title: Helen Joyce

text: Kathleen Stock, then a professor of philosophy at the University of Sussex and author of "Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism" (2021), gave "Trans" a 5-star review at "The Telegraph", calling it a "superlative critical analysis of trans activism" and that "Joyce shows an impressive capacity to handle complex statistics, legal statutes, and other bits of evidence without losing clarity or narrative drive."


title: Helen Joyce

text: "The Guardian" gave it a mixed review. A review at "Publishers Weekly" criticized the book as "alarmist" and a "one-sided takedown" that "comes up short."


title: Helen Joyce

text: Aaron Rabinowitz, writing for "The Skeptic", criticized Joyce for her association with activist Jennifer Bilek and accused Joyce of incorporating her antisemitic canards in her work, by claiming that George Soros and other Jewish billionaires are the transhumanist shapers of a global agenda behind the transgender rights movement, through financial contributions to organizations such as Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union.


title: Helen Joyce

text: Joyce published a rebuttal to these allegations, writing that she had been "subjected to a smear campaign... because that’s what happens to anyone who publicly dissents from gender-identity ideology—the notion that what makes you a man or woman isn’t your immutable biology, but what you declare yourself to be." She rejected accusations of antisemitism, saying "I didn’t deliberately select three Jewish donors; it never occurred to me to think about their religions. Two of the three, it turns out, are indeed Jewish, though that is not something I mention in my book because it is utterly irrelevant."


title: Helen Joyce

text: Joyce denied plagiarism, denounced Bilek for antisemitism and reiterated the thesis of her book. She also corrected a claim about a donation made by Open Society Foundation; the donation was to a similarly named group which also advocated for gender self-identification.


title: Helen Joyce

text: In March 2022 Joyce was due to appear in a panel to discuss her book and views on gender theory. This panel would have been part of an event for an expected 100 to 150 trainee child psychiatrists organised by Great Ormond Street Hospital and Health Education England. Before the event the organisers received allegations against Joyce and were warned "There is no possible way in which this event can possibly be a 'safe environment’ for LGBTQ+ and especially trans participants". Joyce was disinvited days before the event, which was later postponed. Joyce said, "It's outrageous that a journalist who has written a best-selling book spelling out the harms of this bizarre, evidence-free ideology is no-platformed and subjected to a smear campaign."


title: John Edward Gray

text: John Edward Gray, FRS (12 February 1800 – 7 March 1875) was a British zoologist. He was the elder brother of zoologist George Robert Gray and son of the pharmacologist and botanist Samuel Frederick Gray (1766–1828). The same is used for a zoological name.


title: John Edward Gray

text: Gray was keeper of zoology at the British Museum in London from 1840 until Christmas 1874, before the natural history holdings were split off to the Natural History Museum. He published several catalogues of the museum collections that included comprehensive discussions of animal groups and descriptions of new species. He improved the zoological collections to make them amongst the best in the world.


title: John Edward Gray

text: Gray was born in Walsall, but his family soon moved to London, where Gray studied medicine. He assisted his father in writing "The Natural Arrangement of British Plants" (1821). After being blackballed by the Linnean Society of London, Gray shifted his interest from botany to zoology. He began his zoological career by volunteering to collect insects for the British Museum at age 15. He officially joined the Zoological Department in 1824 to help John George Children catalog the reptile collection. In some of his early articles, Gray adopted William Sharp Macleay's quinarian system for classifications of molluscs (1824), butterflies (1824), echinoderms (1825), reptiles (1825), and mammals (1825). In 1840, he took over Children's position as keeper of zoology, which he held for 35 years, publishing well over 1,000 papers. He named many cetacean species, genera, subfamilies, and families.


title: John Edward Gray

text: During this period, he collaborated with Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, the noted natural history artist, in producing "Gleanings from the Menagerie at Knowsley". The menagerie at Knowsley Hall, near Liverpool, founded by Edward Smith-Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby, at the Stanley ancestral seat, was one of the largest private menageries in Victorian England.


title: John Edward Gray

text: Gray married Maria Emma Smith in 1826. She helped him with his scientific work, especially with her drawings.


title: John Edward Gray

text: Gray was a friend of coleopterist Hamlet Clark, and in 1856–57 they sailed on Gray's yacht "Miranda" to Spain, Algeria, and Brazil. Gray was an accomplished watercolourist, and his landscape paintings illustrate Clark's account of their journeys.


title: John Edward Gray

text: Gray was also interested in postage stamps. On 1 May 1840, the day the Penny Black first went on sale, he purchased several with the intent to save them.


title: John Edward Gray

text: During his 50 years employed at the British Museum, Gray wrote nearly 500 papers, including many descriptions of species new to science. These had been presented to the museum by collectors from around the world, and included all branches of zoology, although Gray usually left the descriptions of new birds to his younger brother and colleague George. Gray was also active in malacology, the study of molluscs. He was an associate of entomologist Eliza Fanny Staveley, supporting her research and reading papers she had prepared to the Linnean and Zoological Societies of London.


title: John Edward Gray

text: Gray was one of the most prolific taxonomists in the history of zoology. He described more than 300 species and subspecies of reptiles, only surpassed by his successors at the British Museum, George A. Boulenger and Albert Günther and American zoologist Edward D. Cope.


title: Chemical hazard

text: A chemical hazard is a (non-biological) substance that has the potential to cause harm to life or health. Chemicals are widely used in the home and in many other places. Exposure to chemicals can cause acute or long-term detrimental health effects. There are many types of hazardous chemicals, including neurotoxins, immune agents, dermatologic agents, carcinogens, reproductive toxins, systemic toxins, asthmagens, pneumoconiotic agents, and sensitizers. In the workplace, exposure to chemical hazards is a type of occupational hazard. The use of protective personal equipment (PPE) may substantially reduce the risk of damage from contact with hazardous materials.


title: Chemical hazard

text: Long-term exposure to chemical hazards such as silica dust, engine exhausts, tobacco smoke, and lead (among others) have been shown to increase risk of heart disease, stroke, and high blood pressure.


title: Chemical hazard

text: The most common exposure route to chemicals in the work environment is through inhalation. Gas, vapour, mist, dust, fumes, and smoke can all be inhaled. Those with occupations involving physical work may inhale higher levels of chemicals if working in an area with contaminated air. This is because workers who do physical work will exchange over 10,000 litres of air over an 8-hour day, while workers who do not do physical work will exchange only 2,800 litres. If the air is contaminated in the workplace, more air exchange will lead to the inhalation of higher amounts of chemicals.


title: Chemical hazard

text: Chemicals may be ingested when food or drink is contaminated by unwashed hands or from clothing or poor handling practices.


title: Chemical hazard

text: Chemical exposure to the skin is a common workplace injury and may also occur in domestic situations with chemicals such as bleach or drain-cleaners. The exposure of chemicals to the skin most often results in local irritation to the exposed area. In some exposures, the chemical will be absorbed through the skin and will result in poisoning. The eyes have a strong sensitivity to chemicals, and are consequently an area of high concern for chemical exposure. Chemical exposure to the eyes results in irritation and may result in burns and vision loss.


title: Chemical hazard

text: Injection is an uncommon method of chemical exposure in the workplace. Chemicals can be injected into the skin when a worker is punctured by a sharp object, such as a needle. Chemical exposure through injection may result in the chemical entering directly into the bloodstream.


title: Chemical hazard

text: Hazard pictographs are a type of labeling system that alerts people at a glance that there are hazardous chemicals present. The symbols help identify whether the chemicals that are going to be in use may potentially cause physical harm, or harm to the environment. The symbols are distinctive, as they are shaped like diamonds with red borders. These signs can be divided into:


title: Chemical hazard

text: These pictographs are also subdivided into class and categories for each classification. The assignments for each chemical depends on their type and their severity.


title: Chemical hazard

text: Chemical exposure is estimated to have caused approximately 190,000 illnesses and 50,000 deaths of workers annually. There exists an unknown link between chemical exposure and subsequent illness and/or death. Therefore, the majority of these illnesses and deaths are thought to be caused by a lack of knowledge and/or awareness concerning the dangers of chemicals. The best method of controlling chemical exposure within the workplace is through the elimination or the substitution of all chemicals that are thought or known to cause illness and/or death.


title: Chemical hazard

text: Although the elimination and the substitution of the harmful chemicals is the best known method for controlling chemical exposure, there are other methods that can be implemented to diminish exposure. The implementation of engineering controls is an example of another method for controlling chemical exposures. When engineer controls are implemented, there is a physical change made to the work environment that will eliminate or reduce the risk to chemical exposure. An example of engineer controls is the enclosure or isolation of the process that creates the chemical hazard.


title: Chemical hazard

text: If the process that creates the chemical hazard cannot be enclosed or isolated, the next best method is the implementation of administrative and work practices controls. This is the establishment of administrate and work practices that will reduce the amount of time and how often the workers will be exposed to the chemical hazard. An example of administrative and work practices controls is the establishment of work schedules in which workers have rotating job assignments. This will ensure that all workers have limited exposure to chemical hazards.


title: Chemical hazard

text: Employers should provide personal protective equipment (PPE) to protect their workers from chemicals used within the workplace. The use of PPE prevents workers from being exposed to chemicals through the routes of exposure—inhalation, absorption through skin and/or eyes, ingestion, and injection. One example of how PPE usage can prevent chemical exposure concerns respirators. If workers wear respirators, they will prevent the exposure of chemicals through inhalation.


title: Chemical hazard

text: In case of emergency, it is recommended to understand first aid procedures in order to minimize any damage. Different types of chemicals can cause a variety of damage. Most sources agree that it is best to rinse any contacted skin or eye with water immediately. Currently, there is insufficient evidence of how long the rinsing should be done, as the degree of impacts will vary for substances such as corrosive chemicals. However, the recommended flush time is as follows:


title: Chemical hazard

text: Transporting the affected person to a health care facility may be important, depending on condition. In the case that the victim needs to be transported before the recommended flush time, then flushing should be done during the transportation process. Some chemical manufacturers may state the specific type of cleansing agent that is recommended.


