Early life and career.

Hrabak was born on 19 December 1914 in Großdeuben, part of Böhlen, in the Kingdom of Saxony, a federated state of the German Empire, the son of a real estate developer. Following his graduation from the, a secondary school, he volunteered for military service. On 8 April 1934, Hrabak joined the "Reichsmarine", the German navy of the Weimar Republic and in November 1935 transferred to the newly emerging "Luftwaffe" (German air force) as an "Oberfähnrich" (officer candidate). On 1 April 1936, Hrabak was promoted to "Leutnant" (second lieutenant).  Following the "Anschluss", Austria's annexation into Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938, Hrabak was posted to I. "Gruppe" (1st group) of "Jagdgeschwader" 138 (JG 138—138th Fighter Wing) stationed in Wien-Schwechat also referred to as the ""Wiener-Jagdgruppe"" ("Vienna fighter group"). There, he was promoted to "Oberleutnant" (first lieutenant) on 1 January 1939 and was made "Staffelkapitän" (squadron leader) of 1. "Staffel" (1st squadron) of JG 138. On 1 May 1939, his unit I./JG 138 was re-designated I./"Jagdgeschwader" 76 (I./JG 76—1st group of the 76th Fighter Wing).

World War II.

World War II in Europe began on Friday 1 September 1939 when German forces invaded Poland. In preparation of the invasion, I. "Gruppe" of JG 76 had been moved to an airfield at Stubendorf, present-day Izbicko in Poland, in mid-August 1939 and supported the German advance on the central and southern sectors of the front. On 3 September, Hrabak made a forced landing behind enemy lines following combat with PZL.23 light bombers and returned to his unit the next day.  On 14 September, I. "Gruppe" was withdrawn from combat operations and returned to its home airfield at Wien-Aspern where it arrived on 26 September. On 26 October, the "Gruppenstab" and 1. "Staffel" were ordered to Frankfurt Rhein-Main where it was united again with 2. and 3. "Staffel" on 2 November. From Frankfurt Rhein-Main, the "Gruppe" flew fighter protection during the "Phoney War" for the Frankfurt, Rhine and Saar region. In April 1940, I. "Gruppe" moved to an airfield at Mainz-Finthen, originally named "Fliegerhorst" Ober-Olm. The "Gruppe" stayed at Ober-Olm until the Battle of France began.  On 13 May 1940, he claimed his first victory, and he claimed five more victories before the Armistice of 22 June 1940. On 26 June 1940, I. "Gruppe" of JG 76 was moved to the airfield at Waalhaven in the Netherlands and subordinated to "Jagdgeschwader" 54 (JG 54—54th Fighter Wing). There, the "Gruppe" was tasked with providing aerial protection over the Dutch coastal area. On 5 July, I./JG 76 was officially integrated into JG 54 and was renamed to II./JG 54 and 1./JG 76 became 4./JG 54.  On 25 August 1940 during the Battle of Britain, Hrabak was made "Gruppenkommandeur" of II./JG 54. In consequence, "Oberleutnant" Hans Philipp was given command of 4./JG 54. During the Battle of Britain he added ten victories against Royal Air Force (RAF) fighters. On 21 October 1940 Hrabak was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (). The presentation was made by "Reichsmarschall" Hermann Göring in his personal command train at Beauvais on 23 October. Hrabak served in the Balkans campaign.

Operation Barbarossa.

Following the surrender of the Royal Yugoslav Army on 17 April 1941, JG 54 received orders on 3 May 1941 to turn over all Bf 109-Es so they could receive the new Bf 109-F variant. Transition training was completed at Airfield Stolp-Reitz in Pomerania. Following intensive training, the "Geschwader" was moved to airfields in Eastern Prussia. II. "Gruppe" under command of Hrabak was moved to Trakehnen on 20 June 1941. The Wehrmacht launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, on 22 June with II. "Gruppe" supporting Army Group North in its strategic goal towards Leningrad.  In August to early September 1941, Hrabak was on home leave. He was promoted to "Major" (major) on 1 October 1942.

Wing commander.

On 1 November 1942, Hrabak left JG 54 and took over command of "Jagdgeschwader" 52 (JG 52—52nd Fighter Wing) as "Geschwaderkommodore" (wing commander). At the time, JG 52 was based at Prokhladny and Gonschtakowka and operated over the front at the Terek River in the Northern Caucasus. Under Hrabak's leadership, JG 52 claimed its 10,000th aerial victory on 2 September 1944.  On 23 November, the "Geschwaderstab" (headquarters unit) of JG 52 began its retreat from the Caucasus region and moved to Maykop. There, Hrabak claimed his first aerial victory as "Geschwaderkommodore" on 13 December over a Petlyakov Pe-2 bomber. While the Battle of Stalingrad was coming to end, Hrabak and the "Geschwaderstab" were ordered to Rostov-on-Don on 20 January 1943 to organize fighter protection over the retreating Army Group A.  Hrabak was promoted to "Oberstleutnant" on 1 July 1943. On 2 August, Hrabak claimed his 100th victory. He was the 48th Luftwaffe pilot to achieve the century mark. On 25 November 1943, Hrabak was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves (). He was the 337th member of the German armed forces to be so honored and at the time was credited with 118 aerial victories. The presentation was made by Adolf Hitler at the Wolf's Lair, Hitler's headquarters in Rastenburg, present-day Kętrzyn in Poland, on 9 December. Also presented with awards that day by Hitler were "Hauptmann" Hans-Ulrich Rudel, who received the Swords to his Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves. Rudel's air gunner and radio operator "Oberfeldwebel" (Master Sergeant) Erwin Hentschel was honored with the Knight's Cross.  On 20 September 1944, Hrabak scored the last of his 125 victories. In October 1944 Hrabak returned to JG 54, serving as its last "Geschwaderkommodore" until the end of the war. His greatest contribution to the Luftwaffe was not his combat record however but his command, tactical and leadership qualities, which endeared him to the men under his command and sealed his reputation within the Luftwaffe leadership.

Later life.

In 1956, he commanded the Advanced Pilot Training Center at Fürstenfeldbruck. In 1962, he took charge of the air defense covering northern Germany and the Netherlands. In 1964, he was named NATO's Chief of Air Defense/Central Europe until becoming special manager for the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter programme. As a major general, he commanded the GAF's tactical command. Hrabak died on 15 September 1995.

Summary of career.

Aerial victory claims.

Matthews and Foreman, authors of "Luftwaffe Aces — Biographies and Victory Claims", researched the German Federal Archives and found documentation for 125 aerial victory claims, all of which confirmed. This number includes 109 on the Eastern Front and 16 on the Western Front.  Victory claims were logged to a map-reference (PQ = "Planquadrat"), for example "PQ 54291". The Luftwaffe grid map () covered all of Europe, western Russia and North Africa and was composed of rectangles measuring 15 minutes of latitude by 30 minutes of longitude, an area of about. These sectors were then subdivided into 36 smaller units to give a location area 3 × 4 km in size.

Dietrich "Dieter" Hrabak (19 December 1914 – 15 September 1995) was a German Luftwaffe military aviator and wing commander during World War II. Following the war, he became a "Generalmajor" (major general) in the German Air Force of West Germany. As a fighter ace, he claimed 125 enemy aircraft shot down in over 1000 combat missions. The majority of his aerial victories were claimed over the Eastern Front with 16 claims over the Western Allies.

Dietrich Adolf „Dieter“ Hrabak (19. prosince 1914, Großdeuben – 15. září 1995, Pfaffenhofen u Fürstenfeldbrucku) byl německý stíhací pilot a letecké eso druhé světové války se 125 potvrzenými sestřely. Z celkového počtu dosáhl 109 sestřelů nad východní frontou a 16 proti západním Spojencům. Patřil k nejlepším, ale také k nejuznávanějším a nejoblíbenějším velitelům stíhacích jednotek Luftwaffe. Po druhé světové válce sloužil v obnovené západoněmecké Luftwaffe, kde dosáhl hodnosti generálmajor.


Background.

By the end of the 8th century, Muslim forces had conquered and settled most of the Iberian Peninsula. Under Islamic law, the Jews who had lived in the region since at least Roman times, were considered "People of the Book," which was a protected status. Compared to the repressive policies of the Visigothic Kingdom, who, starting in the sixth-century had enacted a series of anti-Jewish statutes which culminated in their forced conversion and enslavement, the tolerance of the Muslim Moorish rulers of "al-Andalus" allowed Jewish communities to thrive. Jewish merchants were able to trade freely across the Islamic world, which allowed them to flourish, and made Jewish enclaves in Muslim Iberian cities great centers of learning and commerce. This led to a flowering of Jewish culture, as Jewish scholars were able to gain favor in Muslim courts as skilled physicians, diplomats, translators, and poets. Although Jews never enjoyed equal status to Muslims, in some Taifas, such as Granada, Jewish men were appointed to very high offices, including Grand Vizier.  The "Reconquista", or the gradual reconquest of Muslim Iberia by the Christian kingdoms in the North, was driven by a powerful religious motivation: to reclaim Iberia for Christendom following the Umayyad conquest of Hispania centuries before. By the 14th century, most of the Iberian Peninsula (present-day Spain and Portugal) had been reconquered by the Christian kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, León, Galicia, Navarre, and Portugal.  During the Christian re-conquest, the Muslim kingdoms in Spain became less welcoming to the "dhimmi". In the late twelfth century, the Muslims in al-Andalus invited the fanatical Almohad dynasty from North Africa to push the Christians back to the North. After they gained control of the Iberian Peninsula, the Almohads offered the Sephardim a choice between expulsion, conversion, and death. Many Jewish people fled to other parts of the Muslim world, and also to the Christian kingdoms, which initially welcomed them. In Christian Spain, Jews functioned as courtiers, government officials, merchants, and moneylenders. Therefore, the Jewish community was both useful to the ruling classes and to an extent protected by them.  As the Reconquista drew to a close, overt hostility against Jews in Christian Spain became more pronounced, finding expression in brutal episodes of violence and oppression. In the early fourteenth century, the Christian kings vied to prove their piety by allowing the clergy to subject the Jewish population to forced sermons and disputations. More deadly attacks came later in the century from mobs of angry Catholics, led by popular preachers, who would storm into the Jewish quarter, destroy synagogues, and break into houses, forcing the inhabitants to choose between conversion and death. Thousands of Jews sought to escape these attacks by converting to Christianity. These Jewish converts were commonly called "conversos", New Christians, or "marranos"; the latter two terms were used as insults. At first, these conversions seemed an effective solution to the cultural conflict: many "converso" families met with social and commercial success. But eventually their success made these new Catholics unpopular with their neighbors, including some of the clergy of the Church and Spanish aristocrats competing with them for influence over the royal families. By the mid-fifteenth century, the demands of the Old Christians, that the Catholic Church and the monarchy differentiate them from the conversos, led to the first "limpieza de sangre" laws, which restricted opportunities for converts.  These suspicions on the part of Christians were only heightened by the fact that some of the coerced conversions were undoubtedly insincere. Some, but not all, "conversos" had understandably chosen to salvage their social and commercial positions or their lives by the only option open to them – baptism and embrace of Christianity – while privately adhering to their Jewish practice and faith. Recently converted families who continued to intermarry were especially viewed with suspicion. These secret practitioners are commonly referred to as crypto-Jews or "marranos".  The existence of crypto-Jews was a provocation for secular and ecclesiastical leaders who were already hostile toward Spain's Jewry. For their part, the Jewish community viewed conversos with compassion, because Jewish law held that conversion under threat of violence was not necessarily legitimate. Although the Catholic Church was also officially opposed to forced conversion, under ecclesiastical law all baptisms were lawful, and once baptized, converts were not allowed to rejoin their former religion. The uncertainty over the sincerity of Jewish converts added fuel to the fire of antisemitism in 15th century Spain.

