title: Jean Chrétien

text: The first budget introduced by Martin, in February 1994, was described as a "mild and tame" budget focused only on the target of reducing the deficit to 3 percent of Gross National Product (GNP) within three years, and brought in modest cuts, mostly to defence spending. Until the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Chrétien government tended to be hostile towards defence spending with the government's white paper "Defence 94" declaring that in a post-Cold War world there would be less and less need for armed forces, which accordingly meant reduced budgets for the military. Outside of defence spending, there were few cuts in the 1994 budget. In a radio interview with Ron Collister in March 1994, Chrétien stated: "To go to our goal of 3 per cent of GNP, all the cuts have been announced in the budget. There will not be a new round." According to the diplomat James Bartleman, Chrétien told him in early 1994 that major cuts to government spending outside of defence were out of the question, and instead he hoped that the economy would grow enough on its own that the deficit would disappear without any cuts. Chrétien's plans in early 1994 for economic growth were to increase exports by embracing globalization and free trade with as many nations as possible, arguing that the export offensive would stimulate the economy out of the early 1990s recession. The 1994 budget was widely criticized by journalists such as Andrew Coyne as useless in even achieving its target of reducing the deficit to 3 percent of GNP within three years, let alone eliminating the deficit, and led to a celebrated clash between Coyne and Martin in the boardroom of "The Globe and Mail" newspaper. In April 1994, interest rates in Canada started a steady rise that would continue until early 1995.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Chrétien was not keen on making deep cuts to government spending, but given the crisis caused by the skyrocketing interest rates had decided "reluctantly" there was no alternative. Once he had decided upon making deeper cuts than he promised, Chrétien proved to be firm supporter of the new course, and supported Martin's cuts to other departments despite the complaints of the other ministers. Chrétien's advisor Eddie Goldenberg later recalled that Chrétien was unyielding in the face of efforts by other ministers to "spare" their departments, and that Chrétien kept on saying "If I change anything, everything will unravel". In a 2011 interview, Chrétien recalled about the 1995 budget that: "There would have been a day when we would have been the Greece of today. I knew we were in a bind and we had to do something." In order to silence objections from left-wing Liberal backbenchers and Cabinet ministers, Chrétien ensured that the Program Review Committee chaired by Marcel Massé that would decide what programs to end and which to cut had a majority comprising the leftist MPs Brian Tobin, Sheila Copps, Sergio Marchi and Herb Gray, people who would not normally be supporting cutting programs, and thereby underlined the seriousness of the crisis. It was only with the budget that Martin introduced on February 27, 1995, that the Chrétien government began a policy of cuts designed to eliminate the deficit in order to reassure the markets. Much of the Liberal caucus was deeply unhappy with the 1995 budget, arguing that this was not what they had been elected for in 1993, only to be informed by the prime minister that there was no alternative. Chrétien himself expressed his unhappiness with his budget in a radio interview with Peter Gzowski in March 1995, saying about the budget: "It is not our pleasure sir, I have to tell you that. I've been around a long time. It's no pleasure at all. I'm not doctrinaire, a right-winger. I'm a Liberal, and I feel like a Liberal, and it is painful. But it is needed".