title: Chemical hazard

text: A 2017 SBU report found evidence that workplace exposure to silica dust, engine exhaust or welding fumes is associated with heart disease. Associations also exist for exposure to arsenic, benzopyrenes, lead, dynamite, carbon disulphide, carbon monoxide, metalworking fluids and occupational exposure to tobacco smoke. Working with the electrolytic production of aluminium, or the production of paper when the sulphate pulping process is used, is associated with heart disease. An association was also found between heart disease and exposure to compounds which are no longer permitted in certain work environments, such as phenoxy acids containing TCDD (dioxin) or asbestos.


title: Chemical hazard

text: Workplace exposure to silica dust or asbestos is also associated with pulmonary heart disease. There is evidence that workplace exposure to lead, carbon disulphide, or phenoxyacids containing TCDD, as well as working in an environment where aluminium is being electrolytically produced, are associated with stroke.


title: Coptic Catholic Church

text: The Coptic Catholic Church (; ) is an Eastern Catholic particular church in full communion with the Catholic Church. Along with the Ethiopian Catholic Church and Eritrean Catholic Church, it belongs to the Alexandrian liturgical tradition. Uniquely among the Alexandrian rite Eastern Catholic Churches, the Coptic Catholic Church uses the Coptic Rite and the Coptic language (derived from Ancient Egyptian, hence the name) in its liturgy. The Ethiopian Catholic Church and Eritrean Catholic Church use the Ge'ez Rite.


title: Coptic Catholic Church

text: The current Coptic Catholic Patriarch of Alexandria is Ibrahim Isaac Sidrak, who replaced Antonios Naguib in 2013. The offices of the patriarchate are located in Cairo. The patriarchal Cathedral of Our Lady of Egypt is in Nasr City, a suburb of Cairo.


title: Coptic Catholic Church

text: Ever since the end of the Council of Chalcedon in the 5th Century and the official secession of the Coptic Church from Rome, the Catholic Church has attempted to achieve reunion with the Copts in Egypt multiple times. During the Council of Florence in 1442, the Coptic delegates present were persuaded to agree to a reunion with the Papacy in Rome, although the Coptic populace was opposed to the idea, and the union did not take effect. More failed attempts at reunion were undertaken by Coptic delegates in 1560 and 1582.


title: Coptic Catholic Church

text: In the 17th century, at the behest of Pope Urban VIII, Catholic missionaries (primarily Franciscans) started to come to Egypt. In 1630, a number of missions of the Capuchin Order were founded in the Levant by Joseph of Paris, which included Cairo. Although the mission in Cairo initially faced setbacks, tensions with the local Coptic priesthood were minimized with the arrival of Capuchin priest Agathangelo of Vendome to the city in 1633.


title: Coptic Catholic Church

text: Initial relations between Catholics and Copts in Egypt were poor. One Coptic councellor in 1637 referred to the Roman Church in Egypt as "a brothel". Attempts to excommunicate Catholic offenders in the city were seemingly fruitless. Agathangelo would later be hanged as a martyr in Ethiopia by order of the Ethiopian king in 1638, and the mission in Cairo would start to decline.


title: Coptic Catholic Church

text: The Jesuits came in 1675. In 1713, the Coptic Patriarch of Alexandria again submitted to Rome but, as in 1442, the union was not of long duration.


title: Coptic Catholic Church

text: In 1741, Coptic bishop Anba Athanasius of Jerusalem became a Catholic. In 1781, he was appointed by Pope Benedict XIV as vicar apostolic of the less than 2,000 Egyptian Coptic Catholics. Eventually, Athanasius returned to the Coptic Orthodox Church and others served as Catholic vicar apostolic.


title: Coptic Catholic Church

text: Under the assumption that the Ottoman viceroy wanted a Catholic patriarch for the Coptic Catholics in 1824, the Pope established the Patriarchate of Alexandria from the Apostolic Vicariate of Syria, Egypt, Arabia and Cyprus but it was basically titular. The Ottomans in 1829 allowed the Coptic Catholics to build their own churches.


title: Coptic Catholic Church

text: The number of Catholics of this rite increased to the point that Leo XIII in 1895 restored the Catholic patriarchate. He initially named Bishop Cyril Makarios as patriarchal vicar. Makarios then presided over a synod, which led to the introduction of some Latin practices. In 1899, Leo appointed Makarios as patriarch of Alexandria of the Copts, taking the name Cyril II. He resigned in 1908 at the request of the Pope over a controversy. The patriarchate seat remained vacant until an election in 1947 and was administered by an apostolic administrator.


title: Coptic Catholic Church

text: The Coptic Catholic Church "sui juris" comprises a single ecclesiastical province, covering Egypt only.


title: Coptic Catholic Church

text: The Patriarch is the sole Metropolitan Archbishop, retaining the ancient title Alexandria but his actual seat is in Egypt's modern capital Cairo.


title: Coptic Catholic Church

text: Coptic Catholic Church has eight suffragan bishops, throughout Egypt, comprising the only Coptic Catholic ecclesiastical province: Abu Qurqas, Alexandria (Patriarch's original home seat), Assiut, Giza, Ismailia, Luxor, Minya and Sohag.


title: Coptic Catholic Church

text: The Coptic Catholic Church does not have Coptic monasteries. Instead the Church has religious congregations such as the three communities for women: the Sisters of the Sacred Heart, the Coptic Sisters of Jesus and Mary (both based in Egypt) and the Egyptian Province of the Little Sisters of Jesus. There is also a community of male Franciscans and Jesuits.


title: Coptic Catholic Church

text: Most candidates for the priesthood are trained at , in suburban Cairo. More than 100 Coptic Catholic parishes administer primary schools, and some have secondary schools as well. The church maintains a hospital, a number of medical dispensaries and clinics, and several orphanages.


title: Coptic Catholic Church

text: Relations between the Coptic Catholic Church and the larger Coptic Orthodox Church are generally very good.


title: Dire Dawa

text: Dire Dawa (, ; ,  "where Dir hit his spear into the ground" or "The true Dir", ,) is a city in eastern Ethiopia near the Oromia and Somali Region border and one of two chartered cities in Ethiopia (the other being Addis Ababa, the capital). Dire Dawa alongside present-day Sitti Zone were apart of the Dire Dawa autonomous region stipulated in the 1987 Ethiopian Constitution until 1993 when it was split by the federal government into a separately administered chartered city. This was due to the ongoing clashes between the OLF and IGLF and prevented any further escalation.


title: Dire Dawa

text: It is divided administratively into two woredas, the city proper and the non-urban woreda of Gurgura.


title: Dire Dawa

text: Dire Dawa lies in the eastern part of the nation, on the Dechatu River, at the foot of a ring of cliffs. The western outskirts of the city lie on the Gorro River, a tributary of the Dechatu River. It is located at the latitude and longitude of . The city is an industrial centre, home to several markets and the Dire Dawa Airport.


title: Dire Dawa

text: The projected population for 2015 was 440,000 for the entire chartered city and 277,000 for the city proper, making the latter the seventh largest city in Ethiopia.


title: Dire Dawa

text: The region was already inhabited in Mesolithic times, as revealed by rock paintings and Middle Stone Age artifacts in the cave of Porc-Épic and Laga-Oda only a few kilometers from Dire Dawa. The area surrounding Dire Dawa is believed to have been a settlement of the extinct Harla people.


title: Dire Dawa

text: Dire Dawa was considered the domain of the Emirate of Harar until Menelik's conquest of the kingdom in 1887 and consequently became incorporated into modern Ethiopia from thereon.


title: Dire Dawa

text: The present-day town of Dire Dawa (311 km by rail from Djibouti), however, is of very recent origin. It owes its foundation to a technical problem: when it became impossible to lay the Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway via Harar because of the steep access to the town, Emperor Menelik II accepted (in a later dated 5 November 1896) that the first part of the line might finish at a village at the foot of the mountains, which should be named Addis Harar ("New Harrar"). The railway reached this location on 24 December 1902, a date which may be considered the day of Dire Dawa's foundation. The new name, however, did not win recognition.


title: Dire Dawa

text: For financial and diplomatic reasons the railway was not continued until 1909 and the final inauguration of the whole line from Djibouti to Addis Ababa-again delayed by the revolution of 1916-only took place on 7 June 1917. During all this time, Dire Dawa was practically the town profited much and became a "boom city", attracting most of the trade which formerly passed through Harar. By 1902 the Ethiopian government, anticipating the future economic importance of Dire Dawa, had already transferred the customs station for trade with the Red Sea from Gildessa to Dire Dawa.


title: Dire Dawa

text: Dire Dawa developed into two settlements separated by the Dechatu River, which was dry for most of the year and became a torrent only when it rained. The north-western part of the town was planned and constructed very regularly, mostly by the engineers of the railway company. At first, this part of the town mostly housed the employees of the railway company, but it later attracted, besides the French, also Greeks, Armenians, other Europeans and Arabs, who opened shops and hotels and founded some industry as well. In 1909 the French Capuchin Mission settled in Dire Dawa. At that time Dire Dawa looked like a French town. The other part of the town, southeast of the river, concentrated around the market and was inhabited mainly by Ethiopian, Somali and a few Arab traders.


title: Dire Dawa

text: In September 1916 the fleeing troops of Lij Iyasu took hold of the town. Though Lij Iyasu's governor there, the Syrian Hasib al-Idlibi, assured their security, 400 Europeans left the town and the rail traffic had to be suspended. After the battle of Maeso, the governmental troops from Addis Ababa re-established a regular administration.


title: Dire Dawa

text: During the 1920s, the south-eastern part of the town also started to develop. Its inhabitants were mostly Somali and Oromo, the other Ethiopians playing only a minor role. The population here grew to 3,000, while that of the whole town numbered 20,000. Between the two World Wars, two hospitals were established in Dire Dawa, one by the railway company and another in 1934 by the government. Education on a primary level was provided by a government school, a Catholic mission school and several schools for the different foreign communities in the town (Greek, Italian, Indian).