European context.

From the 13th to the 16th centuries, European countries expelled the Jews from their territories on at least fifteen occasions. Before the Spanish expulsion, the Jews had been expelled from England in 1290, several times from France between 1182 and 1354, and from some German states. The French case is typical of most expulsions: whether the expulsion was local or national, the Jews usually were allowed to return after a few years. The Spanish expulsion was succeeded by at least five expulsions from other European countries, but the expulsion of the Jews from Spain was both the largest of its kind and, officially, the longest lasting in western European history.  Over the four-hundred-year period during which most of these decrees were implemented, the causes of expulsion gradually changed. At first, expulsions of Jews (or absence of expulsions) were exercises of royal prerogatives. Jewish communities in mediaeval Europe often were protected by and associated with monarchs because, under the feudal system, Jews often were a monarch's only reliable source of taxes. Jews further had reputations as moneylenders because they were the only social group allowed to loan money at a profit under the prevailing interpretation of the Vulgate (the Latin translation of the Bible used in Roman Catholic western Europe as the official text), which forbade Christians to charge interest on loans. Jews, therefore, became the lenders to and creditors of merchants, aristocrats, and even monarchs. Most expulsions before the Alhambra Decree were related to this financial situation: to raise additional monies, a monarch would tax the Jewish community heavily, forcing Jews to call in loans; the monarch then would expel the Jews; at the time of expulsion, the monarch would seize their remaining valuable assets, including debts owed them by other subjects of the monarch and, in some instances, by the monarch himself. Expulsion of the Jews from Spain was thus an innovation not only in scale but also in its motivations.

Ferdinand and Isabella.

Hostility towards the Jews in Spain was brought to a climax during the reign of the "Catholic Monarchs," Ferdinand and Isabella. Their marriage in 1469, which formed a personal union of the crowns of Aragon and Castile, with coordinated policies between their distinct kingdoms, eventually led to the final unification of Spain.  Although their initial policies towards the Jews were protective, Ferdinand and Isabella were disturbed by reports claiming that most Jewish converts to Christianity were insincere in their conversion. As mentioned above, some claims that "conversos" continued to practice Judaism in secret (see Crypto-Judaism) were true, but the "Old" Christians exaggerated the scale of the phenomenon. It was also claimed that Jews were trying to draw conversos back into the Jewish fold. In 1478, Ferdinand and Isabella made a formal application to Rome to set up an Inquisition in Castile to investigate these and other suspicions. In 1487, King Ferdinand promoted the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition Tribunals in Castile. In the Crown of Aragon, it had been first instituted in the 13th century to combat the Albigense heresy. However, the focus of this new Inquisition was to find and punish "conversos" who were practicing Judaism in secret.  These issues came to a head during Ferdinand and Isabella's final conquest of Granada. The independent Islamic Emirate of Granada had been a tributary state to Castile since 1238. Jews and conversos played an important role during this campaign because they had the ability to raise money and acquire weapons through their extensive trade networks. This perceived increase in Jewish influence further infuriated the Old Christians and the hostile elements of the clergy. Finally, in 1491 in preparation for an imminent transition to Castilian territory, the Treaty of Granada was signed by Emir Muhammad XII and the Queen of Castile, protecting the religious freedom of the Muslims there. By 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella had won the Battle of Granada and completed the Catholic Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula from Islamic forces. However, the Jewish population emerged from the campaign more hated by the populace and less useful to the monarchs.

Decree.

The king and queen issued the Alhambra Decree less than three months after the surrender of Granada. Although Isabella was the force behind the decision, her husband Fernando did not oppose it, and both proved skillful at exploiting the hopes of the desperate Jewish population for monetary gain. That her confessor had just changed from the tolerant Hernando de Talavera to the very intolerant Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros suggests an increase in royal hostility towards the Jews. The text of the decree accused the Jews of trying "to subvert the holy Catholic faith" by attempting to "draw faithful Christians away from their beliefs." These measures were not new in Europe.  After the decree was passed, Spain's entire Jewish population was given only four months to either convert to Christianity or leave the country. The edict promised the Jews' royal "protection and security" for the effective three-month window before the deadline. They were permitted to take their belongings with them, excluding "gold or silver or minted money or other things prohibited by the laws of our kingdoms." In practice, however, the Jews had to sell anything they could not carry: their land, their houses, and their libraries, and converting their wealth to a more portable form proved difficult. The market in Spain was saturated with these goods, which meant the prices were artificially lowered for the months before the deadline. As a result, much of the wealth of the Jewish community remained in Spain. The punishment for any Jew who did not convert or leave by the deadline was summary execution.

Dispersal.

The Sephardic Jews migrated to four major areas: North Africa, the Ottoman Empire, Portugal, and Italy. Some Spanish Jews who emigrated to avoid conversion dispersed throughout the region of North Africa known as the Maghreb. The Jewish scholars and physicians among previous Sephardic immigrants to this area had reinvigorated the Jewish communities in North Africa. However, in the 1490s, parts of the Mediterranean world, including Morocco were experiencing severe famine. As a result, a number of cities in Morocco refused to let the Spanish Jews in. This led to mass starvation among the refugees, and made the Jewish refugees vulnerable to the predation of slavers, although the regional ruler invalidated many of these sales within a few years. A good number of the Jews who had fled to North Africa returned to Spain and got converted. The Jews who stayed in North Africa often intermingled with the already existing Mizrahi Arabic or Berber speaking communities, becoming the ancestors of the Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian and Libyan Jewish communities.  Many Spanish Jews also fled to the Ottoman Empire, where they were given refuge. Sultan Bayezid II of the Ottoman Empire, learning about the expulsion of Jews from Spain, dispatched the Ottoman Navy to bring the Jews safely to Ottoman lands, mainly to the cities of Thessaloniki (currently in Greece) and İzmir (currently in Turkey). Many of these Jews also settled in other parts of the Balkans ruled by the Ottomans such as the areas that are now Bulgaria, Serbia and Bosnia. Concerning this incident, Bayezid II is alleged to have commented, "those who say that Ferdinand and Isabella are wise are indeed fools; for he gives me, his enemy, his national treasure, the Jews."  A majority of Sephardim migrated to Portugal, where they gained only a few years of respite from persecution. About 600 Jewish families were allowed to stay in Portugal following an exorbitant bribe until the Portuguese king entered negotiations to marry the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. Caught between his desire for an alliance with Spain and his economic reliance on the Jews, Manuel I declared the Jewish community in Portugal (perhaps then some 10% of that country's population) Christians by royal decree unless they left the country. In return, he promised the Inquisition would not come to Portugal for 40 years. He then seized the Jews who tried to leave and had them forcibly baptized, after separating them from their children. It was years before the Jews who fled to Portugal were allowed to emigrate. When the ban was lifted, many of them fled to the Low Countries, or the Netherlands.  Throughout history, scholars have given widely differing numbers of Jews expelled from Spain. However, the figure is likely to be below the 100,000 Jews who had not yet converted to Christianity by 1492, possibly as low as 40,000. Such figures exclude the significant number of Jews who returned to Spain due to the hostile reception they received in their countries of refuge, notably Fes (Morocco). The situation of returnees was legalized with the Ordinance of 10 November 1492 which established that civil and church authorities should be witnesses to baptism and, in the case that they were baptized before arrival, proof and witnesses of baptism were required. Furthermore, all property could be recovered by returnees at the same price at which it was sold. Similarly the Provision of the Royal Council of 24 October 1493 set harsh sanctions for those who slandered these New Christians with insulting terms such as "tornadizos". After all, the Catholic monarchs were concerned with the souls of their subjects, and Catholic doctrine held that the persecution of converts would remove an important incentive for conversion. Returnees are documented as late as 1499.

Conversions.

A majority of Spain's Jewish population had converted to Christianity during the waves of religious persecutions prior to the Decree—a total of 200,000 converts according to Joseph Pérez. The main objective of the expulsion of practicing Jews was ensuring the sincerity of the conversions of such a large convert population. Of the 100,000 Jews that remained true to their faith by 1492, an additional number chose to convert and join the converso community rather than face expulsion. Recent conversos were subject to additional suspicion by the Inquisition, which had been established to persecute religious heretics, but in Spain and Portugal was focused on finding crypto-Jews. Although Judaism was not considered a heresy, professing Christianity while engaging in Jewish practices was heretical. Additionally, "Limpieza de sangre" statutes instituted legal discrimination against converso descendants, barring them from certain positions and forbidding them from immigrating to the Americas. For years, families with urban origins who had extensive trade connections, and people who were learned and multilingual were suspected of having Jewish ancestry. According to the prejudice of the time, a person with Jewish blood was untrustworthy and inferior. Such measures slowly faded away as converso identity was forgotten and this community merged into Spain's dominant Catholic culture. This process lasted until the eighteenth century, with a few exceptions, most notably the Chuetas of the island of Majorca, where discrimination lasted into early 20th Century.  A Y chromosome DNA test conducted by the University of Leicester and the Pompeu Fabra University has indicated an average of nearly 20% for Spaniards having some direct patrilineal descent from populations from the Near East which colonized the region either in historical times, such as Jews and Phoenicians, or during earlier prehistoric Neolithic migrations. Between the 90,000 Jews who converted under the Visigoth persecutions, and the 100,000+ Jews who converted in the years leading up to expulsion, it is likely that many of these people have Jewish ancestry. On the other hand, genetic studies have dispelled local beliefs in the American South West that Spanish Americans are the descendants of conversos.

