Shatar (Mongolian:  Monggol sitar-a, "Mongolian shatranj"; a.k.a. shatar) and hiashatar are two chess variants played in Mongolia.
 However, the variants do not appear to be popular outside Mongolia.

Game rules
The rules are similar to standard chess; the differences being that:
 The noyan (, lord) does not castle.
 The küü (, pawn) does not have an initial double-step move option, except for the queen pawn or king pawn.
In old shatar rules, a pawn that reaches its eighth rank must promote to half-power tiger. But a pawn could step back to its sixth rank to promote to all-power tiger. It moves like a queen.
 The baras ( or , tiger; Persian: fers) moves like a promoted rook in shogi: like a chess rook or one square diagonally. It was called half-power tiger or half-power lion in old shatar rules.
In modern shatar rules, a baras moves like a queen.
 The mori (knight; ) cannot deliver mate.
In modern shatar rules, the mori can give mate.
 The bishop (teme) and rook (terge) move as they do in standard chess.
 The game always starts by White playing 1.d4 and Black responding with 1...d5. This is the only time in the game a pawn may advance two squares; some sources claim this initial move can optionally be made with the e-pawn.
In old shatar rules, Ujimqin player must make an initial double-step move with the queen pawn; in Chahar, the king pawn.
In old shatar rules, baremate is draw.
In old shatar rules, one special rule is called tuuxəi, like komi in Go. A player could leave the enemy with only two pieces remaining (noyan and another piece) at the end. Then he must start making checks using the terge or baras and make consecutive checks until checkmate. Before checkmate, number of consecutive checks is the number of tuuxəi. If a player wins by checkmate as in chess, he receives only one tuuxəi. A player usually leaves the enemy with one noyan and one küü to allow time to put his pieces into good positions for making consecutive checks.

Hiashatar

Hiashatar is a medieval chess variant played in Mongolia that is not as popular as shatar. The game is played on a 10×10 board. The pieces are the same as in shatar with the following exceptions:
 The baras moves the same as a chess queen.
 Pawns may move 1–3 step(s) on their first move.
 An additional piece called the bodyguard, which moves like a queen, but only one or two squares. The bodyguard has the special power: any piece sliding through any square a king's move away from the bodyguard, must stop its move. Any piece a king's move away from the bodyguard can move only one square.

Notes

References
 Giada Ricci. Mongolie-Mongolie. Traditions de la steppe. p. 44–47, Le jeu d'echecs Mongol, 1983. Musée de l'Homme, Paris.
 С. Кондратьев. Шахматная игра у монголов. "Шахматы в СССР", 1931, No.13, p. 216–18, No.14, с. 232–34.
 ШАХМАТЫ. Энциклопедический словарь. М., "Советская Энциклопедия", p. 258, Монголия. 1999.
 Б.Б. Цыденов, Л.А. Гармаева, Н.Б. Галданов. Шахматы в Бурятии. Улан-Удэ, 1976.
 Zhong Guo Da Bai Ke Quan Shu Tiyu (The Encyclopedia of Chinese People's Republic on Physical culture and Sports). Peking-Shanghai. p. 206, Mengu xiang qi (Mongolian chess). 1982.
 N. Okano, Sekai-no meina shogi (World's chess games), p. 40–46, chapter V. 1999.

Games related to chaturanga
Chess in Mongolia
Mongolian games

Shatar


Zulfiqar Halepoto (), an activist and author of Sindh, Pakistan, was born on 27 September 1970 in village Umer Halepoto, Tando Muhammad Khan District, Sindh. He is the author of several books including travelogues and water environment.

Education
Halepoto received primary education and matriculation from Government High School Goal Building, Hyderabad; intermediate from Modern college, University of Sindh, old campus; and in 1995 the Master of Arts in History from Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. He obtained the Master of Philosophy from Sindh Development Study Center (SDSC) University of Sindh in 2010.

Literary career
He engaged with leading English and Sindhi newspapers as a free-lance columnist for the last two decades and writes articles, literary essays and columns. His writing accounts for fourteen books including travelogues of India, Bangladesh and U.S. He edited and compiled four books (in Sindhi, Urdu and English) on Benazir Bhutto, three books in the English language on social development and water conflicts including Sindh: Politics, People & Development and Water: A Non-Traditional Human Security Paradigm. He edited the entire journalistic work of the great poet of sub-continent Shaikh Ayaz. The book is published by the culture department, Government of Sindh. He also edited selected English essays and columns of one of the renowned Punjabi linguist Dr Manzur Ejaz (living in Washington, D.C., U.S.). Another book is also about a journalist in Sindh, titled Remembering A G Chandio (Journalist): An anthology (Sindhi). His most recent book is Revival of Khat Nawisee (letter writing), a collection of 25 letters in Sindhi/Urdu written to various literary and intellectual personalities of the region.
He is author of a popular book Delhi Darshan, a travelogue of different cities of India. Authors have covered his visits, conferences and meetings with various people, forums, groups, NGOs, think tanks, Indian writers, Sindhi diaspora, and meetings with India-based journalists and immigrant families. He used to host political talk shows on leading Sindhi channels Sindh TV and Mehran TV.

Political career
He is working as incharge Sindhi Media Monitoring Office of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. Earlier he was deputy information secretary for Sindh Province in PTI.

References

Sindhi people
1970 births
Living people
Pakistani politicians

Zulfiqar Halepoto


Intellectuals and Society is a non-fiction book by Thomas Sowell. The book was initially published on January 5, 2010 by Basic Books.

Intellectuals are defined as "idea workers" who exercise profound influence on policy makers and public opinion, but are often not directly accountable for the results. Intellectuals and Society examines the record of these idea workers and the conditions, methods and incentives driving their points of view that, according to Sowell, have often resulted in disaster for societies where intellectuals have been allowed "undue influence".

Undue influence of intellectuals
Sowell explained undue influence of intellectuals as follows:

"Those whose careers are built on the creation and dissemination of ideas — the intellectuals — have played a role in many societies out of all proportion to their numbers. Whether that role has, on balance, made those around them better off or worse off is one of the key questions of our times.

The quick answer is that intellectuals have done both. But certainly, during the 20th century, it is hard to escape the conclusion that intellectuals have on balance made the world a worse and more dangerous place. Scarcely a mass-murdering dictator of the 20th century was without his supporters, admirers, or apologists among the leading intellectuals — not only within his own country, but in foreign democracies, where intellectuals were free to say whatever they wanted.

...intellectuals are people whose end products are intangible ideas, and they are usually judged by whether those ideas sound good to other intellectuals or resonate with the public. Whether their ideas turn out to work — whether they make life better or worse for others — is another question entirely."

Summary
Sowell argues that intellectuals, whom he defines as people whose occupations deal primarily with ideas (writers, historians, academics, etc.), usually consider themselves as "anointed", or as endowed with superior intellect or insight with which to guide the masses and those who have authority over them. Sowell contends that several characteristics mark such intellectuals.

Working with ideas
An intellectual's work begins and ends with ideas, not the practical application of ideas to real world problems. These purveyors of ideas may be at all points of the political and ideological spectrum, although Sowell generally reserves his sharpest criticisms for those on the left. Certain common patterns in intellectuals, he argues, cut across specific political ideologies. He argues that intellectuals like to work outside the established power structures and apply what is presumed to be superior insight in order to control the resources and decision making processes of the masses and their official leaders. For example both National Socialism and Stalinism attempted to micro-manage the lives of their citizens; both implemented sweeping propaganda campaigns to reframe reality, and both resulted in leadership by an elite outside group.

Lack of real accountability
The work of intellectuals is ultimately not subject to external (real world) verifiability, as compared to those engaged in more practical pursuits with readily observable results. An intellectual, for example, can condemn a military operation for "excessive force" but has no accountability in regards to the actual outcome of that operation. By contrast, a military commander who fails to deploy sufficient force at the appropriate time can pay with his own life and that of his men. The acclaim given to intellectuals, despite their predictions having failed, is a prime example of the lack of ultimate accountability, Sowell maintains.

Narrow and specialized knowledge
Intellectuals usually have thorough knowledge in their areas of expertise. Outside these fields, however, they may be as uninformed as the average person. Too often, Sowell argues, this does not stop them from attempting to influence public opinion in areas where they are not fully qualified. Sowell lists several examples that he argues support his thesis.

Intellectual climate of distortion and misinformation
Sowell states that intellectuals often assume that their specialized knowledge qualifies them to guide others, as do experts in any field of endeavor, practical or otherwise. Sowell argues that what is crucial is their influence on the people who wield decision making power. The presumption of insight often creates a climate that influences the way events are reported by the media, and may make politicians hesitant to take certain approaches to problem-solving. Before World War II, for example, British intellectuals played a large role in the process of creating the opposition to re-armament, which proved to be a deadly mistake.

Verbal virtuosity (rhetoric) versus evidence or logic
Sowell suggests that intellectuals rely heavily on what he calls "verbal virtuosity" (clever phrasing, vague euphemisms, witty quotes, deceptive labeling, name-calling and sneering asides) to substitute for evidence, logic and analysis. Other tactics of "verbal virtuosity" include dismissing opposing ideas as simplistic, portraying those making opposing arguments as morally unworthy, invoking "rights" which have no legal basis, vague calls for "change", reliance on the abstract versus the concrete, and a constant "filtering of reality".

Ego-involvement and personalization
The presumption of wisdom and/or virtue causes intellectuals to personalize situations where contending ideas are involved. This often results in: (a) the demonization of opponents, and (b) personal fulfillment serving as a substitute for debate and evidence. Sowell does not make it clear if intellectuals acquired these traits from politicians, or the other way around.

Reception
In 2010, American libertarian philosopher David Gordon wrote a positive review of the book for the Independent Institute. He states that Sowell has written an excellent book as a whole.

