Maamoon Sami Rasheed al-Alwani (born 1957) was an Iraqi politician, who served as governor of the Al Anbar province. He was appointed by the Anbar Provincial Council in May 2005, following the murder of the previous governor, Raja Nawaf Farhan al-Mahalawi. He was a member of the Abu Alwani clan, part of the Dulaim tribe. His name was found along with the names of other prominent Iraqi Sunni leaders who had been targeted for assassination in a captured al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) document.

Insurgents kidnapped Alwani's son on September 6, 2005, but he was later safely returned. In March 2007, two of Alwani's nieces were killed in improvised explosive device (IED) attacks.

In late October 2007, Alwani was part of a delegation of Anbari government and tribal officials that travelled to the United States to drum up support for reconstruction efforts in the province upon an official invitation from the US Department of State. The following month, Alwani expressed to reporters that his primary concern was that a sectarian-divided Iraq would inspire meddling from Iran and other neighboring countries. He also invited private investors from the US to help develop Anbar's oil and natural reserves in the southern Akaz region.

Assassination attempts
Alwani survived at least 31 assassination attempts since assuming office in May 2005.

On August 18, 2005, insurgents opened fire on the governor and a group of prominent Sunni Muslim clerics as they were meeting in Ramadi. Witnesses said Alwani was holding talks with members of the Muslim Clerics Association in Ramadi's Al Dawla al-Kabeer mosque when the gunmen opened fire. The governor and the head of the Muslim Clerics Association in Ramadi, Thamir al-Dulaimi, escaped injury, but Dhahir al-Obeidi, head of the Sunni Endowment organisation, was wounded along with his deputy.

In early May 2006, Alwani escaped with minor wounds when a bomb exploded near his convoy. The bomb exploded as he was travelling to his office in Ramadi.

On December 25, 2006, several mortar rounds hit the governor's office at the Government Center in downtown Ramadi.

See also
Al Anbar Governorate
Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP)
Provincial Government (Anbar)

References

1957 births
Governors of Al Anbar Governorate
Iraqi Islamic Party politicians
2021 deaths

Maamoon Sami Rasheed al-Alwani


The production of Dutch roof tiles started in the 14th century when the use of fireproof building materials was ordained by government. At that time houses were made of wood and with straw roofing, putting whole cities at risk to destruction by fire. Many small roof tile makers set up production near rivers where both clay and transportation were available and began to produce roof tiles by hand using wooden molds to fill the newly created demand. The area near the cities Alphen aan den Rijn, Belfeld, Coutrai, Deest, Echt, Tegelen, Utrecht and Woerden were very popular.

Roof tiles were dried in special cabinets where wind-driven air was directed to and around the tiles. After the tiles dried, they were fired in an outdoor kiln. There was no control of kiln temperatures, leading to inconsistent dimensions and coloring. Most of these small early factories closed down or merged.

S-shaped pantiles were one of the first tile models put in production, starting in the 14–15th century, evolving into one of the most-used tiles in the world. The shape, size and smooth curve is unique on every roof. During the industrial revolution the Boom, Belgium region was the main source for handmade and extruded pantiles.

Roof tileworks Gebr. Laumans

The Gebr. Laumans roof tile works was located in the area around Tegelen. Quirinus and Caspar Laumans took over the business from one of the small manufacturers in 1864. Production started with 6 tile makers, 2 kilns, and 1 horse and wagon, at approximately 200.000 roof tiles a year (mainly pantiles). Quirinus Laumans expanded the business with additional factories in Bracht, Brüggen and Kaldenkirchen. Gebr. Laumans specialized in roof tile models such as Mulden, improved pantile, tuile du Nord, Roman, Bullet and interlocking tile.

Roof tileworks Meeuwissen de Valk
The roof tile factory of Meeuwissen de Valk was founded in 1900 by Jos Meeuwissen when he took over the PHENIX tile factory. His successor, Willem Meeuwissen, was known for innovating and patenting of tile models earning de Valk a reputation for the development of new roof tile models and glazed colors. In the year of 1965 the total production was up to 7.000.000 roof tiles, most sold in the Netherlands but some also in Scandinavia.

Roof tileworks Jos Kurstjens
The J. Kurstjens roof tile work was located near Tegelen and specialized in several roof tile models, including the Mulden, improved pantile Tuile du Nord, Roman, Bullet and interlocking tile. Using machine mixed clay, their tiles became known for their durability.

Roof tiles
Dutch inventions
Roofing materials

Dutch roof tiles


The Staatskapelle Halle is a German symphony orchestra based in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Part of the umbrella organisation Theater, Oper und Orchester GmbH Halle, the orchestra performs symphonic concerts, and also serves as the orchestra for the Oper Halle.

History
The historical precursor ensemble was the Hallische Stadtorchester, formed in 1852.  Separately, Max Richards founded the Stadttheater-Orchester, and later in 1907, the Hallesche Orchester-Vereinigung. The theatre orchestra evolved into the Handel Festival Orchestra by 1957.

In 1934, Bruno Vandenhoff became the first Generalmusikdirektor (GMD) in Halle. In 1946, Arthur Bohnhardt established the Hallische Volkssinfonieorchester, but left for West Berlin in 1949. This ensemble received the new name Staatliches Sinfonieorchester Halle in 1954.

In 2006, the current Staatskapelle Halle was formed from the merger of the Philharmonischen Staatsorchesters with the Handel Festival Orchestra.  Karl-Heinz Steffens was the first Generalmusikdirektor of the orchestra under its present name, from 2008 to 2013. Josep Caballé Domenech was the next chief conductor, from 2013 to 2018.

In September 2018, the orchestra announced the appointment of Ariane Matiakh as the new Generalmusikdirektorin of the Theater, Oper und Orchester GmbH Halle, effective with the 2019-2020 season.  Matiakh was the first female conductor ever to be named to the posts.  In January 2020, by mutual agreement, Matiakh resigned from the company.

In May 2022, the orchestra announced the appointment of Fabrice Bollon as its next GMD, effective with the 2022-2023 season, with an initial contract of 5 years.

General Music Directors
 Karl-Heinz Steffens (2008–2013)
 Josep Caballé Domenech (2013–2018)
 Ariane Matiakh (2019–2020)
 Fabrice Bollon (designate, effective autumn 2022)

References

External links
 Official German-language homepage of the Staatskapelle Halle
 'Aus alter Last wird neue Lust', NMZ website

German symphony orchestras
Halle (Saale)
Musical groups established in 1852

Staatskapelle Halle


A cryptographic hash function (CHF) is a hash algorithm (a map of an arbitrary binary string to a binary string with a fixed size of  bits) that has special properties desirable for a cryptographic application:
 the probability of a particular -bit output result (hash value) for a random input string ("message") is  (as for any good hash), so the hash value can be used as a representative of the message;
 finding an input string that matches a given hash value (a pre-image) is unfeasible, assuming all input strings are equally likely.  The resistance to such search is quantified as security strength, a cryptographic hash with  bits of hash value is expected to have a preimage resistance strength of  bits. However, if the space of possible inputs is significantly smaller than , or if it can be ordered by likelihood, then the hash value can serve as an oracle, allowing efficient search of the limited or ordered input space. A common example is the use of a standard fast hash function to obscure user passwords in storage. If an attacker can obtain the hashes of a set of passwords, they can test each hash value against lists of common passwords and all possible combinations of short passwords and typically recover a large fraction of the passwords themselves. See #Attacks on hashed passwords.

A second preimage resistance strength, with the same expectations, refers to a similar problem of finding a second message that matches the given hash value when one message is already known;
 finding any pair of different messages that yield the same hash value (a collision) is also unfeasible, a cryptographic hash is expected to have a collision resistance strength of  bits (lower due to the birthday paradox).

Cryptographic hash functions have many information-security applications, notably in digital signatures, message authentication codes (MACs), and other forms of authentication. They can also be used as ordinary hash functions, to index data in hash tables, for fingerprinting, to detect duplicate data or uniquely identify files, and as checksums to detect accidental data corruption. Indeed, in information-security contexts, cryptographic hash values are sometimes called (digital) fingerprints, checksums, or just hash values, even though all these terms stand for more general functions with rather different properties and purposes.

Non-cryptographic hash functions are used in hash tables and to detect accidental errors, their construction frequently provides no resistance to a deliberate attack. For example, a denial-of-service attack on hash tables is possible if the collisions are easy to find, like in the case of linear cyclic redundancy check (CRC) functions.

Properties
Most cryptographic hash functions are designed to take a string of any length as input and produce a fixed-length hash value.

