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Lee Hsien Loong

Lee Hsien Loong (born 10 February 1952) is a Singaporean politician and former brigadier-general who has been a Senior Minister of Singapore since 2024, having previously served as the third Prime Minister of Singapore from 2004 to 2024. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Teck Ghee division of Ang Mo Kio GRC since 1991, and previously Teck Ghee SMC between 1984 and 1991, as well as Secretary-General of the People's Action Party (PAP) since 2004.

Born and raised in Singapore during British colonial rule, Lee is the eldest son of Singapore's first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew. He graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1974 with a bachelor of arts in mathematics with first class honours and a Diploma in Computer Science with distinction (equivalent to a first-class master's in computer science). He served in the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) between 1971 and 1984, and attained the rank Brigadier-General, completing a Master of Public Administration degree at Harvard Kennedy School in 1980. Lee resigned from the SAF in 1984 to enter politics and was elected the MP for Teck Ghee SMC. Since its dissolution in 1991, he has represented the Teck Ghee ward of Ang Mo Kio GRC.

Lee has served as Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Finance, Minister for Trade and Industry, and Second Minister for Defence under two Prime Ministers Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong before assuming as the office of prime minister in August 2004. In his first two years, his government enacted a five-day work week and extended maternity leave days. His proposal to build two integrated resorts in Singapore to increase tourism revenue led to the development of the Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa. Following the Great Recession of 2008, he oversaw the country's economic recovery within two years. Further political reforms in 2010 saw increased online activism, as well as the number of Non-Constituency Members of Parliament (NCMPs) in Parliament.

In between 2020 and 2021, Lee has oversaw the government response to COVID-19 pandemic and its subsequent recession and recovery. In 2022, he also oversaw the government response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which is one of only being Southeast Asian country to impose sanctions on Russia. That the same year, his government de jure and de facto legalised same-sex sexual activity between men by repealing the then already unenforced colonial-era Section 377A. Lee is frequently noted by the international media as the world's highest-paid state leader. His libel suits against journalists and political opponents have been frequently covered by international news outlets. In 2024, Lee stepped down as leader of the PAP and decided not to seek a fifth full term as Prime Minister in the forthcoming general election; he was succeeded by Lawrence Wong, who subsequently made him a Senior Minister in his first Cabinet.

Early life
The eldest child of Lee Kuan Yew and Kwa Geok Choo and the patriline grandson of a retired storekeeper-turned-salesman, Lee Chin Koon (1903–1995) and Chua Jim Neo (1905–1980), a chef, Lee Hsien Loong was born at KK Women's and Children's Hospital in Singapore on 10 February 1952, when Singapore was a British colony. His mother has ancestry from Tong'an District and Longhu while his father has ancestry from Dabu County in China.

Education
Lee was educated at Nanyang Primary School and Catholic High School—where he played clarinet in the school band, and National Junior College before he was awarded the President's Scholarship and Singapore Armed Forces Overseas Scholarship in 1971 by the Public Service Commission (PSC) to study mathematics at Trinity College, University of Cambridge.

He was Senior Wrangler in 1973, and graduated in 1974 with a Bachelor of Arts with first class honours degree (later promoted to Master of Arts by seniority) in mathematics and a diploma in computer science (now equivalent to a master's degree in computer science) with distinction. His college tutor, Denis Marrian, later described Lee as "the brightest mathematician he had admitted to the college". Béla Bollobás said that Lee "would have been a world-class research mathematician", but his father did not realise this and persuaded Lee to leave the field.

He subsequently went on to complete a Master of Public Administration degree at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1980.

Military career
Lee joined the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) in 1971, and served as a commissioned officer between 1974 and 1984, and held various staff and command posts, including Director of the Joint Operations and Plans Directorate, and Chief of Staff of the General Staff.

He also attended the United States Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth in 1978.

Lee rose quickly through the ranks in the Singapore Army, becoming the youngest brigadier-general in Singapore's history after his promotion in July 1983.

Notably, he was put in command of the rescue operations following the Sentosa cable car disaster. Lee served as commanding officer of the 23rd Battalion Singapore Artillery in the Singapore Army before he left the SAF in 1984 for politics.

Early political career
During the 1980s, Lee was regarded as the core member of the next batch of new leaders in the People's Action Party (PAP) leadership transition that was taking place in the mid-1980s, as Lee Kuan Yew had declared that he would step down as prime minister in 1984. Following the 1984 general election, all of the old Central Executive Committee members except Lee Kuan Yew resigned on 1 January 1985.

Lee was first elected Member of Parliament for the Teck Ghee SMC in 1984, at the age of 32. He was subsequently appointed Minister of State for Trade and Industry, and Minister of State for Defence.

In 1985, Lee chaired the government's economic committee, which recommended changes to established government policies to reduce business costs, foster longer-term growth and revive the Singapore economy, which was experiencing a recession at the time. The committee's recommendations included reductions in corporate and personal taxes and the introduction of a consumption tax.

In 1986, Lee was appointed Acting Minister for Trade and Industry. In 1987, he became a full member of the Cabinet as Minister for Trade and Industry and Second Minister for Defence.

PAP Youth Committee
In March 1986, First Deputy Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong discussed the question with Lee on encouraging younger Singaporeans to join the party. Goh was firm that the proposed committee should attract only the right kinds of members, ruling out material rewards as an incentive. The proposed youth wing was to encourage the improvement of the system from within, which would give new members a stake in the country's future. Lee later said the establishment of the youth wing reflected concerns by the leadership that the lack of an official channel to engage with the younger generation might lead them to vote for opposition parties and potentially bring the PAP government down. The youth wing was an official "tailor-made" mechanism to allow dissenting opinions to be heard.

Lee was the first chairman of the PAP Youth Committee upon its establishment, the predecessor to Young PAP.

Ministerial duties
On 28 November 1990, Goh Chok Tong succeeded Lee Kuan Yew as prime minister. Lee Hsien Loong was made one of two deputy prime ministers, along with Ong Teng Cheong. He continued to serve as the minister for trade and industry until 1992, when he was diagnosed with lymphoma. He subsequently relinquished his ministerial position and underwent three months of chemotherapy, though he continued to be a deputy prime minister during his illness. The chemotherapy was successful, and his cancer has gone into remission.

Lee was appointed chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in January 1998, and in 2001 he was made the finance minister. To ease the growing budget deficit due to falling tax revenues from cuts in corporate and personal income taxes and other factors such as the Iraq War and SARS outbreak, Lee proposed on 29 August 2003 to raise the GST from three per cent to five per cent, a change that took place in January 2004.

Lee initiated several amendments to render requirements for Singapore citizenship less restrictive, notably for foreign-born children of Singaporean women. The changes were made after repeated pleas from MPs and the Remaking Singapore Committee.

Visit to Taiwan
On 10 July 2004, Lee visited Taiwan, an island claimed by the People's Republic of China (PRC) that has been ruled by the Republic of China (ROC) since 1945. Even after the severing of diplomatic relations with the Republic of China on 3 October 1990 in favour of the People's Republic, the Singapore government maintains a policy of neutrality in the Cross-Strait relations between the two sides. To facilitate the policy, it was considered important for Lee to get a "personal feel for the situation" in Taiwan. Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials advised that any visit by an incumbent prime minister would be diplomatically impossible. The visit was hence planned a month before Lee assumed the premiership and in his capacity as a private citizen, not a state leader, with the PRC embassy informed on 9 July 2004. The same afternoon, the PRC government summoned the Singapore ambassador in Beijing and urged the cancellation of Lee's trip, citing the likelihood that Chen Shui Bian's administration would exploit it as a diplomatic coup and use it to promote Taiwan independence, claiming Singapore was making a "historical error". Foreign Minister S. Jayakumar replied to his counterpart Li Zhaoxing that Taiwan had been told to keep the visit low-profile and that it would proceed.

China retaliated by cancelling several visits by high-ranking PRC officials to Singapore and delaying planned signing ceremonies, hinting that free trade negotiations would also be pushed back. The matter was further complicated and magnified when Taiwanese media headlined the visit and portrayed it as a diplomatic breakthrough, which raised tensions with the PRC. The Singaporean government later published the full records of the discussion with the Chinese embassy in its local media.

On 28 August 2004, in his first National Day Rally speech and as prime minister, Lee criticised the Taiwanese leadership and populace over their pro-independence stance. He reiterated the reasons for the visit and said that Singapore's decision to stand firm on its vital interests had earned it international respect. Relations were eventually mended when Lee met Hu Jintao at the APEC Economics Leaders' Meeting on 19 November 2004, which signified the end of the dispute.

2004–2006: First term
On 12 August 2004, Lee succeeded Goh Chok Tong as prime minister and relinquished his chairmanship of the Monetary Authority of Singapore to Goh. Chief Justice Yong Pung How had Lee sworn in at the Istana. As prime minister, Lee also became chairman of the People's Association.

In his maiden National Day Rally speech on 22 August 2004, Lee announced several new initiatives, among them the policy of the "five-day work week" which removed the half-working day on Saturday. The plan took effect on 1 January 2005. In response to public feedback, maternity leave was also extended from eight to twelve weeks after consultation with employers and unions. To encourage the growth of the birthrate in Singapore, the Baby Bonus scheme was expanded to provide financial support to women who bear a fourth child.

In November 2004, Lee sparked a national debate when he proposed to build two Integrated Resorts (IRs), or hotel-casinos. Despite the longstanding stance against gambling in Singapore, with the exception of regulated industries such as the Singapore Turf Club and Singapore Pools, the government was concerned its stance was hurting the economic competitiveness of the country, risking the loss of tourism revenue to other cities. In April 2005, despite some public opposition, the government approved the proposal. The IRs were built in Marina Bay and Sentosa. To limit the negative social impact of casino gambling, Lee suggested safeguards such as prohibiting minors from the casinos and charging an entrance fee for Singaporeans of S$100 (or S$2000 for a yearly pass). The Casino Control Act was enacted into law on 1 June 2006, which regulated the operations of the casino operators and provided social safeguards intended to deter problem gambling.