title: Jean Chrétien

text: The government began a program of deep cuts to provincial transfers and other areas of government finance. During his tenure as prime minister, a $42 billion deficit was eliminated, five consecutive budget surpluses were recorded (thanks in part to favorable economic times), $36 billion in debt was paid down, and taxes were cut by $100 billion (cumulatively) over five years. Using the low incomes cut-offs after tax measure, the percentage of Canadians who had low income in 1993 was 14.1 percent; in 1995, when the budget was introduced, that figure had jumped to 14.5; in 2003, the end of Chrétien's time in office, that number had fallen to just 11.6 percent. The share of Canadians living in persistent poverty (i.e. low income for at least 3 years out of 6 years) has declined by almost half since the mid-1990s to 2010. Social spending as a percentage of GDP fell from 20.35 percent in 1993, to 18.35 percent in 1995, eventually falling to 16.94 percent in 1997 and 15.76 percent in 2000, and eventually rising to 16.29 percent in 2003. The 1995 budget, which was called by Peter C. Newman a "watershed document" that marked the first time in recent memory that anybody had made a serious effort to deal with the deficit, won a favorable reaction from the international markets, and a led to an immediate fall in interest rates. There were, however, undeniable costs associated with this endeavour. The cuts resulted in fewer government services, most noticeably in the health care sector, as major reductions in federal funding to the provinces meant significant cuts in service delivery. Moreover, the across-the-board cuts affected the operations and achievement of the mandate of most federal departments. Many of the cuts were restored in later years of Chrétien's period in office.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: In March 1996, when the Chrétien government presented its third budget, the backbencher Liberal MP John Nunziata voted against the budget under the grounds it failed to repeal the GST as the Liberals had promised in 1993 and singled out for criticism his former Rat Pack colleague Sheila Copps, who had promised during the 1993 election to resign within a year if the GST was not repealed. Chrétien's response was to expel Nunziata from the Liberal caucus. However, the expulsion of Nunziata drew attention to the fact that Copps was still in office despite her promise to resign within a year if the GST was not repealed. Chrétien first stated that Copps would stay in Parliament despite her promise of 1993, but then intense public pressure (together with a poll showing Copps would win a by-election) forced Copps to resign from the Parliament. After resigning, Copps then contested the resulting by-election, where she won and then went straight back into the Cabinet. To help defuse anger over the GST issue, in the spring of 1996 the Chrétien government moved to harmonize sales taxes (GST with provincial taxes) by signing an accord with three of the four Atlantic provinces; the other provinces were not interested in the federal offer to harmonize.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: In February 1998, for the first time since 1969 a balanced budget was presented by the government. Shortly afterwards, the Chrétien government introduced the National Child Benefit program for the children of low-income parents.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: In 1999, Chrétien supported Canada's involvement in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) bombing campaign of the Yugoslavia over the issue of Kosovo, even through the operation was unsanctioned by the United Nations Security Council. There had been an Anglo-American resolution asking for the Security Council's approval of the NATO bombing, but it was vetoed by Russia. The idea of bombing Yugoslavia caused some discomfort within the ranks of the Liberal party as the NATO campaign effectively meant supporting Kosovo separatists against a government determined to prevent Kosovo's secession from Yugoslavia. Chrétien was personally uncomfortable with the idea of bombing Yugoslavia, but supported the war because he valued good relations with the United States far more than he cared about Yugoslavia. Chrétien's foreign minister at the time, Lloyd Axworthy justified Canada's involvement in the bombing of Yugoslavia on the grounds that allegations of massacres against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo made the use of force legitimate on humanitarian grounds, even without the approval of the UN Security Council. Likewise, Chrétien was later to tell Lawrence Martin that it was far better to intervene in the internal affairs of Yugoslavia to stop human rights violations in the Kosovo region by Serbian forces than to do nothing.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Chrétien was known to be a Sinophile and an admirer of the People's Republic of China. In November 1994, he led the first of four "Team Canada" trade missions comprising himself and 9 premiers to China (Quebec Premier Jacques Parizeau having declined to go), which had as their stated objective increasing Sino-Canadian trade. The Team Canada mission was meant to be the beginning of the export offensive that would stimulate the economy out of the recession, and also to achieve Chrétien's goal going back to the 1970s of a Canadian economy less dependent on trade with the United States. Under his leadership, China and Canada signed several bilateral relations agreements. The Team Canada missions attracted criticism that Chrétien seemed concerned only with economic issues, that he rarely raised the subject of China's poor human rights record, and that on the few occasions that he did mention human rights in China he went out of his way to avoid offending his hosts. Moreover, Chrétien attracted criticism for presenting the case for improved human rights in purely economic terms, arguing that a better human rights record would allow China to join the WTO and thus sell more goods to the West. Chrétien argued that there was no point in criticizing China's human rights record because the Chinese never listened to such criticism, and instead were greatly annoyed about being lectured by Western leaders about their poor human rights record. Given that Canada could not really do anything to change the views of China's leaders about human rights, Chrétien contended that the best that could be done was to improve Sino-Canadian economic relations while ignoring the subject of human rights.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Chrétien phoned U.S. President Bill Clinton in November 1993 to ask him to renegotiate aspects of NAFTA. Clinton bluntly refused, saying that it had been extremely difficult to get Congress to ratify NAFTA, and if NAFTA was renegotiated, then he would have to submit the renegotiated treaty again for ratification, which was not something that he was going to do just for the sake of Chrétien. Clinton informed the prime minister that he could either scrap NAFTA or accept it as it was, and that the most he could offer were a few cosmetic concessions like writing a letter saying the United States was not interested in taking over Canada's energy and water. Chrétien chose the latter, and sought to portray Clinton's letter as a major American concession that constituted a renegotiated NAFTA, though in fact Clinton's letter was not legally binding and meant nothing. Only treaties ratified by Congress are legally binding on the U.S. government and presidential letters impose only a moral obligation, not a legal one, on the U.S government.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Following the September 11 attacks, Canadian forces joined with multinational to pursue al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. U.S. President George W. Bush had also commended how Canada responded to the crisis. Among them included Operation Yellow Ribbon and the memorial service on Parliament Hill three days after 9/11. In January 2002, Chrétien together with the Defence Minister Art Eggleton were accused of misleading Parliament. When asked in Question Period if Canadian troops had handed over captured Taliban and al-Qaeda members in Afghanistan to the American forces amid concerns about the treatment of POWs at Guantanamo Bay, Chrétien stated this was only a "hypothetical question" that could not be answered as the Canadians had taken no POWs. Critics of the government such as Joe Clark then pointed out that in the previous week, "The Globe & Mail" had run on its front page a photo of Canadian soldiers turning over POWs to American troops. Eggleton claimed that he had only learned of the policy of handing over POWs several days after the photo had appeared in "The Globe and Mail". When pressed by opposition critics about his apparent ignorance of what was Canada's policy on turning over POWs captured in Afghanistan, Eggleton then claimed that he had not only forgotten that he had been briefed by senior bureaucrats that Canadian Forces were to hand over POWs to the Americans, but that he had also forgotten to inform the Cabinet.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: One year after the 9/11 attacks, Chrétien gave controversial remarks about what led to the attacks, suggesting they were a reaction to Western foreign policy. During the 2002 CBC interview, Chrétien said "I do think that the Western world is getting too rich in relations to the poor world. And necessarily, we’re looked upon as being arrogant, self-satisfied, greedy and with no limits. And the 11th of September is an occasion for me to realize it even more. When you are powerful like you are, you guys, it's the time to be nice. And it is one of the problems — you cannot exercise your powers to the point of humiliation of the others. And that is what the Western world — not only the Americans but the Western world — has to realize.” The comments were condemned by the new Official Opposition leader and the new Canadian Alliance leader, Stephen Harper, who charged Chretien with victim blaming, while the leaders of the New Democratic Party and Progressive Conservative Party did not interpret Chrétien's comments as critical of the United States.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Chrétien's government did not support the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq. His reasoning was that the war lacked UN Security Council sanction; while not a member of the Security Council, Canada nevertheless attempted to build a consensus for a resolution authorizing the use of force after a short (two- to three-month) extension to UN weapon inspections in Iraq. Critics also noted that, while in opposition, he had also opposed the first US-led Gulf War, which had been approved by the UN Security Council and in 1999 supported NATO air strikes against Serbia, which had no Security Council approval. In order to avoid damaging relations with the United States, Chrétien agreed to another and larger deployment of Canadian troops to Afghanistan on February 12, 2003, in order to prove that Canada was still a good American ally, despite opposing the upcoming Iraq war. Canada sent 2,000 soldiers to Afghanistan in the summer of 2003.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: In 1993, Chrétien canceled the contract to buy the EH-101 helicopters, requiring the search for new helicopters to start over, and paid a $478 million termination fee to AgustaWestland.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: In January 1998, Chrétien's government announced that the CH-113 helicopters would be replaced by a scaled-down search-and-rescue variant of the EH101, carrying the designation CH-149 Cormorant. Unlike the Petrel/Chimo contract which Chrétien had cancelled in 1993, these 15 aircraft were to be built entirely in Europe with no Canadian participation or industrial incentives. The first two aircraft arrived in Canada in September 2001 and entered service the following year. His Maritime Helicopter Project was supposed to find a low-cost replacement aircraft. The candidates were the Sikorsky S-92, the NHIndustries NH90 and the EH-101, although critics accused the government of designing the project so as to prevent AgustaWestland from winning the contract. A winner, the Sikorsky CH-148 Cyclone, would not be announced until after Chrétien retired.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Chrétien called an early election in the spring of 1997, hoping to take advantage of his position in the public opinion polls and the continued division of the conservative vote between the Progressive Conservative Party and the upstart Reform Party of Canada. Despite slipping poll numbers, he advised the governor general to call an election in 1997, a year ahead of schedule. Many of his own MPs criticized him for this move, especially in light of the devastating Red River Flood, which led to charges of insensitivity. Liberal MP John Godfrey tried hard to interest Chrétien in an ambitious plan to eliminate urban poverty in Canada as a platform to run on in the election, which was vetoed by Eddie Goldenberg and John Rae of the PMO, who convinced Chrétien that it was better to stick with an "incrementalist" course of small changes than risk any grand project. The Progressive Conservatives had a popular new leader in Jean Charest and the New Democrats' Alexa McDonough led her party to a breakthrough in Atlantic Canada, where the Liberals had won all but one seat in 1993. Chrétien benefited when the Reform Party aired a TV ad in English Canada charging that the country was being dominated by French-Canadian politicians, which Chrétien used to accuse Preston Manning of being anti-French. In 1997, the Liberals lost all but a handful of seats in Atlantic Canada and Western Canada, but managed to retain a bare majority government due to their continued dominance of Ontario.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Chrétien called another early election in the fall of 2000, again hoping to take advantage of the split in the Canadian right and catch the newly formed Canadian Alliance and its neophyte leader Stockwell Day off guard. At the funeral of Pierre Trudeau in September 2000, the Cuban President, Fidel Castro happened to meet with Day. Later that same day, Chrétien met with Castro, where Chrétien asked Castro about his assessment of Day and if he should call an early election or not. Castro advised Chrétien to dissolve Parliament early as he considered Day to be a lightweight, and as Castro was a leader whom Chrétien respected, his advice was an important reason for the election. Finance Minister Paul Martin released a 'mini-budget' just before the election call that included significant tax cuts, a move aimed at undermining the Alliance position going into the campaign. Chrétien formed a "war room" comprising his communications director Françoise Ducros, Warren Kinsella, Duncan Fulton and Kevin Bosch to gather material to attack Day as a right-wing extemist. In the first weeks of the 2000 election, the Canadian Alliance gained in the polls and some voters complained that Chrétien overstayed his time in office and had no agenda beyond staying in power for the sake of staying in power. The fact that the Red Book of 2000 consisted almost entirely of recycled promises from the Red Books of 1993 and 1997 and various banal statements further reinforced the impression of a prime minister with no plans or vision for Canada and whose only agenda was to hang onto power as long as possible. However, the Liberal claim that Day planned to dismantle the health care system to replace it with a "two-tier" health care system along with a number of gaffes on Day's part in addition to Alliance candidate Betty Granger warning that Canada was faced with the threat of an "Asian invasion" (which furthered the Liberals' plan to paint the Alliance as a xenophobic and extreme right-wing party) started to turn opinion decisively against the Canadian Alliance. Day's socially conservative views were also attacked by Chrétien as the Liberals claimed that Day would make homosexuality and abortion illegal. The New Democrats and Bloc Québécois also ran lacklustre campaigns, while the Progressive Conservatives, led by former Prime Minister Joe Clark, struggled to retain official party status. On November 27, the Liberals secured a strong majority mandate in the 2000 election, winning nearly as many seats as they had in 1993, largely thanks to significant gains in Quebec and in Atlantic Canada. Without Jean Charest as leader, the PCs who had done well in winning the popular vote in Quebec in 1997 fared poorly in 2000, and most of their voters defected over to the Liberals.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: In late 2000 and early 2001, politics were dominated by questions about the Grand-Mere Affair (or the Shawinigate scandal). Opposition parties frequently charged that Chrétien had broken the law in regards to his lobbying for Business Development Bank of Canada for loans to the Auberge Grand-Mère inn. Questions were especially centered around the firing of the president of the bank, François Beaudoin, and the involvement of Jean Carle, formerly of the PMO, in sacking Beaudoin. Carle served as Chrétien's chief of operations between 1993 and 1998 before leaving to take up an executive post at the Business Development Bank. Chrétien claimed that Carle was not involved in any way with the loans to the Grand-Mere Inn, only to be countered by Joe Clark, who produced a leaked document showing that he was. After initial denials, Chrétien acknowledged having lobbied the Business Development Bank to grant a $2 million loan to Yvon Duhaime. Duhaime was a friend and constituent to whom the Prime Minister stated that he had sold his interest in the Grand-Mère Inn, a local Shawinigan-area hotel and golf resort, eventually providing evidence of the sale—a contract written on a cocktail napkin. Duhaime was a local businessman with an unsavoury reputation and a criminal record, who received a loan from the Business Development Bank that he was ineligible to collect on the account of his criminal record (Duhaime did not mention his record when applying for the loan). The bank had turned down the initial loan application, but later approved a $615,000 loan following further lobbying by Chrétien. When the bank refused to extend the loan in August 1999 under the grounds that Duhaime had a bad financial history, Beaudoin was fired by Chrétien in September 1999, which led to a wrongful dismissal suit that Beaudoin was to win in 2004. It was revealed that Chrétien had never been paid for his share in the sale of the adjoining golf course, and criminal charges were laid against Duhaime. On February 19, 2001, the RCMP announced that there they did not find sufficient evidence to lay criminal charges against anyone in regards to the Grand-Mere Affair, and Chrétien accused Clark of waging a "witch hunt" against the Liberals. On March 2, 2001, the federal ethics counselor Howard Wilson cleared Chrétien of wrongdoing in the Grand-Mere Affair. On April 5, 2001, the "National Post" received documents purportedly from an anonymous source within the bank, indicating that Chrétien was still owed $23,040 by Duhaime for his share in the Auberge Grand-Mère. The revelation of the Grand-Mère affair did not affect the outcome of the 2000 election. Chrétien and his circle believed that the breaking of the Grand-Mère story was the work of the Martin faction.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: The major controversy of the later Chrétien years was the Sponsorship Scandal, which involved more than $100 million distributed from the Prime Minister's Office to Quebec's federalist and Liberal Party interests without much accountability. On May 8, 2002, the Sponsorship Scandal broke when the auditor general, Sheila Fraser, issued a report accusing Public Works bureaucrats of having broken "just about every rule in the book" in awarding $1.6 million to the Montreal ad firm Groupaction Marketing Inc. The money awarded to Groupaction in three dubious contracts appeared to have disappeared, and the firm had a long history of donating to the Liberals. Opposition critics further suggested that the public works minister at the time, Alfonso Gagliano, whom Chrétien had praised as a great patriot, was not just a mere bystander to questionable contacts associated with the sponsorship program that Fraser had identified. In response to the public outrage, Chrétien argued in speech in Winnipeg that all this was necessary to stop Quebec separatism and justified by the results, stating that: "Perhaps there was a few million dollars that might have been stolen in the process. It is possible. But how many millions of dollars have we saved the country because we have re-established the stability of Canada as a united country? If somebody has stolen the money, they will face the courts. But I will not apologize to Canadians." Chrétien's argument that he had nothing to apologize for in regards to the sponsorship program, and his apparent condoning of corruption as justified by the results of saving Canada fared poorly with the Canadian public, which increasingly started to perceive the prime minister as an autocratic leader with a thuggish streak. A poll taken later in May 2002 showed that over half of Canadians believed that the Chrétien government was corrupt. The Sponsorship Scandal would tarnish Chrétien's reputation only a few years after he left office, and contributed to the Liberals losing their majority government in 2004 and losing power altogether in 2006.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Relations between Chrétien and Martin were frequently strained, and Martin was reportedly angling to replace Chrétien as early as 1997. Martin had long hoped that Chrétien would just retire at the end of his second term, thereby allowing him to win the Liberal leadership, and were greatly disappointed in January 2000 when Chrétien's communications director Françoise Ducros had fired "a shot across the bow" by confirming what had been strongly hinted at since the summer of 1999 in an announcement to the caucus that Chrétien would seek a third term.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Chrétien was due to face a leadership review in February 2002, but the Liberal national executive, which was controlled by partisans of Paul Martin, agreed to Chrétien's request in early January 2001 that the leadership review be pushed back to February 2003. In agreeing to this request, Martin believed that this was the "quid pro quo" for allowing Chrétien a decent interval to retire with dignity sometime in 2002, an interpretation that Chrétien did not hold.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: By early 2002, the long-simmering feud with Martin came to a head. A particular concern that had badly strained relations between the prime minister and the finance minister by early 2002 was Martin's control of the Liberal Party apparatus, especially his control over the issuing of membership forms, which he reserved largely for his own supporters. In January 2002, Brian Tobin complained to Chrétien that the Liberal Party machinery had been "captured" by Martin's followers to the extent that it was now virtually impossible for anyone else to sign up their own followers. This posed a major problem for Chrétien as the Liberals were due to hold a leadership review in February 2003. However, it was still quite possible that Chrétien would win the review by a slim margin.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: In January 2002, an incident occurred which was to greatly damage Chrétien's relations with the Liberal caucus. After Chrétien reorganized the Cabinet in late January 2002, Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett criticised Chrétien at a caucus meeting for not appointing more women to the Cabinet. Chrétien exploded with rage at Bennett's criticism, saying that as a mere backbencher she did not have the right to criticise the prime minister in front of the caucus, and attacked her with such fury that Bennett collapsed in tears. In February 2002, reflecting a growing number of Liberal MPs' displeasure with Chrétien, the Liberal caucus elected the outspoken pro-Martin MP Stan Keyes (who had already openly mused in 2001 about how it was time for Chrétien to go) as their chairman, who defeated pro-Chrétien MP Steve Mahoney. Chrétien had expected Mahoney to win, and was reported to be shocked when he learned of Keyes's victory, which now gave Martin more control of the caucus.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: In late May 2002, Chrétien tried to curtail Martin's campaign for the leadership of the party by delivering a lecture to Cabinet to stop raising money for leadership bids within the Liberal Party. At what was described as a "stormy" Cabinet meeting on May 30, 2002, Chrétien stated that he intended to serve out his entire term, and ordered the end of all leadership fundraising. Martin left his cabinet on June 2, 2002. Martin claimed that Chrétien dismissed him from Cabinet, while Chrétien said that Martin had resigned. In his memoirs, Chrétien wrote that he regretted not having fired Martin a few years earlier.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Martin's departure generated a severe backlash from Martin's supporters, who controlled much of the party machinery, and all signs indicated that they were prepared to oust Chrétien at a leadership review in February 2003. To win the leadership review, Chrétien formed a team in early June 2002 comprising his close associates John Rae, David Collenette, Jean Carle, and David Smith who were ordered to sign up as many pro-Chrétien ("Chrétienist") Liberals as possible for the leadership review. The open split, which was covered extensively on national media, increasingly painted Chrétien as a lame duck. During the summer of 2002, a number of backbencher Liberal MPs associated with Martin started to openly criticise Chrétien's leadership, calling on him to resign now or suffer the humiliation of losing the leadership review. Chrétien asked Jim Karygiannis, who had been so effective in signing up supporters for him in 1990 to repeat that performance, only to be told by Karygiannis that Chrétien had never rewarded him by appointing him to the Cabinet as he asked for many times over the years, had not even returned his phone calls to set up a meeting to discuss his possible appointment to the Cabinet and that he was now a Martin man. Karygiannis then called a press conference on July 13, 2002, where he called for Chrétien to retire "with dignity", rather than risk losing a potentially divisive leadership review and avoid having his career end that way.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: After less than half the caucus committed to support him in August 2002 by signing a letter indicating their support for the prime minister in the up-coming leadership review, Chrétien announced that he would not lead the party into the next election, and set his resignation date for February 2004. Martin was not happy with the 2004 departure date, preferring that Chrétien retire at the end of 2002, but considered it better if Chrétien were to retire than having to defeat him at the 2003 leadership review, which would have been more divisive and would have established the ominous precedent of a prime minister being ousted by his own party for no other reason other that someone else wanted the job. Due to mounting pressure from the Martin camp, Chrétien no longer saw his February 2004 resignation date as tenable. His final sitting in the House of Commons took place on November 6, 2003. He made an emotional farewell to the party on November 13 at the 2003 Liberal leadership convention. The following day, Martin was elected his successor. On December 12, 2003, Chrétien formally resigned as prime minister, handing power over to Martin. Chrétien joined the law firm, Heenan Blaikie on January 5, 2004, as counsel. The firm announced he would work out of its Ottawa offices four days per week and make a weekly visit to the Montreal office. In early 2004, there occurred much in-fighting within the Liberal Party with several Liberal MPs associated with Chrétien such as Sheila Copps and Charles Caccia losing their nomination battles against Martin loyalists.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: On February 18, 2004, François Beaudoin won his wrongful dismissal suit against the Business Development Bank of Canada. Justice Andre Denis ruled in favor of Beaudoin's claim that he was fired for political reasons in 1999 for trying to call the loan on the Grand Mère Inn, ruled that Chrétien's former aide Jean Carle and Michel Vennat was guilty of making false criminal and civil charges of wrongdoing against Beaudoin to discredit him for suing the bank, accused Carle of committing perjury during the trial and declared given the "unspeakable injustice" Beaudoin had suffered, told the government not to appeal his ruling because they would be wasting the tax-payers' money if they did. The lingering repercussions of the sponsorship scandal of 2002 reduced the Liberal Party to a minority in the 2004 election, may have strengthened the separatist case, and contributed to the government's defeat in the 2006 election. The scandal led to long-running, deep investigations by the RCMP, a federal inquiry, the Gomery Commission, chaired by Justice John Gomery (called by Martin in 2004), and several prosecutions and convictions; the legal process continued to late 2011, more than a decade after the scandal began.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Jean Chrétien testified for the Gomery Commission regarding the sponsorship scandal in February 2005. Earlier that year his lawyers tried, but failed, to have Justice John Gomery removed from the commission, arguing that he lacked objectivity. Chrétien contends that the Gomery Commission was set up to tarnish his image, and that it was not a fair investigation. He cites comments Gomery made calling him "small town cheap", referring to the management of the sponsorship program as "catastrophically bad", and calling Chuck Guité a "charming scamp". Subsequent to the release of the first report, Chrétien has decided to take an action in Federal Court to review the commission report on the grounds that Gomery showed a "reasonable apprehension of bias", and that some conclusions didn't have an "evidentiary" basis. Chrétien believes that the appointment of Bernard Roy, a former chief of staff to former PC prime minister Brian Mulroney, as chief counsel for the commission was a mistake, as he failed to call some relevant witnesses such as Don Boudria and Ralph Goodale. In his report of November 1, 2005 on responsibility for the sponsorship scandal, Justice Gomery ruled that Chrétien was not responsible for the awarding of advertising contracts in Quebec in which millions were stolen, but did accept Charles Guité's claim that he received his instructions on what program to sponsor and to spend how much money on each program from Jean Pelletier, the chief of staff at the PMO between 1993 and 2001 and Jean Carle, the director of operations at the PMO between 1993 and 1998 as the truth.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: In April 2007, Chrétien and Canadian book publishers Knopf Canada and Éditions du Boréal announced they would be publishing his memoirs, "My Years as Prime Minister", which will recount Chrétien's tenure as prime minister. The book was announced under the title of "A Passion for Politics". It arrived in bookstores in October 2007, in both English and French, but the promotional tour was delayed due to heart surgery. As well "Straight from the Heart" was republished with a new preface and two additional chapters detailing his return to politics as the leader of the Liberal Party and his victory in the election of 1993. Publisher Key Porter Books timed the re-issuing to coincide with the publication of "My Years as Prime Minister".


