasian lineage that had split prior to the expansion of East-Eurasian ancestry into East Asia and Oceania.


title: Obtshak

text: The obtshak (Russian), obštšak (Estonian spelling), or ühiskassa (Estonian) or "common treasury" is a traditional umbrella organisation of criminal groups in Estonia, a trade union of sorts that settles conflicts and establishes boundaries of the spheres of interest of various groups such as the Estonian mafia and Russian mafia. Between 2003 and 2016, the Common Fund was dominated by Nikolai Tarankov (1953–2016) and KGB training. However, Tarankov was found murdered in 2016, apparently in a revenge murder related to his past actions. The Common Fund pays for lawyers of caught members, purchases and delivers packages to imprisoned members, and covers other expenses. The organization has about ten member groups. The members have also operated significantly in Finland, where in 2009, high-level drug dealing was controlled by Estonians.


title: Obtshak

text: In 2005, the Estonian Central Criminal Police noticed a decline in revenues of the Common Fund, leading to the capture of several high-ranking members. The decline has been attributed to changes in Estonian society, particularly those experienced in the lead-up to accession to the European Union.


title: Rajat Tokas

text: Rajat Tokas is an Indian television actor. He appeared in television series like "Dharti Ka Veer Yodha Prithviraj Chauhan", "Dharam Veer", "Tere Liye", "Jodha Akbar", "Naagin" season 1 & 3 and "Chandra Nandini".


title: Rajat Tokas

text: Tokas started his television career with show "Bongo" as Ashu on DD national. He then did many shows including "Lighthouse for children", Jadui Chirag, Tarang, and Ye Hawayan. In 2005, he came to Mumbai with his father & bagged the role of Tantya, who was Sai Baba's brother, in "Sai Baba".


title: Rajat Tokas

text: In 2006, Tokas was selected by Sagar Arts to play his first lead role of young Prithviraj Chauhan in the series "Dharti Ka Veer Yodha Prithviraj Chauhan" for which he won best actor in ITA 2007.


title: Rajat Tokas

text: In 2010-11, Ekta Kapoor of Balaji Telefilms chose Rajat to play the parallel lead in "Tere Liye" where he played the character of Robindo Ganguly. Later, he did episodic roles in "Bandini" and "".


title: Rajat Tokas

text: In 2013, he was once again selected by Kapoor to reprise the role of the Mughal Emperor Jalaluddin Mohammed Akbar in her historical drama, "Jodha Akbar" for which he went on to win "BIG Star Most Entertaining Television Actor - Male", "Star Guild Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series", "Boroplus Gold Award for Best Actor in Lead Role (Critics)", "Indian Telly Award for Best Actor in a Lead Role". In 2016, he played the negative role of Kabir (Icchadhari Nevla) in Naagin, a fantasy drama which was aired on Colors TV.


title: Rajat Tokas

text: Also in 2016 he was selected by Balaji Telefilms to play the lead role of Chandragupta Maurya in Star Plus show Chandra Nandini. He also played the role Vikrant on Naagin 3, again produced by Balaji Telefilms.


title: Rajat Tokas

text: He studied in the Hope Hall Foundation School, R. K. Puram, Delhi and later on completed his graduation through distance mode.


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: RWTH Aachen University (), also known as North Rhine-Westphalia Technical University of Aachen, Rhine-Westphalia Technical University of Aachen, Technical University of Aachen, University of Aachen, or Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen, is a German public research university located in Aachen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With more than 47,000 students enrolled in 144 study programs, it is the largest technical university in Germany.


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: In 2018, the university was ranked 31st in the world university rankings in the field of engineering and technology, and 36th world-wide in the category of natural sciences.


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: RWTH Aachen in 2019 emerged successfully from the final of the third federal and state excellence strategy. The university will be funded as a university of excellence for the next seven years. RWTH Aachen was already part of the federal and state excellence initiative in 2007 and 2012.


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: Since 2007, RWTH Aachen has been continuously funded by the DFG and the German Council of Science and Humanities as one of eleven (previously nine) German Universities of Excellence for its future concept "RWTH 2020: Meeting Global Challenges" and the follow-up concept "The Integrated Interdisciplinary University of Science and Technology: Knowledge, Impact, Networks", also receiving grants for associated graduate schools and "clusters of excellence". The university regularly accounts for the highest amount of third-party funds among all German universities, placing first per faculty member and second overall in the most recent survey from 2018.


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: RWTH Aachen is a founding member of the CESAER association of universities of science and technology in Europe, and IDEA League, a strategic alliance of five leading universities of technology in Europe, as well as its German counterpart TU9. It is also a member of DFG and the Top Industrial Managers for Europe network.


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: On 25 January 1858, prince Frederick William of Prussia (later German emperor), was given a donation of 5,000 talers from the "Aachener und Münchener Feuer-Versicherungs-Gesellschaft", the precursor of the AachenMünchener insurance company, for charity. In March, the prince chose to use the donation to found the first Prussian institute of technology somewhere in the Rhine province. The seat of the institution remained undecided over years; while the prince initially favored Koblenz, the cities of Aachen, Bonn, Cologne and Düsseldorf also applied, with Aachen and Cologne being the main competitors. Aachen finally won with a financing concept backed by the insurance company and by local banks. Groundbreaking for the new "Polytechnikum" took place on 15 May 1865 and lectures started during the Franco-Prussian War on 10 October 1870 with 223 students and 32 teachers. The new institution had as its primary purpose the education of engineers, especially for the mining industry in the Ruhr area; there were schools of chemistry, electrical and mechanical engineering as well as an introductory "general school" that taught mathematics and natural sciences and some social sciences.


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: The unclear position of the new Prussian "polytechnika" (which officially were not universities) affected the first years. Polytechnics lacked prestige in society and the number of students decreased. This began to change in 1880 when the early RWTH, amongst others, was reorganized as a "Royal Technical University", gained a seat in the Prussian House of Lords and finally won the right to bestow Dr.-Ing. (1899) degrees and Dipl.-Ing. titles (introduced in 1902). In the same year, over 800 male students enrolled. In 1909 the first women were admitted and the artist August von Brandis succeeded Alexander Frenz at the Faculty of Architecture as a "professor of figure and landscape painting", Brandis became dean in 1929.


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: World War I, however, proved a serious setback for the university. Many students voluntarily joined up and died in the war, and parts of the university were shortly occupied or confiscated.


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: While the (then no more royal) "TH Aachen" (Technische Hochschule Aachen) flourished in the 1920s with the introduction of more independent faculties, of several new institutes and of the general students' committee, the first signs of nationalist radicalization also became visible within the university. Nazi Germany's "Gleichschaltung" of the TH in 1933 met with relatively low resistance from both students and faculty. Beginning in September 1933, Jewish and (alleged) Communist professors (and from 1937 on also students) were systematically persecuted and excluded from the university. Vacant Chairs were increasingly given to NSDAP party-members or sympathizers. The freedom of research and teaching became severely limited, and institutes important for the regime's plans were systematically established, and existing chairs promoted. Briefly closed in 1939, the TH continued courses in 1940, although with a low number of students. On 21 October 1944, when Aachen capitulated, more than 70% of all buildings of the university were destroyed or heavily damaged.