In February 2006, Lee announced a S$2.6 billion Progress Package to distribute budget surpluses in the form of cash, top-ups to the Central Provident Fund, rental and utilities rebates, and educational funds. The cash bonuses were distributed in early May 2006. As the announcement came three months before the 2006 Singaporean general election, it drew criticism that the ruling party was involved in "vote buying".

2006–2011: Second term
In that election, the PAP won 82 of the 84 seats, including 37 walkovers. The Ang Mo Kio GRC was contested for the first time in 15 years. The Workers' Party (WP) claimed that they wanted to give Ang Mo Kio residents a chance to exercise their vote. Lee and his six-member GRC team won 60.42% of the votes against WP's inexperienced team.

On 29 November 2007, Lee announced that he would relinquish his finance ministerial portfolio to Tharman Shanmugaratnam on 1 December of that year. The handover was largely supported by business analysts, who felt that the importance of the position necessitated the dedication of a full-time minister for Singapore to entrench and promote its role as a financial hub. Regional economist Song Seng Wun said that with the growing sophistication of the economy and the financial markets' increasing volatility, Lee "may not have the full-time attention" due to his concurrent duties as prime minister.

Great Recession
The economy grew for the first two years of Lee's tenure but plunged 12.5% during the Great Recession. Singapore became the first Asian country to slip into a recession during the fourth quarter of 2008, with the financial, construction and manufacturing sectors being particularly affected by the Great Recession; the downturn was attributed to the city's trade-dependent economy. To counteract the ailing economy, the government announced a S$2.8 billion stimulus fund in November 2008 for SMEs and local firms and further pledged a S$20.5 billion Resilience Package in January 2009. These measures were intended to keep the unemployment rate low, having risen to 2.6% in December 2008 and 3.3% by the end of Q2 2009.

In August 2009, Lee declared that "the worst [was] over" and that Singapore was in a stronger position due to better-than-forecast growth in the manufacturing and services industries. The Ministry of Trade and Industry announced an end to the recession in November 2009 and forecast a 3–5% growth for 2010. Singapore subsequently saw a record-high economic recovery of 14.53%, defying predictions of moderate growth, with the unemployment rate falling to 1.8% by September 2010.

Political reforms
On 27 May 2009, Lee gave a speech in Parliament validating the roles of nonpartisan Nominated members of parliament (NMP) and praising the NMP scheme as having improved "quality of debate" in the-PAP dominated parliament. He proposed to make the scheme permanent. In May 2010, Lee instituted electoral reforms to the electoral system by reducing the number of group representation constituencies (GRC) and increasing the number of non-constituency members of parliament (NCMP) and nominated members of parliament (NMP) to a maximum of nine each (inclusive of the number of elected opposition members). A cooling-off day on the day before the election was instituted, where campaigning is prohibited except for party political broadcasts.

2011–2015: Third term

In the 2011 Singapore general election, the PAP saw a 6.46% swing downwards to 60.14%, its lowest since independence. The result, while a landslide victory for the PAP by international standards, was seen as a rebuke to the ruling party as a result of massive immigration of low-skilled workers, high-profile rail transport breakdowns and the rising cost of living in the intervening years. During the campaigning period, Lee has sensed the discontent in public sentiment and made a public apology. While the PAP swept into power, winning 81 out of 87 seats, it lost Aljunied GRC to the Workers' Party (WP), a historic win by an opposition party. Foreign Minister George Yeo and Minister in the Prime Minister's Office Lim Hwee Hua of the GRC were defeated. Following the election, Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong resigned from the cabinet as part of a rejuvenation process in the government and to provide a clean slate for Lee. Lee was sworn in to a third term on 21 May 2011.

On 1 June 2011, Lee was named chairman of the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation, which manages more than S$100 billion in assets. He succeeded his father, Lee Kuan Yew, who remained as senior advisor to the fund until his death.

In 2012, Lee indicated that he hoped not to be prime minister beyond the age of seventy, noting the need for someone to be in tune with the public.

2015–2020: Fourth term
In the 2015 Singapore general election, Lee was re-elected in Ang Mo Kio GRC, with the PAP winning 83 of 89 seats in Parliament and 69.9% of the national vote. Lee's fourth term as prime minister was marked by events such as the China–United States trade war, which adversely affected the nation's economy, being highly reliant on free markets and trade. Increased cyberattacks on Singapore-related services and websites led to the introduction of the Cybersecurity Act in 2018 and the establishment of the Cyber Security Agency. The defeat of the Barisan Nasional government in the 2018 Malaysian general election, which saw the return of Mahathir Mohamad as prime minister, led to a chill in relations as the new Pakatan Harapan government sought to overturn previously signed agreements on the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore high-speed rail and Johor Bahru-Singapore Rapid Transit System, and also disputed with Singapore on airspace and maritime rights. As part of the Lee government's effort to promote Singapore as an international center for arbitration, the city hosted the leaders of Mainland China and Taiwan for the Ma-Xi meeting on 7 November 2015 and the North Korea–United States summit on 12 June 2018. Singapore hosted the signing of the Singapore Convention on Mediation on 7 August 2019, the first United Nations treaty named after it, and ratified it on 25 February 2020.

On 20 July 2018, it was announced that sophisticated state-linked actors had hacked Lee's health data along with that of 1.5 million other residents. The hack was intended to access Lee's data in particular.

On 23 April 2019, Lee reshuffled his cabinet and promoted Heng Swee Keat to deputy prime minister, effective 1 May 2019. As part of the party's leadership succession, the move was widely interpreted as a prelude to Heng succeeding Lee as Singapore's fourth prime minister after the next general election. Lee noted that the cabinet reshuffle "was more extensive than usual", with younger, fourth-generation ministers being prioritised and now heading two-thirds of the ministries.

Planned GST hike to 9%
Speaking at his party convention on 19 November 2017, Lee said that raising taxes was a necessity to fund investment in the social, healthcare, economic and infrastructure sectors. Annual expenses on preschools is expected to reach $1.7 billion by 2022, while the growth in the ageing population is predicted to create a larger demand for affordable healthcare. Construction and refurbishment of new port and rail infrastructure, coupled with economic restructuring and training of workers, also necessitated tax increases. The taxes raised would be in the form of the GST, which is expected to rise from 7% to 9% by 2025. Lee's government said that it was necessary to plan ahead for increasing annual recurrent expenses, with Heng Swee Keat saying that the "hike cannot be put off or scrapped" to pay for critical future needs, especially in the healthcare sector.

In his Budget 2020 speech in February, Heng announced amendments to the GST Voucher Fund Act that would allow grants-in-aid to be given to parents or guardians for infants and children to mitigate their expenses. Second Minister for Finance Lawrence Wong said the intent was to expand the range of people who qualify for the fund. With the amendment, the Act would allow for the funding of the $6 billion Assurance Package, which was intended to delay the impact of the impending hike for five years.

The proposed hike met with broad disapproval from the opposition, with the Workers' Party and Progress Singapore Party calling for the GST to be retained at its present rate of 7% and others calling for the GST to be suspended entirely or for the exemption of essential goods from the tax.

POFMA implementation
Lee's government introduced the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) in 2018, colloquially known as the "fake news law", which was first mooted by Minister of Law and Home Affairs K Shanmugam. Despite concerns by activists and opposition Members of Parliament that the Act would limit free speech under the guise of preventing disinformation, the bill passed by a 72–9 vote on 8 May 2019 after two days' debate. Reporters Without Borders called the bill "terrible", "totalitarian", and a tool for censorship. Reuters wrote that the act "ensnares" government critics. Social media firms like Facebook expressed concern that the law would grant "broad powers to the Singapore executive branch to compel us to remove content they deem to be false and pro-actively push a government notification to users". In the leadup to the 2020 general election, Lee's own brother Lee Hsien Yang accused him of reneging on promises made in his 2004 National Day Rally speech about promising increased civil liberties and the freedom to express diverse views without interference.

Lee and his ministers actively rebutted allegations by overseas media that POFMA is a tool for censorship, saying that "no information or view has been suppressed" as a result of the Act and that the government "has not restricted free debate". In an interview with The Straits Times, Lee noted that fake news could disrupt society, and that the United States and Europe were struggling to manage the situation, especially in light of alleged Russian interference in recent elections. He cited Germany as a country that has enacted a similar law. In response to concerns that POFMA could curb free speech, Lee said that free speech exists within appropriate boundaries, with no society having absolute freedom of speech, and that defamatory or threatening speech should be banned to facilitate meaningful exchange of information and ideals.

Response to COVID-19 pandemic
The first COVID-19 case in Singapore was confirmed on 23 January 2020. Early cases were primarily imported until local transmission began to develop. By late March, clusters were detected at multiple dormitories for foreign workers, which soon contributed to an overwhelming number of new cases in the country. In response, Lee announced on 3 April 2020 that Singapore would enter a limited lockdown with restrictions on movement. The policy, officially called "circuit breaker" in governmental parlance, was intended to halt the disease's spread in the wider community. Workplaces were shut and all schools switched to home-based learning from 7 April to 1 June. Lee served as advisor to a multi-ministry level task force that had been set up in January, chaired by Minister for Education Lawrence Wong and Minister for Health Gan Kim Yong. Lee's government also contributed US$500,000 to support the World Health Organization. With the pandemic pushing Singapore into a recession, the government unveiled four successive stimulus packages intended to keep the economy afloat, the Unity, Resilience, Solidarity and Fortitude budgets.

2020–2024: Fifth term
Following the 2020 Singapore general election, Lee was re-elected in Ang Mo Kio GRC, with the PAP securing 61.23% of the national vote, beginning his fifth successive term as prime minister. The election was widely seen as a setback for the ruling party, with the opposition Workers' Party capturing a second GRC.

