title: Hard Rock Hotel and Casino (Las Vegas)

text: On a few occasions, VH1 and MTV used the resort to host music video countdowns such as "Total Request Live". Canadian hard rock group My Darkest Days filmed their video for "Porn Star Dancing" at the Vanity nightclub in 2010. The music video for Sean Paul's 2011 song "Got 2 Luv U" was also filmed partially at the hotel and Vanity.


title: Hard Rock Hotel and Casino (Las Vegas)

text: In April 1996, Harley-Davidson sued the Hard Rock for damages, alleging trademark violations. Harley-Davidson stated that the casino had used its logo on slot machine reels, and that 10 of these machines were used in a slot promotion that offered a Harley-Davidson motorcycle as a jackpot. Harley-Davidson did not want its logo to be associated with the casino. A confidential settlement was reached between the two later that year.


title: Hard Rock Hotel and Casino (Las Vegas)

text: Also in 1996, two wheelchair users sued the hotel, alleging that its two shuttle buses were inaccessible to them and were in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. In 1998, the hotel was ordered to replace or modify the buses to comply with the law. Areas of the resort were also modified to be wheelchair-accessible. In 1999, a woman sued the Hard Rock over alleged inadequate security in the resort's parking lot, where she was injured during an attempted robbery.


title: Hard Rock Hotel and Casino (Las Vegas)

text: In 2000, a Hard Rock surveillance employee leaked a video tape of police officers who had behaved in a belligerent manner while arresting a woman at the resort. The employee was later fired for violating the resort's confidentiality policy. He filed a complaint with the Nevada Gaming Control Board, which rejected the complaint, stating that they did not have authority to punish the Hard Rock for his firing. The former employee later filed a lawsuit against the Hard Rock. In 2002, a couple sued the resort and MTV for invasion of privacy, fraud, and emotional distress. The couple had been unwittingly involved in a television prank that depicted a fake human corpse in their hotel bathroom.


title: Hard Rock Hotel and Casino (Las Vegas)

text: A man sued the Hard Rock in 2003, claiming that he was injured by security guards while attending a concert at the Joint. The resort claimed that the man was actually intoxicated and had started a fight with someone, who was not a security guard. Other patrons also filed lawsuits against Hard Rock security guards over the years, alleging issues such as assault and false imprisonment.


title: Hard Rock Hotel and Casino (Las Vegas)

text: Sara Robinson, a former beverage manager at a Hard Rock bar, sued Dennis Rodman and the resort in 2007. She alleged that Rodman had assaulted her in 2006, and that the Hard Rock was negligent in keeping him off the property after that. She also alleged that the resort retaliated against her when she complained about the incident, ultimately firing her. She and the Hard Rock settled the issue, and she later won a $225,000 judgment against Rodman.


title: Hard Rock Hotel and Casino (Las Vegas)

text: In April 2011, an attorney for Paris Hilton filed a lawsuit against the Hard Rock, alleging that she was owed $200,000 for promotional appearances that she made at the resort in 2009. As of June 2011, the Rare 120 steakhouse was performing poorly. That month, the Hard Rock terminated a contract to share the restaurant's revenue with the Dolce Group. When the Hard Rock closed Rare 120 in July 2011, the resort was sued by the Dolce Group, which alleged that the restaurant suffered low revenue because of various cost-cutting measures and management changes ordered by the resort.


title: Hard Rock Hotel and Casino (Las Vegas)

text: Carey Hart's S&H Projects, which operated the Wasted Space club, sued the Hard Rock in 2011, alleging that the resort "engaged in a systemic pattern of failing to attribute revenues due to the Wasted Space Lounge while simultaneously attributing expenses from other venues at the resort to the lounge." Companies affiliated with Jason Giambi had invested in Wasted Space and Rare 120, and the companies filed a lawsuit in 2012, against Morgans Hotel Group, Credit Suisse, Brookfield, and Warner Gaming. The suit alleged that the defendant companies "acted in concert with the intention to defraud, convert and otherwise misappropriate (the Giambi companies) out of their investment money through, among other things, improper accounting practices, intentional mismanagement of venues and refusal to pay profits generated to (the Giambi companies)."


title: Hard Rock Hotel and Casino (Las Vegas)

text: In 2011, Brookfield challenged the results of a 2009 election in which the resort's valet parking staff had voted to unionize. The issue remained unresolved as of 2015. In 2017, the Hard Rock agreed to settle a separate issue with the Culinary Workers Union, which had previously accused the resort of distributing anti-union materials to its workers to persuade them from unionization.


title: Hard Rock Hotel and Casino (Las Vegas)

text: In 2000, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department conducted a month-long investigation into rumors that drugs were sold and used at the Baby's nightclub. Ecstasy was found to be a particular problem at the nightclub, and the investigation also found that some guests were allowed inside without paying a cover charge, while some bartenders were allowed to overcharge for cocktails. Owner Sean MacPhearson and his management team were removed from operations following the investigation.


title: Hard Rock Hotel and Casino (Las Vegas)

text: In 2002, the Hard Rock settled a complaint with the Nevada Gaming Control Board and agreed to pay a $100,000 fine to the Nevada Gaming Commission. The five-count complaint alleged that several instances of inappropriate sexual conduct had occurred at Baby's one year earlier and that security guards there allowed the activity to proceed. The complaint also alleged that the resort inappropriately used its surveillance cameras to follow and videotape members of the control board, as well as nightclub customers. Hard Rock Hotel president Don Marrandino said, "We've had a lot of training, and we've explained to our people that people can't go over the line. We know public nudity is over the line. But provocative dress. That's fine. Look, the Hard Rock is the sexiest, coolest place in town. We want to be the edgy, fun place."


title: Hard Rock Hotel and Casino (Las Vegas)

text: By 2009, drugs and prostitution had become an issue at resort pools in the Las Vegas Valley. That year, detectives with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department launched an undercover operation at Rehab. They subsequently arrested seven people on narcotic-related charges, while another was arrested for solicitation of prostitution. Later that year, and into 2010, undercover detectives initiated sting operations and found that they were easily able to acquire illegal drugs from employees of the Hard Rock's nightclubs. In Las Vegas, drug use at casino nightclubs was becoming a frequent problem. While Fred Kleisner operated the resort in 2010, he emphasized policies that would help keep the Hard Rock out of trouble with Nevada regulators. Such policies related to issues such as conduct and alcohol consumption on the property, and Kleisner also hired a company to ensure that the policies were being observed. Later that year, random drug tests were performed on Hard Rock employees to ensure a drug-free environment at the resort.


title: Hard Rock Hotel and Casino (Las Vegas)

text: In September 2010, Hard Rock Cafe International sued the Las Vegas resort to cancel its name licensing agreement, citing negative publicity associated with the resort's Rehab pool parties and its reality television series, "". The lawsuit alleged that the resort was being portrayed as "a destination that revels in drunken debauchery, acts of vandalism, sexual harassment, violence, criminality and a host of other behavior". The lawsuit also cited the earlier arrests made at Rehab. The Hard Rock Hotel filed a counterclaim that the company was harassing the resort. At the end of 2010, the Hard Rock was fined $650,000 by Nevada regulators for the earlier drug offenses. It was the highest fine in Nevada history for drug violations. After the Hard Rock was fined, Hard Rock Cafe International amended its lawsuit to include new information about the drug dealing and inappropriate sexual activity taking place at the resort, citing these as further reasons the property should lose its Hard Rock name. When Brookfield took over ownership in 2011, it tried to settle the dispute with Hard Rock Cafe International.


title: Hard Rock Hotel and Casino (Las Vegas)

text: After the Palms resort opened in 2001, the Hard Rock began using risqué advertising to stay competitive and appeal to its target clientele of people ages 21 to 40, the same demographic sought by the Palms. As part of the 2002 nightclub settlement, the Hard Rock was required to submit questionable advertising material to compliance officers for a review before publication.


title: Hard Rock Hotel and Casino (Las Vegas)

text: In January 2003, the resort was criticized for a billboard advertisement that featured a topless woman with only a pair of dice to conceal her nipples. The billboard was considered obscene and was removed after county agencies complained about it. In November 2003, Nevada Gaming Control Board member Bobby Siller criticized risqué print advertisements for the Hard Rock. One such ad featured a man and woman in seductive poses, accompanied by playing cards, poker chips, and the tagline, "There's always a temptation to cheat." Siller believed the ad could suggest that cheating occurs in casinos, and he said another ad contained references to drug use.


title: Hard Rock Hotel and Casino (Las Vegas)

text: In January 2004, the Nevada Gaming Control Board filed a three-count complaint against the Hard Rock for its past advertising, some of which was deemed sexually suggestive. Included in the complaint was a billboard ad that was shown during the National Finals Rodeo that featured a woman with panties down around her ankles, accompanied by the slogan, "Get ready to buck all night." The control board also alleged that a radio advertisement gave the implication that having wives in two states was acceptable behavior for Hard Rock customers. The control board stated that the Hard Rock failed to "conduct advertising and public relations in accordance with decency, dignity, good taste, honesty and inoffensiveness", as required by state gaming law. The complaint carried a potential fine of up to $300,000. The control board stated that it was less concerned with sexual ads and more worried about the ads that allegedly promoted cheating and drug use. The control board alleged that the ads harmed the reputation of Nevada's gaming industry, and pro-family groups were also opposed to the ads. The advertising campaign was successful despite the controversy, and Morton later said that he had the final approval on all ads, including the ones in question.


title: Hard Rock Hotel and Casino (Las Vegas)

text: The Hard Rock announced in March 2004 that it would fight the complaint, stating that the ads were protected under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The following month, the Hard Rock agreed to settle the complaint and pay a $300,000 fine. The proposed settlement included a sentence stating that the resort's free speech rights were subject to constraints by local, state and federal law. This portion of the settlement received criticism from Allen Lichtenstein, an uninvolved ACLU general counselor who said that the government could not censor such advertisements. Some opinion writers also believed that the control board was misusing its power to harass the resort over its advertising, infringing on free speech rights covered by the First Amendment. Siller declined to support the proposed settlement, alleging that it included a sentence which inaccurately portrayed the terms of the 2002 advertising agreement. According to the proposed settlement, Hard Rock executives believed that the 2002 agreement only applied to advertising that would be done on the premises. Siller denied that this was the case, and stated that hotel officials had failed to admit their mistakes.