title: Dire Dawa

text: Dire Dawa's first governor was Ato Mersha Nahusenay. Formerly the governor of the strategic village of Gildessa and its environs, Mersha was instrumental in the construction of the first railway and establishment of the railway city. The imperial railway company (Cie) played a key role in the early development of the city, particularly Gezira (aka Kezira), under the authority of the Ethiopian government. The original failed company was reörganized as the joint-government Franco-Ethiopian Railway in 1908 and, after a period of financial negotiation and recapitalization, construction began anew, linking the city with the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa in 1917. The Dire Dawa-Harar road was improved in 1928, shortening the travel time to only a few hours. In 1931, the Bank of Ethiopia opened its first branch in the city and, a generation later, the writer C.F. Rey described the city as the most "advanced" urban center in the area, with good roads, electric lights, and piped water.


title: Dire Dawa

text: On 9 May 1936 Dire Dawa was occupied by Italian troops coming from Harar, after Somali troops from Djibouti had prevented looting during the period of interregnum. Badoglio and Graziani celebrated their meeting on the railway station of Dire Dawa. The Italians constructed several new buildings in Dire Dawa, especially for the administration and the Fascist party. They also improved the roads and enlarged the airport so that their military planes could take off from there to bomb the patriot forces in the Gara Mulleta. As for other towns, the Italians conceived a "piano regolatore" for the construction of an Italian town in Dire Dawa. However, their occupation ended before they could complete these plans.


title: Dire Dawa

text: During the Italian invasion, Mussolini ordered that Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa be spared air attacks (which included the use of chemical weapons such as mustard gas) and other destruction as a response to the demands of the United States and certain European countries for the safety of their citizens. The Italian army entered the country from the colonies of Eritrea in the north and Somalia in the southeast. Following all major engagements of the war, Dire Dawa was the location of the meeting of the two Italian forces. General Graziani's units, advancing from Harar, reached the city's barbed-wire fence on 6 May 1936, the day after the occupation of Addis Ababa and Emperor Haile Selassie's flight along the railroad to Djibouti and Palestine. They were met by two French armed cars: the railway remained under French administration and they had remained to protect French interests. The next day, the first train under Italian control left Addis Ababa: it brought Italy's 46th Infantry Regiment and finally closed the pincers of the two Italian invasion forces. The occupation of the town was more or less a formality, although resistance fighters known as "Arbegnoch" ("Patriots") continued to operate throughout the conflict. It was officially known by its Italian spelling "Dire Daua" during the occupation.


title: Dire Dawa

text: In June 1940 the British started to bomb the town and on 29 March 1941 Dire Dawa was liberated by the Allied forces from Harar. The town remained under British Military Administration, being the headquarters for the British Reserved Area, till it was handed over to the Ethiopian government in 1947. In the following decades the town greatly expanded and the population grew to 160,000. The infrastructure was ameliorated and several industrial plants were established.


title: Dire Dawa

text: Following the restoration of the empire in 1941, Dire Dawa was among the early provincial towns to have its own soccer league. Around 1947, their teamthe Taffariparticipated in the Ethiopian Championship series. That same year, the Railroad Workers Syndicate of Dire Dawa, a labor union, was formed for welfare purposes. Although its leadership cooperated with the government, its attempt to strike in 1949 was brutally suppressed by imperial troops; at the time, all strikes were seen as forms of insurrection or treason. In 1955, a public address system was installed in the central square to receive and rebroadcast state radio transmissions.


title: Dire Dawa

text: The Ethiopian Revolution affected the city in many ways. Starting March 1974, there was some worker unrest; six people were wounded when police opened fire on demonstrating railwaymen and students on 17 April. Many Europeans, Yemeni Arabs, and Indians left Dire Dawa; the Greek and Armenian churches were eventually closed due to dwindling membership. On 3 February 1975, the Derg announced that the Cotton Company of Ethiopia was among 14 textile enterprises to be fully nationalized. The cement factory was also later nationalized. In August 1976, the entire leadership of the local branch of the teachers' union was sacked for alleged anti-revolutionary activities. Ten new officials were appointed pending fresh elections.


title: Dire Dawa

text: Dire Dawa again played a role in the Ethio-Somali War of 1977/78. It was besieged in the Battle of Dire Dawa by the Somali troops till November 1977, when the Ethiopians, Cubans and Russians under General Vasiliy Petrov took the offensive and pushed the Somalis back. In May 1979, 250 Oromos who were detained in the prisons of Dire Dawa were executed by the Derg regime. According to Gebru Tareke, the success of the Ethiopian Army in holding Dire Dawa (17–18 August 1977) against the Somali Army was decisive in winning the Ogaden War.


title: Dire Dawa

text: Dire Dawa was occupied by the EPRDF on 31 May 1991 and there were reports of about 100 people killed resisting the EPRDF. Both the Issa and Gurgura Liberation Front and the Oromo Liberation Front claimed the city. As a result, there were numerous clashes between the two groups from 1991 until 1993. When the Somali Regional State was being established in 1993, it wanted Dire Dawa to be its capital. This was opposed by the Oromia Region, of which Dire Dawa was part of at the time, so the federal government placed the city under its own jurisdiction to avoid territorial conflict between the two regions.


title: Dire Dawa

text: On 24 June 2002, a small explosive was detonated at the headquarters of the Ethiopian Railway Commission in Dire Dawa. The Oromo Liberation Front afterwards claimed responsibility for this attack in retaliation "for the continuing harassment of Oromo students, merchants, and farmers by the Ethiopian government." Although blamed for other isolated incidents, this was the latest bombing inside Ethiopia for which the OLF claimed responsibility.


title: Dire Dawa

text: Dire Dawa moved out of federal administration to become a chartered city in 2004 after the federal parliament approved the city charter in proclamation 416/2004.


title: Dire Dawa

text: The city was flooded in August 2006 when both the "Dechatu River" and the "Gorro River" overflowed their banks. About 200 people were reported dead, thousands were displaced and there was extensive damage to homes and markets especially along the Dechatu River. Floods are fairly common during the June–September rainy season; over 200 people in the region had been killed by flooding in 2005 that did millions of dollars in damage.


title: Dire Dawa

text: An overturned truck, heading from Dengego to Dire Dawa, killed 41 people 4 March 2009. The truck was carrying an unknown number of day laborers when the accident happened, and 38 were immediately killed and as many as 50 were injured. Dead and injured were taken to Dil-chora Hospital in Dire Dawa. The cause was not immediately known.


title: Dire Dawa

text: Currently, there are plans to revitalize the city. A historic and popular part of the city is to be demolished and replaced by a financial center, malls, mixed-use buildings, hotels, recreational facilities, and hospitals. As part of the plan, historical buildings will be renovated, and a new space will be allotted for building new homes and businesses for those displaced by the move. New roads, parks, and an industrial zone will also be built, and major railway project is expected to greatly increase business activity in the city.


title: Dire Dawa

text: Dire Dawa has a borderline tropical savanna climate (Köppen "Aw") just above a hot semi-arid climate ("BSh"). The mean annual temperature of Dire Dawa is about . The average maximum temperature of Dire Dawa is , while its average minimum temperature is about . The region has two rain seasons; that is, a small rain season from March to April, and a more pronounced rain season that extends from July to August. The aggregate average annual rainfall that the region gets from these two seasons is about .


title: Dire Dawa

text: The projected population for 1 July 2015 was 440,000 for the entire chartered city and 277,000 for the city proper, making the latter the seventh largest city in Ethiopia.


title: Dire Dawa

text: Based on the 2007 Census conducted by the Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia (CSA), Dire Dawa had a population of 341,834, of whom 171,461 were men and 170,461 women. 233,224 or 68.23% of the population were urban inhabitants. For all of Dire Dawa, 76,815 households were counted living in 72,937 housing units, which resulted in an average of 4.5 persons per household, with urban households having 4.2 people per household on average, and rural households 4.9 people. Ethnic groups in the region include the Oromo (156,958, 46%), Somali (83,069, 24%), Amhara (108,962, 20%), Gurage (15,543, 4.5%), among other groups (5.5%). The religion with the most believers in Dire Dawa is Islam with 50.9%, 45.6% are Ethiopian Orthodox, 2.8% Protestant, and 0.4% Catholic.


title: Dire Dawa

text: Traditionally the Nole Oromo clan used the area as grazing land, and farming in the Laga Harre district. They live alongside the Gurgura clan which share both Oromo and Somali identities, speaking the Oromo language and tracing their genealogy to the Dir, a Somali clan family. The Issa subclan of the Dir make up a significant number of urban and rural Dire Dawa, whereas a sizeable portion of the Gadabuursi subclan of the Dir mainly reside in the rural areas to the east of the chartered city state.


title: Dire Dawa

text: "Including the land round Harar and Dire Dawa inhabited by the Somalis of the 'Iise and Gadabuursi clans."


title: Dire Dawa

text: According to the CSA, , 90.76% of the population had safe drinking water: 69.61% of rural and 99.48% of urban inhabitants having access. Values for other reported common indicators of the standard of living for Dire Dawa include the following: 11.4% of the inhabitants fall into the lowest wealth quintile; adult literacy for men is 76.6% and for women 53%; and the civic infant mortality rate is 71 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, which is less than the nationwide average of 77; at least half of these deaths occurred in the infants’ first month of life.


title: Dire Dawa

text: Dire Dawa is served by a station on the Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway, which is located 10 km northwest of the city centre close to the town of Melka Jebdu. In addition, the city is served by the Ethio-Djibouti Railways with its western terminus located in the city centre. The Dire Dawa Airport offers flights to and from the city. Additionally, the Selam Bus Line Share Company provides inter-city bus service.


title: Dire Dawa

text: Among the places of worship, there are predominantly Muslim mosques. There are also a few churches, Christian churches and temples : Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (Lutheran World Federation), Ethiopian Kale Heywet Church, Ethiopian Catholic Archeparchy of Addis Abeba (Catholic Church), Ethiopian Full Gospel Believers' Church.


title: Dire Dawa

text: Dire Dawa was the inspiration for the fictional town "Debra Dowa", capital of the fictional East African nation "Azania" in the "outrageously un-politically correct tale" "Black Mischief" by the English author, Evelyn Waugh.