While noting that voters had delivered a clear mandate, Lee wrote in a letter to the party ("rules of prudence") that with the official appointment of a leader of the opposition to reflect ground sentiments for alternative ideals, PAP MPs should expect more vigorous debates and probing questions in Parliament. He encouraged party MPs to express their views honestly on proposed policies regardless of their party affiliation, while instructing them to defend their convictions and engage the opposition constructively. As a recognition of the Workers' Party's performance in the election and acknowledgement of society's desire for alternative ideas and more robust debate, Lee appointed Pritam Singh as the first official Leader of the Opposition.

Following the election, Lee announced a delay to his planned retirement in 2022 at his 70th birthday, given the demands of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lee attended the Pacific Alliance summit on 11 December 2020 following three years of negotiations with the Latin American trade bloc on the Pacific Alliance-Singapore free trade agreement (PASFTA), with the PASFTA due to be signed in 2021. In 2022, his government strongly opposed Russia's invasion of Ukraine due to concerns of the territorial integrity of smaller nations around the world – the only country in Southeast Asia to openly condemn and sanction the Eurasian country.

On 21 August 2022, Lee announced during his annual National Day Rally as prime minister that his government intends to repeal the colonial-era Section 377A of the Penal Code, an unenforced law that criminalised sex between consenting male adults, effectively ending criminalisation both de facto and de jure. The announcement was celebrated by the LGBT community in Singapore, while adding that this will be the "first step on a long road towards full equality". During the 2023 National Day Rally speech, Lee indicated a resumption of his succession plan, indicating Lawrence Wong as his likely successor as prime minister.

On 5 November 2023, Lee announced that he would hand over the role of prime minister role to Lawrence Wong by November 2024, before the next General Election which is due by November 2025. The handover ultimately occurred on 15 May 2024. He remains the Secretary-General of the PAP after the handover until the next PAP Central Executive Committee (CEC) meeting.

Senior Minister (2024–present)
Lee tendered his resignation as Prime Minister to President Tharman Shanmugaratnam on 13 May 2024, with effect from 15 May 2024. Lee was then appointed as Senior Minister and Chairman of the Research, Innovation and Enterprise Council on 15 May 2024.

China

The Lee government's policy towards the People's Republic of China has been marked by extensive cooperation in government-to-government projects such as the Suzhou Industrial Park, Tianjin Eco-City and Chongqing Connectivity Initiative. The China-Singapore Free Trade Agreement, the first of any Asian country with China, came into effect in 2009 and was upgraded in 2018, with new regulations governing e-commerce, fair competition and the environment; Singaporean firms were also granted greater access to Chinese markets, including the legal sector, which has been denied to other nations. Under Lee's government, Singapore has been the largest investor in China's Belt and Road Initiative and one of its earliest proponents, having signed a memorandum of understanding in April 2018. In April 2019, it agreed to further cooperation in trade and law enforcement, with Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing and Shanghai mayor Ying Yong formalising plans on the formation of the Singapore-Shanghai Comprehensive Cooperation Council, which will be managed on the ministerial level. China has been Singapore's largest trading partner since 2013, with trade reaching US$137.1 billion in 2017.

Bilateral relations between the two nations under Lee and the Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping administrations have been called strong. Lee's government formally adheres to the One-China policy, most recently reiterating the principle governing its relations with Taiwan in January 2020, despite the pro-independence Tsai Ing-wen administration's refusal to recognise the 1992 consensus. In spite of Chinese pressure and repeated offers of Hainan as an alternative site, Singapore continues to regularly send troops to train in Taiwan under Project Starlight and expects Beijing to respect its right to do so. Relations between the two nations cooled in 2016 after Singapore expressed its support on the ruling of the South China Sea arbitration case by the Permanent Court of Arbitration between China and the Philippines, which had dismissed Chinese claims to "historical rights" to the sea; Singapore views the surrounding seas as its lifeline and is sensitive to any attempts at hegemony. On 23 November 2016, the Port of Hong Kong seized nine Singapore Armed Forces military vehicles which had been en route from Taiwan to Singapore after a training exercise, in what became known as the "Terrex incident". Both sides downplayed the incident and official responses were described as "relatively muted", but international and local observers widely interpreted the seizure as a warning to Singapore. The detained vehicles were eventually released in January 2017 after it was officially deemed a customs import violation. Singapore has since sought to improve its relations with China, signing a defence agreement in October 2019 to enlarge military exercises with the People's Liberation Army, provide mutual logistics support, and increase exchanges between the two armed forces.

United States
Singapore has a close defence and political relationship with the United States and is one of its strongest bilateral partners in Southeast Asia. The US is an important arms supplier to Singapore, with US$7.34 billion in active sales under the Foreign Military Sales system as of 2020. Singapore has traditionally viewed the US as a critical guarantor of stability and security in the Asia-Pacific region and Lee's government has continued that policy, emphasising the US's role as an important counterweight to the rise of China and its increasing military prowess.

The two nations have a defence pact dating to the 1990 memorandum of understanding (MoU), which allowed US access to Singapore's air and naval bases and established the Logistics Group Western Pacific at Sembawang Terminal. On 12 July 2005, Lee and President George W. Bush signed the Strategic Framework Agreement (SFA), which recognised Singapore as a "Major Security Cooperation Partner". The two nations agreed to address the threats of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, while also furthering defence and security cooperation. Under the Barack Obama administration's Pivot to Asia strategy, the United States Navy has completed multiple littoral combat ship deployments to Singapore since 2014. In December 2015, the SFA was upgraded when Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen and Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter signed the Defence Cooperation Agreement, which expanded cooperation to humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, cyber defence, biosecurity and public communications. US P-8A Poseidon surveillance planes were also based in Singapore for the first time, which analysts said was a response to China's actions in the South China Sea, with Lee reiterating Singapore's commitment to "defend the rights of freedom of navigation and overflight". In support of the US military intervention against ISIS, the Republic of Singapore Air Force has also contributed aerial refuelling and logistical support to Operation Inherent Resolve. In September 2019, a year before the 1990 MoU's expiry, Lee and the Donald Trump administration renewed it for another 15 years.

The United States is Singapore's largest foreign investor, with US$15 billion invested in 2017 and stock reaching US$274.3 billion. The Singapore-United States Free Trade Agreement was implemented in January 2004, with trade reaching $45 billion in 2016. Lee was one of the early drafters and a strong advocate of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which was intended to lower both non-tariff and tariff barriers to trade and establish an investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism, and on many occasions urged the U.S. Congress to ratify the deal as soon as possible, adding that not to do so would "affect U.S. standing and credibility" in the world. Fitch analyst Andrew Colquhoun said that membership in the pact would have given Singapore an advantage over Hong Kong's close links to China. As a country dependent on free trade, it was "vital" that Singapore retain a seat at the negotiating table. The agreement was ultimately not ratified after Trump became president in 2017 and pulled the US out of the pact.

Malaysia
Malaysia has had six prime ministers and four changes of government since Lee became prime minister in 2004. Lee has sought to improve relations with Malaysia after decades of acrimony by enhancing the countries' economic integration and infrastructural links. Since 2010, he has attended the annual Leaders' Retreat set for the two countries' leaders to discuss issues and enhance the dispute resolution mechanism. But bilateral relations remain complex and fraught with occasional disputes involving water supply, land reclamation, and airspace and maritime territorial claims. To avoid harming the relationship, efforts have been made to isolate unresolved disputes from cross-border cooperation tackling transnational crime, terrorism and drug trafficking; this has resulted in close collaboration between Singapore's and Malaysia's police and security agencies.

In May 2007, Lee agreed with Abdullah Badawi's government to invest in the Iskandar Malaysia project and assist in building a tourism and industrial zone; the project was seen as a complement to the Singaporean economy and a strategy for Singapore to expand economically into its immediate hinterland, with RM20.57 billion invested as of 2019. In September 2010, Lee and Prime Minister Najib Razak resolved the longstanding KTM railway land dispute, with Malaysia agreeing to vacate a railway line cutting through the island to Tanjong Pagar railway station in exchange for land parcels in the Central Business District and Marina South, to be managed jointly. With the expiration of the 1961 Water Agreement in August 2011, Singapore handed the Skudai and Gunung Pulai water treatment plants over to the Johor state government, marking the end of one of two water agreements. To ease congestion on the Johor–Singapore Causeway, which links the two countries, Lee revived a dormant 1991 plan to link the Singapore MRT network to Johor Bahru in 2011. During this period, Malaysia also reinstated a plan to connect Kuala Lumpur to Singapore via a high-speed rail network. After joint preliminary technical studies on both rail projects, it was agreed to proceed with the Kuala Lumpur–Singapore high-speed rail (KL-SG HSR) in February 2013 and the Johor Bahru-Singapore Rapid Transit System (JB-SG RTS) in December 2016.

After the 2018 Malaysian general election and the fall of the Barisan Nasional government, the Mahathir Mohamad government repeatedly delayed the rail projects, citing their high cost and its financial indebtedness. Lee reiterated the legally binding nature of the joint projects, which stipulated compensation to Singapore in the event of a cancellation, but nevertheless acceded to Malaysia's request for an extension to conduct a review. In October 2018, tensions rose when Malaysia extended its Johor Bahru port limits past its 1979 maritime claims into undelimited waters off Singapore's reclaimed Tuas sector. The maritime dispute occurred in conjunction with the Pasir Gudang airspace dispute, which began in early December; the airspace is under Malaysian sovereignty but was previously delegated to Singapore to manage in a 1973 agreement. In April 2019, Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan and his counterpart Anthony Loke reached a joint agreement to revert to the previous status quo on both disputes. The 2020 Malaysian political crisis resulted in the Pakatan Harapan government's collapse and the appointment of Muhyiddin Yassin as prime minister. Singapore has since worked closely with Malaysia to combat the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In July 2020, Lee and Muhyiddin formally agreed to recommence the JB-SG RTS project in a signing ceremony on the causeway.