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: After World War II ended in 1945 the university recovered and expanded quickly. In the 1950s, many professors who had been removed because of their alleged affiliation with the Nazi party were allowed to return and a multitude of new institutes were founded. By the late 1960s, the TH had 10,000 students, making it the foremost of all German technical universities. With the foundation of philosophical and medical faculties in 1965 and 1966, respectively, the university became more "universal". The newly founded faculties in particular began attracting new students, and the number of students almost doubled twice from 1970 (10,000) to 1980 (more than 25,000) and from 1980 to 1990 (more than 37,000). Now, the average number of students is around 42,000, with about one third of all students being women. By relative terms, the most popular study-programs are engineering (57%), natural science (23%), economics and humanities (13%) and medicine (7%).


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: In December 2006, RWTH Aachen and the Sultanate of Oman signed an agreement to establish a private German University of Technology in Muscat. Professors from Aachen aided in developing the curricula for the currently five study-programs and scientific staff took over some of the first courses.


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: In 2007, RWTH Aachen was chosen as one of nine German Universities of Excellence for its future concept "RWTH 2020: Meeting Global Challenges", earning it the connotation of being a "University of Excellence". However, although the list of universities honored for their future concepts mostly consists of large and already respected institutions, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research claimed that the initiative aimed at promoting universities with a dedicated future concept so they could continue researching on an international level. Having won funds in all three lines of funding, the process brought RWTH Aachen University an additional total funding of € 180 million from 2007–2011. The other two lines of funding were graduate schools, where the "Aachen Institute for Advanced Study in Computational Engineering Science" received funding and so-called "clusters of excellence", where RWTH Aachen managed to win funding for the three clusters: "Ultra High-Speed Mobile Information and Communication (UMIC)", "Integrative Production Technology for High-wage Countries" and "Tailor-Made Fuels from Biomass (TMFB)".


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: RWTH was selected to receive funding from the German federal and state governments for the third Universities of Excellence funding line starting 2019. RWTH's proposal was called "The Integrated Interdisciplinary University of Science and Technology – Knowledge. Impact. Networks." and has secured funding for a seven-year period.


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: RWTH was already awarded funding in the first and second Universities of Excellence funding lines, in 2007 and 2012 respectively.


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: RWTH Aachen University's campus is located in the north-western part of the city Aachen. There are two core areas – midtown and Melaten district. The Main Building, SuperC student's center and the Kármán Hall are 500 m away from the city centre with the Aachen Cathedral, the Audimax (biggest lecture hall) and the main refectory are 200 m farther. Other points of interest include the university's botanical garden (Botanischer Garten Aachen).


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: A new building, the so-called "Central Auditorium for Research and Learning" (CARL) was opened in 2017. It offers space for 4000 students and replaces Audimax as the largest lecture hall building. The name of the new central auditorium, which is going to contain different lecture halls, is a reference to Charlemagne, who reigned his empire from Aachen in the middle-ages.


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: The RWTH has external facilities in Jülich and Essen and owns, together with the University of Stuttgart, a house in Kleinwalsertal in the Austrian Alps.


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: The university is currently expanding in the city center and Melaten district. The SuperC, the new central service building for students, was opened in 2008. The groundbreaking for the new "Campus-Melaten" was in 2009.


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: Double degrees and student mobility are promoted with other technology universities through the TIME (Top Industrial Managers for Europe) network. Furthermore, the RWTH is member of the IDEA League, which is a strategic partnership among four of Europe's leading research universities, including TU Delft, Chalmers University of Technology, and ETH Zürich, and was the first German university starting an Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program in 2008.


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: Compared to other German universities the RWTH Aachen received the highest amount of funds granted by third-party donors in the last years.


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: More than 7,000 international students are currently enrolled within the undergraduate, graduate or PhD programme. Compared to other German universities the portion of international students at the RWTH Aachen is higher-than-average. The proximity of Aachen to the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg combined with the subsequent exposure to a variety of cultural heritages has placed RWTH Aachen University in a unique position with regards to the reflection and promotion of international aspects and intensive interaction with other universities.


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: The RWTH Aachen took 3rd place in 2018 based on the number of top managers in the Germany economy measured by the number of DAX board of management members. In 2019, RWTH Aachen took 2nd place. The top 3 universities in 2019 with the most top managers were the LMU Munich, the RWTH Aachen and the Technische Universität Darmstadt.


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: According to the "Stepstone Salary Report for Graduates 2019/2020", graduates of RWTH Aachen are amongst the highest earners in Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. From 2001 to 2013, national rankings regularly identified RWTH Aachen as one of the best universities in Germany in the fields of engineering (especially mechanical engineering, electrical engineering), as well as amongst the top three in computer science, physics, chemistry, and medicine.


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: The 2019 QS World University Rankings ranked the university 19th in the world in "engineering – mechanical, aeronautical & manufacturing" (by subject) and 44th in "engineering and technology".


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: In 2009, two prominent German newspapers, "Handelsblatt" and "Wirtschaftswoche", ranked RWTH Aachen the first place in Germany in the fields of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, industrial engineering, and computer science. In 2012, Handelsblatt ranked The RWTH School of Business and Economics amongst top 10 within Germany. In the 2015 ranking published by DAAD together with Centre for Higher Education Development and Die Zeit, RWTH Aachen also stands on top among other German universities in the aforementioned fields of engineering and computer science.


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: Internationally, in the 2020 QS Faculty Rankings RWTH Aachen is placed 20 (Mechanical Engineering), 34 (Electrical Engineering), =40 (Physics & Astronomy), 36 (Chemical Engineering), 21 (Materials Science), =42 (Chemistry), =26 (Mineral and Mining Engineering. The 2019 The Times Higher Education Subject Rankings ranked RWTH 27th in "Engineering and Technology", 72nd in "Physical Sciences," 47th in "Computer Science".


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: Almost all basic lectures are held in German, but an increasing number of master programs require proficiency in English for admission.


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: North Rhine-Westphalia. Since the summer semester of 2004 the state of North Rhine-Westphalia allowed universities to request a maximum of €500 per semester as tuition fees. In the past, tuition fees applied solely for long-term students and second studies. Since the summer semester of 2007, all students enrolled at the RWTH Aachen had to pay these €500, if they were not exempt for one of several reasons put forth by the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: Since 24 February 2011 study fees were abolished by the Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia (Legislation for the Improvement of Equal Opportunities to University Admission) with effect from Winter Term 2011/12. Universities will receive 249 Mio Euro of national funding for measures that improve the quality of teaching (e.g., through additional teachers and tutors) as compensation. Tuition fees per semester are still being charged.