title: Hard Rock Hotel and Casino (Las Vegas)

text: The settlement was approved by the control board in May 2004, but was rejected by the Nevada Gaming Commission later that month. The commission felt that the settlement was too vague and that it would set a new and unhelpful precedent throughout the gaming industry on how to handle advertising. Some commissioners also questioned the earlier assertion by the control board that one of the ads promoted casino cheating, stating that no reasonable person would perceive the ad in such a way. Lichtenstein also stated that "the intent of the ad was quite obvious. No reasonable person could assume otherwise. That someone (unreasonably) construed the words to suggest illegality doesn't make the ad illegal." The models featured in the advertisements stated that the ads were not meant to encourage illegal activity, and that the content of the ads had an obvious meaning despite the accusations by the control board. One commissioner concluded that Siller had threatened the Hard Rock when he said, earlier that month, that he would seek disciplinary action against the resort's gaming license if future ad violations occurred. Siller denied claims from critics who said that he was biased against the Hard Rock, saying that he was only performing his job duties.


title: Hard Rock Hotel and Casino (Las Vegas)

text: In July 2004, the Hard Rock was planning a risqué $15 million advertising campaign across the United States, despite the past controversy and fines. Kevin Kelley, the president of the Hard Rock, said, "We are mindful of our relationship with the regulators and authorities, but we also try to do a good job of balancing things for our customers. We have a market to serve and we are doing things to connect to that market." In August 2004, the Hard Rock was planning to reduce its use of heavily sexual advertisements. Phil Shalala, the vice president of marketing for the resort, said about such ads, "That's what everybody else is doing. We were the ones that set the standard. We need to move away from skin and do something different." However, Shalala said the new marketing approach was not in response to the concerns raised by the gaming control board. That month, the resort unveiled a new billboard advertisement which featured cartoon illustrations of animals accompanied by the message, "Another clean & inoffensive billboard from your friends at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino." The resort denied that the ad was meant as a sarcastic response to Nevada gaming regulators. Some critics believed the billboard contained hidden sexual references.


title: Hard Rock Hotel and Casino (Las Vegas)

text: In August 2004, the Hard Rock filed a motion to dismiss the three-count complaint, and the ACLU filed a friend of the court brief asking the gaming commission to grant the motion. The motion stated that a government agency could not censor content that it deems inappropriate, and that, "Moreover, given current Las Vegas community standards, the advertisements, as a legal matter, also cannot be characterized as obscenity." Nevada attorney general Brian Sandoval argued that the Hard Rock was not eligible for free speech, and that state regulations took precedence over constitutional arguments.


title: Hard Rock Hotel and Casino (Las Vegas)

text: In September 2004, the gaming commission dismissed two of the complaints, relating to the ads. The commission concluded that the ads were satirical and did not promote illegal activity. The final complaint remained in effect, and related to the 2002 advertising agreement that the Hard Rock allegedly broke. In October 2004, the Hard Rock settled with the gaming control board and agreed to pay a $100,000 fine. The settlement was approved by the gaming commission the following month. As part of the deal, Hard Rock management – rather than a compliance committee – would be directly responsible for determining whether advertisements were appropriate. In response to the 2004 advertising controversy, state senator Mark Schneider introduced a senate bill in March 2005 that would have limited the control board's ability to fine casinos over their ads. Schneider withdrew the bill a month later after meeting with Siller and other control board members.


title: Hard Rock Hotel and Casino (Las Vegas)

text: In October 2012, the Clark County Commission voted to temporarily rename Paradise Road as Paradise City Road, after the Guns N' Roses song "Paradise City". The name change was made to reflect residency concerts that the band would be holding at the Joint into the following month. An illustrated advertisement for the residency depicted a disheveled woman with an exposed breast and her underwear pulled down. It was a modified version of the controversial cover art for the group's 1987 album "Appetite for Destruction". The advertisement was criticized for its alleged suggestion and glorification of sexual abuse towards women. One commissioner regretted voting to rename Paradise Road in light of the ad controversy, but also said there was little the commission could do regarding the ad, citing First Amendment rights. The Hard Rock apologized for the ad and modified it.


title: 2016 Spanish Grand Prix

text: The 2016 Spanish Grand Prix (formally known as the Formula 1 Gran Premio de España Pirelli 2016) was a Formula One motor race held on 15 May 2016 at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Montmeló, Spain. The race was the fifth round of the 2016 FIA Formula One World Championship, and marked the forty-sixth running of the Spanish Grand Prix as a round of the Formula One World Championship. It was the twenty-sixth time that the race has been held at the circuit.


title: 2016 Spanish Grand Prix

text: Nico Rosberg was the defending race winner and entered the round with a forty-three-point lead over teammate Lewis Hamilton in the Drivers' Championship. Their team, Mercedes, held an eighty-one point lead over Ferrari in the Constructors' Championship. Hamilton took pole position during qualifying, ahead of teammate Rosberg and Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo.


title: 2016 Spanish Grand Prix

text: Max Verstappen won the race upon his début for his new team Red Bull, having swapped his Toro Rosso seat with Daniil Kvyat ahead of the event. At the age of 18 years and 228 days, Verstappen became the youngest ever winner, the youngest driver to score a podium finish and the youngest ever to lead a lap of a Formula One race, breaking the previous records held by Sebastian Vettel. In the process he also became the first Dutchman to win a Grand Prix and the first Grand Prix winner born in the 1990s. Both Mercedes drivers retired from the race following a collision with each other on the first lap, thus marking the first Mercedes double retirement since the 2011 Australian Grand Prix and the first time the team had not scored a point since the 2012 United States Grand Prix.


title: 2016 Spanish Grand Prix

text: Daniil Kvyat and Max Verstappen traded places ahead of the race. Verstappen joined Red Bull Racing while Kvyat returned to Scuderia Toro Rosso. Red Bull's team principal Christian Horner explained the driver swap with Verstappen's talent, saying that the 18-year-old Dutchman and Daniel Ricciardo had the potential to become Formula One's best driver pairing. Furthermore, he stressed that Verstappen's move to Red Bull would tie him to the team for the foreseeable future. Daniil Kvyat meanwhile expressed surprise at the decision, saying during Thursday's press conference that he was "shocked" by his demotion, stressing that Red Bull did not give him a "real explanation".


title: 2016 Spanish Grand Prix

text: Following problems with his power unit in both the Chinese and Russian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton received a redesigned MGU-H unit, in a bid to solve the troubles which hampered him earlier. However, Mercedes were unable to guarantee that the problem would not appear again.


title: 2016 Spanish Grand Prix

text: With Spain being the first race in Western Europe, and a mid-season test coming up after the race, many teams introduced their first major car updates for the Grand Prix. Mercedes ran a new front wing with a "more pointy" nose during first free practice. Other changes were made to the engine cover and the rear wing. McLaren made more significant changes to their MP4-31, most notably on the front wing, which Sky Sports commentator Ted Kravitz called the "most intricate front wing I've ever seen". Force India updated their VJM09 to improve airflow. According to the team, they were looking for improved driveability rather than faster lap times. Renault introduced a new chassis for Jolyon Palmer. More significantly, the French manufacturer debuted a new version of their power unit for both their works team and Red Bull at the two-day test following the race. All other teams except for Sauber also made changes to their cars, with the Swiss team continuing their financial struggles. They also announced that they would be forced to miss the mid-season test, being unable to field a development driver, with regulations demanding that two out of four test days be driven by young driver talents.


title: 2016 Spanish Grand Prix

text: Both Sauber and Haas were allowed to use the updated version of Ferrari's 2016 power unit, which the works team had already used in Russia two weeks earlier.


title: 2016 Spanish Grand Prix

text: Going into the weekend, Nico Rosberg led the Drivers' Championship, having taken the maximum number of 100 points from the first four races. Lewis Hamilton followed in second with 57 points, while Kimi Räikkönen was third with 43 points. Daniel Ricciardo followed in fourth, ahead of Sebastian Vettel. In the Constructors' standings, Mercedes was first with 157 points, 81 points clear of second-placed Ferrari. Behind them, Red Bull led fourth-placed Williams by just six points.


title: 2016 Spanish Grand Prix

text: Sole tyre supplier Pirelli brought the hard, medium and soft tyres to the event, the first time this season to feature the orange hard tyres. As per the regulations of the 2016 season, every driver had to set aside one set each of the two hardest compounds for the race and one set of the soft tyres for Q3 (should they advance). The drivers had freedom of what other compounds they chose for the remaining ten out of thirteen sets.


title: 2016 Spanish Grand Prix

text: Per the regulations for the season, two 90-minute practice sessions were held on Friday and another 60-minute session was held before qualifying on Saturday. The Ferrari drivers, Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Räikkönen, set the pace in the first session, both on the soft tyre compound. The Mercedes drivers Rosberg and Hamilton followed, albeit on the medium compound, recording more timed laps than their rivals. Both Red Bull cars followed in fifth and sixth, with Daniel Ricciardo faster than new teammate Max Verstappen. Valtteri Bottas was seventh for Williams, two places ahead of teammate Felipe Massa, who at one point spun out at turn five. Upon his return to Toro Rosso, Daniil Kvyat was unable to match the pace of his teammate Carlos Sainz Jr., ending up half a second behind him. Esteban Ocon made his first free practice appearance of the season for Renault, replacing Jolyon Palmer, but was unable to set a timed lap. He suffered a tyre failure, caused by debris on the track. Force India's Sergio Pérez managed only nine laps as he spent much of the session in the pit lane after smoke emerged from the rear of his car.


title: 2016 Spanish Grand Prix

text: Mercedes topped the time sheets in the second session, now switching to the soft compound tyres as well, with Nico Rosberg two and a half-tenths of a second clear of Kimi Räikkönen, while Lewis Hamilton was third fastest, more than seven-tenths off Rosberg's time. Räikkönen's running was interrupted for a while when he was called back into the pitlane to investigate a fuel system problem, but was able to get back out. Fernando Alonso was seventh fastest for McLaren, but needed a replacement of his car's plank after running wide over artificial grass surrounding the track. His teammate, Jenson Button, also experienced problems, having to stop at the end of the pitlane early in the session with an electrical issue. Renault's problem from the first session continued: Jolyon Palmer, back in his car in place of Ocon, suffered a tyre failure on the start-finish straight, bringing out red flags in the process. Renault and tyre supplier Pirelli were left puzzled over the failure, as in this incident, no sign of a cut from debris was found.