Condominium rebates
In 1996, while serving as deputy prime minister, Lee and his father Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew addressed Parliament on the allegations of receiving special discounts on four luxury condominium units that they had purchased from Hotel Properties Limited (HPL) on the properties of Nassim Jade and Scotts 28 in 1994 and 1995 respectively. Lee Kuan Yew's brother Lee Suan Yew was the director of HPL, leading to the controversy. Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong ordered an immediate investigation into the matter, since although the provision of special discounts or rebates to relatives and associates of directors is permitted under Singapore law, shareholders must approve such transactions.

Ministerial salary
Lee's salary has been a source of public discontent. From 2008 to 2012, Lee earned an annual salary of S$3,870,000 (US$2,856,930), an increase of 25% from the previous S$3,091,200 (US$2,037,168). In January 2012, due to public discontent, Lee took a 28% pay cut, reducing his salary to S$2.2 million (US$1.7 million). He remained the highest-paid head of government in the world, up until his stepping down in 2024.

Allegations of nepotism
In 2010, Lee, together with his predecessors, threatened legal action against The New York Times Company which owns the International Herald Tribune regarding an op-ed piece titled "All in the Family" of 15 February 2010 by Philip Bowring, a freelance columnist and former editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review. The International Herald Tribune apologised in March that readers of the article may "infer that the younger Lee did not achieve his position through merit". The New York Times Company and Bowring agreed to pay S$60,000 to Lee, S$50,000 to Lee Kuan Yew and S$50,000 to Goh (amounting to about US$114,000 at the time), in addition to legal costs. The case stemmed from a 1994 settlement between the three Singaporean leaders and the paper about an article also by Bowring that referred to 'dynastic politics' in East Asian countries, including Singapore. In that settlement, Bowring agreed not to say or imply that the younger Lee had attained his position through nepotism.

In response, media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders wrote an open letter urging Lee and other top Singapore government officials to stop taking "libel actions" against journalists. Legal action had been taken in the Singapore courts for defamation against the Financial Times (2007) and the New York Times Company. In a 2008 report, the International Bar Association Human Rights Institute cast doubts on the independence of the judiciary in cases involving PAP litigants or interests.

As the eldest son of Lee Kuan Yew, Lee's career has been shadowed by allegations of nepotism. He was widely tipped to be prime minister with several critics viewing Goh Chok Tong as a seat-warmer. Lee has challenged his critics to prove their allegations of nepotism or put the matter to rest.

Oxley Road house dispute
In June 2017, Lee became embroiled in a dispute with his brother Lee Hsien Yang and sister Lee Wei Ling, over the fate of their father's house at 38 Oxley Road. Founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew was averse to a cult of personality. As a result, he had inserted in his final will a demolition clause stating that the house was to be torn down when his daughter moves out; it also states that should demolition be impossible, the house shall be closed to the public.

Lee's siblings alleged that he was abusing his powers, using "organs of the state" as prime minister to preserve the house against their father's wishes. Lee and the Cabinet denied all their allegations and convened a special sitting of Parliament to debate the matter thoroughly. In his closing speech, Lee stated: "After two days of debate, nobody has stood behind these [his siblings'] allegations or offered any evidence, not even opposition MPs ... It shows that the Government and I have acted properly and with due process." He left open options to convene a select committee or Commission of Inquiry should substantive evidence be presented. The siblings accepted Lee's offer to settle the dispute in private the following day.

On 1 September 2019, Lee sent a letter, via the Prime Minister Office, to journalist Terry Xu of The Online Citizen (TOC) requesting that Xu take down a TOC article with false allegations. On 5 September, Lee sued Xu for repeating statements made by Lee's siblings. By doing so, Lee attracted critics for using the prime minister's office for personal matters.

1MDB defamation case
In December 2018, Lee sued Leong Sze Hian, a prominent government critic, for sharing an online article on his Facebook page alleging that former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak had signed "secret deals" with Lee to secure help from Singapore banks to facilitate money laundering from Malaysia's government-run strategic development company 1Malaysia Development Berhad, in what became known as the 1MDB scandal. Lee's lawyers claimed that Lee had been "gravely injured in his character and reputation" and "brought into public scandal, odium and contempt". Leong removed the post thereafter but justified his actions by claiming that it was "a matter of public interest... whether or not it was correct" and filed a countersuit against Lee, claiming that the lawsuit proceedings against him were "an abuse of the process of the court". The Court of Appeal dismissed the countersuit in September 2019, citing that Singapore law does not recognise the concept of the abuse of court process.

In October 2020, Lee took the stand in a four-day trial in the High Court against Leong, who was defended by lawyer Lim Tean, secretary-general of the opposition party Peoples Voice. In an opening statement, Lee's lawyer Davinder Singh said that 1MDB had become "a byword for corruption and criminal activity" and that Leong's sharing the post might have implied that "Lee was complicit in criminal activity relating to 1MDB". Lee claimed that he was compelled to file the suit because not to do so would have raised questions, given his history of filing lawsuits against defamatory statements. Leong did not take the witness stand, with Lim arguing that it was unnecessary for Leong to give evidence, and that it was Lee's responsibility to prove that Leong's actions were malicious and had damaged Lee's reputation. The case was adjourned to November 2020. Leong was found guilty in March 2021 of defamation and ordered to pay damages to Lee.

Personal life
Lee married his first wife, Wong Ming Yang, a Malaysian-born physician, on 20 May 1978. They have a daughter and a son, Li Xiuqi, born in 1981, and Li Yipeng, born in 1982. Three weeks after giving birth to their son, Wong died of a heart attack on 28 October 1982, at the age of 31.

Lee remarried to Ho Ching in 1985, a promising civil servant who subsequently became the executive director and chief executive officer of Temasek Holdings. They have two sons, Li Hongyi and Li Haoyi. Their elder son, Li Hongyi, was a commissioned officer in the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), and is the deputy director of the Government Technology Agency. Their younger son, Li Haoyi, is a software engineer who authors books on the Scala programming language.

Lee was initially diagnosed with lymphoma, for which he underwent chemotherapy in the early 1990s. He subsequently underwent a successful robot-assisted keyhole prostatectomy on 15 February 2015 after being diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Lee is interested in computer programming and has written a Sudoku solver in C++ in his spare time.

Awards

 * Olympic Order (Gold), conferred 13 August 2010.

Foreign honours

 * 🇵🇪 Peru
 * Orden El Sol del Perú en el grado de Gran Cruz con Brillantes (Order of the Sun of Peru), bestowed 22 November 2008.
 * Brunei
 * Sultan of Brunei Golden Jubilee Medal, awarded 6 October 2017.
 * The Most Esteemed Family Order of Laila Utama (D.K), awarded 16 July 2022.
 * 🇲🇾 Malaysia
 * Grand Commander of the Order of the Crown of Johor (First Class) – Dato' Sri Paduka Mahkota Johor (SPMJ), awarded 6 May 2022.

title: Lee Hsien Loong


text: Talk:Amanita muscaria

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

title: Talk:Amanita muscaria


text:
Symi

Symi, also transliterated as Syme or Simi (Σύμη), is a Greek island and municipality. It is mountainous and has the harbour town of Symi and its adjacent upper town Ano Symi, as well as several smaller population centres, beaches and areas of significance in history and mythology. Symi is part of the Rhodes regional unit.

The economy of Symi was traditionally based on the shipbuilding and sponge industries. The population reached 22,500 at its peak during that period. Symi's main industry is now tourism, and in 2021 its permanent population had declined to 2,603 with a larger population during the summer.

Symi is known for its unique shrimps. Named "Symi's shrimps", these are small and are pan fried and eaten whole, shell and all.

Geography

Symi is part of the Dodecanese island chain, located about 41 km north-northwest of Rhodes and 425 km from Piraeus, the port of Athens, with 58.1 km² of mountainous terrain. Its nearest land neighbors are the Datça and Bozburun peninsulas of Muğla Province in Turkey. Its interior is characterised by small valleys, and its coastline alternates between rocky cliffs, beaches and isolated coves.

Its main town, located on the northeast coast, is named Symi. The lower town around the harbour, is referred to as Yialos, and the upper town is called Horio or Ano Symi. Other townships are Pedi, Nimborio, Marathounda and Panormitis. Panormitis is the location of the island's famous monastery which is visited by people from all over the world, and many Greeks pay homage to St Michael of Panormitis each year. The island has 2,603 inhabitants, mostly engaged in tourism, fishing, and trade. In the tourist season which lasts from Easter until Panormitis Day in early November, tourists and day-trippers increase the number of people on the island to as much as 6,000.

In addition to its many historical sites, the island's isolated beaches, many reachable only by small boats, are popular with tourists. The Municipality of Sými includes the uninhabited offshore islets of Gialesíno, Diavátes, Kouloúndros, Marmarás, Nímos, Sesklío, and Chondrós. Its total land area is 65.754 km².

History
In Greek mythology, Symi is reputed to be the birthplace of the Charites and takes its name from the nymph Syme. In antiquity the island was known as Aigli and Metapontis. Pliny the Elder and some later writers claimed that the name was derived from simia, "a monkey".

In Homer's Iliad the island is mentioned as the domain of King Nireus, who fought in the Trojan War on the side of the Greeks and was described as the most handsome man in the Achaean forces, after Achilles. Thucydides writes that during the Peloponnesian War there was a Battle of Syme near the island in January, 411 BC, in which an unspecified number of Spartan ships defeated a squadron of Athenian vessels.

Little is known about the island before the 14th century. Archaeological evidence indicates that it was continuously inhabited, and ruins of citadels suggest that it was an important location. It was part of the Roman Empire and later the Byzantine Empire, until its conquest by the Knights of St. John in 1309.

Early modern: Hospitaller and Ottoman eras
This conquest, fueled by the Knights' interest in shipping and commerce, launched several centuries of prosperity for Symi, as its location amidst the Dodecanese made it an important waypoint for trade until the advent of steam-powered shipping in the 19th century. In 1522, Symi was conquered by the Ottoman Empire, along with nearby Rhodes, but it was allowed to retain many of its privileges, so its prosperity continued virtually uninterrupted.

