title: Lovefool

text: Tom Moon from "Knight-Ridder Newspapers" noted that the "mercilessly catchy" song "has become a rallying cry for jilted lovers everywhere." Sara Scribner from "Los Angeles Times" opined that Persson "begs for lies" on a "almost criminally catchy" tune. Bryan Lark from "The Michigan Daily" called it a "sugary sing-along". Thanos Lolis from "Miscellany News" said it is "three minutes of sparkly, ABBAesque disco, very danceable and very capable of making a global hit." He also described it as "catchy kitsch-in-sync". Pan-European magazine "Music & Media" stated that it's a "trademark Cardigans track", adding that "this energetic mid-tempo single suggests summertime follies and lazy craziness. The cheerful chorus hints at old time disco." A reviewer from "Music Week" rated it four out of five, commenting, "Prepare for world domination by these Swedish popsters, whose first single (...) takes their candy pop style and injects it with a distinct Seventies disco feel." Editor Alan Jones added, "It's a quaint and quirky pop nugget with a smooth, caressing vocal and a sublime hook. It seems certain to earn the group their biggest hit yet." Mark Sutherland from "NME" described it as "dizzy disco". A reviewer from "People" magazine labeled it as "boppy". Jason Cohen from "Rolling Stone" noted that Persson's "airy lack of affectation actually deepens her dark, romantic sentiments when she chirps cheerily about her status as a willingly deceived doormat". Charles Aaron from "Spin" called it "lounge music so chilly with irony that you better bring a sweater, binky." Nick Mirov from "The Stanford Daily" noted that Persson is "sounding self-assured and confident" when she is "getting her own heart broken". Jaime Holguin from "Star-News" viewed it as a "kitschy pop gem" and "sticky sweet". Ian Hyland from "Sunday Mirror" stated that it is the "best pop song" of 1997.


title: Lovefool

text: Justin Chadwick from Albumism said "Lovefool" is "one of the more exciting straight-ahead pop songs of the contemporary era", declaring it as "pure, exquisitely produced pop perfection." John Bush from AllMusic deemed it a "depressing lament of unrequited affection". Annie Zaleski from "The A.V. Club" described it as "giddy". Dave Fawbert from "ShortList" commented, "It’s one of the best things in life when a song comes along, you listen to it, and you just think: “Well, that’s perfect isn’t it?” Every little bit of this three minutes and 14 seconds is absolutely, utterly unimprovable, from the little bllllrrrrring guitar intro, all the way through to that gorgeous ritardando and final chord at the end. Impossibly stylish, groovy and ice cool, this is, you’ll be unsurprised to hear, still brilliant, fully 20 years on. The Swedes, they build things to last – Volvos and ‘Lovefool’, two sides of the same coin." Sal Cinquemani from "Slant" declared it as a "tongue-in-cheek smash", and noted that "Lovefool" "criminally crowned the band as one-hit wonders in the U.S." "Treblezine" wrote that "it’s not difficult to understand the effect of this song. It’s got that certain quality that digs right down into your being and glows with a precise sense of rhythm and pleasure."


title: Lovefool

text: "Lovefool" ranked 18th in "The Village Voice"s 1996 Pazz & Jop poll and 19th the following year. "Slant Magazine" listed the song number 40 on its "100 Best Singles of the 1990s" list, and "Pitchfork" ranked it number 66 on its "Top 200 Tracks of the 1990s" in 2010 and number 64 on its "The 250 Best Songs of the 1990s" in 2022. Treblezine placed the song at number 50 in their "Top 100 Singles of the ’90s" in 2007. In 2012, "Porcys" listed it at number two in their ranking of "100 Singles 1990-1999".


title: Lovefool

text: Three music videos were shot for the song. The first one for Europe—"much more bleak, much more our original style" says Nina Persson. "We had an actor playing a sort of handsome-man-love-interest of mine, and he was supposed to be a kind of gangster and the band played his gang members."


title: Lovefool

text: The second one was directed by Geoff Moore in New York. It features a man being lost on an island and putting a message in a bottle into the water. A woman implied to be his lover is shown on a dock reading a newspaper and at the end of the video receives and reads the message and smiles. The video also shows the band performing the song in what looks to be the interior of the bottle released by the man lost at sea, as well as Nina Persson looking out from the bottle's neck and later through a periscope at the woman. Midway through the song, the band is also interviewed by several scuba equipment-wearing reporters who descend from a ladder into the room.


title: Lovefool

text: The third and last music video was created to promote Baz Luhrmann's movie "Romeo + Juliet". Similar to the second music video, this video replaces some scenes with movie clips featuring Leonardo DiCaprio, Claire Danes and John Leguizamo.


title: Lovefool

text: The German electronic duo Twocolors recorded a cover of the song in 2020. It charted in Germany and many European charts. It topped the charts in Poland and achieved great success in post-Soviet countries, especially in Russia as well. A version of the song featuring American singer Pia Mia was released on 12 November 2020.


title: Kensington Palace Gardens

text: Kensington Palace Gardens is an exclusive street in Kensington, west of central London, near Kensington Gardens and Kensington Palace. Entered through gates at either end and guarded by sentry boxes, it was the location of the London Cage, the British government MI19 centre used during the Second World War and the Cold War. Several foreign diplomatic missions are located along it.


title: Kensington Palace Gardens

text: A tree-lined avenue half a mile long studded with embassies, Kensington Palace Gardens is one of the most expensive residential streets in the world, and has long been known as "Billionaires Row", due to the huge wealth of its private residents, although in fact the majority of its current occupants are either national embassies or ambassadorial residences. As of late-2018, market prices for a property in the street average over £35 million.


title: Kensington Palace Gardens

text: It connects Notting Hill Gate with Kensington High Street. The southern section of Kensington Palace Gardens is called Palace Green.


title: Kensington Palace Gardens

text: The road was originally called The Queen's Road and was renamed Kensington Palace Gardens around 1870 when plane trees were planted in the avenue. It was built from the 1840s onward on part of the grounds of Kensington Palace; the freehold still belongs to the Crown Estate. The palace, which is the residence of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, Duke and Duchess of Kent, and Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, fronts the southern part of the street on the eastern side. The houses at the northern end are mostly Italianate, while those at the southern end are mostly in the Queen Anne style. For much of the 20th century a large proportion of the houses were occupied by embassies and ambassadors' residences. Some still are, but others have been renovated by the Crown Estate and sold to private buyers on long leases. One of these was bought in 2004 by the Indian steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, who in 2008 was listed by "Forbes" magazine as the fourth richest man in the world. The sale was widely misreported at £70 million, before accurate figures were available from HM Land Registry, where records state that on 30 June 2004, 18–19 Kensington Palace Gardens, along with three mews houses at the rear of the property, sold for £57,145,967.


title: Kensington Palace Gardens

text: The mansion at 18 Kensington Palace Gardens, historically belonging to the Rothschild family, was sold in 2001.


title: Kensington Palace Gardens

text: No. 8 was used as an interrogation centre for German POWs during and after the Second World War and was known as the London Cage. The house was demolished in 1961 and replaced by a glass-and-steel block of four apartments designed by Richard Seifert and completed in 1964. Flat 3 was on the market in 2006 as a three-bedroom apartment designed by international architect David Chipperfield, valued at a minimum of £13.25 million through Knight Frank, which sold in March 2007 for £10.29m.


title: Kensington Palace Gardens

text: Diplomatic buildings on the street are: the Russian Embassy at Nos. 6–7; the Embassy of Nepal at No. 12A; the Embassy of Lebanon at No. 21; and the Embassy of Slovakia at No. 25. In Palace Green are the Embassy of Israel at No. 2 and the Embassy of Romania at No. 4. Egypt, Laos and the Philippines formerly had their embassies here. No. 11 has been the official residence of the French Ambassador since 1944; it was rebuilt after a fire in December 1990.


title: Kensington Palace Gardens

text: Due to the presence of likely terrorist targets—embassies etc., including those of Russia and Israel—both ends of the street have armed police checkpoints (Diplomatic Protection Group officers) with crash barriers as well as the original wrought-iron gates. Entry of pedestrians is not normally controlled, only vehicles. This has the side effect of leading to extremely low traffic volumes for a central London street. Some of the buildings occasionally set up barriers to keep vehicles at a distance.


title: Kensington Palace Gardens

text: No. 10 was designed by Philip Hardwick for Sutherland Hall Sutherland, and the first tenant was the civil engineer James Meadows Rendel, who probably became resident in early 1852, and died there in 1856. In 1862, Edmund Ernst Leopold Schlesinger Benzon, a German-born steel magnate, moved in and lived there until his death in 1873. In 1896, the financier Leopold Hirsch had "substantial alterations" made, designed by Leonard Stokes, and he was resident until at least 1904. No. 10 was home to the USSR Embassy from 1960 to 1986.


title: Kensington Palace Gardens

text: Sir Frederick Wills, 1st Baronet (1838–1909), a member of the Wills tobacco family, had a London residence at No. 9,


title: Kensington Palace Gardens

text: It is the residence of many ambassadors, including those of Saudi Arabia, UAE, and India. Famous residents included Israeli billionaire Noam Gottesman and Indian billionaire Lakshmi Mittal.


title: Kensington Palace Gardens

text: No. 16 is owned by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, a 15-bedroom mansion that he bought for £90 million in 2009. The house was built in 1846, and designed by T. H. Wyatt and D. Brandon for John Sperling of Norbury Park. In 1972, it was home to the Soviet Embassy.


title: Royal Rumble (2007)

text: The 2007 Royal Rumble was the 20th annual Royal Rumble professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). It was held for wrestlers from the promotion's Raw, SmackDown!, and ECW brand divisions. The event took place on January 28, 2007, at the AT&T Center in San Antonio, Texas. This marked the first time that the ECW brand participated at the Royal Rumble, which became WWE's third brand in mid-2006. As has been customary since 1993, the Royal Rumble match winner received a world championship match at that year's WrestleMania. For the 2007 event, the winner received their choice to challenge for either Raw's WWE Championship, SmackDown!'s World Heavyweight Championship, or the ECW World Championship at WrestleMania 23, marking the first time that three titles were an option.


title: Royal Rumble (2007)

text: Five professional wrestling matches were featured on the event's supercard, a scheduling of more than one main event. The main event was the 2007 Royal Rumble match, which featured wrestlers from all three brands. SmackDown!'s The Undertaker, the thirtieth entrant, won the match by last eliminating Raw's Shawn Michaels, the twenty-third entrant. The primary match on the Raw brand was a Last Man Standing match for the WWE Championship between John Cena and Umaga. Cena won the match and retained the title after Umaga was unable to get to his feet before the referee counted to ten. The predominant match on the SmackDown! brand was Batista versus Mr. Kennedy for the World Heavyweight Championship, which Batista won by pinfall after executing a Batista Bomb. The featured match on the ECW brand was between Bobby Lashley and Test for the ECW World Championship, which Lashley won after Test was counted out.