Modern Spanish policy.

The Spanish government has actively pursued a policy of reconciliation with the descendants of its expelled Jews. In 1924, the regime of Primo de Rivera granted the possibility of obtaining Spanish citizenship to the entire Sephardic Jewish diaspora. As stated above, the Alhambra decree was officially revoked in 1968, after the Second Vatican Council rejected the charge of deicide traditionally attributed to the Jews. In 1992, in a ceremony marking the 500th anniversary of the Edict of Expulsion, King Juan Carlos (wearing a yarmulke) prayed alongside Israeli president Chaim Herzog and members of the Jewish community in the Beth Yaacov Synagogue. The King said, "Sefarad (the Hebrew name for Spain) isn't a nostalgic memory anymore; it is a place where it must not be said that Jews should simply 'feel' at home there, for indeed Hispano-Jews are at home in Spain...What matters is not accountability for what we may have done wrong or right, but the willingness to look to the future, and analyze the past in light of our future."  From November 2012 Sephardi Jews have had the right to automatic Spanish nationality without the requirement of residence in Spain. Prior to November 2012, Sephardi Jews already had the right to obtain Spanish citizenship after a reduced residency period of two years (versus ten years for foreigners but nationals from Philippines, Equatorial Guinea, Brazil and about other 20 American republics that also require 2 years.) While their citizenship is being processed, Sephardi Jews are entitled to the consular protection of the Kingdom of Spain. This makes Spain unique among European nations as the only nation that currently grants automatic citizenship to the descendants of Jews expelled during the European medieval evictions. Although these measures are popular in the Jewish community, they have also sparked some controversy. A minority of thinkers hold that these policies represent less the abnegation of prejudice as a shift to Philo-Semitism. As of November 2015, 4300 Sephardi Jews have benefited from this law and acquired Spanish citizenship, swearing allegiance to the Spanish Constitution. In 2013, the number of Jews in Spain was estimated to range between 40,000 and 50,000 people.

The Alhambra Decree (also known as the Edict of Expulsion; Spanish: "Decreto de la Alhambra, Edicto de Granada") was an edict issued on 31 March 1492, by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain (Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon) ordering the expulsion of practicing Jews from the Crowns of Castile and Aragon and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year. The primary purpose was to eliminate their influence on Spain's large "converso" population and ensure they did not revert to Judaism. Over half of Spain's Jews had converted as a result of the religious persecution and pogroms which occurred in 1391. Due to continuing attacks, around 50,000 more had converted by 1415. A further number of those remaining chose to convert to avoid expulsion. As a result of the Alhambra decree and persecution in prior years, over 200,000 Jews converted to Catholicism and between 40,000 and 100,000 were expelled, an unknown number returning to Spain in the years following the expulsion.

Dekret z Alhambry (také známý jako Edikt o Vyhoštění; španělsky "Decreto de la Alhambra, Edicto de Granada") byl edikt vydaný dne 31. března 1492 spojenými španělskými katolickými monarchy (Isabela I. Kastilská a Ferdinand II Aragonský - po jejich sňatku v roce 1469 vzniklo Španělsko), který přikazoval vyhoštění všech praktikujících Židů ze spojených království Kastilie a Aragonu do 31. července téhož roku. Jediný způsob, jak mohli Židé zůstat na Pyrenejském poloostrově v době rekatolizace, byla konverze.


History.

The construction of the palace was started in 1480 by cardinal Domenico della Rovere, a relative of Pope Sixtus IV della Rovere, perhaps under the design of the Florentine architect Baccio Pontelli. The palazzo was built between 1480 and 1490 on the south side of Piazza Scossacavalli, destroyed in 1937 together with the "spina" di Borgo; Pontelli modelled it closely on the architectural style of Palazzo Venezia, the most important building in 15th century Rome. Five halls of the piano nobile, with important frescoes and ceilings, are now the official reception rooms of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.  The current name was added during the reign of pope Alexander VII, who moved here the confessors working in Saint Peter's Basilica, known as "penitenzieri". It formerly housed the Hotel Columbus and it is still the headquarters of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre.

Description.

The building has a massive façade, inspired by that of Palazzo Venezia, with a tower on the northeast corner. The name of Domenico della Rovere is written on the windows of the first floor, while the coat of arms on the façade is that of Pope Clement XIV.  The interior has a court on two levels: a lower one with a portico featuring octagonal pillars and a pit, and an upper one with gardens. The palace has a rich internal decoration, the main rooms frescoed with fictive architecture. Part of the external painting, also representing fictive architecture, has survived. The most notable feature is the Semi-Gods Ceiling, a gallery of mythological and allegorical figures painted by Pinturicchio around 1490.

Palazzo Della Rovere is a palace in Rome, Italy, facing Via della Conciliazione. It is also known as Palazzo dei Penitenzieri.

Palazzo della Rovere (také Palazzo dei Penitenzieri) je palác na via della Conciliazione v Římě. Postavil jej v roce 1480 kardinál Domenico Della Rovere a jeho architektem je s vysokou pravděpodobností Baccio Pontelli. Papež Alexandr VII. do něj přestěhoval penitenciáře, tedy zpovědníky s mimořádnými pravomocemi, a tak byl pojmenován i po nich. V roce 1945 jej papež Pius XII. přidělil Rytířskému Řádu Božího Hrobu Jeruzalémského, který v něm má reprezentativní sídlo rady velmistra dodnes. V části paláce je provozován hotel.


Tectonic setting.

Hawaii island is affected by a large number of minor earthquakes related to the movement of magma beneath its active volcanoes. Additionally there are less frequent tectonic earthquakes that are caused either by faulting within the volcanoes or by slip along the basal detachment surface at the top of the oceanic crust associated with the gradual collapse of the island's flanks as it continues to be enlarged. Near Kilauea volcano, the largest structure formed by the collapse of the southeastern flank of the island is the Hilina slump. This slump moves seaward at an average rate of. The slump moved during the May 4 earthquake by about and has moved during previous earthquakes, such as those in 1868 and 1975.

Earthquake.

The main earthquake was preceded almost exactly an hour earlier by a 5.4 foreshock with a similar epicenter and focal mechanism. Analysis of seismic waveforms suggest that the mainshock was most likely caused by slip on a thrust fault dipping at 20° to the northwest beneath the southeastern flank of the volcano. The mainshock was followed by four aftershocks greater than 4.5 over the next 30 minutes. Smaller aftershock continued to occur for months after the main earthquake.  Further analysis of Love waves, whose radiation pattern gives a greater discrimination on low-angle dips, indicate that the rupture occurred on a plane dipping at about 7°, consistent with it happening at the base of the Hawaiian volcanic rocks, where they overly sedimentary rocks on the earlier seafloor. The calculated low rupture speed is also consistent with propagation along a relatively weak zone. This would make it similar to the 1975 Kalapana earthquake.

Damage.

The quake damaged many buildings, caused landslides that damaged shorelines, and caused cracks in a road, causing it to be shut down.

On May 4, 2018, an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.9 struck Hawaii island in the Hawaii archipelago at around 12:33 p.m. local time. The earthquake's epicenter was near the south flank of Kīlauea, which has been the site of seismic and volcanic activity since late April. According to the United States Geological Survey the quake was related to the new lava outbreaks at the volcano, and it resulted in the Hilina Slump moving about two feet. It was the largest earthquake to affect Hawaii since the 1975 earthquake, which affected the same region, killing two people and injuring another 28.

Zemětřesení na Havaji udeřilo 4. května 2018 ve 12:33 místního času ve východní části ostrova u sopky Kilauea. Mělo sílu 6,9 momentové škály a její intenzita poblíž epicentra je odhadována na VIII (bořivé) podle Mercalliho stupnice. Tomuto otřesu předcházely stovky slabších, které pravděpodobně sopku probudily. Toto zemětřesení si nevyžádalo oběti, ale škody na budovách. Přes 14 000 lidí se po zemětřesení ocitlo bez elektrického proudu, ale brzy bylo vše obnoveno.


Early life.

Cantoni was born in Lenno on 1 September 1950 and had moved with his family to the nearby village, Tremezzo, at the age of eight. In 1970, after studies at the Pontificio Collegio Gallio founded by the Somaschi Fathers, he entered the diocesan seminary in order to receive specific theological preparation. In 1975, Cantoni was ordained a priest in the province of Como by bishop Teresio Ferraroni. Until 1982 he performed pastoral activity in the parish of Santa Maria Regina in Muggiò, and was later dedicated to teaching of religion at the technical institute of "<nowiki>'</nowiki>Pliny Como<nowiki>'</nowiki>". On 11 July 2000 he was awarded the title of Honorary Prelate of His Holiness by Pope John Paul II. In 2003, all previous assignments were terminated due to Cantoni being appointed as an episcopal vicar for clergy.

Episcopal Ministry.

Pope John Paul II appointed him Bishop of Crema on 25 January 2005.  Cantoni was given a delegation of the Bishops' Conference of Lombardy for consecrated life and became part of the homologous episcopal commission of the CEI. He was also nominated a pastoral visit to all Italian seminars on 16 June 2005.  On 12 October 2007, Cantoni had had his first pastoral visit and was given the permission to perform in all parishes of his diocese. The permission terminated in 2011.  In 2009, after two years of intensive preparatory work in Uni-Crema, 'the free university for adulthood', he 'contributed to the promotion of cultural and social citizenship' in the groove of 'Christian humanism and Christian tradition'. In September 2010 he became the first bishop in Italy to organize and launch a 'youth mission' diocesan, a peaceful invasion of'minstrels of God' in order to communicate His friendship and His benison not only in churches but in nightclubs, theatres, through sport, etc.  At the end of his pastoral visit, in 2011, he organized an ecclesial assembly 'in order to prepare our Church to face the times ahead,' open to all different parts of the diocese: priests, associations and groups and individual believers. It was characterized by a public discussion that takes place on three evenings, from 17 to 19 March with its closing on 10 April.  On 21 November 2010 he received the insignia of Grand Officer of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre and was appointed the Grand Prior of the Lieutenancy for Northern Italy by decree of Cardinal John Patrick Foley, the grand master of the order.  On 4 October 2016, Pope Francis named Cantoni Bishop of Como.

Episcopal genealogy.

Oscar Cantoni's episcopal lineage, or apostolic succession is:

Oscar Cantoni is an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church who has been Bishop of Como since 2016. He was previously Bishop of Crema from 2005 to 2016.

Mons. Oscar Cantoni (* 1. září 1950, Lenno, Provincie Como) je italský katolický kněz, biskup, dnes sídelní biskup v Comu. Je rytířem komturem s hvězdou Řádu Božího hrobu a bývalým velkopřevorem jeho místodržitelství v severní Itálii.