Under the Ottomans the island was called Sömbeki. Symi was noted for its sponges, which provided much of its wealth. It attained the height of its prosperity in the mid 19th century. Many of the colorful neoclassical mansions covering the slopes near the main city date from that period. Although Symiots took part in the Greek War of Independence of 1821–1829, it was left out of the new Greek state and remained under Ottoman rule.

Modern era

The island, along with the rest of the Dodecanese, changed hands several times in the 20th century. In 1912, the Dodecanese declared independence from the Ottomans to become the Federation of the Dodecanese Islands, though they were almost immediately occupied by Italy. The island was formally ceded to Italy in 1923, and on 12 October 1943 it was occupied by the Nazis. At the end of World War II, the surrender of German forces in the region took place on Symi to the British. The island was occupied by Britain for three years as a result. Symi was rejoined with Greece in 1948.

The island has become popular with tourists from abroad, especially British and Italians, and is now the permanent home of about 120 non-Greek residents, some 50 of whom are British. The influx of tourists has led to the restoration of a great number of homes, many of which were destroyed during World War II. These restorations, by law, have to conform to "guidelines laid down by the Greek culture ministry's Archaeological Service." Between 1998 and 2006, it is estimated that the price of a "ruin" on Symi increased fivefold. The growing population of EU expatriates has led to demographic as well as political changes, since EU citizens are allowed to vote in local elections and have attempted to exert influence on the island's politics. Opinions on whether this is a sign of growing integration differ.

There has been considerable restoration of many houses in Symi in the past decade, by architects including Haris A. Kalligas and Anastasia Papaioannou, both winners of the Europa Nostra Awards for their work on Symi and elsewhere in Greece.

On 5 June 2024, British TV and radio presenter Michael Mosley went missing on the island while on holiday with his wife. After four days of searching, his body was found on 9 June, on the rocky slope outside the wall of a private resort called Agia Marina. It appeared that he had taken the wrong path sometime after leaving the town of Pedi.

Landmarks

 * The Monastery of the Archangel Michael Panormitis is a Greek Orthodox monastery built on the southwest coast in the early 18th century. It overlooks a bay, and is still inhabited by monks.
 * The Kastro overlooks the main town of Symi, Ano Symi. It was built by the Knights of St. John as an expansion of a Byzantine castle on the same site, many parts of which are still visible. There are remnants of an ancient citadel, on which the two later castles were built.
 * The municipal clock tower which was built circa 1880
 * The War memorial in the harbour consists of a monument, "the Dove of Peace", in front of a bas-relief sculpture of a Trireme
 * The town of Symi has thirteen major churches and dozens of chapels, some dating back to the Byzantine era.
 * The village of Nimborio has surviving ancient Pelasgian walls and a set of twelve domes remaining from workshops used by artists.
 * In late 2020 the renovated Historical Museum of Symi reopened. The collections include many artefacts found by the early 20th-century Symian antiquarians Michael and Niketas Chaviaras, sons of Demosthenes Chaviaras (1849–1922), himself an important figure in local historical research. In the 1980s, the Chaviaras family archive was donated to the museum.

Festival
Since 1995, Symi has hosted the Symi Festival during July to September. This festival was founded by Greek political journalist, Yannis Diakogiannis, who established it in the birthplace of his father Eleftherios C. Diakogiannis. Since its inception, it has attracted many Greek musicians, Katy Garbi, Eleftheria Arvanitaki, Glykeria, Alkistis Protopsalti, Dimitra Galani, Miltos Pasxahildis, etc., to perform at free open-air concerts in the main square of Yialos, and includes many dance and theatre events.

Sister cities
In 2008, Tarpon Springs, Florida, a town with a high percentage of Greek Americans, established a sister city-relationship with Symi. Located on the Gulf Coast of the United States, Tarpon Springs attracted many Greek sponge fishermen to Florida, for the "sponge rush" at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Local media
The island has one local amateur AM radio station, Radio Symi, broadcasting on 1485 kHz.

Notable people

 * Costas Valsamis, sculptor
 * Ioannis Diakidis, writer

title: Symi


text:
Mark W. Clark

Mark Wayne Clark (May 1, 1896 – April 17, 1984) was a United States Army officer who saw service during World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. He was the youngest four-star general in the US Army during World War II.

During World War I, he was a company commander and served in France in 1918, as a 22-year-old captain, where he was seriously wounded by shrapnel. After the war, the future US Army Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall, noticed Clark's abilities. During World War II, he commanded the United States Fifth Army, and later the 15th Army Group, in the Italian campaign. He is known for leading the Fifth Army when it captured Rome in June 1944, around the same time as the Normandy landings. He was also the head of planning for Operation Torch, the largest seaborne invasion at the time.

Clark has been heavily criticized for ignoring the orders of his superior officer, British General Sir Harold Alexander, commanding the Allied Armies in Italy (AAI), and for allowing the German 10th Army to slip away, in his drive to take Rome, the capital of Italy but not strategically important. Clark ordered Lucian Truscott, commanding U.S. VI Corps, to select Operation Turtle (moving towards Rome) rather than Operation Buffalo (moving to cut Route 6 at Valmontone), which Alexander had ordered. Clark had, however, left Operation Turtle as an option if Operation Buffalo ran into difficulty. The German 10th Army then joined the rest of the German army group at the Trasimene Line. Clark’s failure to follow orders and the perceived waste of lives as a result led correspondent Alan Whicker to observe; "if he had been German, Hitler would have had him shot".

On March 10, 1945, at the age of 48, Clark became one of the youngest American officers promoted to the rank of four-star general. Dwight D. Eisenhower, a close friend, considered Clark to be a brilliant staff officer and trainer of men.

Throughout his thirty-six years of military service, Clark was awarded many medals, the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC), the US Army's second-highest decoration, being the most notable.

A legacy of the "Clark Task Force," which he led from 1953 to 1955 to review and to make recommendations on all federal intelligence activities, is the term "intelligence community."

Early life and career
Clark was born in Madison Barracks, Sackets Harbor, New York, but spent much of his youth in Highland Park, Illinois, while his father, Charles Carr Clark, a career infantry officer in the United States Army, was stationed at Fort Sheridan. His mother, Rebecca "Beckie" Ezekkiels, was the daughter of Romanian Jews; Mark Clark was baptized Episcopalian as a cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.

Clark gained an early appointment to the USMA in June 1913 at the age of 17, but lost time from frequent illnesses. Known as "Contraband" by his classmates, because of his ability to smuggle sweets into the barracks, while at West Point, he met and befriended Dwight D. Eisenhower, who lived in the same barracks division and was his company cadet sergeant. Although Eisenhower was two years senior to him and had graduated as part of the West Point class of 1915, both formed a friendship. Clark graduated from West Point on April 20, 1917, exactly two weeks after the American entry into World War I, and six weeks before schedule, with a class ranking of 110 in a class of 139, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Infantry Branch. He graduated alongside young men such as Matthew Ridgway, J. Lawton Collins, (both of whom later became U.S. Army Chief of Staff) Ernest N. Harmon, William W. Eagles, Norman Cota, Laurence B. Keiser, John M. Devine, Albert C. Smith, Frederick A. Irving, Charles H. Gerhardt, Bryant Moore and William K. Harrison. All of these men would, like Clark himself, rise to high command and become generals.

Like his father, he decided to join the Infantry Branch. He was assigned to the 11th Infantry Regiment, which later became part of the 5th Division when it was activated in December, where he became a company commander in Company 'K' of the 3rd Battalion, 11th Infantry, with First Lieutenant John W. O'Daniel serving as a platoon commander in his company. In the rapid expansion of the U.S. Army during the war, he rose quickly in rank, promoted to first lieutenant on May 15 and captain on August 5, 1917.

In late April 1918, shortly before Clark's 22nd birthday and over a year after his graduation from West Point, he arrived on the Western Front, to join the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF). Arriving with his company at the French port of Brest on 1 May, his 22nd birthday, the next few weeks were spent in training in trench warfare under the tutelage of the French Army and soon afterwards the division was inspected by General John J. Pershing, the AEF's Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C). Serving in the Vosges mountains, the Commanding Officer (CO) of the regiment's 3rd Battalion, Major R. E. Kingman, fell ill and Clark was promoted to acting battalion commander on June 12, 1918, with O'Daniel taking over command of Clark's company. Two days later, when Clark's division was relieving a French division in the trenches, he was wounded by German artillery in the right shoulder and upper back, knocking him unconscious; the soldier standing next to him, Private Joseph Kanieski, was killed. They were two of the first casualties suffered by the 5th Division during the war.

Captain Clark recovered from his injuries within six weeks, but was graded unfit to return to the infantry, being transferred to the Supply Section of the newly formed First Army. In this position he served with Colonel John L. DeWitt, and supervised the daily provision of food for the men of the First Army, which earned Clark recognition at the higher levels of command. He stayed in this post until the end of hostilities on November 11, 1918. He then served with the Third Army in its occupation duties in Germany and returned to the United States in June 1919, just over a year after he was sent overseas.

Interwar period

During the interwar period, Clark served in a variety of staff and training roles. From 1921 to 1924, he served as an aide in the office of the Assistant Secretary of War. In 1925, he completed the professional officer's course at the US Army Infantry School and then served as a staff officer with the 30th Infantry Regiment at The Presidio in San Francisco, California. His next assignment was as a training instructor to the Indiana Army National Guard, in which he was promoted to major on January 14, 1933, more than 15 years after his promotion to captain.

Major Clark served as a deputy commander of the Civilian Conservation Corps district in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1935–1936, between tours at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff School in 1935 and the U.S. Army War College in 1937. Among his classmates there were Matthew Ridgway, Walter Bedell Smith and Geoffrey Keyes, all of whom he would serve with during World War II.