title: Royal Rumble (2007)

text: The Royal Rumble is an annual gimmick pay-per-view (PPV), produced every January by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) since 1988. It is one of the promotion's original four pay-per-views, along with WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series, dubbed the "Big Four". It is named after the Royal Rumble match, a modified battle royal in which the participants enter at timed intervals instead of all beginning in the ring at the same time. The 2007 event was the 20th event in the Royal Rumble chronology and was scheduled to be held on January 28, 2007, at the AT&T Center in San Antonio, Texas. It featured wrestlers from the Raw, SmackDown!, and ECW brands, which was the first Royal Rumble to include ECW, a relaunch of the former Extreme Championship Wrestling promotion that became WWE's third brand in May 2006.


title: Royal Rumble (2007)

text: The Royal Rumble match generally features 30 wrestlers and the winner traditionally earns a world championship match at that year's WrestleMania. For 2007, the winner could choose to challenge for either Raw's WWE Championship, SmackDown!'s World Heavyweight Championship, or the ECW World Championship at WrestleMania 23. This marked the first time that the ECW World Championship was a choice for the winner of the match, subsequently marking the first time that the winner had a choice between three world championships.


title: Royal Rumble (2007)

text: The card consisted of six matches, as well as one dark match. The matches resulted from scripted storylines, where wrestlers portrayed heroes, villains, or less distinguishable characters to build tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches. Results were predetermined by WWE's writers on the Raw, SmackDown, and ECW brands, with storylines produced on their weekly television shows, "Raw", "SmackDown", and "ECW".


title: Royal Rumble (2007)

text: The main feud heading into the Royal Rumble on Raw was between WWE Champion John Cena and Umaga. At the previous pay-per-view event, New Year's Revolution, Cena defeated Umaga to end his undefeated streak and retain the WWE Championship. The night after on "Raw", Armando Alejandro Estrada, Umaga's manager, asked for a rematch, which Cena agreed to. Later that night, during a match between Cena and The Great Khali, Umaga interfered and attacked Cena. The following week, the official contract signing for their rematch at the Royal Rumble took place. After it was announced that Estrada could choose the match type, Estrada chose the match to be a Last Man Standing match. Cena signed the contract and proceeded to attack both Umaga and Estrada. On the January 22 episode of "Raw", after Cena was eliminated from a Battle Royal, Umaga attacked Cena, and injured his spleen, which was portrayed as real as part of their storyline.


title: Royal Rumble (2007)

text: The predominant feud on the SmackDown! brand was between Batista and Mr. Kennedy, with the two battling over the World Heavyweight Championship. On the January 5 episode of "SmackDown!" a Beat the Clock Sprint began. Wrestlers competed in single matches, and the wrestler to win a match in the shortest amount of time would then become the number one contender to the World Heavyweight Championship at the Royal Rumble. Mr. Kennedy, who defeated Chris Benoit in nearly five minutes, had the shortest time at the end of the show. The following week, the Sprint continued. In the final match, between The Undertaker and The Miz, Kennedy interfered by pulling The Miz out of the ring. After performing the Tombstone piledriver on The Miz, The Undertaker went for the pin attempt. Time, however, ran out and Kennedy became the winner of the Sprint. The following week after on "SmackDown!", The Undertaker was put in a match with Kennedy, where if he won, he would be added to the title match at the Royal Rumble. During the match, after Kennedy attacked Batista, who was at ringside. Batista retaliated against Kennedy, causing The Undertaker to get disqualified. Thus, the match at the Royal Rumble remained a singles match between Batista and Kennedy.


title: Royal Rumble (2007)

text: The main feud on the ECW brand was between Bobby Lashley and Test, with the two feuding over the ECW Championship. Rob Van Dam won an online poll against Test and Sabu to earn a title shot on the January 2 episode of "ECW", which ended in no-contest. Van Dam was given another title match the next week. Test interfered in the match, and attacked both men. A Triple Threat match for the title occurred on the January 16 episode of "ECW" between Lashley, Van Dam, and Test. Lashley won, but was beaten down afterwards by Test. A title match between Lashley and Test was then made for the Royal Rumble. A week after that match was made, on the January 23 episode of "ECW", Lashley defeated Test in another title match.


title: Royal Rumble (2007)

text: The first match that aired was a tag team match between The Hardys (Matt and Jeff Hardy) and MNM (Joey Mercury and Johnny Nitro). The match went back and forth until MNM took control by attacking Matt's injured jaw repeatedly. The Hardys gained the advantage briefly, but lost it when Nitro countered an aerial attack by Jeff. Jeff finally tagged Matt, who beat down both Mercury and Nitro. The finish came when Matt delivered a Twist of Fate and Jeff performed the Swanton Bomb on Nitro. Jeff then pinned Nitro for the victory.


title: Royal Rumble (2007)

text: The second match was Bobby Lashley against Test for the ECW World Championship. Test used many illegal moves, and took control after driving Lashley's shoulder into the ringpost. He continued to attack the shoulder until Lashley fought back with several powerful moves. Test rolled out of the ring, allowing himself to be counted out. Lashley won, and retained his title. He came after Test, however, brought him back into the ring, and continued to beat him down.


title: Royal Rumble (2007)

text: The third match was between World Heavyweight Champion Batista and Mr. Kennedy for the World Heavyweight Championship. Batista gained an early advantage by overpowering Kennedy until Kennedy injured Batista's knee by using the steel steps. Kennedy continued to attack Batista's knees, and applied various submission holds that target the knee. Batista fought back, still favoring the knee, until Kennedy pushed Batista into the referee and hit a low blow. Kennedy had Batista pinned for over a three-count, but the match went on due to the referee being knocked out. Kennedy brought the referee conscious but Batista performed a lariat and a Batista Bomb to retain the title.


title: Royal Rumble (2007)

text: In the fourth match, Umaga faced John Cena for the WWE Championship in the Last Man Standing match. Umaga dominated Cena, gaining the advantage by using powerful moves, and attacking Cena's bandaged ribs. Cena tried to fight back using the steel steps, but Umaga quickly recovered, and continued the beat down. Cena managed to hit a low blow and delivered a bulldog onto the steel steps, a spin-out powerbomb onto the steel steps, and the Five Knuckle Shuffle all onto Umaga. Umaga regained control when Cena attempted an FU onto the steps, and collapsed, hitting his head on the steps. Cena avoided a running headbutt drop, and hit Umaga in the head with a television monitor. Umaga stood but missed a running splash through a broadcast table. Umaga got up again as his manager, Armando Alejandro Estrada, detached one of the turnbuckles for Umaga to use. Cena avoided the attack, executed an FU, and applied the STF on Umaga using the loose ring rope. Umaga failed to answer the referee's count of ten, and Cena retained the title.


title: Royal Rumble (2007)

text: The final match was the Royal Rumble match. Kane, the tenth entrant, dominated the match upon entering, eliminating Tommy Dreamer and Sabu, by chokeslamming Sabu through a table Sabu had earlier set up. The Sandman, entering fifteen, used his signature Singapore Cane in the match before King Booker quickly eliminated him. Randy Orton and Edge worked together to eliminate the Hardys. After Booker was eliminated by Kane, he returned to the ring, eliminated Kane, and continued to beat him down. It took the combined effort of eight men to eliminate Viscera after Shawn Michaels performed a superkick on Viscera. The Great Khali, entering twenty-eighth, dominated upon entering the match, eliminating seven men quickly. The Undertaker entered last, who immediately fought with, and eliminated Khali, then Montel Vontavious Porter, leaving Edge, Orton, Michaels, and Undertaker as the final four. Orton executed an RKO on Michaels, causing him to roll out of the ring under the ropes and leaving Edge, Orton, and the Undertaker. Orton caught Edge trying to attack him, but the two soon reconciled, working together on The Undertaker. Michaels, outside the ring, came back in, eliminating both Orton and Edge. The remaining two exchanged attacks until the end, when The Undertaker chokeslammed Michaels, who retaliated with Sweet Chin Music. Michaels attempted another Sweet Chin Music but Undertaker avoided it, then eliminated Michaels to win the match. The Undertaker became the first competitor to win the Rumble match from #30 (what is considered to be the "easiest" spot to win from, despite no one having done so in any previous match).


title: Royal Rumble (2007)

text: The AT&T Center has hosted many different events that have a variety of seating maximums. A basketball event, which has a smaller set-up than a wrestling event, can hold a maximum of 18,797 fans. Due to the Royal Rumble's production, the maximum standard was lowered and the event drew 13,500 fans and received 491,000 pay-per-view buys. WWE made $15.8 million from pay-per-view revenues in their first quarter (which included the Royal Rumble, No Way Out, and WrestleMania) versus $17.1 million in 2006 for the same events, a $1.3 million difference. The 2006 Royal Rumble also resulted in 548,000 pay-per-view buys, 57,000 more than the 2007 Royal Rumble. Canadian Online Explorer's professional wrestling sub website, Slam! Wrestling, rated the entire event 7.5 out of 10 points, due to the event not lasting its entire three hours and many mishaps that occurred during the Royal Rumble match, which they also rated a 7.5. The last man standing match between John Cena and Umaga was widely praised. The Royal Rumble 2007 was released on DVD on February 27, 2007 and was distributed by WWE. The DVD debuted on "Billboard"'s Top DVD sales chart at #3 on March 24, 2007. The DVD remained on the chart for 13 consecutive weeks until June 16, 2007 when its final rank was at #10.


title: Royal Rumble (2007)

text: The shows following the Royal Rumble surrounded The Undertaker's choice of which champion to face at WrestleMania 23. The Undertaker appeared on all three brands, and stared down the champions. Finally, on the February 5 episode of "Raw", The Undertaker chose to face Batista for the World Heavyweight Championship, and hit him with a chokeslam, starting their rivalry. The Undertaker won the title at WrestleMania, and their feud continued until the May 11 episode of "SmackDown!", when The Undertaker lost the title to Edge, who cashed in the Money in the Bank, that he won from Mr. Kennedy, earlier that week on "Raw".