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: Faculty nine was pedagogical sciences, but it was abandoned in 1989. Teacher education, however, continued.


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: The university cooperates with the Fraunhofer-Institutes situated in the Melaten district of Aachen. The institutes offer workshops, courses and lectures for the students of RWTH Aachen.


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: The "Jülich-Aachen Research Alliance" (JARA) was founded by the RWTH Aachen and Forschungszentrum Jülich in 2007. Five sections are coordinated by the research facilities:


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: The Aachen Institute for advanced study in Computational Engineering Science (AICES) is a graduate school established in 2006 under the German Universities Excellence Initiative at the RWTH Aachen University. Research at AICES is broadly in the area of Computational engineering, solving inverse problems that find applications in mathematics, computer science and engineering, mechanical engineering and natural sciences. AICES is a collaborative effort of 47 principal investigators from 8 academic divisions of RWTH Aachen University, as well as Max Planck Institute for Iron Research and Forschungszentrum Jülich.


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: RWTH Aachen University has educated several notable individuals, including some Nobel laureates in physics and chemistry.


title: RWTH Aachen University

text: The scientists and alumni of the RWTH Aachen played a major role in chemistry, medicine, electrical, and mechanical engineering. For example, Nobel laureate Peter Debye received a degree in electrical engineering from RWTH Aachen and is known for the Debye model and Debye relaxation. Another example, Helmut Zahn and his team of the Institute for Textile Chemistry were the first who synthesised insulin in 1963 and they were nominated for Nobel Prize. Another example is B.J. Habibie, the third President of Indonesia that contributed in many aviation advancements. Franz Josef Och was the chief architect of Google Translate. Werner Tietz is one of the leading engineers of the Volkswagen Group and Vice President of SEAT.


title: National Unity Government of Myanmar

text: The National Unity Government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar (; abbreviated NUG) is a Myanmar government in exile formed by the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), a group of elected lawmakers and members of parliament ousted in the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état. The European Parliament has recognized the NUG as the legitimate government of Myanmar. It includes representatives of the National League for Democracy (the deposed ruling party of former state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi), ethnic minority insurgent groups, and various minor parties. The State Administration Council—the country's ruling military junta—has declared the NUG illegal and a terrorist organization.


title: National Unity Government of Myanmar

text: In May 2021, the NUG announced the formation of a "People's Defense Force", and in September the launch of a "defensive war" and nation-wide revolution against the military junta. As of September 2021, the NUG had established representative offices in the United States, United Kingdom, Norway, France, Czech Republic, Australia, and South Korea. On 1 February 2022, the Foreign Affairs Ministry of the NUG appointed as the first representative to Japan.


title: National Unity Government of Myanmar

text: Following the 1 February 2021 military coup, a Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (the Myanmar legislature) was created by members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) who had been elected as lawmakers in the 2020 general election. It claimed to be the legitimate legislative authority for Myanmar. It named a set of office-holders of the National Unity Government on 16 April, which included members of the NLD, other parties and independents.


title: National Unity Government of Myanmar

text: The NUG immediately sought international recognition as the government of Myanmar and gained a lot of support from the people of Myanmar. When the NUG was announced, its designated minister for home affairs and immigration, Lwin Ko Latt, stated that he expected recognition by several countries soon. The International Trade Union Confederation called for recognition of the NUG by governments and the United Nations, and the ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights, a group of pro-human rights lawmakers within ASEAN countries, called on ASEAN to invite the NUG to the ASEAN Leaders Meeting on 24 April rather than representatives of the military junta.


title: National Unity Government of Myanmar

text: On 5 May 2021, the NUG announced the formation of "People's Defense Force" as its armed wing to launch an armed revolution against the military junta, which designated it a terrorist organization on 8 May.


title: National Unity Government of Myanmar

text: On 7 September 2021, the NUG announced the launch of a defensive war against the military junta, and urged the citizens to revolt against the junta in every corner of the country.


title: National Unity Government of Myanmar

text: On 6 October 2021, Malaysia's foreign minister Saifuddin Abdullah warned the Burmese military it was prepared to hold official talks with the NUG if the military did not cooperate with the terms of ASEAN's five-point consensus. On October 24, the Foreign Affairs Ministry appointed Bo Hla Tint, who served as a minister in the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, as an ambassador to ASEAN.


title: National Unity Government of Myanmar

text: On 26 April 2022, Lwin Ko Latt, the Minister of Home Affairs and Immigration, announced the formation of the Bureau of Special Intelligence. The announcement also mentioned that due to arbitrary arrests, torture, killings, and other fascist acts by the terrorist military council in the country through the exercise of people's power, the Bureau of Special Intelligence was set up to build national security that would ensure the social security and socio-economic development of the people while preventing violence.


title: National Unity Government of Myanmar

text: On 7 September 2022, NUG acting president Duwa Lashi La stated that the regime had lost control of half of the country, noting that NUG had formed over 300 PDF battalions, and township public defence forces in 250 of the country's townships, while approximately 1,500 resistance fighers had died since the coup.


title: National Unity Government of Myanmar

text: In April 2021, Building and Wood Workers' International announced its support of NUG and called for the international community to recognise NUG's legitimacy.


title: National Unity Government of Myanmar

text: In September 2021, in the lead up to the 76th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), the UN had been expected to make a formal decision on recognizing the legitimate government of Myanmar. Ahead of the UNGA, major global labour unions issued a statement calling for a global day of action for Myanmar, specifically calling on international governments to recognise NUG and for humanitarian assistance to be provided solely thru NUG channels. A behind-the-scenes compromise between China and the US prevented the Burmese military's representatives from attending the UNGA session, effectively forestalling a decision to replace Kyaw Moe Tun, the incumbent Permanent Representative of Myanmar who represents the NUG. As of 24 November 2022, the United Nations list of Heads of State, Heads of Government, and Ministers for Foreign Affairs of all Member States continues to list Win Myint as President of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and Aung San Suu Kyi as Minister of Foreign Affairs.


title: National Unity Government of Myanmar

text: On 5 October 2021, the French Senate unanimously passed a resolution to formally recognize the NUG as the official government of Myanmar, and sent it to the National Assembly for passage. On 7 October 2021, the European Parliament adopted a resolution that recognizes the CRPH and the NUG as the only legitimate representatives of Myanmar.


title: National Unity Government of Myanmar

text: Since ASEAN implemented the Five-Point Consensus with respect to the Myanmar situation in April 2021, the military-led State Administration Council has not honoured its commitment to the peace plan. ASEAN member states, particularly Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia, have publicly expressed their dissatisfaction with SAC's continued intransigence. In May 2022, Malaysia's foreign minister, Saifuddin Abdullah, publicly called on ASEAN member states to begin informally engaging NUG. The suggestion prompted a protest from SAC. On 20 September 2022, Malaysia became the first ASEAN member state to publicly engage with the competing NUG.