Assigned to Fort Lewis, Washington, Clark was selected by General George C. Marshall, the newly promoted Army Chief of Staff, to instruct at the U.S. Army War College in March 1940, where he received a promotion to lieutenant colonel on July 1. Clark and Brigadier General Lesley J. McNair, later the commander of Army Ground Forces, selected the thousands of acres of unused land in Louisiana for military maneuvers in the Louisiana Maneuvers. On August 4, 1941, Clark, skipping the rank of colonel, was promoted two grades to the temporary rank of brigadier general as the U.S. Army geared up for entry into World War II, and made Assistant Chief of Staff (G-3) at General Headquarters, United States Army, in Washington, D.C.

World War II
In January 1942, a month after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the American entry into World War II, Clark was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff of Army Ground Forces (AGF), commanded by Lieutenant General Lesley J. McNair, and in May 1942 became its Chief of Staff.

Service in Europe and North Africa

On April 17, 1942, Clark was temporarily promoted to the two-star rank of major general. Two weeks before his 46th birthday he was the youngest major general in the U.S. Army. In June, Clark, along with Major General Dwight Eisenhower, was sent to England as Commanding General (CG) of II Corps, and the next month moved up to CG, Army Forces in the European Theater of Operations (ETO). Along with Eisenhower, he was sent to work out the feasibility of a cross-channel invasion of German-occupied Europe that year, based on the Germany first strategy which had been agreed on by American and British military and political leaders the year before if the United States were to enter the conflict. In England Clark first met the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, who was much impressed by Clark, referring to him as "The American Eagle," along with General Sir Alan Brooke, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS, the professional head of the British Army), and Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery, then commander of the South Eastern Command. After a cross-channel invasion was ruled out for 1942, attention was turned to planning for an Allied invasion of French North Africa, given the codename of Operation Gymnast, later Operation Torch. In October, Clark was assigned to the Mediterranean Theater of Operations (MTO) as deputy to Eisenhower, who was now the Supreme Allied Commander in the theater, relinquishing command of II Corps. Clark's duty was to prepare for Operation Torch. Clark also made a covert visit to French North Africa (see Operation Flagpole) to meet with pro-Allied officers of the Vichy French forces.

Fifth Army and service in Italy
Eisenhower greatly appreciated Clark's contributions. Clark, at the age of 46, was promoted to the temporary rank of lieutenant general on November 11, 1942, three days after the Torch landings. He was the youngest three-star general in the U.S. Army. On January 5, 1943, the United States created its first field army overseas, the Fifth Army, with Clark as its CG, although neither Clark nor Fifth Army saw service in the fighting in North Africa. Many officers, most notably Major General George S. Patton Jr., who was both older and senior to Clark, and was then commanding I Armored Corps, came to resent him, believing he had advanced too quickly. Patton, in particular, believed Clark was "too damned slick" and believed Clark was much too concerned with himself. In the presence of senior commanders Patton and Clark were friendly, although Patton, in his journal, wrote "I think that if you treat a skunk nicely, he will not piss on you—as often", referring to Clark after both he and General Marshall, the Army Chief of Staff, visited Patton's headquarters as the latter explained his plans for the upcoming invasion of Sicily. Clark, for his part, claimed he found it difficult to command men who had been his senior, and he proved reluctant to remove those commanders if they failed in battle. The Fifth Army's initial mission was preparing to keep a surveillance on Spanish Morocco. His permanent rank was upgraded to brigadier general on September 1, 1943.

On September 9, 1943, the Fifth Army, composed of the U.S. VI Corps, under Major General Ernest J. Dawley—who was a decade older than Clark and about whom Clark had doubts—and the British X Corps, under Lieutenant General Sir Richard L. McCreery—to whom Clark later scornfully referred as a "feather duster"—under Clark's command landed at Salerno (codenamed Operation Avalanche). The invasion, despite good initial progress, was nearly defeated over the next few days by numerous German counterattacks, and Major General Dawley, the VI Corps commander, was sacked and replaced by Major General John P. Lucas, who himself was later sacked and replaced after his perceived failure during Operation Shingle. Clark was subsequently criticized by historians and critics for this near-failure, blamed on poor planning by Clark and his staff. Despite this Clark was later awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC), the citation for which reads:

"The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to Lieutenant General Mark Wayne Clark (ASN: 0–5309), United States Army, for extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations against an armed enemy while Commanding the 5th Army, in action against enemy forces on 14 September 1943 at Salerno, when the FIFTH Army's bridgehead was threatened by an enemy counterattack. General Clark personally instilled determination and courage in his men, under artillery and machine gun fire at the front line. He discovered 18 Nazi tanks approaching, located an anti-tank unit and gave the orders which brought about the destruction of six tanks and the repulse of the rest. By his magnificent display of leadership, courage and determination during a critical phase of the battle, front line troops were inspired to hold at all costs and subsequently to initiate steady advance. Lieutenant General Clark's intrepid actions, personal bravery and zealous devotion to duty exemplify the highest traditions of the military forces of the United States and reflect great credit upon himself, the 5th Army, and the United States Army."

The Fifth Army, by now composed of five American divisions (the 3rd, 34th, 36th and 45th Infantry, along with the 82nd Airborne) and three British divisions (7th Armoured, 46th and 56th Infantry), operating alongside the British Eighth Army, under General Bernard Montgomery, subsequently advanced up the spine of Italy, and captured the Italian city of Naples on October 1, 1943, and crossed the Volturno Line in mid-October. Progress, however, soon began to slow down, due to German resistance, lack of Allied manpower in Italy, and the formidable German defenses known as the Winter Line, which was to hold the Allies up for the next six months.

During the Battle of Monte Cassino, Clark ordered the bombing of the Abbey on 15 February 1944. This was under direct orders from his superior, British General Sir Harold R. L. G. Alexander, Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) of the Allied Armies in Italy (AAI). Clark and his chief of staff, Major General Alfred Gruenther, remained unconvinced of the military necessity of the bombing. When handing over the U.S. II Corps position to the New Zealand Corps, under Lieutenant General Sir Bernard C. Freyberg, the Assistant Division Commander (ADC) of the U.S. 34th Infantry Division, Brigadier General Frederic B. Butler, claimed "I don't know, but I don't believe the enemy is in the convent. All the fire has been from the slopes of the hill below the wall." The commander of the 4th Indian Infantry Division, Major General Francis Tuker, urged the bombing of the entire massif with the heaviest bombs available. Clark finally pinned down the Commander-in-Chief, Alexander, recounting that "I said, 'You give me a direct order and we'll do it' and he did."

Clark's conduct of operations in the Italian campaign is controversial, particularly during the actions around the German Gustav Line, such as the U.S. 36th Infantry Division's assault on the Gari river in January 1944, which failed with 1,681 casualties in the 36th Infantry Division. American military historian Carlo D'Este called Clark's choice to take the undefended Italian capital of Rome, after Operation Diadem and the breakout from the Anzio beachhead, in early June, rather than focusing on the destruction of the German 10th Army, "as militarily stupid as it was insubordinate". Although Clark described a "race to Rome" and released an edited version of his diary for the official historians, his complete papers became available only after his death.

Clark led the Fifth Army, now much reduced in manpower, having given up both the U.S. VI Corps and the French Expeditionary Corps (CEF) for Operation Dragoon, the Allied invasion of Southern France (which Clark had always opposed), throughout the battles around the Gothic Line. For the offensive, Clark's Fifth Army (now composed only of the II Corps—with the 34th and 85th Infantry Divisions—under Major General Geoffrey Keyes, and the IV Corps—with the 88th and 91st Infantry Divisions—under Major General Willis D. Crittenberger and the 1st Armored Division in reserve) was reinforced by the British XIII Corps, under Lieutenant General Sidney Kirkman. The initial stages went well until the autumn weather began and, as it did the previous year, the advance bogged down.

Early on the morning of January 28, 1944, a PT boat carrying Clark to the Anzio beachhead, six days after the Anzio landings, was mistakenly fired on by U.S. naval vessels. Several sailors were killed and wounded around him. Next month, during the air raid he ordered on Monte Cassino abbey, 16 bombs were mistakenly dropped at the Fifth Army headquarters compound then 17 miles (27 km) away from there, exploding yards from his trailer while he was at his desk inside. A few months later, on June 10, he again narrowly escaped death when, while flying over Civitavecchia in a Stinson L-5, his pilot, Maj. John T. Walker, failed to see the cable of a barrage balloon, which embedded itself into one of the wings, forcing the plane into a rapid downward spiral around the cable. The plane broke free after the third time around, leaving the outer section of the wing behind. Miraculously, Walker managed to crash-land in an open meadow and the two men escaped uninjured. "I never had a worse experience" wrote Clark to his wife.

15th Army Group
In December 1944 Clark succeeded Alexander as commander of the AAI, renamed the 15th Army Group, and Alexander was made the Supreme Commander of the AFHQ in the Mediterranean, replacing Field Marshal Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, who himself was called to Washington to replace Field Marshal Sir John Dill as head of the British Joint Chiefs of Staff. Succeeding Clark as commander of the Fifth Army was Lieutenant General Lucian Truscott, who had previously commanded VI Corps and, before that, the 3rd Division. Clark was promoted to the four-star rank of acting general on March 10, 1945, aged 48, the youngest in the United States Army. His permanent rank was upgraded to major general on October 7, 1944.

Clark led the 15th Army Group throughout the final months of the Italian campaign, although no major offensives took place, due mainly to a critical shortage of manpower throughout the ranks of both the Fifth and Eighth Armies along with the worsening winter weather. After much retraining and reorganizing, Clark then led the army group in the final offensive in Italy, codenamed Operation Grapeshot, which brought the war in Italy to an end, and he afterwards accepted the German surrender in Italy in May and became Commander of the Allied Forces in Italy at the end of World War II in Europe.

