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Fuel oil

Fuel oil is any of various fractions obtained from the distillation of petroleum (crude oil). Such oils include distillates (the lighter fractions) and residues (the heavier fractions). Fuel oils include heavy fuel oil (bunker fuel), marine fuel oil (MFO), furnace oil (FO), gas oil (gasoil), heating oils (such as home heating oil), diesel fuel, and others.

The term fuel oil generally includes any liquid fuel that is burned in a furnace or boiler to generate heat (heating oils), or used in an engine to generate power (as motor fuels). However, it does not usually include other liquid oils, such as those with a flash point of approximately 42 °C, or oils burned in cotton- or wool-wick burners. In a stricter sense, fuel oil refers only to the heaviest commercial fuels that crude oil can yield, that is, those fuels heavier than gasoline (petrol) and naphtha.

Fuel oil consists of long-chain hydrocarbons, particularly alkanes, cycloalkanes, and aromatics. Small molecules, such as those in propane, naphtha, gasoline, and kerosene, have relatively low boiling points, and are removed at the start of the fractional distillation process. Heavier petroleum-derived oils like diesel fuel and lubricating oil are much less volatile and distill out more slowly.

Uses
Oil has many uses; it heats homes and businesses and fuels trucks, ships, and some cars. A small amount of electricity is produced by diesel, but it is more polluting and more expensive than natural gas. It is often used as a backup fuel for peaking power plants in case the supply of natural gas is interrupted or as the main fuel for small electrical generators. In Europe, the use of diesel is generally restricted to cars (about 40%), SUVs (about 90%), and trucks and buses (over 99%). The market for home heating using fuel oil has decreased due to the widespread penetration of natural gas as well as heat pumps. However, it is very common in some areas, such as the Northeastern United States. Residual fuel oil is less useful because it is so viscous that it has to be heated with a special heating system before use and it may contain relatively high amounts of pollutants, particularly sulfur, which forms sulfur dioxide upon combustion. However, its undesirable properties make it very cheap. In fact, it is the cheapest liquid fuel available. Since it requires heating before use, residual fuel oil cannot be used in road vehicles, boats or small ships, as the heating equipment takes up valuable space and makes the vehicle heavier. Heating the oil is also a delicate procedure, which is impractical on small, fast moving vehicles. However, power plants and large ships are able to use residual fuel oil.

Use of residual fuel oil was more common in the past. It powered boilers, railroad steam locomotives, and steamships. Locomotives, however, have become powered by diesel or electric power; steamships are not as common as they were previously due to their higher operating costs (most LNG carriers use steam plants, as "boil-off" gas emitted from the cargo can be used as a fuel source); and most boilers now use heating oil or natural gas. Some industrial boilers still use it and so do some old buildings, including in New York City. In 2011 New York City estimated that the 1% of its buildings that burned fuel oils No. 4 and No. 6 were responsible for 86% of the soot pollution generated by all buildings in the city. New York made the phase out of these fuel grades part of its environmental plan, PlaNYC, because of concerns for the health effects caused by fine particulates, and all buildings using fuel oil No. 6 had been converted to less polluting fuel by the end of 2015.

Residual fuel's use in electrical generation has also decreased. In 1973, residual fuel oil produced 16.8% of the electricity in the US. By 1983, it had fallen to 6.2%, and, electricity production from all forms of petroleum, including diesel and residual fuel, is only 3% of total production. The decline is the result of price competition with natural gas and environmental restrictions on emissions. For power plants, the costs of heating the oil, extra pollution control and additional maintenance required after burning it often outweigh the low cost of the fuel. Burning fuel oil, particularly residual fuel oil, produces uniformly higher carbon dioxide emissions than natural gas.

Heavy fuel oils continue to be used in the boiler "lighting up" facility in many coal-fired power plants. This use is approximately analogous to using kindling to start a fire. Without performing this act it is difficult to begin the large-scale combustion process.

The chief drawback to residual fuel oil is its high initial viscosity, particularly in the case of No. 6 oil, which requires a correctly engineered system for storage, pumping, and burning. Though it is still usually lighter than water (with a specific gravity usually ranging from 0.95 to 1.03) it is much heavier and more viscous than No. 2 oil, kerosene, or gasoline. No. 6 oil must, in fact, be stored at around 38 °C heated to 65 - 120 °C before it can be easily pumped, and in cooler temperatures it can congeal into a tarry semisolid. The flash point of most blends of No. 6 oil is, incidentally, about 65 °C. Attempting to pump high-viscosity oil at low temperatures was a frequent cause of damage to fuel lines, furnaces, and related equipment which were often designed for lighter fuels.

For comparison, BS 2869 Class G heavy fuel oil behaves in similar fashion, requiring storage at 40 °C, pumping at around 50 °C and finalizing for burning at around 90 - 120 °C.

Most of the facilities which historically burned No. 6 or other residual oils were industrial plants and similar facilities constructed in the early or mid 20th century, or which had switched from coal to oil fuel during the same time period. In either case, residual oil was seen as a good prospect because it was cheap and readily available. Most of these facilities have subsequently been closed and demolished, or have replaced their fuel supplies with a simpler one such as gas or No. 2 oil. The high sulfur content of No. 6 oil—up to 3% by weight in some extreme cases—had a corrosive effect on many heating systems (which were usually designed without adequate corrosion protection in mind), shortening their lifespans and increasing the polluting effects. This was particularly the case in furnaces that were regularly shut down and allowed to go cold, because the internal condensation produced sulfuric acid.

Environmental cleanups at such facilities are frequently complicated by the use of asbestos insulation on the fuel feed lines. No. 6 oil is very persistent, and does not degrade rapidly. Its viscosity and stickiness also make remediation of underground contamination very difficult, since these properties reduce the effectiveness of methods such as air stripping.

When released into water, such as a river or ocean, residual oil tends to break up into patches or tarballs – mixtures of oil and particulate matter such as silt and floating organic matter – rather than form a single slick. An average of about 5-10% of the material will evaporate within hours of the release, primarily the lighter hydrocarbon fractions. The remainder will then often sink to the bottom of the water column.

Health impacts
Because of the low quality of bunker fuel, when burnt it is especially harmful to the health of humans, causing serious illnesses and deaths. Prior to the IMO's 2020 sulfur cap, shipping industry air pollution was estimated to cause around 400,000 premature deaths each year, from lung cancer and cardiovascular disease, as well as 14 million childhood asthma cases each year.

Even after the introduction of cleaner fuel rules in 2020, shipping air pollution is still estimated to account for around 250,000 deaths each year, and around 6.4 million childhood asthma cases each year.

The hardest hit countries by air pollution from ships are China, Japan, the UK, Indonesia, and Germany. In 2015, shipping air pollution killed an estimated 20,520 people in China, 4,019 people in Japan, and 3,192 people in the UK.

According to an ICCT study, countries located on major shipping lanes are particularly exposed, and can see shipping account for a high percentage of overall deaths from transport sector air pollution. In Taiwan, shipping accounts for 70% of all transport-attributable air pollution deaths in 2015, followed by Morocco at 51%, Malaysia and Japan both at 41%, Vietnam at 39%, and the UK at 38%.

As well as commercial shipping, cruise ships also emit large amounts of air pollution, damaging people's health. Up to 2019, it was reported that the ships of the single largest cruise company, Carnival Corporation & plc, emitted ten times more sulfur dioxide than all of Europe's cars combined.

United States
Although the following trends generally hold true, different organizations may have different numerical specifications for the six fuel grades. The boiling point and carbon chain length of the fuel increases with fuel oil number. Viscosity also increases with number, and the heaviest oil must be heated for it to flow. Price usually decreases as the fuel number increases.

Number 1 fuel oil is a volatile distillate oil intended for vaporizing pot-type burners and high-performance/clean diesel engines. It is the kerosene refinery cut that boils off immediately after the heavy naphtha cut used for gasoline. This fuel is commonly known as diesel no. 1, kerosene, and jet fuel. Former names include: coal oil, stove oil, and range oil.

Number 2 fuel oil is a distillate home heating oil. Trucks and some cars use similar diesel no. 2 with a cetane number limit describing the ignition quality of the fuel. Both are typically obtained from the light gas oil cut. The name gasoil refers to the original use of this fraction in the late 19th and early 20th centuries—the gas oil cut was used as an enriching agent for carbureted water gas manufacture.

Number 3 fuel oil was a distillate oil for burners requiring low-viscosity fuel. ASTM merged this grade into the number 2 specification, and the term has been rarely used since the mid-20th century.

Number 4 fuel oil is a commercial heating oil for burner installations not equipped with preheaters. It may be obtained from the heavy gas oil cut. This fuel is sometimes known by the Navy specification of Bunker A.

Number 5 fuel oil is a residual-type industrial heating oil requiring preheating to 77 – for proper atomization at the burners. It may be obtained from the heavy gas oil cut, or it may be a blend of residual oil with enough number 2 oil to adjust viscosity until it can be pumped without preheating. This fuel is sometimes known by the Navy specification of Bunker B.

Number 6 fuel oil is a high-viscosity residual oil requiring preheating to 104 –. Residual means the material remaining after the more valuable cuts of crude oil have boiled off. The residue may contain various undesirable impurities, including 2% water and 0.5% mineral oil. This fuel may be known as residual fuel oil (RFO), by the Navy specification of Bunker C, or by the Pacific Specification of PS-400.

United Kingdom
The British Standard BS 2869, Fuel Oils for Agricultural, Domestic and Industrial Engines, specifies the following fuel oil classes:

Class C1 and C2 fuels are kerosene-type fuels. C1 is for use in flue less appliances (e.g. lamps). C2 is for vaporizing or atomizing burners in appliances connected to flues.

Class A2 fuel is suitable for mobile, off-road applications that are required to use a sulfur-free fuel. Class D fuel is similar to Class A2 and is suitable for use in stationary applications, such as domestic, commercial, and industrial heating. The BS 2869 standard permits Class A2 and Class D fuel to contain up to 7% (V/V) biodiesel (fatty acid methyl ester, FAME), provided the FAME content meets the requirements of the BS EN 14214 standard.

