Family background and youth.

Hans Tuppy's parents were from the present day Czech Republic, his mother Emma from Prague and his father Karl from Brünn. Karl Tuppy (Jan. 1, 1880 - Nov. 15, 1939) was chief prosecutor in the trial against those members of the illegal Austrian Nazi party who had murdered chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss during the abortive 1934 July Putsch. After Austria's "Anschluss" Karl Tuppy was detained and eventually moved to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he was so savagely beaten upon his arrival that he died the following night. While Hans Tuppy's older brother Peter was killed in action as a Wehrmacht soldier in 1944, Hans (who completed secondary school in 1942) was ordered into the Reichsarbeitsdienst but was soon released from duty after suffering a severe injury.

Career.

Tuppy's early release from RAD service enabled him to commence studies at the University of Vienna even before World War II had ended in Austria, and to complete the requirements for his diploma in 1945. His doctoral work was initiated in the laboratory of Professor Ernst Späth. Following Späth's death in 1946, Tuppy worked under the supervision of Friedrich Galinovsky and obtained his Ph.D. degree in 1948.  Shortly thereafter Professor Frederick Wessely, Director of the Chemistry Institute recommended Tuppy to Max Perutz for postdoctoral work at Cambridge University. Perutz, in turn, recommended Tuppy to Frederick Sanger. Thus Tuppy joined Sanger's laboratory at Cambridge where he worked on the amino acid sequence of bovine insulin, sequencing its beta chain. (Sanger was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1958 for sequencing insulin.)  Tuppy's next career step was the Carlsberg Laboratory in Copenhagen, from where he returned to the University of Vienna in 1951 to become an assistant at the Institute for Chemistry II. In 1956 he completed the "Habilitation", the highest academic qualification in the Austrian academic system which qualifies the recipient to supervise doctoral students and, ultimately, to hold senior faculty positions. In 1963, Tuppy became Professor of Biochemistry in the Institute of Biochemistry at the University of Vienna. In 1973, he received the of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.  During his distinguished career Professor Tuppy has been President of the Austrian Science Fund (1974-1982), Rector of the University of Vienna (1983-1985), President of the Austria Academy of Sciences (1985-1987) and the Austrian Government Minister for Science and Research (1987-1989) during the chancellorship of Franz Vranitzky. He is Chair of the University board of the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences Vienna (2003–present).

Hans Tuppy (born July 22, 1924) is a biochemist who participated in the sequencing of insulin, and became Austria's first university professor for biochemistry. He was Austrian Minister for Science and Research from 1987−1989.

Hans Tuppy (* 22. Juli 1924 in Wien) ist ein österreichischer Biochemiker. In der Bundesregierung Vranitzky II war er für die ÖVP Bundesminister für Wissenschaft und Forschung.


Biblical accounts.

The Bible describes him as a righteous king, a king who "walked in all the way of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left" (; ). He is also one of the kings mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew's gospel, one of the two divergent genealogies of Jesus in the New Testament (cf. –).

Family.

According to the biblical narrative, Josiah was the son of King Amon and Jedidah, the daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath. His grandfather Manasseh was one of the kings blamed for turning away from the worship of Yahweh. Manasseh adapted the Temple for idolatrous worship. Josiah's great-grandfather was King Hezekiah, a noted reformer also respected by the biblical writers as having "done what was right in the sight of the LORD, as David had done.  Josiah had four sons: Johanan, and Eliakim (born c. 634 BCE), whose mother was Zebidah the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah; and Mattanyahu (c. 618 BCE) and Shallum (633/632 BCE), whose mother was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. Eliakim had his name changed by Pharaoh Necho of Egypt to Jehoiakim.  His youngest son Shallum succeeded Josiah as king of Judah, under the name Jehoahaz. Shallum was succeeded by Eliakim, under the name Jehoiakim, who was succeeded by his own son Jeconiah; then, Jeconiah was succeeded to the throne by his uncle Mattanyahu, under the name Zedekiah. Zedekiah was the last king of Judah before the kingdom was conquered by Babylon and the people exiled.

Religious reform.

The Second Book of Chronicles records that Josiah was eight years old when he became king. In his eighth year he "began to seek the God of his father David" and in his twelfth year he began a programme of destruction of Baalist altars and images throughout Jerusalem and Judah. The Chronicler records in detail the execution of this programme, whereas the account in the 2 Kings begins with the restoration of the temple in Jerusalem, which both accounts say was initiated in the eighteenth year of his reign. Josiah ordered the High Priest Hilkiah to use the tax money which had been collected over the years to renovate the temple. It was during this time that Hilkiah discovered the Book of the Law. While Hilkiah was clearing the treasure room of the Temple he discovered a scroll described in 2 Kings as "the book of the Law", and in 2 Chronicles as "the book of the Law of the LORD given by Moses". The phrase "the book of the Torah" (ספר התורה, "sefer ha-torah") in is identical to the phrase used in and to describe the sacred writings that Joshua had received from Moses. The book is not identified in the text as the Torah and many scholars believe this was either a copy of the Book of Deuteronomy or a text that became a part of Deuteronomy.  However it has been noted that the story of the repairs to the Temple is based on those ordered by an earlier Judean king, Joash (who ruled c. 836 – 796 BCE) in.  Hilkiah brought this scroll to Josiah's attention. Josiah consulted the prophetess Huldah, who assured him that the evil foretold in the document for non-observance of its instructions, would come, but not in his day; "because", she said, "thine heart was tender and thou didst humble thyself before the Lord". An assembly of the elders of Judah and Jerusalem and of all the people was called, and Josiah then encouraged the exclusive worship of Yahweh, forbidding all other forms of worship. The instruments and emblems of the worship of Baal and "the host of heaven" were removed from the Jerusalem Temple. Local sanctuaries, or High Places, were destroyed, from Beer-sheba in the south to Beth-el and the cities of Samaria in the north. Josiah had pagan priests executed and even had the bones of the dead priests of Bethel exhumed from their graves and burned on their altars. Josiah also reinstituted the Passover celebrations. According to an unnamed "man of God" (sometimes identified as Iddo) had prophesied to King Jeroboam of the northern Kingdom of Israel (Samaria), approximately three hundred years earlier, that "a son named Josiah will be born to the house of David" and that he would destroy the altar at Bethel. And the only exception to this destruction was for the grave of an unnamed prophet he found in Bethel (), who had foretold that these religious sites Jeroboam erected would one day be destroyed (see ). Josiah ordered the double grave of the "man of God" and of the Bethel prophet to be left alone as these prophecies had come true.  Josiah's reforms are described in two biblical accounts, 2 Kings 22–23, and 2 Chronicles 34–35. They began with the ending of ancient Israelite religious practices, and the astral cults that had become popular in the 8th century, and led to centralisation of worship in Jerusalem, and the destruction of the temple at Bethel.  According to the later account in 2 Chronicles, Josiah destroyed altars and images of pagan deities in cities of the tribes of Manasseh, Ephraim, "and Simeon, as far as Naphtali" (), which were outside of his kingdom, Judah, and returned the Ark of the Covenant to the Temple.

Book of the Law.

The Hebrew Bible states that the priest Hilkiah found a "Book of the Law" in the temple during the early stages of Josiah's temple renovation. Hilkiah then gave the scroll to his secretary Shaphan, who took it to King Josiah. According to the Bible, King Josiah then changed his form of leadership entirely, entering into a new form of covenant with the Lord. He wiped out all of the pagan cults that had formed within his land. He, along with his people, then entered into this new covenant with the Lord to keep the commandments of the Lord.  For much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it was agreed among biblical scholars that this "Book of the Law" was an early version of the Book of Deuteronomy, but recent biblical scholarship sees it as a largely legendary narrative about one of the earliest stages of the creation of Deuteronomistic work. That is, historical-critical biblical scholars generally believe that the "Book of the Law"—an early predecessor of the Torah—was invented by Josiah's priests, who were driven by ideological interests to centralize power under Josiah in the Temple in Jerusalem. Many scholars see the whole core narrative, from Joshua to 2 Kings, as comprising a Deuteronomistic History (DtrH) written during Josiah's reign. In fact, some recent European theologians even go so far as to posit that most of the Torah and Deuteronomistic History was composed and finalized several centuries later, during the Persian period. However, most biblical scholars are coming to believe that the Deuteronomistic History was composed using other earlier sources, including a brief chronicle of king's names, age at the beginning of their reign, and their mother's names.

Prophets and King Josiah.

According to Rabbinic interpretation, Huldah said to the messengers of King Josiah, "Tell the man that sent you to me..." (), indicating by her unceremonious language that for her Josiah was like any other man. The king addressed her, and not Jeremiah, because he thought that women are more easily stirred to pity than men, and that therefore the prophetess would be more likely than Jeremiah to intercede with God in his behalf. Huldah was a relative of Jeremiah, both being descendants of Rahab by her marriage with Joshua. While Jeremiah admonished and preached repentance to the men, she did the same to the women. Huldah was not only a prophetess, but taught publicly in the school, according to some teaching especially the oral doctrine. It is doubtful whether "the Gate of Huldah" in the Second Temple (Middot 1:3) has any connection with the prophetess Huldah; it may have meant "Cat's Gate"; some scholars, however, associate the gate with Huldah's schoolhouse (Rashi to Kings l.c.).E. C. L. G.  The prophetic activity of Jeremiah began in the reign of Josiah; he was a contemporary of his relative the prophetess Hulda and of his teacher Zephaniah. These three prophets divided their activity in such wise that Hulda spoke to the women and Jeremiah to the men in the street, while Zephaniah preached in the synagogue. When Josiah restored the true worship, Jeremiah went to the exiled ten tribes, whom he brought to Israel under the rule of the pious king. Although Josiah went to war with Egypt against the prophet's advice, yet the latter knew that the pious king did so only in error; and in his dirges he bitterly laments the king's death, the fourth chapter of the Lamentations beginning with a dirge on Josiah.  Josiah also had the Ark of the Covenant, Aaron's rod, vial of manna and the anointing oil placed within a hidden chamber which had been built by King Solomon

Foreign relations.