title: 2016 Spanish Grand Prix

text: Nico Rosberg was again fastest in the third practice session on Saturday morning, setting a time of 1:23.078 on his first timed run, a time that stood until the end of the session. Hamilton was second, 0.126 seconds off, followed by Sebastian Vettel just two-hundredths of a second behind him. In fourth place, Max Verstappen was faster than teammate Ricciardo for the first time, who finished fifth, ahead of Räikkönen. Upon beginning his preparation laps for qualifying, Rosberg had to come back into the garage, as a sensor on his car was malfunctioning. The team was capable of repairing the damage and he went back out for the final minutes of practice. Sergio Pérez was satisfied with the eighth fastest time, saying that the car had improved "everywhere" following the updates it had received.


title: 2016 Spanish Grand Prix

text: Qualifying consisted of three parts, 18, 15 and 12 minutes in length respectively, with six drivers eliminated from competing after each of the first two sessions. In the first part of qualifying (Q1), Nico Rosberg set a time of 1:23.002, the fastest of the weekend up to that point, two-tenths of a second ahead of teammate Hamilton. Manor and Sauber occupied the back rows of the grid. Felipe Massa's first lap was seven-tenths of a second slower than the one from his teammate Bottas and as he was unable to set another timed lap, he became the surprise elimination in Q1, behind Jolyon Palmer, who was dropped into 17th place by a late improvement from Jenson Button.


title: 2016 Spanish Grand Prix

text: In Q2, it was Hamilton who came out on top, exactly six-tenths of a second ahead of Rosberg. Verstappen was third fastest, ahead of Ricciardo in fifth. Kimi Räikkönen had to abandon his first fast lap after running wide in turn four, but later set a time good enough for fourth. Meanwhile, Sebastian Vettel recorded just one timed lap, saving a set of tyres and was sixth. On his return to Toro Rosso, Kvyat was eliminated in 13th place, while teammate Sainz went through to Q3. Sergio Pérez advanced as well, demoting his teammate Hülkenberg into elimination in the process, who would line up eleventh on the grid. Joining him on the sidelines for Q3 were Jenson Button in twelfth, with Romain Grosjean, Kevin Magnussen and Esteban Gutiérrez lining up behind Kvyat.


title: 2016 Spanish Grand Prix

text: Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg were the first out in Q3. Hamilton's early sector times put him on course to a new fastest lap of the weekend, but a brake lockup at turn ten ruined his lap and tyres. Nico Rosberg made no such mistake and claimed provisional pole position. As the two Ferrari drivers struggled to find pace, Max Verstappen claimed second place for the time being, before the drivers went out for their second laps. Lewis Hamilton's second flying lap bested Rosberg's time by almost three-tenths of a second, and saw him take the fifty-second pole of his career. The two Red Bull cars of Ricciardo and Verstappen followed, with Räikkönen and Vettel for Ferrari in fifth and sixth respectively, both more than a second behind Hamilton. Valtteri Bottas was best of the rest ahead of Sainz, Pérez and Alonso. It was the first appearance in Q3 for McLaren since they resumed their association with Honda in .


title: 2016 Spanish Grand Prix

text: At the start, Nico Rosberg got around the outside of Hamilton in turn one, while Räikkönen lost positions due to a slow getaway. Sebastian Vettel got past Verstappen, but was immediately repassed on the approach to turn four. At the front of the race, coming out of turn three, Hamilton tried to retake the position from Rosberg. As the latter defended his position, Hamilton went off the track and spun and they collided at turn 4, ending the race of both Mercedes drivers. The collision resulted in a safety car period, with the order standing: Ricciardo, Verstappen, Sainz, Vettel and Räikkönen. The safety car came in at the end of lap four. Vettel got past Sainz on lap eight and Räikkönen tried to follow suit two laps later, but was forced off track into turn two. He completed the move one lap later at the same spot. Sainz and Button were the first to come into the pit lane for new tyres on lap 12, followed by race leader Ricciardo one lap later, making Verstappen the first Dutchman to lead a Grand Prix, before he came in another lap later. When Vettel made a pit stop on lap 16, he emerged third behind the two Red Bull drivers, all on the medium compound tyre.


title: 2016 Spanish Grand Prix

text: By lap 20, Sebastian Vettel was closing the gap to the two Red Bulls ahead of him, coming within three seconds of Verstappen. On lap 22, Nico Hülkenberg retired when his power unit caught fire and he had to stop on the sidelines. While Massa had fought from 18th on the grid into tenth, his teammate Bottas was lying fifth by lap 25, ahead of Sainz. On lap 28, Ricciardo was again the first of the front runners to pit, taking on the soft compound. Vettel came in two laps later, making the same choice in tyres. This left Verstappen to lead Kimi Räikkönen, as it emerged that both would run on a different strategy, pitting only twice in contrast to the three stopping Vettel and Ricciardo. On lap 34, the gap between the two leaders was 2.1 seconds, before Verstappen came in on the following lap. Räikkönen responded one lap later, emerging behind Verstappen. On lap 39, Vettel came in for his third and final stop, while Ricciardo stayed out for another four laps. When he returned to the track, he was behind Vettel, but on fresher tyres.


title: 2016 Spanish Grand Prix

text: While Räikkönen closed on Verstappen at the front, Fernando Alonso's home race ended on lap 47, pulling over to the side of the track at turn three. Räikkönen managed to get into the one-second window to activate the drag reduction system (DRS), as Vettel was eight seconds behind him with Ricciardo closing on him in fourth place. By lap 57, Ricciardo was close enough to use DRS as well, but unable to pass. Three laps later, Ricciardo made an attempt at overtaking into turn one, but braking too late left him running wide, allowing Vettel back through. As the front runners lapped backmarkers, Kvyat, after scoring the first fastest lap for himself and Toro Rosso, overtook Gutiérrez for tenth place. Two laps from finish, Ricciardo suffered a puncture and was forced to pit, but retained fourth place ahead of Bottas. On the last lap, Renault drivers Kevin Magnussen and Jolyon Palmer collided, but both made it to the finish. As Verstappen crossed the finish line, he became the youngest ever and first Dutch race winner in Formula One.


title: 2016 Spanish Grand Prix

text: At the podium interviews, conducted by singer Plácido Domingo, Verstappen expressed delight about a "great race", crediting his team with giving him a good car. Kimi Räikkönen said that while he was happy for Verstappen, he was disappointed not to have won. He blamed the lack of downforce while following as the reason why he had been unable to pass Verstappen. Vettel congratulated the winner as well, but lamented that his different strategy had not worked out in his favour. During the post-race press conference, Räikkönen stressed that had anyone offered the team two podium positions after their poor performance in qualifying, they would have taken it "happily". Fourth placed Ricciardo expressed bitterness over Red Bull's decision to switch him to a three-stop strategy, which eventually lost him a podium position, saying: "I'm a bit devastated. A big part of me is happy the team are on winning form but it's hard to celebrate". His team later explained their decision, declaring that they had focused their strategy on Vettel, who they had considered the biggest threat.


title: 2016 Spanish Grand Prix

text: In the Grand Prix, Max Verstappen broke several records: apart from being the youngest ever driver to win a race at 18 years and 228 days, he also was the youngest to stand on a Formula One podium, in both instances breaking Sebastian Vettel's record set at the 2008 Italian Grand Prix by more than two years. Vettel had been 21 years and 2 months at the time. Verstappen also became the youngest driver to lead at least one lap of a Grand Prix, again overcoming a record set by Vettel, at the 2007 Japanese Grand Prix. Verstappen also was the first driver born in the 1990s to win a Grand Prix. He received considerable praise after the race, with Sky Sports F1's David Croft saying that he "has shown he has everything to be a world champion". His father Jos Verstappen, himself a former Grand Prix driver, declared that he considered his son a better driver than himself, as race wins had eluded him during his own career in the sport. French sport newspaper "L'Équipe" declared Verstappen to be "already a great" and "in the big leagues". Verstappen was also the first Dutchman to win a race, with the Netherlands becoming the 22nd country to produce a race winner. He was the tenth different winner of the Spanish Grand Prix in as many past editions.


title: 2016 Spanish Grand Prix

text: Following their collision, Hamilton and Rosberg were summoned to the stewards after the race but neither received a penalty, as the stewards rated their crash as a racing incident, with no driver in particular to blame. It emerged that Rosberg had chosen the wrong engine mode for the start, being down on power which led to Hamilton going for a passing manoeuvre. However, Rosberg remained convinced that he had done nothing wrong, saying: "I made it very clear I wasn't going to leave any space on the inside and I was very surprised he went for the gap". While Hamilton apologised to the team after the incident, he refused to accept blame for it. Opinions about the incident varied: While Mercedes's executive chairman Niki Lauda blamed Hamilton for the crash, former F1 driver Anthony Davidson said on Sky Sports F1 that Rosberg's move was "very aggressive". Three-time world champion Jackie Stewart said after the race that Mercedes should fine Hamilton for the crash: "Hamilton is to blame. Rosberg was allowed to protect himself. You don't go for it on the first lap." Mercedes's head of motorsport Toto Wolff stressed after the race that the team would continue to let their drivers race against each other freely, a decision praised by former world champion Alain Prost. While Rosberg said after the race that he contemplated having a talk with Hamilton about the situation, Mercedes later decided that they did "not need clear-the-air talks". However, it later emerged that the pair did have a conversation about the incident before the next race in Monaco, which, according to Hamilton, was marked by "pure respect". It was Mercedes's first double retirement since the 2011 Australian Grand Prix, and the first time they failed to score a point since the 2012 United States Grand Prix, ending a 62-race long streak, the third longest in Formula One history.


title: 2016 Spanish Grand Prix

text: For his last lap collision with teammate Jolyon Palmer, Kevin Magnussen received a ten-second time penalty, dropping him one place to 15th. He also received two penalty points to his licence. Carlos Sainz received a reprimand from the stewards for leaving the pit lane one minute before it was allowed. He escaped a more severe penalty because he stopped shortly afterwards, thereby not gaining an advantage. Upon his return to Toro Rosso, Daniil Kvyat recorded the first fastest lap of his career, and the first for the Italian team in their 190th Grand Prix.


title: 2016 Spanish Grand Prix

text: With 100 points from the first four races, Nico Rosberg remained on top of the Drivers' Championship, while Hamilton's retirement dropped him behind Räikkönen, who now trailed Rosberg by 39 points, four points ahead of Hamilton. Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo were level on points with 48, while Verstappen's victory moved him into sixth on 38. In the Constructors' standings, Mercedes retained their lead on 157 points, but Ferrari closed the gap to 48 points, with Red Bull in third on 94. Toro Rosso moved ahead of Haas into fifth, while Force India took seventh from McLaren.