In 2012, Aidan Byrne, from the School of Humanities at the University of Wolverhampton wrote a negative review of the book for LSE Review of Books. Unaware of Sowell's race, Byrne wrote within the review: "To him, slavery's cultural legacy means that it shouldn't be considered a moral problem, nor should amelioration be attempted: easy for a rich white man to say." In 2020, Byrne's review was removed from the LSE Review of Books website with a message declaring that the review "did not meet the minimum standard for publication and has consequently been removed."

See also
The Vision of the Anointed

References

Related reading
Raymond Aron, The Opium of the Intellectuals, Transaction (2001)
Julien Benda, The Treason of the Intellectuals, Transaction (2006)
Edward W. Said, Representations of the Intellectual, Vintage (1996)
Florian Znaniecki, The Social Role of the Man of Knowledge, Harper Torchbooks (1968)

2010 non-fiction books
Basic Books books
Books by Thomas Sowell
Contemporary philosophical literature
English-language books
Social philosophy literature
Works about intelligentsia

Intellectuals and Society


George Ade House, also known as Hazelden, is a two-story, fourteen-room, Tudor Revival-style home in Iroquois Township in Newton County, Indiana.  Chicago architect Billie Mann designed the frame dwelling, built in 1904, George Ade (1866–1944), a syndicated newspaper columnist, author, humorist, and playwright. Ade named the property Hazelden, after his English grandparents' home.

History

By the early 1900s, after twelve years of working as a newspaper reporter and columnist in Chicago, Illinois, George Ade (1866–1944) decided to return to Indiana and retire to a life in the country. Ade was born and raised in Kentland, another farming community in Newton County, Indiana. He gained national notoriety as a newspaper columnist writing "Stories of the Streets and of the Town" for the Chicago Daily News (which later became the Chicago Morning News and the Chicago Record) at the turn of the twentieth century. Collections of articles from his columns were also published as books. In addition, Ade wrote a syndicated weekly newspaper column and a book series of fables in slang, which were humorous stories that featured vernacular speech and the liberal use of capitalization. Ade was also a playwright for the Broadway stage whose best-known plays, The County Chairman and The College Widow, and some of his other literary works were adapted into motion pictures. Using the earnings from his writing career, Ade invested in Newton County, Indiana, farmland, eventually owning about .

In 1902, William Ade (George's brother) purchased on George's behalf a  site of wooded land along the Iroquois River near the town of Brook in Newton County, Indiana. Ade named the property Hazelden, after his English grandparents' home, and had a two-story, fourteen-room home built on the site. He moved from Chicago into the newly built residence in 1904 and owned the home for the remainder of his life.

Following Ade's death in 1944, ownership of Hazelden was transferred to Purdue University (Ade's alma mater). The university relinquished the property to the State of Indiana when it could no longer afford its upkeep. The state government, also unable to maintain the home, turned it over to Newton County, Indiana, officials. In 1962, the George Ade Memorial Association raised funds to acquire, renovate, and restore the home, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

Description
Ade initially planned to build a summer cottage, but Chicago architect Billie Mann, one of Ade's Sigma Chi fraternity brothers, designed a country manor for the site. Ade's two-story, fourteen-room, Tudor Revival-style home was constructed in 1904 at an estimated cost of US$25,000. The frame dwelling features half-timbering and stucco on the upper floor, leaded glass windows, and beamed and vaulted ceilings. Ade made additional improvements to property that included landscaped grounds, a swimming pool, greenhouse, barn, and caretaker's cottage, among other outbuildings. He also added an adjacent golf course and country club in 1910.

Use
Ade frequently entertained at Hazelden, where he usually spent the summers, and vacationed during the winter months at a rented home in Miami, Florida. He was also a world traveler. In addition to serving as his summer home, and his permanent residence beginning in 1905, Hazelden was used for political gatherings and community events.  In 1908, William Howard Taft announced his candidacy for president of the United States at Hazelden. In 1912, Hazelden was the site of a political rally for Theodore Roosevelt's Bull Moose Party, and, in 1924, it served as a venue for an address from vice presidential candidate Charles W. Dawes. Ade also hosted a homecoming party for soldiers and sailors on July 4, 1919, as well as parties and gatherings for the community, local children, alumni of Purdue University, his Sigma Chi fraternity brothers, members of the Indiana Society of Chicago, and golf tournaments.

The George Ade Memorial Association, the group that raised funds to acquire and renovate the home, disbanded in 2018. As of 2019, Newton county officials are assessing the home's condition and plans for restoring it for use as a historic site open to the public and an events venue.

References

Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Indiana
Tudor Revival architecture in Indiana
Houses completed in 1904
Buildings and structures in Newton County, Indiana
National Register of Historic Places in Newton County, Indiana
1904 establishments in Indiana

George Ade House


Emilios Solomou (born 1971) is a Cypriot writer. He was born in Nicosia but grew up in the village of Potami. He studied at the University of Athens. Having worked in newspaper journalism for a few years, he now teaches Greek and history in high school. He has also served on the boards of the literary magazine Anef and the Union of Cyprus Writers.

His novels include:
 An Axe in Your Hands (winner, Cyprus State Prize for Literature)
 The Diary of an Infidelity (winner, EU Prize for Literature)
 Like a Sparrow, Quickly You Passed

He has been translated into English and Bulgarian.

References

1971 births
Cypriot novelists
Living people

Emilios Solomou


Juan Goytisolo Gay (6 January 1931 – 4 June 2017) was a Spanish poet, essayist, and novelist. He lived in Marrakesh from 1997 until his death in 2017.
He was considered Spain's greatest living writer at the beginning of the 21st century, yet he had lived abroad since the 1950s.
On 24 November 2014 he was awarded the Cervantes Prize, the most prestigious literary award in the Spanish-speaking world.

Background
Juan Goytisolo was born to an upper class family. He claimed that this level of status, accompanied by the cruelties of his great-grandfather and the miserliness of his grandfather (discovered through the reading of old family letters and documents), was a major reason for his joining the Communist party in his youth. His father was imprisoned by the Republican government during the Spanish Civil War, while his mother, Julia Gay, was killed in the first Francoist air raid of Barcelona in 1938. He attended a Jesuit school in Barcelona after the Civil War, where he began writing fiction as a teenager. He later attended law school at the University of Madrid and the University of Barcelona, but left without earning a degree.

Career
After law studies, Goytisolo published his first novel, The Young Assassins, in 1954. In 1956 he performed six months of military service in Mataró, which inspired some of his early stories. His deep opposition to Francisco Franco led him into exile in Paris later that same year, where he worked as a reader for Gallimard. In the early 1960s, he was a friend of Guy Debord. From 1969 to 1975 he worked as a literature professor in universities in California, Boston, and New York. Breaking with the realism of his earlier novels, he published Marks of Identity (1966), Count Julian (1970), and Juan the Landless (1975). During his tenure as a professor he also worked on his controversial Spanish translation of the works of José María Blanco White, which he published in part as a critique of Francoist Spain. As with all his works, they were banned in Spain until after Franco's death.

In 2012, Goytisolo confirmed that he was finished writing novels, saying he had nothing more to write and that it was better he kept quiet. He continued, however, to publish essays and some poetry.

Count Julian (1970, 1971, 1974) takes up, in an act of outspoken defiance, the side of Julian, count of Ceuta, a man traditionally castigated as the ultimate traitor in Spanish history. In Goytisolo's own words, he imagines "the destruction of Spanish mythology, its Catholicism and nationalism, in a literary attack on traditional Spain." He identifies himself "with the great traitor who opened the door to Arab invasion." The narrator in this novel, an exile in North Africa, rages against his beloved Spain, forming an obsessive identification with the fabled Count Julian, dreaming that, in a future invasion, the ethos and myths central to Hispanic identity will be totally destroyed.

Family
Goytisolo was married to the publisher, novelist and screenwriter , whom he met in Paris in the 1950s. Lange was related to Emmanuel Berl and the philosopher Henri Bergson. Goytisolo and Lange had something of an open relationship, and he slept with men but "love[d] only Monique". They married in 1978 and lived together until she died in 1996. After her death, he was noted as saying their once-shared Paris apartment had become like a tomb. In 1997 he moved to Marrakesh, where he died in 2017.

His brothers José Agustín Goytisolo (1928–1999) and Luis Goytisolo (1935) were also writers.

Works

Fiction
The Young Assassins (Juegos de manos) (1954)
Duelo en el Paraíso (1955)
El mañana efímero (trilogy)
El circo (1957)
Fiestas (1958)
La Resaca (1958)
Para vivir aquí (1960)
La isla (1961)
La Chanca (1962)
Fin de fiesta. Tentativas de interpretación de una historia amorosa (1962)
Álvaro Mendiola (trilogy)
Marks of Identity (Señas de identidad, 1966)
Count Julian (Reivindicación del conde don Julián, 1970)
Juan the Landless (Juan sin Tierra, 1975)
Makbara (1980)
Paisajes después de la batalla (1985)
Las virtudes del pájaro solitario (1988)
La cuarentena (1991)
El sitio de los sitios (1995)
Las semanas del jardín (1997)
The Marx Family Saga (1999), (La saga de los Marx, 1993)
State of Siege (2002)
Telón de boca (2003)
A Cock-Eyed Comedy (2005) (Carajicomedia, 2000)
Exiled from Almost Everywhere (El exiliado de aquí y allá, 2008)

Essays
Problemas de la novela (1959). Literature.
Furgón de cola (1967).
España y los españoles (1979). History and politics.
Crónicas sarracinas (1982).
El bosque de las letras (1995). Literature.
Disidencias (1996). Literature.
De la Ceca a la Meca. Aproximaciones al mundo islámico (1997).
Cogitus interruptus (1999).
El peaje de la vida (2000). With Sami Nair.
Landscapes of War: From Sarajevo to Chechnya (2000).
El Lucernario: la pasión crítica de Manuel Azaña (2004).

