title: Federalism in the United States

text: The federal government increased its powers under the presidency of Barack Obama (2009–2017), and to an extent, the powers of the state governments also grew. In 2011, scholar Gillian Metzger discussed that "national developments entail some preemption and new state burdens. But each also has brought with it significant regulatory and financial opportunities for the states." Metzger points out that the states had increased regulatory responsibilities under Dodd-Frank, increased responsibilities in implementing and operating federal health care legislation under the Affordable Care Act, and received additional stimulus funding. Obama took office following the 2007-2008 financial crash, which called for him to take action to stabilize the economy. In 2009, he subsequently introduced The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). This act placed a federal focus on providing stabilizing state and local budgets, financial bailouts, and ensuring jobs were secure. ARRA was seen as a significant exertion of federal power which many conservatives criticized—however, this was through a coalition that included state governments as very active participants who worked closely in drafting and implementation. According to a 2010 article by Thomas L. Gais of the Rockefeller Institute, the Obama administration had been engaged with states more heavily than any administration since the 1960s, was more reliant than ever on state action, and states had the highest proportion of government employees compared to the federal government in history up to that point. Gais labelled this "assertive federalism". The cannabis policy of the Barack Obama administration was an easing of federal enforcement, granting more rights to the states in determining the legality of marijuana.


title: Federalism in the United States

text: Federalism under Donald Trump (2017-2021) was more complicated. In 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic, the presidency delayed action and federal agencies faced interference from the presidency, despite the federal government traditionally dealing with matters of national importance, including natural disasters or virus outbreaks. This would suggest that Trump attempted to weaken the role of the federal government, although he also attempted to override state powers or exercise powers that the Constitution did not grant the presidency. Punitive federalism, or the punishment of states and local areas by the federal government, became an issue during the Trump administration. Goelzhauser and Konisky state that punitive federalism is exemplified most by the Trump administration's interference with California through the EPA in 2018, and the withholding of disaster relief from Puerto Rico. They further state that "the pandemic has brought on, in addition to immense human suffering, the federalism event of the century". Another issue was Trump's response to the Black Lives Matter protests, in which he took a more confrontational stance, including deploying federal troops and agents to protests, despite several states opposing this measure and the action being condemned for possible unconstitutionality. According to Thompson, Wong, and Rabe, "Trump [was] particularly aggressive in the use of executive power, or the 'administrative presidency', to pursue his goals, including executive orders and regulatory changes." However, "the forces of federalism, especially state attorneys general, governors, and legislatures, have often undercut Trump’s executive initiatives and reduced their impact".


title: Federalism in the United States

text: The federalism of the Biden administration is an emerging discussion. One federalism topic includes the measures available to the federal government in combatting the COVID-19 pandemic, and the promotion of public health.


title: Life Is Beautiful (2012 film)

text: Life Is Beautiful is a 2012 Indian Telugu-language coming-of-age drama film written, produced and directed by Sekhar Kammula. The film features five debutants namely, Abijeet, Sudhakar Komakula, Kaushik Darbha, Shagun Kaur, and Zara Shah in lead roles with Shriya Saran, Anjala Zaveri and Amala Akkineni in key supporting roles. This film also features Vijay Devarakonda, Sree Vishnu & Naveen Polisetty .The film is produced by Sekhar Kammula and Chandrasekhar Kammula under Amigos Creations banner. Soundtrack of the film was composed by Mickey J Meyer and the cinematography was handled by Vijay C. Kumar. The film received mixed to positive reviews from critics and audiences.


title: Life Is Beautiful (2012 film)

text: Srinu (Abhijeet) is a college student who has two sisters, Satya (Rashmi Shastry) and Chinni (Kavya). Srinu's widowed mother (Amala) asks her children to move to their uncle's house in Hyderabad as she got a job transfer. Amma promises to Chinni that she will return in exactly one year. The area in which Srinu's uncle lives is divided into two areas: the luxurious Gold-phase and the lower class B-phase. Srinu's uncle lives in B-phase along with Srinu's Aunt, brother-in-law and sister-in-law, grandfather and grandmother.


title: Life Is Beautiful (2012 film)

text: B-phase is filled with love and humble people including Nagaraj (Sudhakar Komakula), the B-phase "gang" leader, Abhi (Kaushik Darbha), the small-sized geek, Lakshmi (Zara Shah), who is new to B-phase, and Paddu (Gurshagun Kaur), who is also Srinu's 2nd-cousin. Paddu's parents, however, are wealthy and her mother (Surekha Vani) is arrogant. Nagaraj's father is frustrated with his son as he has no job and always roams around B-phase. Gold-phase is filled with arrogant rich people who have no compassion towards the lower class B-phase. Some of them are Rakesh (Naveen Polishetty), Gold-phase "gang" leader, short tempered Suresh (Sanjeev), and Ajay (Vijay Devarakonda). Paru (Shriya Saran), the belle and Suresh's girlfriend, is also part of Gold-phase, but unlike her neighbors, she is sympathetic towards B-phase.


title: Life Is Beautiful (2012 film)

text: Srinu soon faces the Gold-phase rogues and gets into a brawl with them. At this juncture, it is revealed that Abhi is attracted to Paru, which angers Suresh. Chinni and her grandfather are insulted when a prestigious private school denies Chinni admission, citing her inability to speak English. Her grandfather challenges the school officials and motivates Chinni to learn English. Over time, Srinu and Paddu get close while Nagaraj tries to get close to Lakshmi.


title: Life Is Beautiful (2012 film)

text: Meanwhile, Maya madam (Anjala Zaveri), the B-phase belle, is being harassed by an anonymous caller. Srinu, Nagaraj, and Abhi find out who he is and catch him. After Maya madam beats the caller, he reveals that he is from Gold-phase. At this juncture, Maya madam thanks the boys and acquaints with them. Meanwhile, the caller brings the Gold-phase gang along and a fight starts, which Maya madam breaks up.


title: Life Is Beautiful (2012 film)

text: Annoyed with Maya madam, the Gold-phase gang tries to get pictures of her in the bathroom with a camera fitted toy drone but fail to do so. However, while fiddling around with it, they discover Srinu's brother-in-law, Ashok (Vishnuvardhan), and Rakesh's sister, Sony (Srimukhi), together. They confront the B-phase gang about it and warn them to get Ashok to back-off. However, Ashok brings Sony to his house, intending to marry her. The next morning, Rakesh, his father, and the Gold-phase gang come with the police to Ashok's house to have Ashok arrested. But Srinu's uncle (Ashok's father), who is a lawyer, settles the matter citing Sony's consent.


title: Life Is Beautiful (2012 film)

text: Despite the struggle, Ashok's and Sony's marriage is conducted in a simple manner at Ashok's house. From Gold-phase, only Paru shows up to the marriage reception and becomes acquainted with Abhi, which annoys Suresh. She also reveals that she is competing in the Miss India contest. At the reception, Ajay, who came with Suresh and Paru, sees Lakshmi and is immediately attracted to her. Ajay offers Lakshmi a job through Nagaraj, which she accepts as she needs money to pay for her engineering entrance exams. In order to provide a room for the married couple, Srinu is asked to move to Paddu's family's outhouse, which helps Srinu and Paddu spend more time together. Angry at Ashok's and Sony's marriage, Rakesh vows to retaliate.


title: Life Is Beautiful (2012 film)

text: Meanwhile, the parents of Gold-phase rogues plan to usurp the local lake, which geographically belongs to B-phase, after finding out that B-phase people have been using the lake, which connects B-phase to Gold-phase, to sneak into Gold-phase. Rakesh starts retaliating by temporarily cutting power supply and water supply to B-phase. This only brings the B-phase families closer, as the families start sharing food and water and spend more time with each other.


title: Life Is Beautiful (2012 film)

text: Meanwhile, Abhi's dog wanders off into Gold-phase as it is attracted to Paru's dog. The Gold-phase rogues trap Abhi's dog and unleash their dogs onto Abhi's dog. When Srinu and Abhi go to retrieve Abhi's dog they are beaten up by the Gold-phase rogues. This again turns in B-phase's favor when Paru visits Abhi to apologize. Paru also asks Abhi to teach her magic so that she can it show off as her talent at the Miss India prelims. Jealous over Paru's closeness with Abhi, Suresh talks to Rakesh, who then starts his next revenge.


title: Life Is Beautiful (2012 film)

text: Rakesh reveals to Paru's parents about her closeness with Abhi. Eventually things get worse when one of Satya's classmates, Manish (Charan Akula), makes a move on her and gives her a phone, seemingly planned by Rakesh. Ajay also starts moving closer with Lakshmi, which troubles Nagaraj. Chinni starts showing signs of missing her mother. When Gold-phase starts taking over the lake, B-phase manages to get a stay order through Srinu's uncle. Following this, Srinu states that Gold-phase is harassing them only because they appear vulnerable. Srinu proposes that they compete in every way possible with Gold-phase and the friends decide that Paddu will participate in the Miss India prelims.


title: Life Is Beautiful (2012 film)

text: Paddu's mother, who is keeping a close watch over her after finding about her closeness with Srinu, initially refuses to let her participate but agrees when Paddu agrees to see prospective grooms. Srinu finds about this and, distraught, distances himself from Paddu, which troubles Paddu. Nagaraj is also frustrated that Ajay is moving closer to Lakshmi. He also attempts to learn English through Chinni.


title: Life Is Beautiful (2012 film)

text: Paru invites Abhi to the beauty contest and during the journey, Paru and Abhi share each other's feelings. The rest of the B-phase friends also go to the contest as Paddu's guests. At the contest, Paddu feels overwhelmed and leaves the contest. She confides in Srinu that she is sad because he has been ignoring her and proposes to him, which he accepts. Paru inadvertently reveals her feelings for Abhi through one of her magic acts in front of everyone and goes on to win the prelims.


title: Life Is Beautiful (2012 film)

text: While returning, Suresh and Rakesh confront Paru about her feelings for Abhi and state that rich should only use the poor and not acquaint with them. Disgusted, Paru leaves them and returns along with the B-phase friends. However, upon returning, Paru's father asks her not to see Abhi anymore and she reluctantly obeys.