title: Chad Duell

text: Chad Louis Duell (born September 14, 1987) is an American actor. He is recognized for playing Michael Corinthos on the American soap opera "General Hospital".


title: Chad Duell

text: Duell's portrayal of Michael Corinthos garnered him nominations for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Actor in a Drama Series in 2011, 2012 and 2014. This was followed by his nomination and win for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2015.


title: Chad Duell

text: Duell attended Mountainside Middle School and Desert Mountain High School in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he played football and participated in the theater program. He dropped out before what would have been his senior year to pursue an acting career.


title: Chad Duell

text: After dropping out he moved to Los Angeles where he landed a minor role on Disney's hit sitcom, "The Suite Life on Deck". Duell also booked a minor role on another Disney series, "The Wizards of Waverly Place". In March 2010, it was announced he would replace Drew Garrett in the role of Michael Corinthos on "General Hospital". In 2017, it was announced Duell would appear in the third season of the Amazon Prime series "The Bay" in the role of Adam Kenway.


title: Chad Duell

text: Duell proposed to his girlfriend of nine months, Taylor Novack, at Disney World in August 2011. The couple married in a private ceremony on September 15, 2012. The marriage was annulled in late 2012, with Duell saying that it had been too soon. Duell dated fellow actress Courtney Hope, and the two were engaged on Valentine's Day 2021 after five years of dating. The couple got married on October 23, 2021, and split less than two months later. In January 2022, Duell revealed neither he nor Hope had "signed anything" and stated they were not "married or anything."


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: The prehistory of the Philippines covers the events prior to the written history of what is now the Philippines. The current demarcation between this period and the early history of the Philippines is April 21, 900, which is the equivalent on the Proleptic Gregorian calendar for the date indicated on the Laguna Copperplate Inscription—the earliest known surviving written record to come from the Philippines. This period saw the immense change that took hold of the archipelago from Stone Age cultures in 50000 BC to the emergence of developed thalassocratic civilizations in the fourth century, continuing on with the gradual widening of trade until 900 and the first surviving written records.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: A 2018 study led by Thomas Ingicco, which analyzed rhino remains unearthed in a Kalinga site using several dating techniques, pushes back the arrival of the first Homo species to the early Chibanian (late Pleistocene), between 631,000 and 777,000 years ago.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: Unearthed in the site was a 'nearly complete, disarticulated' rhinoceros skeleton, of the extinct species "Rhinoceros philippinensis". It showed ridges left by tools made while removing flesh, and special tools designed to remove bone marrow. The site yielded more than 400 bones, including several dozen knapped and chipped tools, of which 49 are knife-like flakes with two hammers. Also, among the finds are other skeletal remains, which include brown deer, monitor lizards, freshwater turtles and stegodonts.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: While the earliest confirmed evidence of a hominin came from a 67,000-year-old foot bone from Sierra Madre discovered in 2007, those finds had no direct trace of the butchers of the animals. On the other hand, it is possible that the butchers had by then evolved into a distinct subspecies.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: The earliest known hominin remains in the Philippines is the fossil discovered in 2007 in the Callao Caves in Cagayan. The 67,000-year-old find predates the 47,000-year-old Tabon Man, which was until then the earliest known set of human remains in the archipelago. The find consisted of a single 61 millimeter metatarsal which was dated using uranium series ablation. It was initially thought to be possibly one of the oldest "Homo sapiens" remains in the Asia-Pacific.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: In the same stratigraphic layer where the third metatarsal was discovered, continued excavations revealed 12 fossil bones (7 postcanine maxillary teeth, 2 manual phalanges, 2 pedal phalanges, 1 femoral shaft) from three hominin individuals. These remains and the Callao Man were identified to belong to a new species of hominins, "Homo luzonensis".


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: The first evidence of the systematic use of Stone Age technology in the Philippines is estimated to 50,000 BC, and this phase in the development of proto-Philippine societies is considered to end with the rise of metal tools in about 500 BC, albeit with stone tools still used past that date. Filipino anthropologist F. Landa Jocano refers to the earliest noticeable stage in the development of proto-Philippine societies as the "Formative Phase". He also identified stone tools and ceramic manufacture as the two core industries that defined the period's economic activity, and which shaped the means by which early Filipinos adapted to their environment during this period.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: By about 30,000 BC, the Negritos, who became the ancestors of today's aboriginal Filipinos (such as the Aeta), probably lived in the archipelago. No evidence has survived which would indicate details of ancient Filipino life such as their crops, culture, and architecture. Historian William Henry Scott noted any theory which describes such details for the period must be pure hypothesis, and thus be honestly presented as such.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: Fossilized fragments of a skull and jawbone of three individuals had been discovered on May 28, 1962 by Dr. Robert B. Fox, an American anthropologist of the National Museum. These fragments are collectively called "Tabon Man" after the place where they were found on the west coast of Palawan. Tabon Cave appears to be a kind of a Stone Age factory, with both finished stone flake tools and waste core flakes having been found at four separate levels in the main chamber. Charcoal left from three assemblages of cooking fires there has been Carbon-14 dated to roughly 7,000, 20,000, and 22,000 BC. These remains are the oldest modern human remains found on the islands, and have been U/Th-dated to 47,000 ± 11–10,000 years ago. (In Mindanao, the existence and importance of these prehistoric tools was noted by famed José Rizal himself, because of his acquaintance with Spanish and German scientific archaeologists in the 1880s, while in Europe.)


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: Tabon Cave is named after the "Tabon bird" (Tabon scrubfowl, "Megapodius cumingii"), which deposited thick hard layers of guano during the period when the cave was still uninhabited, resulting to a cement-like floor made of bird dung where three succeeding groups of tool-makers settled. It is indicated that about half of the 3,000 specimens recovered from the cave are discarded cores of a material which had to be transported from some distance. The Tabon man fossils are considered to have come from the third group of inhabitants who inhabited the cave between 22,000 and 20,000 BC. An earlier cave level lies so far below the level containing cooking fire assemblages that it must represent Upper Pleistocene dates from 45 or 50 thousand years ago.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: Physical anthropologists who have examined the Tabon Man skullcap have agreed that it belonged to a modern man ("Homo sapiens"), as distinguished from the mid-Pleistocene "Homo erectus" species. This indicates that Tabon Man was "Pre-Mongoloid" ("Mongoloid" being the term anthropologists apply to the racial stock which entered Southeast Asia during the Holocene and absorbed earlier peoples to produce the modern Malay, Indonesian, Filipino, and "Pacific" peoples). Two experts have given the opinion that the mandible is "Australian" in physical type, and that the skullcap measurements are most nearly like the Ainus or Tasmanians. Nothing can be concluded about Tabon man's physical appearance from the recovered skull fragments except that he was not a Negrito.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: The custom of Jar Burial, which ranges from Sri Lanka, to the Plain of Jars, in Laos, to Japan, also was practiced in the Tabon caves. A spectacular example of a secondary burial jar is owned by the National Museum, a "National Treasure", with a jar lid topped with two figures, one the deceased, arms crossed, hands touching the shoulders, the other a steersman, both seated in a "proa", with only the mast missing from the piece. Secondary burial was practiced across all the islands of the Philippines during this period, with the bones reburied, some in the burial jars. Seventy-eight earthenware vessels were recovered from the Manunggul cave, Palawan, specifically for burial.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: Human remains in the cave are from both large and small individuals. The latter fit well with Philippine negritos who were among the archipelago's earliest inhabitants, descendants of the first human migrations out of Africa via the coastal route along southern Asia to the now sunken landmasses of Sundaland and Sahul.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: The current scientific consensus of the settlement of the Philippines is the Out-of-Taiwan (OOT) hypothesis (also called the Austronesian expansion). It was first proposed by Peter Bellwood and was originally based largely on linguistics, hewing very close to Robert Blust’s model of the history of the Austronesian language family. It has since been strengthened by genetic and archaeological studies that broadly agree with the timeline of the Austronesian expansion.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: The connections between the various Austronesian peoples have also been known since the colonial era due to shared material culture and linguistic similarities of various peoples of the islands of the Indo-Pacific, leading to the designation of Austronesians as the "Malay race" (not to be confused with the Melayu people) or the "Brown race" during the age of scientific racism by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: The modern Austronesian expansion model indicates that between 4500 BC and 4000 BC, developments in agricultural technology in the Yunnan Plateau in China created pressures which drove certain peoples to migrate to Taiwan. These people either already had or began to develop a unique language of their own, now referred to as Proto-Austronesian. By around 3000 BC, these groups started differentiating into three or four distinct subcultures. By 2500 to 1500 BC, one of these groups (the ancestral Malayo-Polynesian-speakers) began migrating southwards by sea towards the Philippines, then further onwards to the Marianas Islands by 1500 BC, and the rest of Island Southeast Asia, Island Melanesia, and eventually as far as Polynesia and Madagascar.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: The Austronesians that settled in the Philippines admixed with the preexisting earlier groups like the Negritos that had reached the islands via the now sunken Sundaland landmass. Genetic studies have shown that modern native Filipinos have varying degrees of Negrito ancestry in addition to the majority Austronesian ancestry.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: A 2021 genetic study, which examined representatives of 115 indigenous communities, found evidence of at least five independent waves of early human migration. Negrito groups, divided between those in Luzon and those in Mindanao, may come from a single wave and diverged subsequently, or through two separate waves. This likely occurred sometime after 46,000 years ago. Another Negrito migration entered Mindanao sometime after 25,000 years ago. Two early East Asian waves were detected, one most strongly evidenced among the Manobo people who live in inland Mindanao, and the other in the Sama-Bajau and related people of the Sulu archipelago, Zamboanga Peninsula, and Palawan. The admixture found in the Sama people indicates a relationship with the Lua and Mlabri people of mainland Southeast Asia, and reflects a similar genetic signal found in western Indonesia. These happened sometime after 15,000 years ago and 12,000 years ago respectively, around the time the last glacial period was coming to an end. Austronesians, either from Southern China or Taiwan, were found to have come in at least two distinct waves. The first, occurring perhaps between 10,000 and 7,000 years ago, brought the ancestors of indigenous groups that today live around the Cordillera Central mountain range. Later migrations brought other Austronesian groups, along with agriculture, and the languages of these recent Austronesian migrants effectively replaced those existing populations. In all cases, new immigrants appear to have mixed to some degree with existing populations. The integration of Southeast Asia into Indian Ocean trading networks around 2,000 years ago also shows some impact, with South Asian genetic signals present within some Sama-Bajau communities.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: The first, and most widely known theory of the prehistoric peopling of the Philippines is that of H. Otley Beyer, founder of the Anthropology Department of the University of the Philippines. According to Dr. Beyer, the ancestors of the Filipinos came to the islands first via land bridges which would occur during times when the sea level was low, and then later in seagoing vessels such as the balangay. Thus he differentiated these ancestors as arriving in different "waves of migration", as follows:


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: Beyer's theory, while still popular among lay Filipinos, has been generally been disputed by anthropologists and historians. Reasons for doubting it are founded on Beyer's use of 19th century scientific methods of progressive evolution and migratory diffusion as the basis for his hypothesis. These methods have since been proven to be too simple and unreliable to explain the prehistoric peopling of the Philippines.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: In February 1976, Fritjof Voss, a German scientist who studied the geology of the Philippines, questioned the validity of the theory of land bridges. He maintained that the Philippines was never part of mainland Asia. He claimed that it arose from the bottom of the sea and, as the thin Pacific crust moved below it, continued to rise. It continues to rise today. The country lies along great Earth faults that extend to deep submarine trenches. The resulting violent earthquakes caused what is now the land masses forming the Philippines to rise to the surface of the sea. Dr. Voss also pointed out that when scientific studies were done on the Earth's crust from 1964 to 1967, it was discovered that the 35-kilometer- thick crust underneath China does not reach the Philippines. Thus, the latter could not have been a land bridge to the Asian mainland. The matter of who the first settlers were has not been really resolved. This is being disputed by anthropologists, as well as Professor H. Otley Beyer, who claims that the first inhabitants of the Philippines came from the Malay Peninsula. The Malays now constitute the largest portion of the populace and what Filipinos now have is an Austronesian culture.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: Philippine historian William Henry Scott has pointed out that Palawan and the Calamianes Islands are separated from Borneo by water nowhere deeper than 100 meters, that south of a line drawn between Saigon and Brunei does the depth of the South China Sea nowhere exceeds 100 meters, and that the Strait of Malacca reaches 50 meters only at one point. Scott also asserts that the Sulu Archipelago is not the peak of a submerged mountain range connecting Mindanao and Borneo, but the exposed edge of three small ridges produced by tectonic tilting of the sea bottom in recent geologic times. According to Scott, it is clear that Palawan and the Calamianes do not stand on a submerged land bridge, but were once a hornlike protuberance on the shoulder of a continent whose southern shoreline used to be the present islands of Java and Borneo. Mindoro and the Calamianes are separated by a channel more than 500 meters deep