Classes E to H are residual oils for atomizing burners serving boilers or, with the exception of Class H, certain types of larger combustion engines. Classes F to H invariably require heating prior to use; Class E fuel may require preheating, depending on ambient conditions.

Russia
Mazut is a residual fuel oil often derived from Russian petroleum sources and is either blended with lighter petroleum fractions or burned directly in specialized boilers and furnaces. It is also used as a petrochemical feedstock. In the Russian practice, though, "mazut" is an umbrella term roughly synonymous with the fuel oil in general, that covers most of the types mentioned above, except US grades 1 and 2/3, for which separate terms exist (kerosene and diesel fuel/solar oil respectively — Russian practice doesn't differentiate between diesel fuel and heating oil). This is further separated in two grades, "naval mazut" being analogous to US grades 4 and 5, and "furnace mazut", a heaviest residual fraction of the crude, almost exactly corresponding to US Number 6 fuel oil and further graded by viscosity and sulfur content.

Maritime fuel classification
In the maritime field another type of classification is used for fuel oils:
 * MGO (Marine gas oil) - Roughly equivalent to no. 2 fuel oil, made from distillate only
 * MDO (Marine diesel oil) - Roughly equivalent to no. 3 fuel oil, a blend of heavy gasoil that may contain very small amounts of black refinery feed stocks, but has a low viscosity up to 12 cSt so it need not be heated for use in internal combustion engines
 * IFO (Intermediate fuel oil) - Roughly equivalent no. 4 fuel oil, a blend of gasoil and heavy fuel oil, with less gasoil than marine diesel oil
 * HFO (Heavy fuel oil) - Pure or nearly pure residual oil, roughly equivalent to no. 5 and no. 6 fuel oil
 * NSFO (Navy special fuel oil) - Another name for no. 5 HFO
 * MFO (Marine fuel oil) - Another name for no. 6 HFO

Marine diesel oil contains some heavy fuel oil, unlike regular diesels.

Standards and classification
CCAI and CII are two indexes which describe the ignition quality of residual fuel oil, and CCAI is especially often calculated for marine fuels. Despite this, marine fuels are still quoted on the international bunker markets with their maximum viscosity (which is set by the ISO 8217 standard - see below) due to the fact that marine engines are designed to use different viscosities of fuel. The unit of viscosity used is the centistoke (cSt) and the fuels most frequently quoted are listed below in order of cost, the least expensive first.
 * IFO 380 - Intermediate fuel oil with a maximum viscosity of 380 centistokes (<3.5% sulfur)
 * IFO 180 - Intermediate fuel oil with a maximum viscosity of 180 centistokes (<3.5% sulfur)
 * LS 380 - Low-sulfur (<1.0%) intermediate fuel oil with a maximum viscosity of 380 centistokes
 * LS 180 - Low-sulfur (<1.0%) intermediate fuel oil with a maximum viscosity of 180 centistokes
 * MDO - Marine diesel oil
 * MGO - Marine gasoil
 * LSMGO - Low-sulfur (<0.1%) Marine Gas Oil - The fuel is to be used in EU Ports and Anchorages. EU Sulfur directive 2005/33/EC
 * ULSMGO - Ultra-Low-Sulfur Marine Gas Oil - referred to as Ultra-Low-Sulfur Diesel (sulfur 0.0015% max) in the US and Auto Gas Oil (sulfur 0.001% max) in the EU. Maximum sulfur allowable in US territories and territorial waters (inland, marine, and automotive) and in the EU for inland use.

The density is also an important parameter for fuel oils since marine fuels are purified before use to remove water and dirt from the oil. Since the purifiers use centrifugal force, the oil must have a density which is sufficiently different from water. Older purifiers work with a fuel having a maximum of 991 kg/m3; with modern purifiers it is also possible to purify oil with a density of 1010 kg/m3.

The first British standard for fuel oil came in 1982. The latest standard is ISO 8217 issued in 2017. The ISO standard describe four qualities of distillate fuels and 10 qualities of residual fuels. Over the years the standards have become stricter on environmentally important parameters such as sulfur content. The latest standard also banned the adding of used lubricating oil (ULO).

Some parameters of marine fuel oils according to ISO 8217 (3. ed 2005):

 * 1) Maximum sulfur content in the open ocean is 0.5% since January 2020. Maximum sulfur content in designated areas is 0.1% since 1 January 2015. Before then it was 1.00%.
 * 2) The content of aluminum and silicon is limited because those metals are dangerous for the engine. Those elements are present because some components of the fuel are manufactured with Fluid Catalytic Cracking process, which makes use of catalyst containing aluminum and silicon.
 * 3) The flash point of all fuels used in the engine room should be at least 60 °C. (DMX is used for things like emergency generators and not normally used in the engine room. Gaseous fuels such as LPG/LNG have special class rules applied to the fuel systems.)

Bunker fuel

Bunker fuel or bunker crude is technically any type of fuel oil used aboard water vessels. Its name is derived from coal bunkers, where the fuel was originally stored. In 2019, large ships consumed 213 million metric tons of bunker fuel. The Australian Customs and the Australian Tax Office defines a bunker fuel as the fuel that powers the engine of a ship or aircraft. Bunker A is No. 4 fuel oil, bunker B is No. 5, and bunker C is No. 6. Since No. 6 is the most common, "bunker fuel" is often used as a synonym for No. 6. No. 5 fuel oil is also called Navy Special Fuel Oil (NSFO) or just navy special; No. 5 or 6 are also commonly called heavy fuel oil (HFO) or furnace fuel oil (FFO); the high viscosity requires heating, usually by a recirculated low pressure steam system, before the oil can be pumped from a bunker tank. Bunkers are rarely labeled this way in modern maritime practice.

Since the 1980s the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has been the accepted standard for marine fuels (bunkers). The standard is listed under number 8217, with recent updates in 2010 and 2017. The latest edition of bunker fuel specification is ISO 8217: 2017. The standard divides fuels into residual and distillate fuels. The most common residual fuels in the shipping industry are RMG and RMK. The differences between the two are mainly the density and viscosity, with RMG generally being delivered at 380 centistokes or less, and RMK at 700 centistokes or less. Ships with more advanced engines can process heavier, more viscous, and thus cheaper, fuel. Governing bodies around the world, e.g., California, European Union, have established Emission Control Areas (ECA) that limit the maximum sulfur of fuels burned in their ports to limit pollution, reducing the percentage of sulfur and other particulates from 4.5% m/m to as little as 0.10% as of 2015 inside an ECA. As of 2013 3.5% continued to be permitted outside an ECA, but the International Maritime Organization has planned to lower the sulfur content requirement outside the ECAs to 0.5% m/m by 2020. This is where Marine Distillate Fuels and other alternatives to use of heavy bunker fuel come into play. They have similar properties to diesel #2, which is used as road diesel around the world. The most common grades used in shipping are DMA and DMB. Greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the use of international bunker fuels are currently included in national inventories.

Heavy fuel oil is still the primary fuel for cruise ships, a tourism sector that is associated with a clean and friendly image. In stark contrast, the exhaust gas emissions - due to HFO's high sulfur content - result in an eco balance significantly worse than that for individual mobility.

Bunkering
The term "bunkering" broadly relates to storage of petroleum products in tanks (among other, disparate meanings). The precise meaning can be further specialized depending on context. Perhaps the most common, more specialized usage refers to the practice and business of refueling ships. Bunkering operations are located at seaports, and they include the storage of bunker (ship) fuels and the provision of the fuel to vessels.

Alternatively "bunkering" may apply to the shipboard logistics of loading fuel and distributing it among available bunkers (on-board fuel tanks).

Finally, in the context of the oil industry in Nigeria, bunkering has come to refer to the illegal diversion of crude oil (often subsequently refined in makeshift facilities into lighter transportation fuels) by the unauthorized cutting of holes into transport pipelines, often by very crude and hazardous means and causing spills.

As of 2018, some 300 million metric tons of fuel oil is used for ship bunkering. On January 1, 2020, regulations set by the International Marine Organization (IMO) all marine shipping vessels will require the use of very low sulfur fuel oil (0.5% Sulfur) or to install exhaust gas scrubber systems to remove the excess sulfur dioxide. The emissions from ships have generally been controlled by the following sulfur caps on any fuel oil used on board: 3.50% on and after 1 January 2012 and 0.50% on and after 1 January 2020. Further removal of sulfur translates to additional energy and capital costs and can impact fuel price and availability. If priced correctly the excess cheap yet dirty fuel would find its way into other markets, including displacing some onshore energy production in nations with low environmental protection.

Transportation
Fuel oil is transported worldwide by fleets of oil tankers making deliveries to suitably sized strategic ports such as Houston, US; Singapore; Fujairah, United Arab Emirates; Balboa, Panama, Cristobal, Panama; Sakha, Egypt; Algeciras, Spain and Rotterdam, Netherlands. Where a convenient seaport does not exist, inland transport may be achieved with the use of barges. Lighter fuel oils can also be transported through pipelines. The major physical supply chains of Europe are along the Rhine River.

Environmental issues
Emissions from bunker fuel burning in ships contribute to climate change and to air pollution levels in many port cities, especially where the emissions from industry and road traffic have been controlled. The switch of auxiliary engines from heavy fuel oil to diesel oil at berth can result in large emission reductions, especially for SO2 and PM. CO2 emissions from bunker fuels sold are not added to national GHG emissions. For small countries with large international ports, there is an important difference between the emissions in territorial waters and the total emissions of the fuel sold. At the 1997 Third Conference of the Parties in Kyoto, Japan, countries agreed to exempt bunker fuels, and multilateral military operations, from national emissions totals after insistence from the U.S. climate change delegation for such exemptions.

title: Fuel oil


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Aston Sandford

Aston Sandford is a small village and civil parish in Buckinghamshire, England, about 1 mi east of Haddenham and 4 mi northwest of Princes Risborough. It is in the civil parish of Kingsey within the Buckinghamshire Council unitary authority area.