title: Royal Rumble (2007)

text: After The Undertaker made his choice on February 5, Shawn Michaels, Edge, and Randy Orton all wanted to face Cena for his title at WrestleMania. A Triple Threat match was made between the three for the title shot, which Michaels won after pinning Orton. Cena successfully retained his title against Michaels at WrestleMania. They continued to feud over the title with the addition of Orton and Edge, but Cena remained champion. Soon after the Royal Rumble, Umaga and Bobby Lashley joined the feud between Mr. McMahon and Donald Trump in the "Battle of the Billionaires" as their representatives respectively for the Hair vs. Hair match at WrestleMania.


title: Royal Rumble (2007)

text: His Royal Rumble match marked the start of Mr. Kennedy's push to main-event status. He went on to face Bobby Lashley for the ECW World Championship at No Way Out, which he won via disqualification, thus failing to win the title. Kennedy won the Money in the Bank ladder match at WrestleMania, which gave him a world title shot at any time of his choosing for the year following. Kennedy sustained an injury at a house show, however, that would leave him sidelined for five to seven months, and was booked to lose his title shot to Edge on the May 7 episode of "Raw". Later results showed the injury to be much less severe, but Kennedy had already lost his title shot. He returned to mid-card status for the remainder of the year.


title: Royal Rumble (2007)

text: This was the last Royal Rumble ever to be in 4:3 format until January 2008 when it went to high definition.


title: Hastings Banda

text: Hastings Kamuzu Banda (1898 – 25 November 1997) was the prime minister and later president of Malawi from 1964 to 1994 (from 1964 to 1966, Malawi was an independent Dominion / Commonwealth realm).


title: Hastings Banda

text: After receiving much of his education in ethnography, linguistics, history, and medicine overseas, Banda returned to Nyasaland to speak against colonialism and advocate independence from the United Kingdom. He was formally appointed Prime Minister of Nyasaland, and led the country to independence in 1964.


title: Hastings Banda

text: Two years later, he proclaimed Malawi a republic with himself as the first president. He consolidated power and later declared Malawi a one-party state under the Malawi Congress Party (MCP). In 1970, the MCP made him the party's President for Life. In 1971, he became President for Life of Malawi itself. A renowned anti-communist leader in Africa, he received support from the Western Bloc during the Cold War. He generally supported women's rights, improved the country's infrastructure and maintained a good educational system relative to other African countries. However, he presided over one of the most repressive regimes in Africa, an era that saw political opponents regularly tortured and murdered. Human rights groups estimate that at least 6,000 people were killed, tortured and jailed without trial. As many as 18,000 people were killed during his rule, according to one estimate. His rule has been characterised as a "highly repressive autocracy." He received criticism for maintaining full diplomatic relations with the apartheid government in South Africa.


title: Hastings Banda

text: By 1993, amid increasing domestic and international pressure, he agreed to hold a referendum which ended the one-party system. Soon afterwards, a special assembly ended his life-term presidency and stripped him of most of his powers. Banda ran for president in the democratic elections that followed and was defeated. He died in South Africa on 25 November 1997.


title: Hastings Banda

text: Kamuzu Banda was born Akim Kamnkhwala Mtunthama Banda near Kasungu in Malawi (then British Central Africa) to Mphonongo Banda and Akupingamnyama Phiri. His date of birth is unknown, as it took place when there was no birth registration documentation but Banda himself often gave his date of birth as 14 May 1906. Later, when presented with evidence of certain tribal customs by a friend, Dr Donal Brody, Banda said: "No one knows the hour, the date, the month or the year in which I was born, although I now accept the evidence that you give me – March or April 1898."


title: Hastings Banda

text: He left his village school near Mtunthama for his maternal grandparents' home and attended Chayamba Primary School in Chikondwa. In 1908, he moved to Chilanga mission station and was baptised in 1910.


title: Hastings Banda

text: The name Kamnkhwala, meaning "little medicine", was replaced with Kamuzu, which means "little root". The name Kamuzu was given to him because he was conceived after his mother had been given root herbs by a medicine man to cure infertility. He took the Christian name of Hastings after being baptised into the Church of Scotland by Dr George Prentice, a Scot, in 1910, naming himself after John Hastings, a Scottish missionary working near his village whom he admired. The prefix "doctor" was earned through his education.


title: Hastings Banda

text: Around 1915–16, Banda left home on foot with Hanock Msokera Phiri, an uncle who had been a teacher at the nearby Livingstonia mission school, for Hartley, Southern Rhodesia (now Chegutu, Zimbabwe). He apparently wanted to enrol at the famous Scottish Presbyterian Lovedale Missionary Institute in South Africa but completed his Standard 8 education without studying there. In 1917, he left on foot for Johannesburg in South Africa. He worked at the Witwatersrand Deep Mine on the Transvaal Reef for several years. During this time, he met Bishop William Tecumseh Vernon of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) who offered to pay his tuition fee at a Methodist school in the United States if he could pay his own passage. In 1925, he left for New York.


title: Hastings Banda

text: Banda studied in the high school section of the Wilberforce Institute, an African American AME college (a member of AME), now known as Central State University, in Wilberforce, Ohio, and graduated in 1928 with a diploma. With his financial support now ended, Banda earned some money on speaking engagements arranged by the Ghanaian educationalist Kweyir Aggrey, whom he had met in South Africa.


title: Hastings Banda

text: Speaking at a Kiwanis club meeting he met Dr Herald, with whose help he enrolled as a pre-medical student at Indiana University, where he lodged with Mrs W. N. Culmer. At Bloomington, he wrote several essays about his native Chewa tribe for the folklorist Stith Thompson, who introduced him to Edward Sapir, an anthropologist at the University of Chicago, to which, after four semesters, he transferred. During his period there, he collaborated with the Afro-American anthropologist and linguist Mark Hanna Watkins, providing information on his native Chewa language. This led to the publication of a grammar book of the language. In Chicago, he lodged with an African-American, Corinna Saunders. He majored in history, graduating with a B.Phil. degree in 1931.


title: Hastings Banda

text: During this time he enjoyed financial support from Mrs Smith, whose husband, Douglas Smith, had made fortunes from patent medicines and Pepsodent toothpaste and as a member of the Eastman Kodak board. He then, still with financial support from these and other benefactors (including Walter B. Stephenson of the Delta Electric Company), studied medicine at Meharry Medical College in Tennessee, from which he obtained an M.D. degree in 1937. Banda became the second Malawian person to receive a medical degree, following Daniel Sharpe Malekebu.


title: Hastings Banda

text: To practise medicine in territories of the British Empire, however, Banda was apparently required to gain a second medical degree; he attended the University of Edinburgh and was subsequently awarded a Scottish triple conjoint diploma (with post-nominals LRCP(Edin), LRCS(Edin) and LRCPSG) in 1941. His studies were funded by stipends of £300 per year from the government of Nyasaland (to facilitate his return there as a doctor) and from the Church of Scotland; neither of these benefactors was aware of the other. (There are conflicting accounts of this. He might still have been funded by Mrs Smith.) When he enrolled for courses in tropical diseases in Liverpool, the Nyasaland government terminated his stipend. He was forced to leave Liverpool when he refused on conscientious grounds to be conscripted as an Army doctor. He also became an elder of a parish in the Church of Scotland.


title: Hastings Banda

text: Between 1941 and 1945, he worked as a doctor in North Shields, near Newcastle upon Tyne. He was a tenant of Mrs Amy Walton at this time in Alma Place in North Shields and sent a Christmas card to her every year right up until her death in the late-1960s.. In 1944, he met Merene French, the daughter-in-law of one of his patients, and began a relationship with her.


title: Hastings Banda

text: After World War II, he established a practice at the London suburb of Kilburn and became politically active by joining the Labour Party and Fabian Colonial Bureau, which was founded in 1940.


title: Hastings Banda

text: Banda moved to London in 1945, buying a practice in the North London suburb of Harlesden. Initially, he stayed at Mrs French's house, with Mr French joining them in October 1945. Later, he bought his own house in Brondesbury Park. Mrs French moved in as his housekeeper, together with her husband. According to other accounts, he lodged in a hotel, The Conway Court, in Paddington run by Mrs Janet Evans. Reportedly, he avoided returning to Nyasaland for fear that his new-found financial resources would be consumed by his extended family back home.


title: Hastings Banda

text: In 1945, at the behest of Chief Mwase of Kasungu, whom he had met in England in 1939, and other politically active Malawians, he represented the Nyasaland African Congress at the Fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester. From this time, he took an increasingly active interest in his native land, advising the Congress and providing it with some financial support. With help from sympathetic Britons, he also lobbied in London on behalf of the Congress.


title: Hastings Banda

text: Banda was actively opposed to the efforts of Sir Roy Welensky, a politician in Northern Rhodesia, to form a federation between Southern and Northern Rhodesia with Nyasaland, a move which he feared would result in further deprivation of rights for the Nyasaland blacks. The (as he called it) "stupid" federation was formed in 1953.


title: Hastings Banda

text: It was rumoured with some excitement that he would return to Nyasaland in 1951, but he moved instead to the Gold Coast in West Africa. He went there partly because of a scandal involving his receptionist in Harlesden, Merene French (Mrs French); despite reports that she became pregnant with his child, this has never been confirmed. Banda was cited as co-respondent in the divorce of Mr French and accused of adultery with Mrs French. She followed Banda to West Africa, but he wanted nothing more to do with her. (She died in 1976.)


title: Hastings Banda

text: Several influential Congress leaders, including Henry Chipembere, Kanyama Chiume, Dunduzu Chisiza and T.D.T. Banda (no relation) pleaded with him to return to Nyasaland to take up leadership of their cause. A delegation sent to London met with Banda at the Port of Liverpool where he was making arrangements to return to Ghana. He agreed to return, but asked for some time to sort out a few private matters. The delegation returned without him and proceeded to make arrangements for his imminent return. After two false starts, including a fracas between the police and African crowds threatening to storm a BOAC aeroplane rumoured to be carrying Dr Banda at Chileka Airport, Banda finally made a showing on 6 July 1958 after an absence of about 42 years. In August, at Nkata Bay, he was acclaimed as the leader of the Congress.


title: Hastings Banda

text: He soon began touring the country, speaking against the Central African Federation (also known as the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland), and urging its citizens to become members of the party. Allegedly, he was so out of practice in his native Chichewa that he needed an interpreter, a role which was apparently performed by John Msonthi and later by John Tembo, who remained close to him for most of his career). He was received enthusiastically wherever he spoke, and resistance to imperialism among the Malawians became increasingly common. By February 1959, the situation had become serious enough that Rhodesian troops were flown in to help keep order, and a state of emergency was declared. On 3 March, Banda, along with hundreds of other Africans, was arrested in the course of "Operation Sunrise". He was imprisoned in Gwelo (now Gweru) in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and leadership of the Malawi Congress Party (the Nyasaland African Congress under a new name) was temporarily assumed by Orton Chirwa, who was released from prison in August 1959.