title: Jean Chrétien

text: On October 1, 2007, Chrétien was playing at the Royal Montreal Golf Club, north of Montreal, at a charity golf event. Playing alongside a cardiologist, he mentioned his discomfort, saying he "had been suffering some symptoms for some time" and the doctor advised he come for a check up. After examination, Chrétien was hospitalized at the Montreal Heart Institute, with unstable angina, a sign a heart attack might be imminent. He underwent quadruple heart bypass surgery as a result on the morning of October 3, 2007. The operation forced Chrétien to delay a promotional tour for his book. He was "expected to have a full and complete recovery".


title: Jean Chrétien

text: In November 2008, Chrétien and former NDP leader Ed Broadbent came out of retirement to negotiate a formal coalition agreement between the Liberals, the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Québécois, the first power-sharing coalition since the Union government of 1917–18 founded in response to the conscription crisis caused by World War I, in a bid to form a new government to replace the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Harper's request to prorogue parliament was granted by Governor General Michaëlle Jean, staving off the opposition's scheduled motion of non-confidence.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: On August 5, 2010, Chrétien complained of experiencing difficulty walking, and was admitted to a hospital. A brain scan was conducted the next day, and it revealed that a 3 centimeter wide subdural hematoma was pushing 1.5 centimeters into his brain. Emergency surgery was then performed that afternoon, and the blood was successfully drained. He was released from hospital on August 9, 2010. Doctors, who were impressed with the speed of his recovery, ordered him to rest for two to four weeks.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Chrétien's name was rumoured as a replacement for Kofi Annan as secretary-general of the United Nations.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Chrétien is a member of the Fondation Chirac's honour committee, ever since the foundation was launched in 2008 by former French president Jacques Chirac in order to promote world peace. He is also a member of the Club de Madrid, a group of former leaders from democratic countries, that works to strengthen democracy and respond to global crises. Jean Chrétien is also an Honorary Member of The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Chrétien is named in the Paradise Papers, a set of confidential electronic documents relating to offshore investment that were leaked to the German newspaper "Süddeutsche Zeitung".


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Chrétien was appointed a Companion of the Order of Canada on June 29, 2007. He was appointed to the Order of Merit by Queen Elizabeth II in July 2009 and received the insignia of the order from the Queen on October 20, 2009.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: In December 2011, Chrétien claimed that the Conservative Party and their majority government would overturn the legalization of same-sex marriage and abortion. In March 2013, Chrétien criticized Stephen Harper's foreign policy, sparking some debate about the different degrees of influence Canada has held in foreign affairs under the two prime ministers. On September 12, 2015, Chrétien published an open letter to Canadian voters in multiple newspapers in which he criticized Harper's response to the European migrant crisis, stating that Harper has turned Canada into a "cold hearted" nation and he has "shamed Canada". "I am sad to see that in fewer than 10 years, the Harper government has tarnished almost 60 years of Canada's reputation as a builder of peace and progress.", Chrétien stated before imploring voters to topple the Harper government in the upcoming election.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: In October 2021, Chrétien faced controversy during a promotional press interview for his recent book publication in which he denied having knowledge of the ongoing abuse happening to indigenous children in residential schools during his time as Indian Affairs Minister. He went on to compare the experience of Indian Residential Schools; which inflicted lifelong psychological and physical trauma and led either directly or indirectly to the deaths of thousands of children who attended the schools; to his own experience at a private boarding school. NDP MP Charlie Angus contested that the residential school abuse was reported to the department while Chrétien was minister, citing a letter from a teacher at St. Anne's Residential School in Fort Albany, Ont. It was dated 1968. In it, the teacher told him “that crimes are being committed against children," and "that he as Indian affairs minister had to step up and do something." Chrétien never responded.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: In September 2022, Chrétien attended Elizabeth II's state funeral, along with other former Canadian prime ministers.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Chrétien was ranked the 9th greatest prime minister in a survey of Canadian scholars in 1999, which appeared in "Prime Ministers: Ranking Canada's Leaders" by J.L. Granatstein and Norman Hillmer. "Maclean's" has consistently ranked Chrétien in the top ten on their assessments of Canadian prime ministers; he was ranked 9th greatest in 1997, 6th greatest in 2011 and 7th greatest in 2016.