Post-war era
Later in 1945, as Commander in Chief of US Forces of Occupation in Austria, Clark gained experience negotiating with communists, which he would put to good use a few years later. Clark served as deputy to the US Secretary of State in 1947 and attended the negotiations for an Austrian treaty with the Council of Foreign Ministers in London and Moscow. In June 1947, Clark returned home and assumed command of the Sixth Army, headquartered at the Presidio in San Francisco and two years later was named chief of Army Field Forces. On October 20, 1951, he was nominated by President Harry S Truman to be the US emissary to the Holy See. Clark withdrew his nomination on January 13, 1952, after protests from Texas Senator Tom Connally and from Protestant groups.

Congressional inquiry
It was announced on 20 January 1946 that the 36th Infantry Division Veterans' Association had unanimously called for a congressional inquiry into Clark's actions during the 36th Infantry Division's disastrous crossing of the Gari River (erroneously identified as the Rapido) on the night of 20 January 1944. The petition read:

"Be it resolved, that the men of the 36th Division Association petition the Congress of the United States to investigate the river Rapido fiasco and take the necessary steps to correct a military system that will permit an inefficient and inexperienced officer, such as General Mark W. Clark, in a high command to destroy the young manhood of this country and to prevent future soldiers being sacrificed wastefully and uselessly."

Two resolutions were heard in the House of Representatives, one of which claimed the incident was "one of the most colossal blunders of the Second World War... a murderous blunder" that "every man connected with this undertaking knew... was doomed to failure."

Clark was absolved of blame by the House of Representatives but never commented on the Rapido River episode.

Korean War
During the Korean War, he took over as commander of the United Nations Command on May 12, 1952, succeeding General Matthew Ridgway, a close friend and a fellow graduate of the West Point class of 1917. In this capacity he also served as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, overseeing all U.S. forces in the postwar occupation of Japan. Clark commanded the UN forces in Korea until the armistice was signed on July 27, 1953, and retired from the Army on October 31 of the same year. He retained his position as SCAP and governor of the Ryukyu Islands until October 7, when he was succeeded by John E. Hull.

Later career
From 1954 to 1965, after retiring from the Army, Clark served as president of The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina in Charleston.

From 1954 to 1955, Clark was head of the Clark Task Force to study and make recommendations on all intelligence activities of the Federal government. The task force had been created in 1953 by the second Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government, or the Hoover Commission, which had been chaired by Herbert Hoover.

Members of the Clark Task Force were Admiral Richard L. Conolly, a former Deputy Chief of Naval Operations; Ernest F. Hollings, the speaker pro tempore of South Carolina's House of Representatives; California businessman Henry Kearns; Edward V. Rickenbacker, World War I flying ace and president of Eastern Air Lines; and Donald S. Russell, a former Assistant Secretary of State. The staff director was Major General James G. Christiansen. The task force first met in early November 1954 and in May 1955 submitted a top-secret report for the president and another that was unclassified for the Hoover Commission and Congress. The Clark task force coined the term Intelligence Community to describe "the machinery for accomplishing our intelligence objectives." Clark wrote two memoirs: Calculated Risk (1950) and From the Danube to the Yalu (1954). His wife, Maurine, also wrote a memoir: Captain's Bride, General's Lady (1956).

In 1962, Clark was elected an honorary member of the South Carolina Society of the Cincinnati in recognition of his outstanding service to his country.

Retirement and death
General Clark retired in 1965 when he stepped down as president of The Citadel. He lived in Charleston, South Carolina, in retirement and died there on April 17, 1984, at age 87. He was the last surviving American officer who had held four-star rank during World War II. He was buried on the campus of The Citadel.

Major assignments

 * Deputy Commander, Allied Force Headquarters, October 1942 to 4 January 1943
 * Commanding General, Fifth Army, 5 January 1943 to 15 December 1944
 * Commanding General, 15th Army Group, 16 December 1944 to 26 June 1945
 * Commander, US Occupation Forces in Austria, 27 June 1945 to June 1947
 * Commanding General, Sixth Army, June 1947 to 30 September 1949
 * Chief, Army Field Forces, 1 October 1949 to 5 May 1952
 * Commander in Chief, United Nations Command in Korea, 12 May 1952 to 7 October 1953
 * Commander in Chief, Far East Command, 12 May 1952 to 7 October 1953

Personal life
Clark married Maurine Doran, daughter of  Mr. and Mrs. M. A. Doran of Muncie, Ind., May 17, 1924. Mrs. Clark died October 5, 1966. Their son was Maj. William Doran Clark, U.S.A. (Ret.), and their daughter Patricia Ann (Mrs. Gordon H. Oosting). Later in life he married Mary Dean. Patricia Ann did not have any children. William had 5 children: Louise Clark Goddard, Doran Clark Abrams, D'Wayne Clark Waterman, Helen Clark Atkeson, and Larry Clark.

Mark W. Clark was initiated to the Scottish Rite Freemasonry in the Mystic Tie Lodge No. 398, Indianapolis, IN, receiving the 33rd and highest degree.

Legacy
An interstate spur (I-526) in the suburbs of Charleston, South Carolina, was named Mark Clark Expressway in his honor.

Mark Clark Hall on the campus of The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, is named in General Clark's honor.

The General Mark W. Clark National Guard Armory in North Charleston, South Carolina, is named in Clark's honor.

From 1949 to August 17, 2010, the Mark Clark Bridge in Washington connected Camano Island with the adjacent town of Stanwood on the mainland. It was then superseded by the Camano Gateway Bridge, and the Mark Clark Bridge was demolished the following month.

Fort Drum's Clark Hall is named after him. Fort Drum is near Clark's Madison Barracks birthplace, and Clark Hall is used for administrative in processing and out-processing soldiers assigned to the 10th Mountain Division.

The term "intelligence community" was created by the federal intelligence-review "Clark Task Force," which he headed from 1953 to 1955. The term remains in use by the US government and by civilians.

He was used in the 1979 novel Kane and Abel as the reason for the Abel character going to World War II.

Two locations in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro—the Academia Militar das Agulhas Negras in Resende, and a street in São Gonçalo—have been named after Clark.

The Agulhas Negras Military Academy Stadium, Brazil ( AMAN ), is named General Mark Clark.

In the neighborhood of Santa Catarina, in the city of São Gonçalo, located in the State of Rio de Janeiro – Brazil, there is a street called Gen. Mark Clark.

In film
Clark was portrayed by Michael Rennie in the 1968 film The Devil's Brigade. The film is about the exploits of the 1st Special Service Force, commanded by Colonel Robert T. Frederick, which came under Clark's command in the Italian Campaign.

Clark was portrayed by Robert Ryan in the 1968 war film Anzio, under the pseudonym “General Carson”.

Clark was portrayed by William Schallert in the 1979 television miniseries Ike: The War Years.

General Clark was referred to in the television series M*A*S*H, season 11, episode 3: "Foreign Affairs". In the episode, he created a program that awarded an enemy soldier $100,000 and U.S. citizenship.

title: Mark W. Clark


text:
User:Ashley Y

I'm mostly interested in English folklore and traditions, and contemporary paganism in England and the United States.

I'm more of a fiddler and corrector than an originator. I also like to categorise. I organised Category:Religion into subcats and occasionally maintain it.

Pages into which I have legitimately introduced obscenities: James II of England, Earl, River Kennet, Euphemism. I shoot peacocks and weasels.

FenceSitter is my alternative account.

Maxims

 * Don't add what you know. Add what you can source.
 * Don't attempt to improve Wikipedia if everyone else disagrees with you about it.
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title: User:Ashley Y


text: User talk:212.248.233.1

title: User talk:212.248.233.1


text:
Bycatch

Bycatch (or by-catch), in the fishing industry, is a fish or other marine species that is caught unintentionally while fishing for specific species or sizes of wildlife. Bycatch is either the wrong species, the wrong sex, or is undersized or juveniles of the target species. The term "bycatch" is also sometimes used for untargeted catch in other forms of animal harvesting or collecting. Non-marine species (freshwater fish not saltwater fish) that are caught (either intentionally or unintentionally) but regarded as generally "undesirable" are referred to as rough fish (mainly US) or coarse fish (mainly UK).

In 1997, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) defined bycatch as "total fishing mortality, excluding that accounted directly by the retained catch of target species". Bycatch contributes to fishery decline and is a mechanism of overfishing for unintentional catch.

The average annual bycatch rate of pinnipeds and cetaceans in the US from 1990 to 1999 was estimated at 6215 animals with a standard error of 448.

Bycatch issues originated with the "mortality of dolphins in tuna nets in the 1960s".

There are at least four different ways the word "bycatch" is used in fisheries:
 * Catch which is retained and sold but which is not the target species for the fishery
 * Species/sizes/sexes of fish which fishers discard
 * Non-target fish, whether retained and sold or discarded
 * Unwanted invertebrate species, such as echinoderms and non-commercial crustaceans, and various vulnerable species groups, including seabirds, sea turtles, marine mammals and elasmobranchs (sharks and their relatives).

Additionally, the term "deliberate bycatch" is used to refer to bycatch as a source of illegal wildlife trade (IWT) in several areas throughout world.

There are several tools to estimate bycatch limits—the maximum number of animals that could be sustainably removed from a population impacted by bycatch. These include the 'potential biological removal' (PBR) and the 'sustainable anthropogenic mortality in stochastic environments' (SAMSE), which incorporates stochastic factors to determine sustainable limits to bycatch and other human-caused mortality of wildlife.

Recreational fishing
Given the popularity of recreational fishing throughout the world, a small local study in the US in 2013 suggested that discards may be an important unmonitored source of fish mortality.

Shrimp trawling

The highest rates of incidental catch of non-target species are associated with tropical shrimp trawling. In 1997, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) documented the estimated bycatch and discard levels from shrimp fisheries around the world. They found discard rates (bycatch to catch ratios) as high as 20:1 with a world average of 5.7:1.

Shrimp trawl fisheries catch two percent of the world total catch of all fish by weight, but produce more than one-third of the world total bycatch. US shrimp trawlers produce bycatch ratios between 3:1 (3 bycatch:1 shrimp) and 15:1 (15 bycatch:1 shrimp).