title: Hastings Banda

text: The mood in Britain, meanwhile, had long been moving towards decolonisation due to pressure from its colonies. Banda was released from prison in April 1960 and was almost immediately invited to London for talks aimed at bringing about independence. Elections were held in August 1961. While Banda was technically nominated as Minister of Land, Natural Resources and Local Government, he became de facto Prime Minister of Nyasaland – a title granted to him formally on 1 February 1963. He and his fellow MCP ministers quickly expanded secondary education, reformed the so-called Native Courts, ended certain colonial agricultural tariffs and made other reforms. In December 1962, R. A. Butler, British Secretary of State for African Affairs, essentially agreed to end the Federation.


title: Hastings Banda

text: It was Banda himself who chose the name "Malawi" for the former Nyasaland; he had seen it on an old French map as the name of a "Lake Maravi" in the land of the Bororos, and liked the sound and appearance of the word as "Malawi". On 6 July 1964, exactly six years after Banda's return to the country, Nyasaland gained independence and renamed itself Malawi.


title: Hastings Banda

text: Barely a month after independence, Malawi suffered the Cabinet Crisis of 1964. Banda had already been accused of autocratic tendencies. Several of Banda's ministers presented him with proposals designed to limit his powers. Banda responded by dismissing four of the ministers. Other ministers resigned in sympathy. The dissidents fled the country.


title: Hastings Banda

text: Malawi adopted a new constitution on 6 July 1966, in which the country was declared a republic. Banda was elected the country's first president for a five-year term; he was the only candidate. The new document granted Banda wide executive and legislative powers, and also formally made the MCP the only legal party. However, the country had already been a de facto one-party state since independence. The new constitution effectively turned Banda's presidency into a legal dictatorship.


title: Hastings Banda

text: In 1970, a congress of the MCP declared Banda its president for life. In 1971, the legislature declared Banda President for Life of Malawi as well. His official title was "His Excellency the Life President of the Republic of Malaŵi, Ngwazi Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda." The title "Ngwazi" means "chief of chiefs" (more literally, "great lion", or, some would say, "conqueror") in Chicheŵa.


title: Hastings Banda

text: Banda was mostly viewed externally as a benign, albeit eccentric, leader, an image fostered by his English-style three-piece suits, matching handkerchiefs, walking stick and fly-whisk. In June 1967, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Massachusetts with the encomium " ... pediatrician to his infant nation". Banda himself bluntly summed up his approach to ruling the country by saying, "Everything is my business. Everything. Anything I say is law...literally law." Within Malawi, views on him ranged from cult-like devotion to fear.


title: Hastings Banda

text: Although the constitution guaranteed civil rights and liberties, they meant almost nothing in practice, and Malawi was essentially a police state. Mail was opened and often edited. Telephones were tapped, and calls were known to be cut off if anyone said a critical word about the government. Overt opposition was not tolerated. Banda actively encouraged the people to report those who criticised him, even if they were relatives. Opponents were often arrested, exiled (like Kanyama Chiume) or died suspiciously (like Dick Matenje or Dr Attati Mpakati).


title: Hastings Banda

text: In 1983, three ministers – Dick Matenje, Twaibu Sangala, Aaron Gadama – and Member of Parliament David Chiwanga died in what was labelled officially as a "traffic accident". Banda had invited an "internal debate on pending multiparty democracy" in Malawi. During a cabinet meeting, the three ministers had voiced support for the multiparty idea, effectively challenging Banda's claim to life presidency. Angered, Banda promptly "dissolved cabinet" and announced that parliament would meet immediately. At the end of that sitting of parliament, everyone in the chambers was effectively stripped of their political status. The three men were then rounded up at the Zomba Parliament buildings for questioning. Chiwanga happened on them being tortured in a back room and had to be silenced too. The four were later bundled into Matenje's Peugeot 604 and driven to Thambani in Mwanza District, west of Blantyre, where the accident was staged: sources reported that their car had "overturned while the men had been attempting to escape into neighbouring Mozambique". Later, it was found out they had been killed by having tent pins hammered into their heads. Banda ordered a night burial and mandated that the caskets not be opened for a last viewing.


title: Hastings Banda

text: During Banda's presidency, Malawi initially refused to establish diplomatic relations with any of the communist governments of Eastern Europe or Asia (however, relations were later established with North Korea in 1982 and with Romania and Albania in 1985).


title: Hastings Banda

text: Banda was one of the few African leaders to support the United States in the Vietnam War, a position he adopted in part due to his hatred of communism.


title: Hastings Banda

text: While many southern African nations traded with apartheid-era South Africa out of economic necessity, Malawi was the only African nation that recognised South Africa and established diplomatic relations with it, including a trade treaty which angered other African leaders. They threatened to expel Malawi from the Organization of African Unity until Banda left power. Banda responded by accusing other African countries of hypocrisy, saying in a public speech to his parliament: "There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats" ("Julius Caesar"). He told them to concentrate on convincing the South African government that apartheid was unnecessary. Furthermore, he added that "[African leaders] practice disunity, not unity, while posing as the liberators of Africa. While they play in the orchestra of Pan Africanism, their own Romes are burning".


title: Hastings Banda

text: Banda was the only African ruler to establish diplomatic ties with South Africa during apartheid as well as the Portuguese regime in Mozambique. After the cabinet crisis in 1964, Banda became increasingly isolated in African politics. On the other hand, his antipathy for Roy Welensky and what he denounced as the "stupid federation" was a smokescreen he used to reject the proposed Bangula Hydro-electric dam – proposed to be bigger than the Gezira Dam in Khartoum – that Welensky's Federation had sought and obtained funding for from the British government. Banda went on to blame everything including snails (likely to cause widespread Bilharzia) to abort the project. In turn, the British denied Banda the funding and budgetary support he needed to build his pet dream of a new capital city at Lilongwe, in his home region. Hence he turned to South Africa – itself playing geo-political games in the region – which gave him a soft loan of 300 million Rand. The "quid pro quo" was that Banda had to support South Africa's apartheid policies among fellow African leaders. Hence, on one occasion he paid a state visit to South Africa where he met his South African counterparts at Stellenbosch. Banda once noted that, "It is only contact like this [between South Africa and Malawi] that can reveal to your people that there are civilized people other than white..." Banda's staunch anticommunism also influenced his decision to seek warm relations with South Africa.


title: Hastings Banda

text: After the apartheid era ended and the ANC came to dominate South African politics during the 1990s, relations between Malawi and South Africa threatened to take a downward turn, but a Malawian task force spearheaded by Malawian diplomatic envoys to South Africa including SP Kachipande, and representatives in Malawi, including former diplomat, Mr. Phiri, arranged for a meeting between the two governments which resulted in Nelson Mandela's first official visit to Malawi as president of the ANC in the early 1990s. He met with John Tembo and the president. The relations between the two governments continued to be cordial after it was revealed that Banda was secretly helping the ANC during the apartheid era. The Malawi government and South African government continued diplomatic relations.


title: Hastings Banda

text: Banda's involvement in Mozambique dated back to Portuguese colonial days in Mozambique when Banda supported the Portuguese colonial government and guerrilla forces that worked for it. Following independence in Malawi, Banda strengthened his relationship with the Portuguese colonial government by appointing Jorge Jardim as Malawi's Honorary Consul in Mozambique in September 1964. He also worked against Liberation Front of Mozambique (FRELIMO) forces in Malawi in continued support of the Portuguese colonial forces. The Organization of African Unity had designated Malawi as one of the Frontline States to help independence movements in Mozambique.


title: Hastings Banda

text: By the 1980s, Banda supported both the government and the guerrilla movement during the Mozambique civil war. He successfully gave the Malawi Army and Malawi Young Pioneers opposing missions in Mozambique from 1987 to 1992. He had the Malawi Army support the Mozambican government, controlled by FRELIMO after the country's independence in 1975, to defend Malawi's interests in Mozambique. This was done formally through an agreement in 1984 with Samora Machel. Simultaneously, Banda used the MYP as couriers and active supporters of the Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO), which had been fighting against Machel's government since the late 1970s. Malawi was used to channel foreign aid from South Africa's apartheid government. Machel issued a dossier to Frontline States with evidence that Banda was still supporting the insurgents in spite of the 1984 agreement to stop. By September 1986, Machel, Robert Mugabe, and Kenneth Kaunda visited Banda to persuade him to stop supporting RENAMO. Machel's successor, Joaquim Chissano, continued to complain of Malawi's lack of willingness to stop supporting RENAMO. Banda however was trying to keep Malawian interests in the Port of Nacala in Mozambique and did not want to rely on Tanzania and South Africa ports for its imports and exports due to the expense. Mozambique and Malawi came to an agreement to place troops from both countries in Nayuchi near the port. Incidents of Malawi Army members being killed over the course of four years angered the Army because MYP members were involved with the insurgents, essentially pitting the two against each other.


title: Hastings Banda

text: The end of the Cold War sounded the death knell for Banda's naked autocracy. Western leaders and international aid donors no longer had any use for authoritarian anti-Communist regimes in the Third World, all of which came under mounting pressure to democratize. Donors told Banda that he had to implement reforms aimed at making his government transparent and accountable to the people and the international community as a condition for further aid. The British government also stopped their financial support. In March 1992, Catholic bishops in Malawi issued a Lenten pastoral letter that criticized Banda and his government. Students of the University of Malawi at Chancellor College and the Polytechnic joined protests and demonstrations to support the bishops, forcing authorities to close the campuses.


title: Hastings Banda

text: In April 1992, Chakufwa Chihana, a labour unionist, openly called for a national referendum on the political future of Malawi. He was arrested before he finished his speech at Lilongwe International Airport. By October 1992, this mounting pressure from within and from the international community forced Banda to concede to hold a referendum on whether to maintain the one-party state. The referendum was held on 14 June 1993, resulting in an overwhelming vote (64 percent) in favour of multiparty democracy. After this, political parties besides the MCP were formed and preparation for the general elections began. Banda worked with the newly forming parties and the church, and made no protest when a special assembly stripped him of his title of President for Life, along with most of his powers. The transition from one of the most repressive regimes in Africa to democracy was fairly peaceful.