The "Aston" part of the toponym is derived from the Old English for "Eastern Estate". At the time of the Domesday Book in 1086 the village was known as Cold Aston, and both it and Haddenham were owned by the same manor, suggesting that Aston got its name from being the farming estate to the east of Haddenham. The owner of both places in 1086 was listed as Manno the Breton.

By 1199 the estate had been annexed by the Norman rulers and was placed into the extensive estates belonging to the heirs of Odo, Bishop of Bayeux: the Sandfords. It was from this time that the village became known as Aston Sandford.

The Church of England parish church of Saint Michael and All Angels is one of the smallest in England. The nave is probably 12th century and the chancel is probably 13th century. The chancel arch is also 13th century. The northeast window and blocked north doorway are probably 14th century and a buttress on the west wall is probably 15th century. However, the building was so extensively restored and reworked in 1878 that it is difficult to date any of its features with certainty.

The parish's rector from 1803 to 1821 was the biblical commentator Revd. Thomas Scott, who trained the first missionaries of the Church Missionary Society here.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Aston Sandford


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Terry Nichols

Terry Lynn Nichols (born April 1, 1955) is an American domestic terrorist who was convicted for conspiring with Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing plot. Prior to his incarceration, he held a variety of short-term jobs, working as a farmer, grain elevator manager, real estate salesman, and ranch hand. He met Timothy McVeigh during a brief stint in the U.S. Army, which ended in 1989 when he requested a hardship discharge after less than one year of service. In 1994 and 1995, he conspired with McVeigh in the planning and preparation of the truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on April 19, 1995. The bombing killed 168 people.

In a federal trial in 1997, Nichols was convicted of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and eight counts of involuntary manslaughter for killing federal law enforcement personnel. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole after the jury deadlocked on the death penalty. He was also tried in Oklahoma on state charges of murder in connection with the bombing. In 2004, he was convicted of 161 counts of first degree murder, including one count of fetal homicide, first-degree arson, and conspiracy. As in the federal trial, the state jury deadlocked on imposing the death penalty. In the longest prison sentence ever given to an individual, he was sentenced to 161 consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole, and is incarcerated at ADX Florence, a super maximum security prison near Florence, Colorado. He shared a cell block that is commonly referred to as "Bomber's Row" with Ramzi Yousef and Eric Rudolph, as well as Ted Kaczynski until his transfer in 2021.

Early years
Nichols was born in Lapeer, Michigan. He was raised on a farm, the third of four children of Joyce and Robert Nichols. Growing up, he helped his parents on the farm, learning to operate and maintain the equipment. According to the Denver Post, he also cared for injured birds and animals.

Adulthood
Nichols attended Lapeer High School where he took elective classes in crafts and business law. Throughout school, friends characterized him as shy. While in high school he played junior varsity football, wrestled, and was a member of the ski club. His brother James, who self-published a 400-page book about the bombing, has stated that Terry was book smart and good at artwork. He graduated from high school in 1973 with a 3.6 grade point average, with ambitions of becoming a physician.

Nichols enrolled at Central Michigan University. He completed one term of 13 credit hours with B grade average. He had Cs in biology, chemistry and trigonometry, a B in literature and an A in archery. In 1974, after another brother, Leslie, was badly burned in a fuel tank explosion on the farm, he offered to give him skin for grafts. He tried farming with his brother James for a while, but they did not get along; he felt his brother was too bossy. Later he moved to Colorado and obtained a license to sell real estate in 1976. Soon after he closed on his first big sale, his mother told him she needed his help on the farm, so he returned to Michigan.

In 1980, Nichols met real estate agent Lana Walsh, a twice-divorced mother of two who was five years his senior. They married and had a son, Joshua, in 1982. During the marriage, Nichols engaged in a succession of part-time and short-term jobs: carpentry work, managing a grain elevator, and selling life insurance and real estate. According to Lana, she was the one with a career; Nichols was a house husband, who spent most of his time at home with the children cooking and gardening.

Nichols had never liked farm life, and in 1988, at the age of 33, he tried to escape it by enlisting in the United States Army. He was sent to Fort Benning next to Columbus, Georgia for basic training. As the oldest man in his platoon, he had difficulty with the physical aspect of the training, and was sometimes called "grandpa" by the other men. However, he was soon made the platoon guide because of his age. Timothy McVeigh was in his platoon, and they quickly became close friends. They had a common background: both men grew up in white rural areas. Both had tried college for a while and had parents who were divorced. They shared political views and interests in gun collecting and the survivalist movement. The two were later stationed together at Fort Riley in Junction City, Kansas, where they met and became friends with their future accomplice, Michael Fortier.

Nichols's wife filed for divorce soon after he joined the Army. Due to a conflict over childcare, he requested and was given a hardship discharge in May 1989 to return home to take care of his son, who was seven years old at the time. As he departed, he told a fellow soldier that he would be starting his own military organization soon, and would have an unlimited supply of weapons.

In 1990, Nichols, 35, married 17-year-old Marife Torres from the Philippines, whom he met through a mail-order bride agency. When she arrived in Michigan several months later, she was pregnant with another man's child. The child died at age two when he suffocated after getting tangled up with a plastic bag from a banana box that was left overnight in his bedroom. Marife initially suspected foul play from either Nichols or McVeigh, but there were no bruises or signs of trauma to the child. The death was ruled accidental. Nichols and Marife had two more children during their marriage. Nichols and Torres frequently visited the Philippines, where she was attending a local college working on a degree in physical therapy. He sometimes traveled to the Philippines alone, while she remained in Kansas.

Nichols left a cryptic note and a package of documents with his ex-wife, Lana (Walsh) Padilla, prior to one of his many visits to the Philippines. Upon returning from the visit to learn that she had prematurely opened a letter instructing her what to do in the event of his death, he made a series of telephone calls to a Cebu City boarding house. Nichols and Torres divorced after his arrest. Marife returned to the Philippines with the children.

Anti-government views
Nichols' anti-government views developed and grew over the years. Nichols spent most of his adult life in the Lapeer and Sanilac County areas of Michigan where mistrust and resentment of the federal government was common, especially after bank foreclosures of many farms during the 1980s. Neighbors said he attended meetings of anti-government groups, experimented with explosives and got more radical as time went on.

Nichols began to adhere to sovereign citizen ideology. In February 1992, he attempted to renounce his US citizenship by writing to the local county clerk in Michigan, stating that the political system was corrupt, and declaring himself a "non resident alien". Several months later, he appeared in court and tried to avoid responsibility for some of his credit card bills (he owed approximately $40,000 altogether), refusing to come before the bench, and shouting at the judge that the government had no jurisdiction over him. On October 19, 1992, he signed another document renouncing his US citizenship. In May 1993, Nichols appeared before a county judge regarding an $8,421 unpaid credit card debt. He also renounced his driver’s license.

McVeigh and Nichols grew closer after McVeigh's discharge from the Army. In December 1991, Nichols invited McVeigh to join him in Michigan and help him out selling military surplus at gun shows. For the next three years, McVeigh stayed with Nichols off and on. On April 19, 1993, Nichols was watching TV with McVeigh at the Nichols' farmhouse in Michigan during the siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. When the compound went up in flames, McVeigh and Nichols were enraged and began to plot revenge on the federal government. In the fall of 1993, Nichols and McVeigh, who were living at the farm, became business partners, selling weapons and military surplus at gun shows. For a while, they lived an itinerant life, following the gun shows from town to town.

Nichols then went to Las Vegas to try working in construction but failed. Next, he went to central Kansas and was hired in March 1994 as a ranch hand in Marion, Kansas. In March 1994, he sent a letter to the clerk of Marion County, Kansas, saying he was not subject to the laws of the U.S. government and asked his employer not to withhold any federal taxes from his check. His employer said Nichols was hard-working but had unusual political views. In the fall of 1994, Nichols quit his job, telling his employer he was going into business with McVeigh.

The bombing
On September 22, 1994, Nichols and McVeigh rented a storage shed and began gathering supplies for the truck bomb. In late September or early October, Nichols and McVeigh stole dynamite and blasting caps from a nearby quarry. Nichols began purchasing large quantities of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and storing it in three rental storage units. Nichols also robbed an Arkansas gun dealer who had befriended him and McVeigh at various gun shows.

In February 1995 Nichols bought a small house in Herington, Kansas, with a cash down payment. In March 1995, he bought diesel fuel. On April 14, Nichols gave McVeigh some cash, according to McVeigh. On April 16, Easter Sunday, Nichols and McVeigh drove to Oklahoma City to drop off the getaway car. On April 18, the day before the bombing, Nichols helped McVeigh prepare the truck bomb at a lake near Herington. McVeigh remarked about Nichols's and Fortier's partial withdrawal from the plot, saying they "were men who liked to talk tough, but in the end their bitches and kids ruled." Nichols was at home in Kansas with his family when the bomb went off.

On April 21, Nichols learned he was wanted for questioning, turned himself in, and consented to a search of his home. The search turned up blasting caps, detonating cords, ground ammonium nitrate, barrels made of plastic similar to fragments found at the bombing site, 33 firearms, anti-government warfare literature, a receipt for ammonium nitrate fertilizer with McVeigh's fingerprints on it, a telephone credit card that McVeigh had used when he was shopping for bomb-making equipment, and a hand-drawn map of downtown Oklahoma City. Nichols was held as a material witness to the bombing until he was charged on May 10.

Investigators also combed the Decker, Michigan, farm of James Nichols where Terry Nichols and McVeigh had stayed intermittently in the months preceding the bombing. James was held in custody on charges that he made small bombs on the farm but was released without charges on May 24, with the judge saying there was no evidence he was a danger to others.

Federal case
McVeigh was tried before Nichols and sentenced to death. Former army soldier and friend of Nichols, Michael Fortier, testified against both McVeigh and Nichols. Fortier had entered into a federal plea agreement for reduced charges in return for his agreement to testify. He was charged with failing to notify authorities in advance of the crime and sentenced to 12 years in prison. Fortier testified that Nichols and McVeigh had expressed anti-government feelings and conspired to blow up the Murrah federal building. He said he helped McVeigh survey the building before the attack. He also testified that Nichols had robbed an Arkansas gun dealer to finance the cost of the bombing. Fortier provided "solid bricks of evidence" for the cases against McVeigh and Nichols, according to the prosecutor.