Career.

Stereolab.

Sadier was working as a nanny when she met McCarthy guitarist Tim Gane at one of the band's Paris gigs during the late 1980s. She was disillusioned with the rock scene in France, and soon moved to London to be with Gane and to pursue her career. She contributed vocals to McCarthy's final albums, and when McCarthy broke up in 1990, she and Gane immediately formed Stereolab.  For the first incarnation of the band, they enlisted ex-Chills bassist Martin Kean, drummer Joe Dilworth and Gina Morris on backing vocals. In 1993, the band were signed to the American major label Elektra. They were released from their recording contract in 2004. Sadier was the main contributor of lyrics, written in both English and French. In 2009, the group went on hiatus.

Monade and solo work.

In 1996, Sadier formed Monade with Pram's Rosie Cuckston. The group released the singles "The Sunrise Telling" and "Witch Hazel/Ode to a Keyring" in 1997. The band's debut album "Socialisme ou Barbarie: The Bedroom Recordings" was released on Duophonic Records in Europe and Drag City in the US in 2003. Their second album "A Few Steps More" was released on Too Pure in 2004. Monade's follow-up, "Monstre Cosmic", was released in February 2008 on Duophonic. She retired the project in 2009 to perform new songs under her name, and released a solo album titled "The Trip" in September 2010; it was followed by "Silencio" in 2012 and "Something Shines" in 2014. Sadier released the album "Find Me Finding You" in 2017, credited to the Lætitia Sadier Source Ensemble.

Collaborations and other projects.

Sadier has contributed vocals to various groups and projects, at times along with the late Stereolab member Mary Hansen. She and Hansen had contributed vocals to various recordings of The High Llamas and to the Tim Gane/Sean O'Hagan side project Turn On, and has contributed backing vocals to the track "Go Round" on The Hair and Skin Trading Company's 1993 album "Over Valence". Sadier added French backing vocals on the 1994 song "To the End," from Blur's "Parklife" album. In 1995, she recorded the Serge Gainsbourg/Brigitte Bardot song "Bonnie and Clyde" with Luna. Throughout the years, Sadier has occasionally collaborated with German electronica group Mouse on Mars. In 1997, Sadier sang on "Schnick Schnack Meltmade" on Mouse on Mars' "Autoditacker" LP, and she and Mary Hansen contributed vocals to the "Cache Cœur Naif" EP. In turn, Mouse on Mars produced tracks on Stereolab's "Dots and Loops" LP.  In 2001, Sadier sang on "Sol y sombra" on Fugu's "Fugu 1" LP on Minty Fresh Records. In 2002, Sadier sang the chorus on "New Wave" from Common's album "Electric Circus". She sang lead vocals on "Haiku One" from Sigmatropic's 2004 album "Sixteen Haiku & Other Stories" which was an album based on the poetry of Greek poet Giorgos Seferis. In 2007, Sadier wrote songs with Mouse on Mars and toured with them in Italy. They have yet to record the songs for release. In 2009 the French label Deux Mille released an EP which features Sadier singing with Toulouse-based band Momotte.  Sadier wrote and sang the lyrics to the track "Quick Canal" by Atlas Sound on their album "Logos" (2009). She contributed vocals to "PartyIsntOver/Campfire/Bimmer" on the album "Wolf" (2013) by Tyler, the Creator, and "Summer Long" on the album "Alexandre" (2014) by Brazilian band Mombojó. She wrote the lyrics and was featured in "La Ballade" on the album "Something About April II" (2016) by Adrian Younge, and sang on the album "I'm Willing" (2016) by Marker Starling. In 2017, she appeared on the Deerhoof song "Come Down Here and Say That" from their album "Mountain Moves".. In 2020, she appeared as featured lead singer on two compositions by Chapman Stick virtuoso Michael Bernier, released on his third solo full-length release "The Beach Album"..

Personal life.

While she spent most of her formative years in France, Sadier's family travelled extensively, and she lived briefly in the U.S. as a child.  Sadier and Tim Gane were a couple when they formed Stereolab in the late 1980s. They ended the relationship in 2002. Together, they have a son named Alex who was born in 1998.

Lætitia Sadier (born 6 May 1968, sometimes known as Seaya Sadier) is a French musician, best known as a founding member of the London-based avant-pop band Stereolab. In 1996, while Stereolab was still active, she formed the side project Monade. In 2009 — the same year Stereolab became inactive — she ended the Monade project and began to perform solo work under her own name; her current band is known as the Lætitia Sadier Source Ensemble. She has frequently performed guest vocals and collaborations with other artists.

Lætitia Sadier (* 6. května 1968 Vincennes) je francouzská zpěvačka a kytaristka. Koncem osmdesátých let působila v anglické kapele McCarthy, kterou původně spoluzaložil její tehdejší přítel Tim Gane. Když kapela roku 1990 ukončila svou činnost, založila spolu s Ganem kapelu Stereolab. Tato kapela svou činnost ukončila po devatenácti letech. Zpěvačka dále působila ve vlastním projektu Monade a počínaje rokem 2010, kdy vydala album "The Trip", se věnuje sólové kariéře. Coby vokalistka zpívala na nahrávkách řady dalších kapel, mezi něž patří například Blur ("Parklife"), Luna ("Penthouse") a The High Llamas ("Snowbug"). V roce 2010 se účastnila festivalu Life Along the Borderline, který pořádal velšský hudebník John Cale coby poctu zpěvačce Nico (zpívala zde coververze písní „My Only Child“ a „Afraid“).


History.

Safari Ltd was founded in 1982 by a German-born husband and wife team, Bernard and Rosemarie Rubel. Their goal was to aid in wildlife conservation by raising awareness of endangered species. Inspired by a deck of educational playing cards featuring photographs of endangered animals, they initially began by photographing native species in Florida and selling postcards of the photos at zoos and other attractions.  The Rubels would later return to Germany and lay eyes on the educational figurines that led them to develop the museum-quality figurines Safari manufactures today.  The company soon expanded to offer toys based on dinosaurs and prehistoric life, utilizing the paleontology community to aid in making the most scientifically accurate figure based on current research. This led to the company's partnership with the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. As a result of the partnership and realistic quality of the figurines, Safari was considered a leader in the animal figurine niche.  Presently, Safari Ltd is run by the Rubels’ grandson Alexandre Pariente, who heads the company with his wife, Christina Pariente. Under Alexandre's tenure the company has invested more in developing online resources, including an in-house wikisource coined SafariPedia that encourages children and educators to use it in tandem with Safari Ltd products.

Brand.

Bernie the Gator is Safari Ltd's mascot and pays homage to founder Bernard Amadeus Rubel. The alligator is a popular animal commonly associated with the state of Florida, where Safari Ltd is headquartered.

Design.

All figurines are phthalate and lead free, and adhere to worldwide testing standards.  A group of professional sculptors research each animal's anatomy prior to creating a lifelike model. This model is then sent to the manufacturer for large scale production, and each figurine is hand painted in order to capture the animal's unique and distinctive features. Each figurine in inscribed with its name on the belly on the animal (in English) to aid in easy identification of the animal.

Retailers.

The company is headquartered in Miami Lakes, Florida, selling to a principal market within the United States, but services international markets as well. Safari Ltd sells to distributors and retailers around the globe, providing museum-quality figurines to zoos, museums, aquariums, specialty toy stores, gift stores, arts and crafts stores, educational stores and more.

Licensing Agreements.

Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, PA. Contract with Safari Ltd signed – October 1, 1986- February 13, 2015 Founded in 1896 by Andrew Carnegie, this historic museum holds 22 million specimens exhibiting 10,000 at any given time. It first made history in the year 1899 with the unearthing of Diplodocus Carnegii, and today the Museum maintains the largest collection of Jurassic dinosaurs displayed in the Their Time exhibition. The Carnegie Collection from Safari Ltd and the Carnegie Museum lasted nearly three decades. Additionally, the collection contributed to positioning Safari Ltd as a leader in the dinosaur figurine community.  Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey, CA. Contract with Safari Ltd signed – December 4, 1990 This public aquarium was founded in 1984 at the site of a former sardine cannery, Cannery Row. Today it is an institution housing 35,000 sea creatures, which represents 550 species on display. Safari Ltd and the Monterey Bay Aquarium signed a contract on December 4, 1990 to create a scaled Sea Life collection designed using the expertise of Monterey Bay Aquarium's marine biologists and Safari Ltd's expert sculptors. Together they've created a collection of figurines which is updated based on current scientific research.

Awards and recognition.

Best Toy – Toddler in Reader's Favorites, Baby & Children's Product News (Won: 2017)  Top Ten Prehistoric Animals of 2016, DinoToyBlog (Won, First Place: 2016)  Healthiest Employer in South Florida, South Florida Business Journal (Nominated: 2017)  Best Prehistoric Animal Toy Figure, Prehistoric Times Magazine (Won: 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019)

Safari Ltd is an American family owned manufacturer and global distributor of animal figurine toys. Since 1982, they have produced hand-painted figurines designed to educate children, with the stated goal of teaching the importance of nature and conservation through play.

Safari Ltd. je americká firma. Tato firma vyrábí vzdělávací hračky v podobě autentických, ručně malovaných modelů zvířat a dětských pomůcek do přírody. Společnost založil v roce 1982 německý manželský pár Bernard a Rosemarie Rubel. V roce 1986 firma podepsala licenční smlouvu s Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Tato licence umožnila vyrábět autentické modely dinosaurů ve spolupráci s jejich paleontology. S postupným rozrůstáním firmy se začala rozšiřovat i série modelů, které se už neomezovaly jen na dinosaury, ale nabízely pohled na celý svět. V současné chvíli vede podnik jejich pravnuk Alexandre Pariente se svou manželkou Christinou. Alexandre Pariente vytvořil SafariPedii (encyklopedii online), která vzdělává děti po celém světě a doplňuje tak kompletní přehled jejich produktů.


Fire.