title: Sierra Club

text: The Sierra Club is an environmental organization with chapters in all 50 United States, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by Scottish-American preservationist John Muir, who became the first president as well as the longest-serving president, at approximately 20 years in this leadership position. The Sierra Club operates only in the United States and holds the legal status of 501(c)(4) nonprofit social welfare organization. Sierra Club Canada is a separate entity.


title: Sierra Club

text: Traditionally associated with the progressive movement, the club was one of the first large-scale environmental preservation organizations in the world, and currently engages in lobbying politicians to promote environmentalist policies. Recent focuses of the club include promoting sustainable energy and mitigating global warming, as well as opposition to the use of coal, hydropower and nuclear power. The club is known for its political endorsements, which are often sought after by candidates in local elections; it generally supports liberal and progressive candidates in elections.


title: Sierra Club

text: The Sierra Club is organized on both a national and state level with chapters named for the 50 states and two U.S. territories (Puerto Rico and Washington D.C.) California is the lone state to have numerous chapters named for California counties. The club chapters allow for regional groups and committees, some of which have many thousands of members. These chapters further allow for special interest sections (ex. Camera, Outings), committees (conservation and political), and task forces on a single issue with some kind of geography involved. While much activity is coordinated at a local level, the club is a unified organization; decisions made at the national level take precedence, including the removal and creation of Chapters, as well as recruiting and removing members.


title: Sierra Club

text: In addition to political advocacy, the Sierra Club organizes outdoor recreation activities, and has historically been a notable organization for mountaineering and rock climbing in the United States. Members of the Sierra Club pioneered the Yosemite Decimal System of climbing, and were responsible for a substantial amount of the early development of climbing. Much of this activity occurred in the group's namesake Sierra Nevada. The Sierra Club does not set standards for or regulate alpinism, but it organizes wilderness courses, hikes, and occasional alpine expeditions for members. In California, the club, through its outdoor recreation groups, is usually considered the state's analogue to other state mountaineering clubs such as Mazamas, The Mountaineers, or the Colorado Mountain Club.


title: Sierra Club

text: The Sierra Club's stated mission is "To explore, enjoy, and protect the wild places of the earth; To practice and promote the responsible use of the earth's ecosystems and resources; To educate and enlist humanity to protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environment; and to use all lawful means to carry out these objectives."


title: Sierra Club

text: The Sierra Club is governed by a 15-member Board of Directors. Each year, five directors are elected to three-year terms, and all club members are eligible to vote. A president is elected annually by the Board from among its members. The Executive Director runs the day-to-day operations of the group. Michael Brune, formerly of Rainforest Action Network, has served as the organization's executive director since 2010. Brune succeeded Carl Pope. Pope stepped down amid discontent that the group had strayed from its core principles.


title: Sierra Club

text: Sierra Club members belong to statewide chapters and local groups. National and local special-interest sections, committees, and task forces address particular issues. The national Sierra Club sets the organization's policy agenda and overarching rules.


title: Sierra Club

text: The club is known for engaging in two main activities: promoting and guiding outdoor recreational activities, which is done throughout the United States but primarily in California (especially Southern California), and political activism to promote environmental causes. Sierra Club has been described as one of the United States' "leading environmental organizations." The Sierra Club makes endorsements of individual candidates for elected office.


title: Sierra Club

text: Journalist Robert Underwood Johnson had worked with John Muir on the successful campaign to create a large Yosemite National Park surrounding the much smaller state park which had been created in 1864. This campaign succeeded in 1890. As early as 1889, Johnson had encouraged Muir to form an "association" to help protect the Sierra Nevada, and preliminary meetings were held to plan the group. Others involved in the early planning included artist William Keith, Willis Linn Jepson, Warren Olney, Willard Drake Johnson, Joseph LeConte and David Starr Jordan.


title: Sierra Club

text: In May 1892, the young botany professor, Willis Linn Jepson from the University of California, Berkeley helped Muir and attorney Warren Olney launched the new organization modeled after the eastern Appalachian Mountain Club. The charter members of the Sierra Club elected Muir president, an office he held until his death in 1914.


title: Sierra Club

text: The first goals of the club included establishing Glacier and Mount Rainier national parks, convincing the California legislature to give Yosemite Valley to the U.S. federal government, and preserving coastal redwood forests of California.


title: Sierra Club

text: Muir escorted President Theodore Roosevelt through Yosemite in 1903, and two years later the California legislature ceded Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove to the federal government. The Sierra Club won its first lobbying victory with the creation of the country's second national park, after Yellowstone in 1872.


title: Sierra Club

text: In 2020, in wake of the George Floyd protests and subsequent public reconciliation of systematic racism in public history, the Sierra Club described their own early history as intermingled with racism. In particular, the early Sierra Club favored the needs of white members to the exclusion of people of color, and Muir and some of his associates, such as Joseph LeConte, David Starr Jordan, and Henry Fairfield Osborn were closely related to the early eugenics movement in the United States. Osborn cofounded the American Eugenics Society, which called Jews and other non-whites as racially inferior to white people.


title: Sierra Club

text: In the first decade of the 1900s, the Sierra Club became embroiled in the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir controversy that divided preservationists from "resource management" conservationists. In the late 19th century, the city of San Francisco was rapidly outgrowing its limited water supply, which depended on intermittent local springs and streams. In 1890, San Francisco mayor James D. Phelan proposed to build a dam and aqueduct on the Tuolumne River, one of the largest southern Sierra rivers, as a way to increase and stabilize the city's water supply.


title: Sierra Club

text: Gifford Pinchot, a progressive supporter of public utilities and head of the US Forest Service, which then had jurisdiction over the national parks, supported the creation of the Hetch Hetchy dam. Muir appealed to his friend U.S. President Roosevelt, who would not commit himself against the dam, given its popularity with the people of San Francisco (a referendum in 1908 confirmed a seven-to-one majority in favor of the dam and municipal water). Muir and attorney William Edward Colby began a national campaign against the dam, attracting the support of many eastern conservationists. With the 1912 election of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, who carried San Francisco, supporters of the dam had a friend in the White House.


title: Sierra Club

text: The bill to dam Hetch Hetchy passed Congress in 1913, and so the Sierra Club lost its first major battle. In retaliation, the club supported creation of the National Park Service in 1916, to remove the parks from Forest Service oversight. Stephen Mather, a Club member from Chicago and an opponent of the Hetch Hetchy dam, became the first National Park Service director.


title: Sierra Club

text: During the 1920s and 1930s, the Sierra Club functioned as a social and recreational society, conducting outings, maintaining trails and building huts and lodges in the Sierra. Preservation campaigns included a several-year effort to enlarge Sequoia National Park (achieved in 1926) and over three decades of work to protect and then preserve Kings Canyon National Park (established in 1940). Historian Stephen Fox notes, "In the 1930s most of the three thousand members were middle-aged Republicans."