title: Hastings Banda

text: Operation Bwezani was a Malawi Army operation to disarm the Malawi Young Pioneers at the height of the political transition in December 1993. Bwezani means "give back." The MYP had a strong network of spies and supporters countrywide at all levels in society. They were Banda's personal security bodyguards and were all trained and indoctrinated in Kamuzuism and military training. The Malawi Army did not infiltrate this group before receiving encouragement by protests by the people.


title: Hastings Banda

text: After some questions about his health, Banda ran in Malawi's first truly democratic presidential election in 1994. He was roundly defeated by Bakili Muluzi, a Yao from the southern region of the country. Banda quickly conceded defeat. ″I wish to congratulate him wholeheartedly and offer him [Muluzi] my full support and cooperation,″ he said on state radio, marking an end to Malawi's 30 years of one-party rule.


title: Hastings Banda

text: The party Banda led since taking over from Orton Chirwa in 1960, the Malawi Congress Party, remains a major force in Malawian politics.


title: Hastings Banda

text: In 1995, Banda was arrested and charged with the murder, ten years previously, of former cabinet colleagues. He was acquitted due to lack of evidence.


title: Hastings Banda

text: Banda remained quite unrepentant in his opinion of Malawians, calling them "children in politics" and saying they would miss his iron-fisted rule (see "Big Men, Little People" by Alec Russell).


title: Hastings Banda

text: A statement of apology was issued on 4 January 1996 in the name of H. Kamuzu Banda to the people of his nation shortly after being acquitted in the Mwanza Trials. The statement was met with controversy, suspicion and disdain. It was also questioned whether Banda wrote the statement himself or if someone wrote it on his behalf. In it, he noted that:


title: Hastings Banda

text: Systems of government are dynamic and they are bound to change in accordance with the wishes of and aspirations of the people...During my term of office, I selflessly dedicated myself to the good cause of Mother Malawi in the fight against Poverty, Ignorance and Disease among many other issues; but if within the process, those who worked in my government or through false pretence in my name or indeed unknowingly by me, pain and suffering was caused to anybody in this country in the name of nationhood, I offer my sincere apologies. I also appeal for a spirit of reconciliation and forgiveness amongst us all...Our beautiful country has been nicknamed `The Warm Heart of Africa' and we have been admired for our warmth and spirit of hardwork. This admiration calls not only for a need for us to look at our past and present and draw lessons from it, but there is even a greater need for us to look forward to the future in our endeavours to reconstruct and reconcile if we have to move forward at all.


title: Hastings Banda

text: All adult citizens were required to be members of the MCP. Party cards had to be carried at all times and presented at random police inspections. The cards were sold, often by Banda's Malawi Young Pioneers (MYP). In some cases, these youths even sold cards to unborn children.


title: Hastings Banda

text: The Malawi Young Pioneers were the notorious paramilitary wing of the MCP, used to intimidate and harass the public. The Pioneers bore arms, conducted espionage and intelligence operations, and were trusted bodyguards for Banda. They helped foster the culture of fear that prevailed during his rule.


title: Hastings Banda

text: Banda was the subject of an extensive cult of personality. Every business building was required to have an official picture of him hanging on the wall, and no poster, clock or picture could be higher than his portrait. Before every film, a video of Banda waving to the people was shown while the anthem played. When Banda visited a city, a contingent of women were expected to greet him at the airport and dance for him. A special cloth, bearing the president's picture, was the required attire for these performances. Houses of worship required government approval to operate, and some faiths such as Jehovah's Witnesses were banned entirely.


title: Hastings Banda

text: All films shown in cinemas were first viewed by the Malawi Censorship Board and edited for content. Nudity and other socially or politically unacceptable content were barred and movies could not even show couples kissing. Videotapes had to be sent to the Censorship Board to be viewed. Once edited, the film was given a sticker stating that it was now suitable for viewing and sent back to the owner. Items to be sold in bookshops were also edited. Pages, or parts of pages, were cut out of magazines like "Newsweek" and "Time". Communist literature, erotic magazines, and Lonely Planet's "Africa on a Shoestring" were banned. The mass media–a single radio station, a single daily newspaper, and a single weekly newspaper–were tightly controlled and mainly served as outlets for government propaganda, while the government refused to introduce television. However, wealthier Malawians bought sets as monitors for their VCRs. Knowledge of pre-Banda history was discouraged, and many books on these subjects were burned. Banda allegedly persecuted some of the northern tribes (particularly the Tumbuka), banning their language and books as well as teachers from certain tribes. Foreigners who broke any of these rules were often declared Prohibited Immigrants and deported.


title: Hastings Banda

text: His government supervised the people's lives very closely. Early in his rule, Banda instituted a dress code rooted in his socially conservative predilections. Women were not allowed to wear see-through clothing, have visible cleavage, trousers, or wear skirts or dresses that went above the knee. The only exception to this was at vacation resorts and country clubs, where they could not be seen by the general public. Banda explained that these restrictions were not designed to oppress women, but instill respect and dignity for them. Men's hair had to be no longer than collar length, and foreign visitors at the airport were given mandatory haircuts if necessary. Any man who ventured into public with long hair could also be seized by police and subjected to an involuntary haircut.


title: Hastings Banda

text: Even foreigners coming into Malawi were subject to Banda's dress code. In the 1970s, prospective visitors to the country were informed of the following requirement for obtaining visas:


title: Hastings Banda

text: Female passengers will not be permitted to enter the country if wearing short dresses or trouser-suits, except in transit or at Lake Holiday resorts or National parks. Skirts and dresses must cover the knees to conform with Government regulations. The entry of 'hippies' and men with long hair and flared trousers is forbidden.


title: Hastings Banda

text: Banda founded Chitukuko Cha Amai m'Malawi (CCAM) to address the concerns, needs, rights and opportunities for women in Malawi. This institution motivated women to excel in education and government and encouraged them to play more active roles in their community, church and family. The foundation's National Advisor was Cecilia Tamanda Kadzamira, the official hostess for the former president.


title: Hastings Banda

text: In 1964, after serving as a government minister in the colonial administration, Banda adopted a macroeconomic policy aimed at accelerating economic development for the betterment of Malawians. He settled on the Rostow model of "catch up" economics, wherein Malawi would vigorously pursue import substitution industrialisation (ISI). This entailed both a quest for "self-sufficiency" for Malawi – becoming less reliant on its former colonial master – and growth of an industrial base that could ensure Malawi was capable of producing its own goods and services. Such capacity would then be used to catch up and even overtake the West. An infrastructure development program was initiated under the Development Policies (DEVPOLs) documents that Malawi adopted from 1964 onwards. Much of this development was funded through the Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation, a Government-owned corporation or parastatal formed to promote the Malawian economy by increasing the volume of agricultural exports and to develop new foreign markets for Malawian agricultural produce. At its foundation, ADMARC was given the power to finance the economic development of any public or private organisation. From its formation it was involved in the diversion of resources from smallholder farming to tobacco estates, often owned by members of the ruling elite. This led to corruption, abuse of office and inefficiency in ADMARC,


title: Hastings Banda

text: The country's infrastructure benefited through massive road construction programs. With the decision to shift the capital city from Zomba to Lilongwe (against vociferous objections from the British preference for the economically healthy and well-developed Blantyre), a new road was built linking Blantyre and Zomba to Lilongwe. The Capital City Development Corporation (CCDC) in Lilongwe was itself a beehive of infrastructure development, supported by planning and funds from apartheid-era South Africa. The British refused to finance the move to Lilongwe. The CCDC became the sole development agent for Lilongwe; putting up roads, the government seat at Capital Hill, etc. Other infrastructure entities were added, such as Malawi Hotels Limited, which undertook massive projects such as the Mount Soche, Capital Hotel and Mzuzu Hotel. On the industrial side, Malawi Development Corporation (MDC) was tasked with setting up industries and other businesses. Meanwhile, Dr. Banda's own Press Corporation Limited and MYP's Spearhead Corporation embarked on business initiatives that lead to an economic boom during the mid- to late 1970s.


title: Hastings Banda

text: However, by 1979–80, the bubble had burst due to the global economic crisis set in motion by the Yom Kippur War between Israel and the Arabs in 1973. Rising oil prices and falling global commodity prices combined to wreak havoc on a fragile and landlocked Malawian economy based on an insular and indefensible ISI macroeconomic strategy. Increasingly, the economy was rearranged into a political tool to serve the consumption needs of the emerging Malawian middle-class and thus render it less prone to revolution.


title: Hastings Banda

text: Banda personally founded Kamuzu Academy, a school modeled on Eton, at which Malawian children were taught Latin and Greek by expatriate classics teachers, and disciplined if they were caught speaking Chichewa. Many of the school's alumni have assumed leadership roles in medicine, academia and business in Malawi and abroad. The school remains one of Banda's most lasting legacies and he said of it: "I did not wish my sons and daughters to have to travel abroad to obtain an education as I did." It is claimed, probably incorrectly and unfairly, that he spent almost all the country's education budget on this project, while increasingly ignoring the needs and welfare of the greater majority [80%] of Malawians toiling in the rural areas. The National Rural Development Program and Rural Growth Centers were tentative and belated policies aimed at diverting rural populations from moving to the few urban areas which Banda's ISI macroeconomic policies had created and were now being battered by the arrival of more and more rural people seeking better opportunities.


title: Hastings Banda

text: Eventually, with the collapse of the Cold War, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund arrived, imposing a series of Structural Adjustment Programs from 1987.


title: Hastings Banda

text: It is believed that during his rule, Banda accumulated at least US$320 million in personal assets, thought to be invested in everything from agriculture to mining interests in South Africa.


title: Hastings Banda

text: Banda had no known heirs but had a vast fortune that is run by his family. He was unmarried when he died. Cecilia Kadzamira was the official hostess or first lady of Malawi. She essentially ruled the country with her uncle, John Tembo, during Banda's last years.


title: Hastings Banda

text: His affair and relationship with Merene French remains largely a mystery. He had rejected companionship and marriage and turned his back on the Englishwoman who extramaritally bore his son. In 2010, Jumani Johansson (1973–2019) claimed to be the son of the late president and was seeking DNA testing through the courts of Malawi. Grand niece Jane Dzanjalimodzi was the former executrix of his estate.


title: Hastings Banda

text: Banda died at the Garden City Clinic in Johannesburg, South Africa on 25 November 1997, from respiratory failure. Although the clinic recorded his age as 99, Government officials state it was more likely he was aged around 90. Although he was buried with pomp, in the decade after his death there were calls for a more substantial memorial for the country's first president. Construction of a mausoleum with provision for a library and a dancing arena was begun in 2005. Completed in 2009 - at a cost of US$600,000 - the mausoleum is made out of marble and granite. Its four main pillars bear the initials of Banda's key principles – unity, loyalty, obedience and discipline. In 2009 a bronze statue of Banda was erected. From 10 April 1995, when former Prime Minister of India Morarji Desai died, Banda was the world's oldest living former head of government until his own death in 1997.