A cryptographic hash function must be able to withstand all known types of cryptanalytic attack. In theoretical cryptography, the security level of a cryptographic hash function has been defined using the following properties:

 Pre-image resistance Given a hash value , it should be difficult to find any message  such that . This concept is related to that of a one-way function. Functions that lack this property are vulnerable to preimage attacks.
 Second pre-image resistance Given an input , it should be difficult to find a different input  such that . This property is sometimes referred to as weak collision resistance. Functions that lack this property are vulnerable to second-preimage attacks.
 Collision resistance It should be difficult to find two different messages  and  such that . Such a pair is called a cryptographic hash collision. This property is sometimes referred to as strong collision resistance. It requires a hash value at least twice as long as that required for pre-image resistance; otherwise collisions may be found by a birthday attack.

Collision resistance implies second pre-image resistance but does not imply pre-image resistance. The weaker assumption is always preferred in theoretical cryptography, but in practice, a hash-function which is only second pre-image resistant is considered insecure and is therefore not recommended for real applications.

Informally, these properties mean that a malicious adversary cannot replace or modify the input data without changing its digest. Thus, if two strings have the same digest, one can be very confident that they are identical. Second pre-image resistance prevents an attacker from crafting a document with the same hash as a document the attacker cannot control. Collision resistance prevents an attacker from creating two distinct documents with the same hash.

A function meeting these criteria may still have undesirable properties. Currently, popular cryptographic hash functions are vulnerable to length-extension attacks: given  and  but not , by choosing a suitable  an attacker can calculate , where ∥ denotes concatenation. This property can be used to break naive authentication schemes based on hash functions. The HMAC construction works around these problems.

In practice, collision resistance is insufficient for many practical uses. In addition to collision resistance, it should be impossible for an adversary to find two messages with substantially similar digests; or to infer any useful information about the data, given only its digest. In particular, a hash function should behave as much as possible like a random function (often called a random oracle in proofs of security) while still being deterministic and efficiently computable. This rules out functions like the SWIFFT function, which can be rigorously proven to be collision-resistant assuming that certain problems on ideal lattices are computationally difficult, but, as a linear function, does not satisfy these additional properties.

Checksum algorithms, such as CRC32 and other cyclic redundancy checks, are designed to meet much weaker requirements and are generally unsuitable as cryptographic hash functions. For example, a CRC was used for message integrity in the WEP encryption standard, but an attack was readily discovered, which exploited the linearity of the checksum.

Degree of difficulty
In cryptographic practice, "difficult" generally means "almost certainly beyond the reach of any adversary who must be prevented from breaking the system for as long as the security of the system is deemed important". The meaning of the term is therefore somewhat dependent on the application since the effort that a malicious agent may put into the task is usually proportional to their expected gain. However, since the needed effort usually multiplies with the digest length, even a thousand-fold advantage in processing power can be neutralized by adding a dozen bits to the latter.

For messages selected from a limited set of messages, for example passwords or other short messages, it can be feasible to invert a hash by trying all possible messages in the set. Because cryptographic hash functions are typically designed to be computed quickly, special key derivation functions that require greater computing resources have been developed that make such brute-force attacks more difficult.

In some theoretical analyses "difficult" has a specific mathematical meaning, such as "not solvable in asymptotic polynomial time". Such interpretations of difficulty are important in the study of provably secure cryptographic hash functions but do not usually have a strong connection to practical security. For example, an exponential-time algorithm can sometimes still be fast enough to make a feasible attack. Conversely, a polynomial-time algorithm (e.g., one that requires  steps for -digit keys) may be too slow for any practical use.

Illustration
An illustration of the potential use of a cryptographic hash is as follows: Alice poses a tough math problem to Bob and claims that she has solved it. Bob would like to try it himself, but would yet like to be sure that Alice is not bluffing. Therefore, Alice writes down her solution, computes its hash, and tells Bob the hash value (whilst keeping the solution secret). Then, when Bob comes up with the solution himself a few days later, Alice can prove that she had the solution earlier by revealing it and having Bob hash it and check that it matches the hash value given to him before. (This is an example of a simple commitment scheme; in actual practice, Alice and Bob will often be computer programs, and the secret would be something less easily spoofed than a claimed puzzle solution.)

Applications

Verifying the integrity of messages and files

An important application of secure hashes is the verification of message integrity. Comparing message digests (hash digests over the message) calculated before, and after, transmission can determine whether any changes have been made to the message or file.

MD5, SHA-1, or SHA-2 hash digests are sometimes published on websites or forums to allow verification of integrity for downloaded files, including files retrieved using file sharing such as mirroring. This practice establishes a chain of trust as long as the hashes are posted on a trusted site – usually the originating site – authenticated by HTTPS. Using a cryptographic hash and a chain of trust detects malicious changes to the file. Non-cryptographic error-detecting codes such as cyclic redundancy checks only prevent against non-malicious alterations of the file, since an intentional spoof can readily be crafted to have the colliding code value.

Signature generation and verification

Almost all digital signature schemes require a cryptographic hash to be calculated over the message. This allows the signature calculation to be performed on the relatively small, statically sized hash digest. The message is considered authentic if the signature verification succeeds given the signature and recalculated hash digest over the message. So the message integrity property of the cryptographic hash is used to create secure and efficient digital signature schemes.

Password verification

Password verification commonly relies on cryptographic hashes. Storing all user passwords as cleartext can result in a massive security breach if the password file is compromised. One way to reduce this danger is to only store the hash digest of each password. To authenticate a user, the password presented by the user is hashed and compared with the stored hash. A password reset method is required when password hashing is performed; original passwords cannot be recalculated from the stored hash value.

However, use of standard cryptographic hash functions, such as the SHA series, is no longer considered safe for password storage. These algorithms are designed to be computed quickly, so if the hashed values are compromised, it is possible to try guessed passwords at high rates. Common graphics processing units can try billions of possible passwords each second. Password hash functions that perform key stretching – such as PBKDF2, scrypt or Argon2 – commonly use repeated invocations of a cryptographic hash to increase the time (and in some cases computer memory) required to perform brute-force attacks on stored password hash digests. See #Attacks on hashed passwords

A password hash also requires the use of a large random, non-secret salt value which can be stored with the password hash. The salt is hashed with the password, altering the password hash mapping for each password, thereby making it infeasible for an adversary to store tables of precomputed hash values to which the password hash digest can be compared or to test a large number of purloined hash values in parallel.

Proof-of-work

A proof-of-work system (or protocol, or function) is an economic measure to deter denial-of-service attacks and other service abuses such as spam on a network by requiring some work from the service requester, usually meaning processing time by a computer. A key feature of these schemes is their asymmetry: the work must be moderately hard (but feasible) on the requester side but easy to check for the service provider. One popular system – used in Bitcoin mining and Hashcash – uses partial hash inversions to prove that work was done, to unlock a mining reward in Bitcoin, and as a good-will token to send an e-mail in Hashcash.  The sender is required to find a message whose hash value begins with a number of zero bits. The average work that the sender needs to perform in order to find a valid message is exponential in the number of zero bits required in the hash value, while the recipient can verify the validity of the message by executing a single hash function. For instance, in Hashcash, a sender is asked to generate a header whose 160-bit SHA-1 hash value has the first 20 bits as zeros. The sender will, on average, have to try  times to find a valid header.

File or data identifier

A message digest can also serve as a means of reliably identifying a file; several source code management systems, including Git, Mercurial and Monotone, use the sha1sum of various types of content (file content, directory trees, ancestry information, etc.) to uniquely identify them. Hashes are used to identify files on peer-to-peer filesharing networks. For example, in an ed2k link, an MD4-variant hash is combined with the file size, providing sufficient information for locating file sources, downloading the file, and verifying its contents. Magnet links are another example. Such file hashes are often the top hash of a hash list or a hash tree which allows for additional benefits.

One of the main applications of a hash function is to allow the fast look-up of data in a hash table. Being hash functions of a particular kind, cryptographic hash functions lend themselves well to this application too.

However, compared with standard hash functions, cryptographic hash functions tend to be much more expensive computationally. For this reason, they tend to be used in contexts where it is necessary for users to protect themselves against the possibility of forgery (the creation of data with the same digest as the expected data) by potentially malicious participants.

Content-addressable storage

Hash functions based on block ciphers
There are several methods to use a block cipher to build a cryptographic hash function, specifically a one-way compression function.