Nichols' wife Marife testified as a defense witness, but her story may have helped the prosecution's case. She said her husband had been living a double life prior to the bombing, using aliases, renting storage lockers and lying that he had broken off his relationship with McVeigh. She also testified that Nichols traveled to Oklahoma City three days before the bombing, supporting the prosecution's contention that Nichols helped McVeigh station a getaway car near the Murrah building. Marife also failed to give Nichols an alibi for April 18, 1995, the day the prosecution said Nichols helped McVeigh assemble the truck bomb.

Nichols was represented by criminal defense attorney Michael Tigar. The trial lasted nine weeks with the prosecution calling 100 witnesses tying Nichols to McVeigh and the bombing plot. The prosecution argued that Nichols helped McVeigh purchase and steal bomb ingredients, park the getaway car near the Murrah building and assemble the bomb. The defense attempted to cast doubt on the case against Nichols by calling witnesses who said they saw other men with McVeigh before the bombing and by claiming the government had manipulated the evidence against Nichols.

The jury deliberated for 41 hours over a period of six days, acquitting Nichols on December 24, 1997, of actually detonating the bomb, but convicting him of conspiring with McVeigh to use a weapon of mass destruction, a capital offense. They acquitted Nichols on the charges of first degree (premeditated) murder, but convicted him on the lesser charge of involuntary (unintentional) manslaughter in the deaths of the federal law enforcement officers.

In assessing why Nichols was not convicted of first degree murder, The Washington Post noted: "There was no evidence that Nichols had rented the Ryder truck used to carry the bomb to Oklahoma City, and there was no one who could positively identify him as the purchaser of the two tons of ammonium nitrate, the major component in the bomb. Most problematic for the government was the compelling fact that Nichols was at home in Kansas when McVeigh detonated the truck." Another theory is that some members of the jury believed Nichols' attorneys' arguments that he had withdrawn from the conspiracy before the bombing. His apparent remorse as shown by his crying several times during the testimony could also have swayed the jury.

After the penalty hearing concluded, the jury deliberated for 13 hours over two days on whether to give Nichols a death sentence, but deadlocked. U.S. District Court Judge Richard P. Matsch then had the option of giving Nichols a sentence of life imprisonment or a lesser term. On June 4, 1998, he sentenced Nichols to life in prison without parole on the conspiracy conviction, calling Nichols "an enemy of the Constitution" who had conspired to destroy everything the Constitution protects. Nichols also received a concurrent 48-year sentence for his eight involuntary manslaughter convictions, six for each victim. Nichols showed no emotion. He was sent to the Federal Supermax Prison in Florence, Colorado. On February 26, 1999, a federal appeals court affirmed Nichols' conviction and sentence.

Oklahoma state case
After the federal jury deadlocked on the death penalty, which resulted in a life sentence, citizens of Oklahoma petitioned to empanel a state court grand jury to investigate the bombing. State representative Charles Key led a citizens group that circulated the petitions. It was hoped that evidence implicating other conspirators would be uncovered. A grand jury heard testimony for 18 months about allegations of other accomplices but returned only the indictments against Nichols in March 1999. Oklahoma County District Attorney Wes Lane denied the state prosecution was conducted solely for the purpose of having Nichols executed, saying it was important Nichols be convicted of killing all the victims. "This case has always been about 161 men, women and children and an unborn baby having the same rights to their day in court as eight federal law enforcement officers," Lane said.

Nichols was brought from the prison in Colorado to Oklahoma in January 2000 to face the state trial on 160 capital counts of first-degree murder and one count each of fetal homicide, first-degree arson, and conspiracy. The prosecutor's goal was to get the death penalty.

During the two-month trial, the prosecution presented a "mountain of circumstantial evidence", calling 151 witnesses. Their star witness was Fortier, who said Nichols was intimately involved in the conspiracy and had helped obtain bomb ingredients including fertilizer that was mixed with high octane fuel. Fortier also testified that McVeigh and Nichols stole cord and blasting caps from a rock quarry, and that Nichols robbed a gun collector to obtain money for the plot. Nichols' lawyers said he was the "fall guy" and that others had conspired with McVeigh. They wanted to introduce evidence that a group of white supremacists had been McVeigh's accomplices. However, the judge did not allow them to do so, saying that the defense had not shown that any of these people committed acts in furtherance of the conspiracy. In their concluding argument, the defense said, "People who are still unknown assisted Timothy McVeigh." On May 26, 2004, the six-man, six-woman jury took five hours to reach guilty verdicts on all charges. When the verdict was read, Nichols showed no emotion, staring straight ahead.

The penalty phase of the trial started on June 1, 2004. The same jury that determined Nichols's guilt would also determine whether he would be put to death. During the five-day hearing, 87 witnesses were called including victims and family members of Nichols. Nichols's relatives testified that he was a loving family man. During the closing arguments, the prosecutor argued for the death penalty, stating that 168 people had died so that Nichols and McVeigh "could make a political statement". The defense argued that Nichols had been controlled by a "dominant, manipulative" McVeigh and urged jurors not to be persuaded by the "flood of tears" of the victims who testified. The defense also said that Nichols had "sincerely" converted to Christianity. After 19½ hours of deliberation over a three-day period, the jury could not reach a unanimous decision on the death penalty. With the death penalty no longer an option, Nichols spoke publicly for the first time in the proceedings, making a lengthy statement laced with religious references to Judge Steven W. Taylor. Nichols also apologized for the murders and offered to write to survivors to "assist in their healing process". Judge Taylor called Nichols a terrorist and said "No American citizen has ever brought this kind of devastation; you are in U.S. history the No. 1 mass murderer in all of U.S. history" and sentenced Nichols to 161 consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole. Nichols was returned to the federal prison in Colorado.

Darlene Welch, whose niece was killed in the explosion, said she "didn't appreciate being preached to" by Nichols and that she regretted that "he won't stand before God sooner."

Additional explosives
Acting on a tip from reputed mobster Greg Scarpa Jr. (son of mobster Greg Scarpa Sr.), a fellow inmate of Nichols, the FBI searched the crawl space of Nichols's former home in Kansas, 10 years after the bombing. They found explosives in boxes, wrapped in plastic, buried under a foot of rock. The tipster had indicated that the explosives were buried before the attack.

Allegations by Nichols
McVeigh, Nichols, and Fortier were the only defendants indicted in the bombing. Nichols denied his involvement in the plot until 2004. Nichols's mother claimed that her son had Asperger syndrome, was manipulated by McVeigh and didn't know what the bomb was for. In a May 2005 letter that he wrote to a relative of two of the victims, Nichols claimed that an Arkansas gun dealer also conspired in the 1995 bombing plot by donating some of the explosives that were used. In a 2006 letter requesting that a judge give his son a light sentence for assault with a deadly weapon, battery of a police officer, and possession of a stolen vehicle, Nichols admitted his participation in the Oklahoma City bombing but said that McVeigh had forced and intimidated him into cooperating.

In a 2007 affidavit, Nichols claimed that in 1992 McVeigh claimed to have been recruited for undercover missions while serving in the military. Nichols also said that in 1995 McVeigh told him that FBI official Larry Potts, who had supervised the Ruby Ridge and Waco operations, had directed McVeigh to blow up a government building. Nichols claimed that he and McVeigh had learned how to make the bomb from individuals they met while attending gun shows. In the same affidavit, Nichols admitted that he and McVeigh stole eight cases of the gel type explosive Tovex from a Marion, Kansas quarry, some of which was later used in the Oklahoma City truck bomb. Nichols, who had been employed in Marion County as a ranch hand, was familiar with numerous quarries, there. He admitted that he had helped McVeigh mix the bomb ingredients in the truck the day before the attack, but he denied that he knew the exact target of the bomb. Nichols wanted to testify in more detail in a videotaped deposition,  but a federal appeals court ruled against it in 2009.

title: Terry Nichols


text:
Geneva Initiative

The Geneva Initiative, also known as the Geneva Accord, is a draft Permanent Status Agreement to end the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, based on previous official negotiations, international resolutions, the Quartet Roadmap, the Clinton Parameters, and the Arab Peace Initiative. The document was finished on 12 October 2003.

The Accord was prepared in secret for over 2 years before the 50-page document was officially launched on 1 December 2003, at a ceremony in Geneva, Switzerland. Among its creators were formal negotiators and architects of previous rounds of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, including former Israeli minister and politician Yossi Beilin and former Palestinian Authority minister Yasser Abed Rabbo. Both noted that the Geneva accord did not obligate either of their respective governments, even though Abed Rabbo was a minister at the time of writing. The Initiative got broad international support, but was heavily criticised by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

In September 2009, a detailed expanded version of the plan was released. The annexes serve as a supplement to the Geneva Accord, outlining the practical measures required for successful implementation of the two-state solution. They cover key issues including security, border crossings, the Implementation and Verification Group (IVG), roads, water management, environmental concerns, the economy, and the division of Jerusalem.

On 25 January 2022, the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) announced it would gradually withdraw its financial support for the Geneva Initiative, effectively ending it by 2023.

Outline
The Geneva Initiative addresses and presents a comprehensive solution to all issues vital to ensuring the end of the conflict and the realization of the national visions of both parties. It would give the Palestinians almost all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip drawing Israel's borders close to what existed prior to the Israeli control of territory at the culmination of the 1967 war.

The plan has much similarity with the 2000 Camp David Summit and Taba Summit proposals, and Olmert's 2008 Napkin map. Only settlements along the Green Line would be annexed by Israel with mutual land swaps, including Ma'ale Adumim, Pisgat Ze'ev and Giv'at Ze'ev. In the Geneva Initiative, Ariel would be dismantled and the Palestinians be given more sovereignty over East Jerusalem. Jerusalem would be divided administratively, with East Jerusalem ("Al-Quds") serving as the capital of the Palestinian state and West Jerusalem ("Yerushalayim") as the capital of Israel. A Multinational Force would play an important role. In return for removing most of the Israeli settlements, the Palestinians would limit their "right of return" of refugees to Israel to a number specified by the Israeli government and would put an end to any further claims and demands from Israel.