When Josiah became king of Judah in about 641/640 BCE, the international situation was in flux. The Assyrian Empire was beginning to disintegrate, the Neo-Babylonian Empire had not yet risen to replace it, and Egypt to the west was still recovering from Assyrian rule. In this power vacuum, Jerusalem was able to govern itself for the time being without foreign intervention.  In the spring of 609 BCE, Pharaoh Necho II led a sizable army up to the Euphrates River to aid the Assyrians against the Babylonians. Taking the coast route Via Maris into Syria at the head of a large army, consisting mainly of mercenaries, and supported by his Mediterranean fleet along the shore, Necho passed the low tracts of Philistia and Sharon. However, the passage over the ridge of hills which shuts in on the south of the great Jezreel Valley was blocked by the Judean army led by Josiah, who may have considered that the Assyrians and Egyptians were weakened by the death of the pharaoh Psamtik I only a year earlier (610 BCE), who had been appointed and confirmed by Assyrian kings Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal. Josiah attempted to block the advance at Megiddo, where a fierce battle was fought and Josiah was killed. Necho then joined forces with the Assyrian Ashur-uballit II and together they crossed the Euphrates and lay siege to Harran. The combined forces failed to capture the city, and Necho retreated to northern Syria.

Death.

There are two accounts of Josiah's death in the Bible. The Second Book of Kings merely states that Necho II met Josiah in battle at Megiddo and killed him (), whereas the second book of Chronicles () gives a lengthier account and states that Josiah was fatally wounded by Egyptian archers and was brought back to Jerusalem to die. His death in the latter account was attributed to him "not listening to what Necho had said at God's command..." when Necho stated: "What have I to do with you, king of Judah? I am not coming against you today, but against the house with which I am at war; and God has commanded me to hurry. Cease opposing God, who is with me, so that he will not destroy you." According to, Jeremiah wrote a lament for Josiah's death.  The account in Chronicles is considered unreliable by some scholars, as it is based on the description of the death of a different king, Ahab, in 1 Kings, and it meets the Chronicler's religious agenda to attribute the death of a righteous king to some form of sin.  According to Louis Ginzberg's "Legends of the Jews" (1909), remarks on Josiah's piety and the death of his father Amon:"For repentance he was given no time, for death cut him off in the fullness of his sinful ways.... That the full measure of punishment was not meted out to Amon-his evil deeds were such that he should have forfeited his share in the World to come-was due to the circumstance of his having a pious and righteous son"; also that Josiah's death was brought about because despite his sincere religious reform, he had in fact been deceived; thus he refused to heed the Prophet Jeremiah, thinking that no sword would pass through the Land of Israel. He was struck by 300 darts; he made no complaint except to acknowledge "The Lord is righteous, for I rebelled against His commandment.

Succession.

After the setback in Harran, Necho left a sizeable force behind, and returned to Egypt. On his return march, Necho found that Jehoahaz had been selected to succeed his father, Josiah. () Necho deposed Jehoahaz, who had been king for only three months, and replaced him with his older brother, Jehoiakim. Necho imposed on Judah a levy of a hundred talents of silver (about 3 tons or about 3.4 metric tons) and a talent of gold (about 75 pounds or about 34 kilograms). Necho then took Jehoahaz back to Egypt as his prisoner. The defeat of Josiah at Megiddo essentially represents the end of the rule of the Davidic line, since not only were Josiah's successors short-lived, but also Judah's relative independence had crumbled in the face of a resurgent Egypt bent on regaining its traditional control of the region, and the imminent rise of the Babylonian empire which also sought control.  Necho had left Egypt in 609 BCE to relieve the Assyrian Harran under Babylonian siege. Josiah's actions may have provided aid to the Babylonians by engaging the Egyptian army.

Sources.

The only textual sources of information for Josiah's reign are from the Bible, notably and. No archaeological evidence for Josiah as a person exists. However, a signet ring has been found in the City of David in Jerusalem featuring the name of one of King Josiah's officials, Nathan-Melech, mentioned in. The inscription of the ring says, "(belonging) to Nathan-Melech, Servant of the King". Though it may not directly mention King Josiah by name, it does appear to be from the same time period in which he would have lived. Seals and seal impressions from the period show a transition from those of an earlier period which bear images of stars and the moon, to seals that carry only names, a possible indication of Josiah's enforcement of monotheism. No other archaeological evidence of Josiah's religious reforms has been discovered.  The date of Josiah's death can be established fairly accurately. The Babylonian Chronicle dates the battle at Harran between the Assyrians and their Egyptian allies against the Babylonians from Tammuz (July–August) to Elul (August–September) 609 BCE. On that basis, Josiah was killed in the month of Tammuz (July–August) 609 BCE, when the Egyptians were on their way to Harran.

Josiah ( or ) or Yoshiyahu was the sixteenth king of Judah (c. 640–609 BCE) who, according to the Hebrew Bible, instituted major religious reforms. Josiah is credited by most biblical scholars with having established or compiled important Hebrew Scriptures during the "Deuteronomic reform" which probably occurred during his rule. Josiah became king of Judah at the age of eight, after the assassination of his father, King Amon, and reigned for thirty-one years, from 641/640 to 610/609 BCE. Josiah is known only from biblical texts; no reference to him exists in other surviving texts of the period from Egypt or Babylon, and no clear archaeological evidence, such as inscriptions bearing his name, has ever been found. Nevertheless, most scholars believe that he existed historically and that the absence of documents is due to few documents of any sort surviving from this very early period, and to Jerusalem having been occupied, conquered, and rebuilt over thousands of years.

Joschija oder Josia (auch "Josias"; ; griechisch Ἰωσίας "Iōsías"; * um 647; † 609 v. Chr.) war von 640 bis 609 v. Chr. König des Reiches Juda (Südreich) aus der Dynastie der Davididen in der Königszeit Israels. Nach der Ermordung seines Vaters Amon wurde er im Alter von nur acht Jahren König. Seine Söhne Joahas, Jojakim und Zedekia (Mattanja) folgten später ebenfalls auf den Königsthron.


Design and development.

The Fl 282 "Kolibri" was an improved version of the Flettner Fl 265 announced in July 1940, which pioneered the same intermeshing rotor configuration that the "Kolibri" used. It had a 7.7 litre displacement, seven-cylinder Siemens-Halske Sh 14 radial engine of 150-160 hp mounted in the center of the fuselage, with a transmission mounted on the front of the engine from which a drive shaft ran to an upper gearbox, which then split the power to a pair of opposite-rotation drive shafts to turn the rotors.  The Sh 14 engine was a venerable, tried-and-true design with low specific power output and low power/weight ratio (20.28hp/L, 0.54hp/lb, which could (anecdotally) run for up to 400 hours without major servicing, as opposed to the more powerful 27 litre displacement, nine-cylinder BMW/Bramo "Fafnir" 750 hp radial engine powering the larger Focke Achgelis Fa 223 helicopter, whose higher output (27.78hp/L, 0.62hp/lb), more modern design required moderate maintenance as often as every 25 hours (such as changing spark plugs, etc, well within the norm for modern radial engines of that era). While such a heavy and low-powered engine would work well in a very small craft like the Fi 282, to try and scale it up and use an engine of equivalent power/weight ratio in the 700-1000hp class would result in a massive and heavy engine leaving little excess capacity for cargo or passengers. 750hp was the lowest rating that the Fafnir was available in - indeed, it was a low-power, low maintenance design compared with many other engines of this era. The Fl 282's fuselage was constructed from steel tube covered with doped fabric, and it was fitted with a fixed tricycle undercarriage.  The German Navy was impressed with the "Kolibri" and wanted to evaluate it for submarine spotting duties, ordering an initial 15 examples, to be followed by 30 production models. Flight testing of the first two prototypes was carried out through 1941, including repeated takeoffs and landings from a pad mounted on the German cruiser "Köln".  The first two "A" series prototypes had enclosed cockpits; all subsequent examples had open cockpits and were designated "B" series.  In case of an engine failure, the switch from helicopter to autorotation was automatic.  Three-bladed rotors were installed on a test bed and found smoother than the vibrating 2-blade rotor, but the concept was not pursued further. The hover efficiency ("Figure of Merit") was 0.72 whereas for modern helicopters it is around 60%.  Intermeshing rotors were not used on a mass production helicopter until after World War Two.

Operational history.

Intended roles of Fl 282 included ferrying items between ships and reconnaissance. However, as the war progressed, the Luftwaffe began considering converting the Fl 282 for battlefield use. Until this time the craft had been flown by a single pilot, but by then a position for an observer was added at the very rear of the craft, resulting in the B-2 version. Later the B-2 proved a useful artillery spotting aircraft and an observation unit was established in 1945 comprising three Fl 282 and three Fa 223 helicopters.  Good handling in bad weather led the German Air Ministry to issue a contract in 1944 to BMW to produce 1,000 units. However, the company's Munich plant was destroyed by Allied bombing raids after producing just 24 machines.  Towards the end of World War II most of the surviving Fl 282s were stationed at Rangsdorf, in their role as artillery spotters, but gradually fell victim to Soviet fighters and anti-aircraft fire.

The Flettner Fl 282 "Kolibri" ("Hummingbird") is a single-seat intermeshing rotor helicopter, or "synchropter", produced by Anton Flettner of Germany. According to Yves Le Bec, the Flettner Fl 282 was the world's first series production helicopter.

Die Flettner Fl 282 "Kolibri" war ein kleiner deutscher Militärhubschrauber aus der Zeit des Zweiten Weltkriegs, der als Aufklärer und Borderkunder eingesetzt wurde. Er war der erste in Serie gebaute Hubschrauber und einer der ersten Hubschrauber, mit dem nennenswerte Flugleistungen erbracht werden konnten.


History.

Greco-Roman antecedents.