The methods resemble the block cipher modes of operation usually used for encryption. Many well-known hash functions, including MD4, MD5, SHA-1 and SHA-2, are built from block-cipher-like components designed for the purpose, with feedback to ensure that the resulting function is not invertible. SHA-3 finalists included functions with block-cipher-like components (e.g., Skein, BLAKE) though the function finally selected, Keccak, was built on a cryptographic sponge instead.

A standard block cipher such as AES can be used in place of these custom block ciphers; that might be useful when an embedded system needs to implement both encryption and hashing with minimal code size or hardware area. However, that approach can have costs in efficiency and security. The ciphers in hash functions are built for hashing: they use large keys and blocks, can efficiently change keys every block, and have been designed and vetted for resistance to related-key attacks. General-purpose ciphers tend to have different design goals. In particular, AES has key and block sizes that make it nontrivial to use to generate long hash values; AES encryption becomes less efficient when the key changes each block; and related-key attacks make it potentially less secure for use in a hash function than for encryption.

Hash function design

Merkle–Damgård construction

A hash function must be able to process an arbitrary-length message into a fixed-length output. This can be achieved by breaking the input up into a series of equally sized blocks, and operating on them in sequence using a one-way compression function. The compression function can either be specially designed for hashing or be built from a block cipher. A hash function built with the Merkle–Damgård construction is as resistant to collisions as is its compression function; any collision for the full hash function can be traced back to a collision in the compression function.

The last block processed should also be unambiguously length padded; this is crucial to the security of this construction. This construction is called the Merkle–Damgård construction. Most common classical hash functions, including SHA-1 and MD5, take this form.

Wide pipe versus narrow pipe
A straightforward application of the Merkle–Damgård construction, where the size of hash output is equal to the internal state size (between each compression step), results in a narrow-pipe hash design. This design causes many inherent flaws, including length-extension, multicollisions, long message attacks, generate-and-paste attacks, and also cannot be parallelized. As a result, modern hash functions are built on wide-pipe constructions that have a larger internal state size – which range from tweaks of the Merkle–Damgård construction to new constructions such as the sponge construction and HAIFA construction. None of the entrants in the NIST hash function competition use a classical Merkle–Damgård construction.

Meanwhile, truncating the output of a longer hash, such as used in SHA-512/256, also defeats many of these attacks.

Use in building other cryptographic primitives
Hash functions can be used to build other cryptographic primitives. For these other primitives to be cryptographically secure, care must be taken to build them correctly.

Message authentication codes (MACs) (also called keyed hash functions) are often built from hash functions. HMAC is such a MAC.

Just as block ciphers can be used to build hash functions, hash functions can be used to build block ciphers.  Luby-Rackoff constructions using hash functions can be provably secure if the underlying hash function is secure.  Also, many hash functions (including SHA-1 and SHA-2) are built by using a special-purpose block cipher in a Davies–Meyer or other construction.  That cipher can also be used in a conventional mode of operation, without the same security guarantees; for example, SHACAL, BEAR and LION.

Pseudorandom number generators (PRNGs) can be built using hash functions.  This is done by combining a (secret) random seed with a counter and hashing it.

Some hash functions, such as Skein, Keccak, and RadioGatún, output an arbitrarily long stream and can be used as a stream cipher, and stream ciphers can also be built from fixed-length digest hash functions. Often this is done by first building a cryptographically secure pseudorandom number generator and then using its stream of random bytes as keystream. SEAL is a stream cipher that uses SHA-1 to generate internal tables, which are then used in a keystream generator more or less unrelated to the hash algorithm.  SEAL is not guaranteed to be as strong (or weak) as SHA-1. Similarly, the key expansion of the HC-128 and HC-256 stream ciphers makes heavy use of the SHA-256 hash function.

Concatenation

Concatenating outputs from multiple hash functions provide collision resistance as good as the strongest of the algorithms included in the concatenated result.  For example, older versions of Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) used concatenated MD5 and SHA-1 sums. This ensures that a method to find collisions in one of the hash functions does not defeat data protected by both hash functions.

For Merkle–Damgård construction hash functions, the concatenated function is as collision-resistant as its strongest component, but not more collision-resistant. Antoine Joux observed that 2-collisions lead to -collisions: if it is feasible for an attacker to find two messages with the same MD5 hash, then they can find as many additional messages with that same MD5 hash as they desire, with no greater difficulty. Among those  messages with the same MD5 hash, there is likely to be a collision in SHA-1. The additional work needed to find the SHA-1 collision (beyond the exponential birthday search) requires only polynomial time.

Cryptographic hash algorithms

There are many cryptographic hash algorithms; this section lists a few algorithms that are referenced relatively often. A more extensive list can be found on the page containing a comparison of cryptographic hash functions.

MD5

MD5 was designed by Ronald Rivest in 1991 to replace an earlier hash function, MD4, and was specified in 1992 as RFC 1321. Collisions against MD5 can be calculated within seconds which makes the algorithm unsuitable for most use cases where a cryptographic hash is required. MD5 produces a digest of 128 bits (16 bytes).

SHA-1

SHA-1 was developed as part of the U.S. Government's Capstone project. The original specification – now commonly called SHA-0 – of the algorithm was published in 1993 under the title Secure Hash Standard, FIPS PUB 180, by U.S. government standards agency NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology). It was withdrawn by the NSA shortly after publication and was superseded by the revised version, published in 1995 in FIPS  PUB 180-1 and commonly designated SHA-1. Collisions against the full SHA-1 algorithm can be produced using the shattered attack and the hash function should be considered broken. SHA-1 produces a hash digest of 160 bits (20 bytes).

Documents may refer to SHA-1 as just "SHA", even though this may conflict with the other Secure Hash Algorithms such as SHA-0, SHA-2, and SHA-3.

RIPEMD-160

RIPEMD (RACE Integrity Primitives Evaluation Message Digest) is a family of cryptographic hash functions developed in Leuven, Belgium, by Hans Dobbertin, Antoon Bosselaers, and Bart Preneel at the COSIC research group at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, and first published in 1996. RIPEMD was based upon the design principles used in MD4 and is similar in performance to the more popular SHA-1. RIPEMD-160 has, however, not been broken.  As the name implies, RIPEMD-160 produces a hash digest of 160 bits (20 bytes).

Whirlpool

Whirlpool is a cryptographic hash function designed by Vincent Rijmen and Paulo S. L. M. Barreto, who first described it in 2000. Whirlpool is based on a substantially modified version of the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). Whirlpool produces a hash digest of 512 bits (64 bytes).

SHA-2

SHA-2 (Secure Hash Algorithm 2) is a set of cryptographic hash functions designed by the United States National Security Agency (NSA), first published in 2001. They are built using the Merkle–Damgård structure, from a one-way compression function itself built using the Davies–Meyer structure from a (classified) specialized block cipher.

SHA-2 basically consists of two hash algorithms: SHA-256 and SHA-512. SHA-224 is a variant of SHA-256 with different starting values and truncated output. SHA-384 and the lesser-known SHA-512/224 and SHA-512/256 are all variants of SHA-512. SHA-512 is more secure than SHA-256 and is commonly faster than SHA-256 on 64-bit machines such as AMD64.

The output size in bits is given by the extension to the "SHA" name, so SHA-224 has an output size of 224 bits (28 bytes); SHA-256, 32 bytes; SHA-384, 48 bytes; and SHA-512, 64 bytes.

SHA-3

SHA-3 (Secure Hash Algorithm 3) was released by NIST on August 5, 2015. SHA-3 is a subset of the broader cryptographic primitive family Keccak. The Keccak algorithm is the work of Guido Bertoni, Joan Daemen, Michael Peeters, and Gilles Van Assche. Keccak is based on a sponge construction which can also be used to build other cryptographic primitives such as a stream cipher. SHA-3 provides the same output sizes as SHA-2: 224, 256, 384, and 512 bits.

Configurable output sizes can also be obtained using the SHAKE-128 and SHAKE-256 functions. Here the -128 and -256 extensions to the name imply the security strength of the function rather than the output size in bits.

BLAKE2

BLAKE2, an improved version of BLAKE, was announced on December 21, 2012. It was created by Jean-Philippe Aumasson, Samuel Neves, Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn, and Christian Winnerlein with the goal of replacing the widely used but broken MD5 and SHA-1 algorithms. When run on 64-bit x64 and ARM architectures, BLAKE2b is faster than SHA-3, SHA-2, SHA-1, and MD5. Although BLAKE and BLAKE2 have not been standardized as SHA-3 has, BLAKE2 has been used in many protocols including the Argon2 password hash, for the high efficiency that it offers on modern CPUs. As BLAKE was a candidate for SHA-3, BLAKE and BLAKE2 both offer the same output sizes as SHA-3 – including a configurable output size.