Others
Campos de Níjar (1954). Travels, journalism.
Pueblo en marcha. Tierras de Manzanillo. Instantáneas de un viaje a Cuba (1962). Travels, journalism.
Obra inglesa de Blanco White (1972). Editor.
Coto vedado (1985). Memoir.
En los reinos de taifa (1986). Memoir.
Alquibla (1988). TV script for TVE.
Estambul otomano (1989). Travels.
Aproximaciones a Gaudí en Capadocia (1990). Travels.
Cuaderno de Sarajevo (1993). Travels, journalism.
Argelia en el vendaval (1994). Travels, journalism.
Paisajes de guerra con Chechenia al fondo (1996). Travels, journalism.
Lectura del espacio en Xemaá-El-Fná (1997). Illustrated by Hans Werner Geerdts.
El universo imaginario (1997).
Diálogo sobre la desmemoria, los tabúes y el olvido (2000). Conversation with Günter Grass.
Paisajes de guerra: Sarajevo, Argelia, Palestina, Chechenia (2001).
Pájaro que ensucia su propio nido (2001). Articles.
Memorias (2002).
España y sus Ejidos (2003).
Cinema Eden: Essays from the Muslim Mediterranean (Eland, 2003) – an English-language translation of several of his essays

Literary prizes
1985: Europalia Prize for Literature
1993: Nelly Sachs Prize
2002: Octavio Paz Prize
2004: Juan Rulfo Prize for Latin American and Caribbean Literature
2008: National Prize for Spanish Literature
2010: Premio Don Quijote
2012: Prix Formentor
2014: Miguel de Cervantes Prize

References

External links
  Official Page
 "Scourge of the New Spain", an article on Goytisolo from The Guardian
 Interview with Goytisolo from the Center for Book Culture
 Juan Goytisolo at the complete review – bibliography, evaluation, and links
 Fernanda Eberstadt, The Anti-Orientalist, The New York Times Magazine article, April 16, 2006

 Juan Goytisolo, Voltaire and Islam, El País, 4 May 2006
 Juan Goytisolo, La historia se escibe en la plaza El País, 14 February 2011

1931 births
2017 deaths
Bisexual male writers
Writers from Marrakesh
Spanish essayists
20th-century Spanish novelists
21st-century Spanish novelists
Spanish male novelists
Spanish male poets
Writers from Barcelona
Spanish bisexual people
Spanish LGBT poets
Spanish LGBT novelists
Male essayists
20th-century essayists
21st-century essayists
20th-century Spanish male writers
21st-century Spanish male writers
Spanish expatriates in Morocco
Spanish expatriates in France
Bisexual academics
Bisexual poets
Bisexual novelists
Premio Cervantes winners

Juan Goytisolo


Andrew Francis Mangan (born 30 August 1986) is an English former footballer who played as a striker. He is currently caretaker manager at Bristol Rovers.

Career

Blackpool
Born in Liverpool, Mangan began his career with Blackpool at the age of 15. He was with the club for three years, scoring 49 goals in reserve and youth team football. Mangan made his professional debut at the age of 17 in a 1–0 defeat to Chesterfield on 24 April 2004. He made just one further professional appearance at Blackpool under Steve McMahon's management and his replacement, Colin Hendry, loaned Mangan to Northern Premier League Premier Division side Hyde United. He scored two goals in seven appearances, helping the club to secure the league title. Mangan was released by Blackpool at the end of the 2004–05 season.

Accrington Stanley
Mangan was heavily linked with a return to Hyde the following season, but he rejected them in favour of a full-time contract with Conference Premier side Accrington Stanley, after impressing during the club's pre-season schedule. After making his debut in a 1–0 win over Canvey Island on 13 August 2005, Mangan scored his first goal for the club in his third appearance during a 3–1 defeat to Cambridge United. In his first full season, Mangan played in 45 league and cup games, scoring ten goals, and was primarily used as a substitute. His goals helped Accrington gain promotion to The Football League at the end of the 2005–06 season; the first time the club had achieved this in 50 years. In his second year at the club, Mangan became frustrated with his lack of starts. From his 38 total appearances, of which only five were made in the starting XI, he scored six goals. At the end of the 2006–07 season, Mangan was offered a two-year deal by Accrington, but rejected it in favour of League Two side Bury, having appeared in a pre-season friendly for the club against Everton.

Bury

At Bury, Mangan scored his first goal on 7 September 2007 with a header against Chesterfield, with five more goals coming before Christmas. He was injured at the beginning of December 2007 with a suspected hernia problem and later underwent surgery, restricting him to just six appearances in the rest of the season as he struggled to regain fitness. He made a total of 26 appearances in all competitions while with Bury. Following the sacking of Bury manager Chris Casper, Mangan was allowed to return to Accrington Stanley by his replacement Alan Knill on a one-month loan deal, scoring one goal in seven appearances. Mangan was released by Bury towards the end of the 2007–08 season.

Forest Green Rovers
In the summer of 2008, Mangan signed for Forest Green Rovers in the Conference Premier. It was at Forest Green that Mangan's goalscoring reputation began to form; his first season saw him finish as the league's top scorer with 26 goals in 41 games. Including cup competitions, Mangan made 49 appearances for the club, scoring 30 goals. These included hat-tricks against Torquay United, Lewes and Rushden & Diamonds. Mangan was voted player of the year by the Directors of Forest Green Rovers.

Betting scandal
On 7 April 2009, one year after leaving Bury, Mangan was named as one of five players charged by the Football Association for breaching betting rules, whereby players, managers or coaching staff are prohibited from betting on the result or progress of any match or competition in which the participant is participating or has any direct or indirect influence. According to the BBC, the charge relates to a match between Bury and Accrington Stanley, before which Mangan is alleged to have placed stakes to the value of approximately £3,500. The Football Association subsequently fined Mangan £2,000 and banned him from playing for five months.

Wrexham
On 20 January 2009, Mangan completed a move to Wrexham for an undisclosed fee, making his debut on 23 January in a 1–0 victory over Wimbledon, before scoring his first goal seven days later in his third appearance during a 3–1 over Altrincham. Mangan then scored his first home goal for Wrexham in a 2–1 victory over Mansfield Town. He ended the 2009–10 season with nine goals, the club's joint top scorer in a campaign which saw the side finish 11th. Mangan started the next season in an unfamiliar left-wing position; despite this he still finished as the club's top scorer with 16 league goals, helping them to the play-offs, where they lost to Luton Town.

Fleetwood Town

On 1 June 2011, he signed for Conference Premier side Fleetwood Town. It was announced on 7 May 2013, that Fleetwood would not be offering the striker a new contract, and would therefore be released.

Forest Green Rovers (second spell)
On 16 May 2013, Mangan returned to former club Forest Green Rovers on a three-year contract. He made his second debut for the club on 7 September 2013 in a draw with Braintree Town. On 5 February 2014, several months after he had been suspended by the club in October 2013, he had his contract terminated. Mangan appealed against his dismissal from the club, meaning that he remained registered as a Forest Green player until the outcome of the appeal, and he subsequently joined Conference Premier leaders Luton Town on loan for the rest of the 2013–14 season on 1 April 2014.

In June 2014, it was announced that Mangan had won his appeal against Forest Green and had returned to the club under his previous contract as a player.

Shrewsbury Town
On 24 July 2014, it was announced that Mangan had signed a one-year deal at League Two club Shrewsbury Town.

He made his Shrewsbury debut as a substitute away at A.F.C. Wimbledon on 9 August, and scored his first goal for the club a week later against Tranmere Rovers, also providing an assist for Mickey Demetriou's injury time winning goal at New Meadow. Mangan earned his first start for the club three days later, scoring twice and winning a penalty in a 4–0 win over former club Accrington Stanley.

On 26 August, he scored the only goal from a free kick as Shrewsbury won away at Leicester City, knocking the Premier League opponents out of the League Cup. The club ultimately reached the fourth round of the competition, drawing Chelsea at home. Mangan scored a late goal to level the scores at 1–1, just moments after entering the field as a substitute, although Chelsea restored their lead minutes later to win the tie 2–1.

By the end of October 2014, Mangan was joint top scorer at Shrewsbury, alongside James Collins, having scored six goals in all competitions. His seventh goal came days after the Chelsea match, equalising with a half volley away at Dagenham and Redbridge, before winning an injury time penalty which was converted by teammate Liam Lawrence to secure Shrewsbury's fifth straight win in the league. The requirement to carefully manage an ongoing knee injury restricted Mangan's match time over the next few months, although he still managed to score a late winner against Morecambe in December after coming on as a substitute. He marked his first start since November by scoring a brace and providing an assist in a 3–0 home win against Hartlepool United on 17 January 2015, to help move Shrewsbury back into the League Two automatic promotion places.

Shrewsbury were subsequently promoted back to League One at the first attempt, following a 1–0 away win at Cheltenham Town in April 2015, however due to Financial Fair Play restrictions, they were unable to offer Mangan an extension to his contract.

Tranmere Rovers
Mangan joined Tranmere Rovers of the National League on 2 July 2015, signing a one-year contract. He scored seven goals in the first half of the season, including five in four matches during September and October, but lost his place in the team due to injury and manager Gary Brabins' subsequent tactical switch to a 4–5–1 formation with James Norwood preferred in the lone strikers role.

Shrewsbury Town (second spell)
After losing a regular place at Tranmere, Shrewsbury Town made an enquiry about Mangan's availability in the next transfer window. He rejoined the club on an 18-month contract on 7 January 2016. He made his return debut in an FA Cup tie away at Cardiff City three days later, scoring the only goal in a 1–0 victory, sending Shrewsbury through to the fourth-round for the first time since 2002–03. He missed a penalty on his home return against Barnsley, but scored a second-half equaliser at Burton Albion the following week, with Shrewsbury going on to win 2–1 at the league leaders. Mangan scored five goals in nineteen league appearances in the second half of the 2015–16 season to help the club avoid relegation to League Two. During the 2015−16 season Mangan received the PFA community champion as recognition for his work with children in the Shrewsbury area.