title: Life Is Beautiful (2012 film)

text: Later, Nagaraj proposes to Lakshmi but she refuses saying that he is unambitious and irresponsible while she aspires to become an engineer. She again starts addressing Nagaraj formally in order to suppress his feelings for her. Dejected, Nagaraj confides in Srinu and Abhi. Abhi also explains that Paru has not been in contact for a while and convinces Srinu and Nagaraj to help him talk to Paru. That night the trio sneaks over to Gold-phase and Abhi manages to talk to Paru. She explains that she is not confident enough to spend a lifetime with him and is not ready to marry him. But when Abhi asks if her affection towards Abhi was just a Gold-phase plan to hurt Abhi, she slaps him, indicating that she truly loved him.


title: Life Is Beautiful (2012 film)

text: Tensions between the two areas worsen on Lakshmi's birthday when Ajay proposes to Lakshmi and accidentally hurts her when she refuses. Furious, Nagaraj starts to beat up Ajay when everyone in the Gold-phase gang and the B-phase gang get involved. The police arrive and break up the fight. Rakesh files an attempt to murder case on Nagaraj, Srinu, and Abhi and bribes the police. However, Maya madam comes to their rescue with Lakshmi and files an attempt to rape case on Ajay. The police convince Rakesh to drop the charges in order to keep everyone out of trouble.


title: Life Is Beautiful (2012 film)

text: While returning home, Srinu inquires Lakshmi about Satya, who apparently said was going to Lakshmi's birthday party. When Lakshmi denies any knowledge Srinu asks Paddu to check on Satya. Paddu confirms Satya is home safe. While a confused Srinu is talking to Paddu about why Satya would lie to him, Paddu's mother discovers them and furiously throws Srinu out of her house. As Srinu returns to his uncle's house, he finds Satya talking on the phone with Manish.


title: Life Is Beautiful (2012 film)

text: The next morning, Srinu, along with Nagaraj, Abhi, and the rest of the B-phase gang, confront Manish and beat him up. Satya intervenes and sends Manish away. In a heated argument with Srinu, she confesses that she doesn't want to continue her studies as she feels overwhelmed. After Abhi escorts Satya away, Srinu confides in his uncle about everything that has happened and decides to visit Amma to tell her about everything that's been going on.


title: Life Is Beautiful (2012 film)

text: Srinu, his uncle, Satya, Abhi, and Nagaraj leave in Nagaraj's dad's car to visit Amma. Srinu's uncle takes them to a hospital where they find out that Amma has cancer. Doctors inform them that Amma stopped her treatment worried that the expenditure will eat into the money saved for her children's studies but that the treatment could cure Amma. The group decides not to tell Amma of the events and leave after having an emotional talk with Amma.


title: Life Is Beautiful (2012 film)

text: Upon returning, Srinu and Satya hide the truth from Chinni and focus on their education. Abhi's love towards his mother grows and he lets her pinch his cheeks (which he actually hates). Nagaraj's father, however, is angry that Nagaraj took his car without telling him, which has left him without any earnings (as he uses it as a taxi), and kicks Nagaraj out of the house, and gives him an ultimatum to return only if he finds a way of earning money. Nagaraj has always been interested in starting his own small business, which proves difficult as he can't figure out what he should do and can do.


title: Life Is Beautiful (2012 film)

text: Paddu's and Srinu's relationship seems to be falling apart as Srinu wants to focus more on his education and his sisters. Nagaraj also has been distancing himself from Lakshmi, which is difficult for her to cope with. Maya madam again comes to the aid and suggests that Nagaraj start his own cab service with the cars that her friend is selling, which cost Rs. 3 lakhs in total. Maya madam helps Nagaraj with Rs. 2 lakhs. Lakshmi talks to Nagaraj and tells him she is not happy without him and starts calling him informally again to rekindle their friendship. She also provides Nagaraj with the jewelry that her father has been saving up for her marriage, which is worth Rs. 1 lakh.


title: Life Is Beautiful (2012 film)

text: Nagaraj successfully starts his cab service under the name of 'Laxmi', the only word he can spell in English. Having realized how much Nagaraj loves her, Lakshmi reciprocates her love. Abhi changes back into his old nerdy self, Lakshmi and Satya write their examinations well, and Srinu earns his degree and gets a job. When everything seems to be going well, doctors from Amma's hospital call and inform that Amma's condition is deteriorating and request Srinu to come immediately. Before leaving for the hospital, Srinu goes to Paddu's house and asks her parents for her hand in marriage. Although Paddu's mother refuses, Paddu speaks up and tells her that she wants to be with Srinu, which convinces Paddu's father who lets her go with Srinu. Srinu, Paddu, Nagaraj, and Abhi go to the hospital, where Srinu informs Amma that he got a job and Satya wrote her exams well, and also introduces Paddu. Feeling confident that her children can settle down, Amma resumes her treatment.


title: Life Is Beautiful (2012 film)

text: Chinni participates in an English-speaking competition against a student from the convent school where she was denied admission earlier, with judges and audience from both sides present. When Chinni is asked to tell about her mother in English, she speaks in English initially but has an emotional breakdown and continues to describe how much she loves her mother and how much she misses her now in Telugu, which moves everyone there to tears, including the judges from the convent school who decide Chinni win the competition. But Chinni, now that 1 year has passed, insists on seeing her mother who returns after successful treatment.


title: Life Is Beautiful (2012 film)

text: Srinu feels nostalgic over the memories he earned through his time in B-phase. He meets with Rakesh and thanks him for troubling him, claiming that the Gold-phase harassment has given their lives completeness with both sweetness and spice. Rakesh thanks Srinu in return claiming that B-phase made him realize that wealth does not provide one with true happiness. Rakesh and Srinu shake each other's hands. Nagaraj's father hugs his son and welcomes him back. Paru visits Abhi and asks how he's been doing, to which Abhi says that he is just happy because everyone else is happy. But when she asks if he has been missing her, Abhi gives a speechless look. With this, Paru leaves feeling happy for Abhi and B-phase. In the end, Chinni asks her mother do they really have to go back. Everyone asks the family to stay, to which the family agrees.


title: Life Is Beautiful (2012 film)

text: In August 2010, reports emerged that Sekhar Kammula registered the title "Life Is Beautiful" at the film chamber and would make the movie with Varun Sandesh. Seven months after his movie Leader was released, Sekhar officially announced that his next project was titled "Life Is Beautiful" and would star newcomers. On 3 September 2010, he announced a star hunt in association with Vodafone India and Radio Mirchi that would help him find the lead actors for the movie. In April 2011, it was announced that after almost 8 months of auditions and casting, the lead cast was finalized. After multiple delays, filming finally began in June 2011. In February 2012, it was reported that one of the film's lead actress walked out of the project after shooting for almost six months. It was reported that Shriya Saran was cast in the film to replace the actor. Singer Sunitha Upadrashta who has given voice to most of Shekar's earlier films had provide her voice to actress Shriya Saran. It was announced that a gated community set worth 1 crore was built under the supervision of art director Thotta Tharani. In May 2012, it was reported that the filming was finally completed. On 6 July 2012, a press meet was held in Hyderabad where the cast was introduced and the first look of the film was launched.


title: Life Is Beautiful (2012 film)

text: During an interview it was revealed that the director approached actress Sai Pallavi for the lead role but she eventually refused the offer to pursue her medical degree in Georgia .


title: Life Is Beautiful (2012 film)

text: Although initial reports suggested that the film would release in early 2012, delays in filming and production pushed back the film release. In July 2012, it was announced that the film would release in August. The film was released worldwide on 14 September 2012 with premier shows in USA on 13 September.


title: Life Is Beautiful (2012 film)

text: In October 2011, it was announced that Ficus Inc had acquired the overseas theatrical distribution rights of the film. It was reported that the satellite rights of the film were sold to MAA TV for 3.5 crores.


title: Life Is Beautiful (2012 film)

text: The film received mixed to positive reviews from critics and audiences, many critics compared the film to Sekhar's previous film "Happy Days". DNA India wrote:"Sekhar Kammula has delivered again with Life is Beautiful. Yes, the film is a bit too long and there are many scenes that could have been edited out or even shot better – but all said and done... the three-hour long tale leaves you smiling, gushing and crying at several intervals. You leave the theatre feeling better about the world and thankful for the smallest joys in life – which we think is more than what Sekhar Kammula could have asked for". CNN-IBN wrote:"The plot lacked continuity and was heading in different directions before finally arriving at a cliched climax". Oneindia wrote:"It has a good story and performances but suffers from dragging narration". 123telugu wrote:"A brilliant performance from Amala in the climax and a few good scenes are the film’s assets. Bad screenplay, excessive length and lack of entertainment will work against the film". Idlebrain wrote:"The plus points are Sekhar’s trade mark beautiful moments, casting, dialogues, direction and a strong mother sentiment. On the flip side, a better background music and shorter runtime would have helped the film further. On a whole, Life is Beautiful is a good movie".


title: Life Is Beautiful (2012 film)

text: The soundtrack of the film was composed by Mickey J Meyer. Mickey previously worked with Sekhar for Happy Days and Leader. The audio of the film was released on 27 July 2012 at Marriott Hotel in Hyderabad through Aditya Music label. Lyrics for the songs were penned by Anantha Sreeram and Vanamali. The music premier of the album was held at Radio Mirchi where the songs were played for the first time for public hearing.


title: Panther KF51

text: The Panther KF51 is a German main battle tank that is under development by Rheinmetall Landsysteme (part of Rheinmetall's Vehicle Systems division). It was unveiled publicly at the Eurosatory defence exhibition on 13 June 2022. KF is short for "Kettenfahrzeug", i.e., tracked vehicle.


title: Panther KF51

text: The KF51 is currently based on the hull of the legacy Leopard 2A4, but the design is intended to mark a departure from the preceding generation of Western MBTs by introducing a new turret armed with an autoloaded 130 mm main gun, reducing weight through greater reliance on active rather than passive protection and facilitating teaming with uncrewed platforms by providing space inside the hull for a dedicated systems operator or unit commander.


title: Panther KF51

text: Rheinmetall began the development of major subsystems related to the Panther in 2016, with system-level design commencing in 2018. The Panther has been developed as a private venture by Rheinmetall to demonstrate the potential fory by 2026. increasing the lethality, mobility, survivability, and networking capabilities of MBTs without incurring a significant increase in weight. To reduce the weight of the Leopard 2A4 platform on which the development vehicle is based, Rheinmetall prioritised active over passive protection.