title: Sierra Club

text: The New Deal brought many conservationists to the Democratic Party, and many Democrats entered the ranks of conservationists. Leading the generation of Young Turks who revitalized the Sierra Club after World War II were attorneys Richard Leonard and Bestor Robinson, nature photographer Ansel Adams, and David Brower.


title: Sierra Club

text: Adams sponsored Brower for membership in the club, and he was appointed to the editorial board of the "Sierra Club Bulletin." After World War II Brower returned to his job with the University of California Press, and began editing the "Sierra Club Bulletin" in 1946.


title: Sierra Club

text: In 1950, the Sierra Club had some 7,000 members, mostly on the West Coast. That year the Atlantic chapter became the first formed outside California. An active volunteer board of directors ran the organization, assisted by a small clerical staff. Brower was appointed the first executive director in 1952, and the club began to catch up with major conservation organizations such as the National Audubon Society, National Wildlife Federation, The Wilderness Society, and Izaak Walton League, which had long had professional staff.


title: Sierra Club

text: The Sierra Club secured its national reputation in the battle against the Echo Park Dam in Dinosaur National Monument in Utah, which had been announced by the Bureau of Reclamation in 1950. Brower led the fight, marshaling support from other conservation groups. Brower's background in publishing proved decisive; with the help of publisher Alfred Knopf, "This Is Dinosaur" was rushed into press. Invoking the specter of Hetch Hetchy, conservationists effectively lobbied Congress, which deleted the Echo Park dam from the Colorado River project as approved in 1955. Recognition of the Sierra Club's role in the Echo Park dam victory boosted membership from 10,000 in 1956 to 15,000 in 1960.


title: Sierra Club

text: The Sierra Club was now truly a national conservation organization, and preservationists took the offensive with wilderness proposals. The club's Biennial Wilderness Conferences, launched in 1949 in concert with The Wilderness Society, became an important force in the campaign that secured passage of the Wilderness Act in 1964, marking the first time that public lands (9.1 million acres) were permanently protected from development. Grand Teton National Park and Olympic National Park were also enlarged at the Sierra Club’s urging.


title: Sierra Club

text: In 1960, Brower launched the Exhibit Format book series with "This Is the American Earth", and in 1962 "In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World", with color photographs by Eliot Porter. These coffee-table books, published by their Sierra Club Books division, introduced the Sierra Club to a wider audience. Fifty thousand copies were sold in the first four years, and by 1960 sales exceeded $10 million. Soon Brower was publishing two new titles a year in the Exhibit Format series, but not all did as well as "In Wildness." Although the books were successful in introducing the public to wilderness preservation and the Sierra Club, they lost money for the organization, some $60,000 a year after 1964. Financial management became a matter of contention between Brower and his board of directors.


title: Sierra Club

text: The Sierra Club's most publicized crusade of the 1960s was the effort to stop the Bureau of Reclamation from building two dams that would flood portions of the Grand Canyon. The book "Time and the River Flowing: Grand Canyon" authored by Francois Leydet was published in the Exhibit Format book series. Opposing the Bridge Canyon and Marble Canyon dam projects, full-page ads the club placed in "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post" in 1966 exclaimed, "This time it's the Grand Canyon they want to flood," and asked, "Should we also flood the Sistine Chapel so tourists can get nearer the ceiling?" The ads generated a storm of protest to the Congress, prompting the Internal Revenue Service to announce it was suspending the Sierra Club's 501(c)(3) status pending an investigation. The board had taken the precaution of setting up the Sierra Club Foundation as a (c)(3) organization in 1960 for endowments and contributions for educational and other non-lobbying activities. Even so, contributions to the club dropped off, aggravating its annual operating deficits. Membership, however, climbed sharply in response to the investigation into the legitimacy of the society's tax status by the IRS from 30,000 in 1965 to 57,000 in 1967 and 75,000 in 1969.


title: Sierra Club

text: The victory over the dam projects and challenges from the IRS did not come without costs. To make up for the power that would have been produced by the dams, the Sierra Club actually advocated for coal power plants. The result of the campaign and its trade-off was, in the words of historian Andrew Needham, that "the Grand Canyon became protected, sacred space," while "the Navajo Reservation"—which housed some of the main power plants picking up the slack—"became increasingly industrial."


title: Sierra Club

text: Despite the club's success in blocking plans for the Grand Canyon dams and weathering the transition from 501(c)(3) to 501(c)(4) status, tension grew over finances between Brower and the board of directors. The club's annual deficits rose from $100,000 in 1967 and 1968 to some $200,000 in 1969. Another conflict occurred over the club's policy toward the nuclear power plant to be constructed by Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) at Diablo Canyon near San Luis Obispo, California. Although the club had played the leading role blocking PG&E's nuclear power plant proposed for Bodega Bay, California in the early 1960s, that case had been built around the local environmental impact and earthquake danger from the nearby San Andreas fault, not from opposition to nuclear power itself. In exchange for moving the new proposed site from the environmentally sensitive Nipomo Dunes to Diablo Canyon, the board of directors voted to support PG&E's plan for the power plant. A membership referendum in 1967 upheld the board's decision. But Brower concluded that nuclear power at any location was a mistake, and he voiced his opposition to the plant, contrary to the club's official policy. As pro- and anti-Brower factions polarized, the annual election of new directors reflected the conflict. Brower's supporters won a majority in 1968, but in the April 1969 election the anti-Brower candidates won all five open positions. Ansel Adams and president Richard Leonard, two of his closest friends on the board, led the opposition to Brower, charging him with financial recklessness and insubordination and calling for his ouster as executive director. The board voted ten to five to accept Brower's resignation. Eventually reconciled with the club, Brower was elected to the board of directors for a term from 1983 to 1988, and again from 1995 to 2000. Brower resigned from the board in 2000.


title: Sierra Club

text: Michael McCloskey, hired by Brower in 1961 as the club's first northwest field representative, became the club's second executive director in 1969. An administrator attentive to detail, McCloskey had set up the club's conservation department in 1965 and guided the campaigns to save the Grand Canyon and establish Redwoods National Park and North Cascades National Park. During the 1970s, McCloskey led the club's legislative activity—preserving Alaskan lands and eastern wilderness areas, and supporting the new environmental agenda: the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976, the Clean Air Act amendments, and the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977, passed during the administration of President Jimmy Carter. Efforts of the Sierra Club and others—including Black community organizers who fought against destructive “urban renewal” projects—lead to passage of the National Environmental Policy Act and the Water Pollution Control Act.


title: Sierra Club

text: The Sierra Club formed a political committee and made its first presidential endorsement in 1984 in support of Walter Mondale's unsuccessful campaign to unseat Ronald Reagan. McCloskey resigned as executive director in 1985 after years (the same length of time Brower had led the organization), and assumed the title of chairman, becoming the club's senior strategist, devoting his time to conservation policy rather than budget planning and administration. After a two-year interlude with Douglas Wheeler, whose Republican credentials were disconcerting to liberal members, the club hired Michael Fischer, the former head of the California Coastal Commission, who served as executive director from 1987 to 1992. Carl Pope, formerly the club's legislative director, was named executive director in 1992.