At King's Cross there are subsurface platforms for the Metropolitan, Circle, and Hammersmith & City lines. Deeper underground are the platforms for the Northern line City branch, the Piccadilly, and Victoria lines. An escalator shaft led down to the Victoria line, and another led down to the Piccadilly line, and from that the Northern line. Stairs connected the Piccadilly and Victoria line platforms and from these there was a subway to King's Cross Thameslink railway station platforms used by British Rail "Midland City" (later "Thameslink") trains to and an entrance in Pentonville Road.  At about 19:30 several passengers reported seeing a fire on a Piccadilly line escalator. Staff and police went to investigate and on confirming the fire one of the policemen went to the surface to radio for the fire brigade. Four fire appliances and a turntable ladder were sent at 19:36 by the London Fire Brigade. The fire was beneath the escalator, and it was impossible to reach it to use a fire extinguisher. There was water fog equipment, but staff had not been trained in its use. The police made the decision to evacuate the station at 19:39, using the Victoria line escalators. A few minutes later the fire brigade arrived and several firemen went down to the escalator to assess the fire. They saw a fire about the size of a large cardboard box and planned to fight it with a water jet using men with breathing apparatus.  At 19:42 the entire escalator was aflame, producing superheated gas that rose to the top of the shaft enclosing the escalator, where it was trapped against the tunnel ceiling, which was covered with about twenty layers of old paint from past repainting. As the superheated gases pooled along the ceiling of the escalator shaft, the layers of paint began absorbing the heat. A few years before the fire, the Underground's director of operations had warned that the accumulated paint might pose a fire hazard. However, painting protocols were not in his purview and his suggestion was widely ignored by his colleagues.  At 19:45 there was a flashover and a jet of flames shot up the escalator shaft, filling the ticket hall with intense heat and thick black smoke, killing or seriously injuring most of the people still in the ticket hall. This trapped below ground several hundred people, who escaped on Victoria line trains. A police constable, Richard Kukielka, found a seriously injured man and tried to evacuate him via the "Midland City" platforms, but found the way blocked by a locked bostwick gate until it was unlocked by a passing cleaner. Staff and a policewoman trapped on a Metropolitan line platform were rescued by a train.  Thirty fire crews—over 150 firefighters—were deployed. Fourteen London Ambulance Service ambulances ferried the injured to local hospitals, including University College Hospital. The fire was declared out at 01:46 the following morning.  Thirty-one people died and 100 people were taken to hospital, 19 with serious injuries. Fire Brigade station officer Colin Townsley was in charge of the first pump fire engine to arrive at the scene and was down in the ticket hall at the time of the flashover. He was killed in the fire; his body was found beside that of a badly burnt passenger at the base of the exit steps to Pancras Road. It is believed that Townsley spotted the passenger in difficulty and stopped to help her.  An initially unidentified man, commonly known as "Michael" or "Body 115" after its mortuary tag, was identified on 22 January 2004, when forensic evidence confirmed he was 73-year-old Alexander Fallon of Falkirk, Scotland.

Aftermath.

The ticket hall and platforms for the Metropolitan line were undamaged and reopened next morning; the Victoria line, its escalators only slightly damaged, resumed normal operation on the following Tuesday. The ticket hall for the three tube lines was reopened in stages over four weeks. The three escalators for the Piccadilly line had to be completely replaced, the new ones being commissioned on 27 February 1989, more than 16 months after the fire. Until then, the Piccadilly line could only be reached via the Victoria line or Midland City platforms, and at peak hours in one direction only.  Access to the Northern line platforms was indirect, its escalators connecting with the Piccadilly line. As the traffic from all three tube lines would have overcrowded the Victoria line escalators, Northern line trains did not stop at Kings Cross until repairs were complete. The nearly life-expired Northern line escalators were replaced as well and the Northern line station reopened, completing the return to normal operation, on 5 March 1989.

Investigation and report.

A public inquiry into the incident was initiated by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. It was conducted by Desmond Fennell, assisted by a panel of four expert advisers. The inquiry opened at Central Hall, Westminster on 1 February 1988 and closed on 24 June, after hearing 91 days of evidence.  Smoking on Underground trains was banned in July 1984, over 3 years before the fire. Following a fire at Oxford Circus station in November 1984, the ban was extended to all underground stations in February 1985. However, smokers often ignored this and lit cigarettes on the escalators on their way out. The inquiry found that the fire was most probably caused by a traveller discarding a burning match that fell down the side of the moving staircase on to the running track of the escalator. The police decided that the fire had not been started deliberately, as there was no evidence that an accelerant had been used and access to the site of the fire was difficult. Investigators found charred wood in eight places on a section of skirting on an escalator and matches in the running track, showing that similar fires had started before but had burnt themselves out without spreading. The investigators found a build-up of lubricant grease under the tracks, which was believed to be difficult to ignite and slow to burn once it started, but it was noted that the grease was heavily impregnated with fibrous materials (fluff from clothes, tickets and other small litter, human hair, rat fur, etc). A test was conducted where lit matches were dropped on the escalator to see if ignition would occur. Dropped matches ignited the contaminated grease and the fire began spreading. It was allowed to burn for nine minutes before being extinguished.  This test confirmed the initial eyewitness reports up to that point, but four expert witnesses could not agree as to how the small fire flashed over, with some concern that the paint used on the ceiling had contributed to the fire. A model of King's Cross station was built at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, and using computer simulation software; this showed the flames lying down along the floor of the escalator rather than burning vertically before producing a jet of flame into the ticket hall. The end result matched the eyewitness accounts of the fire, but the simulation's depiction of the fire burning parallel to the 30° slope of the escalator was thought by some to be unlikely and it was suspected that the programming might be faulty. Experiments were conducted with a third scale replica of the escalator built at the UK's Health and Safety Executive site at Buxton. After seven and a half minutes of normal burning, the flames lay down as in the computer simulation. The metal sides of the escalator served to contain the flames and direct the temperature ahead of the fire. When the wooden treads of the escalator flashed over, the size of the fire increased dramatically and a sustained jet of flame was discharged from the escalator tunnel into the model ticket hall. The 30° angle of the escalators was discovered to be crucial to the incident, and the large number of casualties in the fire was an indirect consequence of a fluid flow phenomenon that was later named the trench effect, a phenomenon completely unknown before the fire. The conclusion was that this newly discovered trench effect had caused the fire to flashover at 19:45.  London Underground were strongly criticised in the report for their attitude to fires underground, underestimating the hazard because no one had died in a fire on the Underground before. Staff were expected to send for the Fire Brigade only if the fire was out of control, dealing with it themselves if possible. Fires were described as "smouldering"; and staff had little or no training to deal with fires or evacuation.

Legacy.

The publication of the report led to resignations of senior management of both London Underground and London Regional Transport. Wooden panelling was to be removed from escalators, heat detectors and sprinklers were to be fitted beneath escalators, and the radio communication system and station staff emergency training were to be improved.  The Fire Precautions (Sub-surface Railway Stations) Regulations 1989 were introduced. Smoking was banned in all London Underground stations, including on the escalators, on 23 November, five days after the fire. Wooden escalators were gradually replaced, some remaining into the early 2000s (those at Wanstead were replaced in 2003 and at Marylebone in 2004) and as of 2014 the entire London Underground was operating on metal escalators, after the last wooden escalator at Greenford on the Central line was decommissioned on 10 March 2014.  London Underground was also recommended by the Fennell Report to investigate "passenger flow and congestion in stations and take remedial action". Consequently, Parliamentary bills were tabled to permit London Underground to improve and expand the busiest and most congested stations, such as London Bridge, Tottenham Court Road, Holborn and King's Cross St Pancras.  Since then, major tube stations have been upgraded and expanded to increase capacity and improve safety. London Bridge was upgraded in conjunction with the Jubilee Line Extension project, which opened in 1999, King's Cross St Pancras was substantially upgraded and expanded as a component of the High Speed 1 project in the late 2000s, and Tottenham Court Road was expanded as part of the Crossrail project in the mid 2010s.  The fire also led to improvement in firefighters' equipment: yellow plastic leggings that melted in the heat and rubber gloves that limited movement were replaced with more effective clothing.  Six firemen received Certificates of Commendation for their actions at the fire, including Station Officer Townsley who was given the award posthumously. Townsley was also posthumously awarded the George Medal.  Soon after the fire a commemoration service was held at St Pancras Church. Further commemoration services were held on 18 November 2002, the fifteenth anniversary of the blaze, on the twentieth anniversary in 2007 at the station itself, on the twenty-fifth anniversary in 2012 at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament near the station and on the thirtieth anniversary in 2017 at the station, with the laying of a wreath.  Memorial plaques commemorating the disaster were installed at St Pancras Church, unveiled by the Princess of Wales, and at King's Cross station.

In popular culture.

The Nick Lowe song "Who Was That Man?" from the 1990 Album "Party of One" tells the story of the only unidentified victim of the King's Cross Fire. In 2004 the subject of the song was identified as 73-year-old Alexander Fallon of Falkirk, Scotland. The fire was the basis for an episode of Discovery Television's documentary series Seconds from Disaster. Scenes recreating the disaster were filmed around Newcastle upon Tyne with Monument metro station in the city centre and the Tyne Pedestrian Tunnel at Jarrow doubling for Kings Cross. Charles Duhigg in his book The Power of Habit discusses how bad corporate culture and inefficient management led to the disaster at King's Cross.

On 18 November 1987, at approximately 19:30, a fire started at King's Cross St Pancras tube station, a major interchange on the London Underground. As well as the mainline railway stations above ground and subsurface platforms for the Metropolitan, Circle and Hammersmith & City lines, there were platforms deeper underground for the Northern, Piccadilly, and Victoria lines. The fire started under a wooden escalator serving the Piccadilly line and, at 19:45, erupted in a flashover into the underground ticket hall, killing 31 people and injuring 100.

Dne 18. listopadu 1987 zhruba v 19:30 vypukl požár na stanici metra King's Cross St Pancras, jedné z největších stanic londýnského metra. Ve stanici byla jednak hlavní - nadzemní - linka, ale i linky umístěné hlouběji v podzemí obsluhující linky Northern, Piccadilly a Victoria. Požár započal na dřevěném eskalátoru linky Piccadilly a v 19:45 se vyvinul v celkové vzplanutí haly. Katastrofa zabila 31 lidí a dalších 100 zranila.


Plot.