Return to Tranmere Rovers
Mangan re-joined Tranmere Rovers for an undisclosed fee on 4 November 2016.

He was released by Tranmere at the end of the 2017–18 season.

Bala Town
On 17 June 2018, he joined Welsh Premier League side Bala Town. He made his debut for the club on 28 June 2018 in a 3–0 away Europa League preliminary round first leg defeat to S.P. Tre Fiori.

Accrington Stanley
Mangan departed Bala without playing a league game for them after receiving an offer from Accrington Stanley.

Coaching career

Fleetwood Town
On 22 February 2019, Mangan joined the first-team coaching staff of Fleetwood Town, after a spell working with the youth team. Following the departure of manager Joey Barton in January 2021, Mangan also left the club.

Bristol Rovers
On 22 February 2021, Mangan followed Barton and Clint Hill from Fleetwood to Bristol Rovers, taking on the role as a first-team coach. On 14 December 2022, Mangan was charged by the FA over an alleged homophobic comment during a League One 2–2 draw with Plymouth Argyle two months prior. In September 2023, he was cleared of making homophobic comments, being fined £1,200 for abusive and insulting language. Following the sacking of Barton in October 2023, Mangan was appointed caretaker manager.

Career statistics

Footnotes
A. One appearance and one goal in the Football League Trophy.
B. Three appearances in the Football League Trophy.
C. Two appearances in the Football League Trophy.
D. Two appearances in the FA Trophy.
E. Two appearances and one goal in the Football Conference play-offs.
F. One appearance in the Football League Trophy.
G. One appearance in the FA Trophy.
H. Two appearances in the EFL Trophy.
I. Four appearances and one goal in the FA Trophy, three appearances in the National League play-offs.

Honours
Accrington Stanley
Conference National: 2005–06

Fleetwood Town
Conference Premier: 2011–12

References

External links

1986 births
Living people
Footballers from Liverpool
English men's footballers
England men's semi-pro international footballers
Men's association football forwards
Blackpool F.C. players
Hyde United F.C. players
Accrington Stanley F.C. players
Bury F.C. players
Forest Green Rovers F.C. players
Wrexham A.F.C. players
Fleetwood Town F.C. players
Shrewsbury Town F.C. players
Tranmere Rovers F.C. players
English Football League players
National League (English football) players
Bala Town F.C. players
English football managers
Bristol Rovers F.C. managers
Fleetwood Town F.C. non-playing staff
Bristol Rovers F.C. non-playing staff
Sportspeople involved in betting scandals

Andy Mangan


The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), (Cherokee: ᏣᎳᎩᏱ ᏕᏣᏓᏂᎸᎩ, Tsalagiyi Detsadanilvgi) is a federally recognized Indian Tribe based in Western North Carolina in the United States. They are descended from the small group of 800–1000 Cherokee who remained in the Eastern United States after the US military, under the Indian Removal Act, moved the other 15,000 Cherokee to west of the Mississippi River in the late 1830s, to Indian Territory. Those Cherokee remaining in the East were to give up tribal Cherokee citizenship and to assimilate. They became US citizens.

The history of the Eastern Band closely follows that of the Qualla Boundary, a land trust made up of an area of their original territory. When they reorganized as a tribe, they had to buy back the land from the US government. The EBCI also own, hold, or maintain additional lands in the vicinity, and as far away as  from the Qualla Boundary. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians are primarily the descendants of those persons listed on the 1925 Baker Rolls of Cherokee Indians. They gained federal recognition as a tribe in the 20th century. The Qualla Boundary is not technically a reservation because the tribe owns the land outright.

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is one of three federally recognized Cherokee tribes, the others being the Cherokee Nation and the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, both based in Oklahoma. The EBCI headquarters is in the namesake community of Cherokee, North Carolina in the Qualla Boundary, south of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

History, language and religion

The Eastern Band members are descended primarily from about 800 Cherokee living along the remote Oconaluftee River who were not forcibly subjected to the Trail of Tears to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). Principal Chief Yonaguska, with the help of his adopted European-American son, William Holland Thomas, managed to avoid removal. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians have maintained many traditional tribal practices. Many prominent Cherokee historians are affiliated with, or are members of, the Eastern Band.

Tsali (pronounced ) opposed the removal. He remained in the traditional Cherokee lands with a small group who resisted the U.S. Army and tried to thwart the removal. Tsali was eventually captured. He was executed by the United States in exchange for the lives of the small band he protected. They were allowed to remain in the Cherokee homeland, with the condition that they give up Cherokee tribal citizenship and assimilate as US citizens, and thus state citizens as well.

Their descendants reorganized in the 20th century and gained federal recognition as a tribe known as the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (named in reference to the majority of the tribe, who moved west to Indian Territory in 1839). They bought back land in what is known as the Qualla Boundary, part of their traditional territory that had been ceded in the 19th century to the US government by other Cherokee leaders prior to removal.

The Museum of the Cherokee Indian in Cherokee, North Carolina, exhibits an extensive collection of artifacts and items of historical and cultural interest. These range from the Woodland and early South Appalachian Mississippian culture periods, of which there are remains such as numerous earthwork platform mounds in the area, to 16th and 17th century Cherokee culture.

The Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual, located near the museum, sells traditional crafts made by its members. Founded in 1946, the Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual is the country's oldest and foremost Native American crafts cooperative.

Contemporary language and religion

More than two dozen Christian churches of various denominations are located within the Qualla Boundary. Many of the traditional religious practices of the Eastern Band have, over time, blended with new age views and customs according to Cherokee traditionalists. They have diverged as the result of cultural isolation of the various factions of Cherokee society. Many traditional dances and ceremonies are still practiced by the Eastern Band.

The Eastern Band has begun a language immersion program requiring all graduating high school seniors to speak the tribal language beginning 2007. Of the total population in the Qualla Boundary, there are approximately 900 speakers, 72% of whom are over the age of 50.

Eastern Cherokee Indian Land Trust (Qualla Boundary)

The Eastern Cherokee Indian Nation Land, officially known as the Qualla Boundary, is located at  in western North Carolina, just south of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The main part of the reserve lies in eastern Swain County and northern Jackson County, but smaller non-contiguous sections are located to the southwest in Cherokee and Graham counties (Cheoah and Snowbird communities, respectively). A small part of the main reserve extends eastward into Haywood County. The total land area of these parts is 213.934 km2 (82.600 sq mi), with a 2000 census resident population of 8,092 persons.

The Qualla Boundary is not strictly a reservation, but rather a "land trust" supervised by the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs. The land is a fragment of the extensive original homeland of the Cherokee Nation, which once stretched from western Virginia, North and South Carolina, and west to present-day southeastern Tennessee and northeastern Alabama. In the 19th century, the people had to purchase their land to regain it after it was taken over by the US government through treaty cessions, which had all been negotiated by a small percentage of assimilated Cherokees.

Today the tribe earns most of its revenue from a combination of federal and state funds, tourism, and the Harrah's Cherokee casino, established in the early 1990s. The gaming revenue is directed at economic development, as well as tribal welfare and support of cultural initiatives, such as the language immersion program and development of historic preservation programs.

Recreational tourism
Tourism in the area also offers many campgrounds, trails and river adventures, mountain biking, fishing, golfing, spas, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the Blue Ridge Parkway, Unto These Hills Outdoor Historical Drama, Oconaluftee Indian Village, Cherokee Botanical Garden and Nature Trail, the award-winning Museum of the Cherokee Indian, zoos, restaurants, and a collection of galleries and shops representing fine traditional artists, such as Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual.

Gaming relations with North Carolina
In 1988, the United States Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA), which allowed federally recognized tribes to establish casinos on tribal property. Under the act, tribes are limited to offer casino games that correspond to the existing level of gaming allowed under state law. North Carolina was unique in permitting the Cherokee to establish a casino offering Class III gaming in 1994, well before the state allowed a lottery. The typical pattern has been for states to offer a lottery, followed by an agreement between the state and the Indian tribe to allow establishment of a casino or other form of gaming operation.

The first major casino in North Carolina, Harrah's Cherokee (in partnership with Caesars Entertainment), was opened on Qualla Boundary on November 13, 1997. The casino was the result of nearly ten years of negotiations among tribal, state, and federal officials. Principal Chief Jonathan "Ed" Taylor, North Carolina Lead Liaison and Chief Negotiator David T. McCoy, and Governor Jim Hunt had developed a plan for a casino that would meet state laws, and satisfy local and tribal concerns. It opened during the tenure of Principal Chief Joyce Dugan (1995-1999).

Tribal leaders wanted to be able to offer more than bingo and other Class I forms of gambling, to attract larger crowds and generate greater revenue. The tribe had previously opened a small casino offering forms of video poker and electronic bingo. This had been challenged by the Asheville, North Carolina U.S. Attorney on the grounds that the tribe was offering a form of gambling that was not legal elsewhere in North Carolina. The tribe wanted to ensure agreements with the state to prevent such problems.

Since North Carolina established a state lottery in August 2005, Harrah's Cherokee casino has been permitted to extend its offered games to include Class II and III gambling. As thousands of people visit Harrah's each year and the casino's popularity continues to increase, the economic benefits of the casino are being realized. Annually, at least $5 million of casino profits is given to the Cherokee Preservation Fund; this institution pays for projects that promote non-gambling economic development, protect the environment, and preserve Cherokee heritage and culture. Another portion of casino profits goes to improving tribal health-care, education, housing, etc. Part of the revenue goes to the state of North Carolina, as provided by the agreement drafted by Taylor and Hunt.

In 1996, the first amendment to the compact was entered into the Federal Register, establishing the appointments of the Gaming Commission, staggered five-year terms for commissioners, and the ability to hire independent legal counsel upon Tribe approval. In 2001, the second amendment to the compact was entered: it raised the gambling age from 18 to 21, affected the qualifications and appointments to the Gambling Commission between the Tribe and the North Carolina Governor, created the Cherokee Preservation Foundation, and clarified games, prizes and gifts awarded. In 2002, an agreement of authorization was reached that allowed the Tribe to hold electronic bingo and raffle games.