Key concepts
The key concepts included in the Geneva Accord are:
 * A mutual Israeli–Palestinian declaration of an end to the conflict and future claims.
 * Mutual recognition of both nations and their right to an independent state.
 * Almost complete Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders, with a limited number of settlement blocs on the basis of a 1:1 land swap.
 * A comprehensive solution to the issue of the Palestinian refugees based on the Clinton Parameters (2000); of which the main component will be compensation and a return to an independent Palestinian State.
 * Jewish Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and Arab Jerusalem as Palestine’s capital with Jewish areas under Israeli sovereignty and Arab areas under Palestinian sovereignty.
 * A non-militarized Palestinian state and detailed security arrangements.

Refugees
The proposal for the Palestinian refugee problem is modeled after UNGAR 194, UNSC Resolution 242, and the Arab Peace Initiative. It outlines a compensation plan for recognition of "Refugeehood" and loss of property and a remuneration plan for states that have hosted Palestinian refugees. The Geneva Accord outlines multiple options and modalities for refugees to exercise a choice of permanent place of residence (PPR) in accordance with clauses set forth in the document, some of which include the option to elect to remain in their present host countries, or relocate to third countries, among them Israel, at the sovereign discretion of third countries.

Borders and territory
The Geneva Accord bases the International Border between the States of Palestine and Israel on the June 4th 1967 lines, in accordance with UNSC Resolution 242 and UNSC Resolution 338, with reciprocal modifications in the form of landswaps on a 1:1 basis. Israel will annex several areas currently densely populated by Jewish settlements near the Green Line (such as Gush Etzion). In return for areas annexed by Israel from the West Bank, the Palestinians will receive territory of equal area and quality adjacent mostly to the Gaza Strip. The State of Israel will assume responsibility for resettling the Israelis living in what would be determined as Palestinian sovereign territory such as Ariel and other settlements.

Jerusalem
The sharing of Jerusalem will be addressed along the Clinton Parameters. Jewish Jerusalem will serve as Israel’s capital and Arab Jerusalem as Palestine’s capital. Each state would be sovereign over the neighborhoods predominately inhabited by its respective community. The Old City will be open and free to movement and the parties will commit to safeguarding the character, holiness, and freedom of worship in the city. The Implementation and Verification Group will act as an impartial international presence to monitor and verify the preservation of cultural heritage in the Old City in accordance with UNESCO World Heritage List rules. The IVG will establish an Old City Policing Unit to perform policing duties to defuse local tensions and resolve disputes.

International supervision
An Implementation and Verification Group (IVG) will be established to facilitate, assist in, guarantee, monitor, and resolve disputes relating to the implementation of the agreement. Under the authority of the IVG would be a Multinational Force (MF) which will serve to provide security guarantees to the Parties, act as a deterrent, and oversee the implementation of the relevant provisions of the agreement. The specific details related to the composition of the MF and responsibilities of the IVG as a whole are outlined in the annexes.

Palestine and Israel
Yasser Arafat praised the "brave initiative that opens the door to peace". It was reported by Palestinian sources that Arafat and Ahmed Qurei had approved the Geneva initiative in principle but not the details, and sent official representatives to the launching ceremony.

The Jerusalem Post reported on 10 March 2008 that influential Palestinian figure Marwan Barghouti had told Israeli politician Haim Oron "that it was possible for Israel and the Palestinians to reach a final-status agreement along the lines of the Geneva Initiative". A June 2010 poll conducted by the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah found support for the Geneva/Clinton Parameters running at about 49% amongst Palestinians and 52% among Israelis. The level of opposition was equal at 49% in the Palestinian community, but stood at 37% for Israelis.

United States

 * George W. Bush: "[The Geneva Accord] is productive, so long as they adhere to the principles [to] fight off terror, that there must be security, and there must be the emergence of a Palestinian state that is democratic and free."
 * Colin Powell: "The U.S. remains committed to the President's two-state vision and to the road map, but we also believe that projects such as yours are important in helping to sustain an atmosphere of hope in which Israelis and Palestinians can discuss mutually acceptable resolutions to the difficult issues that confront them."
 * Bill Clinton: "That's why the agreement in Geneva is so important. ... Such efforts prove that Israelis and Palestinians of goodwill can agree on even the most vexing settlement issues."

Other international support

 * Fifty-eight former presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers and other global leaders, among them former presidents Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union and F.W. de Klerk of South Africa, issued a statement expressing "strong support" for the plan. Other world leaders who voiced their backing included King Mohammed VI of Morocco, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Clinton.

Palestinian criticism
Palestinian support was not universal. Some strongly opposed the plan and its apparent trade-off of the Palestinian right of return in exchange for statehood. Jamal Zakut, one of the participants and drafters of the plan from the Palestinian side, argued that the section dealing with the refugee issue has "certain ambiguity" and the whole purpose of this document is only to be a model for a future agreement. "The document does not indicate or ensure full and collective return of millions of Palestinians but neither does it waive this right … the document is only another tool by which we continue the struggle to restore our national rights and achieve peace as confirmed by international community and nothing more".

Israeli criticism
Upon the Geneva Accord's release in 2003, the government of Israel headed by Ariel Sharon criticized the accord.

A publicity campaign on the Israel Broadcasting Authority stations was cancelled after an Israel Radio investigation raised suspicions of questionable financing. Silvan Shalom, who was the Foreign Affairs Minister of Israel at the time, revealed the significant foreign national funding of Beilin's plan, and the Israeli government protested this foreign meddling in internal affairs.

Follow-up
Since the writing of the Geneva Accord, the Geneva Initiative developed two cooperating not-for-profit associations / Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), Heskem (H.L. Education for Peace/Geneva Initiative-Israel) on the Israeli side and their Palestinian counterpart Palestine Peace Coalition/Geneva Initiative (PPC/GI). The organizations work together and among their respective communities to promote the Accord’s mission of a negotiated agreement between Israel and Palestine, and to prepare public opinion and leadership to be accepting of the compromises required to solve the conflict.

The Geneva Initiative NGOs educate and campaign, both locally and internationally, that it is in the best interest of Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate directly in order to reach a sustainable two-state solution.

title: Geneva Initiative


text:
Talk:Battle of Cannae

Hannibal & Menelik II
Having studied both battles, I find it hard not to see an example of history repeating itself here. After annihilating the Roman army at Cannae, he refused to march on Rome & drive the Romans into the sea -- despite the pleas of his advisors. Thus the Carthaginians lost the war. Almost two millennia later, another victorious African general, Menelik II, likewise had not only crushed an Italian army at Adwa, but also refused to complete the task & drive his enemy into the sea -- despite the pleas of his advisors. Thus the Ethiopians ensured there would be another war which they would lose. I am sorely tempted to point out the shared similarities here. However, is this similarity irrelevant to this subject? Or violate WP:NOR? I'll add this detail if a consensus supports me in this. -- llywrch (talk) 19:59, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I think it's a bit too anachronistic and in a different area, but you can mention the story of Spartacus, who refused to march on Rome after his victories as well. Another thing, I read that Hannibal did not have his elephants at Cannae? It is worth mentioning, and explaining if possible.  T8612  (talk) 02:17, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
 * You'd have to find a good source that already points out the similarity. I can't find any myself, perhaps because there are too many detail differences, besides which there are lots of historical examples of an army winning a battle but failing to follow it up with a knock-out punch. In my opinion people remember Cannae for the pincer movement, and Adwa for the rarity of a European colonial power losing a setpiece battle against local forces, not so much the strategic aftermath. There's a risk the article will end up overburdened with historical parallels. -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 17:23, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't say that European colonial powers losing a "setpiece battle" was a rare event. These include Battle of Tsushima, Battle of the Little Big Horn, Battle of Isandlwana, Gordon's defeat at Khartoum, & the Battle of Dien Bien Phu; & these are just those I could mention off the top of my head. Although far from typical, defeat of colonial/imperial powers happened often enough that "rare" would be an exaggeration. -- llywrch (talk) 18:12, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Hannibal wasn't in the position for a long siege - Rome was heavily defended behind its walls.50.111.44.54 (talk) 19:33, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Number of combatants
I have read from many sources that Roman Army outnumbered Carthaginian army 2 to 1 Uzair Ansari333 (talk) 07:52, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Uzair Ansari333 - Please cite which Reliable published sources you are referring to in order to obtain those figures - Thank you - Arjayay (talk) 12:06, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Pikes and shields
"because they could not have carried an unwieldy pike at the same time as a heavy Roman-style shield"

This doesn't make much sense to me; Greek and Macedonian warriors of the time formed a phalanx, fronted by a wall of shields, and armed with long pikes (or with swords; swords were expensive). I think the Macedonians used 18-foot long pikes - I couldn't get a weapon that size into my home! I believe the pike was strapped to the warrior's belt, so he only needed to use the strength of his right arm to point the thing, not to carry it. And he could wedge the rear end into the ground, if he was standing his ground and not advancing. His left arm was free for carrying a shield. If they were using swords, they'd hack at the enemy's legs, under the shield wall. If they were using pikes, it's hard to see how an enemy swordsman could get near them - you'd have to set pikes against pikes. Battles were short and nasty.

I think the Greeks used a lighter shield than the Romans; a circular boss shield, made from a wood frame covered with hide. If Hannibal's troops routinely took the weapons of their defeated enemies, then I suppose they'd have been using heavy Roman shields.

I understand the normal way for a battle to end was for the defeated army to discard their weapons and run away; without their weapons they could run faster than the adversary. Greek warriors were farmers; they were fighting to defend their land, but they didn't want to die.

I haven't edited the article, because (a) these remarks are about Greeks, not Africans or Iberians; and (b) I'm not sure that Hannibal went big on pikes anyway (although I think the Numidians fielded pikemen). Just noting that you should be able to carry both a shield and a long pike.