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Writing in "Policy Options", historian and author Bob Plamondon pointed out that "After demonizing Chrétien, Quebec nationalists could not reconcile themselves to the reality that he gave their province new tools to protect the French language and culture. Canada had not been as united in the previous 50 years as when Chrétien left office. Economists were left to wonder how Chrétien turned around the national finances without triggering a recession. Canadians said in a survey that staying out of Iraq was the country's greatest foreign policy achievement. University presidents still marvel at how Chrétien rebuilt Canada's intellectual infrastructure, turning a brain drain into a brain gain."


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Historian Michael Bliss wrote that Chrétien was "moderately competent and only moderately corrupt." Bliss also wrote, "Jean Chrétien’s career shows how much can be accomplished in Canadian politics by someone who is ambitious, hard-working, and has good luck — even if they speak English with a very thick accent."


title: Jean Chrétien

text: Chrétien chose the following jurists to be appointed as justices of the Supreme Court of Canada by the governor general:


title: Midge Ure

text: James Ure (born 10 October 1953) is a Scottish musician, singer-songwriter and record producer. His stage name, Midge, is a phonetic reversal of Jim, the diminutive form of his actual name. Ure enjoyed particular success in the 1970s and 1980s in bands including Slik, Thin Lizzy, Rich Kids and Visage, and as the frontman of Ultravox. In 1984, he co-wrote and produced the charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?", which has sold 3.7 million copies in the UK. The song is the second highest-selling single in UK chart history. Ure co-organised Band Aid, Live Aid and Live 8 with Bob Geldof. He acts as a trustee for the charity and also serves as an ambassador for Save the Children.


title: Midge Ure

text: Ure is the producer and writer of several other synth-pop and new wave hit singles of the 1980s, including "Fade to Grey" (1980) by Visage and the Ultravox signature songs "Vienna" (1980) and "Dancing with Tears in My Eyes" (1984). He achieved his first UK top 10 solo hit in 1982 with "No Regrets". In 1985, his solo debut studio album "The Gift" reached number two in the UK Albums Chart and yielded the UK Singles Chart number-one single "If I Was". He also co-wrote Phil Lynott's "Yellow Pearl", which served as the theme of "Top of the Pops" for much of the 1980s.


title: Midge Ure

text: Born to a working-class family in Cambuslang, Ure attended Rutherglen Academy until he was 15 years old. For the first 10 years of his life he lived in a one-bedroom tenement flat in Cambuslang (on the outskirts of Glasgow) with his brother, sister and parents, later moving to a new house in nearby Eastfield.


title: Midge Ure

text: After leaving school Ure attended Motherwell Technical College and then began to work as an engineer, training at the National Engineering Laboratory (NEL), in nearby East Kilbride. He started playing music in a Glasgow band called Stumble (c.1969 – c.1971). The band's line-up included lead guitarist Alan Wright, Fraser Spiers on harmonica, Kenny Ireland on bass and Alec Baird on drums.


title: Midge Ure

text: Ure joined Salvation as a guitarist in 1972. The band had been formed in Glasgow in June 1970 by the brothers Kevin (vocals) and Jim McGinlay (bass guitar). Jim McGinlay (born James McGinlay) decided to turn Ure's name backwards to "Mij" (Midge) to avoid any confusion caused by two members of the band having the same first name. Ure has since presented himself in the music scene as Midge Ure. The band performed covers as house band in the Glasgow and Edinburgh Clouds discothèques. The band also comprised Billy McIsaac on keyboards and Kenny Hyslop on drums.


title: Midge Ure

text: In April 1974, Kevin McGinlay left to pursue a solo career, so Ure assumed vocals in addition to his guitar duties. In November 1974, the band changed its name to Slik, with Bay City Rollers writers Bill Martin and Phil Coulter providing songs. In 1975 Ure turned down an offer to be the lead vocalist of the Sex Pistols, stating that he felt at the time that Malcolm McLaren had "his priorities completely wrong!", a position he later reversed.


title: Midge Ure

text: Slik achieved a number one single on the UK Singles Chart in February 1976 with "Forever and Ever". In early 1977, Jim McGinlay decided to quit the band, being replaced by Russell Webb. Slik terminated their contract with Martin and Coulter, believing that their boy band image was hindering their chances of success during the rising punk rock scene. They changed their name to PVC2 and adopted a more punkish style. Ure's only release with the band under this name was the single "Put You in the Picture".


title: Midge Ure

text: By October 1977, Ure had left PVC2 to join former Sex Pistol bass guitarist Glen Matlock in Rich Kids. He moved to London and soon found himself immersed in a scene he had previously only read about in the pages of the "NME". Musical tensions within the band led to Ure's departure. Having acquired a Yamaha CS50 synthesiser, Ure – alongside bandmate Rusty Egan – wanted to integrate the new instrument into the band's sound. With Glen Matlock and Steve New preferring to remain with the traditional guitars and drums approach, the band broke up.


title: Midge Ure

text: In January 2010, Rich Kids reformed, for one night only, for a benefit concert for guitarist Stella Nova who was fighting terminal cancer (and died on 24 May 2010). Although it had been over 30 years since they played together, the press reports praised the gig, which included energetic performances of "Ghosts of Princes in Towers" and "Hung on You". Rich Kids were joined onstage by Mick Jones of the Clash and Gary Kemp of Spandau Ballet. Ure also played an acoustic set of Ultravox and Visage songs.


title: Midge Ure

text: In February 2016, it was announced that Rich Kids would reform for a joint headline show with the Professionals at London's O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire.


title: Midge Ure

text: In 1978, Egan and Ure formed Visage with lead vocalist Steve Strange, and utilised their new synthesiser when they recorded a cover of the Zager and Evans classic "In the Year 2525" for promotional purposes. The line-up was expanded in 1979 with the addition of Magazine members Dave Formula, John McGeoch and Barry Adamson, and Ultravox keyboardist Billy Currie, and the band signed briefly to Radar Records for the release of their first single "Tar". Egan and Ure also formed the short-lived band the Misfits, whose career was curtailed by an approach from Thin Lizzy. Though Visage's first single was unsuccessful, they signed a recording contract with Polydor Records in 1980; their second single, "Fade to Grey", became a hit.


title: Midge Ure

text: Ure already knew Thin Lizzy singer Phil Lynott, and in early 1979 Ure received co-writing credit for "Get Out of Here" on Thin Lizzy's ninth studio album "" (1979). In July 1979 Ure stepped in to help Thin Lizzy complete a US tour following guitarist Gary Moore's abrupt departure. Ure also contributed guitar parts to "Things Ain't Working Out" and "Dublin" for the Thin Lizzy remix compilation album "The Continuing Saga of the Ageing Orphans" (1979). Thin Lizzy then toured America and Japan. In 1980, during the second part of this tour, Ure switched to keyboards, and was replaced by Dave Flett and then Snowy White as guitarist. At the end of the tour Ure left Thin Lizzy and returned to his primary interest at that time, Ultravox. Ure continued to collaborate with Lynott, co-writing Lynott's biggest solo hit, "Yellow Pearl".


title: Midge Ure

text: In 1979, Ure and Billy Currie formed a close bond playing together in Visage. Rusty Egan persuaded Billy Currie to ask Ure if he was interested in joining a revived Ultravox. Ultravox had been presumed defunct since guitarist Robin Simon quit and lead vocalist John Foxx had left to pursue a solo career. In April 1979 Ure regrouped the band and assumed duties as singer, songwriter, guitarist and second keyboardist. This second incarnation would become the classic line-up, with Currie (keyboards, violin), Chris Cross (bass) and Warren Cann (electronic drums). Although Ure had spent the latter half of 1979 on tour with Thin Lizzy, Ultravox found time late in the year to tour in the US. During this time the band wrote a number of songs which were included on their first studio album with Ure.


title: Midge Ure

text: The album, "Vienna", was recorded in 1980. Although it was the band's fourth studio album, it was the first with Ure, and the first one to chart, although it was only a minor success on first release. However, when the title track "Vienna" was released as a single in early 1981 it became a huge hit and spent four weeks at no. 2 in the UK singles chart and was the 5th highest selling single in the UK that year. The album itself re-entered the album chart and peaked at no. 3. Inspired by the film noir "The Third Man" (1949), the music video for "Vienna" was directed by Russell Mulcahy utilising cinematic techniques, and became quite influential. In an interview Ure recalled the way that "music video changed after that. All these things that became video clichés – cropping the top and bottom off the screen, shooting on film as opposed to videotape, making it look like a movie ... we were quite a groundbreaking act for a while." The same year that Ultravox released the "Vienna" album, Visage also released their self-titled debut studio album which made the UK Top 20 and featured the hit single "Fade to Grey" (co-written by Ure and Currie with Chris Payne), also influential in the direction of the New Romantic electropop music scene.


title: Midge Ure

text: For a while between 1979 and 1980, then, Ure was deeply committed to three different bands, all of them quite successful: Ultravox, Visage and Thin Lizzy.


title: Midge Ure

text: In 1981, Ultravox recorded their second studio album with Ure as frontman, "Rage in Eden", which was a Top 5 hit in the UK. After its release Ure and Currie reconvened with Visage to record the band's second studio album, "The Anvil". Released in early 1982, it was a Top 10 hit; but Ure left the band soon after its release, citing creative differences with frontman Steve Strange. The same year saw Ultravox record and release their third studio album with Ure, "Quartet", with production by Beatles producer George Martin. The album became their third Top 10 hit and featured four Top 20 singles. This period saw Ure work as a producer for other artists, amongst them Steve Harley, Skids, Peter Godwin, and Strasse, and in 1982 Ure released his first solo single, a cover version of the 1968 Tom Rush song "No Regrets" (based on the 1975 hit cover version by the Walker Brothers), which made the UK Top 10. Ure also recorded the Bowie-track "The Man Who Sold the World" for the soundtrack to the British comedy film Party Party (1983).