While the seven deadly sins as we know them did not originate with the Greeks or Romans, there were ancient precedents for them. Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics" lists several positive, healthy human qualities, excellences, or virtues. Aristotle argues that for each positive quality two negative vices are found on each extreme of the virtue. Courage, for example, is human excellence or virtue in facing fear and risk. Excessive courage makes one rash, while a deficiency of courage makes one cowardly. This principle of virtue found in the middle or "mean" between excess and deficiency is Aristotle's notion of the golden mean. Aristotle lists virtues like courage, temperance or self-control, generosity, "greatness of soul," proper response to anger, friendliness, and wit or charm.  Roman writers like Horace extolled the value of virtue while listing and warning against vices. His first epistles say that "to flee vice is the beginning of virtue, and to have got rid of folly is the beginning of wisdom."

Origin of the currently recognized seven deadly sins.

The modern concept of the seven deadly sins is linked to the works of the fourth-century monk Evagrius Ponticus, who listed eight "evil thoughts" in Greek as follows:  They were translated into the Latin of Western Christianity (largely due to the writings of John Cassian), thus becoming part of the Western tradition's spiritual pietas (or Catholic devotions), as follows:  These "evil thoughts" can be categorized into three types:  In AD 590 Pope Gregory I revised this list to form the more common list. Gregory combined "tristitia" with "acedia", and "vanagloria" with "superbia", and added "envy," in Latin, "invidia". Gregory's list became the standard list of sins. Thomas Aquinas uses and defends Gregory's list in his "Summa Theologica" although he calls them the "capital sins" because they are the head and form of all the others. The Anglican Communion, Lutheran Church, and Methodist Church, among other Christian denominations, continue to retain this list. Moreover, modern day evangelists, such as Billy Graham have explicated the seven deadly sins.

Historical and modern definitions, views, and associations.

Most of the capital sins, with the sole exception of sloth, are defined by Dante Alighieri as perverse or corrupt versions of love for something or another: lust, gluttony, and greed are all excessive or disordered love of good things; sloth is a deficiency of love; wrath, envy, and pride are perverted love directed toward other's harm. In the seven capital sins are seven ways of eternal death. The capital sins from lust to envy are generally associated with pride, which has been labeled as the father of all sins.

Lust.

Lust, or lechery (Latin: "luxuria" (carnal)), is intense longing. It is usually thought of as intense or unbridled sexual desire, which leads to fornication, adultery, rape, bestiality, and other sinful sexual acts. However, lust could also mean simply desire in general; thus, lust for money, power, and other things are sinful. In accordance with the words of Henry Edward Manning, the impurity of lust transforms one into "a slave of the devil".  Dante defined lust as the disordered love for individuals. It is generally thought to be the least serious capital sin as it is an abuse of a faculty that humans share with animals, and sins of the flesh are less grievous than spiritual sins.  In Dante's "Purgatorio", the penitent walks within flames to purge himself of lustful thoughts and feelings. In Dante's "Inferno", unforgiven souls of the sin of lust are blown about in restless hurricane-like winds symbolic of their own lack of self-control to their lustful passions in earthly life, for all eternity and unto the ages of ages.

Gluttony.

Gluttony (Latin: ) is the overindulgence and overconsumption of anything to the point of waste. The word derives from the Latin "gluttire", meaning to gulp down or swallow.  In Christianity, it is considered a sin if the excessive desire for food causes it to be withheld from the needy.  Because of these scripts, gluttony can be interpreted as selfishness; essentially placing concern with one's own impulses or interests above the well-being or interests of others.  During times of famine, war, and similar periods when food is scarce, it is possible for one to indirectly kill other people through starvation just by eating too much or even too soon.  Medieval church leaders (e.g., Thomas Aquinas) took a more expansive view of gluttony, arguing that it could also include an obsessive anticipation of meals, and the constant eating of delicacies and excessively costly foods. Aquinas went so far as to prepare a list of five ways to commit gluttony, comprising:  Of these, "ardenter" is often considered the most serious, since it is extreme attachment to the pleasure of mere eating, which can make the committer eat impulsively; absolutely and without qualification live merely to eat and drink; lose attachment to health-related, social, intellectual, and spiritual pleasures; and lose proper judgement: an example is Esau selling his birthright for ordinary food of bread and pottage of lentils. His punishment was that of the "profane person... who, for a morsel of meat sold his birthright". It is later revealed that "he found no place for repentance, though he sought it carefully, with tears".

Greed.

Greed (Latin: ), also known as "avarice", "cupidity", or "covetousness", is, like lust and gluttony, a sin of desire. However, greed (as seen by the Church) is applied to an artificial, rapacious desire and pursuit of material possessions. Thomas Aquinas wrote, "Greed is a sin against God, just as all mortal sins, in as much as man condemns things eternal for the sake of temporal things." In Dante's Purgatory, the penitents are bound and laid face down on the ground for having concentrated excessively on earthly thoughts. Hoarding of materials or objects, theft and robbery, especially by means of violence, trickery, or manipulation of authority are all actions that may be inspired by greed. Such misdeeds can include simony, where one attempts to purchase or sell sacraments, including Holy Orders and, therefore, positions of authority in the Church hierarchy.  In the words of Henry Edward, avarice "plunges a man deep into the mire of this world, so that he makes it to be his god".  As defined outside Christian writings, greed is an inordinate desire to acquire or possess more than one needs, especially with respect to material wealth. Like pride, it can lead to not just some, but all evil.

Sloth.

Sloth (Latin: "tristitia" or "" ("without care")) refers to a peculiar jumble of notions, dating from antiquity and including mental, spiritual, pathological, and physical states. It may be defined as absence of interest or habitual disinclination to exertion.  In his "Summa Theologica", Saint Thomas Aquinas defined sloth as "sorrow about spiritual good".  The scope of sloth is wide. Spiritually, "acedia" first referred to an affliction attending religious persons, especially monks, wherein they became indifferent to their duties and obligations to God. Mentally, "acedia" has a number of distinctive components of which the most important is affectlessness, a lack of any feeling about self or other, a mind-state that gives rise to boredom, rancor, apathy, and a passive inert or sluggish mentation. Physically, "acedia" is fundamentally associated with a cessation of motion and an indifference to work; it finds expression in laziness, idleness, and indolence.  Sloth includes ceasing to utilize the seven gifts of grace given by the Holy Spirit (Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Knowledge, Piety, Fortitude, and Fear of the Lord); such disregard may lead to the slowing of one's spiritual progress towards eternal life, to the neglect of manifold duties of charity towards the neighbor, and to animosity towards those who love God.  Sloth has also been defined as a failure to do things that one should do. By this definition, evil exists when "good" people fail to act.  Edmund Burke (1729–1797) wrote in "Present Discontents" (II. 78) "No man, who is not inflamed by vain-glory into enthusiasm, can flatter himself that his single, unsupported, desultory, unsystematic endeavours are of power to defeat the subtle designs and united Cabals of ambitious citizens. When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."  Unlike the other capital sins, which are sins of committing immorality, sloth is a sin of omitting responsibilities. It may arise from any of the other capital vices; for example, a son may omit his duty to his father through anger. While the state and habit of sloth is a mortal sin, the habit of the soul tending towards the last mortal state of sloth is not mortal in and of itself except under certain circumstances.  Emotionally and cognitively, the evil of "acedia" finds expression in a lack of any feeling for the world, for the people in it, or for the self. "Acedia" takes form as an alienation of the sentient self first from the world and then from itself. Although the most profound versions of this condition are found in a withdrawal from all forms of participation in or care for others or oneself, a lesser but more noisome element was also noted by theologians. From "tristitia", asserted Gregory the Great, "there arise malice, rancour, cowardice, [and] despair". Chaucer, too, dealt with this attribute of "acedia", counting the characteristics of the sin to include despair, somnolence, idleness, tardiness, negligence, indolence, and "wrawnesse", the last variously translated as "anger" or better as "peevishness". For Chaucer, human's sin consists of languishing and holding back, refusing to undertake works of goodness because, he/she tells him/her self, the circumstances surrounding the establishment of good are too grievous and too difficult to suffer. "Acedia" in Chaucer's view is thus the enemy of every source and motive for work.  Sloth not only subverts the livelihood of the body, taking no care for its day-to-day provisions, but also slows down the mind, halting its attention to matters of great importance. Sloth hinders the man in his righteous undertakings and thus becomes a terrible source of human's undoing.  In his "Purgatorio" Dante portrayed the penance for acedia as running continuously at top speed. Dante describes acedia as the "failure to love God with all one's heart, all one's mind and all one's soul"; to him it was the "middle sin", the only one characterised by an absence or insufficiency of love. Some scholars have said that the ultimate form of acedia was despair which leads to suicide.

Wrath.

Wrath (Latin: ) can be defined as uncontrolled feelings of anger, rage, and even hatred. Wrath often reveals itself in the wish to seek vengeance. In its purest form, wrath presents with injury, violence, and hate that may provoke feuds that can go on for centuries. Wrath may persist long after the person who did another a grievous wrong is dead. Feelings of wrath can manifest in different ways, including impatience, hateful misanthropy, revenge, and self-destructive behavior, such as drug abuse or suicide.  According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the neutral act of anger becomes the sin of wrath when it is directed against an innocent person, when it is unduly strong or long-lasting, or when it desires excessive punishment. "If anger reaches the point of a deliberate desire to kill or seriously wound a neighbor, it is gravely against charity; it is a mortal sin." (CCC 2302) Hatred is the sin of desiring that someone else may suffer misfortune or evil, and is a mortal sin when one desires grave harm. (CCC 2302-03)  People feel angry when they sense that they or someone they care about has been offended, when they are certain about the nature and cause of the angering event, when they are certain someone else is responsible, and when they feel they can still influence the situation or cope with it.  In her introduction to Purgatory, Dorothy L. Sayers describes wrath as "love of justice perverted to revenge and spite".  In accordance with Henry Edward, angry people are "slaves to themselves".

Envy.