Diseases and epidemics of the 19th century included long-standing epidemic threats such as smallpox, typhus, yellow fever, and scarlet fever. In addition, cholera emerged as an epidemic threat and spread worldwide in six pandemics in the nineteenth century. The third plague pandemic emerged in China in the mid-nineteenth century and spread worldwide in the 1890s.


title: Diseases and epidemics of the 19th century

text: Epidemics of the 19th century were faced without the medical advances that made 20th-century epidemics much rarer and less lethal. Micro-organisms (viruses and bacteria) had been discovered in the 18th century, but it was not until the late 19th century that the experiments of Lazzaro Spallanzani and Louis Pasteur disproved spontaneous generation conclusively, allowing germ theory and Robert Koch's discovery of micro-organisms as the cause of disease transmission. Thus throughout the majority of the 19th century, there was only the most basic, common-sense understanding of the causes, amelioration, and treatment of epidemic disease.


text: The 19th century did, however, mark a transformation period in medicine. This included the first uses of chloroform and nitrous dioxides as anesthesia, important discoveries in regards of pathology and the perfection of the autopsy, and advances in our understanding of the human body. Medical institutions were also transitioning to new hospital styles to try to prevent the spread of disease and stop over crowding with the mixing of the poor and the sick which had been a common practice. With the increasing rise in urban population, disease and epidemic crisis became much more prevalent and was seen as a consequence of urban living. Problems arose as both governments and the medical professionals at the time tried to get a handle on the spread of disease. They had yet to figure out what actually causes disease. So as those in authority scrambled to make leaps and bounds in science and track down what may be the cause of these epidemics, entire communities would be lost to the grips of terrible ailments.


text: During these many outbreaks, members of the medical professional rapidly began trying different cures to treat their patients. During the cholera epidemic of 1832 in London one doctor had found a cure. His name was Thomas Latta and he figured out that by injecting saline solutions into the arms of those infected, they would survive the disease. But, because of the chaos of cures and treatments you could find being tried out on the streets, his cure was subsequently lost to the chaos of the times. In fact, a lot was lost this way. At this time, with the increasing circulation of mass media and no form of content review in medical journals, almost anyone with or without proper education could publish a potential cure for disease. Actual practicing medical professionals also had to compete with the ever expanding pharmacy companies that were all to ready to provide new elixirs and promising treatments for the epidemics of the time.


text: Emerging from the medical chaos were legitimate and life changing treatments. The late 19th century was the beginning of widespread use of vaccines. The cholera bacterium was isolated in 1854 by Italian anatomist Filippo Pacini, and a vaccine, the first to immunize humans against a bacterial disease, was developed by Spanish physician Jaume Ferran i Clua in 1885, and by Russian–Jewish bacteriologist Waldemar Haffkine in July 1892.


text: Antibiotic drugs did not appear until the middle of the 20th century. Sulfonamides did not appear until 1935, and penicillin, discovered in 1928, was not available as a treatment until 1950.


text: A big response and potential cure to these epidemics were better sanitation in the cities. Sanitation prior to this was very poor and sometimes attempts to get better sanitation often exacerbated the diseases, especially during the cholera epidemics because their understanding of diseases relied on the miasma (bad air) theory. During the first cholera epidemic, Edwin Chadwick made an inquiry into sanitation and used quantitative data to link poor living conditions and disease and low life expectancy. As a result, the Board of Health in London took measure to improve drainage and ventilation around the city. Unfortunately, the measures helped clean the city but it further contaminated the River Thames (the primary drinking water for the city) and the epidemic got worse.


text: During the second cholera pandemic of 1816–1837, the scientific community varied in its beliefs about its causes. In France, doctors believed cholera was associated with the poverty of certain communities or poor environment. Russians believed the disease was contagious and quarantined their citizens. The United States believed that cholera was brought by recent immigrants, specifically the Irish. Lastly, some British thought the disease might arise from divine intervention.


text: During the third pandemic, Tunisia, which had not been affected by the two previous pandemics, thought Europeans had brought the disease. They blamed their sanitation practices. The prevalence of the disease in the South in areas of black populations convinced United States scientists that cholera was associated with African Americans. Current researchers note they lived near the waterways by which travelers and ships carried the disease and their populations were underserved with sanitation infrastructure and health care.


text: The Soho outbreak in London in 1854 ended after the physician John Snow identified a neighborhood Broad Street pump as contaminated and convinced officials to remove its handle. Snow believed that germ-contaminated water was the source of cholera, rather than particles in the air (referred to as "miasmata"). His study proved contaminated water was the main agent spreading cholera, although he did not identify the contaminant. Though Filippo Pacini had isolated "Vibrio cholerae" as the causative agent for cholera that year, it would be many years before miasma theory would fall out of favor.


text: In London, in June 1866), a localized epidemic in the East End claimed 5,596 lives, just as the city was completing construction of its major sewage and water treatment systems. William Farr, using the work of John Snow, "et al.", as to contaminated drinking water being the likely source of the disease, relatively quickly identified the East London Water Company as the source of the contaminated water. Quick action prevented further deaths.


text: During the fifth cholera pandemic, Robert Koch isolated "Vibrio cholerae" and proposed postulates to explain how bacteria caused disease. His work helped to establish the germ theory of disease. Prior to this time, many physicians believed that microorganisms were spontaneously generated, and disease was caused by direct exposure to filth and decay. Koch helped establish that the disease was more specifically contagious and was transmittable through the contaminated water supply. The fifth was the last serious European cholera outbreak, as cities improved their sanitation and water systems.


text: Cholera is an infection of the small intestine caused by the bacterium "Vibrio cholerae". Cholera is transmitted primarily by drinking water or eating food that has been contaminated by the cholera bacterium. The bacteria multiply in the small intestine; the feces (waste product) of an infected person, including one with no apparent symptoms, can pass on the disease if it contacts the water supply by any means.


text: History does not recount any incidents of cholera until the 19th century. Cholera came in seven waves, the last two of which occurred in the 20th century.


text: The first cholera pandemic started in 1816, spread across India by 1820, and extended to Southeast Asia and Central Europe, lasting until 1826.


text: A second cholera pandemic began in 1829, reached Russia, causing the Cholera riots. It spread to Hungary, Germany and Egypt in 1831, and London, Paris, Quebec, Ontario and New York City the following year. Cholera reached the Pacific coast of North America by 1834, reaching into the center of the country by steamboat and other river traffic.


text: The third cholera pandemic began in 1846 and lasted until 1860. It hit Russia hardest, with over one million deaths. In 1846, cholera struck Mecca, killing over 15,000. A two-year outbreak began in England and Wales in 1848, and claimed 52,000 lives. In 1849, outbreak occurred again in Paris, and in London, killing 14,137, over twice as many as the 1832 outbreak. Cholera hit Ireland in 1849 and killed many of the Irish Famine survivors, already weakened by starvation and fever. In 1849, cholera claimed 5,308 lives in the major port city of Liverpool, England, an embarkation point for immigrants to North America, and 1,834 in Hull, England. Cholera spread throughout the Mississippi River system. Thousands died in New York City, a major destination for Irish immigrants. Cholera killed 200,000 people in Mexico. That year, cholera was transmitted along the California, Mormon and Oregon Trails, killing people that are believed to have died on their way to the California Gold Rush, Utah and Oregon in the cholera years of 1849–1855. In 1851, a ship coming from Cuba carried the disease to Gran Canaria, killing up to 6,000 people.


text: The pandemic spread east to Indonesia by 1852, and China and Japan in 1854. The Philippines were infected in 1858 and Korea in 1859. In 1859, an outbreak in Bengal contributed to transmission of the disease by travelers and troops to Iran, Iraq, Arabia and Russia. Japan suffered at least seven major outbreaks of cholera between 1858 and 1902. The Ansei outbreak of 1858–60, for example, is believed to have killed between 100,000 and 200,000 people in Tokyo alone. An outbreak of cholera in Chicago in 1854 took the lives of 5.5% of the population (about 3,500 people). In 1853–4, London's epidemic claimed 10,738 lives. Throughout Spain, cholera caused more than 236,000 deaths in 1854–55. In 1854, it entered Venezuela; Brazil also suffered in 1855.


text: The fourth cholera pandemic (1863–1875) spread mostly in Europe and Africa. At least 30,000 of the 90,000 Mecca pilgrims died from the disease. Cholera ravaged northern Africa in 1865 and southeastward to Zanzibar, killing 70,000 in 1869–70. Cholera claimed 90,000 lives in Russia in 1866. The epidemic of cholera that spread with the Austro-Prussian War (1866) is estimated to have killed 165,000 people in the Austrian Empire. In 1867, 113,000 died from cholera in Italy. and 80,000 in Algeria.


text: Outbreaks in North America in 1866–1873 killed some 50,000 Americans. In 1866, localized epidemics occurred in the East End of London, in southern Wales, and Amsterdam. In the 1870s, cholera spread in the U.S. as an epidemic from New Orleans along the Mississippi River and to ports on its tributaries.


text: In the fifth cholera pandemic (1881–1896), according to Dr A. J. Wall, the 1883–1887 part of the epidemic cost 250,000 lives in Europe and at least 50,000 in the Americas. Cholera claimed 267,890 lives in Russia (1892); 120,000 in Spain; 90,000 in Japan and over 60,000 in Persia. In Egypt, cholera claimed more than 58,000 lives. The 1892 outbreak in Hamburg killed 8,600 people.


text: Smallpox is caused by either of the two viruses, Variola major and Variola minor. Smallpox vaccine was available in Europe, the United States, and the Spanish Colonies during the last part of the century. The Latin names of this disease are Variola Vera. The words come from various (spotted) or varus (pimple). In England, this disease was first known as the "pox" or the "red plague". Smallpox settles itself in small blood vessels of the skin and in the mouth and throat. The symptoms of smallpox are rash on the skin and blisters filled with raised liquid.


text: The disease killed an estimated 400,000 Europeans annually during the 19th century and one-third of all the blindness of that time was caused by smallpox. 20 to 60% of all the people that were infected died and 80% of all the children with the infection also died. It caused also many deaths in the 20th century, over 300–500 million. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart also had smallpox when he was only 11 years old. He survived the smallpox outbreak in Austria.