BLAKE3

BLAKE3, an improved version of BLAKE2, was announced on January 9, 2020. It was created by Jack O'Connor, Jean-Philippe Aumasson, Samuel Neves, and Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn. BLAKE3 is a single algorithm, in contrast to BLAKE and BLAKE2, which are algorithm families with multiple variants. The BLAKE3 compression function is closely based on that of BLAKE2s, with the biggest difference being that the number of rounds is reduced from 10 to 7. Internally, BLAKE3 is a Merkle tree, and it supports higher degrees of parallelism than BLAKE2.

Attacks on cryptographic hash algorithms

There is a long list of cryptographic hash functions but many have been found to be vulnerable and should not be used. For instance, NIST selected 51 hash functions as candidates for round 1 of the SHA-3 hash competition, of which 10 were considered broken and 16 showed significant weaknesses and therefore did not make it to the next round; more information can be found on the main article about the NIST hash function competitions.

Even if a hash function has never been broken, a successful attack against a weakened variant may undermine the experts' confidence. For instance, in August 2004 collisions were found in several then-popular hash functions, including MD5. These weaknesses called into question the security of stronger algorithms derived from the weak hash functions – in particular, SHA-1 (a strengthened version of SHA-0), RIPEMD-128, and RIPEMD-160 (both strengthened versions of RIPEMD).

On August 12, 2004, Joux, Carribault, Lemuel, and Jalby announced a collision for the full SHA-0 algorithm. Joux et al. accomplished this using a generalization of the Chabaud and Joux attack. They found that the collision had complexity  and took about 80,000 CPU hours on a supercomputer with 256 Itanium 2 processors – equivalent to 13 days of full-time use of the supercomputer.

In February 2005, an attack on SHA-1 was reported that would find collision in about 269 hashing operations, rather than the 280 expected for a 160-bit hash function. In August 2005, another attack on SHA-1 was reported that would find collisions in 263 operations. Other theoretical weaknesses of SHA-1 have been known: and in February 2017 Google announced a collision in SHA-1. Security researchers recommend that new applications can avoid these problems by using later members of the SHA family, such as SHA-2, or using techniques such as randomized hashing that do not require collision resistance.

A successful, practical attack broke MD5 used within certificates for Transport Layer Security in 2008.

Many cryptographic hashes are based on the Merkle–Damgård construction. All cryptographic hashes that directly use the full output of a Merkle–Damgård construction are vulnerable to length extension attacks. This makes the MD5, SHA-1, RIPEMD-160, Whirlpool, and the SHA-256 / SHA-512 hash algorithms all vulnerable to this specific attack. SHA-3, BLAKE2, BLAKE3, and the truncated SHA-2 variants are not vulnerable to this type of attack.

Attacks on hashed passwords

A common use of hashes is to store password authentication data. Rather than store the plaintext of user passwords, a controlled access system stores the hash of each user's password in a file or database. When someone requests access, the password they submit is hashed and compared with the stored value. If the database is stolen (an all too frequent occurrence), the thief will only have the hash values, not the passwords.

However, most people choose passwords in predictable ways. Lists of common passwords are widely circulated and many passwords are short enough that all possible combinations can be tested if fast hashes are used.
The use of cryptographic salt prevents some attacks, such as building files of precomputing hash values, e.g. rainbow tables. But searches on the order of 100 billion tests per second are possible with high-end graphics processors, making direct attacks possible even with salt.

The United States National Institute of Standards and Technology recommends storing passwords using special hashes called key derivation functions (KDFs) that have been created to slow brute force searches.  Slow hashes include pbkdf2, bcrypt, scrypt, argon2, Balloon and some recent modes of Unix crypt. For KDFs that perform multiple hashes to slow execution, NIST recommends an iteration count of 10,000 or more.

See also

 Avalanche effect
 Comparison of cryptographic hash functions
 Cryptographic agility
 CRYPTREC
 File fixity
 HMAC
 Hash chain
 Length extension attack
 MD5CRK
 Message authentication code
 NESSIE
 PGP word list
 Random oracle
 Security of cryptographic hash functions
 SHA-3
 Universal one-way hash function

References

Citations

Sources

External links
  (companion web site contains online cryptography course that covers hash functions)

Open source python based application with GUI used to verify downloads.

Cryptographic primitives

 Hashing

Cryptographic hash function


Soul Axiom is a first-person adventure-puzzle video game developed and published by Wales Interactive. The game is set inside a "Digital Soul Provider" called Elysia, and combines exploration with puzzle solving elements to unlock the mystery of your character's digital afterlife. It follows a similar visual style from its predecessor, Master Reboot, and while it is not a direct sequel, it is set in the same world but with new characters, a new story and new set of game mechanics. The game was released on February 29, 2016. PlayStation 4 and Xbox One ports were released in June 2016. The Wii U version launched on September 29, 2016. The game was released on February 27, 2020, for Nintendo Switch as Soul Axiom Rebooted.

Gameplay
In Soul Axiom, the player plays an unknown protagonist, utilizing a first person camera as they wander through strange landscapes of unknown memories. The player will experience traditional adventure/puzzle gameplay, by interacting with physical puzzles, making psychological decisions and exploring the environment to find the right information to unlock the story of your character. The player is slowly granted abilities in the form of a hand power system which enables them manipulate the objects and environments around them, which will allow them to navigate through the world of Elysia. These abilities also further complicate the puzzles that the player is given.

The narrative is told through collectible items which take the form of a small symbol monkey. They are known as a PEMO (Personal Message Object) and act as messages from the outside world, usually in the form of news articles, emails, letters etc. Sometimes they are easy to find and other times you will have to explore the environment to find them. To support the PEMO's, you will unlock memories after each level you complete to piece together the story, these memories come in the form of a 3D animated cutscene. A gameplay trailer was released on January 20, 2015.

Development
Soul Axiom was initially released on Steam Early Access on November 23, 2014, which included Chapter 1 and parts of Chapter 2. Since then, the developers have been releasing frequent updates which often contain new content in the form of more levels to play as well as bug fixes and general improvements that the community have suggested. The Early Access development was delayed due to a major engine upgrade from Unity 4 to Unity 5. It wasn't until February 29, 2016, when Soul Axiom left Early Access.

Releasing first for PC, Mac and Linux, Soul Axiom was announced to be launched on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Wii U in 2016. Throughout the development, the game has been supported by the likes of Microsoft and Nintendo. Microsoft has taken the title to be exhibited on several of their gaming stands at events such as GDC San Francisco (2015) and EGX Rezzed (2015 & 2016). Microsoft also financially supported the game towards the end of development, accepting the game onto their Greenshoots programme. Similarly, Nintendo also exhibited the game on their stand at EGX (2015) and Gamescom Cologne (2015). Arguably, Wales Interactive's most successful promotion came from Nintendo's E3 Nindies@Home program, where an early demo of the game was free to download on Wii U with a launch day discount offer for anyone who downloaded the demo.

Reception
After the game left Early Access, it has received mixed reviews collated on Metacritic for PC, receiving a total score of 56/100.

Soul Axiom was a finalist for "Use of Narrative" at the Develop Awards in 2015, and was nominated for a BAFTA Cymru Games Award for "Best Game".

Ben Barrett from Rock, Paper, Shotgun wrote: "It really is beautiful, nailing a Tron-like neon cyberspace feel...In the thirty minutes I gave the game this was never exploited to its full potential, but the odd bit of interaction was enough to keep me exploring the environments"

Ken Talbot from Push Square said: "The puzzle mechanics themselves are the game's key failing. Given abilities that control the environment around him, our silent protagonist is never allowed to use them in inventive or even organic ways." He gave the game a score of 50/100.

Reviewing the Early Access version, Mike Cosimano from Destructoid said: "Soul Axiom is an unsettling and compelling techno/cyber-thriller, with a killer visual style that matches its high-concept premise. Whether it actually delivers on its many promises is another thing entirely, but there's a lot to be excited about so far." However, Joe Parlock reviewed the final version for Destructoid and gave the game its worst Metacritic score to date, 25/100.

Borja 'VodKaVK' Martos from GameGrin wrote: "The treatment of the soul and the afterlife is not disappointing, but the context in which these ideas are brought up are. It is a shame that puzzles feel so plastic and repetitive, because the multitude of scenarios and the ideas brought up in them tend to have a lasting effect on the player."

Staff from Attack Of The Fanboy wrote: "I would probably put it up there as one of, if not, the most pretty looking indie games I've ever played...While it wasn't advertised as a horror game, it sure can do plenty to scare you with just the general ambience."