Envy (Latin: ), like greed and lust, is characterized by an insatiable desire. It can be described as a sad or resentful covetousness towards the traits or possessions of someone else. It arises from vainglory, and severs a man from his neighbor.  Malicious envy is similar to jealousy in that they both feel discontent towards someone's traits, status, abilities, or rewards. A difference is that the envious also desire the entity and covet it. Envy can be directly related to the Ten Commandments, specifically, "Neither shall you covet... anything that belongs to your neighbour"—a statement that may also be related to greed. Dante defined envy as "a desire to deprive other men of theirs". In Dante's Purgatory, the punishment for the envious is to have their eyes sewn shut with wire because they gained sinful pleasure from seeing others brought low. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, the struggle aroused by envy has three stages: during the first stage, the envious person attempts to lower another's reputation; in the middle stage, the envious person receives either "joy at another's misfortune" (if he succeeds in defaming the other person) or "grief at another's prosperity" (if he fails); the third stage is hatred because "sorrow causes hatred".  Envy is said to be the motivation behind Cain murdering his brother, Abel, as Cain envied Abel because God favored Abel's sacrifice over Cain's.  Bertrand Russell said that envy was one of the most potent causes of unhappiness, bringing sorrow to committers of envy whilst giving them the urge to inflict pain upon others.  In accordance with the most widely accepted views, only pride weighs down the soul more than envy among the capital sins. Just like pride, envy has been associated directly with the devil, for Wisdom 2:24 states: "the envy of the devil brought death to the world".

Pride.

Pride (Latin: ) is considered, on almost every list, the original and most serious of the seven deadly sins: the perversion of the faculties that make humans more like God—dignity and holiness. It is also thought to be the source of the other capital sins. Also known as "hubris" (from ancient Greek ), or "futility", it is identified as dangerously corrupt selfishness, the putting of one's own desires, urges, wants, and whims before the welfare of other people.  In even more destructive cases, it is irrationally believing that one is essentially and necessarily better, superior, or more important than others, failing to acknowledge the accomplishments of others, and excessive admiration of the personal image or self (especially forgetting one's own lack of divinity, and refusing to acknowledge one's own limits, faults, or wrongs as a human being).  As pride has been labelled the father of all sins, it has been deemed the devil's most prominent trait. C.S. Lewis writes, in "Mere Christianity", that pride is the "anti-God" state, the position in which the ego and the self are directly opposed to God: "Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind." Pride is understood to sever the spirit from God, as well as His life-and-grace-giving Presence.  One can be prideful for different reasons. Author Ichabod Spencer states that "spiritual pride is the worst kind of pride, if not worst snare of the devil. The heart is particularly deceitful on this one thing." Jonathan Edwards said "remember that pride is the worst viper that is in the heart, the greatest disturber of the soul's peace and sweet communion with Christ; it was the first sin that ever was, and lies lowest in the foundation of Satan's whole building, and is the most difficultly rooted out, and is the most hidden, secret and deceitful of all lusts, and often creeps in, insensibly, into the midst of religion and sometimes under the disguise of humility."  In Ancient Athens, hubris was considered one of the greatest crimes and was used to refer to insolent contempt that can cause one to use violence to shame the victim. This sense of hubris could also characterize rape. Aristotle defined hubris as shaming the victim, not because of anything that happened to the committer or might happen to the committer, but merely for the committer's own gratification. The word's connotation changed somewhat over time, with some additional emphasis towards a gross over-estimation of one's abilities.  The term has been used to analyse and make sense of the actions of contemporary heads of government by Ian Kershaw (1998), Peter Beinart (2010) and in a much more physiological manner by David Owen (2012). In this context the term has been used to describe how certain leaders, when put to positions of immense power, seem to become irrationally self-confident in their own abilities, increasingly reluctant to listen to the advice of others and progressively more impulsive in their actions.  Dante's definition of pride was "love of self perverted to hatred and contempt for one's neighbour".  Pride is generally associated with an absence of humility.  In accordance with the Sirach's author's wording, the heart of a proud man is "like a partridge in its cage acting as a decoy; like a spy he watches for your weaknesses. He changes good things into evil, he lays his traps. Just as a spark sets coals on fire, the wicked man prepares his snares in order to draw blood. Beware of the wicked man for he is planning evil. He might dishonor you forever." In another chapter, he says that "the acquisitive man is not content with what he has, wicked injustice shrivels the heart."  Benjamin Franklin said "In reality there is, perhaps no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as "pride". Disguise it, struggle with it, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history. For even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility." Joseph Addison states that "There is no passion that steals into the heart more imperceptibly and covers itself under more disguises than pride."  The proverb "pride goeth (goes) before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall" (from the biblical Book of Proverbs, 16:18)(or pride goeth before the fall) is thought to sum up the modern use of pride. Pride is also referred to as "pride that blinds," as it often causes a committer of pride to act in foolish ways that belie common sense. In other words, the modern definition may be thought of as, "that pride that goes just before the fall." In his two-volume biography of Adolf Hitler, historian Ian Kershaw uses both 'hubris' and 'nemesis' as titles. The first volume, "Hubris", describes Hitler's early life and rise to political power. The second, "Nemesis", gives details of Hitler's role in the Second World War, and concludes with his fall and suicide in 1945.  Much of the 10th and part of 11th chapter of the Book of Sirach discusses and advises about pride, hubris, and who is rationally worthy of honor. It goes:  Jacob Bidermann's medieval miracle play, "Cenodoxus", pride is the deadliest of all the sins and leads directly to the damnation of the titulary famed Parisian doctor. In Dante's "Divine Comedy", the penitents are burdened with stone slabs on their necks to keep their heads bowed.

Historical sins.

Acedia.

Acedia (Latin, "without care") (from Greek ἀκηδία) is the neglect to take care of something that one should do. It is translated to apathetic listlessness; depression without joy. It is related to melancholy: "acedia" describes the behaviour and "melancholy" suggests the emotion producing it. In early Christian thought, the lack of joy was regarded as a willful refusal to enjoy the goodness of God; by contrast, apathy was considered a refusal to help others in time of need.  Acēdia is negative form of the Greek term κηδεία ('Kēdeia'), which has a more restricted usage. 'Kēdeia' refers specifically to spousal love and respect for the dead. The positive term 'kēdeia' thus indicates love for one's family, even through death. It also indicates love for those outside one's immediate family, specifically forming a new family with one's "beloved". Seen in this way, "acēdia" indicates a rejection of familial love. Nonetheless, the meaning of "acēdia" is far more broad, signifying indifference to everything one experiences.  Pope Gregory combined this with "tristitia" into sloth for his list. When Thomas Aquinas described "acedia" in his interpretation of the list, he described it as an "uneasiness of the mind", being a progenitor for lesser sins such as restlessness and instability. Dante refined this definition further, describing acedia as the "failure to love God with all one's heart, all one's mind and all one's soul"; to him it was the "middle sin", the only one characterised by an absence or insufficiency of love. Some scholars have said that the ultimate form of acedia was despair which leads to suicide.  Acedia is currently defined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church as spiritual sloth, which would be believing spiritual tasks to be too difficult. In the fourth century, Christian monks believed acedia was not primarily caused by laziness, but by a state of depression that caused spiritual detachment.

Vainglory.

Vainglory (Latin, ) is unjustified boasting. Pope Gregory viewed it as a form of pride, so he folded "vainglory" into pride for his listing of sins. According to Thomas Aquinas, it is the progenitor of envy.  The Latin term "gloria" roughly means "boasting", although its English cognate – "glory" – has come to have an exclusively positive meaning; historically, the term "vain" roughly meant "futile" (a meaning retained in the modern expression "in vain"), but by the 14th century had come to have the strong narcissistic undertones, that it still retains today. As a result of these semantic changes, "vainglory" has become a rarely used word in itself, and is now commonly interpreted as referring to "vanity" (in its modern narcissistic sense).

Christian seven virtues.

With Christianity, historic Christian denominations such as the Catholic Church and Protestant Churches, including the Lutheran Church, recognize seven virtues, which correspond inversely to each of the seven deadly sins.

Confession patterns.

Confession is the act of admitting the commission of a sin to a priest, who in turn will forgive the person in the name (in the person) of Christ, give a penance to (partially) make up for the offense, and advise the person on what he or she should do afterwards.  According to a 2009 study by Fr. Roberto Busa, a Jesuit scholar, the most common deadly sin confessed by men is lust, and by women, pride. It was unclear whether these differences were due to the actual number of transgressions committed by each sex, or whether differing views on what "counts" or should be confessed caused the observed pattern.

In art.

Dante's "Purgatorio".

The second book of Dante's epic poem "The Divine Comedy" is structured around the seven deadly sins. The most serious sins, found at the lowest level, are the abuses of the most divine faculty. For Dante and other thinkers, a human's rational faculty makes humans more like God. Abusing that faculty with pride or envy weighs down the soul the most (though abuse is gluttonous). Abusing one's passions with wrath or a lack of passion as with sloth also weighs down the soul but not as much as the abuse of one's rational faculty. Finally, abusing one's desires to have one's physical wants met via greed, gluttony, or lust abuses a faculty that humans share with animals. This is still an abuse that weighs down the soul, but it does not weigh it down like other abuses. Thus, the top levels of the Mountain of Purgatory have the top listed sins, while the lowest levels have the more serious sins of wrath, envy, and pride.

Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Parson's Tale".

The last tale of Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales", the "Parson's Tale", is not a tale but a sermon that the parson gives against the seven deadly sins. This sermon brings together many common ideas and images about the seven deadly sins. This tale and Dante's work both show how the seven deadly sins were used for confessional purposes or as a way to identify, repent of, and find forgiveness for one's sins.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder's Prints of the Seven Deadly Sins.

The Dutch artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder created a series of prints showing each of the seven deadly sins. Each print features a central, labeled image that represents the sin. Around the figure are images that show the distortions, degenerations, and destructions caused by the sin. Many of these images come from contemporary Dutch aphorisms.

Edmund Spenser's "The Faerie Queene".