title: Midge Ure

text: Midge Ure met bassist Mick Karn at the first ever Prince's Trust concert in May 1982. Sir George Martin was the musical director and Pete Townshend of the Who was the band leader. In three days in February 1983 Ure and Karn were at Air Studios in London and recorded the UK top 40 single "After a Fashion". They also travelled to Cairo to film one of the most expensive music videos that Karn would ever be involved in.


title: Midge Ure

text: After the live album "Monument" released in October 1983, Ultravox released their fourth studio album with Ure, "Lament", in April 1984. The album was another Top 10 success and contained the Top 3 hit "Dancing with Tears in My Eyes". The band released "The Collection", their first "greatest hits" album at the end of the year, featuring all the singles from 1980 onwards. The album peaked at no. 2 in the UK and was later certified triple platinum.


title: Midge Ure

text: After Ure's successful debut solo studio album in 1985, the fifth and final Ultravox studio album with Ure, "U-Vox", was released in October 1986. Although another Top 10 hit, the album (and singles) fared less well than their earlier releases. After the end of the U-Vox Tour Ure left Ultravox. He stated in an Extreme Voice Fanzine 1991: ""The spark kind of went out of it for me, Live Aid and Band Aid had a lot to do with it, I suppose. We had a long break from each other and when we came back together we were all working in different directions"".""I think we went out with a kind of whimper but we chose to do that really, we didn't do the all-singing, all-dancing farewell tour cash-in that a load of bands do. I had decided that I was leaving before we did our last European tour, the U-Vox tour. We were in Italy.""


title: Midge Ure

text: Ure and Currie had met in October 2008 and played an acoustic "Vienna" together on Absolute Radio in UK. In April 2009, Ure and the other members (Cann, Currie and Cross) reformed Ultravox for the Return to Eden tour to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the album "Vienna" (1980), and in their own words, the "anniversary of their classic line-up". Ure stated in a BBC interview in April 2009, "we are not trying to get our youth back, nor the hair that's fallen off already". After appearing at the Isle of Wight Festival 2009 Ultravox followed up the next year with a second round of the tour. In late 2010, Ultravox started working on their sixth studio album fronted by Ure. This album, titled "Brilliant", was released in May 2012. Following this release the band embarked on the 'Brilliant Tour' performing shows in the UK and Europe in late 2012. In November 2013, Ultravox were special guests on a four-date arena tour with Simple Minds.


title: Midge Ure

text: In November 1984, Ure co-wrote the Band Aid hit, "Do They Know It's Christmas?" with Bob Geldof. Ure was rehearsing with Ultravox for an episode of the Channel 4 music show "The Tube" when host Paula Yates handed him the phone. It was her then husband, Geldof, who proceeded, recalls Ure, "to rant on about the Michael Buerk BBC news report on the Ethiopian famine". Geldof provided the initial lyrics, with Ure working the musical theme on a small keyboard in his kitchen. The second half was composed by Ure, with the bridging chorus only assembled in the studio when the artists had gathered. Ure has described the song as not one of the best he has ever written, commenting that "the momentum the artists gave it in the recording studio is what made it".


title: Midge Ure

text: At the studio recording Ure took on the production duties for the song. Although Trevor Horn had been approached to undertake this role, he needed more time to fulfill other obligations than was available. Ure stepped into the breach, with Horn providing his studio, remixing the track and producing the 12" version. Ure and Geldof jointly set up the Band Aid Trust, and he remains active as a Band Aid Trustee. He also co-organised the Live Aid concert of 1985 along with Geldof and Harvey Goldsmith. Geldof and Ure have been honoured with two Ivor Novello Awards for writing the song.


title: Midge Ure

text: In 1988, Ure helped to organise the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute, at which he also performed. He first performed at The Prince's Trust rock concert 1982, and has also been the Musical Director at the concerts 1986, 1987, 1988, 2010 and 2011.


title: Midge Ure

text: Ure performed at Music for Montserrat on 15 September 1997 to raise funds for the Caribbean island of Montserrat. It had been devastated by Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and again in 1997, when the island was impacted by volcanic activity. Ure himself lost a house on Montserrat, which was destroyed.


title: Midge Ure

text: On 24 July 1999, Ure was the Musical Director of the Wicked Women concert for the Breakthrough Breast Cancer charity held at Hyde Park in London, featuring artists Ronan Keating, Big Country and Lisa Stansfield.


title: Midge Ure

text: In 2005, he organised Live 8 concerts with Bob Geldof with the aim of pressing G8 leaders into taking action to end world poverty. Later that year he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to music and charity in the 2005 Birthday Honours. He has received five honorary degrees and was made an Honorary Doctor of Arts in 2005 by the University of Abertay Dundee for his artistic and charity work over the past 30 years. He was made a Doctor of Music by University of Edinburgh in 2006. In 2007, he received his third honorary doctorate, from the University of Paisley, for his contribution to Scottish culture and charity work. In 2008, Glasgow Caledonian University awarded him his fourth honorary doctorate, for his musical and humanitarian achievements.


title: Midge Ure

text: Ure was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Bath in December 2010. As an ambassador for Save the Children, Ure returned to Ethiopia in 2004 and 2009 and visited Sierra Leone in 2006.


title: Midge Ure

text: In August 2020, Ure contributed on ReMission International, Wayne Husseys re-recording of the Mission's "Tower of Strength" called "TOS 2020", to help COVID-19 charities around the world.


title: Midge Ure

text: After working on the Band Aid project and during a hiatus from Ultravox, Ure pursued a solo career in 1985. The single "If I Was" released in September was a UK number one single, and his debut studio album, "The Gift", reached No. 2. Ure recruited Mick Ronson to play guitar on his upcoming solo tour. They rehearsed, but Ure was not satisfied with Ronson's playing. A rehearsal live recording of "Fade to Grey" with Ronson's guitar is available from 27 September 1985.Zal Cleminson took over in the five-piece band, alongside Craig Armstrong on keyboards and Kenny Hyslop on drums. After returning to Ultravox for what would be their last studio album together until their 2012 reunion album, the band effectively disbanded in 1987 and Ure concentrated solely on his solo career but with less commercial success.


title: Midge Ure

text: The second studio album, "Answers to Nothing" (1988), reached the UK top 30. It featured a duet with Kate Bush called "Sister and Brother", and the single "Dear God", which helped Ure gain his first foothold with American audiences. It reached No. 6 on the US "Billboard" Mainstream Rock chart and at No. 4 on the US "Billboard" Alternative Music chart. The following year Ure toured in the US with Howard Jones.


title: Midge Ure

text: A change of label to Arista-BMG for his third solo studio album "Pure" (1991) saw him back in the UK Top 40. It contained the single "Cold, Cold Heart" which reached UK Top 20, and "I See Hope in the Morning Light", a song written about the possible release of Nelson Mandela and recorded as a celebration. 11 November 1991, Ure played at the Royal Albert Hall, with a five-piece band featuring drummer Mark Brzezicki, keyboardist Josh Phillips, and multi-instrumentalists Steven A. Williams and Willie Dowling. From 22 March to 22 April 1992 Ure toured in the US with four songwriters, Don Henry, Chip Taylor, Darden Smith and Rosie Flores. The tour was called "In Their Own Words".


title: Midge Ure

text: "", a retrospective compilation album of solo and Ultravox hits, was released in February 1993 by Chrysalis. It went as high as number 10 in the UK album chart. To support the release he went on a tour in the UK called "Out Alone" which saw Ure performing on his own, accompanying himself primarily on just an acoustic guitar and a keyboard. Ure also made an appearance at the prestigious Oxford University Union Debating Society.


title: Midge Ure

text: His fourth solo studio album, "Breathe" (1996), was produced by Richard Feldman. This album had a very Celtic feel with a plethora of acoustic instruments from Uilleann pipes to mandolins and accordions. Ure said in an interview 2001: ""My lowest point was when my album "Breathe" came out. I spent two years writing and recording it to find that people weren't taking any notice. As a result all the doors that were normally open to me such as television, had closed."" In 1996 the new 'Breathe' album was followed by further extensive touring, including dates in the US as special guest to the Chieftains.


title: Midge Ure

text: In 1998 the single "Breathe" became a hit-single, in several European countries boosted by its use in a Swatch TV ad campaign, two years after its original release. It entered at No. 1 on both the Italian and the Austrian charts. In 1998 Ure played on a European tour with Troy Donockley, and he also recorded the soundtrack to two American films that year, both directed by Richard Schenkman, "October 22", and "Went to Coney Island on a Mission from God... Be Back by Five".


title: Midge Ure

text: Ure's fifth solo studio album, "Move Me", was first released September 2000, on Arista label in Germany, later to be released 2001 in the UK on Curb Records. 28 March 2001 Ure was the subject of the "This Is Your Life" TV show hosted by Michael Aspel on BBC. The same year Ure also released "Little Orphans" exclusively from his website. A compilation of previously unreleased recordings. It contained "Feel So Good" with Gordon Giltrap, "Heart" with Chip Taylor, "Personal Heaven" with Glenn Gregory of Heaven 17 and two songs recorded with Mick Karn, Steve Jansen and Richard Barbieri of Japan.


title: Midge Ure

text: In September 2008 ""10"" was released. The album contains Ure's own interpretations of 10 songs that influenced him and shaped his songwriting. It was recorded in a log cabin in Eastern Canada, near Montreal, during the long snow bound winter of 2007–2008.


title: Midge Ure

text: Ure worked for over a decade on the next solo studio album, "Fragile", which was released on 7 July 2014. The making of "Fragile" coincided with Ultravox's 2012 reunion album "Brilliant". Reuniting with Ultravox inspired him to focus on music again, and ultimately finish the material that would become "Fragile". The album featured the song "Dark, Dark Night", a collaboration with Moby.


title: Midge Ure

text: In August 2014, Ure also returned to the US with the Retro Futura Tour, featuring Howard Jones, Tom Bailey of Thompson Twins, China Crisis and Katrina Leskanich of Katrina and the Waves.


title: Midge Ure

text: In 2015, Ure's 1982 cover of David Bowie's "The Man Who Sold the World", was featured in the video game "".


title: Midge Ure

text: On 1 December 2017, the "Orchestrated" album was released. It features orchestrated re-recordings of Ultravox and solo career songs arranged by the British composer Ty Unwin, and a new written track called "Ordinary Man".


title: Midge Ure

text: Ure returned to North America in the summer of 2018 on a co-headline tour with Paul Young, called "The Soundtrack of Your Life Tour".