title: Cleartrip

text: Cleartrip (previously known as Cleartrip Travel Services Private Limited) is a global online travel company, headquartered in Mumbai. The company operates an online travel aggregator website for booking flights, train tickets, hotel reservations, and activities in India and the Middle East countries. It holds offices across India, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.


title: Cleartrip

text: Cleartrip was founded in 2006 as a hotels and air aggregator by Stuart Crighton, Hrush Bhatt, and Matthew Spacie. Seeing the fragmentation that existed in the Indian travel and hospitality sector, the founders decided to enter the online travel space.


title: Cleartrip

text: Cleartrip also operates Cleartrip for Business, an online corporate travel management tool; Agent Box, a travel tool for travel agents; and Cleartrip Mobile, a travel booking app for mobile devices. In 2012, it launched new services such as Quickeys, a hotel booking application and other journey planning services.


title: Cleartrip

text: In April 2012, Cleartrip launched iOS app with a split-screen search feature to enable round-trip search results. Its app also came with geo-location feature to choose the airport for departure from the current location. The search platform of the app also allows users to swap the from and to cities with a tap. The app also runs on both IOS and Android.


title: Cleartrip

text: In January 2013, Cleartrip brought air, rail and bus tickets to Apple's Passbook. The same year the company undertook a massive UI redesign project, Tuxedo where every field in the website was thought through in terms of placement, display, action.


title: Cleartrip

text: In 2014, Cleartrip Mobile was recognized as part of Apple's Best of 2014 Trends of the year and also featured as the ‘Editor's Pick.


title: Cleartrip

text: In 2015, Cleartrip became the first Indian online travel agency to feature on Apple Watch and by the end of 2015, its app traffic had overtaken web traffic and accounted for 59 per cent of its total traffic. By May 2016 nearly 75% of Cleartrip's traffic was coming via mobile.


title: Cleartrip

text: In April 2018, Cleartrip launched an Arabic version of its website to target the growing Arabic community in the GCC region.


title: Cleartrip

text: In May 2018, Cleartrip launched an app for Amazon's Alexa voice assistant that enables Alexa users to voice search air travel options.


title: Cleartrip

text: With gross booking value of $1.4 billion and revenues worth of $110 million, Cleartrip has annual growth of over 40% in MENA, driven by the increasing shift from offline to online.


title: Cleartrip

text: In 2018, Cleartrip was named as one among the only two companies that followed the GDPR and allowed users to delete personal information associated with their accounts.


title: Cleartrip

text: In June 2020, Cleartrip announced the launch of TravelSafe – an initiative that allowed customers to get information of the latest travel restrictions on account of the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Cleartrip

text: Since the acquisition of Cleartrip by Flipkart, the company has participated in the Flipkart Big Billion Day event in October 2021. It has signed up Anil Kapoor as its brand ambassador.


title: Cleartrip

text: In 2017, Google announced partnership with Cleartrip for its flight search application, Google Flights.


title: Cleartrip

text: In May 2018, Cleartrip had extended its partnership with Klook and Musement, global activity platforms to amplify its integrated travel services in 48 European and 18 Southeast Asian countries.


title: Cleartrip

text: In June 2018, Cleartrip announced its partnership with Kerala Tourism Development Corporation to become an online seller of KTDC's exclusive set of activities.


title: Cleartrip

text: In 2019, e-commerce company Amazon forayed into the flight booking space by partnering with Cleartrip.


title: Cleartrip

text: In 2021, Cleartrip expanded its partnership with Sabre as a strategy to streamline its GDS relationships and to make Sabre its GDS partner.


title: Cleartrip

text: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Ram Shriram and DAG Ventures were some of the early investors in Cleartrip.


title: Victoria Aitken

text: Catherine Victoria Aitken ("née" Lockwood; 20 April 1965), formerly Victoria, Countess Spencer, is a British former fashion model and former wife of Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer, the younger brother of Diana, Princess of Wales.


title: Victoria Aitken

text: Catherine Victoria Lockwood is the daughter of John Lockwood, an airline executive, and Jean Lockwood ("née" Holt).


title: Victoria Aitken

text: On 16 September 1989, she married Charles Spencer, then Viscount Althorp, at the Church of St Mary, Great Brington. Her wedding dress of champagne French antique lace with Russian sable trim was designed by Tomasz Starzewski, and she wore the Spencer Tiara. Althorp's nephews Prince Harry and Alexander Fellowes were the pageboys at their wedding and his nieces Eleanor Fellowes and Emily McCorquodale were bridesmaids. During her first marriage, she was known as Viscountess Althorp, and later as Countess Spencer. They have four children:


title: Victoria Aitken

text: She suffered from eating disorders and drug and alcohol abuse during her first marriage. It was alleged that the earl had an extra-marital affair with a journalist early in the marriage. The couple moved with their four children to South Africa in 1995 to avoid the media. After their divorce on 3 December 1997, Lord Spencer moved back to the United Kingdom, and subsequently remarried.


title: Victoria Aitken

text: In 2005, Victoria, Countess Spencer married South African businessman Jonathan Aitken; they divorced in 2009. They have a son, Samuel Aitken (born 18 April 2003).


title: Victoria Aitken

text: She is the sister of Christopher Lockwood, a journalist and later Deputy Head of the Number 10 Policy Unit from May 2013 to May 2015.


title: Mustang Ranch

text: The Mustang Ranch is a brothel in Storey County, Nevada, about east of Reno. It is currently located at 1011 Wild Horse Canyon Dr Sparks, NV 89434.


title: Mustang Ranch

text: Under past owner Joe Conforte, Mustang Ranch Brothel, the precursor to Mustang Ranch, became Nevada's first licensed brothel in 1971. This eventually lead to the legalization of brothels in 10 of 17 counties in the state. Mustang Ranch opened to the public in 1971 and was America's largest brothel with , and the most profitable.


title: Mustang Ranch

text: The Mustang Ranch was forfeited to the federal government in 1999 following Conforte's convictions for tax fraud, racketeering and other crimes.


title: Mustang Ranch

text: The Mustang Ranch was auctioned off by the Federal Government on eBay and Lance Gilman’s bid was the last bid for $145,100 and reopened the Mustang Ranch 5 miles East at the Patrick exit 28.


title: Mustang Ranch

text: The courtesans lived on the ranch during their entire shift, which lasted from several days to several weeks. In the early 1970s, the women were lingerie clad. Conforte claimed in 1971 that the age range of the working girls was 18 to 35. Conforte could provide women of any age, race or size on request of the high rollers. The shifts lasted 12 hours per day. Clothing and salon services were provided by vendors who traveled from as far away as San Francisco and by non-courtesan employees who lived in Sparks, Nevada. Doctors came to the ranch to do pelvic exams and check for sexually transmitted diseases. Although many of the women working were from Reno or Sparks, many commuted from Sacramento and San Francisco. Others came from all parts of the country. Women not working on the ranch were not allowed in. Owner Joe Conforte allowed "out parties" for high rollers to take the women to hotels in Reno.


title: Mustang Ranch

text: Las Vegas reporter Colin McKinlay visited the Mustang Ranch to do one of the first reports ever allowed by Mustang management. He wrote, "The women were the most beautiful of any fantasy of man."


title: Mustang Ranch

text: As in other Nevada brothels, customers were buzzed in through the parlor door. Once in, they chose a woman from a lineup in a lobby, and negotiated prices and services. She checked the penis for any open sores or signs of venereal disease and tested the pre-ejaculatory fluid. A short negotiation was made as to the type of "party" the customer wanted. The house received half of anything the women made. After the negotiations were over, the courtesan collected the money and deposited it with a cashier.


title: Mustang Ranch

text: Joe Conforte in 1986 wrote his autobiography and history of the Mustang Ranch, with Nevada writer, David W. Toll.


title: Mustang Ranch

text: The brothel started out as a set of four double-wide trailers, run by Richard Bennett and initially called "Mustang Bridge Ranch." Joe Conforte (1925-2019), ("Look" gave his age as 48 in 1971) who had owned several brothels in Nevada together with his wife, Sally Burgess Conforte aka Jesse E. Conforte (1917–1992) since October 1955, took over the Mustang Bridge Ranch in 1967. At this time, brothels were not explicitly illegal in Nevada, but some had been closed as public nuisances.


title: Mustang Ranch

text: Conforte gained political influence in Storey County (by renting out cheap trailers and telling the renters how to vote) and persuaded county officials to pass a brothel-licensing ordinance, which came into effect in 1971. Joe Conforte was featured in "Look", June 29, 1971, the article titled "Legal Prostitution Spreads in Nevada'" by Gerald Astor, "Look" Senior Editor. Joe was on the cover of "Rolling Stone" magazine November 23, 1972.


title: Mustang Ranch

text: The Nevada Supreme Court upheld the right of a county to legalize prostitution, and several counties followed suit. Conforte converted the trailers into a permanent structure with 54 bedrooms.


title: Mustang Ranch

text: In 1976, the world class boxer Oscar Bonavena (1942–1976), who was a former friend of Conforte's and probably had an affair with his wife Sally, was shot dead at the ranch by Conforte's bodyguard.


title: Mustang Ranch

text: In 1982, Mustang II with 48 bedrooms was built a hundred meters away from Mustang I. A bit smaller and not as luxurious as Mustang I, mostly new women and women demoted from Mustang I for some infraction worked there. Mustang 1 was subsequently rebranded as the "World Famous Mustang Ranch".


title: Mustang Ranch

text: After losing a tax fraud case in 1990, the brothel was closed for three months and auctioned off. Conforte fled the United States to Brazil. The brothel was bought by a holding company and stayed open. After that company and the brothel's manager (a former county commissioner) lost a federal fraud, racketeering and conspiracy case in 1999, the Mustang Ranch was closed and forfeited to the federal government. That same year, the Brazil Supreme Court ruled Conforte could not be extradited.