Pink is a rock star, one of the many reasons which have left him depressed. At the beginning of the film, he appears motionless and expressionless, while remembering his father. ("When the Tigers Broke Free, Part 1") While Pink imagines a crowd of fans entering one of his concerts, but him receiving them in a fascist alter ego, a flashback reveals how his father was killed defending the Anzio bridgehead during World War II, in Pink's infancy. ("In the Flesh?") The aftermath of the battle is seen ("The Thin Ice"), and thus, Pink's mother raises him alone, which affects Pink's childhood. ("Another Brick in the Wall, Part 1") A young Pink later discovers a scroll from "kind old King George" and other relics from his father's military service and death. ("When the Tigers Broke Free, Part 2") An animation depicts the war, showing that the death of the people was for nothing. ("Goodbye Blue Sky") Pink places a bullet on the track of an oncoming train within a tunnel, and the train that passes has children peering out of the windows wearing face masks.  At school, he is caught writing poems in class and is humiliated by the teacher who reads a poem from Pink's book (lyrics from the song "Money"). However, it is revealed that the bad treatment of the students is because of the unhappiness of the teacher's marriage. ("The Happiest Days of Our Lives") Pink imagines an oppressive school system in which children fall into a meat grinder. Pink then fantasizes about the children rising in rebellion and burning down the school, throwing the teacher onto a bonfire. ("Another Brick in The Wall, Part 2") As an adult now, Pink remembers his overprotective mother ("Mother"), and when he got married. After a phone call, Pink discovers that his wife is cheating on him, and another animation shows that every traumatic experience he has had is represented as a "brick" in the metaphorical wall he constructs around himself that divides him from all society. ("What Shall We Do Now?")  Pink then comes back to the hotel room with a groupie ("Young Lust"), only for her to annoy Pink to the point where he destroys the room in a fit of violence, scaring her away. ("One of My Turns") Depressed, he thinks about his wife, and feels trapped in his room. ("Don't Leave me Now") He then remembers every "brick" of his wall ("Another Brick in The Wall, Part 3"). His wall shown to be complete, and the film returns to the first scene. ("Goodbye Cruel World")  Now inside his wall, he does not leave his hotel room ("Is There Anybody Out There?"), and begins to lose his mind to metaphorical "worms". He shaves all his body hair, and watches "The Dam Busters" on television. ("Nobody Home") A flashback shows young Pink searching through trenches of the war ("Vera"), eventually finding himself as an adult. Young Pink runs in terror, and appears in a station, with the people demanding that the soldiers return home. ("Bring the Boys Back Home") Returning to the present, Pink's manager finds him in his hotel room, drugged and unresponsive. A paramedic injects him to enable him to perform. ("Comfortably Numb")  In this state, Pink dreams that he is a dictator and his concert is a fascist rally. ("In the Flesh") His followers proceed to attack people. ("Run Like Hell") He then holds a rally in suburban London, indicating his mind has taken over. ("Waiting for the Worms") The scene includes images of animated marching hammers that goose-step across ruins. Pink then stops hallucinating and screams "STOP!", deciding he no longer wants to be in the wall. He is then seen cowering in a bathroom stall, silently singing to himself as a security guard walks past him. ("Stop") In a climactic animated sequence, Pink, as a rag doll, is on trial for "showing feelings of an almost human nature", and his sentence is "to be exposed before his peers". His teacher and wife accuse him, while his mother tries to take him home. The judge gives the order to "tear down the wall!" ("The Trial") Following a prolonged silence, the wall is smashed as Pink can be heard screaming. Pink is never seen again after this. Several children are seen cleaning up a pile of debris, with a freeze-frame on one of the children emptying a Molotov cocktail. The film ends. ("Outside the Wall")

Production.

Concept.

In the mid-1970s, as Pink Floyd gained mainstream fame, songwriter Roger Waters began feeling increasingly alienated from their audiences:Audiences at those vast concerts are there for an excitement which, I think, has to do with the love of success. When a band or a person becomes an idol, it can have to do with the success that that person manifests, not the quality of work he produces. You don't become a fanatic because somebody's work is good, you become a fanatic to be touched vicariously by their glamour and fame. Stars—film stars, rock 'n' roll stars—represent, in myth anyway, the life as we'd all like to live it. They seem at the very centre of life. And that's why audiences still spend large sums of money at concerts where they are a long, long way from the stage, where they are often very uncomfortable, and where the sound is often very bad. Waters was also dismayed by the "executive approach", which was only about success, not even attempting to get acquainted with the actual persons of whom the band was composed (addressed in an earlier song from "Wish You Were Here", "Have a Cigar"). The concept of the wall, along with the decision to name the lead character "Pink", partly grew out of that approach, combined with the issue of the growing alienation between the band and their fans. This symbolised a new era for rock bands, as Pink Floyd "explored (... ) the hard realities of 'being where we are'", echoing ideas of alienation described by existentialists such as Jean-Paul Sartre.

Development.

Even before the original Pink Floyd album was recorded, a film was intended to be made from it. However, the concept of the film was intended to be live footage from the album's tour, with Scarfe's animation and extra scenes. The film was going to star Waters himself. EMI did not intend to make the film, as they did not understand the concept.  Director Alan Parker, a Pink Floyd fan, asked EMI whether "The Wall" could be adapted to film. EMI suggested that Parker talk to Waters, who had asked Parker to direct the film. Parker instead suggested that he produce it and give the directing task to Gerald Scarfe and Michael Seresin, a cinematographer. Waters began work on the film's screenplay after studying scriptwriting books. He and Scarfe produced a special-edition book containing the screenplay and art to pitch the project to investors. While the book depicted Waters in the role of Pink, after screen tests, he was removed from the starring role and replaced with new wave musician and frontman of the Boomtown Rats, Bob Geldof. In "Behind the Wall", both Waters and Geldof later admitted to a story during casting where Geldof and his manager took a taxi to an airport, and Geldof's manager pitched the role to the singer, who continued to reject the offer and express his contempt for the project throughout the fare, unaware that the taxi driver was Waters' brother, who told Waters about Geldof's opinion.  Since Waters was no longer in the starring role, it no longer made sense for the feature to include Pink Floyd footage, so the live film aspect was dropped. The footage culled from the five "Wall" concerts at Earl's Court from 13–17 June 1981 that were held specifically for filming was deemed unusable also for technical reasons as the fast Panavision lenses needed for the low light levels turned out to have insufficient resolution for the movie screen. Complex parts such as "Hey You" still had not been properly shot by the end of the live shows. Parker convinced Waters and Scarfe that the concert footage was too theatrical and that it would jar with the animation and stage live action. After the concert footage was dropped, Seresin left the project and Parker became sole director.

Filming.

Parker, Waters and Scarfe frequently clashed during production, and Parker described the filming as "one of the most miserable experiences of my creative life." Scarfe declared that he would drive to Pinewood Studios carrying a bottle of Jack Daniel's, because "I had to have a slug before I went in the morning, because I knew what was coming up, and I knew I had to fortify myself in some way." Waters said that filming was "a very unnerving and unpleasant experience".  During production, while filming the destruction of a hotel room, Geldof suffered a cut to his hand as he pulled away the Venetian blinds. The footage remains in the film. It was discovered while filming the pool scenes that Geldof did not know how to swim. Interiors were shot at Pinewood Studios, and it was suggested that they suspend Geldof in Christopher Reeve's clear cast used for the "Superman" flying sequences, but his frame was too small by comparison; it was then decided to make a smaller rig that was a more acceptable fit, and he lay on his back. In Nicholas Schaffner's book "Saucerful of Secrets: The Pink Floyd Odyssey" (1991) it is claimed that the body cast from the film "Supergirl" (1984) was actually used instead.  The war scenes were shot on Saunton Sands in North Devon, which was also featured on the cover of Pink Floyd's "A Momentary Lapse of Reason" six years later.

Release.

The film was shown out of competition during the 1982 Cannes Film Festival.  The film's official premiere was at the Empire, Leicester Square in London, on 14 July 1982. It was attended by Waters and fellow Pink Floyd members David Gilmour and Nick Mason, but not Richard Wright, who was no longer a member of the band. It was also attended by various celebrities including Geldof, Scarfe, Paula Yates, Pete Townshend, Sting, Roger Taylor, James Hunt, Lulu and Andy Summers.

Box office and critical reception.

The film opened with a limited release on 6 August 1982 and entered at No. 28 of the US box office charts despite only playing in one theatre on its first weekend, grossing over $68,000, a rare feat even by today's standards. The film then spent just over a month below the top 20 while still in the top 30. The film later expanded to over 600 theatres on 10 September, achieving No. 3 at the box office charts, below "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial", and "An Officer and a Gentleman". The film eventually earned $22 million before closing in early 1983.  The film received generally positive reviews. Rotten Tomatoes currently ranks the film with a critics' review rating of 68% (based on 25 reviews). The critical consensus reads "Pink Floyd's expression of generational angst is given striking visual form "The Wall", although this ambitious feature's narrative struggles to marry its provocative images and psychedelic soundtrack into a compelling whole."  Reviewing "The Wall" on their television programme "At the Movies" in 1982, film critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel gave the film "two thumbs up". Ebert described "The Wall" as "a stunning vision of self-destruction" and "one of the most horrifying musicals of all time... but the movie is effective. The music is strong and true, the images are like sledge hammers, and for once, the rock and roll hero isn't just a spoiled narcissist, but a real, suffering image of all the despair of this nuclear age. This is a real good movie." Siskel was more reserved in his judgement, stating that he felt that the film's imagery was too repetitive. However, he admitted that the "central image" of the fascist rally sequence "will stay with me for an awful long time." In February 2010, Roger Ebert added "The Wall" to his list of "Great Movies," describing the film as "without question the best of all serious fiction films devoted to rock. Seeing it now in more timid times, it looks more daring than it did in 1982, when I saw it at Cannes... It's disquieting and depressing and very good." It was chosen for the opening night of 2010.  Danny Peary wrote that the "picture is unrelentingly downbeat and at times repulsive... but I don't find it unwatchable – which is more than I could say if Ken Russell had directed this. The cinematography by Peter Biziou is extremely impressive and a few of the individual scenes have undeniable power." It earned two British Academy Awards: Best Sound for James Guthrie, Eddy Joseph, Clive Winter, Graham Hartstone and Nicholas Le Messurier, and Best Original Song for Waters.  Waters said of the film: "I found it was so unremitting in its onslaught upon the senses, that it didn't give me, anyway, as an audience, a chance to get involved with it," although he had nothing but praise for Geldof's performance. Gilmour stated (on the "In the Studio with Redbeard" episodes of "The Wall", "A Momentary Lapse of Reason" and "On an Island") that the conflict between him and Waters started with the making of the film. Gilmour also stated on the documentary "Behind The Wall" (which was aired on the BBC in the UK and VH1 in the US) that "the movie was the less successful telling of "The Wall" story as opposed to the album and concert versions."  Although the symbol of the crossed hammers used in the film was not related to any real group, it was adopted by white supremacist group the Hammerskins in the late 1980s.

Themes and analysis.

It has been suggested that the protagonist stands in some way for Waters. Beyond the obvious parallel of them both being rock stars, Waters lost his father while he was an infant and had marital problems, divorcing several times. It has also been suggested that Pink represents former lead singer, writer and founding member Syd Barrett, both in his appearance as well as in several incidents and anecdotes related to Barrett's descent from pop stardom due to his struggles with mental illness and self-medicating with drugs. One seemingly blatant reference is Pink's detachment from the world as he locks himself away in his room before a show and shaves himself down while suffering a mental break. During a mental breakdown, Barrett shaved his head and face before showing up to a band rehearsal (after already having been removed from the band). However, Bob Geldof, who plays Pink in the film, refused to shave his head for this part of the performance. Another influence was the declining state of pianist, Richard Wright, who was allegedly struggling with cocaine addiction at the time. This is referenced in the song Nobody Home: "Got a grand piano to prop up my mortal remains".  Romero and Cabo place the Nazism and imperialism related symbols in the context of Margaret Thatcher's government and British foreign policy especially concerning the Falklands issue.