text: Epidemic typhus is caused by the bacteria Rickettsia Prowazekii; it comes from lice. Murine typhus is caused by the Rickettsia Typhi bacteria, from the fleas on rats. Scrub typhus is caused by the Orientia Tsutsugamushi bacteria, from the harvest mites on humans and rodents. Queensland tick typhus is caused by the Rickettsia Australis bacteria, from ticks.


text: During Napoleon's retreat from Moscow in 1812, more French soldiers died of typhus than were killed by the Russians. A major epidemic occurred in Ireland between 1816 and 1819, during the Year Without a Summer; an estimated 100,000 Irish perished. Typhus appeared again in the late 1830s, and between 1846 and 1849 during the Great Irish Famine. Spreading to England, and called "Irish fever", it was noted for its virulence. It killed people of all social classes, as lice were endemic and inescapable, but it hit particularly hard in the lower or "unwashed" social strata. In Canada alone, the typhus epidemic of 1847 killed more than 20,000 people from 1847 to 1848, mainly Irish immigrants in fever sheds and other forms of quarantine, who had contracted the disease aboard coffin ships. In the United States, epidemics occurred in Baltimore, Memphis and Washington DC between 1865 and 1873, and during the US Civil War.


text: This disease is transmitted by the bite of female mosquito; the higher prevalence of transmission by Aedes aegypti has led to it being known as the Yellow Fever Mosquito. The transmission of yellow fever is entirely a matter of available habitat for vector mosquito and prevention such as mosquito netting. They mostly infect other primates, but humans can be infected. The symptoms of the fever are: Headaches, back and muscle pain, chills and vomiting, bleeding in the eyes and mouth, and vomit containing blood.


text: Yellow fever accounted for the largest number of the 19th-century's individual epidemic outbreaks, and most of the recorded serious outbreaks of yellow fever occurred in the 19th century. It is most prevalent in tropical-like climates, but the United States was not exempted from the fever. New Orleans was plagued with major epidemics during the 19th century, most notably in 1833 and 1853. At least 25 major outbreaks took place in the Americas during the 18th and 19th centuries, including particularly serious ones in Santo Domingo in 1803 and Memphis in 1878. Major outbreaks occurred repeatedly in Gibraltar; outbreaks in 1804, 1814, and again in 1828. Barcelona suffered the loss of several thousand citizens during an outbreak in 1821. Urban epidemics continued in the United States until 1905, with the last outbreak affecting New Orleans.


text: The third plague pandemic was a major bubonic plague pandemic that began in Yunnan, China in 1855. This episode of bubonic plague spread to all inhabited continents in the 1890s and first years of the 1900s, and ultimately led to more than 12,000,000 deaths in India and China, with about 10,000,000 killed in India alone.


text: A natural reservoir of plague is located in western Yunnan and is an ongoing health risk today. The third pandemic of plague originated in this area after a rapid influx of Han Chinese to exploit the demand for minerals, primarily copper, in the latter half of the 19th century. By 1850, the population had exploded to over 7,000,000 people. Increasing transportation throughout the region brought people in contact with plague-infected fleas, the primary vector between the yellow-breasted rat ("Rattus flavipectus") and humans. The spread of European empires and the development of new forms of transport such as the steam engine made it easier for both humans and rats to spread the disease along existing trade routes.


text: Haemolytic streptococcus, which was identified in the 1880s, causes scarlet fever, which is a bacterial disease. Scarlet fever spreads through respiratory droplets and children between the ages of 5 to 15 years were most affected by scarlet fever. Scarlet fever had several epidemic phases, and around 1825 to 1885 outbreaks began to recur cyclically and often highly fatal. In the mid-19th century, the mortality caused by scarlet fever rose in England and Wales. The major outbreak in England and Wales took place during 1825–1885 with high mortality marking this as remarkable. There were several other notable outbreaks across Europe, South America, and the United States in the 19th century.


text: In the UK, scarlet fever was considered benign for two centuries, but fatal epidemics were seen in the 1700s. Scarlet fever broke out in England in the 19th century and was responsible for an enormous number of deaths in the 60-year period from 1825 to 1885; decades that followed had lower levels of annual mortality from scarlet fever. In NW England there was heavy mortality in Liverpool. Babies born in Liverpool with a birthday in 1861 were only expected to live 26 years, and in larger cities, life expectancy was less than 35 years. Over time, the life expectancy changed as well as the number of fatalities from scarlet fever. There was a reduction in child mortality from scarlet fever when you compare the decades, 1851–60 and 1891–1900. The decline of mortality seen for scarlet fever was noticed after the identification of streptococcus, but the decline was not associated with a treatment. A treatment would not be available until the introduction of sulphonamides in the 1930s, and the decline in mortality was due to the quality of air, food, and water improving. Outbreaks of scarlet fever also took place in Dublin in 1986 with 1,354 cases and 149 deaths, Norway from 1862 to 1884, Scotland in 1861, and in the rest of United Kingdom. The United Kingdom saw cases in Canterbury from 1839 to 1865 with 305 deaths, Bristol in 1870 with 106 deaths and in 1875, and Manchester in 1886 with six cases.


text: Chile reported scarlet fever the first time in 1827 and highest rates were seen during winter months. The disease spread from Valparaiso to Santiago from 1831 to 1832 and claimed 7,000 lives. There were multiple outbreaks in different locations of Chile, including Copaipo in 1875 and Caldera in 1876.


text: Similarly to Europe, America considered scarlet fever to be benign for two centuries. In the early 19th century the scarlet fever impact drastically changed and lethal epidemics started to arise in the United States. The United States had a notable outbreak of scarlet fever in Minnesota in 1847 and Augusta, Georgia had a lethal epidemic in 1832–1833. Scarlet fever had low mortality rates in New York for many years before 1828, but remained high for long after. Cases of scarlet fever were also seen in Boston during a period of decreasing severity after 1885. Boston City Hospital opened a scarlet fever pavilion in 1887 to house patients with infectious diseases and saw nearly 25,000 patients during 1895–1905. In the mid-1800s, more specific epidemiological information was emerging and incidence in infants were found to be low. In 1870, the US census showed a decrease in scarlet fever mortality in children below the age of one.


title: Rat-tailed maggot

text: Rat-tailed maggots are the larvae of certain species of hoverflies belonging to the tribes Eristalini and Sericomyiini. A characteristic feature of rat-tailed maggots is a tube-like, telescoping breathing siphon located at its posterior end. This acts like a snorkel, allowing the larva to breathe air while submerged. The siphon is usually about as long as the maggot's body ( when mature), but can be extended as long as . This organ gives the larva its common name.


title: Rat-tailed maggot

text: The most commonly encountered rat-tailed maggot is the larva of the drone fly, "Eristalis tenax". It lives in stagnant, oxygen-deprived water, with a high organic content. It is fairly tolerant of pollution and can live in sewage lagoons and cesspools.


title: Rat-tailed maggot

text: These larvae, commonly called "mousies", are cultured and sold as fish bait. They are especially popular in ice fishing.


title: Rat-tailed maggot

text: Occasionally, cases have been documented of human intestinal myiasis caused by the rat-tailed maggot. Symptoms can range from none (asymptomatic) to abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting, or pruritus ani. Infection can be caused by ingestion of contaminated food or water, but doubts have been expressed that accidentally ingested fly larvae could survive in the gastrointestinal tract. Zumpt proposed an alternative called "rectal myiasis". Flies, attracted to feces, may deposit their eggs or larvae near or into the anus, and the larvae then penetrate further into the rectum. They can survive feeding on feces at this site, as long as the breathing tube reaches towards the anus.


title: Capita

text: Capita plc, commonly known as Capita, is an international business process outsourcing and professional services company headquartered in London.


title: Capita

text: It is the largest business process outsourcing and professional services company in the United Kingdom, with an overall market share of 29% in 2016, and has clients in central government, local government and the private sector. It also has a property and infrastructure consultancy division which is the fourth largest multidisciplinary consultancy in the UK. Roughly half of its turnover comes from the private sector and half from the public sector. Whilst UK-focused, Capita also has operations across Europe, Africa and Asia.


title: Capita

text: Capita was formed in 1984, as a division of the non-profit CIPFA (Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy). In 1987, it became an independent company with 33 staff as a result of a management buy-out, led by Rod Aldridge, and was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1991.


title: Capita

text: In March 2006, Executive Chairman Rod Aldridge resigned in the aftermath of claims that contracts awarded to the Group were influenced by his loan of £1 million to the Labour Party. Aldridge resigned saying that he denied the claims, but to avoid any lingering doubts about it, he was leaving the company. Aldridge had overseen the company's growth from a small company in 1987 to a FTSE 100 member in 2006. He was replaced by his longtime associate Paul Pindar.


title: Capita

text: In February 2007, a Capita office in Victoria, London was subject to a letter bomb attack. One person was injured.


title: Capita

text: On 2 October 2009, one of Capita's businesses (Capita Financial Group) announced plans to move some of its operations from London to Leeds.


title: Capita

text: On 1 July 2011, Capita acquired Ventura, a customer contact specialist for a cash consideration of £65 million.


title: Capita

text: On 28 February 2013, Capita bought the Fire Service College from the Department for Communities and Local Government for £10 million.


title: Capita

text: The company acquired Avocis, a German call centre business, in 2015, Orange Bus, a specialist digital interaction agency, in 2016 and NYS Corporate events and travel agency in 2017.


title: Capita

text: In October 2017, the company announced that former Amec Foster Wheeler CEO Jonathan Lewis would take over as CEO from 1 December 2017, following departure of Andy Parker. After completing an initial assessment, on 31 January 2018, Lewis announced a profits warning, dividend suspension, a £700 million rights issue, cost cutting and a disposals programme, as net debts were predicted to hit £1.15 billion and a pensions deficit reached £381 million. The announcement knocked 47% off Capita's shares, reducing its market value by over £1.1 billion. The share price slide continued the following day, losing a further 13%. On 3 April 2018, Capita shares fell 6% to a 20-year low after British Airways decided to retain in-house operation of two UK call centres rather than award contracts to run them to Capita.


title: Capita

text: On 23 April 2018, Capita launched a cash call to raise £701m and reported a £513m loss for the previous financial year. On 1 August 2018, Capita announced its profits in the six months to 30 June had dropped to £80.5m (from £195m in the same period in 2017), while revenues were down 4% to £1.98bn; the company's shares fell almost 9% after markets opened, to 148p a share.