title: Mustang Ranch

text: In 2002, the brothel's furniture, paintings and accessories were auctioned off. The Bureau of Land Management sold the Ranch's pink stucco structures on eBay in 2003. Bordello owner Lance Gilman purchased the buildings for $145,100 and moved them to his Wild Horse Adult Resort & Spa five miles (8 km) to the east, where the relocated and extensively renovated buildings eventually became the second brothel located at that complex. However, the rights to the name Mustang Ranch, which Gilman had hoped to use for this new brothel, were tied up in a court battle with David Burgess, the owner of the Old Bridge Ranch, nephew of Joe Conforte, and manager of the Mustang Ranch from 1979 until 1989. In December 2006, a federal judge ruled that Gilman was the "exclusive owner of the Mustang Ranch trademark" giving him the rights to use the name and branding.


title: Mustang Ranch

text: In late March 2007, the final remaining building, the Annex II which had been bought for $8,600 by Dennis Hof, was burned down in a fire department training exercise. A "Reno Gazette-Journal" report cited plans for the restoration of natural conditions to the section of the Truckee River flowing through the land, following the completion of a similar restoration five miles downstream on McCarran Ranch land owned by The Nature Conservancy.


title: Mustang Ranch

text: Contrary to a popular urban legend circulated by email, the Mustang Ranch was never operated by the U.S. government. It was operated by the Bankruptcy Trustee appointed by the United States Bankruptcy Court on behalf of the United States Government.


title: Mustang Ranch

text: The 1973 motion picture "Charley Varrick" contained a scene filmed at Mustang Ranch, with a cameo by Joe Conforte. Nevada writer Gabriel R. Vogliotti (1908–1983) did research living at the Mustang Ranch. In 1975, he authored "The Girls of Nevada," with a subtitle on the dust jacket, "Featuring Joe Conforte, Overseer of the Mustang Ranch." In 1978, Robert Goralnick wrote and directed "Mustang: The House That Joe Built."


title: Mustang Ranch

text: The 2010 film "Love Ranch" starring Helen Mirren is loosely based on the events at the Mustang Ranch. After a visit to the new Mustang Ranch in 2008, Mirren announced she was a "complete believer in legal brothels."


title: Homotopy

text: In topology, a branch of mathematics, two continuous functions from one topological space to another are called homotopic (from "same, similar" and "place") if one can be "continuously deformed" into the other, such a deformation being called a homotopy (, ; , ) between the two functions. A notable use of homotopy is the definition of homotopy groups and cohomotopy groups, important invariants in algebraic topology.


title: Homotopy

text: In practice, there are technical difficulties in using homotopies with certain spaces. Algebraic topologists work with compactly generated spaces, CW complexes, or spectra.


title: Homotopy

text: topological space "X" to a topological space "Y" is defined to be a continuous function formula_1 from the product of the space "X" with the unit interval [0, 1] to "Y" such that formula_2 and formula_3 for all formula_4.


title: Homotopy

text: If we think of the second parameter of "H" as time then "H" describes a "continuous deformation" of "f" into "g": at time 0 we have the function "f" and at time 1 we have the function "g". We can also think of the second parameter as a "slider control" that allows us to smoothly transition from "f" to "g" as the slider moves from 0 to 1, and vice versa.


title: Homotopy

text: An alternative notation is to say that a homotopy between two continuous functions formula_5 is a family of continuous functions formula_6 for formula_7 such that formula_8 and formula_9, and the map formula_10 is continuous from formula_11 to formula_12. The two versions coincide by setting formula_13. It is not sufficient to require each map formula_14 to be continuous.


title: Homotopy

text: The animation that is looped above right provides an example of a homotopy between two embeddings, "f" and "g", of the torus into . "X" is the torus, "Y" is , "f" is some continuous function from the torus to "R" that takes the torus to the embedded surface-of-a-doughnut shape with which the animation starts; "g" is some continuous function that takes the torus to the embedded surface-of-a-coffee-mug shape. The animation shows the image of "h"("x") as a function of the parameter "t", where "t" varies with time from 0 to 1 over each cycle of the animation loop. It pauses, then shows the image as "t" varies back from 1 to 0, pauses, and repeats this cycle.


title: Homotopy

text: Continuous functions "f" and "g" are said to be homotopic if and only if there is a homotopy "H" taking "f" to "g" as described above. Being homotopic is an equivalence relation on the set of all continuous functions from "X" to "Y".


title: Homotopy

text: This homotopy relation is compatible with function composition in the following sense: if are homotopic, and are homotopic, then their compositions and are also homotopic.


title: Homotopy

text: Given two topological spaces "X" and "Y", a homotopy equivalence between "X" and "Y" is a pair of continuous maps and , such that is homotopic to the identity map id and is homotopic to id. If such a pair exists, then "X" and "Y" are said to be homotopy equivalent, or of the same homotopy type. Intuitively, two spaces "X" and "Y" are homotopy equivalent if they can be transformed into one another by bending, shrinking and expanding operations. Spaces that are homotopy-equivalent to a point are called contractible.


title: Homotopy

text: A homeomorphism is a special case of a homotopy equivalence, in which is equal to the identity map id (not only homotopic to it), and is equal to id. Therefore, if X and Y are homeomorphic then they are homotopy-equivalent, but the opposite is not true. Some examples:


title: Homotopy

text: A function "f" is said to be null-homotopic if it is homotopic to a constant function. (The homotopy from "f" to a constant function is then sometimes called a null-homotopy.) For example, a map "f" from the unit circle "S" to any space "X" is null-homotopic precisely when it can be continuously extended to a map from the unit disk "D" to "X" that agrees with "f" on the boundary.


title: Homotopy

text: It follows from these definitions that a space "X" is contractible if and only if the identity map from "X" to itself—which is always a homotopy equivalence—is null-homotopic.


title: Homotopy

text: Homotopy equivalence is important because in algebraic topology many concepts are homotopy invariant, that is, they respect the relation of homotopy equivalence. For example, if "X" and "Y" are homotopy equivalent spaces, then:


title: Homotopy

text: An example of an algebraic invariant of topological spaces which is not homotopy-invariant is compactly supported homology (which is, roughly speaking, the homology of the compactification, and compactification is not homotopy-invariant).


title: Homotopy

text: In order to define the fundamental group, one needs the notion of homotopy relative to a subspace. These are homotopies which keep the elements of the subspace fixed. Formally: if "f" and "g" are continuous maps from "X" to "Y" and "K" is a subset of "X", then we say that "f" and "g" are homotopic relative to "K" if there exists a homotopy between "f" and "g" such that for all and Also, if "g" is a retraction from "X" to "K" and "f" is the identity map, this is known as a strong deformation retract of "X" to "K".


title: Homotopy

text: In case the two given continuous functions "f" and "g" from the topological space "X" to the topological space "Y" are embeddings, one can ask whether they can be connected 'through embeddings'. This gives rise to the concept of isotopy, which is a homotopy, "H", in the notation used before, such that for each fixed "t", "H"("x", "t") gives an embedding.


title: Homotopy

text: Requiring that two embeddings be isotopic is a stronger requirement than that they be homotopic. For example, the map from the interval [−1, 1] into the real numbers defined by "f"("x") = −"x" is "not" isotopic to the identity "g"("x") = "x". Any homotopy from "f" to the identity would have to exchange the endpoints, which would mean that they would have to 'pass through' each other. Moreover, "f" has changed the orientation of the interval and "g" has not, which is impossible under an isotopy. However, the maps are homotopic; one homotopy from "f" to the identity is "H": [−1, 1] × [0, 1] → [−1, 1] given by "H"("x", "y") = 2"yx" − "x".


title: Homotopy

text: Two homeomorphisms (which are special cases of embeddings) of the unit ball which agree on the boundary can be shown to be isotopic using Alexander's trick. For this reason, the map of the unit disc in R defined by "f"("x", "y") = (−"x", −"y") is isotopic to a 180-degree rotation around the origin, and so the identity map and "f" are isotopic because they can be connected by rotations.


title: Homotopy

text: In geometric topology—for example in knot theory—the idea of isotopy is used to construct equivalence relations. For example, when should two knots be considered the same? We take two knots, "K" and "K", in three-dimensional space. A knot is an embedding of a one-dimensional space, the "loop of string" (or the circle), into this space, and this embedding gives a homeomorphism between the circle and its image in the embedding space. The intuitive idea behind the notion of knot equivalence is that one can "deform" one embedding to another through a path of embeddings: a continuous function starting at "t" = 0 giving the "K" embedding, ending at "t" = 1 giving the "K" embedding, with all intermediate values corresponding to embeddings. This corresponds to the definition of isotopy. An ambient isotopy, studied in this context, is an isotopy of the larger space, considered in light of its action on the embedded submanifold. Knots "K" and "K" are considered equivalent when there is an ambient isotopy which moves "K" to "K". This is the appropriate definition in the topological category.


title: Homotopy

text: Similar language is used for the equivalent concept in contexts where one has a stronger notion of equivalence. For example, a path between two smooth embeddings is a smooth isotopy.


title: Homotopy

text: On a Lorentzian manifold, certain curves are distinguished as timelike (representing something that only goes forwards, not backwards, in time, in every local frame). A timelike homotopy between two timelike curves is a homotopy such that the curve remains timelike during the continuous transformation from one curve to another. No closed timelike curve (CTC) on a Lorentzian manifold is timelike homotopic to a point (that is, null timelike homotopic); such a manifold is therefore said to be multiply connected by timelike curves. A manifold such as the 3-sphere can be simply connected (by any type of curve), and yet be timelike multiply connected.


title: Homotopy

text: If we have a homotopy and a cover and we are given a map such that ("h" is called a lift of "h"), then we can lift all "H" to a map such that The homotopy lifting property is used to characterize fibrations.


title: Homotopy

text: which characterizes the extension of a homotopy between two functions from a subset of some set to the set itself. It is useful when dealing with cofibrations.


title: Homotopy

text: Since the relation of two functions formula_50 being homotopic relative to a subspace is an equivalence relation, we can look at the equivalence classes of maps between a fixed "X" and "Y". If we fix formula_51, the unit interval [0, 1] crossed with itself "n" times, and we take its boundary formula_52 as a subspace, then the equivalence classes form a group, denoted formula_53, where formula_54 is in the image of the subspace formula_52.


title: Homotopy

text: We can define the action of one equivalence class on another, and so we get a group. These groups are called the homotopy groups. In the case formula_56, it is also called the fundamental group.


title: Homotopy

text: The idea of homotopy can be turned into a formal category of category theory. The homotopy category is the category whose objects are topological spaces, and whose morphisms are homotopy equivalence classes of continuous maps. Two topological spaces "X" and "Y" are isomorphic in this category if and only if they are homotopy-equivalent. Then a functor on the category of topological spaces is homotopy invariant if it can be expressed as a functor on the homotopy category.