In 2011, Governor Bev Perdue and Principal Chief Michell Hicks came to an agreement on a new 30-year gaming compact. The agreement allowed live table games and grants the Tribe sole rights to provide those games west of Interstate 26. Based on this grant of exclusivity, the Tribe had agreed to a revenue-sharing agreement with the State, with funds to be used by the state only for public education purposes.

On September 28, 2015, the Tribe opened their second casino, Harrah's Cherokee Valley River, in Murphy, North Carolina. On July 26, 2019, Governor Roy Cooper signed Senate Bill 154 that permitted wagering on sports and horse racing on tribal lands, after the state legalized sports betting in other venues.

Outside the Qualla Boundary

Acquisition of sacred mounds and towns
Since the late 20th century, the tribe has acquired such sacred sites as Nikwasi Mound (2019, in Franklin, North Carolina) and, downriver, Cowee (2007) (with 70 acres) and Kituwah (1996) mounds, each along the Little Tennessee River. Each is estimated to have been built more than 1,000 years ago. The EBCI also acquired the Tallulah Mound in Robbinsville, North Carolina in 1996.

In 2020, Mainspring Conservation Trust acquired 40 acres that include the Watauga Mound and part of the ancient Watauga Town site, to conserve on behalf of the EBCI. The property is located between Nikwasi upstream and Cowee downstream.

The EBCI is working with local non-profits, such as Mainspring Conservation Trust, Western Carolina University, and local governments to develop the "Nikwasi Trail", highlighting a route along the Little Tennessee River. This is formally known as the Nikwasi-Cherokee Cultural and Heritage Corridor, beginning in Macon County, North Carolina, where the river enters from Georgia. In 2018 partner groups installed a viewing overlook with interpretive panels across the river from the Cowee mound site. This is the second sacred site on this corridor going north from Franklin. More highlighting and interpretation of such sites is planned, in connection with related activities along this route.

Since 2011 the EBCI have also been collaborating with regional universities, the Cherokee Preservation Foundation, and the Duke Energy Foundation on what is called the "Western North Carolina Mounds and Towns Project." As part of this, Western Carolina University, the Coweeta Long Term Ecological Research Program at the University of Georgia, and the Tribal Historic Preservation Office of the EBCI have conducted outreach with tribal members, in what is described as indigenous archeology. The data gathered integrates tribal knowledge, as well as information from GIS and non-invasive technologies, excavations, archeology, and anthropology. This has enabled the tribe to have a better record of mounds, with location data and chronological data for its use. Because such mounds were subject to looting in the past, the tribe is keeping the locations of most mounds secret in order to preserve them.

Kituwah LLC
The Kituwah Limited Liability Company (LLC) was established in 2019 to launch or acquire businesses to help diversify the tribes revenues outside of gaming. Kituwah is focused on property development, entertainment and hospitality, and professional services. That same year, Kituwah purchased  in Sevierville, Tennessee for $13.5 million; its first tenant is to be a Buc-ee's, with a future Courtyard by Marriott and a sports betting bar. In 2022, discussions began with historical theme park company Puy du Fou on a possible partnership at the Sevierville site.

Kituwah also retains management and operations of Cherokee Cinemas and in 2020 acquired Wylliesburg, Virginia-based Cardinal Homes Inc., a modular home builder, for $5.8 million.

EBCI Holdings, LLC
Established in 2020, EBCI Holdings is a limited liability company to diversify the tribe's holdings in the commercial gaming and hospitality business. Both Harrah's Cherokee Casino Resort and Harrah's Cherokee Valley River were consolidated under EBCI Holdings and in 2021 purchased its first casino outside North Carolina, Caesars Southern Indiana for $250 million.

In December 2021, EBCI Holdings announced the creation of a "gaming technology incubator" fund, where they would invest in gambling startups. In August 2022, EBCI Holdings announced a joint venture with Caesars Entertainment on a $650 million project to develop Caesars Virginia, in Danville, Virginia, slated to open in late 2024. In November 2022, the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission approved a move to allow EBCI Holdings a 48% minority stake, $25 million, in a quarter horse race track in Cannonsburg, Kentucky. On October 27, 2023, Sandy's Racing & Gaming officially opened, with the horse race track to open in 2025.

Enrollment and government
In order to be a recognized member of the EBCI, one must have a direct lineal ancestor that appears on the 1924 Baker Roll of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and one must possess at least 1/16 degree of Eastern Cherokee blood to meet the tribe's blood quantum requirement. This is different from the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, which has no blood quantum requirements if you have an ancestor recorded on the Dawes Rolls (that recorded assumed or estimated blood quantum and race), an older roll than the 1924 Baker Roll. The EBCI is like the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee, which also requires blood quantum.

The  EBCI and other Federally recognized Cherokee tribes have opposed recognition for other tribes, such as the Lumbee. Mark Edwin Miller states in his work that even "so-called purely 'descendancy' tribes such as the Five Tribes with no blood quantum requirement jealously guard some proven, documentary link by blood to distant ancestors. More than any single BIA requirement, however, this criterion has proven troublesome for southeastern groups [seeking federal recognition] because of its reliance on non-Indian records and the confused (and confusing) nature of surviving documents."

The government of the EBCI is divided into three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial. These consist of the Principal Chief and Vice-Chief, the unicameral Tribal Council, and the Cherokee courts. The EBCI Code of Ordinances delineates the structure and function of the tribal government.

Elections are held on odd-numbered years, with the primary elections on the first Thursday in June and general elections on the first Thursday in September. To be an eligible voter to participate in the elections, the person must be: 1) an enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians; 2) at least 18 years of age on the date of the applicable election; 3) registered with the Cherokee Board of Elections.

Executive branch
The EBCI executive branch is governed by Chapter 117, Article I of the EBCI Code of Ordinances. Both the Principal Chief and the Vice-Chief are elected to a four-year by an at-large election. The duties of both elected officials are to represent and defend the rights, interests, lands and funds of the Tribe before any legislative committee or body of the federal or state governments. The Principal Chief also has veto authority on any resolution or ordinance enacted by the Tribal Council; and can appoint government division secretaries and members to the following organizations: Cherokee Police Commission, Kituwah Economic Development Board, and the Tribal Gaming Commission.

Legislative branch
The unicameral Tribal Council consists of 12 members, with two representatives elected from each community, except for Cherokee County and Snowbird, which share two representatives. Its authority to legislate and to conduct investigations and hearings comes from Chapter 117, Article II of the EBCI Code of Ordinances. It also has the sole power and authority to approve assignment and transfer of possessory rights to its lands among its members and has quasi-judicial powers to resolve disputes. The Tribal Council can also override a veto, with two-thirds majority, and can review some appointments by the Principal Chief. Members are elected to two-year terms and are assigned to boards and committees, which include planning, business, lands, community services, manpower, investment, education, and housing.

Judiciary
The Cherokee courts derives its authority from Chapter 7 of the EBCI Code of Ordinances; it consists of one supreme court (one chief justice and two associate justices), one trial court (one chief judge and two associate judges), and such other trial courts of special jurisdiction as established by law (e.g. juvenile court). All Justices and Judges are appointed upon nomination by the Principal Chief, and confirmed by the Tribal Council. The chief justice, chief judge, and associate judges for trial courts of special jurisdiction have six-year terms and are eligible for reappointment, while associate justices and associate judges of the trial court have four-year terms and are eligible for reappointment.

Notable members

 Goingback Chiltoskey (1907–2000), woodcarver and educator
 Amanda Crowe (1928–2004), sculptor and educator
 Joyce Dugan (born 1952), educator and Principal Chief, first woman elected to this position
 Charles George (1932–1952), Medal of Honor recipient
 Shan Goshorn (1957–2018), visual artist
 Myrtle Driver Johnson (1944–), Beloved Woman and translator
 Nimrod Jarrett Smith (1837–1893), Principal Chief
 Richard Sneed (born 1967), Principal Chief
 Lottie Queen Stamper (1907–1987), basket maker and educator
 Amanda Swimmer (1921–2018), potter, given the title of Beloved Woman
 William Holland Thomas (1805–1893), Principal Chief
 Jeremiah Wolfe (1924–2018), Cherokee stone carver, stickball caller, storyteller, veteran, and Beloved Man
 Will West Long (1869–1947), Cherokee mask maker, a translator, and a Cherokee cultural historian.

See also
 2023 Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Marijuana Legalization Measure
 Cherokee One Feather, newspaper serving the community
 Stickball (Native American)
 Cherokee Preservation Foundation
 Harrah's Cherokee
 New Kituwah Academy

Notes

References
 Finger, John R. Cherokee Americans: The Eastern Band of Cherokees in the 20th Century. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993.

External links
 Official Government Website of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians

 Cherokee Preservation Foundation
 Qualla Arts and Crafts—an artists' cooperative founded in 1946, focused on preserving and promoting the traditional arts and crafts of the Eastern Band of Cherokee.

Federally recognized tribes in the United States
Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands
Native American tribes in North Carolina
Western North Carolina
Articles containing video clips

Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians


Graeme Jefferies is a musician from New Zealand.

In 1981 Graeme and his brother Peter Jefferies formed the post-punk band Nocturnal Projections. The band released a few records and cassettes, and played regularly around their hometown of New Plymouth, as well as Auckland.

After Nocturnal Projections disbanded in 1983, the brothers formed This Kind Of Punishment, and released three full-length albums, and an EP.

Following This Kind Of Punishment, Peter pursued a solo career, whilst Graeme formed new band The Cakekitchen.