title: Midge Ure

text: In 2019 Ure continued to tour with the Band Electronica (Russell Field, Cole Stacey, Joseph O'Keefe) with "The 1980 Tour", during which they performed Ultravox's album "Vienna" (1980) in full and also included highlights from Visage's self-titled debut studio album. On 27 September 2019, Chrysalis Records released "Soundtrack 1978-2019", a 32-song collection, encompassing four decades of Ure's rich and varied career.


title: Midge Ure

text: In August 2020, Ure was creating his "Backstage Lockdown Club" with livestreamed acoustic songs and Q&A sessions, to members on the Patreon website. Ure also invited other artists, including Mark King of Level 42, Glenn Gregory, Howard Jones, Nik Kershaw, Gary Kemp, and Clare Grogan of Altered Images.


title: Midge Ure

text: From 4 January 2021 Ure was hosting on Scala Radio, on their show The Space. 8 October 2021 Ure released the single "Das Beat" with Band Electronica. The project came about when Ure was performing in Düsseldorf in 2020. Wolfgang Flür of Kraftwerk was in the audience and later asked Ure to join a new project he was working on. A few days later, with thoughts of Flür's electronic drumming, the role Düsseldorf has played in the scene, Ure wrote "Das Beat". Whilst Flür went on to record his own version of the song for his album "Magazine 1" released in 2022, Ure laid down "Das Beat" with Band Electronica in its original form. Following the 2019’s 'The 1980 Tour', Ure and the Band Electronica returned in 2022 with the 'Voice & Visions' tour in Europe, celebrating 40 years since the release of Ultravox studio albums "Rage in Eden" (1981) and "Quartet" (1982).


title: Midge Ure

text: Ure lives near Bath. He has been married twice: to actress and writer Annabel Giles, and to Sheridan Forbes. He appeared on the 2007 "Celebrity MasterChef" series, winning his heat and progressing to the final on 15 June, alongside Nadia Sawalha and Craig Revel Horwood.


title: Lauren Miller Rogen

text: Lauren Anne Miller Rogen (née Miller; born July 24, 1981) is an American actress, comedian, screenwriter, and director. She has appeared in the films "Superbad" (2007), "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" (2008), and "50/50" (2011).


title: Lauren Miller Rogen

text: In 2012, she starred in the film "For a Good Time, Call...", which she also co-wrote and produced, and in 2018 made her directorial debut with "Like Father".


title: Lauren Miller Rogen

text: Miller was raised in Lakeland, Florida. She is the daughter of Adele and Scott Miller, and has a brother, Danny. Miller is Jewish. Miller attended the Lois Cowles Harrison Center for the Visual and Performing Arts for High School.


title: Lauren Miller Rogen

text: In 2003, Miller graduated from the Florida State University College of Motion Picture Arts. It was there that she met Katie Anne Naylon, the college roommate with whom Miller would later co-write "For a Good Time, Call...", based on their personal experiences.


title: Lauren Miller Rogen

text: At the beginning of her career, Miller performed supporting roles in several of Seth Rogen's films, including "Superbad", "Zack and Miri Make a Porno", "Observe and Report", and "50/50".


title: Lauren Miller Rogen

text: Her first leading film role was opposite Ari Graynor in the comedy that Miller co-wrote and produced, "For a Good Time, Call...". Rolling Stone quipped, "In a rare instance of truth in advertising, the movie actually is a good time." Focus Features picked up the rights to the film at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival for about $2 million and released it in the United States on August 31, 2012. Miller was also in two episodes of FOX comedy "Ben and Kate".


title: Lauren Miller Rogen

text: Miller began dating actor Seth Rogen in 2004. They were engaged on September 29, 2010, and married on October 2, 2011. They do not plan to have children.


title: Lauren Miller Rogen

text: In 2012, Miller and Rogen founded the non-profit organization Hilarity for Charity to raise awareness and fund research towards Alzheimer's disease. The disease runs in her family, including her mother who was diagnosed at the age of 55.


title: Amazon Fire TV

text: Amazon Fire TV (stylized as amazon fireTV) is a line of digital media players and microconsoles developed by Amazon. The devices are small network appliances that deliver digital audio and video content streamed via the Internet to a connected high-definition television. They also allow users to access local content and to play video games with the included remote control or another game controller, or by using a mobile app remote control on another device.


title: Amazon Fire TV

text: The device is available in two form factors, set-top box and HDMI plug-in stick with, in general, lesser specifications than the contemporaneous boxes. The current set-top box model is the Fire TV Cube with embedded Amazon Echo smart speaker (which effectively replaced the Fire TV box model), while the stick form factor encompasses four models, the entry-level Fire TV Stick Lite, the standard Fire TV Stick, and the high-end Fire TV Stick 4K and Fire TV Stick 4K Max (the last of which effectively replaced the third-generation Fire TV with 4K Ultra HD "pendant").


title: Amazon Fire TV

text: The first-generation Fire TV device was unveiled on April 2, 2014. The second-generation version was released in 2015, with additional Fire TV devices released on regular basis since.


title: Amazon Fire TV

text: In March 2016, Amazon began collaborating with television set manufacturers to include the Amazon Fire OS and Fire TV interface built-in with televisions sold to the public, labeled as Fire TV Edition. In September 2018, Amazon extended the use of the Fire TV brand to the Fire TV Recast, an over-the-air television digital video recorder exclusively for viewing use with Fire TV and Amazon Echo Show devices, which it discontinued in August 2022.


title: Amazon Fire TV

text: The first Fire TV was made available for purchase in the US on the same day of the April 2014 announcement for US$99 and was launched with a video game called Sev Zero. Codenamed "Bueller", after the eponymous character from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," it offered HDMI audio, with support for Dolby Digital Plus 7.1 surround sound pass-through, if the user's Internet bandwidth was sufficient. According to Amazon, the Fire TV was designed to outpace competitors like the Apple TV and Roku in performance: the 0.72-inch-thick box featured a 1.7 GHz quad-core CPU (Qualcomm Snapdragon 8064), 2 GB of RAM and 8 GB of internal storage, along with a MIMO dual-band radio for 1080p streaming over 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi and a 10/100 Ethernet connection and USB 2.0 port. Included with the box is a Bluetooth remote control with a microphone for voice search.


title: Amazon Fire TV

text: The company said that it did not intend the Fire TV to compete with gaming consoles; instead, its gaming capabilities were geared toward people who did not already own a console but may play games on a smartphone or tablet. It has a dedicated controller accessory.


title: Amazon Fire TV

text: Amazon released a second-generation Fire TV, codenamed "Sloane", after the film love interest of Ferris Bueller, in late 2015. This version had 4K resolution support, improved processor performance, and a MediaTek 8173C chipset to support H.265 (HEVC), VP8, and VP9 codecs. Wireless hardware upgrades included 4K capable, a dual-band 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi with 2x2 MIMO and Bluetooth 4.1. It was effectively replaced with the Fire TV Cube.


title: Amazon Fire TV

text: The third-generation Fire TV, also known as the Fire TV with 4K Ultra HD and Alexa Voice Remote, was released in 2017. It eschewed the previous set-top box design for a small, diamond-shaped "pendant" reminiscent of the Fire TV Stick, which plugs directly into a television set's HDMI port and can be hung from a short HDMI extender cable. It contained a slower processor but more RAM than the second-generation Fire TV, and also had support for 4K resolution streaming, Dolby Atmos, and HDR10. Production was discontinued in 2018 in favor of the Fire TV Stick 4K.


title: Amazon Fire TV

text: The Fire TV Cube was released in June 2018. It is similar in function to the third-generation Fire TV but also includes embedded Alexa functionality similar to the Amazon Echo smart speaker line and can use HDMI-CEC and an IR blaster to control other devices with voice commands. As its voice functionality is integrated into the device, the Fire TV Cube does not include the voice remote. The device uses a 1.5 GHz quad-core ARM 4xCA53 processor, 2 GB RAM, and 16 GB storage.


title: Amazon Fire TV

text: A second-generation model was unveiled in September 2019, featuring a hexa-core processor, "Local Voice Control" (which allows client-side recognition of common voice commands to improve response time), and support for Dolby Vision and HDR10+. It supports 4K output.


title: Amazon Fire TV

text: A third-generation model of the Fire TV Cube was announced on September 28, 2022 for release on October 25, 2022. Notable upgrades to the 3rd-generation model include an octa-core processor (4x 2.2GHz 4x 2.0GHz), support for 6e Ethernet/Wi-Fi networking, and Bluetooth 5.0+LE.


title: Amazon Fire TV

text: On November 19, 2014, Amazon released its Fire TV Stick, a smaller dongle version of the Fire TV that plugs into an HDMI port. Codenamed "Montoya", it retains much of the functionality of the larger Fire TV. It has 1 GB of RAM, 8 GB of internal storage, weighs , and it uses a Broadcom BCM28155 1.0 GHz Cortex-A9 processor and a Broadcom VideoCore IV GPU. Wireless hardware includes a dual-band 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi with 2x2 MIMO and Bluetooth 3.0 The Fire TV Stick is bundled with a remote control, in either of two variants: one with Alexa voice search and one without Alexa.


title: Amazon Fire TV

text: On October 20, 2016, Amazon released the Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote, codenamed "Tank". Other than the new remote, the updates include MediaTek MT8127D Quad-core ARM 1.3 GHz processor with a Mali-450 MP4 GPU, and support for the H.265 (HEVC) codec. Wireless hardware upgrades includes a dual-band 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi with 2x2 MIMO and Bluetooth 4.1. It retains the 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage and weighs slightly more at .


title: Amazon Fire TV

text: In January 2019, the second-generation Fire TV Stick was re-issued with the updated remote from the 4K model.


title: Amazon Fire TV

text: In October 2018, Amazon unveiled the Fire TV Stick 4K, codenamed "Mantis," which "effectively replaces Amazon’s Fire TV pendant." It is upgraded to a 1.7 GHz quad-core processor and supports 4K output, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, and hardware-accelerated MPEG-2 decoding. It also includes an updated voice remote that contains an infrared emitter and buttons for controlling TV power and volume (which can also be controlled with voice commands). The remote is backward compatible with previous Fire TV models, and also sold separately as an upgrade.


title: Amazon Fire TV

text: In October 2020, two third-generation Fire TV Stick models were released. The Fire TV Stick model includes a remote with TV control buttons where the Fire TV Stick Lite model's remote does not include TV controls. Both models include similar internal hardware as the Fire TV Stick 4K, except for a maximum output resolution of 1080p and only 1 GB of RAM.


title: Amazon Fire TV

text: In 2021, the third-generation Fire TV Stick was re-issued with an updated remote "3rd Gen Alexa Voice Remote".