title: Panther KF51

text: Further developments under consideration for the vehicle including measures to make it more environmentally friendly during peacetime operations, the installation of a more powerful and more efficient powerpack, the integration of AI into the fire control system to enable automated target detection and identification, mounting an unmanned turret on the vehicle, and the creation of an unmanned version of the Panther. Efforts to make the vehicle more environmentally friendly could result in an alternative hull being developed for the Panther.


title: Panther KF51

text: The KF51 is based on the hull of the Leopard 2A4, this of conventional layout for an MBT with the driver at the front, the fighting compartment/turret in the middle, and the powerpack at the rear. The driver is seated in the front right of the hull and is provided with a single-piece hatch above their position in the roof of the glacis plate. A separate crew station can be provided in the left front of the hull for either a dedicated systems operator or a unit commander. Colour cameras for the driver are installed in the centre of the front and rear of the hull. Should the KF51 enter production a new hull would be designed by Rheinmetall.


title: Panther KF51

text: Where the design of the KF51 departs from that of the preceding generation of Western MBTs is by the introduction of a new two-person turret fitted with an autoloaded main gun. The rear of the turret houses the magazines for the main gun's automatic loader and pods for loitering munitions if these have been equipped. There are housings for cameras on all four corners of the turret and in the middle of each side of the turret.


title: Panther KF51

text: The Panther has a combat weight of 59-tonnes making it lighter than most Western MBTs developed prior to 2022. The powerpack, tracks and most of the running gear of the vehicle are also believed to have been derived from those of the Leopard 2A4. This Leopard 2A4 powerpack consists of an MTU MB 873 Ka-501 water-cooled V12 diesel engine producing 1,479 hp at 2,600 rpm, this coupled to a Renk HSWL 354 four-speed automatic transmission. The Panther's maximum speed has not been disclosed but it has a maximum range of 500 km.


title: Panther KF51

text: The Leopard 2A4's running gear consists of seven dual-tyred rubber roadwheels and four rubber-tyred offset track return rollers on each side, with the idler at the front and the drive sprocket at the rear. The roadwheels are supported by torsion bar suspension with advanced friction dampers. The first, second, third, sixth, and seventh roadwheels feature advanced friction dampers and hydraulic bump stops to dampen oscillations, with the fourth and fifth fitted with solid bump stops. The KF51 is fitted with an 82-link Defence Service Tracks 570F track of 635 mm width with rubber-bushed end connectors on each side.


title: Panther KF51

text: The KF51 Panther is stated to have three layers of protection: passive, reactive and active. The innermost layer consists of all-welded steel armour covered by passive armour modules. The second layer comprises sensor-based reactive armour, while the final layer consists of Rheinmetall's Active Defence System (ADS) active protection system (APS) that Rheinmetall claims is capable of protecting against kinetic energy (KE) projectiles and anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs). It is possible to mount the ADS on both the hull and the turret.


title: Panther KF51

text: The Panther is fitted with eight Rheinmetall Rapid Obscuring System (ROSY) smoke grenade launchers mounted in staggered rows of two behind the central camera housing on each side of the turret. It is possible to integrate sensors into the Panther that can detect the launch signature of ATGMs and unguided anti-tank rockets before cueing the vehicle's crew towards the threat or launching appropriate countermeasures. The Panther can be fitted with Rheinmetall's Top Attack Protection System (TAPS). This comprises a hard-kill element in which the coverage of the ADS is extended to the roof of the platform to protect against both ATGMs and unguided anti-tank rockets launched at high elevations, as well as a soft-kill element that aims to protect against threats such as loitering munitions.


title: Panther KF51

text: The primary armament of the KF51 is a stabilised Rheinmetall Rh-130 L/51 130 mm smoothbore gun that can be elevated from −9˚ to +20˚. Rheinmetall claims that this is capable of delivering between of energy onto a target and that it has a 50% longer effective range than other Rheinmetall 120 mm tank guns. The Rh-130 can fire armour-piercing fin-stabilised discarding sabot (APFSDS) ammunition, programmable airburst high explosive (HE) and practice projectiles.


title: Panther KF51

text: The gun is fed by an auto loader that consists of two revolving drum magazines with a capacity of ten rounds each. During a test firing in April 2022, the Rh-130 mounted on a test rig was able to fire three rounds in 16 seconds, though this included the time to perform safety checks. Two hatches are located in the turret sides to allow the autoloader's magazines to be replenished within five minutes. An option is available to carry an additional 10 rounds on the back of the vehicle outside of the hull and turret.


title: Panther KF51

text: Secondary armament consists of a coaxially mounted 12.7 mm machine gun. A remote operated weapon station can be mounted on the rear of the turret roof to provide close-in defence and a counter-unmanned aircraft system (C-UAS) capability. An option for this is the Rheinmetall Natter, which can be armed with a 7.62 mm MG that can be elevated from −15˚ to +85˚. When armed with a 7.62 mm MG, it carries 2,500 ready rounds. The KF51 can be equipped with the HERO 120 loitering munition system.


title: John Mortimer

text: Sir John Clifford Mortimer (21 April 1923 – 16 January 2009) was a British barrister, dramatist, screenwriter and author. He is best known for novels about a barrister named Horace Rumpole.


title: John Mortimer

text: Mortimer was born in Hampstead, London, the only child of Kathleen May (née Smith) and (Herbert) Clifford Mortimer (1884–1961), a divorce and probate barrister who became blind in 1936 when he hit his head on the door frame of a London taxi but still pursued his career. Clifford's loss of sight was not acknowledged openly by the family.


title: John Mortimer

text: John Mortimer was educated at the Dragon School, Oxford, and Harrow School, where he joined the Communist Party, forming a one-member cell. He first intended to be an actor (his lead role in the Dragon's 1937 production of "Richard II" gained glowing reviews in "The Draconian") and then a writer, but his father persuaded him against it, advising: "My dear boy, have some consideration for your unfortunate wife... [the law] gets you out of the house."


title: John Mortimer

text: At 17, Mortimer went to Brasenose College, Oxford, where he read law, though he was actually based at Christ Church because the Brasenose buildings had been requisitioned for the war effort. In July 1942, at the end of his second year, he was sent down from Oxford by John Lowe, Dean of Christ Church, after romantic letters to a Bradfield College sixth-former, Quentin Edwards, later a QC, were discovered by the young man's housemaster. However, Mortimer was still allowed to take his Bachelor of Arts degree in law in October 1943. His close friend Michael Hamburger believed he had been very harshly treated.


title: John Mortimer

text: With weak eyes and doubtful lungs, Mortimer was classified as medically unfit for military service in World War II. He worked for the Crown Film Unit under Laurie Lee, writing scripts for propaganda documentaries.


title: John Mortimer

text: I lived in London and went on journeys in blacked-out trains to factories and coal-mines and military and air force installations. For the first and, in fact, the only time in my life I was, thanks to Laurie Lee, earning my living entirely as a writer. If I have knocked the documentary ideal, I would not wish to sound ungrateful to the Crown Film Unit. I was given great and welcome opportunities to write dialogue, construct scenes and try and turn ideas into some kind of visual drama.


title: John Mortimer

text: Mortimer made his radio debut as a dramatist in 1955, adapting his own novel "Like Men Betrayed" for the BBC Light Programme. His debut as an original playwright came with "The Dock Brief" starring Michael Hordern as a hapless barrister, first broadcast in 1957 on BBC Radio's Third Programme, and later televised with the same cast. It later appeared in a double bill with "What Shall We Tell Caroline?" at the Lyric Hammersmith in April 1958, before transferring to the Garrick Theatre. "The Dock Brief" was revived by Christopher Morahan in 2007 for a touring double bill with "Legal Fictions". It won the Prix Italia in 1957, and its success on radio, stage, and television led Mortimer to prefer writing for performance rather than writing novels.


title: John Mortimer

text: Mortimer's play "A Voyage Round My Father", first broadcast on radio in 1963, is autobiographical, recounting his experiences as a young barrister and his relations with his blind father. It was televised by BBC Television in 1969 with Mark Dignam in the title role. In a lengthier version, the play became a stage success – first at Greenwich Theatre with Dignam, then in 1971 at the Theatre Royal Haymarket with Alec Guinness). In 1981 it was remade by Thames Television with Laurence Olivier as the father and Alan Bates as young Mortimer. In 1965, he and his wife wrote the screenplay for the Otto Preminger film "Bunny Lake is Missing", which also starred Olivier.


title: John Mortimer

text: Mortimer was called to the Bar (Inner Temple) in 1948, at the age of 25. His early career covered testamentary and divorce work, but on taking silk in 1966, he began to undertake criminal law. His highest profile came from cases relating to claims of obscenity, which, according to Mortimer, were "alleged to be testing the frontiers of tolerance."


title: John Mortimer

text: He has sometimes been cited wrongly as one in the "Lady Chatterley's Lover" obscenity trial defence team. He did, however, successfully defend publishers John Calder and Marion Boyars in a 1968 appeal against a conviction for publishing Hubert Selby Jr.'s "Last Exit to Brooklyn". He assumed a similar role three years later, this time unsuccessfully, for Richard Handyside, the English publisher of "The Little Red Schoolbook".


title: John Mortimer

text: In 1971, Mortimer managed to defend the editors of the satirical paper "Oz" against a charge of "conspiracy to corrupt and debauch the morals of the young of the Realm", which might have carried a sentence of 12 years' hard labour. In 1976, he defended "Gay News" editor Denis Lemon ("Whitehouse v. Lemon") against charges of blasphemous libel for publishing James Kirkup's "The Love That Dares to Speak Its Name"; Lemon was given a suspended prison sentence, which was overturned on appeal. He successfully defended Virgin Records in a 1977 obscenity hearing for using the word bollocks in the title of the Sex Pistols album "Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols" and the manager of the Nottingham branch of Virgin record shop chain for displaying and selling the record. Mortimer retired from the bar in 1984.