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: Wilhelm Solheim's concept of the Nusantao Maritime Trading and Communication Network (NMTCN), while not strictly a theory regarding the biological ancestors of modern Southeast Asians, does suggest that the patterns of cultural diffusion throughout the Asia-Pacific region are not what would be expected if such cultures were to be explained by simple migration. Where Bellwood based his analysis primarily on linguistic analysis, Solheim's approach was based on artifact findings. On the basis of a careful analysis of artifacts, he suggests the existence of a trade and communication network that first spread in the Asia-Pacific region during its Neolithic age (c.8,000 to 500 BC). According to Solheim's NMTCN theory, this trade network, consisting of both Austronesian and non-Austronesian seafaring peoples, was responsible for the spread of cultural patterns throughout the Asia-Pacific region, not the simple migration proposed by the Out-of-Taiwan hypothesis.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: Solheim came up with four geographical divisions delineating the spread of the NMTCN over time, calling these geographical divisions "lobes." Specifically, these were the central, northern, eastern and western lobes.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: The central lobe was further divided into two smaller lobes reflecting phases of cultural spread: the Early Central Lobe and the Late Central Lobe. Instead of Austronesian peoples originating from Taiwan, Solheim placed the origins of the early NMTCN peoples in the "Early Central Lobe," which was in eastern coastal Vietnam, at around 9000 BC.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: He then suggests the spread of peoples around 5000 BC towards the "Late central lobe", including the Philippines, via island Southeast Asia, rather than from the north as the Taiwan theory suggests. Thus, from the Point of view of the Philippine peoples, the NMTCN is also referred to as the Island Origin Theory.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: This "late central lobe" included southern China and Taiwan, which became "the area where Austronesian became the original language family and Malayo-Polynesian developed." In about 4000 to 3000 BC, these peoples continued spreading east through Northern Luzon to Micronesia to form the Early Eastern Lobe, carrying the Malayo-Polynesian languages with them. These languages would become part of the culture spread by the NMTCN in its expansions Malaysia and western towards Malaysia before 2000 BC, continuing along coastal India and Sri Lanka up to the western coast of Africa and Madagascar; and over time, further eastward towards its easternmost borders at Easter Island. Thus, as in the case of Bellwood's theory, the Austronesian languages spread eastward and westward from the area around the Philippines. Aside from the matter of the origination of peoples, the difference between the two theories is that Bellwood's theory suggests a linear expansion, while Solheim's suggests something more akin to concentric circles, all overlapping in the geographical area of the late central lobe which includes the Philippines.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: Another alternative model is that asserted by anthropologist F. Landa Jocano of the University of the Philippines, who in 2001 contended that the existing fossil evidence of ancient humans demonstrates that they not only migrated to the Philippines, but also to New Guinea, Borneo, and Australia. In reference to Beyer's wave model, he points out that there is no definitive way to determine the "race" of the human fossils; the only certain thing is that the discovery of Tabon Man proves that the Philippines was inhabited as early as 21,000 or 22,000 years ago. If this is true, the first inhabitants of the Philippines would not have come from the Malay Peninsula. Instead, Jocano postulates that present day Filipinos are products of the long process of evolution and movement of people. He also adds that this is also true of Indonesians and Malaysians, with none among the three peoples being the dominant carrier of culture. In fact, he suggests that the ancient humans who populated Southeast Asia cannot be categorized under any of these three groups. He thus further suggests that it is not correct to consider Filipino culture as being Malayan in orientation.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: A 2002 China Medical University study indicated that some Filipinos shared genetic chromosome that is found among Asian people, such as Taiwanese aborigines, Indonesians, Thais, and Chinese.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: In a 2003 research study by the University of the Philippines, genetic mutations were found in Filipinos which are shared by people from different parts of East Asia, and Southeast Asia. The predominant genotype detected was SC, the Southeast Asian genotype. However, only about 50 urine samples were collected for the study, far below the minimum sample size needed to account for credible test results.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: A 2008 genetic study by Leeds University and published in "Molecular Biology and Evolution", showed that mitochondrial DNA lineages have been evolving within Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) since modern humans arrived approximately 50,000 years ago. The authors concluded that it was proof that Austronesians evolved within Island Southeast Asia and did not come from Taiwan (the "Out-of-Sundaland" hypothesis). Population dispersals occurred at the same time as sea levels rose, which resulted in migrations from the Philippine Islands into Taiwan within the last 10,000 years.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: A 2013 study on the genetics and origin of Polynesian people supported the "Out of Taiwan" scenario of Austronesian expansion from Taiwan, at around 2200 BC, settling the Batanes Islands and northern Luzon from Taiwan. From there, they rapidly spread downwards to the rest of the islands of the Philippines and Southeast Asia. This population assimilated with the existing Negritos resulting in the modern Filipino ethnic groups which display various ratios of genetic admixture between Austronesian and Negrito groups.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: However, a 2014 study published by "Nature" using whole genome sequencing instead of only mtDNA sequencing confirmed the north-to-south dispersal of the Austronesian peoples in the "Out-of-Taiwan" hypothesis. Researchers further pointed out that, while humans have been living in Sundaland for at least 40,000 years, Austronesian people were recent arrivals. The results of the 2008 study failed to take into account admixture with the more ancient but unrelated Negrito and Papuan populations.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: Another study about the ancestral composition of modern ethnic groups in the Philippines from 2021 suggests that distinctive Basal-East Asian (East-Eurasian) ancestry originated in Mainland Southeast Asia at ~50,000BC, and expanded through multiple migration waves southwards and northwards respectively. Basal-East Asian ancestry, as well as later Austroasiatic ancestry, from Mainland Southeast Asia, arrived into the Philippines prior to the Austronesian expansion. Austronesian-speakers themself are suggested to have arrived on Taiwan and the northern Philippines between 10,000BC to 7,000BC from coastal southern China. The authors concluded that the Austronesian expansion into Insular Southeast Asia and Polynesia was outgoing from the Philippines rather than Taiwan, and that modern Austronesian-speaking people have largely ancestry from the earliest Basal-East Asians, Austroasiatic migrants from Mainland Southeast Asia, and Austronesian-speaking seafarers from the Philippines.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: Before the expansion out of Taiwan, recent archaeological, linguistic and genetic evidence has linked Austronesian speakers in Insular Southeast Asia to cultures such as the Hemudu, Liangzhu and Dapenkeng in Neolithic China.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: The site is one of the earliest human settlement zones in the region. The site itself is part of a huge karst system with layers of shells and other minerals made by early humans. More excavation led to discovery of ancient artifacts like flake tools, polished stones, earthenware shards, bone tools and some animal remains. These remains and artifacts were dated by C-14 to be around 8,810 to 5,190 years ago, making the site one of the most significant archaeological sites in the region. The site was declared an Important Cultural Property in 2017 by the National Government.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: Historian William Henry Scott has observed that, based on lexicostatistical analysis involving seven million word pairs linguist Isidore Dyen offered in 1962, two alternative scenarios explaining the origin and spread of Austronesian languages: (a) that they originated in some Pacific island and spread westward to Asia, or (b) that they originated in Taiwan and spread southward. Based on subsequent study of the second alternative, Scott concludes that the Philippine language tree could have been introduced by Austronesian speakers as long ago as 5000 BC, probably from the north, with their descendants expanding throughout the Philippine archipelago and beyond in succeeding millennia, absorbing or replacing sparse populations already present, and their language diversifying into dozens of mutually unintelligible languages which replaced earlier ones. During those millennia, other Austronesian speakers entered the Philippines in large enough numbers to leave a linguistic mark but not to replace established languages. Scott suggested that if this scenario is correct all present Philippine languages (except for Sama–Bajaw languages, which probably have more speakers outside the Philippines than within) were produced within the archipelago, none of them being introduced by separate migration, and all of them having more in common with each other than with languages outside of the Philippines.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: During this neolithic period, a trade route initially created primarily by natives of the Philippines and Taiwan was established. The route, known as the Maritime Jade Road, was one of the most extensive sea-based trade networks of a single geological material in the prehistoric world from 2000 BCE-1000 CE, much older than the Silk Road. Jade was mined in Taiwan and was processed primarily in the Philippines, where the trade route reached many places in Southeast Asia such as Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. A "jade culture" thrived during this era, as evidenced by tens of thousands of exquisitely crafted jade artifacts found at a site in Batangas province. Jade artifacts have been found dated to 2000 BC, with the lingling-o jade items crafted in Luzon made using raw materials originating from Taiwan. The Maritime Jade Road's operation coincided with 1,500 years of near absolute peace throughout the Philippines, from 500 BC to 1000 AD. During this peaceful pre-colonial period, not a single burial site studied by scholars yielded any osteological proof for violent death. No instances of mass burials were recorded as well, signifying the peaceful situation of the islands. Burials with violent proof were only found from burials beginning in the 15th century, likely due to the newer cultures of expansionism imported from India and China. When the Spanish arrived in the 16th century, they recorded some war-like groups, whose cultures have already been influenced by the imported Indian and Chinese expansionist cultures of the 15th century. By 1000 BC, the inhabitants of the archipelago had developed into four kinds of social groups: hunter-gatherer tribes, warrior societies, highland plutocracies, and port principalities.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: Although there is some evidence early Austronesian migrants having bronze or brass tools, the earliest metal tools in the Philippines are generally said to have first been used somewhere around 500 BC, and this new technology coincided with considerable changes in the lifestyle of early Filipinos. The new tools brought about a more stable way of life, and created more opportunities for communities to grow, both in terms of size and cultural development.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: Where communities once consisted of small bands of kinsmen living in campsites, larger villages came about- usually based near water, which made traveling and trading easier. The resulting ease of contact between communities meant that they began to share similar cultural traits, something which had not previously been possible when the communities consisted only of small kinship groups.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: Jocano refers to the period between 500 BC and 1 AD as the "incipient phase," which for the first time in the artifact record, sees the presence of artifacts that are similar in design from site to site throughout the archipelago. Along with the use of metal tools, this era also saw significant improvement in pottery technology.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: The Sa Huynh culture in what is now central and southern Vietnam had extensive trade with the Philippine archipelago during its height between 1000 BC and 200 AD.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: Sa Huynh beads were made from glass, carnelian, agate, olivine, zircon, gold and garnet; most of these materials were not local to the region, and were most likely imported. Han Dynasty-style bronze mirrors were also found in Sa Huynh sites. Conversely, Sa Huynh produced ear ornaments have been found in archaeological sites in Central Thailand, Taiwan (Orchid Island), and in the Philippines, in the Palawan Tabon Caves. in The Kalanay Cave is a small cave located on the island of Masbate in central Philippines. The cave is located specifically at the northwest coast of the island within the municipality of Aroroy. The artifacts recovered from the site were similar to those found in Southeast Asia and South Vietnam. The site is one of the "Sa Huynh-Kalanay" pottery complex which is shares similarities with Vietnam. The type of pottery found in the site were dated 400BC-1500 AD.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: Iron Age finds in Philippines also point to the existence of trade between Tamil Nadu and the Philippine Islands during the ninth and tenth centuries B.C. The Philippines is believed by some historians to be the island of Chryse, the "Golden One," which is the name given by ancient Greek writers in reference to an island rich in gold east of India. Pomponius Mela, Marinos of Tyre and the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea mentioned this island in 100 BC, and it is basically the equivalent to the Indian "Suvarnadvipa", the "Island of Gold." Josephus calls it in Latin "Aurea", and equates the island with biblical "Ophir", from where the ships of Tyre and Solomon brought back gold and other trade items.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: Ptolemy locates the islands of Chryse east of the "Khruses Kersonenson", the "Golden Peninsula," i.e. the Malaya Peninsula. North of Chryse in the "Periplus" was "Thin", which some consider the first European reference to China. In about the 200 BC, there arose a practice of using gold eye covers, and then, gold facial orifice covers to adorn the dead resulting in an increase of ancient gold finds.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: During the Qin dynasty and the Tang dynasty, China was well aware of the golden lands far to the south. The Buddhist pilgrim "I-Tsing" mentions "Chin-Chou", "Isle of Gold" in the archipelago south of China on his way back from India. Medieval Muslims refer to the islands as the Kingdoms of Zabag and Wāḳwāḳ, rich in gold, referring, perhaps, to the eastern islands of the Malay archipelago, the location of present-day Philippines and Eastern Indonesia.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: Maritime Southeast Asia began to be integrated into wider trade networks in the early centuries of the first millennium, with trade between China and the region becoming regular by the 5th century.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: Fragmented ethnic groups established numerous city-states formed by the assimilation of several small political units known as "barangay" each headed by a "Datu" or headman (still in use among non-Hispanic Filipino ethnic groups) and answerable to a king, titled Rajah. Even scattered barangays, through the development of inter-island and international trade, became more culturally homogeneous by the 4th century. Hindu-Buddhist culture and religion flourished among the noblemen in this era. Many of the "barangay" were, to varying extents, under the "de jure" jurisprudence of one of several neighboring empires, among them the Malay Sri Vijaya, Javanese Majapahit, Brunei, Melaka empires, although "de facto" had established their own independent system of rule. Trading links with Sumatra, Borneo, Thailand, Java, China, India, Arabia, Japan and the Ryukyu Kingdom flourished during this era. A thalassocracy had thus emerged based on international trade.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: Each barangay consisted of about 100 families. Some barangays were big, such as "Zubu" (Cebu), Butuan, "Maktan" (Mactan), "Mandani" (Mandaue), "Lalan" (Liloan), "Irong-Irong" (Iloilo), "Bigan" (Vigan), and "Selurong" (Manila). Each of these big barangays had a population of more than 2,000.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: In the earliest times, the items which were prized by the peoples included jars, which were a symbol of wealth throughout South Asia, and later metal, salt and tobacco. In exchange, the peoples would trade feathers, rhino horn, hornbill beaks, beeswax, birds nests, resin, rattan. Wrought iron were produced and processed in the Philippines and exported to Taiwan.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: In the period between the 7th century to the beginning of the 15th century, numerous prosperous centers of trade had emerged, including the Kingdom of Namayan which flourished alongside Manila Bay, Cebu, Iloilo, Butuan, the Kingdom of Sanfotsi situated in Pangasinan, the Kingdoms of Zabag and Wak-Wak situated in Pampanga and Aparri (which specialized in trade with Japan and the Kingdom of Ryukyu in Okinawa).


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: The introduction of metal into the Philippines and the resulting changes did not follow the typical pattern. Robert Fox notes, ""There is, for example, no real evidence of a "Bronze Age" or "Copper-Bronze Age" in the archipelago, a development which occurred in many areas of the world. The transition, as shown by recent excavation, was from stone tools to iron tools.""


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: The earliest use of metal in the Philippines was the use of copper for ornamentation, not tools. Even when copper and bronze tools became common, they were often used side by side with stone tools. Metal only became the dominant material for tools late in this era, leading to a new phase in cultural development.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: Bronze tools from the Philippines' early metal age have been encountered in various sites, but they were not widespread. This has been attributed to the lack of a local source of tin, which when combined with copper produces bronze. This lack has led most anthropologists to conclude that bronze items were imported and that those bronze smelting sites which have been found in the Philippines, in Palawan, were for re-smelting and remolding.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: Iron Age finds in Philippines also point to the existence of trade between Tamil Nadu and the Philippine Islands during the ninth and tenth centuries B.C. When iron was introduced to the Philippines, it became the preferred material for tools and largely ended the use of stone tools. Whether the iron was imported or mined locally is still debated by scholars. Beyer thought that it was mined locally, but others point to the lack of iron smelting artifacts and conclude that the iron tools were probably imported.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: Metalsmiths from this era had already developed a crude version of modern metallurgical processes, notably the hardening of soft iron through carburization.


title: Prehistory of the Philippines

text: Until very recently, scholars have limited sources or access to artifacts discovered since the 19th century. During the Spanish colonial era, which began in 1521, many artifacts were destroyed or re-used. A good example is the Spanish walled city of Intramuros in Manila, whose stone bricks were taken from the original city wall of pre-Hispanic "Maynila". As new evidence is discovered, old theories are adapted or new ones developed, which has led to numerous and sometimes conflicting theories about the prehistory of the Philippines, leading to a lack of consensus among archaeologists and historians.


title: Peg (song)

text: "Peg" is a song by American rock group Steely Dan, first released on the band's 1977 album "Aja". The track was released as single in 1977 and reached number 11 on the US "Billboard" chart in 1978 and number eight on the "Cash Box" chart. With a chart run of 19 weeks, "Peg" is tied with "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" and "Hey Nineteen" for being Steely Dan's longest-running chart hit. In Canada, "Peg" spent three weeks at number seven during March 1978.


title: Peg (song)

text: "Peg" has been described by AllMusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine as a "sunny pop" song with "layers of jazzy vocal harmonies", while music scholar Stephen K. Valdez said it features a fusion of jazz and rock elements. In the opinion of jazz musician and academic Andy LaVerne, the song "has the blues at its core, though it might not be apparent at first listen".