Documentary.

A documentary was produced about the making of "Pink Floyd – The Wall" entitled "The Other Side of the Wall" that includes interviews with Parker, Scarfe, and clips of Waters, originally aired on MTV in 1982. A second documentary about the film was produced in 1999 entitled "Retrospective: Looking Back at The Wall" that includes interviews with Waters, Parker, Scarfe, and other members of the film's production team. Both are featured on "The Wall" DVD as extras.

Soundtrack.

The film soundtrack contains most songs from the album, albeit with several changes, as well as additional material (see table below).  The only songs from the album not used in the film are "Hey You" and "The Show Must Go On". "Hey You" was deleted as Waters and Parker felt the footage was too repetitive (eighty percent of the footage appears in montage sequences elsewhere) but is a bonus feature on the DVD release.  A soundtrack album from Columbia Records was listed in the film's end credits, but only a single containing "When the Tigers Broke Free" and the rerecorded "Bring the Boys Back Home" was released. "When the Tigers Broke Free" later became a bonus track on the 1983 album "The Final Cut". Guitarist David Gilmour dismissed the album as a collection of songs that had been rejected for "The Wall" project, but were being recycled. The song, in the edit used for the single, also appears on the 2001 compilation album "".  In addition to the above, Vera Lynn's rendition of "The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot" was used as background music during the opening scenes.

Pink Floyd – The Wall is a 1982 musical film directed by Alan Parker, based on the 1979 Pink Floyd album "The Wall". The screenplay was written by Pink Floyd vocalist and bassist Roger Waters. Bob Geldof plays rock star Pink, who, driven into insanity by the death of his father, constructs a physical and emotional wall to protect himself.

Acanthostega je rod vyhynulých čtyřnožců, kteří patřili mezi první obratlovce s diferenciovanými končetinami. Poprvé se tito živočichové objevili během pozdního devonu asi před 365 miliony let. Z anatomického hlediska tvořili přechod mezi nozdratými rybami a živočichy zcela přizpůsobenými přechodu na souš.


Name.

The name "Ilirska Bistrica" means 'Illyrian Bistrica', it has its origin during the times of the Austrian Empire, when the area was part of the Kingdom of Illyria, an administrative unit between 1816 and 1849. The adjective "Ilirska" ("Illyrisch") was added to the old name Bistrica ("Feistritz") to differentiate it from other towns in the Empire such as Slovenska Bistrica or Banská Bystrica in modern-day Slovakia.  The town's coat of arms represents the history of the region, recalling the pre-Slavic Illyrian people that once populated the area, along with their shipbuilding past. The town's current coat of arms was adopted in the mid-19th century and is only a slight modification of the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Illyria.

Geography.

The town centre is located on the ancient road from Postojna and Pivka to Rijeka on the Adriatic coast. It is situated in the valley of the Reka river, on the steep rim of the densely wooded Snežnik plateau in the northeast. In the southwest, the Brkini Hills form the natural border with the Slovene Littoral (Slovene Istria) historical region.

History.

In the 12th century a fortress was erected at the site of a prehistoric settlement on a hill east of the town centre, when the area was part of the Imperial March of Carniola. The castle later was held by the Counts of Duino, from the 14th century onwards by the princely House of Auersperg in Postojna.  The settlement of Ilirska Bistrica itself was first mentioned about 1300; its advantageous location, the surrounding karst springs and extended forests promoted the economic development of numerous sawmills and a flourishing timber trade from the early 15th century onwards. Located in the Duchy of Carniola the town for centuries was part of the Habsburg Monarchy. In the 19th century, the Ilirska Bistrica wood merchants mainly supplied the Austrian seaports of Trieste and Rijeka. In 1873 a railway line was opened by the Austrian Southern Railway company, running from Pivka and the Southern Railway line via the Ilirska Bistrica railway station to the coastal cities of Opatija and Rijeka.  Within the last 100 years, the town's history has been primarily shaped by the nations that it has belonged to. Ilirska Bistrica became part of the Austrian part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1867, it was annexed by the Kingdom of Italy in 1920, it became part of Yugoslavia after World War II, and today it belongs to independent Slovenia. Remnants of these various states can still be seen in numerous monuments, the railway station, and the Italian barracks from the Second World War. During last days of World War II, the 97th Army Corps under command of German "General der Gebirgstruppe" Ludwig Kübler were defending the defensive area between Rijeka and Mount Snežnik, also known as "Ingridstellung" or defensive line Ingrid. Their task was to halt the Yugoslav advance toward Trieste and Ljubljana, threatening the rear of both Army Groups C and E. The 97th Army Corps became encircled in area around Ilirska Bistrica and Mount Snežnik, when Tito ordered the 4th Army to bypass the 97th Corps and capture Trieste. Only after the Partisans captured Trieste was the 97th Corps ordered to break through toward Iliriska Bistrica, Postojna, and Ljubljana. The breakthrough began on the night of May 2 in a hedgehog formation. During May 5 and 6, the corps managed to capture Iliriska Bistrica, but further advance become impossible and on May 7 at 6:04 am a capitulation was signed. Around 16,000 soldiers, 40 senior officers, and three generals become prisoners of war. Captured equipment included 31 tanks, 841 artillery pieces, 536 mortars, 1,670 machine-guns, 2,468 light machine-guns, and 716 various motor vehicles.  On June 27, 1991, during the Ten-Day War, the Slovenian Territorial Defence blocked the road connecting Rijeka and its 13th Infantry Corps of Yugoslav People's Army with the interior of Slovenia. Later on the same day, the Slovenian Territorial Defence launched an attack on a Yugoslav People's Army column in Koseze near Ilirska Bistrica. After fierce fighting between the Slovenian Territorial Defence and Yugoslav People's Army, the Yugoslav People's Army retreated. The battle resulted in three dead Yugoslav People's Army soldiers and several wounded soldiers on both sides.

Mass graves.

Ilirska Bistrica is the site of two known mass graves from the Second World War. The Stražica Mass Grave (), also known as the Black Fields Mass Grave (), is located north of the town, about north of the summit of Stražica Hill. It contained the remains of German soldiers from the 97th Corps that fell at the beginning of May 1945. The grave has been exhumed. The Cemetery Mass Grave () is located next to the town cemetery. It contains the remains of 82 German soldiers buried in a former firing trench. An asphalt road and parking lot were laid over the grave when the cemetery was expanded.

Church.

The parish church in the town is dedicated to Saint Peter and belongs to the Koper Diocese. A second church in the town is dedicated to Saint George.

Recreation.

The town is used by tourists and trekkers as a starting point for travelling to the top of the Snežnik Plateau, a day-long round trip from Ilirska Bistrica. At, the plateau's highest peak, Big Mount Snežnik (), is the highest non-Alpine peak in Slovenia.

Sports.

Basketball.

Ilirska Bistrica is the hometown of the KK Plama Pur basketball club, which competes in the Slovenian Second Basketball League.

Football.

Ilirska Bistrica is the hometown of the NK Ilirska Bistrica football club, which competes in the Slovenian Third League.

Other sports.

Ilirska Bistrica also has several other clubs and associations, such as the Ilirska Bistrica Handball Club, several karate clubs, and an archery club.

Ilirska Bistrica (; ;, before 1927: "Bisterza") is a town in the Inner Carniola region of southwestern Slovenia. It is the administrative seat of the Municipality of Ilirska Bistrica.

Ilirska Bistrica (německy: "Illyrisch Feistritz"; italsky: "Villa del Nevoso") je sídelní město občiny Ilirska Bistrica v Přímořsko-vnitrokraňském regionu ve Vnitřním Kraňsku ve Slovinsku. V roce 2012 žilo v Ilirské Bistrici 4 539 obyvatel na ploše 34,8 km2.


Biography.

Waleed Al-Husseini, born June 25, 1989, is from the West Bank city of Qalqilyah. As a university student, he studied computer science but remained unemployed and instead helped out a few hours a day at his father's one-chair barber shop. Acquaintances described him as an "ordinary guy" who regularly prayed at the mosque on Fridays.  The Qalqilyah resident also spent much of his time on the Internet. After his mother discovered articles on atheism on his computer, she canceled his Internet connection, hoping he would reject such views. Instead, Husayen began frequenting a local Internet café where he spent up to seven hours a day in a corner booth.

Blogging and Facebook activities.

Allegedly writing under the pseudonym "Waleed Al-Husseini" in Facebook and on his personal blog, Al-Husseini, according to "The New York Times", "angered the Muslim cyberworld by promoting atheism, composing spoofs of Koranic verses, skewering the lifestyle of the Prophet Muhammad and chatting online using the sarcastic Web name God Almighty."  In an essay entitled "Why I Left Islam" on his blog Noor al-Aqel ("Enlightenment of Reason"), Waleed Al-Husseini wrote that Muslims "believe anyone who leaves Islam is an agent or a spy for a Western State, namely the Jewish State... They actually don't get that people are free to think and believe in whatever suits them." Husayin emphasized that he was not implying that Christianity or Judaism were better than Islam, and that in his opinion, all religions were "a bunch of mind-blowing legends and a pile of nonsense that compete with each other in terms of stupidity". Husayin rejected claims that Islam was a religion of tolerance, equality, and social justice. He also criticized Islam's treatment of women, its suppression of human creativity, and the allegations that the Koran contained scientific miracles. The Facebook groups he allegedly created elicited hundreds of angry comments, death threats and the formation of more than a dozen Facebook groups against him. At its peak, Husayin's Arabic-language blog had more than 70,000 visitors. He also posted English language translations of his essays in the blog "Proud Atheist."

Arrest and imprisonment.

Waleed Al-Husseini spent several months at the Qalqilyah Internet café. The café's owner, Ahmed Abu Asab, found his activities suspicious: "Sometimes he was in here until after midnight for over eight hours a day, always sitting in the corner. He was very secretive. He never wanted you to see his screen." Using software to check on what his client was doing, Abu Asab discovered Husayin's sacrilegious Facebook writings. Abu Asab said he and three friends knew of Husayin's actions and that "maybe somebody" informed the authorities.  After Palestinian Authority (PA) intelligence was tipped off, intelligence officials monitored him for several weeks. On October 31, 2010, Waleed Al-Husseini was arrested as he sat in the café. In November 2010, the Ma'an News Agency filed the first report on the arrest of the "controversial blogger whose postings on Facebook had infuriated Muslims."  The PA did not give any explanation as to why Waleed Al-Husseini has been arrested. According to a Palestinian human rights expert, if Husayen would be tried, it would be according to a 1960 Jordanian law against defaming religion which is still in force in the West Bank. Tayseer Tamimi, the former chief Islamic judge in the area, said that Husayin is the first person to be arrested in the West Bank for their religious views.