Spenser's "The Faerie Queene", which was meant to educate young people to embrace virtue and avoid vice, includes a colourful depiction of the House of Pride. Lucifera, the lady of the house, is accompanied by advisers who represent the other seven deadly sins.

William Langland's "Piers Plowman".

The seven sins are personified and they give a confession to the personification of Repentance in William Langland's "Piers Plowman". Only pride is represented by a woman, the others all represented by male characters.

"The Seven Deadly Sins".

Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's "The Seven Deadly Sins" satirized capitalism and its painful abuses as its central character, the victim of a split personality, travels to seven different cities in search of money for her family. In each city she encounters one of the seven deadly sins, but those sins ironically reverse one's expectations. When the character goes to Los Angeles, for example, she is outraged by injustice, but is told that wrath against capitalism is a sin that she must avoid.

Paul Cadmus' "The Seven Deadly Sins".

Between 1945 and 1949, the American painter Paul Cadmus created a series of vivid, powerful, and gruesome paintings of each of the seven deadly sins.

Revalorization.

Ferdinand Mount maintains that liquid currentness, especially through tabloids, has surprisingly given valor to vices, causing society to regress into that of primitive pagans: "covetousness has been rebranded as retail therapy, sloth is downtime, lust is exploring your sexuality, anger is opening up your feelings, vanity is looking good because you're worth it and gluttony is the religion of foodies".

The seven deadly sins, also known as the capital vices, or cardinal sins, is a grouping and classification of vices within Christian teachings, although it does not appear explicitly in the Bible. Behaviours or habits are classified under this category if they directly give birth to other immoralities. According to the standard list, they are pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth, which are also contrary to the seven heavenly virtues. These sins are often thought to be abuses or excessive versions of one's natural faculties or passions (for example, gluttony abuses one's desire to eat, to consume).

Mit Todsünde ( oder "") werden in der katholischen Kirche besonders schwerwiegende Arten der Sünde bezeichnet, durch die der Mensch die Gemeinschaft mit Gott bewusst und willentlich verlässt. Ein besonders grobes Vergehen wird auch himmelschreiende Sünde () genannt.


Description.

With 1,831 species, "Begonia" is one of the largest genera of flowering plants. The species are terrestrial (sometimes epiphytic) herbs or undershrubs, and occur in subtropical and tropical moist climates, in South and Central America, Africa, and southern Asia. Terrestrial species in the wild are commonly upright-stemmed, rhizomatous, or tuberous. The plants are monoecious, with unisexual male and female flowers occurring separately on the same plant; the male contains numerous stamens, and the female has a large inferior ovary and two to four branched or twisted stigmas. In most species, the fruit is a winged capsule containing numerous minute seeds, although baccate fruits are also known. The leaves, which are often large and variously marked or variegated, are usually asymmetric (unequal-sided).

Taxonomy.

The genus name "Begonia" was coined by Charles Plumier, a French patron of botany, and adopted by Linnaeus in 1753, to honor Michel Bégon, a former governor of the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti).

Phylogeny.

The following phylogenetic tree shows the relationships between different sections of the genus "Begonia".

Species.

Selected species:

Cultivation.

The different groups of begonias have different cultural requirements, but most species come from tropical regions, so they and their hybrids require warm temperatures. Most are forest understory plants and require bright shade; few will tolerate full sun, especially in warmer climates. In general, begonias require a well-drained growing medium that is neither constantly wet nor allowed to dry out completely. Many begonias will grow and flower year-round except for tuberous begonias, which usually have a dormant period. During this dormant period, the tubers can be stored in a cool, dry place. Begonias of the semperflorens group (or wax begonias) are frequently grown as bedding plants outdoors. A recent group of hybrids derived from this group is marketed as "Dragonwing" begonias; they are much larger both in leaf and in flower. Tuberous begonias are frequently used as container plants. Although most "Begonia" species are tropical or subtropical in origin, the Chinese species "B. grandis" is hardy to USDA hardiness zone 6 and is commonly known as the "hardy begonia". Most begonias can be grown outdoors year-round in subtropical or tropical climates, but in temperate climates, begonias are grown outdoors as annuals, or as house or greenhouse plants.  Most begonias are easily propagated by division or from stem cuttings. In addition, some can be propagated from leaf cuttings or even sections of leaves, particularly the members of the rhizomatous and rex groups.  The following begonia hybrids have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit:-

Horticultural nomenclature.

The nomenclature of begonias can be very complex and confusing. The term 'picotee' refers to an edging on the petals that is in contrast to the colour of the main petal, if the colours blend. If they do not, then the term'marginata' is used, but sometimes these terms are used simultaneously. 'Non-Stop' refers to a camellia tuberous hybrid that under certain conditions will bloom 'non-stop' all year round.

Cultivar groups.

Because of their sometimes showy flowers of white, pink, scarlet, or yellow color and often attractively marked leaves, many species and innumerable hybrids and cultivars are cultivated. The genus is unusual in that species throughout the genus, even those coming from different continents, can frequently be hybridized with each other, and this has led to an enormous number of cultivars. The American Begonia Society classifies begonias into several major groups:  For the most part, these groups do not correspond to any formal taxonomic groupings or phylogeny, and many species and hybrids have characteristics of more than one group, or do not fit well in any of them.

Culture.

The cultivar 'Kimjongilia' is a floral emblem of North Korea.  Most begonias are sour to the taste, and some people in some areas eat them. This is safe in small amounts but potentially toxic in large quantities due to the prevalence of oxalic acid in the tissues.

Begonia is a genus of perennial flowering plants in the family Begoniaceae. The genus contains more than 1,800 different plant species. The Begonias are native to moist subtropical and tropical climates. Some species are commonly grown indoors as ornamental houseplants in cooler climates. In cooler climates some species are cultivated outside in summertime for their bright colourful flowers, which have sepals but no petals.

Begonien ("Begonia"), auch Schiefblatt genannt, sind eine Pflanzengattung in der Familie der Schiefblattgewächse (Begoniaceae). Zur Gattung "Begonia" gehören mehr als 1800 Arten (Stand 2018), damit gehört sie zu den artenreichsten Pflanzengattungen.


Tasks.

The GSOC performs the following tasks in national and international spaceflight:

History.

After the Federal Republic of Germany decided in the 1960s to launch a national space program and to participate in international space projects, the idea of having its own space control center became concrete. In 1967, then Federal Minister of Finance Franz Josef Strauss laid the foundation stone for the first building complex, which was also opened a little later.

Focus on human spaceflight (1985-1995).

Until 1985, the Oberpfaffenhofen site of the then German Aerospace Research and Testing Institute (DFVLR) increasingly concentrated on spaceflight. The human spaceflight received special attention. Indeed, the GSOC then accompanied two crewed missions: During STS-61-A in 1985, GSOC took over the control of the Spacelab, while flight control continued from NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center was acquired. For the first time, the Payload Operation Control Center (POCC) of a US space mission was directed outside of NASA. This also means that, for the first time, a human spaceflight was (partially) monitored from outside the USA or the Soviet Union. During this mission, then Bavarian Prime Minister Franz Josef Strauss announced on 5 November 1985 an extensive investment program with which the role of Oberpfaffenhofen in European spaceflight should be increased.  But the failure of Ariane 3 in 1985 and the "Challenger" disaster in 1986 slowed the development of the Oberpfaffenhofen and thus the GSOC. Nevertheless, the investment program also gave the GSOC a new building (Building 140), the construction began on 4 April 1989.  In 1993, GSOC accompanied the entire operation with STS-55 and had full payload control via the Spacelab. This was the first time that there was unfiltered access to all data.

The German Space Operations Center (GSOC; ) is the mission control center of German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Oberpfaffenhofen near Munich, Germany.

Das Deutsche Raumfahrt-Kontrollzentrum (German Space Operations Center, GSOC) ist das Mission Control Center des Deutschen Zentrums für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) in Oberpfaffenhofen bei München.


Family.

Foot was born in Lipson Terrace, Plymouth, Devon, the fifth of seven children of Isaac Foot (1880–1960) and Eva (née Mackintosh, died 17 May 1946), who was Scottish. Isaac Foot was a solicitor and founder of the Plymouth law firm Foot and Bowden (which amalgamated with another firm to become Foot Anstey). Isaac Foot was an active member of the Liberal Party and was the Liberal Member of Parliament for Bodmin in Cornwall from 1922–24 and again from 1929–35, and a Lord Mayor of Plymouth.  Michael Foot's siblings included: Sir Dingle Foot MP (1905–78), a Liberal and subsequently Labour MP; Hugh Foot, Baron Caradon (1907–90), Governor of Cyprus (1957–60) and representative of the United Kingdom at the United Nations from 1964–70; Liberal politician John Foot, later Baron Foot (1909–99); Margaret Elizabeth Foot (1911–65); Jennifer Mackintosh Highet (born 1916); and Christopher Isaac Foot (1917–84). He was the uncle of campaigning journalist Paul Foot (1937–2004) and charity worker Oliver Foot (1946–2008).

Early life.