title: Peg (song)

text: The song's guitar solo was attempted by seven top studio session guitarists—including Robben Ford and recurring guitarist Larry Carlton—before Jay Graydon's version became the "keeper". He worked on the song for about six hours before the band was satisfied.


title: Peg (song)

text: Michael McDonald provides multi-tracked backup vocals in the choruses, and keyboardist Paul Griffin can be heard talking and improvising background vocals in the final chorus and fadeout.


title: Peg (song)

text: Although there was speculation that the name was a reference to Broadway star and one-time Hollywood actress Peg Entwistle, in 2000 the band said the song was written about a real person but not Entwistle. In 2020, Donald Fagen said "There's no hidden meaning. We just wanted a dotted half note for that spot and 'Peg' was short enough to fit with the music." Fagen added that the song "takes place at a seedy photo shoot in L.A...from the perspective of [a] jilted boyfriend."


title: Peg (song)

text: Pitchfork rated "Peg" as its 87th best song of the 1970s, describing it as the "perfect Steely Dan song, and one of the strangest hits to ever grace the mainstream." Drummer Rick Marotta calls "Peg" one of the greatest tracks he has ever played on. In 2017, Dan Weiss of "Billboard" ranked the song third on his list of the top 15 Steely Dan songs, and in 2020, Phil Freeman of "Stereogum" ranked the song second on his list of the top 10 Steely Dan songs.


title: Peg (song)

text: "Billboard" praised the "sarcastic" lyrics, the "stinging instrumental break" and the "chilling" piano playing. "Cash Box" wrote, "this snappy number has the beat and the harmonic hooks to capture that extra top 40 momentum."


title: Peg (song)

text: The song was used as the theme music for a celebrity paparazzi segment by the syndicated news magazine "Entertainment Tonight" from 1981 to 1985.


title: Peg (song)

text: "Peg" was heavily sampled on the 1989 De La Soul song "Eye Know". It was covered by Nerina Pallot in 2007 and in 2014 by Donny Osmond.


title: Legend of Yunxi

text: Legend of Yunxi () is a 2018 Chinese television series based on the novel "Poison Genius Consort" () by Jie Mo. It stars Ju Jingyi in the title role, alongside Zhang Zhehan and Merxat. The series airs on iQIYI from June 25 to August 15, 2018 for 48 episodes. Due to its success, an additional 2 episodes was added nearing the series' finale.


title: Legend of Yunxi

text: The story takes place during a chaotic time when the land has split into three kingdoms - Tian Ning, Western Qiu and Northern Li. The Emperor of Tian Ning is cunning and distrustful, and fears his own brother Long Feiye will rebel against him. To dampen his spirits, the King arranges for Long Feiye to be married to a woman with a scarred face named Han Yunxi.


title: Legend of Yunxi

text: Han Yunxi is actually a beautiful, kind, and talented woman who comes from a medical family and is exceedingly skilled at detoxifying poisons. She is forced into obeying the decree of the king and becomes Long Feiye’s wife in name only. The empress dowager of Tian Ning forces Yunxi to be a spy for her in exchange for Yunxi’s mother, who disappeared years ago. Circumstances allow her to show off her skills time and again, winning the admiration of Long Feiye. The two slowly develop feelings for each other. At the same time, she also forms a friendship with Gu Qishao, an adversary of Long Feiye.


title: Legend of Yunxi

text: The series is directed by Liu Zhenming, with Li Guoyuan acting as the action choreographer, Chen Tongxue as style director and Zhong Zhipeng as artistic director.


title: Legend of Yunxi

text: The series began filming on July 10, 2017 at Hengdian World Studios and wrapped up filming on October 8, 2017 after 111 days.


title: Legend of Yunxi

text: The series received much popularity among the audience for its light-hearted and sweet storyline. It was also praised by "People's Daily" for promoting Chinese culture through beautiful cinematography, costumes and positive character interpretation.


title: Legend of Yunxi

text: As of August 2018, it reached 2.3 billion views online. Due to its success, the production team announced an additional two episodes of epilogue, which will be released on August 15 to coincide with the series' finale.


title: Owain Wyn Evans

text: Owain Wyn Evans (born 9 March 1984) is a Welsh broadcaster. He is the weather presenter for "North West Tonight" and "BBC Breakfast". Evans is also a regular contributor for the television magazine and chat show programme "The One Show".


title: Owain Wyn Evans

text: In addition to his television work, he is known for his drumming, social media and LGBTQ activism. He is patron of the charity LGBT Foundation.


title: Owain Wyn Evans

text: Evans began his broadcasting career at the age of 18, when he became the presenter of Welsh language children's news programme "Ffeil".


title: Owain Wyn Evans

text: He then worked as a reporter, presenter and video journalist for BBC Wales and in 2012 he began presenting the weather on "BBC Wales Today". Evans presented weather forecasts across many BBC nations and regions between 2012 and 2019. In September 2019, it was announced that Evans would be the new lead weather presenter for "BBC North West Tonight".


title: Owain Wyn Evans

text: In April 2020 Evans joined Carol Vorderman on a tour across Wales where he taught her to speak the Welsh language for the S4C TV programme "Iaith ar Daith".


title: Owain Wyn Evans

text: Since July 2020, Evans has been a regular guest quizmaster on the Australian panel game television quiz show "Have You Been Paying Attention?".


title: Owain Wyn Evans

text: In August 2020, he made his debut as a reporter for the television magazine and chat show programme "The One Show".


title: Owain Wyn Evans

text: In 2020, he appeared as a celebrity guest on "Michael McIntyre's The Wheel" and co-presented "BBC's New Year's Eve" "The Big New Year's In" alongside Maya Jama and Paddy McGuinness.


title: Owain Wyn Evans

text: Evans has been credited for introducing short-form video forecasts on social media, having first produced these on the video sharing platform Vine in 2013. He has developed these into GIF forecasts and stickers, which are available on most social media platforms.


title: Owain Wyn Evans

text: In 2017 Evans celebrated International Drag Day by giving a drag queen-themed forecast that pays tribute to drag queens and "RuPaul's Drag Race".


title: Owain Wyn Evans

text: In 2012 Evans became a traffic and weather presenter for BBC Radio Cymru. Evans has presented a number of radio programmes for BBC Local Radio stations across England.


title: Owain Wyn Evans

text: Evans regularly co-presents alongside Carol Vorderman on BBC Radio Wales. In 2020 he began presenting alongside Helen Skelton on BBC Radio 5 Live.


title: Owain Wyn Evans

text: Since December 2020, Evans has hosted a series of 'in conversation with...' shows for BBC Sounds and BBC Local Radio in which he interviews stars including Dolly Parton, Kylie Minogue and Little Mix.


title: Owain Wyn Evans

text: On 4 October 2022, It was announced that Evans would become the new permanent presenter of Radio 2's Early Breakfast Show, following Feltz's departure, the previous July. He will begin in January 2023.


title: Owain Wyn Evans

text: Evans drums as a hobby, having started when he was 7 years old. In April 2020, early in the COVID-19 lockdown in the UK, Evans produced a video of himself drumming the BBC News theme immediately after presenting a weather forecast. The video went viral, and was featured on news outlets across the world.


title: Owain Wyn Evans

text: The local radio and television project "Owain's Big House Band" saw Evans joined by hundreds of other musicians who played along to the original video from their own homes during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.


title: Owain Wyn Evans

text: On 13 November 2021, Evans completed a 24-hour drumathon in support of the charity Children in Need. Starting and ending on "BBC Breakfast", he spent 24 hours drumming continuously (with a five-minute break every hour) while presenting the Drumathon iPlayer channel, chatting with other drummers, urging people to donate, and describing the experience. By completion, at 08:35 a.m. that day, the event had raised £1,617,046, having doubled in its last 90 minutes. The sum was expected to grow with further donations and had reached £2,621,750 by lunchtime that day. On 15 November, 48 hours after the challenge, the project had raised £3,062,418, making it the most successful 24-hour challenge in the 41-year history of BBC Children in Need.


title: Owain Wyn Evans

text: Evans has featured on the WalesOnline 'Pinc List' of the most influential LGBTQ people from Wales on numerous occasions.


title: Owain Wyn Evans

text: In November 2021, Evans was awarded the Best Regional Presenter and Best Breakthrough Talent awards at the Royal Television Society North West Awards.


title: Owain Wyn Evans

text: Evans received an honorary doctorate from the University of Bolton in July 2022 for outstanding contribution to broadcasting, becoming Doctor of Arts. He was asked to perform a drum solo during the ceremony, with the university donating £10 to the appeal for Ukraine for every drum beat, up to a maximum of £1,000.


title: Owain Wyn Evans

text: Evans has spoken out about homophobic abuse received on Twitter for his presenting style and continues to be vocal in his support for the LGBTQ community.


title: Suryanelli rape case

text: The Suryanelli rape case (also called the Suryanelli sex scandal) refers to a case of kidnapping and subsequent rape of a 16-year-old school girl from Suryanelli, Kerala, India, in 1996. The girl was allegedly lured with the promise of marriage on 16 January 1996 and kidnapped. She was allegedly raped by 37 of the 42 accused persons, over a period of 40 days. The remaining had abetted the crime. After P.J. Kurien, the then Union Minister and later Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman belonging to UDF led by Congress party, was named, the issue was politicised, due to a then upcoming general election. Several women's rights activists like K. Ajitha and Suja Susan George, and women's organisations, like NFIW and Anweshi, have taken an interest in the case.


title: Suryanelli rape case

text: On 2 September 2000, a Special Court in Kottayam found 35 of 39, of those who faced trial, to be guilty of various charges. On 12 July 2002, the prime accused - Dharmarajan was found guilty of various charges and sentenced to life imprisonment. However, he left jail on bail on 25 October 2002 and then disappeared. On 20 January 2005, the Kerala High Court acquitted all 35 convicts, except prime accused Dharmarajan, due to lack of evidence corraborating the victim's statement. The court found her to be untrustworthy. The verdict was criticised by women's rights activists.