Discography

 Messages for the Cakekitchen (1988)
 Timebomb - Bravely, Bravely (1989, with Alastair Galbraith)

External links
The Cakekitchen website

Living people
People from New Plymouth
Year of birth missing (living people)

Graeme Jefferies


The Helmand and Arghandab Valley Authority (HAVA) based in Lashkar Gah, Afghanistan, originally named the Helmand Valley Authority (HVA) until its expansion in 1965, was established on December 4, 1952, as an agency of the Afghan Government. The agency was modeled on the Tennessee Valley Authority in the United States, with a remit covering lands in Farah Province, Ghazni Province, Helmand Province, Herat Province, and Kandahar Province.

The HAVA is overseen by the Afghan Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (previously the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation).

History
The HAVA was created to manage the economic development of the Helmand and Arghandab valleys, primarily through irrigation and agricultural land development along the Helmand River and the Arghandab River, in a plan which was forecast to be of primary importance to the future economy of Afghanistan. Before the outbreak of conflict in the late 1970s, the area irrigated by the HAVA produced a large proportion of Afghanistan's grain and cotton and was a major source of foreign exchange through exports. The area of agricultural land under irrigation more than halved between 1979 and 2002 to around , although this has since been increased.

The project received major loans from the Export–Import Bank of the United States and, although around 20% of all Afghan Government expenditure went into funding the HVA and HAVA during the 1950s and into the 1960s, it was generally seen as a US-led project. It resulted, in the words of historian Arnold J. Toynbee in "a piece of America inserted into the Afghan Landscape. ... The new world they are conjuring up out of the desert at the Helmand River's expense is to be an America-in-Asia."

2000s
In 2005, it was reported that, following a USAID-funded project to build six reservoirs in Lashkar Gah, the HAVA would manage the provision of fresh water connections to the city's residents and the collection of the associated fees to keep the system maintained. The city had been without fresh water for the previous 30 years due to the contamination of the Helmand River.

During the Helmand province campaign, the Operation Tethys initiative by the British Royal Engineers 170 (Infrastructure Support) Group led to repairs being carried out to the HAVA's irrigation systems between 2010 and 2012 at 30 sites.

During 2011, it was reported that work was being started on a Helmand River Basin Study and Master Plan (HRBMP) to rebuild the capacity of the HAVA with funding from the British Department for International Development.

Present day

Today, the irrigation system managed by the HAVA is regarded as one of the country's most important capital resources and vital for maintaining and expanding agricultural production in the region.

As of March 2012, its director is Haji Khan Agha.

Development
The development of the Helmand Valley was initiated by the Government of Afghanistan in 1946. In addition to irrigation and land development it also included elements of flood control and power supply, improvements to farming practices and equipment, health, education and road connections and the resettlement of some 5,500 nomadic and landless families into the area. It focused around irrigation supplied from the waters of the Arghandab (Dahla) Dam, completed in 1952, and the Kajaki Dam on the River Helmand, completed in 1953, which were both constructed by a local subsidiary of Morrison–Knudsen, the builders of the Hoover Dam. It resulted in one of the world's major desert irrigation schemes, with water supplied through the Boghra, Shamalan, and Darweshan canals.

Government involvement
The US Government was officially involved in the project from 1949 until the Soviet invasion in 1979. Between 1949 and 1971, the US financed eight dams on the Helmand River. From 1960, the Agency for International Development and its predecessor, the Technical Cooperation Agency, spent $80 million assisting with 25 projects and the HAVA became a showcase for the US foreign aid program.

The earliest initiatives to build a modern irrigation system in the region began in 1935, with financial support from the Japanese Government though until World War II. The German Government had also provided assistance.

Areas irrigated by the HAVA
In Helmand Province, the areas of Nad Ali, Marja, Shamalon, Darweshan, Khanishin, Seraj, Girishk, Sanguin-Kajakai, Musa Qala and Nowzad are all irrigated by the HAVA, as are the areas of Maiwand, Dund-Daman, Arghandab and Panjwayi in Kandahar Province.

Issues
While the development of the Helmand valley resulted in considerable gains in agricultural production and raised average farm incomes tenfold, there have also been problems. In particular, by 1975, over-irrigation and poor drainage had led to waterlogging and salination, seriously damaging the soil in some places. Work to mitigate this was interrupted by the Soviet invasion. Following the overthrow of the Najibullah Government in 1992 and aided by the irrigation, the Helmand valley region has become a major area for the cultivation of the opium poppy, a crop which had been largely suppressed by the HAVA in the 1950s.

Irrigation of the area has also significantly reduced the water flowing from the Helmand River into Lake Hamun and this, together with drought, has been cited as a key reason for the severe damage to the ecology of the lake region, much of which has degenerated since 1999 from a wetland of international importance into salt flats.

See also
Opium production in Afghanistan
Desert greening

References

Further reading

The Helmand Valley Project Institute for Afghan Studies

External links

Helmand River drainage basin
Irrigation in Afghanistan
Water management authorities
Water supply and sanitation in Afghanistan
Helmand River
Farah Province
Ghazni Province
Helmand Province
Herat Province
Kandahar Province
Economy of Afghanistan
Government of Afghanistan
Government agencies established in 1952
1952 establishments in Afghanistan

Helmand and Arghandab Valley Authority


Florimond III, Baron Alluye (1540? – 1569) was governor of Orléans, and Secretary of State to Francis II of France, and Charles IX of France.

Life
He married, in 1557, Joan of Halluyn of Vienne, god-daughter of Catherine de Medici (she broke her secret marriage to François de Montmorency, to allow him to marry Diane de France).
They had a child, Stephen Roberdet of Alluye.
This is when the name was changed to Robertet for this branch of the family.

He was appointed Secretary of State in 1559 at the recommendation of the Francis, Duke of Guise, under Francis II.
He was and committed to serving the Duke of Guise and Catherine de Medici.
To her he wrote in 1560 a letter to express his concern with the budding wars of religion:

His cousin Robertet de Fresne succeeded his father-in Clausse Marchaumont.
Thus, the two close relatives were at the same time, along with the offices of secretary of state, in two different departments.
In April 1562, he and Robertet de Fresne were sent to Orléans with the Prince of Conde, who after the massacre of Vassy, grabbed Orléans, Blois, Tours, Angers and Le Mans.
The prince said that he would not disarm if M. de Guise did not withdraw from the court, if not punished for the act of Vassy.
In this same year 1562, he was appointed by the queen mother and the princes of the House of Lorraine to go to the Duke of Savoy to maintain his neutrality, over the ruinous repayment by Turin and Piedmont that France: but the Duke of Guise wanted to please the Duchess of Savoy, and allied.
In vain, Marshal Bourdillon and Marshal of Brissac opposed them.
In 1563, he was sent to England to take Elizabeth I of England to visit Le Havre.
The queen did not refuse to return the town, but wanted nothing less than Calais in exchange.
A few months later, the Constable de Montmorency and a French army defeated the Earl of Warwick and the English. Florimond III d'Alluye died as Secretary of State in 1569, two years after his cousin Robertet de Fresne.

1540s births
1569 deaths
French Foreign Ministers
16th-century French diplomats
Year of birth uncertain

Florimond III Robertet d'Alluye


The Bourne Identity is a 2002 action-thriller film based on Robert Ludlum's 1980 novel. It was directed and co-produced by Doug Liman and written by Tony Gilroy and William Blake Herron. It stars Matt Damon as Jason Bourne, a man suffering from psychogenic amnesia attempting to discover his identity amidst a clandestine conspiracy within the CIA. It also features Franka Potente, Chris Cooper, Clive Owen, Brian Cox, Walton Goggins, and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. The first installment in the Bourne film series, it was followed by The Bourne Supremacy (2004), The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), The Bourne Legacy (2012), and Jason Bourne (2016).

Although Robert Ludlum died in 2001, he is credited as an executive producer alongside Frank Marshall. Universal Pictures released the film to theatres in the United States on June 14, 2002. The film opened to critical and commercial success, grossing $214 million on a $60 million budget.

Plot

In the Mediterranean Sea, Italian fishermen rescue an American man adrift with two gunshot wounds in his back. They tend to his wounds and find he has no memory of his identity, but demonstrates advanced combat skills and fluency in several languages. They find a tiny laser projector under his skin in his hip that gives the number of a safe deposit box in Zürich, and the man decides to go investigate. He goes to the bank to investigate the deposit box where he finds various currencies, passports and IDs with different names, and a handgun. The man takes everything but the gun, and starts using the name on the American passport, Jason Bourne. After Bourne's departure, a bank employee contacts Operation Treadstone, a CIA black ops program. Treadstone's head, Conklin, issues alerts to police to capture Bourne and assigns three agents to kill him: Castel, Manheim, and the Professor.

CIA Deputy Director Abbott contacts Conklin about a failed assassination attempt against exiled African dictator Wombosi, and Conklin promises that he will deal with the agent who failed. Bourne tries evading the Swiss police by using his U.S. passport to enter the American consulate, but is pursued by Marine guards. He escapes before offering $20,000 to Marie Kreutz, a 26-year-old German woman whom he saw at the consulate, to drive him to an address in Paris. Upon reaching the address, they enter an apartment where Bourne contacts a hotel through the phone. He inquires about the names on his passports there, learning that a "John Michael Kane" was registered but died two weeks before in a car crash. Castel ambushes Bourne and Marie in the apartment, but Bourne gets the upper hand. Instead of allowing himself to be interrogated, Castel throws himself from a window to his death.

While searching through Castel's belongings, Marie finds wanted posters of Bourne and herself, and agrees to help him. After the two evade police in Marie's car, they spend the night in a Paris hotel. Meanwhile, Wombosi obsesses over the attempt on his life. Conklin, having anticipated this, planted a body to pose as John Michael Kane in a morgue to appear as the assailant, but Wombosi remains unconvinced and threatens to report the CIA's actions to the media. The Professor then assassinates Wombosi on Conklin's orders. Bourne, posing as Kane, learns about the failed assassination attempt on Wombosi's yacht, and that the assassin was shot twice in the back during the escape, ultimately realizing that he was responsible for the attempt. Bourne and Marie take refuge at the French countryside home of Marie's half-brother Eamon and his children.