title: Capita

text: Following Lewis's appointment, the company embarked on a "multi-year strategy" to turn around the company. In May 2019, the company became the first FTSE 250 company in 30 years to appoint rank-and-file workers to its board. Lyndsay Browne, a chartered accountant and finance manager, and Joseph Murphy, a project manager in the real estate division, beat competition from other internal candidates to become the first workers' representatives on the Capita board.


title: Capita

text: In September 2019, the company announced that it was re-branding as a "purpose-led" living wage employer, changing its logo for the first time in 13 years. The company said that from April 2020, it will pay all 40,000 of its employees an independently verified "real living wage". This will involve a pay rise for almost 6,000 employees. The rates, which are set at the basic income needed to cover the real cost of living, are overseen by the Living Wage Commission.


title: Capita

text: In July 2019, the company announced that it was launching a consultancy arm. The new division will employ around 1,000 consultants and compete with the likes of Accenture, Deloitte and KPMG.


title: Capita

text: Capita entered the healthcare recruitment market during May 2011, through acquisition of Team24, a healthcare recruitment specialist owned by Robert Stiff extending the services offered within the recruitment industry.


title: Capita

text: In 2006, Capita Financial Administrators (CFA) was fined £300,000 by the Financial Services Authority for having poor anti-fraud controls. The division provides administration services for third parties and the Capita Group.


title: Capita

text: Capita also intended to enter into the legal services market and entered into a funding arrangement with the Law Firm Optima Legal Services Limited which saw them, in the period between May 2006, to the end of 2009, invest a total of £36,700,000 by way of investment loans into Optima. As part of the funding arrangement Capita Group had the option of acquiring the shares of Optima Legal Services for the nominal sum of £1 upon the full implementation of the Legal Services Act 2007, which would make ownership of law firms by the likes of Capita possible. It is thought that such Alternative Business Structures ("ABS") could be lawful around October 2011. However, on 9 August 2010, it was reported that the Solicitors Regulatory Authority ("SRA") had found that the arrangement breached its rules in that it effectively amounted to an ABS. As a consequence, Optima Legal Services Lead Litigation and Property Partners, Philip Robinson and Anthony Ruane respectively were both severely reprimanded by the SRA for what was found to be professional misconduct and only narrowly avoided referral to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal and Adrian Lamb, former CEO of Optima Legal Services Limited, left the business in June 2010.


title: Capita

text: In 1998, Capita won the contract to run Constructionline, the newly created Public-Private Partnership owned by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). In January 2015, Capita acquired Constructionline outright from BIS for £35m. Three years later, on 31 January 2018, Capita announced it wanted to sell Constructionline as part of a transformation programme including disposal of non-core assets and cost cutting. In June 2018, it was reported that Constructionline had been sold to private equity investor Warburg Pincus for £160m.


title: Capita

text: In June 2014, it was reported that at least five of eight Liverpool NHS Trusts which had contracted their payroll and recruitment to Capita in 2012, were withdrawing because of concerns about the quality of the service provided. Several NHS trusts contracted with the company for human resources services. West London Mental Health NHS Trust cancelled their contract in September 2014, after the company proved "unable to meet acceptable 'time to hire' targets", particularly for nurses. At the same time Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust and Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital NHS Foundation Trust terminated their contracts.


title: Capita

text: In November, Mersey Care Trust revealed that "information governance issues" had been uncovered when the services were taken back in-house. Details of staff at other Merseyside trusts were sent to Liverpool Community Health Trust's HR department.


title: Capita

text: The company was awarded a 4-year contract to become sole provider of administrative services including payment administration, management of medical records and eligibility lists of practitioners for GPs, opticians and dentists across the UK by NHS England in June 2015. In July 2016, it was reported that there was "a large backlog of unprocessed correspondence relating to patients". It was earlier reported that the company was unable to deal "effectively" with the movement of paper records between practices.


title: Capita

text: In 2015, an undercover investigation by "The Daily Telegraph" showed that in some cases locum agencies, Medicare and Team24 owned by Capita were charging some hospitals higher fees than others and giving false company details. The agencies were charging up to 49% of the fee. Health secretary Jeremy Hunt criticised agencies who sought "big profits" at the expense of the NHS and taxpayers and promised to "reduce the margins rip-off agencies are able to generate."


title: Capita

text: The company established Primary Care Support England in September 2015, replacing former regional services provided by each local health authority. The new service was described as shambolic by the Local Optical Committee Support Unit and the Optical Confederation. A deal was negotiated to enable optician practices to claim interest, administrative costs and bank charges on late payments of General Ophthalmic Services fees by Capita. In August 2016, a survey of GPs found 85% were missing records of recently registered patients, 65% had experienced shortages of clinical supplies or delays in deliveries, and 32% had suffered from missed or delayed payments. Delays in the payment of GP trainees' salaries were also reported. The situation was repeated in October 2017, with "The Guardian" reporting that "hundreds" of trainee GPs had not been paid. Capita was unable to say how many were affected in what the Cameron fund – a GP hardship charity – blamed on "another botched privatisation." Inadequacies by Capita may have put patients at risk. The National Audit Office maintains almost 90 women were told incorrectly they were no longer in the cervical screening programme. Patients could have been at risk due to trouble with the 'performers list' a list of NHS dentists, GP's and opticians. "The failure to update performers lists may have compromised patient safety in cases where practitioners should have been removed," the report authors maintained. Roughly 1,000 dentists, doctors and opticians could not work in 2016 due to delays processing new applications. Further failures included a backlog of 500,000 patient registration letters, failure to deliver medical supplies, and patients' medical records being lost or delayed.


title: Capita

text: In March 2019, Simon Stevens announced that the cervical screening programme administration they had been running would be brought back in house.


title: Capita

text: In 2014, Capita were awarded the contract to introduce postcodes to the Republic of Ireland. The Irish communications minister has welcomed the implementation saying that the Irish code is the first in the world to be unique to each individual address. The scheme was launched in July 2015.


title: Capita

text: The emergency services have expressed concern that the new system may lead to responders having difficulty getting to incidents. Further, the Irish Data Protection Authority has raised concerns over the design of the code as information about individuals will be made more accessible. Liam Duggan, CEO of Capita Ireland stated at a Government enquiry in 2014, that they had thoroughly tested the new system for unsuitable words and even used a game of Scrabble for this purpose.


title: Capita

text: The project is generally running to programme and budget: roll out, which was originally planned to start in March 2015, will now take place in "mid-2015" and the cost, which was originally budgeted at €25 million has increased to €27 million.


title: Capita

text: In 2012, Capita was awarded a 10 year long recruiting contract for the British Army, worth £1.3 billion. However, they have been greatly criticised, as they failed to meet the army's recruiting target every year up until 2020, with the shortfall ranging between 21% and 45% every single year. According to the National Audit Office one of the main failings of the contract was the new recruiting website, that was delivered in 2017- four years late and three times the original cost. In 2020, the contract was extended for two further years, meaning that it will now terminate in 2024. The Public Accounts Committee stated that Capita entered into the contract without "understanding the complexity of what it was taking on."


title: Capita

text: In 2019, Capita won a 12-year contract to operate the Defence Fire and Rescue Service, at 53 sites across the UK, Cyprus, and the Falkland Islands, in a deal worth £525 million. The deal also saw Capita take over all the work of the Defence Fire Training and Development Centre and transfer it to the national Fire Service College- including Royal Air Force firefighter training. However, Capita once more was subject to criticism when it proposed to cut firefighter numbers at HMNB Clyde and RNAD Coulport, two nuclear warhead facilities, by 15% less than two years after the contract was awarded. This was described as a purely cost-cutting measure, as the firm is set to request the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service to backfill the gaps in response.


title: Capita

text: In 2020, an industry consortium led by Capita, called "Fisher Training" won a contract to deliver shore-based training to the Royal Navy and Royal Marines at 16 sites across the UK. The consortium is composed of Capita, Raytheon UK, Elbit Systems UK, and Fujitsu, and the contract is worth up to £2 billion.


title: Capita

text: Capita Group has not been received well by the public and in the media. It has gained the nickname "Crapita", particularly from the coverage in the satirical and current affairs magazine "Private Eye", which routinely documents the company's many failures and setbacks in the public sector.


title: Capita

text: It was revealed in January 2013 that Capita was embroiled in a scandal over misinforming people that they had to leave the UK as they had no valid visa. One such person was, in fact, the holder of a UK passport.


title: Capita

text: In 2014, a leak to "The Guardian" revealed that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) had to send civil servants in to help the company process personal independence payments for the seriously ill and the disabled. "Waiting times for assessment," the newspaper noted, "have been so long that in some cases people with terminal conditions have died before receiving a penny."


title: Capita

text: The 2015 sale of a government research operation charged with overlooking food safety to Capita has been criticized by Tim Lang, an advisor to the UK government and the WHO on food safety issues. Arguing that a for-profit operation will be under pressure to ignore low-paying projects vital to public safety and the environment, he indicates that there is no profit in public research concerning food and biodiversity or food and pesticide residues, and predicts "commercial concerns will skew Fera's priorities"


title: Capita

text: Former Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron questioned how Atos and Capita could have been paid over £500m from taxpayers money for assessing fitness to work as 61% who appealed won their appeals. Farron stated, "This adds to the suspicion that these companies are just driven by a profit motive, and the incentive is to get the assessments done, but not necessarily to get the assessments right. They are the ugly face of business."


title: Capita

text: In September 2021, it was revealed that Capita had been paying thousands of its employees below the minimum wage.


title: Ploiești

text: Ploiești ( , , ), formerly spelled Ploești, is a city and county seat in Prahova County, Romania. Part of the historical region of Muntenia, it is located north of Bucharest.


title: Ploiești

text: The area of Ploiești is around , and it borders the Blejoi commune in the north, Bărcănești and Brazi communes in the south, Târgșoru Vechi commune in the west, and Bucov and Berceni communes in the east. According to the 2011 Romanian census, there were 201,226 people living within the city limits, making it the ninth most populous in the country.