Foot was educated at Plymouth College Preparatory School, Forres School in Swanage, and Leighton Park School in Reading. When he left Forres School, the headmaster sent a letter to his father in which he said "he has been the leading boy in the school in every way". He then went on to read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Wadham College, Oxford. Foot was a president of the Oxford Union. He also took part in the ESU USA Tour (the debating tour of the United States run by the English-Speaking Union). Upon graduating with a second-class degree in 1934, he took a job as a shipping clerk in Birkenhead. Foot was profoundly influenced by the poverty and unemployment that he witnessed in Liverpool, which was on a different scale from anything he had seen in Plymouth. A Liberal up to this time, Foot was converted to socialism by Oxford University Labour Club president David Lewis, a Canadian Rhodes scholar, and others: "... I knew him [at Oxford] when I was a Liberal [and Lewis] played a part in converting me to socialism." Foot joined the Labour Party and first stood for parliament, aged 22, at the 1935 general election, where he contested Monmouth. During the election, Foot criticised the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, for seeking rearmament. In his election address, Foot contended that "the armaments race in Europe must be stopped now". Foot also supported unilateral disarmament, after multilateral disarmament talks at Geneva had broken down in 1933.  Foot became a journalist, working briefly on the "New Statesman", before joining the left-wing weekly "Tribune" when it was set up in early 1937 to support the Unity Campaign, an attempt to secure an anti-fascist United Front between Labour and other left-wing parties. The campaign's members were Stafford Cripps's (Labour-affiliated) Socialist League, the Independent Labour Party and the Communist Party of Great Britain (CP). Foot resigned in 1938 after the paper's first editor, William Mellor, was sacked for refusing to adopt a new CP policy of backing a Popular Front, including non-socialist parties, against fascism and appeasement. In a 1955 interview, Foot ideologically identified as a libertarian socialist.  He was an avid anti-imperialist and was heavily involved in the India League. As an Oxford graduate, he was influenced by the founder of the India League, Krishna Menon. The India League was the premier UK-based organisation that fought for the 'Liberation of India'. After Indian's independence, Foot would remain close to India and eventually became Chair of the India League.

Journalism.

On the recommendation of Aneurin Bevan, Foot was soon hired by Lord Beaverbrook to work as a writer on his "Evening Standard". (Bevan is supposed to have told Beaverbrook on the phone: "I've got a young bloody knight-errant here. They sacked his boss, so he resigned. Have a look at him.") At the outbreak of the Second World War, Foot volunteered for military service, but was rejected because of his chronic asthma.  In 1940, under the pen-name "Cato" he and two other Beaverbrook journalists (Frank Owen, editor of the "Standard", and Peter Howard of the "Daily Express") published "Guilty Men", which attacked the appeasement policy of the Chamberlain government; it became a runaway bestseller. (In so doing, Foot reversed his position of the 1935 election – when he had attacked the Conservatives as militaristic and demanded disarmament in the face of Nazi Germany.) Beaverbrook made Foot editor of the "Evening Standard" in 1942, when he was aged 28. During the war, Foot made a speech that was later featured in the documentary TV series "The World at War" broadcast in February 1974. Foot was speaking in defence of the "Daily Mirror", which had criticised the conduct of the war by the Churchill government. He mocked the notion that the Government would make no more territorial demands of other newspapers if they allowed the "Mirror" to be censored.  Foot left the "Standard" in 1945 to join the "Daily Herald" as a columnist. The "Daily Herald" was jointly owned by the TUC and Odhams Press, and was effectively an official Labour Party paper. He rejoined "Tribune" as editor from 1948 to 1952, and was again the paper's editor from 1955 to 1960. Throughout his political career he railed against the increasing corporate domination of the press.

Member of Parliament.

Foot fought the Plymouth Devonport constituency in the 1945 general election. His election agent was Labour activist and lifelong friend Ron Lemin. He won the seat for Labour for the first time, holding it until his surprise defeat by Dame Joan Vickers at the 1955 general election. Until 1957, he was the most prominent ally of Aneurin Bevan, who had taken Cripps's place as leader of the Labour left, though Foot and Bevan fell out after Bevan renounced unilateral nuclear disarmament at the 1957 Labour Party conference.  Before the Cold War began in the late 1940s, Foot favoured a 'third way' foreign policy for Europe (he was joint author with Richard Crossman and Ian Mikardo of the pamphlet "Keep Left" in 1947), but in the wake of the communist seizure of power in Hungary and Czechoslovakia he and "Tribune" took a strongly anti-communist position, eventually embracing NATO.  Foot was however a critic of the West's handling of the Korean War, an opponent of West German rearmament in the early 1950s and a founder member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Under his editorship, "Tribune" opposed both the British government's Suez campaign and the Soviet crushing of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. In this period he made regular television appearances on the current affairs programmes "In The News" (BBC) and subsequently "Free Speech" (ITV). "There was certainly nothing wrong with his television technique in those days", reflected Anthony Howard shortly after Foot's death.  Foot returned to parliament at a by-election in Ebbw Vale, Monmouthshire, in 1960, the seat having been left vacant by Bevan's death. He had the Labour whip withdrawn in March 1961 after rebelling against the Labour leadership over air force estimates. He only returned to the Parliamentary Labour Group in 1963, when Harold Wilson became Labour leader after the sudden death of Hugh Gaitskell.  Harold Wilson — the subject of an enthusiastic campaign biography by Foot published by Robert Maxwell's Pergamon Press in 1964 – offered Foot a place in his first government, but Foot turned it down, instead becoming the leader of Labour's left opposition from the back benches. He opposed the government's moves to restrict immigration, join the European Communities (or "Common Market" as they were referred to) and reform the trade unions, was against the Vietnam War and Rhodesia's unilateral declaration of independence, and denounced the Soviet suppression of "socialism with a human face" in Czechoslovakia in 1968. He also famously allied with the Tory right-winger Enoch Powell to scupper the government's plan to abolish the voting rights of hereditary peers and create a House of Lords comprising only life peers – a "seraglio of eunuchs" as Foot put it.  Foot challenged James Callaghan for the post of Treasurer of the Labour Party in 1967, but failed.

In government.

After 1970, Labour moved to the left and Wilson came to an accommodation with Foot. Foot served in the Second Shadow Cabinet of Harold Wilson in various roles between 1970 and 1974. In April 1972, he stood for the Deputy Leadership of the party, along with Edward Short and Anthony Crosland. Short defeated Foot in the second ballot after Crosland had been eliminated in the first.  When, in 1974, Labour returned to office under Wilson, Foot became Secretary of State for Employment. According to Ben Pimlott, his appointment was intended to please the left of the party and the Trade Unions. In this role, he played the major part in the government's efforts to maintain the trade unions' support. He was also responsible for the Health and Safety at Work Act. Foot was one of the mainstays of the "no" campaign in the 1975 referendum on British membership of the European Communities. When Wilson retired in 1976, Foot contested the party leadership and led in the first ballot, but was ultimately defeated by James Callaghan. Later that year Foot was elected Deputy Leader, and served as Leader of the House of Commons, which gave him the unenviable task of trying to maintain the survival of the Callaghan government as its majority evaporated.  In 1975, Foot, along with Jennie Lee and others, courted controversy when they supported Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India, after she prompted the declaration of a state of emergency. In December 1975, "The Times" ran an editorial titled 'Is Mr Foot a Fascist?' — their answer was that he was — after Norman Tebbit accused him of 'undiluted fascism' when Foot said that the Ferrybridge Six deserved dismissal for defying a closed shop.  During the Callaghan government Foot took a seat in Cabinet as Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons.

Labour leadership.

Following Labour's 1979 general election defeat by Margaret Thatcher, James Callaghan remained as party leader for the next 18 months before he resigned. Foot was elected Labour leader on 10 November 1980, beating Denis Healey in the second round of the leadership election (the last leadership contest to involve only Labour MPs). Foot presented himself as a compromise candidate, capable – unlike Healey – of uniting the party, which at the time was riven by the grassroots left-wing insurgency centred around Tony Benn.  The Bennites were demanding revenge for what they considered to be the betrayals of the Callaghan government. They called for MPs who had acquiesced in Callaghan's policies to be replaced by left-wingers who would support unilateral nuclear disarmament, withdrawal from the European Communities, and widespread nationalisation. Benn did not stand for the leadership; apart from Foot and Healey, the other candidates (both eliminated in the first round) were John Silkin, a Tribunite like Foot, and Peter Shore, a Eurosceptic.  When he became leader, Foot was already 67 years old; and frail. After the 1979 energy crisis, Britain went into recession in 1980, which was blamed on the Conservative government's controversial monetarist policy against inflation, which had the effect of increasing unemployment. As a result, Labour had moved ahead of the Conservatives in the opinion polls. After Foot's election as leader, opinion polls showed a double-digit lead for Labour, boosting his hopes of becoming Prime Minister at the next general election, which had to be held by May 1984.  When Foot became leader, the Conservative politician Kenneth Baker commented: "Labour was led by Dixon of Dock Green under Jim Callaghan. Now it is led by Worzel Gummidge." Foot's nickname in the press gradually became "Worzel Gummidge", or "Worzel". This became particularly common after Remembrance Day 1981, when he attended the Cenotaph observance wearing a donkey jacket. After his tenure as leader, Foot would be "depicted as a scarecrow on ITV’s satirical puppet show "Spitting Image"."  Almost immediately after his election as leader, he was faced with a serious crisis. On 25 January 1981, four senior politicians on the right-wing of the Labour Party (Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, David Owen and William Rodgers, the so-called "Gang of Four") left Labour and formed the SDP, which was launched on 26 March 1981. This was largely seen as the consequence of the Labour Party's swing to the left, polarising divisions in an already divided party.  The SDP won the support of large sections of the media. For most of 1981 and early-1982 its opinion poll ratings suggested that it could at least overtake Labour and possibly win a general election. The Conservatives were then unpopular because of the economic policies of Margaret Thatcher, which had seen unemployment reach a postwar high.  The Labour left was still strong. In 1981, Benn decided to challenge Healey for the Deputy Leadership of the Labour Party, a contest Healey won, albeit narrowly. Foot struggled to make an impact, and was widely criticised for his ineffectiveness, though his performances in the Commons — most notably on the Falklands War of 1982 – won him widespread respect from other parliamentarians. He was criticised by some on the left for supporting Thatcher's immediate resort to military action. The right-wing newspapers nevertheless lambasted him consistently for what they saw as his bohemian eccentricity, attacking him for wearing what they described as a "donkey jacket" (actually he wore a type of duffel coat) at the wreath-laying ceremony at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Day in November 1981, for which he was likened to an "out-of-work navvy" by a fellow Labour MP. Foot did not make it generally known that the Queen Mother had described it as a "sensible coat for a day like this", which could be considered a slight or a compliment depending on whether irony was intended. He later donated the coat to the People's History Museum in Manchester, which holds a collection that spans Foot's entire political career from 1938 to 1990, and his personal papers dating back to 1926.  The formation of the SDP – which formed an alliance with the Liberal Party in June 1981 – contributed to a fall in Labour support. The double-digit lead which had still been intact in opinion polls at the start of 1981 was swiftly wiped out, and by the end of October the opinion polls were showing the Alliance ahead of Labour. Labour briefly regained their lead of most opinion polls in early 1982, but when the Falklands conflict ended on 14 June 1982 with a British victory over Argentina, opinion polls showed the Conservatives firmly in the lead. Their position at the top of the polls was strengthened by the return to economic growth later in the year. It was looking certain that the Conservatives would be re-elected, and the only key issue that the media were still speculating by the end of 1982 was whether it would be Labour or the Alliance who formed the next opposition.  Through late 1982 and early 1983, there was constant speculation that Labour MPs would replace Foot with Healey as leader. Such speculation increased after Labour lost the 1983 Bermondsey by-election, in which Peter Tatchell was Labour candidate, standing against a Conservative, a Liberal (eventual winner Simon Hughes) and John O'Grady, who had declared himself the Real Bermondsey Labour candidate. Critically, Labour held on in a subsequent by-election in Darlington, and Foot remained leader for the 1983 general election.