Under pressure from Abbott to handle the matter, Conklin tracks Bourne's location and sends the Professor to kill him. The Professor is mortally wounded by Bourne, and reveals their shared connection to Treadstone before dying. Bourne sends Marie, Eamon, and the children away for their protection, then contacts Conklin via the Professor's phone, and they agree to meet alone in Paris. When Bourne sees Conklin is not alone, he abandons their meeting, but manages to place a tracking device on Conklin's car, leading Bourne to Treadstone's safe house in Paris. Bourne breaks in and holds Conklin and logistics technician Nicky Parsons at gunpoint. Conklin reveals to Bourne his association with Treadstone and presses him to remember his past. Bourne recalls his attempt to assassinate Wombosi through successive flashbacks.

Under orders from Treadstone, Bourne infiltrated Wombosi's yacht as Kane and managed to get close enough to assassinate him. However, Bourne was unable to find the nerve to kill Wombosi while his children were present, and instead fled, being shot during his escape and losing his memory.

Bourne announces he is resigning from Treadstone and warns Conklin not to follow him. As agents descend on the safe house, Bourne fights his way through. When Conklin leaves the safe house, he encounters Manheim, who kills him under Abbott's orders. Abbott then shuts down Treadstone. Abbott reports to an oversight committee that Treadstone is "decommissioned" before discussion turns to a new project codenamed "Blackbriar".

Some time later, Bourne finds Marie renting out scooters to tourists on Mykonos, and the two reunite.

Cast

 Matt Damon as Jason Bourne
 Franka Potente as Marie Kreutz
 Chris Cooper as Alexander Conklin
 Clive Owen as The Professor
 Brian Cox as Ward Abbott
 Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Nykwana Wombosi
 Gabriel Mann as Danny Zorn
 Julia Stiles as Nicolette "Nicky" Parsons
 Orso Maria Guerrini as Giancarlo
 Tim Dutton as Eamon
 Nicky Naude as Castel
 Russell Levy as Manheim
 Vincent Franklin as Rawlins

Walton Goggins, Josh Hamilton, and Brian Huskey appear as Treadstone research technicians. David Bamber has a minor role as a clerk at the American consulate who denies Marie a student visa, David Gasman has one as the deputy chief of mission, and Hubert Saint-Macary as a Paris morgue director.

Production

Development
Attempts to develop a film adaptation of The Bourne Identity began in 1981, when film producer Anthony Lazzarino and Ludlum's literary agent Henry Morrison's company Windwood/Glen Productions purchased the film rights to the novel shortly after its publication. Morrison left the company shortly afterwards, and Lazzarino optioned the film to Orion Pictures in exchange for a 3.75 percent interest and a presentation credit. This option was eventually acquired by Warner Bros. Pictures, which intended to make a film adaptation directed by Jack Clayton and starring Burt Reynolds. However, the film did not move forward because Reynolds was uninterested. Warner Bros. produced a television adaptation of the novel for ABC in 1988, but otherwise did nothing with its option and allowed the rights to revert back to the Ludlum estate in 1999.

Director Doug Liman had been a fan of the source novel by Robert Ludlum since he read it in high school. Near the end of production of Liman's previous film Swingers in 1996, Liman decided to develop a film adaptation of the novel. However, he could not initially move forward with the project because Warner Bros. still owned the film rights. After more than two years of securing rights to the book and a further year of screenplay development with screenwriter Tony Gilroy, the film went through two years of production. Universal Pictures acquired the film rights to Ludlum's books in the hopes of starting a new film franchise, and because studio CEO Stacey Snider later admitted to being "intrigued by the pairing of an independent-minded filmmaker with a familiar studio genre." Ludlum approved of the adaptation after befriending Liman, who repeatedly visited the author's home in Glacier National Park, Montana, to consult him.

Writing
David Self was brought in to write the screenplay in 1999 after Gilroy initially declined the offer, and his screenplay was more faithful to the original novel. Unlike Liman, Gilroy disliked Ludlum's novels and considered them poorly suited to a film adaptation, calling Self's original script "a huge fifteen-gunmen-on-the-Metro-blowing-the-fuck-out-of-everything kind of movie." However, Gilroy agreed to write a new screenplay for the film after Liman took his advice to abandon everything from the original novel except for the basic plot involving "a guy who finds the only thing he knows how to do is kill people." Gilroy subsequently rewrote almost the entire film, although William Blake Herron was later brought in to rewrite Gilroy's script to have more action. Most of Herron's rewrites were abandoned after Matt Damon threatened to quit the role of Bourne if they were included in support of Liman and Gilroy, but Herron still received a writer's credit after the opening scene he composed for the film was included.

Gilroy's new script rewrote the Treadstone program and its director Alexander Conklin into the film's primary antagonists; in the novel both they and Bourne had been pursuing the terrorist "Carlos the Jackal" and Treadstone had only tried to assassinate Bourne because they believed he had deliberately gone rogue from his mission after his amnesia. "Carlos the Jackal" could not appear as an antagonist in the film at all because in real life he had been captured and imprisoned by the French government in 1994. The film's portrayal of Treadstone was inspired by Liman's father Arthur L. Liman's memoirs regarding his involvement as chief counsel for the United States Senate investigation of the Iran–Contra affair. Many aspects of the Alexander Conklin character were based on his father's recollections of Oliver North. Gilroy also abandoned the novels' original backstory for Bourne as a former Foreign Service officer recruited to the United States Army Special Forces during the Vietnam War after his family had been killed in the secret bombing of Cambodia and posing as an assassin named "Cain" to lure "Carlos" out of hiding. Liman admitted that he jettisoned much of the content of the novel beyond the central premise, in order to modernize the material and to conform it to his own beliefs regarding United States foreign policy. However, Liman was careful not to cram his political views down "the audience's throat".

There were initial concerns regarding the film's possible obsolescence and overall reception in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. As a result, producer Frank Marshall reshot a new ending in which Ward Abbott offers to recruit Bourne back to the CIA and abandons the agency's pursuit of him even after he declines. The ending was not included in the theatrical cut because it was deemed too different from the rest of the film.

Casting
Liman approached a wide range of actors for the role of Bourne, including Brad Pitt, who turned it down to star in Spy Game, as well as Russell Crowe, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tom Cruise and Sylvester Stallone, before he eventually cast Damon. Liman found that Damon understood and appreciated that, though The Bourne Identity would have its share of action, the focus was primarily on character and plot. Damon, who had never played such a physically demanding role, insisted on performing many of the stunts himself. With stunt choreographer Nick Powell, he underwent three months of extensive training in stunt work, the use of weapons, boxing, and the Filipino martial art  eskrima. He eventually performed a significant number of the film's stunts himself, including hand-to-hand combat and climbing the safe house walls near the film's conclusion.

Liman initially intended to cast Sarah Polley in the role of Marie, but she declined. After Franka Potente was cast instead, the role was rewritten from a Canadian economist to a German drifter.

Filming
Filming began in October 2000. From the onset of filming, difficulties with the studio slowed the film's development and caused a rift between Liman, Gilroy, and Universal Pictures. The first problems started after Liman and Damon demanded the abandonment of Herron's re-written script shortly before production started despite the fact that extensive preparations had already been made to film it. Liman also insisted on shooting the film on location in Paris rather than the cheaper option of Montreal, despite the fact that this meant the film's French-speaking crew was unable to understand the English-speaking cast and director. Executives were unhappy with the film's pacing, emphasis on small scale action sequences, and the general relationship between themselves and Liman, who was suspicious of direct studio involvement. The film's original producer Richard N. Gladstein also quit the film at the beginning of production due to his wife's pregnancy, resulting in delays until he was replaced by Frank Marshall.

Liman demanded a number of reshoots and rewrites late in development and throughout production, sometimes in the middle of a shoot. This resulted in scheduling problems which delayed the film from its original release target date of September 2001 to June 2002 and took it $8,000,000 over budget from the initial budget of $60 million; Gilroy faxed elements of screenplay rewrites almost throughout the entire duration of filming. A particular point of contention with regard to the original Gilroy script were the scenes set in the farmhouse near the film's conclusion. Liman and Matt Damon fought to keep the scenes in the film after they were excised in a third-act rewrite that was insisted upon by the studio. Liman and Damon argued that, though the scenes were low key, they were integral to the audience's understanding of the Bourne character and the film's central themes. The farmhouse sequence consequently went through many rewrites from its original incarnation before its inclusion in the final product. Although Marshall ultimately sided with Liman to get the farmhouse sequence filmed, they got into an intense fight on set after Liman abruptly insisted on another reshoot to record a shot he had forgotten to include.

Other issues included poor test audience reactions to the film's Paris finale. The latter required a late return to location in order to shoot a new, more action-oriented conclusion to the Paris story arc involving a large explosion. Ironically, this ending was also cut after the studio and Marshall decided that the film could not include an explosion after 9/11. In addition to Paris, filming took place in Prague, Imperia, Rome, Mykonos, and Zürich; several scenes set in Zürich were also filmed in Prague. Damon described the production as a struggle, citing the early conflicts that he and Liman had with the studio, but denied that it was an overtly difficult process, stating, "When I hear people saying that the production was a nightmare it's like, a 'nightmare'? Shooting's always hard, but we finished."

Liman's directorial method was often hands-on. Many times he operated the camera himself in order to create what he believed was a more intimate relationship between himself, the material, and the actors. He felt that this connection was lost if he simply observed the recording on a monitor. This was a mindset he developed from his background as a small-scale indie film maker.

The acclaimed car chase sequence was filmed primarily by the second unit under director Alexander Witt. The unit shot in various locations around Paris while Liman was filming the main story arc elsewhere in the city. The finished footage was eventually edited together to create the illusion of a coherent journey. Liman confessed that "anyone who really knows Paris will find it illogical", since few of the locations used in the car chase actually connect to each other. Liman took only a few of the shots himself; his most notable chase sequence shots were those of Matt Damon and Franka Potente while inside the car.