title: Homotopy

text: For example, homology groups are a "functorial" homotopy invariant: this means that if "f" and "g" from "X" to "Y" are homotopic, then the group homomorphisms induced by "f" and "g" on the level of homology groups are the same: H("f") = H("g") : H("X") → H("Y") for all "n". Likewise, if "X" and "Y" are in addition path connected, and the homotopy between "f" and "g" is pointed, then the group homomorphisms induced by "f" and "g" on the level of homotopy groups are also the same: π("f") = π("g") : π("X") → π("Y").


title: Homotopy

text: Based on the concept of the homotopy, computation methods for algebraic and differential equations have been developed. The methods for algebraic equations include the homotopy continuation method and the continuation method (see numerical continuation). The methods for differential equations include the homotopy analysis method.


title: Homotopy

text: Homotopy theory can be used as a foundation for homology theory: one can represent a cohomology functor on a space "X" by mappings of "X" into an appropriate fixed space, up to homotopy equivalence. For example, for any abelian group "G", and any based CW-complex "X", the set formula_57 of based homotopy classes of based maps from "X" to the Eilenberg–MacLane space formula_58 is in natural bijection with the "n"-th singular cohomology group formula_59 of the space "X". One says that the omega-spectrum of Eilenberg-MacLane spaces are representing spaces for singular cohomology with coefficients in "G".


title: Tibetic languages

text: The Tibetic languages form a well-defined group of languages descended from Old Tibetan (7th to 9th centuries). According to Tournadre (2014), there are 50 languages, which split into over 200 dialects or could be group into 8 dialect continua. These languages are spoken in the Tibetan Plateau and in the Himalayas in Gilgit-Baltistan, Aksai Chin, Ladakh, Nepal, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Bhutan. Classical Tibetan is the major literary language, particularly for its use in Buddhist literature.


title: Tibetic languages

text: Tibetan languages are spoken by some 6 million people, not all of whom are Tibetans. With the worldwide spread of Tibetan Buddhism, the Tibetan language has spread into the western world and can be found in many Buddhist publications and prayer materials; with some western students learning the language for translation of Tibetan texts. Outside Lhasa itself, Lhasa Tibetan is spoken by approximately 200,000 exile speakers who have moved from modern-day Tibet to India and other countries. Tibetan is also spoken by groups of ethnic minorities in Tibet who have lived in close proximity to Tibetans for centuries, but nevertheless retain their own languages and cultures.


title: Tibetic languages

text: Although some of the Qiang peoples of Kham are classified by China as ethnic Tibetans (see Gyalrongic languages; Gyalrong people are identified as 'Tibetan' in China), the Qiangic languages are not Tibetan, but rather form their own branch of the Tibeto-Burman language family.


title: Tibetic languages

text: Classical Tibetan was not a tonal language, but many varieties such as Central and Khams Tibetan have developed tone registers. Amdo and Ladakhi-Balti are without tone. Tibetan morphology can generally be described as agglutinative.


title: Tibetic languages

text: Marius Zemp (2018) hypothesizes that Tibetan originated as a pidgin with the West Himalayish language Zhangzhung as its superstratum, and Rgyalrongic as its substratum (both languages are part of the broader Sino-Tibetan family). Similarly, Tamangic also has a West Himalayish superstratum, but its substratum is derived from a different Sino-Tibetan branch.


title: Tibetic languages

text: Only a few language clusters in the world are derived from a common language which is identical to or closely related to an old literary language. This small group includes the Tibetic languages, as descendents from Old Tibetan (7-9th century), but also the Romance languages with Latin, the Arabic languages (or "dialects") with Classical Arabic, the Sinitic languages with Middle Chinese, the modern Indic languages with Vedic Sanskrit etc.


title: Tibetic languages

text: The more divergent languages are spoken in the north and east, likely due to language contact with the Qiangic, Rgyalrongic languages. The divergence exhibited in Khalong may also be due to language shift. In addition, there is Baima, which retains an apparent Qiangic substratum, and has multiple layers of borrowing from Amdo, Khams, and Zhongu, but does not correspond to any established branch of Tibetic.


title: Tibetic languages

text: The two major Tibetic languages used for broadcasting within China are Standard Tibetan and Amdo Tibetan.


title: Tibetic languages

text: Tournadre (2014) classifies the Tibetic languages as eight geolinguistic continua, consisting of 50 languages and over 200 dialects. This is an updated version of his work in 2008. The Eastern and Southeastern branches have lower internal mutual intelligibility, but it is more limited in the Northwestern branch and between certain southern and northern Khams dialects. These continua are spread across five countries with one exception, this being Sangdam, a Khams dialect in Kachin, Myanmar.


title: Tibetic languages

text: The other languages (Thewo-Chone, Zhongu, Khalong, Dongwang, Gserpa, Zitsadegu, Drugchu, Baima) are not mutually intelligible, but are not known well enough to classify.


title: Tibetic languages

text: Tournadre (2013) adds Tseku and Khamba to Khams, and groups Thewo-Chone, Zhongu, Baima as an Eastern branch of Tibetic.


title: Tibetic languages

text: According to Bradley, the languages cluster as follows (dialect information from the "Tibetan Dialects Project" at the University of Bern):


title: Tibetic languages

text: Some classifications group Khams and Amdo together as Eastern Tibetan (not to be confused with East Bodish, whose speakers are not ethnically Tibetan). Some, like Tournadre, break up Central Tibetan. Phrases such as 'Central Tibetan' and 'Central Bodish' may or may not be synonymous: Southern (Central) Tibetan can be found as Southern Bodish, for example; 'Central Tibetan' may mean dBus or all tonal lects apart from Khams; 'Western Bodish' may be used for the non-tonal western lects while 'Western Tibetan' is used for the tonal lects, or 'Bodish' may even be used for other branches of the Tibeto-Kanauri languages.


title: Tibetic languages

text: Most Tibetic languages are written in one of two Indic scripts. Standard Tibetan and most other Tibetic languages are written in the Tibetan script with a historically conservative orthography (see below) that helps unify the Tibetan-language area. Some other Tibetan languages (in India and Nepal) are written in the related Devanagari script, which is also used to write Hindi, Nepali and many other languages. However, some Ladakhi and Balti speakers write with the Urdu script; this occurs almost exclusively in Pakistan. The Tibetan script fell out of use in Pakistani Baltistan hundreds of years ago upon the region's adoption of Islam. However, increased concern among Balti people for the preservation of their language and traditions, especially in the face of strong Punjabi cultural influence throughout Pakistan, has fostered renewed interest in reviving the Tibetan script and using it alongside the Perso-Arabic script. Many shops in Baltistan's capital Skardu in Pakistan's "Northern Areas" region have begun supplementing signs written in the Perso-Arabic script with signs written in the Tibetan script. Baltis see this initiative not as separatist but rather as part of an attempt to preserve the cultural aspects of their region which has shared a close history with neighbours like Kashmiris and Punjabis since the arrival of Islam in the region many centuries ago.


title: Tibetic languages

text: Old Tibetan phonology is rather accurately rendered by the script. The finals were pronounced devoiced although they are written as voiced, the prefix letters assimilated their voicing to the root letters. The graphic combinations "hr" and "lh" represent voiceless and not necessarily aspirate correspondences to "r" and "l" respectively. The letter ' was pronounced as a voiced guttural fricative before vowels but as homorganic prenasalization before consonants. Whether the gigu "verso" had phonetic meaning or not remains controversial.


title: Tibetic languages

text: For instance, "Srongbtsan Sgampo" would have been pronounced (now pronounced in Lhasa Tibetan) and "'babs" would have been pronounced (pronounced in Lhasa Tibetan).


title: Tibetic languages

text: Already in the 9th century the process of cluster simplification, devoicing and tonogenesis had begun in the central dialects can be shown with Tibetan words transliterated in other languages, particularly Middle Chinese but also Uyghur.


title: Tibetic languages

text: The concurrence of the evidence indicated above enables us to form the following outline of the evolution of Tibetan. In the 9th century, as shown by the bilingual Tibetan–Chinese treaty of 821–822 found in front of Lhasa's Jokhang, the complex initial clusters had already been reduced, and the process of tonogenesis was likely well underway.


title: Tibetic languages

text: The next change took place in Tsang (Gtsang) dialects: The "ra"-tags were altered into retroflex consonants, and the "ya"-tags became palatals.


title: Tibetic languages

text: Later on the superscribed letters and finals "d" and "s" disappeared, except in the east and west. It was at this stage that the language spread in Lahul and Spiti, where the superscribed letters were silent, the "d" and "g" finals were hardly heard, and "as", "os", "us" were "ai", "oi", "ui". The words introduced from Tibet into the border languages at that time differ greatly from those introduced at an earlier period.


title: Tibetic languages

text: The other changes are more recent and restricted to Ü and Tsang. In Ü, the vowel sounds "a", "o", "u" have now mostly umlauted to "ä", "ö", "ü" when followed by the coronal sounds "i", "d", "s", "l" and "n". The same holds for Tsang with the exception of "l" which merely lengthens the vowel. The medials have become aspirate tenues with a low intonation, which also marks the words having a simple initial consonant; while the former aspirates and the complex initials simplified in speech are uttered with a high tone, shrill and rapidly.


title: Tibetic languages

text: Proto-Tibetic, the hypothetical proto-language ancestral to the Tibetic languages, has been reconstructed by Tournadre (2014). Proto-Tibetic is similar to, but not identical to, written Classical Literary Tibetan. The following phonological features are characteristic of Proto-Tibetic (Tournadre 2014: 113).


title: Tibetic languages

text: <nowiki>*ty-, *ly-, *sy-</nowiki> were not palatalized in Pre-Tibetic, but underwent palatalization in Proto-Tibetic (Tournadre 2014: 113-114). Posited sound changes from Pre-Tibetic to Proto-Tibetic include *ty- > *tɕ-, *sy- > *ɕ-, *tsy- > *tɕ-, and *ly- > *ʑ-. However, Tournadre (2014: 114) notes that many Bodish languages such as Basum, Tamang, and Kurtöp (East Bodish) have not undergone these changes (e.g., Bake (Basum) "ti" 'what' vs. Proto-Tibetic *tɕ(h)i and Bake "tɨ" 'one' vs. Proto-Tibetic *g(ǝ)-tɕ(h)ik; Kurtöp "la:" 'iron' and Bumthap "lak" 'iron' vs. Proto-Tibetic *ltɕaks).


title: Tibetic languages

text: Some Pre-Tibetic reconstructions, along with reconstructed Proto-Tibetic forms and orthographic Classical Literary Tibetan, from Tournadre (2014: 114-116) are listed below.