title: John Mortimer

text: Mortimer is best remembered for creating a barrister named Horace Rumpole, inspired by his father Clifford, whose speciality is defending those accused in London's Old Bailey. Mortimer created Rumpole for a BBC "Play For Today" in 1975. Although not Mortimer's first choice of actor – in an interview on the DVD set, he said he wanted Alistair Sim "but he turned out to be dead so he couldn't take it on" – Australian-born Leo McKern played Rumpole with gusto and proved popular. The idea was developed into a series, "Rumpole of the Bailey", for Thames Television, in which McKern kept the lead role. Mortimer also wrote a series of Rumpole books. In September–October 2003, BBC Radio 4 broadcast four new 45-minute Rumpole plays by Mortimer with Timothy West in the title role. Mortimer also dramatised many real-life cases of the barrister Edward Marshall-Hall in a radio series with former "Doctor Who" star Tom Baker as protagonist.


title: John Mortimer

text: In 1975 and 1976, Mortimer adapted eight of Graham Greene’s short stories for episodes of "Shades of Greene" presented by Thames Television. Mortimer was credited with writing the script for Granada Television's 1981 serialization of "Brideshead Revisited", based on the novel by Evelyn Waugh. However, Graham Lord's unofficial biography, "John Mortimer: The Devil's Advocate", revealed in 2005 that none of Mortimer's submitted scripts had in fact been used and the screenplay was actually written by the series' producer and director. Mortimer adapted John Fowles's "The Ebony Tower" starring Laurence Olivier for Granada in 1984. In 1986, his adaptation of his own novel "Paradise Postponed" was televised. He wrote the script, based on the autobiography of Franco Zeffirelli, for the 1999 film "Tea with Mussolini", directed by Zeffirelli and starring Joan Plowright, Cher, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith and Lily Tomlin. From 2004, Mortimer worked as a consultant for the politico-legal US "dramedy" television show "Boston Legal".


title: John Mortimer

text: Mortimer developed his career as a dramatist by rising early to write before attending court. His work in total includes over 50 books, plays and scripts. Besides 13 episodes of Rumpole dramatized for radio in 1980, several others of his works were broadcast on the BBC, including the true crime series "John Mortimer Presents: The Trials Of Marshall Hall" and "Sensational British Trials".


title: John Mortimer

text: Mortimer in 1949 married Penelope Fletcher as her second husband, later better known as Penelope Mortimer. They had a son, Jeremy Mortimer, and a daughter, Sally Silverman. The unstable marriage inspired work by both writers, of which Penelope's novel, "The Pumpkin Eater" (1962), later made into a film of the same name, is best known. The couple divorced in 1971 and he married Penelope Gollop in 1972. They had two daughters, Emily Mortimer (1971), and Rosie Mortimer (1984). He and his second wife lived in the Buckinghamshire village of Turville Heath. The split with his first wife had been bitter, but they were on friendly terms by the time of her death in 1999.


title: John Mortimer

text: In September 2004, the "Sunday Telegraph" journalist Tim Walker revealed that Mortimer had fathered another son, Ross Bentley, who was conceived during a secret affair Mortimer had with the English actress Wendy Craig more than 40 years earlier. He was born in November 1961. Craig and Mortimer had met when the actress had been cast playing a pregnant woman in Mortimer's first full-length West End play, "The Wrong Side of the Park". Ross Bentley was raised by Craig and her husband, Jack Bentley, the show business writer and musician.


title: John Mortimer

text: In Mortimer's memoirs, "Clinging to the Wreckage", he wrote of "enjoying my mid-thirties and all the pleasures which come to a young writer."


title: John Mortimer

text: John Mortimer was a member of English PEN. He was patron of the Burma Campaign UK, the London-based group campaigning for human rights and democracy in Burma and president of the Royal Court Theatre, having been the chairman of its board in 1990–2000.


title: Anahata

text: Anahata (, IAST: , ) or heart chakra is the fourth primary chakra, according to Hindu Yogic, Shakta and Buddhist Tantric traditions. In Sanskrit, "anahata" means "unhurt, unstruck, and unbeaten". "Anahata Nad" refers to the Vedic concept of "unstruck sound" (the sound of the celestial realm). Anahata is associated with balance, calmness, and serenity.


title: Anahata

text: In Sanskrit Anahata means "sound produced without touching two parts" and at the same time it means "pure" or "clean, stainless". The name of this chakra signifies the state of freshness that appears when we are able to become detached and to look at the different and apparently contradictory experiences of life with a state of openness (expansion). Normally we are not used to the effect produced by the confrontation of the two opposite forces. At the level of Anahata chakra appears the possibility to integrate the two opposite forces and obtain the effect (sound, in this case), without the two forces being confronted (without touching of the two parts). This energy is specific to cooperation and integration, which brings peace and a new perspective in a world which, up to this level (considering only the energies specific to the first three centres of force: Muladhara, Swasdhistana and Manipura) was made only of a more or less conscious confrontation between opposite forces. The name Anahata suggests, in fact, the synergetic effect of the interaction of energies at this level.


title: Anahata

text: Anahata is represented by a lotus flower with twelve petals. Inside there is a smoky region at the intersection of two triangles, creating a shatkona. The shatkona is a symbol used in Hindu Yantra, representing the union of male and female. Specifically, it is meant to represent Purusha (the Supreme Being) and Prakriti (Nature). The deity of this area is Vayu, who is smoke-like and four-armed, holding a kusha and riding an antelope (this chakra's animal).


title: Anahata

text: The seed syllable is the dark-grey mantra "yam". In the bindu (or dot) above the syllable is the deity Isha. Isha is bright white or blue in color. He has either one or five faces, with three eyes on each face. He may have two, four or ten arms. He is clad in a tiger skin, holds a trident and drum, grants blessings, and dispels fear. His shakti is Kakini, who is shining yellow or rose-coloured. She has a number of variations: one, three or six faces; two or four arms; and holds a variety of implements (occasionally a sword, shield, skull or trident). She is seated on a red lotus.


title: Anahata

text: The twelve petals are inscribed with the following Sanskrit syllables. (Note: In some representations the syllables or else the petals themselves are colored vermillion.)


title: Anahata

text: Even more commonly, systems of understanding identify these vrittis as corresponding with various reflexive modifications away from the indifferentiated divine mind, each one considered as arising from spiritual ignorance, as below.


title: Anahata

text: William Enckhausen defines half of these vrittis as spiritual ignorances and half spiritual developments. "Half the 12 vrttis of the Anahata are 'positive', growth promoting vrttis and the other half are 'negative' or at most neutral, self-justifying defense tendencies that perpetuate the ego's limited boundaries instead of expanding and refining them. There is still a limited and bounded sense of self, but with the potential to discriminate between vice and virtue. There is also still the boundary of self and not self to be overcome, although not as marked as in the Manipura and Svadhistana. Harmony, balance, and proportion are key elements in this fulcrum that is the Anahata to help determine what is growth-promoting and virtuous (self, or good for the self) and what is vice, or inappropriate for spiritual self-growth (not self)." Enckhausen's translations follow.


title: Anahata

text: Anahata is considered to be the seat of the Jivatman and Parashakti. In the Upanishads, this is described as a tiny flame inside the heart. Anahata is named as such because sages were believed to hear the sound (Anahata – comes without the striking of two objects together). It is associated with air, touch and the actions of the hands.


title: Anahata

text: Anahata is associated with the ability to make decisions outside the realm of karma. In Manipura and below, man is bound by the laws of karma and fate. In Anahata one makes decisions ("follows one's heart") based on one's higher self, not the unfulfilled emotions and desires of lower nature. As such, it is known as the heart chakra. It is also associated with love and compassion, charity to others and psychic healing. Meditation on this chakra is said to bring about the following siddhis (abilities): he becomes a lord of speech, he is dear to women, his presence controls the senses of others, and he can leave and enter the body at will.


title: Anahata

text: Immediately below Anahata (at the solar plexus or, sometimes, on the near left side of the body) is a minor chakra known as Hrit (or Hridaya, "heart"), with eight petals. It has three regions: a vermilion sun region, within which is a white moon region, within which is a deep-red fire region. Within this is the red wish-fulfilling tree, kalpavriksha, which symbolises the ability to manifest what one wishes to happen in the world.


title: Anahata

text: Hrit chakra is sometimes known as the Surya (sun) chakra, which is located slightly to the left below the heart. Its role is to absorb energy from the sun and provide heat to the body and the other chakras (to Manipura in particular, to which it provides "Agni' (fire).


title: Anahata

text: In Yogic practices, anahata is awakened and balanced by asanas, pranayamas and the practice of ajapa japa (japa, without the mental effort normally needed to repeat the mantra) and purified by "bhakti" (devotion).


title: Anahata

text: The heart wheel in Tibetan Buddhism is the location of the indestructible red-and-white drop. At death, the winds of the body dissolve and enter this drop, which then leads the body into Bardo (the intermediate stage) and rebirth. The heart wheel in this model is circular, white and has eight petals (or channels) reaching downwards. These channels divide into three wheels (mind, speech and body) and go to 24 places in the body. They again divide into three and then into 1,000, producing 72,000 channels (known as Nadi) throughout the body.


title: Anahata

text: The heart wheel is important in meditation; in the lower tantras, the mantra is recited from the heart. It is recited verbally and then mentally; then, in the heart, a tiny moon disc and flame are imagined from which the mantra rings. In the higher tantras (the Anuttarayoga Tantra of the Sarma schools) or the Inner Tantras of the Nyingma school, the practitioner attempts to dissolve the winds and drops into the central channel at the level of the heart to experience the Yoga of Clear Light; this is a practice of the Six Yogas of Naropa. In Tibetan Buddhism there is a chakra, the Fire Wheel, above the heart and below the throat.


title: Anahata

text: Sufis have a system of Lataif-e-sitta at a number of points on the body; at the heart, there are three positioned horizontally. On the left side of the chest is the Qalb (the heart); the Ruḥ is on the right side of the chest, and the Sirr (innermost heart) is between them.


title: Anahata

text: The Qalb is called the "heart of the mystic"; it is caught between the downward pull of the lower nafs, and the upward pull of the spirit of Allah and may be blackened by sin. It may be purified by reciting the names of God. The Ruḥ is the centre of the spirit, the breath of Allah; when awakened, it counteracts the negative pull of the nafs. The Sirr is the innermost heart, where Allah manifests his mystery to himself.


title: Mark Begich

text: Mark Peter Begich ( ; born March 30, 1962) is an American politician who served as a United States senator from Alaska from 2009 to 2015. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as Mayor of Anchorage from 2003 to 2009.