1983 general election.

The 1983 Labour manifesto, strongly socialist in tone, advocated unilateral nuclear disarmament, higher personal taxation and a return to a more interventionist industrial policy. The manifesto also pledged that a Labour government would abolish the House of Lords, nationalise banks and immediately withdraw from the then-European Economic Community. Gerald Kaufman, once Harold Wilson's press officer and during the 1980s a prominent figure on the Labour right-wing, described the 1983 Labour manifesto as "the longest suicide note in history."  As a statement on internal democracy, Foot passed the edict that the manifesto would consist of all resolutions arrived at conference. The party also failed to master the medium of television, while Foot addressed public meetings around the country, and made some radio broadcasts, in the same manner as Clement Attlee did in 1945. Members joked that they had not expected Foot to allow the slogan "Think positive, Act positive, Vote Labour" on grammatical grounds.  The "Daily Mirror" was the only major newspaper to back Foot and the Labour Party at the 1983 general election, urging its readers to vote Labour and "Stop the waste of our nation, for your job your children and your future" in response to the mass unemployment which followed Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's monetarist economic policies to reduce inflation. Most other newspapers urged their readers to vote Conservative.  The Labour Party led by Foot, lost to the Conservatives in a landslide – a result which had been widely predicted by the opinion polls since the previous summer. The only consolation for Foot and Labour was that they did not lose their place in opposition to the SDP-Liberal Alliance, who came close to them in terms of votes but were still a long way behind in terms of seats. Despite this, Foot was very critical of the Alliance, accusing them of "siphoning" Labour support and enabling the Tories to win more seats.  Foot resigned days after the bitter election defeat, and was succeeded as leader on 2 October by Neil Kinnock; who had been tipped from the outset to be Labour's choice of new leader.

Backbenches and retirement.

Foot took a back seat in Labour politics after 1983 and retired from the House of Commons at the 1992 general election, when Labour lost to the Conservative Party (led by John Major) for the fourth election in succession, but remained politically active. From 1987 to 1992, he was the oldest sitting British MP (preceding former Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath). He defended Salman Rushdie, after Ayatollah Khomeini advocated killing the novelist in a fatwā, and took a strongly pro-interventionist position against Serbia during its conflict with Croatia and Bosnia, supporting NATO forces whilst citing defence of civilian populations in the latter countries. In addition, he was among the Patrons of the British-Croatian Society. "The Guardian"s political editor Michael White criticised Foot's "overgenerous" support for Croatian leader Franjo Tuđman.  Foot remained a high-profile member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). He wrote several books, including highly regarded biographies of Aneurin Bevan and H. G. Wells. Indeed, he was a distinguished Vice-president of the H. G. Wells Society. Many of his friends have said publicly that they regret that he ever gave up literature for politics.  Michael Foot became a supporter of pro-Europeanism in the 1990s.  Foot was an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society and a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association. In 1988, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.  In a poll of Labour Party activists he was voted the worst post-war Labour Party leader. Though Foot is considered by many right-wingers to be a failure as Labour leader, his biographer Mervyn Jones strongly makes the case that no one else could have held Labour together at the time, particularly in the face of the controversy over the infiltration of the party by Militant. Foot is remembered with affection in Westminster as a great parliamentarian. He was widely liked, and admired for his integrity, habitual courtesy, and generosity of spirit, by both his colleagues and opponents.  A portrait of Foot by the artist Robert Lenkiewicz now permanently hangs in Portcullis House, Westminster.

Gordievsky's KGB allegations.

Oleg Gordievsky, a high-ranking KGB officer who defected from the Soviet Union to the UK in 1985, made allegations against Foot in his 1995 memoirs. Essentially, the allegations claimed that, up until 1968, Foot had spoken to KGB agents "dozens of times", passing information about politics and the trade unions, and Foot had been paid a total of around £150 for his information (said to be worth £37,000 in 2018). "The Sunday Times", which serialised Gordievsky's book under the headline "KGB: Michael Foot was our agent", claimed in an article of 19 February that the Soviet intelligence services regarded Foot as an "agent of influence" (and a "useful idiot"), codenamed "Agent BOOT", and in the pay of the KGB for many years. Crucially, the newspaper used material from the original manuscript of the book which had not been included in the published version.  At the time a leading article in "The Independent" newspaper asserted: "It seems extraordinary that such an unreliable figure should now be allowed, given the lack of supporting evidence, to damage the reputation of figures such as Mr Foot." In a February 1992 interview, Gordievsky declared that he had no further revelations to make about the Labour Party. Foot successfully sued the "Sunday Times", winning "substantial" damages.  However, in the "Daily Telegraph" in 2010, Charles Moore gave a "full account", which he said had been provided to him by Gordievsky shortly after Foot's death, of the extent of Foot's alleged KGB involvement. The account provides additional information concerning the allegations, but no new evidence. The evidence against Foot consists solely of Gordievsky's testimony. Moore wrote that, although the claims are difficult to corroborate without MI6 and KGB files, Gordievsky's past record in revealing KGB contacts in Britain had been shown to be reliable. However Moore did not think that Foot would have known that he was considered an agent, and he probably considered that he was simply keeping the Soviet Union well informed in the interests of peace. There is no evidence Foot gave away secrets.

Plymouth Argyle.

Foot was a passionate supporter of Plymouth Argyle Football Club from his childhood and once remarked that he wasn't going to die until he had seen them play in the Premier League. He served for several years as a director of the club, seeing two promotions under his tenure.  For his 90th birthday, Foot was registered with the Football League as an honorary player and given the shirt number 90. This made him the oldest registered professional player in the history of football.

Personal life.

Foot was married to the film-maker, author and feminist historian Jill Craigie (1911–99) from 1949 until her death fifty years later. He had no children.  In February 2007, it was revealed that Foot had an extramarital affair with a woman around 35 years his junior in the early-1970s. The affair, which lasted nearly a year, put a considerable strain on his marriage. The affair is detailed in Foot's official biography, published in March 2007.  On 23 July 2006, his 93rd birthday, Michael Foot became the longest-lived leader of a major British political party, passing Lord Callaghan's record of 92 years, 364 days.  A staunch republican (though well liked by the Royal Family on a personal level), Foot rejected honours from the Queen and the government, including a knighthood and a peerage, on more than one occasion.  He was also an atheist., he was one of three leaders of the Labour Party to declare that they disbelieved.

Health.

Foot suffered from asthma until 1963 (which disqualified him from service in the Second World War) and eczema until middle age.  In October 1963, he was involved in a car crash, suffering pierced lungs, broken ribs, and a broken left leg. Foot used a walking stick for the rest of his life. According to former MP Tam Dalyell, Foot had up until the accident, been a chain-smoker; but gave up the habit thereafter. Jill Craigie also suffered from a crushed hand in this car crash.  In October 1976, Foot became blind in one eye following an attack of shingles. He was absent from the House of Commons for three weeks whilst he recovered.

Death.

Foot died at his Hampstead, north London home in the morning of 3 March 2010 at the age of 96. The House of Commons was informed of the news later that day by Justice Secretary Jack Straw, who told the House: "I am sure that this news will be received with great sadness not only in my own party but across the country as a whole." Foot's funeral was a non-religious service, held on 15 March 2010 at Golders Green Crematorium in North-West London.  A memorial to Foot in Plymouth was vandalised with Nazi symbols in the wake of the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum in July 2016.

In popular culture.

Foot's involvement in the nuclear disarmament movement gave rise to the story that "The Times" ran the headline "Foot Heads Arms Body" over an article about his leadership of a nuclear-disarmament committee. Some decades later, Martyn Cornell recalled the story as true, saying he had written the headline himself as a "Times" subeditor around 1986. The headline does not, however, appear in The Times Digital Archive, which includes every day's newspaper from 1785 into the 21st century. It is found in a letter published in "The Guardian" in 1978.  Foot was portrayed by Patrick Godfrey in the 2002 BBC production of Ian Curteis's long unproduced "The Falklands Play" and by Michael Pennington in the film "The Iron Lady".  Foot was likened to the scarecrow Worzel Gummidge in "Dear Bill", a long-running series of fictional letters which appeared in the British satirical magazine "Private Eye", purportedly written by Denis Thatcher, husband of Margaret Thatcher, to his friend and golfing partner Bill Deedes, former editor of the "Daily Telegraph".

Michael Mackintosh Foot (23 July 19133 March 2010) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Labour Leader from 1980 to 1983. Foot began his career as a journalist on "Tribune" and the "Evening Standard". He co-wrote the 1940 polemic against appeasement of Adolf Hitler, "Guilty Men", under a pseudonym.