No citations available! Well, OK, I'm relying on John Keegan, "A History of Warfare", but I can't be bothered to look up chapter and verse. MrDemeanour (talk) 16:07, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

 * No one saying you can't carry a shield with a pike. The statement was about how you can't use a long pike and a heavy shield in combat.  This is true.  An army can base their infantry on a shield-wall, or a pike-wall, but not both at once; one or the other must be the primary arm in the formation and tactics.  A short one-hand pike can work well with any shield, but that's really a spear rather than a pike.  A soldier with a several-meter long pike can have a small shield, but not one so massive that he can't use his shield arm to also wield the pike, like the shields of the Roman legionaries.  --A D Monroe III(talk)  23:52, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

The year of the battle is wrong in the illustration picture
I have realised that the pictures illustrating the combat stated the battle took place in 215 BC. So I have made a note in the description of the picture stressing that the battle took place in 216 BC, if anyone has an illustration with a correct date please update. Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lerong Lin (talk • contribs) 07:37, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Battlefield map
The battlefield map is unsatisfactory. The north-pointing arrow, with its head apparently broken off and pointing right, is confusing. In fact the Aufidus river does not travel from west to east, but from southwest to northeast (roughly in a two o'clock direction). This is not at all apparent from the map shown. One wonders if other features of the map are equally inaccurate. Kanjuzi (talk) 10:45, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Battle of Cannae


text:
Vladimir Zhirinovsky

Vladimir Volfovich Zhirinovsky (Владимир Вольфович Жириновский,, né Eidelstein, Эйдельштейн; 25 April 1946 – 6 April 2022) was a Russian right-wing populist politician and the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) from its creation in 1992 until his death in 2022. He had been a member of the State Duma since 1993 and leader of the LDPR group in the State Duma from 1993 to 2000, and from 2011 to 2022.

He served as a deputy chairman of the State Duma from 2000 until 2011. He also worked as a delegate in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe from 1996 to 2008. During his lifetime, Zhirinovsky ran in every single Russian presidential election apart from in 2004.

He was known for many controversies, as well as staunch advocacy for Russian military action against NATO.

Early life and background
Zhirinovsky was born in Alma-Ata, the capital of the Kazakh SSR, modern-day Almaty, Kazakhstan. His father, Volf Isaakovich Eidelshtein, was a Ukrainian Jew from Kostopil in western Ukraine, and his mother, Alexandra Pavlovna (née Makarova), was an ethnic Russian from Mordovia. Zhirinovsky inherited his surname through Andrei Vasilievich Zhirinovsky, Alexandra's first husband. His paternal grandfather was a wealthy industrialist in Kostopil, who owned the largest sawmill in present-day Ukraine and was head of the local Jewish community. His grandfather's mill today has an income of $32 million a year, and over the years Zhirinovsky demanded that successive Ukrainian governments return it to him.

In July 1964, Zhirinovsky moved from Almaty to Moscow, where he began his studies in the Department of Turkish Studies, Institute of Asian and African Countries at Moscow State University (MSU), from which he graduated in 1969. Additionally, he studied law and international relations at the Institute of Marxism-Leninism. Zhirinovsky entered military service in Tbilisi during the early 1970s and worked at posts in state committees and unions. He was awarded a Dr.Sci. in philosophy by MSU in 1998.

Although he participated in some reformist groups, Zhirinovsky was not well known in Soviet political developments during the 1980s. While he contemplated a role in politics, a nomination attempt for a seat as a People's Deputy in 1989 was quickly abandoned. In 1989, he served as a director of Shalom, a Jewish cultural organization; unknown in Jewish circles before, he is thought to have been invited to join by the Anti-Zionist Committee of the Soviet Public, but subsequently forcefully opposed its influence in the group.

Jewish heritage
Four of Zhirinovsky's relatives were murdered during the Holocaust. Zhirinovsky's parents separated while he was still an infant. Abandoning the family, Zhirinovsky's father, Volf Eidelshtein, immigrated to Israel in 1949 (together with his new wife Bella and his brother), where he worked as an agronomist in Tel Aviv. Zhirinovsky's father was a member of the right-wing nationalist Herut party in Israel, and died in 1983 when he was run over by a bus near Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv.

Zhirinovsky did not find out the details of his father's life in Israel until many years later, or even that he had died. Zhirinovsky said that he was an Orthodox Christian. In 1994, presented with a birth certificate indicating his original name as Eidelshtein, Zhirinovsky said the document was faked.

Zhirinovsky denied his father's Jewish origins until Ivan Close Your Soul, published in July 2001, in which he described how his father, Volf Isaakovich Eidelshtein, changed his surname from Eidelshtein to Zhirinovsky. He rhetorically asked, "Why should I reject Russian blood, Russian culture, Russian land, and fall in love with the Jewish people only because of that single drop of blood that my father left in my mother's body?"

According to Zhirinovsky, "My mother was Russian and my father was a lawyer". Zhirinovsky later disowned the statement after researching his father's life in Israel. Discussing the statement, Zhirinovsky says: "Journalists mocked me: for saying I was the son of a lawyer. And I am really the son of an agronomist."

Discussing his father, Zhirinovsky said with tears in his eyes: "All my life I was looking for him. I believed that he was alive. I believed that someday he would find me... But there is a silver lining. I tried to imitate him... And I was able to achieve a certain position in life, even without the support of my father."

Zhirinovsky's Israeli relatives included an uncle and cousin, meeting and befriending them for the first time only after discovering more about his family's story in Israel. Zhirinovsky's Israeli family did not know that he was a politician in Russia but responded warmly to his invitation to stay with him in Moscow.

Founding of the Liberal Democratic Party
In April 1991, Zhirinovsky, along with Vladimir Bogachev, took initiatives which led to the founding of the Liberal Democratic Party of the Soviet Union, the second registered party in the Soviet Union in 1990, and therefore the first officially sanctioned opposition party. According to the former CPSU Politburo member Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev, this party started as a joint project of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) leadership and the KGB.

Yakovlev wrote in his memoirs that KGB director Vladimir Kryuchkov presented the project of the puppet LDPSU party at a meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev and informed him about the selection of the LDPR leader. According to Yakovlev, the name of the party was chosen by KGB General Philipp Bobkov. However, Bobkov said that he was against the creation of "Zubatov's pseudo-party under KGB control that would direct the interests and sentiments of certain social groups".

Zhirinovsky's first political breakthrough came in June 1991, when he came third in Russia's first presidential election, gathering more than six million votes (7.81% of the vote). Zhirinovsky's populist platform included promises to voters that should he be elected, free vodka would be distributed to all. Similarly, he once remarked, during a political rally inside a Moscow department store, that if he were made president, underwear would be freely available.

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the party was renamed the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia. In 1992 Zhirinovsky made contact with Jean-Marie Le Pen, then leader of France's Front National (FN). Eduard Limonov of the National-Bolshevik Party introduced the two men to each other and the FN later "provided logistical support [to the LDPR], including computers and fax machines". Zhirinovsky suggested establishing the International Centre of Right-wing Parties in Moscow and invited Le Pen to visit Moscow.

The Liberal Democratic Party was a significant force in Russian politics. At the height of its fortunes, the LDPR gathered 23% of the vote in the 1993 Duma elections and achieved a broad representation throughout Russia – the LDPR gaining the most votes in 64 out of 87 regions. This fact encouraged Zhirinovsky to once again run for president, this time against incumbent Boris Yeltsin. The fact that Yeltsin's candidacy seemed seriously challenged by Russian nationalist groups and a rejuvenated Communist Party alarmed many outside observers, particularly in the Western world, who expressed concern that such developments posed a serious threat to the survival of Russian democracy, already in a very fragile state. During the 1990s, commentators described Zhirinovsky as fascist, having fascist tendencies, and a neo-fascist.

During a visit to France in 1994, he said "It's all over for you once you're Americanized and Zionized", and threw stones and dirt at Jewish protesters. Michael Specter, in a piece for The New York Times in the same year, said Zhirinovsky's "party is not liberal, not democratic, and these days not much of a party". A 1995 BBC documentary showed Zhirinovsky telling the crowd at a campaign rally: "Help us, and you'll never have to vote again! I'm not saying, 'Vote for us and maybe in 20 years' time somebody will do something.' No, these will be the last elections! The last ones!"

While some observers considered Zhirinovsky's controversial statements as efforts to drum up nationalist support, as electoral fodder meant for domestic consumption, there was considerable dismay in February 1996, months before a presidential election, with Zhirinovsky being placed second in opinion polls, behind the Communist Party's Gennady Zyuganov and ahead of Yeltsin. In the end, Zhirinovsky placed fifth, with a 5.7% share in the first voting round.

Following the 1996 election, the party's fortunes stabilized, with the 2003 election seeing an LDPR vote share of 11.7%. In 2004, Zhirinovsky declined even to be nominated by the party, leaving that role to Oleg Malyshkin, who received 2% support from voters.

Zhirinovsky ran in the 2000 and 2008 presidential elections, promising a "police state", with summary executions.

Views

Zhirinovsky expressed admiration for the 1996 United States presidential election candidate Pat Buchanan, referring positively to Buchanan's comment labelling the United States Congress as "Israeli-occupied territory." Zhirinovsky said that both the United States and the Russian Federation were "under occupation" and that "to survive, we could set aside places on U.S. and Russian territories to deport this small but troublesome tribe."

Buchanan strongly rejected this endorsement, saying he would provide safe haven to persecuted minorities if Zhirinovsky were ever elected Russia's president, eliciting a harsh response by Zhirinovsky: "You soiled your pants as soon as you got my congratulations. Who are you afraid of, Zionists?"

Scholars of Russia consider him to have a neo-Eurasianist outlook. Besides expressing his concern for Turks and Caucasians displacing the Russian population from their settled territory, Zhirinovsky also advocated for all Chinese and Japanese people to be deported from the Russian Far East. During his 1992 visit to the United States, Zhirinovsky called on television "for the preservation of the white race" and warned that the white Americans were in danger of turning their country over to Black and Hispanic people.

In 2004, Zhirinovsky spoke at the City Court of Saint Petersburg, in reference to the assassination of Galina Starovoytova. After accusing Starovoytova of having worked for foreign intelligence, he said "I have always said openly that for democrats of pro-Western orientation there are only three roads: prison, the grave, and emigration."