title: Amazon Fire TV

text: On October 7, 2021, Amazon released the Fire TV Stick 4K Max. It includes the updated 3rd gen Alexa Voice Remote, and has Wi-Fi 6 support. It has a 1.8 GHz processor, a 750 MHz GPU, and 2 GB of RAM. It also has Dolby Atmos support. This Fire TV is the first in the line with hardware accelerated AV1 support.


title: Amazon Fire TV

text: Fire TV Edition is the product name applied to smart television sets produced by major television manufacturers that include Amazon Fire OS and the Fire TV interface, licensed from Amazon. They offer basic live television program information and minimal recording capabilities. Fire TV Edition television models are available from Best Buy's house brand Insignia, Toshiba (in U.S. and Canadian markets), and JVC and Grundig (in European markets).


title: Amazon Fire TV

text: The Fire TV Recast was a digital video recorder that worked with an over-the-air antenna to record shows for later viewing on a Fire TV or an Amazon Echo Show device. It was designed for use with over-the-air TV services and was a part of the cord-cutting movement. It was announced in September 2018.


title: Amazon Fire TV

text: Content stored on a Recast could not be viewed using other major streaming devices, such as Roku, Apple TV, or Chromecast, limiting its appeal. The Recast also never gained the ability to skip commercials during playback.


title: Amazon Fire TV

text: The Fire TV series runs Fire OS, which is derived from Android Open Source Project source code. It supports voice commands via either a remote control with an embedded microphone, or integrated microphones inside the device (as is the case of the Fire TV Cube), and can also be controlled with Alexa via Amazon Echo smart speakers. The devices support various Amazon-owned services, including Amazon Prime Video, Twitch, Amazon Freevee, Amazon Music and Amazon Luna, as well as other major third-party services, including Netflix, YouTube, YouTube TV, Curiosity Stream, Mubi, Dekkoo, Ameba TV, YuppTV, Chorki, Eros Now, the Apple TV app, ZEE5, Crunchyroll, Crackle, DAZN, Dailymotion, Peacock, Hulu, Hotstar, Disney+, Tubi, Vimeo, HBO Max, Discovery+, Joyn, Philo, Paramount+, Pluto TV, FuboTV, WOW Presents Plus, MX Player, Spotify, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, Tidal, Audacy, BBC Sounds, Qello, Plex, Emby, Jellyfin, AirConsole and others via Amazon Appstore.


title: Amazon Fire TV

text: The "X-Ray" feature allows users to view contextual information related to Prime Video content (such as biographies of actors and other trivia), using face recognition, music recognition, and IMDb data.


title: Amazon Fire TV

text: Dan Seifert from The Verge reviewed Fire TV on April 4, 2014, giving it an 8.8/10 rating and largely praising its functionality and future potential. Dave Smith from ReadWrite wrote, "Fire TV aims to be the cure for what ails TV set-top boxes." GeekWire editor Andy Liu's review is headlined "Amazon's Fire TV sets a new bar for streaming boxes."


title: Amazon Fire TV

text: Ars Technica praised the device for specifications that surpassed competitors, good build quality, and a microphone works very well if you use Amazon content. The reviewer disliked the fact that its media browser puts Amazon content in the front, which makes other applications less convenient to use, limited game selection with many games not optimized, and only 5.16GB of free space, which limits the number of games that can be installed.


title: Fugu

text: The fugu (; ; ) in Japanese, bogeo (; 鰒魚) or bok () in Korean, and hétún (河豚; 河魨) in Standard Modern Chinese is a pufferfish, normally of the genus "Takifugu", "Lagocephalus", or "Sphoeroides", or a porcupinefish of the genus "Diodon", or a dish prepared from these fish.


title: Fugu

text: Fugu can be lethally poisonous to humans due to its tetrodotoxin, meaning it must be carefully prepared to remove toxic parts and to avoid contaminating the meat.


title: Fugu

text: The restaurant preparation of fugu is strictly controlled by law in Japan and several other countries, and only chefs who have qualified after three or more years of rigorous training are allowed to prepare the fish. Domestic preparation occasionally leads to accidental death.


title: Fugu

text: Fugu is served as sashimi and nabemono. The liver was served as a traditional dish named "fugu-kimo", being widely thought to be a tasty part, but it is also the most poisonous, and serving this organ in restaurants was banned in Japan in 1984. Fugu has become one of the most celebrated dishes in Japanese cuisine.


title: Fugu

text: Fugu contains lethal amounts of the poison tetrodotoxin in its organs, especially the liver, the ovaries, eyes, and skin. The poison, a sodium channel blocker, paralyzes the muscles while the victim stays fully conscious; the poisoned victim is unable to breathe, and eventually dies from asphyxiation. There is no known antidote for fugu poison. The standard treatment is to support the respiratory and circulatory systems until the poison is metabolized and excreted by the victim's body.


title: Fugu

text: Researchers have determined that a fugu's tetrodotoxin comes from eating other animals infested with tetrodotoxin-laden bacteria, to which the fish develops insensitivity over time. As such, efforts have been made in research and aquaculture to allow farmers to produce safe fugu. Farmers now produce poison-free fugu by keeping the fish away from the bacteria; Usuki, a town in Ōita Prefecture, has become known for selling non-poisonous fugu.


title: Fugu

text: The inhabitants of Japan have eaten fugu for centuries. Fugu bones have been found in several shell middens, called "kaizuka", from the Jōmon period that date back more than 2,300 years. The Tokugawa shogunate (1603–1868) prohibited the consumption of fugu in Edo and its area of influence. It became common again as the power of the Shōgunate weakened. In western regions of Japan, where the government's influence was weaker and fugu was easier to get, various cooking methods were developed to safely eat them. During the Meiji Era (1867–1912), fugu was again banned in many areas. According to one fugu chef in Tokyo, the Emperor of Japan has never eaten fugu due to an unspecified "centuries old ban".


title: Fugu

text: In China, the use of the pufferfish for culinary purposes was already well established by the Song dynasty as one of the 'three delicacies of the Yangtze' (長江三鮮), alongside saury and Reeve's shad, and appears in the writings of the polymath Shen Kuo as well as in the encyclopedic work "Taiping Guangji". The scholar-statesman Su Shi famously remarked that the taste is worthy of death (值那一死).


title: Fugu

text: The "torafugu", or tiger pufferfish ("Takifugu rubripes"), is the most prestigious edible species and the most poisonous. Other species are also eaten; for example, "Higanfugu" ("T. pardalis"), "Shōsaifugu" ("T. vermicularis" syn. "snyderi"), and "Mafugu" ("T. porphyreus"). The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan provides a list that shows which species' body parts can be consumed. The list names safe genera including pufferfish of the "Lagocephalus" and "Sphoeroides" genera and the related porcupinefish ("Harisenbon") of the family "Diodontidae".


title: Fugu

text: Strict fishing regulations are now in place to protect fugu populations from depletion. Most fugu is now harvested in the spring during the spawning season and then farmed in floating cages in the Pacific Ocean. The largest wholesale fugu market in Japan is in Shimonoseki.


title: Fugu

text: Fugu prices rise in autumn and peak in winter, the best season, because they fatten to survive the cold. Live fish arrive at a restaurant, surviving in a large tank, usually prominently displayed. Prepared fugu is also often available in grocery stores, which must display official license documents. Whole fish may not be sold to the general public.


title: Fugu

text: Since 1958, fugu chefs must earn a license to prepare and sell fugu to the public. This involves a two- or three-year apprenticeship. The licensing examination process consists of a written test, a fish-identification test, and a practical test, preparing and eating the fish. Only about 35 percent of the applicants pass. Small miscalculations result in failure or, in rare cases, death. Consumers believe that this training process makes it safer to eat fugu in restaurants or markets. Non-poisonous fugu can be produced by keeping the fish away from the bacteria that makes them poisonious.


title: Fugu

text: Since October 2012, restaurants in Japan have been permitted to sell fugu that has been prepared and packaged by a licensed practitioner elsewhere.


title: Fugu

text: In the case of torafugu, the most common fugu, the cost is between ¥1000 and ¥5000 per kg, depending on the season. The expense encourages chefs to slice the fish very carefully to obtain the largest possible amount of meat. A special knife, called "fugu hiki", is usually stored separately from other knives.


title: Fugu

text: Tetrodotoxin (TTX) is a natural product that has, as of 2015, been isolated not only from pufferfish, but also from octopuses, from crabs and shellfish, and from frogs and newts, as well as from other aquatic animals (see below). It is a potent neurotoxin that shuts down electrical signaling in nerves; it acts via interaction with components of the sodium channels in the cell membranes of those cells. It does not cross the blood–brain barrier. In the case of the pufferfish host, at least (see below), their insusceptibility to the poison results from a mutation in their sequence of their specific types of sodium channel proteins.


title: Fugu

text: TTX is not produced by pufferfish and the other aquatic animals from which it has been isolated; rather, bacteria such as


title: Fugu

text: "Alteromonas", "Shewanella", and "Vibrio" species infect or cohabit with the animal species from which TTX is isolated, and a bacterial biosynthetic pathway for its production has been rationalized.


title: Fugu

text: In animal studies with mice, the median lethal dose of TTX was found to be 232 µg per kg body weight. Tetrodotoxin levels are affected by preparation (removal of most toxic materials, treatments such as curing and pickling, see below); it is, however, reportedly not significantly affected by cooking.


title: Fugu

text: The symptoms of tetrodotoxin poisoning include dizziness, exhaustion, headache, nausea, or difficulty breathing. The person remains conscious but cannot speak or move. In high doses, breathing stops and asphyxiation follows.


title: Fugu

text: There is no known antidote, and treatment consists of emptying the stomach, administering activated charcoal to bind the toxin, and putting the person on life support until the poison has worn off. Toxicologists have been working on developing an antidote for tetrodotoxin.


title: Fugu

text: Statistics from the Tokyo Bureau of Social Welfare and Public Health indicate 20 to 44 incidents, some affecting multiple diners, of "fugu" poisoning per year between 1996 and 2006 in Japan. Between 34 and 64 people were hospitalized, and zero to six died, per year, with an average fatality rate of 6.8%. Of the 23 incidents reported in Tokyo from 1993 through 2006, only one took place in a restaurant; all others involved people catching and eating the fish. Poisonings through amateur preparation can result from confusion between types of puffer, as well as improper methods, and some may represent deliberate suicide attempts. Engelbert Kaempfer, a German physician who resided in Japan in the 1690s, reported that an unusually toxic variety of puffer was sometimes sought out by individuals who wished to take their own lives.