title: Sierra Club

text: In the 1990s, club members Jim Bensman, Roger Clarke, David Dilworth, Chad Hanson and David Orr along with about 2,000 members formed the John Muir Sierrans (JMS), an internal caucus, to promote changes to club positions. They favored a zero-cut forest policy on public lands and, a few years later, decommissioning Glen Canyon Dam. JMS was successful in changing club positions on both counts.


title: Sierra Club

text: In 2008, several Sierra Club officers quit in protest after the Sierra Club agreed to promote products by Clorox, which had been named one of a "dangerous dozen" chemical companies by the Public Interest Research Group in 2004. According to Carl Pope, the Sierra Club chairman, the deal brought the club US$1.3 million over the four-year term of the contract. In November 2011, Sierra Club chairman Carl Pope stepped down amid discontent about the Clorox deal and other issues.


title: Sierra Club

text: Between 2007 and 2010, the Sierra Club accepted over US$25 million in donations from the gas industry, mostly from Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy, a large gas drilling company involved in fracking.


title: Sierra Club

text: In January 2013, executive director Michael Brune announced that the Sierra Club would officially participate in the first civil disobedience action in its 120-year history as part of the ongoing protest calling on the Obama administration to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, stating, "We are watching a global crisis unfold before our eyes, and to stand aside and let it happen—even though we know how to stop it—would be unconscionable." On 13 February 2013, Brune was arrested along with forty-eight people, including civil rights leader Julian Bond and NASA climate scientist James Hansen.


title: Sierra Club

text: In May 2015, the Sierra Club appointed its first black president of the board of directors, Aaron Mair.


title: Sierra Club

text: The Sierra Club endorsed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. It endorsed Joe Biden in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, citing its opposition to Donald Trump's environmental deregulation.


title: Sierra Club

text: The interim executive director (as of October, 2022) is Loren Blackford. Former NAACP director Ben Jealous will assume the position of executive director in January, 2023.


title: Sierra Club

text: In 1901, William Colby organized the first Sierra Club excursion to Yosemite Valley. The annual High Trips were led by mountaineers such as Francis P. Farquhar, Joseph Nisbet LeConte, Norman Clyde, Walter A. Starr, Jr., Jules Eichorn, Glen Dawson, Ansel Adams, and David R. Brower. A number of first ascents in the Sierra Nevada were made on Sierra Club outings. Sierra Club members were also early enthusiasts of rock climbing. In 1911, the first chapter was formed, Angeles, and it began conducting local excursions in the mountains surrounding Los Angeles and throughout the West. Steve Roper's "Fifty Classic Climbs of North America", sponsored and published by the Sierra Club, is still considered one of the definitive rock climbing guidebooks in the United States. The Wilderness Travel Course is a basic mountaineering class that is administered by the Sierra Club.


title: Sierra Club

text: Due to an increasing focus on political activity and concerns about financial liability, mountaineering activity in the Sierra Club has subsided since the 1980s. Some chapters, mostly in California, continue to maintain large mountaineering programs. The club currently occasionally awards the Francis P. Farquhar Mountaineering Award to outstanding member mountaineers.


title: Sierra Club

text: In World War II, a number of Sierra Club leaders joined the 10th Mountain Division.<ref name="http://sierraclub.org/outings"></ref> Among them was David R. Brower, who managed the High Trip program from 1947 to 1954, while serving as a major in the Army Reserve.


title: Sierra Club

text: In many areas of the country, Sierra Club also organizes hiking tours. Sierra Club's website has a "hiking near me" function. Section "Sierra Club Near You" shows all the upcoming trips in nearby area.


title: Sierra Club

text: The historic High Trips, sometimes large expeditions with more than a hundred participants and crew, have given way to smaller and more numerous excursions held across the United States and abroad. These outings form a major part of Sierra Club culture, and in some chapters, constitute the majority of member activity. Other chapters, however, may sponsor very few outdoor or recreational activities, being focused solely on political advocacy. Generally, chapters in California are much more active with regard to outdoor activities.


title: Sierra Club

text: The Sierra Club presents a number of annual awards, such as the Sierra Club John Muir Award, the Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Photography, the Francis P. Farquhar Mountaineering Award, the Edgar Wayburn Award for public officials, the Rachel Carson Award for journalists and writers, the William O. Douglas Award for legal work, and the EarthCare Award for international environmental protection and conservation.


title: Sierra Club

text: Land management, access, conservation are traditionally considered the core advocacy areas of the Sierra Club. Uniquely for a progressive organization, the Sierra Club has strong grassroots organization in rural areas, with much activity focused on ensuring equitable and environmentally-friendly use of public lands. This is particularly accentuated by the fact that the club attracts many people who primarily join the club for recreation and use of public land for hiking.


title: Sierra Club

text: Some Sierra Club members have urged the club to be more forceful in advocating for the protection of National Forests and other federally owned public lands. For example, in 2002 the club was criticized for joining with the Wilderness Society in agreeing to a compromise that would allow logging in the Black Hills in South Dakota.


title: Sierra Club

text: A goal of the Sierra Club is to replace coal with other energy sources. Through its "Beyond Coal" campaign, the Sierra Club has set a goal to close half of all coal plants in the U.S. by 2017. American business magnate and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg donated $50 million to the Sierra Club's anti-coal work in 2011, and announced another $30 million gift to Sierra's Beyond Coal campaign in 2015. The Beyond Coal campaign says 187 coal plants have been closed since 2010. Other funders of the Sierra Club's anti-coal campaign include the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The CEO of Chesapeake Energy, a natural gas company, donated $26 million to the Beyond Coal campaign between 2007 and 2010.


title: Sierra Club

text: The Sierra Club has lobbied against hydropower projects and large-scale dams. In lobbying against hydropower projects, the Sierra Club has expressed opposition to power lines and said that hydropower projects disrupt animal habitats.


title: Sierra Club

text: The Sierra Club opposes dams it considers inappropriate, including some government-built dams in national parks. In the early 20th century, the organization fought against the damming and flooding of the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park. Despite this lobbying, Congress authorized the construction of O'Shaughnessy Dam on the Tuolumne River. The Sierra Club continues to support removal of the dam.


title: Sierra Club

text: The Sierra Club advocates the decommissioning of Glen Canyon Dam and the draining of Lake Powell. The club also supports removal, breaching or decommissioning of many other dams, including four dams on the lower Snake River in eastern Washington. The Sierra Club opposes the importation of energy from Quebec's hydropower plants to New York, arguing that importing excess energy by the Quebec plants will cause environmental damage and lead to fewer in-state New York renewable energy projects.