title: Mark Begich

text: Born in Anchorage, Begich is the son of former U.S. Representative Nick Begich Sr. He was elected to the Anchorage Assembly at the age of 26. He eventually served as chairman for three years, before leaving the Assembly in 1998. Begich ran two unsuccessful campaigns for Mayor of Anchorage in 1994 and 2000 before being elected in 2003. He was subsequently reelected in 2006. In the 2008 Senate election, Begich narrowly defeated incumbent Ted Stevens, at the time the longest-serving Republican member of the U.S. Senate.


title: Mark Begich

text: In the 2014 Senate election, Begich was narrowly defeated in his bid for reelection by former Alaska Attorney General Dan Sullivan. Following completion of his term in the U.S. Senate, Begich started Anchorage-based consulting firm Northern Compass Group. On June 1, 2018, Begich announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for Governor of Alaska in the 2018 election, facing off against Republican nominee and former State Senator Mike Dunleavy. He lost the gubernatorial election by a margin of seven percent.


title: Mark Begich

text: Begich was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska. He is the son of Margaret Jean "Pegge" (née Jendro) and former U.S. Representative Nick Begich. His father disappeared in October 1972 during a flight from Anchorage to Juneau, Alaska with then U.S. House Majority Leader Hale Boggs, but was reelected the next month, while missing, before both were declared legally dead.


title: Mark Begich

text: The fourth of six children, he has two sisters and three brothers. His paternal grandparents were Croatian; his paternal grandfather, John Begich, immigrated to the United States from Croatia (then part of the empire of Austria-Hungary) in 1911. His mother had Polish, Bohemian (Czech), Dutch, and English ancestry. He attended Steller Secondary School in Anchorage. As an adolescent, he opened an 18-and-under club called "The Motherlode." At the age of 18, he had obtained a business license to sell jewelry and was helping his mother manage a number of real estate properties. Because of his business opportunities, he decided not to go to college.


title: Mark Begich

text: His mother twice ran to fill her late husband's Congressional seat in the 1980s, losing to longtime Representative Don Young both times.


title: Mark Begich

text: At the age of 19, Begich started working in the Anchorage city health department and later worked as a driver for then-Anchorage Mayor Tony Knowles. During the 1988 legislative session, Begich worked as a legislative aide for State Representative Dave Donley. Begich was elected to the Anchorage Assembly in 1988, at age 26, and served until 1998, including three years as chairman and two as vice chairman.


title: Mark Begich

text: Begich served for a number of years on the Alaska Commission on Postsecondary Education, including as its chair. In 2001, Governor Tony Knowles appointed Begich to the University of Alaska Board of Regents, but the legislature did not confirm the appointment.


title: Mark Begich

text: He ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 1994 against Rick Mystrom, and in 2000 against then-Assemblyman George Wuerch. In the 2003 mayoral race he narrowly defeated both Mystrom and Wuerch, earning only 11 votes over the number needed to win without a runoff, in accordance with a simultaneously approved law decreasing the threshold needed to avoid such a runoff election from 50 to 45 percent. He was re-elected in April 2006, winning against local advertising and radio personality Jack Frost. Although the office is officially nonpartisan, Begich was the first Democrat to be elected Mayor of the Municipality of Anchorage since Tony Knowles.


title: Mark Begich

text: Begich was a member of the pro-gun-control group Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Begich left the group in 2007.


title: Mark Begich

text: On February 27, 2008, Begich announced that he was forming an exploratory committee to run for the United States Senate. After winning the Democratic nomination, he went on to face Republican incumbent Ted Stevens in the general election. Begich was ahead in polls prior to the election. During the campaign, Stevens faced a multiple count indictment on ethics and corruption charges.


title: Mark Begich

text: On October 27, 2008, eight days before the general election, Stevens was found guilty by a Washington D.C. federal jury on seven felony counts.


title: Mark Begich

text: Stevens's conviction was later set aside due to prosecutorial misconduct. Attorney General Eric Holder later declined to retry Stevens on the corruption charges.


title: Mark Begich

text: In April 2009, Alaska Republican Party chairman, Randy Ruedrich, issued a call for Begich to resign so a special election could be held. Despite the fact that the charges had been brought by the Bush administration, Ruedrich argued that Begich's win was illegitimate because of "improper influence from the corrupt Department of Justice." The same day Governor Sarah Palin seconded Ruedrich's call, although she later denied having said Begich should resign. Begich said he intended to serve his full six-year term.


title: Mark Begich

text: On November 18, 2008, the Associated Press called the election for Begich, who was leading and likely to win by more than the 0.5% margin needed to trigger an automatic recount, with the remainder of uncounted ballots originating from the Anchorage area. Stevens conceded the race the next day.


title: Mark Begich

text: Begich's victory made him Alaska's first Democratic U.S. Senator since Mike Gravel left office in 1981.


title: Mark Begich

text: Begich was up for re-election in 2014. He faced William Bryk in the Democratic primary on August 19, 2014, winning 96.7% of the vote. Candidates in the closed Republican primary included Lt. Governor Mead Treadwell, who received 25% of the vote; former Alaska Attorney General and Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Daniel S. Sullivan, who won with 40%; 2010 U.S. Senate nominee Joe Miller (32%); and John Jaramillo (3%). Alaska's 2014 U.S. Senate race was considered one of the most competitive congressional races in the nation, with the "Cook Political Report" rating it a "toss-up." In the final "Rothenberg Political Report" before the election, the Report considered the race a "Toss-up/Tilt Republican."


title: Mark Begich

text: In August 2014, shortly before the Senate primary, Lisa Murkowski, who serves alongside Begich in the U.S. Senate, objected to Begich's use of her image in a campaign advertisement titled "Great Team." Murkowski's law firm sent a cease-and-desist letter, calling the advertisement "factually incorrect." According to "Politico", "Begich, running in deep-red Alaska, has sought on several occasions to highlight shared positions with Murkowski. But she is distancing herself." Begich declined to pull the ad.


title: Mark Begich

text: According to "The New York Times", Alaska's 2014 U.S. Senate race is "potentially pivotal" and "nationally watched." "The New York Times" reported that in a bid to keep his seat, "Begich will try to attract rural voters and supporters of abortion rights." According to "The Washington Post", Begich is campaigning on the idea of expanding Social Security benefits. According to "The Washington Post", "Begich is one of a small but growing group of Democratic lawmakers who support the idea of lifting or changing the payroll tax cap, so higher earners pay more, while adopting a new measure for inflation that would increase benefits for all seniors."


title: Mark Begich

text: In August 2014, Begich pulled a campaign ad accusing opponent Dan Sullivan of allowing an alleged murderer and rapist to get off with a light sentence. That claim was proven to be false by fact checkers. The ad was withdrawn from Alaska television stations following demands from the crime victim's family that the ads were both insensitive and threatened prosecution of a criminal suspect.


title: Mark Begich

text: Begich voted against a Republican-sponsored amended in the Senate to strip all funding from President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and to prevent the DACA program from being expanded. During the campaign, Sullivan criticized Begich's vote.


title: Mark Begich

text: On February 13, 2009, Begich voted to pass the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (commonly referred to as the Stimulus or The Recovery Act).


title: Mark Begich

text: In 2012, Begich introduced a bill called the Protecting and Preserving Social Security Act. The bill would have lifted the payroll tax cap, raising taxes on those who earn $110,100 or more per year. It did not pass.


title: Mark Begich

text: According to an analysis by "Congressional Quarterly" in 2013 Begich voted with President Obama 97% of the time.


title: Mark Begich

text: In March 2013, Begich cosponsored a bill that would flag individuals attempting to buy guns who have used an insanity defense, were ruled dangerous by a court, or had been committed by a court to mental health treatment. It did not address the gun show loophole. It has not been passed into law.


title: Mark Begich

text: Begich is pro-choice and opposes restrictions on late-term abortions. He has received a 100% rating from the pro-choice organization NARAL and a 0% rating from the anti-abortion organization NRLC.


title: Mark Begich

text: Begich stated that he had concerns but would defend Ballot Measure 2 (Alaska Marijuana Legalization).


title: Mark Begich

text: Begich wants to repeal the Patriot Act and opposes "allowing the government to conduct surveillance wiretaps without warrants."


title: Mark Begich

text: In 2008, Begich supported the creation of a national cap-and-trade system for controlling greenhouse gas emissions. In 2010, he signed a letter advocating the establishment of a 'price' for greenhouse gas emissions as part of national energy policy. Begich has stated that this should not be interpreted as support for a carbon tax.


title: Mark Begich

text: Begich voted in favor of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (most commonly known as Obamacare) when the bill first passed Congress. Begich has not said whether or not he would vote for the bill again.


title: Mark Begich

text: Begich is a supporter of Israel and is part of the advisory committee of the pro-Israel group American Israel Public Affairs Committee.


title: Mark Begich

text: On April 28, 2014, Begich introduced the Veterans' Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2014 (S. 2258; 113th Congress), a bill that would, beginning on December 1, 2014, increase the rates of veterans' disability compensation, additional compensation for dependents, the clothing allowance for certain disabled veterans, and dependency and indemnity compensation for surviving spouses and children.


title: Mark Begich

text: Begich is married to Deborah Bonito, a former chair of the Alaska Democratic Party and the owner of several small businesses throughout Anchorage. They have a son, Jacob. Begich is a Roman Catholic.


title: Mark Begich

text: During his term in the Senate, Begich was the only U.S. Senator without a college degree. He has taken continuing education classes at the University of Alaska Anchorage. His brother Nick Jr. has researched and written about the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) program as an instrument of weather modification and possibly mind control. His nephew, Nick III, made the primary runoff (along with ex-Governor Sarah Palin and ex-state Representative Mary Sattler Peltola) for the Congressional seat that became vacant in 2022 as a result of the death of Don Young. Mark's brother Tom was elected as a state senator from Anchorage but declined to file for reelection in 2022.


title: Branston (brand)

text: Branston is an English food brand best known for the original Branston Pickle, a jarred pickled chutney first made in 1922 in the village of Branston near Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire by Crosse & Blackwell. The Branston factory proved to be uneconomical, and production was moved to Crosse & Blackwell subsidiary, E Lazenby & Sons in Bermondsey, London, where it invested in new buildings in 1924 and 1926, which remained in use until 1969.