On 23 August 2014, Zhirinovsky said Russia should abolish political parties, instead favouring an autocratic system in which the leader would be chosen by the "five to six thousand wisest people" in the country. He also proposed returning to the Imperial flag and anthem. The proposals were rejected by Putin.

In September 2016, inspired by Donald Trump's signature border wall proposal, Zhirinovsky proposed building a border wall and banning Muslims from entering Russia.

The Last Break Southward
In The Last Break Southward (1995), Zhirinovsky described his worldview. "Since the 1980s, I have elaborated a geopolitical conception—the last break southward, Russia's reach to the shores of the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean." This is "really the solution for the salvation of the Russian nation ... It solves all problems and we gain tranquility." Russia will rule the space "from Kabul to Istanbul." The United States would feel safer with the Russian rule in the region, since wars there would cease under the Russian rule. Perhaps, some people in Kabul, Teheran, or Ankara would not like it but many people would feel better. "The Persians and Turks would suffer a bit but all the rest would gain."

The "bells of the Orthodox Church must bell from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean." And Jerusalem becomes close. It is necessary that "the Christian world reunifies in Jerusalem." The Palestinian problem can be solved by partial transfer of the Palestinian population to the former territories of Turkey and Iran. The great Russian language and Russian ruble would wield Near Eastern and Central Asian peoples into one Russian citizenship.

Along the Russia southern sphere from India to Bosporus, other spheres of influence will stretch from north to south in the forthcoming world order, Latin America would be in the American sphere, Africa in the European sphere. and Japan and China will rule Southeast Asia, Indonesia, and Australia. Everywhere "the direction is the same—north-south." Geopolitically, he saw his position as logical: "Hence, the distribution along such a geopolitical formula would be very beneficent for the whole of humanity, and all over the planet would be established warm and clear political climate."

"On this occasion, we need a man with at least planetary thinking," who would realise "the geopolitical formula, guaranteeing the interests of the majority on the planet ... This is the fate of Russia. It is destination, fate ... We must do it, for we have no choice ... This is geopolitics." We would do it, assured Zhirinovsky alluding to himself, by the efforts of an "honest, perseverant, patriotically inspired President."

Foreign relations and military excursions
Zhirinovsky was known for his boasts pertaining to other countries, having expressed a desire to reunite countries of the ex-Soviet "near abroad" with Russia to within the Russia's borders of 1900 (including Finland and Poland). He advocated forcibly retaking Alaska from the United States (which would then become "a great place to put the Ukrainians"), turning Kazakhstan into "Russia's back yard", and provoking wars between the clans and the nations of the former Soviet Union and occupying what will remain of it when the wars are over. Zhirinovsky, who encouraged separatism within the Russian minority in the Baltic countries, endorsed the forcible re-occupation of these countries and said nuclear waste should be dumped there.

Zhirinovsky supported Israel-Russia relations, but said that Israel had to make Russian its official language. He also believed Israel has to pay more attention to the Russian Orthodox Church. He believed Russians are endangered in Israel and should come under the protection of the Russian police. Zhirinovsky led several official Russian delegations to Israel, on behalf of the Russian government. Visiting Israel, he said that he was concerned mainly about the economic situation for the more than one million Russians living in Israel. He also stated that "Russia will never allow any violence against Israel."

In the early 1990s, Zhirinovsky proposed setting up large fans on the Russian border to blow airborne radioactive waste into the Baltic states. To eradicate the bird flu, he proposed arming all of Russia's population and ordering them and the troops to shoot down migrating birds returning to Russia from wintering.

In 1994, Zhirinovsky sued Finland Swedish politician Jutta Zilliacus and the Swedish Theatre in Helsinki for defamation because she had used the word "galenpanna", or "madcap", to describe him. In December 1994, the district court of Vantaa, Finland acquitted her.

Also in the 1990s, Zhirinovsky threatened to remove restrictions on arms sales to Iran and proposed selling the disputed Kuril Islands to Japan for US$50 billion.

In 1999, at the start of the Second Chechen War, Zhirinovsky, an ardent supporter of the first war in Chechnya in the mid-1990s, advocated hitting some Chechen villages with tactical nuclear weapons. He also advocated using nuclear weapons and naval blockade-imposed starvation in the event of a Russian war against Japan. In 2008, during the resulting political row between the United Kingdom and Russia, he suggested dropping nuclear bombs over the Atlantic Ocean in an effort to flood Britain.

Zhirinovsky hailed what he described as "the democratic process" in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, whom he supported strongly. The friendship dated from at least the Persian Gulf War in 1991, during which time Zhirinovsky sent several armed volunteers from the "Falcons of Zhirinovsky" group to support the Iraqi president. Allegations dogged Zhirinovsky after the fall of Baghdad asserting that he personally profited from illicit oil sales as part of the Oil-for Food scandal, a charge investigated in 2005 by the Independent Inquiry Committee into the Oil-for-Food Programme (Volcker Commission) and the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI). He was also close to the Serbian nationalist leader Vojislav Šešelj.

In a 2002 video, a drunken Zhirinovsky, while hugging two young men, threatened George W. Bush in offensive language against a war in Iraq, promised a cell in Butyrka pre-detention facility, and suggested to strike on Tbilisi, or some other targets instead in coalition with Russia. He called the United States a "flea market" filled with "cocksuckers, jerkers, and faggots", and claimed that Russian scientists were able to change the gravitational field of the Earth and sink the entire country and elect a President in the US loyal to Russia. He mentioned Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky, and Condoleezza Rice in the video. Zhirinovsky called Rice: "a black whore who needs a good cock. Send her here, one of our divisions will make her happy in the barracks one night. She will choke on Russian sperm as it will be leaking out of her ears ... until she crawls to the US embassy in Moscow on her knees."

Zhirinovsky said he dreamt of the day "when Russian soldiers can wash their boots in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean and switch to year-round summer uniforms" following Russia's conquest of Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey and occupation of the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean. He also declared that Bulgaria should annex the Republic of Macedonia, and said that Romania is an artificial state supposedly created by Italian Gypsies who seized territory from Russia, Bulgaria, and Hungary.

Russia's southern neighbour, Georgia, was another frequent target of Zhirinovsky's rhetoric. After Aslan Abashidze was ousted from power in 2004 as leader of Ajara, an autonomous Georgian region, Zhirinovsky worried that similar revolutions would occur in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Highly critical of Georgia's pro-Western line, he was an energetic supporter of the republic of Abkhazia that broke away from the Republic of Georgia. In a high-profile incident in August 2004, he departed on a campaign to promote a tourist season in Abkhazia aboard a cruise ship which was briefly intercepted by a Georgian coast guard vessel.

Zhirinovsky was expelled from Bulgaria for insulting its president and barred from entry in Germany. In 2005, Kazakhstan declared Zhirinovsky persona non grata on the territory of his historical homeland, due to his controversial speech about the change of the Russia-Kazakhstan border, in which he questioned the Kazakhs' place in history.

In 2006, Zhirinovsky became persona non grata in Ukraine as well, following his statements regarding the January 2006 Russia–Ukraine gas dispute. His ban was revoked in 2007. In reaction to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's criticism of Russian foreign policy during the dispute, Zhirinovsky stated, "Condoleezza Rice needs a company of soldiers [and] needs to be taken to barracks where she would be satisfied."

After the November 2006 death by poisoning of Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko in London, Zhirinovsky said: "Any traitor must be eliminated using any methods. If you have joined the special services to work, then you should work, but to betray, to run away abroad, to give up the secrets you learned while working – all of this looks bad." Sergei Abeltsev, Zhirinovsky's former bodyguard and State Duma member from the LDPR, added: "The deserved punishment reached the traitor. I am sure his terrible death will be a warning to all the traitors that in Russia treason is not to be forgiven. I would recommend to citizen Berezovsky to avoid any food at the commemoration for his criminal accomplice Litvinenko."

In the 2007 Russian election, political patronage from Zhirinovsky enabled Litvinenko murder suspect Andrei Lugovoi to win election to the Russian parliament and thus obtain formal parliamentary immunity. Zhirinovsky accused Great Britain (according to him, "the most barbaric country on the planet") of fomenting World War I, the October Revolution, World War II, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

After war broke out between Russia and Georgia in 2008, Zhirinovsky argued in favour of Russian recognition of Abkhazian and South Ossetian independence. "We should have taken the whole territory of Georgia under control," he complained, and "arrested all Georgian officers and taken them here, like to Guantanamo, arrested Saakashvili and handed him over for trial by a military tribunal and gone to the border with Turkey."

At the premiere of the film Taras Bulba in 2009, Zhirinovsky stated: "Everyone who sees the film will understand that Russians and Ukrainians are one people – and that the enemy is from the West".

Writing about Marine Le Pen, Zhirinovsky in 2011 said that she could out do her father because "Instead of saying that Islam is terrorism, she simply insists that France is a secular nation that will not stand for hundreds of thousands of Muslims practicing their religious traditions. With this argument, Marine has cleverly defended the French people's right to a secular nation." In that vein, Zhirinovsky said that she has the "chance to represent the French majority."

In 2013, when asked about former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, Zhirinovsky said, "Yulia Tymoshenko, I'm sorry, is a woman. I don't like them, as it's easier to persuade a woman. [...] Women are more compliant, and it's dangerous."

In the wake of the February 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor, Zhirinovsky was quoted by the Russian International News Agency as claiming "It's not meteors falling, it's the test of a new weapon by the Americans." At the same time, he derided the Russian Academy of Sciences for anarchism and having scientists so old that their brains and reproductive organs no longer worked, telling the "elders" to go home and collect their pensions.