The consulate scenes were filmed in 2001 with real U.S. Marine Security Guards playing the roles of consulate guards.

Reception

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a  approval rating based on  reviews and a consensus: "Expertly blending genre formula with bursts of unexpected wit, The Bourne Identity is an action thriller that deliversand then some." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 68 out of 100 based on 38 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three out of four stars and praised it for its ability to absorb the viewer in its "spycraft" and "Damon's ability to be focused and sincere" concluding that the film was "unnecessary, but not unskilled". Walter Chaw of Film Freak Central praised the film for its pacing and action sequences, describing them as "kinetic, fair, and intelligent, every payoff packaged with a moment's contemplation crucial to the creation of tension" and that the movie could be understood as a clever subversion of the genre. Charles Taylor of Salon.com acclaimed the film as "entertaining, handsome and gripping, The Bourne Identity is something of an anomaly among big-budget summer blockbusters: a thriller with some brains and feeling behind it, more attuned to story and character than to spectacle" and praised Liman for giving the film a "tough mindedness" that never gives way into "cynicism or hopelessness".

Ed Gonzalez of Slant Magazine also noted Doug Liman's "restrained approach to the material" as well as Matt Damon and Franka Potente's strong chemistry, but ultimately concluded the film was "smart, but not smart enough". J. Hoberman of The Village Voice dismissed the film as "banal" and as a disappointment compared against Liman's previous indie releases; Owen Gleiberman also criticised the film for a "sullen roteness that all of Liman's supple handheld staging can't disguise".
Aaron Beierle of DVDTalk gave particular praise to the film's central car chase which was described as an exciting action highlight and one of the best realized in the genre.

The Bourne Identity has been described by some authors as a neo-noir film.

Box office
In its opening weekend, The Bourne Identity took in US$27,118,640 in 2,638 theaters, ranking at #2 behind fellow new release Scooby-Doo. The film grossed $121,661,683 in North America and $92,263,424 elsewhere for a total worldwide gross of $214,034,224.

Accolades

Home media
On January 21, 2003, Universal Pictures released The Bourne Identity in the U.S. on VHS as well as on a "Collector's Edition" DVD in two formats: widescreen and full screen. It surpassed Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to have the highest DVD rentals, making $22.7 million. The film would hold this record for seven months until it was taken by The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers in August of the same year. This DVD release contains supplemental materials including a making-of documentary, a commentary from director Doug Liman and deleted scenes. On July 13, 2004, Universal released a new "extended edition" DVD of the film in the U.S. in preparation for the sequel's cinema debut. This DVD came in the same two formats as the 2003 edition. The supplemental materials for this version include interviews with Matt Damon, deleted scenes, alternative opening and ending, a documentary on the consulate fight and information features on the CIA and amnesia. The alternate ending on the DVD has Bourne collapsing during the search for Marie, waking up with Abbott standing over him, and getting an offer to return to the CIA. Neither contain the commentary or DTS tracks present in the 2003 edition. The film was also released on UMD for Sony's PlayStation Portable on August 30, 2005 and on HD DVD on July 24, 2007. With the release of The Bourne Ultimatum on DVD, a reprint of the 2004 version was included in a boxed set with Supremacy and Ultimatum, entitled The Jason Bourne Collection. A trilogy set was released on Blu-ray in January 2009.

It was the top DVD video rental in the United States during the first quarter of 2003, earning  in US DVD rental revenue by March 2003.

Soundtrack

The score for The Bourne Identity was composed by John Powell. Powell was brought in to replace Carter Burwell, who had composed and recorded a more traditional orchestral score for the film, which director Doug Liman rejected. Since a lot of the music budget had been spent recording the rejected score, Powell's score was initially conceived to be entirely non-orchestral, making extensive use of percussion, guitars, electronics and studio techniques. However, a string section was later overdubbed onto many of the cues to give them a 'cinematic' quality.

The Bourne Identity: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was released on June 11, 2002 by Varèse Sarabande. In addition to the score, the film also featured the songs "Extreme Ways" by Moby and "Ready Steady Go" by Paul Oakenfold. The soundtrack won an ASCAP Award.

Sequels

The Bourne Identity was followed by a 2004 sequel, The Bourne Supremacy, which received a similar positive critical and public reception, but received some criticism for its hand-held camerawork, which observers argued made action sequences difficult to see. The Bourne Supremacy was directed by Paul Greengrass with Matt Damon reprising his role as Jason Bourne. A third film, The Bourne Ultimatum, was released in 2007 and again was directed by Paul Greengrass and starred Matt Damon. Like Supremacy, Ultimatum received generally positive critical and public reception, but also received similar criticism for the camera-work. Liman remained as executive producer for both films as well as for the fifth film Jason Bourne, once again directed by Greengrass and released in 2016.

The fourth film of the Bourne franchise, The Bourne Legacy was released in 2012. Neither Damon nor Greengrass was involved.

Damon and Paul Greengrass returned in 2016 for the fifth installment of the series Jason Bourne, directed by Greengrass and written by Greengrass and Christopher Rouse. It is the final film in the Bourne film series and a direct sequel to The Bourne Ultimatum (2007).

See also
 List of films featuring surveillance

References

Further reading
 Tibbetts, John C., and James M. Welsh, eds. The Encyclopedia of Novels Into Film (2nd ed. 2005) pp 39–42.

External links

2002 films
2002 action thriller films
2000s spy films
German action thriller films
American action thriller films
American political thriller films
American spy films
English-language German films
English-language Czech films
2000s chase films
2000s English-language films
Films about amnesia
Bourne (film series)
Films about the Central Intelligence Agency
Films directed by Doug Liman
Films set in 2002
Films set in France
Films set in Liguria
Films set in Paris
Films set in Virginia
Films set in Zürich
Films set in Greece
Films shot in the Czech Republic
Films shot in Greece
Films shot in Italy
Films shot in Paris
Films shot in Rome
Films shot in Switzerland
Films with screenplays by Tony Gilroy
Films about United States Army Special Forces
The Kennedy/Marshall Company films
Universal Pictures films
Films scored by John Powell
2000s American films
2000s German films

The Bourne Identity (2002 film)


Block Truncation Coding (BTC) is a type of lossy image compression technique for greyscale images. It divides the original images into blocks and then uses a quantizer to reduce the number of grey levels in each block whilst maintaining the same mean and standard deviation. It is an early predecessor of the popular hardware DXTC technique, although BTC compression method was first adapted to color long before DXTC using a very similar approach called Color Cell Compression. BTC has also been adapted to video compression.

BTC was first proposed by Professors Mitchell and Delp at Purdue University. Another variation of BTC is Absolute Moment Block Truncation Coding or AMBTC, in which instead of using the standard deviation the first absolute moment is preserved along with the mean. AMBTC is computationally simpler than BTC and also typically results in a lower Mean Squared Error (MSE). AMBTC was proposed by Maximo Lema and Robert Mitchell.

Using sub-blocks of 4×4 pixels gives a compression ratio of 4:1 assuming 8-bit integer values are used during transmission or storage.  Larger blocks allow greater compression ("a" and "b" values spread over more pixels) however quality also reduces with the increase in block size due to the nature of the algorithm.

The BTC algorithm was used for compressing Mars Pathfinder's rover images.

Compression procedure
A pixel image is divided into blocks of typically 4×4 pixels. For each block the Mean and Standard Deviation of the pixel values are calculated; these statistics generally change from block to block.  The pixel values selected for each reconstructed, or new, block are chosen so that each block of the BTC compressed image will have (approximately) the same mean and standard deviation as the corresponding block of the original image.  A two level quantization on the block is where we gain the compression and is performed as follows:

Here  are pixel elements of the original block and  are elements of the compressed block. In words this can be explained as: If a pixel value is greater than the mean it is assigned the value "1", otherwise "0".  Values equal to the mean can have either a "1" or a "0" depending on the preference of the person or organisation implementing the algorithm.

This 16-bit block is stored or transmitted along with the values of Mean and Standard Deviation. Reconstruction is made with two values "a" and "b" which preserve the mean and the standard deviation. The values of "a" and "b" can be computed as follows:

Where  is the standard deviation, m is the total number of pixels in the block and q is the number of pixels greater than the mean ()

To reconstruct the image, or create its approximation, elements assigned a 0 are replaced with the "a" value and elements assigned a 1 are replaced with the "b" value.

This demonstrates that the algorithm is asymmetric in that the encoder has much more work to do than the decoder.  This is because the decoder is simply replacing 1's and 0's with the estimated value whereas the encoder is also required to calculate the mean, standard deviation and the two values to use.

Example

Encoder
Take a 4×4 block from an image, in this case the mountain test image:

Like any small block from an image this appears rather boring to work with as the numbers are all quite similar, this is the nature of lossy compression and how it can work so well for images.  Now we need to calculate two values from this data, that is the mean and standard deviation.  The mean can be computed to 241.875, this is a simple calculation which should require no further explanation.  The standard deviation is easily calculated at 4.36.  From this the values of "a" and "b" can be calculated using the previous equations.  They come out to be 236.935 and 245.718 respectively.  The last calculation that needs to be done on the encoding side is to set the matrix to transmit to 1's and 0's so that each pixel can be transmitted as a single bit.

Decoder
Now at the decoder side all we need to do is reassign the "a" and "b" values to the 1 and 0 pixels.  This will give us the following block:

As can be seen, the block has been reconstructed with the two values of "a" and "b" as integers (because images aren't defined to store floating point numbers). When working through the theory, this is a good point to calculate the mean and standard deviation of the reconstructed block. They should equal the original mean and standard deviation. Remember to use integers, otherwise much quantization error will become involved, as we previously quantized everything to integers in the encoder.

See also
 Color Cell Compression ( a newer derivative of Block Truncation Coding )

References

External links

Image compression
Lossy compression algorithms

Block Truncation Coding