Trawl nets in general, and shrimp trawls in particular, have been identified as sources of mortality for cetacean and finfish species. When bycatch is discarded (returned to the sea), it is often dead or dying.

Tropical shrimp trawlers often make trips of several months without coming to port. A typical haul may last four hours after which the net is pulled in. Just before it is pulled on board the net is washed by zigzagging at full speed. The contents are then dumped on deck and are sorted. An average of 5.7:1 means that for every kilogram of shrimp there are 5.7 kg of bycatch. In tropical inshore waters the bycatch usually consists of small fish. The shrimps are frozen and stored on board; the bycatch is discarded.

Recent sampling in the South Atlantic rock shrimp fishery found 166 species of finfish, 37 crustacean species, and 29 other species of invertebrate among the bycatch in the trawls. Another sampling of the same fishery over a two-year period found that rock shrimp amounted to only 10% of total catch weight. Iridescent swimming crab, dusky flounder, inshore lizardfish, spot, brown shrimp, longspine swimming crabs, and other bycatch made up the rest.

Despite the use of bycatch reduction devices, the shrimp fishery in the Gulf of Mexico removes about 25–45 million red snapper annually as bycatch, nearly one-half the amount taken in recreational and commercial snapper fisheries.

Cetacean
Cetaceans, such as dolphins, porpoises, and whales, can be seriously affected by entanglement in fishing nets and lines, or direct capture by hooks or in trawl nets. Cetacean bycatch is increasing in intensity and frequency. In some fisheries, cetaceans are captured as bycatch but then retained because of their value as food or bait. In this fashion, cetaceans can become a target of fisheries.

One example of bycatch is dolphins caught in tuna nets. As dolphins are mammals and do not have gills, they may drown while stuck in nets underwater. This bycatch issue has been one of the reasons of the growing ecolabelling industry, where fish producers mark their packagings with disclaimers such as "dolphin friendly" to reassure buyers. However, "dolphin friendly" does not mean that dolphins were not killed in the production of a particular tin of tuna, but that the fleet which caught the tuna did not specifically target a feeding pod of dolphins, but relied on other methods to spot tuna schools. The bycatch of the Caspian seal may be recognized as the one of the biggest entanglements of pinnipeds as bycatch in the world

Albatross

Of the 22 albatross species recognised by IUCN on their Red List, 15 are threatened with extinction, six species are considered as Near Threatened, and only one of Least Concern. Two species, the Tristan albatross and the waved albatross, are considered as Critically Endangered. One of the main threats is commercial longline fishing, because albatrosses and other seabirds which readily feed on offal are attracted to the set bait, after which they become hooked on the lines and drown. An estimated 100,000 albatross per year are killed in this fashion. Unregulated pirate fisheries exacerbate the problem.

A research study examined the impact of illegal longline fishing vessels on albatrosses, by using environmental criminology as a guiding theoretical framework. The results indicated that potentially illegal longline fishing activities are highly concentrated in areas of illegally-caught fish species, and the risk to bycatch albatrosses is significantly higher in areas where these illegal longline fishing vessels operate. These findings provide strong grounding that illegal longline fishing poses a particularly serious threat to the survival of seabirds.

Sea turtles
Sea turtles, already critically endangered, have been killed in large numbers in shrimp trawl nets. Estimates indicate that thousands of Kemp's ridley, loggerhead, green, and leatherback sea turtles are caught in shrimp trawl fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico and the US Atlantic annually The speed and length of the trawl method is significant because, "for a tow duration of less than 10 minutes, the mortality rate for sea turtles is less than one percent, whereas for tows greater than sixty minutes the mortality rate rapidly increases to fifty to one hundred percent".

Sea turtles can sometimes escape from the trawls. In the Gulf of Mexico, the Kemp's ridley turtles recorded most interactions, followed in order by loggerhead, green, and leatherback sea turtles. In the US Atlantic, the interactions were greatest for loggerheads, followed in order by Kemp's ridley, leatherback, and green sea turtles.

Fishing gear
Bycatch is inevitable wherever there is fishing. The incidental catch is not limited to only fish species: dolphins, sea turtles, and seabirds are also victims of bycatch. Longlines, trawls and purse seine nets are driving factors in the endangerment of no fewer than fifteen shark species. Bycatch may also affect reproduction of populations as juveniles are also victims of bycatch. Bycatch happens most commonly with the use of gillnetting, longlines, or bottom trawling. Longlines with bait hook attachments can potentially reach lengths of dozens of kilometres, and, along with gill nets in the water and bottom trawls sweeping the sea floor, can catch essentially everything in their path. There are thousands of kilometres of nets and lines cast into the world's oceans daily. This modern fish gear is robust and invisible to the eye, making it efficient at catching fish and bycatching everything that happens to be in the way. Hook-and-line fishing could limit bycatch to a certain extent as the non-target animals can be released back to the ocean fairly quickly.

Mitigation
Concern about bycatch has led fishers and scientists to seek ways of reducing unwanted catch. There are two main approaches.

One approach is to ban fishing in areas where bycatch is unacceptably high. Such area closures can be permanent, seasonal, or for a specific period when a bycatch problem is registered. Temporary area closures are common in some bottom trawl fisheries where undersized fish or non-target species are caught unpredictably. In some cases fishers are required to relocate when a bycatch problem occurs.

The other approach is alternative fishing gear. A technically simple solution is to use nets with a larger mesh size, allowing smaller species and smaller individuals to escape. However, this usually requires replacing the existing gear. In some cases, it is possible to modify gear. Bycatch reduction devices (BRDs) and the Nordmore grate are net modifications that help fish escape from shrimp nets.

Bycatch reduction devices
BRDs allow many commercial finfish species to escape. The US government has approved BRDs that reduce finfish bycatch by 30%. Spanish mackerel and weakfish bycatch in the South Atlantic was reduced by 40%. However, recent surveys suggest BRDs may be less effective than previously thought. A rock shrimp fishery off Florida found the devices failed to exclude 166 species of fish, 37 crustacean species, and 29 species of other invertebrates.

A pulsed electric field-based shark and ray bycatch mitigation device, SharkGuard, was reported by 2022 study to have reduced bycatch of blue shark by 91% and of stingrays by 71% with commercial fishing gear in a French longline tuna fishery in the Mediterranean.

Turtle excluder devices
In 1978, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) started to develop turtle excluder devices (TED). A TED uses a grid which deflects turtles and other big animals, so they exit from the trawl net through an opening above the grid. US shrimp trawlers and foreign fleets which market shrimp in the US are required to use TEDs. Not all nations enforce the use of TEDs.

For the most part, when they are used, TEDs have been successful reducing sea turtle bycatch. However, they are not completely effective, and some turtles are still captured. NMFS certifies TED designs if they are 97% effective. In heavily trawled areas, the same sea turtle may pass repeatedly through TEDs. Recent studies indicate recapture rates of 20% or more, but it is not clear how many turtles survive the escape process.

Conservation engineering of trawl nets
The size selectivity of trawl nets is controlled by the size of the net openings, especially in the "cod end". The larger the openings, the more easily small fish can escape. The development and testing of modifications to fishing gear to improve selectivity and decrease impact is called "conservation engineering".

Longline fishing is controversial in some areas because of bycatch. Mitigation methods have been successfully implemented in some fisheries. These include:
 * weights to sink the lines quickly
 * streamer lines to scare birds away from baited hooks while deploying the lines
 * setting lines only at night with minimal ship lighting (to avoid attracting birds)
 * limiting fishing seasons to the southern winter (when most seabirds are not feeding young)
 * not discharging offal while setting lines.

However, gear modifications do not eliminate bycatch of many species. In March 2006, the Hawaii longline swordfish fishing season was closed due to excessive loggerhead sea turtle bycatch after being open only a few months, despite using modified circle hooks.

No discards policy
One solution that Norway came up with to reduce bycatch is to adopt a 'no discards' policy. This means that the fishermen must keep everything they catch. This policy has helped to "encourage bycatch research", which, in turn has helped "encourage behavioral changes in fishers" and "reduce the waste of life" as well.

Seabirds
Seabirds get entangled in longlines by flocking around vessels, this eventually leads to drowning because they try to catch baits on the hooks. Fisheries had been using "streamer lines" as a cost effective solution to mitigate this type of bycatch, and it has dramatically reduced seabird mortality. These streamer lines have bright colors and are made of polyester rope, they are positioned alongside the longlines on both sides. Their bright colors and constantly flapping of water frightens the seabirds and they fly away before reaching the baited hooks. A successful example would be the use of streamer lines in Alaskan groundfish longline fisheries, as the deaths of seabirds declined by about 70% after the employment of these lines.

Alternative to discarding
Some fisheries retain bycatch, rather than throwing the fish back into the ocean. Sometimes bycatch is sorted and sold as food, especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America, where cost of labour is cheaper. Bycatch can also be sold in frozen bags as "assorted seafood" or "seafood medley" at cheaper prices. Bycatch can be converted into fish hydrolysate (ground up fish carcasses) for use as a soil amendment in organic agriculture or it can be used as an ingredient in fish meal. In Southeast Asia bycatch is sometimes used as a raw material for fish sauce production. Bycatch is also commonly de-boned, de-shelled, ground and blended into fish paste or moulded into fish cakes (surimi) and sold either fresh (for domestic use) or frozen (for export). This is commonly the case in Asia or by Asian fisheries. Sometimes bycatch is sold to fish farms to feed farmed fish, especially in Asia.

Non-fisheries bycatch
The term "bycatch" is used also in contexts other than fisheries. Examples are insect collecting with pitfall traps or flight interception traps for either financial, controlling or scientific purposes (where the bycatch may either be small vertebrates or untargeted insects) and control of introduced vertebrates which have become pest species like the muskrat in Europe (where the bycatch in traps may be European minks or waterfowl).

title: Bycatch