title: Branston (brand)

text: In 2004, the pickle business was sold by Nestlé to Premier Foods and production was moved to Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. Premier Foods sold the brand to Mizkan in 2013, at which time it ceased to be labelled as Crosse and Blackwell because in Europe this name was sold separately to Princes Group. Over 17 million jars a year are sold in the UK.


title: Branston (brand)

text: Branston Pickle is made from a variety of diced vegetables, including swede (rutabaga), carrots, onions and cauliflower pickled in a sauce made from vinegar, tomato, apple and spices.


title: Branston (brand)

text: Branston Pickle is sweet and spicy with a chutney-like consistency, containing chunks of vegetables in a thick brown sticky sauce. It is commonly served as part of a ploughman's lunch, a popular menu item in British pubs. It is also frequently combined with cheddar cheese in sandwiches, and many sandwich shops in the UK offer cheese and pickle as an option. It is available in the standard 'chunky' version, a 'small chunk' variety, and a 'smooth' variety that is pureed, which makes it easier to spread onto bread; convenient squeeze-bottle packs are amongst the range. Branston also has flavoured pickles including Sweet Chilli and Beetroot flavoured pickle.


title: Branston (brand)

text: Additional Branston products include mayonnaise, tomato ketchup, brown sauce, salad cream, and baked beans.


title: Branston (brand)

text: In October 2005, Premier Foods launched Branston Baked Beans. The marketing and promotion of this product was aimed at challenging Heinz's dominance of the UK baked bean market. This marketing included an advert, featuring a Branston Bean Tin explaining how Branston Beans are very "saucy". Promotional activities included a 'Great British Bean Poll' where members of the public across the country were invited to blind taste both 'the brand leader' (assumed to be Heinz) and Branston. In the poll, 76% of participants picked Branston over Heinz. Heinz elected to change their recipe in the face of this aggressive activity.


title: Branston (brand)

text: Premier Foods also attempted to leverage the traditional Branston Pickle brand name by producing Branston Relishes in four different flavours: Hot Chilli & Jalapeño, Gherkin, Sweet Onion and Tomato & Red Pepper.


title: Branston (brand)

text: Around November 2015, a sweet chili-flavoured pickle was launched, and the brand's rich and fruity sauce was re-launched, along with two new sauce flavours, rich and spicy and rich and smoky. In 2017, Branston launched its tomato ketchup, mayonnaise and brown sauce lines in single-serving sachet packaging.


title: Branston (brand)

text: In late 2012, it was announced that as part of an aggressive debt reduction strategy, Premier Foods would be selling the Branston brand to Japanese food manufacturer Mizkan Group for £92.5 million, joining Sarson's vinegar and Hayward's pickled onions as recent Premier Foods to Mizkan brand acquisitions. The Bury St Edmunds plant continues to manufacture Branston products.


title: Branston (brand)

text: Branston Pickle is sold in Ireland, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, France, Denmark, Malta, Singapore (Cold Storage and Market Place), Germany (REWE and Globus Warenhaus), Turkey (Kipa), the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Slovakia (Tesco), Belgium (Carrefour Market Etterbeek), Hong Kong (Taste), Indonesia (Kemchicks), South Africa, Southern Spain (Supersol and Carrefour), Thailand (Chiang Mai, Rimping), Vietnam, Angola and Namibia.


title: Fourth International

text: The Fourth International (FI) is a revolutionary socialist international organization consisting of followers of Leon Trotsky, also known as Trotskyists, whose declared goal is the overthrowing of global capitalism and the establishment of world socialism via international revolution. The Fourth International was established in France in 1938, as Trotsky and his supporters, having been expelled from the Soviet Union, considered the Communist International (also known as Comintern or the Third International) as effectively puppets of Stalinism and thus incapable of leading the international working class to political power. Thus, Trotskyists founded their own competing Fourth International.


title: Fourth International

text: In the present day, there is no longer a single, centralized cohesive Fourth International. Throughout most of its existence and history, the Fourth International was hunted by agents of the NKVD, subjected to political repression by countries such as France and the United States, and rejected by supporters of the Soviet Union as "illegitimate pretenders". The Fourth International struggled to maintain contact under these conditions of crackdowns and repression during World War II due to the fact that subsequent proletarian uprisings were often under the influence of Soviet-aligned Stalinists and militant nationalist groups, leading to defeats for the Fourth International and the Trotskyists, who subsequently never managed to obtain meaningful influence.


title: Fourth International

text: Despite this, many parts of the world, including Latin America, Europe and Asia, continue to have large Trotskyist groupings who are attracted to its anti-Stalinist positions and its defense of proletarian internationalism. Several of these groups carry the label "Fourth Internationalist" either in their organization's name, important political position documents, or both. In line with Trotskyist theory and thought, the Fourth International tended to view the Comintern as a degenerated workers' state. However, although it regarded its own ideas as more advanced and thus superior to those of the Third International, it did not actively push for the Comintern's destruction. The current incarnation of the Fourth International does not operate as a cohesive entity in the manner of its predecessors.


title: Fourth International

text: The Fourth International suffered a major split in 1940 and an even more significant schism in 1953. A partial reunification of the schismatic factions occurred in 1963, but the organization never recovered sufficiently, and it failed to re-emerge as a single transnational grouping. The response of Trotskyists to such a situation has been in the form of forming multiple Internationals across the world, with some divided over which particular organization represents the true legacy and political continuity of the historical Fourth International.


title: Fourth International

text: Trotskyists regard themselves as working in opposition to both capitalism and Stalinism. Trotsky advocated proletarian revolution as set out in his theory of "permanent revolution", and believed that a workers' state would not be able to hold out against the pressures of a hostile capitalist world unless socialist revolutions quickly took hold in other countries as well. This theory was advanced in opposition to the view held by the Stalinists that "Socialism in One Country" could be built in the Soviet Union alone. Furthermore, Trotsky and his supporters harshly criticized the increasingly totalitarian nature of Joseph Stalin's rule. They argued that socialism without democracy is impossible. Thus, faced with the increasing lack of democracy in the Soviet Union, they concluded that it was no longer a socialist workers' state, but a degenerated workers' state.


title: Fourth International

text: Trotsky and his supporters had been organised since 1923 as the Left Opposition. They opposed the bureaucratization of the Soviet Union, which they analysed as being partly caused by the poverty and isolation of the Soviet economy. Stalin's theory of socialism in one country was developed in 1924 as an opposition to Trotsky's Theory of Permanent revolution, which argued that capitalism was a world system and required a world revolution to replace it with socialism. Prior to 1924, the Bolsheviks' international perspective had been guided by Trotsky's position. Trotsky argued that Stalin's theory represented the interests of bureaucratic elements in direct opposition to the working class.


title: Fourth International

text: Eventually, Trotsky was sent into internal exile and his supporters were jailed. However, the Left Opposition continued to work in secret within the Soviet Union. Trotsky was exiled to Turkey in 1928. He moved from there to France, Norway and finally to Mexico. He was assassinated on Stalin's orders in Mexico in August 1940.


title: Fourth International

text: A political international is an organisation of political parties or activists with the aim of co-ordinating their activity for a common purpose. There had been a long tradition of socialists organising on an international basis, and Karl Marx had led the International Workingmen's Association, which later became known as the "first international".


title: Fourth International

text: After the International Workingmen's Association disbanded in 1876, several attempts were made to revive the organisation, culminating in the formation of the Socialist International (Second International) in 1889. This was disbanded in 1916 following disagreements over World War I. Although the organisation reformed in 1923 as the Labour and Socialist International, supporters of the October Revolution and the Bolsheviks had already set up the Communist International (Comintern), which they regarded as the Third International. This was organised on a democratic centralist basis, with component parties required to fight for policies adopted by the body as a whole.


title: Fourth International

text: By declaring themselves the Fourth International, the "World Party of Socialist Revolution", the Trotskyists were publicly asserting their continuity with the Comintern, and with its predecessors. Their recognition of the importance of these earlier Internationals was coupled with a belief that they eventually degenerated. Although the Socialist International and Comintern were still in existence, the Trotskyists did not believe those organisations were capable of supporting revolutionary socialism and internationalism.


title: Fourth International

text: The foundation of the Fourth International was therefore spurred in part by a desire to form a stronger political current, rather than being seen as the communist opposition to the Comintern and the Soviet Union. Trotsky believed that its formation was all the more urgent for the role he saw it playing in the impending World War.


title: Fourth International

text: In the early 1930s, Trotsky and his supporters believed that Stalin's influence over the Third International could still be fought from within and slowly rolled back. They organised themselves into the International Left Opposition in 1930, which was intended to be a group of anti-Stalinist dissenters "within" the Third International. Stalin's supporters, who dominated the International, would no longer tolerate dissent. All Trotskyists, and those suspected of being influenced by Trotskyism, were expelled.


title: Fourth International

text: Trotsky claimed that the Third Period policies of the Comintern had contributed to the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany, and that its turn to a popular front policy (aiming to unite all ostensibly anti-fascist forces) sowed illusions in reformism and pacifism and "clear[ed] the road for a fascist overturn". By 1935 he claimed that the Comintern had fallen irredeemably into the hands of the Stalinist bureaucracy. He and his supporters, expelled from the Third International, participated in a conference of the London Bureau of socialist parties outside both the Socialist International and the Comintern. Three of those parties joined the Left Opposition in signing a document written by Trotsky calling for a Fourth International, which became known as the "Declaration of Four". Of those, two soon distanced themselves from the agreement, but the Dutch Revolutionary Socialist Party worked with the International Left Opposition to declare the International Communist League.


title: Fourth International

text: This position was contested by Andrés Nin and some other members of the League who did not support the call for a new International. This group prioritised regroupment with other communist oppositions, principally the International Communist Opposition (ICO), linked to the Right Opposition in the Soviet Party, a regroupment which eventually led to the formation of the International Bureau for Revolutionary Socialist Unity. Trotsky considered those organisations to be centrist. Despite Trotsky, the Spanish section merged with the Spanish section of ICO, forming the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM). Trotsky claimed the merger was to be a capitulation to centrism. The Socialist Workers' Party of Germany, a left split from the Social Democratic Party of Germany founded in 1931, co-operated with the International Left Opposition briefly in 1933 but soon abandoned the call for a new International.