PC Gamer wrote about the game several times during development and eventually gave a score of 55/100 in their review by James Davenport.  Davenport wrote "Soul Axiom wants to be a huge, cerebral puzzle game. I admire the scope and variety of its modular environments, each with completely different aesthetics and puzzle mechanics ... Soul Axiom nearly gets by on intrigue. For the first two hours, however inconsistent, I was curious to explore the varied environments and play around with the shallow puzzles."

Jordan Helm from Hardcore Gamer compared the game to Tron, Bioshock and The Talos Principle and wrote: "Simplistic and often jarring its intended design may seem, Soul Axiom is a game that requires, as much cunningly desires, the player's warranted need to look beyond the surface that's initially presented. Whether that be in its puzzle design or the ample conflict of environments, Wales Interactive do just enough with the overarching themes of simulation and replication to make its superficial locales feel that extra bit suspicious." The review ended with a score of 3.5/5.

Pavel Valek from games.cz gave the game a 40/100: "If you expect a fun puzzle game, you have to look elsewhere. Soul Axiom offers plenty of easy levels and dull puzzles that will resolve themselves."

Peter Parrish from PC Invasion gave the game 7/10: "As a consequence of action sequences being a bit clunky, Soul Axiom's final encounter is a bit of a let down," and concluded with, "Soul Axiom consistently finds new and engaging ways for the player to use the same set of powers to overcome obstacles, and does an able job weaving its (justifiably) fragmented story throughout the game's hub structure."

References

External links

2016 video games
First-person adventure games
Linux games
MacOS games
PlayStation 4 games
Single-player video games
Video games developed in the United Kingdom
Wales Interactive games
Wii U eShop games
Windows games
Xbox One games

Soul Axiom


Aajuitsup Tasia (old spelling: Aujuitsup Tasia) is a large lake in central-western Greenland, in the Qeqqata municipality. It is located approximately  northeast of Kangerlussuaq. It is of elongated oval shape, with its western shore at  and its eastern shore at . Aajuitsup Tasia is an oligotrophic lake of  depth, covering an area of 1,350ha.

Geography
The 2x10 km lake is separated from the Akuliarusiarsuup Kuua valley and Kangerlussuaq in the south by a low tundra ridge − part of the Kangaamiut dike swarm. To the west lies a sibling Sanningasoq twin lake. To the north-east lies the wide highland of Isunngua.

The surface of Aajuitsup Tasia is almost level with the surface of the neighboring meltwater lake, an outflow of Russell Glacier. The altitude differential produces an outflowing boggy stream flowing from Aajuitsup Tasia to the unnamed meltwater lake, allowing Aajuitsup Tasia to retain its freshwater character despite being directly in the glacier outflow path.

Photographs

References

External links
 Underwater photography in the lake at Tropica Aquarium Plants

Kangerlussuaq
Lakes of Greenland

Aajuitsup Tasia


Glenn Johannesen (born February 15, 1962 in La Ronge, Saskatchewan and raised in North Battleford, Saskatchewan) is a retired professional ice hockey left winger. He was a 1980 10th-round (206th overall) NHL Draft pick of the New York Islanders as a defenceman, switched to left wing, and later played in two NHL games for them in 1985. He played in college at Western Michigan University, and continued to play minor league hockey until 1989. He was known to longtime Springfield Indians fans as "Moose".

Post-playing career
After his hockey career ended, Johannesen began working within proprietary education, first with ITT Technical Institutes and later art education (The Art Institutes International), and was elected the first president of The Art Institutes International Minnesota, The Art Institutes Canada and finally The Art Institute of Tampa in 2003 after having previously worked for Art Institutes International and The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale.

Johannesen resigned his position with the Art Institute of Tampa in October 2009 to accept the position of President at Potomac College, a business and technology college, located in northwest Washington, D.C., in November 2009. Potomac College was placed on probation by The Middle States Commission on Higher Education while shortly after Johannesen joined Potomac College as a result of reports and practices within Potomac prior to Johannesen joining the organization. Johannesen left Potomac College, as did four board members, following disagreements with ownership over the business practices that had led to accreditation problems prior to Johannesen joining Potomac College and their unwillingness to substantively address those matters.

Johannesen joined Prism College in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, in the capacity of COO, and eventually President-COO while successfully taking the college out of show cause with ACCET and gaining renewed accreditation for the nursing programs at both the Cherry Hill and Philadelphia campuses, prior to leaving to entertain a consulting opportunity.

Johannesen later took up a role as President of Lincoln College of Technology in Columbia, Maryland.

Career statistics

Regular season and playoffs

References

External links

Glenn Johannesen Interview

1962 births
Living people
Billings Bighorns players
Canadian ice hockey left wingers
Canadian people of Norwegian descent
Ice hockey people from Saskatchewan
Indianapolis Checkers players
Indianapolis Ice players
Kalamazoo Wings (1974–2000) players
New York Islanders draft picks
New York Islanders players
Peoria Rivermen (IHL) players
Red Deer Rustlers players
Springfield Indians players
Sportspeople from North Battleford
Western Michigan Broncos men's ice hockey players

Glenn Johannesen


William IV of the United Kingdom has been featured in artworks.

Literature
In Patrick O'Brian's final novel of the Aubrey-Maturin series, Captain Jack Aubrey is obliged to accept as midshipman a bastard son of the Duke of Clarence, as a "first voyager". The novel paints a colourful picture of the Duke and acknowledges his reputation as a competent seaman and commander. However, in other novels in the series, the Duke is portrayed in a far less flattering light; indeed, in the penultimate novel of the series, one of the protagonists - Stephen Maturin - characterizes him as "...a bounding, confident, foul-mouthed scrub".

Bernard Bastable's "Mozart Mysteries" - Dead, Mr. Mozart and Too Many Notes, Mr. Mozart - involve an alternate version of Wolfgang Mozart who survives in the 1820s and has settled in England, where odd circumstances draw him into Hanoverian intrigue and cover-ups. William IV is a major character in the second book, where he effectively makes Mozart his personal spy against rival factions within the royal family.

Film and television
On screen, William has been portrayed as king by Ernst G. Schiffner in the 1936 German film Mädchenjahre einer Königin, based on the play by Geza Silberer about Queen Victoria's early life, Peter Ustinov in the 2001 TV miniseries Victoria and Albert and by Jim Broadbent in the 2009 film The Young Victoria.

He has been depicted as a prince by Scott Forbes in Mrs. Fitzherbert (1947), by Tom Gill in The First Gentleman (1948), and by Toby Jones in Amazing Grace (2006), which included a historical inaccuracy, in that Prince William was depicted sitting in the House of Commons.

Sculpture
There are several extant statues of the king: at Greenwich Park, London; at Montpellier Gardens, Cheltenham; and on the Wilhelmsplatz, Göttingen, Germany.

William IV
William IV of the United Kingdom

Cultural depictions of William IV


The Cuban Neuroscience Center (CNEURO) is a research institute located in Playa, Havana City. It was founded in 1969 as one of the first groups in the world to use informatics for the analysis of the brain`s electrical activity. CNEURO was officially established in 1990 and is nowadays one of the BioCubaFarma institutions, that focuses on basic and applied research as well as the development of high technology in order to screen, diagnose and treat problems related to mental health. It has a DNV Healthcare accreditation.

Research
CNEURO carries out research in several medical and scientific fields. Main activities include medical projects on social impact of disabilities caused by neural dysfunction, strategic neuroscience research, and the development of products, medical equipments, specialized software and other resources for the neurophysiologic diagnostic.

Other activities
CNEURO coordinates the National Program in Science and Technology for neurosciences and neurobiology emerging technologies. It also develops care for the country`s National Network of Clinical Neurophysiology Laboratories (57 locations), and provides technical assistance services. CNEURO received post-doctoral students from Germany, Japan and Switzerland. Authorized by the Cuban Higher Education Ministry, it also developed a Neuroscience Master Program

The institute coordinates the National Cochlear Implant Program for deaf and deaf blind patients, that was developed by CNEURO in collaboration with institutions of the Ministry of Public Health and the Ministry of Higher Education. Furthermore, CNEURO contributes to a new patent portfolio in some countries such as United States and South Africa, and publishes a large amount of research in scientific magazines.

References

External links
Centro de Neurociencias de Cuba

Neuroscience research centers in Cuba
Medical and health organizations based in Cuba
Research institutes established in 1969

Cuban Neuroscience Center


Qateel Shifai (real name Aurangzeb)  (24 December 1919 - 11 July 2001) () was a Pakistani Urdu poet of controversial reputation and work.