title: Sierra Club

text: Some chapters of the Sierra Club have lobbied against solar power projects, whereas other chapters have defended solar power projects. The Sierra Club opposed the Battle Born Solar Project, the largest solar project in the U.S., citing its potential impact on desert tortoise habitats.


title: Sierra Club

text: In response to proposed reforms to streamline the permitting process for environmental projects amid concerns that environmental permitting reviews were delaying and blocking projects with a beneficial environmental impact, the Sierra Club expressed opposition to such reforms, arguing "Whatever the proposed project is — whether it’s a pipeline or a highway or a solar farm — it should be subject to the same commonsense review process. If we want these projects to move forward faster, we shouldn’t be weakening environmental laws, but investing more resources into the agencies and staff."


title: Sierra Club

text: The Sierra Club is a member of the BlueGreen Alliance, a coalition of environmental groups and labor unions. The BlueGreen Alliance was formed in 2006 and grew out of a less-formal collaboration between the Sierra Club and the United Steelworkers. In 2012, the Laborers' International Union of North America left the coalition due to the Sierra Club and other environmental groups' opposition to the Keystone Pipeline.


title: Sierra Club

text: Immigration was historically among the most divisive issues within the club. In 1996, after years of debate, the Sierra Club adopted a neutral position on immigration levels. As the club has shifted to the left over the years, this position was amended in 2013 to support "an equitable path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants".


title: Sierra Club

text: Although the position of the Sierra Club has generally been favorable towards immigration, some critics of the Sierra Club have charged that the efforts of some club members to restrain immigration, are a continuation of aspects of human population control and the eugenics movement. In 1969, the Sierra Club published Paul R. Ehrlich's book, "The Population Bomb", in which he said that population growth was responsible for environmental decline and advocated coercive measures to reduce it. Some observers have argued that the book had a "racial dimension" in the tradition of the Eugenics movement, and that it "reiterated many of Osborn's jeremiads."


title: Sierra Club

text: During the 1980s, some Sierra Club members, including Paul Ehrlich's wife Anne, wanted to take the club into the contentious field of immigration to the United States. The club's position was that overpopulation was a significant factor in the degradation of the environment. Accordingly, the club supported stabilizing and reducing U.S. and world population. Some members argued that, as a practical matter, U.S. population could not be stabilized, let alone reduced, at the then-current levels of immigration. They urged the club to support immigration reduction. The club had previously addressed the issue of "mass immigration", and in 1988, the organization's Population Committee and Conservation Coordinating Committee stated that immigration to the U.S. should be limited, so as to achieve population stabilization.


title: Sierra Club

text: Other Sierra Club members thought that the immigration issue was too far from the club's core environmentalist mission, and were also concerned that involvement would impair the organization's political ability to pursue its other objectives. In the mid 1990s, the club began gradually stepping away from the immigration restrictionist position, culminating with the board adopting a neutral position on immigration policy in 1996.  In 1998, 60.1% of Sierra Club voting members voted that the organization should remain neutral on America's immigration policies, while 39.2% supported a measure calling for stricter curbs on immigration to the United States.


title: Sierra Club

text: After the 1996 board policy adoption, some members who were advocates of immigration reduction organized themselves as "SUSPS", a name originally derived from "Sierrans for U.S. Population Stabilization", which now stands for "Support U.S. Population Stabilization." SUSPS advocates a return to the Sierra Club's "traditional" (1970–1996) immigration policy stance. SUSPS has called for fully closing the borders of the United States, and for returning to immigration levels established by the Immigration Act of 1924, which includes strict ethnic quotas. David Brower also cited the club's position shift on immigration as one of the reasons for his resignation from the board in 2000. Supporters of immigration reduction within the club also charged that the board had abandoned the restrictionist position on immigration due to donations from investor David Gelbaum, who reportedly gave $200 million to the club between the mid 1990s and early 2000s and threatened Carl Pope in the mid 1990s to cease donations if they did not change their position on immigration adopted in 1988.


title: Sierra Club

text: The controversy resurfaced when a group of three immigration reduction proponents ran in the 2004 Sierra Club Board of Directors election, hoping to move the club's position away from a neutral stance on immigration, and to restore the stance previously held. Groups outside of the club became involved, such as the Southern Poverty Law Center and MoveOn. Of the three candidates, two (Frank Morris and David Pimentel), were on the board of the anti-immigration group Diversity Alliance for a Sustainable America and two (Richard Lamm and Frank Morris) were on the board of directors or the board of advisors of the Federation for American Immigration Reform; both had also held leadership positions within the NAACP. Their candidacies were denounced by a fourth candidate, Morris Dees of the SPLC, as a "hostile takeover" attempt by "radical anti-immigrant activists." The immigration reduction proponents won 7% of all votes cast in the election. In 2005, members voted 102,455 to 19,898 against a proposed change to "recognize the need to adopt lower limits on migration to the United States."


title: Sierra Club

text: With the increased number of progressive activists joining the club in recent years, the Sierra Club has dramatically shifted its stance on immigration further towards the affirmative. Today, the Sierra Club supports a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, opposes a border wall and works with immigrant groups to promote environmental justice.


title: Sierra Club

text: The Sierra Club has come under criticism for opposing high-density housing development projects in California, which are intended to reduce the state's housing shortage and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Ethan Elkind, director of the climate program at the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE) at UC Berkeley Law, said that the Sierra Club's opposition to California Senate Bill 827 - which would require cities to allow denser and taller housing near public transport centers and ease the parking requirements that cities can impose on housing developments - was "surprising." He wrote, "is Sierra Club an organization of wealthy homeowners who want to keep newcomers out of their upscale, transit-rich areas? Or are they actually committed to fighting climate change by providing enough housing for Californians in low-carbon, infill areas? Because their opposition to SB 827 unfortunately indicates more of the former than the latter."


title: Sierra Club

text: In early 2021, a variety of pro-Palestinian organizations demanded that the Sierra Club cancel "greenwashing" trips to "apartheid" Israel. As a result, the Sierra Club announced cancellation of two forthcoming trips, but quickly reversed its decision,


title: Sierra Club

text: The Sierra Club Foundation was founded in 1960 by David R. Brower. A 501(c)(3) organization, it was founded after the Internal Revenue Service revoked the Sierra Club's tax-exempt status due to the group's political activities. The Sierra Club added its first Canadian chapter in 1963 and in 1989 opened a national office in Ottawa. Canadian affiliates of the Sierra Club operate under the Sierra Club Canada.


title: Sierra Club

text: In 1971, volunteer lawyers who had worked with the Sierra Club established the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund. This was a separate organization that used the "Sierra Club" name under license from the club; it changed its name to Earthjustice in 1997. The Sierra Student Coalition (SSC) is the student-run arm of the Sierra Club. Founded by Adam Werbach in 1991, it has 30,000 members. The Summer Program (SPROG) is a one-week leadership training program that teaches tools for environmental and social justice activism to young people across the country.