title: Ploiești

text: The city grew beginning with the 17th century on an estate bought by Michael the Brave from the local landlords, gradually taking the place of the nearby Wallachian fairs of Târgșor, Gherghița and Bucov. Its evolution was accelerated by heavy industrialisation, with the world's first systematic petroleum refinery being opened in 1856–1857. Following massive exploitation of the oil deposits in the area, Ploiești earned the nickname of "the Capital of Black Gold". In the present, its economic activity is still based on oil processing, the city having three large refineries and other industries related to this branch.


title: Ploiești

text: Ploiești is also an important transport hub, linking the capital with the regions of Transylvania and Moldavia. The city has direct access to the Prahova Valley, one of the most important alpine tourism areas in Romania.


title: Ploiești

text: Though likely settled much earlier, Ploiești first appeared in documents in the 16th century during the reign of Michael the Brave, the Prince of Wallachia (). It flourished as a center for trade and handicraft-manufacturing in the 17th and 18th centuries. The road connecting Ploiești to Brașov was opened in 1864, and the railway arrived in 1882. Many schools and hospitals date from this period.


title: Ploiești

text: In the mid-19th century the region of Ploiești became one of the world's leading oil-extraction and -refinery sites. The Mehedințeanu brothers opened the world's first large refinery in Ploiești in 1856–1857. History also remembers the city as the site of the self-styled Republic of Ploiești, a short-lived 1870 revolt against the Romanian monarchy.


title: Ploiești

text: During World War I, Ploiești's oil production made it a target when the Central Powers invaded Romania in 1916, a British Army operation commanded by Colonel John Griffiths destroying production and sabotaging much of the infrastructure of the industry.


title: Ploiești

text: Although badly damaged after the November 1940 earthquake, the city functioned as a significant source of oil for Nazi Germany during much of World War II. The Allies made Ploiești a target of the oil campaign of World War II and bombed it repeatedly,


title: Ploiești

text: such as during the HALPRO (Halverson Project, June 1942) and Operation Tidal Wave (1 August 1943) at a great loss, without producing any significant delay in operation or production. Soviet Red Army troops captured Ploiești on 24 August 1944.


title: Ploiești

text: Following the war, the new Communist régime of Romania nationalised the oil industry, which had largely been privately owned, and made massive investments in the oil- and petroleum-industry in a bid to modernise the country and to repair the war damage.


title: Ploiești

text: The population of Ploiești went from 56,460, as indicated by the December 1912 census, up to 252,715 in January 1992. However, since the fall of Communism, the city's population continues to gently fall due to both emigration and a declining birth rate. At the 2002 census, the population was reduced to 232,527. As of the 2011 census data, Ploiești has a population of 197,542, while the proposed Ploiești metropolitan area would number 266,457 persons.


title: Ploiești

text: The majority of the inhabitants are ethnic Romanians (90.64%), but a Roma minority (2.4%) is present in several neighborhoods of the city—predominantly Bereasca, Mimiu and Radu de la Afumați. For 6.65% of the population, the ethnicity is unknown. Most of the people living in Ploiești declare themselves as Orthodox Christians (90.7%).


title: Ploiești

text: The population of Ploiești grew at a rapid pace because of the intense economic development of the area. In 1810, during the years of the Ottoman occupation there were only around 2024 inhabitants in the present-day city. In 1837 this grew to 3,000 inhabitants, 11 years after the Union in 1859 the population was 26,458 while in 1884 the number stood at 32,000. During the early 20th century, the population of Ploiești grew even more, due to the expansion of the petrol industry. Even though the city was bombed during World War II, the population of Ploiești recovered, numbering 95,632 inhabitants in January 1948.


title: Ploiești

text: After the Romanian Revolution of 1989, Ploiești experienced rapid economic loss. The city is situated at just north of Bucharest, with promising infrastructure projects currently underway. It is a strong industrial center, focused especially on the oil production and refining industry. Although oil production in the region is declining steadily, there is still a thriving processing industry with four operating oil refineries, linked by pipelines to Bucharest, the Black Sea port of Constanța and the Danube port of Giurgiu. Ploiești also has a long history as a textile manufacturing center.


title: Ploiești

text: The city has become a hub of foreign investment. Companies such as OMV-Petrom, Lukoil, Shell Gas, Timken, Yazaki, Coca-Cola, Efes Pilsener, British American Tobacco, Federal-Mogul, and Interbrew have operations there, and retailers like Carrefour, Metro, Selgros, Kaufland, Billa, Bricostore, Lidl, Obi, Auchan, Profi, Mega Image have found in Ploiești a continuously growing market, but the pay rate for employees is lower than expected. There are four McDonald's restaurants in Ploiești and three KFCs.


title: Ploiești

text: The German retailer Tengelmann built a depot in Ploiești to support a €200 million regional expansion plan. With its Interex () operation, the French independent retailer Intermarché intends to become a distribution leader in the Balkans. In Romania the first Interex store was opened in June 2002 in Ploiești. The Interex depot and facilities were bought by Penny Market XXL in 2014.


title: Ploiești

text: Unilever has a detergent plant in Ploiești. By transferring their food production to Ploiești, the company will concentrate all its activities in Romania at the same location. At the beginning of March 2006, Unilever announced they would invest money to build one production center in Romania, and the construction of the new food plant is part of this plan.


title: Ploiești

text: In 1950, as a milestone in the development of the petroleum, hydrocarbon processing, and petrochemical industries, the Engineering and Design Institute for Oil Refineries and Petrochemical Plants, SC IPIP SA, a Romanian company with a large range of capabilities and experience, was established at Ploiești.


title: Ploiești

text: In Ploiești there are four local television channels: Ploiești TV, Valea Prahovei TV, Wyll TV and Prahova TV.


title: Ploiești

text: Ploiești is situated on the A3 motorway, the main route to Romania's northern and western provinces and the Western EU. Henri Coandă International Airport is distant, and the ski resorts of the Prahova Valley can be reached in an hour's drive. Ploiești is the second most important railway center in the country after Bucharest, linking Bucharest with Transylvania and Moldavia.


title: Ploiești

text: The city's public transportation system is run by TCE Ploiești and includes an extensive network of buses, trolleybuses and trams/streetcars. Ploiești's distinctive yellow bus fleet is one of the most modern in Southeastern Europe, providing connections to all areas within the city, for a daily average of 150,000 passengers. The municipal roads comprise over 800 streets with a total length of , being modern. Around 5,300 vehicles transit Ploiești each day, with East and West ring belts diverting much traffic. The municipal vehicle fleet comprised 256 buses, 36 trams and 25 trolleybuses carrying about 70 millions passengers annually. There are 33 bus lines, with a total length of ; two trolley-bus lines having a total length of and two tram lines having a total length of .


title: Ploiești

text: Ploiești is home to the Ploiești Philharmonic Orchestra—one of the top-rated philharmonic orchestras in Romania, a prominent football club, FC Petrolul Ploiești, women handball club CSM Ploiești from Liga Națională and basketball team CSU Asesoft.


title: Ploiești

text: There are many cultural and architectural monuments, including the Cultural Palace; the Clock Museum, featuring a collection of clocks and watches gathered by Nicolae Simache; the Oil Museum; the Ploiești Art Museum, donated by the Quintus family; and the Hagi Prodan Museum, dating to 1785: the property of a merchant named Ivan Hagi Prodan, it contains elements of old Romanian architecture and for a short time after World War I it hosted the first museum in Ploiești, "Prahova Museum".


title: Ploiești

text: In August 2011, Ploiești hosted the Golden Carpathian European Film & Fair and Goran Bregovic concert.


title: Ploiești

text: Several prominent writers have been affiliated with the city, including Ion Luca Caragiale, Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea, Ioan A. Bassarabescu, Nichita Stănescu, Geo Bogza, Radu Tudoran, composer Paul Constantinescu and philosopher Petre P. Negulescu. Three graduates of the "Sfinții Petru și Pavel" High school were presidents of the Romanian Academy: Andrei Rădulescu, Mihai Drăgănescu and Eugen Simion.


title: Ploiești

text: The first school in Ploiești was opened in 1777 and by 1832 several other elementary schools are opened. Secondary education is first offered in 1864.


title: Ploiești

text: The Mio-Pliocene Zone in the Ploiești region has been exploited for hydrocarbons and coal since the 19th Century. The zone extends from the flysch on the north to the Moesian Platform on the south. The zone is marked by alternating deposits of Clay, Marl, Shale and Sand, conglomerate, Salt and Limestone. Structural traps and stratigraphic traps are formed from Salt Diapirism which gave rise to anticline folds and faulting. There are four major alignments of the anticlines, all parallel to the Carpathian Range. Pliocene sands are the main oil and gas producers, in particular the Meotian (60%) and Dacian (29%), followed by the Miocene Sarmatian (5%) but some oil exists in Miocene Helvetian and Oligocene sandstones. Major producing structures include Moreni-Gura Ocniței, Băicoi-Țintea and Boldești.


title: Ploiești

text: Ploiești lies in the center of Muntenia, in the central-northern part of the Wallachian Plain. It lies close to the capital city Bucharest and it had close connections with the capital city throughout the centuries. Ploiești lies at the 25°E meridian and the 44°55’N parallel (north). The city occupies a total surface of around , out of which is suburban settlements. There exist two rivers in the proximity of the city: the Prahova River, on the south-west, briefly passes through the city through the Brazi settlement and the Teleajen River passes through the Blejoi, Bucov, Berceni villages. The city lies on Dâmbu River, which springs from the hills around the Băicoi town. Nowadays the Dâmbu River doesn't have a high flow rate.


title: Ploiești

text: The climate is similar to that of the nation's capital, Bucharest. According to the Köppen climate classification, the city falls within the temperate humid continental climate(Dfa) of the hot summer type. The average annual temperature is , with record minimum registered on 25 January 1952 of while record maximum was registered on 19 July 2007 of . On average, around 17 days are very cold, 26 cold, 99 warm and 30 tropical, while the rest have a moderate temperature.


title: Ploiești

text: Average annual precipitations are ; in January and in June. Precipitations range between registered in 1901 and registered in 1930. Throughout the year, there are on average 104 days with rain, 26 with snow, 112 with clear skies, 131 with clouds and 122 with no sunshine. The climate of Ploiești is influenced by the winds coming from north-east (40%) and south-east (23%), having an average speed of . On average, there are 11 days throughout the year with wind speed exceeding and only two days characterised by winds over . Atmospheric pressure is .


title: Ploiești

text: The city lies on the Wallachian Plain, having an average altitude of . The surrounding landscape is influenced by its position around the Prahova River, whose stream bed lies to the west. The Teleajen River passes through the city while the Dâmbu River passes through the north-eastern neighbourhoods.