title: Fugu

text: Much higher figures were reported in earlier years, peaking in 1958 when 176 people died from eating fugu in a single year. According to the Fugu Research Institute, 50% of the victims were poisoned by eating the liver, 43% from eating the ovaries, and 7% from eating the skin. One of the most famous victims was the Kabuki actor and "Living National Treasure" Bandō Mitsugorō VIII, who in 1975 died after eating four servings of "fugu kimo" (fugu liver), the sale of which was prohibited by local ordinances at the time. Bandō claimed to be able to resist the poison, but died several hours after returning to his hotel.


title: Fugu

text: On August 23, 2007, a doctor in Thailand reported that unscrupulous fish sellers sold puffer meat disguised as salmon, which caused fifteen deaths over three years. About 115 people were taken to different hospitals. Fugu had been banned in Thailand five years prior to the deaths.


title: Fugu

text: In March 2008, a fisherman in the Philippines died and members of his family became ill from pufferfish. The previous year, four people in the same town died and five others had fallen ill after eating the same variety of pufferfish.


title: Fugu

text: In February 2009, a Malaysian fisherman died and four others were hospitalised after they consumed a meal of pufferfish when they ran out of food while at sea.


title: Fugu

text: In November 2011, a chef at two-Michelin star "Fugu Fukuji" in Tokyo was suspended from his post. The chef served fugu liver to a customer who, despite being warned of the risks, specifically asked that it be provided. The 35-year-old customer subsequently required hospital treatment for mild symptoms of tetrodotoxin paralysis, but made a full recovery.


title: Fugu

text: Five men were poisoned at a restaurant in Wakayama in March 2015 after specifically asking for liver.


title: Fugu

text: In December 2020, 3 people in the Philippines died, while 4 more were hospitalized after eating pufferfish.


title: Fugu

text: In the cuisine of Hakusan, Ishikawa, ovaries are served after effort is made to reduce the toxin level by salting and pickling for three years—e.g., in "Blowfish Ovaries Pickled in Rice-Bran Paste" (河豚の卵巣の糠漬け, ふぐのらんそうのぬかづけ). Only the "Mikawa district of Hakusan City, the Ono and Kanaiwa districts of Kanazawa City, and Wajima City, all in Ishikawa Prefecture" are permitted to perform the process, and only by the traditional method, and explicit warnings are offered to dissuade non-professionals from attempting the 3-year process. After one year of pickling—about a third of the way through the process—about 10% of the toxin is suggested to remain, and after the full three years the product is "only sold after having been checked for safety through a toxicity inspection, and other tests."


title: Fugu

text: In Korean cuisine, edible pufferfish are prepared in various ways including "gui" (grilling), "jorim" (simmering), "jjim", "Bulgogi", Hoe" (raw fish) and "guk" (soup).


title: Fugu

text: Most Japanese cities have one or more fugu restaurants, perhaps in clusters because of earlier restrictions, as proximity made it easier to ensure freshness. A famous restaurant specializing in fugu is "Takefuku", in the Ginza district in Tokyo. "Zuboraya" is another popular chain in Osaka.


title: Fugu

text: In South Korea, fugu is known as "bok-eo" (복어). It is very popular in port cities such as Busan and Incheon. It is prepared in a number of dishes such as soups and salads, and commands a high price.


title: Fugu

text: The fugu is cleaned of the most toxic parts in Japan and freeze-flown to the United States under license in customized, clear, plastic containers. Fugu chefs for American restaurants are trained under the same rigorous specifications as in Japan. Pufferfish native to American waters, particularly the genus "Spheroides", have also been consumed for food, sometimes resulting in poisonings.


title: Fugu

text: Sale of fish belonging to this genus is forbidden altogether in the European Union. In Switzerland, the import of fugu is legal, but only as long as it is purchased for private use exclusively.


title: Fugu

text: Japanese restaurateur Nobuyoshi Kuraoka waged a five-year battle with the Food and Drug Administration to allow exclusive import of the Japanese Tiger puffer to his restaurant in Manhattan, with the license granted in 1989. By 2003 only seventeen restaurants in the United States were licensed to serve fugu; fourteen in New York State, twelve of which are based within New York City.


title: Fugu

text: In the Kansai region, the slang word "teppō", () meaning rifle or gun, is used for the fish. This is a play of words on the verb "ataru" (), which can mean to be poisoned or shot. In Shimonoseki region, the ancient pronunciation "fuku" is more common instead of the modern "fugu". The former is also a homonym for "good fortune" whereas the latter is one for "disabled."


title: Fugu

text: The Tsukiji fish market fugu association holds a service each year at the height of the fugu season, releasing hundreds of caught fugu into the Sumida River. A similar ceremony is also held at another large market in Shimonoseki.


title: Fugu

text: A "rakugo", or humorous short story, tells of three men who prepared a fugu stew but were unsure whether it was safe to eat. To test the stew, they gave some to a beggar. When it did not seem to do him any harm, they ate the stew. Later, they met the beggar again and were delighted to see that he was still in good health. After that encounter, the beggar, who had hidden the stew instead of eating it, knew that it was safe and he could eat it. The three men had been fooled by the wise beggar.


title: Fugu

text: Lanterns can be made from the bodies of preserved fugu. These are occasionally seen outside of fugu restaurants, as children's toys, as folk art, or as souvenirs. Fugu skin is also made into everyday objects like wallets or waterproof boxes.


title: Fugu

text: Scientists at Nagasaki University have succeeded in culturing non-toxic torafugu by restricting the fish's diet. The experiment included raising over 5,000 fish between the years 2001–2004, and analyzing the toxicity of muscle, skin, gonads, livers, and other organs. The team concluded that the amount of tetrodotoxin in all those parts was non-toxic, and it would allow for the safe preparation of fugu-kimo (puffer liver).


title: YSR Congress Party

text: The Yuvajana Shramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP or YCP; ) is an Indian regional political party based in the state of Andhra Pradesh. Its president Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy serves as the state's chief minister. It is currently the fifth largest party in the Lok Sabha with 22 seats.


title: YSR Congress Party

text: After the sudden death of the then-incumbent Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy (YSR) in a helicopter crash in September 2009, his son Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, the incumbent MP from Kadapa, started an "Odarpu Yatra" (condolence tour) across Andhra Pradesh, to console the families of those who had committed suicide or died of shock after the death of his father. This tour was not supported by the Congress leadership. Defying the Congress Working Committee's order to call off the tour, Jagan went ahead with the first leg of the "Odarpu Yatra" in the West Godavari and Khammam districts in April 2010.


title: YSR Congress Party

text: Meanwhile, "Sakshi TV" news channel and "Sakshi" newspaper, which are closely affiliated with YSR and Jagan, had been continuously criticizing the new Chief Minister Konijeti Rosaiah and the Congress leadership at New Delhi. In a special programme on "Sakshi TV" to mark the 125th anniversary celebrations of the Congress party, a voice-over made remarks on Sonia Gandhi and the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the "current state of affairs" in the State, which invited anger and protests from the Congress loyalists and increased the gap and friction between Jagan and the Congress loyalists. The channel later deleted those remarks in a re-telecast.


title: YSR Congress Party

text: After accusing the Congress of ill-treating him and creating rift in his family by luring his uncle Y. S. Vivekananda Reddy (younger brother of YSR) with a state ministerial berth in the aftermath of the death of his father, Jagan and his mother Y. S. Vijayamma resigned from the Kadapa Lok Sabha and Pulivendula Assembly constituencies respectively and also as members of the Congress in November 2010. Many Congress leaders loyal to Jagan also quit the Congress and joined the YSR Congress. This resulted in the weakening of the Congress's strength in both the assembly and the Lok Sabha, necessitating by-elections.


title: YSR Congress Party

text: In the ensuing by-elections, the party won most of the vacated seats with record-breaking majorities, with many of the Congress and the Telugu Desam Party (the main opposition) candidates losing their deposits. The party has a strength of 151 members in the 175-member state assembly and 22 members in the Lok Sabha (out of 25 in AP) as the election results declared on 23 May 2019, simultaneously.


title: YSR Congress Party

text: On 15 June 2012, YSR Congress won the Nellore Lok Sabha seat and 15 of 18 assembly seats in Andhra Pradesh. YSRCP leaders P. Subhash Chandra Bose from Ramachandrapuram constituency of East Godavari district and Konda Surekha from Parkal constituency of Warangal district, both ministers in the YSR cabinet, had switched to YSR Congress party but lost their races.


title: YSR Congress Party

text: It lost the 2014 Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly election to the Telugu Desam Party, which had previously been in opposition to the INC government. One-third of the MLAs who won for the YSR Congress in the 2014 elections had joined the Telugu Desam Party by 2017.


title: YSR Congress Party

text: It went for 2019 general elections by appointing Prashant Kishor, a renowned political strategist in Indian elections and emerged as the 5th largest political party in India. It did not contest in Telangana Assembly election 2018.


title: YSR Congress Party

text: The party won the 2019 Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly election in a landslide, winning 151 of the 175 seats, including a clean sweep of the Kadapa, Kurnool and Nellore districts. It has been in government since 30 May 2019.


title: 2017 UEFA Champions League Final

text: The 2017 UEFA Champions League Final was the final match of the 2016–17 UEFA Champions League, the 62nd season of Europe's premier club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 25th season since it was renamed from the European Cup to the UEFA Champions League. It was played at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales on 3 June 2017, between Italian side Juventus and Spanish side and title holders Real Madrid, in a repeat of the 1998 final. It would also be the first European Cup final held under a closed roof. Real Madrid won the match 4–1 to secure their 12th title in this competition. With this victory, Real Madrid became the first team to successfully defend their title since Milan in 1990. Meanwhile, Juventus lost their fifth consecutive Champions League final and its seventh overall in nine total finals reached.


title: 2017 UEFA Champions League Final

text: Real Madrid qualified as the UEFA representative at the 2017 FIFA Club World Cup in the United Arab Emirates, and also earned the right to play against the winners of the 2016–17 UEFA Europa League, Manchester United, in the 2017 UEFA Super Cup, triumphing in both competitions.


title: 2017 UEFA Champions League Final

text: "In the following table, finals until 1992 were in the European Cup era, since 1993 were in the UEFA Champions League era."


title: 2017 UEFA Champions League Final

text: The Millennium Stadium was announced as the final venue on 30 June 2015, following the decision of the UEFA Executive Committee meeting in Prague, Czech Republic. The stadium entered into a naming rights deal with the Principality Building Society in 2016 that saw it renamed as the "Principality Stadium"; however, due to UEFA regulations regarding the use of names of non-tournament sponsors, they continue to use the name "Millennium Stadium" in official literature, while the name "National Stadium of Wales" was used for the final itself.