Background
Qateel Shifai was born in Haripur, Hazara Division, British India (now Pakistan). He adopted 'Qateel Shifai' as his pen name in 1938. Due to his father's early death, Qateel was forced to quit his education. Being unsuccessful in his business he decided to move to Rawalpindi, where he started working for a transport company. In 1946, he was called to Lahore to work as the assistant editor of the monthly 'Adab-e-Latif', a literary magazine.

Early career
In January 1947, Qateel was asked to help write the songs of a film by a Lahore-based film producer. The first film he helped penned the lyrics for was "Teri Yaad". After that there was no looking back and initially, after working for some time as assistant lyricist to some of the famous poets/lyricists of the time (c.1947-48 to 1956-57), he eventually became a regular full-time film lyricist. Shifai wrote several collections of his poetry but is best known for being a film lyricist. During the 1970s and 1980s, quite some controversy developed regarding his  'misappropriation' of a couple of old poems, which had been adapted as film lyrics/songs in the movie Gumnaam (1954). It was later proved that this song, 'Tu lakh chale ri gori thum thum ke', was not Shifai's work and he had to retract his earlier claim and also remove it from a proposed collection of poems and songs he had planned to publish.

Later career
Later on after the late 1980s, Shifai settled down to a full-time career in the film industry and also produced new volumes of poems and songs, which were considered good. A few of these were also awarded literary prizes. However, even then, the rumors and criticism of his work and talent never wholly died out and he remained a somewhat dubious figure until the end of his career.

Shifai died in  Lahore in July 2001.

Filmography
  Bade Dilwala (1999) (lyricist)
  Yeh Hai Mumbai Meri Jaan (1999) (lyricist)
  Auzaar (1997) (lyricist)
  Tamanna (1996) (as Qatil Shafai)
  Naajayaz (1995) (lyricist) (as Qatil Shafai)
  Naaraz(1994) (as Qatil Shafai)
  Waqt hamara hai (as Qatil Shafai)
  Sir (1993) (lyricist) (as Qateel Shafai)
  Phir Teri Kahani Yaad Aayee (1993)(lyricist) (as Qateel Shafai)
  Tahqiqaat (1993) (lyricist) (as Cratil Sipahi)
  Painter Babu (1983) (lyricist)
  Shireen Farhad (1975) (lyricist)
  Naila (1965) (lyricist)
  Intezar (1956) (assistant lyricist)
  Gumnaam (1954) (assisted Hakim Ahmad Shuja as junior lyricist)
  Gulnaar (1953) (asst lyricist)
  Teri Yaad (1948) (asst lyricist) - (English: Memories) (International: English title)

References

Pakistani poets
Cinema of Pakistan
1919 births
2001 deaths
Urdu poets
Writers from Lahore

Qateel Shifai


Carter is a family name. It originally meant to haul goods in a cart. The name comes from the Gaelic and Celtic word cairt (cart). It originated in Ireland and Scotland. It later migrated to England, where it was changed to its English form.

People who have the name Carter include Lynda Carter, June Carter Cash, actress Dixie Carter and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter.

Surnames

Carter


The government of the Philippines () has three interdependent branches: the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. The Philippines is governed as a unitary state under a presidential representative and democratic constitutional republic in which the president functions as both the head of state and the head of government of the country within a pluriform multi-party system.

The powers of the three branches are vested by the Constitution of the Philippines in the following: Legislative power is vested in the two-chamber Congress of the Philippines—the Senate is the upper chamber and the House of Representatives is the lower chamber. Executive power is exercised by the government under the leadership of the president. Judicial power is vested in the courts, with the Supreme Court of the Philippines as the highest judicial body.

Executive branch

The executive branch of government comprises the Cabinet and all executive departments, led by the president. The president and vice president are directly elected separately by national popular vote for a term of six years. While the vice president may be re-elected once, the president is barred from seeking re-election. The incumbent president and vice president are Bongbong Marcos and Sara Duterte, respectively, who were elected in 2022.

President
The president of the Philippines is the country's chief executive, serving as the head of state and head of government. The president heads all executive departments. The heads of the departments, which make up the cabinet, are appointed by the president subject to the approval of the Commission on Appointments. The president also supervises all local government units. The president may also give executive issuances, grant pardons, and exercise the power of eminent domain. Aside from having the power to veto any bill, the president also sets the legislative agenda for Congress.

Vice president
The vice president of the Philippines, the deputy chief executive, is the first in line for succession if the president resigns, is removed after impeachment, is permanently incapacitated, or dies. The vice president is usually, though not always, a member of the president's cabinet and may be appointed without the approval of the Commission of Appointments.

If there is a vacancy in the position of vice president, the president will appoint any member of Congress (usually a party member) as the new vice president. The appointment must then be validated by a three-fourths vote of the Congress.

Legislative branch

The legislative power is vested in the Congress of the Philippines. The Congress is bicameral, consisting of the Senate of the Philippines and the House of Representatives. The two chambers have roughly equal powers, and every bill or resolution that has to go through both houses needs the consent of both chambers before being passed for the president's signature. The upper house is located in Pasay, while the lower house is located in Quezon City; both are in Metro Manila.

House of Representatives
The House of Representatives of the Philippines is the lower house of the Congress. The House consists of district and sectoral representatives elected for a term of three years and may be re-elected for three consecutive terms. Each bill has to be approved by the House, after which it is sent to the Senate. Furthermore, all franchise and money bills must originate from the lower house. The House of Representatives also has the power to impeach certain officials.

The House of Representatives is headed by the speaker of the House of Representatives. The current speaker is Martin Romualdez.

Senate
The Senate of the Philippines is the upper house of the Congress. Senators are elected for a term of six years; they can be re-elected but may not run for a third consecutive term. Once a bill is approved by the House of Representatives, it is passed to the Senate. A bill must first be approved by the Senate in order to be passed for the president's signature to become a law. Only the Senate can concur with treaties and try impeachment cases.

The Senate is led by the president of the Senate. The current Senate president is Migz Zubiri.

Judicial branch

The judicial power is vested in the Supreme Court of the Philippines and lower courts established by law. The Supreme Court, which has a chief justice as its head and 14 associate justices, occupies the highest tier of the judiciary. The justices serve until the age of 70. The justices are appointed by the president on the recommendation of the Judicial and Bar Council of the Philippines. The sitting chief justice is Alexander Gesmundo, the 27th to serve in that position.

Other types of courts, of varying jurisdiction around the archipelago, are the following:

Lower Collegiate Courts:
Court of Appeals
Court of Tax Appeals
Sandiganbayan (a special appellate court)
Regular Courts:
Regional Trial Courts
First-level courts:
Metropolitan Trial Courts
Municipal Trial Courts
Municipal Trial Courts in Cities
Municipal Circuit Trial Courts
Sharia Courts:
Sharia District Courts
Sharia Circuit Courts

Constitutional commissions
Article 9 of the Constitution of the Philippines establishes three independent constitutional commissions: the Civil Service Commission, the Commission on Elections, and the Commission on Audit.

The Civil Service Commission is the central personnel agency of the Philippine government. It is responsible for strengthening employment and a conducive work environment in the civil service sector and overseeing the Civil Service Exam, a civil service entrance examination to assess qualifications and work integrity for employment in the sector.

The Commission on Elections enforces and administers all laws and regulations related to conducting elections, plebiscites, initiatives, referendums, and recalls. It decides on all decisions surrounding election protests and contests and has the right to deputize and take control of law enforcement and state security forces to ensure the free and orderly conduct of elections.

The Commission on Audit is responsible for examining, auditing, and settling all revenues and expenditures of public funds and properties used by the government or its attached agencies.

Office of the ombudsman

The Philippine government or three of its branches are independently monitored by the office of the ombudsman (). The ombudsman is given the mandate to investigate and prosecute any government official allegedly guilty of crimes, especially graft and corruption. The ombudsman is assisted by six deputies: the overall deputy, the deputy for Luzon, the deputy for Visayas, the deputy for Mindanao, the deputy for the armed forces, and the special prosecutor.

Local government

The Philippines has four main classes of elected administrative divisions, often lumped together as local government units (LGUs). They are, from the highest to the lowest division:
Autonomous and administrative regions
Provinces and independent cities
Municipalities and component cities
Barangays

Regions
Regions are the highest administrative division in the Philippines, primarily used to coordinate planning and organize national services. Administrative regions are not local government units themselves but instead consist of several local government units. Meanwhile, autonomous regions are regions that have control over their governance, culture, and economy. The 1987 Constitution only allows for the creation of two autonomous regions, one in the Cordilleras of Luzon and another in Muslim Mindanao; at present, only the latter exists, with the former remaining an administrative division.