Michael Mackintosh Foot (Pseudonym "Cato"; * 23. Juli 1913 in Plymouth, Devon; † 3. März 2010 in London) war ein britischer Politiker. Er war Vorsitzender der Labour Party von 1980 bis 1983. Foot zählte neben Harold Wilson, James Callaghan und Tony Benn zum politischen Urgestein von „Old Labour“. Er ist der jüngere Bruder des Rechtsanwalts Sir Dingle Foot, des liberalen Politikers John Foot, Lord Foot und des ehemaligen Gouverneurs von Zypern Hugh Foot, des späteren Lord Caradon, dessen späterer Sohn der Journalist Paul Foot war.


Etymology.

The name Ipoh is derived from a local tree, "Pohon Epu", now more commonly known as "Pokok Ipoh". The sap of this plant is poisonous and was used by Orang Asli (indigenous peoples in Malay) to coat the tips of the darts of their blowpipes for hunting.

History.

Ipoh grew out from the Malay village of Paloh along the banks of the Kinta River in the 1880s. Its geographic location in the rich tin-bearing valley of the Kinta River made it a natural centre of growth.  The Great Fire of Ipoh in 1892 destroyed over half the town, but also presented an opportunity to rebuild the town in a more orderly grid pattern. Ipoh was subsequently rebuilt in time for the second tin rush and grew rapidly as a result of the booming tin mining industry, particularly in the 1920s and 1930s.  A local Hakka miner, millionaire Yau Tet Shin, started developing a large tract of the town in the early 1930s, today known as the "New Town", from the eastern bank of the Kinta River to Greentown. In 1937, Ipoh was made the capital of Perak, replacing Taiping.  Ipoh was invaded by the Japanese on 15 December 1941. In March 1942, the Japanese Civil Administration or Perak Shu Seicho was set up at the St. Michael's Institution. After the liberation of Malaya by British forces, Ipoh remained the capital of Perak as it does to this day.  The decline of the tin mining industry during the latter half of the 20th century caused the growth of Ipoh to stagnate. With the closure of the tin mines, its urban population was forced to seek employment in other cities within Malaysia. In spite of this, Ipoh remains one of the largest cities in Malaysia in terms of population, with tourism now a main driver of the city's economy.  Ipoh gained Municipal status in 1962, and in 1988 it was declared a city by the then Sultan of Perak, Sultan Azlan Shah.

Geography.

Topography.

Ipoh is in the state of Perak, which is in the northern part of Peninsular Malaysia. The city is in the middle of the Kinta Valley, on the bank of the Kinta River and the confluence of the smaller rivers Sungai Pinji and Sungai Pari. The city is surrounded by limestone hills, which can be found around suburban areas to the northeast, east and southeast.  The Kledang mountain range stretches from the north to the west of the city. This range runs parallel to the Bintang mountain range with the Perak River running on its left bank and the Kinta River to its right. This range is interrupted to the north of Ipoh by a tributary of the Perak River called the Pelus River, which is sourced from the Titiwangsa mountain range, which runs to the east of Ipoh.

Climate.

Ipoh has a tropical rainforest climate. Ipoh is more subject to the Intertropical Convergence Zone than the trade winds and very rarely has cyclones, therefore it can be described as having an equatorial climate. The city's temperature shows little variation throughout the year, the average temperature being. Ipoh sees high precipitation throughout the year with an average of of rain each month and averaging of rain per year. The wettest month is October when on average of rain falls. Ipoh's driest month is January which has of rainfall on average.

Limestone caves.

Limestone outcrops rise on the outskirts of Ipoh. There are many caves in these outcrops, some of which have cave temples built in them. The Sam Poh Tong Temple () is a notable example, along with Kek Lok Tong (; Cavern of Utmost Happiness), which lies on the other side of the same outcrop. It is accessible through the Gunung Rapat housing area. Other cave temples in Ipoh include Ling Sen Tong, Nan Tian Tong, Kwan Yin Tong and Perak Tong.  Gua Tempurung, near Gopeng, south of Ipoh, is a show cave open to the public and popular among spelunkers. More than long, it is one of the longest caves in Peninsular Malaysia. Part of it has been developed with electric lighting and walkways, and there are tours of varying lengths and difficulty. A river passage runs about through the hill. There are five large chambers, and stalactites and stalagmites.

Economy.

In its early history, Ipoh as a settlement was built around its mining industry, although inferior to that of Gopeng, some to the south. Ipoh was once one of the richest cities in Malaysia and South East Asia in the days when tin was its major product. During the 1980s, when tin prices collapsed, the economy of Ipoh was affected significantly. However, recently the city has experienced economic growth. The city of Ipoh also hosts some large multinational corporations. Kuala Lumpur Kepong Berhad, a palm oil company among the top 15 biggest companies in Malaysia by revenue, has its headquarters in Ipoh. Batu Kawan Berhad, an investment company which is the biggest shareholder in Kuala Lumpur Kepong Berhad, also has its headquarters in Malaysia. Ipoh houses the headquarters of Hovid Berhad, a pharmaceutical company which claims to be the first Malaysian company to introduce Malaysian generic drugs overseas. Old Town Berhad, which is a food and beverage public listed company specializing in white coffee, has its headquarters in Ipoh. There are other public listed companies in Ipoh such as Perak Transit Berhad, Tasek Cement Berhad, DKLS Industries Berhad, Wellcall Holding Berhad, Rubberex Berhad, and Perak Corp. Ipoh also hosts the Malaysian headquarters for some foreign multinational companies, including Finisar, Voith, ITL Asia Pacific and Sagami Manufacturers.

Governance.

The Ipoh City Council governs the city. Datuk Rumaizi Baharin, appointed in April 2020, is the current mayor of Ipoh.  Ipoh is divided into two parliamentary constituencies: "Ipoh Barat" (Ipoh West) and "Ipoh Timur" (Ipoh East). The parliamentary seat for "Ipoh Timur" is held by Democratic Action Party (DAP) Representative Su Keong Siong. It was formerly held by Lim Kit Siang. The seat for "Ipoh Barat" is held by fellow DAP leader M. Kulasegaran.

Demographics.

Ipoh remains one of Malaysia's largest cities. It is the third largest city in Malaysia. As of 2010, the municipal area of Ipoh has a population of 657,892. It ranks as the seventh most populous urban centre in Malaysia (2010).  The following is based on Department of Statistics Malaysia 2010 census.

Cityscape.

The Old Town.

The Old Town lies to the west of the Kinta River. It has a commercial district with many historical "shop-houses" centred around Leech Street (; now Jalan Bandar Timah). Other notable features include:

The New Town.

The so-called New Town, to the east of the Kinta River, was developed by Yau Tet Shin around 1908. The New Town houses the Perak Medical University and Ipoh City Hall building. There are numerous shops, shopping malls, and hotels.  D. R. Seenivasagam Park (Coronation Park), located in the heart of Ipoh's New Town, is known for its scenery and recreational facilities. It comprises recreational fields, an artificial lake filled with fish, a nursery for potted plants and a children's traffic playground. The latest addition is the newly landscaped Japanese garden featuring a Japanese carp pond.

Culture.

Cuisine.

Ipoh has a significant food scene with many hawker centres and restaurants. It has dishes derived from Malay, Chinese and Indian cuisine. Ipoh is well known "Sar Hor Fun" (), a complete one-dish rice noodle meal with prawn, meat, fish, vegetables and a savoury sauce. Other well-known dishes from Ipoh include "Hor Hee" (), flat white rice noodles served with fish cakes and/or fish balls; "Nga Choi Kai" (), chicken with soy sauce and beansprouts topped with pepper; "Kai Shi Hor Fun" (), rice noodles with chicken; "Hakka Mee" (), yellow rice noodles served with mincemeat (pork) sauce; "Tau Fu Fa" (), soybean pudding; and Ipoh's well-known pastry "Heong Peng" (), literally translated to "fragrant biscuit". The city is known in Malaysia for its Ipoh white coffee, in which the coffee beans are roasted with palm-oil margarine and the resulting coffee is served with condensed milk. Ipoh is also known for its fresh fruits such as pomelo, durian and seedless guava. Ipoh is the home of Ipoh nasi kandar or "Nasi Vanggey".  In recent years, Ipoh has seen an increase in international restaurants, bars and gastropubs which have become popular with locals and tourists.

Film and television.

Movies filmed in Ipoh include:

Theme parks.

There are several theme parks in Ipoh, including the Sunway Lost World of Tambun and Movies Animated Park Studios (MAPS).

Education.

This is a list of schools in Ipoh, Perak.

Sports.

Ipoh has a sports complex known as Kompleks Sukan MBI or MBI Sports Complex. Among the facilities located within the complex is the Perak Stadium (), the home of Perak Football Association who play in the Malaysia Super League.  Golf courses in Ipoh include the Royal Perak Golf Club off Jalan Sultan Azlan Shah (Tiger Lane), the Meru Golf Club in Jelapang, and Clearwater Sanctuary Golf Club en route to Batu Gajah.  Other sports venues include the Kilat Club in Pasir Pinji, Ipoh Field ("Padang Ipoh") in the Old Town, the Polo Grounds, and the Iskandar Polo Club in Ampang Baru.  The Sultan Azlan Shah Cup is an annual international men's field hockey tournament held in Ipoh.

Notable people.

Film and television  Music  Sports (badminton)  Sports (football)  Sports (others)  Business  Politics  Other

Media.

Nationwide daily newspapers.

Malay  Chinese  Tamil

Ipoh terrestrial channels.

Ipoh free-to-air stations include:

Astro Ipoh.

Malaysian satellite television provider Astro provides the following channels in Ipoh:

Radio.

The available FM radio stations in Ipoh, both public (including Ipoh-based Perak FM) and commercial, are as listed below.

Sister cities.

Ipoh currently has two sister cities:

Ipoh () is the capital city of the Malaysian state of Perak. Located by the Kinta River, it is nearly north of Kuala Lumpur and southeast of George Town in neighbouring Penang., Ipoh had a population of 657,892, making it the third largest city in Malaysia by population.

Ipoh ist eine Stadt in Malaysia mit 673.346 Einwohnern (2005). Sie ist die Hauptstadt des Bundesstaates Perak und liegt im Distrikt Kinta.