title: Ploiești

text: The vegetation of Ploiești used to be characterised by a plain forest, made up predominantly of pedunculate oak trees ("Quercus robur"). Other varieties of oak trees such as the sessile oak ("Quercus petraea") also existed. Remnants of the old forest still exist and some trees are currently protected, such as two old oak trees in Ghighiu, on the southern periphery of the city.


title: Ploiești

text: In current times the vegetation is typical of urban settlements, made up of ornamental plants, plantations of chestnuts, aspen and black locust. Parks and other green areas are limited: the main boulevard area, the park next to the Sala Sporturilor, the park from the northern part of the city, the "Mihai Viteazul" park and another park next to the Bucov barrier. These occupy only around , resulting in of green space per inhabitant.


title: Ploiești

text: Around the city one can also observe several endangered trees, which are protected by law. These include the giant redwood ("Sequoiadendron giganteum") from the garden of the "Paul Constantinescu" museum. There also exist trees that have adapted to the local climate, such as figs. In some neighbourhoods more fruit trees and flowers are currently being planted.


title: Ploiești

text: The Ploiești Town Council, elected in the 2020 local elections, is made up of 27 councillors, with the following party composition:


title: Ploiești

text: There exist approximatively 88,104 flats that are located in 21,172 buildings. 93% of the households have access to clean water, 90% have access to the sewage network, 98% have access to electricity and 78% are connected to the district heating system.


title: Ploiești

text: The metropolitan area of Ploiești comprises 13 satellite towns. The area will become an important transit for two Pan-European motorway and rail corridors. The central administration of the area will coordinate the communication and transport networks, technological development and the reduction of the carbon footprint.


title: Ghulam Ishaq Khan

text: Ghulam Ishaq Khan (; 20 January 1915 – 27 October 2006), was a Pakistani bureaucrat who served as the seventh president of Pakistan, elected in 1988 following Zia's death until his resignation in 1993. He was the founder of his namesake Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute.


title: Ghulam Ishaq Khan

text: Raised in Bannu, Ghulam Ishaq graduated from Peshawar University and entered the Indian Civil Service, opting for Pakistan after the independence in 1947. Appointed the first chairman of the Water and Power Development Authority by President Ayub Khan in 1961, Ghulam Ishaq also served as Finance Secretary from 1966 to 1970. A year later, he was appointed Governor of the State Bank by President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, before being made Defence Secretary in 1975, assisting with Pakistan's atomic bomb programme. He was retained by President Zia-ul-Haq as Finance Minister in 1977, overseeing the country's highest GDP growth average. Elected Chairman of the Senate in 1985, Ghulam Ishaq was elevated to the presidency after Zia's death in an air crash on 17 August 1988. He was elected president on 13 December, as the consensus candidate of the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad and Pakistan People's Party.


title: Ghulam Ishaq Khan

text: The oldest person to serve as president, Ghulam Ishaq played a hawkish role against Communist Afghanistan, while relations with the United States deteriorated following the Pressler amendment. Domestically, Ghulam Ishaq's term faced challenges: ethnic riots flared in Karachi, and Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto accused him of frustrating her government as part of an alliance with conservative opposition leader Nawaz Sharif and the post-Zia military establishment. Ghulam Ishaq invoked the Eighth Amendment and dismissed Benazir's government after just 20 months, on charges of rampant corruption and misgovernance. Sharif was elected Prime Minister in 1990, but Ghulam Ishaq dismissed his government on similar charges three years later. The Supreme Court overturned the dismissal, but the gridlock ultimately led to both men resigning in 1993.


title: Ghulam Ishaq Khan

text: Retiring from public service, Ghulam Ishaq served as rector of the GIK Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology in his native province, dying from pneumonia in 2006. He is viewed contentiously by Pakistani historians; he is credited for personal austerity, but criticized for wielding an autocratic presidency that ousted two governments.


title: Ghulam Ishaq Khan

text: Ghulam Ishaq Khan was born in Ismail Khel, a rural locality on the outskirts of Bannu District, both villages in the North-West Frontier Province of the British Indian Empire, now Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan. He was an ethnic Bangash Pashtun. His family remains active in politics; his son-in-law is former federal minister Anwar Saifullah Khan while another son-in-law is former Sindh minister and advisor, Irfanullah Khan Marwat. A granddaughter of his was married to Haroon Bilour of the ANP and another to Omar Ayub Khan, the grandson of former military dictator Ayub Khan and son of politician Gohar Ayub Khan.


title: Ghulam Ishaq Khan

text: After his schooling in Bannu, Khan first attended the Islamia College before making transfer to Peshawar University. He obtained double BSc, in Chemistry and in Botany.


title: Ghulam Ishaq Khan

text: Initially looking for a university job, Khan joined the Indian Civil Service in 1941, serving in various provincial assignments on behalf of British India. After independence in 1947, Khan opted for Pakistan and was assigned to the bureaucracy of the provincial government of North-West Frontier Province in 1947. He took over the provincial secretariat as the secretary of the irrigation department, which he held until 1955.


title: Ghulam Ishaq Khan

text: In 1956, Khan was appointed in the provincial government of Sindh as the Home Secretary, but was later appointed Secretary of Department of Development and Irrigation by the Sindh government. In 1958, he was elevated to federal government level, and assigned to the secretariat control of the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), an appointment approved by the President Ayub Khan. Since 1958, Khan had been serving on the Board of Governors of the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA), before being elevated to chairman in 1961. As Chairman, he played a vital role in the construction and financial development of Mangla Dam and Warsak Dam.


title: Ghulam Ishaq Khan

text: In 1966, Khan left the chairmanship to be appointed as the Federal Finance Secretary to the Government of Pakistan until 1970, which he relinquished to incoming Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. After Pakistan's loss to India in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, Khan was called to administer all retail and commercial services pertaining to the national economy tattered by war. In 1971, Bhutto appointed him Governor of State Bank of Pakistan when he was tasked to formulate and administer monetary and credit policy in accordance with Government policy with influence of socialism. In the latter position, he questioned the wisdom of many of the economic policies of then-Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto who was keen to intensify his nationalization and socialist influence in the financial institutions that marked the slow down of the economy.


title: Ghulam Ishaq Khan

text: In 1975, Prime Minister Bhutto transferred him from Governor of the State Bank to the Ministry of Defence as Defence Secretary. It was a fortuitous move in that it brought him into close contact with the Pakistani military establishment and enabled him to closely manage the nuclear weapons program. Though an unusual assignment for a financial expert, this appointment made him a powerful bureaucrat in the country. During that time, Khan became closer to General Zia-ul-Haq and had later coveted for General Zia-ul-Haq's appointment as the chief of army staff.


title: Ghulam Ishaq Khan

text: As Defence Secretary, he helped manage Pakistan's atomic bomb project and had been directly associated with the program. Khan was a vehement support of the program and saw it as a "national priory". He backed the advocacy of theorist Abdul Qadeer Khan and helped establishing the Engineering Research Laboratories in Kahuta. He headed the Uranium Coordination Board (UCB) which consisted of AGN Kazi, Munir Ahmad and Agha Shahi. Khan recommended S A Nawab for the Hilal-i-Imtiaz medal in recognition of Nawab's work in establishing Khan Research Laboratories. Later, in the 1980s Khan helped consolidate the efforts at ERL under Lt. Gen. Zahid Ali Akbar as its first military director. He approved the survey by field officer, Brigadier Akbar in 1976. Khan also helped secure the funds for the ERL and lobbying for General Akbar's promotion as the Engineer-in-Chief in 1980. Khan cemented close relations with Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan and Munir Ahmad Khan, and remained Qadeer Khan's staunch loyal.


title: Ghulam Ishaq Khan

text: His involvement and support earned him the nickname as ""Mr Nuke"" by the U.S. diplomats, while the new media dubbed him as ""Baba Atom Bomb "". On the contrary, Ishaq Khan did not have the directorial role in the atomic bomb program until Munir Ahmad Khan retired. However, he maintained complete logistic and operational control over ERL project from the time of its inception using Major General S A Nawab who reported to Ghulam Ishaq at the Ministry of Defence. After Munir Ahmad Khan took retirement from Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), President Ghulam Ishaq Khan eventually consolidated the entire program under the civic-military control, and supervised the classified projects of the program.


title: Ghulam Ishaq Khan

text: After Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was ousted in a staged coup d'état in 1977, Khan played a crucial role in the event of stabilizing chief of army staff General Zia-ul-Haq, in Bhutto's capacity. After meeting with the military leadership at the JS HQ, Khan reportedly marked that: "this action was going to harm the country, but since it could not be reversed, they should do their best to salvage whatever they could." He was immediately elevated as Finance Minister by General Zia-ul-Haq, who acted as the Chief Martial Law Administrator (CMLA). A team of economic experts and technocrats were assembled in the management of Khan, giving him the authority over the Planning Commission, Economic Coordination Committee, and Executive Committee of the Space Research Council. Khan worked towards controlling the national economy while harnessing the damaged Private sector. In 1977, Khan endorsed General Haq's bid for becoming the President of Pakistan, who tightened the grip of martial law in the country.


title: Ghulam Ishaq Khan

text: In the 1980s, Khan backed the implementation of the economic Islamization by introducing the risk-free interest rate system as well as establishing the corporatization in the industrial sector. Khan managed the revenue collection and provided the modern shape in the state–owned enterprises (SOEs) that were established in a nationalization in the 1970s. His policies and economic expertise ultimately resulted in the improvement in GDP and GNP progress, helping Pakistan's economy become among the fastest-growing in South Asia.


title: Ghulam Ishaq Khan

text: He maintained his ties with the nuclear society and gave strong priority for the nuclear deterrence as channeling financial funds for the development of the atomic bomb projects. Khan gave tax free status to the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). In 1983, Khan was among the invited secret dignitaries who witnessed the first Cold fission test, Kirana-I; along with attendees General Zahid Ali , General KM Arif , AVM MJ O'Brian ), and Munir Ahmad . In 1984, Khan supported the referendum for Islamization held by President Zia.


title: Ghulam Ishaq Khan

text: After the non-partisan general elections held in 1985, Khan was succeeded by Mahbub ul Haq– an economist. Khan decided to participate in the upcoming indirect senate elections as an independent. In 1985, he became the Chairman of the Senate and remained intact in that capacity until 1988.