Bangsamoro
The Bangsamoro is an autonomous region located in Mindanao. Established in 2019, the region replaced the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. The region has a regional parliamentary system separate from the national presidential system. Its executive branch is led by the regional chief minister, the Council of Leaders, and the Bangsamoro Cabinet. Its legislative branch is the unicameral Bangsamoro Parliament. The region also has its own judiciary system that applies Sharia.

Local legislative councils
Sangguniang Panlalawigan (Provincial Council)
Sangguniang Panlungsod (City Council)
Sangguniang Bayan (Municipal Council)
Sangguniang Barangay (Barangay Council)

Local government officials
 Provincial governor
 Provincial vice governor
 City/Municipal mayor
 City/Municipal vice mayor
 Barangay captain

References

Government of the Philippines


The 2022 Battle of Loikaw was a battle for the city of Loikaw, in Myanmar's Kayah State, between January and July 2022. The State Administration Council's Tatmadaw forces attacked the city at the beginning of 2022, which was being held by the Karenni Nationalities Defence Force and local People's Defence Force groups. The fighting caused over 90,000 people in Loikaw Township to flee.

Prelude

Since 1949, ethnic Karenni militias have waged a low-level insurgency in Myanmar's Kayah State, where they make up the majority of the population. While intense clashes broke out between 2010 and 2012, they died down for the most part after democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi was elected. The primary Karenni militia, the KNLA, signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement in 2015 following her election. However, tensions rose higher than ever after the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, where Karenni militias and local PDF groups (anti-junta civilian militias) fought against the Tatmadaw for control of Kayah State.

An initial battle for Loikaw began on 19 May 2021, and ended by mid-June of that year with a ceasefire. Fighting still continued in nearby villages throughout July, and in August, Karenni militias and local PDF allied together in favor of the National Unity Government of Myanmar.

On 3 December, junta troops blocked off the road between Loikaw, Demoso, and Bawlakhe, in anticipation of a battle with the KNDF-PDF. A KNDF official corroborated the reports about an imminent battle, claiming the KNDF-PDF were using forest roads and the junta was using the main road. The official also claimed that the junta was preparing for an offensive, and part of the reason the roads were blocked was to root out possible KNDF fighters or supporters. Fighting began in the village of Konna on 13 December, and restarted in Demoso township again on 16 December. On 18 December, Konna was burnt down during a battle between the KNDF and junta, and parts of the village of Naunglong were set ablaze as well. Fleeing residents claimed that junta troops guarded the fire so as to prevent its extinguishment. On 1 January 2022, rebel forces claimed several Loikaw PDF and KNDF forces were killed in the battles, along with 50 junta troops. In Pankan, junta troops massacred 23 people, and the bodies were not discovered until later.

Battle
On 6 January, the junta launched an offensive all across Kayah State. Fighting broke out in Loikaw, Demoso, and Phruso townships, and in Loikaw city, battles occurred at the intersection of Kayentharya road. The 2nd Battalion of the KNDF claimed that in the Kayentharya road skirmish, 15 junta troops were killed, and there were no losses for the KNDF or PDF. At the same time, Karenni Democratic Front and GZ-21 fighters ambushed junta troops at Loikaw University's school of Technology, injuring ten junta troops with no KDF-GZ losses. Junta troops shot and injured two civilians in response. Armored junta vehicles were also seen heading towards Demoso township to aid the junta's offensive. The clashes in Loikaw continued into the next morning, particularly in Myung Ward and the village of Pankan. In Myung Ward, two people were killed and four were injured in the crossfire of the battle, and near the headquarters of the KNPP, seven people were injured. The junta also reportedly bombed the city with planes, a rare occurrence in Kayah State. Six civilians were killed in the fighting on 7 January, according to the KNDF. After the battle began, Loikaw shut down entirely. All administrative and government offices were vacated, and the Loikaw hospital, along with its patients and workers, moved to Taunggyi.

Residents of Loikaw claimed that "there was no where to flee", and the offensive caused half of Kayah State to become internally displaced. In Pankan, fierce battles between the KNDF and junta troops caused the deaths of two civilians who couldn't be evacuated in time. On 8 January, the junta continued airstrikes on Loikaw, and urban fighting continued in Minelon Ward and Pankan. Some PDF were injured and killed in the attacks. In the fighting on 8 January, the KNDF claimed 30 junta soldiers were killed, including a major, and one tank and one helicopter was damaged. After the clashes on 8 January, the junta retreated back into villages closer to Shan state and Demoso township.

Refugees fleeing Loikaw and heading to Shan State stated that traffic jams were prevalent, and the junta-controlled roads demanded money for vehicle inspections in order to pass. A skirmish on 11 January injured one KDF soldier and an unknown amount of junta troops. While there were no air raids over Loikaw on 11 January, tensions between KDF, KNDF, and PDF against the 250-man garrison of junta troops was high. Evacuation routes also opened up. The KNDF warned that civilians should not go near long rows of villages due to the chance of fighting breaking out. That same day, a battle in Loikaw destroyed the church in Doukhu ward. Fighting in Doukhu ward continued into the evening, along with the fighting in Minelon and My Lo wards. A deputy battalion commander in the Loikaw PDF claimed that the junta suffered casualties during the battle.

On 12 January, Burmese junta planes attacked KNDF-PDF positions near Loikaw, but the KNDF alleged the attacks missed. The militia also claimed that around 20 junta troops were killed during the battle on 12 January, which occurred in the mines and village line. Much of these areas were empty of civilians. By mid-January, 75% of Loikaw's population had fled, mainly towards Shan State. The KNDF claimed on 13 January that during a battle at Minelon Technical University, several junta soldiers were killed and there was nobody to pick up the casualties. Three PDF were killed by land mines in a separate incident, and one civilian was shot dead.

Fighting paused between 14 and 15 January, and restarted again in Myung Ward on 16 January. The KNDF estimated 20 junta soldiers were injured in the fighting. Clashes restarted on 19 January in Doukhu ward, where the KNDF claimed to kill 15 junta soldiers. Junta general Zaw Min Tun (not to be confused with Zaw Myo Tin) claimed that while PDF and KNDF were attacking junta bases and offices in Loikaw, the junta did not suffer any casualties. On 21 January, residents of Loikaw discovered thirteen bodies in Myung ward. The NGO that discovered them stated that intense fighting was taking place in Myung Ward and in the six-mile village near Loikaw. A junta air attack on 24 January killed at least two people in Loikaw as well.

Throughout Loikaw township, a family of six and one man were killed in two separate villages on 29 January, and in Loikaw city, two bodies were discovered in a junta-controlled part of the city. Many of the bodies were found tied up and killed, some in toilets. A Loikaw resident claimed that during his time under junta occupation, junta troops said "neighborhoods would be cleared", and suggested there were more missing bodies.

Fighting had cooled down by 3 February, and residents described the situation as quiet in the day and fighting taking place at night. On 1 February, Lieutenant General Soe Win visited Kayah State and sacked the leader of Kayah State, replacing him with Zaw Myo Tin. The sacking occurred because the KNDF controlled 90% of Kayah State, with the exception of major cities like Bawlakhe, Hpruso, and parts of Loikaw and Demoso and the major roads. Soe Win visited Loikaw on 4 February, meeting with religious leaders. He also visited the Loikaw prison, where the Karenni Army attacked in January, and spoke with police officers. Security was tightened, and residents claimed to have seen fighter jets during the visit. The KNDF criticized the visit.

On 7 February, a KNDF ambush killed seven junta troops in Kayeng Thayar, in eastern Loikaw township. While there was still fighting in Loikaw City, much of it had died down by February to the point refugees began to return. Most battles fought were ambushes, and took place on the city limits and in villages in the township. On 9 February, three children were killed in a junta bombing in the village of Le Thu.

Aftermath
On 28 May, junta troops shot and killed a Karenni youth in Loikaw after the youth had broken mirrors at the bus station with his friends. An ambush also occurred on 8 June, and rebels and junta forces got into a firefight near Mobye, Pekon Township.

References

Civil war
Civil war
Battles in 2022
Battles involving Myanmar

Battle of Loikaw (2022)


Attogon is a town and arrondissement in the Atlantique Department of southern Benin. It is an administrative division under the jurisdiction of the commune of Allada. According to the population census conducted by the Institut National de la Statistique Benin in April 2014, the arrondissement had a total population of 9,500.