title: Sierra Club

text: The Sierra Club Voter Education Fund is a 527 group that became active in the 2004 Presidential election by airing television advertisements about the major party candidates' positions on environmental issues. Through the Environmental Voter Education Campaign (EVEC), the club sought to mobilize volunteers for phone banking, door-to-door canvassing and postcard writing to emphasize these issues in the campaign.


title: Sierra Club

text: The Sierra Club's annual budget was $88 million in 2011 and $100 million in 2012. In 2013, the group's budget was $97.8 million.


title: Sierra Club

text: In 2008, Clorox donated $1.3 million to the Sierra Club in exchange for the right to display the Sierra Club's logo on a line of cleaning products.


title: Sierra Club

text: In February 2012, it was reported that the Sierra Club had secretly accepted over $26 million in gifts from the natural gas industry, mostly from Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy. The Sierra Club used the Chesapeake Energy money for its Beyond Coal campaign to block new coal-fired power plants and close old ones. Michael Brune reported that he learned of the gifts after he succeeded Carl Pope as executive director of the Sierra Club in 2010. Brune reported that he ended the financial agreement with natural gas industry interests.


title: Sierra Club

text: In 2014, the Energy and Environment Legal Institute filed a referral with the Internal Revenue Service pointing out that Sierra Club and Sierra Club Foundation were not paying income taxes from sales of solar panels for their partners across the US.


title: Sierra Club

text: The Sierra Club has an affiliated super PAC. It spent $1,000,575 on the 2014 elections, all of it opposing Republican candidates for office. The Sierra Club is a partner of America Votes, an organization that coordinates and promotes progressive issues.


title: Sierra Club

text: Donors to the Sierra Club have included David Gelbaum, Michael Bloomberg, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The Sierra Club has also received funding from the Democracy Alliance and the Tides Foundation Advocacy Fund.


title: Sierra Club

text: In 2013 Naomi Klein wrote on the club taking large, multi-million dollar funding from fossil fuel interests, had begun to spark "major controversy" within it and other "environmental" groups that were in similar receipt of fossil funding.


title: Sierra Club

text: In 2015, a PR group, known as the Environmental Policy Alliance, claimed that the Sierra Club and other U.S. environmental groups received funding from groups with ties to Russia's state-owned oil company.


title: Sierra Club

text: In late 2020, Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming asked the Justice Department (DOJ) to investigate environmental groups such as the Sierra Club, saying that "robust political and judicial activism—combined with the fact that these groups often espouse views that align with those of our adversaries—makes it all the more critical that the Department is aware of any potential foreign influence within or targeting these groups."


title: Sierra Club

text: The Sierra Club has been criticized by anti-immigration groups such as the Center for Immigration Studies and the Federation for American Immigration Reform (both of which are designated as hate groups by the SPLC) for opposing Trump's plan of creating a wall on the United States' southern border. These groups claim that the Sierra Club has criticized the plan for purely partisan reasons and not actually due to any environmental concerns.


title: Tetraphobia

text: Tetraphobia () is the practice of avoiding instances of the digit . It is a superstition most common in East Asian nations.


title: Tetraphobia

text: The Chinese word for "four" (, pinyin: sì, jyutping: sei), sounds quite similar to the word for "death" (, pinyin: sǐ, jyutping: sei), in many varieties of Chinese. Similarly, the Sino-Japanese, Sino-Korean and Sino-Vietnamese words for "four", shi (し, Japanese) and sa (사, Korean), sound similar or identical to "death" in each language (see Korean numerals, Japanese numerals, Vietnamese numerals). Tetraphobia is known to occur in Korea and Japan since the two words sound identical, but not at all in Vietnam because they carry different tones (in the case of the word for "four", whether it is the Sino-Vietnamese reading "tứ" or the more common non-Sino-Vietnamese reading "tư", neither sounds like the word for "death" which is "tử") and Vietnamese does not use Sino-Vietnamese numerals as often in the first place.


title: Tetraphobia

text: Special care may be taken to avoid occurrences or reminders of the number 4 during everyday life, especially during festive holidays or when a family member is ill. Mentioning the number 4 around a sick relative is strongly avoided. Giving four of something is strongly discouraged. Elevators in Asia and Asian neighborhoods often skip the 4th floor. Military aircraft and ships also avoid the number 4 (such as in the South Korean and Taiwanese navies). Dates such as 4 April are also avoided for appointments and the like.


title: Tetraphobia

text: Similarly, , , , etc. are also to be avoided due to the presence of the digit 4 in these numbers. In these countries, these floor numbers are often skipped in buildings, ranging from hotels to offices to apartments, as well as hospitals. Table number 4, 14, 24, 42, etc. are also often left out in wedding dinners or other social gatherings in these countries. In many residential complexes, building block 4, 14, 24, etc. are either omitted or replaced with block 3A, 13A and 23A. Hospitals are of grave concern and the number 4 is regularly avoided altogether. Tetraphobia can dictate property prices. Neighborhoods have removed four from their street names and become more profitable as a result. In the same way, buildings with multiple fours can suffer price cuts. Four is also avoided in phone numbers, security numbers, business cards, addresses, ID numbers and other numbers and are considered severe as they are personally attached to the person.


title: Tetraphobia

text: Tetraphobia far surpasses triskaidekaphobia (Western superstitions around the number 13). It even permeates the business world in these regions of Asia.


title: Tetraphobia

text: Chinese is a tonal language with a comparatively small inventory of permitted syllables, resulting in an exceptionally large number of homophone words. Many of the numbers are homophones or near-homophones of other words and have therefore acquired superstitious meanings.


title: Tetraphobia

text: The Chinese avoid phone numbers and addresses with fours because the pronunciation in "four" and "death" differ only in tone, especially when a combination with another number sounds similar to undesirable expressions. Example: “94” could be interpreted as being dead for a long time.


title: Tetraphobia

text: The People's Republic of China makes free use of the number 4 in many military designations for People's Liberation Army equipment, with examples including the Dongfeng-4 ICBM, Type 094 submarine, and Type 054A frigate, although the practice of starting aircraft designations with 5 leads some to speculate that it avoids the starting numeral 4 for aircraft designations much as the United States avoids use of the number 13 in that context. By contrast, the navies of the Republic of China (Taiwan) and of South Korea refrain from using the number 4 when assigning pennant numbers to their ships.


title: Tetraphobia

text: While in Mandarin-speaking regions in China, 14 and 74 are considered more unlucky than the individual 4, because 14 (十四, pinyin: shí sì) sounds like "is dead" (是死, pinyin: shì sǐ) and because in some forms of the language, 1 is pronounced (yao) which sounds like (yào 要), which means will be, when combined, it sounds like will be dead. 74 (七十四, pinyin: qī shí sì) sounds like "is already dead" (其实死, pinyin: qī shí sǐ) or "will die in anger" (气死, pinyin: qì sǐ).