Reactions to imprisonment.

Waleed Al-Husseini's family disowned his actions. His father, Khaled, said this his son was in treatment and had been "bewitched" by a Tunisian woman he had met via Facebook. According to Husayen's cousins, his mother wants him to be sentenced to life in prison, both to restore the family's honor and to protect her son from vigilantes.  In conservative Qalqilyah, there appears to be universal criticism of his actions and at least one call for his death. One 35-year-old resident said "he should be burned to death" in public "to be an example to others." A lawyer with Al Haq, a Ramallah-based human rights organization said, " I respect Mr Waleed Al-Husseini's right to have these beliefs but he also has to respect the law, there are limits to freedom of speech." He said that Waleed Al-Husseini probably faces a sentence of between three months and three years for the offence.  Internationally, Al-Husseini's cause won support abroad with a Facebook group and several online petitions forming in solidarity. The Jordan-based Arabic-speaking Irreligious Coalition was one organization to circulate a petition calling for his release. Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called for Husayen's release. Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at HRW, stated, "The Palestinian judiciary should demonstrate its integrity by protecting the right to free expression and ordering Hasayen's release and his safety." The French foreign ministry has expressed concern over his arrest, stating, "France is concerned by the risks of damage to fundamental freedoms and in particular the freedom of expression, contained in the 'crime of blasphemy.'"  In the "Wall Street Journal", columnist Bret Stephens wrote that "if Palestinians cannot abide a single free-thinker in their midst, they cannot be free in any meaningful sense of the word. And if the U.S. can't speak up on his behalf, then neither, in the long run, can we." In regards to the case, a "Los Angeles Times" editorial questioned, "Will the new [Palestinian] country move toward fundamentalist values and Islamic law, as many followers of Hamas would like, or will it opt to be a more open, democratic society?"  Diaa Hadid of the Associated Press notes that the "Western-backed Palestinian Authority is among the more religiously liberal Arab governments in the region. It is dominated by secular elites and has frequently cracked down on hardline Muslims and activists connected to its conservative Islamic rival, Hamas." Hadid suggests that the anger toward Walid "reflects the feeling in the Muslim world that their faith is under mounting attack in the West". According to the Palestinian Ma'an news agency, while secular political beliefs are "not uncommon" in Palestinian society, "the expression of views seen as hostile to the dominant religions is viewed by many as incitement rather than free speech."

December 2010 apology.

In early December 2010, Waleed Al-Husseini posted a letter to his family on his blog in which he apologized for offending Muslims and sought forgiveness for what he called his "stupidity". A friend, who spoke anonymously because of the sensitivity of the issue, said Husayen posted the letter in hopes of winning release from prison. Al-Husseini states in his 2015 autobiography "Blasphémateur" he did not write it, but discovered it on leaving custody and reaccessing the Internet to find out what people had been writing about him during his imprisonment. "I came across my blog, also, and I was sickened to see that the only left on it was a statement by the Palestinian Authority, in my name, excusing myself and as asking for forgiveness for having blasphemed Islam. Five years of work and over two million visitors had vanished".  In December 2010, a Palestinian security source said Waleed Al-Husseini would continue to be kept in jail for his own protection: "It is impossible to release him because we are afraid he will be killed by his family." Human Rights Watch has urged the PA to release or charge him, citing that holding him without charge for more than 72 hours violates Palestinian law.  After ten months of imprisonment, Husayn was released on bail, but was sometimes arrested and held by PA security agents for days at a time. During one of those times, he was tortured. PA security officials also smashed his two computers and demanded he stop posting his views on the Internet.

Escape to France.

According to Al-Husseini, for months after he was released, he was harassed by PA security forces and sometimes detained without charge, and received numerous death threats. Fearing for his life, he took an emotional leave from his siblings and aunt and from his parents who he says did not understand his atheism but still supported him as their son. Having discovered that France had exerted some diplomatic pressure on his behalf, which he believes may have led to him being released from prison pending trial, he decided to seek asylum there. He left the West Bank for Jordan, obtained a visa from the French embassy there, and moved to Paris, where he applied for asylum. In his autobiography, Al-Husseini states he later found he was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison in his absence.

Life in asylum.

Creating the Council of Ex-Muslims of France.

On 6 July 2013, Waleed Al-Husseini and around 30 other former Muslims founded the Council of Ex-Muslims of France (CEMF). The Council presents itself as "composed of atheists, free thinkers, humanists and ex -Muslims who take a stand to promote reason, universal rights and secularism." He opposes "any discrimination and all abuse" that would justify "respect for religion" requires "freedom to criticize religions" and "the prohibition of customs, rules, ceremonies or religious activities that are incompatible with or violate the rights and freedoms of the people." It also boasts "the prohibition of any cultural or religious practice that hinders or opposes the autonomy of women, their will and equality." The CEMF condemns "any interference by any authority, family or parental or official authorities in the private lives of women and men in their emotional and sexual relationships, and sexuality". A Facebook page was devoted to the activity of CEMF. In this regard, Waleed Al-Husseini was interviewed by journalist Caroline Fourest at France Inter on the radio programme "Ils changent le monde" ("They change the world").

Advocating secularism.

In early 2015, while preparing the release of his autobiography in the midst of a series of Islamist terrorist attacks in Paris, Al-Husseini made several appearances on French talk shows and news programs, and wrote an opinion piece on the need to reform Islam which was published on the website of daily newspaper "Le Monde". He was also the subject of a four-page piece in French news magazine "Marianne". In January, he published his autobiography, "Blasphémateur! : les prisons d'Allah" (which was translated in English in 2017 as "") writing about how he came to reject Islam through his studies of Islamic literature and history, and recounting his blogging, his arrest (alleging that he was tortured in prison) and subsequent flight to France. In his media appearances and book he makes calls in favor of the French principles of secularism and states his belief that there must be more debate on what he considers to be the violent content of parts of the Islamic texts, especially in the wake of the massacres at Charlie Hebdo magazine and the Jewish Hyper Casher supermarket in Paris in early 2015.  In 2016, Al-Husseini was in Denmark taking part in a debate about ”Islam and Atheism” where he and other ex-Muslims debated the consequences of apostasy from Islam, and during the debate-conference it was necessary to have some heavily armed police guarding due to threats from religious Muslims. In this context, Al-Husseini stated that when he arrived in France he expected to live a normal life without problem as an atheist being in a European country, but it has not been the case since he and other ex-Muslims have been persecuted by other Muslims even in Europe.  As a refugee in France, Al-Husseini spoke publicly in favor of secularism, "laïcité", freedom of conscience and speech, especially the right to criticize religion. He has become increasingly critical of the political and intellectual milieu in his host country; in 2017, he published his second book, "Une trahison française : Les collaborationnistes de l'islam radical devoilés" ("A French Treason: The Collaborators of Radical Islam Unveiled") where he argued that "many politicians" and "intellectuals" in France had "betrayed" the ideals of the secular French Republic over the last decades, accusing them of being "collaborators" who have played in favor of "radical Islam" out of desire to get Muslims' votes and/or adherence to "Third-Worldism".

Controversies.

In the late 2010s, Al-Husseini was accused in the French press of spreading misinformation or fake news through social media, notably on the topic of Islam. One such instance involved a Twitter post illustrated by a picture of women wearing veils and large, loose-fit Islamic dresses ("jilbāb") which Al-Husseini alleged was taken in the streets of Roubaix in northern France, while it was in fact taken in Tunisia.

Waleed Al-Husseini or Walid Husayin () is a Palestinian atheist, secularist essayist, writer, blogger, self-professed ex-Muslim and founder of the Council of Ex-Muslims of France. Born and raised in Qalqilya in the West Bank, he has been living in France since 2012.

Waleed Al-Husseini je palestinský esejista, spisovatel a blogger. V říjnu 2010 ho palestinská samospráva zatkla za údajné rouhání se proti islámu na Facebooku a blogových příspěvcích; jeho zatčení získalo mezinárodní pozornost. Později utekl do Francie, kde úspěšně požádal o azyl.


Life.

Brueghel was born and died in the 17th century in Antwerp. He was trained by his father and spent his career producing works in a similar style. Along with his brother Ambrosius, he produced landscapes, allegorical scenes and other works of meticulous detail. Brueghel also copied works by his father and sold them with his father's signature. His work is distinguishable from that of his parent by being less well executed and lighter.  Jan the Younger was traveling in Italy when his father died of cholera, and swiftly returned to take control of the Antwerp studio. After the death of his father he changed his signature from 'Brueghel' to 'Breughel'. The next year in 1626 he married Anna-Maria Janssens, daughter of Abraham Janssens. He soon established himself and was made dean of the Guild of Saint Luke in 1630. That same year he was commissioned by the French court to paint "Adam Cycle". In the following years, he also produced paintings for the Austrian court, and worked independently in Paris, before returning to Antwerp in 1657. He collaborated with a number of prominent artists including Rubens, Hendrick van Balen (1575–1632), Adriaen Stalbemt (1580–1682), Lucas Van Uden (1596–1672), his brother-in-law David Teniers the Younger (1610-1690) and his father-in-law Abraham Janssens.

Legacy.

Jan the Younger's best works are his extensive landscapes, either under his own name or made for other artists such as Hendrick van Balen as backgrounds. His pupils were his older sons Abraham, Philips and Jan Peeter, his nephew Jan van Kessel, and his younger brother Ambrosius. Jan the Younger has fifteen paintings in National public collections in the United Kingdom.  In an episode of BBC's "Britain's Lost Masterpieces" broadcast in November 2019, a very badly damaged picture of a village scene, whose panel has spilt into two pieces, was located at Birmingham Art Gallery. Following a complete restoration by Simon Gillespie, the landscape was attributed to Joos de Momper and the figures were attributed to Jan the Younger.

Jan Brueghel (also Bruegel or Breughel) the Younger (, ; ; 13 September 1601 – 1 September 1678) was a Flemish Baroque painter, and the son of Jan Brueghel the Elder.

Jan Brueghel mladší (13. září 1601 - 1. září 1678) byl vlámský barokní malíř, syn Jana Brueghela staršího a bratr Ambrosia Brueghela.