After June 2015 local elections, the constituency is led by Lionel Kpenou-Chobli.

References

Populated places in the Atlantique Department
Arrondissements of Benin

Attogon


A working dog is a dog that was bred or that was trained to perform specific tasks, which usually help a human. Common tasks include herding cattle, but also performing search and rescue operations, hunting, or being employed as guard dogs. Hearing dogs and guide dogs help people who are deaf or blind.

Working dog


Celle Hole () was a breach in the outer wall of the prison of Celle, Germany. First used on July 25, 1978, the name was part of a campaign by one of the West German secret services (Landesbehörde für Verfassungsschutz) and the GSG 9 in an attempt to lay blame on the Red Army Faction, West Germany's most active and prominent left-wing terrorist group. However, the incident was revealed in 1986 to be a plot by the government, a false flag operation, much to the embarrassment of the government. The Verfassungsschutz used the name 'Operation Fire Magic' ().

The secret services used a stolen Mercedes-Benz SL (R107), driven by two criminals named Klaus-Dieter Loudil and Manfred Berger who were recruited by the secret services. In the car were forged passports, one of them with a photograph of Sigurd Debus. Serial numbers of the passports showed that they were stolen from German authorities. Mr. Debus was an inmate in the Celle prison. He was considered as a Red Army Faction terrorist suspect. Some tools to be used for a prison escape attempt were brought secretly to Debus' prison cell by the secret services.

The action should have had taken place one night earlier when twelve secret service officers, one GSG 9 demolition squad officer and Jürgen Wiehe, a civil servant in the Ministry of the Interior of the state of Lower Saxony, waited for the right moment to detonate the bomb on July 24. But they had to interrupt the action since two lovers coming from the nearby funfair entered the danger area. So the action was deferred.

On July 25, 1978, at 2.54 a.m., the bomb was detonated at the outer prison wall, but caused minor damage. No inmate was able to escape. The Mercedes was later caught in Salzgitter (80 km away) in a police roadblock, with the driver having already escaped. The false passports and some ammunition were found in the car.

In Celle, a 1.5-square-meter hole, named the Celle Hole (Celler Loch), was left in the outer prison wall. A handgun, model Walther PPK 7.65, which was the official pistol of one of the secret service officers, as well as a rubber dinghy, were found. The Celle prison is situated close to the bank of the river Aller. After the detonation, Debus' conditions of detention were aggravated "for security reasons". The secret service had planted escape tools into Debus' cell, which were found in the search after the attack, and was supposed to prove Debus' participation. Hence, the detainee started a hunger strike as a protest against this. Sigurd Debus died on April 16, 1981, shortly before the scheduled date of his discharge from prison.

References

Christa Ellersiek, Wolfgang Becker: Das Celler Loch. Die Hintergründe der Aktion Feuerzauber. Verlag am Galgenberg, Hamburg 1987,
http://www.taz.de/index.php?id=archivseite&dig=2007/05/09/a0046
https://web.archive.org/web/20090430095753/http://www.zeit.de/1987/25/Feuerzauber-mit-dunklen-Figuren

1978 in West Germany
20th century in Lower Saxony
False flag operations
Intelligence operations
Diversionary tactics
Propaganda techniques
Psychological warfare techniques
Law of war
Deception

Celle Hole


Salim Abdullah al-Jabouri (Arabic: سليم عبدالله الجبوري) (born 12 August 1971) is an Iraqi politician who was elected as the Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament on 15 July 2014 until 1 July 2018.

Al-Jabouri now holds the position of president of Iraqi Parliament starting from 2014.

Al-Jabouri is a Sunni Arab from Muqdadiya, Diyala Governorate who obtained a doctorate in law in 2001. He worked as a law professor at Nahrain University in Baghdad.

He was originally a member of the Iraqi Islamic Party. He was elected to the Council of Representatives of Iraq in December 2005 for the Iraqi Accord Front list and he became deputy head of parliament's legal committee. Two of his brothers, Fuad and Ahmed al-Jabouri, were killed in an attack in 2007 in Muqdadiya.

He stood in Diyala in the March 2010 general election but the Iraqi Accord Front failed to have any MPs elected from that province. However, he defected to the Iraqiya list and was nominated to parliament in December 2010 as a replacement MP. He headed the parliament's Human Rights Committee, where he accused the government of Nouri al Maliki of torturing detainees. In 2011, the Iraqi newspaper Al-Sabah al-Jadid quoted sources saying an arrest warrant had been issued for him on charges of terrorism.  The al Sabah newspaper reported at the same time that the Higher Judicial Council had asked the parliament to lift his immunity. In March 2014 he was targeted by a roadside bomb which killed two of his bodyguards.

He was elected in the 2014 general election on the "Diyala is Our Identity Coalition", a predominantly Sunni Arab list which won 5 out of 14 seats and is part of a wider alliance with the Muttahidoon party of former speaker Osama al-Nujaifi. His election was initially approved by the Independent High Electoral Commission on the grounds that they had "serious crime cases" pending against him. However, he was acquitted by the Federal Supreme Court and allowed to take his seat.

After the election he was selected by the Sunni Arab MPs as their candidate for the speakership, following the Muhassasah convention adopted in Iraq whereby the speaker is always a Sunni Arab, the Prime Minister always a Shi'ite Arab and the President a Kurd. Al-Jabouri won 194 votes, a majority of the 328 MPs as required under the constitution.

References

Iraqi politicians
Living people
1971 births
Speakers of the Council of Representatives of Iraq
People from Diyala Province
Iraqi Sunni Muslims

Salim al-Jabouri


A  trade gallon is a unit of volume for standard plant containers in the horticultural industries. It equals 3 US liquid quarts or , although some sources state that a trade gallon equals .

Notably, 10 trade gallons equals 30 US quarts, which in turn equals 1.0 cubic foot, a common unit of measurement for soil.

Notes

Imperial units

Trade gallon


2,5-Dimethoxy-4-isopropylamphetamine (also known as DOiP and DOiPr) is a psychedelic drug of the phenethylamine and amphetamine chemical classes. It was first synthesized by Alexander Shulgin, and was described in his book PiHKAL (Phenethylamines i Have Known And Loved). Shulgin described DOiPR as being at least an order of magnitude weaker than DOPr, with doses of 20–30 mg required to produce valid changes in mental state.
Very little data exists about the pharmacological properties, metabolism, and toxicity of DOiPR.

See also
 2C-iP
 2C-T-4
 DOx

References

Substituted amphetamines
Designer drugs
Serotonin receptor agonists
Isopropyl compounds
2,5-Dimethoxyphenethylamines

2,5-Dimethoxy-4-isopropylamphetamine


Darnah Province (called in Italian Provincia italiana di Derna) was one of the provinces of Libya under Italian rule. It was established in 1937 with the official name: "Commissariato Generale Provinciale di Derna". Derna province was called  only "Darnah District" after World War II.

Characteristics

Derna province was located in northern Italian Libya, next to Egypt. It was a semi-arid area near the Mediterranean coast, with a fertile plateau around ancient Cyrene, but in the interior it was a desert. Its administrative center was the small city of Derna on the Mediterranean coast.

It was divided in 3 "circondari" (sections):

 Derna
 Apollonia
 Tobruk

The province from 1939 was considered officially part of the Kingdom of Italy, with the same laws. It was one of the 4 new Italian provinces of the so-called Quarta Sponda (Fourth Shore). Indeed, on January 9, 1939, the colony of Italian Libya was incorporated into "metropolitan Italy" and thereafter considered an integral part of the Italian state (the French, in 1848, had incorporated French Algeria in the same manner).

In the coast of the province was built in 1937-1938 the eastern section of the Litoranea Balbia, that went from Tripoli to the border of Egypt. Some Italian colonists moved to live in a group of new villages after 1938: they increased local agricultural production, but British invasion during World War II destroyed all improvements.

The car tag for the Italian province of Derna was DE.

Population in Province of Derna
According to the 1936 census, which allowed citizens to declare their ethnicity, Derna's native population was made up of 94.4% Arabs, 1.8% Turks, 0.7% Blacks, 0.2% Berbers, and 2.9% Others.

According to the 1939 Italian Census of Libya, these were the main population data:

References

See also
 Tripoli Province
 Benghazi Province
 Misurata Province (Italian Libya)
 Military Territory of the South (Italian Libya)
 Italian Libya
 Fourth Shore
 Via Balbia

Provinces of Libya (1937)

Derna Province