title: Suryanelli rape case

text: In January 2013, the Supreme Court of India repealed the acquittals awarded by the High Court and ordered a fresh hearing. In early February 2013, Dharmarajan appeared in a TV interview and said that P. J. Kurien was involved and the police covered it up. This stirred a controversy and politicians began demanding Kurien's resignation. The High Court of Kerala has discharged Prof Kurien from all charges on 4 April 2007. The Supreme Court also confirmed it. It has been refuted in Indian Parliament too. Soon after, Dharmarajan was arrested. In May, he retracted his previous statements. Kurien was acquitted by the Kerala High Court.


title: Suryanelli rape case

text: On 4 April 2014, the Kerala High Court upheld Dharmarajan's life sentence and acquitted 7 of the 35 surviving accused. , the case is in appeal at the Supreme Court.


title: Suryanelli rape case

text: On 16 January 1996, a 16-year-old girl (initially reported as 15), from Suryanelli village in Idukki district, disappeared from her hostel. The family had come to Suryanelli because the father, employee of the Department of Telecommunications, had been posted there. The girl lived in the hostel of the Little Flower Convent School in Munnar, where she was a student. Her father reported her disappearance, but despite a police search she was not found. The girl reappeared after 40 days on 26 February 1996 at her father's workplace. The next day her kidnapping and rape was reported to the police.


title: Suryanelli rape case

text: The girl was examined by V. K. Bhaskaran (later prosecution witness #73), a gynaecologist at Government Taluk Hospital, Adimali, on 28 February 1996. He noted the vaginal examination was painful and the vulva was oedematous. The doctor, during the trial in 2002, stated that the victim had been subjected to "violent sexual acts". There was infection. The doctor said that intercourse would have been painful, if done during the infection. He said the vaginal wall was not lacerated. (Violent intercourse can result in lacerations.) The doctor said that there was no sign or evidence of resistance. However, the doctor did not rule out the possibility of rape, stating, "If, as stated by the victim, she was raped after being threatened and intimidated, then there would not be any sign of resistance on her body." The infection, inflammation, ulcers and fresh tears, coupled with the victim's visible distress, signified violence. Additionally, he pointed out that contusions or abrasions occurring in the initial days would have healed by the end of the ordeal, given the timeline.


title: Suryanelli rape case

text: The police named 42 persons as accused initially and 40 of them were found by 1999. The list included politicians and other notable persons.


title: Suryanelli rape case

text: The prosecution found that she had been coaxed by a bus conductor, Raju (accused #1), to elope with him. The girl was reportedly in love with him. Raju asked the girl to leave her hostel in Munnar and meet him at Adimali on 16 January 1996. There, he convinced her to accompany him to Kothamangalam and they left at 4:30pm. The man abandoned the girl on the bus and disappeared midway. The girl reached the destination at 7:30pm. She decided to travel onward to Kottayam where her mother's sister lived. She took a bus to Muvattupuzha. Reaching Muvattupuzha, she took an auto-rickshaw to the KSRTC bus stand. From there, she took a fast passenger bus towards Trivandrum. On this bus, she noticed a woman, later identified as Usha (accused #2).


title: Suryanelli rape case

text: She reached Kottayam but was apprehensive of navigating the city's lanes at night. She decided to go to her uncle at Mundakkayam. But, there was no bus to Mundakkayam at night. Usha approached her and offered help. She introduced the girl to one Sreekumar, who was later identified as Dharmarajan, a lawyer and prime accused. He promised that he would take her to Mundakayam later. He told her that his mother was staying at a lodge and she could stay there. The girl agreed to accompany him, but he raped her in the lodge. On the same night, her father had reported her as missing. An assistant sub-inspector had conducted a search but could not locate her.


title: Suryanelli rape case

text: The next morning she was taken to Ernakulam in a bus. Thereafter, she was taken to the various places, which included Kumili, Kambam, Palakkad, Vanimel, Aluva, Theni, Kanyakumari, Trivandrum, and Kuravilangad. On the morning of 26 February 1996, she was freed. During the intervening period, she was raped or gang raped by 38 of the 42 accused. The remaining four, including Usha and Raju, had abetted the crimes. Several of the 38 were political workers or involved in politics. Later, many claimed the accusation was a conspiracy to frame them.


title: Suryanelli rape case

text: On 2 September 2000, the Special Court at Kottayam found 35 of the 39 accused persons to be guilty and four were acquitted. Among the convicts were three women. One of the accused had died during the trial and two were still absconding. The verdict was 356 pages long. The court criticised the police's handling of the case in the initial stages and its attempt to shield the accused persons. Various charges which included Sections 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy), 376 (2)(B) (gang rape), 365 (kidnapping with intent to confine), and 366 (A) (kidnapping with intent to rape) of the Indian Penal Code, were proven against various persons. The sentencing took place on 6 September.


title: Suryanelli rape case

text: On 16 September 2000, Dharmarajan was arrested from Karnataka. He had been absconding for 4 years. In 2002, the trial of the prime accused, Dharmarajan, began. The court presided by P. Chandrasekhara Pillai found him guilty of several charges including gang rape and abduction on 10 July 2002. The court said that as a lawyer he was aware of the implications of his actions and sentenced him to life in prison on 12 July 2002 by judge V. Chandrasekharan Nair. He was found guilty of Sections 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy), 363 (kidnapping), 366 (A) (kidnapping with intent to rape), 368 (illegal confinement), 332 (hurting a public servant), 373 (buying a minor for sex), 376 (rape), 376(2)(B) (gang rape), 392 (robbery) read with Sections 109 (abetting a crime) and 34 (common intent) of the Indian Penal Code.


title: Suryanelli rape case

text: Dharmarajan had filed an appeal in the Kerala High Court, but it was rejected on 13 June 2002. After receiving his sentence, Dharmarajan only served a small part of his sentence. He had been sent to the Central Prison, Poojappura on 13 July 2002 and 25 October 2002 he had been released on bail. After that, he disappeared. The police could not track him down and in 2010 the warrant was dropped. He had served 2 years and 92 days, including the time in custody during pre-trial.


title: Suryanelli rape case

text: On 20 January 2005, a Kerala High Court bench, comprising Justice K. A. Abdul Gafoor and Justice R. Basant, overturned the lower court's verdict and acquitted 35 of the 36 accused due to lack of evidence. Dharmarajan's sentence was reduced from life imprisonment to 5 years. The court decided that her statements cannot be taken as the truth in absence of collaborating evidence, as she had been deemed untrustworthy.


title: Suryanelli rape case

text: The defence had pointed out as girl had squandered her hostel fees on other purposes and had admitted to pawning her jewellery on 1 January 1996, weeks before eloping. The defence said that there was lack of evidence that she had resisted, or indicted to the accused persons that she was an unwilling participant. Thus, rape could not be proved. The only other notable witness, apart from the victim, was accused #42 who had been remanded. She had turned into a prosecution witness. The defence called the victim to be deemed untrustworthy citing past cases.


title: Suryanelli rape case

text: The defence claimed that the prosecution had also tried to withhold certain evidences and witnesses. One investigating officer initially a prosecution witness, was not called during the second case. He had to be presented by the defence. The prosecution also had tried to suppress evidence that proved that the girl had given her hostel fees to one of the accused. The evidence, regarding a letter left by the girl on the day she vanished, was also suppressed. The initial statements given to various officers after her reappearance were presented a very late date, as a result the defence couldn't make a good case or cross examine the victim properly. They called these unfair towards the accused. The defence also pointed to an early statement made by the father which proved that, he was aware that the girl had run away, not kidnapped.


title: Suryanelli rape case

text: The public prosecutor said that accused #1 had first blackmailed the girl with a photo album and later asked her to leave with him. The girl had given the album to a friend Fatima. Fatima had entrusted the album to accused #1 who had promised to give to the girl. The girl had allegedly collected the money to pay off accused #1. An auto-rickshaw driver had overheard him talking to accused #2 about the girl. The prosecution also provided evidence that the prime accused, Dharmarajan, was residing in the lodge where she was first raped, since 2 January 1996. The prosecution said that this proved that there was conspiracy to abduct the girl. As both her parents were working, the prosecution said that the girl no lack of money and had no need to sort such means. The prosecution also replied to the other contentions raised by the defence.


title: Suryanelli rape case

text: The court noted that some investigating officers were aware of the existence of a letter written by the girl before her disappearance, but they had not tried to trace it or simply did not present it. The content was only known to a witness who had read it before giving it to the police, and the receiving officer recorded this. The witness had said that letter said that she was going on a trip with accused #1, but later it was claimed the she was lured with the promise of marriage. The auto-rickshaw driver was found an investigator much late into the case on 23 July 1996. Even though by then the case had become infamous, the driver had not approached the police. The investigating officers before him were aware of the letter and thus did not suspect a conspiracy. The appearance of the driver changed the course of the case. Another public witness, used to prove conspiracy, had changed his statement later, claimed that he being harassed by the police and had to move away. The girl had not searched for accused #1 when he allegedly disappeared before Kothamangalam. The court observed that the girl refused to talked about accused #1. The court noted that all these raised doubts on whether there was a conspiracy between accused #1, #2 and Dharmarajan. The court said the letter proved that there was no kidnapping.


title: Suryanelli rape case

text: The court accepted the evidence proving the girl had stayed at the various places she mentioned, but said that these did not prove non-consent. The girl then just passed the age of consent (then 16 years), so the cases could not be treated as statutory rape. The court noted she had given away her hostel fees to someone and pawned her jewellery. She had given a false name while pawning it. She had been questioned in the Sister Abhaya murder case but she said she couldn't remember it. The court noted that she was expelled from the Mount Carmel School, Kottayam, in Class 8, was home-tutored for a year, before joining Little Flower Girls High School, Nallathanni. When asked for the reason of expulsion, she said that she used to wet her bed and her older sister used to cleaned it up. But, after her sister graduated, she could no longer clean up. But, her tutor, presented as a witness, said that she was expelled for bad conduct. There was also evidence that the father kept close tabs on her movements and frequently called the nuns of the convent school. On 16 January, the school had called the father to inform him that the girl had sought permission to go and give her clothes to the laundry.