On 4 April 2014, in the wake of the annexation of Crimea, McDonald's fast-food restaurant franchises in Russia were unable to continue operating after being cut off by their Ukrainian franchisor. Zhirinovsky suggested that McDonald's "should be evicted from Russia" for the affront. On 25 July, amidst an armed insurgency in Eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry launched criminal proceedings against Zhirinovsky and Communist Party of the Russian Federation leader Gennady Zyuganov for "financing actions aimed at changing the boundaries of the territory and the state border of Ukraine". In August, Zhirinovsky threatened Poland and the Baltic states with carpet bombing, dooming them all to be wiped out. "What will remain of the Baltics? Nothing will remain of them. NATO airplanes are stationed there. There's an anti-missile defense system. In Poland – the Baltics – they are on the whole doomed. They'll be wiped out. There will be nothing left. Let them re-think this, these leaders of these little dwarf states. How they are leaving themselves vulnerable.

Nothing threatens America, it's far away. But Eastern Europe countries will place themselves under the threat of total annihilation. Only they themselves will be to blame. Because we cannot allow missiles and planes to be aimed at Russia from their territories. We have to destroy them half an hour before they launch. And then we have to do carpet bombing so that not a single launch pad remains or even one plane. So – no Baltics, no Poland. Let NATO immediately ask for negotiations with our Foreign Ministry. Then we'll stop. Otherwise well have to teach them the lessons of May 1945."

In May 2015, Zhirinovsky stated that former President of Georgia and then-Odessa governor Mikheil Saakashvili should be killed. "We will shoot all of your governors, starting with Saakashvili, then they'll be afraid. And there will be a different situation in Europe and Ukraine. ... Let's aim at Berlin, Brussels, London, and Washington." He then said Ukrainian political prisoner Nadiya Savchenko should be shot and hanged in Belgrade.

In November 2015, after a Turkish F-16 fighter shot down a Russian Sukhoi Su-24M jet near the Syria–Turkey border, Zhirinovsky said in a speech to the Duma that Russia must detonate a nuclear bomb on the Bosphorus to create a 10-meter-high tsunami wave to wipe out at least 9 million Istanbul residents.

In August 2016, Zhirinovsky prayed for the Republican U.S. presidential election nominee, Donald Trump to defeat Hillary Clinton, whom he considered dangerous, in order to take his party's ideology global. He also expressed his desire to test his DNA to determine whether he and Trump were related. In September 2016, inspired by Donald Trump's border wall policy, Zhirinovsky proposed building a border wall and banning Muslims from entering Russia. In October, Zhirinovsky in an interview said that a vote for Hillary Clinton in the U.S. presidential election was a vote for a third World War, leading to Hiroshimas and Nagasakis everywhere. In contrast, he stated, Trump wouldn't care about Syria, Libya, Iraq, and Ukraine, and thus represented a more peaceful alternative.

In April 2017, Zhirinovsky promised to drink champagne if Donald Trump were impeached, saying: "A half of Americans voted for different foreign policies. Trump breaks his promises, and if he continues breaking them, his impeachment is inevitable." Following the 2021 United States Capitol attack, Zhirinovsky praised Trump and tweeted: "Be brave Donald. We're with you, you'll get help from abroad." In a speech on 27 December 2021, Zhirinovsky appeared to almost predict the day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine of 24 February 2022, stating: "We shouldn't saber rattle, [we] need to say: let's comply  [with the conditions demanded by Russia], and if you refuse, then we can apply another agenda . And which one — you will feel it,  at 4 o'clock in the morning , on February 22. I would wish 2022 to be a peaceful year, but I love the truth, for 75 years I have been telling the truth. It will not be a peaceful year. It will be a year when Russia eventually  becomes a great country, and everyone must shut up and respect our country, otherwise they shut our mouth and start exterminate Russians first in  Donbass and then in western Russia, so let's in this way  appreciate a new direction of foreign policy of Russia."

Threatening behaviour and assaults
Zhirinovsky had a history of personal violence in political contexts. In his debate with Boris Nemtsov in 1995, Zhirinovsky threw a glass of orange juice at him on live television. In 2003, he engaged in a fistfight following a television debate with Mikhail Delyagin. In 2005, Zhirinovsky ignited a brawl in parliament by spitting at Rodina party legislator Andrei Saveliyev. In 2008, he showed himself shooting a rifle at targets representing his political rivals.

In 2005, Zhirinovsky, at one of the meetings of the State Duma of the fourth convocation, publicly expressed disagreement with the result of the parliamentary elections in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, where United Russia won, and demonstratively left the meeting room. Passing by the Rodina faction, he got into an argument with Ivan Viktorov. Viktorov's colleague Andrey Savelyev, commenting on the dispute between Zhirinovsky and Viktorov, noted that "spittle is flying": in response to this, Zhirinovsky spat at Savelyev, and a fight immediately broke out with the participation of members of the LDPR (including Sergey Abeltsev). As NTV channel reporter Alexey Pivovarov reported, some time ago, Savelyev had already had a fight with Zhirinovsky on television during a discussion of a national issue. The then-head of the Rodina faction, Dmitry Rogozin, demanded that Zhirinovsky be deprived of his post as vice-speaker of the State Duma and that a criminal case be opened against him, and Savelyev filed a statement with the prosecutor's office.

During the 2008 televised presidential debate, Zhirinovsky threatened Nikolai Gotsa, representative of Democratic Party of Russia candidate Andrei Bogdanov, with violence, saying he was going to "smash his head" and ordering his bodyguard to "shoot that bastard over there in the corridor". Gotsa sued Zhirinovsky in civil court for 1 million rubles (approximately US$38,000) in damages and was eventually awarded 30,000 rubles (approximately US$1,150).

At an April 2014 press conference in the Duma, Zhirinovsky made violent verbal threats against Stella Dubovitskaya, a pregnant Rossiya Segodnya journalist, who asked him about possible sanctions against Ukraine in the wake of Russia's Crimean annexation. When asked whether Russians should reciprocate in kind after Ukrainians initiated a sex strike against Russian men, Zhirinovsky replied that all Ukrainian women were "nymphomaniacs", and that Dubovitskaya was as well. He then ordered two of his aides to "violently rape" the journalist, who had to be briefly hospitalized for shock. He later apologized, adding that he "spoke a bit rudely when I replied to a young woman".

In March 2018, male journalist Renat Davletgildeyev accused Zhirinovsky of sexual harassment,  despite his public expression of homophobic positions.

Donkey video for 2012 presidential election
On 6 February 2012, Zhirinovsky released a 30-second election video on the Internet that featured him on a sleigh harnessed to a black donkey representing the country. The video was widely discussed on the Internet, and received mostly negative reactions from Russian users. Organizations like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the World Society for the Protection of Animals (now known as World Animal Protection), as well as Russian animal rights activists, accused Zhirinovsky of cruelty to animals. He responded by saying that similar treatment is commonplace in the Arab world and that the donkey had been treated "better than many people".

Sanctions
Sanctioned by the UK government on 12 September 2014 in relation to actively supporting the use of Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine and annexation of Crimea.

Personal life
Zhirinovsky married Galina Lebedeva, a lawyer and daughter of a retired general in the early 1970s. The couple had three children, two sons and a daughter.

Ilya Ponomarev has alleged Zhirinovsky was gay in a 2017 interview given in Ukraine. In 1996 openly gay journalist Yaroslav Mogutin suggested it was "a foregone conclusion" that Zhirinovsky was gay according to Russia's gay intelligensia in The Advocate.

Zhirinovsky was a polyglot and was fluent in English, French, German, and Turkish.

Illness and death
In February 2022, Zhirinovsky was hospitalized in critical condition in Moscow with COVID-19. In March, he was reportedly placed in a medically induced coma, and underwent treatment for COVID-19 complications such as sepsis and respiratory failure. Zhirinovsky claimed to have been vaccinated against COVID-19 eight times.

On 25 March 2022, Zhirinovsky was reported to have died in a hospital. Despite confirmation from several sources, including his own political party, the news was quickly denied by family members. On 6 April 2022, Vyacheslav Volodin, the Speaker of the Duma, announced that Zhirinovsky had died following a long illness. He was 75. In a statement after Zhirinovsky died, president Vladimir Putin said he "always defended his patriotic position and Russia's interests before any audience and in the fiercest of debates".

Zhirinovsky's funeral was officiated by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and all Rus' in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, at the presence of several high-ranking politicians, including Putin, Volodin and Minister of Defence Sergei Shoigu.

Legacy
On 6 April 2023, a monument to Zhirinovsky was unveiled at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

title: Vladimir Zhirinovsky


text:
Seijōgakuen-mae Station

Seijogakuen-mae Station (成城学園前駅) is a railway station on the Odakyu Odawara Line in Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan, operated by the private railway operator Odakyu Electric Railway. The station is named after the nearby Seijo Gakuen and Seijo University.

Lines
Seijogakuen-mae Station is served by the Odakyu Odawara Line, and lies 11.6 km from Shinjuku Station.

Layout
The station has two island platforms serving four tracks. They are in the basement level.

Platforms
(Local) (Semi-Express, Express, Tama Express, Rapid Express, Romance Car "Metro Sagami", Romance Car "Metro Homeway", Romance Car "Bay Resort") (Semi-Express, Express, Tama Express, Rapid Express, Romance Car "Metro Sagami", Romance Car "Metro Homeway", Romance Car "Bay Resort")

The entrances (North, South and West gates), ticket machines, ticket gates and the station office are on the ground level.

The commercial facilities (Seijo Corty) also start on ground level. Level one and two consist of a supermarket and various shops, level three of community services such as a nursery, cookery and language schools and a gym, and restaurants and an outdoor balcony on level four.

History
Seijogakuen-mae Station opened on 1 April 1927.

Between 1996 and 2004 it was extensively redeveloped and partially moved underground as part of the Odakyu Line's track doubling project.

September 2006 saw the opening of Seijo Corty, a four-storey commercial building.

Station numbering was introduced in January 2014 with Seijogakuen-mae being assigned station number OH14.

Surrounding area
A neighbourhood shopping district surrounds the station, especially outside the North Exit. The film production studios and sound stages of Toho Corporation are located alongside the Senkawa, a tributary of the Tama River that flows South from main station area.

The Sophia Soshigaya International House, a large residential facility for foreign students affiliated with the Sophia University, is about 20 minutes walk north of the station.

title: Seijōgakuen-mae Station