title: Fourth International

text: In 1935, Trotsky wrote an "Open Letter for the Fourth International", reaffirming the "Declaration of Four", while documenting the recent course of the Comintern and the Socialist International. In the letter, he called for the urgent formation of a Fourth International. The "First International Conference for the Fourth International" was held in Paris in June 1936, reports giving its location as Geneva for security reasons. This meeting dissolved the International Communist League, founding in its place the Movement for the Fourth International on Trotsky's perspectives.


title: Fourth International

text: The foundation of the Fourth International was seen as more than just the simple renaming of an international tendency that was already in existence. It was argued that the Third International had now degenerated completely and was therefore to be seen as a counter-revolutionary organisation that would in time of crisis defend capitalism. Trotsky believed that the coming World War would produce a revolutionary wave of class and national struggles, rather as World War I had done.


title: Fourth International

text: Stalin reacted to the growing strength of Trotsky's supporters with a major political massacre of people within the Soviet Union, and the assassination of Trotsky's supporters and family abroad. He had agents go through historical documents and photos to attempt to erase Trotsky's memory from the history books. According to the historian Mario Keßler, Stalin's supporters turned to anti-semitism to whip up sentiment against Trotsky (as Trotsky was a Jew). Stalin's daughter later claimed that his fight with Trotsky laid the foundations for his later anti-semitic campaigns.


title: Fourth International

text: The International's rationale was to construct new mass revolutionary parties able to lead successful workers' revolutions. It saw these arising from a revolutionary wave which would develop alongside and as a result of the coming World War. Thirty delegates attended a founding conference, held in September 1938, in the home of Alfred Rosmer just outside Paris. Present at the meeting were delegates from all the major countries of Europe, and from North America (including three from the United States), although for reasons of cost and distance, few delegates attended from Asia or Latin America. An International Secretariat was established, with many of the day's leading Trotskyists and most countries in which Trotskyists were active represented. Among the resolutions adopted by the conference was the "Transitional Programme".


title: Fourth International

text: The "Transitional Programme" was the central programmatic statement of the congress, summarising its strategic and tactical conceptions for the revolutionary period that it saw opening up as a result of the war which Trotsky had been predicting for some years. It is not, however, the definitive programme of the Fourth International as is often suggested but instead contains a summation of the conjunctural understanding of the movement at that date and a series of transitional policies designed to develop the struggle for workers' power.


title: Fourth International

text: At the outbreak of World War II, in 1939, the International Secretariat was moved to New York City. The resident International Executive Committee failed to meet, largely because of a struggle in the U.S. Socialist Workers Party (SWP) between Trotsky's supporters and the tendency of Max Shachtman, Martin Abern and James Burnham. The secretariat was composed of those committee members who happened to be in the city, most of whom were co-thinkers of Shachtman. The disagreement centred on the Shachtmanites' disagreements with the SWP's internal policy, and over the FI's unconditional defence of the USSR.


title: Fourth International

text: Trotsky opened a public debate with Shachtman and Burnham and developed his positions in a series of polemics written in 1939–1940 and later collected in "In Defense of Marxism". Shachtman and Burnham's tendency resigned from the International in early 1940, alongside almost 40% of the SWP's members, many of whom became founder members of the Workers Party.


title: Fourth International

text: In May 1940, an emergency conference of the International met at a secret location "somewhere in the Western Hemisphere". It adopted a manifesto drafted by Trotsky shortly before his murder and a range of policies on the work of the International, including one calling for the reunification of the then-divided Fourth Internationalist groups in Britain.


title: Fourth International

text: Secretariat members who had supported Shachtman were expelled by the emergency conference, with the support of Trotsky himself. While leader of the SWP James P. Cannon later said that he did not believe the split to be definitive and final, the two groups did not reunite. A new International Executive Committee was appointed, which came under the increasing influence of the Socialist Workers Party.


title: Fourth International

text: The Fourth International was hit hard during World War II. Trotsky was assassinated, many of the FI's European affiliates were destroyed by the Nazis and several of its Asian affiliates were destroyed by the Empire of Japan. The survivors, in Europe, Asia and elsewhere, were largely cut off from each other and from the International Secretariat. The new secretary, Jean Van Heijenoort (also known as Gerland), was able to do little more than publish articles in the SWP's theoretical journal "Fourth International". Despite this dislocation, the various groups sought to maintain links and some connections were kept up throughout the early part of the war by sailors enlisted in the U.S. Navy who had cause to visit Marseilles. Contact was steady, if irregular, between the SWP and the British Trotskyists, with the result that the Americans exerted what influence they had to encourage the Workers' International League into the International through a fusion with the Revolutionary Socialist League, a union that had been requested by the Emergency Conference.


title: Fourth International

text: In 1942, a debate on the national question in Europe opened up between the majority of the SWP and a movement led by Van Heijenoort, Albert Goldman and Felix Morrow. This minority anticipated that the Nazi dictatorship would be replaced with capitalism rather than by a socialist revolution, leading to the revival of Stalinism and social democracy. In December 1943, they criticised the SWP's view as underestimating the rising prestige of Stalinism and the opportunities for the capitalists to use democratic concessions. The SWP's central committee argued that democratic capitalism could not revive, resulting in either military dictatorship by the capitalists or a workers' revolution. It held that this would reinforce the need for building the Fourth International, and adhered rigidly to their interpretation of Trotsky's works.


title: Fourth International

text: The wartime debate about post-war perspectives was accelerated by the resolution of the February 1944 European Conference of the Fourth International. The conference appointed a new European Secretariat and elected Michel Raptis, a Greek resident in France also known as Michel Pablo, the organisational secretary of its European Bureau. Raptis and other bureau members re-established contact between the Trotskyist parties. The European conference extended the lessons of a revolution then unfolding in Italy, and concluded that a revolutionary wave would cross Europe as the war ended. The SWP had a similar perspective. The British Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) disagreed and held that capitalism was not about to plunge into massive crisis but rather that an upturn in the economy was already underway. A group of leaders of the French Internationalist Communist Party (PCI) around Yvan Craipeau argued a similar position until they were expelled from the PCI in 1948.


title: Fourth International

text: In April 1946 delegates from the principal European sections and a number of others attended a "Second International Congress". This set about rebuilding the International Secretariat of the Fourth International with Michel Raptis appointed Secretary and Ernest Mandel, a Belgian, taking a leading role.


title: Fourth International

text: Pablo and Mandel aimed to counter the opposition of the majorities inside the British Revolutionary Communist Party and French Internationalist Communist Party. Initially, they encouraged party members to vote out their leaderships. They supported Gerry Healy's opposition in the RCP. In France, they backed elements, including Pierre Frank and Marcel Bleibtreu, opposed to the new leadership of the PCI albeit for differing reasons.


title: Fourth International

text: The Stalinist occupation of Eastern Europe was the issue of prime concern, and it raised many problems of interpretation. At first, the International held that, while the USSR was a degenerated workers' state, the post-World War II East European states were still bourgeois entities, because revolution from above was not possible, and capitalism persisted.


title: Fourth International

text: Another issue that needed to be dealt with was the possibility that the economy would revive. This was initially denied by Mandel (who was quickly forced to revise his opinion, and later devoted his PhD dissertation to late capitalism, analysing the unexpected "third age" of capitalist development). Mandel's perspective mirrored uncertainty at that time about the future viability and prospects of capitalism, not just among "all" Trotskyist groups, but also among leading economists. Paul Samuelson had envisaged in 1943 the probability of a "nightmarish combination of the worst features of inflation and deflation", worrying that "there would be ushered in the greatest period of unemployment and industrial dislocation which any economy has ever faced". Joseph Schumpeter for his part claimed that "[t]he general opinion seems to be that capitalist methods will be unequal to the task of reconstruction". He regarded it as "not open to doubt that the decay of capitalist society is very far advanced".


title: Fourth International

text: The Second World Congress in April 1948 was attended by delegates from 22 sections. It debated a range of resolutions on the Jewish Question, Stalinism, the colonial countries and the specific situations facing sections in certain countries. By this point the FI was united around the view that the Eastern European "buffer states" were still capitalist countries.


title: Fourth International

text: The Congress was especially notable for bringing the International into much closer contact with Trotskyist groups from across the globe. These included such significant groups as the Revolutionary Workers' Party of Bolivia and the Lanka Sama Samaja Party in what was then Ceylon, but the previously large Vietnamese Trotskyist groups had mostly been eliminated or absorbed by the supporters of Ho Chi Minh.


title: Fourth International

text: After the Second World Congress in 1948, the International Secretariat attempted to open communications with Josip Broz Tito's regime in Yugoslavia. In their analysis, it differed from the rest of the Eastern Bloc because it was established by the partisans of World War II who had fought against Nazi occupation, as opposed to by Stalin's invading armies. The British RCP, led by Jock Haston and supported by Ted Grant, were highly critical of this move.


title: Fourth International

text: The Third World Congress in 1951 resolved that the economies of the East European states and their political regimes had come to resemble that of the USSR more and more. These states were then described as deformed workers states in an analogy with the degenerated workers state in Russia. The term "deformed" was used rather than "degenerated", because no workers' revolution had led to the foundation of these states.


title: Fourth International

text: The Third World Congress envisaged the real possibility of an "international civil war" in the near future. It argued that the mass Communist parties "may, under certain favourable conditions, go beyond the aims set for them by the Soviet bureaucracy and project a revolutionary orientation". Given the supposed closeness of war, the FI thought that the Communist Parties and social democratic parties would be the only significant force that could defend the workers of the world against the imperialist camp in those countries where there were mass forces.


title: Fourth International

text: In line with this geopolitical perspective, Pablo argued that the only way the Trotskyists could avoid isolation was for various sections of the Fourth International to undertake long-term entryism in the mass Communist or Social Democratic parties. This tactic was known as entryism "sui generis", to distinguish it from the short-term entry tactic employed before World War II. For example, it meant that the project of building an open and independent Trotskyist party was shelved in France, because it was regarded as not politically feasible alongside entry into the French Communist Party.


title: Fourth International

text: This perspective was accepted within the Fourth International, yet sowed the seeds for the split in 1953. At the Third World Congress, the sections agreed with the perspective of an international civil war. The French section disagreed with the associated tactic of entryism "sui generis", and held that Pablo was underestimating the independent role of the working class parties in the Fourth International. The leaders of the majority of the Trotskyist organisation in France, Marcel Bleibtreu and Pierre Lambert, refused to follow the line of the International. The International leadership had them replaced by a minority, leading to a permanent split in the French section.


title: Fourth International

text: In the wake of the World Congress, the line of the International Leadership was generally accepted by groups around the world, including the U.S. SWP whose leader, James P. Cannon, corresponded with the French majority to support the tactic of entryism "sui generis". At the same time, however, Cannon, Healy and Mandel were deeply concerned by Pablo's political evolution. Cannon and Healy were also alarmed by Pablo's intervention into the French section, and by suggestions that Pablo might use the International's authority in this way in other sections of the Fourth International that felt entryism ""sui generis"" was not a suitable tactic in their own countries. In particular, minority tendencies, exemplified in Britain by John Lawrence and in the U.S. by Bert Cochran, to support entryism ""sui generis"" hinted that Pablo's support for their views indicated that the International might also demand Trotskyists in those countries adopt that tactic.


title: Fourth International

text: In 1953, the SWP's national committee issued an "Open Letter to Trotskyists Throughout the World" and organised the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). This was a public faction which initially included, in addition to the SWP, Gerry Healy's British section The Club, the Internationalist Communist Party in France (then led by Lambert who had expelled Bleibtreu and his grouping), Nahuel Moreno's party in Argentina and the Austrian and Chinese sections of the FI. The sections of the ICFI withdrew from the International Secretariat, which suspended their voting rights. Both sides claimed they constituted a majority of the former International.


title: Fourth International

text: Sri Lanka's Lanka Sama Samaja Party, then the country's leading workers' party, took a middle position during this dispute. It continued to participate in the ISFI but argued for a joint congress, for reunification with the ICFI.


title: Fourth International

text: To sum up: The lines of cleavage between Pablo's revisionism and orthodox Trotskyism are so deep that no compromise is possible either politically or organizationally. The Pablo faction has demonstrated that it will not permit democratic decisions truly reflecting majority opinion to be reached. They demand complete submission to their criminal policy. They are determined to drive all orthodox Trotskyists out of the Fourth International or to muzzle and handcuff them.


title: Fourth International

text: Their scheme has been to inject their Stalinist conciliationism piecemeal and likewise in piecemeal fashion, get rid of those who come to see what is happening and raise objections.


title: Fourth International

text: Over the following decade, the IC referred to the rest of the International as the "International Secretariat of the Fourth International", emphasising its view that the Secretariat did not speak for the International as a whole. The Secretariat continued to view itself as the leadership of the International. It held a Fourth World Congress in 1954 to regroup and to recognise reorganised sections in Britain, France and the U.S.


title: Fourth International

text: Parts of the International Committee were divided over whether the split with "Pabloism" was permanent or temporary, and it was perhaps as a result of this that it did not declare itself to be "the" Fourth International. Those sections that considered the split permanent embarked on a discussion about the history of the split and its meanings.


title: Fourth International

text: The sections of the International that recognised the leadership of the International Secretariat remained optimistic about the possibilities for increasing the International's political influence and extended the entryism into social democratic parties which was already underway in Britain, Austria and elsewhere. The 1954 congress emphasised entryism into communist parties and nationalist parties in the colonies, pressing for democratic reforms, ostensibly to encourage the left-wing they perceived to exist in the communist parties to join with them in a revolution. Tensions developed between those who subscribed to the mainstream views of Pablo and a minority that argued unsuccessfully against open work. A number of these delegates walked out of the World Congress, and would eventually leave the International, including the leader of the new British section, John Lawrence, George Clarke, Michele Mestre (a leader of the French section), and Murray Dowson (a leader of the Canadian group).


title: Fourth International

text: The Secretariat organised a Fifth World Congress in October 1957. Mandel and Pierre Frank appraised the Algerian revolution and surmised that it was essential to reorient in the colonial states and neocolonies towards the emerging guerrilla-led revolutions. According to Robert Alexander, Ernest Mandel has written that an organisation in Indonesia, the Partai Acoma, was affiliate to the FI from 1959 until the 1965 coup in that country.


title: Fourth International

text: The Sixth World Congress in 1961 marked a lessening of the political divisions between the majority of supporters of the International Secretariat and the leadership of the SWP in the United States. In particular, the congress stressed support for the Cuban revolution and a growing emphasis on building parties in the imperialist countries. The sixth congress also criticised the Lanka Sama Samaja Party, its Sri Lankan section, for seeming to support the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, which they saw as bourgeois nationalists; the U.S. SWP made similar criticisms.


title: Fourth International

text: In 1962 the IC and IS formed a Parity Commission to organise a common World Congress. The supporters of Michel Pablo and Juan Posadas opposed the convergence. The supporters of Posadas left the International in 1962. At the 1963 reunification congress, the sections of the IC and IS reunified (with two exceptions: the British and French sections of the IC). This was largely a result of their mutual support for Ernest Mandel and Joseph Hansen's resolution "Dynamics of World Revolution Today" and for the Cuban Revolution. This document distinguished between different revolutionary tasks in the imperialist countries, the "workers' states", and the colonial and semi-colonial countries. In June 1963, the reunified Fourth International elected a United Secretariat of the Fourth International (USFI), by which name the organisation as a whole is often still referred.


title: Fourth International

text: Since the 1963 reunification, a number of approaches have developed within international Trotskyism towards the Fourth International.


title: Fourth International

text: In uniting the large majority of Trotskyists in one organisation, the Fourth International created a tradition which has since been claimed by many Trotskyist organisations.


title: Fourth International

text: Echoing Marx's "Communist Manifesto", the "Transitional Programme" ended with the declaration "Workers men and women of all countries, place yourselves under the banner of the Fourth International. It is the banner of your approaching victory!". It declared demands to be placed on capitalists, opposition to the bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, and support for workers' action against fascism. Most of the demands on capitalists remain unfulfilled. The collapse of the Soviet Union occurred, but through a social revolution leading to the restoration of capitalism, rather than the political revolution proposed by the Trotskyists. Many Trotskyist groups have been active in anti-fascist campaigns, but the Fourth International has never played a major role in the toppling of a regime.


title: Fourth International

text: Those groups which follow traditions that left the Fourth International in its early years argue that, despite initially correct positions, it had little impact. Lutte Ouvriere claims that it "did not survive the Second World War". Workers Liberty, which follows in the third camp tradition established by the Workers Party, holds that "Trotsky and everything he represented was defeated and as we have to recognise in retrospect defeated for a whole historical period."


title: Fourth International

text: Other groups point to a positive impact. The ICFI claim that "the [early] Fourth International consisted mainly of cadres who remained true to their aims" and describes much of the Fourth International's early activity as "correct and principled". The reunified FI claim that "the Fourth International refused to compromise with capitalism either in its fascist or democratic variants." In its view, "many of the predictions made by Trotsky when he founded the Fourth International were proved wrong by history. But what was absolutely vindicated were his key political judgements."


title: Shirley Hemphill

text: Shirley Ann Hemphill (July 1, 1947 – December 10, 1999) was an American stand-up comedian and actress.


title: Shirley Hemphill

text: A native of Asheville, North Carolina, Hemphill moved to Los Angeles in the 1970s to pursue a career as a stand-up comedian. After working the Los Angeles comedy club circuit, her routine eventually attracted attention leading to her being cast in guest starring roles on television. In 1976, she landed the role of brassy waitress Shirley Wilson on the sitcom "What's Happening!!".


title: Shirley Hemphill

text: The series was a modest hit for ABC, but production and cast problems caused ABC to cancel the series in 1979. The following year, Hemphill was cast in her own sitcom, "One in a Million". The series failed to attract an audience and was canceled in June 1980.


title: Shirley Hemphill

text: In 1985, Hemphill reprised her role as Shirley Wilson in the syndicated revival of "What's Happening!!" titled "What's Happening Now!!"; in the latter her character is co-owner of the restaurant where she works. Like its predecessor, "What's Happening Now!!" aired for three seasons. After the show's cancellation, Hemphill returned to stand-up comedy and also made occasional appearances in films and television until her death in December 1999.


title: Shirley Hemphill

text: Hemphill was born in Asheville, North Carolina, to Richard and Mozella Hemphill. She had a brother, William. Hemphill attended Hill Street School and Stephens-Lee High School, and later won an athletics scholarship to Morristown College where she majored in physical education. Hemphill returned to Asheville two years later and got a job in a factory manufacturing nylons.


title: Shirley Hemphill

text: An aspiring stand-up comedian, Hemphill sent a cassette tape of one of her comedy routines to Flip Wilson. Wilson was impressed by her routine and in turn, sent her a cassette recorder and a dozen roses. Wilson also invited Hemphill to visit the set of "The Flip Wilson Show". After the visit, Hemphill returned to her job in Asheville but decided to pursue a career in comedy instead. She quit her job and traveled to Los Angeles by bus. Hemphill got a job waitressing during the day and performed at The Comedy Store at night.


title: Shirley Hemphill

text: By 1976, Hemphill's stand-up routine started to get noticed and caught the attention of casting agent Joan Murray. Murray cast Hemphill in a guest role on "Good Times" which led to another guest starring role on "All's Fair". After seeing her performance on "Good Times", Norman Lear offered Hemphill her own spin-off series but she turned it down. Instead she auditioned and won the role of waitress Shirley Wilson on the ABC sitcom "What's Happening!!".


title: Shirley Hemphill

text: Loosely based on Eric Monte's 1975 film "Cooley High", the series follows the adventures of three teenaged boys: Raj (Ernest Thomas), Rerun (Fred Berry), and Dwayne (Haywood Nelson). Hemphill's character worked at Rob's Place, the restaurant the boys frequented. The series was a modest hit for ABC but was beset with behind the scene problems.


title: Shirley Hemphill

text: In the series' second season, Fred Berry and Ernest Thomas staged a walkout over conditions in their dressing rooms which they said were unsuitable. During the series' third season, Fred Berry demanded more money and reportedly convinced Ernest Thomas and Haywood Nelson to join him in a strike. Producers opted to cancel the series instead of increasing the actors' salaries.